We understand that at the base of all creation is the womb of the Divine Mother. This is called Prakriti in Sanskrit. That womb manifests from itself a light, which is the light of the Christ, or the Ray of Creation. And this ray is an energy or a “going forth” of a creative impulse which gives rise to all existing phenomena. That fundamental “suchness” or fundamental expression, which gives rise to creation, is known in Gnosis as the Solar Logos. Solar, because it's related to the sun, or the source of life and light. And Logos, which in Greek means “word” or “verb.” We use the term Logos because the word that we speak is the expression or the manifestation of thought. The thought is the unmanifested impulse. When it becomes manifest, it is the Logos. Speech is the Logos of thought. So in terms of the root of creation, we see the same phenomenon.
The Prakriti contains that impulse which manifests as Logos, or word. And that is why in the book of John, in the gospels, it says, "In the beginning was the word." Likewise in the book of Genesis, the book of creation, we hear that God created when he spoke.
Three Forces Create
This is an important aspect to understand because at the base of all creation is this Solar Logos, or in other words the Cosmic Christ. This force, this energy, is three in one. It is the top triangle of the Tree of Life, also known as the Kabbalah. And this supernal triangle has three spheres in the shape of a triangle. These three are the holy trinity or tri-unity, which are three aspects of one thing. In Kabbalah, or in Hebrew, we know them as Kether, Chokmah and Binah. In Christianity they are called Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And in Hinduism they are Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
This trinity symbolizes the forces of creation. Those forces are an equilibriating power, or a power of three in equilibrium, in balance. These three are: positive force, or the impulse to create, the receptive, or negative force, and the equlibriating, or conciliating force.
These three factors, or three forces, are at the base of all forms of creation, in all levels of nature. These three, in one, are the Christ. And they are fire. The Christ is a fire, it is an energy, it is a light. It is that force which gives life, and without which there could be no life. The Christ is the root of creation and the root of existence. In the heart of every atom is the flame or fire of the Christic force. And in the heart of every sun, every planet, every plant, every mineral, every organism is that root fire.
We understand from previous lectures that within the physical organism that we have, we also have that Christic fire. And we have it in different levels. First of all it's that fire which illuminates and gives activity and energy to all the cells and molecules and atoms that we have within. But more than that, we find the result of the entire process of all mechanical functions of our physical organism, which take and receive energy in different levels; from food, from air, from impressions. And all that force, all that light, which we call hydrogen, all that energy is refined and synthesized by the varying processes of our organism in conjunction with the chakras and with the vital body. The ultimate synthesis of that energy, of all those processes is what we know of as sexual energy. And this process of refinement is universal. It occurs in every organism that exists. Within every plant, within every animal, within every mineral. Every organism receives, transforms and refines energy. And the ultimate synthesis of that refinement is always the sexual energy.
Mercury, Hermes
To understand this further, we have to look into symbolism and mythology, which contain and hide the deeper truths related to this topic. If we look into Greek mythology, we find a very interesting figure who is closely related with the sun or with the Christ. In Greek mythology he is called Hermes. In Roman mythology he is called Mercury.
Hermes has an ancient tradition. He is the messenger of the sun. He is the closest companion to the sun. And of course we know the planet Mercury is the closest planet in our solar system to the sun, and has a very rapid orbit. In mythology he is said to be an intercessor, or a messenger who works on behalf of the sun, or with the Christ.
When we study Hermes or Mercury, we understand that he was always viewed as a God of fertility. And as a God of fertility, he was worshipped symbolically by piles of stones that were placed at crossroads. And this contains a very potent symbolism. We know in any kind of esoteric tradition that a traveler is a symbol of someone who is walking on the path of initiation. This is related to the arcanum nine of the book of the Tarot. We also know that a crossroads is also a very significant symbol because it is the shape of the cross. And the Greeks, in the early days, would take rocks and pile them in a heap at the crossroads. The stone is also a very important symbol in all religions and mystical traditions. We have the philosopher's stone and the foundation stone, which are key elements. But these piles of rocks were called herm, H-E-R-M, so you would have a herm at the crossroads. And each herm would be decorated with a symbol of the masculine phallus. Now gradually as the Greek civilization progressed in sophistication in time, these piles of rocks eventually became square pillars with a phallus decorating them with the head of Mercurius or Hermes on top. So obviously to unify the cross, the phallus and the symbol of Mercury contains a very potent symbolism.
We understand that Hermes, or Mercury is symbolizing root forces and root energies within our own organism. When we look at the root energies, or the most potent forces that we have within, we obviously have to look at the sexual energy. And that's what the herm is indicating. The herm, or that pillar placed at the crossroads decorated with the phallus, is saying, the God of Mercury is found in the sex. Mercury is the key to working with the cross in order to be a successful traveler in the many ways and paths of life.
Now the sexual force, as we know, is the ultimate expression of mechanical nature within our organism. This sexual force contains the law of three. It is in itself an expression of that Cosmic Christ, that fire which gives rise to all life. We have within our own experience and our own knowledge the knowing that in order to create, we need to combine forces. So for us to create the physical body, for a child, we need the positive force, which is the man, we need the receptive force, which is the woman, and we need a force which will equilibriate the two or bring them together; and that of course is sex, which is the Holy Spirit. When those three forces combine, we can create. Physically speaking, of course, we can create a child. But there is another way to use the same three forces in a higher way.
