The Arcanum 12, the Apostolate, teaches us that in order to be an apostle we have to be patient and tolerant. Indeed, tolerance is one of the virtues that we need to develop in order to walk on this path, especially with this Arcanum, which is related with the great work. The great work that everyone has to perform is the Self-realization of the Being, which is precisely the goal, the objective of life; this is why we are here in this universe, and this is why we exist: only for the Self-realization of the Being, because the Being wants to know himself.
Remember that the letter Lamed that is at the bottom of the card related to this Arcanum is related with the phrase “Lev Meivin Daath,” which is translated as “a heart that understands knowledge.” Some kabbalists state that “Meivin” is also related to the supreme master, which is obviously Kether, because if we talk about the supreme master related with knowledge, with wisdom, we always arrive at Kether.
As you know, Kether is the first Sephirah of the Tree of Life, and is related with the letter IOD, and that is precisely the letter on top, or the head of the letter LAMED. When it extends down to the bottom of the letter KAPH, it makes the letter VAV, which forms a tower in the air above the head (Kaph). This is something very significant, because we have to study the letter Lamed in relation to this man who (on the card) is hanged between two columns, and his foot is tied to that cross in the middle of a circle. Above we have the symbol of the lion Arieh, which reminds us of the Aryan race; remember that “Arieh” is lion in Hebrew.
Arieh is also a word associated with the sign of Aries, fire, since Leo is also a sign of fire, and the Aryan race, which is also associated with this word Arieh, lion, is the race that is ruled by Samael, who is the genie of fire. When we pronounce the conjuration of the fire, we always invoke three Genii, namely: Samael, who is the genie of fire related with the sign of ARIES; Michael, who is the genie of the fire related with the sign of Leo; and Anael, who is the prince of the astral light, which is fire: the astral force.
In order to understand Daath, we have to do it though fire; fire is really the very essence of God. This is why you see in the Arcanum 12 a man who is hanged from the cross. That cross is a symbol of the sexual act: the horizontal line is always feminine, and the vertical line is always masculine. But here, the cross inside a circle is showing us very clearly four triangles, and when we point at four triangles, we go directly into the Tree of Life. Every quadrant of this circle is a triangle, formed by a line that is curved and the other two lines that are straight, forming a triangle, so therefore we find here the circle with 1,2,3,4 triangles: this indicates the relationship of the cross in the circle, or we will say the quadrature of the circle, which is symbolized in the great work, that every single soul has to perform in order to achieve perfection.
Three triangles, as we sequentially will state, are related with the Tree of Life: the first triangle is Kether, Chokmah, Binah (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) related with the Trimurti, the Logoi that we call the Glorian, Christ, the manifested Christ in the three primary forces of the universe: positive, negative, and neutral.
The other triangle below is the triangle related to our monad: Chesed, Geburah, and Tiphereth; this is the monad, that monad is the son of the Glorian, the child of the Glorian, the child of the father. Thus the child of God forms another trio, which are the Spirit, Divine Soul and Human Soul. This is why when in Kabbalah we point at the son, the child, sometimes we point at Chesed, sometimes at Geburah, and sometimes at Tiphereth, because the three are one: Trimurti. This is how we have to understand the relationship of these three with a child. Because it is also written that the second aspect of the first triangle which is Kether, Chokmah, Binah, which in this case is Chokmah (the Son) incarnates in the second triangle, in Tiphereth, but Chokmah is also related to Geburah and to Chesed in different aspects in the initiation, that we are going to explain little by little in the course of these lectures.
The third triangle is Netzach, Hod, and Yesod: Netzach is the mind, Hod is the astral body or emotional body, and Yesod is the vital body. Below this last triangle is Malkuth, which is a fallen Sephirah; how does it fall, from where does it fall? It falls from Yesod, because Yesod and Malkuth should be one in the Self-realized master.
So, here we talked about three triangles, so where is the fourth, or what is the fourth? We could become the fourth, or in other words, the fourth triangle is that which we call the Zauir-Anpin or “lesser countenance.” When somebody becomes Self-realized, it is because he or she has performed in himself or herself the number 12, meaning the 12 Sephiroth are Self-realized within. These 12 Sephiroth are the 10 Sephiroth shown in the Tree of Life and the 2 unknown Sephiroth that we have to perform in each one of us in order to enter as a Self-realized master into the 13th, which is the Absolute.
So, the forth triangle is hanged here from this hanged man, because the three primary forces, whether related with the first second or third triangle, are always related to the three brains that we have: the intellectual brain with is directly related with the first triangle, the emotional with the second and motor-instinctual-sexual brain the third. When we study Gnostic psychology, we study how these three brains are related to the three triangles of the Tree of Life, and how through initiation we have to develop them; because the objective of the initiation is to Self-realize the Tree of Life within the three brains. The emotional brain, which is related to the emotional center, the motor instinctual sexual center, and the intellectual center: these are the three brains in the human being.
But you see here for instance that the triangle which is related to the human being is below the cross; because this human being is making the cross with his legs and a triangle with his arms which are directly related with the three brains, which are I repeat, the intellectual brain, the emotional brain, and the motor instinctual sexual brain.
