Jump to content
Goodbye Jesus

Cycles of time, world ages.


Joshpantera

Recommended Posts

  • Moderator

This is a subject that I dove into following the zeitgeist craze. It's interesting to consider the world age scheme via the precession of the equinoxes / wobble of the earth. I'm going to post an introductory video about the spiritual angles of the world age system of ascension and decent and the general trends in society: 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

I'll watch these when I have time and let you know what I think.  

 

I appreciate the ideas you bring up in this forum.  They're not easy ideas for most of us to wrap our minds around, but don't stop challenging us!

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

These are old Hindu and Greek conceptions of cyclic time. They involve supernatural ideas like reincarnation and such. But what's interesting is how the models loosely fit what we know of falling into the dark ages and rising back out again. And they ultimately have more to do with the idea that human awareness goes through cycles and that we're more and less aware in general at different times. This is all mapped to the wobble of the earth (precession of the equinoxes) as a marker for the rising and falling of human awareness and a way for ancient minds to predict the future status of society in a certain sense. 

 

Like a lot of eastern concepts like Karma and Attraction, this seems to roughly model reality. It's interesting to look into. And of course all of this can be compared to what people have found in terms of astrological symbolism in the bible and how some of these ideas about the Great Year were likely used along with the other pagan mythological concepts that were used. Probably the most interesting aspect is the how these models relate to the time we're in and the time just ahead. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, ThereAndBackAgain said:

I'll watch these when I have time and let you know what I think.  

 

I appreciate the ideas you bring up in this forum.  They're not easy ideas for most of us to wrap our minds around, but don't stop challenging us!

 

I second that! Will look at these in due time. (I'm also reading the Sam Harris book, which I think even the most anti-spiritual atheist would still find a good read.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

There are some charts in the videos I've posted, but they are set up to the fall equinox and not the spring equinox: 

 

yuga-cycles-3.jpg

 

 

So what I'm revisiting this for is to consider the role that a blooming spiritual atheism may have in the up coming age of Aquarius - Leo. I don't see this as supernatural or spooky, I'm just using this esoteric timeline as a guide to try and predict future conditions, like I think many of the prophets were doing to try and make their predictions. But the difference in my approach is that I see the correspondences between the esoteric celestial timeline and world history as evidence that esoteric oriented leaders have influenced society over the years according to what is suggested by the esoteric literature. They quite literally have taken what's going on above and led out down below accordingly. 

 

If that trend continues, what ways will we see emerge during the age of Aquarius - Leo? 

 

The theme of the Piscean age has been "to believe." And blind belief was heralded as admirable. But in the age to come the theme changes to, "to know." And likewise knowing and knowledge should be considered admirable. It's not a time for blind believers and sheep. It seems a time better suited for intellectual prowess and spiritual insight. The spiritual insight will likely come from the insight of human awareness and mind oriented things. Consciousness will likely sweep aside things like blind belief in supernatural beings and assorted superstition. I think that all of these things seem like a reasonable direction that esoteric oriented authorities will want to guide society considering the mirroring below of what is observed above. I tend to think that at higher levels people understand that it's all consciousness and mind oriented stuff and not literal supernatural forces and involvement.

 

And out of this may come a powerhouse new edition to the world religion scene. I've been torn between whether a new religion will emerge or whether religion will fade out and people go on individually spiritual but not religious. It may be both, the new religion may entail personal individuality and leave behind the sheeple mentality, but at the same time remain a coherent belief system or religion if you will. After getting through Harris's book this all came to mind again and I started looking at the time table and considering how spirituality and religion will likely change and for what reasons. The fact that mainstream exposure is coming to spiritual atheism makes me think that it's possible that freethought, atheism and spiritual attitudes will all meet and merge going into the new age and potentially become the best suited method for spiritual expression among advancing, intellectual society. 

 

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On a fairly basic level, of course our existence is cyclical.  We have a life cycle.  There is a seasonal cycle.  Biorhythms are, essentially, cyclical.  I have a greater issue with cycles that go beyond observable time, however.  Belief and knowledge may well succeed each other - not necessarily at the same time everywhere or in a tidy framework and regular timeframe.  But to link such ideas to periods of thousands of years surely is a matter of faith?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator
7 hours ago, Ellinas said:

On a fairly basic level, of course our existence is cyclical.  We have a life cycle.  There is a seasonal cycle.  Biorhythms are, essentially, cyclical.  I have a greater issue with cycles that go beyond observable time, however.  Belief and knowledge may well succeed each other - not necessarily at the same time everywhere or in a tidy framework and regular timeframe.  But to link such ideas to periods of thousands of years surely is a matter of faith?

 

The supernatural way would be to think that real cosmic forces are streaming down to earth via the astrological symbols and having effects on human awareness through cycles. That seems faith oriented. 

