NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR

Whoever reads this book expecting to find an informative essay on "sugarcoated" commercial esotericism will be greatly disappointed.

The Stellar Man is about a science more elevated than any now known, and what it can do for mankind.

This wisdom, the true origin of all knowledge, represents the highest treasure that the human being can ever succeed in possessing in this or any other century, on the planet Earth or anywhere else in the far reaches of the Universe. It is the arte magnum, the perfect vision of the essential reality of Nature, which encompasses developing the capacity to see oneself objectively, and evaluating the true level of development of one's own instrument of knowledge, the mind. All knowledge, in order to be true, has to be based on man's internal reality, and has to be integrated into a wise, just, omnipresent, immortal, and eternal nature.

The ability to see reality is not a congenital capacity. The human being is only able to observe the map that he himself created from a subjective, limited, and rationalized interpretation.

This process creates a personalized pseudoreality, of which there are as many as there are inhabitants of this planet. I call this imaginative creation "social reality," since in practice, the individual is a mere cultural resonator and an appendage of the collective psyche of humanity. This is why people live "halfway" and are a mixture of good and bad; why they are a little asleep and a little awake; why they are insignificant even with all their delusions of grandeur. In other words, they do not live profoundly and cannot even grasp the overwhelming significance of this fact. They just graze the surface of the planet and the epidermis of knowledge.

According to tradition, more than twenty centuries ago, the greatest sage of all lived on our planet; Hermes Trismegistus, the three times great. His Teaching, being of extraterrestrial origin, was called Hermeticism. Its objective is the profound knowledge of oneself and of the Universe. According to Hermes, the microcosmos and the macrocosmos are analogous, which is why the conscious penetration into one's own Universe will also lead the student to universal wisdom. The characteristic of this knowledge is that it transcends time and space, and corresponds to the secret anatomy of Nature, which like God, has neither beginning nor end.

When Hermes wanted to transmit his teachings to a chosen few, he found himself faced with the problem of the limitations of language, which is descriptive and informationally based. This inherent disability made human language inadequate to meet the desired end, since all authentic wisdom is "meaningful" and not "informational." It can only be comprehended at the level of BEING, and not through merely intellectual faculties.

 

For this reason, an unknown language had to be used, different from the language of people and nations. It is a "language of meaning," that emanates exclusively from a potent mind at the level of higher consciousness, and which far exceeds the habitual condition of man. The "language of the Gods" was the only means that could assure the comprehension of that sublime teaching.

Hermes started to transmit his Teaching in great secrecy, choosing only the most prepared as his students, due to the great difficulty that such a magnum opus entailed. In time, he succeeded in forming a few inheritors and continuers, Masters who formed an Initiatic School. They formed an occult fraternity that fulfilled its work behind the scenes and in silence. They knew that there were many neophytes who were guided by greed and ambition to obtain unlimited personal power to satisfy sordid passions, rather than a genuine spiritual or philosophical restlessness.

Many of those who gained admission into this School failed in their tests and their twisted intention and absolute lack of ethics became evident over time. The possession of ethics was an indispensable condition to be chosen to receive the highest level of instruction.

The limited and superficial information that these pretenders thus obtained became the basis for the birth of a false and spurious esotericism. It was based on speculation and superstition, and its dissemination is the foundation of the immense majority of what today is erroneously known as "magic," "occultism," and so forth. True and sacred occultism was the knowledge of Hermes, hidden from those who have not succeeded in mastering the language of the Gods, and from those who, owing to their own limitations, pride, and pettiness, were not concerned with developing their higher consciousness.

What is certain is that despite the time and difficulties, a few Masters with the necessary power and wisdom to confer Hermetic initiation have existed in every epoch. This initiation is a mystical and transcendental event that offers the individual a certain opportunity to cross the threshold that leads to the path towards spiritual perfection and cosmic wisdom. If the individual triumphs in such an undertaking, he becomes a Stellar Man.

 

This represents the highest goal that Homo sapiens can aspire to, and which corresponds to the culmination of the evolutionary process, but which the species would reach only after many thousands of years of successful development. Making this ascending leap leads the individual to completely overcome his animal condition, thereby moving him up one step on the evolutionary scale in the Universe.

 

The path of self perfection is long and arduous. There can be no other way than to pursue the attainment of authentic power over oneself and one's own existence, and to pursue the possession of a state of consciousness in which disharmony, destructiveness, ugliness, aggression, and unhappiness no longer exist.

 

The real Hermetic Initiate acquires the capacity to transcend such petty realities, to instead place himself in the unlimited and infinite context of absolute reality; that which transcends time and space. From that moment on, he will never again be defeated by hesitation, loneliness, or doubt. He will have united himself harmoniously with that unique and powerful force which is a creator and maintainer of life, what Hermes called "MIND."

The Hermetic Principle says: "The ALL is MIND; The Universe is Mental." This means that only one class of essential energy exists in the cosmos. This energy, this higher conscious and intelligent force, is divided, and projects itself into infinite vibrations and forms of life, thus maintaining the balance of creation and life of all animate and inanimate species.

The occult anatomy of the cosmos is the mechanics of Nature, whose forces reciprocally feed from and nourish man, influencing everything in his life. Knowledge, and the use of these forces, is what permits the genuine Hermeticist to act with his mind in different vital situations in order to ensure the achievement of his goals.

 

Fate does not exist; everything has a cause and effect; nothing happens by chance. True magic bears no resemblance whatsoever to superstition and witchcraft. The true magus, is a KING of his internal world which by analogy can influence the external world.

"As it is above, so it is below."

"As it is within, so it is without."

Guided by voraciousness and greed, there are many who believe that it is possible to steal the secret and usurp the magic power, supposing that it is based on the development of parapsychological faculties. Nothing is further from reality.

 

Magic is the path of the mutant.

 

It is the supreme art, which leads to one's own liberation and spiritual perfection. It is the ascending evolutionary spiral that leads the individual to the only true heaven—the one gained through one's own merit and through internal discipline—it is the legacy of Hermes. It is not possible to reach this goal without having first dominated oneself. Nature makes the candidate for immortality undergo various tests.

 

The will and character of the candidate have to be tempered silently in the forge of daily experience, until he cleanses his heart of all impurities. It is not possible to approach Isis, the mistress of the mysteries of Nature, without having first achieved a state of inner transparency. If this were not so, the candidate would end as the butterfly burned by the flame of a candle, for supreme truth blinds or burns the evildoer and the impure as much as it elevates the just and perfect.

The noble figure of Hermes, the envoy of the Gods, rises out of the remote past showing us the correct path.

You who read this book are free to make your own decision.