Within each of us, we have the final distillation of that mechanical nature. The process of transforming all the energies that we take in results in the production of that sexual energy. In the ancient tradition of alchemy, the sexual energy is known as the raw matter. It is the fundamental force with which the alchemist has to work. Now alchemy, of course, also has a very ancient history. And we know that alchemy is the derivative of a couple of words that are put together: Al, which is related to Allah or the spirit, is also related to the word El in Hebrew which means “God,” and khem, or chemia, which is Greek and means “to fuse or cast a metal.” So to fuse or cast ourselves with God is the science of alchemy. Alchemy was know by another name, which is spagirism. This word, spagirism, is a combination of two words in greek: spam, which means “to extract” and agirus, which means “to reunite.”
The process of alchemy is to take the raw matter, or lead, a base metal, and extract from it what is pure; and then to take those pure elements and create something greater. We have all heard that the alchemist works to extract the gold from lead. This raw matter, in us, is Mercury, which is our own sexual energy. The alchemists called the sexual energy Mercury because it is the vehicle of the sun. In other words, it is the vehicle of the creative forces of the cosmic Christ. Mercury, as the messenger or intercessor, is the vehicle through which the three forces can work in us.
In an ancient Rosicrucian document, Mercury is called the “sophic hydrolith.” Sophic is derived from sophia, which is “wisdom.” Hydro is related to “water,” and lith is “stone.” So the sophic hydrolith, the Mercury, is "the water stone of wisdom." The physical matter of Mercury, or quicksilver, is both a stone and a liquid, and it is very heavy. It is a very powerful metal. The ancient alchemists used Mercury, the water stone of wisdom, as a symbol of the creative forces of our own sexual energy. In that alchemical tradition, Mercury is one of the most important elements that they used as a symbol of their work. The real alchemist was working to reunite himself with his own inner Christ. He was seeking to remove all that is impure from himself in order to extract the purity and unite that with God.
Mercury, as a symbol of the sexual energy, or sexual forces, is also a symbol of the waters. And in many alchemical paintings and drawings we will see Mercury within the waters, standing in waters, or rising from waters. And that is a symbol of our own sexual waters.
We also have salt, which is related to the element earth, and related to the body, and related to the human being.
And we have sulfur. sulfur is a symbol of fire.
These three elements, salt, sulfur and mercury, obviously embody the three forces. They symbolize that law of three, or the law of the triangle, which gives rise to creation.
These three elements, salt, sulfur and mercury, each contain the other three. Within the Mercury, within our own sexual energy, we have salt and we have sulfur, meaning we have earth and we have fire. Our own sexual waters of Mercury contain fire, and they contain earth, salt. In the same way in the fire itself, in the sulfur, we find salt and Mercury. This is analogous to the basic trinity of that supernal triangle. Within the Son we have the Father and the Holy Spirit, and within Holy Spirit we have the Son and the Father.
Within our own raw Mercury, which is the ultimate synthesis of mechanical nature, we find these elements. We understand from the previous lecture about the ritual of the pancatattva, that mechanical nature in our own organism revises and synthesizes energies to produce the sexual energy, or what we call the hydrogen TI-12. That hydrogen is the highest creation of mechanical nature. Mechanical nature cannot go further within us. That is the ultimate synthesis of that energy in terms of mechanical processes.
In the alchemical tradition, the energy resulting from the processes of mechanical nature is also called the ens seminis, which means the entity of the semen. And semen in Gnosis means sexual energy in either a man or a woman. It's not exclusively masculine.
We find that within our own ens seminis, our own sexual forces, we have the law of three. We have salt, sulfur and Mercury. The ovum and the sperm are in themselves the salt, related to our own body. Within that ovum and sperm we have fire, which is that creative potential of the Christ, which is the sulfur, the fire. So, the sexual waters that we have within, have the salt, and they have the fire. These elements are really important and are that law of three within us.
We see the same law of three when we look just at the physical body itself. Related to the testicles and ovaries, we have one that is positive, and one that is negative. Or in other words, related to the two, first two forces of that trinity. We have the third force, the equilibriating force in the coccyx, at the base of the spinal column. So, within our own physical organism we have that law of three.
Within the ens seminis, within that raw Mercury, which is the untransmuted, brute Mercury, the raw matter, there is another force which is called the “ens virtutis.” This is Latin for the “virtue” or the real strength and power which is contained within that sexual force. Virtutis is related to virtue and virility. It is the light, the heat, the fire of the being.
The alchemists tell us that we need to place the raw Mercury in a crucible. A crucible is a vessel, in the alchemical tradition. But the name crucible is closely related with the cross, or crux, a very sacred symbol. The crucible is the cup within which we contain and hold the sexual force. From that cup, the sexual works, we can create. But there are different ways to create with that energy.
In the gospels, the master Jesus tells us:
Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of god.
What do we understand from that? We understand the water is Mercury. Water is our sexual force. The spirit is the ens virtutis. It is the force of the Being, the Innermost, our own inner God, the Holy Spirit, as well, which is that fire contained within the ens seminis. And the master Jesus continues and says:
That which is born of the flesh, is flesh. And that which is born of the spirit, is spirit.
What this tells us is that there are two fundamental ways to utilize the sexual force. We can create physically, meaning that we create sexually, and something is born of the flesh. And what is born of the flesh, is flesh, and obviously this would be a child; to create children, which is something we all know how to do very easily. But he says there is another way to create from the water and the spirit. And that is, to create something spiritual. Something that is related to the spirit, to our own inner process, our own inner divinity. So the man, the masculine force, the male, combined with the woman, the lunar force, the receptive force; those two equilibriated with the forces of the Holy Spirit, or sexuality, have the power to create, but to create of the flesh or of the spirit. These are two different things.
