"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!"

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!" 

--

A Visit from St. Nicholas, Clement C. Moore (1779 - 1863).

In the quotation cited at the end of the previous post, Alvin Boyd Kuhn said in a 1936 lecture that the ancient stories all have as their central character the individual human soul. The sacred story, he argued, "is not apprehended in its full force and applicability until every reader discerns himself [or herself] to be the central figure in it!"

Does this mean that the reader must believe that the actual outlines of his or her life will resemble the storyline of, for example, one of the episodes in the Arabian Nights, or one of the   adventures of Odin  described in the Norse myths, or the experience of either Penelope or Odysseus whose marriage was interrupted by long years apart but who were finally reunited at the end of the Odyssey? 

Not exactly.

Notice that in the quotation from Alvin Boyd Kuhn, it is argued that these stories are intended to cast light upon the experience of "the human soul "(emphasis added). It is not in the outward events that our lives resemble the myths, but what Kuhn is arguing is that the adventures portrayed in the myths esoterically convey a truth about the experience of the human soul in being cast down to this "underworld" and undergoing the process of achieving a "crossing" of matter and spirit which will give birth  to something new, something transcendent, something miraculous -- and something that was not possible without the descent into matter in the first place.

In a later work, a companion volume to Lost Light (1940) but published four years later and entitled Who is this King of Glory?

 he argues that the story of the Nativity (or birth of Christ, in the New Testament scriptures) was intended to convey this same miraculous message about the human soul. In saying this, he does not mean that each individual is supposed to "self-announce" his or her "divine Messiahship" and proclaim himself or herself "the cosmic Christ and the Logos of God" -- he expressly says that this is not what he means (page 358). The story of the descent of the divine Logos, he explains, is intended to be illustrative of our human condition: 

The entire edifice of theology is built upon and around the central fact of the descent of the Logos into flesh and matter. It is the nub of the entire system. It is the key to the scriptures. 329.

It is illustrative of each and every human being, not some individual or some group to the exclusion of others: "The Christ in each of us is the Word made flesh, which after the analogy of the broken pieces of the loaf, came and dwelt among us, telling us that indeed unless we take and 'eat' of this divine essence, our aeonial salvation will not be accomplished" (329).

The wonderful story of the Nativity, and all the stories of the rest of the scriptures found in the Old and New Testaments, and all the stories of all the sacred myths and traditions around the world, become even more wonderful when we realize that they are telling the miraculous story of the incarnation undergone by each and every one of us. Each and every person you ever meet is a Christ, an Osiris, an Isis, an Odysseus, a Penelope.

Does perceiving the esoteric meaning of the story diminish its power and its wonder? Not in the least. In fact, Kuhn argues specifically that this understanding unleashes the full force and power of every myth -- for without this awareness, our attention is tied down to the symbol itself, and cannot "fly up" to the meaning that was intended.  He writes:

What seems difficult to tell an age that has never learned to go beneath or behind the symbol to verity is that exoterism ends with the beauty of the symbol, whilst esotericism only begins with the symbol and goes on from it to the undreamed-of wealth of a whole new world of revelation. The symbol serves but to touch off the release of a flood of luminous conceptions, which would never leap into organic and meaningful array until marshaled into relationship by the symbol's suggestiveness. [. . .] The vigorous force of a symbol or drama is caught in full when the meanings and intimations adumbrated by it can be carried away from the starting point and applied in the deep regions of personal consciousness. This transfer can be effected all the more smoothly for the very fact that the symbol or drama is itself known to be pure fiction. When, however, that which should be mere meaning-vane is alleged to be itself the event about which meaning is to center, itself the thing to which the meaning points, instead of being merely the pointer to a meaning higher and deeper, the native strong force of symbol and drama is choked in its cradle, so to speak. The alleged historicity of the cycle of Christmas pageantry ties the significance of the festival too close to itself. The meaning can not escape its own symbols and fly with main force into the hearts and minds it should be elevating. 346.

In other words, Kuhn is here arguing that the story itself is like a weathervane. He calls it a "meaning-vane," which is an interesting construction that evokes a weathervane (and may be an original word-construction invented by Alvin Boyd Kuhn) but which is designed to point us to some deeper or higher meaning whereas a weathervane is designed to point us to knowledge of the approaching weather. To focus on the vane instead of the thing to which it is meant to direct us, Kuhn says, is to miss the entire purpose. 

In describing the symbol itself as a sort of weathervane that directs us to a higher meaning, this passage is very similar to the saying in Buddhism about a "finger, pointing a way to the moon" discussed in this previous post: if we focus solely on the finger, then we will miss "all that heavenly glory." Kuhn warns us that if the force of the symbol becomes the entire focus, the meaning will become chained to the symbol itself ("tied too close," he says), unable to fly. The symbol will achieve a kind of terrible gravity, too strong for the meaning to achieve an "escape velocity," and its transcendent quality will be defeated by its own beauty. It will end up pointing to itself, instead of to the meaning it was designed for. "To stay with the symbol," he says, "was to cut off the soul and mind from the possibility of their soaring aloft into the highest of their capabilities of rapport and rapture" (346).

Kuhn admits the beauty and emotional power of the Nativity story, listing the elements of the scene -- "the Holy Child laid in the manger, the shepherds with their flocks by night, the angel's appearance to announce the birth, the heavenly choir chanting their carol of glory to God and peace on earth, and the halo of holy thrill around the entire event" -- and admitting that "in the whole of literature there is no more exquisite idyll than this" (345).

But he argues that it cannot have been intended to be understood strictly literally, and in fact is full of contradictions when we try to force such a reading on the texts.

The visit of the Magi, for instance, describes them as coming from the east to the west, but being guided by a star which they see in the east, which does not seem to make sense (334). He also notes that "no star [. . .] could by any possibility become or act as a local guide to a given spot on earth. If there is any lingering remnant of protest that perhaps it could be done, let anyone go out under the open sky at night and try to determine at what moment he is exactly under a particular star, or exactly what spot that star is pointing to" (333).

He argues that the visit of the Magi, or the "Three Kings of Wisdom," has an esoteric meaning relating to what we learn through our incarnation in this physical instrument (336).

The visit of the Magi and the directions of east and west make perfect sense when we understand that the drama describes events which take place among the stars of heaven, and that the "Three Kings" are the stars of Orion's belt, setting in the west and looking across the vault of heaven to the east, where "Mary" is rising in the person of the constellation Virgo the Virgin, bearing upon her outstretched arm the Holy Child. At the pinnacle of the arc of the zodiac as it is then seen stretched across the sky will be "the Manger," in the beautiful cluster Praesepe, the Beehive in the constellation of Cancer the Crab, associated anciently with a Manger and also with the pineal gland in the human body. See the discussion in this video (caution: examines evidence that the stories in the Biblical scriptures were not intended to be understood as literal history -- those not comfortable examining this evidence may not wish to view the video).

Note, of course, that these celestial "Three Kings" do indeed come from the east

(the eastern horizon, where they started) -- and that by the time they reach the western horizon and see the rising star in the constellation of Mary, they have been traveling from the east for quite some time!

These motions of the heavenly bodies also describe a story of which the "star" or central figure is always the human soul.

The point of the year at which the sun begins its journey back upwards, after traveling down towards the very Pit of the year at winter solstice, is imbued with deep significance in the sacred traditions found around the world.

We have seen abundant evidence that the annual cycle itself contains a "cross" in which the vertical component can be envisioned as running from the bottom of the year, when days are shortest, all the way up to the top of the year, when days are longest: in other words, from the winter solstice up to the summer solstice. 

The horizontal component of this "cross" is formed by the line between the equinoxes: that line which marks the two transition points at which darkness begins to dominate or at which light begins to dominate, one marking the transition from the upper half of the year which has longer days and shorter nights to the lower half of shorter days and longer nights, and the other marking the transition from the lower half of the year back to the upper half.

For previous posts discussing this concept, and its manifestation in myth around the globe, see for instance "Scarab, Ankh and Djed," "Vajra: the Thunderbolt," "The shamanic foundation of the world's ancient wisdom," and "O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, thy Leaves are so unchanging."

