Esoteric Christianity 03 Foundations of the Christian Path

Let us continue our understanding of spiritual archetypes. An archetype, like we said, is a blueprint. Within us, within our soul, is the potential for something inconceivably glorious. But, what we actually have within ourselves are all of the archetypes distorted. All the archetypes, all of the primordial moulds that we have within our soul, have been distorted. And because of that, we suffer.

All these imperfect archetypes are called our passions in Christian monasticism and Christian contemplative traditions. In our modern era, we can simply call them our egos.All our egotistical, contradictory, unconscious desires.

We have all of these blueprints within ourselves, but we have distorted them and built wrong structures. This wrong structure is the Tower of Babel, which represents our big ego.

Everybody’s ego contradicts and conflicts with everybody else’s ego. But we have more than just a monolithic ego. Our ego is more like a large, complex structure with many rooms and each one of those rooms has been created imperfectly (in other words, in the wrong way).

We have many different egotistical wills and desires. We can notice this when we begin to pay attention, we notice all the contradictions within ourselves. Just from one single event, we can feel many different things all at once, and we can want to do many different things.

We intend to say one thing and we end up saying something else to someone because we have confusion within ourselves. Not only have we developed wrong structures, wrong patterns of behavior, wrong ways of thinking, wrong ways of feeling, wrong ways of acting, we furthermore contradict ourselves. We suffer within ourselves, our inner contradiction.

Within all those false malformed structures, or we can say patterns of behavior, there is the original primordial mould, the original archetype which needs to be developed in the right way. It is only possible to do this when we destroy the false structures and we go back to the original primordial mould and work with it in the correct way.

Then we develop all the beauty of our soul. We flourish like a garden, like a paradise and we become something psychologically very beautiful. The state of perfection can be achieved.

Let us now understand the mystery of John. Of course, there are more than one John in the bible. The name John, even today, points towards the common individual: “John Doe,” meaning any particular person.

In Latin, John is Johannes. In Greek, John is Ioannes (Ἰωάννης), in Hebrew, it’s Yohanan (יוחנן), “Jehovah has favoured.”

When we read in the Greek, it says John did something, it will say Iōannēs (Ἰωάννης), which sounds like Eee-Oo-Ah-Ne-Ss. There is a lot of vowels in the name John. Remember, vowels are the way we speak our words, as the sound comes out of our throat.

So, the origin of our words, which is the activity, starts in our throat.  We can even say it in our mind, because the mind moves the larynx and the larynx forms the words.

We can see that John represents the Word, in a different level because his name is a name that points towards the activity of the Word, in other words, it’s all those vowels Eee-Oo-Ah-Ne-Ss.

John represents, on a lower level, any particular soul. We are all, from a perspective of a soul, we are all that activity, that Eee-Oo-Ah-Ne-S activity. At a more advanced understanding, John represents a particular level of a soul’s development. The authentic John is actually a very high level.

Gnostically, we understand before you reach the stage of John, you must pass through the path of Peter and the path of Judas.

In the path of Peter, you work with the Keys of Heaven. It is stated in the Bible that Jesus will found his church on the rock, the Petros (Peter), so, Peter becomes the first Pope. But, inside of ourselves, that path of Peter is to start with the foundation of building the inner temple, building the inner church. This means to work with the archetypes, as we have mentioned previously.

The archetypes are the blueprints for building our inner church. The inner church is the soul. What we have presently today is the principle of the soul, we have a infantile soul, a baby soul, and we need to develop that into a completed soul. As part of that development of the completion of the soul, we also have to work with the path of Judas, which means psychological death.

In the Bible, Judas hangs himself. We constantly betray our inner lord every time we act egotistically. We are Judas. We sell off our inner divinity for 30 coins of silver. We do this moment by moment, every time we harbour resentment, hatred, lust, envy, any of the imperfect qualities that we have. Which is a lot, we have a lot of bad qualities within ourselves. It is possible to destroy them, and that is the path of Judas, psychological death.

First we have to erect the spiritual temple, we have to build the soul, we have to perfect that soul to a certain degree. This is called the path of Peter. This is the first path. This path is a type of spiritual resurrection, happening inside, not physical. At the end of that path, you must then go forward even further to the path of Judas. The path of Judas is the path where the psychological cleansing occurs which prepares one for the path of John.

