The Possible Relationship between Astronomy and Religion
by Manly P Hall .
by Manly P Hall .
This is a much-discussed topic and Bible students and students of comparative religion are aware of the existence of the various symbolic parallels and analogies with the possible relationship between astronomy and religion.
We are interested therefore in determining if possible, the validity, and what they have contributed to our general knowledge of man’s beliefs. Perhaps, astro-theology would be a useful instrument as a common denominator of religions because elements and traces of it can be found throughout the world and for some reason the origins are obscure. These concepts unfolded together with man’s religious and philosophical ideas and became almost universal. How did this happen? The most obvious answer lies in the original unity of arts and sciences in the religious life of people.
The first star-gazers in their tall towers or ziggurats were in the land of Babylon. These stargazers were astronomer priests. There was no differentiation between science and religion. We may say almost certainly that sciences were originally cultivated because of their religious content or for the reason they help to support the religious convictions of the people. We know that the Temples were the first colleges and the ancient towers and palaces of the gods were the first astronomical observatories.
SHEPHERDS CONSTELLATIONS
There is legend to the effect that the constellations
were named by shepherds watching their flocks at night with very little
else to do, allowed their imaginations to trace the imageries by
connecting stars into patterns in which some likenesses or appearances
to various creatures could be traced. These shepherds were the shepherd
priests or shepherd kings of old times. The keepers of the sheep fold
which was the ancient name for the temple (sheep fold). In any event
many words and terms we use and find in our language arise from the
religious astronomical reflections and contemplations of our ancestors.
As one of the ancients observed, Astronomy is the science of the anatomy of the universe and to a measure, these same ancients believed that the universe was the body of a blessed God; therefore astronomy might be termed the Anatomy and even the Physiology of the body of the deity. This deity is represented as this god. This God is distended and distributed throughout the infinite diversity of his own parts and its members.
In a very remote time man learned a considerable lot about astronomy. There appears there are cycles of remembrance, and forgetfulness in this subject. The Chaldean astronomers watched and measured and charted the motions of the heavens for more than 25 thousand years. This tremendous amount of observation even without the instruments we know today must have led to a variety of discoveries.
We feel for example that ancient man was greatly
limited in his astronomical researches by his lack of a telescope. Yet
we also have records that the ancients knew certain things about the
solar system in particular in which it seems impossible they could have
known without the help of some form of telescopic equipment.
PEKING OBSERVATORY
They were able to give us a very clear understanding of many peculiar details. For instance we find in other parts of the ancient world the full and obvious knowledge that the Egyptians the Greeks and the Persians at an ancient time knew definitely that the planet Venus was never visible to us as a complete sphere, but most often like a minute lunar crescent. They also discovered in the field of Babylon the rings on Saturn. The ancient deity of the Babylonians corresponding to the deity Saturn is always shown standing in the midst of rings which circle his body.
These things are not just accidents. They tell us
that at a long ago time man made comparatively accurate observations of
the world in which they lived. PYTHAGORAS writing or teaching about 600
years before the beginning of the Christian era was one of the first to
note that the planets and their chariots, the chariots of the gods, circled around the blazing alter of the sun. He is accredited generally with the first statement of the heliocentric system
of astronomy as we know it today. How then have we forgotten all of
these things? The only answer is that in the waste of time and in the
destruction of learned institutions and the gradual decadence of the
great temple mysteries, conquest, pillage, war and destruction many
choice and valuable records were hopelessly destroyed as is the case of
the destruction of the great Seropean and great Baroquean collections in
Alexandria.Thus we dropped a DARK CURTAIN across history having obliterated most of the early relics and records of mans intellectual life. We have general knowledge that in the general and broad need of the world, ancient man was reasonably well equipped. He knew the Earth was round and he was aware of the western hemisphere long before the beginning of the Christian era and according to Plutarch the historian, the Gulf of St Lawrence the great lakes area of the United States was explored by Grecian navigators at least 15 to 18 hundred years before the time of Columbus. Columbus was searching for a passage to Asia and at first he didn’t realize he had discovered a new continent.
CHINESE KNOW WESTERN HEMISPHERE.
The ancient records and many legends and myths and fables all point out things that we should know but which we have gently ignored. The Chinese were well aware of the western hemisphere and navigated the coast of California. We have forgotten a great deal and we have forgotten a great deal of the source of what we call existing knowledge and the reason for it and many things which we consider to be superstitions and legends really developed from a very astute observation of natural phenomena.