These three brains are directly related with the head, because remember that the head is related with the first triangle of the Tree of Life: Kether, Chokmah, and Binah. We always state that in the brain we have the three atoms, heavenly atoms, spiritual atoms; when we say atoms we are not talking about material atoms, but spiritual forces which are placed in the head of every single human being.
The atom of Kether, related to the Father, is between the eyebrows, and that is the atom directly related with the breath, respiration. Then we have the atom of Chokmah, which is called the Son, and that is precisely located in the pituitary gland. Then we have the atom of the Holy Spirit, Binah located in the pineal gland. So you see how these three primary forces are located in the head and how they have to control the three brains.
The three primary forces have to Self-realize themselves in the human being, in order to acquire control of the three brains, because the way in which humans have these forces in this day and age in the whole planet is incorrect, meaning they have them in the upside-down way: that is, sex is controlling the three primary forces, lust is controlling their three brains. This is how you see them here, in this symbol of the hanged man: the cross above the triangle. This symbol should be inverted; the triangle (the Divine forces) must and should be always above (controlling) the cross (sex).
This is why there are many symbols used in different religions that show the cross above the triangle and this is something negative. If you remember the way of the cross which is symbolized and shown very clear by Jesus of Nazareth two thousand years ago, Jesus carries the cross on his shoulders, not on his head. Only the black magicians carry the cross on their heads, because black magicians are controlled by the sexual force, whereas the white magicians control the cross (sex), white magicians take the cross in their arms and hands and manage the cross, and they are crucified on the cross, because through the cross is how we perform the great work that is shown here in this card.
Likewise, this is why the man is hanged only by one foot; this symbol means that we have to walk on the path of the Self-realization with our feet up there in heaven and not on the Earth. Why, because that is precisely what the letter Lamed is showing us. Many Kabbalists always state that the letter Iod (the phallus) hidden in the different letters of the Hebrew alphabet is pointing at the foot, which is true, but we have to understand that the foot is the Iod related with the kingdom of Malkuth, because if you see the Tree of Life, you will see that the feet are related with Malkuth in the imaginary man behind the Tree of Life. This is why in the different parts of the bible, for instance in the Kabbalistic book of Revelation, it is written that the feet of Christ are shown as if they were like burning brass. Revelation 1: 15:
And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace.
This is showing us something hidden within the brazen foot, which is Malkuth; meaning that we have to perform some alloy in the physical plane.
When we see the feet, or the foot in this case tied to heaven, it means that we should work with our sexual force, with our foot, or our Iod in this case, which is clearly the sexual force towards heaven, in order to do the transformation. Because if the foot were within the waters of Yesod below there on the bottom of this card, then it would be negative; if you remember the sixth card of the Tarot, Indecision, there you find that not only the feet, but the legs of the soul (which is indecisive) are below; the legs and feet are sunk in the waters, because he is fallen: he has to decide between the Divine Mother or the whore.
But here the twelfth symbol is telling us about the acknowledgement of the soul as being upside down, acknowledging that sex is controlling his triangle (Monad), but he (the soul) wants to do the great work in order to invert the sign and this is why he has his foot in heaven. To put the foot in heaven means to transmute the sexual force, that is why in this graphic we put an inverted Lamed, because many times the Kabbalists state that the secret of the heart is between two Lameds, but they do not explain how. But the way is here in the inverted Lamed: when you invert the Iod which is in heaven, you then put the Iod where it corresponds: to the ninth sphere in Yesod, because in Yesod is the sexual force or is where that Iod is hidden, which is the power of Kether.
When I say this, it is coming into my mind the book of Revelation that states that the name of the angel of the bottomless pit is Abbadon. Abba in Hebrew is “father” and Adon is “the Lord,” so Abbadon means “the Lord the Father,” and who is the Lord the Father but Kether, the IOD. So that angel, or that force in this case, is placed in Yesod when we invert the letter Lamed.
If we extend that Iod, we extend it up the spinal column, because remember that the spinal medulla is related with the letter Vav, which is an extension of the Iod, which in this case is on the top of the letter Lamed. This is the beginning of putting the foot (the Iod) in heaven; remember that there are two types of heaven, or two types of waters, the waters above, and the waters below, the waters of sex (below) that we have to transmute, and this is how we make the inverted Lamed (the inverted hanged man), which is necessary in order for us to control the Kaph.
The Kaph as we explained in the previous lecture is related with the head, the crown, and remember that the crown, the Kaph is controlled by Kether, and Kether is the Iod, and remember that the Iod, which is the center of the trinity, tri-unity, is the letter Shin, or the letter Aleph, because these two letters always point at the three forces. So, here in the head we have these three atoms, the atom of Kether, the atom of Chokmah, and the atom of Binah. These three atoms make the Kaph, the crown. So we have to raise the Iod, from Yesod through the spinal column in order to make the Vav, and finally to place it in the Kaph, which is the crown in order to perform the inverted Lamed.
