IV - THE COLLECTIVE SOUL OF THE SPECIES

Aristotle defined a slave as an "animated malleable instrument." This terrifying description has never been more true than it is today, if applied to human beings in general. The individual is merely an appendage and a sounding board for the species. Homo sapiens is the same as other animal species: he has a collective soul which regulates and directs the evolution of the human race.

The collective soul produces the migration of the birds, regulates reproduction, directs different changes and adaptations, brings about periods of mating, and in general, directs the instinctive behavior of the beasts. As he belongs to the animal kingdom, sapiens is not free from this directing force which in effect controls, directs, supervises, and regulates the species, acting as a common brain, which stifles individual thought.

This common soul has been called the "collective unconscious" by Jung. He did not talk of an "animal soul" but he certainly possessed this knowledge. This collective unconscious is in truth the animal soul of sapiens. The mere fact of understanding, accepting, and comprehending the significance of this subject means visualizing the most important foundation of sapiens' life, because the bestial impulse acts as the basic motive of its actions.

Personality is merely a reflection of the common soul, which shapes the subject's psyche with unsuspected power. It is no more than an emanation from the common deposit, which is incorporated and personalized in an individual who thus acquires, if it is possible to use this expression, "an animal soul of his own" in miniature and distinguished from the great collective soul.

In this way, the individual receives from his parents a physical and genetic inheritance, and from humanity, the legacy of power and animal intelligence. Under these circumstances, it is very difficult for the individual to overcome this overwhelming compulsion and shape his own individual personality. He must resign himself to sharing the common fate of his fellow men, unless he is "lucky" enough to reach a Hermetic school.

Hermetic philosophy maintains that there can be no true spiritual and moral progress if man does not cut the umbilical cord which ties him to the central computer of the species, which nourishes "bestial" characteristics.

This notable and unique event is far-reaching and irreversible, and it takes place in the heart of true Hermetic schools. Other schools do not in any way deal with the animal soul of the student, and are limited to only transmitting certain teachings, which doubtlessly, will be used to further bestialize his intelligence.

The bestialization of intelligence is a common phenomenon in this age. The more intelligent an individual is, the more powerful his beast will be, and the beast will use this intellect to satisfy its own instincts, without any concern for anything else.

The collective program (of the collective soul) based on fierce and inhuman rivalry, obliges the individual to kill in order to eat. Death has many degrees, and physical destruction is the last of them, but before this, there is the slow decline that is a result of the destruction of one's inner longings. We may kill by annihilating the will of others or pitilessly exploiting them; returning evil for evil; destroying their love, sanity, happiness, and peace; or slandering, insulting, or being icily hardhearted toward others' problems.

The future of the human race does not look promising: the accelerated development of a cold and inhuman intelligence without love or spiritual content.

Progress is creating intelligent giants, but spiritual pygmies, with conscience and human sensitivity atrophied by a vast cerebral and cultural program designed ultimately to serve the central computer of the species.

The only possibility for salvation is in the hands of the isolated individual, that is, in the one who by means of Hermeticism attains vital autonomy, disentangling himself from the central brain.

Unfortunately, not everyone can be saved, since along with the extinction of the sapiens species and the cessation of the operation of the central computer, there would arise a cosmic imbalance, as the central computer fulfills the functions necessary for the planetary harmony of our system.

What is the future of those who cannot save themselves? Nothing dramatic or spectacular; some could reincarnate and then slowly evolve through many lives, and others would disintegrate; that is, they would have the kind of death which awaits the majority of materialistic people who believe that all comes to an end in the grave.

The oneiric web, which imprisons man, is tremendously subtle and complex, but at the same time brutally evident once one learns to observe specific phenomena of social psychology. Even when searching for something superior, people go around in a vicious circle of behavioral standards dictated by culture. The more they study, the less they know, and the less they understand. All their efforts are capitalized on by the central computer, which channels them into a community cultural fund.

How did this central computer originate? It was formed gradually, ever since the first existence of man on Earth, by the action of the environment on his psyche. It is the offspring of the emanations of God and the emanations of man. It will continue growing and perfecting itself by virtue of the life of man himself, but will survive man, as this force which we call the collective unconscious or central computer does not need material or biological support to continue its existence once it has been created.

Ideologically or mentally speaking the individual does not exist as he is inseparable from culture. He is governed by the behavioral standards accepted by society, which ultimately are controlled by the central computer. Thus culture, which in some ways can do so much good for man, in other ways can be considered as the veritable murderer of the divine spark, of freedom, and of awareness.

Culture encages, limits, obliges, impels, hypnotizes, and possesses the individual with irresistible power, shaping him in accordance with one single pattern. This pattern is established as a prototype for the production of robot-men who are the slaves the central computer needs to keep the spectacle of life moving.

In a sick society such as ours, we will undoubtedly have a sick culture, one alienated by collective stereotypes. Our society is truly sick, and within this society we live out satanic dreams worthy of the Divine Comedy. Each being contains a world of problems and conflicts. Fortunately, or unfortunately, man blunts his higher faculties and is not aware of all the horror of his existence in a mad world.

A popular aphorism says, "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." Something similar is happening to our civilization where the higher forms of government and community guidance are not submitted to any type of sane control. We are guided to a greater or lesser extent by individuals, about whose degree of sanity or mental illness we are totally unaware. It is sufficient that an individual should appear to be normal and he will be accepted as such.

We are all aware that mental disturbances are some of the most difficult phenomena to discover and evaluate, even by specialized professionals. It is impossible for the ordinary man in the street to perceive this madness.

It seems incredible that in a civilization said to be advanced, such an important subject has been neglected. As we know, it is a small group of men who govern the great masses. How many of those forming part of this group of leaders are disturbed with serious problems? Thirty percent or perhaps fifty percent, or maybe the great majority? How does one evaluate the damage this implies for humanity?

It would not be of great significance if serious mental disturbances occurred in those people not holding public office or important positions. On the other hand, for those whose range of social action is very wide, it seems absurd and irrational that they should not be obliged to undergo a periodic evaluation of their mental and psychological health.