The path of John is when a superior level of development occurs related with Christ. This is where the fully developed Human Being (“John”) can go beyond individuality and become a host of the army of the Voice, which is Christ.

This is a superior work. This is a type of work that, prior to the Christian doctrine coming, was extremely obscured, never spoken about. Jesus came and clarified many things to his direct students, yet he still covered them in parables in the public. He lived, physically, many events which allowed people to make a history out of his life in certain ways, that were actually spiritual teachings. He orchestrated his life to emulate the inner spiritual path.

The books of the Bible are teaching simultaneously various levels of the path. They reach a very high level, the esoteric teaching, for those who are prepared to understand them at that level, which is the level of receiving the Christ within, the inner Jesus or Yeshua (Yeshua means savior). There is also ways of undertanding the Bible in basic terms, the exoteric teaching, related to living a proper lifestyle.

The level of person that you must be in order to receive the Yeshua, the inner Christ, you first must be at the level of John. You must do a lot of inner works at the level of John, and before you can reach the level of John, you must do the work of Judas, and before you can do the work of Judas, you must do the work of Peter.

At our level, at a more basic level, we can understand these three paths in a practical way when we work on developing our virtues, developing the beautiful qualities of the soul. This is related to the path of Peter. In the latter half of this lecture we are going to talk about the Keys of Peter, becoming the witness and the servant: this is the path of Peter.

When we work on eliminating our imperfections, our ego, we can say this is related to the path of Judas. It’s not the more elevated path mentioned prior, but it’s related to it, because any type of psychological death is of course related to the inner Judas.

When we do superior efforts related to cognizant charity and sacrificing ourselves for humanity at our own level, this has a relationship with the path of John. It’s not the fully elevated, it’s not the true path of John, but in our level we can understand it in relationship to that.

All of this gives us context, it gives us understanding of what the new testament is really talking about, and what it means when the person John (John the Baptist) is mentioned. When things are occurring to John, it is talking about a person, an initiate of the wisdom at that level of John.

Samael Aun Weor states:

The word John can be broken down into the five vowels in the following way: IEOUA, IEOUAN [John].  The entire Gospel of John is the Gospel of the Word.

Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

The entire Gospel of John is the Gospel of the Word. This is why at the beginning of the gospel of John, it talks about the word, the Logos. The ancient languages are much more mantric. The ancient languages put the vowels together in a way that’s really connects us to the spiritual principles within ourselves. These sounds – IIIEEEAAAOOOAAANNN – vibrate different aspects of our body. This is why we sometimes repeat them as a mantra.

When you vocalize the letter I (pronounced EEE) and vibrate it and extend it, you will see it vibrates your head and it is related to your pineal gland and pituitary gland.

When you vocalize the vowel E (pronounced Eh), you can feel that it vibrates your throat which is related to your thyroid gland.

The letter O, is related to your heart. When you have a strong emotion, you will say “Ohhh”. If you find yourself disappointed, you will say “Ohhh” and it’s hitting at the heart. When you find yourself emotionally excited, you might go “OHHH” because again it’s hitting you at the heart. So “O” connects you with the heart.

The vowel U is related to your stomach. We call it the Solar Plexus. Sometimes when you eat something very nice, kind of satisfying urges, the letter U comes out, and also the letter M (Mmmmmm) which is related to the prostrate or uterus. These are related to the lower parts of our body and can relate to instincts. But from a superior aspect, “M” can ground our entire body.

There vowel A (Ahhhhhh) related to the lungs, which vibrates your lungs. This is why John is related to the Word, related to the activity, the vibration of life.

The final letter is S (pronounced Sssss) which is related to the sexual organs.

All of these vowels I E O U A M S, vibrates or puts into contact in the various parts of the body, the divine principles.

This is all related to the movements of our inner energies, and when we completely become a real developed John, all these regions of our body are in complete contact with our inner being, our inner divinity. When you have complete contact with your inner divinity, you become a prophet, you become a teacher, because you are able to proliferate the teachings. We need to put ourselves into contact with the Being.

To state again:

1. The Path of Peter is the development or building of the Inner Church. The Inner Church is the soul with all the spiritual archetypes perfected.
2. The Path of Judas is the radical destruction of the ego. The ego is based upon ignorance, the ego is malformation of the original spiritual archetype blueprints.
3. The Path of John occurs in the person who already completed the Paths of Peter and Judas. The Path of John is when the enlightened soul and spirit unites with Christ.

