Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

Midnight is just a few minutes away, and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note:  Any question or comment received after then will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted.  If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.1 of The Magic Monday FAQ here. Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says.  And further:  I'm going to draw a line, a hard one, under questions involving the evocation of spirits. Down the road a bit I'll be doing a post on the blog about why that's far less important than it's been made to look, and how the way of occult initiation takes a radically different path; in the meantime, I'm tired of fielding repetitive questions from people (or, quite possibly, one person using many sock puppets) that rotate gyroscopically around that one habit.

The image? I field a lot of questions about my books these days, so I've decided to do little capsule summaries of them here, one per week. The book above on the left was my twenty-ninth published book, and remains far and away the most successful of my books from the peak oil era. Its genesis, like most of my other peak oil books, began on the blog I ran in those days, The Archdruid Report, with a series of posts on the appropriate technology movement -- one of the most promising of the movements of the 1970s ecological scene, which attempted to craft advanced technologies that could work within the limits of sustainability. Though it was erased from collective memory by mass media and corporate interests, it produced quite a few useful technologies, and this book was my attempt to bring those back to the attention of those who might use them. Given the steady sales of this book, I still have hope. If you're interested, you can get a copy here.

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I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Comments

Occult & astrological history, part II

[xcalibur_djs]

Last week, I asked about astrological and civilizational ages. You mentioned that the seventh and final age of civilization would be ruled by Saturn, which led me to wonder about how the rest of the cycles/planets line up (I didn't get a chance to ask this at the time). It took a fair amount of digging, especially since there's alot of absurdity regarding the root races (gaseous bodies? hermaphrodites? lol). But then I came across the Seven Rays, which seems to fill in all the rest.
Can you confirm if the following is accurate?

Sun -- Polarians
Venus -- Hyperboreans
Mercury -- Lemurians (the messenger, how ironic...)
the Moon -- Atlanteans
Mars -- current 5th cycle/Aryans (some might object, but by any name, we're an unruly lot. Mars fits our love of warfare)
Jupiter -- the 6th cycle, yet to come
Saturn -- the 7th and final cycle, yet to come

also, I noticed that some of the clairvoyant descriptions of past ages seem to be jumbled up with imagery from much more distant epochs of Earth's history -- some of it matched the Hadean/Archean periods of Earth's formation billions of years ago, other descriptions seemed to fit the Cambrian/Devonian/Carboniferous/etc periods hundreds of millions of years ago. For example, there was indeed a time when ferns dominated the Earth's surface, but that was well before humans showed up. And the "fire-mist atmosphere" might be describing periods with high oxygenation, also well before the rise of mammals.

Another question, if I may ask. I hope this doesn't offend you, but is there a larger occult reason for why the Druids were nearly destroyed by the Romans during the time of Aries? Did it have to happen like that to make way for Piscean religion, or was it something else? It's a terrible irony that one of the best religious paths I've come across, which intuitively makes sense, was also so thoroughly submerged.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

1) I assign the planets in a more traditional order -- it's the same as yours, except that the Polarian civilization cycle was lunar and the Atlantean was solar. (The Moon rules infancy as Saturn rules old age, and the Sun corresponds more precisely to the golden Atlantean zenith.) But it's a matter of symbolism, rather than anything stricter.

2) Yes, exactly -- the 19th-century clairvoyants responsible for much of this had no way to check their perceptions and got a lot of stuff jumbled up hopelessly. One of the uses of modern paleontology is that it helps sort out which visions belong where.

3) The Hopi had a prophecy, going back a very long ways, that someday white people would come to their land, bearing one of two sacred symbols. If they brought the circle, everything would be fine, but if they brought the cross, that meant horrible events and ultimately the end of the Fifth World. As I see it, there was a struggle on the physical and spiritual levels alike to determine which way things would go. We know who won.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[sdi]

Do you happen to have a reference or further reading on that Hopi prophecy? It's uncannily similar to something my angel told one day (which I had dismissed as "unverifiable") and I'd like to follow up on it if I can.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

I heard it from Hopi elder Thomas Banyacya when he was giving lectures in the 1990s. Beyond that I can't help you.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[sdi]

Understood. Thank you!

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[homeopathic_meditations]

Would you dare to speculate who the "circle people" might have been? My first thought was Japan, though I do not think they were engaging in long distance navigation during the relevant time frame.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

My guess is that it's something that never quite had the chance to be born -- a large-scale religion rooted in late Pagan Neoplatonism, the sort of thing that the emperor Julian tried to midwife, and that ended up becoming the basis for nearly all later Western occultism.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[(Anonymous)]

Why do you think the circle people would've been less violent?

