Esoteric Psychology, Part 3: The Soul, Spirit and the Bridge

The Self or Soul                                                                           

The self, according to Carl Jung, is the mid-point of the personality around which all the other systems are constellated. It holds the systems together and provides the personality with unity, equilibrium, and stability. It is life’s goal, which motivates humans to seek for wholeness. The psyche, Jung adds, is purposeful and has a natural urge to grow to wholeness.

The self is a wholeness that transcends all consciousness. To reach transformation, one lets go the persona, face the shadow, inner darkness, and recognize the contra-sexual side of one’s nature – the anima or animus. One must own all those aspects of oneself that were projected into others. 

Before a self can emerge, it is necessary for the various component of the personality to be developed and integrated. For this reason, the archetype of the self does not become evident until the person has reached middle age.  At this time, the person begins to make a conscious effort to change the center of the personality from the conscious ego to one that is mid-way between consciousness and unconsciousness. This mid-point is the province of the self.

From the viewpoint of esoteric psychology, Jung’s concept of the self is equivalent to the soul, the entity that lives across lifetimes. The soul is an energy vortex or consciousness center, which draws matter from still subtler realms. It may also refer to the momentum of the essence as it goes through the process of individualization.

The soul, as the essence of the perfect human being, having a quality of its own, is possible, because it can be conceived by the personality. While it is separate from the personality, it is nevertheless always a part of the personality. The soul provides the ideal and serves as the guide towards itself, as the essence. The personality together with the soul essence develops the ego, the particular note of the human being.

The soul enters the world at the time of the baby’s physical birth and guides the child in the latter’s innocence. It may, however withdraw and remain in the causal realm when the personality becomes enmeshed in the material world and adopts a rigid persona or mask. It can only express itself as the individual gains a new function, a new way of perceiving reality. 

Just as the function of breathing begin at birth and the new function of abstract reasoning at the end of childhood, so at the moment of maturity, the new function begins, based on man’s consciousness of his existence and of his relation to the universe, to sustain his creative power and express his essence. 

Evolution and Soul Development

Evolution as used here means the advancement of consciousness power in overcoming physical limitation and all conscious states that would inhibit the full expression of the spark of Love in all kingdoms of intelligence.

True evolution is "spiritual evolution" whereby the consciousness vehicles evolve toward the divine self in concert with one another. Spiritual evolution coordinates the enlightenment of consciousness vehicles giving sustaining purpose to life through Love and Wisdom.

As the personality draws more experiences as a human being, it then comes closer to the ideal, the soul.  At the same time, it enables the soul to become more and more manifested reality in the personality.

This process is known in Sanskrit as yoga, union, or antakarana the bridging, the gradual upward movement of the personality towards its essence on one hand, and the gradual downward movement of the soul, as essence, to connect with the personality, on the other hand.

The process may be likened to a butterfly undergoing metamorphosis. Initially, the personality, as the worm, only perceives itself as a worm. Eventually, as the person reflects on human essence and the more he separates his aim from the habits and failings of the personality, the more intense he will become conscious of self, in the process building a cocoon. Inside the cocoon, gradually, the person’s most hidden weaknesses, self-indulgences, excesses, longing, capacities and aspirations will be drawn into the light of the new consciousness. Eventually, he becomes the butterfly, a transformed self.   

                  In the course of the development of the individual’s consciousness, life reaches him in two ways, by tuition that the world gives and by intuition, the working of the inner self. As one develops, intuition increases and one does not depend so much as before on the instruction that the world provides.

The new function, awakened at maturity or at the peak of the person’s life, may reveal to man a sudden vision of the whole, of which the other functions have given him but partial and conflicting glimpses. Sometimes in the same awakening, it may also reveal to him a new expression of the whole, to the fulfillment of which all the rest of his life will be dedicated. 

The awakening enables man to perceive directly and personally a cosmos in its unity. Only in the discovery of such a new function enables man to continue to ascend to a different level of maturity. This new function is referred to Abraham Maslow’s drive for self-actualization.

These realizations or apprehended expansion of consciousness are under natural laws, and come in due course to every soul. In normal degrees, they are undergone daily by every human being, as his mental grip of life and experience gradually grows, accompanied by the expansion of knowledge. These experiences become initiations into the wisdom when the knowledge gained is consciously sought for and is applied to life, willingly used in service for others and intelligently utilized on the side of evolution.   