Now we've studied how that sexual energy arises in us, and how those waters that we have, the hydro, the hydrogen is a generating power, or a creative power. Within the sexual water is fire. The sexual waters contain the fire of the Holy Spirit. And that fire must act. We all know very well how powerful a force sexual energy is in us. The sexual energy completely motivates without us being able to really resist it. It's very powerful. It's the center of gravity of all human activity. If you look in the root of all human action, you will find sex. That energy, that fire, which is the root of the process of every atom and every molecule and every cell, is also the root of our own behavior. Unfortunately, we don't know how to use it in the right way. And that fire which pushes us to act and use it, is pushing us to act in accordance with the conditioning of our own psyche.
The Law
In previous lectures we've discussed how we as an organism come to be. Our own spirit, our own monad, that divine spark, projects itself into matter. And we as a soul or as an embryo of soul, gradually develop through successive kingdoms in nature. We, in other words, evolve as an organism from the mineral kingdom, to the plant kingdom, to the animal kingdom. And through that path, we build the mind. We become a more sophisticated type of creature.
Once in the animal kingdom, we have an animal mind, which is driven by instinct. And we see in the animal kingdom how sex is an instinctive process, and the animals obey their instinct without question. That is because they do not have reasoning. They are driven by instinctive forces and act upon the energies that manifest in them, without questioning it. The animals, however, that are free of our influence, obey those instinctive forces in accordance with the laws of nature. So in the spring, the Sun moves higher into the sky and the sexual force rises, and demands to act. The animals copulate in order to extend the production of their own species. Once they've succeeded in that act, those forces subside until the next cycle. Animals obey. They use sexuality in accordance with those laws to which they are subjected. And they do not break the law. Now the exception to that are the animals that have been infected with our behaviors, which is another story.
When those embryos of soul graduate out of the animal kingdom and enter into the humanoid kingdom, they receive a new tool, which we call reasoning, or intellect. We are intellectual animals. We have that same animal mind, which is an instinctive mind. The only difference between us and any beast is that we can rationalize. We can reason. We can justify. So, we who have that animal mind, are driven, truly, by instinct. Yet we do not recognize that because we justify our instinct. We justify our desires, our passions. The intellectual animal is the only animal which uses sex for pleasure. The intellectual animal is the only animal that is destroying its own habitat, it is the only animal which is destroying the habitat of others, at random, without cause. This is because we have become so corrupt in our psyche, corrupt by desire, and an attraction towards sensation.
There is in nature a law called the law of the pendulum. Within nature we have many types of sensation. We have sensations we would call pleasant, or good, and we have sensations we would call negative, or unpleasant, or bad. The creatures of the animal kingdom experience all these types of sensations, and they know what pain is, and they know what pleasure is. Yet, the human intellectual animal rationalizes and reasons and becomes addicted to sensation. We taste, or experience a particular sensation that we like, and we want to have it again, so we seek that sensation, and we want to repeat that sensation. So, likewise with unpleasant or negative sensations, we want to avoid them, and to stay away from them. But the law of the pendulum is a law which manages energy. And as you know, if you take a pendulum, which is a weight that is hanging on a thread or a string, if you push it one way, it will naturally have to come back the other way, in order to reach balance, which is in the middle. But it will always swing towards the other side and back again before reaching balance.
When we, as a mind, are constantly pushing towards pleasure, towards pleasant sensation, we are setting up a natural response in nature, where that pendulum must swing back the other direction in order to have balance. Do you see the three forces there? You see the positive, or impulsive force, which is pushing. You have the negative, or receptive force, which must respond. And you have the force of balance, which is the middle. But we as a psyche or as a mind are so attached to that positive, or pleasant sensation or force, that we ignore the other two. We do not realize that if we experience something pleasant, we will naturally, and very quickly experience the opposite. Pleasure and pain are two sides of the same experience. You cannot have one without the other. It is impossible. It is a law of nature.
The one who seeks to immerse themselves in pleasure is setting themselves up to be immersed in pain. This is the fundamental truth of the teachings of the Buddha, who taught that the only path is the path of the middle, which is the equilibrium between the extremes of good and bad.
The teachings of the Buddha, and the teachings of the Tao, and the teachings of the Cosmic Christ in all its forms express this truth: be indifferent, treat all phenomena as the same. Whether in pleasure or in pain, be the same one. Do not be attached to the extremes. That is the way of the balanced man, the fourth way, the way of the Tao. We need to know how to manage the extremes of the pendulum and be in the middle. This is how you balance the scale of life. We need to learn how to receive pleasant sensations and unpleasant sensations with the same fundamental reaction, which is really indifference.
In the midst of this, we have within us a sexual fire, which must act. But we, as a consciousness, as a soul, are trapped within this animal mind, which is driven by the instinctive desire for pleasant sensation. Our instinctive desire causes us to use the fire in the wrong way. And we use our intellect to rationalize and justify our behavior.
A crude example would be alcohol. We know very well that alcohol is destructive for our organism. We know very well that alcohol destroys the cells of our brain, it corrupts the processes of our mind, it forms addictions in our instinct, and yet, we rationalize our use of it. "Well, I am only drinking socially." "Well, it's a birthday party" or "It's a wedding." "Well, I like it, and I can control it." This is pride. Lust. Gluttony. We justify our addiction to sensation, and we rationalize our addiction to sensation. We use the sexual force for pleasure, and we justify ourselves.
We ignore the laws given by the Cosmic Christ in every tradition. What is that fundamental law?
Thou shalt not fornicate.
And yet we do, and we justify that by using the same scripture. We say, "Well, God said we must be fruitful and multiply." But we ignore the meaning of that scripture, which is to be fruitful of the Spirit, to come to know Him.
