Tenochtitlan can be explained in a clear and simple way, free of any elaboration: “Site of the Tenochtli, Nopal of hard tuna.”
The traditional cactus, born in hard rock, is a very ancient glyph of the archaic mysteries. It is the magical or mystical sign of this city.
Etymologically, Mexico comes from the root “Metztli” (moon) and “Xictli” (centre or navel).
Mexico, a pre-Columbian classic word, can be translated as: “The city that is in the centre of the Lake of the Moon.”
Let us remember, in this treatise, the fact that the neighbour Otomies used to call this majestic city by the double name: “Anbondo Amadetzana.”
The term “Bondo” means, in rigorous Otomi, “Nopal.” “Amadetzana” means: “In the centre of the moon.”
A triumphant eagle, stationary on the nopal, and devouring a serpent — the coat of arms of the United States of Mexico — is no more than the faithful translation of the archaic glyph that formerly symbolized Great Tenochtitlan.
Even at the height of their glory, ancient Mexicans never forgot that their wonderful and imposing metropolis had been established in the swamps by a humble and underestimated tribe.
Some ancient legend, lost in a night centuries old, relates how the elders discovered, in great awe, intollihtc inacaihtic, (“in the loom, in the reed”) some plants and animals that the god Huitzilopochtli had told them about: the white willow, the emerald coloured frog and the white fish.
When they saw this, the elders began to cry and said:
“This is then, where it will be (our city), since we know what Huitzilopochtli told us and commanded us.”
But the next night, the god called Cuauhcoatl (Serpent-Eagle) the priest, and said to him: “Oh, Cuauhcoatl, you have been amazed at what you have seen in the reed. Listen, however: there is something else you have not seen yet. Go in continent to see the Tenochtli where you will see an eagle, happily resting. There we will be, we will wait, we will conquer, and we will meet various people with our heart and brain. We will meet those who we will conquer with our shields, and our arrows… for there will be our town, Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the place where the eagle cries, flies and eats, the fish swims, and the snake crawls. Many things will happen.”
Cuauhcoatl, minister of the Almighty, intoxicated, in ecstasy, immediately gathered all Mexicans in the agora to tell them the words of the Lord.
Young men, women, old men and children full of joy, followed him to the swamps, amidst the aquatic plants and the reed. Suddenly, something amazing happened — they found the promised sign. There, the eagle was resting on the nopal, and in full, tremendous banquet, it swallowed a serpent.
At that astonishing and joyful moment, the Nahua Lucifer said in a loud voice: “Oh, Mexicans, I will be there!”
Then, the Mexicans immediately cried out: “We deserved to have our wish granted! We have seen, and are amazed at the place where our town will be. Let us leave and rest.”
After the careful study of these paragraphs, we will analyze this more deeply.
The serpent is unquestionably an esoteric symbol of wisdom and occult knowledge.
Since ancient times, the serpent has been related to the god of wisdom. The serpent is the sacred symbol of Thoth or Taut, and all the holy gods such as Hermes, Serapis, Jesus, Quetzalcoatl, Buddha, Tlaloc, Dante, Zoroaster, Bochica and so forth.
Any adept of the White Universal Fraternity can be properly assimilated to the Great Serpent, which has a noticeable place among the symbols of the gods of the black stones recorded by the Babylonians.
Dupuis says that Aesculapius, Pluto, Esmun and Knepp are deities who have the Serpents’ gifts. All of them are healers or givers of spiritual and physical health and illumination.
The Brahmans got their cosmogony, arts, culture and science from the famous Naga- Mayans, later called Danavas.
The Nagas and the Brahmans used the sacred symbol of the feathered serpent, an irrefutable Mexican or Mayan symbol.
The Upanishads contain a treatise on the science of the serpents, or, in other words, the science of occult knowledge.
The Nagas (serpents) of esoteric Buddhism, are perfect, authentic and self-realized men, by virtue of their occult knowledge and they are the protectors of Buddha’s Law, because they correctly interpret his metaphysical doctrines.
The crown, in the shape of an asp — the Thermuthis — belongs to Isis, our individual inner Divine Mother Kundalini (we all have our own).
Kundalini, the Igneous Serpent of our magical powers, coiled in the coccygeal magnetic center (base of the spinal column), flashes likes a lightning bolt.
The great Kabir Jesus of Nazareth would never have advised his disciples to be as wise as the serpent if it had been the symbol of evil. Neither would have the Ophites, the Egyptian Gnostic sages of the fraternity of the Serpent, adored a living snake in their liturgy as the symbol of divine Sophia (wisdom), If the reptile had been related to the powers of evil.
The serpent, as a feminine deity in us, is the Holy Ghost’s spouse, our Virgin Mother, who cries at the foot of the sexual cross, with her heart pierced by seven daggers.