THE AUTHOR

Written for the 2nd edition

NOTE: The use of the masculine pronoun "he" is used throughout this book, (other than in cases that specifically refer to the masculine gender) to refer to both men and women. This was done with the aim of simplifying the sentence structure.

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I - MESSAGE FROM ISIS

"I, ISIS, mistress of the mysteries of Nature, speak to you.

You, novice who seeks to go through the gates of initiation, and you, layman who will read with idle curiosity, calm your spirit, clear your mind, calm your emotions. Get away from worldly noises, and look for shelter under the mantle of your own SELF so you may cross the threshold that leads to the abode of the magicians with no danger. Cast away your prejudices; shed your egotism; flee from personalism and rashness for an instant; analyze with serene eyes.

Do not fear aught but yourself; do not doubt but that which you analyze superficially; do not deny before meditating. Separate yourself from the multitude that obscures your ideas; be yourself and think for yourself; do not limit yourself.

You, seeker of wonder, you, candidate for initiation, do not look into the distance. Gather all your energy within yourself. Forget about India and Tibet. Do not cry out for God, Allah, or Jesus.

What you look for is right where you are at this moment. Yes, stop looking toward the outside and bury your sight deeply within yourself. Tune your perceptions, sharpen your senses, and there in the center of your being are you, your "I," your real essence, the truth behind lies, the immortal energy that gives life to the clay that is you. Look with devotion and reverence because there is light . . . and the light that blinds you is God. Listen to how it decrees: 7 am the road and the life.'

But. . . beware! You cannot contemplate God face to face without dying. Are you willing to continue? I can grant you a great gift. I offer you . . . death! Do not tremble, this death is the gift of the immortals; it is the gift of the phoenix that is gloriously reborn from its own ashes. To be, one must not be; to be born and to be, one must first die. If you achieve this, you will be called the twice born.

 

Do not scorn my offer; consider it carefully. It is better to die now than to live awaiting death. Do not believe that if you reject me you will be able to continue your path unharmed. On the contrary, all paths lead to me; ignore me and you will be like an orphan who does not know its parents. You only have two paths; either I devour you or you unite with me. Yours, and only yours, is the choice.

If you decide to be devoured, fully dedicate your life to enjoyment; drink the last drop from the cup of pleasure. Close your mind to the voice of your spirit, abandon yourself to the beast and enjoy the sensual pleasure of matter. Thus, when you are least aware, the moment of final cannibalism will arrive. Do you really believe I will take pity on you? You deceive yourself; I have no feelings. I am beyond pleasure and pain, beyond right and wrong. I am like the sun that rises in the morning to light everything equally. After your death, you will become only remains and a relic. Afterwards . . . not even that.

If you desire to marry me, you must be ready to suffer the death of initiation. You must pass the trials the terrible Sphinx will send to you without mercy in order to judge your spiritual courage and the quality of your nature. I surrender myself only to he who has reached the stage of crucifixion, resisting the attacks of the four elements. I love only those who have drunk from the cup of bitterness, of betrayal, of ridicule and mockery, of persecutions, of slander, and of defamation.

 

I love the initiates who have persisted with courage, suffering the loneliness of the spirit in the midst of a world of animals. You come to me after experiencing slander and defamation, which are the specific trials of the element of air; after blows and persecution, the trials of the element of earth; after sensual temptations and vices, which are trials of the element of water; and after dominating uncontrolled ambitions, which are the trials of fire.

This quaternary corresponds to each of the ends of the cross to which one who came to me was nailed . . . Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, others even greater have lived and live in secret; no one knows of their existence because it is better for their work.

Do not believe that in the world there exist only the once born and the twice born; unfortunately the once and a half born and the aborted ones also exist. Beware not to be taken in by their convincing lies and machiavellian language. These beings live neither in this world nor the next. They are neither initiates nor laymen, but imitators of Masters, semisages, sowers with unclean hands, the followers of dead scrolls, and black magicians who covet me and boast of my love when they are not even worthy of my smile.

 

Some may wear saris or tunics; others, collars and aprons; others, the Rosicrucian attire; some proclaim themselves the only possessors of the truth, believing that they actually possess this monopoly. All of them claim my friendship, but are only beggars who plead to me for crumbs of wisdom. You do not achieve second birth by standing on your head or meditating, nor in the coffin of purely symbolic ceremonies, nor by good works or the grace of the Holy Spirit.

If you disdain me, receive my blessings and continue on your road, destined to be food for the Gods. Not all can be men; some can only be animals, or worse, vegetables. If you come to me through curiosity, think twice. It is easy to be rash with what one does not know. If you are not brave enough, turn back; shield yourself with your vanity and your pride, content yourself to look down at the ground like your kin. If you are not prepared, do not aspire to see my face; unfortunate is he who, possessed by animal greed or misguided curiosity, contemplates only my reflection, as he will never forget me, and will die tormented by the desire to possess me.

If you are prepared, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear, if your intention is pure and noble, proceed without discouragement and know that from the moment you cross the threshold of the occult abode, I will be anxiously awaiting you like the young bride for her first love. This book can help you; it can be the guide that will take you to the hidden door, which so many seek and so few find. Seek and you will find; do not pray to the Gods, fight for me. You will conquer me with the strength of your decision, not by praying."

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II - THE Antichrist

It is surprising how the human being knows so many things and understands so little. Just as in homeopathy, the noble product (knowledge) is infinitesimally diluted by man's inability to understand.

Homo sapiens dedicates his most important efforts to increasing his knowledge, but it is precisely in this persistence that he begins to lose himself more and more in a haze of uncertainty and disorientation. Afire with the thirst for knowledge, he tirelessly pursues any new thesis or theory that may beckon, but, like that of the mythological Tantalus, his thirst, far from being satiated, only increases.

A paradoxical destiny surrounds this deluded creature: to know more each day but to understand less. Inevitably, he extends himself daily up to the point of losing his own identity, constrained to draw away from himself to merge with the external. Homo sapiens has advanced with extraordinary speed in the conquest of science, and with the same momentum, he has lost himself in a world of phantoms born from the collective hallucinations of a world becoming daily more artificial, stereotyped, and programmed. In this world, the one who triumphs is usually the man of the masses who demonstrates perfect submission to the norms of the multitude, and who decides at an early age not to think for himself, but to act instead with the multitude's collective mind.

This is an unfailing passport to material success, but the price paid is so much higher than the reward. The price is one's own individuality, the much prized goal of the Delphic command, "know thyself." As it happens, one who knows himself well and therefore understands others is often harassed, disregarded, and ostracized. This is due to the fact that leadership usually belongs to the mediocre who glorify the golden calf and celebrate the empty stereotype of the programmed individual. The temple of Delphi and its ideals no longer exist.