At our beginner level:

1. The Path of Peter is related to our work with our creative energies (explained fully at the end of this lecture).
2. The real path of Judas occurs after the Path of Peter is complete, however, we reflect the Path of Judas any time we work on eliminating our psychological defects (the ego).
3. The real Path of John occurs after the Path of Judas, however, we reflect the Path of John when we sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of humanity. 

The paths Peter, Judas and John are also spoken of in the Old Testament, but in a different ways. The bible is always teaching different levels. Different stories or books may speaking the same teaching, in a different way.

There are many books in the Old Testament. From the perspective of the patriarchs, the first patriarch from the Old Testament is Abraham. If you read the bible, it is stated that Abraham descended from the city of Ur. We must understand all this inside, initiatically. The meaning, the mystery of Abraham descending from the city of Ur means descending from the Light. Ur is Light. It is written as Ur but really it is Aur. In the ancient Aramaic or Hebrew, Aur means Light.

All matters in the Torah are of a superior nature and are uppermost secrets.

Woe to those wicked who say that the Torah is merely a story and nothing more, for they look at the dress and no further.

Zohar, Bamidbar 152a

Abraham descended from the Light, and just as we understand from the quote of the Zohar (from the first lecture in this series), these things appear to be a story of literal history but that is just the outer vesture. All of these scriptures were written mostly for the inner meaning. The literal teaching was always provisional. The Biblical stories never represented a literal historical fact. It was never meant to be taken as the ultimate meaning. All the history is mingled with and is subservient to the inner mysteries, which is giving a superior teaching.

Abraham represents that which descends from the Light, the first thing that descends from the Light. The Light we know is Christ. Christ is a universal, impersonal force. The principle of creation. The first thing we can say, that descends out of that Light of Christ, is our Inner Spirit, Abraham.

Abraham, our inner spirit descends from the Light. Our Inner Spirit is Light, but a particular Ray or drop of Light coming out of the universal ocean of Light. That is our Inner Spirit, as Abraham.

Many things happen, which we are not going into many details about, but primary thing is the next patriarch is Isaac. Isaac represents another unfoldment of our Spirit. We call this the Spiritual Soul. The spiritual soul is the part of our Inner Being which develops Wisdom, which develops Gnosis.

The spirit itself is something that is already perfect, in way. In another way, it does not understand its own perfection, and therefore we must do the spiritual work. The Inner Spirit needs to reflect its own perfection in order for the Spirit to completely know its own perfection.

Let us visualize the way a candle can be lit inside a glass or a vase of alabaster. The light inside is the Spirit, and this light illuminates the surrounding alabaster. The glowing hue of alabaster is the Spiritual Soul. The Spiritual Soul makes the Inner Light to shine. It takes that inner light and transforms it into the very essence of beauty.

The inner light is always perfect, but when you surround it in perfect geometry, it makes it even more radiant.

Our Spiritual Soul is not yet perfect, and therefore, a further series of unfoldments need to occur. These further unfoldments make it possible for the Spiritual Soul to develop perfection.

This is why Isaac gives birth to Jacob. Jacob represents yet another unfolding of our Soul. This is what we call the root of our Human Soul. The Spiritual Soul unfolds into the Human Soul. The thing you must understand between the Human Soul and the Divine Soul is that the Human Soul can do self-will.

Let us summarize so far:

1. City of Ur (Aur): The Light of Christ
2. Abraham: Our Inner Spirit
3. Isaac: Spritual Soul
4. Jacob: Human Soul

Our Inner Spirit that is the inner light, is Abraham. The unfoldment from Abraham is the reflective material that can make that light even more beautiful (the Spiritual Soul). In that sense, that aspect of the soul is Divine. It always does the Will of God. It is perfect in that sense.

When the Spiritual Soul first unfolds, it is just a principle, it has not been constructed. The construction of that Spiritual Soul is done by works of the Human Soul. The Human Soul must build that inner temple. The inner temple really is the Spiritual Soul. But it needs to be built perfectly, it needs to be built in a way to reflect and refract that light, like a diamond. We have to build it with our Human Soul, with our human will.

