The Hermetic Origin of Illness and Healing

My main motivation for this topic is to delve into the following questions:

How does illness occur and what should we do about it? Illness and therefore healing, occurs on multiple levels, not just physical, so healing is necessary on every dimension.
What is the purpose of health? Health is not an end unto itself, health is a means to end. Health is the gift we use to serve others, and to serve the Being.
How do we reconcile a yearning for excellent physical, mental, and emotional health with the demands of a process where we sacrifice everything?

At a certain point in the esoteric initiation path, whether this lifetime or another lifetime, it is necessary to make the ultimate sacrifice of death of the physical body. We all have to discover the balance of what to prioritize and what health means to us.

We are in a fallen world, in bodies subject to the laws of karma, filled with the psychological aggregates, so to truly heal means to become whole through the psychological and esoteric work.

It’s a simple fact that we live in an inherently imbalanced world, and it is becoming more difficult to find nutritious food, clean water, avoid pollutants, plastics, and chemicals etc. So just to acknowledge that part of our karma in these times is needing to make certain efforts not only to promote our health but simply to avoid various toxins and pollutants.

And I want to say that as I approach illness and healing from different perspectives, at no point in this talk do I want to trivialize illness. Illness can be a source of terrible suffering and I hope that in this talk we can find a new perspective on this suffering, as well as some practices to overcome it.

Master Samael studied modern and traditional medicine and wrote his book Occult Medicine and Practical Magic as a gift to humanity to have cures and remedies for our ailments; he gave us the keys to practice with the Masters of medicine for healing; he gave us the keys of alchemy in order to radically transform our entire psychological and spiritual organism.

In that spirit we can remember the famous saying attributed to the sage Confucius:“The healthy man desires a thousand things, the sick man desires only one.”

Let’s begin by talking about Physical Health

Master Samael in Occult Medicine and Practical Magic says: “When all the acts of our daily life, even the most insignificant acts, become the living expression of the Glorian in ourselves, we will then never be sick.”

It is necessary to comprehend the relationship between the physical body, the thoughts and emotions, and our actions. The physical body manifests the results of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. At a basic level we must see that our daily choices “the most insignificant acts”, what we eat, how we breathe, how we sleep, the impressions we take in etc. comprise our total physical health.

This is the essence of the teaching of “the Sexual Hydrogen SI12”, that the quality of food, air, and impressions we ingest becomes naturally concentrated in the “sperm”, the sexual substance, in men and women. This sexual substance then becomes the basis of our potential, either generative for normal sexuality- reproduction; or regenerative for supra-sexuality- the creation of the soul.

With good food, water, air, and impressions, we will create healthy sexual substance with the possibility of healthy bodies and healthy offspring. With non nutritious food, polluted water and air, and negative impressions, we will have more difficulties with basic physical health and the Hydrogen SI12 will be of an inferior substance regardless of what we use that substance for

There’s an idea in Taoist medicine that one’s sexual health and fertility is an expression of one’s overall health. This seems pretty straightforward, but is often overlooked today. The sexual hydrogen SI-12 will be of good quality based on the quality of our health. There is currently an epidemic of infertility in both men and women, all over the world right now, even when factoring in cultural elements like many couples in industrialized societies waiting to have children until they are older.

The modern medical solution is synthetic hormones and so-called reproductive technology, rather than good nutrition, sleep, meditation, stress reduction, avoiding toxic substances etc. to heal and nourish the hydrogen SI-12. Once we start to investigate our physical state of illness we may find it takes more than simple physical interventions to help us.

What are the emotional and mental causes of our physical state? What ego or egos are present when we are engaging in unhealthy habits, when we are addicted to stress, when we find ourselves somehow seeking and finding sources of negativity that infects us with fear, anger, and resentment?

Many people today find themselves yearning for physical health and also filled with a kind of resentment that drains the energy and makes it difficult to find the motivation. There are also situations we may find ourselves in of pouring excessive energy, time, money into health interventions and even that becomes a source of stress and imbalance.

So in investigating our physical illness we may find a simple physical cure. Or we may go deeper and discover it is coming from an emotional or mental level, in other words a narrative, a story that we live with, a psychological song as Master Samael would say. We might be living in a negative story that keeps us sick.