The upward turn in the great annual drama was associated with the concept of "raising the Djed-column" in the mythology of ancient Egypt, and with the restoration of Osiris the god who had been "cast down" into the underworld. It is also associated with the Lakota concept of walking the sacred red road as articulated in the vision of Black Elk. There is an abundance of evidence that these concepts relate to recovering the connection with the infinite hidden world of spirit, which our plunge into the "underworld" of matter can obscure from our awareness and from our vision. 

In other words, this annual drama is about the annual journey of the sun as seen from the earth, but it is really about our own consciousness, and our own journey to awaken our consciousness: to see or to sense that which cannot be perceived by the physical senses (which are designed to function in the material realm rather than the spiritual realm). 

The story of Osiris, plunged down into the underworld is really the story of each human soul, on its long walk through the underworld, the realm of night  -- and the raising of the Djed-column is thus a task each of us must undertake, to remember our spiritual nature, and to perceive the non-material realm that is buried within all of us and all of nature, and that is behind everything that we can perceive with our physical senses. This can also be expressed as seeking to walk the good red road.

The story of the Nativity, celebrated at this specific point on the annual cycle, expresses the same thing. 

Notice that in the quotation from Alvin Boyd Kuhn, it is argued that these stories are intended to cast light upon the experience of "the human soul"(emphasis added). It is not in the outward events that our lives resemble the myths, but what Kuhn is arguing is that the adventures portrayed in the myths esoterically convey a truth about the experience of the human soul in being cast down to this "underworld" and undergoing the process of achieving a "crossing" of matter and spirit which will give birth to something new, something transcendent, something miraculous -- and something that was not possible without the descent into matter in the first place.

May your Christmas and all the days of the year be filled with miracles!

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

Winter solstice, 2014: the Stable and the Manger

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The earth will pass through the point of December solstice this year on December 21st at 2303 Greenwich time (now referred to as UTC), which is 1503 Pacific time and 1803 Eastern time for those in North America (numerous sites on the web can help you determine the time at your location if the references above aren't enough to zero-in on it).

As has been remarked upon in many other discussions, the word "solstice" descends from a combination of the Latin noun sol ("the sun") with a form of the Latin verb sistere ("to stand"), and thus means "sun-standing," as in "standing still." We find another example containing a derivation of sistere in the word "interstitial," which describes the "boundary space" in between two larger spaces -- the border-zone, the threshold region, the "standing-in-the-middle" place.

When the earth is hurtling towards the December solstice, it causes the sun's apparent path to observers on earth to move further and further south each day. As a consequence, ever since we passed the June solstice, the sun has been rising on the eastern horizon at a point further and further south, and arcing across the sky on a path that is further and further towards the southern horizon, and then setting at a point along the western horizon at a point that is further and further south each day. 

At the solstice, the sun seems to "stand still" before it turns back around and reverses the process. The reason for this standstill is discussed in this previous post involving the metaphor of a mighty sailing ship with the bowsprit acting as the north pole. 

For those observers in the northern hemisphere, where the sun's steady progress towards the south has caused its rays to be less and less direct, and the warming effects less and less effective, plunging the world deeper and deeper into winter, as the days grow shorter and shorter and the nights longer and longer, the anticipation of that turnaround is tremendous. It seems as if life itself hangs in the balance, and the time in which the sun finally grinds to a halt in its southward progression and stands still before finally turning back towards the north feels like a breathless pause in which the entire world freezes in place to see if the life-giving orb will actually "make the turn."

It is this moment, when all the world collectively "holds its breath" (figuratively speaking), that Alvin Boyd Kuhn says is commemorated in the concept of the "Silent Night," the stillness that is celebrated in the Christmas tradition, with carols which proclaim: "O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie," and (in "It came upon a midnight clear"), "The world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing" (13).

In a lecture entitled The Stable and the Manger, delivered in 1936, Alvin Boyd Kuhn elucidates the connections between the elements of the Christmas story and the significance of the winter solstice as a spiritual allegory, in which spirit which has been plunged deep into matter begins its "upward turn," but prior to doing so there is a pregnant pause in which all is in perfect stillness, and the tension between the two creates a moment of equipoise in which "all is calm."

Outlining the framework of the metaphor, he explains:

The sun in its apparent passage from the high glory of summer to its enfeebled power in the solstice of winter exactly symbolizes, because it repeats, the experience of the soul in its alternating swing from the heights of spiritual purity in disembodiment -- in summer -- to the depths of diminished shining in the lowest arc of its immersion in a body, its night, its winter. 11.

And, tying this concept to the Christmas story, he explains that it is this commingling of the spark of spirit plunged into the body of matter which gives birth to the "third principle," the higher self, the Christ within. Kuhn says:

Suffice it to say for the moment that obviously if a higher and a lower force are to meet and unite at the point midway between their status of being, they must so meet as the result of the ascent of the one and the descent of the other. Nature could not well arrange such a meeting in any other way. That nature has so arranged the matter is one of the bits of knowledge furnished us by the ancient wisdom. When God or Life at the beginning of each period of its activity bifurcates into the polarization of spirit and matter, the two forms of being move toward each other, meet in the middle ground, so to say, effect their conjunction and interplay, and at the end of the cycle retire into latency again. For the earth evolution that point of middle distance between the two is the body and life of man. here is where the "marriage" takes place and the Son, the Christ, is born. And when the two forces meet at this point, they counteract each other's energies and bring each other to a standstill. Spirit descending came to a stop in the arms of matter, for the inertia of matter stilled the vibrations of spirit. 9.

Thus, he notes, it is highly appropriate that the ancient scriptures describe the birth of the Christ as taking place in a stable -- the word itself means "steady" and "standing upon a base," appropriate for this story that takes place at the very base of the year, the bottom of the zodiac wheel shown below, and appropriate to the point where as Kuhn says "spirit and matter, soul and body, are 'stabilized' in relation to each other" (12).

He further points out that the stable is the place "where animals come to stand for the night," and a place where the animal nature connects with the benevolent care of the higher human intellect (which presumably designed and constructed the stable, to shelter and protect the animal), and which thus may symbolize this point where "the brute kingdom is elevated by the grace of mankind, as mankind in turn is exalted by the grace of the gods" (12).

But that is not all -- for, as Kuhn goes on to explain, the Christ-child who is born at this point of tension between spirit and matter, where spirit has descended to its deepest place in the cycle, is then laid in a manger -- the place where the animals are fed! The animal nature must be fed and nourished and ultimately elevated by their participation with the Christ nature (17 - 19).

Astronomically, we have seen that the sign of Virgo, standing as she does at the autumn equinox where days begin to be shorter than nights, presides over the plunge of the spirit from the higher realm into the material realm (see the image of Virgo, wearing the crown of the "Queen of Heaven," located just above the horizontal line before the "crossing point" indicated by the red "X" on the right-hand side of the zodiac circle as we face it in the diagram above). Virgo appears in the ancient Egyptian myth-cycle as Isis, holding the divine Horus on her lap in exactly the same way that she appears in the New Testament accounts as the Virgin Mary, holding the divine Jesus:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The identification of Isis, and Mary, with Virgo is evident from an examination of the outline of the constellation itself, but also from the fact that Virgo is associated with wheat and with grain, and that in fact the constellation is often depicted as holding a sheaf of wheat, and in fact the name of her brightest star, Spica, comes from a Latin reference to an "ear of grain" (and in Arabic this star is called Sumbalet which also means "an ear of wheat"). The fact that she lays her divine son in the manger, where the grains are fed to the animals, should cement this identification between the heavenly queen and the Virgin in the story found in the gospel account. See also the discussion of Mary and Virgo, and the visit of the Magi, in this video.

There are many more astonishing connections to be found in the lecture of Alvin Boyd Kuhn, and in consideration of the spiritual symbology present in the point of the winter solstice with all its implications. The reader is encouraged to consult the full text of that lecture (click on the word "fullscreen" to bring up a facsimile of a book format), and what better time to do so than this portentous point on the year, when all the world stands still at the December solstice?

