The Zodiac And The Great Platonic Year - 33 Degree Freemason Manly P. Hall [Full Lecture]

Some of you the discussion we are going to carry along with this series but many are already aware of the existence of at least the symbolic factors with which we are to be concerned the possible relationship between astronomy and religion has been so often discussed that nearly all Bible students the students of comparative religion are aware that such analogies or parallels do exist we are interested therefore in Determining if possible their validity and what they have contributed to our general knowledge of man's beliefs perhaps astral theology would be a useful instrument as a common denominator

of religions for elements of it and traces of it are to be found throughout the world in some way for some reason and the origins are obscure these concepts unfolded together with maths religious and philosophical ideas and became almost universal now how does This happen the most obvious answer lies in the original unity of Arts and Sciences in the religious life of people the first stargazers on their tall towers of ziggurats in the land of Babylon these stargazers were astronomer priests there was no differentiation between science and religion we may say that almost certainly Sciences

were originally cultivated because of their religious content or For the reason that 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 with the first astronomical observatories there is a legend which some of you may have run across 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 I think these shepherds were the Shepherd priests or the Shepherd kings of all times the keepers of the sheep fall which was the ancient name for the temple in any event many words that we use many terms that we commonly find in our language arise from the religious astronomical reflections and contemplations of our Ancestors actually as one of the ancients observed astronomy is the science of the anatomy of the universe and to a major 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 being represented as this God who is extended and distributed throughout the infinite diversity of his own parts and members In any event at a very remote time men learned a considerable about astronomy it is quite likely that there have been cycles of remembrance and forgetfulness in this subject Amy Wallace budge keeper the Egyptian of the Syrian antiquities of the British Museum declared that the Chaldean astronomers watched and measured and charted the motions of the heavens for more than twenty five thousand years

now of course from a man of his standing this is a rather unusual Statement he had I'm certain that he felt that he could prove it this tremendous amount of observation even without the instruments that we know today must have led to a variety of discoveries we feel for example an ancient man was greatly limited in his astronomical researches by his lack of a telescope yet we also have record that the ancients knew certain things about the solar system in particular which it Seems impossible they could have known without some kind of a telescopic equipment

perhaps the Chinese have the answer on the wall of the city of Peking there is the remain of an ancient observatory it was partly reconstructed by the early Jesuits but the instruments are essentially Chinese and they have a complete observatory without a telescope now what they did to meet this peculiar need was a masterpiece and optics they Discovered that by using a long hollow tube without a lens they could restrict the light of the sky and concentrate the energy going into their own eyes and by means of these tubes without lenses they were able to

make a number of observations which would not normally be possible to the 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 and of ancient time knew definitely that the planet Venus was never visible to us as a complete sphere but most often like in the newt lunar Crescent they also discovered in the field of Babylon the rings on Saturn and 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 men 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 in their chariots the Chariots of the Gods circle around the blazing altar 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 these things the only answer is that in the waste of time in the destruction of learning institutions in the gradual decadence of the great temple mysteries conquest pillage war and destruction many choice and valuable records were hopelessly destroyed as in the case of the destruction of the great Sarah pian and Brock Ian collections in Alexandria thus we dropped a dark curtain across history having obliterated Most of the early relics and records of man's intellectual life we have every knowledge then that in the general and broad need of the

world ancient man was reasonably well equipped he knew the earth was round he was aware of the Western Hemisphere long before the beginning of the Christian era and according to Plutarch the historian of this Gulf of st. Lawrence in the Great Lakes area of the United States was explored by Grecian navigators at least Fifteen to eighteen hundred years before it's rediscovery at the time of Columbus and of course Columbus really was searching for a passage to Asia he did not realize at the beginning that he had discovered a new continent these ancient records and many

legends and myths and fables all point out things that we should know but which we have gently ignored it is normal certain Chinese navigated the coast of California twenty-five hundred years ago And during the period of ginger scones twelve 13th century in Mongolia the Chinese and Tatars were well aware of the Western Hemisphere 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 one thing an ancient man had that we do not have is Leisure now the common man of his day whether it was a builder of pyramids or an agriculturist probably did not have much leisure but there was a very broad deep scholarly class particularly the pre good then the custodians of all knowledge who not only had leisure but an infinite kind of patience which also run short with us this is the kind of patience which will permit a problem to be passed down through 20 generations Without impatience observations and reflections were

not carried on by small groups in a period of months weeks or even years but became the projects of Empires and of dynasties and of descents of families so that one problem may have been labored over for a thousand years each generation 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 this was Man's dependency upon himself today we are no longer dependent 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 some years ago an experiment was carried out on one of the American Indian reservations whether it was demonstrated That a certain Indian of reasonable attainments not a cultured man as we would turn one just a man who lived with his flock watch them at night like the Shepherd's of old and lived as our primordial ancestors lived this man could distinctly hear a watch ticking in a man's pocket sixty five feet away

we have no such power of hearing as this it's gone because we have no need for it the present moment we pick up the phone get the correct time Our entire way of life when someone wants us to get out of the way on the road they give us a blast we get here a mile away the individual no longer needs these faculty does not drink the faculties he does not need them for his survival he does not have to send game he does not have to send danger and with the way his smoke is

now his senses wouldn't last long anyway but in any case he certainly in those days had the clearest and most complete possession of His faculties he lived simply he ate simply his foods were not denatured his life was not filled with unnecessary artificial tensions that closed in our modern man he could contemplate his mind was not disturbed for the confusions that we know and while he had his problems and his troubles most certainly he lived a simpler way of life and with this simpler way he was close to nature and his intuitions his inspirations and

his revelations And an authenticity which we cannot deny so 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 we marvel at geometry and all of these forms of learning but they came from the past from long ago man as it proved above but in the dawn of time Stand the shadowy figures of the

originators and these biggest some ways stand head and shoulders above those who have made new and useful applications of these first great dynamic thoughts and in this group of dynamics bonds are a problem of astronomy now in astronomy in those days we involved another term which perhaps has fallen likewise into evil times and that is the term astrology it is unlikely that with the exception of navigation And the calendar that ancient man studied astronomy from any great profound interest merely in the heavens and their motions his interest was in meaning not in motion 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 seasons the eccentricities of the calendar and many interesting details the Egyptians for example and a calendar which correspondent with a circle 360 days in the year 360 degrees in the circle but they gradually came to discover that this was not quite right they

found their here getting badly out of water so they created five into calendar e days and they sent these days aside and a Park and two days these days they assigned the birthdays of the five principal gods interesting also to bear in mind that the Chinese and the old Egyptians and the very early Greeks did not have a septa Neri system of planets as later came into existence but as the Chinese call them the five Empress the five greats side Ariel Empress for the Egyptians and the Chinese were well aware of the fact that the