NO LEISURE
One thing ancient man had that we do not have is leisure. Common man of his day whether he was a builder of pyramids or an agriculturist probably did not have much leisure. However, there was a very broad deep scholarly class particularly the priesthood then the custodians of all knowledge who not only had leisure but an infinite kind of patience, which incidentally we do not have. This is the kind of patience, which permits a problem to be passed down 20 generations without impatience.
Observations and reflections were not carried on by small groups over a period of weeks, months or even years, became the projects of empires and dynasties and the descents of families so that one problem may have been labored over for a thousand years, each generation and each century bestowing its own fragment of further insight. Thus by observation with great patience man accomplished much.
Another factor which had something to do with all of this was mans dependency upon himself. Today we are no longer dependant upon the faculties and powers with which we were originally endowed. We have supplemented these powers and faculties by innumerable devices depending more and more upon mechanistic substitution. We no longer need or call upon the resources of our own observational powers.
INDIAN n WATCH.
Some years ago there was an experiment carried out on one of the American Indian Reservations. There it was demonstrated that this Indian man of reasonable attainments not a cultured man as we
would term one but a man who lived with his flock and
lived as the shepherds of old, as our primordial ancestors lived. He
lived simply. This man could distinctly hear a watch ticking in a man’s
pocket fifty meters away.
We have no such power of hearing like this. It has gone because we have no need for it. Our entire way of life has changed and our lives are now instant and we do not need these faculties for our survival because we do not have to sense danger or scent game for survival. In any case, he certainly in those days had the clearest and most complete possession of his faculties. He lived simply and he ate simply; his foods were not de natured. His life was not filled with unnecessary artificial tensions that close in on modern man. He could contemplate. His mind was not disturbed with the confusions that we know and while he had his problems and his troubles most certainly he lived a simpler way of life. With this simpler way he was close to nature and his intuitions, inspirations and his revelations and contemplations had an authenticity which we cannot deny.
Fore we know that all forms of knowledge that we
boast today originated in times when the powers and faculties of man
must have supplied him with the total instrument with which he worked.
He had to be able to produce these things out of himself and because of
that, we marvel at algebra and we marvel at geometry and all of these
forms of learning but they came from the past from long ago.
Man has improved upon them but in the dawn of time stand, the shadowy figures of the originators, and these figures some ways stand head and shoulders above those who have made new and useful applications of these first great dynamic thoughts. In this group of dynamics belongs the problem of astronomy. In astronomy in those days, we involved another term and that is the term astrology. It is unlikely that with the exception of navigation and the calendar and ancient man studied astronomy and found his interest was in meaning and not in motion and he was searching the heavens for truths not facts.
He was looking for dynamics and always his problem was to apply his knowledge to the immediate problem of his own existence and out of these long observations, which perhaps gradually evolved his concept of the seasons, came the calendar a method of determining the periodic return of the seasons and the eccentricities of the calendar and many interesting details
PLANETARY BIRTHDAYS
The Egyptians for example had a calendar, which corresponded with a circle. 360 days in a year and 360 degrees in the circle but they found this was not quite right. They found their year getting badly out of order.
They created five inter calendary days and they set these days aside and apart. To these days they assigned the birthday of the five principal Gods and it is interesting because the Chinese and the very early Greeks and the Egyptians did not have a Septenary system of planets as later came into existence but as the Chinese called them the five Emperors. The five great sidereal emperors fore the Egyptians and the Chinese were well aware of the fact that the sun and the moon were not planets. Medieval man did not know this however and constantly combined the planets and the luminaries to form the Septinary. But the Older people, like the Egyptians decided that these five days should be the birthdays of the planets, and they set these aside. “The calendar reform project.”
In Central America where the Sun Venus calendar was represented on the scales of the great dragon which is the feathered serpent of their philosophy, it is said that the great deity of the Ki Chi Mayan complex Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, that this deity gave them the calendar, “The book of the Sacred Days”.
By this calendar, which was ornamented with the symbols and devices of the gods, the world and time both were divided eras and separate compartments and separate units and to each was assigned a deity and they assigned a divinity to each hour of the day and night. Anticipating the medieval astrologers planetary hour system
We have no such power of hearing like this. It has gone because we have no need for it. Our entire way of life has changed and our lives are now instant and we do not need these faculties for our survival because we do not have to sense danger or scent game for survival. In any case, he certainly in those days had the clearest and most complete possession of his faculties. He lived simply and he ate simply; his foods were not de natured. His life was not filled with unnecessary artificial tensions that close in on modern man. He could contemplate. His mind was not disturbed with the confusions that we know and while he had his problems and his troubles most certainly he lived a simpler way of life. With this simpler way he was close to nature and his intuitions, inspirations and his revelations and contemplations had an authenticity which we cannot deny.