Going deeper we look at the causal and spiritual factors of this illness. Sometimes I talk to people who aren’t in gnosis but are looking into the roots of their situation, and we talk about the “existential” nature of the problem. Are we at odds with reality right now? Are we fighting against a situation that we cannot change? On some conscious or unconscious level do we not want to be here? This type of existential crisis, to resist reality, will make us sick in one way or another.

Spiritual Health

Let’s look at some of the causal and spiritual factors that influences our thoughts, feelings, actions, and physical health outcomes. Certain situations are karmic and manifest in our genetics, and these are more intractable, difficult to change.

Certain situations are just necessary to pass through for the development of our essence. There have already been excellent and very thorough talks on Koradi covering the esoteric aspects of the pandemic, so I won’t go into that, but in the end it was something we all lived through. A karmic situation that everyone’s essence had to live through, to pay karma, to learn lessons, hopefully to have some comprehensions.

The fact that we live in the world we do, with all of its imbalance, disconnection from nature, disconnection from wisdom, is a function of karma. The most important spiritual factor, which applies to anyone listening to this, is that our Being yearns for us to awaken and to transform completely.

This yearning of our internal Being means that we must reorganize ourselves for the path. We do not merely want good physical health, because we comprehend that physical health is not an end unto itself. Physical health is a means for this vehicle to properly conduct itself in the work for humanity and the death of the ego. We do not merely want the ability to procreate or generate, because we want to regenerate, to raise the serpents of fire, of light, and for our Divine Mother Kundalini to devour us completely, to give birth to the soul, and give birth to the Christ.

And just as we learn in the teaching of The Four Ways, we do not want to live completely like the fakir, the monk, or the yogi, neglecting health and balance for a certain type of spiritual development. We need balance, we need robust health, and we need to comprehend the relationship between the inner and the outer.

Reconciliation on the Cross

This process of comprehending the relationship between the inner and the outer, between our actions and the circumstances, becomes a process of reconciling the reality of being materialized in the world.

The cross that we all study profoundly in this work, is the intersection of the material physical life, physical circumstances, physical ailments and illness, with the internal realities of the vital, psychological, causal, conscious, ontological, and spiritual life. Reconciliation can only happen on the cross, at this the intersection of material and spiritual, the two lines of life that we all learn about in these studies.

What I mean by reconciliation is something like an impossible proposition. To reconcile opposites, material and spiritual, in a given moment can feel like we’re choosing between life and spiritual pursuits. It takes some time in these studies and practices to begin to experience a living confluence of the spiritual yearnings and the physical needs, which we begin to learn is the path itself.

The path, the Christic path, cannot occur without the physical body, which comes guaranteed with pain, limitations, mortality. And yet the human spirit, or what we call the Inner Being fills us with the yearning for something more, or better said, something different. And this yearning always has to contend with our physical, mental, emotional, causal or karmic, limitations. Exactly as it should.

The Fall

We are in this predicament because of the sexual fall, which we know from Master Samael occurred in ancient times in the Lemurian epoch, and was a type of fatal, cosmic mistake that resulted in humanity’s exile from Eden.

From Genesis 3:17-19

“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

A teaching from St. Gregory of Nyssa one of the early church Fathers, in his book The Life of Moses. Humanity must go into the place filled with thorns and thistles, a foreshadowing of the crown of thorns of Christ.

Thorns represent a disintegration, a scattering or fractioning, rather than a single center, a center of gravity in the Being, an integration. With thorns there are too many centers, too many points, and this is our disintegrated consciousness with the ego.

Christ is crowned with the thorns which are all of our problems as a humanity, our struggles, our anger, fear, impatience, pride, etc etc. and our diseases, our illness, our sickness. It is the Christic process of sacrifice with love for all of humanity that can cure everything.

From Genesis 3:21-24

“Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

When humanity- called Adam and Eve- left the garden of Eden- the superior dimensions, to crystalize in Malkuth the fallen kingdom, Jehovah gave them clothes of skin. That is, when humanity became identified with sexual sensation and materialized the divine power of sex through the sexual fall, we lost our spiritual powers. We lost our sacred and natural connection to the divine through awakened faculties, through fully functioning chakras, glands, and hormones. And so humanity entered this realm of imbalance, entropy, old age, sickness, and death.

