T Simon And T Theophane

The
Secret
Teachings
Of Gnosis

1907
 CHAPTER 1

The outer darkness

Gnosis is, primarily, a traditional doctrine with cosmogonic and metaphysical

components. It is also a practical doctrine, in the sense that it aims to influence men,
and guide them towards what it knows to be their final and excellent destination,
through multiple transformations. This is why, without neglecting anything from the
highness of its approach, Gnosis takes men, not in their ancient and ignored origin,
and neither in the source of their personality; rather it takes men as they are
nowadays, in their relative state of ignorance and general weakness, as displayed by
their passions and the heredity of numerous generations.
In this state, men appear in the “outer darkness” of the Gospels, separated by
this same darkness, from their origin and end, which is God. The immediate goal of
the teaching displayed right now is to dissipate this darkness, and guide men
towards light, “which is God himself, in which there is no darkness” (John, 1, 5)
So, what is the outer darkness? From a cosmogonical point of view, it is the
formless chaos that follows the unorganized creation, and the initiatic symbol that
represents it is the rough stone1. From a metaphysical point of view, it is the
incapacity of action caused by the ignorance of the Activity, or Primary Cause; its
initiatic symbol is the color black. For humanity, it is the unconsciousness of
agnosticism itself, and its symbolism is an upside down torch. For the individual, it is
his state before he could have the idea of searching for the light, and symbolically
this state is the Nudity.
The cosmic chaos is the entirety of the diverse forms in their potentiality, and
the state of the matter that is susceptible of limit, but before it becomes restricted by
the limit. Black, or the void of color, corresponds to chaos, or the lack of forms. The
rough stone, which is considered as formless, as it does not have any regular and
mathematical dimensions, becomes, as soon as the worker considers it, the place and
the occasion of a future work.

1 Ulmê: Kenoma

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 The intellectual or human chaos is the obscure entirety of inert notions, and
the state of the sentimental perceptions, due to the influence of external
contingencies, before the individual passions specify them in each man. It is then
obvious that the would be gnostic, in order to escape this chaos, needs to “strip the
old man”. His nudity, which is considered as the image of its intellectual vacuity,
becomes, as soon as he seeks the truth, the place and the occasion of the clothes of
light that his own efforts will weave.
This chaotic state, on the cosmic plane as well as on the human plane, as soon
as it exists, would always exist if the obscure consciousness of the presence of the
divinity, which is an eternal activity, had not made things evolve out of their chaos.
Where was this awareness risen? Let us listen to Genesis: “In the beginning,
the earth was formless and empty, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the
waters.” The formless and empty earth is precisely the chaos of which the
unorganized elements are incapable of any understanding, and even more, of
understanding the Spirit. This is why the Spirit does not hover in the chaos; it hovers
over the waters, which is over a reflection plane that acts as a mirror, on which the
reversed image of the movement of the Spirit reveals itself to the chaos.-This
revelation immediately triggers the Fiat Lux.

In the cosmic chaos, the Fiat Lux translates to a vibration of light that is
capable of setting forms.
In the human chaos, the Fiat Lux translates to a sentimental vibration that is
capable of creating the willpower of getting out of agnosticism.
This vibratory action is symbolized in the ritual gnosis by the dark lantern,
from which the unique ray, still hidden from the sight of men, only reveals itself by
the reflected light on the external things: and this is how, for the first time, that chaos
is penetrated by light.
Therefore, the reflexive action of the water mirror projected a Celestial Ray on
the matter and inside the beings, which finds itself trap there in some way, as it is
essential to the organization of the universe. All the efforts of the Perfect people then
need to try, by sublimating themselves, to free this Celestial Ray, which constitutes
the superior non-embodied element of men, and acts as their guide through the
phases of universal evolution. It guides the beings towards their end, and help them
in the work of their own liberation.