Fore we know that all forms of knowledge that we
boast today originated in times when the powers and faculties of man
must have supplied him with the total instrument with which he worked.
He had to be able to produce these things out of himself and because of
that, we marvel at algebra and we marvel at geometry and all of these
forms of learning but they came from the past from long ago.Man has improved upon them but in the dawn of time stand, the shadowy figures of the originators, and these figures some ways stand head and shoulders above those who have made new and useful applications of these first great dynamic thoughts. In this group of dynamics belongs the problem of astronomy. In astronomy in those days, we involved another term and that is the term astrology. It is unlikely that with the exception of navigation and the calendar and ancient man studied astronomy and found his interest was in meaning and not in motion and he was searching the heavens for truths not facts.
He was looking for dynamics and always his problem was to apply his knowledge to the immediate problem of his own existence and out of these long observations, which perhaps gradually evolved his concept of the seasons, came the calendar a method of determining the periodic return of the seasons and the eccentricities of the calendar and many interesting details
PLANETARY BIRTHDAYS
The Egyptians for example had a calendar, which corresponded with a circle. 360 days in a year and 360 degrees in the circle but they found this was not quite right. They found their year getting badly out of order.
They created five inter calendary days and they set these days aside and apart. To these days they assigned the birthday of the five principal Gods and it is interesting because the Chinese and the very early Greeks and the Egyptians did not have a Septenary system of planets as later came into existence but as the Chinese called them the five Emperors. The five great sidereal emperors fore the Egyptians and the Chinese were well aware of the fact that the sun and the moon were not planets. Medieval man did not know this however and constantly combined the planets and the luminaries to form the Septinary. But the Older people, like the Egyptians decided that these five days should be the birthdays of the planets, and they set these aside. “The calendar reform project.”
CALENDARS
In Central America where the Sun Venus calendar was represented on the scales of the great dragon which is the feathered serpent of their philosophy, it is said that the great deity of the Ki Chi Mayan complex Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, that this deity gave them the calendar, “The book of the Sacred Days”.
By this calendar, which was ornamented with the symbols and devices of the gods, the world and time both were divided eras and separate compartments and separate units and to each was assigned a deity and they assigned a divinity to each hour of the day and night. Anticipating the medieval astrologers planetary hour system
All through the ancient world is the calendars and
the Gods went together. One of the first uses was to determine religious
feasts and we still have this concept in the church calendar with
Saints days and many other similar devices. The calendar then served a
great many purposes. First and most it served man with his planting and
his reaping and told him when to watch in Egypt for the inundation of
the Nile upon which his life depended and it taught him to prepare for
the rigors of winter in other places. It gave him an accurate way of
measuring the annual climate of his world. It also told him that each of
the changes of the seasons brought new forces into play in his
environment and the conditions under which he existed and each of these
changes had its good side and its bad side and each brought something if
he could know how to use it and each took something away therefore he
must provide at certain times. Tithing came from the putting away ten
percent of the seed for the next harvest.GROWTH N MOON PHASES
Experimentation on farms in Arizona under the department of Agriculture has shown definitely that there is a relationship with the growth of plants and the various phases of the Moon and things of that nature.
In this practical observation our ancient priest
ancestor prophet made use of these forms of knowledge. He did not gain
them immediately. But he should have been able to observe if he had kept
the records, the seasonal motions over thousands of years and observed
the results in his own life. Way back in this time a discovery was made,
we don’t know by who or when but it was long before the Christian era
and it was probably made in the great philosophical complex of peoples
that flourished in the near east in the valley of the Euphrates from 3
to 4 thousand years before the beginning of the Christian era and it may
have been simultaneously discovered in China and India for the records
are to be found everywhere and that was there was another and larger
motion that had a very important bearing upon life.PROCESSION of the EQUINOX
This motion is the procession of the Equinoxes. This term procession of the equinoxes is difficult to explain briefly but it means there is a slow but constant westward motion of the equinoctial points and this motion is exhilarated by a combination of solar lunar activity and slightly retarded by a reversed planetary activity.