At this time, it is perfectly possible that the judge who administers justice in one's local area could be mentally disturbed. This possibility cannot be disputed by any psychiatrist, as mental illness is rarely blatant or spectacular, but instead is rather sly, hidden, and insidious. In fact, it is well known that there is scarcely anyone who does not have pathological traits in the way their minds work. The gravity of these factors is overlooked.

The case of the aforementioned judge, if he indeed had truly serious mental problems, would represent a horrifying example of someone who was mentally ill authorized by society to manipulate people, administering justice in accordance with his complexes, frustrations, manias, and traumas. One can object that a judge only follows the letter of the law, but perceptive analysis will show that codes of law can be interpreted in many different personal ways.

At this point we should ask ourselves how many paranoid judges there are in the world who totally ignore the sacred impartiality of the law; how many important public officials are victims of hysteria, megalomania, egocentrism, unbridled yearning for power, sadism, or a total lack of self-criticism?

There is no provision for screening those who, by virtue of their position, are affected by the phenomenon of psychological inflation due to the prestige that their position confers upon them. The term "psychological inflation," coined by Jung, describes the disorientation experienced by a person when he identifies himself with the position he occupies and is led astray in his self-evaluation.

In this way, a physician could inflate or raise himself to the high level of importance and dignity which society confers on a doctor due to his professional title. But a person is not what his title or position represents; he is merely a person who cannot claim for himself the importance and grandeur granted to the medical profession in general, because thousands of people belong to this profession. Without realizing this, the person subject to inflation tries to usurp or attribute to himself alone, the force, power, and importance which does not belong to him, but which is actually granted by society.

We know there is no psychological control, that inevitably thousands of innocent victims pay in different ways for the insanity of those in charge of administering our civilization. Legal errors, abuse of power, fatal political mistakes which degenerate into armed conflict, the usurping of power by financial mafias, obsolete or erroneous educational systems; all of this is in some way provoked by the mentally disturbed. Included among these cases are the "sick" humans who sell their honor, dignity, decency, and their person for monetary rewards.

It is also true that there are successes, beneficial discoveries and very positive works, but unfortunately, for one reason or another, these works rarely produce results that are decisively positive for the world. This process is analogous to healing the branches of a tree while the trunk and roots are rotting. Therefore, no scientific event or discovery will be farreaching in importance until human nature is changed and raised to a higher level.

On the other hand, even small pebbles make a mountain after eons of time. In order to understand this, it must be accepted that there will be no real progress and evolution until human nature changes.

It is precisely this grand work to which the great Hermetic Initiates are pledged, and it is for this reason that there are true Hermetic schools where people are given an opportunity to elevate themselves.

To have a wider understanding of the functional mechanism of the collective soul or central computer, it is necessary to analyze the psychological action of the masses. This will enable us to verify the hidden action of a certain type of force, which takes possession of people under certain circumstances.

In the following relevant extracts from Gustav Le Bon's work, The Crowd, he states:

In its ordinary sense, the word "crowd" represents a gathering of individuals of whatever nationality, profession, or sex, and whatever may be the chances that have brought them together.

From the psychological point of view, the expression "crowd" assumes quite a different meaning. Given certain circumstances, and only under those circumstances, an agglomeration of men presents characteristics very different from those of the individuals composing it.

The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes. A collective soul is formed, without a doubt, but displays very clearly defined characteristics. The gathering has thus become what, in the absence of a better expression, I will call an organized crowd, or, if the term is considered preferable, a psychological crowd. It forms a single being, and is subjected to the law of mental unity of crowds.

In this description by Le Bon it can be seen how the central computer acts with force in grouping people into psychological crowds or masses. Nevertheless, a mass may be composed of two, three, five, or forty people, as the psychological meaning of crowds or masses is different from the common one. When a person has developed a strong individuality, he is less sensitive to this coercion of the masses.

Le Bon continues:

... In the case of everything that belongs to the realm of sentiment—religion, politics, morality, affection and antipathies, etc.—the most eminent men seldom surpass the standard of the most ordinary individuals. From the intellectual point of view an abyss may exist between a great mathematician and his boot-maker, but from the point of view of character the difference is most often slight or nonexistent ... In the collective mind the intellectual aptitudes of the individuals, and as a consequence their individuality, are weakened. The heterogeneous is swamped by the homogeneous, and the unconscious qualities obtain the upper hand.

The very fact that crowds possess common ordinary qualities explains why they can never accomplish acts demanding a high degree of intelligence. The decisions affecting matters of general interest come to by an assembly of men of distinction, but specialists in different walks of life, are not sensibly superior to the decisions that would be adopted by a gathering of imbeciles. The truth is, they can only bring to bear in common on the work at hand those mediocre qualities which are the birthright of every average individual. In crowds, it is stupidity and not mother-wit that is accumulated.

We see, then, that the disappearance of the conscious personality, the predominance of the unconscious personality, the turning by means of suggestion and contagion of feelings and ideas in an identical direction, the tendency immediately to transform the suggested ideas into acts; these we see, are the principle characteristics of the individual forming part of a crowd. He is no longer himself, but has become an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will.

Moreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of an organized crowd, a man descends several rungs on the ladder of civilization.

He further states:

Crowds exhibit a docile respect for force, and are but slightly impressed by kindness, which for them is scarcely other than a form of weakness. Their sympathies have never been bestowed on easygoing masters, but on tyrants who vigorously oppressed them. It is to these latter that they always erect the loftiest statues. It is true that they willingly trample on the despot whom they have stripped of his power, but it is because, having lost his strength, he has resumed his place among the people, who are to be despised because they are not to be feared . . .

A crowd is always ready to revolt against a weak authority and bow down servilely before a strong one. Should the strength of an authority be intermittent, the crowd, always obedient to its extreme sentiments, passes alternately from anarchy to servitude, and from servitude to anarchy.

However, to believe in the predominance among crowds of revolutionary instincts would be to entirely misconstrue their psychology. It is merely their tendency to violence that deceives us on this point. Their rebellious and destructive outbursts are always very transitory. Crowds are governed too much by unconscious considerations, and as a consequence subject too much to secular hereditary influences to not be extremely conservative. Abandoned to themselves, they soon weary of disorder, and instinctively turn to servitude.

From Le Bon's skillful description, we can see how the central computer manipulates people, converting them into puppets in the service of an established plan.