But this work (the rising of the sexual force) cannot be performed without the assistance of the fires of the heart, which is something that we always have to emphasize, Lev the heart. This is how it is stated in the words “LEV MEIVIN DAATH” (a heart that understands knowledge) or better if we state: “a heart that is controlled by Kether grants knowledge.” But for this we have to transmute the sexual force, because this is the very beginning, this is how we have to take the subtle from the gross as Hermes Trismesgistus stated in his Emerald Tablet, “in order to perform the miracle of one thing.” Because this inverted Lamed has to be done, or performed seven times, we have to raise or we have to perform that seven times in order to receive the crown.
Here you see why the letter Lamed is in the word Meleck. Meleck in Hebrew means “king.” Mem which is going to be explained in the next lecture, is related with the waters, I am not going to dive into Mem right now, because another speaker will do it. But, I just will say that Mem is there in Yesod (sex), and from Mem emerges Lamed, “Mel,” sequentially, Meleck is ending with the letter Kaph; the Kaph of course is the crown of the king. A Meleck is a king, somebody that raises the fires from the waters of the Only Meleck, and that Only Meleck is Kether in the universe, which is on the very top of the Tree of Life, because he is the True King.
Nobody can be a king if that one does not raise the forces of that King into his own crown, into his own head; in other words, a fornicator cannot be a Meleck. That is why it is written that the true human being is a king or queen of nature, the one who controls the elements. This Meleck or king is symbolized of course in all the kings from all religions. Remember that the Wisdom of Solomon the king is coming from his Kether; his Meleck his own king inside, this is precisely the symbol which is applied here to the word Meleck.
So, when you start performing the great work, you become then a symbol, which is the man hanged by his foot, which in this way you only touch the earth with your thoughts. So you have to understand that we have to develop objective reasoning by taking advantage of the fall, because that is precisely the point; remember that it is written that we fell, because it was necessary to develop and to know the powers of evil (desire). Remember that Genesis 3 states that when the human being at that age, at that time fell, the Elohim said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” So that is why in order for the human being, not to put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever the Elohim closed the doors of Eden, because if the man wants to be like the Elohim now he has to transmute the sexual energy.
The objective of the great work is to awaken, to know, to acquire knowledge, but not only knowledge of the good: we have to acquire knowledge of the good and evil, because we have to be made into the image of God. God is complete; absolute; He is beyond good and evil, because He is on top of it. He knows good and He knows evil, that is an Elohim. It is impossible to conceive of a God, an Elohim, without knowing good and evil, because if an Elohim does not know good and evil, then it is not an Elohim, it is not a God, and that is precisely the objective: we have to build knowledge in order to become as the Elohim, but for that we have to exercise control in all the Tree of Life.
A Malachim or a Meleck in this case, because Malachim is plural but sometimes we apply it as singular in order to understand the meaning of the word. A Meleck is somebody that controls all the forces above and below, even Klipoth. But beings who are slave of Klipoth are not to be called kings. This is precisely what happened to this humanity after the fall.
Remember the mistake that happened in Lemuria when the Kundabuffer organ was developed for the purpose of the developing of reasoning; because at that time, as you already know, and as we always state: the five senses were not fully developed. So, in order to develop reasoning, we had to develop the five senses, but if we become stagnant in the five senses, the only reasoning that we develop is subjective reasoning. What is subjective reasoning? Subjective reasoning is the reasoning related to Malkuth and below this tridimensional world. However, in accordance with the Arcanum Twelve, we have to develop twelve senses, not five, but twelve, in order to become a true human being.
Naturally, the twelve senses are directly related with the five senses plus the seven chakras. Seven chakras plus five senses equals twelve senses, this is a fully developed Meleck (human being), which is made into the image of God, and knowing good and evil.
Remember that the human being, made into the image of God, knows good and evil, and controls good and evil; it is not a slave of evil, nor a slave of good. There are many demons in Klipoth that are slaves of evil and they perform evil and utilize this knowledge for Klipothic purposes. There are other beings in heaven, that still have ego, good egos, and they are slaves of the forces of good above. However, a Self-realized master is the one that went beyond good and evil. The one who controls good and controls evil is the walker of the middle path, the walker of the midst, the one that walks in the column of the midst of the Tree of Life. Such a walker scares demons and angels which are still in process.
The walker of the midst goes directly into the Absolute; that walker wants to become a Paramarthasatya, a revolutionary being. When a walker of the middle path enters into nirvana, all Nirvanis are scared, because every step that this being performs is not in accordance with the laws of nirvana. And when he goes down into Klipoth, demons are scared because he is performing things which are not in accordance with the laws of Klipoth, he is just following Kether, his inner Being, his inner King; thus he is performing a revolution, up and down, because he is using the two Lameds, the Lamed below, and the Lamed above.
The Lamed above is that straight Lamed that goes straight into his heart, because after the Self-realization, or better to say, after this being raises the seven Lameds in the spinal column, he decides to take the direct path and then he transforms himself into a bodhisattva and receives the strength of the other Lamed, which is above the head. That Lamed touches only his head and his heart. The father Kether, the “Iod,” descends through Vav (as the Son) and enters into his head (the King’s Kaph), such a head is precisely what the gospels call the stable or the manger of Bethlehem where the God-Child is born.
