In his teachings, Samael Aun Weor has repeated many times that the most dangerous black magicians are in the mental plane. He was telling us that so to warn us of how harmful can be the attacks or influences from the mental plane for anyone doing the inner work, because anyone that is on the path will inevitably face opposition from the forces of darkness.

Many people who start looking into spirituality have an idea that the spiritual path is like a refuge from a harsh reality of the everyday life, that it is all “milk and honey”, with flowers on the way, but this is far from truth. You may find this out for yourself when you are shown in a dream a symbol of climbing up a rocky and desolate mountain, which is a universal way of showing to the aspirants that they are on the right track – the track that leads towards the end of the First mountain. It is shown as rocky and hard to climb because the path is not easy; it requires a continuous work on one’s own desires, drives, and negativity (in short, the egos). On it one faces the opposition both internal and external. The internal opposition are the egos that are part of the river of life (the way of nature), which react to any stirring of the essence when it wants to move towards the spiritual, so to ensure that we stay bound within the animal nature in which we find ourselves.

The external opposition is related to the people that are in our life (for longer or shorter time), and to the dark forces. The latter will inevitably appear in the lives of all those who truly dedicate themselves to the spiritual work, especially when they begin to die to themselves properly. Once these dark forces see that we are making concrete progress on eliminating egos and are lifting ourselves up from the mud of the low inner states, we will inevitably have their attention. We will catch even more of their attention if we get to the point of raising the Kundalini and building up or activating the solar bodies. These dark forces mostly consist of non-physical entities that are in one way or another attracted towards darkness and act from that point. They are known by different names (which can depend on their hierarchical order), such as negative entities, low spirits, low elementals, demons, black magicians etc.

There seems to be a consensus in the esoteric teachings that these dark forces are mostly based in the hellish regions of our planet (also known as the infra dimensions), however, despite that it seems that many of those can move around through higher planes as well (specifically in the astral and the mental planes), albeit bound to the lower regions of those planes. Even though it might be the case that there are many of dark spirits who are bound to the Abyss and can only act from there, it remains true that many are not and can easily move through the lower astral regions, where they can affect many humans during their hours of sleep.

They do not only focus on people who are interested in spirituality, rather, it seems that many more are affected in some way. According to the esoteric teachings, there is a war “behind the curtains” between the forces of light and the forces of darkness; fighting for the souls of the unsuspecting humans. It has been said that every human has a kind of supervision of a demon, however as most of the humanity is flowing downstream in the river of life (and therefore to the devolution and the second death), there is not much job for these demons but to ensure that the larger part of humanity remains on that course. This is not the case, however, for those who turn towards spirituality, and especially is not the case for those who do the proper inner work. In that case, the demons and low spirits have to work much harder to win over those souls, but there is also more protection from the beings of light.

And so the demons, low spirits and black magicians move through the astral and the mental planes of existence in order to affect us; they try and make us fail so that we become discouraged and abandon the inner work. From the astral plane they can mostly affect us through our emotions, stirring up within us emotions such as fear, anger, lust, envy, greed etc., and from the mental plane they can affect our thoughts. Interestingly, it is these latter type of dark forces that Samael Aun Weor has written are the most dangerous for those who are doing the inner work, which makes a lot of sense, especially when someone has reached a good degree of chastity and the control over the mind.

Samael mentions specifically that black magicians are the ones that can do the most harm from the mental plane. He doesn’t use the word “demon”, but rather “black magician”. The latter too are demonic in certain ways, but it seems to me that the usage of such a term indicates that the entity has reached a higher degree in their path of darkness; that they have become more intelligent in evil, because in the same way as someone can awaken their consciousness for the light, so too is possible to awaken the consciousness for the darkness. A black magician is therefore someone who is skilled on the path of darkness, and is doing a more challenging work on that side, such as bringing down well established aspirants, initiates, and masters – the higher degree of spiritual development reached, the higher intelligence in darkness is necessary to take him or her down, to make them fall.

The influence coming from the mental plane upon our thoughts can be very subtle, and if we have not trained ourselves to be continuously in the state of self-remembrance and self-observation, it can happen that we don’t notice those subtle thoughts, which then evoke particular subtle emotions, and before we know it we can be pulled into a  dangerous mental state brought about by the ego that we are prone to identify with. These higher dark intelligences know exactly what our weak spots are, whether that be greed, anger, pride, lust etc. However, it is through lust that most aspirants, initiates, and masters fail. As lust is the base ego and can have various degrees of intensity and manifestations, from seemingly ‘sweet’ and ‘loving’ to fully animalistic, it can be easy for the dark spirits to manipulate lustful thoughts in our mind with the purpose of making us identify with them and creating a snowball effect. And as every identification with lust brings a real risk of going along with it and failing, it is so much more necessary to be determined to succeed with the inner work in order to have the right motivation to stay constantly on guard.

These dark spirits can bring about different thoughts within us from the mental plane in order to cause problems and to try to bring our inner work down. But the good news is that we are not alone in this work; there are forces of light that are ready to help us, as soon as we make a petition or call for them, and often time they are helping us without us even knowing it. Sometimes, though, they expect us to learn to protect ourselves on our own, because learning this is a skill that can help us a lot in our inner work, in our fight against the egos. For example, when a person who is dedicated to the inner work begins to experience mental attacks in the form of obsessive and constant thoughts, he can succumb and become desperate, or he can do something about it. The latter involves learning how to block any thoughts from coming into the mind. Generally this is not something that the Gnostic doctrine teaches in their standard curriculum, but rather it is something that is taught by those who know about it when the necessity for it appears. However, once this is learned, there is a tremendous advantage for the student because from that point onwards they can control their mind in a way they never thought it is possible. This would give them motivation and inspiration to do the inner work on a higher note, and often time from that point onwards they start moving along the path with more determination, seeing the path differently.

The necessity to learn such a useful skill comes from a circumstance which is perceived as dangerous and harmful, but it is probably related to a milestone on the path, whether that be the very end of the Probative path or an early stage of the First mountain, in which the beings of light want to see if the aspirant is prepared to overcome obstacles; they want to see what we are willing to sacrifice in order to reach the final liberation.

There are also many other external tools for protection that we can use, such as certain recitations, rituals, working with protective elementals and higher beings etc. However, the more we go on with the inner work, the more we develop inner qualities, such as inner control, sharpness of attention and thought, detachment from the mind, emotion and sex, as well as many others. All of this help us tremendously to move along, despite the external oppositions, despite the attacks of black magic. The latter, besides being used against us by the non-physical beings, can also be used by people from our reality – they too can use the power of thought to affect us. But the principles of defence are the same. It is necessary to learn to control the mind and to stay detached from ourselves, always centered in our true self – the consciousness.

HDP, December 2020.