Our
understanding of the true age of the ancient Vedic civilization has undergone a
well-documented revolution. Feuerstein, Frawley, and Kak have shown
conclusively (In Search of the Cradle of
Civilization) that the long-accepted age of the Vedic culture—erroneously
dated by scholars parading a series of assumptions and unscientific arguments
to roughly 1500 BC—is much too recent. Evidence comes from geological,
archaeological, and literary sources as well as the astronomical references
within Vedic literature. The corrected dating to eras far prior to 1500 BC was
made possible by recognizing that precessional eras are encoded in Vedic mythology,
and were recorded by ancient Vedic
astronomers. As a result, the Indus Valley civilization appears to be a
possible cradle of civilization, dated conservatively to 7000 BC. Western India may thus be a true
source of the civilizing impulse that fed Anatolia in Turkey, with its complex
Goddess-worshipping city-states of Çatal Hüyük and Hacilar. However, there are
layers upon layers of even older astronomical references, and legends persist
that the true “cradle” might be found further to the north, in Tibet or nearby
Central Asia.
The work of these three writers shows that biases and
assumptions within scholarly discourse can prevent an accurate modeling of
history and an underestimation of the accomplishments of ancient cultures. The
analogous situation in modern Egyptology and Mesoamerican studies also requires
that well-documented new theories — often exhaustively argued,
interdisciplinary, and oriented toward a progressive synthesis of new data —
should be appraised fairly and without bias. Next to the Australian aborigines,
the Vedic civilization is perhaps the oldest continuous living tradition in the
world. Its extremely ancient doctrines and insights into human spirituality are
unsurpassed. We might expect that its cosmology and science of time has been as misunderstood as its true antiquity.
In looking closely at Vedic doctrines of time, spiritual growth, calendars, and
astronomy, we will see that a central core idea is that of our periodic
alignment to the Galactic Center. And, according to these ancient Vedic
beliefs, the galactic alignment we are
currently experiencing heralds our shift from a millennia-long descent of
deepening spiritual darkness to a new era of light and ascending consciousness.
One
of the oldest writings in Vedic literature comes from a pseudo-historical
god-man called Manu. René Guénon pointed out that Manu belongs to a family of
related archetypal figures, which include Melchezidek, Metatron, St Michael,
Gabriel, and Enoch. As an angelic inspiration for the rebirth of humanity at
the dawn of a new era, or manvantara, Manu is the primal law-giver, and his laws
were recorded in the extremely ancient Vedic text called the Laws of Manu. Much
of its contents describe moral and ethical codes of right behavior, but there
is a section that deals with the ancient Vedic doctrine of World Ages — the yugas. Manu indicates that a period of
24,000 years — clearly a reference to precession — consists of a series of four
yugas or ages, each shorter and spiritually darker than the last. In one story this process of increasing
limitation is envisioned as a cosmic cow standing with each leg in one quarter
of the world; with each age that passes a leg is lost, resulting in the absurd
and unstable world we live in today—a cow balancing on one leg.
According
to the information in the Laws of Manu, the morning and twilight periods
between the dawn of each new era equals one-tenth of its associated yuga, as shown
in the following table:
400 + 4000 + 400 = 4800 years. Satya Yuga (Golden Age)
300 + 3000 + 300 = 3600 years. Treta Yuga (Silver Age)
200 + 2000 + 200 = 2400 years. Dwapara Yuga (Bronze Age)
100 + 1000 + 100 = 1200 years. Kali Yuga (Iron Age)
12,000 years
In Vedic mythology, a fabled
dawn time existed in the distant past, when human beings had direct contact
with the divine intelligence emanating from Brahma—the seat of creative power
and intelligence in the cosmos. This archaic Golden Age (the Satya Yuga) lasted
some 4800 years. After the Golden Age ended, humanity entered a denser era,
that of the Silver Age, lasting only 3600 years. In this age, humanity’s
connection with the source was dimmed, and sacrifices and spiritual practices
became necessary to preserve it. The
Bronze Age followed, and humanity forgot its divine nature. Empty dogmas arose,
along with indulgence in materialism. Next we entered the Kali Yuga—in which we
remain today—where the human spirit suffers under gross materialism, ignorance,
warfare, stupidity, arrogance, and everything contrary to our divine spiritual
potential.