Sun and the moon Planets medieval man did not know this however and constantly combined the planets and the luminaries to form his Septon area but the older people like the Egyptians decided that these five days should be the birthdays of the planets and they set them aside we are working now with calendar reform project and the only way we can make it work today is by the introduction of into calendar days so that now the thought is and we shall no longer have a 365 day Calendar with leap years and other inconveniences with the days

of the week falling on different numerical days of the month and so on but then we shall go back to the old idea of having 360 days 360 degrees and set aside the five days not this time as birthdays of the gods but now as our five world holidays which would not be counted they would be the inter calendar days in this way we could simplify many contrivances and problems but would make life very Difficult for astrologers who would have the problem of trying to determine this equation in correcting charts down in Central America where

the lunar where the Sun Venus country was represented on the scales of the Great Dragon which the feathered serpent of their philosophy it is said that the great the great deity of the Kichi Maya complex Quetzalcoatl the feathered serpent that this deity gave them the calendar the tunnel Amato the book of the sacred days and by this Calendar which was all invented with the symbols and devices of the gods the world and time both were divided into epochs here and compartments and separate units and to each was assigned a deity these people went so far

as to assign and a divinity to each hour of the day and later anticipating the medieval astrologers planetary our system all through the ancient world the calendars and the gods went together one of the First uses of the calendar probably was to determine religious feasts and we still have this concept in the church calendar and Saints days and many other similar devices the calendar then served a great many purposes first and most however it served man to observe the seasons of his planting of his reaping it told him when to watch in Egypt for the

inundation of the Nile upon which his life dependent it taught him to prepare for the rigors Of winter in other climes 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 each of these changes had its good side and its bad side each brought something if he could know how to use it each took something away therefore he must provide at certain times timing came from

Putting away the seed 10% of the seed for the next harvest and gradually our agrarian ancestor found that the heavens in their motions regulated his crops which the farmer of our own generation also has learned to know experimentation on farms in Arizona and the Department of Agriculture has shown definitely that there is a relationship between the growth of plants and the various phases of the Moon things of that nature so 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 kept the records the seasonal motions over these thousands of years and observe the results in his own life way back in this time a discovery was made we do not know who made it when it was made but it certainly was long before the beginning of the Christian era and it was probably made in that Great philosophical complex of peoples that flourished in the near east of the valley of The Apprentice from three to four thousand years before the beginning of the Christian era it may have been simultaneously discovered

in India and China for the records are to be found everywhere and that was that there was another and larger motion that had a very important bearing upon life and this motion was the precession of the equinoxes this term precession of the Equinoxes - one completely unfamiliar with the subject is just a little difficult to explain briefly but it means that there is a slow but constant westward motion of the equinoctial points this motion is exhilarated by a combination of solar lunar activity and slightly by a reverse 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 equinoxes slightly sooner than the year before that actually is the coming of the Sun is a little over one minute earlier each year making an astronomical decree in about sixty years 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 twenty one hundred and sixty years and it drops back

around the Entire circle to any hypothetical point in one longer cycle of twenty-five thousand nine hundred and twenty years in this period of time the Sun seems only by a parent seems to drop back around the entire circle of the zodiac falling or falling backward or failing backward at the degree of the rate of one degree every 72 years this has been a very important time pattern and the complete precession of the equinoxes requiring twenty five thousand nine Hundred and twenty years is referred to as the great platonic Year Plato was aware of it three

hundred years or more before the beginning of the Christian era we know it today no one has ever been able to shake the phenomenon we have found new explanations for what caused it but the fact that it happens is still beyond controversy at this peculiar heavenly motion as the could have significance in a very wonderful way and Is perhaps the most important link that we have between astronomy and religion in ancient times the precession of the equinoxes therefore means that every twenty 160 years the Sun reaches the equinoctial point in a different sign of the

react each sign constituting 30 degrees if this occurs then we see the appearance of the procession in which the Sun appears to enter each sign in its last degree and by progression by Procession move backward through it to its first degree and then pass into the next side entering that at its last degree and moving back to the first so this motion appears to be in the exact opposition to the rest of the motions of planets and other elements composing the solar family this peculiar observation the study of the Platonic ear has led to a

great many wonderful symbols from philosophies to get they further picture of this we must now move to the story of The Sun I think we all know that it is reported that our very remote forebears were Sun worshipers we know that the pythagoreans rose at dawn each day to meet with him and song the rising of the splendour of the day we know also that the Hindus worship the Sun God under the name of Surya and honored it riding in its chariot across the sky we know that the Sun in China was the symbol of

Imperial heaven and always the Sun as the great symbol of light was held with Extraordinary veneration we also know that this experience of the Sun was poster related to the agrarian cult or 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 sun's power with the grain grow only by the power of the Sun would like be given so that man could go out and labor but if he was too long separated From the Sun man himself

lost much of his vitality and power and by degrees the Sun became may God symbol the all-seeing eye of the Ancients the aiya 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 and it is said at the Bible that God made his tabernacle in the Sun all this Sun worship was not merely a physical acceptance of the Sun as a god I've talked to a number of followers of very Primitive faiths known to be Sun worshipers and I've

asked them if they actually worship the Sun they said no we worship or accept the Sun as a symbol of a principle 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 and 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 something it's a daily rising was the symbol of renewed hope it was the promise of another day of opportunity of labor the fulfillment ancient man was terribly frightened by the eclipse of the Sun because he thought an evil spirit was seeking to destroy the Sun and much of our doctrine of the Dragon that ate the Sun and other stories and Fairytales come from Eclipse phenomena also eclipses phenomena seems to have the belief that there was an adversary or an evil power that wanted to destroy the Sun men did not fully understand the meaning

of the solar power but he made Reverend representations of it in gold and these were worn by the priests as the symbols of the fact that they served the Sun most decorations military or civil such as the Croix de Guerre or the Maison de nada Were originally taken from Sun medallions we reward our honor the individual 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 these persons were radiant radiant with spiritual powers or with great lengths within themselves

for the royalty for the Emperor the king or the the great person was reserved also the solar coronet a crown is nothing but a Sun surrounded by a burst of rays and as time went on apparently these rays got to be a little inconvenient sticking out in all directions so they were turned in to the top forming the duple coronet and the Crown's of the kings of Europe as we know them today like the greeting wish crown of Saint George then among Christian people in Auburn across were placed upon the top of the crown to

symbolize the power of Christendom and the crown became a Radiant throne or the symbol of the Christian mystery itself the Sun then has always played this vital part and we have had Sun God's 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 affected models but bother the beautiful the Sun God of the Nordic people's were slain by the mistletoe arrow all the world

