“Homo interdum asperior fera” (Man is more ferocious than the beast)

Dearest readers:

The present engraving belongs to the same book Thesaurus Philo-Politicus published from 1623 by the poet Daniel Meisner (1585-1625) and the engraver and publisher Eberhard Kieser (1583-1631).

The title of the print is as follows:

HOMO INTERDUM ASPERIOR FERA
─‘Man is more ferocious than the beast’─

The Latin text tells us:

Ingrato quisquis despreverit ore magistros, Trux magis immiti est asperior [que] fera.

Translation: ‘Anyone who with an ungrateful tongue despises his teachers is more ferocious and cruel than a wild beast.’

In the background we see the fortified city of Rhodes, in Greece. In the foreground, a man with a snake coming out of his mouth is sitting indifferently on a crocodile devouring another human being.

What is this engraving telling us?

Certainly, friends, contemporary Gnosticism, expressed by the V.M. Samael Aun Weor, has told us on many occasions through its works that the Real Man does not exist on the face of the Earth; that what exists is, unfortunately, a race of humanoids resembling man but with a structure that is really of animal. We have verified this throughout the history of our falsely called humanity.

Our entire history is filled with chapters referring to actions in which the so-called human being is always shown with attitudes typical of many ferocious animals of Nature and, to top it all, overwhelmed by an absolutely appalling indifference toward his own actions and everything that surrounds him.

The innumerable quotations from the great Greek philosophers and those other Eastern philosophers, such as Confucius, Lao-Tzu, Buddha Siddhartha Gautama Sakyamuni, etc., etc., have been of no use.

The maxims of these true Men have been forgotten over the centuries and are now absolutely ignored by the multitudes. Instead, the social masses of the north, the south, the east and the west have preferred to cover themselves, to clothe themselves with the misuse of the verb without caring about the social condition they occupy.

In this task, obviously, our ANIMAL EGO has played a very important role, manipulating our verb in a thousand atrocious ways, pushing all of us, unfortunately, down the paths of INGRATITUDE and ENVY, which are part of our disordered psychological anatomy.

For this reason, our founding president always emphasized: “Nietzsche always believed that man existed, but he was wrong. Man does not exist; there is a need to create him within us. What exists today are intellectual animals or rational mammals.” ……..

This was demonstrated ad nauseam with the perversion that we experienced all over the world with the advent of the First World War, the Second World War and we are still waiting for a Third World War, after which our false humanity will be reduced to the use of arrows and stones, as Einstein stated in one of his speeches……

Ingratitude, envy and indifference have clearly highlighted the psychological condition of the pseudo-man of our times. We have never been able to thank the enormous sacrifices made by those giants of philosophy and religion. It was all in vain, patient reader, absolutely all of it. Life today moves on the basis of Machiavellian interests that are sometimes inconceivable. We have been deprived of humanism and charity, and this has made us indifferent to the pain of our fellow men. Instead, our psyche has been bottled up in INGRATITUDE of all kinds. This is very serious.

I send you a few quotations for reflection:

“Mercy and truth go together: they are the kiss of justice and peace.”
The Bible, Psalms

” If you happen to bend the staff of justice, let it be with the weight not of a gift, but of mercy.”
Cervantes

“For although the attributes of God are all equal, the one of mercy shines and reigns more in our eyes.”
Cervantes

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will obtain mercy.”
Gospel according to Saint Matthew

“Mercy is an integral part of justice.”
Bossuet

NOT PLUS ULTRA.
─‘Nothing further beyond’─.

KWEN KHAN KHU