The Pyramid of Fire

In 1961 the Lost Aztec Codex, Pyramid of Fire or Codex Matz-Ayauhtla, was acquired by beat poet Marty Matz from a Mazatec Indian shaman who was a keeper of the ancient wisdom. Matz, enchanted and enthralled with Mexico, was seeking what he called Paititi (immortality). Don Daniel, the Mazatec shaman, had been waiting for him. He initiated Matz and revealed the ancient wisdom to him.

Matz transcribed the original pictographic form of the codex, a hieroglyphic manuscript, into English. He held on to it guarding its wisdom for thirty-three years until he finally sent a copy of it to John Major Jenkins in 1994.

Jenkins believes that the codex is the ancient picture book from Ayauhtla referenced in The Hand Book of Middle American Indians reportedly viewed there in the 1700s, but now missing. Matz doubted this because of the extreme reticence of the Ayauhtla Mazatecs and because of don Daniel's family mission of guardianship over the codex. According to don Daniel, the Pyramid of Fire had remained hidden since the Conquest (1520).

As well as a divinatory calendar, the Aztec Codex is an American version of the perennial philosophy that can be compared to the Kabbalah, alchemy, Western astrology, Hermetic philosophy, the teachings of Gurdjieff and the tarot in order to show that occult knowledge stems from a single source.

The Nahuatl (Aztec) religion regarded all things on earth as impermanent, transitory and subject to the laws of birth, growth and death. The Nahuatl poet-philosophers (the tlamatinime) searched for and found a higher source and ground of being that, like the perennial wisdom itself, is undying.

The codices were mnemonic devices (memory aids) for recording all the sciences and wisdom of which the Aztecs had knowledge. They found in the rhythm of poetry an easy and accurate way of remembering the meaning of the hieroglyphs inscribed in their manuscripts.

Poetry was crucial in shaping the forms and thoughts expressed by their high culture and great civilization. As a vehicle of of meta-physical expression relying on meta-phors, it is an attempt to vitiate the transitory nature of earthly existence. Without knowledge of what the Aztecs called "flower and song" (poetry), it is almost impossible to understand and appreciate the true greatness of their achievements.

The tlamatinime did not believe they could form rational images of the beyond, but they were convinced that through metaphors, by means of poetry, truth was attainable. This attitude was rooted in their belief in the divine origin of poetry, that it comes from above. Poetry intoxicates, enraptures, and by intensifying the emotions and the perceptual powers, it enables the poet to perceive what would ordinarily be undetectable.

From page 11 of the 13 page codex:

1 There is an occult energy in the heart that comes from Tonatiuh, the Sun, and if man releases it, returning it consciously to the Sun, he becomes immortal.

But to liberate this energy, sacrifice is necessary.

Man must sacrifice the desires and habits that he adores, sacrifice them in himself and turn the knife against the enemy that he carries within himself that keeps his heart a prisoner.

8 In recent times men still remembered these words, but they have now forgotten their significance. They have made enemies of other men to sacrifice them and tear out their hearts believing such offerings would propitiate Tonatiuh. Such is their degeneration, such is their superstition.

14 When fear unites with knowledge, terrible things are done.

15 It is the self within ourselves that we have to sacrifice.

It is our own heart that has to be torn out of the false being and offered to the light.

18 May Xiuhtecuhtli, Lord of Fire, burn my false being,

May Itzli, Obsidian Knife liberate my heart.