What plan? The evolutionary plan for sapiens, which must adjust to certain rules of the game.

The general rules are as follows:

1. Considered collectively as a species, sapiens is not and can not be free.

2. Sapiens must be born, suffer, love, become sick and die, re produce, build up civilizations and destroy them, only for the benefit of invisible superior powers who capitalize on his vital product. Doesn't sapiens profit from other animal species? Are there not animals which exist exclusively to feed sapiens? Minerals feed upon cosmic rays; plants on minerals; animals on plants; man feeds on all these, and the Gods feed on man.

3. Sapiens is, therefore, a slave in perpetuity; nevertheless, individual or isolated beings separated from the group may become free.

4. The only possible freedom is liberation from the central computer and the only way to attain this is by conquering and surpassing oneself.

5. Sapiens is obliged to comply with the rules of the game in the system to which he has been assigned.

6. The evolution of sapiens comes inevitably with time, but measured in cosmic, not terrestrial time. Perhaps he may have to wait millions of terrestrial years in order to reach perfection.

7. There is no evolution of the sapiens individual; only that of the species as stated above. If a sapiens individual desires to evolve, he must convert himself into a mutant human for whom evolution exists.

8. There are other rules of the game, but only those already indicated can be revealed at this time.

In order to explain the modus operandi of the sapiens plan, the hierarchy of the operating forces will be explained.

The diagram that follows endeavors only to briefly describe the basic forces which act in the Universe: God, the Creator, in his double manifestation of life and death, light and darkness, of the sleep state and the state of vigilance, abases his power until able to act concretely through certain "angels" who direct the evolutionary plan. Hermetic tradition calls them the Archons or Lords of Destiny.

With reference to sapiens, this plan is maintained by virtue of dream energy, as can be seen in diagram 1.

Nevertheless, the divine irradiation of luminous energy, which we call Vigilance, reaches the planet Earth but is not manifested in sapiens. Sleep energy, directed or manipulated by the Archons, maintains the programming of the system even down to the smallest group, the family.

Those who "have eyes to see and ears to hear" will draw incalculable advantage from the comprehension of this system.

To give a concrete example, this master key can be used to explain certain strange events in the life of Jesus which in this light, appear rational and crystal clear.

Why did Jesus appear to be so tremendously antagonistic toward the family?

Recall his words:

"I have come to set a man against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And the enemies of man should be their own families. He who loves his father or mother more than he loves me, is not worthy of me; and he who loves his son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me."

When Jesus was told that his mother and brothers were outside and wished to speak to him, he replied: "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?" and he stretched out his hand towards his disciples saying: "Here are my mother and my brothers." When one of his disciples asked him for leave to bury his father, Jesus said, "follow me and let the dead bury their dead."

Strange words for one who preached of love!

Nevertheless, the explanation is simple. Looking at diagram 1, it can be seen that the family is the ultimate nucleus that maintains dream or hypnotic energy: the instrument of sapiens' slavery to animal unconsciousness.

Thus, if Jesus wished his disciples to see the light, to awaken and evolve, by necessity they had to break the chains of sleep.

Of course, it is understood that this example can be applied solely to those who wish to forever follow a path toward spiritual advancement, leaving the world aside and foregoing human affection, as must have been the case with the twelve apostles. It is also necessary to understand that two families may exist: the animal family of sapiens and the divine family (human).

Needless to say, any family, which by virtue of the spiritual advancement of its members becomes free from the action of sleep, is in truth converted into a divine family. The family nucleus should be solidly united, not by oneiric force or blood ties, but by an authentic spiritual communion.

Regarding material freedom, sapiens will greatly progress and, without doubt, will someday free himself from the Biblical saying: "you will earn your bread by the sweat of your brow." The advance of science and its techniques allows us to surmise or foresee that the working day will shorten in proportion to the degree of automation achieved by specialized machines (robots) which undertake the heavy work previously accomplished by man.

Also foreseeable are extraordinary medical advances and the appearance of new inventions, which will make life on earth more pleasant and more agreeable. If these advances are not parallel to an increase in the level of awareness of humanity, they will lead to a state of civilized barbarism. Our descendants will be extraordinarily intelligent barbarians, possessors of advanced technology, but with a progressive atrophying of their muscles and spiritual consciousness.

The phenomenon of psychological inflation made known by Jung, to whom we have already referred, strongly affects common man. He identifies with science, arts, culture, technological progress, and civilization and absorbs them, confusing them with himself. Thus he loses sight of himself and lives on a level of importance and qualifications entirely beyond him, and which in truth correspond to the sum total of the efforts of man since his existence upon Earth. By means of a psychological trick, he multiplies his own worth by millions, and the result is a deep satisfaction with his self-esteem.

In order to analyze a person and judge his individual value, we must always divest him of all the honors, dignities, inheritances, authority, and privileges which society has conferred on him. Unfortunately, our analysis will be very discouraging, for in the majority of cases, within this inflated being we will not find the human being which this covering hides; he has died, devoured by life itself; or perhaps he never existed in the first place. It is for this reason that a human being always hides behind numerous masks and disguises, for in this way his absolute insignificance goes unnoticed. The smaller an individual is, the more he endeavors to inflate himself to appear important in the eyes of others and thus raise his self-esteem.

Psychology asserts that the most profound principle of human nature is the desire to be appreciated, and therefore there exists a demand for self-exaltation. It is said that the experience most sought after by man is the increase of his self-esteem, and the trait most difficult to eradicate is vanity.

In Personality: A Psychological Interpretation, Doctor Gordon Allport states the following regarding self-esteem:

Whatever the ultimate character of this principle, its cruder forms of expression result in extraordinary strategies of conduct. It alone is responsible for a great superstructure of masquerade built up in every life. All in the interests of self-esteem one may cover one's true emotions, put on a front, and at considerable cost avoid exposing one's weaknesses. The persona that develops protects one from unwelcome narcissistic wounds.

What is even more spectacular, likewise in the interest of self-esteem, is the capacity men have for deceiving themselves...

The techniques of self-deception are numerous. Psychological usage, groups them all under the single title of rationalization, a term signifying, of course, precisely the opposite of reason... Reason fits one's impulses and beliefs to the world of reality; rationalization fits one's conception of reality to one's impulses and beliefs. Or, as the aphorism has it, reasoning discovers real reasons, and rationalization, good reasons, for what we do.