Stella Mans, the Star of the Sea, Marah, Mary or, more appropriately said, Ram-Jo, the Serpent of Fire that victoriously ascends throughout the adept’s spinal cord, is our own Being — or, rather, His offspring — and the Eagle, the Third Logos, must devour Her.
Since a remote night, centuries old, the old sages of the sacred land of the Mayab have always emphasised the snake’s banquet as a transcendental idea. We need to be swallowed by the serpent.
Let us cite Tonantzin, our Divine Mother Kundalini, the Serpent-Woman, or God- Mother.
Coatlicue, the serpent that annihilates the ego before the banquet, is Anahuac’s classic Medea, the other side of the coin.
The Saturnian Serpent eats nothing filthy. She, Chrono’s divine spouse, can only devour psychic and spiritual principles, glorious bodies, forces, faculties, etc. We must, in the
name of truth, state that without exception, no initiate, not even those who according to esoteric occidental traditions, reached the Adeptus Exemptus grade, could enjoy the Serpent’s powers without being previously devoured by Her.
It is not enough to achieve the ascent of the Igneous Serpent of our magical powers through the spinal cord from chakra to chakra. It is imperative to be devoured by the Snake. Only then will we become something different, unique.
In De Bourbourg’s masterwork, Wotan, [like] the Mexican demi-god, on recounting his journey, he describes an underground passage that ran all the way to the foundation of heaven. He then added that it was a snake’s hole, and that he was let in because he himself was a “Son of Serpents,” in other words, a serpent (someone who had been devoured by the Serpent).
The Assyrian priests always took the name of their god. The Druids of the Celtic-Brittany regions also called themselves Serpents. “I am a Serpent, I am a Druid,” they exclaimed.
The Egyptian Karnak is the twin of the British Carnac, which means The Mount of the Serpent.
De Bourbourg points Out that the chiefs with the name Wotan, Quetzalcoatl, or Serpent deity of the Mexicans, are the descendants of Cam and Canaan. “I am Hivim,” they would say.
“Because I am a Hivim, I am of the great race of the Dragon (serpent), myself. I am a serpent because I am a Hivim.”
Terrible battles, frightful struggles against his own animal passions, which personify the multiple psychic aggregates or inhuman elements, await the candidate to adept. He must reduce them to cosmic dust my means of the Woman-Serpent’s special help.
The Rishis grottos, Theiresias and all Greek seers mansions, were built emulating the Naga [dwellings] the “Serpent-Kings” who lived in underground crevasses of the rocks.
The victorious adept becomes a “Son of the Serpent” or a Serpent that must be swallowed by the Eagle of the Spirit (The Third Logos).
Chronos-Saturn is Shiva, the first-born of creation, our Being’s Being, the arch- hierophant and arch-magus, and the Eagle of Anahuac.
Greek mythology considers Chronos as one of the more ancient gods, a true creator of gods.
Saturn-Chronos, the rebel eagle, swallows the snake to transform us into gods.
Again, we find in this myth, the transcendental idea that he who gives life is the giver of death as well. Unquestionably, Saturn with his sickle easily becomes death and her scythe.
If the seed does not die, the plant is not born. If the Satumian Eagle did not swallow the Serpent, we would never be gods.
Ovid refers to Saturn in the following terms:
“Chronos was a very ancient divine king of Latium and he had a place in the Roman campus, in the mount called Juniculus.”
Some say that he reigned in Etruria; others say it was in Umbria. The first temple built in Italy was consecrated to him.
Macrobius says that he was the same god Saturn, who, exiled from heaven by his son Jupiter, came down to live among men. Expelled from Crete, he was welcomed in Italy, where he taught agriculture, arts, and science.
It is also said about Chronos-Saturn that he also founded the Satumian City in the Tarpeyan mount, which is the Capitol.
Many considered him (Cicero, 2: Natura Deorum) as the Chaos Theos or the bosom from where all things come from and will have to return to. For this is what his name means: as the god of time or the year, his name has been identified with Eo (lo).
Jana, Yana, Gnana or Gnosis is Saturn’s science, the initiatic knowledge science, or the seer Enoichion’s science.
We have to clarify, nevertheless, that in the above paragraphs we have not alluded to a particular Nazada, kabir or planetary regent. We have only specifically referred to the Inner Saturn, the Divine Augoides, the Individual Logoi, or the Eagle of each of us.
The Snake, devoured by the Eagle, becomes, by Her own right, a Feathered Serpent.
Jesus the great kabir was a Feathered Serpent. Likewise, Moses, Dante, Holy Lama, Buddha, Quetzalcoatl and many other hierophants.
The Hindu yogis refer, with infinite veneration, to the divine marriage of Shiva and Shakti, or the double creator masculine- feminine principle.
Ometecuhtli, the Lord (The Eagle), and Omecihuatl, the Lady (The Serpent), are fully manifested in the Feathered Serpent.
