Saturday, January 31, 2009

Is George W. Bush the Aquarian?


Said, I think, below, the cycles of history run through four post-war generations (see William Strauss and Neil Howe's The Fourth Turning for the cycles of history, the second of which repudiates the structuring and ordering of the period done by the first - the "greatest generation." The hippies, in our time were the wellspring of the Sixties - the second post-war generation and the Yeats/Khrishnamurti/Blavatsky 60 years previous. Thus, every 60 years astrology awakens in the collective mind and thoughts turn back to year one or zero, as in Pisces year zero and the birth of the Christ. I think there can be no question that when eyes and minds turn back to year one Aquarius, 2000 and 2001, they will see two faces: Osama Bin Laden's and George W. Bush's. One of these will be remembered as Caesar and one as the new Christ. But which will be recalled as the Emperor? With as the Sith? Rumor has it that George W. Bush is about to convert to Roman Catholicism. So part two of this question: Who will do the remembering? The Roman Catholic Church?

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Entering Aquarius - "Twilight" and "Lost"


So long as there is power there will be power cycles. William Strauss and Neil Howe’s excellent book on generations well outlines post-war power cycles. The second post-war generation is inevitably marked by spiritual renewal, much as the Sixties bought the first generation past the big war to new spiritual origins. Henry James’s The Bostonians reveals a similar culture in the Boston region late in the century and William James’s book, The Varieties of Religious Experiences, became the text book of modern psychology. ON the continent came the rush of Orientalism; Yeats, Khrishnamurti, Madame Blavatsky at the same time.

The Strauss/Howe view is based on the archetypes; one generation opposes the last and takes its values from the one before. This was observed by Roman historians and Taoists. The post-war cycle ends in the 60th year. And after 20 years of war and wanderings, a new cycle begins. Likewise the “spiritual renewal” period occurs every 60 years. As the antithesis of war and chaos.

And when this begins people naturally come to look at things they avoid or keep subliminally at other times, like astrology. When they do they look to beginnings. This constant 60 year cycle forms a “natural history” which transcends all cultural changes like war and revolution. It has the effect of immortalizing beginnings of astrological cycles. People will always look to the beginning of the Platonic Month. I happened to notice yesterday a picture of the Christ as Anima Mundi in Tarot cards surrounded by the four elements. For two thousand years astrologers looked to the beginning moment of Pisces; year 1 Pisces, or zero. There were the three magi and the birth of the Christ. Likewise, through history ahead, year 0 or year 1 Aquarius will be fettered out. That will be year 2000 and 2001.

It is possible to see now that will be seen as “awakening” Aquarius as the birth of Christ awakened the Age of Pisces. This will be prominent in the popular and naïve culture (culture not designed by academics, institutions’ or professionals; culture that is unselfconscious). We start with The Matrix and go on to the Tolkien Trilogy which was showing in movies (air and electricity = Aquarius). Harry Potter can well be seen as the Aquarian; the earth shaman who precedes the pre-Newtonian mechanistic view of Calvin. He even come s with a “generationa shadow” – Captain Jack Sparrow; earth and water, the yin elements of the zodiac. IN the recent Lost series Ben (identified as the Piscean Christ in the second season) actually goes to the North Pole where the earth is aligned to the North Star and turns the turnstile; changing the age from Pisces to Aquarius (John Locke is acknowledged by Richard Alpert [which was the name of Ram Dass, Timothy Leary’s colleague at Harvard] a Taoist immortal as the Aquarian leader). Lost and the Survivor TV shows are “returning to earth” myths like the crop circle - virtually flying saucers on the ground - see Returning - indicators imply.

I believe this transition ends/begins with Twilight; it is the first vampire movies – vampire movies are “silence of God” or “empty crypt” myths – in which the Undead – people from the Unconscious – are the “Shining Ones” – this is a “return of the gods.”

The next “spiritual” cycle like the Sixties or the Khrisnamurti/Yeats/Blavatsky period will be about 2025. We are now with the economic crash at the end of the post-war cycle. Nothing can retrieve it. Things will continue to break. The “pilgrim” generation which renews the world – as explained by Strauss and Howe – is only about 13 years old – this is the audience of 25 million for Twilight. (Note: the “Greatest Generation” which ended German fascism and rebuilt the world under Eisenhower was only 9 years old at the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929.)