But God gave us something to cover ourselves, the clothes of skin, a bit of death to protect us from the thorns and roughness of this world. Cain was the descendant of that humanity, of Adam and Eve. Cain and his descendants developed technologies, including tools of metal, musical instruments, and building a city, all more layers of materiality, building up after the clothes of skin.

Technologies simultaneously provide protection from the material physical world and integrates or embeds us with it. Now we find ourselves in modern times and there is so much physical and mental imbalance it’s almost hard to imagine a time when humanity enjoyed a natural state of health, much less a fully awakened inner life.

But we cannot simply shed our garments of skin, we cannot eradicate all technology, all cities, and try to go back to Eden as we are, we have to change ourselves.

Master Samael reminds us in Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology:

“It is not irrelevant to remind our readers that a mathematical point exists within us. Unquestionably, such a point is never found either in the past or in the future. The two horizontal and vertical lines of the Holy Cross intersect at this point. Thus, we find ourselves from moment to moment before two paths: the Horizontal and the Vertical. It is evident that the Vertical is different; it is the path of intelligent rebels, of revolutionaries. When one remembers oneself and works upon oneself, when one does not become identified with all the problems and sorrows of life, it is a fact that one is traveling along the Vertical path. We need to learn to live from moment to moment. For example, a person who is desperate about some sentimental, economical or political problems has obviously forgotten his Inner Self.

If such a person would stop for a moment, observe the situation, try to remember his Inner Self and then try to understand the reason for this attitude… If he would reflect a little and think that everything passes away, that life is fleeting, illusory, and that death reduces all the vanities of the world to ashes…

If he would understand that his problem in reality is nothing more than a worthless flame and soon dies, he would suddenly see with great surprise that everything has changed…”

Healing and the Path

In order to truly understand illness and healing for ourselves, we must understand the path. The path back to Eden, back to our birthright as fully functional humans.

This is the Christic path, the work of death, birth, sacrifice, and love. Christ is the solution to Adam, the fallen man. Christ is the solution to Cain, the first murder, and the first of many fratricides in the Bible. Not exclusively Jesus Christ that great master, but also the cosmic Christ, and God willing, our own intimate Christ.

We have a duty to our Being to fulfill His will in this body, in this particular lifetime, which requires a certain attention to physical and psychological health. At the same time we learn to die within ourselves, to die to the most difficult thing which is our suffering. We must be courageous enough to see our attachment to suffering, which may be profoundly unconscious. Consciously we want heal, unconsciously we have investment in being sick, because our world is sick, and karmically we are tied to this world.

Hermetic Principles

Now let’s go into the 5 causes of illness, which is a teaching from Paracelsus, a 15th century Swiss physician, alchemist, and theologian (who’s full name was Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim). Samael Aun Weor discusses this teaching in the introductory chapter of his book Occult Medicine and Practical Magic, elaborating on some of the more esoteric contexts. First, what does Hermetic mean?

Hermetic refers to the Greek god Hermes, called Mercury in Latin, and is related to the mysterious Egyptian master Hermes Trismegistus, author of a scripture called the Emerald Tablet.

In The Mysteries of Life and Death Samael Aun Weor says:

“Hermes Trismegistus, that thrice great god, the real incarnation of the god Osiris, gave us the marvelous science of Alchemy.”

So a Hermetic is something taught by Hermes Trismegestus, something alchemical, and is related to the principles and functions of the alchemical and sexual mercury. One of the most famous lines from the Emerald Tablet is “As below, so above; and as above so below. With this knowledge alone you may work miracles.”

The contemporary esotericist Manly P. Hall teaches that the alchemists accomplished their apparent miracles by observing the laws of nature and then intensifying or concentrating these laws.

So if nature can transform common carbon or charcoal into a precious diamond over many millions of years using heat and pressure, then the alchemist can transform what is base and common into something valuable and pure using the pressure of the consciousness and the tremendous heat of the transmuted sexual energy.

Hermetic medicine

From this Hermetic, alchemical tradition of “As above, so below” we have Paracelsus who said, “Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence.”