In the same scripture He tells us, very directly, that to have an emission of semen is to become unclean. And yet we justify our emission or our release of sexual energy. The desire for sexual sensation is very potent, and when combined with our own animal mind, and our intellectual rationalization, we seek to use that fire to satisfy our craving for sensation. What we fail to see is the law of the pendulum.
Desire
If you have a fire that's raging in your house, what will happen if you throw gasoline on it? It will get worse. And yet, every time we experience and feel a craving for sensation, this is precisely what we do. We feed that desire.
We feel the desire to eat chocolate cake, which in itself may not be harmful. But if we're diabetic, if we have health problems, we feel the desire to eat sugar. What will happen when we eat it? We will worsen our own problem. And that's precisely what we do. We justify our desire. "Oh it's only a little cake. I'll work out, I'll exercise, and then it'll be OK." This is how we justify our own crimes against ourselves. And we do the same thing with the sexual energy. "Oh it's just a one-night stand. We both understand it's just for now." Instead of having “Mister Right” or “Missus Right,” we have “Mister Right Now” or “Missus Right Now.” There is no commitment there. There is no understanding of what we are really doing to ourselves and to each other. We are using the sexual force, which is the expression of the Cosmic Christ, a holy force and energy, and we are using that for our own animalistic pleasure. This is a crime against the Holy Spirit.
Instead of tempering and controlling that fire, we feed it. We feel the desire to experience the sensations of sexuality, which drives us to masturbate, or to find a partner in order to dive into those sensations. And we fail to realize that by doing so, we feed that desire, and strengthen its control over us. Our animal mind is a raging beast that wants to be fed sensations. When we feed it those sensations, the beast becomes stronger.
Worse of all, we forget that the sexual fire creates. The Mercury contains the three forces, which create. We know physically we create children when we combine the male and the female with the sexual act. So if we engage in the sexual act in the house of desire, in the house of passion, or if we commit the crime of masturbation, we use that sexual force to create, but what are we creating?
The sexual fire must create, because that is its very reason to be. The sexual fire only exists to create. But if it is creating under the influence of desire, it can only create more desire. So what does it create? By utilizing sexual energy under the will of lust, it creates lust. When that sexual fire is caught within the processes of our own anger, that fire creates more anger. When we use the imagination to visualize and imagine images of sexuality, and we masturbate, or have the sexual act, that fire is creating mental formations of lust within our own mind. This is how we create the ego.
In alchemy, this is called Dry Mercury. It is Dry Mercury because it does not have the pure energies of the Holy Spirit. It is corrupted Mercury. It is the forces of the sun, inverted, and creating in hell.
This in turn corrupts our own sulfur, and creates in us what is known in alchemy as arsenic sulfur. Arsenic suphur is poisoned fire. In Gnosticism, this is called kundabuffer. This is an ancient term which is related to that descending fire symbolized by the tail of satan. This is a negatively polarized fire, sexual fire, which descends from the coccyx downward.
The addiction to sensation combined with the wrong use of sexual energy results in the creation of the ego. The ego is pride, anger, gluttony, envy, fear, resentment, self-love, self-hate, laziness, all those aspects of our psyche that we think of as “ourselves.” This is “Passion,” the number fifteen in the book of Tarot, which is the devil. The devil is that tempting force of the descending serpent. The devil is none other that the kundabuffer, the negative serpent of sexuality, which tempts us to feed it through identification with sensation. The devil is within us.
When our reasoning becomes enslaved by desire, when we succumb to temptation, when we continue to feed it through wrong action, through wrong thinking, through wrong feeling, we feed the devil. We give that fire to the devil, and we make him stronger. This is how we devolve. We degenerate. To generate is to create positively, to degenerate is to destroy. Sexual energy is a polarity. It is a fire or a force which must act. But as a polarity, it can either create or destroy. If it is harnessed by desire and self-will, it destroys the mind. The sexual energy destroys by creating destructive elements, which we know as aggregates or egos. The moment we, as a human organism or an intellectual animal, begin to act in this way, is the moment we begin to degenerate ourselves. That is the meaning of the story of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel. We succumb to temptation, to identification with sensation, we swing the law of the pendulum, we create the ego. We begin to destroy our own psyche. We are expelled from Eden, and our desire kills the soul.
With each ego that we create, each mental formation, we trap our own spirit. When the ens seminis, that creative water, is used to create with desire, it creates a shell, it creates a formation. And within it is trapped the fire, or that ens virtutis, that ens seminis, that water. The spirit, the consciousness, is trapped inside that shell. Through the creation and manifestation of mental formations related to lust, when that's fed through masturbation and sexuality, those formations take on a form of life, false life, but they become entities or creatures within our own mind. In Latin, these are called incubi and succubi. The masturbator who imagines a sexual partner and directs their sexual energy towards that desire, is feeding their creative force to a mental formation, which creates a false elemental, or a false creation in nature, which wants to be fed. And that mental formation, that incubus or succubus belongs to that person, is the child of that person, that wants to be fed, and wants to be fed by what it was created with, which is sexual energy. That's why those desires only become stronger the more we feed them. They only want more food. And when we stop feeding them, when we try to contain our own sexual force, they become enraged, and we become very unhappy, because that fire is burning and wants to be used. This is also why we become more and more dissatisfied with sex, and need more and more extreme and intense sensations.