As a result of these forces pulling in contrary or inconsistent manners, this processional motion now means and has meant as long as man can remember or learn that each year the sun reaches the equinox slightly sooner than the year before. The coming of the sun is a little over one minute earlier each year and making an astronomical degree in about 72 years. Thus, every 72 years the sun seems to drop back at the equinox one degree, if it so does it drops back approximately 30 degrees every 2,160 years and it drops back around the entire circle through any hypothetical point in one longer cycle of 25,920 years. In this period of time the sun seems only by appearance, seems to drop back around the entire circle of the zodiac, falling or flailing backward at the rate of one degree every 72 years.
PLUTONIC YEAR
This has been a very important time pattern and the complete procession of the Equinox’s requiring 25,920 years is referred to as the great Plutonic year. Plato was aware of it 300 years or more before the beginning of the Christian era and we know it today and no one has ever been able to shake this phenomena. We have found new explanations for what caused this but the fact that it happens is still beyond controversy.
This peculiar heavenly motion has significance in a very wonderful way and it is the most important link that we have between astronomy and religion in ancient times. The precession of the equinox therefore means that every 2,160 years the sun reaches the equinoctial point in a different sign of the zodiac. Each sign constituting 30 degrees, if this occurs then we see the appearance of the precession
in which the sun appears to enter each sign in its
last degree and by procession move backward through it to its first
degree and then pass into the next sign entering that at its last degree
and moving back to the first.
So this motion appears to be in direct opposition to the other motions and elements and planets that go to make up the solar family. This peculiar observation the study of the Plutonic year has led to a great many of symbols and philosophies.
To get a further picture of this we must now move to the story of the sun. We all know and it is reported that our forebears and our ancestors were Sun worshipers, the Pythagoreans rose at dawn to meet with him in song arising at the splendor of the day. The Hindus worshiped the sun god under the name of SOYA and Armedi riding in its chariot across the sky. We know the sun in china was the symbol of the imperial heaven and always the sun with its light was held with extraordinary veneration. So we also know that this experience of the sun, was closely related to the Agrarian cult.
This is the belief that religion was an experience of growth in nature. The farmer recognized his indebtedness to the sun. By degrees, men came to realize that only by the suns power would the grain grow. Only by the power of the sun, would light be given so that man could go out and labor. That if he was too long separated from the sun Man himself lost much of his vitality and power.
By degrees, the Sun became a God symbol. The all seeing eye of the ancients, the eye of Horus in Egypt is actually a symbol of the sun, as is the pupil of the human eye. The sun was regarded as the eye of God, it is said in the Bible that God made his Tabernacle in the sun.
All of this sun worship was not merely a physical acceptance of the sun as a God. I have talked to a number of followers of very primitive faiths known to be sun worshippers, and I have asked them if they actually worshipped the sun? They said no! We worship or accept the sun as a symbol of a principal in the universe. It is not the visible sun but light, the sense of consciousness that light makes all things clear and plain and open.
We remember the Pythagorean definition of God: As a being whose body is composed of the substance of light, and whose spirit is composed of the substance of truth. Thus, the sun was the symbol of the light of the world, the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. The sun in its daily rising was the symbol of renewed hope and it was the promise of another day of opportunity of labor a fulfillment.
Ancient man was terribly frightened by an eclipse of the sun. He thought an evil spirit was seeking to destroy the sun. Much of our doctrine of the dragon that ate the sun and other stories and fairy tales come from eclipse phenomena. In addition, eclipse phenomena seem to have sustained the belief that there was an adversary or an evil power that wanted to destroy the sun.
Man did not fully understand the meaning of the solar power but he made representations of it in Gold and the priests and as symbols of the fact that they served the sun wore these. Most decorations military or civil were originally taken from sun medallions and we reward or honor our heroes by bestowing a sun symbol or a rosette upon him. The halos around the heads of bodies of sanctified persons have gradually taken on some symbolism attributes and these persons were radiant with spiritual powers or with great light within themselves.
For the royalty, the emperor or the king or the great person was reserved also the solar coronet. A crown is nothing but a sun surrounded by a burst of rays, as time went on these rays got a little inconvenient sticking out in all directions and so they were in turned in to the top forming the duo pole coronet like that of the crowns of the great English crowns like the crown of St George. Upon the top it bore a cross to symbolize the power of Christendom and the crown become the radiant throne that bore the symbol of the Christian mystery itself.