Bridging Personality and Soul

The antahkarana, “the bridge” between personality and soul involves two major processes.[1]

First is the integration of the bodies of the personality - the physical, emotional and lower mental bodies, anchored in the physical body. Such integration manifests as a “balanced personality”, and characterized by a person whose physical body; instincts and emotions are under the direction of reason. 

                        

Source: escuelakryon.com  

           The second involves the process of soul expression through the personality. It will be recalled that the soul is composed of matter from the higher planes of the fifth (will), fourth (intuition) and higher mental level (the abstract mind). These bodies form the upper triad of man, which reside in the causal body (matter from the higher mental plane). The attempt of the soul, the three-fold essence of man, to come down to the level of the personality, may be represented as an inverted triangle or pyramid, reaching down to the personality through the facility of the mental plane, as it were, it reaches down to the abstract level, while the personality reaches up through reason (lower mental).
     

                       

                                            From: http://www.esotericscience.org/diagrams/Energy%20bodies.jpg

The antahkarana has three stages, in terms of the shift of focus. First, the mind would be set working at a geometric pace with the transference and unity of the concrete mind with the abstract mind. This implies the shift from ordinary function of the intellect, to the higher function of abstract thinking. With this bridging, the person begins to draw more matter from the higher mental plane. He thus thinks in terms of the world of ideas, of beauty, perfection and the attributes associated with God – all-powerful, all-loving and all-knowing. The world of the formless can thus manifest in the world of forms. 

Source: http://esopedia.urobore.net/Trait%C3%A9_sur_les_Sept_Rayons_-_Les_Rayons_et_les_Initiations

                The second is the bridging of the astral or emotional body with intuition (or buddhic body). This stage implies that intuition, as conscience, manifests in the emotional aspect (astral body) of the human being. With the resurgence of greater, deeper feelings, man becomes capable of greater love and understanding, particularly in so far as he relates to all being in the world.

The third aspect relates to the bridging, first of the root center (physical) to the crown center (atmic or will), then of both, with the brow center (balance and harmony).    This implies the marriage of matter and essence, but this time with the consciousness of the individual soul. Thus, the soul manifests as a threefold being in the personality; the individual becomes integrated with the essence. It then enters the soul-path towards integration with spirit as an Adept. This is symbolized in the “Star of David.”                     

    

             The awakening of consciousness is preceded by a period of gradual development, with the awakening being instantaneous at the moment of self-realization, succeeded by another period of gradual evolution. This period of gradual evolution, in its turn, leads to a later crisis, called “initiation.” From a thinking entity, the human being is gradually initiated into an intuitive and spiritual existence.

When the unity is achieved, then the personality is absorbed into a different higher form, a consciousness equivalent to an adept or a sage who has attained wisdom. The soul, as the essence of the perfect human being, also recedes (or ascends) and becomes a different essence, a different ideal, the essential “spirit-self,” which is the individual link to the origin of life itself.  The spirit-self is the unit of consciousness, the “breath of life” or monad from a First Cause.

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[1] Dr. Douglas Baker and Celia Hansen,  Superconsciousness Through Meditation, Samuel Weiser, Inc., NY, pp. 15-16

Esoteric Psychology, Part II: The Personality, Persona and Collective Unconscious

Personality and Psyche              

                The human psyche, according to Carl Jung, consists of three parts – the conscious, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The conscious is that which is awake in man, the one that perceives. The personal unconscious lays near the surface, which contains the “shadow,” the primitive, uncivilized part of the human species, which usually appears in dreams as a person of the same sex.

                                                                                                                                      

Below the shallow waters of the personal unconscious lies the collective unconscious, which contains the dreams and symbols from the whole history of mankind. It also contains man’s religious aspirations, his need to define his existence, his soul. When these deeper aspirations appear in dreams, they manifest as a person of the opposite sex, called the anima, the Latin word for soul. For females, the soul being is male and called animus.

                The person already have these parts at the time of birth and are stored in both the DNA and the brain, waiting to express themselves, depending on the trigger mechanisms in the environment, the circumstances which would make them manifest. This relates to the eastern concept of karma, which may be defined as the momentum for potential action, generated from past actions. They were deeply ingrained as patterns of behavior of the person drawn from both the collective memory of the species and the personal circumstances (and actions) of previous incarnations of the individual.

