JMG on the Astrological Dark Age
Feb. 7th, 2021 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
causticusFrom last week's Magic Monday, this is a back and forth Q+A thread between a commenter and John Michael Greer on how current astrological conditions point to the possibility that we're now in a long Dark Age.
Q: If I understand right, when you die, you go to the astral plane before eventually going back to earthly manifestation in your next incarnation. If every soul eventually climbs back up the planes to the highest spiritual plane, what is the force that causes a soul to go back down to material incarnation? There seems to be an oscillation between the two planes. I wonder if that oscillation is repeated at higher planes as well, where one cycles back and forth between them for a while before moving upward.
JMG: Until we finish evolving a mental body, the material plane is essential for our evolution, and we return to it by something not far from reflex until we've finished the evolutionary process here and are ready to shift up a plane.
Q: The fourth question and your answer reminded me of a question that has been bouncing around my head for a few months or so. In gnostic variants of Christianity, the hoped for gnosis is supposed to return one to the Divine Fullness after death. I suspect there are similarities with Eastern concepts like nirvana and moksha. Do you think there is anything to these beliefs? Can one avoid the seemingly long cycle of reincarnations and evolutionary process, and return to some kind of Divine source?
JMG: That was the central claim of Gnosticism and a range of other spiritual traditions of the same age -- an escape hatch from the long pilgrimage of the soul. To the best of my knowledge they were mistaken -- and you'll note that the Asian traditions that had the same idea figured out, after not too long an interval, that nirvana is not something you can get to right away, but it takes myriad lives.
Q: 1. Do you think that a modified form of gnosticism, that adopts that insight from the Asian traditions, might be tenable? I suppose the basic idea might be speeding up this spiritual evolution and achieving gnosis/liberation faster than the norm?
2. Much of the gnostic literature that I've read appears to be based on, or heavily influenced by, visionary and other spiritual experiences. Is it possible that these ancient gnostics contacted malevolent powers that misled them into thinking their liberation from the material plane was possible in one lifetime?
JMG: 1) It's called "occultism." I mean that quite seriously...
2) It's a far more complex and troubling story than that. The very, very short form is that a lot of people in the ancient world realized where the precessional cycle was taking the world and made a frantic attempt to jump off before things got too ghastly. Gnosticism was the Western form of that attempt.
Q: Where was/is the precessional cycle taking us?
JMG: Consider this chart:
Precession goes clockwise around the circle. At the bottom, where Cancer/Moon and Leo/Sun come into contact, is the highest point of spirituality, the time when (in the mythic language of those times) "the gods walked with men." At the top is the reign of Saturn, the lowest point of spirituality and the highest point of materiality. They saw the world sinking ever deeper into the jaws of matter, into a black iron prison of materiality and degradation -- a crowded, violent, confused, poisoned, hungry, angry, mindless world, where the gods were very far away -- and they wanted out.
Q: Sounds like the Kali Yuga
JMG: The concepts are closely related.
Q: If I understand right, when you die, you go to the astral plane before eventually going back to earthly manifestation in your next incarnation. If every soul eventually climbs back up the planes to the highest spiritual plane, what is the force that causes a soul to go back down to material incarnation? There seems to be an oscillation between the two planes. I wonder if that oscillation is repeated at higher planes as well, where one cycles back and forth between them for a while before moving upward.
JMG: Until we finish evolving a mental body, the material plane is essential for our evolution, and we return to it by something not far from reflex until we've finished the evolutionary process here and are ready to shift up a plane.
Q: The fourth question and your answer reminded me of a question that has been bouncing around my head for a few months or so. In gnostic variants of Christianity, the hoped for gnosis is supposed to return one to the Divine Fullness after death. I suspect there are similarities with Eastern concepts like nirvana and moksha. Do you think there is anything to these beliefs? Can one avoid the seemingly long cycle of reincarnations and evolutionary process, and return to some kind of Divine source?
JMG: That was the central claim of Gnosticism and a range of other spiritual traditions of the same age -- an escape hatch from the long pilgrimage of the soul. To the best of my knowledge they were mistaken -- and you'll note that the Asian traditions that had the same idea figured out, after not too long an interval, that nirvana is not something you can get to right away, but it takes myriad lives.
Q: 1. Do you think that a modified form of gnosticism, that adopts that insight from the Asian traditions, might be tenable? I suppose the basic idea might be speeding up this spiritual evolution and achieving gnosis/liberation faster than the norm?
2. Much of the gnostic literature that I've read appears to be based on, or heavily influenced by, visionary and other spiritual experiences. Is it possible that these ancient gnostics contacted malevolent powers that misled them into thinking their liberation from the material plane was possible in one lifetime?
JMG: 1) It's called "occultism." I mean that quite seriously...
2) It's a far more complex and troubling story than that. The very, very short form is that a lot of people in the ancient world realized where the precessional cycle was taking the world and made a frantic attempt to jump off before things got too ghastly. Gnosticism was the Western form of that attempt.
Q: Where was/is the precessional cycle taking us?
JMG: Consider this chart:
Precession goes clockwise around the circle. At the bottom, where Cancer/Moon and Leo/Sun come into contact, is the highest point of spirituality, the time when (in the mythic language of those times) "the gods walked with men." At the top is the reign of Saturn, the lowest point of spirituality and the highest point of materiality. They saw the world sinking ever deeper into the jaws of matter, into a black iron prison of materiality and degradation -- a crowded, violent, confused, poisoned, hungry, angry, mindless world, where the gods were very far away -- and they wanted out.
Q: Sounds like the Kali Yuga
JMG: The concepts are closely related.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-02-12 04:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-02-13 03:56 pm (UTC)On the above, my take is that in sunnier ages, way more people had functioning clairvoyant abilities and were thus able to perceive the many spirits and other etheral creatures that inhabit our world alongside us, including the noxious and monstrous ones. A few of these entities are what perceptive people might envision as looking like sea monsters and dragons, among other things like elves, nymphs, fairies, serpents, ect.