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

Oh, they would have been just as violent; invading peoples generally are, irrespective of their religion. The differences would have been twofold. First, the people of the circle wouldn't have tried to stamp out the traditional cultures and religions of the people they conquered. Second, they would have had a radically different attitude toward nature -- the entire ideology of "Man's Conquest of Nature" has deep Christian roots, derived from the Pauline teaching of the World and the Flesh as two of the three enemies of the Christian, right up alongside the Devil. Lacking that, some of the actions that are bringing the Fifth World to an end wouldn't have happened.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you that's very interesting.


1) Are you suggesting that the current chaos in the world is karmic from these actions?

2) Do you think that the specific Christian doctrine was explicitly designed to be an expansionist religion and differs from the historical teachings of Christ, ie, it was hijacked politically? (this is something I've had the vague intuition of I'm not sure).

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

1) I think it's more complex than that, but that's certainly a factor.

2) Successful religions aren't designed -- they emerge, for good or ill, from the experience of a people. Much of what made Western Christianity so savagely opposed to nature for a time emerged in the wake of the hideous 14th-century subsistence crisis in Europe -- the Black Death was only the peak of a century of famine, economic crisis, internecine warfare, revolution, and general chaos -- and its aftermath. Thus you see very different attitudes toward nature in the Orthodox, Coptic, and other non-Western churches, as they had their own historical experiences. In a very real sense, the age of European empire was the backlash from a tremendously difficult age of troubles in Europe. More on this in an upcoming post!

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ritaer]

This isn't exactly a magical question but a follow up on questions of what kinds of empires different cultures have. Was discussing this very question with a friend and my take was that US conquered and destroyed (for the most part) the Indians because most of this section of N. America was seen as suitable for settlement and cultivation of the European type--grain farming, cattle and sheep herding. Incompatible with hunting cultures or with those who were farming their own way. The British and other Europeans in tropical Africa and Asia were interested in exploiting rather than settling because the tropical climate and diseases were hard on the whites. So send in enough soldiers to keep order and enforce the taxes, suppress unacceptable native practices such as polygamy, suttee, cannibalism, etc. but with the whites usually intending to take the money and go home. Need the natives to work the plantations, mines, lumbering, so you don't kill them. Both forms of empire were based on a Christian idea that the earth and its products belonged to the righteous. Does this make sense?

Rita

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

Yes, but there's another factor involved. The peoples in Africa and Asia were already used to Old World diseases and so didn't have the quite literally apocalyptic death rates of the native peoples of the Americas and Australasia. Much of both American continents was being farmed when Europeans arrived, and if there hadn't been a 95%+ dieoff of the native peoples, very likely the history of the Americas would have been much closer to that of Asia, with a very fragile European colonial system over the top of a vigorous and numerous native population.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[(Anonymous)]

http://welcomehome.org/rainbow/prophecy/hopi1.html
http://welcomehome.org/rainbow/prophecy/hopi2.html

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[xcalibur_djs]

1. I see, I was wondering about how the Moon fit in, and wasn't aware that it ruled infancy. Likewise, Atlantis feels like the sunny, blue skied noontime of the human race, based on the legends I've heard. Most other correspondences make sense, and I forgot to mention: the Seven Rays state that Mars is connected with technics and scientific/material mastery, which would make it an even better fit. I'm honestly not sure what the 6th Jupiterian cycle will be like, presumably grandiose, generous, and monarchical?

Just to make it official, I'll repost the listing, with corrections/additions:

the Moon -- Polarians (infancy)
Venus -- Hyperboreans (growth)
Mercury -- Lemurians (the messenger, how ironic...)
Sun -- Atlanteans (golden zenith)
Mars -- current 5th cycle/Aryans (some might object, but by any name, we're an unruly lot. Mars fits our love of warfare)
Jupiter -- the 6th cycle, yet to come
Saturn -- the 7th and final cycle, yet to come (senescence)

Going by the planetary numbers, that sequence would be: 9786543. Am I doing this right? I wonder why it's slightly tweaked from a descending sequence..? The Lemurian deviation at work again?