The mixture of that fire that descends from heaven plus the fire that ascends from hell, from Yesod, is what makes a bodhisattva, a revolutionary being that controls the two forces, above and below, and performs the entire work according to the fires of the heart. So, this is the walker of the middle path, which is, as I said, completely revolutionary, thus by performing that, he is making a great transformation. Of course, he is associated with that Prometheus of Greek mythology, who steals the fire from hell and from heaven, in order to create a true human inside of himself. This is why in Kabbalah sometimes, symbolically speaking, the hanged man is symbolized by Prometheus, the one that undergoes through a lot of sufferings because of the work that he is performing within himself.
Remember that Prometheus is Lucifer who descends into the ninth sphere, and who advised to Adam and Eve to eat from the fruit in order to know good and evil in order to become like Elohim. But after the fall we have to raise that fire again in order to become like Elohim. And this is precisely the point that many initiates, many intellectual Kabbalists do not understand, thus they still are fornicating in Malkuth, or stealing the fire for their physical enjoyment, for their physical or subjective reasoning and thus transforming themselves into hierarchs of Klipoth, in other words into demons.
When the Kundabuffer organ was given to humanity with the purpose of creating human beings into the image of Elohim, many Lemurians came back from the fall and became Gods. Nevertheless, most of them are fallen and thinking that the goal of the Self-realization is to acquire power in the earth, thus they are identified with power; these are the type of people who purposely develop psychic powers in order to control the earth, and who find that the power in Malkuth is in fact MONEY.
Thus, money is precisely that which many esotericists want to acquire in order to conquer the world. Remember in the Middle Ages that many alchemists thought that the goal of alchemy was to transform physical lead into physical gold, and of course any true alchemist can perform that easily; anyone that Self-realized himself can transform physical lead into physical gold, but this is not the goal of the Self-realization. The one who acquires that power is not attached to it and does not do it. The true thing that we have to transform is the lead of our personality into the Gold of the Spirit. Nevertheless, many greedy initiates of the Middle Ages were working with alchemy in order to acquire the physical gold to acquire the physical power in order to conquer the world, which is a very Klipothic way of thinking,
Yes, we have to acquire power on the Earth through the Self-realization, not only in Malkuth, but in all the Sephiroth. So, the Kabbalists who acquire power on the Earth through money are just stagnant, and in the end they descend into Klipoth, they form that which we call the black lodge, which in this day in age is the lodge that controls Malkuth and all of Klipoth; they acquire power, but they do not go beyond Malkuth. Because in order to go beyond Malkuth in the Tree of Life, above, we have to renounce the riches of the Earth and not identify with the power of the Earth, because that is illusory.
It comes into my mind the power granted by Prometheus; this power is granted through Judas Iscariot. Moreover, it is written that Judas Iscariot hanged himself in order for the Christ to resurrect; this is a very profound mystery that we have to comprehend, because when we study this superficially such as the exoteric Christianity that knows nothing about esotericism, we end as them: always condemning Judas; but we, the Gnostics, state that Judas is the most exalted of the apostles among the twelve, because the sacrifice that Judas performed is more painful than the other sacrifices that the other masters or apostles performed two thousand years ago; why? Because the doctrine of Judas is precisely this: to renounce the power of the Earth in order to acquire power in heaven and for that we have to hang ourselves (Arcanum 12).
We have to control our three brains. Remember that in the previous lecture we stated that Judas is that apostle related with the sexual forces, with the sexual organs. And this card, the apostolate, we can synthesize in three persons, three symbols: the first one is Ieshua, the savior related with the heart, we cannot avoid naming here Ieshua, Jesus because he is related with the atom Nous in the heart. Lamed is precisely the letter that points to the heart, to that supreme master who knows, who understands knowledge, and the only one that understands knowledge, Daath, is Nous, and that Nous is precisely represented by Jesus. Nous means supreme mind, objective reasoning. The first apostle of that Nous atom is in the pineal gland, and the pineal gland is controlled by Peter, the apostle whose sacred name is Patar.
Remember that the forces of Patar, in the pineal gland, are related with the crown (the Kaph). The pineal gland is that door, that gland that opens the doors of heaven if we place in the head the fires of Iod that belongs to Judas. Those doors open if we place in the head the fires of Aries, Arieh the lion, which are precisely in the sex, but this cannot be performed without the help of the atom Nous. So we have here the relationship of these three symbols, Peter in the pineal gland in the head, Judas in the sex, and the Lord Nous, Jesus in the heart, Ieshua. This is why Judah, or the fires of the lion of Judah, have to be controlled because these are the animalistic forces that have to be transmuted.
The animalistic forces are related to Judas. We propagate, we multiply ourselves, in this physical world through Judas, through the sexual force that we find in Leo, Judah. The lion of Judah expresses through sex, but who is the one who is going to control the fires of Leo? The one that wants to control those fires of sex has to do it through the fires of the heart, which are also the fires of Leo, and this is why in the path, Judas is the initiate that understands that he has to hang himself (Arcanum 12), he has to kill himself.