In this light the year 2012 should be interesting. I noticed on a CNN briefing yesterday that the Aztecs prophecy was actually given contemporary credibility by a scientific discovery. IN the 1950s scientists discovered that that the Sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way in 2012. The scientists in the article used this to declare that the Incas “knew nothing about this” and thus could not have made a prediction through their technology and systems of thinking. But obviously it is a synchronicity.

In any case, when the origins of the Age or Aquarius are recalled it will constantly recall the events and culture of the years 2000 and 2001 over the millennia, just as the birth of the Christ is recalled and immortalized today.

Incidently, several of what can be considered "Aquarian" culture "move" the source; Dali, in The Temptation of St. Anthony" moves it from Rome (Vatican) to a desert which appears to be Texas and a Buddhist monk in "The Second Coming of Christ." Jung, sees "another Swiss" (Self) in Liverpool - a here the British (Anglo) empire flips from Extroverted to Introverted as it did in Rome - the external empire merely in time the casing for the spirit empire to follow (Toynbee suggests this as well; in history, he says, yang turns to yin over time). Ben in Lost switches the "island" to someplace else. In Twilight, Seattle is the home of new awakenings and where the gods hatch. I get most of this from my young daughter but from what I understand, all vampires are simple those who exist in the Unconscious or who have an actual inner life. They may be seen as Templars. In this Twilight venue the last cycle are the Voterie, Roman Italians in a clear reference to old school Roman Catholics. The vampires go to Italy for retreat. But everyone does, no? Is like a magnet.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

"Lost" and Aquarius



God doesn't know we're here. No one knows we're here. - Henry Gale

Last night’s - Jan 14 – 09 – review of previous Lost episodes shows the link to the rising Platonic Month, Aquarius. Technically, the Age of Aquarius started in January, 2000. Ben is identified in season two as the Christ, marked by the Christ wound in his chest. He is tortured in a cell like the Christ in Dostoyevski’s "Grand Inquisitor," a chapter in The Brothers Karamazov. In his cell, John Locke gives him a copy of that book.

In last night’s episode Ben turns the turnstile to “move the island” – shifting the age for Pisces to Aquarius. He enters a “glass” to the North Pole - the center of magnetism aligned with the North Star. He is shifting the island to the “New Jerusalem” and lands later in a desert.

John Locke is identified as the new agent; the avatar of Aquarius, replacing Ben, the Christ and stepping from Pisces to Aquarius. In the lexicon of Lost, at the end of the journey, Ben has become a random killer. Locke goes to the jungle where Ben’s old constituency is waiting for him. Richard Alpert, a Taoist Immortal who never ages, says, “welcome home.”

In Lost, people have historic names. Richard Alpert, leader of Ben’s cult, is the real name of the Harvard professor who, with Timothy Leary, started the hippie movement. He took the name Ram Dass and wrote a popular book in the day titled Be Here Now. “Oceanic” airlines is the company name which owns the plane which brought the group to the island. It is the name taken from Orwell’s 1984 of the global America - Oceania. The planes crashes between Platonic Months. More on Lost here.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009


Black Elk and the blue man

So I started, riding toward the east down the fearful road, and behind me came the horsebacks four abreast--the blacks, the whites, the sorrels, and the buckskins--and far away above the fearful road the daybreak star was rising very dim.

I looked below me where the earth was silent in a sick green light, and saw the hills look up afraid and the grasses on the hills and all the animals; and everywhere about me were the cries of frightened birds and sounds of fleeing wings. I was the chief of all the heavens riding there, and when I looked behind me, all the twelve blackhorses reared and plunged and thundered and their manes and tails were whirling hail and their nostrils snorted lightning. And when I looked below again, I saw the slant hail falling and the long, sharp rain, and where we passed, the trees bowed low and all the hills were dim.

Now the earth was bright again as we rode. I could see the hills and valleys and the creeks and rivers passing under. We came above a place where three streams made a big one--a source of mighty waters--and something terrible was there. Flames were rising from the waters and in the flames a blue man lived. The dust was floating all about him in the air, the grass was short and withered, the trees were wilting, two-legged and four-legged beings lay there thin and panting, and wings too weak to fly.

Then the black horse riders shouted "Hoka hey!" and charged down upon the blue man, but were driven back. And the white troop shouted, charging, and was beaten; then the red troop and the yellow.