  .            

The ego is the conscious mind, made up of conscious perceptions, memories, thoughts and feelings. It is responsible for feelings of identity and continuity. From the viewpoint of a person, it is regarded as the center of consciousness, what the person thinks he is. It does not mean egotistical, but a sense of “I-ness,” the chief executive officer of the personality.

The ego is apparently already born with the personality. It is the personality, as the personality consciously knows it. It is, in fact the core of the personality, drawing to itself a cohesive and rigid energy patterns from the subtler realms of the physical (etheric or quantum realm), emotional (or astral) and mental worlds.    

                                                                                                                                             

            The personal unconscious consists of experiences that were once conscious, but which were repressed, suppressed, forgotten or ignored; or experiences that were too weak to cause a conscious impression.

           A complex is an organized group or constellation of feelings, thoughts, perceptions and memories that exist in the personal unconscious, attracting to it or constellating various experiences. A person is born with a set of patterns in the personal unconscious, reflected in his deepest memories. However, as he interacts with the social environment, he accumulates experiences that add on the composite personal unconscious or release some complexes. The content of the personal unconscious is accessible to the ego.

Collective Unconscious and Persona

                                                                                                                                        

               The collective unconscious is the storehouse of latent memories inherited from one’s ancestral past that includes the racial history of humans as a separate species, including their pre-human or animal ancestry.

             Archetypes are the structural components of the collective unconscious. An archetype is a universal thought form (idea) that contains a large element of emotion. It is a permanent deposit in the mind of an experience that has been constantly repeated for many generations.

                                                                                                                                            

The animus and anima are the male and female archetypes respectively in a person. These archetypes, although conditioned by the sex chromosomes and the sex glands are the products of the racial experience of man with woman and vise-versa. The shadow archetype consists of the animal instincts that humans inherited in their evolution from the lower forms of life. It is responsible for the conception of “the original sin.” When projected outward, it is the conception of the devil or the enemy.    

The persona is the mask worn by the person in response to the demands of social convention and tradition and to his or her own archetypal needs. It is the role assigned to one by society, the part that society expects him to play. In practical terms, the persona is the composite of the various roles that the person plays in his lifetime – a good boy or girl, the parent and spouse, the employee or supervisor, all roles which relate to conforming to socially accepted norms.

In ordinary living, an individual may become so attached to the roles he plays to the point that he equate the persona with his ego. In experiencing setbacks with respect to any one role played in life, only then will the ego reflect and acknowledge that he is not his role, that there is indeed a distinction between the role and the actor of the play.

Esoteric Psychology, Part I: The Personality, Soul and Spirit

This is a 3-Part series on Esoteric Psychology. This first part focused on the relationship among the Personality, the soul and the Spirit. The second part provided details on the Personality as it relates to the World. the third part discussed the bridging of the Soul with the Personality and the next steps towards the Spirit-Self (Monad).

                 Esoteric psychology refers to the study of mysticism, i.e., the various mystical traditions, such as Yoga, Hermetics, Sufism, and the Cabbala. While it is not exactly a science in the tradition of the scientific world, it constitutes a process of investigation and involves a discipline of discernment, in contrast to blind faith. The major proponents of esoteric psychology were Alice Bailey and Douglas Baker. Both made extensive reference to Helena P. Blavatsky’s book, “The Secret Doctrine.”[1] The closest link to esoteric psychology is the Analytical Psychology of Carl Jung, a pioneer in relating the present man to his ancestors.[2]

Human Reflection

                Most humans have the presumptuous view that they are the most evolved species on earth. What does it take to be human? What does a human being have as a distinctive competence among all other species? 

    Humans have emotions and enormous capacity to love? That’s instinct. Every mother bird, ant, tiger, monkey or whale is capable of rearing their young until the “child” becomes capable on its own. Animals too know when its time for mating. The bees do it; the birds do it. They simply follow the patterns, that is, the season for mating and pro-creation of their own species, like we do in our own.