whipped and darkness descended and the joy of the Gods was destroyed Apollo was the Sun God of the ancient Greek or Latin Helius and he is the one who drove his shafts or razor to the body of Titan or Python and caused the Great Serpent to be killed and thrown into a great ravine in the earth and later upon the sight of this ravine on over the corrupting body of Python was raised the shrine of Delphi the Sun God was always the Slayer of evil because he was the oume cover of darkness he was always

the thing that saved men from night and later in the place of the Sun God Himself came the Sun or light symbol the candle the torch the fire these also dispel darkness they were protect us and the little candle shining in darkness became the symbol of man's hope and of his faith and later in great diffusion is representations 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 in India there was much philosophy upon the nature of the Sun and we

could go into a great deal of abstract thinking relating to their knowledge of astronomy which was profound and upon which much of their theology is likewise based but in round terms because time is short and as Hippocrates that arc is long we can only make a summary of this situation but let Us accept what is generally demonstrable namely that upon research we find that ancient man venerated the Sun as the visible symbol of an invisible power in space as the light bearing witness to the life that there was a life behind the light now remember

in the Greek he lost later the Latin moon Apollo was not regarded as the source of the solar light he carried on his arm a great shield and in the center of this yields a boss or knob And I'm not an astronomical symbol for the Sun a diamond a circle is the shield of active the Helios the god and it was upon the surface of his shield that the Sun God reflected the light of space the ancient did not assume the Sun to be the complete source of its own life 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 into another condition of space which we call matter therefore the Sun was suspended quick 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 of it with three planets below and three above or other - and the luminary below thus the Sun was placed in the midst of things it became an indicating symbol of

spirit of self later of soul it was that which represented finally also men Suspended between heaven and earth it had numerous philosophical meanings but wherever it appeared it became an emblem of life and salvation of redemption the wonderful Egyptian pharaoh akhenaten created the sect or cult of optimism which was the worship of the solar globe the Rays ending in human hands who raised up or to lift all things because he had already discovered from the wisdom of his pea oh the drawing power of the Sun with the Santorini's water took it into the sky to

form clouds ancient men watched these things with his own quiet wisdom he knew them well the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu tells us in absolutely perfect modern term the entire phenomena of clouds rainfall and so on these things were known although we have forgotten that our ancestors were so wise now the stone deity having to a great measure become the symbol of life pass through three paralleling cycles of apparently Similar activities these cycles similar in their structure but different in their time equation by the great precessional motion the Sun seemed to retire around the zodiac in

twenty five thousand nine hundred and twenty years by another motion the Sun seemed to progress through the signs of the zodiac I'm making the complete circle every 12 months causing what we know as the year the third cycle of the Sun was it's apparent motion around the earth by Which you deceived the mystery of the 24-hour day these were the three cycles of the Sun the three complete circles which it made a very magnitude the least of these cycles in their unity was the day which consisted of dawn as one of its important points that

in the day the dorm with its vernal equinox noon with its summer solstice sunset was its our terminal equinox midnight was its winter solstice thus the Sun according to the Egyptians Rose every morning from the underworld travelled across the sky and then at night descended into the land of Amenti where it shone all through the night for the souls of the dead in the underworld now some of the old documents give us a peculiar little hint about this they tell us for example one of the old manuscripts that the 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 underworld was the other side of the earth we do not know with certainty but we do not that they had navigated as far as the Western Hemisphere so that it's quite possible that 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 daytime upon the world Of the living

and gleamed at night in the abode of the Dead the Sun also has this secondary motion in which it wend its great circle of the year it was born on the 25th of December at the winter solstice 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 rather than in 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 and we know that Solomon is composed of three words saw armed on the name of 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 the energy 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 and out of this Sun going through the 12 signs

of the zodiac each year came the story of the 12 labors of Hercules for Hercules as a solar deity as his name implies and also the wonderful labors of Samson for the word Samson Hebrew means the Sun man that we can't escape these implications there's nothing we can do about them we know that at the summer solstice he Carries away the gates of Gaza we know also that when he slays the Nubian lion he enters the sign of Leo and then when he has taken into the house of Delilah and his hair is cut short

he is entering into the sign of Virgo the virgin which is the beginning of his decline Todd's winter at which time of course his race or his hair these are cut off and he loses his strength but at the winter solstice he pulls down the double columns of the house of the Philistines And the old Sun dies making way for the new Sun which is to be born in the mystery of the winter solstice and as the oil 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 in that moment the Sun is born the new Sun we represent it today when the season is right we think of the years an infant being Menand by father time the old year so by the time goes his way in the new Year is born these symbols have come down to us from remote antiquity and always at the old and the new who labor together and forever ancient Cronus is coming out the golden hair the solar maiden it is a very interesting and profound symbolism and

a Punnett a great deal of religious material has been built now in this development of the religion of the solar deity or the solar being we know that it goes through the signs this Again becomes in that the Sailor whose adventures are nothing more or less than the 12 labors of Hercules very thinly veiled they are also the neighbors of all the heroes from the heroes of fairy tale to the great epic heroes we know that always Siegfried is the sunlight or the Sun hero who slays the dragon with the enchanted sword no time we

know also that Siegfried like all the solar heroes finally dies and in the great immolation scene of the Gotterdammerung he is Burdened upon the funeral pyre but out of the rising of the great waters of night the Rhine or the ocean there comes a new heaven and a new earth and the gods go away in the new gods in the new world come into being thus always this symbolism lives making for us a wonderful drama the drama we find it endearing the story of Rama does matter also in China in the Yellow Emperor Japan is

the only country in the world of importance that made the Sun God a Goddess it is the one ancient people that made the solar deity a feminine and the lunar deity masculine just why and how again is one of the great questions but in any event I'm in terrassa omikami the goddess of the Sun is represented in Japanese philosophy by the metal mirror the perfectly plain mirror that has hung over the gates of the Shinto temple it is the symbol again of the reflector of light and it relates to an incident long ago was told

in the Niang G and the Kojiki the great classic epics which describe 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 and 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 here cycle and the platonic year cycle the Sun is Related to the sign of the zodiac with which

it is at that time or moment look deeply or definitely concerned the processional motion has changed things but in our symbolism we have preserved the old way consequently before a brief lecture 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 but as we are dealing not with astronomy But with symbolism these equations are negligible not worth the problem of reconciling them although it can be done this point then we have to bear in

mind that we conceive today the vernal equinox taking place in the sign of Aries the side of the RAM we assume that the summer solstice takes place in cancer the sign of the crab that the autumnal equinox takes place in library the sign of the balance and that the winter Solstice takes park place in the sign of Capricorn the C code and The Seagull it's part of its body a goat and part of fish relates to the two ancient Babylonian cities of Babylon and in 'va one of which was built upon a mountain and the