As the teachings tell, Kali,
the creator-destroyer Goddess, will appear at the end of Kali Yuga to sweep
away the wasted detritus of a spirit-dead humanity, making way for a new cycle
of light and peace. Notice that the Manu text takes us from a pinnacle of light
to the ultimate end-point of the process—the darkness of Kali Yuga. And notice
that the four ages, when the overlap period is added, amounts to only half of
the 24,000-year period of the Vedic Yuga cycle. This points to an obscure
aspect of the doctrine that a Hindu Master, Sri Yukteswar, sought to clarify.
Img12-1. Sri Yukteswar, The Holy Science
Sri
Yukteswar was a Hindu saint active in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He was
the master of the famous Yogananda, founder of The Self Realization Fellowship,
whose book Autobiography of a Yogi awoke
many people to the magic and mystery of Indian spirituality. Yukteswar was
interested in contemporary scientific advances and in showing parallels between
Hindu religion and Christianity. His book The Holy Science is primarily
about these correspondences. It was written in the mid-1890s at the behest of
his teacher, Mahavatar Babaji. However, the Introduction contains an intriguing
clarification of the World Age system of the Yugas.
Although
the exact timing of the Kali Yuga’s beginning is subject to debate, no one
argues that we are deep into it.
Unfortunately, the cycles and year-counts of Hindu chronology are subject to
gross exaggerations and manipulation—the sorry effect of clueless Hindu
scholars trying to reconstruct the ancient doctrines. And these errors have
been inserted into doctrines as long ago as the fourth century AD, thereafter
being passed down to unsuspecting students as a kind of conventional wisdom.
However, it strikes me that Sri Yukteswar got closest to the true intention of the
Yuga doctrine. Yukteswar based his “updated Yuga model” on the Laws of Manu as
well as other traditions in Vedic and Hindu astronomy and mythology. The
tradition he shares is as follows:
. . . the
sun, with its planets and their moons, takes some star for its dual and
revolves around it in about 24,000 years of our earth—a celestial phenomenon
[precession]. . . . The sun also has another motion by which it
revolves around a grand center called Vishnunabhi, which is the seat of
creative power, Brahma, the universal magnetism. Brahma regulates dharma, the
mental virtue of the internal world.[1]
In
reading an account like this, it is immediately apparent that things could be
worded more clearly. This is a typical problem in translated works, and,
unfortunately, as a reader it is always tempting to mentally ignore the unclear
section and keep reading. But there is a huge grain of wisdom inside of
Yukteswar’s description, and it is worth looking at very closely. Let us see if we can read between the lines
and get a sense for what Yukteswar is really referring to.
We have an important identification of the “grand
center” as Vishnunabhi or Brahma, the seat of creative power. Vishnunabhi is
the navel of the Hindu god Vishnu, the emanation point of the cosmos, and
modern Vedic scholar David Frawley identifies Vishnunabhi with the Galactic
Center. In his 1990 book Astrology of the Seers he writes, “The galactic
center is called ‘Brahma,’ the creative force, or ‘Vishnunabhi,’ the navel of
Vishnu. From the galactic sun emanates the light which determines the life and
intelligence on Earth . . ..”[2] Without mincing words, it is clear that the
ancient Vedic skywatchers were aware of the Galactic Center, and, indeed,
considered it to be the center and source of creative power in the universe.
Again, as I’ve argued for the ancient Mayan skywatchers, recognizing the
Galactic Center as an important place along the Milky Way is completely within
the possibility of naked eye observation (although that may not have been the
only method used).
Yukteswar suggests that the sun
“takes a star for its dual” and revolves around it in one precessional cycle.
Clearly, the reference is not to an actual orbital period, such as the moon
orbiting around the earth, but is rather to the precessional shifting of
the sun around the zodiac. If the sun’s dual is a fixed star against which the
sun’s precessional motion is measured, then we can understand this more
clearly. This kind of conceptual or linguistic muddiness can delay deeper
understanding right away. Now, in order to measure the precessional motion of
the sun, the ancient astronomers would
need to identify a specific “sun,” or solar position, in the seasonal
cycle—for example, the vernal equinox sun or the summer solstice sun. This specification
will anchor the sun to a seasonal quarter so that the “orbital” motion referred
to by Yukteswar (which is really precessional shifting) can be measured against
a fixed sidereal location, the sun’s “dual.” Aldebaran might be a candidate,
but the real fixed “dual” against which the cycle of precession is tracked in
this Vedic description may actually be Vishnunabhi—the Galactic Center.