But, perhaps the most important part of Kuhn's entire lecture is found before he actually begins to elucidate the details of the solstice-scene at all, when he explains that these exquisite metaphors are meant to convey a drama of which the central player is each and every human being. He asserts:

Bible stories are in no sense a record of what happened to a man or a people as historical occurrence. As such they would have little significance for mankind. They would be the experience of people not ourselves, and would not bear a relation to our life. But they are a record, under pictorial forms, of that which is ever occurring as a reality of the present in all lives. They mean nothing as outward events; but they mean everything as picturizations of that which is our living experience at all times. The actors are not old kings, priests and warriors; the one actor in every portrayal, in every scene, is the human soul. The Bible is the drama of our history here and now; and it is not apprehended in its full force and applicability until every reader discerns himself [or herself] to be the central figure in it! The Bible is about the mystery of human life. Instead of relating to the incidents of a remote epoch in temporal history, it deals with the reality of the living present in the life of every soul on earth. 4.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, thy Leaves are so unchanging

That special time of year has finally arrived when many of us erect the Christmas tree in our homes. 

There is something magical about the arrival of the tree each year, with its wonderful evergreen smell and the nostalgic connection to memories of Christmases past stretching back to when we were children.

Much has been made of the "pagan" origins of the Christmas tree (and many of the traditions surrounding the celebration of Christmas itself, including its specific date three days after winter solstice), and much ink spilled on both sides of this often-contentious issue, and yet the actual meaning of this ancient symbol is rarely if ever explained beyond the rather obvious connection between the use of an "evergreen" tree and the concept of "eternal life" or the eternity of the human soul.

That Christmas falls on one of the four most important solar stations on the great circle of the year, the lowest-point of the sun which is reached at the December solstice (for observers in the northern hemisphere) is simply undeniable. In fact, its celebration coincides to the very stroke of midnight at the beginning of the third day after the day on which winter solstice most commonly falls -- the stroke of midnight between the 24th and the 25th of December, three days after December 21st (the traditional date of winter solstice -- the day will occasionally wander to the 22nd due to the fact that the number of complete earth rotation or days does not fit perfectly into the space required to get back to the exact point of winter solstice each year, necessitating a leap year to bring the calendar dates back in line with the annual stations on the great wheel). 

The three-day pause probably originates from the fact that the sun seems to linger at the lowest point before turning around, just as it does at its opposite highest point at the summer solstice each June. This phenomenon, and the reason that the sun does not linger at the equinoxes, is discussed in this previous post about the mechanics of the solstices and equinoxes.

Previous posts have explored at some length the evidence which supports the assertion that the great wheel of the year can be "quartered" by drawing two lines between these four very important stations of the year: a horizontal line between the two equinoxes (March and September) and a vertical line between the two solstices (December and June). A diagram illustrating this idea is shown below, and previous posts which discuss ancient myths which seem to support this "cross within the circle of the year" can be found here, here and here (among many others). 

Note that this appears to have been a worldwide concept: the examples from those three posts span the sacred teachings of ancient Egypt, of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures in the Bible, of the ancient Greek Scriptures in the Bible, of the Vedas of ancient India, and of the Lakota of North America. I would argue that the traditions of many other cultures could be examined and found to contain a similar pattern.

The horizontal line between the equinoxes equates to the "casting down" of the spirit into the world of "the underworld," this world of incarnation. It is allegorically symbolized by the heavenly bodies which we see in the sky -- the sun, moon, planets and stars -- plunging down into contact with the horizon of earth or of water, as if these bodies which are native to the crystal spheres above have been thrown down into the mud of our earthly disc, there to plow through the underworld until they break free once again to rise into the sky on the other side. 

This "casting down" took place at the equinoxes on the "Cross" of the circular year, because the equinoxes are the places where the ecliptic path of the sun "crosses" either above or below the celestial equator, creating the point of transition when days become shorter than nights (night prevails and the sun is figuratively in the "underworld" as we toil our way through winter) and the other point of transition when days again become longer than nights (and day prevails again, with the sun being figuratively released to dominate the sky once more, free from the clutches of the wintery months when night rules supreme). 

In ancient Egypt, the god of the underworld was Osiris, and he was depicted as laid out horizontally like a corpse in many scenes, slain by his brother Set and bound in a sarcophagus, cast into the waters -- all of which are emblematic of our plunge into incarnate matter in these human bodies.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The Djed column itself (discussed in this previous post) was associated with the "backbone of Osiris," and it was figuratively "cast down" horizontally when Osiris was "laid out" in a sarcophagus like a corpse in the underworld (by the action of the sun's "crossing down" at the fall equinox). But Osiris was not destined to remain horizontal forever -- as the image above plainly intimates. He is destined to rise-up vertically, just as the shoots of grain shown rising from his body in the image above are doing. The raising of the mummified Osiris from the horizontal position to the vertical position was associated with the act of "raising the Djed column" from its "cast-down" horizontal position to its vertical orientation. 

I believe that the raising of the Djed column is figured by the vertical line between the two solstices, shown in the zodiac-wheel diagram above. The raising of the Djed, the raising of the "corpse of Osiris," could be seen to take place when the sun stopped its descending path and turned back upwards: at that point of the very "bottom of the year."

This is why we erect the Christmas tree in anticipation of the turn that takes place at the absolute low-point of the year -- when the sun finally stops its descending path, arriving at winter solstice at December 21, and then it pauses there at its lowest point as if building up our anticipation for three days before starting back upwards towards the top of the year. If the point of fall equinox was figured as the "crossing point" of begin "cast down to the underworld," the turn that takes place at the bottom of the year is appropriate to be celebrated with the raising of a vertical pole, because that is the point where the Djed column begins to be raised back up, as the sun makes its turn from the dreadful downward plunge that it has been taking on its way to the December solstice.

If this interpretation is correct, the raising of the Christmas tree is symbolic of the vertical pillar that can be imagined running from the winter solstice at the bottom of the year and going up through the summer solstice at the very top of the year:

Indeed, there are many legends in which the corpse of Osiris is in fact imprisoned within the body of a tree, lending even more credence to this interpretation of the Christmas tree as commemorative of the raising of the Djed column at the winter solstice. In his discussion of the myth-cycle of Isis and Osiris, Plutarch says that the slain Osiris was imprisoned in a chest which floated out to sea and ended up making its way to Byblus (or Byblos). There, he writes (beginning in paragraph 15): 

the waves had gently set it down in the midst of a clump of heather. The heather in  a short time ran up into a very beautiful and massive stock [a "stock" as used here is a stump or a trunk of a tree], and enfolded and embraced the chest with its growth and concealed it within its trunk. The king of the country admired the great size of the plant, and cut off the portion that enfolded the chest (which was now hidden from sight), and used it as a pillar to support the roof of his house.

Thus, we see that the corpse of Osiris was in this legend "cast down" into a horizontal position within  a chest, but then turned into a tree and was brought into a house (just as the Christmas tree is brought into our homes). His corpse (imprisoned within the tree) is eventually recovered by Isis and restored to life.

Elsewhere, we have explored the evidence suggesting that Isis taking the corpse of Osiris down from its prison inside the pillar in the palace of the king of Byblos is analogous to the pieta scenes in which Mary the mother of Jesus receives his crucified body back from the Cross, before it is raised up again at the resurrection.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

If this interpretation of the "cross" of the year is correct, with the horizontal line between the equinoxes analogized in ancient myth as the "casting down of the Djed" and the laying out of the corpse of Osiris in his sarcophagus or on his bier, and the vertical line between the solstices analogized in ancient myth as the "raising up of the Djed," then the "raising up of a Djed" in our homes (in the form of a Christmas tree) would almost certainly be predicted to take place in anticipation of the "turn" of the year which takes place at the December solstice. And this is exactly when we do in fact erect the Christmas tree in our homes: in the days or weeks leading up to the point of winter solstice. 

The fact that Osiris was explicitly described as being imprisoned in a tree, and brought into the palace when he was in the form of a tree, lends even greater strength to the argument that our tradition of bringing in the Christmas tree into our homes hearkens back to the symbology of the "vertical Djed column" associated with the vertical line that gets erected each year beginning at the low-point of winter solstice. Below is an image from ancient Egypt of the goddesses Isis and Nephthys raising Osiris to a vertical position between them -- this time, he is in his manifestation as Osiris-Re or Osiris depicted with the head of Amon-Ra:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The upsweep of the wide-spreading horns at the top of this "Djed-shaped" god (with the solar disc between them) are strongly reminiscent of the outstretched arms of the Scarab, which we have previously argued is connected to the outstretched arms of the zodiac sign of Cancer the Crab, who is located at the summer solstice point, at the top of the "vertical line" in the zodiac wheel that we are trying to establish as the "vertical Djed column." 