other by the shore of the sea and the combining of the glyphs for the two cities gave us the present form of Capricornus or the seco so if 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 and certain emblems or representations by means of which they identified certain procedures in nature now the summer solstice which was the sign and symbol of the greatest fertility was associated with cancer the crab this cancer is also the scat of a sucker

of Egypt the scarab beetle the symbol of life and immortality the winter solstice or the symbol of death Was Capricorn and Capricorn was always the sign of the ancient the rocky or the pony having to do with this strange contour of the country where the sign is said to have developed so that all things in a long broad general term are said to be born in concerns of die in Capricorn that one represents the entrance into life cancers therefore the moon Capricorn the tomb Capricorn was symbolized finally by Father Time carrying as the hourglass and

the Reaping side and cancer was symbolized by the great mother Diana goddess and the Ephesians the wonderful nourisher of all things cancer was under the rulership of the moon the Lady of generation and Capricorn of Saturn the ancient master of regeneration the ancients had already recognized that all birth was a dying and that all dying was a being born again therefore in ancient times they buried their dead in the Neath chest posture or The embryo position indicating that to all things the who of 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 Malthus concept of immortality the son was not dead it only slept it appeared to die in the early seem to die but the people who devised these Concepts were obviously living in the northern hemisphere the trees seemed to die snow came the processes of living were desperate and desolate and cold but out of it all came also the symbol of the spring of Akasha the Evergreen the little pine tree

which later became the Christmas tree because it was associated with the green tree that remained greens through the winter and therefore was the symbol of an immortality which was not shared by other trees as far as men Could see in the colours of autumn which this was the worship of trees man discovered that the tree did not die though it seemed to be dead and out of all this seeming of dying but this fact of living came some of the deepest and noblest philosophies that reveal themselves to our primitive ancestors now having established this little

concept of the clock of year of the year we now progress with it further to the great clock and we come to the platonic Year the only sign of the zodiac for instance Aries the RAM which in our annular zodiac is a month the Sun remaining in this sign approximately 30 days now this sign becomes a great cycle of years twenty one hundred and sixty years the Sun is born and the sign of the RAM after that it passes out of the RAM and for twenty one hundred and sixty years it is born in the

sign of the fishes then it passes from that and for twenty one hundred and sixty years it is Born in the sign of the water-bearer or Aquarius and thus until it has gone completely by the processional around the great metonic cycle the men took this measurement and they gave to the blink of time which the Sun is born annually in one side they gave to this the term an age now we think of an age now is almost any length of time over 20 years but the ancient was more particular about he referred to these

cycles therefore as ages the age of the Fishes the age of the RAM or the Aryan age the age of the water-bearer or the Aquarian age and he had named the torreón age all these different periods became ages and he began to study and he also began to observe that there were divisions possible within the 30 degrees of a sign or in this case but 20 160 years in which the Sun by precession was born with innocent they divided these signs in half 15 degrees each they also divided them into thirds called decades Of ten

degrees each and they divided further into six divisions of five degrees each and finally into single degrees and in the Hindu system of astrology they broke the degrees down to minutes and two seconds forming out of all of these combinations a tremendously intricate clock and they determined to their own satisfaction the great cycles of world events are paralleled in history at the time when the Sun by procession goes through certain Divisions of a sign ruled by a certain sign itself a degree within the larger pattern of degrees out of the general concept of these things

have come the practice or habit of ancient nations worshiping their deities under the forms in which the son was born therefore in the time let's go back a little bit and we will say that in the time when the vernal equinox took place in Taurus the Bull The celestial ox that this symbol was closely associated with the religion of men because this was the body in which the Avatar took place or the embodiment of the great Sun being the light of the universe was released from this segment of the heavens and this light was qualified

for this great mathematical astronomical psychological clock in which all of these occurrences were taking place so back in the time when this was natural and was happening we Find the religions arising that had peculiar affinity to the worship of the bowl we know the Egyptians said that their god Osiris was driven from India to Egypt in the form of the bull APUs we know that the Egyptians mummified the sacred Bulls but they were peculiar symbols of divine authority and nearly always in there are the bull is represented with a solar disk between its horns Virgil

says that the bull opens the end of the year with its horns At the time when the equinoxes took place in the sign above the ball Taurus we also note that in the Old Testament the worship of the golden calf the decoration of the altar of the tabernacle with the horns of rams and of bulls we also know that in the mysteries of Mithras the ball the sacrifice to Mithras the sun-god he's shown slaying the bull one of these carvings is was left for the Roman legions in England and the city of Oxford is named

because of the Mithraic ox carving that was found there going way way back we know also that in the Nordic writes the first gods were licked out of the earth but the cow mother ha ha the Egyptian goddess with the head of a cow we know Nandi the bull is the steed upon which the god Shiva rides particularly in his rising for an India the tribe UT Brahma Vishnu Shiva represents the Sun at dawn the Sun at noon in the Sun at Sunset and Parvati the wife of Shiva represents the mountains of the West and

Shiva the Sun you see poverty the the consort the wife of the Indian god Shiva was the daughter of Emma Laius the Lord of the mountain and Shiva each day went to quarter and he crossed the sky riding on his handsome bull to visit the house of his beloved which was the sunset and when he was united in marriage with Parvati the goddess of the sunset mountains the play the child born of Them was called Durga or night so the union of the Sun and sunset resulted in night it's perfectly simple astronomical observation but it

became quite interesting especially when it is well dramatized in Indian artistry so the ceiling of the ball also gives us something else we were told that cherubim with a blazing sword were placed at the gates of Eden also the cherubs were stood upon thee or knelt upon the Ark of the Covenant between the Wings of the cherubs King the Shekinah glory the presence of the Lord the word cheer up from Carrick the knocks or a bowl and we know that in ancient Jewish symbolism they for the cherubim who were represented with foreheads a lion Apollo

a man and an eagle these are the four fixed signs of the zodiac Taurus Leo Scorpio and Aquarius and they are also placed on the corners of early Christian graves or zakappa guy and the old Nursery Rhyme Matthew Mark Luke and John blessed the couch that I lie on here are the four animals and of course you know that those poor animals the four fixed signs of the zodiac were also associated with the Evangelist and at the present time when working an article for horizon which is going to deal with the Lion of st. mark

there is one of your four surnames each of the Apostles had one of the four the four evangelists had these four creatures the four fixed signs of The zodiac assigned to them thus these symbols go on and we find them not only in ancient times but in more recent religious history now after a length of time 20 160 years to be exact the precession of the equinox is retired till it reached the last degree of the sign of Aries and we find the beginning of a new religion a new concept of religion and it is

