Samael

Lectures by Gnostic Instructors
Sons of SamaelLectures by Gnostic Instructors
Sons of Samael
Written by Gnostic Instructor

We study the Kabbalah in order for us to go deeper in our understanding of the scriptures. Scriptures can aid us in our psychological revolution to come out of the painful circumstances within which humanity has been submerged.

The sad truth is that, as much of an optimist as we may be, death is inevitable and suffering is a fact of our daily existence. We live in times of incredible uncertainty, with an ever growing number of terrifying threats surrounding us. From day to day and year to year, our circumstances appear to grow more desperate. All of us would love to find some solace, some respite from the terrors that hunt us during the long days and long nights. In spirituality, we pray and hope for solace, a place of safety, but unfortunately in these times when we seek out spiritual guidance and aid, oftentimes our suffering becomes more intense because many spiritual guides who proclaim themselves to be prophets or otherwise spiritually inspired or in fact fooled, deluded, confused. Therefore, we cannot rely upon anyone but ourselves.

The Kabbalah is an ancient science that reveals the underlying structures and mysteries in every great religion throughout time and space. The Kabbalah is not the property of a particular group, although in this time it is claimed as such. In fact, the Kabbalah is the divine birthright, the divine heritage of all humanity, and thus it must be known by everyone if we seek to escape suffering and return back to Eden.

Eden is a Hebrew word that means “bliss” or “pleasure,” and as you have learned if you listened to or studied the lectures that have been coming for the last few months, this word Eden has many levels of application. In synthesis Eden refers to a state of consciousness that is beyond our current state, a state of consciousness within which mankind can communicate with God. This is symbolized in the first book of Kabbalah called Genesis or Bereshit, when humanity existed in a state of bliss called Eden, symbolized as a beautiful garden in which there is no death, no suffering, but only happiness. We all long to return to that, to once again have that blissfulness in our existence, and so we study this myth.

The story of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent is a form of myth. It is not a literal story. Unfortunately, many in these times read these biblical and scriptural stories and take them literally, and they miss the point. These stories are Kabbalistic, meaning that they hide a greater truth. They hide a mystery that one enters by degrees, by stages, little by little, in accordance to what one earns. The myths and stories of the Bible and all the great religions hide levels of meaning, and we penetrate into those levels according to our own state of consciousness. In other words, to understand the myth of Eden, we must enter Eden. To enter into and understand the deeper levels of Eden, we must enter those deeper levels consciously, as a mind, as a heart, as a person. This is something that we have to experience. It has has nothing to do with belief, neither it has anything to do with patrimony or inheritance. You cannot inherit the Kabbalah. You cannot inherit Eden. It arrives as a state of consciousness that is produced by cause and effect within oneself. It does not arise outside, it arises within. The same is true with all the other great mysteries. They are hidden in the Bible and the scriptures of all religions.

This myth or story of Eve and Adam in the Garden is symbolic of the causes that produced our current situation. Humanity was kicked out of Eden. We do not live in Eden. In fact, most people do not even really know what Eden is, while the rest do not believe in it. That is how far we have gone. We do not even believe that there is a state of consciousness better than the one we have now. This is a sad truth. Fortunately, the science exists for us to return to that Edenic state and experience it.

When we study the myth, we see the primary elements are a man and a woman, two trees and a serpent. These elements are divine archetypes, very deep and rich symbols that represent many aspects, not only of nature outside but the nature inside of us. Throughout the many lectures and books of the Gnostic tradition, these levels are explored so that we can start to understand them in ourselves. This kind of investigation is not given for entertainment. This kind of wisdom is not given just to be interesting or to be clever. We study this material because we want to return to Eden. In order to do this we need to recognize Adam, Eve, the trees, and the serpent are symbols of what is inside of us, and we have to change the situation that is happening in us from day to day.

When Eve is tempted by the serpent, this relates to an event from long ago but also - and more importantly - relates to our behavior today. This is what we discussed in many of the recent lectures about the garden of Eden and the Tree of Knowledge. The axis around which this entire myth rotates is the serpent. Any of us who have a background in any kind of religion, particularly Judaic or Christian, we know that there is always a “bad guy,” and we like to blame the bad guy. We like to avoid our own responsibility and point the blame at someone else. So most of the time when we study religion, particularly if we grew up in Judaic or Christian tradition, we like to blame “Satan” or the devil. And we think that this figure, this bad guy, is always outside of us.

We always blame an outside force, but the fact is that the devil is within. We suffer because of our actions; we suffer because of our mistakes. We receive what we are due. This is stated clearly in every religion: that every man will receive according to his works. We reap what we sow. There is no avoiding this fact, although we do our best to avoid it.

Everyone blames the serpent depicted in the Bible, but they should not. This is one of the many misinterpretations propagated by many groups, and has given rise to tremendous misunderstanding of the great religions. In reality, Christianity and Judaism are beautiful religions. They contain tremendous beauty and many truths, but unfortunately they have also been perverted, twisted, for the convenience of our minds.