Our Human Will has been overtaken by our desires, which is animal will. This means, instead of building the Inner Church, we have built a mess inside of ourselves. It is to such a degree we don’t even see our inner light anymore, to such a degree that we have forgotten our inner light, and we believe that we are the intellect or we are the emotions. We easly identify with our animal instincts and desires. However, we are not that.

Our emotions and our intellect have become trapped by our own creations. If we have created houses of envy within ourselves, we become trapped in our own envy and then we are always envious, or trapped in our own fear and we become always fearful. If we destroy all those false creations and then work correctly through self-knowledge, through the acquirement of Gnosis, we build the Spiritual Soul, we develop all those archetypes perfectly. This is the job of the Human Soul, this is the job of Jacob.

Jacob is the third unfoldment. Jacob becomes a lot of things. Jacob becomes Israel when he fights as a strong angel, he succeeds. Then Israel, or Jacob, principally has 12 offspring which become the 12 tribes of Israel. This is where the phrase comes from, The 12 Tribes of Israel.

The 12 tribes represent the collection of different archetypes within ourselves. But what happens is the 12 tribes of Israel become enslaved or encaged by the Egyptians, by the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh is the ego, the Pharaoh represents the false enslavement of all our spiritual principles.

There is a lot of stories related to Jacob / Israel. Principally, Joseph and Benjamin relate to the very first levels of a superior development of the soul. After Joseph and Benjamin, we come across Moses and Aaron. Benjamin represents superior emotions. Aaron represents superior reasoning. Aaron’s brother is Moses. Moses is the one who does all the work against the Pharaoh.

The Pharaoh represents our egotistical will which has trapped all of our spiritual principles. We must liberate the Israelites, which takes a tremendous work. This is the story of Moses.

After Moses, many other valuable books of the Bible are written, but if we go from Moses, we can go all the way to the Gospel of John. John really represents the next stage of the path. After you liberate all those Israelites, that’s very similar as completing the works of Peter and Judas.

When you complete the works or Peter and Judas, you are at the level of John. Moses represents the extraction, the liberating of the people of Israel, is more or less at that same level, ready to receive Christ.

John works in the river Jordan and then Jesus descends to resurrect in John. It is written in a way that Jesus is doing everything. Jesus represents the Light of Christ, working in John. Christ dies and resurrects within John. This unites everything between soul, spirit, and Christ.

We know that when Moses dies, Joshua takes over, and crosses the river Jordan to the land of Gilgal. Joshua is another name for Jesus. So when Moses “dies” it is for Joshua / Jesus to take command.

To review again:

1. Abraham descends from the City of Aur (“light”). The Spirit emerges from the uncreated light into the created light.
2. Isaac is born. The Spiritual Soul unfolds from the Spirit.
3. Jacob is born, and becomes Israel. The Human Soul unfolds from the Spiritual Soul. The Human Soul unfolds further into mind, emotion, vital/sexual energy, and body, and may choose to begin the Path.
4. Joseph and Benjamin (and all the 12 Tribes of Israel) develop. The Human Soul begins to develop superior qualities. The Inner Temple is constructed.
5. Moses & Aaron liberate the Israelites by overcoming the Pharaoh (psychological defects, attachments, passions, etc.).
6. John baptizes Jesus in the River Jordan. Joshua crosses the River Jordan after the laying of hands by Moses. John/Moses dies to make way for resurrection in Jesus/Joshua.
7. Jesus (Yeshuah, Joshua, “savior”), the Intimate Christ, is the descension of the Universal Christ into the initiate who has achieved the level of “John” or “Moses.” After John, comes “Jesus” in the New Testament. After Moses, comes “Joshua” in the Old Testament, which is the same symbol.

These are very symbolic teachings, very difficult to comprehend and if this is the first time you heard of all of this, you can probably get only a certain level of understanding. What’s important for you to understand is that all these teachings relate to one or more aspects of the Path of Initiation. They have a coherence, they have a continuity, and as you study these teachings more and much deeper, you begin to comprehend how exactly all those factors connect together.

For now, we leave at that basic understanding that there are levels and levels, degrees and degrees of the unfoldment of the Soul and that the Soul has to do a profound Gnostic Work. This is what we are always pointing towards, this is the point of our life. It’s to do the work at our own degree. It does not make sense for us to be too worried about these high degrees. What makes sense for us is to work at the level that we can, right here and now, with our own activity that we see right here and now. That’s how we begin.