We can observe how an individual regards his own "I" or ego and tries by all means to put the greatest possible distance between that "I" and the surrounding reality. The more buffers which exist between the person and the world, the more peacefully he will sleep. He will then withdraw substantially from reality, seeing it from afar as a vague inkling through the veil of his protective mechanisms, otherwise known as personality and its function. The personality is in the service of the individual's program. Furthermore, it forms part of this program and is the psychological mechanism destined to maintain and reinforce it. The study of the mechanisms of the personality is invaluable in understanding the operating system of the central computer.

The collective soul or central computer, personality, culture, society, mass movements, education, publicity, television, and the press; all these are powerful tools in the service of Hypnos.

There are a select minority of beings who, by their personal efforts, are able to stand out from the mass and excel for different reasons. They may belong to an intellectual, hereditary, or financial aristocracy, but in the final analysis, they serve the central computer with the same docility as the masses, the only difference being that they are better rewarded for their service.

Great human differences are essentially very superficial, as people react in more or less the same way internally.

Of course the chosen also exist. They are privileged men whose intellectual depth enables them, to a certain extent, to surpass the barriers of what is superficial and apparent. They are individuals who, for one reason or another, better resist the hypnotic influence of dream energy. Nevertheless, their writings, words, and speeches are lost in the vacuum of a deluded multitude.

The difficulty in fathoming and understanding concepts which are not habitually used makes it practically impossible for a person to evaluate the tremendous importance that the collective soul has in the life of a human being. In order to truly comprehend the significance of this fact, it is sufficient to consider that we are only a vital emanation of the collective soul, a structure without any autonomy or a life of our own. In the light of this truth, we can understand many psychological phenomena which are not very clear, but which are decisively important in human life. Take for example anxiety, which is the hidden reason for many of man's acts.

In The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm maintained that:

The experience of separateness arouses anxiety; it is, indeed, the source of all anxiety. Being separate means being cut off, without any capacity to use my human powers . . . The awareness of human separation, without reunion by love— is the source of shame. It is at the same time the source of guilt and anxiety.

The deepest need of man, then, is the need to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness.

We must ask ourselves: why is there such a fear of isolation? Isolation from what? Obviously that necessity of union corresponds to the tie with the collective soul or central computer. All attempts or possibility of separation, by virtue of an external or internal influence, produces panic, and this panic is experienced by the human animal when threatened with separation from the flock.

Reflecting on this we can understand the scope of the ailment which affects sapiens; not only does he not want to be human, but he senses profound anguish when threatened with the abandonment of his animal condition. For this reason, anguished sapiens has invented certain tricks or flawed and artificial solutions, which enable him to temporarily placate his deep fear.

Fromm speaks of the following attempts to escape the state of separation:

1. ORGIASTIC STATES:

One way of achieving this aim lies in all kinds of orgiastic states. These may have the form of an auto induced trance, sometimes with the help of drugs. Many rituals of primitive tribes offer a vivid picture of this type of solution. In a transitory state of exaltation the world outside disappears, and with it the feeling of separateness from it. Inasmuch as these rituals are practiced in common, an experience of fusion with the group is added which makes this solution all the more effective.

Such orgiastic states may be brought about with drugs, certain rituals, by alcohol, and by sexual experience. Although the rituals of primitive tribes offer this kind of solution, this same solution is also present in more civilized society in religious rituals which produce an experience of fusion with the group and with a divinity who forgives the sin and rewards the believer, granting him a state of grace.

 

Fromm continues:

Alcoholism and drug addiction are the forms which the individual chooses in non-orgiastic culture. In contrast to those participating in the socially patterned solution, such individuals suffer from guilt feelings and remorse. While they try to escape from separateness by taking refuge in alcohol or drugs, they feel all the more separate after the orgiastic experience is over, and thus are driven to take recourse to it with increasing frequency and intensity.

2. CONFORMITY WITH THE GROUP:

Also in contemporary Western society, union with the group is the prevalent way of overcoming separateness. It is a union in which the individual self disappears to a large extent, and where the aim is to belong to the herd. If I am like everybody else, if I have no feelings or thoughts which make me different, if I conform in custom, dress, and ideas, to the pattern of the group, I am saved from the frightening experience of aloneness.

Nevertheless, the price to be paid is very high, as it involves freedom and individuality. Furthermore, as stated by Fromm, union by conformity is not intense or violent; it is serenity dictated by routine, and due to this, at times is insufficient to alleviate the anguish of separation, and then comes the need to indulge in orgiastic practices. Fromm is of the opinion that flock-like conformity only offers the advantage of being permanent and not spasmodic, as the individual is introduced to the conformity pattern at three to four years of age, and from that moment never loses contact with the flock. He even anticipates his funeral as the last event of social importance, remaining strictly within the pattern.

3. CREATIVE ACTIVITY:

In any kind of creative work the person creating unites himself with his material, which represents the world outside himself. Whether a carpenter makes a table, or a goldsmith a piece of jewelry, whether the peasant grows his corn or the painter paints a picture, in all types of creative work the worker and his object become one, man unites himself with the world in the process of creation...

The unity achieved in productive work is not interpersonal; the unity achieved in orgiastic fusion is transitory; the unity achieved by conformity is only pseudo-unity. Hence, they are only partial answers to the problem of existence. The full answer lies in the achievement of interpersonal union, of fusion with another person, in love.

4. UNION BY LOVE:

This complete solution can only be reached when there is genuine love and not just a passional or symbiotic union. A passional union is one in which a person is a slave to passion and in reality his activity is a passiveness, because he is impelled, and it is he who undergoes the act and not he who accomplishes it. A symbiotic union is produced when there is a dependence in which both need each other mutually and absorb each other reciprocally. It is a form of vampirism or parasitism.

 

Fromm describes genuine love very clearly:

Union by love is only valid when there is mature love, that is, a union that allows and maintains individualism. In contrast to symbiotic union, mature love is union under the condition of preserving one's integrity, one's individuality. Love is an active power in man; a power which breaks through the walls which separate man from his fellow men, which unites him with others; love makes him overcome the sense of isolation and separateness, yet it permits him to be himself, to retain his integrity. In love, the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.