This means we are not separate from the stars and planets, the earth and elements, we are all part of the same great system. Quintessence is the fifth element, the quality that is more than the sum of its parts, something complete. In order for a person to be the true expression of the quintessence of nature, they must know themselves, know their true nature.

Paracelsus said:

“Medicine is not only a science; it is also an art. It does not consist of compounding pills and plasters; it deals with the very processes of life, which must be understood before they may be guided.”

As the universe is made up of many different levels and dimensions, so are we. Health and sickness can occur on any of these levels. Health is being balanced and in the flow of the universal movement of life.

Illness and Health

“There is no danger of harmful discordance if the body, soul and mind are in perfect harmony.” Samael Aun Weor, Occult Medicine and Practical Magic

Illness is caused on some level by a dysfunction, disharmony, imbalance, interference, or blockage. The Buddha taught that sickness and old age are a part of life. Sickness, old age and death are what we all must confront as long as we are on the wheel of existence. We are always managing the inherent imbalance or “dis-ease” of the world of the ego. We have the ego because of the fall into matter and the misuse of the sexual energy.

Various illnesses along with the facts of old age, can be inevitable. But just as we fight to dissolve the ego and we make strong efforts to generate the soul, we make great efforts toward good health. And we try to comprehend the causes of our particular illness and suffering.

Diagnosis

In order to have a remedy or cure for an illness there must be a diagnosis. If we apply the wrong remedy because of a misdiagnosis then the remedy will not work or could make things even worse. Dia “apart, separate, discern” and “knowledge” gnosis “to know”, so to diagnose means to know through discernment, to rule out extraneous information to get to the root. Once the root cause is discerned and a diagnosis is made then the remedy can be applied.

For example if there is pain in the body- the pain can be from any number of physical causes, or perhaps not physical at all but originating from an imbalance of vitality, a misuse of the sexual energy that drains the vitality. The pain could it be from an emotional or spiritual rift of some sort, a disconnect from the person’s true nature, their center, their Being and the body is trying to cope with the spiritual or emotional pain with a physical symptom. Etc. etc.

If the original cause is more subtle or originating in a more subtle body, it may be more challenging to make a proper diagnosis. Samael Aun Weor in Occult Medicine and practical magic explains that in order to truly be able to diagnose the medic must have clairvoyance.

“In order for one to exactly diagnose a sickness, clairvoyance is necessary. Every sickness has its causes within the interior universe of the human being. Thus, in order to penetrate within this profound interior universe, one needs to be clairvoyant.”

“Freud tried to approach this reality with his psychoanalysis. However, he did not delve into it completely, because he lacked the development of his clairvoyance or sixth sense. The diagnosis by percussion and auscultation is already very antiquated. Consequently, a major amount of doctors are abandoning it.”

He goes on to discuss iridology, that is diagnosis by looking at the iris of the eye, and chirology, looking at the lines in the hand, and how these are very difficult to diagnose by. I wonder what Master Samael would have thought about medicine today where doctors diagnose almost exclusively through blood tests and imaging, sometimes even exploratory surgery, without even doing any kind of physical exam on the patient, or observing them with they own eyes, or even listening to their symptoms and history.

Samael gives a very interesting clue for diagnosis

“In the systems of diagnosis of medical wisdom, the magician uses an apparatus called a clairteleidoscope in order to clairvoyantly observe the organism.” He goes on to describe how this device is constructed.

“The Gnostic medic will take the sick person into his healing sanctuary. Then, with his sixth sense and with the help of his clairteleidoscope, he will perform the corresponding exam of the organism. Thus, he will give an exact diagnosis.”

So diagnosis, discernment is very important.

Cure or Remedy

The cure or remedy can be physical: taking medicine, removal of damaged fluids or tissues, prescription to avoid certain environmental factors. The remedy can be psychological: performing an act of generosity, acknowledging grief, forgiveness to let go of anger and resentment.

Spiritual sickness can be cured with prayer, ritual, and other practices. Health is maintained by being in a balanced relationship with ourselves, with the rhythms of nature, with family/community/society, and with God. A disconnection from any of these aspects results in sickness.

