Samael Aun Weor

Samael Aun Weor (March 6, 1917 - December 24, 1977) was a spiritual teacher, occultist, esotericist, and author. He established himself in Mexico in the 1950s where he founded the 'International Gnostic Movement' to spread Gnostic teachings. Author of over 60 books, Samael Aun Weor is well-known in Latin America as a spiritual writer despite his relative obscurity in the English speaking world. His books advocate "Gnosis" (Higher "knowledge") as the way to divine realization, and his teachings attempt to revive ancient Gnostic wisdom, which flourished at the beginning of the Common Era before being denounced as heresy by the Church Fathers.

Samael Aun Weor is particularly renowned for his writings on sexuality as a doorway to religious enlightenment. He advocated sexual practices as the highest form of religious devotion and articulated this viewpoint in his book, The Perfect Matrimony, which claimed to unveil the secret of sexuality as the cornerstone of the world's great religions. His book was denounced as immoral by the public of his time.

Life

Samael Aun Weor was born Víctor Manuel Gómez Rodríguez in Bogotá, Republic of Colombia. His childhood and family life are not well known from independent outside sources. According to his autobiography, The Three Mountains, Samael Aun Weor claimed to be born with an awakened consciousness and he engaged in spiritual discourses from a young age.^[1] As a teenager, he was asked to lecture at the local Theosophical Chapter, and at the age of 18 he was admitted into the occult society Fraternitas Rosicruciana Antiqua (F.R.A.).^[1][2] While a student in the F.R.A., Aun Weor methodically studied the entire Rosicrucian library and it was here that he allegedly learned the secret of the "Great Arcanum," or White Sexual Magic; the profoundly veiled sexual key which, according to Weor, underpins all of the world's great religions.^[1] According to Eliphas Levi, "...in former times, whosoever revealed, or caused the key of this supreme secret to be discovered by others through imprudent revelations, was condemned immediately to death." ^[3]

A period of historical obscurity in the details of Weor's life ensues between the mid-1930s and 1950. At this time, it seems that Aun Weor became a spiritual vagabond of sorts, traveling with neither home nor income. At one point, he lived with a tribe of indigenous people in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Northern Colombia, learning the healing secrets which would later form the foundation of his medical treatise, Occult Medicine and Practical Magic.^[4] It was also during these years that he claimed to have had his first experience of the "Illuminating Void" meeting his "Inner Being" or Atman whose name is "Aun Weor," meaning Word of God.

Although he was briefly married in the early 1940s, he remarried "Litelantes" (born Arnolda Garro Mora), who became his esoteric collaborator and mother of four children. She also became the eventual heir of his copyrights, which she left to her first-born, Osiris Gómez Garro. Weor explains that this "Lady-Adept" Genie used to instruct him in entering the so-called Jinn state, which he claims is placing the physical body in the fourth dimension.^[5]

By 1948, Aun Weor began teaching to a small set of students. In 1950, under the name "Aun Weor," he managed to publish The Perfect Matrimony of Kinder, or The Door to Enter into Initiation with the aid of his close disciples. The book, later entitled The Perfect Matrimony, claimed to unveil the secret of sexuality as the cornerstone of the world's great religions.^[6] In it, he elucidated topics such as sexual transmutation, tantra, sexual magic and esoteric initiation.^[7] Writing in such a candid manner regarding sex was met with disdain by the majority of the public at the time. Seen as immoral and pornographic, Aun Weor found himself fleeing angry mobs wishing to silence him by whatever means necessary. He was incarcerated numerous times, at least once for "committing the crime of healing the sick".^[1][8] While in jail, however, he continued to write books. Around this time, Aun Weor and his small but growing number of disciples built the Sumum Supremum Sanctuarium, an "underground temple" in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

