Contents
Esotericism’s Ancient Past
The Split of the Esoteric and the Exoteric
A Brief History of Esotericism in the West Over the Last 2,000 Years
The 20th Century
Esotericism Today
Esotericism is as ancient as humanity. Inherent within the human being is the ability to awaken and to become an immortal spiritual being. Thus also inherent is the yearning for this merging with divinity. People throughout time, and even beings throughout the universe, have sought after this same awakening and have achieved it. Therefore it has appeared in many different cultures, and has found its expression in different words, symbols, sacred sites, teachers, prophets, messengers, gurus, avatars, artwork, dances, poetry, and much more. However, although the manifestations have their differences, there are obvious and more often hidden similarities. These have served as markers of an esoteric knowledge running like an undercurrent that flows throughout the whole of human history.
However, not all those who search for spirituality arrive to this awakening, and so not all spirituality that is taught is of it. In fact, throughout much of history esoteric knowledge was kept secret to preserve it from the persecutions of society, governments, and religion.
Esotericism’s Ancient Past
Civilization is much older than many think. Sacred texts talk about lost civilizations from a very ancient past, such as Lemuria and Atlantis which were both destroyed by cataclysms. Plato, the Greek philosopher, is the only known person to have written a historical account of Atlantis, which he had been given verbally and in another language by the Egyptians when he traveled there. They stated that they were the survivors of Atlantis. These survivors created a magnificent esoteric civilization—the knowledge they possessed can be seen in the symbols, temples, pyramids, sphinx, astronomical alignments and sacred geometry they used. It was a time in human history in which esotericism was central to human life and society.
As seen in the ruins of many sacred sites around the world, esoteric knowledge was practiced and preserved by ancient civilizations in India, Persia, Asia, South America, Britain etc. some of which had their connections with the esoteric knowledge which came from Egypt. Messengers, Avatars, and Prophets given missions by divinity to teach esotericism anew also appeared throughout the world, such as Zoroaster, Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Quetzalcoatl etc. Striking similarities can often be found not only in the message of these great spiritual teachers, but also in the very events of their own lives. However, as society spiritually degenerates and religion strengthens, those who practice esotericism are often persecuted out of it and it must either go underground or move elsewhere – thus the need for esotericism’s continual renewal.
The Split of the Esoteric and the Exoteric
True spirituality has been given at two levels: a public (or exoteric) one that the majority of people can understand, and an inner, more esoteric teaching, which only those at an advanced level can understand. Esoteric schools have therefore existed as part of or alongside many different religions of the world. The esoteric schools provided a connection to divinity that was accessible at an individual level and provided a connection to higher planes and spiritual dimensions; through esoteric schools people learned about inner initiations and the way to awakening.
Esotericism was taught this way to protect it from those who would profane, deride and destroy it. Prophets would come who either found and achieved a level of awakened spirituality and were given a mission to spread esotericism, or were born awakened with a mission. There are many examples in which the prophet would split their teaching, giving the public the exoteric side of spirituality whilst giving the esoteric teaching privately to those who were prepared enough to receive it. Once the prophet dies, often the exoteric side of the teaching becomes a religion, whilst the esoteric practice of it carries on in secret. Unfortunately and ironically, the religion usually turns on the esoteric practitioners and drives them away. Like this, esotericism has moved from place to place throughout the world whenever the environment has become too hostile.
One of the clearest examples of this can be found in the life and teachings of Jesus. Jesus taught both exoterically and esoterically. That is, he taught the public at a basic level, but gave the esoteric knowledge to his disciples in secret.
Then the disciples came up and asked Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” He answered them, “Because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given for you to know, but it has not been given to them…For this reason I speak to them in parables, because looking the do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand.” –Matthew 13: 10,11,13
He would speak the word to them with many parables like these, as they were able to understand. And He did not speak to them without a parable. Privately, however, He would explain everything to His own disciples. –Mark 4:33-34
A Brief History of Esotericism in the West Over the Last 2,000 Years
A variety of esoteric groups and mystical religions existed throughout Europe, some with links to the east and to Egypt. Many were absorbed by or integrated into the Roman empire and their religious practices. Later, the Romans became Christian, Christianity spread throughout Europe and the old religions became known as pagan.