                Humans have capacity for sophisticated technology? Humans have the Internet, utilizing the laws that govern deeper realms of matter, such as plasma and its interaction with the ionosphere. But a bee can spot his queen several kilometers away through sounds humans can’t hear; so does a whale communicate with its mate across several fathoms of ocean. The birds, in tune with nature, know when it is time to migrate. Humans can build pyramids, terraces and huge structures. But so can a spider weave intricate designs, while the caterpillar encloses itself in a cocoon to eventually emerge as the butterfly. Humans may perform cloning; but an earthworm can be simply cut to reproduce itself, while a silkworm can produce its own thread.  

                So, what is distinctively human?

It is the ability to reflect on his or her actions and create. A human being can do things differently and improve on its behavior. It can also transcend and look beyond its present circumstance. That transcendence enables it to think in terms of a past, present and future and in terms of generations. A human being can “tune in” with its hearts. In contrast, almost all other species do things over and over again in what is considered the limitations of their natural state.

Being human is a gift. It meant reflecting on and partaking in the world of creation and of discovering one’s purpose. It is like figuring out why a caterpillar metamorphoses to a butterfly. Each creature, big or small, is a stupendous natural art work that only a silent intelligence could create as part of a grand design. Humans have the capacity to see through that design with the mind and partake of a unified Life, through the heart.

Bodies of Man

             In the 1930s, Jung made extensive studies on the “Eastern tradition” which became a cornerstone of his works. In his book, Jung explains that a person is composed of a personality, an ego and a self.

Obviously, the human being has a physical body subject to physical and chemical laws. He also feels and thinks, he has emotions and a mind, respectively, which are explained in biochemistry as the interplay of the hormonal secretions and the various forms of neuro-transmitters, coordinated by the brain. These three elements make up the “matter” of the personality, considered (in esoteric psychology) to belong to the three “bodies” of the person that interpenetrate and are locked up in a distinct DNA pattern.

The personality is the product and vehicle of its ancestral history. Modern man has been shaped and molded into the present form by accumulative experiences of past generations extending far back into the dim and obscure beginning of humans. It may be described as the sum total of all the accumulated wealth of experiences of the human being as he goes through life. It may also refer to what separate him from others, as his composite nature observed in the way he behaves, speaks, walk, acts, thinks, responds to situations, all his acquired habits and idiosyncrasies.

When does the personality begin?

The orthodox view posits that the personality is shaped from the onset of birth, with the critical influence of the significant others – the parents, peers and the general environment. This view is an offshoot of the theory that the human being evolved from lower forms, such as the monkeys and ape and held that culture and civilization must guide the process of acculturation of the “instinctive” man towards being a cultured species.

However, the emerging view is that in the process of evolution, the human species have already acquired traits that are beyond animal forms – higher feelings, mental capacities and intuition and reflection. The personality is thus, already apparent at the time of conception, with the human characteristics already in the human genome. These foundations of the human being become recognizable on the third month, when the embryo acquires the liver and pancreas and heredity takes over.

 

Personality, Soul and Spirit

In Esoteric Psychology, a human being is a composite of three major aspects, the personality, soul and spirit-self. Depending on his degree of development or growth in consciousness, a person would be limited by his view of the world. But all aspects of oneself are present in him, just waiting to be remembered.

                           From  http://www.energyenhancement.org/ascend.jpg

The personality, the main vehicle of an individual in the 3^rd dimension, is formed out of material from the physical, emotional and mental planes, organized according to the primordial atom and DNA code, carrying unique behavioral trait and further molded by interactions with the environment.

Spirit

Soul

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Personality

Lower Mental

Emotional (Astral)

Physical – Etheric and Gross Physical

            The soul may be described as the totality of the moments of self-consciousness of a person as he continues to live. These include the aspirations, ideals and potentials accumulated in this lifetime or in previous lifetimes, which are imprinted into what is termed as causal body. The soul draws matter from the higher mental plane (arupa manas or abstract mind) and the next two higher planes, the fourth plane of intuition and the fifth plane of atma or will. The causal body, which is composed of matter from the higher mental (arupa) plane, is the vehicle for the soul, in the same manner that the physical body is the vehicle and the outward manifestation of the personality. The term causal is used to distinguish it from effect, i.e., the physical manifestation of the essence.