 

What I'm looking at here is mankind observing the stars earlier than we have imagined, per the available evidence, and discovering that there's a long cycle where the 12 constellations of the zodiac are sweeping backwards in position at sunrise during the equinoxes. Having noticed, for instance, that spring religious celebrations were once taking place with the sun rising into one constellation, now take place with the sun rising into another constellation, the constellation behind according to the annual year. So if passover, for instance, once took place with the sun rising into the house of Aries, now took place with the sun rising into the house of Pisces. At that time, a new religion arose decorating itself over time with the main symbolism of the new age. That religion became christianity. It was a new age religion from the outset. The age was literally new. 

 

Being that the astronomers were the priests, there's hints at situations where the ages had changed and religious worship conducted in the fashion of the previous world age symbolism, was then condemned and banned. The idea that the Golden Calf reflects a change from the age of Taurus to the age of Aries the Ram, is similar to the Mithraic conception of the ending of the age of Taurus and ushering in the age of Aries. He's slaying the Bull, slaying the previous age that's now expired. Moses is making them melt the Bull idol and drink it down. They take up blowing the Ram's Horn, etc. 

 

There's a sense of pushing society to brake with outdated symbolism, forcefully and violent at times. Now the reasoning is superstitious ideas about needing to force society to conform to the will of the gods, the heavenly abode above. The Pyramids are no different than the Jewish idea of a heavenly and earthly Temple. As above, so below. There seems to be motive to want to orient society in ways that accord with the celestial dynamic of any given world age. The observations took place and then religious writers mythologized the observations. The precession of the equinoxes is a natural cycle and they mythologized it into things like the rising and falling of civilizations and awareness. 

 

Little wonder why society goes dark when the suggestion is that society will go darker for a while. And little wonder when it's suggested that society will ascend, society has ascended. There's naturalistic and human influence motivation at play in these esoteric literature suggestions. 

 

 

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does not this assume that the population as a whole understands and seeks to conform to a fairly arbitrary esoteric symbolism?  I have my doubts on that point.  Even amongst those who, today, habitually read their horoscopes, the precession of the equinoxes seems a little too technical and esoteric to be generally appreciated, let alone to be informative of culture.  I suppose it's possible small tribes and clans may have been more generally aware of their mythologies, but, in terms of anything as technical as world ages and seeking to conform to them, I wonder if this would survive developments toward urbanisation and empire.

 

Also, what of alternative cosmological concepts?  I am a Snake according to Chinese mythology, and, as far as I am aware, that structure repeats every few years regardless of the precession of the equinoxes.  I stand to be corrected on that, admittedly.  Furthermore, to quote from Wikipedia on the subject of precession (how accurately it represents the position I cannot say without further research): "western astrology takes the tropical approach, whereas Hindu astrology takes the sidereal one. This results in the originally unified zodiacal coordinate system drifting apart gradually, with a clockwise (westward) precession of 1.4 degrees per century".  For yet another and relatively recent outlook (and one that you can probably regard as accurate or inaccurate according to how you choose your historical evidence) have a look at the introduction to The Book of the Law (sections I, II, III, IV & V) in this link: http://lib.oto-usa.org/libri/liber0220.html).

 

How precisely does the psychological effect of precession apply given the use of different systems and methods of measurement in different societies?  Do you postulate that each society is somehow affected by its' own methods and interpretations or are you suggesting some wider, more general, cyclical development?  In either case, what is the mechanism?

 

Might I suggest that the phenomenon may be real enough is societies where the priestly and/or ruling classes are aware of whatever form of precession they acknowledge and have the power and influence to affect society's culture as whole?  Beyond that, there is a danger, perhaps, of looking for what is not there.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator
On 4/29/2017 at 5:20 PM, Ellinas said:

Does not this assume that the population as a whole understands and seeks to conform to a fairly arbitrary esoteric symbolism?  I have my doubts on that point.  Even amongst those who, today, habitually read their horoscopes, the precession of the equinoxes seems a little too technical and esoteric to be generally appreciated, let alone to be informative of culture.  I suppose it's possible small tribes and clans may have been more generally aware of their mythologies, but, in terms of anything as technical as world ages and seeking to conform to them, I wonder if this would survive developments toward urbanisation and empire.

 

No, it does not assume that the population as a whole understands any of it. How many people driving around with fish stickers understand the deeper meaning that they're glorifying the astrological world age? The speculating that I'm doing isn't based on people knowing what's going in. It's based on an observation of how religious writers and authorities have crafted their religion making with astrological symbolism and various superstition in mind. It requires that they know what they're doing. And in ancient times, at least, they thought they had to direct people in ways that seemed appropriate considering the age they were living in. 

