Arcanum 1

The First Arcanum is The Magician of the Kabbalah. It is obvious that this arcanum represents that which begins. In practical life, anything that begins is the First Arcanum. It is the unity.

It is easy to comprehend that there is difficulty in everything that begins, which is why it is necessary to work very hard in the beginning. In order to harvest, we need to plant. This is why in the First Arcanum we find the unity of the original principle. The origin of every unity comes from the First Arcanum because it is clear that everything begins with the number one.

The unity becomes the origin of duality, or of the binary (1 + 1 = 2). Subsequently, in this unity is found the performing synthesis of the ternary. The unity, the number one, is the divine Monad, the First Logos. It is the Father who is in secret. Each one of us has our own individual Monad. Madame Blavatsky stated that “there are as many Fathers in heaven as there are human beings on earth.”

The Father in his turn or by his own will unfolds into the Divine Mother; thus, He and She become Brahma because She becomes the feminine aspect of Him. Therefore, here we can see how the unity is the root of the binary, because the latter cannot exist without the unity. The Divine Mother would not exist if the Monad did not exist. So, the Monad is the root of the duality. There are as many Mothers in heaven as there are human beings on earth. Each one of us has his own interior God or her own particular heavenly Father and Mother. By clarifying this it becomes clearer why the unity is the performing synthesis of the ternary, and also why and how this is performed.

When Jesus prayed, he prayed to the Father who is in secret, and he left us The Lord’s Prayer, an absolutely magical prayer. It takes a couple of hours to properly pray The Lord’s Prayer because each supplication that one makes to the Father is absolutely magical. People make the mistake of praying The Lord’s Prayer in a mechanical way which brings no results. One must disassemble this prayer and analyze it; thus, in order to perform this, the relaxation of the body is indispensable, not a single muscle should have any tension. Afterwards, one concentrates in order to combine prayer with meditation.

People imagine that our Father who is in Heaven is a Lord who is seated there. Yet, if we profoundly reflect on this, we discover the Monad, the number one, the origin of all of the other unities or Monads. It is clear that the Monad needs something in life in order to Self-realize. What is it that the Monad needs? We find the answer in the light of Sanskrit. It needs “Vajrasattva,” which means “a Diamond Soul.” This is a Soul that has no “I,” that has eliminated all of the subjective elements of perception; these subjective elements are the “I’s” and the three traitors of Hiram Abiff, or in other words, Judas, the demon of desire, who is mistakenly confused with the astral body; Pilate, the demon of the mind, who is confused with the mental body; and Caiaphas, the demon of Evil Will. Why is it that pseudo-esoteric schools ignore all of this?

The subjective elements of perception are the aggregates, the distinct compounds of the human being, or the distinct red demons that constitute the “I’s.”

In psychology, the subjective elements of perception are defined as all of the psychological processes of the human entity. These are defined as psychological processes of the unconsciousness, subconsciousness, preconsciousness, infraconsciousness, and everything which is of a metaphysical type.

What do modern psychologists understand as “objective?” They understand it to be that which is external to the mind: the physical, the tangible, the material.

Yet, they are totally mistaken, because when analysing the term “subjective,” we see that it signifies “sub, under,” that which is below the range of our perceptions. What is below our perceptions? Is it not perhaps the infernal worlds? Is it not perhaps subjective that which is in the physical or beneath the physical? So, what is truly subjective is what is below the limits of our perceptions.

Psychologists do not know how to use these terms correctly.

Objective: the light, the resplendence; it is that which contains the truth, clarity, lucidity.

Subjective: the darkness, the tenebrous. The subjective elements of perception are the outcome of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting. All of these are perceptions of what we see in the third dimension. For example, in one cube we see only length, width, and height. We do not see the fourth dimension because we are bottled up within the ego. The subjective elements of perception are constituted by the ego with all of its “I’s.”

The unity, the Father, unfolds himself into the Mother. The Mother in her turn unfolds herself by giving origin to the Son that she carries in her womb.

• Osiris: The Father
• Isis: The Mother
• Horus: The Divine Spirit, the Innermost of each Being

The unity is the performing synthesis of the ternary.

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead it is stated that Ra delivered Horus (the child that the Divine Mother carries in her arms) unto the region of “Buto.” This is the region of pure Spirit, meaning the region of Atman-Buddhi-Manas.

Seth transformed himself into a black boar that hurt the “Eye of Horus.” Horus complained before Ra. “I will heal you,” said Ra unto Him, and in order to console Him, Ra gave unto Horus the region of Buto. This is clarified in the following way: one has to kill the black boar. Only thus is the “Eye of Horus” restored, meaning clairvoyance is restored.

Horus can exterminate the black boar but He cannot do it alone; He has to ask the Divine Mother for help. Horus triumphs by eliminating the black boar, and the Essence that was bottled up is now liberated, fusing itself with Horus, with the Diamond Soul; thus, the latter is united with its Father and Mother, and they are three flames that come to form one single flame: a Self-realized flame. The Essence is an unfoldment of Horus. Therefore, it is necessary to ask Horus to fortify our three brains. Horus is being fortified while the ego is dying. That is why it is necessary to ask him to fortify our three brains.

When Horus swallows the Essence, he then needs the solar bodies, so a germinal atom of each one of the bodies remains.

• Solar physical body
• Astral solar body: complete consciousness
• Mental solar body: complete knowledge
• Body of the conscious will

The more small and microscopic one feels the better, because the human being is nothing but a human being. We as human beings must realize that we are ants. God is God because the one that has the power is the Divinity. We are nobody. We are wretched devils, and even the Human Being, being a complete human being, is an ant in comparison to God.

A master once told me, “Venerable Master Samael Aun Weor, true happiness is to have God within, because even when one is in the Absolute, or in Nirvana, if one does not have God within, one is not happy, although the beings that dwell there have God already incarnated.”

These words made a tremendous impact on me. So, I went to consult the great sage Saturn. I performed before him various esoteric salutations and he answered all of them, but he said, “There is no greater salutation than the one of the seal of the heart.”

There was no necessity to speak. He answered unto me everything in silence. When God is not within oneself, one is not even happy within the Absolute. This answer satisfied me. These consultations cost money, and I paid with the capital of good actions, which are metallic coins that represent Dharma.

Synthesis

- This arcanum, The Magician, represents the Man. It is the masculine principle.

- The number one signifies that which starts, that which begins.

- All of the psychological processes of the work are developed and contained within the Tarot.

- The unity is the performing synthesis of the ternary.

- We cannot know anything about the soul and Spirit when we do not know ourselves.

- The four conditions that are needed to be a magician are the following:

To know how to suffer.

To know how to be silent.

To know how to abstain.

To know how to die.