They have been replaced by the temple of the university, the temple of the law, the temple of religions, and the temple of political ideologies and economic systems, along with all their slogans and phrases. All these are united by a common denominator:

"Do not recognize yourself; surrender yourself to the multitude and obey its designs."

Very few people are aware of this situation, but some feel it instinctively and try to rebel against the system, without knowing what really leads them to this reaction. Young people, for example, intuitively resist, although sometimes by mistaken paths, only to be absorbed by the collective entity. Later, as the years go by and their cerebral programming is strengthened, youth also yields to the strong influence of the collective mind.

A person who does not rapidly integrate collectively is believed to be antisocial, but he who merges easily and completely with the masses and loses his individuality is considered very valuable. This willingness to merge is considered the correct way to be and is seen as the mark of a social conscience. Here again sapiens has missed the point, for it is not possible to help or love others without first knowing oneself.

Two thousand years ago, sapiens basically had the same problems he does now; the same fears, desires, anxieties, ambitions, greed, lies, cowardice, complexes, internal conflicts, and confusions. His norms of behavior were no different in essence than those at present. On the other hand, his material conditions were dramatically different from today's circumstances, considering the astounding progress that can be observed up until the present day.

The question arises whether this same progress has also occurred in the internal nature of sapiens. That is to say, is he a better human being today; does he have more quality as a person than in earlier times? The reply is clearly no. No appreciable change has taken place in the human quality of sapiens in two thousand years, nor even in five thousand years. He has only increased his intellectual capacity, due to the powerful and ever increasing demands of civilization.

Although the world has progressed from a barbaric state to civilization in the course of history, the savage sapiens is today basically as primitive as in the distant past, except that he is now covered with dozens of layers of cultural and educational varnish.

To break through the spiritual isolation of humanity, a superior being full of love and compassion came to the world one day: Christ. He wanted to give sapiens an opportunity to know a different world, a world without violence, hate, slavery, or contradiction, to show sapiens what he could achieve.

The collective mind of the multitude, programmed according to the dictum "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," violently rejected the Christian message and destroyed the Messiah, as had happened on other occasions when Christ had come to earth, manifested through other superior men.

This is how the multitudes serve as an instrument for the Antichrist, the blind monster, the headless beast that lies in wait for all those who want to achieve the conscious individuality which would allow them to stop being sapiens and convert them into Stellar Men. To be Stellar Men is the pinnacle of the evolution of Homo sapiens.

At some time, no one knows when, the false legend of the Antichrist was born. The legend is erroneous in imagining that a mythological being would be born into the world in order to destroy it through the perversion of Christian values, and that this being would incarnate into a man to undertake this ominous work.

The legend as it exists now might be a distortion of the original Hermetic term Antechrist. In Hermetic circles, the term Antechrist designated one who would act as announcer of Christ, preparing the way. In these terms, the only Antechrist was John the Baptist. Thus, we use the word Antichrist to mean contrary to Christ and Antechrist to mean before Christ.

Unfortunately, today we cannot count on the spiritual impulse of Christ incarnated in a human body. Christ as a divine force, omnipresent in religious temples, is but a symbolic allegory that invites believers to follow a comforting example. No known individual currently possesses a real spiritual force which could be called Christic. The priests of different religions only try to imitate Christ, but unfortunately they do it with external and prefabricated spirituality, in accordance to the stereotypes established by the patriarchs of the church.

However, ignorance does not necessarily mean nonexistence. The truth is that the torch of spirituality is presently carried by only a few individuals who are unknown to the masses. Let us call them the magicians, in the dignified sense of this expression, which is usually employed in a vulgar manner. We are referring to the great initiates, Masters, unknown superior beings, or occult sages of humanity.

Why use the term "magicians?" Simply because the ignorant masses have always thus described those who possess strange qualities or powers unknown to them. Also, there was the Inquisition, which labeled these wise men as such in order to disparage and annul their unusual ideas. For this reason, it is time to adopt this term with pride, with the intention of eventually washing away its negative and superstitious stigma. Witchcraft, ignorance, and superstition belong exclusively to sapiens, and not to the magicians. Unfortunately, in the past, popular opinion has described magicians as those simple sorcerers who travel to "sabbaths," using lowclass sorcery to satisfy their base passions.

Why do we designate Christ as the symbol of spirituality? Because Jesus was the most distinguished member of the Magician's Fraternity, prepared specifically for his mission to make Christ incarnate in himself. Jesus and Christ were two different persons; one human, the other, divine.

Christ is a superior being who is on an advanced level on the scale of evolution, which a human being could reach in perhaps millions of years of evolution. Let us conceive of him as an extraterrestrial spiritual power, which we could call an Archangel. This Archangel, due to his very lengthy evolution, possessed perfect and powerful spirituality. This is why Jesus went through a long preparation for this role, for he had to be able to withstand an extremely high vibration in his physical body. This vibration could only manifest itself for brief moments, as its intensity could destroy the nervous and cellular system of Jesus' body. Christ was the one who performed miracles through Jesus, who provided the matter for his manifestation.

The Magician's Fraternity remains well hidden, as it has a right to its own privacy, but some of its members have intermingled with ordinary people, motivated by the wish to show sapiens the road to a higher life. The magicians know, however, that knowledge of The Hermetic Art as an instrument to reach spiritual heights, is only for the "elite" and is not to be divulged. Nevertheless, the fraternity of initiates provides the opportunity for any person with sufficient merit to join the Hermetic elite of Magicians or Stellar Men, if the scope and intelligence of his efforts permits him to do so.

The science of the Magicians is called Hermetic Art in honor of Hermes Trismegistus. According to tradition, he arrived on earth from outer space approximately thirty thousand years ago, anointed as Supreme Grand Master of the Initiatic Fraternity.

Inspired by his light, Egypt became great and wise, and the sacred science of its priests was called Hermeticism. In those days, only by means of huge sacrifices and trials was it possible to belong to a Hermetic Initiatic School. The great majority who succeeded in entering such a school faltered along the way, lacking the moral and spiritual courage to overcome the multiple obstacles, temptations, and trials by which ISIS, mistress of the mysteries of Nature, evaluated the true worth of those who aspired to the supreme knowledge of the absolute truth.

It was in one of those schools that Jesus himself became a Hermeticist and reached the highest degrees of initiation.

Because the time is right, we will divulge the mystery of Jesus the Christ and the causes for the moral suffering of humanity, according to the teachings of the Magician's Fraternity. This moral mystery stems from the adoration of the golden calf; from the submission of the human being to the God of money In honor of this God, he must give up or sacrifice his spiritual possibilities in order to be able to subsist. Those who possess adequate means of subsistence generally pervert their potential spiritual values in the foolish game of gaining social position on the consumer market.