interesting that it should have arisen about seventeen or eighteen hundred years before the Beginning of the Christian era for it was at that time according to the old tradition that the great mysteries of the Greeks and alicia's were brought into existence perhaps this date is traditional perhaps it is astronomical but the fact is that it served the symbolic purpose where at that time it is said that at the time of the vernal equinox always the time of greatest importance in ancient festival the higher nakum to the rights of aneesa's Came forth upon the porch of

the temple carrying in one hand the shepherd's crook and in his other in the hollow of his left arm a newborn lamb and he held up a shepherd's crook and elevated the lamb to the operation of the people an eighteen hundred years before the beginning of the Christian era he cried out in a law of very loud voice all hail O Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world so this lamb is very interesting this is The Paschal Lamb this is also the land associated with the rites of Jupiter ama the r

and headed god of the ancient egyptian Latin Greek peoples also this was the ram's horns upon the forehead of the crown of the north and south of the ancient Egyptians this was the scapegoat of Israel and here also we have the offering of the lamb as an offering to the Lord and the sacrifice of 1/2 of Isaac we have also many references to the Blood of the Lamb purification by the lamb the heart of the land the angus day and we find the rites and rituals of the lamb and the symbolism of it Jason and

the golden fleece for the golden fleece was the symbol of the crackle of the mysteries and this was the wall that was pulled over the eyes of the unworthy the symbol of secrecy the symbol of ritualism the search for the golden fleece was man's search for truth here is the lambskin apron of the ancient Masonic gills of operative masonry in the Middle Ages here are many many symbols dealing with the mystery of the Lamb and then there came a time when again the equinox continued in its processional motion and the Sun that the great moment

of the equinox moved from this last from the first degree of the sign of the lab to the last degree of the sign of the fishes and when it occurred when this happened it mended into the sign which Is ruled over by two small fishes and here we come also to one of the most important points in the entire system of astronomical religion and that is the sign of the fishes is the last sign of the zodiac the sign of the RAM is the first now someone will say why how are you going to divide

a circle into first and last by what strange figuring that men come to the conclusion that Aries was the first time the answer goes back to the Vedic researches of India where It is said that at the beginning of another great age but lasts much longer than the platonic year at the beginning of a very great cycle of four million three hundred and twenty thousand years that the original first point of a great cycle of time is established by the conjunction of the five planets of the two luminaries in one sign this can only occur

once in a vast cycle of mathematical calculation and the last time that the seven met together was in The sign of Aries by which another great cycle of calculation was established they will then separate as now and move at various orbits and times through all the different parts of the heavens forming innumerable combinations of themselves and they will ultimately meet again and in the next time that they need they will meet in the same element one sign removed in other words Aries is the element of fire but they were not meeting the Which is the

next fire sign but in Sagittarius so the next great cycle will begin with the conjunction of the five planets of the two luminaries in Sagittarius and that will measure another great cycle of world development within this cycle comes of great UGA's the four ages which were known as the gold silver iron and bronze ages of the ancients all these things were mathematical astronomical phenomena but for at a present moment we say that the Sign of Aries is the beginning and the sign of the fishes is the end of the zodiac thus these two come together

to form an interesting symbolism and the Sun God or in this case of Seiya John on Patmos describing the mysteries that were celebrated there the Phrygian rights causes the great being of the Phrygian mysteries to say I am the Alpha and the Omega the first and the last the beginning and the end now this also has very great interest because of two Symbols particularly associated with Christianity one is the fish the first symbol of the Christians was a fish and in Rome they recognized each other by drawing the shape of the fish upon the sand

if the name for fish was an acrostic on the name for Christ st. Augustine says that Christ was a fish broiled for the sins of man the very interesting symbolism so we burn Christ standing calling the Apostle and saying follow me and I will Make you fishers of men the miracle of the fishes the drought of the fishes the miracle of the coin and the fish's mouth many other miracles that relate to the story and Jesus in speaking going forth upon a ship on the Sea of Galilee the water symbol of the fish is very

interesting one of the ancient deities came forth out of the sea as Dagon or the fish man and the bishops mitre of the Christian Church is a fish's head hun end these things are important or Here we find a transition taking place and that this transition of sign the rising of a faith a faith which had as its principal symbols the two principles or two ideas the laugh of God and the Fisher of men the fisherman's range is the ring of the Pope the symbol of the papacy was the great fisherman named from pita who

was the recovered do not recent not very long ago in a book called the big fisherman he was it was the Fisher of Men this was the symbolism now if you look in your zodiac you will find that directly across from the sign of the fishes in its opposite each sign has its opposite that means 12 signs and the opposite sign to the fishes is the sign of Virgo the virgin and the Assumption of the Virgin the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin takes place when the Sun the symbol of the principle of life

is in the sign of the Virgin It's a very interesting parallel again now the Virgin in ancient times were series or Cori the mother who was always still a virgin because she brought forth immaculately the food the earth the grain the flowers the trees everything were boy was born from her but she was still the mother of mistress the eternal virgin she was Isis the mysterious being whose veil no man could lift and this symbol in ancient Astronomy carried in its arms either a sheath of grain as Corey did or sometimes the lows of of

the Passover or the unleavened bread so we have an interesting thing Jesus the son entering the symbol of the equinox and the sign of the fish preform the miracle of feeding the multitude with two fishes and the barley loaves and there were twelve baskets of scraps left again the circle of the zodiac later when the time came for the master to prepare for the Passover he sent a disciple into the city and he said to him you will see a man who carries a pitcher of water on his shoulder follow that man when he understand

or how it's going likewise and go to the upper room and say that your master wishes it to celebrate the Passover who is the man with the pitcher of water on his shoulder he is the Egyptian deity Canopus the water man he is also Aquarius the Water Bearer always represented in the ancients that is a System of the zodiac as a man carrying a pitcher of water on his shoulder he carried that pitcher of water long before the beginning of the Christian era so the Sun moving on goes into the new age of the age

that is to come to celebrate again it's passing over in the sign of the Water Bearer of course the sign of the ritual of the Passover is the passing over of the son at the time of equinox all these rituals have been very Carefully measured to meet the astronomical requirements like the epic and the golden year and all these things we have calculations to run through every one of these temples but one of the great questions that has arisen perhaps in our studies a little has been to determine if possible the time of the beginning

of the age of the fishes or what we call the PCN age it is of course nice right trite contrivance to say that it began with the beginning of the Christian era but in India and in many other countries a point is made with which some Western astronomers and astrologers will certainly be at variance namely that at the present time the corn ox is taking place approximately in the eighth degree of the sign of the fishes it hasn't left it hasn't moved into this other age yet if the Indian and the old Calvillo Babylonian calculation

is correct by a very curious thing a circumstance that Is almost too remarkable to be a coincidence the vernal equinox should have entered the sign of the fishes approximately the year 325 AD and that was the year of the establishment of the Christian Church for the Council of Nicaea it would have ended at the time when the heaviest influence was in the upon the quality of Leo which also correspondent exactly if from that point on you calculate each step of the precession of the equinoxes from that Time to the present day you will find some