A note on dosage. Paracelsus has the famous quote “All things are poisons, for there is nothing without poisonous qualities. It is only the dose which makes a thing poison.”

Whenever we are talking about health and remedies we have to understand dosage. More is not necessarily better, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Whatever intervention we are doing, it could be drinking water or exercising or taking supplements or medications, we need to know the dosage and how and when to stop.

Obviously spiritual practice is something we can and should maintain our whole lives, eventually acclimating ourselves to a higher “dosage”; whether it is transmutation, sexual alchemy, runic practices, mystical death practices, night vigil work etc. Make the right effort, and pay attention to the results.

The Five Entia

The following are the physical, psychological, and spiritual causes of illness according to Paracelsus.

Entia or ens is the origin of a disease.

Ens Astrale: environmental influences on the body including astral or celestial factors
Ens Veneni: the effects from food and toxins
Ens Naturale: the body’s own constitution or disposition
Ens Spirituale: psychological and spiritual influences of illness
Ens Dei: the work of God and our own karma

Ens Astrale

Samael Aun Weor, Occult Medicine and Practical Magic:

“The Astral Light is the basis for all sicknesses and the fountain of all life. Every sickness, every epidemic, has its astral larvae. When these larvae become coagulated in the human organism, a sickness is the outcome.”

The astral light is the source of vital energy, and can also be the source of imbalance or illness in the physical body. Astral illnesses can be diagnosed with the science of astrology or through prayer and personal insight. Astral larvae are the deposits that collect as a result of negative use of the energies. Places that collect negative energy such as bars, places with heavy drug use, even garbage cans in the home.

Astral larvae are invisible but feed on the vital energy and can cause sickness. Most of the time we do not notice astral larvae since they are a part of normal life, but when we cleanse ourselves we will notice a big contrast.

Practices for cleansing the body of astral larvae:

Regular cleaning of our living space, clothing, and body.
Burn incenses with purifying actions such as camphor, sage, rosemary, and juniper, benzoin, copal.
Master Samael mentions the 5 perfumes- Frankincense, myrrh, camphor, sulphur, aloeswood when blessing a pentagram.
Create a strong infusion of rosemary branches, that have previously been blessed, and add that to a bath.
Place sulphur powder in our shoes before wearing them (do not ignite the powder).
Burning sulfur in cases of needing a strong cleanse.

Ens Veneni

Food can be medicine or poison. The substances we take in throughout our lives ideally provide nourishment. Nourishment comes in three forms:

Food and water
Air
Impressions

There are two factors into providing proper nourishment to our system: the quality of the substance and the quality of the digestion. The highest quality food is poison if our digestion is weak. Ideally we have access to reasonably healthy food, and we take care of our digestive system.

Clean air requires functioning lungs in order to enter into our system. Avoiding major air pollutants if we can, and using breathing practices to help keep the lungs strong and healthy.

Find impressions that nourish the consciousness (such as being in nature, listening to beautiful music etc.), We need be awake and paying attention so that we can receive and digest these impressions. SOL is an excellent practice for maintaining consciousness as much as possible. This is basically healing our organ of digestion of impressions, just as we would want to heal the organs of digestion of food.

Ens Espirituale

“The applications from without are merely to create within a coordinating mental and spiritual force.” -Edgar Cayce

Excessive negative emotions cause illness. There are countless research studies correlating “stress” with various diseases, although stress is a general term that can include many types of negative emotions. For example in Taoist medicine, anger stagnates the liver, excess or suppressed grief harms the lungs, fear harms the kidneys, over excitement damages the heart, worry and overthinking harms the spleen and pancreas.

There is even a condition in modern medicine called “Broken Heart Syndrome” that is sometimes indistinguishable from a heart attack that occurs after a big emotional event such as the death of a spouse or loved one. Dwelling on negative emotions, or suppressing and repressing negative emotions has an impact on the health of the body.

Samael Aun Weor, Alcyone and Negative Emotions:

“Everyone is being dragged down by negative emotions, and this is very grave. There is nothing more harmful for profound internal development than negative emotions… Everyone is being shaken up by negative emotions and nothing could be more contagious than these emotions…

A negative person can infect other negative people, and if this person dictates a lecture, then he infects thousands of people. They are more dangerous, thousand of times more dangerous, than viruses and bacteria…If a person goes everywhere from instant to instant with negative emotions, this person infects the whole world.”