He also founded numerous Gnostic Institutions and created Gnostic centers in Mexico, Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica. A "triangle" relationship was established between the Universal Gnostic Movement, the South American Liberation Action (ALAS) in Argentina headed by Francisco A. Propato Ph.D. a graduate of La Sorbonne and Spanish translator of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,^[9] and the Sivananda Aryabarta Ashram directed by Swami Sivananda in India.^[10]

Nevertheless, the development of the Gnostic Movement was not without some setbacks. At the time of the publishing of the revised edition of The Perfect Matrimony (1961), the movement had fallen apart. He wrote that "those who did not leave the Gnostic Movement can be counted on the fingers of one hand."^[11] However by the time of his death, Samael Aun Weor had completely re-established the broad international reaches the movement previously held. In 1991, F. W. Haack (1935–1991) who was chief delegate of the Evangelical Church with responsibility for sects and ideologies attacked Weor's ideology in a German book published in Zurich but the Gnostic branches of the movement in Germany and Switzerland are still active and expanding.^[12]

Weor continued to write many books on topics in the 1960s, such as Hermetic Astrology, Flying Saucers, and the Kabbalah. However, he also wrote sociopolitical works such as the Platform of POSCLA (Partido Socialista Cristiano Latinoamericano), Latin-American Christian Socialist Party, which attacks the doctrines of Marxism-Leninism and any other aspect of "Materialistic Atheism." The fundamental ideas of the Party's Platform are expounded in his book The Social Christ. There Samael Aun Weor turns to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as necessary to understand the workings of the Dark Fraternity, an alleged Fraternity of Crime involved in the workings of Big Corporations.

In what was to be the last decade of his life, Weor penned works such as Parsifal Unveiled, which details the esoteric symbolism of the Wagner opera, and Gnostic Anthropology in which he heavily criticizes the theories of Darwin, Haeckel, "and their henchmen." The books The Great Rebellion, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, and The Revolution of the Dialectic provide a ground work for the vast knowledge of esoteric psychology found rooted in every genuine religion. During this time, he was preparing the highest vehicle of his doctrine, "The Pistis Sophia Unveiled",^[13] in which he meditated, verse-by-verse, upon the extremely esoteric Gnostic text The Pistis Sophia. He never actually received any income from his books. At the 1976 "Gnostic Congress," Samael Aun Weor publicly renounced all his copyrights in an effort to help the books he wrote become more widely available (although copyright was later given to his wife, Litelantes, to prevent poor translation). The desire of Samael Aun Weor was that his books would be sold cheap, so that even the poorest of person could purchase them. Mario Moreno ("Cantinflas") who was the guest of honor at the 1976 Gnostic Congress in Guadalajara Mexico, in his own lifetime would give away much of his wealth to the poor.^[14]

By August 1977, he had developed stomach cancer but he continued to speak to both his students and the general public, giving radio and television interviews throughout tours of Mexico. Eventually he was forced to stop, due to debilitating stomach pain, and his condition steadily worsened until his death on December 24, 1977. He was survived by his wife and children.

Master and Avatar

Throughout his books and lectures there are many instances in which Samael Aun Weor states that he is a Master and that his inner being, Samael, is the Avatar of Aquarius. For example, in The Aquarian Message, he writes, "the Maitreya Buddha Samael is the Kalki Avatar of the New Age." The Kalki avatar and Maitreya Buddha, he claimed, are the same "White Horse Rider" of the book of Revelation.^[15]

He also states that he completed the Great Work of Self-Realization in the previous Manvantara and had been living on Earth for millions of years, as a bodhisattva of compassion, before becoming a fallen angel. He stated that this is why Samael is synonymous with both a demonic connotation, such as "blind God," as well as an angel, and it was only in his most recent incarnation that he paid his karmic debts, and became an upstanding bodhisattva once again.^[16]

Although he affirmed his spiritual mastery many times, he also regularly rejected the worship of his personality:

