This is something I was tipped to, over at Aaron Kinney’s Kill the Afterlife blog, here. Specifically, one Samael Aun Weor.
While this fellow in his lifetime dabbled in a plethora of arcane subjects, he was a one-trick pony, via the use of Occam’s razor, illustrated here:
Which gave him the authority to multiply entities needlessly (dontcha just love paradoxes?).
As with any self-declared prophet, he of course had a zillion anecdotes to back his play:
“At the age of seventeen, he was asked to lecture at the local Theosophical Chapter, and a year later was admitted into the occult society Fraternitas Rosicruciana Antiqua (F.R.A.). While a student in the F.R.A., Samael methodically studied the entire Rosicrucian library, expanding his intellectual culture and seeking out the secret path of true religion. Allegedly it was here that Samael was secretly taught the "Great Arcanum," or White Sexual Magic, the profoundly veiled sexual key which, according the occult sciences, underpins all of the world's great religions.”
Of course, he brings SEX into the picture. Everyone likes sex, don’t they?
“A period of historical obscurity ensues between the mid-1930s and 1950.”
Probably underwent training at the Academy of Used Car Salesmen, is my bet.
“Admittedly recapitulating some of the bygone events of his former incarnations, he became a spiritual vagabond of sorts, traveling with neither home nor income. While exploring the regions of Central and South America, he encountered a secluded tribe of indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta (Northern Colombia). Invited to live with them, he recruited a vast wisdom of ancient indigenous medical practices, which would later form the foundation of his medical treatise, Occult Medicine & Practical Magic.[3] It was also during these years that he claimed to have had his first experience of the Illuminating Void where he first met his "Inner Being", or Atman whose name is "Aun Weor".
Listen closely: can you hear the audience say “OOOOOO! AAAAAAHHH!”?
I wonder if that fraud Castaneda took his cue from this. Of course, this is par for the course in most magickal stories: the vanishing act, the reappearance, the good ole ‘I was studying with the reclusive shaman/tribe, which I can’t verify, nor can anyone else find. Ergo, I am heir apparent to mystic powers beyond human reckoning!”
Now, I’ve always liked the Gnostics: they had some sensible ideas. Only some, though. Ideas such as women’s rights, free love (hey, everyone likes…wait, I said that already), communal living (no, not communism, but that’s a different topic), etc. I especially liked the concept of the Demiurge – it makes a helluva lot more sense than the Judeo-Christian template. (It’s all crapola, but let me play, willya?)
So, I began digging around here, as my starting point.
And, as always, like multiple other frauds, he had a number of predictions that failed miserably.
In his ‘The Great Rebellion’, good old Samael makes a series of predictions that don’t come true (is anyone surprised?).
He mixes a number of easily observable phenomena, while citing ‘experts’ without any kind of citation whatsoever [the underlined is my emphasis on failed ‘prophecies’]:
CHAPTER 2.
THE HARSH REALITY OF FACTS
“Soon millions of people from Africa, Asia and Latin America could die of starvation.
"Gases released from Aerosol sprays could radically put an end to the Ozone layer of the terrestrial atmosphere.
"Some experts forecast that by the year two thousand the subsoil of our terrestrial globe will be exhausted."
It has already been proven that marine species are dying due to contamination of the sea.
Unquestionably, at this rate, by the end of this century al the inhabitants of big cities will have to wear oxygen masks to protect themselves from pollution.
If contamination continues at this alarming pace, it will very soon be impossible to eat fish.
Living in totally contaminated waters, this will be a serious danger to health.
"Before the year two thousand it will be impossible to find a beach where one can bathe in pure water.
"The excessive consumption and exploitation of the top-soil and subsoil, the land soon won't be able to produce the necessary agricultural elements to feed people.”
He DOES make a prediction in Chapter Two, of a single nuclear event that would cause ‘great consternation’, but there’s no demarcation: nice, loose and general.
In Chapter three, he waxes on (and on and on) about how unhappy people in general are. No doubt to induce nods from aspiring acolytes. [Special note: for someone who claims a vast array of erudition, the documents in question are riddled with typographical errors. I’ve had to run a number of spellchecks on the quotes here].
Skip ahead: Chapter 23, he touches on Elohim being the Lord of Atlantis. Not joking.
In ‘The Rings of Alcyone”, he makes a pile of weird, bizarre statements:
“Friends, once again I address myself to everyone, with the purpose of talking a little bit about the spaceships that cross space. This topic of the flying saucers, that is so disquieting, has propagated in al the corners of the Earth; nobody can deny it any more.
"Nowadays, those who dare deny it are heard, unquestionably, by their foolishness.
The English themselves do not deny it any more. Some time ago, England officially declared: “Flying saucers exist and are manned by extraterrestrials; they are people who are ahead of us in civilization by many millions of years. As we, earthlings, cannot understand them, we prefer not to think about it. Let us see if we can build our own ships to conquer the infinite.”
England declared this? When? Who? Where? Was it at a Crop Circle convention? WTF?
Also:
”Not long ago, a probe was sent to Mars with the purpose of knowing whether there was life there. The men of NASA ended up affirming in an emphatic manner that there was no life there. The photographs that they showed to humanity were not of Mars; they were actually of the moon.”
Yeah, the surfeit of red dust sure proves THAT, doesn’t it?
“This signifies that the Martians knew how to orientate the American cameras towards the earthly satellite. So, what these cameras transferred to the Earth were lunar images. What I know, however incredible it may seem, is due simply to the information from an extraterrestrial who, as he says, laughs at the silliness of the Americans and their NASA.”
Ooooo, it’s all a ‘Martian conspiracy.’ Gimmee a break here, willya?
He blathers on for some time here and elsewhere, about ‘blue men’ [no, not the Blue Man Group]:
“I was there in that forest, when I was surprised by a ship that slowly descended until landing in a clearing of the forest. Moved by curiosity, I approached to see what was happening and my surprise was great when I saw, precisely over a steel tripod, an extraordinary ship, marvelous. A hatch opened and a slim person descended by a ladder, of medium stature, copperish skin, blue eyes, ample forehead, straight nose with slim lips, small and tucked ear, conic hands, elongated like that of Francis of Assisi or Antonio de Padua. He had a strange apparatus, a mechanical instrument that was unknown by me. Behind him, descended a whole team, among them two ladies of unknown age. I extended my hand to salute them and as a curious thing, he extended his hand and stretched it with mine. I greeted him in our language and he answered in perfect Spanish, something that really surprised me; I did not know that the astronauts spoke Spanish. Anyway, it seems that they have the gift of languages. So, I understand, because he spoke with no difficulties.”
And, not to mention, he not only invokes the Kabballah and the Bible, he also seems to give Dante (of all people!) theological veracity, here. All the while, a very labyrinthine meritocracy with liberal doses of East ‘n West.
So, nutshelling it:
Bible, Kaballah, Atlantis, Lemuria, UFO’s, little blue men, and varying degrees of psychic psychobabble (I particularly liked the bit about the ‘igneous particles’ being manipulated by ancient alchemists). I think he missed the Reptoids, but then, he hit base with close to almost every crackpot mythology extant.
Fun as this has been, I have to stop now: my eyes are beginning to cross.
"The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the bough, some of which go and others come." -Dante Alighieri.
Till the next post, then.