Learn to transmute negative emotions, to solve problems intelligently, to find acceptance, flexibility, even humor in difficult situations. Seek help from others, read scriptures, use prayer and meditation to dissolve the problems and the negative outlook. We can also remember and have tremendous gratitude for the health that we have right now.

The health that we have is a wonderful gift, it is a miracle of nature that we can listen to this talk and be able to understand with our minds, hearts, and consciousness. To be able to move, to communicate, to have relationships, to do the Gnostic work and walk the path is a glorious treasure.

Gratitude is a wonderful remedy to that existential struggle we talked about earlier, the resistance to reality..

Gratitude is also a great remedy for negative emotions, particularly resentment. Here is a Gnostic prayer of Thanksgiving from the ancient Nag Hammadi library:

“We give thanks to You! Every soul and heart is lifted up to You, undisturbed name, honored with the name ‘God’ and praised with the name ‘Father’, for to everyone and everything comes the fatherly kindness and affection and love, and any teaching there may be that is sweet and plain, giving us mind, speech, and knowledge: mind, so that we may understand You, speech, so that we may expound You, knowledge, so that we may know You.

We rejoice, having been illuminated by Your knowledge. We rejoice because You have shown us Yourself. We rejoice because while we were in the body, You have made us divine through Your knowledge.

The thanksgiving of the man who attains to You is one thing: that we know You.

We have known You, intellectual light. Life of life, we have known You. Womb of every creature, we have known You. Womb pregnant with the nature of the Father, we have known You. Eternal permanence of the begetting Father, thus have we worshiped Your goodness. There is one petition that we ask: we would be preserved in knowledge. And there is one protection that we desire: that we not stumble in this kind of life.”

Ens Naturae

The body’s own constitution or disposition. This is determined by our DNA, which is a blueprint of our karma. The potential for various illnesses may or may not manifest, depending on our actions. The physical constitution is mirrored in the ethereal or vital body.

The ethereal body is composed of four ethers. The Chemical Ether and Ether of Life are related with our DNA and biochemistry. The Luminous and Reflective Ethers are responsible for the perception of light, heat, and sound, and memory.

Our deep, cellular memory is stored in these vital energies. When we know how to work with and transmute our vital energies, we are relating with ourselves in a more intimate way, and can potentially heal karmic illness.

We also know the keys from Master Samael for working with karma:

1. Do good deeds to pay your debts

2. The Lion of the Law is fought with the Scales

3. A superior Law always washes away an inferior Law.

The highest law is the law of love. I sometimes pray that the karma I owe in pain may be paid with actions of love.

A note on transmutation and the Mercury

We were speaking earlier of Hermes Trismegistus, and the title of this talk is the Hermetic Origins of illness and healing, so this is a good moment to discuss the Mercury. Hermes is of course related with Mercury, the Roman name of the god Hermes. When something is hermetic it incompletely sealed, hidden, secret, or occult.

Master Samael refers to the glass of Hermes which we must never spill. This is the occult secret of the sexual energy. The mercury is the divine spermatic fluid (in men and women) which is the origin of our existence as physical creatures and is the seed of the possibility of divine redemption for us. The mercury is the quicksilver, the liquid metal that is always moving, always kinetic, that is so sensitive and responsive to vibrations, to temperatures- being historically used in thermometers. Just like the god Mercury who could travel up to Mount Olympus the realm of the gods and goddesses, and down into Hades, the underworld. The mercury travels, it flows, it brings us on the journey of our life.

When we access the secret of the Mercury, the sexual energy is redirected to flow inward and upward, to the heart, to unite the Divine Mother and the inner Father. To regenerate us. The sexual energy as transmuted divine energy begins to reconnect us to ourselves, to others, and to our Being, to God.

The state of our Mercury is the sum total of our mind, emotions, actions. With the purified Mercury we in turn continue to purify our thoughts, feelings and actions, we purify our speech, our word, and we begin to heal, to become whole.