2. As I thought, that makes sense. It helps to analyze things with nuance, rather than an all-or-nothing approach.

3. I remember reading about the Hopi legends of the Fifth and other worlds, but I hadn't known that uncannily accurate prophecy of the Circle or Cross. It makes sense that the contest would be both material and spiritual, since they're ultimately linked, as stated by the ancient phrase: as above, so below. I guess it's not for me to judge why the Cross was victorious, it's just the way of things I suppose.

Once again, thanks for the info!

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

1) Okay, I read this too fast. I'd assign tropical Lemuria to Venus (the star of Lucifer) and Hyperborea to Mercury, so it's in a straighforward descending sequence. That said, again, this is symbolism, so there's no one correct version. The descending sequence is simply the one that I'd use.

I imagine the Jupiter cycle as more peaceful, more generous, and more successful than ours, achieving things on a grander scale than we will. The Saturn cycle is longer than any of the others, subject to hard limits but capable of dealing with them, and leaving legacies that will endure for many cycles of time.

It occurs to me that it's just possible that the discovery of the two outer planets Uranus and Neptune might herald a change in the future pattern of things, with two more cycles to follow Saturn's. If that turns out to be the case, the Uranus cycle would be relatively brief, technologically adept, but destructive and self-destructive, while the Neptune cycle, the last of all, would be a vague uncertain age of fading out, with a final boundary almost impossible to define clearly.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[xcalibur_djs]

Yes, that makes more sense, I'd lean towards a descending order (or at least, regular sequences). Venus is the shining one, so that's a different and better interpretation, and as you said, Lemuria was in the tropics, which also fits. The other planets make sense too, especially self-destructive technology and a fading out. We certainly shouldn't ignore Uranus & Neptune (which would be 2 and 1 respectively) -- the ancient astrologers didn't have the benefit of knowing them, but their influences would be there regardless.

One more time:

the Moon -- Polarians (infancy)
Mercury -- Hyperboreans
Venus -- Lemurians (the shining one)
Sun -- Atlanteans (golden zenith)
Mars -- current 5th cycle/Aryans (some might object, but by any name, we're an unruly lot. Mars fits our love of warfare)
Jupiter -- the 6th cycle, yet to come
Saturn -- the 7th cycle, yet to come (limits, longevity, legacy, possible senescence)
Uranus -- the 8th cycle, possibly yet to come (advanced, short-lived, self-destructive)
Neptune -- the 9th cycle, possibly yet to come (gradual fading-out)

Thus, 9876543(21). Alternatively, 6789543(21).

One more thing, an idea popped into my head, that you could describe the civilizational cycles as a day: dawn (Polaris), early morning (Hyperborea), late morning (Lemuria), noon (Atlantis), early afternoon (Aryans/you are here), late afternoon (Jupiter), early evening (Saturn), late evening (Uranus), night (Neptune).

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

Yes, this is basically the way I see it, and the day metaphor works well.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen discussion on this list fairly often about these ancient civilizations--Hyperborean, Atlantean, and so forth, and of course enjoyed exploring them through your Weird of Hali series, JMG! As well as other fiction writers, including Tolkien. And I know most or all of them were mentioned by the ancient Greek philosophers and geographers. But in terms of a more serious and deeper understanding of them, where would I go? Theosophy? At the present time I don't know how seriously to take these ideas, but would like to learn more.

Thanks for any help!

Winifred

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

Theosophy and its various offshoots are the original source. The thing that first drew my attention to the whole business, in fact, was the simple point that Blavatsky's comments about Lemuria were accurate, if mythologized, as a description of Sundaland, the drowned subcontinent where the island chains off Southeast Asia are now -- and she manhandled the scientific concept of Lemuria to move it to where, generations after her time, geologists discovered that Sundaland had been. Factor in the point that Plato was right about date of the drowning of "Atlantis" -- sea levels shot up worldwide at the end of the Younger Dryas cold period, right when he put the submergence of Atlantis -- and it became clear to me that somebody had some accurate information.

Unfortunately it all got jumbled up by the attempt to use clairvoyance to perceive the hidden past, the great collective project of the Theosophical era, and so you get absurdities like Scott-Eliott's The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria, with eight-foot-tall egg-laying Lemurian hermaphrodites taking pet plesiosaurs for walkies, and the rest of it. In all that, the scraps of information that Blavatsky seems to have gathered in central Asia got very thoroughly obscured.