"I do not follow anyone, nor do I want anyone to follow me. What I want is for each one of you to follow his own Inner Being. I am only a lighthouse in the sea of existence, and I do not need a clientèle in order to subsist... Masters exist in abundance, and I am only one of many; therefore, those who want to find the Masters will find them within, in the depths of their own inner consciousness."^[17]

Doctrine of Synthesis

Samael Aun Weor states that he is delivering the Doctrine of Synthesis because it provides a clear and precise doctrine that syncretizes an extensive variety of teachings that study the human condition.^[18][19] Although, he drew extensively from different sources, he always expressed the teaching in his own words and made sure to include the revelation of the Great Arcanum which those authors usually missed for it was forbidden to reveal it under penalty of death.^[20] He seldom quoted an author verbatim and so gave very little credit directly to these different sources, specially Eliphas Levi, Blavatsky and Gurdjieff. In revealing the Great Arcanum, he quotes Dr. Arnold Krumm-Heller and gives him credit for that enigmatic sentence written in Latin, just what the doctor ordered; the doctor's prescription reads as follows: "Inmissio membri virilis in vaginam sine ejaculatio seminis" (coitus reservatus).^[21]

Religions are viewed as idiosyncratic expressions of immutable and eternal values. Religions are said to be born and die in time, yet their spiritual values always remain eternal. When a religious form has fulfilled its mission, it begins to degenerate and dies, then a new messenger appears and delivers a doctrine appropriate for that culture. Different cultures require different doctrines for their development and this results in a vast difference of religious doctrines. Nevertheless, if one understands their core values, all religions naturally support each other.^[22]

Weor stated many times that schools and religions can become cages of the mind which impede the reception of truth,^[23] yet he also delivered a massive doctrine and states that every religion and sect is necessary, that “all religions are pearls strung on the golden thread of divinity.”^[24] A possible resolution is found when one understands that just as a cage can protect one who is bewildered by the unknown, so can it become an obstacle for the realization of truth.^[25] Ultimately the teachings call for the student to acquire his own gnosis, or self-knowledge, and the teachings are only a means to that end.^[26]

Praxis

Samael Aun Weor emphasizes that his doctrine is experiential, and must be put into practice for it to be of any value to the student.^[24][27] Likewise, throughout his works there are hundreds of techniques and exercises that supposedly are to help in the development of psychic powers (e.g. leaving the dense physical body at will as in astral projection)^[28] in order to be taught in the schools of the "Higher Worlds."^[29] It should be noted that the techniques are always combined with meditation and sexual transmutation, and the perfection of such powers may take more than one lifetime.^[30]

It is stated that if a student is successful in awakening consciousness, he or she will eventually experience a continuous state of vigilance not only during the day but also while the physical body is sleeping, and most importantly after death. This is significant because Samael Aun Weor states that those who have a sleeping consciousness are not aware of their postmortem condition just as they are not aware when they are physically sleeping. The awakening of consciousness allows a student to continue to work regardless of their physical state.^[31]

Psychology

The basis of Samael Aun Weor's Practical Work is of a psychological nature. He states in many of his books that the purpose of his doctrine is to effect a psychological change. The terms Gnostic, Esoteric or Revolutionary Psychology are used to describe the psychological methods taught, and are said to be synonymous with the psychological teachings of religion.^[32]

A fundamental axiom presented is that an ordinary human being is not really human at all, but rather an intellectual animal (a rational animal) with consciousness asleep.^[33] According to Samael Aun Weor, a true human being is someone who has no psychological imperfection, an image of God, as in Jesus' saying, "Become perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect."^[34][35] Samael Aun Weor writes of the awakening of consciousness as being very similar to the traditional Buddhist understanding, and throughout his works he describes many analogous processes as they are spoken of in different religions.