The mystery of the initiatic path is that our regeneration must come at the cost of, well everything. Everything that we hold dear. The false personality, our internal attachments, our degeneration, our greed, fear, anger etc. The great paradox is that healing is necessary so that we can sacrifice it all for humanity.

I’m reminded of the Tarot, and the initiatic Egypcios Kier deck that we use in Gnosis. Arcanum number 1 is the Magician, the priest. He is prepared, he has all the elements at his disposal, he starts the path with strength and balance. By the time we get to the Arcanum #21 it is the same initiate but he’s looking a little worse for the wear. He’s underground, his only transportation is a crocodile, he’s wearing an animal skin, the Sun of his Being overhead is eclipsed, but he is moving forward with strength, with rectitude. In other words, this journey of the initiatic path will not leave us unscathed.

Therefore health is not an end unto itself. We need a healthy body, mind, and emotional state in order to walk the path. We may not ever have perfect health because of various karmic circumstances, or we may have the gift of robust health, but let neither of these states distract us from the internal work.

It also reminds me of one of my favorite passages, from the chapter The Eternal Lover from Dayspring of Youth by Master M or Morya, a beautiful narrative vision of the fall and return of the soul:

“I wandered through the desolate coldness of the valleys seeking some way of escape, but the mountains bound me in on every side. In my hopelessness I prayed, and as I did so I saw far away in the distance many men pulling at a rope that seemed immeasurable; stretching into the very beginning of time. Guided by a light I found my way, and when I came to the place, I saw that the men were careworn and fatigued, yet buoyant with an inward strength, and on each of their foreheads shone a lambent flame. Then I knew that they were the Chain of Initiates who bear the burden of the world and I asked their blessings.

And one of them bade me place my hand over his as it clasped the rope; like an electric current there vibrated through me the cruelty of man and the sorrow and suffering of humanity. It crashed through my senses like lightning, till a merciful darkness overtook me.”

(I always picture the initiates with lines on their faces and bags under their eyes but with that determination and internal fire and light)

Ens Dei

The gravest sickness is spiritual sickness. This comes from identifying completely with the ego and reinforcing selfishness, hatred, violence, and ultimately a disconnect from God. The ego thrives in this way but the essence suffers. With faith, hope, and love, the essence can overcome any spiritual sickness or disillusionment. The Lord’s Prayer serves to remind us of the Christic power of forgiveness, and with this we are forgiven. Repentance, to renew one’s mind, brings that spiritual healing we require.

Sickness is a part of being human, of being subject to karma and all the inevitably disharmonious factors of life. The remedy for karma is conscious works and voluntary sufferings. Serve your fellow humans with patience and love, let go of selfish identification, dissolve the ego.

The initiatic path has the goal of true and ultimate healing: to be united with our innermost Being, and to become the “the living expression of the Glorian in ourselves”.

Solar Remedies

The prayer for healing from Occult Medicine and Practice Magic, in the section The Gnostic Church:

Oh Thou, Solar Logos, igneous emanation, substance and consciousness of Christ, powerful life whereby everything advances, come unto me and penetrate me, enlighten me, bathe me, go through me and awaken within my Being all of those ineffable substances that are as much a part of Thee as a part of me.

Universal and cosmic force, mysterious energy, I conjure Thee, come unto me, remedy my affliction, cure me from this illness and put apart from me this suffering so I can have harmony, peace, and health.

I ask Thee in thy sacred name, which the mysteries and the Gnostic Church have taught me, so Thou can make vibrate with me all of the mysteries of this plane and superior planes, and that all of those forces together may achieve the miracle of my healing. So be it.

We heal by solarizing ourselves, solarizing our hearts, our minds, our actions.

Practice with the Rose

Let us end with a description of a beautiful practice given to us by Master Samael in Occult Medicine and Practical Magic.

Roses are an ancient plant, by some estimates millions of years old. Physically roses are used in cosmetics, perfumes, and as a decadent food.

Psychologically they have been associated with lifting the spirit, emotional healing, and of course romantic or other love. The classic dozen roses for Valentines’ day. Esoterically roses can heal us from spiritual or emotional pain.