The spiritual or moral quality of an individual is worth very little, as the need for money leads him to lower and prostitute himself for the vile metal, which buys honor, respect, love, fame, and power. The money God is sitting above the world, and whoever wishes to enjoy his gifts must adore him. The real power of money is not only material, but it is principally a hidden force, as the coin is not worth anything in itself; it is only symbolic for human effort or work. By a strange paradox, although work is intrinsically noble, money, the result of this effort, is under the control or influence of a satanic or diabolic power.

We invite the reader to meditate on what he could do to corrupt human beings if he was Satan; what means or tools would he use to instigate crime, greed, war, fratricide, and decay of moral values? It would be difficult to imagine anything more perfectly suited for this than gold; neutral in its own condition, but diabolical when handled perversely.

Does Satan really exist, or is he only a myth created by the masses to explain certain things? If a person believes in the existence of God, then he must believe there is a devil or Satan as a counterpart of the Supreme Creator. Because absolute unity does not exist in life, the mere existence of something leads us to the affirmation that its opposite is also real. There is no light without darkness, no good without evil, no truth without falsehood. Death follows life, and life follows death.

God would thus be the supreme creative intelligence, and the "devil," the destructive intelligence. In the ancient Kabbalah, the devil has been symbolized as the shadow of God. Therefore, just as the Great Creator has his angelic hosts, the devil also has his infernal legion. William Blatty, in his book The Exorcist, refers to this legion when he presents the phenomenon of "demonic possession." After the following explanation we can continue our story.

The tradition transmitted by the great Hermetic Masters affirms that at a crucial moment in the history of humanity, a powerful diabolic Archangel, if we are allowed to call him thus, succeeded in penetrating the earth's occult defenses and entered its atmosphere, provoking extreme disturbances. To be able to imagine such a being, we suggest reading the book The Lurker at the Threshold by H. P. Lovecraft. According to Hermetic tradition, the direct, albeit unwilling cause of this catastrophe which affects us to this day, was Moses.

Everybody knows that Moses appeared floating in a basket down a river and was subsequently adopted, deceiving the Egyptian priests of the time. They took him for an Egyptian and initiated him into the mysteries of ritual magic, which is a method for making the key notes of Nature vibrate, and thus produce certain phenomena which the operator wishes to achieve. The study of atomic physics shows us that it is theoretically possible to produce changes or transmutations in matter; therefore, there is nothing miraculous about these mutations being achieved by means of secret procedures.

In spite of his esoteric identification with Egyptian magic, Moses was always loyal to his ancestral blood. Thus, his most powerful wish was to make himself the leader who would free his people from enslavement, leading them to the promised land. Guided by this desire, and conscious of the powerful forces he had learned to control, Moses had a daring idea: to make a magic pact or alliance with an angel, a divine creature charged with the task of providing him with power and assistance from heaven to save his people.

After lengthy preparations done in deep solitude, he performed the ritual ceremony with magic words and corresponding invocations. In the midst of amazing atmospheric and terrestrial phenomena, an impressive being appeared, making Moses tremble with fear and panic, due to the tremendous force it projected. It will never be possible to know or even imagine the conditions under which the pact between man and heaven was made.

The angel agreed to everything Moses requested and promised his help, demanding the strictest obedience in return. He revealed his name as Y., and requested that as a sign of union, all his followers should undergo a small ritual surgical operation, with a light discharge of blood. Every man who underwent this would come to be a son of Y. The blood that was shed sealed the pact.

From that day forward, Moses was invested with superhuman powers and started doing all kinds of magical feats, converting the Ark of the Covenant into the center of his power. Plagues and calamities fell over Egypt, and nonbelievers and rebels were struck down by the wrath of Y In this manner, Moses' people started the Exodus that would last forty years.

Later, Y., the occult power behind the leader, suddenly started to change his procedures by formulating strange demands, all of which had the shedding of blood as the common denominator.

Moses was overcome with fear and started to become aware of the magnitude of the error he committed. He then understood that the divine angel was in truth an angel of darkness, the complete opposite of the luminous power he had intended to invoke.

This infernal angel was a member of the host of shadows. In order to maintain its power and strength, this vampire needed to feed on human blood, an essence charged with the vitality conferred by the divine spark. This is why all through the Exodus, so many blood-shedding incidents occurred, provoked by the occult dictator.

In reality, who was Y.? One could say he was a very ancient being whose evolutionary origin is unknown. Through long periods of cosmic time, this being kept his individuality, but unfortunately his evolution was directed toward negative, dark, and destructive aspects; much like a human being who grows bitter with the passing of time and adopts a negative and destructive concept of life.

Many beings similar to Y. exist in the Universe. Fortunately, the magnetic defenses of the planet constitute an impenetrable barrier against those beings. However, Moses' magic ritual opened a door and cleared a pathway through which Y. was able to penetrate into the Earth.

It is possible to see this as the most transcendental, but unfortunately harmful event in the occult history of humanity. To justify this statement, it is necessary to digress in order to clarify exactly what the planet Earth really is.

One can affirm, without fearing any sarcastic mockery from the ignorant or the semiwise, that the planet Earth is a human being. It is not something equivalent to a human being, but a man in all aspects of the word.

Hermetic philosophy upholds the truth of reincarnation, but affirms that this takes place only with some people who possess, or have developed within themselves some qualities or characteristics apart from the physical body, which are capable of resisting death. The term "people" refers to human beings, even if these beings may present physical characteristics different from terrestrial man.

Regarding reincarnation, Hermeticism teaches that a Hermetic initiate of a high degree can achieve the power to reincarnate consciously, that is, changing physical bodies while maintaining his individuality and a certain degree of memory. Gradually, in the course of successive lives, the initiate grows in spiritual power. His essence or divine spark grows successively more powerful.

In this way, the moment will come when the body of man, in the dimension and shape we are familiar with, is no longer capable of containing or supporting such a vast and powerful essence. For this reason, such a spirit or superdeveloped essence must seek an adequate physical body that corresponds to his tremendous energetic force. Thus he reincarnates in the body of a new or young planet, and continues his development there, in ways and conditions that are difficult for us to conceive. This is how an extraordinarily evolved human being took the body of the planet Earth and made it his own, in the most perfect shape in the Universe: the sphere.

This sphere is formed by the same basic materials as the human body, which are, in brief, the materials of the Universe. This sphere breathes, moves, thinks, and feels. It has a circulatory, digestive, procreative, and respiratory system. Petroleum is its blood, and it feeds on vegetable, animal, and mineral matter. Sexually, it is hermaphroditic, with a masculine and a feminine hemisphere. It breathes through plant life, and receives its etheric or magnetic nourishment through emitting and receiving antenna, that is, through Homo sapiens.