An excellent parable of the value and the use of the Ray was made by Lord
Byron in the myth of the Childe-Harold cave. The hero, carrying in his fist the divine
Light, which seems to die out through all the raging winds in the cave - that is reduce
because of the fury of human passions, mistresses of Childe-Harold – knows that he
only owns it for a certain time – only for the time of human life. Through a thousand
detours, he enters at the bottom of the maze, in a dark impasse, where he has to

2
choose between three urns the one that contains his destiny. When he finally reaches
his goal, the flickering light, consumed by his own fault before the prescribed hour,
goes off, and leaves him in the darkness. With his shaky and now blind hands, he
chooses randomly; he makes a mistake, and dies in a heroic and short despair.
Carrier of the divine torch, colliding with contingences, with external pitfalls
and with his own passions, men squander, by having fun along the way, the treasure
of light which had been temporarily landed to them. And when they need to use it,
in the fatal moment of the choice of knowledge, they realize that the torch is going
off, or better say that their eyes2, shaded by their conscious mistakes and empty
sentimentalities, are not capable anymore of supporting its radiance. Them too, they
choose randomly, and will maybe miss their destiny.
Let us remember that the Celestial Ray can bring us towards our end, but will
bring us for sure only if we desire it with a strong willpower. And this way we know
as they are dictated to us the means of our asceticism and our release.
What are the means of this asceticism? We can determine it thanks to the
glow, uncertain and murky, but of a divine origin, that is produced, in the human
chaos, by the reflection of the Celestial Ray through the mirror of the Waters. The
human chaos comprises – because human beings are made this way – an intellectual
plasma and a sentimental plasma: these plasmas, imprisoned inside the originating
chaotic matter, form with it the elements of the compounded human ternary.
The reflection of the Celestial Ray, striking the intellectual plasma, produces a
vibration of the same order, which is the intentional vibration; striking the
sentimental plasma, it also produces a vibration of the same order, which is the
vibration of the desire. – However, from their nature and the respective position of
their planes, the desire applies where the willpower pushes it; this is how the
vibration of the intention is the characteristic of active beings, and that the vibration
of the desire is the characteristic of passive beings.

The willpower and the desire, here are the means of asceticism made available
for the beings; as they are being triggered in them, the Celestial Ray, of which this
asceticism must precipitate the reintegration, reveals the knowledge to them.
These means now determined, they need, by a continuous study, to be taken
to their maximum intensity and development. The intellectual gymnastic of the
willpower has to make it at the same time energetic, flexible and independent from
any influences external to the individual. The energy will be obtained by the frequent
and sustained repetition of the same actions; the flexibility, by the application of the
willpower in the midst of all the external circumstances. Moreover, there should be
no letting go to any impulsive action, rash or usual, and there should be a never-
ending attention to the mental mechanisms and to the direction of its operations.

2 Because the torch cannot go off

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 The control of the strength of the willpower is practiced by its application to
determined goals. The multiplication of the forces of the willpower is done by a
thoughtful retraction, and by a sort of a storage of these forces into an intellectual
condensation chamber.
These exercises done and their results checked, the active being is now in full
control of his willpower, and can use it as a mean of asceticism.
The sentimental gymnastic of the desire must make it at the same time fervent,
expansive and universal. The fervor will be obtained by the faculty of attraction
aimed frequently towards the same goals; the expansion, by the faculty of
penetration closely applied towards these goals; the universality, by the faculty of
affection scoped to the Essence of all things. There need to be a never-ending
attention to the sentimental mechanism and to the value of these movements.
The control of the desire applies itself with the full consent of the heart. The
multiplication of the yearnings of the desire is done with an intuitive expansion and
a sort of saturation, by these yearnings, of universal atmosphere.
These exercises done and their results monitored, the passive beings is in full
possession of his desire, and he can then use it as a mean of asceticism.
It needs to be clarified that each individual needs to study first his sentimental
and intellectual states, and only himself is capable, not only of choosing his own
mean of asceticism, but of gradually increasing the exercises and controlling them, in
order to obtain the strongest strength or the most perfect desire of which his
particular temperament is capable of. This is the first application of this principle,
that we only reach science and complete initiation with personal labor.
The being, active or passive, is then in full possession of his mean of
asceticism. It is this state that constitutes the psycholone; its value is determined, in
each individual, by the resulting of his personal efforts: his destination is, as a
breadcrumb trail, to guide him on the road of asceticism. The mosaic cloud is the
perfect image of the psycholone: indeed, it represented the condensation of divine
impulse on the Hebrew people: this column, mobile and visible, was the guide that
triggers the willpower, and the light generated by the desire. (The psycholone should
however not be confused with any auras, which come from nervous impulses.)
The Cloud in the Desert was truly a Force, an exact sum of the ardor of the
whole faith and tension of the entire popular hope. This way it was even a
preservative by its power against the elements and the obstacles of the exodus. - In
the same manner as the Cloud, the individual psycholone makes the sub-multiples of
each being evolve mechanically, and through this fact, the collective Man becomes
the mechanism of the universal asceticism. By the human psycholone's action, the
sensation evolves into perception, the perception into feelings, and feelings into
concept; and the humanity's role only seems truly high as it is the path from where
the material cell walks with ideas.