  

Spirit

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Soul

Will (Atmic or Monadic)

Intuition (Buddhic)

Mental (Abstract) – Causal Body

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Personality

             

                The Spirit-self refers to the divine nature of man shared with all creations. It is the monad or “spark of life,” which carries the basic attributes of God, as all-powerful (Father), loving (Son) and knowing (Holy Spirit). It is that which is immutable and indwells in the personality and soul of man, which by this token, partakes in time and space.              

Spirit-Self

Will-Power

Love-Wisdom

Active Intelligence (Knowingness)

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Soul

Personality

                The Spirit-self is said to draw matter from the higher planes of the seventh (Adi or Pure Spirit), sixth (monadic or Concrete Spirit) and fifth (Atmic or Will Manifestation) planes. It resides and has its manifestation in the fifth plane, which is also its connection to the soul, the tri-fold atma-buddhi-manas (will-intuition-mind). One of the mysteries of life is that the divinity manifests in physical matter, gives it life, then forever recedes and serves as the guide, the way forward.  It reflects the process of the tri-fold manifestation of the spark of life, the unit of consciousness or monadic essence, in the world of creation and in the human being, as a creature in its image.

               

                                  From: http://www.selftransform.net/CSTLOGOwebMain.jpg

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[1] Alice Bailey, Initiation, Human and Solar, Lucis Publishing Company, New York, 1951; The Destiny of the Nations, Lucis Publishing Company, New York, 1990; and A Treatise on White Magic, Lucis Publishing Company, New York, 1991; Douglas Baker, The Seven Rays, Key to the Mysteries, Aquarian Press, Northamptonshire, 1977

[2] Carl Jung, Analytical Psychology: its Theory and Practice, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1968; C. Jung and W. Pauli, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche: Synchronicity; and the Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific Ideas of Kepler, Pantheon Books, New York, 1955

Global Calamities and Human Evolution, Part 3

This is the third part of a 3-part series on Global Calamities and Human Evolution. It highlighted the ancient cycles, particularly as depicted by the Mayans.

Memory Recall    

As ancient stories were passed from generation to generation, they may have become myths with coded symbols. Where are the proofs?

·         In Egypt, one of two caskets found in Tel el Amarna, (seat of the throne of Amenhotep III and his son, Akhenaton in Egypt 3,000 years ago) was of a 7-year old boy, 8 feet tall (The casket is sitting at the Cairo Museum). Also found is a little known statue of Nefertiti, the wife of Akhenaton, described as having a huge head, large ears, long skinny neck, high waste and at least ten feet tall. Super beings could reasonably explain pyramids, dolmens and huge stone edifices.

·         In 1992, archeologist Francis Taylor and historian Kisari Mohan Ganguli uncovered evidence of a nuclear holocaust in an ancient city in Rajasthan, India (10 miles west of Jodphur) that destroyed the city and its half a million inhabitants. The layer of radioactive ash covered a three square mile area, which had been cordoned due to the high level of radiation. The find corroborated the stories of nuclear warfare depicted in the oldest Indian epic, Mahabharata. The blast was dated from 8,000 to 12,000 BC. [1]

·         From the time of Aristotle (c. 500 BC) until Copernicus in the 16^th century, the world was considered flat. But 3,500 years earlier than the Greek Civilization, Sumerians had already divided the heavens into a 360-degree arc: the north, south and central band of constellations, into what is now the zodiac. They knew that the world was round.

·         The Piri Reis map of 1513, found in Istanbul, was copied from older maps dating as far back as 300 BC, the time of Eratosthenes. In the 1960s, when Professor Charles Hapgood analyzed and calibrated the map, it was found to be advanced when compared to the capabilities of 16^th century cartographers. The originators knew that the earth was spherical, with its correct size, using a technology to measure longitude and latitude on a global scale.  The map showed Antarctica and the Arctic before the glacial ice sheets and islands before their “discovery.” These were periods before Sumer, Egypt and Babylon.

·         Before the 18^th century, the world only knew of 7 celestial bodies (aside from earth) in our Solar System – 5 planets, the Moon and the Sun, with them revolving around Earth. This was the basis for the days of the week: Sun (Sunday), Moon (Monday), Mars (Mardi), Mercury (Mercredi), Jupiter (Jeudi), Venus (Vendredi) and Saturn (Saturday). Uranus was discovered only in 1781, Neptune in 1846 and Pluto in 1930. Around 4000 BC, the Sumerians already knew the existence of 12 celestial bodies, including a tenth planet between Mars and Jupiter; and that the planets revolve around the Sun. That knowledge was restored only during the 20^th century.    