Once this clarification has been made, and in order to grasp the magnitude of the catastrophe accidentally brought about by Moses with the arrival of Y., we can reveal that this ancient, vengeful, and malicious being expelled the young spirit from the Earth, incarnating in his place. With this act, a dark and bloody era commenced for humanity. A period of suffering, torment, and pain started for the Jewish people as they were converted into the innocent victims of the negative forces of Y. This is the explanation for the great afflictions which the Jews have had to suffer.

Imagine Moses' despair when he realized the calamity which had occurred and the suffering created for those he had wanted to help. As time passed, Moses understood that nothing had power over Y., as he possessed incalculable malignity. Convinced of this, Moses brought together the wise men of his people and instructed them in the great mystery of the Messiah. These men, using magical rituals, could create a God and fulfill the mystery of theurgy, in the hope that this God could liberate them and save the world from the destructive influence of Y.

Once his instruction was given, Moses climbed Mount Nebo and was never seen alive again.

The wise men who inherited the patriarch's instructions followed them faithfully, carrying out the Messianic ritual according to the instituted rules. As a result, hundreds of years later, Jesus appeared. He was the "Son of Man" (consider this expression carefully) and the Savior expected by the wise men initiated by Moses.

This is how Jesus was born, under the circumstances that are familiar to all. Hermetic teaching maintains he was the son of a Jewish woman and a Roman father, his progenitor being a Roman soldier and merely an instrument of higher occult forces.

Why is it said that Mary remained a virgin? This mystery really does not refer to physiological virginity, but to the fact that actually there was no physical contact between Jesus' real father and Mary. In effect, his spiritual father was a great Hermetic initiate who etherically used the physical body of the Roman soldier to procreate a son.

The spiritual seed was transmitted by the occult Master; the physical sperm by the Roman. In this manner, Mary conceived "without losing her virginity." In those times the term "virginity" was not used to designate maidenhood; it was used to distinguish those women initiated in the secret of the "virgule" as Mary was. The magic rod used by Moses was known as the "virgule."

Those who have "eyes to see and ears to hear" will understand this. For others, it will produce a dismal silence in their interior, and they will remain in the realm of ignorant sarcasm, suffering the mental emptiness of those who do not want to understand, or worse, the unconscious blindness of those who do not want to see.

Jesus, the God created by man and incarnated in the body of man, was consecrated by the great initiate John the Baptist, otherwise known as the Antichrist. Jesus' baptism in the river was the means that permitted the first manifestation of Christ in Jesus, the manGod, whose mission was destined since his birth.

From the time of Moses, the Fraternity of Magicians had been attentively observing these events without being able to alter them. The magicians were connoisseurs of the Messianic mystery and had the knowledge that certain wise men were working on this. They decided to help the wise men try to correct the serious anomalies explained before. They were awaiting Jesus' birth, and they were his occult Godfathers who protected and educated him so he could fulfill his double mission.

His first mission was to liberate the chosen people from their occult killer. His second mission was to save the world in general from the invisible vampire who called himself Y. in order to begin a new era on Earth under the Christian motto "love one another," replacing the dictum of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

At the same time, Jesus was an active member of the Fraternity of Magicians, receiving support and inspiration from all of them. However, the great Masters maintain that Jesus failed in his mission, or more accurately, that he only achieved partial success, since he did not reach his goal. This refers only to Jesus, however, and not to Christ.

In order to truly understand Jesus, it is necessary to consider his triple personality:

1. Jesus the man
2. Jesus the God (created by man)
3. Christ (who manifested himself through Jesus)

Christ was an angel, a solar spirit who descended from Heaven to manifest himself as the supreme power of the Father on earth.

Jesus and his twelve disciples are the symbol of a solar and cosmic mystery. Hermetic science teaches that our solar system is composed of twelve planets plus the sun, an analogy for the twelve apostles and Christ, and that the unknown planets will be discovered in time.

We will speak no more of Jesus; we have perhaps already said too much. We will only add that the crucifixion was an expected drama in which Jesus' blood had to be shed so that Christ could in turn incarnate in the planet Earth and displace Y., definitively casting him out of our atmosphere. However, as we have already mentioned, this mission had only a relative success. Christ incarnated in the planet Earth, but Y. could not be expelled. Since then, both govern the planet.

Christ's force acts in the world through the representatives of the Fraternity of Magicians. These men direct Hermetic schools in which the student can develop his spiritual force to the point of disintegration of his animal soul and liberation from the influence of Y., who can only act through primitive and animal instincts such as hate, envy, lust, greed, pride, and vanity.

In this way, the Spiritual Beacon is kept alight to illuminate the select spirits who are potentially capable of converting themselves into fully developed human beings and abandoning their sapiens condition.

Every person who reaches this condition is converted into a center of Christic irradiation and is therefore another obstacle for Y.'s influence. The naive say that Christ will return to the planet Earth. But Christ is on Earth! He needs only to be removed from the cross by the same humanity who nailed him to it.

Until that time, wars will continue. Great numbers of people will die and their vitality will be absorbed by Y., the great occult force behind these conflicts. None of this will end until this being is conquered.

The real Antichrist is Y., and he has spread his negative influence throughout his followers, those of bestial instincts, who in turn have incorporated this vibration into the multitude. The multitude is composed of amorphous and blind entities, receptors of any force of sufficient power. In this way, Y.'s principles incorporated in the collective unconscious of humanity motivate the philosophy of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."

Trapped by this malignant force, people live diabolically: hating, destroying, stealing, killing their brothers, returning evil with more evil, selling out their honesty and honor, enslaving the weak, exploiting the unprotected, and denigrating the just. Luckily, there are many who act contrary to all this. If this were not so, life would be unbearable. They are the ones who somehow have received a true Christian influence (not necessarily religious) and have higher values than usual.

Religions have a positive family and social influence, but unfortunately on solely spiritual grounds they do not have much to offer, and generally they try to check this deficiency with the indiscriminate use of the banner of Christ.

The Fraternity of Magicians does not derive its power from Christ, nor speak in his name. The Fraternity only exalts his values and shows or narrates events which the world should know, so that the chosen (the true humans) can reaffirm their conviction and loyalty to a superior spiritual life.

The power of these Magicians comes from their harmony with, respect for, and obedience to cosmic laws, and the profound and serene spiritual condition they have reached. Their spirituality places them in a magical relationship with God, the Great Universal Father, who is recognized by the Hermeticists as the first cause of the origin of all and the great force of order and creation.