To behave that way, and to be enslaved by those desires degenerates the mind. We cease to evolve, we begin to devolve. Evolution in itself cannot perfect anyone because evolution is only one side of the coin. Evolution and devolution are two sides of the same wheel. In order to really change, in order to become what we should be, we have to free ourselves of the pendulum of evolution and devolution. The only way to do that is to have a revolution: to step off the wheel. To step off the wheel of evolution and devolution means we have to walk the middle path. This requires that we renounce addiction to sensation, and aversion. Craving and aversion must both be transcended. To establish oneself in the Tao, in the middle, starts in the proper use of the sexual energy.
We have to realize that our ego, this mind that we have created, cannot enter into heaven. God cannot mix with our pride, with our lust, with our envy. We as we are now cannot enter into those realms because the ego that we have has nothing to do with God. It is our creation. That's why the master Jesus said:
"Ye must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect."
We are not perfect, we are corrupted. We are corrupted by our own desires, and our evil will. We have to transform ourselves. And if we look at the tradition of alchemy, the way to do that is that we must take the sulfur, the fire, and fecundate the Mercury in order for the salt to be regenerated. This means that, for the salt, or the body -- us -- to be regenerated, to regenerate, to recreate, to be Self-realized, we have to fecundate the Mercury or impregnate the Mercury, the sexual waters with the fire. We have to take the fire of the Holy Spirit and perfect our own Mercury.
Regeneration
We regenerate ourselves by harnessing the creative forces of the sex. The creative forces are used to create a superior vehicle, a new birth which transcends the limitations of physical matter. The same sexual forces are also directed to destroy the impure matter, the lead of the ego.
The path towards regeneration starts when we learn how to liberate the soul of the Mercury. The soul of the Mercury is the ens virtutis. It is that fire, or light of the Being, which is within our own sexual waters. How will we free the ens virtutis, the light or fire of the Being from the ens seminis or our own sexual waters, if we do not have it? If we expel the sexual water from our own organism, how will we extract the ens virtutis, or that light, that fire? We cannot. If there is no water in the cup, we cannot drink from it. In order to extract the metallic soul from the Mercury, to regenerate the human being, we have to fill the cup with water. And that's why the crucible, in alchemy, or in other words the Holy Grail, is always depicted filled with that sacred liquid. This is called the “Mercury of the wise.” That liquid, the ens seminis, contains the ens virtutis, which is that metallic soul that must be extracted. In alchemical terms, we have to perform the action of sublimation. To sublimate means “to transform a solid into a gas.” We have to transform the sexual waters into something more refined. Mechanical nature cannot do it. Mechanical nature can only give you the raw matter of the work, but to extract the ens virtutis is a work of willpower. To contain and hold that fire, those waters, and to extract the ens virtutis, or the metallic soul.
Some people confuse this with the term “celibacy.” We have to understand that celibacy is commonly defined in the wrong way. To merely hold the sexual water inside is impossible, because the fire which is within the water must act. That is why priests, monks and nuns who try to force celibacy upon themselves degenerate their own mind. That is why these days we have priests who are abusing children and who are having sex secretly in their monasteries and churches, through masturbation, through homosexuality, and other forms of abuse. They have forgotten or were never taught the proper method to transform that energy.
Someone who is single, who does not have a spouse, needs to learn techniques in order to transform that contained energy. Otherwise, the fire within that water will burn them. The priests of the middle ages, of the inquisition, were corrupted by their own waters, by the fire within that water. They became fanatic, and they began to kill and torture, believing they were doing good. That was a direct result of the wrong use of sexual energy. Likewise, any kind of sexual misconduct results in misbehavior in other ways, psychologically. Fanaticism, violence, both internal and external, can be traced back to the wrong use of sexual energy. There are a lot of people nowadays who believe they are doing good and serving God when they kill people. And this is because their own sexual fire is being directed in the wrong way.
One of the symbols of Mercury is the caduceus. This symbol shows us two serpents entwined, forming a holy eight. In Hinduism, these two serpents are called ida and pingala. They are solar and lunar serpents. One is solar, one is lunar. Meaning, one is positive and one is negative in terms of polarization. These two serpents symbolize subtle channels or canals, which ascend from the coccyx up towards the brain. They ascend up the spinal column on either side and connect with the nostrils of our organism. These two channels or canals are pathways for energy to flow. But in the common person, the negative one, or the lunar serpent is fallen.
The feminine or negative serpent is called Eve in esoteric Christianity, and it is called ida in Sanskrit. It is the force or influence in our psyche which pushes for procreation. It pushes us to procreate, to create children. And by being identified with that temptation, we spill our own sexual force and we elaborate the ego within us.
When we learn how to contain the sexual energy, to transform it by using techniques taught in Tantra and in esoteric alchemy, we learn how to take the sexual water, to hold it in the cup of the sexual organs, and to sublimate it, to transform it into a gas. That gas or those vapors rise up through these two channels, ida and pingala. This is an act of willpower. We learn how to contain that energy, to use our willpower in order to sublimate that water into a gas. This is closely related with the breath, with how we breathe, with prana, energy.
In Greek mythology, in the story of Mercury, he finds two serpents fighting. The two serpents are ida and pingala. The solar serpent, pingala, Adam, which is rising towards the Being, is related with the consciousness, with our own spirit. The negative serpent of eve is descending and pushing for procreation. These two serpents are fighting with each other in our own psyche. Mercury sees these two serpents fighting. He comes with his rod, his staff, the symbol of willpower and kingship, and a symbol of the spinal column. He places his staff between the two serpents, which causes them to equilibriate. Equilibrium is brought through the middle way, with willpower. This is what forms the famous symbol of the caduceus of Mercury. And when the rod is placed, the globe at the top of the rod shines, and the wings of the spirit are born. This is the famous symbol of the caduceus of Mercury.