We begin by acknowledging the activities that are in our mind and heart and working with our psychology in order to transform it. But of course, it’s very difficult to transform our psychology. Many people try but they feel it is ineffectual, that they cannot achieve it.

Keys to Heaven

Well, this is where some of these inner teachings come into play. They tell you what you need in order to form the inner foundation. Recall the first path that we talked about is the path of Peter, which the church is founded upon, inner church. Peter has the Keys to Heaven. Let us now discuss John even further, the book of John, and get an inkling of understanding of how these teachings can practically work in our daily life.

We are going to continue with John 1, Verse 6

⁶ There was a man [anthropos] sent from God [Theos], whose name was John [Ioannes].

⁷ The same came for a witness [martyria: testify, martyr, עד od], to bear witness [martyria: testify, martyr, עד od] for the Light [phos, אור aur], that all men through him might believe [pistis: powerful or persuasive comprehension, faith upon experience].

⁸ He was not that Light [phos, אור aur], but was sent to bear witness [martyria: testify, martyr, עד od] of that Light [phos, אור aur].

⁹ That was the true Light [phos, אור aur], which lighteth every man that cometh into the world [kosmos].

¹⁰ He was in the world [kosmos], and the world [kosmos] was made by him, and the world [kosmos] knew [ginosko] him not.

¹¹ He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

¹² But as many as received [lambano, קבל kabal] him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God [Theos], even to them that believe [pistis] on his name:

¹³ Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will [thelema] of the flesh, nor of the will [thelema] of man, but of God [Theos].

“There was a man sent from God whose name was John.”

So right away, we can understand all this in a superior level. When it says there was a man, the actual word in Greek is anthropos (ἄνθρωπος). This is interesting because anthropos means mankind, it means the man, or human being. The word for male is not anthropos, but aner (ανηρ). But it says there was an anthropos.

This anthropos, is again pointing towards something. Not the common everyday man or woman but the True Man which is the Man which at that level of John. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John (Ioannes).

To be a true Hu-Man, it means you have erected that inner spiritual temple and you have eliminated your ego. This is actually a very advanced accomplishment. But once again, we can also understand John from a generic, basic aspect as any particular Soul striving for the spiritual light.

The verse continues, “The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.”

Let us unpack this vers: the same came for a witness. The word here is martyria, which is where we get the word Martyr: to testify, to martyr. When we give witness, what are we martyring? Why are these two things connected? From a gnostic standpoint, to give witness, it is necessary to martyr yourself, your desires. Your egotistical will must be martyred, must be killed, because the truth is not our desires or our ego. To see the truth, you must martyr your ego, then you can bear witness, which is the light, which is the truth, that spiritual principle within yourself that can now unfold.

When you are stuffed full of your egotistical desires, your fears, your anxieties, your puffed up pride, all of your rationalities, beliefs and theories, the light cannot go inside of you. You have to bear witness, you have to martyr your ego in order to bear witness of the Light. That Light is Phos in Greek and Aur in Aramaic or Hebrew as we have said before. The Light is Aur.

In Hebrew, the word martyr or to testify or to witness, is “OD”. That is something we are going to connect with a little bit later. The witness “OD”, and all men through him might believe. Believe in Greek, this goes back to the root word, Pistis. Pistis is not a vain belief.

There is a tremendous misunderstanding and abuse of this word, Faith, today. It is being used to indicate a religious belief. And many people rail against religion for having blind believers. Many of those who are religious, think that this blind belief is Faith.

Faith is not the same thing as belief. Actual faith indicates that you have trust, to have confidence. There are those who state that all you need to do is to say the name of the Lord, raise your hand and say you believe in him and everything else will be done for you. That’s all you need to do, is just believe. Well we can only state that let the fruits of our work be made known. You shall know everything by their fruits. To simply raise your hand and say you believe, and five minutes later to be an unconscious mechanical being, who has resentments, and hatred, and enmity, and vitriol, and bellicose posturing against others: this is a contradiction.

You cannot have this faith if you have hatred inside of you. Does your hatred trust in Jesus Christ? Does your trust believe in Jesus Christ? Does your jealousy? There is no way to put zest, this Pistis, this Faith with all of these elements within ourselves which betray the Lord.