To speak about Christ is to explain the esoteric side of the psychosocial phenomenology of the world today. In its innocence, sapiens believes that everything in life is as it appears on the surface, and that things must surely be as the vast majority say they are. When some people hear of the esoteric side of events or the occult causes of different phenomena, they smile unbelievingly, arguing with infantile logic that "if that were true, it would be made known by the press" or, "it would have been taught at school or in the university" or, "well documented books would exist on the subject." That way of thinking nullifies all progress, because if everyone's belief was the same, no one would bother to study or investigate little-known phenomena.

Despite obstacles already mentioned, sapiens in his individual manifestation (not as a species) can have latent superior qualities and characteristics, which may lead him to partially understand Hermetic truths. Motivated by this knowledge, sapiens can awaken to a superior reality. The sapiens individual can save himself from the lethargic destiny of humanity and eventually reach the world of the Hermeticists, magicians, or awakened men.

Moses, a man of strength and wisdom, was driven by his yearning for freedom to commit an error of cosmic magnitude. According to the great Hermetic wise men, this error nearly destroyed the solar system. To clarify this statement, the solar system can be compared to the composition of an atom, borrowing on the Hermetic theme of "as above, so below." In this case, Y.'s rise to power could be seen as an arbitrary substitution of an electron, which changed the spiritual nucleus of the Earth.

This is one of the many lessons, which oblige the Fraternity of Magicians to strictly guard Hermetic secrets. The Fraternity will only give instruction in higher knowledge to those who have demonstrated their strength, their moral and spiritual purity, and the rectitude of their intentions.

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III - DISSECTION OF SAPIENS

Homo sapiens is a living paradox. One cannot say whether Homo sapiens is the greatest or the most insignificant of creatures that inhabit the Earth. The most sublime qualities and the most vile and perverse passions are combined within him. There are many good people, but the evil ones are more numerous. The person who complies with the law, respects his neighbor, does good in general, and helps others according to his strength, is called good. The amoral and destructive person who enjoys hurting people in one way or another is called evil.

Unfortunately, both the good and the evil person are this way unconsciously, beyond their own volition. The good are kind in spite of themselves. The evil cannot avoid being so. Furthermore, they justify and accept it. The situation grows more complex with the observation that there are good men who are stupid, and many evil men who are intelligent.

How should we choose our friends? How can we tell who should be the recipients of our affection? In what manner can we assess ourselves in order to evaluate our own position as living beings?

We cannot divide the world into people who are good or evil, rich or poor, intelligent or stupid, important or insignificant. Generally, sapiens forms groups according to instinctive congeniality that is beyond all analysis. This alignment is usually established by qualities or defects. Like seeks like, except in amorous relations where the opposite more frequently occurs.

Scientists constantly study the psychology of sapiens, trying to somehow justify his infinite contradictions. Innumerable treatises and essays on morality, love, ethics, life, death, the finite, and infinite have been written. Nevertheless, very little light has been shed on the true nature of sapiens. This is not because science lacks knowledge.

Rather, this knowledge is rendered useless due to the human being's inability to measure the true significance of recognized concepts. For example, a student can understand perfectly well the statement that human beings live in a permanent somnambulistic state, especially since this fact is well documented, but the student will be absolutely incapable of projecting this concept to the general context of life. The student will not even remotely grasp all the horror this statement entails.

This is how the most arresting realities go unnoticed even though they are public knowledge. One of the most striking facts is that we are animals. In order not to think of this as an abstraction, let us repeat several times, "I am an animal, I am an animal, I am an animal." Think about what this really means and all it entails. The majority of people will say they understand perfectly that they are animals, but it is certain that it will be absolutely impossible for them to visualize the amazing implications of this statement.

Thus "science knows much but is ignorant of almost everything." In this case we can well recall Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape, a study of the human animal. His book had a great impact on the public. The crude examination of the animal characteristics of sapiens made a true zoological portrait. What happened before this? Didn't people know that Homo sapiens was a monkey? Of course they did, but no one truly evaluated the significance of it.

Yet sapiens feels very proud of his talent, his creative genius, his capacity for reasoning, his capacity for affection and creative power, calling himself the "highest living manifestation of intelligence," or the "most perfect living creature."

Sapiens is particularly satisfied with his culture, and presumes that his ability to transmit it to future generations makes him enormously different from other animal species who apparently lack this ability.

Likewise, sapiens affirms that he possesses the highest privileges inherent in the degree of "civilization" obtained by his species. Statements such as, "all human beings have the right to happiness" and "all human beings are free in nature," illustrate this. In other words, this is equal to maintaining that the mere fact of having been born gives a sapiens creature the right to liberty, happiness, love, and wellbeing.

In fact, Homo sapiens not only does not have any right to liberty, happiness, or any wellbeing that he has not earned for himself, but furthermore, he is not even remotely as intelligent, rational, and superior as he believes himself to be.

On the contrary, sapiens is virtually insignificant in the total context of nature, and this work will endeavor to reveal his intellectual mediocrity, his somnambulistic state, and his unreal existence. Sapiens is a functionally deficient and anthropologically immature creature who, for reasons of his own self esteem, prefers to bury this fact in the deepest recesses of his subconscious, and instead dreams about his own illusory intelligence and power.

It would be absurd to think that in a world inhabited by rational, conscious, and intelligent beings, the latent danger of total destruction by a nuclear war could exist. The very fact that punitive laws exist shows that people do not conduct themselves in a manner guided by reason, justice, tolerance, duty, and correct action.

Insanity, psychological complexes and disturbances, suicide, crimes of passion, anguish, uncontrollable ambition, and assassinations are proof of people's irrational conduct.

Thus, sapiens claims to have a series of qualities, powers, and privileges that only exist in his imagination. When Calderon de la Barca said that "life is but a dream," he was more correct than anyone could ever imagine.

The sapiens species provides material in sufficient quantity and numbers for Nature so that, according to her own laws, a few beings are produced who can finally fulfill an evolutionary goal. These few can truly reach a human condition and enjoy all the privileges this involves, such as liberty, happiness, wellbeing, and love. The masses simply provide the raw material for the social experiment of Nature and History. Nature is cold and has neither preferences nor biases for anyone in particular.

This is no reason for people to despise themselves, wrongly believing themselves to be inferior creatures. The fact is simply that Homo sapiens' age in evolutionary terms is barely that of a child. In this condition, he cannot be ashamed of not acting like an adult. In fact, the relatively conscious behavior of the human being barely extends over a few thousand years. If we had to compare sapiens' age as a species with that of an actual sapiens person, the conscious age of the species is barely eight or ten years old.

It is hoped that once sapiens comes of age, in cosmic time, not terrestrial time, he will attain a degree of maturity.