Obviously the symbol contains the entire teaching of alchemy and the path to regenerate. When we harness the metallic soul of the Mercury, that vapor, we raise it up the serpents of ida and pingala. And when those serpents are restored and met together, we achieve a degree of equilibrium, a balance.
The couple, man and wife, who work together to cross the Mercury of their own bodies produce something new. They create of the spirit rather than of the body, of the flesh. That raw Mercury crossed between the masculine and feminine results in a new force, called the kundalini. This is the fire of the Pentacost. The fire is freed from where it is contained at the base of the spinal column, and can raise up the spinal column and begin to free the spirit from its cage, in the ego. Of course that process is widely discussed in Hinduism and Buddhism, but it is very poorly understood in the West.
Kundalini
The process of freeing that energy begins to awaken capacities that we have within that are now dormant. The single person who is working to restore this balance just in themselves, without working with a partner, works to bring sparks of light or fire through ida and pingala and can illuminate those magnetic centers which sit along the path of the spinal column, which we call chakras, churches. Those sparks of light can produce visions, can produce experiences, comprehension. But to really awaken that fire of the kundalini requires cooperation between husband and wife, masculine and feminine. Those polarities, positive and negative, have to be combined with the conciliating force of the Holy Spirit. That's how the law of three creates something new, in the right way.
When the fire of the Kundalini is awakened, it begins to rise in the spinal column, up the thirty-three vertebrae in accordance with the merits of the heart. The fire that is awakened there is the living intelligence of God. It has nothing to do with mechanical nature. This fire is awakened under the guidance of your own Being, not of your own will. A single person working on their own cannot awaken the kundalini because they don't have the forces to do it. The couple who work together in chastity, meaning, containing the sexual energy, not wasting it, not spilling it, begin to extract the metallic soul of the sperm. That vapor can then produce the fecundation of the Mercury. This is what the alchemists meant when they said that the sulfur, the fire must fecundate the Mercury for the salt to be regenerated. The fire, or the sulfur can only fecundate the Mercury between husband and wife.
When the fire rises up the spinal column, it awakens the chakras in a course of degrees. At the base of the spinal column we have the muladhara chakra, which is related with the church of ephesus in the book of Revelation. Muladhara is the root, or the foundation. When the fire passes through that root, it rises up to the church of smyrna, which is the chakra svadhisthana, which is related with the water. We then rise up to manipura, related to the fire, and the church of pergamus. Then the fire reaches the level of the heart, related to the chakra anahata, related with the church of thyatira in the book of Revelation. We then reach the throat, related to the church of sardis and the chakra vishuddha, which means purity. At the level of the pituitary gland between the eyebrows, we have the chakra ajna, which is related with the church of philadelphia, and this is related to strength and power and courage. And at the top of the head, the church laodicea, which is the chakra sahasrara, the chakra of a thousand petals, also known as the halo of the saints, the crown of the saints. These seven chakras, which are related with seven magnetic centers, and related with the Kabbalistic world of Assiah, and the spinal column, are those powers which are related with the seven consciousnesses that we have to awaken.
By transmuting the sexual energy, we saturate the seven churches and the seven chakras, and we begin to awaken other senses. We have five physical senses, which we know very well. With the rising of the kundalini, we awaken seven more. This gives us the twelve senses or the twelve fruits of the Tree of Life which are mentioned in the book of Revelation. And these include: polyvoyance, powers of astral travel, to remember past lives, to have clairaudience, clairvoyance, etc.
The fire of the kundalini, the fire of the Holy Spirit, rises in the central column of the spine, which has a very subtle nervous thread called shushumna in Sanskrit. These nervous threads, or nadis, of ida, pingala and sushumna are semi-physical. You can't find them physically; if you go with a scalpel and try to find them, you won’t. They are related closely with our internal physiology.
In the same way that when we put the man and the woman in the crucible, the alchemical vessel, in order to create a child, physically, to create something of the flesh, we also put the man and the woman in the crucible in order to create of the spirit. And when the man and the woman are placed in the vessel, and they save and contain the waters of Mercury, and we apply heat, or sexual fire to that vessel, steam is created. The steam is the metallic soul of the sperm, which is being extracted. The steam, through the combination of male and female, fecundates the Mercury itself, which produces the arising of the kundalini. The fecundated Mercury is what creates the soul. The fecundated Mercury, or the Mercury that has been perfectly fused with sulfur, with fire, is what creates the internal bodies: the solar astral body, the solar mental body, and the solar causal body. This is how one is born again; by combining the water and the spirit, in accordance with the instructions given by the master Jesus.
In the same way that we create a physical body in the physical plane, we create internal bodies in the internal planes. But to create those internal bodies, we have to save the sexual forces, to use them in the right way.
This is what the apostle Paul meant when he was wrote that he has the power of abstinence. It means that he is liberating the soul of the Mercury in order to fecundate the Mercury. He also says:
"Those who do not have this power, and do not want to be burned, have to be married."
He is saying that, to be married, one must be in a marriage, to be working together in order to not be burned, to use that energy in the right way. But he says further:
"Being married, you have to be as you were when you were single."
Meaning, be married, be connected with the spouse, but do not waste the sexual force. Do not cross the raw Mercury in order to create physically. Cross the raw Mercury in order to create spiritually, internally. This is why it is impossible for us to have the second birth, to be born again, if we spill the sexual forces, if we waste them.
The fecundation of that fire, the fecundated Mercury, which is the result of the crossing of the man and the woman, raises the kundalini in the spinal column of the physical body. The excess of that energy goes on to raise in the serpents of each internal body: the vital, the astral, the mental, the causal, etc. Each succeeding octave produces new creations related to the soul, and this is how we are born again.