The doctrine of Judas is the doctrine of the annihilation of the ego, which is a long process, and this is why the Arcanum number twelve is always pointing at Judas. In synthesis, Judah or Judas exists in every person. This is why you find here that below this man (Arcanum 12) in the waters of life, you find a variation of the Star of David: three primary forces above, and three primary forces below; this is clearly pointing to us that the three primary forces (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) in the head are controlled by three demons: those three demons can be synthesized in the three brains, Judas in the sex, Judas in the heart, and Judas in the head. These are the three aspects of Judas, which are represented in the Gospels, the first is Judas Iscariot in the sex that betrays the Lord, the second one is Pilate, the “Judas” in the head who condemns the Lord, and the third is Caiaphas, the “Judas” in the heart, who is the evil priest that hates the Lord as well and is in the heart, or better say, this demon is related with that venom poison blood that circulates in the body.
It is good to remember that the venom blood has to be purified in the process of Self-realization. Remember that the heart is that organ that moves the two bloods: the oxygenated blood which is the purified blood and the other blood is the poison, the venom blood. And of course in that venom blood which is directly related with the liver is where we have those animal appetites that we have to control. In the liver we have the inheritance that we call Karma. If we investigate the liver, we discover that the liver is divided in five livers or five lobes. Each lobe is a liver itself; it works independently, the five lobes make the whole liver, which is the biggest organ within the physical body, and that is related with Karma. It is written that if you want to have an astral projection, and good experiences in the astral plane, clean your liver.
Between parenthesis let me give you here a medicine, very fast, for the cleansing of the liver: Drink a half glass of lemon juice and a half glass of olive oil; you can mix it, however in my case when I do it, because I do this once in a while, I drink first the half glass of olive oil, and in order to take that nausea (because it is really disgusting, but very good) I take the half of glass of lemon juice after; the lemon juice takes from my mouth that sensation, then after that I go and walk in order to digest it, in order for my liver to absorb it, and this is how olive oil and lemon juice cleans the liver and takes all the impurities. We have to clean the liver once in a while because this is where we have the impurities of our race, family, and all the impurities of our past lives.
So, the venom blood is precisely the blood related with karma, the blood that circulates in the surface of the skin as a tempting serpent, because the temping serpent of Eden is related with that blood, the venom blood that always pushes us towards our animal behavior.
But in the heart we have the atom Nous which is a pure, clean atom that is directly connected to the Ain Soph Aur, which through Kether goes into the heart, and this is how Nous acts under the direction of the father in heaven in order to clean the blood with the oxygen of Aleph (through the air we breathe). This is how the blood is purified, this is how Christ works in us, especially when we are transmuting sexual energy, then we are putting a lot of solar atoms in our blood through our sexual transmutation.
This is why the blood is always changing, not only the blood in the physical body, but also how the consciousness, the soul, changes. This is related with the sign of the letter Lamed. This is the work that we have to perform, which is the annihilation of the animal elements that work through the three brains. This is why we are inverted; the whole humanity is an inverted humanity whose head is in Klipoth, because we are slaves of the forces of nature; the sexual force is controlled by these three traitors. Remember that, naturally, those three traitors are the outcome of the fall. This is why it is written: “for in the day that thou eatest (experience the orgasm) thereof thou shalt surely die.” This has a double meaning: you will die physically and to the Spirit, because you will awaken in the physical world (Malkuth), your physical senses will be developed and you will know good and evil, but you will be out of the spiritual world (higher Sephiroth). Now, when the five senses become completely fully developed is when you are not really in contact with the Spirit.
Behold this humanity in this day in age: they have completely developed the five senses, and their subjective reasoning is fully developed. Everything that we find in the internet, schools, colleges, universities, are related with subjective reasoning, which is related to the five senses. But what we want to develop is “objective reasoning”, which is the real reasoning that we have to develop, which is related to the true human being; for this we have to develop the seven chakras and during the process, every one of the apostles of Christ has to be developed inside of us.
There is a lecture related with the twelve apostles. Remember that we have Thomas and Matthew in each side of the brain. Remember that we have Bartholomew in the pituitary gland. Remember that we have Phillip in the thyroid gland. And related to the medulla oblongata we have Simon the Canaanite, which is that apostle related with the mysteries of the weddings of Cana, which are related with the spinal column. So all of those twelve powers are hidden within every organ of our physical organism, and also within the consciousness; we have to develop all of this in order to become a true apostle.
Remember that this 12th card is showing us the apostolate, the way in which we develop the apostle. Apostle comes from the Greek word, “apostolos,” meaning, someone that is sent away to deliver a message. It comes into my mind for instance, post office, there are many interpretations about what the post office is, but if you associate that word with apostolos, then you understand that even in the internet when you write a post you are writing a message, and that is precisely the meaning of apostolos, somebody that delivers a message.
Thus, inside of us we have the twelve apostles in potentiality, but not in activity. Each one of these are twelve parts of Nous. Nous is represented by Jesus. Each apostle has to deliver a message to the consciousness, to the Being. When the twelve apostles are developed, then you have the New Jerusalem, the new heaven and the new Earth. This has nothing to do with the planet itself as many people think; they are waiting for the Promised Land, but ignore that it is inside.