When we do not like something in a religion, we tend to change it or avoid it. This is common now; people like to invent their own religion, or they say, “I am Christian but I do not believe this part or that.” Or, “I am Jew but I do not do this part and that part of the tradition.” This kind of pride where we give ourselves the right to edit our religion, illustrates a tendency in the mind of humankind that has been present for centuries and we have been doing to our religions for centuries, and it is a great contributor to why we are in the mess we are now.

The mysteries (also called “religion”) need to be clarified and restored. The mysteries are great cosmic truths descended from God, and they cannot be edited for our convenience. We need to ask ourselves: what in me wants to edit my religion? Why, the devil in our mind, of course! Who else would want to change the path to God?

If we want to return back to Eden (bliss) and enter a superior level of being, we need to know how in detail - with precision - how to do it. What makes us think we can invent our own way to get to place we have no knowledge of? Pride. Thus we need to investigate our religions with objectivity, without attachment. But investigate them deeply, impersonally, without fear or pride, in order to discover the truth. And so it is with the serpent, the serpent in the story of our Garden of Eden.

The serpent appears in the Garden of Eden to tempt the woman. The serpent does not tell the woman to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, he merely asks her about it and tries to clarify the law regarding that tree. The woman is tempted by her own desire to eat the fruit, not by the serpent. Yet, religions blame the serpent and put all of the fault on him.

This event begins in the very heart and core of the entire religion. When we do not understand this first and most critical event, then the entire religion unravels and degenerates. The very beginning of Christianity and Judaism is that temptation. If our understanding of that temptation is incorrect, then we cannot understand that religion at all, we cannot understand the whole tradition, because its very seed and essence is corrupt.

This is why we refer to Kabbalah. The Christian scriptures are only a fraction of the entire teaching. In fact, the modern Christian scriptures and the modern Jewish tradition are both heavily edited and fractured. This is partly why in the Gnostic tradition we study all scriptures and all traditions because we know they all emerge from the Light and the Light teaches in different ways, in different times, but always with the same message. By comparing all religions we can arrive at a comprehensive understanding. By investigating the roots of religions, we can see what has been corrupted.

In the Kabbalah this serpent is explained clearly. In fact, it is stated in the Zohar that it was not the serpent who tempted Eve. Instead, it was an angel who was riding on the serpent.

We have learned that Samael, the Angel, descended from heaven riding on this Serpent at that time. All the creatures saw his image and fled from him. Then Samael and the serpent approached the woman with words, and brought death upon the world. - Zohar

This is profoundly different from what is taught in Sunday schools. Samael is the name of an angel, a very important angel who unfortunately has been removed from the Christian religion and has been trampled in the mud in the Jewish tradition, but in the very scriptures it is stated that Samael is a great angel.

The title of today's lecture is the sons of Samael but for us to understand who the sons of Samael are, we need to first know who Samael is.

The Angel Samael
The name Samael [סםאל] is Hebrew. Every hebrew letter has meanings and numbers related to it. When we look at the components of this word Samael, we see that it ends with EL. El in Hebrew means God. In the Bible there are places where the most holy God is called EL. He is also called Elohim which is plural for “Gods” or “Gods and Goddesses.” Elohim comes from EL.

In Hebrew Samael is spelled Samech, Mem, Aleph, Lamed. Four letters. This is a four letter name of God: a tetragrammaton.



The first portion of this name is Samech Mem [סם].

Sam [סם] (Samech + Mem): bitter beverage, drug, poison, toxin, medicine, potion; perfume

The name Sama-el means “the medicine of God, the perfume of God, the poison of God, the drug of God, the bitter beverage of God.” All of these are accurate translations.

In the Kabbalah we learn that Samael rode a serpent into the Garden of Eden in order to talk to the woman. The serpent is the Divine Mother Kundalini. She is symbolized in the first letter of the name Samael.

The letter Samech looks like a circle and it represents that serpent who eats its tail. That cosmic womb, the ouroboros, the great serpent of the universe, is the ancient symbol deep in the heart of every religion: the dragon of nature, the great dragon, the great serpent. Samech is a circle that is constantly in motion, rotating, which represents the cosmic womb of the Divine Mother, the fire, the base of all existence, the eternal cycle of life: night and day, dark and light, two sides of the same thing, but which is always positive. This is the great mystery of the Divine Mother, hidden in the very first letter of the name Samael.

In addition, the letter Samech is the fifteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The fifteenth letter is related to the Fifteenth Arcanum, which is Passion, the Devil. So we see here some very interesting contradictions, so we would say, so we would think. But this is part and parcel, this is integral to the nature of this great angel, duality; the positive and the negative, light and dark, black and white. Lucifer, the tempter, serves God. It is through Lucifer that the universe can exist; nonetheless, we have to defeat Lucifer.