very remarkable things if you break up the year as the ancient did now have you take this period the age of the fishes and what is this age now you go back to your tables of Sargon the king of Babylon where the first delineation is of the signs for planets are given there'd been no change in the readings of these symbols for nearly four thousand years and we find that the sign Of the fishes was represented in that time and still is in stressed Rolla G as a sign of water the sign of retribution the

sign of the damage the sign of obscuration the sign of karmic fulfillment the sign of the end of an old way the termination of patterns in the great Sun Sun cycle in China the deluge of which ends the world is always associated from the sign of the fishes and the reorganization or building of the new world naturally follows but in This constellation of diffusion if we observe it carefully there is a strangely psychological relationship between the keywords of the sign of the fishes and the strange fate of our world ever since this strange equinoctial occurrence

took place the obscuration the hiddenness and at the same time the strange spirituality which is associated with this side the mysticism the inner and deeper yearning prolonging the age of the ministry the age of the struggle The strength the pain the problem the winding up the paying off of all debts the completion of work left unfinished and in many ways that is typical of these situations we find ourselves in those we stay we have about twenty one hundred and sixty years to work with from the beginning of this cycle and if we do assume for

a moment then it could coincide with the Council of Nicaea which was the formal creation of the church and we know that from the time of This council on the integration of the church took place it became a religion prior to that it was a group of scattered communities without leadership or organization if we add one half of the period of that cycle if we divide this great period of 20 160 years right in half to divide the age into a positive and negative half where does the half line drop it drops approximately in the

year 1400 in fact it drops a little closer than that it Drops almost identically on the exact date set aside as the date of the Renaissance the great change in our world the beginning of the modern world as we know it the moving from the negative half of the sign to the positive half we break down the sign step by step and we find everywhere that these major cycles hit exactly with the prominent dates in the cultural and the moral and spiritual growth of our peoples and that scene was very possible That this was the

basis this study of the great platonic year was the basis of the fortunate a long-range predictions of men like Nostradamus who could not have worked it by the ordinary methods that we know but only by the great precessional motion now from all this we come to many other symbols and I think there is one that I and that is fascinating enough to give a little thought to during this period that we call the medieval world who lived a very Interest and kindly old gentleman was known as the venerable bead he is called venerable because he

was on his way to canonization but he never got any further than the first step by which he became venerable as one of these terms that precedes for canonization now the venerable bead was a very pious soul and he had a great solid witness in his heart something that he just could hardly bear and that was to contemplate The motion of a pagan heaven over a Christian earth here were all the constellations here was the Argonaut sailing off it was see just the great whale here are all these symbols Hercules and Pegasus and Ariadne and

all this all moving over a perfectly respectable Christian Commonwealth it just didn't seem right so the venerable B decided to Christianize the heavens and he did it and we have in the library - very beautiful astronomical charts Very large ones original prints from the Middle Ages - in full color showing the Christian universe he did it very simply he simply took the various constellations and transformed them the Trotter or a cup of the Greeks became the Holy Grail the 12 signs of the zodiac became the 12 disciples nothing could be simpler suggest the great fish

Leviathan became Jonas whale and the Argonaut kept on sailing as Knorr Ark all these symbols were perfectly fitted Together and these result was a great success but suddenly everybody stopped in their tracks somebody had let the cat out of the bag actually the symbolism proved the common origin of both groups actually these symbols that were put in the place of the old were the equivalents in a new faith of identity the same words so everybody has to talk and forgot about it until the French Revolution came along with still a different idea And the situation

has lapsed back waiting now for another revolution on the part of scientists who probably will want to change all of these because they can't stand these superstitions of any group so that now you don't speak about planets and that planet speak about signs you speak about so many degrees right ascension it's so much less personal and so much more scientific but it comes out to the same place also astrology is now giving way to a Kind of new science which is going to be called cosmography or something of that nature in which they are going

to do something that was never heard of before they're going to consider the possibility that the heavens influence the earth they're going to do it with a new name and the right man is going to discover it which is very very important in our time but this comes after the universe again show as much that tells us of the only ways and of the old Concepts and rites in the old days the initiation rituals of the temples always followed in some mysterious manner this astronomical pattern appears for example in the metamorphosis describes his own initiation

into the mysteries as far as he can then he says that to preserve his vows he must be silent but he does explain that at one degree are part of the right this candidate is enveloped in a blue cloak covered with stars and constellations to indicate that he is Being lifted up into the higher parts of the universe if bilious also tells us that at one of the degrees of the mysteries he beheld the sun is shining under his feet of midnight which is a very interesting point looking very much as though somebody knew something

about the astronomical theory because theoretically at midnight that's approximately where you might expect it to be also he describes the rituals and he Follows very closely the description given by potpourri in his cave of the nymphs which is an interpretation of one section of the Odyssey of Homer and he describes the cave of initiation in which you descend under the earth and come into a room the ceiling of which is made to represent the sky and there are two entrances one on each side and you descend a set of steps you walk across a common

ground that ascends out to another set of steps and the the point Of entrance into this underworld is called cancer and the point of exit is called capricorn and the adventures wanderings and terrible experiences of the candidate seeking initiation represents the motion of the Sun through the signs leo virgo libra Scorpio and Sagittarius now if you can imagine placing cancer at one gate and Capricorn at the other and going down now to the point between them it will find you a sort of tip jar celestial bulb so that Now the bottom point is represented by

the sign of Libra which is now between the two cancer leo virgo libra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn near out so the library is placed at the center in the bottom the sign of libraries the scales here the soul descending into the underworld comes into the judgment Hall of Osiris where is consciousness or his conscience is weighed upon the scales in the psycho station the ancient peoples only had a Zodiac of ten signs at one in a very remote period they had no sign of Libra and Virgo Scorpio or one sign and that is still indicated by

the general shape of the two accepted in one the end of the my figure turns up and then the other it turns back now at the time of the so-called fall of man it was believed that these signs were divided and library was inserted between them there is a very ancient doctrine about that increasing the number of the signs To 12 but the sign of the scales placed in the judgment Hall of the twin truths in the temple of Amun Tet is at the bottom of this V like pattern of the descent of man into

judgment or into generation this judgment or testing in the mysteries follows very closely the entire cycle of ancient times and the ancient initiation ritual the other is also a very interesting story relating to the human embryo or if the embryo is twisted inward to form its equivalent to A circle the embryo which has at the beginning as you realize a caudal appendage resembling a tail looking very much like a highly-developed Polliwog this structure if twisted into a circular fall equals three quarters of a circle in other words it takes nine twelfths of a circle to