The Arcanum number twelve is related with the twelve tribes of Israel, with the twelve apostles, the twelve hours of Apollonius, and the twelve powers that we have to develop. In synthesis, the twelfth Arcanum is called the great work, the whole Self-realization that we have to perform within. This is why when we point or when we see this card in the astral plane, in dreams or in visions, or when we consult the tarot we have to understand that this card is showing us sacrifice, this card is showing us sacrifice for humanity. The first sacrifice for humanity begins inside, inside your own humanity, and then outside. Sacrifice means that you have to sacrifice; you have to perform many holocausts, the annihilation of many animal appetites within yourself.
So, when we follow exactly the symbol of the teachings of the Elohim, we know that the sacrifice that we have to perform is inside, we have to sacrifice every single animal that we have within. Remember that the Leo of Judah, Judas, receives the influence of all the animal appetites. That is why the poor Judas, when Jesus of Nazareth two thousand years ago told him, you are going to betray me, you are going to perform that role for me, Judas Iscariot said; My Lord please, give me the role of Peter, I want to do the role of Peter, and then Lord Jesus said; No you are the one that is going to perform that role. So Judas said: Well this is a very hard thing. In order for Judas to perform that role, he has to represent the venom blood, and all the animal appetites which are very heavy in each one of us, and Judas had to show us that we have to kill those animals, that we have to annihilate those animal appetites. Thus, in order to show that, we have to terminate our life for the Lord. So, this is why Judas betrayed the Lord.
Many people on this path (that we know, that we perform) do not want to betray the Lord, but anyhow they (we) do it. When we are with the neighbor, with the family, with relatives, acquaintances, we always act as ego, as animals, and this is how we betray the Lord: by feeding our animal appetites instead of the fires of the heart, and this is why Judas hanged himself. Nevertheless, this is not physical hanging, this is not physical death, but is a process of psychology, a psychological death, which means the annihilation of the ego through the process of initiation and through meditative comprehension.
There are many people that study Kabbalah and other materials, who still think that in order to go into heaven they have to believe what is written in the bible or any other book. But that is not the way; we have to kill ourselves psychologically speaking. Thus, “to kill ourselves” means to annihilate all those animal appetites that we have within and that is precisely what Judas points to: the annihilation of the psychological ego, which is to hang ourselves from that circle that you see (on the card), which is sex, which means that we have to apply the sexual force of Judas in order to annihilate the ego. This is why Nietzsche stated: “Are you going to visit women, don’t forget your whip.” The whip is willpower; he is saying, “Are you going to visit women? Then don’t forget your self, don’t forget your willpower because remember Samson, he forgot himself, his willpower, and Delilah cut his hair.”
But, when we are with women, in this case, when we are dealing with the sexual forces of procreation (which are symbolized in women), whether we are men or women, when we are dealing with the forces of procreation is when we have to have the whip; this is when we have to use the whip in order to control ourselves, in order to whip our animal appetites and to transmute them, to transmute the sexual animal force.
So, we need comprehension, because this hanging of Judas is very difficult, it is not easy, this is why people who do not understand anything about esotericism, they condemn Judas, because they don’t want to die psychologically, they want just to raise their arm and accept Jesus as their savior and go up to heaven without understanding that first they have to die. If Jesus died first in order to ascend to heaven, don’t we have to die first, too? So, we have to also die in order to ascend to heaven, but this is a psychological death that we have to perform, we have to imitate Jesus. Read for instance the book of Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ. So, we have to imitate that inside, we have to die on the cross and that cross is sexual 100%. This is the great work.
First we have to work with Peter; that is the first work. Peter is in the pineal gland, which is the Iod, it is Kether that controls the water of Yesod through the inverted Lamed, which we have to ascend or raise seven times, and when we reach that seventh level we have to annihilate Judas. To annihilate the ego is the most difficult step, and this is why we have to study the Gospel of Judas; Judas starts betraying us and giving us trouble from the very bottom of the Self-realization, which is sex; and in the head as well, because it is related with our animal behavior. We have to perform a transformation, and when that transformation is done, when Judas is completely dead, and then we can talk about resurrection; before that, let us not talk about resurrection.
Unfortunately, many people interpret resurrection in the wrong way and they believe that everybody is going to resurrect by believing in this or believing in that, and the truth is that resurrection is only applied to those that die psychologically. In order to resurrect, we have to die first; nobody resurrects without dying first. The ego has to be annihilated, then we can enter into the path of John which is related with the Word, with the resurrection; the path of John is the most beautiful path, the path of the apostle John, but how are we going to enter in that path if Judas is alive inside of us?
However, let me tell you that the apostle Judas, the Venerable Master that came two thousand years ago to represent that role in order to show us the way, is the most exalted among the twelve. He is very blessed, because among the twelve he is the one that receives the most damnations from the fanatics ignoramuses that do not know anything about Christian esotericism; those who ignore that Judas performed a great work and that thanks to him Jesus of Nazareth resurrected and performed the great work on this planet Earth. Yes, still there are a lot of people that condemn the Master Judas Iscariot, because he shows us that we have to die, and people do not want to die. Everybody points at him as a traitor, meanwhile they ignore that the real traitor of the Lord is inside of us, because we have a traitor in the mind, a traitor in the heart, and a traitor in the sexual center.