The second letter in Samael is Mem. Mem is the thirteenth Hebrew letter and relates to water. The man represents the waters of life, which are within the womb, both in the microcosm and the macrocosm. Mem is the basis of the Mayim (Mem + Iod + Mem), which is Hebrew for the “waters.”

You can see that the letters Samech and Mem are very deeply connected. In fact, their shapes are very similar. Mem represents the Mayim, the waters, and it is from the waters of creation that all life emerges. These waters are in the womb of the Divine Mother, Maia, Mary, related to Mar, the sea.

Furthermore, Mem is the Thirteenth Arcanum, which is the Arcanum of death, Immortality, signifying great change.

So with these two numbers (15, Passion, and 13, Death) we can start to understand something that is somewhat disturbing about the nature of this angel: his name carries death and the devil; his name is related with passion, but also with the power of creation.

Samael is a very potent name, very powerful name, and a very contentious one: but do not forget it ends with EL, meaning “of God.” In other words, we are talking about a messenger from God, whose name carries death and temptation as powers of God. This is very, very important.

This angel Samael is said to be related with the planet Mars, and he states that explicitly in the Zohar. Samael says:

“...my entire domination is based on killing. And if I accept the Torah, there will no longer be wars. My rule is over the planet Maadim (Mars) that indicates spilling of blood.” - Zohar

Mars is related with the sephirah Geburah (which means “Severity”), and is the fifth sphere from the top down on the Tree of Life. Geburah is related with Mars and the Sun, and it is the domain of justice, security, punishment, but from God. In other words, when God needs to send his force to render judgement or punishment, it is the force of Samael, that angel, who does it.

There was another angel in the seventh heaven, different in appearance from all the others, and of frightful mien. His height was so great, it would have taken five hundred years to cover a distance equal to it, and from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet he was studded with glaring eyes, at the sight of which the beholder fell prostrate in awe. "This one," said Metatron, addressing Moses, "is Samael, who takes the soul away from man." "Whither goes he now?" asked Moses, and Metatron replied, "To fetch the soul of Job the pious." Thereupon Moses prayed to God in these words, "O may it be Thy will, my God and the God of my fathers, not to let me fall into the hands of this angel."

When we look into the Garden of Eden, we see that Samael rides on the serpent; that serpent is the first letter of his name, Samech, and that serpent is the Divine Mother Kundalini, the very energy of creation. In the Bible, the serpent comes to tempt the woman in relation with the Tree of Knowledge. This indicates a very deep relationship between divine knowledge, the knowledge of God, the Divine Mother, death, water, and the serpent. All of these things are deeply profound and the meaning is not easy to grasp. But what we can see is when we investigate the many traditions throughout the world, we find this tree and we always find it is related with the Goddess. In the Egyptian tradition, Nut is the goddess of the Tree of Life, and we see pictures of her pouring out a liquid to sustain the life of her followers; that liquid is the beverage of God, the medicine of Samael. It is the ambrosia, amrita, or soma in Sanskrit terms. Soma gives the power of creation, the power of immortality. Immortality is the thirteen Arcanum (Mem) and emerges from the waters of the Divine Mother.

When we acquire real knowledge, for example, just hearing about this teaching, it can taste bitter, it can taste intense, it can shock us. That knowledge is the essence of this angel, Samael. It is “a bitter beverage” to the ego, it is “poison” to the ego, but it is the “potion” or “perfume of God” that illuminates the soul. Thus when we encounter gnosis or Daath (Hebrew for knowledge) we enter into a great conflict, psychologically. I am talking about real knowledge, the esoteric knowledge, not just beliefs. When you experience this knowledge, and receive your own knowledge from that experience, you feel a great shock to the depth of our soul; most people run away because it is intense and a poison to the ego: it terrifies the ego, because that angel Samael is the angel of death to the ego. The angel Samael is Mars, Aries, the God of war against the ego.

Aries, Mars, Samael is the same force. He wages his war on behalf of God, not for selfish purposes, and not to punish indiscriminately, but to punish on behalf of God, with the permission of God, and for the good of all. Samael performs the will of God. The Zohar says:

Rabbi Shimon opened the discussion saying, "See now that I, even I am he, and there is no Elohim with me" (Devarim 32:39). He said: Friends, listen to ancient words that I wish to reveal after permission from above has been granted for them to be said. HE ASKED: Who is he who said, "See now that I, even I, am he?" HE REPLIED: The cause high above all causes, the one that is called the 'Cause of causes,' IS NOT HIGH ABOVE ALL THE SUPERNAL BEINGS, BUT INSTEAD is a Cause among all the rest of the causes. So every single one of these causes shall not do anything unless it receives permission from the cause above it...