From this profound description by Fromm, we see sapiens' main motivation in life, his deep anguish, is based on the fear of freedom with respect to the central computer. Using the master key of knowledge of the collective soul of sapiens, the reader could well analyze any aspect of social psychology. Whether it be love, politics, war, art, morals, justice, or injustice, everything can be understood through prior knowledge of the mystery of the central computer.

After reading this far, many readers may be puzzled, as perhaps they expected more magic, mystery, and occultism. Perhaps they desired the revelation of fantastic secrets, which would enable them to unfold with a simple abracadabra or attain clairvoyance with the opening of a third eye. Patience!

The most impatient and superficial person is the one who sees least. Only the one who senses that great truth is found in that which is simple will be able to see beneath the surface of appearances. People always seek that which is complicated, believing there is an equivalence between complexity and truth. If we meditate deeply, we will find it is much more difficult to notice the simple than the complex. That which is simple appears so unattractive that no one bothers to study it or make an effort to delve beneath its surface.

Nevertheless, truth is in that which is simple, and for this reason it is said that "truth is written in the open book of Nature." Truth is strewn everywhere and no one notices it. It is more difficult to "know what is already known" than to learn about something of which one is ignorant. The already known merits no attention and in any event is tainted with prejudices.

It is for this reason that true intellect is hidden away in the attic of the insignificant and useless, scorning the profound treasure it may contain.

The mystery of occultism and magic is based on understanding what is already known to everyone, but which no one understands. For this reason, the common man wanders about lost and disoriented, endeavoring to find mysterious masters in India, to acquire strange parapsychological qualities, or to find curious and hidden manuscripts with magic secrets.

The word "occultism" does not define unknown knowledge, but a teaching, which is hidden due to human stupidity, snobbery, superficiality, fantasy, and the lack of a state of higher awareness. It is due to this that at many times, lacking the abracadabra, the student feels cheated as he expected magic. But, what is the general concept of magic?

Magic is the food of hope for lazy people who believe it is sufficient to learn tricks or attain certain powers to be able to reach the fulfillment of all their desires through magic, without any effort whatsoever. That is to say, they visualize the magic art as an arbitrary exercise, a procedure in which the world and Nature would be subject to the whims and desires of the magician. We must now disillusion them, as that which is arbitrary does not exist in the Universe, and should it exist, it would bring about the destruction of the Cosmos.

People are horrified by effort, and therefore, easy magic has an extraordinary attraction for the unwary. Paraphrasing the concept of Hermes Trismegistus of "as above, so below," the attainment of something physical or material entails work, time, and effort. This is also true for Hermeticism, an art in which only after a long process of initiation is it possible to take the first steps. Nevertheless, we must not forget that the effort required is always relative to the importance of the goal being pursued, and we know of no higher or more noble goal than to be converted into a true human being with higher spiritual qualities.

Many people identify magic with parapsychological ability, believing that the highest goal of occultism consists in developing PSI powers. They are misguided by virtue of their complete lack of knowledge about true occultism, whose spiritual goals are neither temporal nor relative, but rather are infinite, eternal, and absolute, transcending matter, historical eras, life, and death.
 

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V - TO BE OR NOT TO BE?

This traditional question posed by Shakespeare is also one of the basic elements on which the student of Hermeticism must work. At first glance, the question seems to be the framework for a decision to live or die; no one thinks that he is not from the moment he has evidence of existence, sees himself, and realizes he possesses a material body which occupies space. Any normal human being who asks himself, "am I or am I not?" must reply affirmatively.

Nevertheless, Hermeticism affirms that sapiens is not. How can this be understood? ... Only through greater precision and depth in the comprehension of related concepts. For this it is necessary to work with two philosophical triangles, which follow.

Sapiens has a physical body, with a divine spark or spirit, and a "psychological I" or personality. If we ask if so-and-so is, and we refer to the body and the "psychological I," we must reply in the affirmative. On the other hand, if we refer to the spirit or "Superior I," our reply will be no.

In order to understand this, we must realize that we are speaking of a person, and that this person lives in the material world in a material body. This body is clearly seen and cannot be denied as it occupies space. The "psychological I" of this body also constantly manifests itself (perhaps it is never otherwise) and we have evidence of this.

Nevertheless, the "Superior I" or the spirit, in spite of being incarnated in matter, lives its own life in its own related world. This "Superior I" is not manifested in the body or the real world, and therefore, it is not in the material reality of the present time.

It is certain that for those people who do not believe that the spirit or the spirit in sapiens exists, this explanation has absolutely no value. Those individuals must ask themselves the following question:

"Who am I? Surely I am not the body, nor am I so-and-so. Could I be the thinker? Who am I?"

Continuing along this line, we maintain that the spirit or immortal essence, the "Superior I," lives in a mysterious limbo to which we have no access. From that limbo a fine thread reaches to the psychological awareness, giving the individual a sense of spirituality. Nevertheless, the spirit is never manifested in the individual's brain, and as a result, is never manifested in the concrete reality of the material world.

Therefore, if I ask myself, "am I or am I not?" this question refers to the essential being and I must reply:

"I am in the limbo where I exist as a spiritual being, but I am not in the material world where my physical body lives in the reality of the present time. And as it is of no use to me to be in limbo, I must accept that 7 am not. On the other hand, so-and-so (my 'psychological I') is, and exists to a certain extent in material reality."

This brings us to the basic objective of true occultism (the esoteric and not the exoteric) which is:

1. That sapiens be transformed into man
2. That this man be spiritual

The main goal of Hermeticism is spirituality, about which there are many mistaken ideas. For the majority of people, spirituality is a mysterious mystical state in which the individual reaches absolute purity, abstention from meat and alcohol, sexual chastity, and a life apart from material existence, living in an ocean of kindness, love, and renunciation. Painters frequently depict saints as skeletal men, thin-faced, with sunken eyes and an appearance of gentleness.

Nearly all the pictures of Christ depict him as very weak and undernourished, without strength or vigor. This false image of spirituality is what all those who have spiritual inquietude try to adopt.

To become spiritual in truth means only one thing:

"that the spirit manifests itself through one's own brain."