Again, all of this evidence should strengthen the case that the tree we are erecting as we approach the bottom of the year is a representation of the divine spiritual component in the Cross of the year, the vertical line running from the winter solstice all the way up the summer solstice, the line that represents the lifting up of the "dead god" from his prison in the sarcophagus to the upward line which points up to the very summit of the year at the summer solstice, highest heaven.

Figuratively, this raising of the Djed column may well be indicative of our mission in this incarnation: to see beyond the merely physical or horizontal (difficult to do, trapped as we are in these bodies in the same manner that Osiris is bound in his mummy-wrappings), and to call forth the invisible, the spiritual, the vertical. For more on this thought, see the previous post entitled "Blessing."

Interesting additional confirmation of this identification of the Christmas tree with the vertical pillar of the Djed comes from the other Christmas tradition involving a tree-trunk, less commonly celebrated today but once taken very seriously: the tradition of the Yule log. Various accounts of the Yule log indicate that it was a huge trunk, the biggest that could be found, sometimes chosen from a type of tree seen as sacred, and hauled into the house to be burned in the fireplace, but only after it had been anointed with oil and salt and spices and prayed over first. It was often so large that only its "head" could fit into the fireplace, and the rest of the mighty log stretched out into the great room or family room.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Based on these descriptions of the tradition, it is difficult not to conclude that the Yule log represents not the Djed column "raised up" as with the Christmas tree, but the Djed column "cast down," since it was basically dragged around horizontally and then burned. 

The fact of its being burned provides added confirmation that the Yule log is the "horizontal component" that represents the line between the equinoxes (as opposed to the vertical pillar connecting the solstices). The equinoxes, where the sun's ecliptic path crosses the celestial equator, were strongly associated with fire: in fact, as is discussed in this previous post, ancient Mithraic sculpture and bas-reliefs often depicted the two equinoxes as two youths, each holding a torch (one up for the equinox in which the sun is crossing up towards summer, and one down for the equinox in which the sun is crossing down towards winter). 

The tradition of having the Yule log lit each year by the daughters in the household or by the

mother only strengthens this connection, since the "casting down" point of the year takes place a the autumnal equinox presided over by the sign of Virgo the Virgin. This fact also helps to explain the numerous depictions of the vertical Djed column in between the two goddesses, such as in the image of Osiris-Re shown above or in the image of the Djed column in the form of an Ankh (surmounted by the upraised arms) in between the same two goddesses. 

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The Djed column is the stylized "backbone"-shaped column supporting the Ankh-cross itself (you can see the "vertebrae" at the top of the Djed).

Based on this evidence, it appears that the symbology of the Christmas tree (and the now nearly-forgotten symbology of the Yule log) has extremely ancient roots. One could say that all of this evidence supports the argument that the familiar Christmas symbols are really "pagan" and not "Christian," but I believe this misses the real point, which is that the distinction between "pagan" and "Christian" is actually based upon an enormous misunderstanding, because all these sacred traditions the world over can be shown to be using the same system of celestial metaphor -- and that includes all the stories of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. The symbols may change their outward appearance somewhat, but their core form remains recognizable, and their message (I believe) is fundamentally the same.

In writing about the symbology of the Christmas tree in his 1940 masterpiece Lost Light, Alvin Boyd Kuhn wrote that the fire atop the Yule log, or the glowing candles upon the Christmas tree, symbolizes the divine spark in each man and woman, hidden in the rough element of our physical form (317). Elsewhere in the same text he writes:

The savior is not nailed on the tree; he is the tree. He unites in himself the horizontal human-animal and the upright divine. And the tree becomes alive; from dead state it flowers out in full leaf. The leaf is the sign of the life in a tree. 416.

Thus both of these ancient symbols work together at this time of year to convey to us a profound message about who we are. We are both the Yule log "cast down" and the Christmas tree "raised up," the horizontal "human-animal" and the upright "divine."

This aspect of the symbology is usually absent from the annual discussions of the "pagan" origins of the Christmas tree and other symbols. Yet I believe the evidence is abundantly present to support such an understanding -- and I believe that it is an interpretation that makes these ancient symbols incredibly powerful to us even to this very day, even as they connect us back across thousands of years to the same sacred traditions from ancient cultures all around our planet.

Analysis: against mind control, for human consciousness

In the 1998 film The Truman Show, whenever Truman begins to analyze anomalous evidence suggesting that his "big picture" view of the world he inhabits might be completely incorrect and in need of serious revision, the "voice of society" always arrives on the scene as rapidly as possible in order to "prevent any breach" to the false and illusory worldview. 

Sometimes this voice comes in the form of one of his friends, or his wife, but one of the most pervasive (and most powerful) defenders of the illusion comes in the form of the media, represented in the movie by the omniscient, ever-present, soothing voice of the radio news commentator.

In the above clip, for instance, a stage light (evidently one used to simulate an extremely important star in Truman's artificial night sky) has plummeted from the bubble-like dome in which Truman is unknowingly imprisoned and crashed into the street, to Truman's astonishment. It constitutes a glaring piece of "anomalous evidence" that, if not "glossed over" immediately, could completely shatter the illusory worldview that is being offered to Truman in order to deceive him and to control his life.*

As Truman gets into his car, still puzzling over what he has just witnessed, the omnipresent voice of the radio announcer comes on to declare, "Here's a news flash just in -- an aircraft in trouble began shedding parts as it flew over Seahaven just moments ago . . . Wow! Luckily, no one was hurt -- but hey! How do you feel today?"

It is not much of a stretch to argue that The Truman Show can in many ways be seen as a metaphor exploring mind control (keeping people under control not through the use of force but through controlling their mind and what they are "allowed" to think), as well as the process of breaking out of mind control, and waking up to consciousness.

If so, then this exchange with the falling ceiling light (it is actually a "star" light) is most illuminating (ha!), because it illustrates the process of analysis and critical thinking which Truman begins to undertake as he encounters a piece of evidence which undermines the "big picture" (or paradigm, or world-view) to which he had previously subscribed: a process which, we can deduce from this scene, is absolutely essential to "waking up."

The scene also illustrates the forces which are deployed by the defenders of that paradigm to prevent the escape of those who are trapped within it --  forces very much opposed to unfettered analysis and critical thinking. This episode from the film seems to be telling us that among the most important of these forces arrayed against critical thinking and consciousness is that entity known as the media, represented by the voice on the radio, which can be understood more broadly to represent the many voices not just on the radio but in all the different forms that the media generally takes, including televised news and related shows discussing and debating current events, "history-channel-style" documentaries -- all of which can be seen as being more prone to telling viewers and listeners how to interpret what they see in the world around them than to inviting men and women to examine the evidence for themselves and apply analysis and critical thinking to see what that evidence might be trying to tell them.

The calm but friendly voice of authority coming out of Truman's radio tells him how to interpret the mystery of the smoking stage light in the middle of his street, shutting down consideration of all the other possible explanations (some of which would undoubtedly lead Truman right out of the illusion in which he has been kept his entire life).

This situation is very much analogous to the pattern seen over and over again in a Sherlock Holmes (or Scooby Doo) mystery: a crime has been committed, "the authorities" already have their theory and they are announcing it as if the conclusion is obvious and the case is already settled, the insightful Sherlock Holmes (or gang of kids with their comical dog) shows up on the scene and begins to examine the evidence and ask whether it might suggest some other possible explanations, and "the authorities" get very upset and generally try to run the newcomers (Sherlock Holmes, or Scooby and the gang) off the scene and if possible right out of town.

The authorities, whoever they might be, are always ready to foist an explanation for the evidence on those who are not willing to do the analysis for themselves -- and often it is an explanation which covers up the conclusion which, if pursued too far, would tend to undermine or even explode some of the questionable dealings or downright criminal activities (including the violation of the natural inherent rights of other men and women) which those same authorities would rather keep well out of sight.