 

This is like the world horoscope. There's one big trend that applies to everyone. And what's weird about it is that we've been evolving, and that's a linear process, but at the same time awareness and advancement has risen and fallen along the way. The earths axial wobble by itself doesn't seem like it would affect awareness. Although a close analysis does reveal that due to the wobble the solar light cycle hits areas of the earth differently at times during the precession. But again, changes in physical light probably doesn't effect changes in human awareness. It does determine global cooling and warming, however, and drives the glaciation cycles. But I don't think changes in climate effect human awareness either. Facing off to different constellations at different times from the perspective of the northern hemisphere doesn't seem like it would have anything to do with changes in human awareness. 

 

But superstitious priests and scribes who believed that the night sky must be modeled down here in society starts to look like a more likely method for history to reflect the astrological Great Year cycle. It's forced, by this thinking, and probably wouldn't correspond without human involvement. If the conceptualized trend is that we're supposed to decline into darkness, we decline into darkness. Even in the face of linear progression we nevertheless faded into the dark ages. And the dark ages are determined by human factors. Burning books, burning free thinkers at the stake, censoring knowledge in general results in dark ages for advancement. 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree that there are cycles in development.  High culture can (and, perhaps, inevitably will) over time lapse and degrade into ignorance.  An enlightenment can only follow a period of relative superstition, and a Renaissance a period of cultural backpeddling.  I might even be inclined to argue that human evolution (by which I refer to societal and psychological development) is less linear and more cyclical than you suggest (perhaps a spiral is a better analogy).

 

What strikes me as odd, however, is that ancient, and, indeed, not so ancient, society was far less well connected in terms of the ability to get ideas "out there" than is the case today.  Society was more illiterate.  There was no mass media.  In one sense, this should be the most homogenous age - the one age in which the religious and political leaders have the most wide ranging influence and opinions are most controlled.  Instead, it seems to be the age in which revolt against convention is easiest, at least in the West.  Not "easy", but "easiest".  And I am far from certain that we can argue convincingly that the political and religious leaders of this day are informing a change in attitude from piscean to aquarian.  If anything, the current position in English speaking lands looks more firmly "pro piscean", as far as I can see and if we are to apply such terminology and reasoning.

 

The bottom line, it seems to me, is that cyclical change in human society is likely to be driven by something deep seated in the human psyche itself - a tendency to conform, become dissatisfied and rebel in accordance with some not very easily identifiable principle.  Any link to identifiable celestial events is likely the result of hindsight, applying observed behaviour to whatever principle of change is chosen.

 

As for the fish stickers, I would argue that the users are not glorifying an astrological age, knowingly or otherwise.  They are simply displaying an image that happens to accord with western astrology because, as a coincidence, the ancient Greek word for fish rendered the symbol useful to Christians.  Apparent similarity is not the same as actual correspondence.

 

You may have gathered by now that, despite being one of these odd pagan types, I'm not overly sympathetic to ideas of astrological influences, whether viewed esoterically or as the result of their operation in the minds of the influential in society.  I'm not saying there's absolutely no such effect in the sense of moulding beliefs according to supposed celestial events, but I have difficulty seeing it as anything other than very minor.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

Everything on the horizon is Aquarian. The trade union conspiracies, global government, all inevitable. I'm talking about top level decision making. I don't think the Pope, for instance, is not associated with esotericism in some way. Nor do I think that all of the world leaders who attend Bohemian Grove are absent from esoteric knowledge and suggestion. Where are major decisions made? Well one place is out in the woods throwing all cares away for a time of esoteric ritual and consequent political brainstorming and discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Grove

 

Nough said...

 

There's reason to think that Aquarian age symbolism will trample Piscean at some point, and due to very conscious human efforts.

 

But most people expect that it will be a bad thing, dark and evil. It may not be. That's what I'm saying. The internet and the advancing of technology is in line with our place in the Dwapara Yuga. This is a time, unlike the dark ages, where the church can not oppose free range exchanging of knowledge and information with any consequence. Everything lines up together according to how it has been predicted to go from centuries past. Human involvement seems more likely than sheer coincidence. I'm deducing here. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

https://www.amazon.com/Egypt-Code-Robert-Bauval/dp/1934708496

 

Robert Buvual has explored astronomical sophistication in ancient Egypt. He introduced the Orion Correlation Theory. This seems to be one of those things that were lost to time and then rediscovered. Long story short, there are many ways of viewing the effects of the earths wobbling axis. Precession is one of them. The constellations rise at the equinoxes in reverse order to the annual order. It's just the way that we can observe the earths wobble against the constellations of the zodiac. But the northern circumpolar constellations are another. The north star changes locations from star to star as the earth wobbles on it's axis. And sure enough, Buvual finds correlation there too. So that's two different ways of observation. Another is by observing the belt stars of Orion. They go from a near horizontal position at one extreme of the wobble and then up to near vertical position on the other extreme. Three ways of observing the effects of the earths wobbling axis. All of them incorporated into the monoliths and by extension religion. And religion spread all around and mixed. 