Our inner Judas which needs to be slain, is very actively working against the Lord. We must not translate pistis as a vain superstitious belief. You must understand that it is a knowledge, an experience within ourselves. We gain such Faith little by little. We have it in completion, when we reach perfection.

We make this statement: Faith is not the belief in somethings that has no evidence. Faith or Pistis is powerful comprehension based upon the critical reflection upon one’s conscious experience.

If you reflect within yourself very seriously and sincerely, you will come into contact with your inner spiritual principles, and you will have direct experience, and then you will have Faith.

Continuing the verse,

⁸ He was not that Light [phos, אור aur], but was sent to bear witness [martyria: testify, martyr, עד od] of that Light [phos, אור aur].

⁹ That was the true Light [phos, אור aur], which lighteth every man that cometh into the world [kosmos].

¹⁰ He was in the world [kosmos], and the world [kosmos] was made by him, and the world [kosmos] knew [ginosko] him not.

By, “coming into the world” many assume that we are talking about a physical world, but the inner understanding is the inner world, which in Greek the word here is “kosmos.” Kosmos means order, to put something in order. The inner Anthropos, the inner John, comes into the ordered world, when there is order in our psychology. But all the other elements, the darkness within ourselves, do not understand.

When we walk on this path, we have inner battles, inner tempests which tempt us to behave otherwise. We have to work with that, to transform that.

¹¹ He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

¹² But as many as received [lambano, קבל kabal] him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God [Theos], even to them that believe [pistis] on his name:

¹³ Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will [thelema] of the flesh, nor of the will [thelema] of man, but of God [Theos].

Let us speak more of this witness, this witnessing, in order to understand the keys that Peter holds which is how we begin to build our inner church.

In Isaiah:41 it is written

²⁸ For I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, and there was no counsellor, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word.

²⁹ Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing: their molten images are wind and confusion.

- Isaiah 41

The molten images that are wind and confusion are our egotistical desires. This is the false idolatry that occurred when Moses went up the mountain and all the Israelites at the bottom of the mountain created a golden idol from their earrings and other jewellery.

This represents taking those spiritual principles, those golden attributes that we have within ourselves to create molten images – false idols. People think false idols are some external thing, a statue you worship. But the false idols spoken about here are the molten images that we have created within ourselves. The ideas, those molten images, we think we are so good, that we are such wonderful people, that we are such a martyr.

Those molten images that we cower from, we’re afraid. We have fear and anxiety, hatred and pride, lust. These are our molten images that we are subservient to, because we gave up our spiritual principles. In the end, we can get no counsel from them. In the end, we get nothing but dust back from them. We feel naked and miserable in life. We have no answers, we don’t know where to turn to ,because the molten images are nothing more than wind and confusion. This is a description of our mind at the moment.

Continuing, Isaiah:42 states in distinction to the previous verse:

Behold my servant [עבד obd], whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.

A bruised reed [קנה qaneh] shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.

- Isaiah 42: 1 - 3

Here we have the word servant which sounds very similar to the word witness. Witness was “OD,” עד (Ayin Daleth). Servant is Ain Beth Daleth עבד, “ OBD”. So, servant and witness are very similar, “OD” and “OBD”. “OD” is witness, “OBD” is servant.

So the servant shall not break a bruised reed, nor the smoking flax shall he quench.

A reed – you’ll find in all the scriptures and all the religions – is a Staff of the Wise Men, Staff of the Patriarch, Staff of Moses. This staff represents the power of divinity. That power rides, it seats itself within us when we do the spiritual work, it seats within us up and down the spinal column.

It is obvious that all of the primary energies and critical functions of our human body, our physical body, go up and down the spinal column. It should be no surprise that the primary conduit which give us that active connection to our inner divinity also goes up and down the spinal column. The symbol of this is the staff or the reed which you find in many places of the Bible.

A bruised reed indicates a spinal column which has no spiritual connection, because the works that bring that spiritual connection have been lost or they have not been accomplished. This servant shall not break that bruised reed. In other words, it will heal that bruised reed. When we have that active energy flowing - this is like having gasoline in a car engine, now that engine can work. If you have a cell phone or a mobile device that has no energy in it, no battery, it cannot run. We must understand that physically we may be alive and physically fit or healthy, but spiritually, what gives us spiritual life are particular types of behaviors based primarily on those ethical conduct that was mentioned in the beginning of the lecture. That is why it is so important to have these ethical behaviors because it forms the basis for the energy in our body to connect with our soul and our spirit, the Inner Light.