In
the quote given above Yukteswar also mentions “another motion” of the sun
around the Galactic Center, which is probably its actual orbital period—a huge
cycle of some 225,000,000 years. Although it is striking that he mentions this
(writing back in the 1890s), this larger cycle applies to the meaning of
multiple precession cycles and is not relevant to the immediate question under
consideration. Back on track, Yukteswar continues:
When the sun in its revolution around its dual comes
to the place nearest to this grand center, the seat of Brahma (an event which
takes place when the Autumnal Equinox comes to the first point of Aries),
dharma, the mental virtue, becomes so much developed that man can easily
comprehend all, even the mysteries of the spirit. . ..[3]
The
precessional movement of “the sun” closer to “the grand center” causes the full
expression of a Golden Age of Light, a time indicated in Vedic and Hindu
traditions as occurring a dozen or so millennia ago. As such, it must be the
precessional motion of the June solstice sun around the grand center that is
indicated, because the June solstice sun was “closest to” the Galactic Center
roughly 12,000 to 13,000 years ago. I should emphasize that this “closeness” is
in terms of alignment (as viewed from earth), not distance.
Unfortunately, Yukteswar attempts a precise dating based upon a 12,000-year period
for one-half of a precession cycle. As a result, he backdates to the time of
the fabled Golden Age (which he later
gives as 11,501 BC) by using an autumn
equinox point in Aries that is in error.
Yukteswar’s diagram preserves the important insight of a descending
phase and an ascending phase of the precessional cycle, but the timing of the
shift from descending Kali Yuga to ascending Kali Yuga must be adjusted:
Img12-2. Yukteswar’s Yuga model, adjusted[4].
The
outer wheel shows the descent of time clockwise from the Age of Leo a the top,
when the June solstice sun was closest to the “grand center.” The shaded wheel
indicates the equinoctial age of precession according to the unadjusted Western
zodiac. The inner wheel shows the actual sidereal position of the solstice
axis. Why the need for an adjustment? Sri Yukteswar wanted the end of
descending Kali Yuga to correspond to his historical understanding, based on a
nineteenth-century education, of the European Dark Ages and his belief in the
elevation of human consciousness beginning around 500 AD. He cites scientific
advances and Europe’s slow emergence from the Dark Ages to support this, but in
my opinion technology has thrust us deeper into material dependency and spiritual
darkness. In addition, his scenario is Eurocentric and ignores Islamic and
Chinese civilization. I realize it may seem presumptuous to correct a saint on
this point, but his intention was to elucidate astronomical details of ancient
doctrines that, by his time, had eroded into semantic vagaries. And he was writing before modern science had
rediscovered the Galactic Center. Perhaps it seems that I’ve injected my own
biased reading into Yukteswar’s work. But my conclusions—and corrections—are
fairly straightforward. The reader must judge with discernment.
Let’s
look at it this way: Yukteswar writes that the Golden Age ended and we began
our descent into spiritual darkness in 11,501 BC. This was roughly 13,500 years
ago. Now, Yukteswar also said that this Golden Age occurred when “the sun” was
close to Vishnunabhi (the Galactic Center). And the context of his description
is solar movements within the cycle of
precession. Now, the question we must ask is this: what kind of
precessional alignment between the sun and the Galactic Center happened roughly
13,500 years ago, the reverse of which
happens one-half of a precession cycle later? The answer is quite apparent
— the Golden Age shift is timed with the alignment of the June solstice sun and
the Galactic Center. The reverse event is the alignment of the December
solstice sun with the Galactic Center, and we can get a true bearing on the
timing of this event, as modern astronomy has calculated it. We must shift
these timing parameters to accord with solstice-galaxy alignments, and
therefore we have two dates: era-2000 AD and era 10,800 BC. There are actually
several factors and features involved in the timing issue which enrich our
understanding of what these Galactic Alignment might mean to us. I’ll address
the issues and parameters of the current galactic alignment in Part IV.
An important implication in this material is that
the Golden Age mentioned in Yukteswar’s quote given above represented the
culmination of the previous ascent phase and the shift to the descending phase,
the archaic “fall of man” scenario. The flipside—the shift to
ascending—therefore occurs at the astronomically opposed event (in era-2000
AD):
After 12,000 years, when the sun goes to the place
in its orbit which is farthest from
Brahma, the grand center . . . [then] dharma, the mental virtue,
comes to such a reduced state that man cannot grasp anything beyond the gross
material creation.[5]
This
is the Vedic doctrine, clearly based in astronomy, that underlies René Guénon’s
belief that modern people are unconscious degenerates with little resemblance
to the full human potential that our ancient ancestors manifested. Furthermore,
as we will see shortly, it underlies and defines the end of Kali Yuga that
Guénon (without being specific) foresaw occurring very soon.