 

But one thing Buvual mentioned is that he suspects that men who studied the stars with precision and sophistication were manipulating men and events from those remote periods. And what he's talking about is what we understand as the Egyptian mysteries, which went out to Greeks and eventually found their ways into certain biblical literature in the mixing process of ancient religion spinning off into newer religions. The Gnostic influence in christianity has been averred as the original influence by some scholars. With that came old mystery school content that seems to have passed down, in some cases, from Egypt. Luke 22:10 describes a scene where the 12 constellations of the zodiac are to look for a man bearing a picture of water, during the last passing over of the sun during the current age, and follow him into an upper room that he enters, from the astrological perspective. There seems to be an anticipation of how the ages will change and a sense of suggesting, from one priest to another because no else could understand it in these terms,  a way in which to deal with it. And that way seems to suggest following the Sun into the House of Aquarius for the next 2160 years. Just as the Giza Necropolis marks out half a precession cycle, from Leo-Aquarius on the horizontal extreme to Aquarius - Leo on the vertical extreme on the meridian. Is is possible that some of the bible writers, perhaps writing in Alexandria, included bits about the age of Aquarius due to interests in Egypt that sought to preserve that knowledge? 

 

Were these messages that were supposed to be preserved through time, picked up on when the time came, and then acted upon? 

 

Basically, adding Manly P Hall and "The Secret Teachings of All Ages" to my esoteric sources, renders the notion that the ancient mysteries were decaying with time. He seemed to feel that there was both an admirable and un-admirable aspect to the mysteries. And he felt that originally concealing knowledge under the constraints of discipline and control was an admirable way of trying to preserve knowledge from the vulgar public who may pervert knowledge during the down hill slope of the last decent into the dark ages. And he also felt that the admirable aspect of the mysteries had to go into hiding while vulgarity broke into the mysteries and eventually corrupted them. What we find today seems more a reflection of the degraded ancient mysteries more so than the admirable, especially as concerns the BG. But deeper than that, perhaps, is something more substantial. It's interesting to consider. But of course it requires diving head long into esoteric astrological lore. 

 

The scenario I've imagined is one where the degraded esoteric along with the degraded exoteric, fail. Their time comes to an end. What may come after may be much more sophisticated ways of thinking that are less egoic. And those more sophisticated ways, by tradition, ought to bear the symbolism of the new age if they are to be the most correct in presentation for the said time at hand. If there's a punch involved in calling people out and differing with tradition (that's the usual conditions of transitional periods of age change), then correct astrotheological attention seems to give the punch all the more potential for power, even if largely subliminal in scope. Maybe especially if largely subliminal in scope. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

Everything on the horizon is Aquarian. The trade union conspiracies, global government, all inevitable. I'm talking about top level decision making. I don't think the Pope, for instance, is not associated with esotericism in some way. Nor do I think that all of the world leaders who attend Bohemian Grove are absent from esoteric knowledge and suggestion. Where are major decisions made? Well one place is out in the woods throwing all cares away for a time of esoteric ritual and consequent political brainstorming and discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Grove

 

Nough said...

 

There's reason to think that Aquarian age symbolism will trample Piscean at some point, and due to very conscious human efforts.

 

But most people expect that it will be a bad thing, dark and evil. It may not be. That's what I'm saying. The internet and the advancing of technology is in line with our place in the Dwapara Yuga. This is a time, unlike the dark ages, where the church can not oppose free range exchanging of knowledge and information with any consequence. Everything lines up together according to how it has been predicted to go from centuries past. Human involvement seems more likely than sheer coincidence. I'm deducing here. 

 

Islamic fundamentalism is not going anywhere anytime soon, and is hardly Aquarian.  Global government?  Recent electoral surprises suggest to me a move back to nation states and protectionism.  There is no government currently that even matches that of Rome for its' global reach - and Rome would seem to have persisted into, and even facilitated, the "Piscean" era

 

I've no doubt that you can find reason to state that Aquarian symbolism is in the ascendant.  I've yet to be convinced that there is no reason to state the opposite.  Depends on where you look and how you interpret what you find,

 

Bohemian Grove just strikes me as being in the same sort of category as Freemasonry - a club with silly rituals.

 

For all that, I agree that there is nothing inherently wrong in the overthrow of "Piscean" blind faith.  After all, that is what this website is about.  I'm just very careful about ascribing it to, or seeing any significance in a perceived coincidence with, the operation of some ancient knowledge or foresight, esoteric or otherwise.  The problem with and weakness of symbolism is also its' strength - it's symbolic.  As such, it means and has the power that it is given by those who apply or subscribe to it.  That is as true in terms of astrological symbolism as it is with, for example, the letters of the alphabet.  Do the political and religious leaders of this world really take account of and apply astrological symbolism in this way?  I have my doubts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

It's a weird topic, and very speculative. That's why I raised it in the spirituality section. And there's a pretty large scale sense of rejecting anything to do with astrological oriented stuff. Of course there's New Age stuff, but I'm talking about atheists and freethinkers diving into the esoteric lore and trying to make sense of it. You don't find a lot of that. I've done to astrotheological research what Sam Harris did to meditation and eastern mysticism. I dove right in and started trying to make my own sense of it.