BARLA the BEAUTIFUL
So this motion appears to be in direct opposition to the other motions and elements and planets that go to make up the solar family. This peculiar observation the study of the Plutonic year has led to a great many of symbols and philosophies.
SUN WORSHIPERS
To get a further picture of this we must now move to the story of the sun. We all know and it is reported that our forebears and our ancestors were Sun worshipers, the Pythagoreans rose at dawn to meet with him in song arising at the splendor of the day. The Hindus worshiped the sun god under the name of SOYA and Armedi riding in its chariot across the sky. We know the sun in china was the symbol of the imperial heaven and always the sun with its light was held with extraordinary veneration. So we also know that this experience of the sun, was closely related to the Agrarian cult.
This is the belief that religion was an experience of growth in nature. The farmer recognized his indebtedness to the sun. By degrees, men came to realize that only by the suns power would the grain grow. Only by the power of the sun, would light be given so that man could go out and labor. That if he was too long separated from the sun Man himself lost much of his vitality and power.
By degrees, the Sun became a God symbol. The all seeing eye of the ancients, the eye of Horus in Egypt is actually a symbol of the sun, as is the pupil of the human eye. The sun was regarded as the eye of God, it is said in the Bible that God made his Tabernacle in the sun.
All of this sun worship was not merely a physical acceptance of the sun as a God. I have talked to a number of followers of very primitive faiths known to be sun worshippers, and I have asked them if they actually worshipped the sun? They said no! We worship or accept the sun as a symbol of a principal in the universe. It is not the visible sun but light, the sense of consciousness that light makes all things clear and plain and open.
We remember the Pythagorean definition of God: As a being whose body is composed of the substance of light, and whose spirit is composed of the substance of truth. Thus, the sun was the symbol of the light of the world, the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. The sun in its daily rising was the symbol of renewed hope and it was the promise of another day of opportunity of labor a fulfillment.
Ancient man was terribly frightened by an eclipse of the sun. He thought an evil spirit was seeking to destroy the sun. Much of our doctrine of the dragon that ate the sun and other stories and fairy tales come from eclipse phenomena. In addition, eclipse phenomena seem to have sustained the belief that there was an adversary or an evil power that wanted to destroy the sun.
Man did not fully understand the meaning of the solar power but he made representations of it in Gold and the priests and as symbols of the fact that they served the sun wore these. Most decorations military or civil were originally taken from sun medallions and we reward or honor our heroes by bestowing a sun symbol or a rosette upon him. The halos around the heads of bodies of sanctified persons have gradually taken on some symbolism attributes and these persons were radiant with spiritual powers or with great light within themselves.
For the royalty, the emperor or the king or the great person was reserved also the solar coronet. A crown is nothing but a sun surrounded by a burst of rays, as time went on these rays got a little inconvenient sticking out in all directions and so they were in turned in to the top forming the duo pole coronet like that of the crowns of the great English crowns like the crown of St George. Upon the top it bore a cross to symbolize the power of Christendom and the crown become the radiant throne that bore the symbol of the Christian mystery itself.
BARLA the BEAUTIFUL
The sun then has always played this vital part and we have had sun gods and every religion has had them. They have always been wonderful radiant beings and nearly always they were the direct offspring of deity. They were the highest of the Gods and the tragedies that came to the sun gods were the tragedies that most effected mortals.
When Barla the Beautiful, the sun god of the Nordic peoples was slain by the mistletoe arrow, the entire world wept. Darkness descended. The joy of the gods was destroyed. Apollo was the Sun God of the ancient Greek or Latin, Helios. He is the one who drove his sharp shields rays in the body of Python and caused the great serpent to be killed and thrown into the great ravine of the earth and later upon the site of this ravine and over the corrupting body of Python was raised the shrine of Delphi
CHRISTMAS TREE
The sun god was always the slayer of evil because he was the over comer of darkness he was always the thing that saved men from night and later in the place of the sun god itself came the sun or light symbol, the candle, the torch and the fire. These also dispel darkness, they were protectors, the little candle shining in darkness became the symbol of man’s hope, and of his faith and later in great diffusion it is preserved to us in the illuminations on the Christmas tree. The world tree with its lights is the symbol of all the candles lit from the great power of the sun.
INDIA’S ASTRONOMY
In India, there was much philosophy upon the nature of the sun. India’s knowledge of astronomy was profound and much of their theology is likewise based on this. But, in round terms, because time is short and as Hippocrates said, “arc is long”, we can only make a summary of this situation. We can accept that what is generally demonstrable upon research that we find with ancient man venerated the sun as the visible symbol of an invisible power in space as the light bearing witness to the light, that there was a light behind the light.