The phrase: "And there is no Elohim with me" ALLUDES TO Samael and the Serpent; THAT IS, OTHER ELOHIM. THEN IT WOULD BE KNOWN THAT SAMAEL AND THE SERPENT NEVER CAME BETWEEN THE HOLY ONE, BLESSED BE HE, AND HIS SHECHINAH. "I kill, and I make alive" MEANS THAT THEN IT SHALL BE KNOWN THAT I kill with my Shechinah whoever is guilty and "I make alive" with her whoever is innocent. - Zohar

This the power of Samael: to kill and to make alive. That power acts in accordance with the Most High, those causes which exist above the sephirah Geburah. Geburah (severity) is the sephirah of Mars from which the angel Samael departs in order to punish those who deserve it and to reward those who deserve it. This is simple cause and effect. This is in the the root of Judaism and Christianity, but everyone ignores it.

When Samael rode into the garden of Eden on the back of the serpent, he was doing the will of God. We like to blame the serpent like the serpent was doing something bad but the serpent was not. The serpent is the Divine Mother. It is Her essence, and guiding that force (riding on its back) is angel Samael, who is there to tempt the woman for her own good.

The soul grows when it conquers temptation, and the soul degenerates when it falls to temptation. This is simple cause and effect. It is simply energy.

Now the serpent was cunning, more than all the beasts of the field that the Lord God had made, and (Samael, through) it said to the woman, "Did God indeed say, 'You shall not eat of any of the trees of the garden?'"

And the woman said to the serpent, "Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. But of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God said, "You shall not eat of it, and you shall not touch it, lest you die.'"

And the serpent said to the woman, "You will surely not die.

For God knows that on the day that you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like angels, knowing good and evil."

And the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was desirable to make one wise; so she took of its fruit, and she ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. - Genesis 3

Samael—doing his duty—appeared in the Garden to tempt the woman so that she would have the opportunity to learn from the Tree of Knowledge and to grow, to advance, but she did not. She gave into her desire and failed. Now everyone blames Samael, everyone blames the serpent. If you look into the Zohar, if you look into the Jewish tradition, you find that Samael is blamed for everything, but at the same time they say he is an angel. It is a little bit hard to follow their logic.

Nevertheless, the woman succumbs to temptation and had to bear the consequences. The first consequence was that the man and woman were cast out of Eden. Thus we are in the state of suffering.

The First Two Sons
Then, Adam and Eve conceived a child. In the Bible is states that Adam knew his wife and Eve begotten Cain. In Kabbalah, the story goes deeper. It states that when the serpent tempted Eve, “it injected its filth into her.” This is a very Kabbalistic statement which cannot be read at face value. It has to be comprehended in a very deep way. That serpent is the Divine Mother, but as we studied the serpent is dual, Samech is dual: light and dark. This is why the Tree of Knowledge is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and the Tree of Knowledge of Evil (Ra, “pollution”). This is why the serpent is upon the Tree, because from that force can come purity and impurity, light and dark: Tob (goodness in Hebrew) or Ra (the impure spirit in Hebrew).

When Eve succumbed to temptation she manifested that force of Ra. She is the one who brought evil, death, because when she failed in the temptation from Samael and the serpent, she polarized that energy to become negative. It was due to the action of the woman, Isha.

That woman is not outside of us. That woman is within us. We need to look at our day to day experience, not the ancient past; the ancient past is done. We need to know how to change now, and we fail in this way everyday because we do not know that the woman and the serpent are within us. That woman Eve, Isha, is our sexual organs. The serpent is the power of creativity through sex that tempts us to use our sexual power. When we have desire, we use that power to feed desire, to sustain our desires instead of doing the will of God.

Instead of conquering our temptations and conquering our desires, we fall to our desires. This is that dual nature which manifests in us psychologically, energetically. In this way we can understand when we fall to temptation and we take that fruit to eat it, that power, the creative power in us, the divine power that we inherited, that we received from God to be able to create, we polarize it negative and that energy becomes destructive; that is how the serpent “injects its filth.” That energy inverts and creates Klipoth, hell. That serpent becomes the tail of Satan, which we have. That is the tail that represents our ego, desire.

This failure is because we become hypnotized by desire, and desire works through our physical senses, and primarily through sex. It tempts us with sensations that we want to experience, to sustain.

Sensations are illusions. This is why the Divine Mother is called “Maya,” which can be translated as illusion, and the serpent utilizes that illusion in order to tempt us.

Unfortunately, we do not see through the illusion. We love materialistic sensations and we become addicted to them. The result is the birth of Cain.

After this, they gave birth to the first son. He was the son of THE SERPENT'S defilement, because two had intercourse with Chavah, ADAM AND THE SERPENT, and she conceived from both and gave birth to two--KAYIN AND HEVEL. Each resembled his own father and their spirits were separated, one to the side OF IMPURITY and one to the side OF HOLINESS. Each was in the appearance of his own aspect, THE ASPECT FROM WHICH HE HAD COME. - Zohar

This is why the man and woman, Adam and Eve, had two children. They reflect the two sides of the Tree of Knowledge: Good and Evil, or the Pure Spirit and the Impure Spirit. These two children reflect their source. Abel is the pure one who is depicted as a shepherd and whose sacrifices God prefers; Cain is depicted as a gatherer of the fruits of the earth, but God does not prefer his sacrifices, thus Cain becomes angry and jealous.

