Smoking Mirror - Tezcatlipoca - "Tezcat"

Long before the arrival of the first Spanish colonizers to the land now known as Mexico, life was based to a great extent on the worship of the gods. For the Aztec and other people of central Mexico, Tezcatlipoca was one of the most powerful and influential gods. He personified the sun in the mystery of passion, cosmic death, and resurrection. He pushed everything towards annihilation which, in turn, brought rebirth. He represented the dark side of existence.

In this sense, Tezcat is very much like Shiva. In a sense, he is also like Mephistopheles who "Wills the evil, but does the good," as Goethe put it in Faust.

Another powerful deity, Quetzalcoatl, was Tezcatlipoca's counterpart. He represented the light, opposite to Tezcatlipoca's darkness. The Aztecs, as well as many other cultures throughout the world, believed that creation was the result of conflict between complementary oppositional forces. The interaction and exchange between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca resulted in the creation of this world.

This is very similar to the dialectical movement of the Yin/Yang where the interaction and exchange sets the Wheel of Life in forward, dynamic motion. See article on DIAMAT.

Quetzalcoatl is depicted as a Feathered Serpent. The Winged Serpent is prevalent also in Asia and, according to oral tradition, was the Symbol of Wisdom in the Satya or Trita Yuga

Tezcatlipoca, literally translated, means Smoking Mirror. This refers to a mirror made of polished black obsidian, his omniscient window to the entire world. Tezcatlipoca typically appears with a smoking obsidian mirror located at the back of his head, and another which replaces one of his feet.

Tezcatlipoca is the god of the Great Bear constellation and of the night sky. Tezcatlipoca's animal disguise, was the jaguar, the spotted skin of which was compared to the starry sky.

Tezcatlipoca was usually drawn with a stripe of black paint across his face and an obsidian (black glass ) mirror in place of one of his feet. Sometimes drawings show Tezcatlipoca with his mirror on his chest. In it he saw everything, he knew all the deeds and thoughts of men. See http://home.freeuk.net/elloughton13/tezcatli.htm

This would not be something to be confused with the Freudian subconscious mind or Jungian "shadow" archetypes prevalent in the West. One might even doubt that Shamanistic people even had that kind of mind in the past since many do not have this "dualist mind state" in the present; neurological studies bear this out. It is clearly implied that the Smoking Mirror was used to see everything and the deeds and thoughts of all people. It was like an All Seeing Eye.

He was said to appear at crossroads at night to challenge warriors.

He presided over the telpochcalli ("young men's houses"), district schools in which the sons of the common people received an education and military training.

This would show Tezcat to be very much in favor of the common people, the regular workers.

He was the protector of slaves, he severely punished masters who ill-treated "Tezcatlipoca's beloved children." He rewarded goodness by giving riches and fame, and he punished wrongdoers by sending them sickness or by giving them poverty and slavery.

So, all things being relative, anyone who'd view Tezcat as a brutal deity would have to understand who he was protecting and who his brutality was aimed against.

There is a stone which is presently located in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Carved in the middle of the 15th century, the artifact is said to illustrate that Aztecs had a fine knowledge of both astronomy and mathematics.

See picture below. Pictographs carved in the stone represent "Suns" or world ages. They are in the form of four squares that surround Tonatiuh, Aztec deity of the Fifth Sun, and are called Nahui-Ollin, or Four Movement.

Aztec legend has it that these squares represented the different manner by which the four previous Suns [World Ages] had come to an end: first by wild animals, then by wind, fire, and flood. Aztecs believed that they were living in the fifth and last world age.

This is markedly identical the "World Ages" of the Naga and Turanian people and in The Esoteric Tradition in general. According to the Esoteric Dark Tradition, the Satya Yuga (prior or Fourth World Age, also called Trita Yuga) was the Golden Age, an age of peace, truth and knowledge and this Fifth World Age is the Kali-Yuga, the age of conflict, strife and destruction.

At 1 o'clock is 4-jaguar, the first world age's square. The jaguar represents wild animals that ended the first world.

At 11 o'clock is 4-wind, the second world's square. Like the next two worlds, this one lasted an even multiple of 52 years. In this case, 13 times 52 years. Apparently the age ended with a tremendous wind. This square contains what seems to represent a dragon's head.

At 7 o'clock is 4-rain, the third world's square. This age lasted for 6 times 52 years. Tlaloc, the god of rain, acted as the Sun.

At 5 o'clock is 4-water, the fourth world's square, which lasted exactly 52 years. In it, the goddess Chalchiuhtlicue was the Sun. Her name meant "She who wears a jade skirt." She also had another name that meant "She who wears a green skirt." Her age ended in a huge flood. Every 52 years since then the Aztec held a great celebration called the Binding up of the Years.

Aztecs used several different calendars at the same time. One of them had a year that consisted of eighteen months, each of which had a specific name, and consisted of twenty days, shown as twenty squares on the outer Sun Stone ring pictured above. Each square represents a day in one of these months. Pictographs for these days, half of which were named for animals, are carved counterclockwise around the circle.

Eighteen months of twenty days accounts for three hundred-sixty days. To represent the remaining five days of the year, five dots were carved inside the circle with the four squares. These days, called Nemontemi, were times of sacrifice.

The next concentric circle is dominated by four large pointers that are spaced at 90 degrees. These represent North, South, East and West.

Eight equally spaced holes were drilled around the stone's edge. Aztecs put sticks in the holes so that their shadows fell on the stone figures making it function as a sundial.

Finally, read about the Aztec Sun Dial in either Spanish or English at this url