HELIOS SHEILD - SUN
Now, remember in the Greek: Helios: later the Latin
Apollo was not regarded as the source of the solar light, he carried on
his arm a great shield and in the centre in the centre of the shield was
a boss or knob and our modern astronomical symbol for the sun is a dot in the circle and
this is the shield of Helios the God and its upon the surface of his
shield that the sun god reflected the light of space. The ancients did
not assume the sun to be the complete source of its own light they
assumed it to be a great focal point in space which collected the great
energies from the field of space and reflected them downward in to
another condition of space which we call matter. Therefore, the sun was
suspended betwixt space and matter causing the energy of space to
permeate all material things.It’s an interesting and dramatic concept and in their ancient arrangement of planets the sun was placed in the middle orbit with three planets below and three above or rather two and the luminaries below. Thus, the sun was placed in the midst of things and became an indicating symbol of spirit of self later of soul it was that which finally represented man suspended between heaven and earth and it had numerous philosophical meanings and but where ever it appeared it became an emblem of life and salvation of redemption.
SOLAR GLOBE WORSHIP RAIN CLOUDS ETC
The wonderful Egyptian pharaoh Arkinartin created the sect called Arkanism which was the worship of the solar globe,
the rays ending in human hands to raise up or lift all things up
because he had already discovered from the wisdom of his people the
drawing power of the sun. That the sun raised water and took it into the
sky to form clouds. Ancient man watched these things and with his own
quiet wisdom he knew them well.The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu tells us in absolutely perfect modern terms the entire phenomena of clouds, rainfall and so on. These things were known although we have forgotten but our ancestors were so wise.
SUNS THREE CYCLES
Now the Sun deity (having to a great measure become the symbol of life), passed through three paralleling cycles of apparently similar activities. These cycles, similar in their structure, but different in their time equation. By the great processional motion, the sun seemed to retire around the zodiac in 25,920 years and by another motion the sun seemed to progress through the signs of the zodiac making the complete circle every 12 months causing what we know as the year and the third cycle of the sun was its apparent motion around the earth by which it achieved the mystery of the 24 hour day.
DAWN NOON SUNSET MIDNIGHT
These were the three cycles of the sun the three complete circles it made of varying magnitude and the least of these cycles in their unity was the day which consisted of dawn as one of its important points. But in the day the dawn was its vernal equinox. Noon was its summer solstice, Sunset was its autumnal equinox and Midnight was its winter solstice and thus the sun according to the Egyptians rose every morning from the underworld and travelled across the sky and then at night descended into the land of the Mintec where it shone for all through the night for the souls of the dead in the underworld.
LIVING UPSIDE DOWN
Now some of the old documents give us a peculiar little hint about this. They tell us for example in one of the old manuscripts that people in the underworld lived upside down walking around on their heads. Is it possible that the Egyptians had already discovered that the so called under world was the other side of the earth? We do know with certainty but we do know that they had navigated as far as the western hemisphere. So that it’s quite possible the people walking around upside down were not creatures of mythology belonging in some fantastic ghost realm but simply the recognition of something that is factually true as far as we are concerned. In any event the sun shone in the day time upon the world of the living and gleaned at night in the abode of the dead.
The sun also had this secondary motion in which it went its great circle of the year. It was born on 25th December at the winter solstice and it won its great battle, its resurrection over winter was achieved at the vernal equinox. It was enthroned at the summer solstice which occurred at that time in the sign of the lion (LEO) and not the sign of Cancer where we have it now and was therefore enthroned as the lion of the tribe of Judah and also was seated upon the throne of lions, as told by the legends of King Solomon. We know that Solomon is composed of three words - SOL- AM- UN-, name for the sun in three languages. All these different symbols and then finally at the autumnal equinox the sun goes forth to meet the mystery of winter and there it is to finally meet its death.
So the life of the sun, the annular life of the sun from its birth to its death became by degrees of the greatest significance to ancient man. Out of this sun going through the 12 signs of the zodiac each year came the story of the 12 labors of Hercules. Fore Hercules is a solar deity as his name implies and also the wonderful labors of Samson. Fore the word Samson in Hebrew means the sun man, and we cannot escape these implications. There is nothing we can do about it. We know that at the summer solstice he carries away the gates of Gaza and we know also when he slays the Nubian lion he enters the sign of Leo. When he is taken into the house of Delilah and his hair is cut short he is entering the sign of Virgo the virgin he is entering into the sign of VIRGO the virgin. which is the beginning of his decline towards winter and at this time the rays ( his hair) is cut off and he loses his strength At the winter solstice the old sun dies making way for the new sun which is to be born in the mystery of the winter solstice.