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicholas-campion/astrology-and-cosmology-in_b_1626481.html

 

It’s a shocking fact that there has never been a human culture which has not related its myths, institutions and identity to the stars. This is as true of the modern West as it was of our stone-age ancestors, and is as relevant to the last, surviving, indigenous inhabitants of Amazonia, as it is of today’s American astronomers....

 

...The name we normally give to the quest for meaning in the sky is astrology, from the Greek logos — ‘word’ or ‘logic’ of the stars — as opposed to astronomy, the ‘law’ of the stars. Astrology in the modern world has a somewhat problematic relationship with the prevailing culture. Its most familiar form is the horoscope column, relying on 12 zodiac signs, divisions of the sky invented in Babylon sometime before 500 BCE, but perhaps with origins which predate the invention of writing. The system is a familiar part of mass culture but arouses peculiar ire amongst some fundamentalist Christians, who regard it as demonic, and a small but vocal coterie of skeptics, who regard it as a barbaric affront to Enlightenment values. In the modern religious wars secular atheists find themselves in an unholy alliance with born-again evangelicals against the representatives of a tradition which can be traced to before recorded history...

 

...That the impulse to develop meaningful relationships between sky and society is universal is suggested by the evolution of completely distinct, sophisticated, systems of astrology in two other civilizations, the one in China and the other amongst the Maya and Aztecs of Mesoamerica. In both cultures astrology existed as a complex aid to management of the state, and as a simple means of fortune-telling: to be able to work out one’s fortune — one’s prospects for success or failure, were as important then as they are now. There, as in the West, astrology could be chiefly seen as a form of risk-management...

 

...Astrology is central to religious practice on account of the opportunity it presents to contact celestial deities, or to synchronize human affairs with eternal truths. The most important features of devotional astrology are the sacred calendars which were established up long ago in order to identify the most auspicious dates — and often times — to perform religious rituals. The legacy is clear in Christmas, which dramatically borrowed 25th Dec., the Roman festival of the Unconquered Sun. Easter, adapting an ancient Babylonian festival, has Christ resurrected on the first Sunday — the day sacred to the Sun — after the first full moon following the spring equinox — when day and night, light and dark, are equally balanced. The Hebrew rules, set out in the Old Testament could not be clearer: God will only take notice of such rituals if they are properly coordinated with the sun and moon. To do otherwise is to risk divine wrath...

 

The ancient zodiac signs survive in the modern West because, uniquely, in an age of aggressive consumerism, media-overload and scientific materialism, they encourage people to reflect on themselves and their inner worlds; their hopes, fears and secret motivations. In mass culture, astrology replaces the remote scientific language of relativity and light-years with stories of love and luck. In an era when we are now aware that we live on an insignificant planet on the edge of a minor galaxy, astrology restores each individual to the center of their own cosmos. According to its practitioners it provides a sense of personal meaning and purpose and, sometimes, a guide to action. Both astrology’s advocates and its critics find rare agreement on this point. This has nothing to do with the truth of astrology’s claims, but it does explain its survival in the 21st century.

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To make sense of the part played by astrology in relation to long timescales, seems to me the most promising approach would be a sort of comparative social study.  There is more than one astrological system and more than one interpretation, as I understand it, of precisely when any given age would start within a system.  A comparison of the systems themselves would highlight any consistencies and inconsistencies.  A study of how (as far as is known) the systems were developed and utilized in their respective societies may provide some insight into their social importance.

 

I see no great issue over constructing a hypothesis for the beginnings of astrology.  A society of hunter gatherers would seek a method of knowing when certain animals might migrate, when to go looking for seasonal fruit or when would be the time to start laying down stores.  Agrarian societies need to know when to sow their crops.  Nomads need to know when to move camp and how to navigate.  It would not be long before the correlation between movement of the stars and cyclical time periods would be noted - and with it, the concept of power and influence in the sky.

 

For today's audience, astrology is just another form of divination - very much simplified via newspaper columns.  People want to know what is going to happen, what to do.  In fact, there is a perfectly valid use to divination.  It provides a framework that can suggest random ideas allowing the mind to apply itself to current issues from new or unexpected angles - and that can give unexpected insights.  The astrological column does that well enough for most people on a day to day basis.

 

If you are to show a real correlation between long-time predictions, ages and political or religious conformity to those predictions, however, I rather suspect you will need to show the geographical extent and boundaries of the sphere of influence of any given system providing such prediction, show to what extent societies within and without those boundaries conform to the predicted circumstances and identify the method of dissemination of any perceived influence.  It would also help to exclude any apparent conformity to prediction based on conspiracy type theories - this will be quite difficult and nebulous enough without such an ingredient.