“Moral sicknesses can only be cured with the magic of the roses. Therefore, all those people who are sick because of a spiritual stab can be cured with the magic of the roses. Those poor souls who have a very deep emotional pain let them be cured with the magic of the roses.” There is a beautiful connection to Mary Mother of Jesus.

“Tradition tells us that when Mary was making carpets for the temple of Jerusalem, those carpets were transforming themselves into roses. The lines from the hands of Mary, mother of Jesus, clearly tell us that she had a rich suitor in her first youth, whom she did not want to accept because her only yearning was to become a priestess of the light…Her holy life accomplished the most grandiose mission that can be granted unto a human being. Now, she, this prominent Master, is reincarnated again in the valley of the Nile.

The “Rosy Cross” is the reconciliation of the cross of matter, wherein blooms the mystical rose. A beautiful practice for spiritual healing is using the magic of the rose, the queen of the flowers, which heals the heart and can heal even spiritual wounds and deep betrayals.

The practice is as follows: get 3 roses, ideally not grown with any chemicals or pesticides, and place them each in a glass or crystal glasses of water. Place these 3 glasses on your altar in a triangle, pointed to the north, the east, and the west.

Each morning drink the water from the glass that faces east, at midday drink the water in the glass that faces north, and in the evening drink the water in the glass that faces west. Drink the water before any meals. Replace the water after you drink it and continue for several days until the roses lose their vitality. Pray to the elemental of the rose before you perform this practice.

Appendices

Practice for healing with the Masters of Medicine

Master Samael also gives a practice to be healed astrally and physically. Write a letter on a piece of paper to the masters of medicine in the Temple of Alden with the request for specific healing. The Masters are Paracelsus, Galen, Master Huiracocha, Hermes Trismegistus, Angel Rafael, and Angel Adonia, Burn this letter along with frankincense resin to deliver the letter.

Practice for healing with the Maiden of our Memories

Samael Aun Weor in Occult Medicine and Practical Magic recommends doing a practice with the Maiden of our Memories to bring back memories from the Astral Body into the physical brain.

“While in bed, at the time of sleep, invoke your Innermost in the following way:Father of mine, Thou who art my real Being, I beseech Thee with all of my heart and with all of my soul to take the beloved Maiden of my Memories out from my Ethereal Body, with the goal of not forgetting anything when returning into my physical body. Then, while becoming sleepy pronounce the mantras:
LA RA S”.

Description of the clairtelescope

This lens is constructed in the following way: Inside of a steel-tube of about twenty centimeters in length and five centimeters in diameter, two small crystal balls with stripes of blue, green, yellow and red colors must be inserted. This lens is for clairvoyance as the microscope is for the optical nerve of the medic.

This clairteleidoscope must be blessed with a branch from a pine tree and three fruits of “cadillo mono” must be hung from its sides like balls. The “cadillo mono” is a plant which grows one or two meters tall in Colombia.

Hippocratic Oath: Classical Version

I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:

To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art—if they desire to learn it—without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else.

I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.

I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.

Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.

What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about.

If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.

—Translation from the Greek by Ludwig Edelstein. From The Hippocratic Oath: Text, Translation, and Interpretation, by Ludwig Edelstein. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1943.

The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegestus

1) This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth:−

2) As below, so above; and as above so below. With this knowledge alone you may work miracles.

3) And since all things exist in and eminate from the ONE Who is the ultimate Cause, so all things are born after their kind from this ONE.

4) The Sun is the father, the Moon the mother;

5) the wind carried it in his belly. Earth is its nurse and its guardian.

6) It is the Father of all things,

6a) the eternal Will is contained in it.

7) Here, on earth, its strength, its power remain one and undivded.

7a) Earth must be separated from fire, the subtle from the dense, gently with unremitting care.

8) It arises from the earth and descends from heaven; it gathers to itself the strength of things above and things

below.

9) By means of this one thing all the glory of the world shall be yours and all obscurity flee from you.

10) It is power, strong with the strength of all power, for it will penetrate all mysteries and dispel all

ignorance.

11a) By it the world was created.

12) From it are born manifold wonders, the means to achieving which are here given

13) It is for this reason that I am called Hermes Trismegistus; for I possess the three essentials of the

philosophy of the universe.

14) This is is the sum total of the work of the Sun.