"The Mercury is the metallic soul of the exiohehari, the metallic soul of the sacred sperm, which must recieve the fire in order to rise. It is the sulfured Mercury that rises through the medullar spinal canal opening the chakras, the magnetic centers of the human being. The surplus of sulfured Mercury crystallizes in the astral body. It gives life to the astral body. Thereafter it crystallizes in the mental body, and finally it crystallizes in the causal body, or the body of conscious will. Whosoever possesses the physical, astral, mental and causal bodies, receives the spiritual principles and becomes a true human being. Before having them, one is an intellectual animal falsely called a human being." - Samael Aun Weor, The Kabbalah of Mayan Mysteries.
That fecundated fire causes changes in the psyche of the one who is utilizing it. When that fire awakens, we call it the Advent of the Fire, and it is the most important event in the life of any intellectual animal. The fire awakens and brings with it six mystical experiences.
The first one in Sanskrit is called ananda, which means bliss, and this relates to a kind of spiritual happiness which is not dependant on any kind of sensation. It is a natural and spontaneous joy which arises in the psyche, purely due to having that fire within, and has nothing to do with any kind of external phenomena or suffering.
Kampan is an electric and magnetic, spiritual hyper-sensibility.
Utan is the increase of self awareness, astral projection, mystical experiences.
Gurnee is a very strong spiritual longing.
Murcha is a spontaneous relaxation, particularly related to meditation.
And Nidra, which is a very specific way of combining drowsiness with attentiveness in order to meditate, and experience that which we know of as Tao or Brahma.
These six mystical experiences occur in degrees related to the degrees of awakening the kundalini. So as we raise the kundalini related to the physical body, we experience these six mystical experiences in that level. And as the kundalini is raised in the vital body, we have those six experiences to a greater degree. And successively, as we raise up the seven bodies of the soul. That fire which produces them is the fire of Jehovah, the fire of love, the pentacostal fire, which is raised above the apostles in the book of Acts. It is that root fire which illuminates the halo that we see upon the heads of all the saints, whether in the east or the west. Those fires are the fires of the Christ. Chokmah, wisdom, the sophia, that fire which gives us wisdom. The fire rises in us in accordance with the merits of our own heart. In other words, with sanctity, with psychological purity.
We know very well that the ego cannot mix with god. The kundalini, the fire of the Holy Spirit can only awaken in us as we become perfected psychologically. This is how we are raising the fire little by little; by changing our evil deeds for right action. We change according to how we understand and comprehend our own mind, the law of the pendulum that exists within us, and that fire which pushes us to act. By utilizing our will, we begin to control the energies behind every action that we undertake, whether that action is physical, emotional, or mental. That is why we need to work with our heart; to clean ourselves of impure motivation, or ego. This is how we are born again: through sanctity of the mind, through chastity of the sexual force and through sacrificing for others.
When we combine the man who has those three forces in the physical body, positive and negative in his testicles, and equilibriating in his coccyx, and he is the embodiment of the solar, or positive force. We combine the man with the woman, who has the positive and the negative in her ovaries, and has the equilibriating force in her coccyx. She is the embodiment of the receptive, or receiving force. These two combined with the law of the balance, the Tao, the Holy Spirit, combine those two triangles to form the Seal of Solomon, which is the most perfect symbol of the central sun of the Christ. The master Samael Aun Weor wrote that each time the eternal geometrist fixes his attention on one point in space, from that point emerges the glorious star which announces the birth of a new state of consciousness, the archetype of a being, a globe, a star, or a sun. And that glorious star is the Seal of Solomon, which is the perfect symbol of the Christic sun. That work is realized by working with Mercury in accordance with the laws given by the cosmic Christ.
The combination of these two triangles occurs through the cross. So we place the cross in the center, and we have the perfect symbol.
Questions and Answers
Audience: Is it harmful or contagious if one partner is only practicing at the same time?
Instructor: You mean one person is transmuting their sexual energy and one is not? It's difficult, but it is possible.
Audience: Is it harmful?
Instructor: Samael Aun Weor indicated that if someone is in a marriage, and only one member of that marriage wants to perform alchemy, and transmute their sexual forces, then they should do so, and they can still advance in their own work.
Audience: So you can build an astral body?
Instructor: You can create internally that way.
Audience: But I thought you needed both forces.
Instructor: You do, but the force of the man and the woman are crossed there. The one who is not doing the work isn't going to create something inside themselves.
Audience: That person is fornicating?
Instructor: That's right. They will not create any internal bodies.
Audience: It doesn't affect the other person?
Instructor: It doesn't affect the one who is transmuting their energy. It won't be as potent, because that creation that is happening inside of you is happening inside of you, and as a male, you have that solar force. You need the feminine force to complete that circuit inside yourself. But of course if she's working in the same way, you'll have more force.
Audience: It's what Paul says in the bible: if your spouse doesn't believe, don't reject her.
Instructor: Right. In the bible, Paul indicates that. If your spouse does not agree, and doesn't believe in that, you should not reject them. Because you may in time, or with your example, be able to save them too.
Audience: Yes, Paul is called Mercury in accordance to the Romans, they call him Mercury.
Instructor: Oh, that's interesting, because he's the one who elaborates about the use of the sexual force.
Audience: Are the chakras and the churches the exact same thing, or are they just closely related?
Instructor: They're related to each other. The way that you can understand it, is that: The church is like the pot and the chakra is the flower.
Audience: When you said that the spinal cord being connected to the nostrils, is it connected, like, through the top of the head or just cuts across the skull?