do this but there is there are three signs or three parts of the circle that are not touched the head and tail of the figure do not meet therefore this occurs to us in our Old Testament symbolism under the story of the broken wheel and this broken wheel or the 9/12 wheel is again an astronomical symbol that has played a considerable part in human thinking because the 9/12 represent the nine months of generation or the period in which the child is being formed the three missing signs are the broken spokes of the wheel of the

missing rim of the wheel at that point fulfills the rights of the alias in Ian's mysteries well Ilyas in Ian's mysteries were given in two sections the ninth lesser the three greater rights the nine lesser rights being a symbolical rights of generation the three greater rights of regeneration therefore by nine months and three degrees a man is made perfect this is a very curious symbolism but it has a great deal of interest if we know how to study it in other words the individual To pass through the second birth must go through the womb of

the mysteries to complete the circle which nine parts only are provided in generation the Chinese fully aware of that declare a child to be one year old after it has reached the third month it celebrates its first birthday three months after it is born this is part of eight of a very curious doctrine but it points to the three winter or four months leading toward final death it is to do with the Blinding of Samson the cutting off of the Rays of the Sun God also has to do as Leonardo da Vinci points out in

his astronomical calculation of the Last Supper for the painting is a very strangely astute piece of work and each of the Apostle the positions and groupings you will find the apostles and group the triplicities exactly like the signs and the sign of Scorpio is assigned to Judas the wage of the sign of Scorpio will be Assigned to Judas in the Orient there is something about the Scorpion that is very peculiar first of all it stings with its tail therefore it is the back biter the second thing that is about it that is strange is that

the mark which it leaves is always in the form of a man new pair of human lips the kiss of death the kiss of betrayal so that was the sign that was used to signify the destroy - who is also responsible for the destruction of the good god Osiris The sign of the scorpion however in the ancient rituals has three meanings three creatures have been assigned to it down through the ages and depending upon the one that is selected you have some concept of the true meaning of the Scorpion is the one is one sign

that is associated with it the second sign that is associated with it is the serpent the third sign that is associated with it is the Phoenix so the Scorpion the serpent and the Phoenix were all given to that One sign of the zodiac and the Rosicrucian mystery is a hold European mysticism always bestowed their higher rights at the time of the Sun being in a certain degree of Scorpio therefore Scorpio was the symbol of death and rebirth of evil and redemption most of all it was man transcending his own inferior nature it was the symbol

of initiation into the secret rites which symbolized death it was the death of the old and birth into the new it is death Always leading deliberation and we find all through the ancient symbolism these parallels Kathy preserved even in you your alchemical mysteries and in the combinations and structures of the alchemical stone of the wise man there is what is called the horoscope of the stone in other words there is a symbol of the universe represented as a particular pattern of planets and in this pattern of planets the formula for the stone of the Philosopher's

and the elixir of life and the transmutation of metal is said to have been concealed and the mysterious eight sided vault of Christian Rosen Crites was formed into the symbol of a solar system in the midst of which the body of the ancient a depth is said to have been placed all of these peculiar symbols trail down through the ages reminding us of the numerous forms of indebtedness that we have to the planetary symbols the Dionysian Artemis's the great builders of the greek cathedrals and churches and also the builders of the theaters of dionysos later

they became the great lombard builders of europe the builders of the medieval world and the Renaissance the great Co machine masters nearly every one of the structures that they built was based mathematically upon a constellation Caesar II know in his edition of a true meais the great master of architecture shows how the modes of Architecture were based upon the great constellations and that the temples of the gods were built according to the stars of the constellations in which these gods were said to be enthroned a very elaborate and involved system of architecture rose therefore from

this same consideration also we remembered a pharaoh the astronomer astrologer to Carmel issue pointing out how the handwriting on the wall of heaven described in the Old Testament is actually study of star groups in which the star constellations form the consonants of the Hebrew alphabet and the planets moving through them form the vowels and the constant motion of the vowels and the consonants produce the writing upon the wall of sky which the ancient prophets could read there are many references to these things and gradually there emerges to our consideration any concept of sidereal motion of

human growth and of The linking of these two together in a highly complicated scientific concept the details of this were evolves over so long a period of time and with such as stupas that it is almost impossible for us to exhaust the research work that has come down to us unfortunately of course it has been largely mutilated but as enough remains to give us a tremendous amount of guidance if we actually want to have this guidance if you have other things that come out of this Constellation 'el study the constellation the oldest circular zodiac known

that which was found at Dendera in Egypt that is now in the bibliothèque nationale in Paris is a magnificent sandstone slab containing a study of the world of the heavens as they were known at that time many symbols and figures are included in this zodiac which we no longer recognize or have any means of fully understanding but we do have certain points that are very interesting The egyptians referred to what we call the Great Bear as the plough it was the symbol of the Turner of the furrows and of course the ox of heaven was

the one that drew the plough this plow moved around the great polar star and we have their knowledge now which corresponds rather well with that of China and India relating to the axis of this great system according to the Egyptians and several other ancient peoples the earth had more than two Motions Flammarion says eleven and I think the ancients were very near to that they recognized particularly a peculiar oscillation of the pole by means of which it seemed to point hypothetically at different times to various stars or near to various stars forming the little bear

therefore the ancients turned this constellation in India the regime or the great sages with various times incarnated to become rulers of the earth And of these great sages one that we know perhaps the best is Vyasa the great sage of the mahabharata this comes to us also in Egypt the Egyptians following many ancient peoples and following practices still held under certain circumstances today we're concerned with the mystery of the northern point of atoms they were never able to observe that the Sun moved northward in the sense of ever occupying the northern segment of the sky

it came nearer or Further but never did it do in the North when it did in the south as far as their visual awareness was concerned therefore the northern hemisphere in the Egyptian ritual also was represented as the direction of darkness in the ancient temple there was a gate of the east west and south but no gate at the north now as a result of that it has been held that people believed that from what the Greeks call the - Orion area or region north of the winds hyper Boreas but from this region came only

frost and snow Giants and monsters the Egyptians however did not do it that way they had a very interesting astronomical outlook our measurements have been taken to study the glyph used in Egypt as the symbol of the great gods particularly the abode of the great gods this is always what appears to be an inverted Bowl or a half-circle turned upon a straight line in other words the bull bulls or bulges upward forming a half Circle this is a boss mountain or raised place and through that streaks align like a vertical not quite vertical staff it

is off the vertical and that the upper end of that staff is a little flag symbol just like a little banner at quadrangle apparently of cloth or something the sign of a deity was always the staff with the flag probably because in those days great and honored persons were accompanied by bearers of devices heraldic symbols much like the might Evidence of the Middle Ages but the thing that has always amazed students of Egyptology is the reason why in the abode of the great gods this flag staff cuts at an angle into this mountain or this