Humanity accepts as normal all individuals whose biological and psychological behavior adjusts to collective rules. The one who separates himself from these norms is considered abnormal. However, we never question how close normal is to the optimum. It could be that normal is much nearer to deficiency or imperfection than it is to optimum.

Is it not possible, for example, that geniuses are not so extraordinarily intelligent, but the other way around; that the rest of humanity is extraordinarily stupid? We must accept the idea that this is perfectly possible since we lack markers or reference points to compare the human race with other races. Suppose that all the inhabitants of the planet were actually insane, how would we ever become aware of this?

An individual can only become aware of these phenomena by virtue of a mystical experience, transcending his sapiens condition and elevating himself to a state of deep consciousness and absolute awakeness. Under these conditions, his great mental clarity will make him understand absolute or eternal truths, in juxtaposition to the small, temporal, and relative truths he habitually handles.

During this period of elevated consciousness, a person can see that the normal human being is really abnormal; that he is, in a sense, a living creature deficiently created. He will observe sapiens as mentally but not intellectually retarded, as irresponsible, and behaving like a hypnotized person.

This particular process of knowledge which has been called revelation or illumination in some men who are saints, is later verified when the individual steps out of his state of superior consciousness and descends to an ordinary level, and observes the behavior of people who prove and demonstrate in daily life the truth of the knowledge the initiate acquired.

It will be argued that civilization and the extraordinary advances of science prove the intelligence and capabilities of the human being. However, this argument is only a reflection of the fact that Homo sapiens holds his intelligence in high regard, considering it as the highest human manifestation. It can thus be understood that the actions and memory of great intellectuals are venerated, exceeded in power and prestige only by that of great millionaires. A genius will be long remembered in history, even if he was the inventor of a lethal weapon capable of destroying half of humanity.

Hermeticism rejects the assertion that intelligence is the most valuable element of the human individual, and instead maintains that humanity's most precious and priceless element is consciousness, in the sense of being more aware, more awakened, more alert, judicious, and wiser. This faculty of consciousness, which most people lack, is only born in persons who, for a variety of reasons, have reached a higher than normal level of awakeness in life; who in a certain sense have awakened, liberating themselves from the somnambulistic hypnosis which afflicts the masses.

Homo sapiens is in general an integrally programmed being at the cerebral, emotional, instinctive, and physical levels. What psychology calls personality can also be defined as an individual program. Each individual possesses an intricate and extensive cerebral program due to the effects of heredity, education, culture, imitation, learning, conditioned reflexes, and so on. So when a person thinks, he can only do so within the basic context of his cerebral program from which he cannot deviate for any reason, even if he tries to do so.

Each person must necessarily keep to his cerebral script and cannot do anything other than manifest himself in it and through it.

In order to understand this, one can think of program and consciousness as absolutely contradictory elements. Consciousness implies the capacity for change, choice, and self-determination, which obviously is not possible in a being who is the visible manifestation of a program. The Great Programmer can be called God, Universal Father, Cosmic Intelligence, or any other name, but the reference is always clear.

Due to his cerebral program and other little-known phenomena, the human being lives in a permanent somnambulistic state. What is a somnambulist? The dictionary defines somnambulism as an "abnormal sleep state during which the person gets up, walks, and sometimes talks." Expanding this definition, somnambulism could be described as "sleep that affects all humanity during which people get up, walk, fight, love, hate, enjoy, suffer, think, procreate, live, grow old, and die without ever being aware of their hypnotic condition." Knowledge of hypnosis originated in esoteric schools, and science, in spite of having adopted it, is very far from understanding it.

The individual sleeps by night, but is awake by day. What is not considered is that sleep and wakefulness represent two extremes of psychological awareness, and between these two poles there are many degrees. Thus, during the night a person may sleep either lightly or extremely deeply. The same occurs with wakefulness, in which a person can be barely awake or extremely alert.

Due to this, sapiens gradually came to believe that his usual state of awareness during the day is being awake. In reality, this awareness is a state of hypnotic or somnambulistic sleep in which a person can be dispersed while still having the appearance of being awake. Programmed intelligence apparently cannot perceive itself as being affected by hypnosis, especially when there is no one sufficiently awake to point it out.

Nevertheless, history relates episodes in the lives of some philosophers who, because they became awakened men, understood the truth, had access to a profound and substantial reality, and tried to communicate their knowledge to others to help them awaken. Some people awakened, but the vast majority remained deaf, dumb, and blind.

The majority of philosophers have been merely great thinkers, but not awakened men; giants of intellect, but not of consciousness. This is why traditional philosophy has always been so arid, cold, abstract, and impractical. Philosophers were only "in love with the truth," but in the form of an image or symbol, and not as a living reality.

In this way, the intelligence sapiens possesses, even when brilliant, is a mechanical, dead, and programmed intelligence.

What about our creative capacity, it can be objected, when man proves his creative genius all the time? The reply to this is that the cerebral and cultural programming of the learned and wise man grows constantly, but always following the already established patterns. A person can constantly study or investigate, but always within the limits of the basic content of his intellect.

Thus, he accumulates thousands of heterogeneous and homogeneous elements, which in his daily intellectual work can produce infinite combinations by the mechanics of thought, but not by an authentic process of creation. In this world governed by mechanical intelligence, the one who has the most information in his program and is capable of handling it as skillfully as possible, will be deemed the most intelligent.

The Hermetic philosopher who has truly converted himself into an awakened man has a living, awake, creative, and unprogrammed intelligence. This is the exact opposite of the vast majority of humanity. This intelligence manifests itself far beyond the merely intellectual, reaching the peak of integral conception where intelligence must surpass intellectual boundaries in order to become that which is mind. In effect, Hermetic philosophers have given the word mind a meaning it does not commonly have, defining it as "intelligence and consciousness born from apprenticeship in an intensified state of awakeness."

The common man lacks mind and must resign himself to handling his limited intelligence and knowledge, which have been developed through somnambulistic apprenticeship in a state of hypnosis or sleep.

With his mind, the Hermeticist can reach the knowledge of absolute and eternal truths, as opposed to the relative and temporal truths of sapiens. The aims of the Hermeticist are eternal; the aims of the profane are temporal and finite.

Deprived of the mind's superior possibilities, sapiens obscurely senses his own weakness and vulnerability in the face of destiny, death, illness, war, poverty, and dangerous changes. This is why sapiens has always looked for leaders and chiefs whose strength will compensate for his own weakness. Guided by this same desire, he has invented Gods to which he prays for the power and strength he lacks. The entire structure of our civilized world is based on the absolute weakness, cowardice, impotency, ignorance, and vulnerability of the human individual who constructs collective systems of protection, support, and control to externally compensate for his internal weakness.