 

That's all quite a tall order.  Good luck.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

It's actually much more simple than that. The cultures observed the sun rising into a constellation around fall or spring. Their religious festivals fall during the time when things are observed. When the sun rise had been in Taurus for 2150 years, but then shifted over into Aries, it was noticed. So what ever these priests had been doing in terms of making bull symbolism sacred, they then changed to orient to the shift and dropped the bull for the ram. Mithraism is about dropping the bull. He's slaying the bull of the previous age. It's an aries age religion. In some remote period, it was a new age religion for all intensive purposes. That's discussed in more depth in the videos. But it's a good example of how this works and why. Judaism comes from the same period and reflects myths about dropping the bull worship. 

 

Like clock work, when the spring religious festivals like passover no longer fell with the sun rising in aries but had shifted to the sun observed rising into pisces, a new age religion popped up, evolved over time, and became what we now know as christianity focused around the symbolism of the new axial age - Pisces Virgo. The old religions were still in the mix, and christianity arose around the environment of existing Mithraism and Judaism. But eventually christianity over took both of the previous age religions in terms of popularity and scope. And no wonder, the observation of the ram wasn't being made any more at the spring religious times. The observations had changed, one constellation back again. This is something that does involve a certain degree of intuition. 

 

Mainly I wondered if any one here has delved into this esoteric subject matter. I've toyed with analogies that involve imagining how christianity came to be and how just as easily something else could pop out of it and become it's own interpretive system. We're facing times where that seems probable, not guaranteed, but probably from this perspective. And so perhaps the time is becoming right to launch such creative ventures....

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That just strikes me as too neat and simple.

 

Even assuming that Christianity succeeded over Mithraism due to astrological observation, how does that account for Christianity's success over Graeco-Roman traditional religion?  Mars/Ares is only a part of that, after all.  Furthermore, Mithraism seems to have given Christianity a run for its' money and the issue of which would survive and which fail was not settled for some time.  Arguably, Mithraism failed to become dominant because it was an almost exclusively male cult, the Olympian religion was superseded because it offered no clear concept of an afterlife and Christianity succeeded because it appealed to a large slave class alongside the poorer masses.  Quite apart from the political convenience for Constantine and the rather unfortunate early death of Julian.

 

Also, is not your approach rather dependent on your geographical situation?  It may seem supportable from the viewpoint of a Christian country.  However, what is now the mediterranean coast of Turkey would have been Christian during the entire history of the Byzantine empire.  Then another religion took over.  How do you square that with the astrological ages?  One religion taking over from another for some alternative reason would seem to prevent an astrological connection being any sort of reliable theory for development.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

The past is a retrospective analysis. 

 

The focus here is on the astrological aspect, which is but one of many. But setting all other aspects aside we find religions suited symbolically for the time and place who at least in the case of Judaism, branched off after the ages changed. Constantine was also probably very aware of this. His Mithraism was a religion about ending the age of Taurus with graphic and obvious imagery. Was it lost on Constantine that the age of Aries had now also ended? Or that the pesky religion of Christianity had by that time been heavily decorated and adorned with imagery and symbolism of the new age? Probably not. 

 

And this could easily repeat. 

 

The details of how and why that may happen, or what other factors other than astrological could go into it is an interesting consideration, but I don't see any reason to dismiss the astrological to do other contributing factors. The new age, for instance, would have a basis in correct astrological symbolism as a foundation for then layering all of the social and cultural aspects and points. 

 

Campbell's 4 functions of a traditional mythology list as follows: 

 

1) Religious / Mystical (mystery of existence)

2) Cosmological (present and image of the cosmos, astrotheology and such)

3) Sociological (where you seem interested) 

4 Pedigogical (the living of a model human life from birth to death) 

 

The above contributes to my analysis of the astrological aspects of religions. It's not speculative in terms of whether or not there is such a thing, it's actually the second function of a traditional mythology or religion. From the fact that it exists, other speculations can occur which are some of the areas I've been speculating.

 

Speaking of Campbell, here's a very interesting quote that had clued me into this subject matter years ago, before I delved into it much deeper: 

 

Quote

The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion

P. 9-12 

"For example, in the Hindu sacred epics...the number of years reckoned to the present cycle of time, the so-called Kali Yuga, is 432,000; the number reckoned to the "great cycle", within this Yuga falls is 4,320,000. But then reading one day in the Icelandic Eddas, I discovered that in Othin's warrior hall, there were 540 doors, through each of which, on the "Day of The Wolf" (that is to say at the end of the present cycle of time), there would pass 800 divine warriors to engage the antigods in a mutual battle of annihilation. 800 x 540 = 432,000.