Thus, the individual is spiritual because his spirit has access to material, concrete, and temporal reality. If, however, as a consequence of this fact certain superior qualities are awakened in the individual, that is another matter.

Adding the concept of time to the subject we are studying enables us to visualize the phenomenon of being in a much more luminous form. In relation to time, we are not interested in any of the complicated Einsteinian equations, but only in the concepts of past, present, and future. In fact, only the present is of positive interest; the past and the future represent only negative concepts in this analysis.

Let us recapitulate and add time to our reflective process: sapiens possesses a physical body which has a "psychological I" and a "Superior I" or spirit. This body, which is material, occupies a location in space and a position in time.

Let us now place these constituent parts in time and space:

In the Cosmos, there are infinite forms of life which are governed by the absolute realities of the Universe.

Nevertheless, within these absolute realities there are temporal or relative truths, which are degrees of the absolute on an infinite scale of levels, each one having absolute and relative laws. In our condition as Homo sapiens, we live in the reality of the world which we know, that is, material body and terrestrial time. If we were to live on a distant planet, we might perhaps have an etheric or gaseous body, and a time adequate for the planet on which we would live.

Therefore, our fundamental reality as sapiens is the material world of the planet Earth, governed by terrestrial time, measured by terrestrial clocks. This is our concrete reality, as concerns our life in a biological body.

Carefully following the development of this subject, we will reach the following conclusions:

1. Our physical body lives adjusted to the absolute reality of the vital conditions which govern our existence. Terrestrial time passes with respect to our body, according to the hands on the clock.

2. Our "psychological I" is a fan opened towards the past, present, and future. It is never completely in the present, in the past, or in the future. With respect to time, it is different from the physical body; it has a different location in time.

3. Our spirit lives in cosmic time, but in itself is beyond time. It is what is, what has been, and what will eternally be.

Our inability to be spiritual resides in the fact that our spirit and our body do not coincide in time; therefore there can be no communication between them.

To make our spirit and body coincide, there are two basic methods:

A - Chaos

B - Order

Both systems require a mediator or intermediary as the contact between body and spirit.

• In the case of A—Chaos, the individual uses his subconscious (in which the past, present, and future coexist) to unite with the spiritual. It is called chaos because it produces disorientation in time and space, which may affect the material conditions of an individual's life, but increases his spiritual illumination.
   

• In B—Order, an artificial mediator is created by means of theurgy; but it is superconscious, not subconscious. Further on, this will be explained in more detail.

Each method attempts to bring the spirit to the temporal reality of the physical body, because the reverse cannot be done.

In order to explain the mystery of being, the student must zealously study the concepts of being and not being. The student must identify himself with these states. Being, naturally, corresponds to reality, and not being corresponds to fantasy.

Stated in another way, all that is fantastic, in the sense of illusory fantasy, is not, as this corresponds solely to a subjective vision of the individual. On the other hand, reality IS, as it is equivalent to the objective contemplation of a phenomenon, which exists either externally, apart from the individual, or as an internal phenomenon, but which is perfectly studied, verified, and delineated.

It is humbling to observe how much the human being lives in a purely fantastic or illusory subjective personal world, without ever encountering concrete and objective reality. This is explained by sapiens' dreamlike state, as each person has a world of dreams or personal fantasies corresponding to his desires or fears. Thus, to a certain extent, each person lives in his own fantasy world imaginatively created according to his unconscious needs.

There is an absolute key which gives us a reference point for understanding the mystery of being, and this key is expressed in the following Hermetic concept: "the only reality is the present moment; there is no past or future; both are illusory." The past existed and the future will exist.

What is the present? The present is the exact point of union between the past and the future.

If we are able to understand that the only reality is the present moment, we will reach the foundation of the mystery of to be and not to be. Life is composed of real, absolute, and implacable nature, by dreams and time. In this life we are faced with fantasy modules and reality modules. Each module is always made up of three elements: time, space, and the individual. As these three elements are combined, the person either is or is not.

In order to understand this, we will construct the following image of the world:

1. A space apparently immutable and immobile.

2. A tape like that of a computer. This tape is divided into spaces, marked like a measuring tape. Each degree corresponds to a second, and this system moves along the immobile space at the speed of one degree per second. (In this case, it does not matter whether the space or the time moves, all that matters is that one of them moves.)

 

3. Man standing upon the Earth (part of space), along the time band.

We must realize that there are many time bands in the Universe, one for man, another for minerals, animals, planets, galaxies, etc. For our purposes, we are only interested in one, the time band for man.

Suppose that this human time band is moving at the rate of one degree per second, and that man is standing alongside this measure and must walk in step with it. Let us stop the system for a moment and make a red mark on the tape, exactly in front of the man, and then start the system up again. To the extent that the man remains on the red mark, he will live in reality, that is, the man IS. On the other hand, upon leaving the mark, either by going backward or forward with respect to it, the man IS NOT.

Coincidence with time takes us toward the reality of our existence; a lack of this coincidence takes us toward an existence of fantasy. Furthermore, it is necessary to add a missing element to complete this module. The missing element is the physical and psychological activity of the individual at a given moment.

The following example illustrates this:

So-and-so, knowing the secret of time as explained here, reaches complete coincidence with time at this moment.

What would his situation be?

Let us suppose that his location would be at the second degree of time (this is an imaginary division). At this degree, it is 3:42 p.m., and our experimental subject is in his downtown office. What is real for this individual? Only the space-time with which he is physically connected at that moment. This is his prime reality—his office with all that it contains and the work he is doing at that moment.

His house, his car, his family, and all that is apart from him at that moment exist only as a secondary reality. These are elements with which the individual will make contact in the near future, but which for the same reason, do not exist at that moment, as the only reality is the present moment.

Now, to the extent that the subject psychologically projects his awareness toward a secondary reality or toward a fantasy (to what is not involved in his space-time at that moment), the individual will no longer coincide with time, and will unfailingly fall into the power of dreams, fantasy, and unreality. It is for this reason that it is dimly recognized that mental concentration is a powerful weapon for obtaining something of value. It is obvious that a person can only remain in coincidence with time in direct relation to his self-discipline.