Human beings prefabricate culture, morality, religious creeds, laws, and police systems to stop those who go against the common interests for that moment in history. They plan and program community life and the future of their children. Internally, however, the spiritual spark grows ever weaker in the face of the progressive dehumanization of a world which in truth was never human to begin with, but only animal intelligent. The world has glorified science and forgotten human nature.

The center of gravity of a person's psychological awareness is projected more and more toward the external world, progressively abandoning itself to incarnate in the monstrous sons of civilization: consumer products, machines, cinema, and television. Advertising and the press are the two super monsters of our times, tools by which man is skillfully manipulated and converted into a perfect automaton.

He becomes an obedient consumer of certain products, a respectful server of ideologies and systems, which in turn provide small groups with power. If it is true that we live in the era of multitudes, and that their voices have taken over for the authority of kings and princes of the past, it is no less true that history is the conflict of minorities, that is to say, of the leaders who direct the masses.

On this point the words of Professor Ludwig Von Bertalanffy of the University of Alberta are interesting:

Behavior is a response to stimuli coming from the outside ... So far as it is not innate or instinctive, behavior is shaped by outside influences that have met the organism in the past: classical conditioning after Pavlov, instrumental conditioning after Skinner, early childhood experience after Freud, secondary reinforcements after more recent theories.

 

Hence training, education, and human life in general are essentially responses to outside conditions: beginning in early childhood with toilet training and other manipulations whereby socially acceptable behavior is gratified and undesirable behavior blocked; continuing with education, which is best carried through according to Skinnerian principles of reinforcement of correct responses and by means of teaching machines and ending in adult man in an affluent society which makes everybody happy, conditioning him, in a strictly scientific manner, by the mass media to be a perfect consumer—that is, an automaton properly answering in the ways prescribed by the industrial-military-political establishment.

. . . Man as a machine that can be programmed; all those machines identical to automobiles coming off the assembly line; equilibrium or comfort as the ultimate value; behavior as a business transaction with minimum expense and maximum gain—this is a perfect expression of the philosophy of commercial society. Stimulus-response, input-output, producer-consumer are all the same concepts, only expressed in different terms.

Professor Bertalanffy continues:

I don't care a jot whether and to what extent professors A, B, or C have modified Watson, Hull, and Freud, and have replaced their blunt statements by more qualified and sophisticated circumlocutions. I do care a lot that the spirit still is all-pervading in our society and, even more, seems necessary to keep it going: reducing man to the lower levels of his animal nature, manipulating him into becoming a feebleminded and consumeristic automaton, or a marionette of political power, systematically dulling his brain through a perverse system of education; in short, dehumanizing him ever further by means of a sophisticated psychological technology.

 

The effects of this manipulation we see everywhere: in the unspeakable vulgarity of popular culture; in the unbearable children and teenagers who do not know their mother tongue when entering college but are glued to the television screen for five hours a day and find no better outlet than drug addiction, premature pregnancies, or delinquency; in a drab society ... in which, through its meaningless rat race, fills thousands of mental hospitals; in politics which has converted Jeffersonian democracy into a manipulated herd of cattle.

. . . Mass persuasion is, of course, one of the oldest human arts, from the sophists of Athens, the rhetoric of Aristotle, and the medieval trivium to Hitler's famous manual. But, so long as it was art, its effects remained capricious and unpredictable, as well as limited in space and time. Rebellion was possible even against the most powerful dictator; as a matter of historical fact, dictators usually came to a bad end. This was basically changed when mass persuasion became scientific, using psychological mechanisms and techniques.

 

Then its power, because it was not imposed from outside but was internalized, became unlimited and nearly impregnable; aided by mass media whose barrage has no limits in space and is nearly continuous in time. This—besides nuclear weapons—is the great discovery of our age: the power of modeling men into automata 'buying' everything from toothpaste and the Beatles to presidents, atomic war, and self-destruction.

Homo sapiens, alienated by these powerful forces, is simply a puppet who has no other alternative but to live his life and play the role he has been assigned in the drama of creation.

Could this be a gigantic and horrendous conspiracy planned by anonymous powers, or is it only a pastime of the Gods?

The constant bombardment through audiovisual means, which powerfully impact the psyche, the numerous requirements of society, and the increasing complexity of civilized life, all keep the individual fascinated and suspended in a veritable somnambulistic trance from which he will awaken with difficulty. This is due to the fact that the relationship between the person and the environment is a constant process of feedback, which acts as an element for maintaining and reinforcing the hypnosis.

Hermeticists can isolate themselves psychologically from this negative influence and remain awake, but are forced to share with people the material circumstances derived from this situation of mass hypnosis.

Society does not cause the somnambulistic sleep of Homo sapiens; it only acts in maintaining and reinforcing it. Sleep is a universal force, which is present throughout the cosmos, and is manifested in several ways.

According to Hermetic tradition, when the Supreme Creator expelled man from Paradise, he punished him by embedding a mechanism for hypnotic sleep in his brain in order to make him an obedient servant in the vineyards of the Lord.

The Hermetic Masters, wishing to share the joy of a state of superior awakeness with those who are prepared for it, maintain Hermetic schools where the person is given an opportunity to liberate himself from the slavery of sleep which turns man into an animated malleable instrument, the definition of a slave according to Aristotle.

The Magician's Fraternity invites everyone who has sufficient ability to accomplish this magic work to join their spiritual movement. Man can recover the lost Paradise and even gain an advantage, as he can live there again "after having eaten the forbidden fruit," which according to the Bible, would make man like unto God.

However, this invitation is only for those who have "eyes to see and ears to hear, as the lips of wisdom remain closed to those who do not know how to listen."

Let it not be thought that everyone can cross the threshold that leads to supreme joy and immortality. On the contrary, "many are called but few are chosen."

Each person has a personal level and if that level is too low, conceptually and culturally speaking, the space he has to cross to reach the level of a true school of initiation is insurmountable. On the other hand, he can prepare himself for initiation by leading a virtuous and disciplined life, seeking to attain moral and spiritual advancement. Many times life itself will have sufficiently prepared a person.

There are no rigid rules in this; in certain cases, an individual will require higher education as a basic requirement to enter the school, since without a cultural foundation it would be impossible for him to understand the Teachings, and his path would be an act of faith, which is insufficient.

In spite of the fact that sapiens is integrally programmed, and that this does indeed harm him, he also possesses the divine spark, and this single fact immediately gives him the greatest possibilities for redemption and ascent.

This can be seen in those people who, for some reason, have an extraordinarily powerful divine spark, and who show this by doing all kinds of good deeds and who face life with superior criteria. If we dissect man, it is only to show him the possibilities of evolution, and not as a cruel or destructive criticism.

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