Cuauhcoatl (Eagle-Serpent), the high priest of Our Blessed God, Huitzilopochtli, was ostensibly an illuminated one.
It is important to remember that the Feathered Serpent is the result of conscious works and voluntary sufferings. These are fully symbolised by the nopal’s thorns.
The Serpent, the Eagle, the nopal, the Philosopher’s Stone, the water of the great lake: these are the extraordinary esoteric foundations of Great Tenochtitlan.
The Azcatitlan Codex, in a scene that depicts some fishermen in a canoe hard at work, trying to fish amidst bulrush and aquatic birds, clearly allegorises the intelligent principles of Mexican life in Tenochtitlan.
Some Utopians who I will not mention, absurdly suppose that this took place in the year 1325 AD.
To paraphrase Socrates, let us say: Learned ignoramuses not only do not know, they do not know that they do not know.
Anahuac’s gods know very well that the foundation of Great Tenochtitlan hides behind the dark night of the innumerable centuries, which preceded us in history.
The humble founders of the powerful solar civilisation, Mexico-Tenochtitlan, spent most of their time fishing and hunting aquatic birds.
In the haughty eyes of the urban inhabitants, the neighbours of Colhuacan, Azapotzalco and Texcoco, clearly, those simple people did not look better than the other “savages of the lakes.”
Their weapons were the classic net of all times — so indispensable for fishing — and the famous dart shooter, which was so useful to hunt the lake birds.
The Mexican people venerated and paid homage to the holy gods, angels, archangels, principalities, powers, virtues, domjnjons, thrones, cherubims, and seraphims of Christianity.
At this point, it is beneficial to cite some deities:
Atlahua: “He who carries the atlati.” Amimitl comes, according to etymology, from mi arrow, and ati, water.
Opochtli, “the left handed one,” translated as: “He who throws arrows with the left hand.”
The Hindu devas, Hebrew Malachim, Anahuac gods, and Christian angels are the spiritual principles of the marvellous forces of Nature.
No one can fully control these natural forces unless possessing the Causal World Fifth Initiation — an adept’s warranted initiation.
It is indispensable to have been accepted by the hierarchies of fire, air, water and earth. Before becoming authentic kings of the universal elements, we must have realised the ultimate spiritual nature of the natural forces.
It is necessary to ask. The sacred scriptures say, “Ask and it shall be given to you, knock and it shall be opened to you.”
The Atlaca Chichimeca prostrated before the holy gods (angels of Christianity), and the answers swiftly came.
The Mexicans felt happy when they could buy from their dry land neighbours, wood, stone and materials to build their city.
The purchases were done through bartering. They exchanged useful material for fish, tadpoles, frogs, shrimps, aquatic snakes, aquatic insects, worms, ducks, aquatic birds, and so on.
In supreme humility, simplicity and poverty, they built a temple for the archangel Huitzilopochtli, the actual founder of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.
The tabernacle was certainly small, in accordance with their economic possibilities. Since they were established in a foreign land, amidst rushes and reeds, these people obviously did not have enough wood and stone.
Legend says that the remembrance of those times, humble, yet great, was preserved in the festivals of the month of Etzalqualiztli, which took place once a year.
The Avauhcalli, the first shrine dedicated to Our Divine Lord Huitzilopochtli, was built to the north-east of the present Metropolitan Cathedral, and nearly three hundred metres in the same direction from the centre of the Plaza de la Constitución, now called Zócalo.
The succeeding Mexican sovereigns certainly spared no expense in building a sanctuary to the blessed archangel, Huitzilopochtli, which was worthy of him. It was built in the same field or sacred place chosen by the Blessed One.
Around that unique magnetic centre, pyramids, palaces and sanctuaries came forth, kingdom after kingdom.
We emphatically state that the Eagle and the Serpent appeared to Cuauhcoatl and his people in the same place where a temple of the holy god, Huitzilopochtli, was later built.
Frankly speaking, we affirm that the Great Tenochtitlan is actually the temple.
The main motive of the city, the people and the state, condenses and focuses in the Teocalli (house of God). A marvellous magnetic centre, it majestically lies on the rocky firm ground.
Beautiful island in the centre of crystalline waters… exotic site in a large bay of the legendary lake.
Many cities and towns shone under the sunlight on those shores, Azcapotzalco and Tlacopan in the west, Coyoacan in the south, Tepeyac in the north, and others.
The Mexicans had to adapt for their use, a large number of small islands, and embankments of sand and mud.
With great labour and infinite patience, those amphibian people had to start building the ground, piling up mud on rush rafts, and digging many canals. They had to terrace the shores, and build roads and bridges everywhere.
In this way, the Great Tenochtitlan, the awesome centre of a powerful serpentine civilisation, came forth.
Samael Aun Weor