These two children represent the two potential outcomes of that Tree. The Tree of Knowledge (Daath) is within us, thus these children represent the two outcomes of how we use our energies. The power, the energy, that arrives to us from the angel Samael and through the serpent, the Divine Mother, can be used for purity or impurity.

This has to be explicitly understood for us to comprehend this science. They are many who enter into the mysteries and who think just because they know the knowledge that they are immediately on the path of goodness (Tob). But this is a lie. This is immediately depicted in the very first story of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve know the mysteries, but they succumbed to temptation and created Abel and Cain. This is possible for any of us if we take the mysteries and use them ignorantly, which is very common.

Historically, when we look at Cain and Abel, it is from these two that humanity emerged. It says in the Zohar,

From the side of Kayin came all the evil species, spirits, demons and sorcerers. From the side of Hevel came something more merciful, but still not perfect. IT IS LIKE good wine mixed with bad. So THE WORLD was not fully established by Hevel. This was left to Shet, the ancestor of all the righteous generations in the world, from whom the generations of the world issued. But from Kayin issued all the ruthless people, all the sinners and wicked people of the world.

When we really understand the religion that we follow, when we truly understand it, we know that we are the sinners. Many people foolishly believe that once they believe in a religion they become clean and pure and that they are no longer sinners. But those of us who are sincere and objective, know better than that, because we see what is in our minds, we know that in our minds are all the adulterers, idolaters, and thieves that all scriptures condemn and state explicitly cannot enter in heaven. We have all that in our minds. All of us are fornicators and adulterers, murderers and thieves. Even if we do not do it physically, we do it in our mind. We use our imagination to commit crime, we fantasize about doing things that we know we should not do, we indulge in thoughts and feelings that break every commandment and break every vow and we continue to do it thinking nobody notices. We forget that God is inside of us and sees everything. None of us is innocent. Thus, everyone of us is a child of Cain.

We all have our own Cain. It is our mind. Our own mind is Cain. We are a child of that. Jesus says in his Gospels:

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. - John 8:44

We are children of our father who is Cain-Satan, the liar. Unfortunately, most people refuse to see their own filth, and they want to believe they are children of Abel, and are pure.

Nonetheless, what we learn in Kabbalah is that when the Serpent came upon Eve and she gave birth to Cain, that child Cain is the child of the serpent and Samael. So when we talk about the sons of Samael, the first one we need to talk about is Cain, because Cain is the outcome of the temptation. This is why the Zohar blames Samael for everything. This is why Cain is said to have split nature: half human, half angel. This is the really interesting thing: from Cain came all the impurities, all the evil doers, but by parentage he is half-angel. It states in the Zohar that he was different from other people, different from the rest humanity. He stood out because he had half divine heritage.

In a Middle Eastern language we call this a “hasnamuss,” somebody who has a split center of gravity, a double polarity in their consciousness: half angel and half demon. This is Cain, and all of us have this as our psyche. All of us have a little bit of purity and a lot of impurity, and the impurity is winning. It would be nice to think that the purity is winning but when we look objectively at humanity in our situation, we can see that really we are just gradually going down. But the rate is increasing; scary, but true.

In other words, humanity exists because of Samael. This entire humanity is the result of what happened in that event, and this entire humanity is the result of what is happening in this exact moment, as we in our mind struggle with temptation, not only sexual temptations but the temptations of pride and jealousy that Cain suffers.

Cain (our mind) is angry, proud, and jealous of Abel (our consciousness). We have Abel within us. Abel represents the animal soul, who is not fully developed. We have that within, but symbolically, Cain was born first. Cain (mind) is stronger. Cain is bigger and he looks divine. So we all think Cain (our mind) must be rightful inheritor of the divine inheritance of God. He is “the first born” child, so we all love Cain. Everyone follows Cain and worships Cain. Cain looks stronger, looks smarter, but unfortunately Cain is angry, proud, and jealous, and he kills his brother. That happens in us every time we fall into temptation. Our mind is killing our soul.

The Angel of Killing
After this event in our historical past, humanity entered into a long decline, resulting in the moments we are now living. The degeneration that we see on this planet is the greatest that has ever been on this planet. It is the greatest degree of perversity yet known; unfortunately this means that God must send his Angel in order to begin the cleansing of this planet and that Angel is Samael. This is all depicted in the Book of Revelation.