Vedic scholar and teacher David Frawley assessed
Yukteswar’s model and adds some clarity: “When the Sun is on the side of its
orbit wherein its dark companion comes between it and the galactic center, the
reception of that cosmic light appears to be greatly reduced. At such times
there is a dark or materialistic age on Earth.”[6] David Frawley
(Vamadeva Shastri) is qualified on many levels to make this statement. As a
respected Vedacharya (Vedic teacher), he is one of the few Westerners
recognized in India as an authentic teacher of the ancient Vedic wisdom. His
work includes translations and interpretations of the ancient scripture, and
books on ayurveda, Vedic astrology, and studies on mantra and yoga. His work
can be found on the internet at http://www.vedanet.com] I would add that the
June solstice sun’s “dark companion” could be the December solstice sun, the
day of greatest darkness in the solar year. In this scenario, the June solstice
sun continually revolves around (in opposition to) the December solstice sun.
Whether or not there is an actual occulting of the June solstice sun in terms
of energetic radiation may simply be besides the point; the metaphor points us
to the astronomy involved in this doctrine and the Vedic belief system woven
around it.
The critical information
encoded in Yukteswar’s book—written decades before the Galactic Center was
“officially” discovered in the 1920s—is that the ancient Vedic Yuga doctrine
was calibrated with the periodic alignments of the solstice sun and the
Galactic Center. If we do sense that the Vedic wisdom speaks a truth to us
(nothing less than a lost science of the galactic influences on human
evolution) the words of David Frawley may help us understand the importance of
our impending “harmonization” with the Galactic Center:
Harmonization With the
Galactic Center
An important cosmic event is occurring now. The winter solstice is now at a
point in conjunction with the galactic center . . . This should
cause a slow harmonization of humanity with the Divine will as transmitted from
the galactic center . . . By the accounts of thinkers like
Plato, the flood that destroyed Atlantis (and probably ended the Ice Age)
occurred about 9300 B.C. (9000 years before Plato). This appears to have been
when the summer solstice was in conjunction with the galactic center—a point
completely opposite to the one today.[7]
In
fact, Frawley believes that all of Vedic astrology “orients the zodiac to the
galactic center” as the source of creative intelligence, mediated to human
beings by the fixed stars of Sagittarius and the guru planet Jupiter, the
Divine teacher.[8] Frawley gives
an astronomically accurate sidereal location for the Galactic Center: 6° 40’
Sagittarius. This corresponds to 28° Sagittarius in the unadjusted tropical
system, wherein the December solstice is nearby at 0° Capricorn (by
definition). Again, the precise parameters of the galactic alignment will be
explored later.
The lunar mansions of Vedic astrology indicate the
Galactic Center region as a “root” place. The naksastra or lunar mansion corresponding to the 13°-wide lunar
“sign” that embraces the Galactic Center is called mula, which means “root.” The mansion that occurs before “root” is
called “the eldest,” suggesting that this spot in the sky is the end-beginning
nexus in an ancient concept of the zodiac, which would be understandable given
the precessional importance of the Galactic Center as a “root” or beginning point for time. This material augments
the Vedic and Islamic information about the lunar south node being exalted at
3° Sagittarius, explored earlier.
There are compelling events in
Hindu-Vedic mythology that are associated with the Galactic Center, Sagittarius,
the theft of Soma, and the solstices. These events comprise a Vedic metaphysics
of spiritual transcendence. However, many eras of overlapping symbology makes
it difficult to sort out the original meaning with certainty. The head of the
horse, the Ashwin twins, and the Churning of the Milky Ocean myth are all
involved. The head of the horse and the head of the simshumara crocodile
(or makara) could very well be the bulging area of the nuclear bulge
with the dark-rift mouth. The story of the Ashwin twins is symbolically
identical to the Hero Twins in the Popol Vuh: they facilitate the resurrection
of their father, the winter solstice sun. Some of these topics will be explored
further in Chapters 14 and 15.