THE KING IS DEAD LONG LIVE THE KING
As the old king dies and the new king is born we remember the words that were spoken at the court of France, “the king is dead long live the king”. At that moment the sun is born the new season and
we think of the year as an infant being led in by
father time the old year. So old father time goes his way and the New
Year is born.
These symbols have come down to us from remote antiquity and always the old and the new labor together, and forever ancient Chronos is combing out the golden hair of the solar maiden and it is a very interesting and profound symbolism and upon it a great deal of religious material has been built.
In this development of the religion of the solar deity or a solar being we know that it goes through the signs, and this again becomes SINBAD the sailor whose adventures are nothing more or less than the 12 labors of Hercules very thinly veiled.
They are also the labors of all the heroes from the heroes of faerie tale to the great epic heroes and we know that always SIEGFRIED the sun lad or the sun hero who slays the dragon with the enchanted sword. “No TOM”
We know also SIEGFRIED like all the solar heroes finally dies. In the great immolation scene of the gulf of GUMMERIN he is burned upon that funeral pier but out of the rising of the great waters of night, the Rheine or the ocean there comes a new heaven and a new earth and the gods go away and the new gods and the new world come into being.
Thus always this symbolism lives, making for us a wonderful drama. A drama we find in India in the story of RAMA and in this manor also in China as the YELLOW EMPEROR.
JAPAN is the only county in the world of importance that made the sun god a goddess. It is the one ancient people that made the solar deity feminine and the Luna deity masculine. Just why and how again is one of the great questions. But in any event SWARMI do ome carge”, the goddess of the sun, is represented in Japanese philosophy by the metal mirror, the perfectly plain mirror that is hung over the gates of the Shinto temple.
It is the symbol again of the reflector of light, and relates to an incident long ago as told in the NI ONGE and the KOI GI KEE, the great classic epics, which describes how the sun goddess was brought out of the cave of darkness by seeing her own reflection in the mirror. It was all very wonderful and gives us another phase of the same great story.
Everywhere then, these things play into religion. With this basic thought, we now come to the larger year, incidentally of course we have to realize that in all the cycles, particularly the year cycle and the plutonic year cycle, the sun is related to the sign of the zodiac with which it is at that time or moment most deeply or definitely concerned.
The processional motion has changed things. But in our symbolism we have preserved the old ways. Let us not be too astronomically concerned, but merely try to point out the symbolism fully aware that there are astronomical equations with which modern science will not be in full agreement with but as we are dealing not with astronomy but with symbolism, these equations are negligible and not worth the problem of reconciling them, although it can be done.
At this point then, we have to bear in mind that we concede today the vernal equinox taking place in the sign of Aries, the sign of the Ram. We assume that the summer solstice takes place in Cancer the sign of the crab, and that the Autumnal Equinox takes place in Libra the sign of Balance, and that the Winter Solstice takes place in the sign of Capricorn the sea goat.
The sea goat with part of its body a goat and part fish relates to the two ancient Babylonian cities of Babylon and Nineveh. One of which was built upon a mountain and the other is built by the shore of
These symbols have come down to us from remote antiquity and always the old and the new labor together, and forever ancient Chronos is combing out the golden hair of the solar maiden and it is a very interesting and profound symbolism and upon it a great deal of religious material has been built.
In this development of the religion of the solar deity or a solar being we know that it goes through the signs, and this again becomes SINBAD the sailor whose adventures are nothing more or less than the 12 labors of Hercules very thinly veiled.
They are also the labors of all the heroes from the heroes of faerie tale to the great epic heroes and we know that always SIEGFRIED the sun lad or the sun hero who slays the dragon with the enchanted sword. “No TOM”
We know also SIEGFRIED like all the solar heroes finally dies. In the great immolation scene of the gulf of GUMMERIN he is burned upon that funeral pier but out of the rising of the great waters of night, the Rheine or the ocean there comes a new heaven and a new earth and the gods go away and the new gods and the new world come into being.
Thus always this symbolism lives, making for us a wonderful drama. A drama we find in India in the story of RAMA and in this manor also in China as the YELLOW EMPEROR.