If we could in some way enter into coincidence with cosmic time, we would surely live thousands or millions of years; our age would be planetary, not human.

The individual's great enemy is his "psychological I" which, as stated before, is like a fan opened to the past, present, and future, thus making it impossible to achieve actual temporal coincidence.

The subject's imagination makes him project his awareness beyond the present moment, living thus an unreal and fantastic existence: not existing. We must understand that if a man lives in another time, he is not in relation to the present time.

It is necessary to add something tremendously important and this is the fact that when one exists in coincidence with time, located in the reality of the present moment, one obtains the manifestation of the spirit in the brain, thus succeeding in becoming spiritual. Therefore, the secret of spirituality is the mystery of time and its influence on the human being.

For the Hermeticist, people have two ages:

1. Chronological age
2. Real age

Chronological age is that which we all know. Real age is the sum total of all those tiny moments in which the spirit is manifested through the brain, and therefore has access to concrete material reality. For different reasons, some accidental and others that can be attributed to the individual himself, the spirit has some corporeal manifestations.

Nevertheless, these are so rare and brief in most people, that the real age of a forty year old person may only be six months, weeks, days, and at times, only hours. This real age is obtained by adding the spaces of time during which the spirit was manifested, moments in which the person acquires, in spite of their brevity, an increase and elevation of his awareness.

This reveals to us part of the methods employed by Hermeticists in the spiritual development of students, because obtaining the manifestation of the spirit and maintaining this condition is inevitably a process of authentic evolution. Nevertheless, this is a long and painful process, as it involves the "transubstantiation of the verb," that is, the verb or spirit should be converted into flesh and blood.

This is what Jesus taught his disciples during the Last Supper when he gave them bread and wine saying: "drink, for this is my blood, eat, for this is my body."

Very few accept that this statement is literal and not symbolic. The majority will not understand what has been said here in spite of the simplicity of the language. We write for a minority, but with the language of the majority, in order that everyone may have the same opportunity.

A reality module is composed of the following elements:

1. The subject in the correct space-time
2. What is contained in the space indicated above (material and psychological things)

A fantasy module contains:

1. The subject in the incorrect space-time
2. The material and nonmaterial things contained in that space

It is unnecessary to add that reality modules are rare exceptions. The majority of people live almost permanently entangled in the web of fantasy and dreams, which rob them of their best possibility for achieving true consciousness and happiness. Although this phenomenon is stated clearly and people are warned of this danger, only a small minority understand their precarious situation.

Let us recall the wise words of Jose Ortega y Gasset in one of the paragraphs from his book The Revolt of the Masses, when he says:

All the matters about which science speaks, whatever the science be, are abstract, and abstract things are always clear. So that the clarity of science is not so much in the heads of scientists as in the matters of which they speak. What is really confused, entangled, is the concrete vital reality, always a unique thing. The man who is capable of steering a clear course through it, who can perceive under the chaos presented by every vital situation the hidden anatomy of the movement, the man, in a word, who does not lose himself in life, that is the man with the really clear head.

 

Take stock of those around you and you will see them wandering about lost through life, like sleepwalkers in the midst of their good or bad luck, without the slightest suspicion of what is happening to them. You will hear them talk in precise terms about themselves and their surroundings, which would seem to point to them having ideas on the matter. But start to analyze those ideas and you will find that they hardly reflect in any way the reality to which they appear to refer, and if you go deeper you will discover that there is not even an attempt to adjust the ideas to this reality.

 

Quite the contrary: through these notions the individual is trying to cut off any personal vision of reality, of his very own life. For life is from the start a chaos in which one is lost. The individual suspects this, but he is frightened at finding himself face to face with this terrible reality, and tries to cover it over with a curtain of fantasy, where everything is clear. It does not worry him that his "ideas" are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defense of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality.

The man with the clear head is the man who frees himself from those fantastic "ideas" and looks life in the face, realizes that everything in it is problematic, and feels himself lost. As this is the simple truth—that to live is to feel oneself lost—he who accepts it has already begun to find himself; to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to cling to, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life.

 

These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. He who does not really feel himself lost, is inexorably lost; that is to say, he never finds himself, never comes up against his own reality. This is true in every order, even in science, in spite of science being in its nature an escape from life. (The majority of men of science have given themselves to it through fear of facing life. They are not clear heads; hence their notorious ineptitude in the presence of any concrete situation.)

 

Our scientific ideas are of value to the degree in which we have felt ourselves lost before a question; have seen its problematic nature, and have realized that we cannot find support in accepted notions, in prescriptions, in proverbs, nor in mere words. The man who discovers a new scientific truth has previously had to smash to atoms almost everything he had learned, and arrives at the new truth with hands stained with blood from the slaughter of a thousand platitudes.

In a brilliant manner, although profane and not Hermetic, Ortega y Gasset elucidates the difficulty of finding clear heads as he called them, for man is lost beneath the superficiality of his own thoughts and fantasies, and never reaches the reality of life.

Common man has never suspected the magnitude of his going astray in the world which surrounds him, as his fellow man lacks orientation as much or more than he himself does. Unfortunately, schools and universities offer no guidance in this respect, least of all regarding ethical and moral codes, or through laws or rules instituted by society. To be guides, they would have to be designed by clear heads, which are certainly not abundant.

Nevertheless, and this has been seen repeatedly in history, clear heads occasionally will suddenly appear and point out the road to be followed with a modicum of clarity. In general, people scorn such intelligence, as this is always the case with the ignorant who face something they do not understand, as a defense against showing their intellectual weakness.

Our world is, at least for the moment, a planet of cripples who believe themselves to be perfectly healthy because they are unaware of any other condition. Nevertheless, the damage is not in their bodies or intelligence, but in their lack of consciousness. But what is this consciousness we are referring to? Is it perhaps the difference between man and animals? Certainly not, although logically a sapiens is much more conscious than an animal which does not possess the divine spark.

The awareness or consciousness to which we refer originates with the exercise of an intelligence separated from dreamlike states. On the other hand, unconsciousness or lack of awareness pervades the intelligence of a dormant subject and does not impede mechanical thought or the functioning of dead intelligence.