Ancient Mythical Cycles

If we go by ancient mythical cycles, humanity would be at the tail end of a regression and start of a progression.

·         A biblical account is the gradual decline of the human life span. From Adam to Noah (Genesis 5), the Adam model was a stable species that lived long like the dinosaurs, with an average lifespan of 900 years. After the deluge, the life span declined to 400 (Enoch, 5^th generation from Noah), to 175 (Abraham, 10^th generation), to 120 years old (Moses, 14^th generation). “Then the Lord said, ‘My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years’” (Genesis 6: 3). Incidentally, both the Neanderthals (c. 300,000 to 30,000 years ago) and the Cro-Magnons (30,000-10,000 years ago) have an average brain volume of 1,500 cc., more than a 100 cc. larger than modern man and were well over six feet tall.

·         Hesiod (in Theogony) had five stages in the degeneration of humanity. During the Golden Age, men lived like the gods of Olympus, free from worry and fatigue and enjoying long life. In the Silver Age, the human race became feeble and inept in a matriarchal and agricultural society. The Age of Heroes was the era of valiant heroes who fought before Thebes and Troy. The Iron Age was the contemporary period of misery, when men respected neither vows nor justice in virtue.

·         The Andean people of Peru talked of five “Suns” or ages: Age of Viracochas (White Bearded Gods), Age of Giants, Age of Primitive Man, Age of Heroes and the Age of Kings (contemporary, with the Incas as last in line). The Age of Viracochas is similar to the time of the biblical Nefilims, the Age of Giants to the mixed marriage between Nefilims and humans, and the Age of Primitive Man to the period just before and after the Deluge, when humans reverted back to caves.

·         The Hopi Indians (Native Americans in Arizona) described “Five Cycles of Purification.” The first began 52,000 years ago, the second 39,000 years ago, the third 26,000 years ago and the fourth, 13,000 years ago. During each purification cycle, discordant, unqualified and dysfunctional energies were fielded up and cleansed, manifested in physical catastrophes.

·         In Sumerian astrology (adopted by Assyro-Babylonians), every 72 years, the constellations would appear to shift in an upwardly direction in the night sky by one degree. Every 2,160 years, each of the 12 signs (constellations) of the zodiac would shift by 30 degrees. The Great Year is a complete 360-degree cycle of the zodiac in 25,920 years.

·         The Egyptians Cycle of 12 Manifestations is based on the North Star (the exact geographic setting of the Giza Pyramid). Every 6,480 years, the North Pole points to a different North Star in a full cycle of 77,760 years. During the 7^th Manifestation (c. 10,948 BC), the North Star was Thuban. In the 8^th Manifestation (c. 4,468 BC), it was Alpha Draconis. The present 9^th Manifestation has Polaris as the North Star. According to Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (in The Gnostic Circle, 1975, p. 64-65), the pyramid was built 8,640 years ago, when Thuban was the North Star, during the Sumerian Age of Leo. The present Age of Aquarius (opposite of Leo) implies a period of enlightenment.

·         In the Mahabharata and various text of the Puranic Period (c. 400 AD), the Indian system called a complete cycle as Manvantara, which consisted of four Ages, namely satya-yuga (Golden Age), tetra-yuga (Silver Age), dwapara-yuga (Copper Age) and kali-yuga (Iron Age). Each Yuga has an ascending and descending phase. Each Yuga consisted of 3,240 years or 6,480 for both phases. Earth is now at the tail end of the ascending kali-yuga (age of turmoil and sleep) and will commence in the ascending dwapara-yuga (period of awakening) by 2012.

Pre-Deluge Civilizations

               

A Sumerian tablet in the Berlin Museum (VAT.7847) began the list of zodiacal constellations with that of Leo (when humans, as generally accepted, had just begun to till the land). This implied either that Sumerians already had a very sophisticated astronomy in 4000 BC or that earlier civilizations existed. Recent archeological discoveries affirmed earlier civilizations.