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. - Revelation 19

Samael is the Angel of killing, and he is the one who comes to prosecute all those who break the Law. Geburah is severity, the sword of God who defends the pure, upright Law; that is Samael. This is why he says in the Zohar,

My rule is over the planet Maadim that indicates spilling of blood. - Zohar

And this is why in Revelation, this Angel emerges from God with a vesture of white but covered in dripping blood. That is his job, his duty, and he does it for our own good. Unfortunately it is very painful to pass into the hands of this Angel, very painful. Nonetheless he has the key to do this.

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. - Revelation 9

The pit refers to the levels of our consciousness where all impurities exist; this Angel has the key.

If we follow the doctrine, the body of the law, and we learn the wisdom of Samael, we can learn how to purge ourselves before the Great Judgement, before our Karma arrives mechanically, inevitably. We can take the steps to purge our own minds in advance of that and become a true son of Samael, a true child of Samael. This is different.

We are already children of Samael because we belong to the Aryan race. “Aryan” comes from Ares, which is the name of Mars. This entire humanity is the race of Ares, the race of Mars, children of Samael. Yet, we do not perform the will of God. So because of this, the Angel Samael—having such a great responsibility with this humanity, and so much compassion—began to work very hard to help us. He worked to raise his primary son, his first son, from the mud of the Earth.

Every angel is a God. This why the name Samael ends with El, which means God. But that God can send his prophet, his human soul, his earthly soul, his manifestation Buddha. He can send his representative to Malkuth, to the world, and the Angel Samael did this; he sent his son, Samael Aun Weor, the bodhisattva of Samael.

Unfortunately, the human soul of the Angel Samael had fallen like everyone else, had resurrected his Cain and was living like any other person on the planet. He was a degenerate, a fornicator, an adulterer, a murderer, a thief, like all of us. But, the Angel Samael had a great cosmic duty to fulfill as explained in the prophecies of Revelation, and to advance humanity in its evolution, to free humanity from its suffering. So the Angel Samael pushed his human soul to rise up from the muddy Earth, and this entails a long process, a very painful experience of the human soul that we know now as Samael Aun Weor.

With the help of God, he was able to fulfill his duty, and he restored himself back to his rightful place, redeemed himself of his mistakes, and cleansed himself of his ego, because he learned, practiced, and taught the doctrine of his Father, Samael, the Angel of War.

The Bodhisattva embodied the image of his Father: revolution, rebellion, war against oneself, against Cain. This is why the teaching of Samael Aun Weor is so potent, so direct, and does not dance around the issues. He is a warrior who presents a doctrine that is as sharp as a sword and is painful to the ego. This is why so many people cannot read his books and cannot accept his teachings, because they taste the bitterness of the beverage “Samael,” the Angel who wants to eliminate the ego in order to free Abel from his prison.

Remember when Cain killed his brother, Abel's blood seeps into the Earth, and God says, "I hear your brother crying out to me from the earth," and Cain admits that he killed him. This is a symbol of how our soul becomes trapped in hell, in the klipoth, because of the crimes of our minds, because of the murder and fornication of Cain. The doctrine of Samael kills Cain in order to free Abel, but that freedom does not come just by Abel emerging out of the Earth. That freedom comes through Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve.

The Third Son
The doctrine of Samael is the doctrine of the Tree of Knowledge. The Angel Samael rode the serpent to tempt Eve, and so Samael Aun Weor, the representative of Samael, teaches the knowledge (gnosis) of the Tree of Daath, Gnosis, Knowledge: the secret doctrine that directly indicates how to kill the ego, how to wage war against our own impurities. In other words, we have to kill Cain. The problem is: we are Cain. Death appears to be painful and scary when we have an attachment, when we have fear, but when we know what is on the other side of death, it can be beautiful. This a matter of knowledge.

Samael Aun Weor taught his doctrine over many years, and gave a warning repeatedly throughout his books and lectures. The instructors need to repeat, need to always remember: Samael stated in a great gathering of Gnostics that he was very concerned because many of the students of his teachings were going to become demons, and he named particular countries from where many demons would come, and he said the reason is that they are only performing half of the doctrine. They practice sexual transmutation, they might sacrifice for others, but they do not eliminate Cain: the ego. The result is that Cain becomes stronger. If you do not kill Cain, Cain sustains himself on the serpent and he becomes stronger. He pushes Abel deeper into hell.

So in other words, the doctrine of Samael can create demons or it can create angels. This is the great controversy, the great duality of the Tree in the midst of the Garden, the Tree of Knowledge. That Tree can lead to the path of Tob (Goodness) or the Ra (impurity, evil). Both are the result of the power of Samael.

This Angel has tremendous power in his hands. Geburah is right next to the top of the Tree of Life on the Pillar of Severity; great power is there, but as with all power, if it is not used with intelligence (Binah) it destroys.

The power of Geburah is the only power that can save humanity from the Abyss. Humanity is already sinking: our problems are going worse day by day, nature is revolting against us with diseases, with natural disasters. People are becoming more and more maddened by desire, more and more extreme in their behaviors, more and more trapped in the way of illusion, avoiding the fundamental facts of our day to day suffering. The teaching of Samael can clarify that. It is a great sword, but that sword has two edges. It can kill or it can heal. It depends upon how we use it.