JAPAN is the only county in the world of importance that made the sun god a goddess. It is the one ancient people that made the solar deity feminine and the Luna deity masculine. Just why and how again is one of the great questions. But in any event SWARMI do ome carge”, the goddess of the sun, is represented in Japanese philosophy by the metal mirror, the perfectly plain mirror that is hung over the gates of the Shinto temple.
It is the symbol again of the reflector of light, and relates to an incident long ago as told in the NI ONGE and the KOI GI KEE, the great classic epics, which describes how the sun goddess was brought out of the cave of darkness by seeing her own reflection in the mirror. It was all very wonderful and gives us another phase of the same great story.
Everywhere then, these things play into religion. With this basic thought, we now come to the larger year, incidentally of course we have to realize that in all the cycles, particularly the year cycle and the plutonic year cycle, the sun is related to the sign of the zodiac with which it is at that time or moment most deeply or definitely concerned.
The processional motion has changed things. But in our symbolism we have preserved the old ways. Let us not be too astronomically concerned, but merely try to point out the symbolism fully aware that there are astronomical equations with which modern science will not be in full agreement with but as we are dealing not with astronomy but with symbolism, these equations are negligible and not worth the problem of reconciling them, although it can be done.
At this point then, we have to bear in mind that we concede today the vernal equinox taking place in the sign of Aries, the sign of the Ram. We assume that the summer solstice takes place in Cancer the sign of the crab, and that the Autumnal Equinox takes place in Libra the sign of Balance, and that the Winter Solstice takes place in the sign of Capricorn the sea goat.
The sea goat with part of its body a goat and part fish relates to the two ancient Babylonian cities of Babylon and Nineveh. One of which was built upon a mountain and the other is built by the shore of
the sea. The combining of the glyphs for the two cities gives us the present form of “Capricornis” or the sea goat.
Now as the equinox takes place, these become
associated with the seasons and we recognize that the ancients knowing
the ways of the world and the ways of life had certain emblems or
representations by means of which they identified certain procedures in
nature.
Now the SUMMER SOLSTICE which was sign and symbol of the greatest fertility was
associated with Cancer the crab. This cancer is also the Scarabasca of
Egypt, the scarab beetle, the symbol of life and immortality.
The WINTER SOLSTICE or symbol of death was
Capricorn. Capricorn was always the Sign of the aged, the rocky or the
BONY. Having to do with the strange contour of the country where the
sign was said to have developed.
So that all things in a long broad general term, are
said to be born in cancer and to die in Capricorn that one represents
the entrance into life, Cancer is therefore the womb and Capricorn is
the Tomb.
Capricorn is symbolized finally by father time
carrying the hour glass and the reaping sythe. Cancer was symbolized by
the great mother Diana goddess of the Ephesians the wonderful nurturer
of all things. Cancer was under the ruler ship of the Moon the lady of
generation,
Capricorn of Saturn, the ancient master of regeneration. The ancients have already recognized that ‘
ALL BIRTH WAS A DYING AND ALL DYING WAS A BEING BORN AGAIN’.
Therefore in ancient times they buried their dead in
the knee chest posture or the embryo position indicating that to all
things that the tomb is a womb of another life. These thoughts
undoubtedly in their philosophy were mellowed by the ancient
astronomical symbolism.
The annual birth of the sun God was a tremendously
important thing because it contributed very largely to man’s concept of
immortality. The sun was not dead it only slept. It appeared to die, the
earth seemed to die fore the people who devised these concepts were
obviously living in the northern hemisphere. The trees seem to die and
the snow came. The processes of living were desperate and desolate and
cold. But out of it all came also the symbol of the sprig of Acacia the
evergreen the little pine tree that later became the Christmas tree.
This was because this tree was associated with the green tree that
remained green through winter and therefore was a symbol of immortality
which was not shared by other trees by far as man could see
In the fullness of autumn which then was the worship
of trees, man discovered the tree did not die but though seemed to be
dead. Out of all of this seeming of dying and this fact of living come
some of the deepest and noblest philosophies that revealed themselves to
our primitive ancestors
THE GREAT CLOCK / THE PLUTONIC YEAR
72 years = one degree backward in the procession of the equinox’s
4,320,000 years = The GREAT AGE –
The five planets and 2 luminaries in one sign last was ARIES . next Sagittarius 25,920 years = PLUTONIC AGE
2,160 years = AGE
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