·      In the 1950s, Byblos, the capital city of Phoenicia, was considered as the oldest city. According to Greek tradition, it had been founded by Cronos, god of time. But excavations there revealed relatively recent cities. On the other hand, from 1952-58, British archeologist Dr. Kathleen Kenyon unearthed the ruins of the biblical Jericho at Tell es Sultan (Israel), revealing some thick walls. Carbon-14 dating of the relics indicated 8000 BC. The revelation of a New Stone Age city upset established chronology and promised to revolutionize the story of civilization. (“The First Cities in the World,” in The World’s Last Mysteries, Readers’ Digest Service Pty. Ltd., 1977, pp. 143-146)

·      Tell el Sultan was entirely made up of the ruins of towns superimposed on top of each other. The most recent town was dated from the Iron Age. “The successive levels (were) cut through by trenches in a grid pattern more than 7,000 years of almost uninterrupted human occupation.” From the edge of one of the vertical cuts, the walls of Jericho rose up in a great mass 17 meters below, at the bottom of the dark trench. The Israelites fought their battle in c. 1393 BC (Middle Bronze Age) with a city that lay on top of ruins from civilizations as far back as 6000 years earlier. 

·      Catal Hoyuk, the second oldest city discovered (c.7000 BC), was some 32 acres on the edge of the Carsamba Cay River, in northern Anatolia, near the Black Sea. The artifacts showed evidence of luxury items; iconography and writing; religious class stratification; and, trade with Jericho. Tell es-Sawwan (c. 6000 BC), 110 km northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, was a city with houses built from unbaked mortar bricks, and surrounded by ditches and walls. Excavations revealed evidence of agriculture, pottery, grazing, weaving and use of knifes and copper. Tell Mureybut (9000 BC) in Syria, was a solidly built village, with houses of wood pieces filled with clayey earth, a feat made 2,000 years before the traditional beginning of the new Stone Age.

·      Lepinski Vir in Yugoslavia (c. 5000 BC) was a village of 130 houses of poured cement foundations, with indirect central heating. In Malta and the Canary Islands were circular walled settlements, tombs and ruins resembling those in Peru, dated 6,000 BC. (Veber, May, “The First Cities in the World,” in The World’s Last Mysteries, Reader’s Digest Association Far East Ltd., Sydney, Australia, 1977, pp. 141-153; 305; 312) By implication, Jericho, Catal Huyuk, Tell es-Sawwan and the other villages existed before the biblical Adam and the flood. Moreover, Tell es-Sawwan was an advanced culture 2,000 years earlier than the Sumerians in Mesopotamia, the oldest known civilization.

Global Amnesia

Quoting from the Emerald Tablets (attributed to Hermes and translated by Scott Crane) and the Mayan Troano documents, Druvalo Melchisedek, (Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life) said that every time the Earth went through a pole shift, it went through a void space of about 3.5 days. As the poles shifted, a phenomenon would take place within the pitched-black darkness. One would realize unity with all, coupled with memory loss and an illusion.

·      The illusion was known in Hindu and Buddhism as maya, created by Mara, equivalent of the devil. Among the Mayans of Mexico, this was reflected in the legend of the timekeepers, i.e., beings who deliberately caused time to be distorted so that the power hungry beings could not gain full control. There probably was a news blackout about what happened before and after the flood.

·      In the Greek mythology of Pandora’s Box, Zeus was so enraged during a feast of humans and gods that he withheld the holy fire from the humans. He was further outraged when Prometheus (the Sumerian Enki) stole and carried back the sacred fire to human. He ordered Hephaestus to fashion clay and water into a body and to give it vital force. The creation, named Pandora, had a dazzling beauty equal that of immortal goddesses. Although warned against accepting gifts from the gods by Prometheus, Ephimeteus (“he who reflects after the event”), the brother, was enchanted by Pandora’s beauty. Pandora brought with her a vase (inaccurately called Pandora’s Box), which she raised and the terrible afflictions that filled the vase escaped and spread over the earth. 