The greatest advice a Gnostic instructor can give you is: work on your ego every day. Transmutation is very important and sacrifice for others is very important, but the death of the ego is the uttermost importance, because without that, Cain remains alive, and Cain is the cause of all our problems.

Abel represents the soul, the one who serves the God with humility. Abel is a shepherd, which is a symbol of Christ. Abel (our consciousness) wants to do his part by following God with humility, but as yet Abel is an imperfect soul who has not yet entered initiation. We have this fundamental problem in ourselves: a consciousness that is willing, but not strong yet.

We have a particle of purity that we call the essence or consciousness. This is Abel. That particle remains connected with God and can receive guidance and instruction and can perform the will of God. If we listen to our consciousness, if we do what we know it is right, then Abel receives the gifts of God. God loves that sacrifice from Abel. When we turn our Isha (Hebrew for “woman,” a symbol of our sexual organs) into Ishe (the same word, but with the esoteric pronunciation) the “fire offering,” when we offer that sexual and psychological fire to God, God loves that and rewards Abel, but Cain becomes enraged.

Cain is our mind. Our mind hates this doctrine. We might think it is interesting, but in reality our Cain hates it and looks for the moment when he can kill Abel. So you may see students come to this doctrine who stick around for a little while and then vanish. Cain won. It is sad, but it happens.

This conflict between Cain and Abel is happening in every person in the world, but it is very pronounced in the Gnostics, because Cain and Abel are the children of Samael. The conflict is exacerbated! The psychological fight amongst the Gnostics is dramatic because Samael wants to kill Cain and Samael gives his doctrine to his students, the Gnostics, and when Samael gives his doctrine Cain become terrified because he knows the end is near. So Cain has to work very carefully to kill Abel.

Cain does everything he can to remind everyone that he is a son of Samael. Our mind does this in us; our mind does everything it can to preserve its existence.

Gnostic students have a great challenge to face. We see it reflected throughout the groups, throughout the students, throughout the instructors, and the leaders: there is a great struggle between Cain and Abel. We see students who envy others, who are jealous of others, who become angry with others. This is all Cain. We see students who are ready to kill their brothers because of jealousy. We may see for example a school that has instructors who have been around for a while and who is well-respected, but a new student arrives who has an even greater understanding of the teachings, who may have visions, dreams, insights, astral experiences, and everyone becomes jealous, but especially the instructor, who wants to be the one who is respected. Right there we see a mirror of Cain and Abel. Really, students and instructors are brothers, but Cain waits for the opportunity to kill Abel through gossip, through criticism, through some event whereabout they can kick the person out, or by calling them a “black magician” or “a witch.” These events happen over and over and over because people do not see their own Cain. Everyone is seduced by their own Cain, and they become angry and jealous.

It says in the Zohar:

When one is angry, there is deadly poison in his rage. - The Zohar

How interesting is that! Cain represents this anger against ones own brother. Samael rules Mars, whose principle virtue is love; the ego inverts that force into anger. The ferocity of God becomes the anger of the devil. Samael, “the potion” of God becomes “the poison” of God. Anger is a quality that becomes greatly stimulated in the Gnostics because they have that energy of Samael very active, and thus anger is quick to rise, quick to blame, quick to murder. That murder maybe be psychological, it maybe spiritual, it may not be something that you can see physically. But we murder each other in our mind and we use the force of Samael to do it.

Whoever is angry, it is as if he is an idol-worshipper, since the Other Side burns the person... - The Zohar

All the Gnostic students consider themselves "sons of Samael," and they are: but on which side of the energy? Only those who kill their envy, who dominate their jealousy, who crush their anger, who speak only sweetness of others and use their tongue to criticize no one but themselves: these are the real sons of Samael, the Angel who leads the war against criticism and gossip.

Unfortunately, most people (including most Gnostics) love gossip and love to criticize others. Every group attacks every other group, and each one claims to be the best. This is because each one of us does this in our mind. Our Cain loves itself, and always wants to be on top.

Our Abel is under threat, but the threat is not from outside: it is from our own Cain. Our own mind is the threat that wants to push us into klipoth, into the earth. And this is true in all the different symbols in religion, such as when Herod wants to kill all the children, when the Pharoah wants to kill all the children, these are symbols of the mind wanting to kill the soul. There is a killing that has to happen, and a son must die. We have to to learn the doctrine of Samael, which wants to kill Cain. In that way we can enter into initiation. This is done through the cooperation of the man and woman, Adam and Eve.

After Abel is killed in the Bible and Cain is banished, a mark is put on Cain because Cain is still a child of Samael. That mark is a Vav, the Hebrew letter, which is the sixth letter and is related with the Arcanum of Indecision. Adam and Eve need to choose the path again: left or right, Tob or Ra.