Finally, third quote from Isaiah:43

You are my witness [עד od], saith Iod Hei Vav Hei, and my servant [עבד obd] whom I have chosen: that ye may know [da'ath] and believe me, that these are the faces of your Binah: before me "El" [God in Chesed] was not formed, neither shall he [Chesed] become after me [Binah].

 I, even I, am Iod Hei Vav Hei; and AIN as part of me is one savior.

- Isaiah 43: 10, 11

The witness is “OD” , the servant is “OBD”. These two are explained in different ways in the Bible. Peter is often depicted holding two keys and many times as one gold key and one silver key. These two keys, we can say, are the symbol of the witness and the servant.

Sometimes they are simply called the two witnesses. Other times it’s called the witness and the servant. It’s all pointing towards the same symbol. Remember we read a quote before about a reed, let us now go to the end of the Bible, to Revelation 11:

And there was given me a reed [kalamos, קנה qaneh] like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.

But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

And I will give power unto my two witnesses [martyria: testify, martyr, עד od], and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

These are the two olive trees [duo elaia: two olives], and the two candlesticks [duo luchnia] standing before the God of the earth [ghay: soil].

Revelation 11:1 – 4

Let us unpack this and explain how it relates to everything we have explained so far. We have been speaking about the different archetypes that need to be developed in our inner church and our inner temple. This progress, we can say, is “measured upon the reed” and the reed represents the spinal column. The greater the measurement, the greater the degree – the energy - that is flowing through the reed. If you look at a bamboo reed for example, you will see that there are pockets. Each one of those divisions is like a pocket, like a cell, and atop each is another cell, until the top is reached. Similar to the different vertebrae of our spine. As the energy is purified, the principles are making a deeper and more profound connection related to our spinal column.

As we develop that energy, we are developing our inner temple. But the court which is without the temple, leave them out, meaning don’t let your ego in. They are not meant for the temple. What is meant for the temple are the inner archetypes developed in the Light. And it says “I will give power to my two witnesses” - this again is martyria “and they shall prophecy… these are the two olive trees and two candlesticks.”

It is stating that the two witnesses are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks. The Gnostic understanding here becomes a little more obvious when you investigate the two olive trees. This in Greek is duo elia. Duo is two, and elia is olives. It is often translated as two olive trees. But more literally it’s the two olives.

If I were to tell you that you must take care of your two olives because they are very delicate, and that you need to take care of your olives, make sure you don’t get harmed. They are very important. You may use your imagination to understand that they represent the gonads, the two testicles or the two ovaries. These are our two olives.

These two olives, of course, if you know how to work with the two olives, you’ll get olive oil. This oil represents our base energy which is sex. Depending on how you use that oil is very important. Remember the word khrestos, Christ, means fire and light. But the literal meaning is anointed one and what you anoint one with is oil. So, these are the two olive trees, the two candlesticks, the two witnesses, duo luchnia. This duo is two, luchina is the thing that creates Light, the candlestick for the God of the earth. When we say God of the earth, we are talking about the lower manifestations of our self. Certainly, we need to make these greater and more developed connections to our Inner Spirit, but God exists everywhere. Within ourselves, it does exist within our body.

It is stating here that two witnesses, two olives, two candlesticks before we completely unveil all of this, let us go to Zachariah:4 which is in the Old Testament.

And I raised my voice and said to him, What are these two olives [זית zayith] on the right of the candelabrum and on its left?

And I raised my voice a second time and said to him, What are the two olive branches [זית שבלי shibbol zayith] beside the two golden vats that empty out the gold [זהב zahab] from themselves?

And he spoke to me, saying, Do you not know what these are? And I said, No, my lord.

And he said, These are the two anointed [היצהר yitshar] ones who stand before the Lord [אדון Adown (Adoni)] of all the earth [הארץ erets].

Zechariah 4: 11 - 14

We are again talking about the two olives and the two candlesticks. One on the left side and one on the right side. You can see a complete parallel between Revelation and Zachariah. The last verse is the exact same thing, “These are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth” (Revelation) and “These are the two anointed ones who stand before the Lord of the earth” (Zechariah).