With the technique of awakening Kundalini, he taught the doctrine of the annihilation of the ego.^[36] He taught that one’s ego is really not one but many, or a multitude of independent, contradictory desires. Likewise, each person's ego is said to actually contain many "I’s," many "egos," many "aggregates" and even demons. Each desire is an "I" and each "I" has its own specific causes and conditions that lead to its personification at a particular time. This is the mechanism behind what is commonly called "changing one’s mind," because when one "I" changes to another a literal exchange of personified psychological aggregates has taken place.^[37] This "doctrine of the many" is the same as that taught by G.I. Gurdjieff and because of this Samael Aun Weor was often accused of plagiarism. To this he responded that Gurdjieff was not the author of this doctrine and that its origin is found in Egypt and Tibet.^[38]

Consciousness is described as a state of being, very closely related to God. The consciousness within the normal person is said to be 97 percent asleep. Consciousness asleep is consciousness that is subconscious, unconscious, or infraconscious, which are various levels of psychological sleep. Psychological sleep is a way to describe the lack of self-awareness, meaning that the common and ordinary person is not aware of 97 percent of what constitutes the ordinary state of being. A consciousness asleep is caused by what Samael Aun Weor calls identification, fascination, or the incorrect transformation of impressions (all three are essentially the same thing). It is said that to awaken consciousness one must understand consciousness asleep, which implies that one must begin to understand every impulse, action, thought and movement one makes, a feat that is said to be accomplished through meditation and self-observation. It is stated many times that the awakening of consciousness is the only way to acquiring gnosis and achieve a true and radical change by removing the spurious psychological aggregates that cause unnecessary suffering.^[39][40]

The purpose of the psychological work is to dissolve all the psychological aggregates one has accumulated. The term "psychological or mystical death" is often used to describe the process one must undergo in order to reach liberation.^[41] "Psychological aggregates" are commonly known simply as aggregates in Buddhism, yet it is taught that other religions used a more veiled or less sophisticated method to describe them, such as: the Legion of Satan that Jesus is described as removing from a man in Mark 5 in one of the alleged Miracles of Jesus;^[42] the killing of the "unbelievers" in Islam; Moses escaping the tyranny of the Egyptians;^[43] Arjuna fighting against his own blood (the ego);^[44] the demons of Seth that attack Osiris;^[45] Jesus throwing the merchants out of the temple;^[46] the archetypical death and resurrection of the "Solar Hero" exemplified in the stories of Jesus and Osiris; the descent into the Inferno (representing our unconsciousness) in order to accomplish a great task, such as those performed by Hercules or Orpheus; the archetypical Dragon (ego) that must be slayed by the Knight, etc.^[1] Samael Aun Weor states that this specific paradigm is called "The Doctrine of the Many" and has been taught in esoteric schools and religions since the beginning of time.^[47]

In order to achieve psychological transformation, extensive methods of meditation, self-observation, and sexual transmutation are taught and recommended to be practiced on a daily basis.^[40] The goal of psychological work is the awakening of consciousness and ultimately the state of Paramarthasatya or Adi-Buddha Yoga.^[25]

Soteriology

Samael Aun Weor spent considerable time writing about the topic of soteriology (the study of salvation), and rejected the idea that belief in God alone achieves salvation.^[25] He argued that there are many different levels of salvation depending upon the willpower of the individual. He said that for those who do not remove their psychological imperfection (ego)—which is the cause of karma and the suffering of humanity—after approximately 108 rebirths they will have their ego removed forcefully through mechanical devolution within the infradimensions (Hell). Here it is said that "Mother Nature" mechanically pays out one’s accumulated karma through a great deal of suffering over thousands of years until one is returned to the state of an innocent elemental, or Essence. This is said to be a state of being that is total happiness, yet not cognizant happiness and therefore not complete happiness. It should be noted that Hell is not taught as a place of eternal damnation, just a place to pay one’s karma, and in fact it is seen as a part of God's grace because if the ego is not removed forcefully, these souls would continue to suffer indefinitely. It is held that after Hell, the elemental is reinserted into the mechanics of evolution in order to once again attempt to gain conscious happiness: They are first inserted at the basic level of existence (minerals), and through millions of years, transmigrate through increasingly complex organisms until the state of intellectual animal is reached again.^[48]