moon so somebody for no good reason perhaps it was lepsius or one of the other early Egyptologists began to study the inclination of this flag and he examined the number of instances of it in great monuments of course you can't be certain In a hastily written documents by comparatively poor scribes but in the great stone carvings and the great the sarcophagi texts and so on these studied these things and he found this was always the same and he made it a little further and he found that it coincides exactly with our inclination of the Earth's

axis what is it then this mountain that this flag represents the North Pole which was the abode of the gods the great gods That dwelled in silence and in Egypt there was no symbol no emblem and no figure for the great gods all the known gods the gods our provinces the Creator gods the cosmic rock doors and the various Harmonia and artifice ins the creating gods that became later the elohim of the opening chapters of genesis these deities are variously represented sometimes with knives representing the gougers are the ones that carved matter out of space

and form Worlds sometimes as tar the putter of Memphis forming the globe on the potter's wheel always the concept of the potter's wheel and it's turning though ever they seem to be aware of that motion in their ancient rituals a little later further research indicated that from the great figures of Osiris the plume double crown of the north-south Empire was always worn at the same inclination so the crown of Egypt corresponded in the information in Relationship to the vertical correspondent with that of the flag inclination on the mound and also with the polar inclination so

here was an adornment a symbol tying to another principal the principal of the pole and the polar Mountain also we know the Great Pyramid by its orientation was an astronomical marker of some nature or kind the complex of pyramids have been regarded as improbable probably the elements of a vast sundial system Similar in some ways to the complex of storms in England at Stonehenge which was used by the Druids to determine the exact moment of the winter solstice here the great rituals were performed particularly by capturing the ray of the new born son in a

crystalens in order to start the sacred fires by what we call burning glasses all these symbols are intriguing and the great gods of the north and the silence of these God's Dwelling forever above the earth correspond of course to the Indian concept of Mount Meru which is to the north and in the Buddhist doctrines Chang Shambala the city of the Gods means charm north it means that it is the city of the north and it is said that it is so glorious and so magnificent that lights are forever radiating from it the aurora borealis this

house of the gods in the Great North corresponds to the entire great Concept of primitive iron myth and ritual the ritual brought down from India along the migrations of the ions down the eyelas the indo-gangetic plain long long ago nor can we say that other peoples were not aware of these things in your central american complex of cultures your pyramid builders and so on you have great consideration given to the north and to the mystery that is hidden there and the recognition that it has to do with the secret source of the Universe the great

darkness from which light came because in all these systems the great Sun globe is always the child of heaven the symbol of the the first and only begotten of the veil mother who is space whose mystery no man can solve the Sun gods then go into their infinite diversity of activities but always the Sun God is a child of fatality and we have another interesting group of legends arising which are called as the myth of the dangerous child This is the child who's coming his predestined that looked forward to by the wise whose birth darkness

attempts to prevent by despotism who finally rises triumphant over his enemies becomes the ruler of his kingdom is betrayed and dies and is buried at the winter solstice buried as the ancient legend tells us over the brow of the hill and he remains untold by three degrees or three days or three signs he is raised again at Easter and this great Cycle goes on and on and on the cycle of the religious mystery of the Sun divinity many times we find the sword face also in the month of peruvians and among the peoples of the

great South American complex that finally came under the control of the Inca chieftains veera kanna the god of the air is was worshiped by kissing the sunbeam all you did was face it and kiss the light and that was your adoration for God the symbol the supreme symbol in That area was the great golden disc of the Sun and the story is told that it was a disc of solid gold and jewels eleven feet in diameter and when the conquistadores under Pizarro divided up the spoils one of them got this Sun disc as his spoil

by a throw of dice and a few moments later lost it to another soldier by another throw of dice that was the way things were done in those days but these people undoubtedly recognized the same basic concept their Rites and ceremonies and what we learn of their religion shows that they also based all of their calculations upon the sovereignty of the solar power and it's great journey this is the dangerous journey of the Sun hazardous journey which is beset by all manner of problem like the journey of Siegfried dialed the river the great Ryan journey

that leads him finally to the house of the Kiba gym where he is betrayed and killed by Hagen the symbol Of winter the dark one these different emblems and they find them everywhere call I also show in the admire complex at the only Casa de las manos at Chichen Itza Yucatan the so called house of the nuns there is over the doorway of the ecclesia or a small chapel the great one its Amna the lord of the mysteries he of the azure pools of the bird of paradise and he is seated in the solar egg

surrounded by rays of light going in all directions he is the great one whose Tabernacle is in the Sun beneath him was spread out the ancient hieroglyphs for water around him clouds and lightning but he is the great solar one now later from him by an immaculate conception by the Virgin's Yoshi Quetzal was born Quetzalcoatl the feathered serpent the symbol of the sun's path and also of the same mysterious of modes of the lunar Park which caused what we call today the dragon's head and tail in astrological research the motion of the lunar orbit And

this great deity Quetzalcoatl was the good god the Sun God he wore the bullet of the capsule plumes which was the symbol of the solar might raise the feathers going out in all directions but the capsule is the bird that is born of the Sun then whether time comes were die to die it flies back to the Sun in the Quetzal like the Thunderbird of the American Indian is just another Phoenix and this again is the symbol of priesthoods the symbol of the wise ones Or the Sun gods the son born ones who are the

keepers of the ancient mysteries and this Quetzalcoatl served his people well brought them out of darkness and ignorance but finally there came from the south the evil one the red mirrored God Tezcatlipoca that God of Mars and this evil deity destroyed the power of the Sun God and the Sun God departed finally upon a raft of serpents from the shores of Maricruz promising to return But this whole cycle was a Sun Venus cycle and the astronomy of these people proves it the Pyramid of the Sun at chichen itza is an absolutely correct astronomical representation of

the year there are just as many steps on that pyramid as there are days in the year and so on all of these buildings astronomically built and oriented and at the apex of the year in the high point was the temple to the deity the deity itself represented by the feathered Serpent or the dragon the feathered serpent again the symbol of the year is in the Mexican calendar where all the divisions on the calendar stone the months of the year are placed two scales upon the body of a serpent thus every part of this mythology

and it is this same serpent which is python which is slain for the Sun God every year when he overcomes the year it becomes master of life or the keeper of the year and every year also at the end the hare destroys Him and the new Sun God must be born so out of all of these concepts perhaps you will have some general idea of the part that astronomy is played in religious symbols now we do not say that astronomy has given the meaning but we do say that it has constituted the convenient symbolism and

as rationalized and made authentic the outer structure of the mystical philosophy that is based upon the inner meaning of these symbols and as we go through the series we will Try to explore that also to fight the ideas that are behind the use of these symbolic poems but I'm afraid for that you're gonna have to wait the lecture