There
do appear to be astronomical references in the Vedas to precessional eras in
which the solstice point was in a constellation that would indicate a dating of
7000 BC. The records are found in stories in which the lunar mansion occupied
by the full moon during the solstice is mentioned, thus providing a 13°-wide
lunar mansion position for the solstice point. This all confirms that Vedic
astronomy and cosmology is much older than scholars have been willing to allow.
My
work to reconstruct Maya cosmology led me to understand that it is galactic in
nature. Specifically, I was amazed to discover overwhelming evidence that the
Maya intended their 2012 end-date to mark the alignment of the December
solstice sun with the Milky Way and the Galactic Center. After showing how the
Maya encoded this knowledge into their Creation myth, king accession rites, and
the sacred ballgame, I became curious if this knowledge was present as a core
belief in other traditions. During my workshop on “Maya Galactic Cosmology” at
The Esalen Institute in August, 1999, one of my students gave me the book The Gnostic Circle by Patrizia
Norelli-Bachelet. I had encountered some of Norelli-Bachelet’s writings on the
internet earlier that summer, and knew
she was tapped into something deep and profound. At Esalen one afternoon, I walked down to
the rocky beach, sat by the crashing waves, and had a little time to focus on the material in The Gnostic
Circle.
Norelli-Bachelet is a devoted disciple of Aurobindo and
The Mother, and in 1968 was a founding member of Auroville, a spiritual center
in India. She worked closely with The Mother (Aurobindo’s partner and an
enlightened founder of the movement) on the design and symbology of
Matrimandir, a temple shrine designed to replicate the Godhead on earth. It was
strategically situated at the 12° latitude in India so as to synthesize the
local zenith-passage date with the Grand Center. Immediately this jumped out at
me as a reflection of what the Maya did at Chichen Itza, when they unified the Zenith/Pleiades Cosmology with
the Galactic Cosmology. Very briefly, the way this works is that the
Matrimandir was built at the latitude at which the sun passes through the
zenith on August 22; on that date the sun is at 29° Leo, passing into 0° Virgo.
These degrees are exactly opposite 29° Aquarius and 0° Pisces, which indicate
the present location of the equinox axis as we move into the new Age of
Aquarius. As with other systems we’ve described, the implied (and more
important) reference here actually involves the solstice axis, 90° away, which
will therefore be at 0° Capricorn-Cancer—or 6° Sagittarius-Gemini when we
adjust to the actual sidereal position. This position is the Galactic
Center-Galactic Anticenter axis. To state this simply: Matrimandir indicates
the zenith center and the Galactic Center at the same time. In addition, polar
symbolism is also integrated into descriptions of its meaning. Thus, as with
Maya cosmology, three cosmic centers and axial directions were combined into
one fully integrated conception.
The Gnostic Circle
is a deep, intuitive, and complex work. Norelli-Bachelet draws from a great
reservoir of Hindu wisdom, obviously combined with personal insights into the
nature of time and human spirituality. It was written in 1974, published in
1978, and it is interesting to me that it contains an almost matter-of-fact
description of the evolutionary implications of our periodic alignments with
the Galactic Center:
There is the mysterious centre that keeps all the
stars in orbit around itself. This Centre, that Science knows so little of as
yet, is located with respect to our Sun and planet in the direction of the
Constellation Hercules or the zodiacal sign Capricorn, and slowly, at the rate
of 12 miles per second . . . our sun orbits around and moves
closer to this Solar Apex, as it is called. That is, at the end of December
each year, the Earth is directly behind the sun with respect to this great Void;
our solar system with our planet is being drawn ever closer to this colossal
Magnet.[9]
As
with Yukteswar’s writing, one must read this wording very carefully, and
determine what is really being described. The writing almost seems
intentionally cryptic, sorting out those who cannot see beyond the surface of
the metaphor from those who can (or want to) see the deeper truth. I know this
sounds elitist, but initiatory teachings have always had this quality. True
gnostic understanding is triggered by the seeker’s own inner awakening of
discernment, and the dumb-it-down mandate of superficial New Age rhetoric,
often white-washing complex issues and making it difficult to discern fact from
fiction and symbol from icon, is counterproductive to this end.