For those who do work on themselves, depending on the degree of perfection, happiness and wisdom they wish to attain, two distinct paths emerge: the Straight Path of the Razor's Edge (full of dangers inside and out) and the Spiral Path (the easy way out). The Spiral Path involves reaching a state of relative enlightenment by choosing the enjoyment of the Higher Worlds, Heaven or Nirvana), and occasionally returning to a physical body in order to pay out a little more karma and help humanity in the process.^[48] Samael Aun Weor refers to these as the Pratyeka Buddhas and Sravakas, and that the vast majority who reach this state choose the Spiral Path because it is very easy and enjoyable. The dangerous Straight Path of the Razor's Edge is the Path of the Bodhisattva who renounces the happiness of the Higher Worlds (Nirvana) in order to help humanity. In the doctrine of Samael Aun Weor, the Bodhisattva has a very specific definition, as it is not merely someone who has taken the Bodhisattva vows. It is the physical (Malkuth), vital (Yesod), astral (Hod), mental (Netzach) and causal (Tiphereth) vehicles—in other words the human soul—of a self-realized spirit, (Geburah-Chesed) who has chosen the extremely dangerous Straight Path of the Razor's Edge in order to incarnate the Christ (Kether-Binah-Chokmah). In other words, the Bodhisattva is the "Son" of a self-realized God who is trying to return to the Absolute or 13th Aeon.^[49]

Christ is viewed as the savior but not as traditionally understood by contemporary Christianity. Instead, Christ is an impersonal force or intelligence that emanates from the Absolute and is also referred to as the Cosmic Christ. Christ is said to be before Jesus, and is represented in different traditions with names such as Thoth, Ormuz, Ahura Mazda, Krishna, Osiris, Zeus, Jupiter, Quetzalcoatl, Okidanokh, Kulkulcan, Chrestos, Baldur, Mahavatar Babaji and Avalokitesvara. It is held that Christ enters into and exalts any individual who is properly prepared, which denotes the complete annihilation of the ego, the exhaustion of all karma and the birth of the solar vehicles, the latter is necessary to handle the super high voltage of Christ. Samael Aun Weor writes that only those who choose the previously mentioned Straight Path of the Razor's Edge can incarnate the Christ because the Spiral Path is not a path of total sacrifice. Likewise, any true Bodhisattva has incarnated the Christ or is in process of doing so. It is said that in history Christ incarnated in Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Krishna, Moses, Padmasambhava, John the Baptist, Milarepa, Joan of Arc, Fu-Ji, Ramakrishna as well as many others now forgotten by time.^[50][51][52]

It is important to notice that some of these individuals represent Christ as an impersonal force e. g. Jesus, meaning that although he was an individual Christ, he taught the doctrine of the Cosmic Christ, intentionally molding his physical life after the psychological processes that one undergoes to incarnate the Christ. As with Buddha, Jesus is seen as a Bodhisattva who came to help humanity. Jesus is viewed as the Savior of the World because he is a Paramarthasatya (an inhabitant of the Absolute) that physically incarnated (a very rare occurrence) specifically for the sake of poor suffering humanity. According to Samael Aun Weor, Jesus purposefully played out physically the internal or psychological struggle one must undergo in the path of Self-Realization; thus, the Gospels are a mixture of reality and kabbalistic, initiatic symbolism. ^[53][54] According to Samael Aun Weor, there is the historic Christ as depicted in Christian Churches; then, there is the Christ of Transubstantiation to be known exclusively through the Gnostic Church; and finally, there is the Apocalyptic Christ who is to come with the New Jerusalem, after the Great Fire Cataclysm that will consume the world.^[55]

