The Initiatic Path in the Arcana of the Tarot and Kabala

CHAPTER XXIII

ARCANUM No. 1

Arcanum number 1 is the Magician of the Kabala.  It is obviously that which commences.  Anything that is initiated in practical life is the Arcanum number 1.  It is Unity.

It is easy to see that every beginning is difficult.  It is necessary to work hard; one must sow in order to be able to reap.  That’s why the Arcanum number 1 is the Unity of the Original Principle, the origin, clearly, of every Unity, because everything starts with the number 1.

The Unity becomes the origin of the Duality or Binary: 1+1=2.  Finally, the productive synthesis of the Ternary is in that Unity.  The Unity, the 1, is the Divine Monad, the First Logos.  It is the Father who is in secret, and each person has their own individual Monad.

Madame Blavatsky said that “there are as many Fathers in Heaven as there are men on Earth.”  The Father in turn, or of Himself, unfolds into the Divine Mother, so He and She are Brahma because She becomes the feminine aspect of Him.  So then we see how the Unity is the root of the Binary, since the Binary would not exist without the Unity.

If the Monad did not exist, the Divine Mother would not exist.  The Monad is the root of the Duality.  There are as many Mothers in Heaven as there are human beings on the Earth; everyone has their Inner God or own particular Celestial Father and Mother.  Having clarified this we can better understand why the Unity is the productive synthesis of the Ternary, and how and why it is produced.

When Jesus prayed, he prayed to the Father who is in secret, and he left us a prayer, which is the Our Father.  This prayer is one hundred percent magic.  It takes a couple of hours to pray the Our Father well, because each petition that is made to the Father is one hundred percent magical.  The mistake people make is to pray it in a mechanical way and it has no result.  It is necessary to break down that prayer, analyze it, and for this it is necessary to relax the body, that no muscle is tense, and then to concentrate, combining prayer with meditation.

People think that Our Father who is in Heaven is a Lord who is sitting up there.  If we reflect deeply, we discover the Monad, the Number 1, the origin of all other Unities or Monads.  It is clear that the Monad needs something in life in order to be able to Self-Realize.  What is it that Monad needs?  We ascertain it in the light of the Sanskrit: He needs Vajrasattva.  The meaning is Diamond Soul.  This is a Soul that does not have the “I”, a Soul that eliminated all of the subjective elements of its perceptions.  And these elements are the I’s and the Three Traitors of Hiram Abif or what is the same: Judas, the Demon of Desire, mistakenly called the Astral Body; Pilate, the Demon of the Mind, which people confuse with the Mental Body; and Caiaphas, the Demon of Ill Will.  Why would it be that all of this is unknown to the pseudo-esoteric schools?

The subjective elements of our perceptions are the aggregates, the different composites of the human being or the different red demons that make up the egos.

In Psychology, the subjective elements of perception are defined as all the psychological processes of the human entity, defined as subjective processes of the unconscious, subconscious, preconscious, infraconscious, and everything that is of a metaphysical type.

What do modern psychologists understand by “objective”?  That which is physical, what is tangible, what is material.

It’s clear that they are totally mistaken, since when we analyze the term “subjective”, sub- means below, that which is below the limits of our perceptions.  And what is it that is below?  Is it not the infernal worlds?  Isn’t “subjective” that which below what is physical?  “That is what is truly subjective: that which is below the limits of our perceptions.”

Psychologists do not know how to use that term correctly.

Objective is the Light, that which shines; it is something that has Truth, clarity, lucidity.

Subjective is that which is Darkness, what is tenebrous.  The subjective elements of perception come from “seeing”, “hearing”, “touching”, “smelling”, and “tasting”.  All of those are perceptions of what we see in the third dimension.  For example, on a cube we only see length, width and height, because we are bottled up by the Ego.  The subjective elements of our perceptions are made up of the Ego with all its I’s.

The Unity, the Father, unfolds Himself into the Mother.  In turn, the Mother unfolds, giving rise to the Son she carries in her inside of Her.

Osiris   -   The Father

Isis       -   The Mother

Horus   -   The Divine Spirit; the Innermost of each Being.

The Unity is the productive synthesis of the Ternary.

It is written in the Egyptian Book of the Dead that Ra gave Horus, the child that the Divine Mother carries in Her arms, the region of Buto.  This region is the region of Pure Spirit, that is, of Atman-Buddhi-Manas.

Seth turned himself into a black boar that inflicted a blow upon Horus’ eye, and Horus complained about this to Ra.  “I will cure you,” Ra told him, and in order to console him gave him the region of Buto.  This is explained as follows: “It is necessary to kill the black boar, thus the Eye of Horus will be restored, that is to say, clairvoyance will be restored.”

Horus can put an end to the black boar, but he can’t do it alone; he has to ask the help of the Divine Mother.  Eliminating the black boar, Horus triumphs and the Essence that was bottled up is freed, merging with Horus, with the Diamond Soul; it joins with its Father and Mother.  They are three flames that come to form one single realized flame.  The Essence is an unfolding of Horus.  We need to ask of Horus that he fortify our three brains.  As the Ego dies, Horus becomes stronger, and therefore we need to ask him to strengthen those three brains.

When Horus has swallowed the Essence, he needs the solar bodies and a seed atom of each one of the bodies remains.

Solar Physical Body

Solar Astral Body      –    Full Consciousness

Solar Mental Body    –    Full Knowledge

Body of Conscious Knowledge

The human being is a human being, and the smaller and more microscopic one feels the better, because we human beings should think that we are ants.  God is God it is Divinity that has Power.  We are nothing.  We are poor devils, and even the human who has become a complete Human Being is an ant compared to God.

A Master said to me, “V.M. Samael Aun Weor, true happiness is having God within.  Even if we go into the Absolute or into Nirvana, if we don’t have God within, we won’t be happy, even though those that live there already have Him incarnated.”  Those words made a tremendous impact on me, and I went to consult the great sage Saturn.  I made various esoteric salutes and he answered them, but he said that “there is no greater salute than that of the seal of the heart.”

There was no need to speak.  In silence he answered everything, saying that “not even in the Absolute, if you don’t have God within, is one happy.”  That response left me satisfied.  Those consultations cost money, and I paid with capital from good works, which are metallic coins that represent Dharma.

SYNTHESIS:

·     This Arcanum, the Magician, represents man.  It is the masculine principle.

·     The number 1 signifies that which initiates, that which begins.

·     The whole of the Work is contained in the Tarot.  All of the psychic processes are unfolded there.

·     The Unity is the productive synthesis of the Ternary.

·     As long as we do not know ourselves, we can know nothing about the Soul and the Spirit.

·     The four conditions needed to be a Magician are the following: 

To know how to suffer;

To know how to keep silent;

To know how to abstain;

To know how to die.