Instructor: The nadis of ida and pingala connect between the sexual organs and the nostrils.
Audience: But how exactly does it connect between...
Instructor: Just energetically. They're energetic channels.
Audience: So it's not physically?
Instructor: No, it's not physically. Through energetic channels. The body is filled with millions of channels. Physically, of course, we know, but also energetically. The body on the physical level has electricity, but that same organization of energy exists in the vital body, where you have millions of channels of energy, but the primary ones are related with the spinal column. And the central column we have, shushumna which is related to the kundalini, and we have ida and pingala, which relate to it and form that law of three in our own spinal column. But those are all connected to the breath. The breath is where we draw in solar light, and prana. We combine that with the vapors of the Mercury in order to illuminate our own consciousness.
Audience: I was asking because I wanted to know how to visualize that when doing an exercise.
Instructor: Yes, you can just visualize the connection or the relationship of the energies that are rising up from your sexual organs and being combined with the energies that you breath in through the air. And that combination is happening in this gaseous sublimation of the waters, whether you're single or working as a couple, the same is occurring there, the combination of elements. So you see the similar process in just the mechanical nature that we talked about in the pancatattva ritual, where you see the body taking certain elements and combining it with others in order to enact a process of refinement. So, that's mechanical, but when you apply your willpower to that, by performing pranayama, or by performing White Tantra, which is those practices of the couple with the retention of the energy, then you're doing what's called a conscious work. You're working with conscious laws, not mechanical laws. It's not a mechanical process. It doesn't happen on its own. It happens by acting consciously in accordance with the will of your own Being. And when you perform that action, the will of your own Being, and His energy and His intelligence can enact and facilitate the arising of these forces. So it's analogous to the mechanical processes, but it's entirely a conscious process, meaning, it will not happen on its own.
Audience: Yes, but you want to contain the mechanical process of it even though you’re going to be interrupted constantly by the mind, you want to keep doing the deep breath...
Instructor: You have to keep bringing conscious will into these processes, even the mechanical ones, that why we use, in the pancatattva ritual, we learn to use the mantra Krim, which is to bring our conscious will into that mechanical process in order to refine it further, to perfect it. Of course.. Yes?
Audience: What does arcanum mean? In this lecture you speak of arcanum A.Z.F.
Instructor: Arcanum is an ancient word. It has several different meanings. Commonly, we understand it as a mystery, or something that is only known by the initiated. Arcana, or arcane is indicating an esoteric knowledge or an esoteric truth. An arcanum is really related to a law. We have the twenty two arcana (which is plural) of the tarot, we have the great arcanum (singular) which is the mysteries of alchemy or White Tantra, so that is, those arcana are truths or esoteric laws that form the basis of real religion. And that is symbolized and hidden in the ark of the covenant. The arcanum of the covenant. And also in the ark or arcanum of Noah, which is that esoteric truth. And the archaeus of the Greeks, which is that fecondating or creative field or chaos of energy from which the solar bodies are born.
Audience: So what is the A.Z.F?
Instructor: The A.Z.F is related to the law of three. These are three fundamental forces which are related to the salt, the sulfur and the Mercury. Related to azoth, to fuego or fire, and to Agua or water. There are many meanings behind the A.Z.F. but it's an alchemical symbol.
Audience: When we're visualizing the energy rising through the channels during transmutation for bachelors, should we visualize the channels crossing each other? Do they only cross once?
Instructor: The master samael explains that the channels of ida and pingala intercross one another and form three eights. So if you draw three figures number eight and stack them on top of each other, that is the proper visualization of that channel, those channels. The visualization is effective and is useful to help with concentration and with deepening of one's own meditation and understanding. But some people struggle with the visualization. The main thing is to relax, to perform the pranayama, to breath, and to pray.
Audience: Focusing on a candle or one object is not recommended during a pranayama?
Instructor: You can do it then too. With pranayama, of course, you can concentrate on an object, there's no problem. And you can combine it with mantras.
Audience: Can you let the breath pull up the energy and get the same effect?
Instructor: The process of breathing when harnessed with conscious will, when it's done consciously and with attention, can be used as a simple transmutation. You can go for a walk, and be aware and attentive, and you're breathing and you're transmuting. You can sing and be transmuting. But that has to be something that you're aware of doing. The reason is, the breath, in us, is already polarized negatively. We breathe in, we inhale and then we exhale, right? But the way those energies are polarized in us is the opposite of what it should be because of the nature of our psyche. So we use a mantra called Ham Sah, a kind of pranayama. And when we breathe in, we pronounce the mantra Ham. And that is actually the opposite of the way we normally breathe. When we normally breathe, we're breathing Sah, breathing in. So we want to invert that. Many schools nowadays teach this pranayama as Sah Ham. So they teach you to breathe in and pronounce the mantra Sah, but we're already doing that. And it's negative, and it's not helping us to regenerate. So that's why in Gnosis, we understand that we need to practice it as Ham breathing in, and Sah breathing out. We have to invert that process. And that's just a matter of conscious will.
Audience: Oh, isn't Ham Sah a swan in Gnosis?
Instructor: Yes. That's one of the meanings of the mantra. That Kalahamsah swan is an ancient Hindu symbol of the Holy Spirit. It is the pure white swan which floats upon the waters. The waters, of course, are a symbol of the sexual waters. And that swan is a symbol, like in Christianity, the dove, the Holy Spirit who floats upon those waters. This is related to the Ruach Elohim from the book of Genesis, which is that spirit floating on the waters who creates.
Audience: Should the sah be pronounced like a whisper?
Instructor: Yes, on the exhalation the sah is [whispered] "sah." It is soft.