The fires of the heart are always inviting us to perform the great work, but if we recognize that we betray the fires of the heart through the three brains and that we have to control the cross by performing the great work, then we have to hang ourselves like this man of the twelfth card, we have to put our foot up in heaven and invoke the forces of Prometheus. Prometheus, Lucifer, is the one that puts us through trials, and that is why we are hanged there as Prometheus, until we are liberated from Karma, and this is the great work. Then this Star of David that is inside the waters comes out of it, and it is placed as a ring on the finger; it becomes a ring in that Meleck that controls the forces of nature, the initiate that performs the great work.
Do you understand, are you following me, do you comprehend?
The sacrifice of this man is hanging there between the columns Jachin and Boaz. You find that each column has nine layers, or nine levels, which is related to the ninth sphere, and of course other Kabbalists state that this man is hanged from the letter Tav, which symbolizes that it is completely Self-realized, thanks to the working of the triangle to the cross. If you observe the nine levels point to the ninth sphere; we have to perform the work in the ninth sphere, between the woman and the man, because they are the two columns Jachin and Boaz, the man and the woman, the symbol of Yesod, which is the nine in each one of them, and this is performed in the waters. Remember that we talked in the Sixth Arcanum of the tarot about the symbol of the Star of David that is related with twelve forces: six points which are masculine and the six entrances or vortices that are related with the feminine forces, which in total makes twelve: six masculine and six feminine. That is why the Star of David is related with twelve rays which are related with the Twelfth Arcanum and the work that we have to perform.
So the letter Lamed has to be performed in us twice: first the inverted one in order to receive the crown, then the upright one in order to receive the forces of the incarnation of the Messiah in each one of us, in order to acquire Self-realization.
The sacrifices that we are describing here are performed in every Sephiroth. In the beginning when we start working in this path we have to die in Malkuth, the ego has to be annihilated in Malkuth which is related with the five senses. Remember that we have to control desire, and desire is controlled when we control the impressions that we receive in the five senses. In the time of Lemuria, with the falling of humanity it is stated that when the Kundabuffer was developed it was with the purpose that humanity become identified with nature, in other words, the soul at that time was not really concerned with matter or the three-dimensional world, but when the five senses were developed little by little, then those impressions were entering into the consciousness and then we were identified, we were becoming identified with the physical world, and this is how we created desire, with the identification of nature.
When the commission, at that time in Lemuria, came back in order to take away the Kundabuffer organ with the objective for humanity to develop objective reasoning, then was too late, because humanity was very much identified with the physical world, and continued feeding desire and until now this humanity is performing the same thing, they are so identified with this physical world.
Humanity thinks that by acquiring wealth in this physical world everything is done, they forget that in this life we have to perform a great equation, and that great equation is divided in two parts. The first part of the equation is to acquire a house, clothes, and food, in order to survive, but may people identify too much with it and acquire a lot of wealth, which is exaggerated, and they forget about the second part of the equation which is related with the development of the internal man, the internal human being, and for that we have to control the forces of nature in the physical world, and thereafter we have to control all of the forces of the Tree of Life above, through the Self-realization of the Being.
Malkuth is related with the egos of the 96 laws that we have to control, by meditating and comprehending the impressions of this physical world. And little by little we enter into the other layers with the other levels of the mind. Remember that the Master Samael Aun Weor talks very extensive about the 49 levels of the mind; we have to understand that, we have to comprehend, but in order to enter into the deepest levels of the mind we have to awaken in Malkuth first and then go deep, because the other senses are necessary to be developed in order to enter into the subconsciousness of nature into other levels which are not physical. We have to awaken, awaken, and by awakening the consciousness we are going to see the other parts of the conscious which are bottled up into the ego. And this is how it is written; the Master Samael explained all of this in The Three Mountains.
When you awaken in the level of Malkuth, then comes the Second Mountain, then you enter into the Second Mountain that is related with the resurrection, or the work that we have to perform until reaching Kether. And this is how we reach the different ages of the consciousness. Remember that the master says that the Tree of Life is developed in us through different ages, i.e. when the initiate reaches the level of Malkuth, he is one hundred years old, but this is related with the consciousness not the physical body, so, when he enters into the mysteries of Yesod, he is two hundred years old. So when we reach Kether we are one thousand years old, and this is how it is explained in esotericism, the different ages of the human being.
And we acquire those different ages through the annihilation of the different psychological aggregates, so when you reach the age of one thousand years old, you are in the kingdom of Kether without ego, then you understand. Because if you delve into the bible, it is written that Noah entered into the Ark at the age of six hundred years; we are not denying here that in the past people lived more, physically speaking, but now we are only talking about esoteric matters, esoteric ages which are related with the different steps and sacrifices that we have to perform, because in every step in the Tree of Life related with the nine layers the initiate enters into Nirvana, or levels of Nirvana; and he has to renounce those kingdoms in order to go into another level, he has to die, because there are many egos related with good in those steps, egos that we do not see, that we need to see, but that we can see only if we awaken.