...In Babylon, I then recalled, there had been a Chaldean priest, Berossos, who c. 280 BCE., had rendered into Greek an account of the history and mythology of Babylonia, wherein it was told that between the rise of the first city, Kish, and the coming of the Babylonian mythological flood (from which that of the bible is taken), there elapsed 432,000 years, during which antediluvian era, ten kings reigned. Very long lives! Longer even than Methuselah's (Genesis 5:27), which had been of 969.

So I turned to the Old Testament (Genesis 5) and counting the number of antediluvian patriarchs, Adam to Noah, discovered, of course, that they were ten. How many years? Adam was 130 years old when he begat Seth, who was 105 when he begat Enosh, and so on, to Noah, who was 600 years old when the flood came: to a grand total, from the first day of Adams creation to the first drop of rain of Noah's flood, of 1,656 years. Any relation to 432,000? ...it was shown that in 1,656 years there are 86,400 seven-day weeks. 86,400 divided by 2 equals 43,200.

And so it appears that in the book of Genesis there are two contrary theologies represented in relation to the deluge. One is the old tribal, popular tale of a willful, personal creator god, who saw that "the wickedness of man was great in the earth..." (Genesis 5:6-7). The other idea, which is in fundamental contrast, is that of the disguised number, 86,400, which is a deeply hidden reference to the Gentile, Sumero-Babylonian, mathmatical cosmology of ever-revolving cycles of impersonal time, with whole universes and their populations coming into being, flowering for a season of 43,200 (432,000 or 4,320,000) years, dissolving back into the cosmic mother-sea to rest for an equal amount of years before returning, and so again, and again, and again.

It is to be noticed, by the way, that 1+6+5+6=18, which is twice 9, while 4+3+2=9: 9 being associated with the goddess mother of the world and it's gods. In India the number of recited names in a litany of this goddess is 108. 1+0+8= 9, while 108 X 4 = 432. ...It is strange that in our history books the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes should be attributed to Hipparchus, second century BC., when the magic number 432 (which when multiplied by 60 produces 25,920) was already employed in the reckoning of major cycles of time before that century).

 

He stumbled upon a rabbit hole that would open up after his life time. But he knew it was there. He could see that there are layers in myth and astrological is one of them, the 2nd fuction. It's all interwoven within the tribal tales, as he put it. The examples I've given from the NT are more of the same. This is something that would only be acknowledged from one astronomer-priest to another. Now back then they were extremely superstitious and thought that they had some duty to direct the political and religious affairs according to what they perceived as correct. That's probably why there exists disguised references to the pagan cyclical methods. And there appears to have been bickering and fighting among them selves about the way things should be done. Like in the Moses story of the golden calf. There's an undertone of cyclic time which can be picked up on. 

 

Or not, or you can dismiss all of it and go on as if there's nothing to it. It doesn't really matter one way or the other. It only matters if you're trying to glean insights that other people may be completely missing, which is what I'm doing here. If it were a debatable material I'd take it somewhere other than the spiritual section. This sort of thing is hard to debate for reasons you've listed. 

 

But at this point I'm wondering why it even matters? It's wise to align any new attempt with the correct astrological symbolism regardless of the past, simply because it's correct. Why not compose something as correctly as possible in every way, covering every base of a traditional mythology, which must include all four functions, not forgetting careful attention to the 2nd function? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can see the attraction of trying to fit this into a more or less rational framework.

 

Doesn't quite work for me because:

  1. When all is said and done, all this is highly interpretative.  Religion with symbolism that accords with an astrological cycle only has meaning if the mythology is objectively collated against astrology to identify consistent and inconsistent factors.  Yet objectively collating something as subjective as symbolism is like trying to catch clouds;
  2. I have issues with ideas that seek to compare figures in the way your quote indicates.  The more multiplication or division signs are introduced, the less convincing it seems - and quite apart from the point that a repetition of numbers does not show connection as opposed to coincidence;
  3. The figures seem just too great to be credible.  432,000 years may well be in the region that modern humans have been on the earth.  If we start looking back to apparent awareness of celestial measurements, they are considerably more recent than the time required to complete a cycle of axial precession.  The periods of ages based on signs within the zodiac are so great that the idea that societies maintained sufficient interest and understanding to take seriously and model their religions on those periods seems far fetched;
  4. There are simpler explanations.  I would doubt if Constantine was as interested in the astrology as in the practical advantage of allying himself to an increasingly popular religion.

My apparent emphasis of the social aspect is based on the general impression that a comprehensive social/historical study is the only way you will give this the legs to overcome the above.

 

Again, "good luck".

 

Oh - and as to whether it matters?  In my view, no.  The understanding of astrology is too superficial generally for people to care enough to make it of practical importance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

I'll just clear a few things up. In the videos I posted at the top of the thread they explain how it was precession that led to the Hindus imagining greater and greater cycles. That's how the 432, 4,320, 43,200, 432,000, 4,320,000, 43,200,000, 432,000,000, etc., etc., stuff comes about. It's just running off wild from the original observation of precession and imagining unreal cycles up the scale. That's not to suggest that humans have observed so much as even one precession cycle, let alone the long extension that are made above and beyond precession. 