From the foregoing, it is evident that critical analysis forms a powerful antidote to mind control.

What is this process of critical analysis which is so inimical to the power of mind control and illusion, and how do we practice it? At its most fundamental level, it is simply the process of examining the evidence for yourself (rather than taking the interpretation dished out to you) and asking what are all the possible explanations for this evidence?

 In the example from The Truman Show, for instance, Truman can almost be seen running through the possible explanations as he cautiously creeps up to the alien light-fixture. There are many possible explanations -- including the one that is offered by the "all-knowing" voice on the radio (the voices promoting the conventional interpretation will often cloak themselves in the aura of absolute certainty and confidence, implying that no other explanation could possibly be entertained).

The second part of the process is to ask which of those hypotheses seems to fit the evidence the best -- and then to look at whether there is other evidence which can help to evaluate the fit of each hypothesis. One data point, such as the light fixture, can usually be explained fairly well by many different hypotheses -- but other evidence will usually help to "fill in the picture" more clearly. In the case of the light fixture, the radio voice's explanation of "an aircraft in trouble, shedding parts" seems to be at least as likely as the possibility that Truman is actually the victim of an elaborate constructed artificial reality involving a gigantic dome containing sophisticated lighting fixtures capable of simulating daytime, nighttime, and even starlight and constellations. But when he starts to evaluate the hypotheses in light of additional "data points" (such as the observation that the same pedestrians and Volkswagens keep going past his driveway in the same order every several minutes), the hypothesis that he is living inside of a gigantic artificial construct begins to look less and less ridiculous and more and more likely.

This is the same process of comparing all the possible hypotheses against multiple data points that can be seen in most mystery stories, such as those featuring Sherlock Holmes or Scooby Doo. The more data points, the better the analyst is able to compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various possible explanations -- and hence the extreme importance devoted to "looking for clues" in such mystery stories. The same holds true in the many other areas in which we have to exercise the process of analysis and critical thought in our lives, whether assessing the possible cause of an engine that won't start, or assessing the possible courses of action an enemy commander will take in a battlefield scenario, or assessing the possible causes of an ailment or a disease, or any of a number of other situations in which we are very comfortable exercising this type of thinking.

Sadly, however, there seem to be many important areas in which we are encouraged to reject certain hypotheses without even considering them -- areas in which we are actually encouraged to ridicule anyone who even explores the way in which those hypotheses might fit the evidence at hand! A moment's reflection will bring many such "forbidden" areas to mind: hypotheses to explain anomalies surrounding the conventional explanations of certain extremely violent and traumatic political events of recent decades, for example, or hypotheses to explain the evidence that the timeline and contours of ancient human history may in fact be very different from the conventional storyline that we have been led to believe (and which is constantly reinforced by a host of "Truman's radio" voices in university textbooks, National Geographic specials, and articles in respectable newspapers and magazines, whether online or in print).

Armed with the understanding of the inimical relationship between mind control and critical analysis that we have gained from this brief examination of the scene in The Truman Show, we can immediately perceive that the areas in which some hypotheses are "off limits" and immediately glossed over by the "voices on the radio" acting to keep us from thinking about them are probably the very areas in which mind control is being exercised over men and women, to try to keep them inside of a "Truman's dome," so to speak. They are areas in which open-minded analysis and critical thinking -- so natural in other areas of our lives -- might lead to "waking up," and the perception of the outlines of the carefully constructed, sophisticated illusion.

For whatever reason, people who would never allow a stranger to confidently tell them "You cannot -- must not -- consider that possible explanation for why your engine won't start" will happily go along with the "voices of authority" who tell them they cannot and must not consider all the possible explanations for other areas of equal or even far greater import than an engine that refuses to start (and an engine that refuses to start is pretty important, but these other areas are many times more important than that!).

Those are the areas in which we should suspect the presence of mind control. Those are the areas in which critical thinking and good analysis become vitally important.

Such thinking constitutes a powerful tool against mind control, and a doorway out of the "dome of illusion" under which we struggle to wake up, to perceive, to transcend the artificial barriers which can only hold us if we lend them our consent and our "belief."

The fact that the ceiling light which plummets so dramatically into Truman's world, like a messenger from outside of everything he believes to be real, is labeled "SIRIUS (9 CANIS MAJOR)," cannot possibly be an accident or a coincidence (OK, it could possibly be an accident or a coincidence, which was just unthinkingly inserted into the movie on a piece of masking tape written by some prop designer without any premeditation on the part of the writers of the movie; that is a possible hypothesis, but as we will see from a couple adjacent data points, that is not a very likely hypothesis at all).

That this visitor from outside of the "material construct" which Truman takes to be "his whole world" and "all that exists" is labeled with the name of the brightest "fixed star" in the heavens, the star in fact who was anciently associated with the goddess Isis, this unexpected messenger who arrives to help Truman to "wake up" and achieve a higher level of consciousness, ultimately leading to his transformation and his escape from imprisoning illusion, suggests that the creators of The Truman Show were very deliberately tapping into extremely ancient and extremely powerful mythological symbols which I believe were originally designed to point men and women towards "waking up" and seeing beyond both mind control and illusion.

In fact, immediately before Truman's world is split apart by this visitor from the realm of the stars, he is accosted by a dog named Pluto (the dog's name is stated twice, once by his owner, and once by Truman himself). The dog (a big dalmatian) gets up on Truman and places its forepaws on Truman's torso, so that it is basically standing up on its hind legs. Below is an image of the constellation Canis Major, which means "The Big Dog," the constellation which contains the brilliant star Sirius in its shoulder:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

As can be seen from the row of black discs or circles, descending in size, along the bottom of the above star chart, the individual stars in charts like this are drawn as larger or smaller discs to indicate their relative brightness in the night sky: Sirius is shown as an enormous circle because Sirius is the single brightest star in the heavens, to an observer on earth (other than the sun).

The fact that a dog named Pluto gets up into the same posture displayed by the outline of the constellation Canis Major immediately before a light fixture bearing the words "SIRIUS (9 CANIS MAJOR)" plummets to the street can be interpreted as a fairly direct hint that the creators of

The Truman Show are trying to direct our attention to this part of the sky.

If we look upwards in the direction that the constellation is "leaning" (if it were actually a big dog, leaning against someone the way Pluto leans against Truman) we see that just up and to the right of the "forepaws" of Canis Major is the constellation of Orion -- you can easily make out his distinctive belt of three bright stars in the upper-right corner of the chart above. Orion was anciently associated (very strongly associated) with the Egyptian god of the underworld, Osiris: the god of the dead, the consort of Isis, and an incredibly important figure in esoteric tradition.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that, by having the big dog rear up and place his paws on Truman the way they do, the creators of The Truman Show are implying that Truman at this point in the movie is enacting the role of Osiris, or that he is at this point trapped in the condition of Osiris. What might that imply? That he is "cast down" in an underworld (and, living as he does inside a dome, Truman does indeed exist in an underworld). That he is asleep (Osiris and other Osirian figures were often banished to a cave beneath the waves, to sleep away the eons until their promised return). That he is unconscious -- even, in a sense, "dead," because he is not really living. The remainder of the film will illustrate Truman's process of waking up, of "rising from the dead," of "raising up the Djed column that has been cast down" (the Djed column is a powerful symbol of ancient Egyptian mythos, associated with the "backbone of Osiris," and discussed in numerous previous posts, including this one).

The fact that the dog who gets up on Truman during this point of identification with Osiris is named "Pluto" is another major clue supporting the above interpretation: in addition to being a famous dog in the worlds created by that master of illusion and artifice, Walt Disney, Pluto is of course the name of the fearsome god of the underworld in the mythology of the ancient Latins, the god corresponding to the Greek Hades, the ruler of the dead and a fitting pointer to the entire underworld theme of Osiris outlined above.

If we need any further confirmation that The Truman Show is consciously and deliberately invoking these ancient myth-symbols, and doing so in a manner that demonstrates a high level of understanding of their power and import, we can take a look at the camera angle selected for the moment that Truman tentatively (or should we say, reverently?) approaches the light labeled Sirius and reaches out to touch it (see the video beginning at 0:47 in the above clip, and observe the chosen camera angle from that point until 0:58 or 0:59).