And when each had failed. they all cried together: "Eagle Wing Stretches, hurry!" And all the world was filled with voices of all kinds that cheered me, so I charged. I had the cup of water in one hand and in the other was the bow that turned into a spear as the bay and I swooped down, and the spear's head was sharp lightning. It stabbed the blue man's heart, and as it struck I could hear the thunder rolling and many voices that cried "Un-hee!," meaning I had killed. The flames died. The trees and grasses were not withered any more and murmured happily together, and every living being cried in gladness with whatever voice it had. Then the four troops of horse men charged down and struck the dead body of the blue man, counting coup; and suddenly it was only a harmless turtle.

You see, I had been riding with the storm clouds, and had come to earth as rain, and it was drought that I had killed with the power that the Six Grandfathers gave me. So we were riding on the earth now down along the river flowing full from the source of waters, and soon I saw ahead the circled village of a people in the valley. And a Voice said: "Behold a nation; it is yours. Make haste, Eagle Wing Stretches!"

I entered the village, riding, with the four horse troops behind me--the blacks, the whites, the sorrels, and the buckskins; and the place was filled with moaning and with mourning for the dead. The wind was blowing from the south like fever, and when I looked around I saw that in nearly every tepee the women and the children and the men lay dying with the dead.

So I rode around the circle of the village, looking in upon the sick and dead, and I felt like crying as I rode. But when I looked behind me, all the women and the children and the men were getting up and coming forth with happy faces.

And a Voice said: "Behold, they have given you the center of the nation's hoop to make it live."

- from Black Elk Speaks, 1832. I believe Black Elk had this vision about 1880s.

Abbess Hildegaarde had a vision of the blue man as well, like Black Elk's, he emerged from flames/the Sun. Blue in a dream can suggest coming from the Unconscious; Khrishna is usually painted as blue & Khrishna translates the "dark one."

The "blue square" at the Beijing Olympics brought blue man to my mind. Also Clarice's dream of Dance before the Sun King.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Why "Twilight" is important . . .


Good evidence that the world was changing its direction came about when Rabbi Loeb (1513-1609) of Prague tried to conjure a Protector (Savior) and found that he only could muster a Golem. From then till now Golem has been a central theme. In the Fantastic 4, Son ("Ben" = Son) – the Christ in the traditional Quaternity of Christendom, is Golem. Seinfeld is likewise a Quaternity and George Costanza (“He is often portrayed as a loser who is insecure about his capabilities,” – Wiki) is Golem. Yeats’ Rough Beast Slouching Toward Bethlehem is Golem. Golem is a homunculus, like Pinocchio and so is Frankenstein – a dream motif and archetype; one dreams of carving a god in the absence of God.

Likewise, vampire is a Silence of God theme. The crypt, from which the Christ arose, became empty by 1897, when Bram Stoker wrote Dracula. These are the two major themes; werewolf a third, but that is something different.

What is important about Twilight is that vampire is not an absence of God but represents a return of the Gods; the vampires, Edward and Carlisle first among them, are the first among the gods - they don't hide from the Sun, they glisten in the Sun; that is why they cannot let the people see them in the daylight - like the Christ in Dostoyevski's Grand Insquisitor, they would be tortured or slaughtered. In fact, Edward and Carlisle represent half of the Twilight Quaternity; Father and Son. And it is a most interesting Quaternity as the two yang aspects - Father and Son are from the Unconsicous. The two yin aspects - Bella and Jacob - live in the world. Bella being the Cosmic Mother (Psyche) and Jacob Black, the Indian adviser, Spirit. What is excellent in this is that Spirit and Cosmic Mother are the two faces of the yin, while Carlisle and Edward are the two faces of the yang.

The movie ends with a classic union in the temple; the dance of Bella and Edward in the gazebo – a sacred marriage; coniunctio; the alchemical marriage of opposities – of yin and yang. What is extra intuitive about this is that Bella has a broken right leg. She is “right brain” and its manifestation to the left side of the body; the yin manifestation of the world.

Twilight is a generational myth; Edward, Bella, Jacob, Carlisle, the Quaternity godhead of a new generation now rising and only 13 years old. The Twilight gods are this generation's gods.