The anointed ones… again, to be anointed in Greek is khrestos. To be anointed is to be anointed with what? That olive, those olives, that olive oil. If you read Zachariah, it states the oil goes up the candlesticks, up to the top and that oil which is the golden oil – like olive oil. The symbol of that olive oil is the symbol of that energy going up from earth to the Heaven.

From the bottom of the candlestick, from the bottom of the reed, up on the left side and on the right side, up to the top which is Heaven, or we say symbolically, is our head. The energy at the bottom of the spine travelling up to the top, to the head. And from there the Light shines, and this is the halo of Saints. This is the fire atop the Apostles in the book of Acts.

This energy goes from the bottom to the top. But you have to know the inner teachings. Those who know how to get the energy, transform that energy to make it rise up the candlesticks to the top, know the true essence of Gnosticism, of Gnosis. And anybody who does not know how to do that has not been initiated into the true Gnostic teachings because without this, you cannot be a witness or a servant.

To be a witness, to be a servant of the lord, is to be a transformer of energy. Because within ourselves is the inner fire and that fire we can see is very present in our physical body, of a very strong sexual nature. We have only understood sex from an instinctual animal level and from a material standpoint. Everyone seems to believe they are nothing more than an animal with intellect and that sex is just our animal side. Certainly, there is a level of sexuality that is related to being an animal. But the whole point of religion, specifically the Gnostic teachings, is to transform that instinct into intuition, because inside that fire, is that light which transforms us, and the energy which can build and create the inner temple within ourselves.

Our creative sexual energy is something that can create physically. The teachings state that you can refine the energy, keeping it within the body and transforming it up the spine. It is an energetic transformation that is not strictly related to the three dimensional physical body.

These two candlesticks, these two witnesses, or, the witness and the servant, are two primary energetic channels that stand before the Lord of the earth. We state that the right side is solar and is related to the gold key of Peter. The left side is lunar and this is related to the silver key of Peter. Knowing how to work with our energies, the solar and the lunar, is how we possess the two Keys to Heaven. It is how we build our inner temple on the foundation stone of our sexual creative power.

When we take the sexual energy and extract the spiritual principles from it, we are like an alchemist, transforming the base metal into gold. What we extract out of there is an energy, a power, a wisdom. It gives us the power to slay our enemies. Those enemies are our psychological defects, those psychological imperfections within ourselves, and it gives the wisdom of Good and Evil.

When we do our egotistical self-will, we gain the knowledge of evil, knowledge of defilement, knowledge of our imperfections. When we rectify ourselves and we destroy our ego and build the soul within ourselves, we begin to acquire the knowledge of Good. There is a reason why priests and monks or the ordained individuals had to protect their sexual energy. Today this is translated as celibacy, that you must not do anything with that energy.

There is a real reason why you need to protect your sexual energy, to work with it correctly. If you always eject it from your body, through orgasm or ejaculation, you are literally ejecting the spiritual principles and the power to transform your psychology. The fundamental basis – the foundation of your psychology – is your sexual behavior. Nothing is more important than that. That is the foundation of your mind, which is sex. So, this is why taking care of your sexual energy is so important.

However, the modern understanding (which is wrong) is to be celibate and to totally reject in a very blind way, in a very superficial and blunt way, to reject sex. What happens is that if you reject sex in a very blunt and blind way, you will just end up repressing all of that egotistical activity. The result is what we can see today, unfortunately, all those crimes against children, of priests doing horrendous things to children because they have not comprehended their sexual nature. They have only repressed it. To keep your sexual energy is only good if you know how to work with it properly. That oil has to rise up to the head to enlighten the world, to blossom the rose of your heart. This develops the Soul.

Today, the teachings have become lost and degenerated. We need to know how to work with sexual energy, we need to know how to examine the activity of our mind and our heart to get to the origin, to expose our imperfections in the Light, to destroy our imperfections, to develop our inner soul. We do this through the work of sexual transmutation and psychological transformation. They work together.

Obviously, there is much more to be stated about how to work with this oil, how to work with the two witnesses, to work with the witness and the servant. We are going to continue to clarify and elaborate these teachings in our following lectures.