Notice anything significant about it? Truman is deliberately framed in between two pillars. This symbology is of course quite directly evocative of the scriptures of the Old Testament and the pillars of the Temple. It is also, according to the analysis of Alvin Boyd Kuhn offered in his masterful 1940 text Lost Light, symbolic of the "two pillars of the horizon" between which men and women labor in this incarnate existence, and hence symbolic of the "horizontal line" on the Cross symbol: the horizontal line of our material side, of our animal nature, as opposed to the "vertical line" of the spiritual component (see some of the discussion and Alvin Boyd Kuhn quotations in this previous post entitled "New Year's and the Egyptian Book of the Dead," for example, for further development of this topic).

The Temple, of course, can be associated with the human body in this incarnate life on earth, and the body is in fact plainly called "the temple" in some of the New Testament scriptures (both in the words of Jesus in passages such as John 2:19, and the words of Paul in passages such as 1 Corinthians 3:16, 1 Corinthians 6:19, and 2 Corinthians 6:16) -- this lends further confirmation to the interpretation that the "two pillars" refer to "this incarnate life."

We have seen that this horizontal line of the Cross, between the pillars of the equinoxes, represents "the Djed column cast down," or Osiris laid out as a mummy upon a funerary bed or in a sarcophagus, just as the vertical line represents "the Djed column raised back up." Ancient mythology thus implied that our being "cast down" into this "underworld" of incarnation, this "vale of tears," this world of illusion (in which we falsely believe that the world we see around us is all that there is, when in fact there is a "real world which is behind this one," just as there is in The Truman Show) is somehow a necessary step on our way towards raising the Djed back up, transcending the material, piercing the illusion, escaping the bonds of death or sleep or unconsciousness.

In fact, the use of Osirian imagery seems to be a deliberate symbol inserted into films which have to do with transcending the illusion, or breaking out of mind control (see previous discussions of the recent 2014 film Interstellar and of the 1968 classic Planet of the Apes). It may be said to be a kind of signal to alert us that what we are watching may well have something to say about the journey that each and every man and woman must make through this "underworld kingdom," and the important task of seeing through the veils of illusion and perceiving the truth, and raising the Djed that has been cast down.

It should be evident that doing so requires us to take personal responsibility for analyzing and thinking for ourselves -- to tune out the voices that tell us to accept (like a child) their illusory authority, and their "settled" interpretation of all of the most important matters. This seems to imply that no one else can "wake up for us" -- we have to do it ourselves (because if we simply accept the interpretation of someone else who has "woken up" on their authority, without examining the evidence and weighing the hypotheses and making the decision for ourselves, then we are still in pretty much the same condition that we were before, only substituting one authority for another).

Critical thinking and analysis are absolutely indispensable tools against mind control and for human consciousness.

* a "gloss" is a literary term for a helpful definition that is written above a word in a text from another language -- medieval monks in England, for instance, would sometimes write the English translation for an unfamiliar Latin word in a Latin text, to make it easier for them or the next reader who came to that word (so they wouldn't have to "look it up" again -- the definition was written right there above the word, or in the margin). Thus, to "gloss" something means to define it, or translate it: and to "gloss over" something is to "define away" any unfavorable meaning, or to "translate it" in a way favorable to some agenda. This usage of the word "gloss" shows just how powerful the control of language really is: controlling the words one uses and how they are defined often enables controlling the way people think (as George Orwell tried to tell us). 

Of course, a "glossary" is a collection of "glosses," just as an "aviary" is a collection of birds or a "bestiary" is a collection of animals -- a "glossary" is a collection of short, handy definitions of words. 

Scott Onstott and the metaphor of form

We have been exploring the concept of sacred metaphor, by which spiritual principles "condescend" to clothe themselves in the physical form of the material world, in order to reascend once more, dragging along the lower in their train.

It should be pointed out, of course, that this is the exact same process which we ourselves undergo, according to the ancient scriptures and traditions of the world's mythology, when understood metaphorically and esoterically. 

Evidence for this assertion has been explored in many previous posts, including those discussing the celestial aspects of the Genesis story of Adam and Eve and the Serpent and their ejection from the Edenic paradise (see the video here and the additional diagrams and discussion here), as well as all the posts discussing the critically important mythological concept of the "casting down" of the Djed column and its subsequent "raising back up" (see for example "Scarab, Ankh and Djed," "Vajra: the Thunderbolt," and "The shamanic foundation of the world's ancient wisdom").

Readers familiar with the New Testament will also be aware that the descent and humiliation, and subsequent exaltation, of the Christ are described in exactly the same terms, most succinctly perhaps in the second chapter of Philippians.

Recent posts have explored examples of this "clothing of spirit" in the trappings of the material in the rough and raw physicality presented in Herman Melville's Moby Dick,  in the analogy of banging around underneath a sink and being occasionally showered with unpleasant blasts of cold water in the process, and in the transcendent infinity of number described in the work of Marty Leeds. 

The "infinite canvas" of number in particular was clearly at work in the ancient sacred texts and traditions found around the world, and can be seen as following the same pattern: numbers themselves coming down as messengers from a world of pure spirit, but they take on physical form and even material characteristics (male and female traits, for instance), and in doing so they help point us back upwards to the realm of spirit from whence they came.

Not only do numbers "materialize" in this fashion within the myths of the human race, but they also materialize or take on material form in the ancient monuments and megaliths that can still be found around the world, from Stonehenge to the Great Pyramid to many others that are perhaps less well-known but no less mysterious and awe-inspiring. These ancient structures embody sophisticated mathematical sequences such as phi and pi, and often incorporate ratios relating to the size and shape of our spherical earth, as well as other important heavenly bodies and distances in our solar system. Often, they indicate through their alignments the rising and setting motions of the most significant celestial bodies as well.

In doing so, these ancient monuments "bring down" the heavens (and the world of spirit) to the material realm for our consideration, and point us back upwards to that invisible world -- acting as pointers to raise our consciousness, perhaps, or to assist in the elevation of the material realm and the spirit that is everywhere present in this material world and all the beings in it.

Amazingly enough, the work of Scott Onstott has shown definitively that the ancient sophisticated system of "physical metaphor" has not only survived in some form, but that it is positively rampant throughout the architecture and design of some of the most central capitol cities of the "western world," in ways that are absolutely astounding and which are so abundant that they cannot possibly be attributed to mere coincidence.

Drawing on his own deep experience in architecture and design, as well as his obvious gifts of analysis and insightful examination and of knowing where to look and what "questions" to put to the maps and the blueprints, and assimilating the analysis of many other researchers in related fields, Scott has put together many outstanding videos, most notably Secrets in Plain Sigh (embedded above), which has now been followed by Secrets in Plain Sight, volume 2 (see his website here for more of his excellent resources). His recent book Quantification is a beautiful volume containing full-color diagrams and discussion of some of the aspects of sacred geometry and philosophy relating to his work.

Marty Leeds has explained how his very first encounter with Scott and his work (Marty heard a radio interview with Scott) ended up "changing the entire direction" of Marty's life (Peacock's Tales, pages 25-27). That's how powerful the discoveries that Scott has made can be -- and should cause everyone to want to explore Scott's work more deeply in order to see what kinds of positive impact it can have on their own lives as well!

Scott's jaw-dropping videos speak for themselves. They cannot fail to have an impact on everyone who watches them.

In addition, there may be some ways in which the material covered in The Undying Stars can add some interesting angles to the subjects that Scott is discovering in his research, especially when it comes to the evidence for the continuation of a body of esoteric knowledge among certain groups in the western European cultures that arose after the dissolution of the western Roman Empire. Some of this information was obviously carried on through groups with strong ties to esoteric traditions such as the Templars and the Freemasons, which may well be directly related to the ancient cult of Sol Invictus Mithras discussed in The Undying Stars and in the theory of Flavio Barbiero (for some discussion of this vitally important but little-known aspect of history, see this and this and this previous post).

The abundant connections to the symbols and mythology of ancient Egypt are also not surprising, if some of the arguments in The Undying Stars about the original Egyptian origin of the family lines which eventually created the cult of Mithras are correct. However, it should also be noted that ancient examples of the use of sacred geometry and patterns like those Scott's video finds in more modern architecture and design can be found literally around the globe: see for instance this discussion of the proportions and alignments and sacred geometry encoded in the "Star Mounds" of the greater Ohio Valley region of North America.