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 Then what are the obstacles to asceticism against which the willpower and the
human desire, pushed to their maximum intensity by study and exercises, are
necessary?
With an own personal tradition, Gnosis teaches that pitfalls are hidden under
friendly appearances and appealing externalities that surround us, and that the
charms of nature are shiny and deceiving clothes with whom the intelligent pitfalls
opposed to our destinies disguise themselves in.

These propositions can only be enlightened with the theories of the Being, the
beings and the Creation.
At the beginning is the Void, that gnostic tradition calls Kenoma. The void is
the identification of the Being and of the Non-Being in the Potency of Being. The
metaphysical characteristic of the Potency of Being is to be the Being because it can,
and also to be the Non-Being because it doesn’t use this possibility.
The Being and the Non-Being, identified in the Kenoma, this is our first
ternary concept3 . We call it the Void, as nothing of this Potency of Being disturbs one
of the planes of our humanity.

However, this Potency of Being, which is the Void for us, is, in reality and in
itself, the absolutes Plenitude and Perfection.
Indeed, the potency of the Being contains every possibility in a perfect state,
that of the Being and of the Non-Being. This is because it is the Non-Being, and it can
be the Being, by the sole affirmation of its state of Potency. -If we suppose this
affirmation made, the Being fills the Kenoma; but then the Being ceased to be and to
be able to be the Non-Being; it has then renounced the totality of its possibilities.
It needs to be pointed out that the state of the Non-Being is superior to the
state of the Being, despite the inadequacy of terminology, and mostly despite the
mediocrity of human intelligence, who thinks that the Being is superior to the Non-
Being, solely because it attributes to the Being an existence that reassembles to what
we call Life, and this way it thinks it can understand it better.
The Being, which is the voluntary Non-Being, and identical to it, is at the same
time the center and the result of every Potencies of being; it is thus the unique
Potency, universal, infinite, absolute. It is the One, the unfathomable abyss (Bythos);
that cannot be determined nor be expressed with words, it is the Great Ineffable.
The willpower of being of the Great Ineffable manifests out of itself the
Emanation, and, as the white light, emitted against a prism, determines scattered
beams of various colors, the emanation, emitted in the Kenoma, determines
consequences of different values, that constitutes the series of tangibles creations. -
Just like the scattered beams from a same light owe their various colorings to the

3 Ainsoph

5
prismatic angles that break them down, the tangible creations, emitted in the
Kenoma, owe their shapes and their numbers to the multiple reflection of the
Celestial Ray, reflection of which the angles represent the intervention of patchy
forces, whose sum is called the Demiurge. - Thus, we cannot say that the Perfect
created the Imperfect; the imperfect was not created, as it does not exist in itself: the
imperfect is the refracted vision that we have of the Perfect.
The unitary parcel of the Celestial Ray being refracted, and submitted to the
forces of the Demiurge, is what we call the monade. The unlimited sum of these
monades constitutes the indefinite, or the only precise idea – but inexact – that we
have of infinity, or mathematical infinity. The monade is the tiniest plasma destined
to be striven: the monadic diversity makes4 that each monade, under a same evolving
effort, evolve diversely; this is how, considering a same instant, the ascending
movement of the monades operates on every cycle of the creation. The human entity
belongs to this movement; and each entity who is not yet aware of the perfectibility
of his movement and of the perfection of his goal, is located in the outer darkness.
This how the term serial creation must be understood.
This series of creations must be crossed by each evolving monade in order to
reach the final goal: in other words, in every serial creations, the Celestial Ray must
be freed, by means that are adequate to the creatures of each series. Consequently,
men, at their degree of evolution, have their destinies of liberation, and the necessary
means to reach it. This is by using these means that they get out of the outer
darkness.