In the quote above we are again confronted with the
question of whether the statement refers to the sun’s literal orbital cycle
around the Great Center, or whether the reference is to the sun’s precessional
motion around the zodiac. As with Yukteswar, Norelli-Bachelet’s intention is
the latter. In fact, later on in The
Gnostic Circle we get a clarification on this point. In discussing the
shifting of the poles caused by precession, she writes, “the shifting of the
poles themselves . . . is connected with the movement of our solar
system around the galactic centre. . . . Our solar system, the Sun with all its orbiting bodies, is slowly
being drawn into this Centre—or is moving ever closer into the sign of
Capricorn, we could say.”[10]
This demonstrates that the sun’s “orbit” around the Galactic Center is
actually the apparent motion of the sun around the zodiac, caused by
precession. I hope that this observation will lay to rest the patently absurd
New Age notion that our solar system orbits the Pleiades. In many sources we are
told that a great secret is contained in the knowledge that we orbit around the
Pleiades in a period of 26,000 years. Well, right away we should suspect that
precession is somehow involved in this information. As with the information
related by Yukteswar and Norelli-Bachelet, the Pleiadian orbit is intended to
refer to the sun’s apparent motion around the zodiac in relation to the fixed
sidereal position of the Pleiades (I discussed this in my 1995 book The
Center of Mayan Time). So, the mud contains a truth, but right
understanding is required to dispel deception. This clarification is much like
what I have said about Von Däniken’s spaceman theory regarding Pacal’s famous
sarcophagus lid. He looks like a spaceman in a flying ship, operating controls,
flying into outer space. Is this true? Well, in a sense. But not in the literal
way Von Däniken—and our own literalist programming—would have us believe. Pacal
was a shaman who did engage in flying into the many-tiered levels of the astral
world. He “flew” into the multidimensional universe of the human psyche and
spirit, touching the same archetypal energies that illuminate the stars.
The spiritual importance of our
changing relationship to the Great Center is elucidated prosaically by
Norelli-Bachelet:
. . . at this time, we are given the means
whereby we can know the so-called esoteric truth of our System and its
evolution, and the part the Earth plays therein, as well as each of its
inhabitants. We can go so far as to know that there is a great Centre to which
we in our System are related and which determines our course, because it is
this Centre that finally holds the key to the Precession of the Equinoxes. It
is this Centre that makes of the axis Capricorn and Cancer the Evolutionary
Axis of our planet. And through our study we can know that in ourselves, in our
very bodies, we can find the exact reproduction of this Galaxy which then gives
us the revelation of the Supreme Herself.[11]
The Evolutionary Axis described
between Capricorn and Cancer is the Galactic Center-Galactic Anticenter axis.
In public slideshows and talks I have described this as the Galactic Chakra
axis, and during alignment eras the shakti or evolutionary energy emanating
from the root chakra—the Galactic Center—awakens all of the consciousness
centers along the axis, including Earth and the Pleiades. Elsewhere
Norelli-Bachelet writes that evolutionary Avatars (like Aurobindo and The
Mother) incarnate on earth every 6,480 years, and we are in one of these
evolutionary zones right now.[12] This clearly refers to one-quarter of
a precessional cycle. Four times every precessional cycle, one of the seasonal
quarters lines up with the Galactic Center. We are currently in the
precessional window in which it is the December solstice that lines up with the
Galactic Center. The profound integrative conclusion to be grasped is that this
situation heralds the shift from descending Kali Yuga to ascending Kali
Yuga.
The Gnostic Circle anticipated my explication
of the very same Galactic Cosmology among the Maya, yet I was unaware of this
work until 1999. Significantly, earlier we found the concepts of the solstice
gateways and the Capricorn-Cancer axis in Jean Richer’s work with the sacred
geography of the Greeks. There, we saw how the polar Axis Mundi was mapped onto
a north-south axis centered on Delphi that symbolically corresponded to a
Capricorn-Cancer “solstice” axis. The topographical axis Richer reconstructed
stretched from the temple site of Taenarum in the south (Cancer), through Delphi
(the navel or Omphalos), to Mt. Olympus in the north (Capricorn). Notice that
Mt. Olympus, abode of the Gods, where a convocation was held every winter
solstice, symbolically occupies the Capricorn or Galactic Center position. Here
we are encountering the same Capricorn-Sagittarius confusion evident in
Richer’s and Guenon’s work. I’ve explained the reasons for this previously, and
we’ll encounter them again in discussing Coomarswamy’s work, but we should note
that Norelli-Bachelet may have derived her Capricorn location from Guenon’s
work. She may have had access to Guenon’s French compilation, Formes
traditionnelles et cycles cosmiques and his other writings on Vedic
symbolism. The book just mentioned contains reviews and essays relating to the
topic of cosmic cycles, including a piece called “Atlantis and Hyperborea.”