Additionally, it can be seen that the system of architectural and geodetic metaphor that Scott documents in his research has clear connections to the system of celestial metaphor -- as he points out several times. Many of the figures to which the esoteric designs refer (such as Isis) can be shown to be directly connected to constellations, such as the zodiac sign of Virgo -- and many of the pieces of historical artwork which Scott shows in his video to assist in the explanation reveal that the original artists themselves may have known about these celestial connections (since the artwork incorporates distinctive features of those constellations in some cases).

For instance, this image (used in Scott's presentation) of Pythagoras on the obverse of an ancient coin has unmistakable characteristics indicating the constellation Virgo (see discussion in this previous post, for example). Pythagoras is seated, with one arm extended (facing towards the left, in this case). If we were to rotate his coin clockwise about ninety degrees, he would be a perfect fit with the constellation Virgo. The staff that he holds in the crook of his other arm corresponds nicely to the sheaf of wheat of Spica which was often depicted on Virgo where this staff is shown (and note that wheat is sometimes referred to as "the staff of wheat" in the Bible). That side of Virgo is also the side where the snaky serpent of Hydra is located -- and we all know that serpents and staffs also go together (such as in a caduceus).

original image: Wikimedia commons (link). Modified to rotate and add Virgo outline.

The fact that Virgo is being used to embody Pythagoras is rather unusual, but the elements of Virgo are difficult to deny in the above coin, and they certainly leap out at the viewer who is familiar with the ancient system of celestial metaphor. The fact that Pythagoras is depicted next to (and pointing towards) a vertical column or pillar is most significant: Virgo is located at the point of autumnal equinox, or the casting down of the Djed column (into the horizontal realm between the equinoxes, and into the "underworld" of the lower half of the zodiac wheel), and so Pythagoras' depiction with connection to Virgo as well as to an upright pillar might indicate that we are to understand his role (and by extension the role of metaphorical number and sacred geometry with which Pythagoras is so closely associated) as being connected to both the "casting down" and the "raising up" of the Djed pillar!

This interpretation, of course, would be entirely in keeping with the assertion above that number "comes down" from the realm of form, the realm of spirit, in order to "raise us back up" to the spirit world from whence we have been "cast down" ourselves.

The image below of Enoch / Metatron (also used in Scott's movie a few times) has clear similarities to the Angel depicted in the scene of Abraham and Isaac and the substitutionary Ram, which I have previously shown to have possible relations to the constellation Andromeda. The depiction of the altar and rising smoke in the Enoch image, below, is a good indication that we are talking about the same portion of the night sky that forms the scene of the sacrifice of Isaac, where we saw that the rising smoke corresponds quite nicely to the path of the Milky Way which goes past Perseus and Andromeda in this part of the sky, enroute to the Twins of Gemini.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The depiction of Enoch becoming an Angel, or ascending from the world of matter into the world of fire and air -- the world of spirit -- is of course symbolic and indicative of the process we have been discussing.

A troubling question, of course, may come up as we watch Scott's presentation showing the incorporation of these hidden metaphors into the architecture and layout of the physical buildings, roads, and cities that still house the levers of political power in the modern world. That is the question of whether or not all these physical manifestations of esoteric metaphor are being directed for entirely benevolent and beneficent reasons.

Put another way, are they only being built as metaphors, for us to contemplate and somehow increase our consciousness and awareness of the spiritual as we contemplate them? This would not seem to be a likely explanation, especially as most of this design is "hidden in plain sight" and generally not consciously perceived by most of the world. It may well be that these correspondences and connections are being designed into the physical form of the buildings and cities of the world for more than simply metaphorical reasons: they may be intended to create actual resonance with or connection to the invisible realm.

If so, it is also logical to conclude that this kind of connection to the power of the invisible realm might be pursued for either benevolent or less-than-benevolent ends. It might all be part of a massive project on behalf of human consciousness for all men and women, or it might be part of a "War on Consciousness," evidence of which is also sadly abundant in the world today (and for the past many centuries).

These are extremely important questions. We should all be grateful to Scott Onstott for creating the videos which enable us to ask them, and we should spend the time and energy to diligently examine the research he has done and which he has so generously shared with the world.

The Undying Stars on Gnostic Warrior Radio!

Very special thanks to Moe Bedard of Gnostic Warrior for having me onto the show as his guest this past week, and welcome to new visitors who may have learned about my work for the first time through the Gnostic Warrior show. 

Our conversation is available here on the  Gnostic Warrior website, as well as on iTunes. The player below will also allow you to listen to the show, or to download it to a mobile device for listening whenever convenient. You can also embed the radio bar below onto your own blog or website if you wish to do so, using the code available at the above link.

It was a pleasure to discuss these subjects with Moe, who has clearly spent a lot of time looking into these matters and obviously knows a lot about them. I enjoyed his questions and insights as we talked.

Here is a list of links to previous posts for those who wish to explore further some of the subjects we touched on in the interview. There is also an internal search window in the upper-left corner of this blog (on most browser configurations) which enables you to search for topics using keywords or phrases:

• The "Star Myth Index" of previous examinations of sacred myths with celestial components.
• A different index of previous posts discussing various stars and constellations and how to locate them, entitled "For the love of the stars."
• Some of the books that influenced me as a child growing up.
• My memories of the Tutankhamun exhibit that visited San Francisco in 1979.
• How the earth's path around the sun can be understood by watching great surfers carving the face of a wave, and how the "earth-ship metaphor" helps us to understand the "hang time" that seems to occur at the solstices (for more on solstices and equinoxes, see here for a recent solstice discussion and here for a recent equinox discussion).
• The importance of Hamlet's Mill, and why those who claim that it has been "debunked" may be too hasty.
• The concept of the precession of the equinoxes, and my arguments that the lost "Golden Age" was the Age of Gemini (see also this post regarding the Golden Age and the Age of Gemini).
• The recent set of videos entitled "Star Myths and the Shamanic Worldview," which presents the system of celestial metaphor with some visual examples and illustrations: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. (Caution: these videos contain arguments and evidence which may be extremely damaging to strictly literalist interpretations of ancient scripture. If you do not wish to encounter these arguments, you may not want to view these videos).
• A discussion of the celestial aspects of the Vedic and Hindu goddess Durga.
• Arguments that the idea of a literal hell is a misinterpretation of a zodiac metaphor.
• The evidence that all these esoteric metaphors in the world's sacred scriptures were intended to convey the idea that we live in a universe that can best be described as being both shamanic and holographic, and the possibility that the world's ancient scriptures all evince a sophisticated awareness of this shamanic-holographic cosmology.
• Evidence that the ancients -- including the ancient Egyptians -- knew that the realm of the gods, the realm of spirit, is a real dimension (more real, in fact, than this material world), and that they possessed techniques for undertaking deliberate shamanic journeys to the spirit world.
• The possibility that the knowledge of the ability to journey to the spirit realm, and the techniques with which to do so, was hidden in the sacred traditions of humanity, just as the "karate" knowledge was hidden in the "wax on, wax off" motions in The Karate Kid. 
• Evidence that a small group of families who knew about this secret wisdom came up with a plan to use it to their advantage and suppress it everywhere else.
• Some discussion of the evidence which suggests that the ancient wisdom was deliberately suppressed at a specific point in history in a specific part of the world (the Roman Empire) -- see the discussions entitled "Commodus and Marcus Aurelius" and "Theodosius and Ambrose."
• Some discussion of the "ideology of materialism" that is so prevalent in the modern world, in spite of the evidence which suggests that there may be good reasons to have serious doubts about the strictly materialistic dogmas that some materialist adherents push with a more-than-religious zeal.
• Some further discussion of the reflection of the planets and the universe in the human body, 
• How the "finger pointing a way to the moon" is a good illustration of the concept of the esoteric.
• Some further discussion of the esoteric metaphors and the relation of the motions of the stars to the realm of the gods and spirits, and to our incarnate existence in this material realm (see "Thou journeyest on the road whereon the gods journeyed" and "The horizon and the scales of judgement" for example).