Jesus himself was persecuted as a “blasphemer” and the disciples continued to be persecuted by the orthodox religion at the time and by the Roman government, however from the work of the disciples the esoteric practice of Jesus’ teachings continued in secret. It was Paul who then went in a different direction from the disciples and preached his own version of what Jesus taught based on the exoteric side of it: it was from what Paul did that Christianity became popular and eventually went on to become an established religion with an ecclesiastical hierarchy, which within a very short time, began persecuting other forms of Christianity, particularly the esoteric that were outside its fold. Nearly 300 years after Jesus’ death a Roman emperor made it the official religion of the Roman Empire; this is when the Bible became the official text of Christianity, and church merged with state. Now established and in power, those in it turned upon what was deemed non-orthodox with greater force. This included the esoteric practitioners who were known as the Gnostics. Their practice and texts were banned, and like this esoteric texts such as The Nag Hammadi Library and The Pistis Sophia (which were left out of the Bible) disappeared until their recent rediscovery.
Christian lands became places of terrible persecution—they have continued this way for nearly 2,000 years, with the Inquisition, witch hunts, and now the “cult” label. The Knights Templar and Cathars had attempted to practice esotericism within Christian territories, only to have been brutally persecuted out of existence after a relatively short time. It appears that either the esoteric knowledge withdrew or moved to the East and to Islam, which for many, many centuries provided a more favorable environment to the exploration of mysticism. Sufism, although now a religion today, was the practice of the esoteric in the Middle East.
During this time esoteric schools, which had their origins in ancient times, operated in Egypt, India and the Middle East. Spiritual seekers in Europe who came in contact with the knowledge from these schools became known as the Medieval Alchemists, Rosicrucians and Freemasons. Famous esoteric practitioners from this time include Paracelsus, Nicholas Flamel, and Raymond Llul. These groups had to practice esotericism in total secrecy, encoding much of their teachings in symbols and the external practice of science and medicine, which was more acceptable to the society of the day.
The 20th century
However, the exoteric side of these studies too became a religion as they became popularized and publicly organized in Britain and the USA. Later, figures like Helena Blavatsky, Krumm Heller and Krishnamurti would emerge around the turn of the 20th century. They each had in some way attempted to explore the esoteric, but it was Gurdjieff, an eastern mystic, who appeared in 1912 that had made contact with the esoteric schools of ancient origin in the East, where the knowledge had been most preserved.
The account of his spiritual search in his book Meetings with Remarkable Men which was made into a film, is one of the most classic depictions of a person’s search for the esoteric. Gurdjieff’s search took him to humanity’s ancient esoteric origins in Egypt, and led him to the last remaining esoteric schools with a lineage from that time. In his life he attempted to bring what he had learnt in these schools in the East to the West where it was lacking.
It was at this time that significant events in the history of esotericism took place. The ancient esoteric schools closed their doors to humanity, as it had become too spiritually degenerate and dangerous. Whilst esoteric information could be found partially, it now was no longer taught in its whole and complete form. It was either taught in modern times in an incomplete way at best, and the understanding needed to extract it from ancient sacred texts was now also lost which meant that these texts had become obscured.
Into the mid twentieth century a Colombian man Samael Aun Weor looked for spiritual knowledge. He studied the teachings of Gurdjieff, Theosophy and Rosicrucianism amongst others, reading countless works on esotericism. However, he abandoned intellectual study and instead tried different practices leading him to search within himself. Samael Aun Weor had been born with awakened faculties – he could recall past lives, see things from other dimensions, and travel consciously out of his body at will etc. He was given this to be able to fulfill a mission. He used these faculties to continue his search using direct personal experience to come in contact with divinity, and was able to rediscover how one can awaken spiritually which an ordinary person would have been unable to from what was available in modern times. He began this process of awakening himself and was able to reveal it in a whole and complete form, as he achieved different spiritual stages along the path to enlightenment.
Esoteric Knowledge Today
Throughout the history of esoteric knowledge, it was split into three kinds, white, black and grey. White knowledge has been continuously infiltrated and attacked by dark forces and it reputation muddied and lost, thus many sacred deities and spiritual principles became seen as black, while dark forces such as Baal were seen as spiritual. Dark forces and ceremonies have existed alongside white esoteric knowledge, obscuring and confusing their meanings to the public. Secret societies of dark knowledge exist to this day, having passed through centuries largely undetected, yet accumulating power. Grey esotericism is practiced by those who don’t know what they are doing. Modern day Satanism is an example of this.
Extraterrestrials today attempt to indicate to humanity the knowledge of the ancients through messages that point to sacred sites and reveal common esoteric principles. Belzebuub teaches the mystery’s of white esoteric knowledge, while attacked for it by those who want to see the truth stamped out, he works to reveal the common universal message of awakening, united in ancient sacred sites, linked to the movements of the cosmos, the sun and stars, once practiced by ancient peoples, taught by great religious figures of humanity, linked through the great esoteric schools of history and indicated by extraterrestrial life.