Although the galaxy is never mentioned, a drawing of our galaxy adorns the
front cover of the 1970 Gallimard paperback edition.
It
is by now quite apparent that these ancient Vedic doctrines point not only to a
spot in the sky, but also to specific times within the precessional cycle. The
solstice at 0° Capricorn is eternally fixed by definition within the unadjusted
zodiac still used by Western tropical astrologers. In that system the Galactic
Center is at 28° Sagittarius, or 2° from 0° Capricorn. Now, precession has
shifted the artificial frame of the zodiacal signs some 22 degrees such that
the true sidereal position of the solstice meridian is actually in early
Sagittarius, in alignment with the galaxy. Thus, the place of importance
is the Galactic Center (in early Sagittarius). And the time is now.
A
bizarre piece of obscure literary miscellannia must be mentioned here, as it
indicates that the importance of the Galactic Center’s sidereal location at 6°
Sagittarius has been floating around in esoteric circles since the early 1900s.
Valentia Straiton’s rare book, The Celestial Ship of the North, was
published in 1927. It’s a seductive but frustratingly oblique ramble on occult
topics, with plentiful references to astronomy. Source references to things said are often lacking, the
presumption being that what is being shared is a body of esoteric knowledge
operating behind the scenes of conventional science and religion. And some of
the material anticipates the scientific discovery of the Galactic Center, not
to mention our Galactic Cosmology. In one passage we read:
The 6th degree of Sagittarius is perhaps
the most remarkable in the Southern Hemisphere, and of equal importance is this
same 6th degree of its opposite sign in the north, which corresponds
to the magnetic pole of the ecliptic of the heaven.[13]
This
statement describes the Galactic Center-Galactic Anticenter Axis. And yet no
mention is made to the center of the galaxy, apart from occasional reference to
the “spiritual sun.” The sacred Ogdoad of the early Christian Gnostics might be
the same as this occult spiritual sun, and it is said to be “the sun behind the
sun”—possibly meaning the sun in alignment with the Galactic Center. Even more bizarre is a secondary reference
in The Celestial Ship of the North to a quote by one Edgar Conrow—which
I have been unable to locate anywhere.[14] One assumes the following
statement is from a public talk or personal correspondence with Straiton and
occurred, at the very latest, in the mid-1920s. Astoundingly, Conrow directly associates the North Gate with the
pineal gland:
The Pineal Gland is the ‘North Gate.’ This, in man,
is the central spiritual creative center. Above in the heavens, it is found in
the beginning of this sign Sagittarius, and is the point from which spiritual
gifts are given. It is called ‘Vision of God,’ and is the Light within, a gift
to the pure in heart, who verily may ‘see God,’ but to the impure or those who
abuse this great gift the consequences are terrible.
This North Gate, the creative center in man, the most interior center
in the body, has become atrophied, and redemption or regeneration means its
restoration to creative ability, by having the electrical or positive and the
magnetic or negative forces restored in equal balance in man or
woman . . .[15]
Notice
that the Galactic Center is never named directly, reminiscent of archaic
prohibitions against saying the true name of the high deity. Given that these
books were written so long ago, it is tempting to spend some time and energy
tracking down the sources behind these statements. However, that would no doubt
be a fool’s errand; the true mystery is that this information doesn’t appear in
the literature more often, as anyone could see it, simply by looking up.
Somehow
the ancient galactic knowledge has filtered down through the ages, preserved in
occult circles and compelling statements in obscure books. Or perhaps the
universal wisdom is reentering the ongoing discussion by way of a renewed
higher dimensional contact, as seems to be the case with the baffling and
astounding information in J. J. Hurtak’s The Keys of Enoch or in The
Ra Material. The occult fringe
appears to have claimed a monopoly on these galactic cosmo-conceptions. Or,
perhaps rationalists are just taking a long time to catch up.
Nevertheless,
two serious and much-celebrated scholarly thinkers have been drawn to the same
mystery, tackling the same themes with self-driven intent and curiosity. René Guénon is one, and he angled in to the
topic from various directions, most notably in the context of exploring
traditional symbolism and the Vedic Yuga doctrine. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy is
the second, and his detailed and well-documented essays and books on
Oriental iconography and metaphysics
leave little doubt as to the true location of the “North Gate,” which is the
“Sundoor at World’s End”—the solar gateway leading into the next world.