After a hundred and thirty years, Adam knew his wife again and she begat a son. This is one called Seth and she says, "I have gotten a man from the Lord” because this new son is a reincarnation of Abel.

The hundred and thirty years relate to the man and the woman working in the Holy Mysteries of Daath, to raise the serpent, the Samech, up the spinal column (the Tree of Life) and to succeed in conquering the first initiation of the Major Mysteries. This is the power of awakening the kundalini in the first degree. That is equal to one hundred years in esoteric terminology. The thirty years relate to the thirtieth vertebra on the spine, which means that the man and woman work in the second initiation towards completing it. This is when Seth is born. This is when Abel, the soul reincarnates. In other words, this is the beginning of the creation of the Mercabah (chariot), the Wedding Garments, the Solar Bodies. After this second initiation, then the initiate begins to create the solar astral body, solar mental body, and solar causal body. These all result because of Seth. Seth represents that. This is also symbolized in the Zohar. It says in the Zohar,

We have learnt in the hidden book that as soon as the whole of man, the holy body was firmly established above which was composed of male and female, they were joined for a third time, perfume emerged, that is Seth and the world above and below were firmly established.

Seth emerges from perfume from above. Who is that? Samael. Remember the Hebrew Samech-Mem [] means “perfume.” Samael means “the perfume of God.”

Thus, it is very clear that Seth is the third son of Samael through Adam and Eve. It says further in the Zohar,

We have learned that, as soon as ZEIR ANPIN AND HIS FEMALE became firmly established one in the other, judgment was connected with compassion and the female was firmly established by the male, THAT IS ZEIR ANPIN. Therefore, they could not ascend one without the other.

This is a very revealing kabbalistic phrase. It states when Adam and his wife were joined, they became firmly established one in the other. This relates to the famous biblical phrase, "and they shall become one flesh." When this happens the Zohar says judgement was connected with compassion. Judgement is Geburah, severity, the sphere of Samael. Compassion is Chesed, mercy, the fourth sephirah. When these two unite, it is because the couple has became firmly established. In other words, Geburah and Chesed are united when the couple has become established in the kingdom of Malkuth and has successfully completed the first degree of initiation of Major Mysteries. This is all very beautifully hidden in the Zohar.

After that, the foundation is established and the male and female are established in that kingdom. Seth emerges from that perfume of God. That perfume is Samael. Seth is the third son of Samael, the Angel, through the man and woman who work in sexual cooperation and Seth is the beginning of the soul.

When we create Seth through this knowledge that Samael provides, we are on the road back to Eden. Seth is the beginning of the return to Eden.

Said Rabbi Jehuda: "He was called Seth because he was a reincarnation of Abel, as it is written, 'For God hath appointed me another seed in place of Abel, whom Cain slew' (Gen, iv., 25). - Zohar

Seth is the reincarnation of Abel, the imperfect soul who descended into the Abyss because of being murdered by Cain. That soul returns through initiation, through the union of male and female, Adam and Eve, and through the power of Samael.

Seth is the beginning, the foundation (Yesod) of all the righteous ones. It says in the Zohar,

We have learned that after the passing of Cain and Abel, Adam returned to his wife. A different spirit enveloped him and he begot Seth. From this lineage, the righteous trace their line in the world.

Who is the ultimate incarnation of this force? In the Jewish tradition, Moshe (Moses) is the incarnation, the final manifestation of this energy which is Tiphereth, the Human Soul, very beautifully represented in these symbols and stories, if you study it seriously and without fear.

We need to learn this doctrine of Samael. We need to kill Cain and we need the sexual cooperation in order for us to harness those forces and give birth to Seth.

The birth of Seth is a great blessing from God. Remember the woman said “I have got a man from the Lord.” Man relates to Manas, which is the mind, and Seth is the beginning of the process of creating Bodhichitta, the wisdom mind, the awakening mind, the mind of Christ. This is the mind of the prophet, the mind that does not reason, the mind that is intuitive, the mind that reflects the wisdom of the divine, the mind that is empty of self-attachment. This is a very important distinction. The mind of the prophet is not attached. The Hebrew word Cain means “to possess.” That is the defining attribute of Cain: attachment.

Our mind Cain becomes attached to everything. Cain wants God to recognize him first because Cain says, "I am the first born, I am the rightful inheritor." Cain kills Abel because Cain is attached. We all have that. We are all attached to sensations, attached to our sense of self, we want to be respected, we want to be admired, we want to be followed, we want money, fame, recognition, whatever it is we want, that is Cain. But Seth, the Bodhichitta, the Ethereal Man, has no attachment, but he clings only to God. That mind has no sense of self as separate. Seth does not suffer the heresy of separateness, a feeling of being better than anyone else, or distinct from anyone else, that mind seeks only to serve. Cain wants to be served. Seth only wants to serve.