I hope that everyone enjoys the conversation and that it has a positive message for everyone who hears it.

I also hope you will come visit again soon!

Measurements in time and space, and in ancient scripture

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Above is a remarkable podcast interview between Moe Bedard of Gnostic Warrior Radio and Crichton E. M. Miller, the author of The Golden Thread of Time: A Quest for the Truth and Hidden Knowledge of the Ancients.

Mr. Miller argues that the symbol of the Celtic Cross, which is a cross superimposed upon a circular nimbus, actually represents a measuring device related to the sextant, octant, or quadrant (all of which are named for the fraction of a full circle which they represent), but using a full circle rather than a portion of a circle. He argues that this device would enable a user to make accurate determinations regarding where they are located on our planet (longitude and latitude), as well as where the planet is on its annual journey around the sun.

Mr. Miller describes some of the details of the way he believes such a device could have been constructed, as well as some of the analysis and experimentation which led up to his discovery of this idea, beginning at around the 8-minute mark of this YouTube video and continuing to the end. 

I have not personally analyzed all the arguments, or the possibility that the cross with a circle circumscribed might represent an actual ancient navigational device, although I have analyzed a large amount of evidence which suggests that the various crosses of antiquity (some of which predate the historical rise of Christianity, and others of which were present in the Americas prior to the first conventionally-recognized contact with Europeans) have esoteric connections to the annual "cross" of the year formed by the solstice-line and equinox-line on a zodiac wheel, as well as to the spiritual concept of combined spiritual component and material component present in each incarnate man and woman, expressed in ancient Egypt by the concept of the Djed-column "cast down" and the Djed-column "raised up" (among other expressions the Egyptians used to articulate the same idea): see for instance the discussion in this previous post, as well as some of the other posts linked in that discussion.

However, just because the ancient symbol of the cross can be shown to connect the annual "cross of the year" to an understanding of the universe as containing both spiritual and material aspects does not automatically mean that the Celtic Cross itself could not also have links to an ancient navigational device resembling the one proposed by Mr. Miller. On the contrary, Mr. Miller's analysis clearly incorporates the centrality of the "cross of the year" and the zodiac wheel that encircles the year, and his recognition of their connection to the Celtic Cross certainly seems to strengthen his arguments.

The parts of the interview that I found most fascinating were Mr. Miller's arguments about some of the Bible passages which might refer to the importance of being able to "measure rightly," which he argues may have been talking directly to the closely-guarded skill of being able to measure rightly in time and in space, but also by extension the importance of being able to "measure rightly" in terms of right behavior and morality -- and that the scriptures might be seen as arguing that the two concepts are related, or even identified as two sides of the same idea.

At about the 40-minute mark in the above podcast, Mr. Miller explains that it is the axial tilt of the earth (the fact that earth's poles are tilted in relationship to the ecliptic path, at an angle sometimes referred to as the "obliquity of the ecliptic," which is currently an angle very close to 23.4 degrees) which creates the annual cross of solstices and equinoxes in the first place, which creates the four seasons of the year, and which enables us to determine our location on the annual orbital journey of the earth. 

He then makes the astonishing suggestion that the fourth verse of the Twenty-Third Psalm in the Hebrew Scriptures ("the Old Testament") -- that is to say, Psalm 23:4 or the Psalm whose number corresponds to the obliquity of the ecliptic -- contains a clear reference to a device of measuring! That famous verse in that beloved Psalm, of course, is: 

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Crichton Miller then goes on to explain that: 

Now what a lot of people don't realize is a rod means a ruler: it's a measuring-stick. It comes from reed, because a reed is a segmented piece of grass which the Egyptians used. So reed became a rod, and a rod is not used to beat children: it's used to measure with, if you go back to the, you know, 'Spare the rod and spoil the child.' What they were actually saying was, 'Fail to teach the child how to measure the consequences of their actions, and how time works, and you'll spoil the child.'  

Now this is a truly amazing connection, and quite a "coincidence" for a verse that is found in the fourth sentence of the Twenty-Third Psalm -- the only place in the Psalms which corresponds to the number of the obliquity of the ecliptic. 

What is even more incredible is the fact that, after listening to this podcast for the first time and remarking at what an amazing connection Mr. Miller had just articulated, I returned home to find a message from Pat B., whose insightful questions and comments have inspired other blog posts in the past about subjects in the Old Testament scriptures, noting that he had recently been thinking about how important earth's 23.4-degree axial tilt is in creating the solstice and equinox alignments of the year, and then pointing out the significance of Leviticus 23:4 in light of that importance!

Leviticus 23:4 declares:

These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.

Obviously, the "seasons" are here mentioned in a verse which is numbered with the angle of the very obliquity which produces the seasons! Not only that, but the holy feasts and convocations throughout the year -- both in the times in which the Old Testament was anciently used, and even to the modern day -- can be indisputably demonstrated to be linked to the days of the year marked out by the solstices, equinoxes, cross-quarter days, and other specific annual points of significance which all depend to some degree upon that axial tilt.

Now, it would seem that there should be no way that Pat B. would have known that I had downloaded that podcast, nor of knowing that I had listened to it on the same day that he sent this observation about Leviticus 23:4, or that I had noted as most striking the above discussion of Psalms 23:4 by Crichton Miller in that podcast. But his observation about Leviticus 23:4 certainly provides powerful additional evidence that Psalm 23:4's connection to the angle of the axial tilt of the earth is not "mere coincidence."

Note that in Psalm 23:4, the "valley of the shadow of death" can be very convincingly argued to refer to the lower half of the zodiac wheel, which was anciently depicted in the world's celestial "star myths" as Hell, Sheol, Tartarus, the Land of Bondage, the Underworld, etc. -- just as the upper half of the zodiac wheel was variously depicted as Heaven, the Garden of Eden (Paradise), the Promised Land, the City upon the Hill, the City whose streets are paved with gold, Mount Zion, Mount Olympus, etc.  For more discussion of that metaphorical connection, see this previous post on Hell, this previous post on Heaven, and the extended discussion in the recent series of videos entitled "Star Myths and the Shamanic Worldview" (especially the discussions found in Part  2 and Part 5).

The fact that the "lower half of the year" is caused by the 23.4-degree axial tilt of the earth, and that it appears in Psalm 23 precisely at the fourth verse as "the valley of the shadow of death" is still further confirmation of Mr. Miller's analysis that this verse may encode ancient understanding of the importance of that axial tilt. If so, then the "comfort" provided by the rod and the staff, which Mr. Miller argues may have been referring to ancient devices for measuring the year and the seasons, would be the comfort of being able to know that the sun would soon turn back towards the "upper half of the wheel" again (or of knowing that it had already done so), and that spring and life would return again in their due time.

Mr. Miller's additional reference to the verse commonly referred to as teaching "spare the rod and spoil the child," and his assertion that this verse is misinterpreted when it is taken literally (as it so often is) to mean that physical punishment of children is necessary for keeping them from being "spoiled," is also most notable. He asserts that the verse has nothing to do with physically punishing children with a rod, but rather that it is admonishing the passing along to the upcoming generations the knowledge of how to rightly measure time, space, and the seasons -- and that such "right measuring" would then extend to the teaching of the child the knowledge of "how to measure the consequences" of his or her actions.

The actual verse in question comes from Proverbs chapter 13, and reads in part: "He that spareth his rod hateth his son" (Proverbs 13:24), and while the second half of the verse goes on to say that "he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes," it is comforting to consider the possibility that the verse has nothing to do with physically punishing a child but rather teaching him or her to "measure rightly" -- including passing along the ancient art of knowing where we are on our beautiful planet and where we are in the annual orbit as delineated by the signs and seasons of the year (including the solstices, equinoxes, and other major stations on the circuit).

All of this listening to the podcast and considering these admonitions made me think of the teaching of my own father, who recently celebrated a birthday (birthdays being another example of those annual markers which we recognize each year, and which relate to the motions and measurements of the earth and its progress through space and time), and who certainly taught me while growing up to find and appreciate the constellations that are hanging in the heavens to act as our guides in measuring our place in our annual circuit, and which should also be our familiar companions throughout life. Thanks Dad and Happy Birthday!

These are all amazing and important concepts to consider deeply, for all of us (and to pass on to future generations).