One of my current research projects is gathering data on out-of-place technologies that will help put those scraps of information in context. Did you know, for example, that there are plenty of references to aircraft in old Chinese records, and more in other parts of Asia? To judge by the descriptions, they were monoplanes capable of carrying a very few people, made of wood and fabric, and powered by engines that apparently used metallic mercury in some way. They were thought to exist somewhere in central Asia, well west of China. It's quite plausible; take a good look at this image of the Persian god Ahura Mazda --

-- and tell me it doesn't look like somebody in a single-seat airplane, drawn by an artist who has no idea what he's looking at.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[(Anonymous)]

Ha! That's very interesting, it certainly does! I very much look forward to anything you're planning to write about it. Do you put any credence into Graham Hancock's works? The only one I've read was "Magicians of the Gods," years ago, but some of it seemed plausible, and interesting.

Certainly there's a good deal of data for the *drowning* of Atlantis; what I don't find are sources about the details of their civilization, technology, etc. I mean, how do we know they were so much more 'advanced' than Minoan Crete, Egypt, or other cultures in the region? Somewhat more advanced, sure, based on Plato and his sources in Egypt, but eons more advanced?

As for Lemuria being off to the southeast of Asia: would that make the 'Lemurians' something like the 'hobbits'--not Tolkien hobbits, but the small hominid fossils found on the island of Flores in Indonesia, Homo floresiensis?

It's all very interesting; thanks for your response!

Winifred

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

1) That's the big puzzle, of course. We don't have good information on that. What we have are some odd out-of-place technologies -- maps that couldn't have been made without technology our civilization didn't have until the 19th century, artifacts of aluminum (which can't be made without electricity), plausible accounts of aircraft, and the like -- which make sense as relict technologies from the last of the glacial civilizations, traditionally called "Atlantis." None of them are eons ahead of, say, Rome; they're more advanced, surely, but I know of no evidence for unknown energy sources or technologies beyond our current understanding. Nor is there evidence for widespread fossil fuel use -- if that had happened, there wouldn't be any left for us.

My hypothesis is that Atlantean technology peaked somewhere around where ours reached around 1900, and was much less widely distributed -- occult traditions have it that the high technology they had was monopolized by temple priesthoods, and the vast majority of people had no access to it. That would make sense of the sparse nature of the relict technologies, and also of the lack of large-scale earth traces (our giant dams, for example, have no equivalent in the late ice age -- but we couldn't have built them without diesel fuel). It probably included things we don't know about and missed some things we got, but that's the nature of the beast.

2), No, though if those hominids were more widespread in ancient times it might make sense of some branches of folklore. If legends are anything to go by, the people of Lemuria were early Homo sapiens, and very dark-skinned -- their descendants are to be found in Australia, some of the tribal peoples of India, and Africa.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[xcalibur_djs]

While there are fakes, some OOPArts (out-of-place artifacts) seem to be genuine. There's also too many strange references, eg Vimanas, which seem to represent advanced technology that was confuddling for ancient authors. Then there's the antikythera mechanism, an analog computer from Ancient Greece which could calculate astronomical events and so forth -- it's proven genuine, and it's likely a relict of Atlantean technology. The Ancient Greeks were brilliant, but for them to invent such a thing out of whole cloth is a bit of a stretch, you have to admit.

Keep in mind that there's alot we don't know even about the Bronze Age. Our knowledge of the Minoans, for example, is limited to ruins, artifacts, written references, myths, and fragments. We can't read Linear A (although Linear B encodes archaic Greek), just bits & pieces, a few words and concepts here & there. Point is, the Minoans were a major civilization lasting a couple millennia within our own cycle, and our understanding of it is dim -- which only goes to show how much more obscured the pre-Bronze age civilizations are, shrouded by the mists of time.

Also, if Atlantean technology reached 1900, does that make them steampunk? lol

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[(Anonymous)]

There is a way to make aluminum without electricity, it just requires VERY high temperatures, is rather low yield by comparison, and will inevitably produce aluminum contaminated with a few percent sodium and/or potassium. I am yet to see an analysis of reputed ancient aluminum artifacts that is inconsistent with this possibility.

I have also seen persuasive arguments that the ancient Chinese aluminum artifacts are likely the result of some brilliant Chinese alchemists who figured out the high-temperature process downstream of the unique properties of the technologies of Chinese ceramics.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[brendhelm]

It also matches the life cycle.

Moon - infancy, Mercury - childhood, Venus - adolescence, Sun - one's prime, and so forth.