 

All that was required is to observe one astrological age fade backwards into another. And this has been observed a few times already from Taurus to Aries, Aries to Pisces, and now Pisces transitioning to Aquarius. From so much as the first transition of world ages, the entire precession cycle could be deduced. Simply because the motion was backwards to the annual cycle. From there you assume a back wards run all the way around the zodiac. So this stuff doesn't require observing so much as one entire precession at all. 

 

Well in any case, I'll be adding videos and things here to this thread some more just for the sake of having it here. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

Hey Josh, I just want to say how much I appreciate your contributions in these forums.  I often don't have the time to pursue the ideas you toss out, and I'm not a deep enough thinker - especially in some of the deeper topics - to make many meaningful comments, but I love the stuff you bring up.  One of the geat things about being deconverted is knowing I can let my mind go anywhere, pursue any topic, whether it's scientific, philosophical, whatever.  As a Christian I set limits on where I would let my mind go, avoiding anything that might threaten my somewhat shaky faith.  But no more, man, no more! 

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

Thanks, I know I'm usually much more grounded in thought and some of you are thinking what in the hell is he talking about with all of this astrological symbolism and esoteric knowledge stuff? 

 

It's simple really. The problems come from over complicating it. I simply think that the ideas of spiritual atheism that have been arising could be fashioned into a coherent belief system suited for the modern age, and it's an age which is literally taking place at one of these astrological aeon (age) cusps, or transitional periods of time. All of these ideas about spirituality without religion, naturalistic outlooks rather than supernatural, consciousness and awareness, and comprehensive understanding of critical biblical scholarship and archaeology all come together as new ways of looking at the world. I just think that as they organize, it seems warranted to decorate all of these new ideas in consistent alignment with the new axial age of Aquarius - Leo, for good measure. 

 

This reasoning stems from certain analogies I've offered here in the general theology section. Christianity decorated itself with consistent alignment to the new axial age that had just begun around the time of it's creation. It's not so obvious in Paul. But Paul was Gnostic and mystical and what came from that was more layering over time. By the time of the gospels, writers were adding all variety of astrological symbolic representation which ran subliminal to the general masses. But it was up front and obvious to esoterics, to those with knowledge of the ancient mysteries. It was decorated like a christmas tree. The debate has been whether or not it was the astrological decoration or sociological aspects that led to the popularity of christianity. It involved both. I think one of the strengths of the sociological aspect was the under current of much more correct astrological representation. As above, so below. Plain and simple. This is very simple. 

 

The same debate may take into consideration our current era. Would it be the astrological decoration that would make something like spiritual atheism more attractive now, or the sociological aspect? I would have to say that the main thrust to the public would be the sociological aspect, in agreement with Ellinas. But at the same time the correct astrological symbolic presentation of the sociological is recognizable by the esoteric communities who do encompass such things as the fraternal orders of world leaders. You want the double whammy. Also, with all of the New Age oriented awareness in society today much of the symbolism wouldn't be lost on a great deal of the general public. I've been thinking out loud here. And I think there's some genius to be found in all of this and I'm just trying to work it out and present some of these ideas to the ex-christian spiritual community for consideration. 

 

I don't know if any one has even watched the videos yet. 

 

But if you do, watch them keeping in mind all of the suggestions I've been making and see how it hits you. 

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm..  I'm not sure if you are misinterpreting me.

 

One point - I was not suggesting in my last post that cycles cannot simply be calculated.  I have no doubt that they can and were.  My point is rather that, if we are to take it that these cycles influence society (by whatever means), there has to be observation and analysis on our part of the effect on society, preferably over a number of them, via historical records.  That is difficult enough in relation to the periods represented by each zodiacal sign, and quickly becomes impossible on a longer cycle.

 

More generally, I've read back over the posts and think I may have been giving you a more difficult time than was warranted.  I've treated this like a thread on a pagan forum - and we can be an argumentative bunch.  If you think you can construct a workable spirituality that includes these ideas, all power to your proverbial elbow (in pagan circles, that would be taken as read).  My intention wasn't to dissuade you, but to point out the pitfalls as they occurred to me.  I maintain you've got your work cut out coming up with something of more general appeal, but your starting point has to be what works for you.

 

Also, don't assume that my emphasis on the social aspect is a criticism of your speculation per se.  After all, I'm the avowed theist here - speculation is something of a speciality in that field.  My thought process is that I suspect you'll have to go some way down that road to make this viable as a defensible aspect of spirituality, let alone one that others might adopt.  The speculation needs a foundation, and that appeals to me as the most likely candidate.

 

So, keep at it.  I may not agree (at least, not today; who knows what tomorrow may bring...) but no-one will develop their thoughts and understanding in these matters unless ideas are put out there.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.