Therefore men receive, at the same time as existence, the possibility of desire
and willpower. The desire, element of feminine principle, move men, in a blind and
massive manner, toward externalities of which the vibrations spellbound them. If the
penchant satisfies itself in the things of nature, then the desire is nothing more than
an appetite, who vanishes in the immediate possession of things, and an inferior
attraction, serving the works of the Demiurge. In this case, the Universe only
contains formless and disaggregated matters, that wait vainly, in an appearance of
life, the true breathe of life, and are nothing more but the caput mortuum of an inferior
realization, not capable of its destiny. Symbolically, this is the cup, or original matrix,
filled with amorphous ashes, image of material death.
If, to the contrary, the desire, as it lawfully is, goes above the things of nature,
it returns, instead of being coated by natural forces, toward the human spirit that
emanates it; and this reactive effect determines on the spirit the shock that begets the
volitional faculty, of masculine principle. This is the work symbolized by the
hammer (desire) and the scissors (willpower).
The willpower is all the stronger when the desire was more ardent. The
willpower will be able to employ itself to the sublimation of these natural forces, who

4 Cf. The Theory of Indiscernibles, Leibniz

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could not employ themselves to the absorption of desire. This power on the direction
of the forces, this ability of sublimation of their elements, are, in the human spirit, the
proof of the work of the Celestial Ray that is included, and wants its liberation, not
only in the spirit, but in everything. This is why, under its influence, the human spirit
tend to direct and sublimate the forces of nature. At the necessary degree of
sublimation, the forces of nature cannot and don't want to retain anymore the
Celestial Ray, that goes back to its source; and it brings with it the human spirit, that
is at the same time the secondary cause and the first beneficiary of the liberation.

The rough stone transmuted into a graven stone, with the hammer and the
scissors, symbolizes the material and the means of these operations perfectly. The
rough stone or human chaos (as we said it earlier) is submitted to the action or the
hammer (desire) and the scissors (willpower). The hammer represents, the
unconscious massive force that the spirit needs to distributes on the points where the
effort is necessary. The scissors represent the organizing force that the spirit needs to
distribute on the points where precision is necessary (in the sense of formal
determination and of education). Let us note that the symbol is all the more perfect as
the scissors cut under the hammer’s blow.
The hammer’s and scissors’ actions are organized by laws, which are the
simple guiding laws of the human spirit. The symbolism of these laws is constituted
with the ruler, the compass and the setsquare. The ruler is the prototype of the line
(invisible and intangible). The compass is the prototype of the angle (visible and
intangible). The setsquare is the prototype of the surface (triangle: visible and
tangible). These are the building elements of volumes, and generators of the graven
stone.

What is the shape of the graven stone, first product of human’s work? This is
necessarily the most simple shape, and therefore the most harmonious: this is the
shape where all the elements are equal between themselves and similarly placed.
This is the cube, base element in any architecture, first shape of sacred stones5,
perfect symbol, by its three equal dimensions, of every trinary dogmas. – The
simplicity and equality of the cube’s elements, this is the reason: the similitude and
the harmony of these elements, this is the beauty. This is then, the first manifestation
of the Abstract Esthetic that is made of reason and beauty.
Armed with willpower and desire, influenced by the Celestial Ray, conscious
of its origin, of its destiny and the pitfalls that oppose it, men are ready to elevate
themselves above the Outer Darkness. From then on, we consider them as entering
the ascending period. This ascending period has its image in the blazing star where
men are registered: the diagram of their position, the arms in sustentation, indicate
the pneumatic elevation in the enlightened aura that coats and accompanies them;

5We naturally only mean the graven Sacred stones, because dolmens and menhirs
were rough stones, exact symbols of the unitary Celtic Theism, exclusive from any
mineral and metaphysical theogony.

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this aura is the visible manifestation of Desire and Willpower, excited by the present
Celestial Ray; it will carry men towards the divine goal, as the mosaic cloud guided
the Hebrews in the country of Canaan. They go this way toward the Supreme Ideal,
through relative ideals begot by the successive asceticism of their aspirations.
In this way, the human destiny unfolds under a luminous ternary. At the
beginning, men are born under the Celestial Ray’s refraction, which the Fiat Lux
made penetrate their chaos. They grow and move in the cloud determined with the
passing through of the Ray in the prism of their spirits, generator of their desire and
willpower; and they ascend towards the Pleroma, where they have put their ideal, in
the sky where is now taken their Stars of their Destiny.