The ideas we are endeavoring to explain are summarized in the following chart:

1. Unconsciousness: Intelligence born from an apprenticeship of dreams. The individual's level of awareness is very low, even though his intellect may be brilliant, since this acute ness only reflects great dexterity in arranging combinations of cerebral information. This is called dead or programmed intelligence.

2. Consciousness: Intelligence arising from and developed on the basis of an apprenticeship of awakeness. The individ ual's level of awareness is constantly high. We call this living or unprogrammed intelligence.

Man might well be called a mental cripple. The term mental is only figurative, as sapiens has no mind, which we will explain later. Nevertheless, with the expression mental cripple, we wish to point out the weakness and inoperative state of the mind which, Hermetically speaking, is considered to be the highest faculty of the human being, but which he possesses only in a dormant state.

Due to the lack of a state of higher awareness, the planet Earth is a small hell, where by divine grace or infernal evil, the individual neither notices nor evaluates his precarious condition or the cloudiness of his awareness. Like true madmen, each sapiens, like Don Quixote, the Castilian nobleman, strikes out against his own windmill. Thus, battle after battle, youth is lost, illusions die, purity withers, and the last glimmers of lucidity gradually disappear.

If we were perverse Gods or immoral despoilers, we could not invent a better method to make a group of slaves work peacefully than to make them believe, by means of collective hypnosis, that they are happy and important. We would then have perfect robots who would work untiringly, producing what we desire.

In addition, these robots would make and maintain themselves. It could be argued that sapiens, unlike other species, sows, produces, and labors only for himself and not for other beings. This is true for the products and material sapiens uses for his own maintenance. No nonhuman species steals the material product of sapiens' efforts. On the other hand, this is not the case with the subtle fruit produced by the human nervous system in everyday life.

This fruit is rapidly reaped by certain beings who are much higher on the evolutionary scale than the human being; veritable Gods of space, who profit from human efforts, but in turn fulfill certain cosmic functions and occupy an important position in the universal economy. These beings have been mentioned previously: they are the Archons of Destiny. We could also refer to them as Gods of the Zodiac, as they direct and govern human existence on this planet.

When we speak of true astrology, we do not refer to radiations from a specific planet, but to the influence of the Zodiacal Gods, each one of which (there are 72 in all) has personal and defined characteristics, influencing the people they control in a strange way. All of Earth's inhabitants are under the sway of one or more of these Gods, who regulate, shape, and direct the destiny of humanity. But this is not so for the destiny of the Hermeticist, who attains his vital autonomy at a certain moment, releasing himself from the mandate of the Archons.

The Archons of Destiny are terrifying beings, not because they are evil, but due to their cold and inexorable severity in the manipulation of sapiens. If we were to establish a symbol for these beings, no doubt they would be depicted with a whip in their hands, a girdle of bristles or netted wire with which they chastise humanity in order to ensure their progress, although this evolution may be imperceptible during our earthly time.

For example these occult judges pitilessly provoke a world war in which millions of people die. For them, these dead are of no more importance than that assigned by sapiens to the thousands of animals they sacrifice daily in order to feed.

Sapiens, in his extreme fight for existence and in his various relations with the natural and social environments surrounding him, inevitably experiences all kinds of tribulations, suffering, deceptions, and other experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant. As a consequence, his emotional and nervous systems develop certain embodied elements, that are extremely powerful, and which abandon the human body in the form of vibrations (everything vibrates; matter is only vibratory energy).

These vibrations are transmitted through antennae incorporated in the biological unit which are tuned to the frequency of the Archons, who then reap this power and use it for purposes we cannot divulge, again stating that they accomplish a cosmic function.

It is thus that sapiens is unwittingly stripped of the most noble product he has produced; the final distillate of human experience, the broth in which lies the blood, the soul, and the very life of the individual. The individual lived for this, suffered, loved, enjoyed, worked, built things, went to war, studied, investigated, only to prepare the golden broth of his life. We must understand that the central computer only exists in relation to the Archons of Destiny as an instrument to control sapiens.

The object of life, the reason for which sapiens was created, is not for him to enjoy life in the garden of the Lord, but rather to be a pawn in his vineyards, a worker so perfect he can act as cultivator and food at the same time.

If man could prevent his golden broth from being stolen, with this vital product he could become equal to the Gods, rapidly evolving by integrating within himself the products from the chemical laboratory of his physical body. This is exactly what is done by the student of Hermeticism, who is temporarily freed by the Archons of Destiny.

This individual, by virtue of his understanding and responsibility, has no need for an overseer with whip in hand to oblige him to evolve through suffering, as he takes responsibility for his evolution into his own hands, and if he deems it necessary, submits himself to the same temporary suffering in order to attain eternal happiness. This is in contrast to the profane or worldly person who chooses fleeting pleasure at the expense of eternal suffering.

If the student fails or turns aside from his path, abusing his temporary freedom, the Archons again take him under their control, punishing him very severely.

From another point of view, we can see how certain countries are chosen by the Archons for veritable martyrdom. Furthermore, one should not believe that this suffering is futile, as such a sacrifice generally brings about a moral, material, spiritual, and intellectual revival of the population by virtue of the law of suffering. So it is that after wars we notice a rapid rebirth toward a higher state. This is a high price to pay for evolution. These wars could have been avoided had there been sufficient clearheaded people in the world who the masses would have been willing to follow.

Enough revealing of secrets which are hidden from sapiens.

Let us spread a cloak of silence on this subject in order to comply with the mandate of the esoteric Sphinx who demands silence. Speech and silence are two swords, which must be handled with sublime skill in order not to disrupt universal harmony. Those who have "eyes to see" will understand everything not stated in the written word, but in the cryptic language of the initiate.

For those not in this state, it is best that they understand nothing and continue to sleep tranquilly. Ultimately, the Archons run no risk of a bad harvest from a possible rebellion of sapiens. Sapiens is too blind to see where the danger is really found.

It is sad to observe the tremendous limitation of sapiens, who shuts himself up in the small world of stereotypical concepts, of memorized knowledge, of imitation, and mechanisms of compensation and defense.

His mental disability prevents him from realizing just how small the cubicle is which imprisons him. And, thus, with a mind made up in advance, he accepts, condemns, or tolerates without bothering to intelligently analyze the situations with which he is confronted.

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