There are many Gnostic students that when they start, they are so identified with the forty nine levels that they make their life complicated, and we always advise them: relax, annihilate the ego related to this physical plane, because those are the only egos that you can see because you are not awakened in the internal planes. And if by chance you awaken and you capture some egos related with those planes, then meditate on them, but right now worry only about the physical plane, because you cannot put your foot at the second level if you are not standing on the first level. People want to jump to Kether just by reading a book. People want to annihilate the egos related with the higher levels just because they read Revolutionary Psychology. We have to understand that we have to start from the bottom, performing sacrifices from the bottom. Judas is multifaceted, thus, only those that annihilated the egos in all the levels perform the Self-realization, only those perform the great work.
This is why many initiates decide to go into the spiral path, because they see that it is too much, and they want to rest a little bit, and they take the spiral path in order to perform this annihilation through millions of Mahamanvantaras, but when they do that they don’t receive help because the straight Lamed that comes from above into the king, comes only if he takes the direct path, if he helps others, if he sacrifices for others. Therefore, if you do not want to share the knowledge with others, then the Lord does not come into you, the Messiah does not incarnate if you are a selfish one.
So this is precisely what the 12th card symbolizes here, the great work, but for the great work to be performed we have to incarnate the Messiah. Nobody can perform the great work, nobody can perform the twelfth card of the tarot, if he does not incarnate the Messiah, and in order to incarnate the Messiah we have to perform the inverted Lamed seven times.
“I know your works, and your labor, and your patience, and how you cannot bear them which are evil: and you hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and have found them liars.” - Revelation 2: 2
Yes, people exist that claim that they are apostles, but they are not, because how are those people (who claim to be apostles) apostles when they do not even transmute the sexual energy. The former statement that is written is from the church of Revelation, is related with the church of Ephesus, the church of Ephesus is related with the chakra Muladhara, that is located between the anus and the genitals. So the chakra Muladhara is the church of Ephesus, and from that church of Ephesus is where the Solar fires of Arieh, the fires of Leo, rise in the spinal column, in order to perform the inverted Lamed, in order to receive the crown. This is how we become kings (Malachim), a Meleck, which will receive Chokmah, through the other Lamed. But if our foot is not in heaven, if our Iod’ s fires are not transmuted, then we are fornicators, and fornicators do not receive any crown, fornicators do not receive the Messiah, fornicators do not receive Christ, because Christ only enters in those which are in chastity.
So our foot, our Iod, has to be up there in heaven, and this is the true apostle. This is the beginning of the apostolate, to be in chastity, but if we are not doing that, we are liars; we are thinking that with subjective reasoning we are going to reach Self-realization, or to receive salvation, and that is not possible, because that subjective reasoning in the bible is related with Cain. Remember that when Adam and Eve fell into fornication, they begot their first son. It is written that Adam knew Eve and begot Cain, but Cain is the outcome of orgasm, Cain is the outcome of the spasm, the animal fornication, which only grants subjective reasoning, and not objective reasoning. So for a man to know a woman, he does it through the sexual act; for a woman to know a man, she has to do it through the sexual act, and this is how the bible explains this in Genesis. When Eve accepted the fruit of the tree of good and evil, which means that she accepted orgasm, and Adam the brain, took the outcome of that orgasm of the sexual organs, then subjective reasoning was developed, and that subjective reasoning is related with the five senses, what the bible calls Cain. This is why it is explained that Cain was working with the earth. To work with the earth means to work with Malkuth, to work with the five senses.
So remember, in order to be a true apostle, you have to put your Iod in heaven, which means the sexual force controlled by the holy cross, or by the other symbol which is the star of David, which is from the very bottom of the twelfth Arcanum, that star of David, or variation of the Star of David, that is on the very bottom of the twelfth Arcanum in that symbol, should rise, and when that rises then goes through the spinal column. But remember that the star of David is the union of two triangles, the man and the woman. So the star of David is a sexual symbol, because the upper triangle symbolizes the two testicles of the man and the phallus, and the lower triangle symbolizes the two ovaries of the woman and her yoni, so when we unite these two triangles, we enter into the mysteries of the stone of Yesod. From the stone of Yesod rise the forces of Iod, through the spinal column, through the Vav, the spinal medulla, and reach the Kaph, which is the head. This is how the inverted Lamed is performed, and these fires raise only with the fires of the merits of the heart. That is why the fires of the heart are the ones that control the fires of sex; thus, if we perform this seven times, then we reach the level of human being, a level of Meleck. If this Meleck takes the direct path, or the path of the midst which is sacrifice for humanity as this card is showing us, the he receives the Messiah in his heart, the birth of the child God in his heart, and then he can follow the path of the bodhisattva in which the Messiah, Christ appears in his body, mind, soul, and spirit, little by little, in the measure that Judas is annihilated. We have to start annihilating Judas little by little.
We begin by transmuting the sexual energy, this is to deny ourselves to deny the fires of Leo which are related with the venom blood, related with the animal appetites, and this is how that Iod, rises, and how the foot of this man that is hanged from heaven is placed in heaven, and is placed, or depends on the cross, which is in the middle of the circle on this 12th card.