Significance

The topic of sexuality is the crux of Samael Aun Weor’s entire message. He states, "Indeed, sexual energy is without a doubt the most subtle and powerful energy normally produced and transported through the human organism. Everything that a Human Being is, including the three spheres of thought, feeling and will, is none other than the exact outcome of distinct modifications of sexual energy."^[56] According to Weor, there are three fundamental types of sexuality: suprasexuality, which is the sexual functioning of someone like Buddha or Jesus, who naturally transmutes all their energy perfectly; normal sexuality, which is defined as those who have no sexual conflict and who transmute their sexual energy; finally infrasexuality, a category which contains homosexuality, adultery, prostitution, masturbation, abortion, bestiality and any other "abuse" of the sexual energy.^[57]

Weor studied basic physiology, mostly endocrinology and the hormonal influence of primary and secondary sexual characteristics.^[58][59] He taught that there are three fundamental nervous systems: cerebrospinal nervous system, grand sympathetic nervous system, and the Parasympathetic nervous system. These nervous systems are referred to as the "Three Brains" or three centers of the intellectual animal.^[60] The three centers are directly related to the Trinity, Trimurti, or threefold-ness of creation, the intellect being related to the Father (Kether, Affirmation, Positive), the emotion related to the Son, (Chokmah, Denial, Negation), and the sexual center related to the Holy Spirit (Binah, Reconcile, Neutral). The primary energy of the intellectual brain (Father) is the air, which is then placed in the bloodstream which is related to the emotional brain (Son), and lastly the final condensation of blood is found in the semen or sexual hormones, which is directly related to the Holy Spirit: that which impregnates or manifests creation, Shakti, etc.^[61][62]

Building on this typology, he added that there are three fundamental defects in the human personality: the demon of the mind related to the intellectual center, the demon of desire related to the emotional center, and the demon of evil will relate to the motor-instinctual-sexual center. They are collectively referred to as the "Three Traitors," and many references to religion are found that are held to symbolize them, for example: Judas (desire), Pilate (intellect), and Caiaphas (will) who crucify Jesus; Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum who murder Hiram Abiff; Apopi, Hai, and Nebt who murder Osiris; the three furies who attack Orestes; the three daughters of Mara who attack Buddha and who are conquered through right Thinking (Intellectual Center), right Feeling (Emotional Center), and right Action (Motor-Instinctual-Sexual Center).^[63]

Samael Aun Weor contended that the solar bodies are formed in the same manner that physical bodies are formed: through use of the sexual function. In order to form the solar bodies, sexual transmutation via sexual magic is taught.^[64] Sexual magic is the arousal of sexual energies through the act of coitus between husband and wife, but instead of expelling those energies through orgasm they are transmuted into higher octaves of energy.^[65] Each successive Solar Body is the result of the saturation of transmuted sexual energy at its respective octave: first, the "Christ Astral" is formed by transmuting the sex energy into a second octave; second, the "Christ Mind" is formed by saturating, condensing or crystallizing the sexual energy into a third octave, and the causal body or "Christ Will" is formed by transmuting the sexual energy called "Hydrogen SI-12," into a fourth octave.^[66] The "birth" of the solar bodies is what Samael Aun Weor states is the true meaning of being "born again." It is taught that the solar bodies are referred to in the Bible as the three sons of Noah or the three Christians in the (alchemical) furnace of Nebuchadrezzar.^[67]

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Dawson, Andrew. New Era, New Religions. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2007. ISBN 9780754654339
• Faivre, Antoine. Access to Western Esotericism. Suny Press, 1994. ISBN 9780791421789
• Ferriss, Susan, Ricardo Sandoval, Diana Hembree. The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farm's Workers Movement. Harcourt Trade, 1998. ISBN 9780156005982
• Fortune, Dion. Esoteric Orders And Their Work. Red Wheel/Weiser, 2007. ISBN 9781578631841
• Jonas, Hans. The Gnostic Religion. Beacon Press, 1963. ISBN 0807057991