This links with much I’ve been surmising in The Titan and the Egg – The Negative Anima is represented by Three Women – Two of them are portrayed as men but they have long hair as does Jason, representing the yin spirit and the other Indians; the violent three vampires, the Black Moon manifestation of the Piscean arrangement in the three phases of the moon throughout the 2,000 year period: Robert Graves in The White Goddess, gives the awakening moon to Albion at the beginning of the rise of England/Europe, the agency of Pisces - a yin age and a water age, then on to Rose Moon (Eleanor of Aquitaine) around the 12th century and marked by the great rose glasses in the European cathedrals (each with three gynecological portals representing the Three Sisters. In Titan, I marked Victoria as the Black Mother - the Death Mother; the dark receding moon and the end of the moon cycle of the Age of Pisces. The avenger of the three evil vampires in Twilight is named Victoria.

The age awakening is marked by Titans. In the tradition of horror movies the Stan Lee movies and comics should be considered. Stan Lee as I understand it was a European Jew who came to Brooklyn and New York. In the Hindu tale, one loses one’s gods and spirit traditions and that is a hall mark of American entry; one seeks the Self to find God. Lee may have succeeded. His creatures are not “empty” vampires like the others; they come from the Unconscious, but they are archetypal elements. The X Men is actually based on White’s The Once and Future King – King Arthur’s agents, which like Unicorn, are archetypes.

Likewise, Edward & co. are Titans. The mark of Aquarius is the rise of Titans. This has been the theme through much in comic books and pop movies, where they hide from the priests and scholars.

Comments here to a psychologist:

RE "spirit fish" and "rays of consciousness" - the Unconscious exposes itself where it is least observed - like the H__________ principle in physics in which the elements change when they are being scrutinized. (Yeats makes a similar point: He writes that the fairies frolic in the meadows but disappear when the priest arrives.) Movies and pop culture express valuable contents of the Unconscious today in a world in which the participation mystique which destroys individuation is at its peak. Interesting that you bring up the fish in the oven - a dream of a (former) Boston priest named James Carroll who writes a column for the Boston Globe. There is a distinct change today in the pop culture with the book and movie Twilight. The history of horror movies and horror stories in our times can be traced back I would say to the great visionary and rabbi, Rabbi Loeb. Rabbi Loeb attempted to conjure a savior and found instead the Golem. Golem - homunculous - the finding a messiah by carving one like Pinochio has been a constant theme of the "Silence of God" since, heightened by Bergman in his movies in the '50s here but always present - The Fantastic 4 is a Golem movie (Ben = "Son" is Golem in Fantastic 4) and the tv show Seinfeld is one as well. Frasier is a very interesting Quaternity; a full Quaternity with Psyche Woman - an English clairvoyant - finding the end of the English (Piscean) journey in Seattle; Frazier being the Son, and taking cue from the Hindu waitress in a Seattle coffee shop on the West Coast rather than the Irish drunk in the bar in Boston. Frasier is the True Son at journey's end (Pisces) and journey's beginning (Aquarius). He has thus changed his religion and spirit guide from its Irish source to its Indian source.

But Dracula has been the most prominent "absence of God" theme or Silence of God theme. When the tomb is opened - the earth's Unconscious - there is nothing there - there is only the "undead." Terror then appropriately lies in the Unconscious and only the conscious world and the world or artiface and ego pays rewards. In the movie Twilight - as per Frazier and maybe Kurt as well it is important that it is in Seattle (the New Jerusalem) - the vampires are not a non-Christ, an un-Christ an empty crypt where the Christ used to be or an anti-Christ, the vampires are once again gods, who glisten in the sunlight.

In a moment in the current movie, Edward, the "Son" vampire, identifies himself as "the lion" - the representative of the Christ to Christian, the Boddhisattva to Hindus and Buddhists and the Self to Surrealists. This is a movie about the awakening of the Unconscious and a vast group of 13 year olds identify with it; 25 million of the books have been sold. It marks a distinct change in the western trajectory and replaces Golem with a sparkling deity who tries to control his wrath and karma; an auspicious beginning, possibly the Aquarian beginning. (Academics are pressing hard for C.S. Lewis's lion to be the Christ but it is only the physical King of England and his imperial regents in America we wants. He has a witch in the closet and is merely the shadow karma of Tolkien who sensed the Mother direct. Tolkien said he did not like allegories.)