·      The Old Testament also described a global amnesia. Amos, contemporary of King Uzziah of Judah (c. 800 – 750 BC) prophesied “two years before the earthquake” (Amos 1:1) or some 600 years after Joshua and 150 years before the Babylonian captivity. The cataclysm: “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight…I will bring sackcloth upon all loins and baldness on every head” (Amos 8: 9-10). Isaiah (c. 742-701 BC) described the aftermath of amnesia: “For the Lord has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes the prophets, and covered your heads, the seers. And the vision of all these has become to you, like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying ‘Read this,’ he says, ‘I cannot, for it is sealed’” (Isaiah 29:10-11; “Book of Isaiah,” Grolier Encyclopedia, International Edition, Vol. 10, p. 250)

·      After 300 years, Zechariah, in c. 520-518 BC (the time of the Persian Empire), affirmed the cataclysm and predicted a second. “And the valley of my mountains shall be stopped…and you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzzi’ah, king of Judah” (Zechariah 14: 5). He described a pole shift: “And there shall be continuous day…not day, not night, for at evening time, there shall be light” (Zechariah 14: 7). To Haggai, God spoke: “I am about to shake the heavens and the earth” (Haggai 2: 20-22). Apparently, a pole shift erased memory recall:  “And on that day, says the Lord of Host, I will cut off the names of the idols…so that they shall be remembered no more; and also I will remove…the prophets and the unclean spirits…every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesied; he will not put on a hairy mantle to deceive, but he will say… I am a tiller of the soil” (Zechariah 13: 2-5).

·      The New Testament also alluded to the illusion: “that by the word of God heaven existed long ago and an Earth formed out of water and by means of water, through which the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same words, the heavens and earth that now existed has been stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men” (1 Peter 3:5-7).

Mayan Cycles of the Sun

The Mayans, who lived from 2000 BC to about 800 - 600 AD, were simple people who had few possessions. To this day, scientists still don't understand why that civilization suddenly disappeared into the mist about 800 years ago. Edgar Cayce said that they were part of the last survivors of Atlantis who migrated to the Yucatan from Atlantis 30,000 years ago, while that continent was being destroyed. 

The Mayans believed they were living in the fifth Age of the Sun, with each Age being approximately 5,125 years. Five of those Ages totals 25,625 years, which approximates the Great Year or Great Age (that is based upon the wobble of the Earth as it spins on its axis). Each of the smaller ages within the Great Year ended with a cleansing of the planet and civilization had to start over again.  What makes the year 2012 more important than the individual 5 ages is that it is also the end of the Great Year.

The Mayans determined that one Earth year consisted of 365.242129 days, an extremely accurate number for a “primitive” people, calculating the Earth’s revolution around the sun to within a thousandth of a decimal point. They understood that the “morning star” and the “evening star” were the planet Venus. Their astronomers accurately constructed tables that could foretell lunar and solar eclipses and the fall/spring equinox and summer/winter solstice dates far into the future.

The Mayans even calculated cosmic cycles of 93 and 403 million years, which are enormous in terms of modern day understanding. How did the Mayans and other ancient cultures know about the cycles? Who was alive for 25,920 years to make such measurements? Did their very existence depend upon it?

Recent findings suggest that the ancients appear to have left behind messages   about great Earth changes that occurred 12-13,000 years ago when the last Ice Age ended and the Great Flood occurred. Interestingly, that time period marked the halfway point of the Great Year. Of even greater significance, shifting from Pisces to Aquarius completes the 25,920-year cycle, a major event in cosmic cycle time.

The Mayans have two calendar systems – the tzolkin (sacred calendar) and the haab (true year). Tzolkin had 17 months of 20 days each or 260 days in all. The haab was a 365-day calendar, 18 months of 20 days each, plus a five-day period, which they adjust, similar to our leap year. Once, every 52 years, the tzolkin and haab cycles interact (which corresponds to the cycle of Sirius B around Sirius A). From the two systems, they built a structure of time, whereby 365 days is one tun (year), 20 years or 7,200 days makes a katun, 20 katuns (or 144,000 days) makes a baktun, then a pictun and finally an alantun or 23.04 billion days. (Robert Silverberg, p.121)

The final phase of the Mayan calendar began on July 26, 1992 and would end on December 21, 2012. This is not only the end of a 5,125-year sub-cycle, but also the end of the Great Year. The years corresponding to 1987-2011 are considered the dates of the Great Purification. They say planet Earth will be cleansed once again.

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[1] Excerpted from the World Island Review, January 1992.