The Devil is Your Daddy, pt. 3

In the Sun and the Sea series, I started off by questioning the Original Sin. It would do well, however, to take a look at another momentous occasion in Christian mythology: the Crucifixion. I thought it was strange that the Fall of Man was arguably not his fault. Similarly, the crucifixion of Christ makes little sense when we delve into the issue of responsibility. If a man is sinful, should it not be up to him to repent? Did people just get a free pass when Jesus turned himself in? My spider sense (there's another idea worth exploring) is tingling...

Imagine you're the manager of a project with lots of different sectors involved. The project was a disaster, failing on every aspect, each sector having made its share of mistakes. One man then comes up and says to you: "Absolve all others, and punish me instead." Would you accept his proposals and make no changes to the staff, other than firing him? I don't think many would.

"All areas were somehow involved: mechanics, management, logistics, navigation, and so on. However, the death of the on-board physician absolves everyone else of guilt."

The reason the Crucifixion is understood as it is nowadays shows that Man clearly has a fragile relationship with the concept of responsibility, as I mentioned in the second part of the series. I made a semiotic analysis of then-current events, but perhaps today it would be more interesting to go with something a little more chthonic: music. Take Cake's "Satan is my Motor."

The car is a frequent symbol in dreams. It is the equivalent of the Chariot archetype in the Tarot: the mind/body's ability to roam freely and independently, the mastery of the soul's physical vehicle, the guiding of the instinctual/Promethean fire. Notice that the chariot is guided by two sphinxes, one black, one white. These are not stallions. The square necklace of the rider further enforces the material, and his wand denotes mastery and ability. It is the seventh archetype, the Great Way of the Mind.

I've got wheels of polished steel 

A clever nod here to the cyclical nature of the universe. "Wheels within wheels," saw Ezekiel:

15 Now as I looked at the living creatures, behold, a wheel was on the earth beside each living creature with its four faces. 16 The appearance of the wheels and their workings was like the color of beryl, and all four had the same likeness. The appearance of their workings was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel. 17 When they moved, they went toward any one of four directions; they did not turn aside when they went.

Well, so not much a circle as a spiral, but cyclical nonetheless. As an aside, steel is ruled by Mars, tying us back to the Chariot (I once had a dream with a red car/motorcycle, given to me by an old man/White Wizard) - Mars is the rider here, taking the primal dual energy and harnessing it into motion in the material world.

I've tires that grab the road

Once more we have the image of wheels and the material - on the Great Way!

I've got seats that selflessly hold my friends

And here we have our first feminine allusion, which is crucial to the Satan dimension. The Moon is a symbol for the negative, recipient, female polarity - and it's reinforced here: seats, selflessness, holding, friends are all Lunar concepts.

And a trunk that can carry the heaviest of loads

The heaviest of loads indeed - the Moon carries all potentialities within it. Needless to say, trunk = Moon.

I've got a mind that can steer me to your house

Now we come back to the masculine. This interplay is very dynamic, as you can see. The mind steering = Mars; your house = Venus.

And a heart that can bring you red flowers

The heart is where the Devil resides (or at least close enough - the heart is the 5th house, the 4th being the one of the Dark Night of the Soul). Red flowers are an even closer meshing of yin and yang.

My intentions are good and earnest and true
But under my hood is internal combustion power

So basically we have the dynamic being discussed throughout this series: Male -> Female -> Male. Here we have the male principle taking the potential of the female principle and realising it. The key point is that you cannot understand the engine unless you look under the hood.

And Satan is my motor
Hear my motor purr
Satan is my motor
Hear my motor purr

Satan is the only one who seems to understand 

Self-explanatory.

I've got brakes I'm wide awake
I can stop this car at any time

Once again, steering is determined by both male (wide awake) and female (brakes).

At the very last second I can change directions
Turn completely around if I feel so inclined

Changing directions is also something that combines both male and female - movement/inclination is yang, turning is yin.

I've got a mind that can steer me to your house
And a heart that can bring you red flowers
My intentions are good and earnest and true
But under my hood is internal combustion power
And Satan is my motor
Hear my motor purr
Satan is my motor
Hear my motor purr
Satan is the only one who seems to understand
Satan is my motor
Satan is the only one who seems to understand

And so on. And how does this tie in to responsibility? Well, say your car breaks down in the middle of the road due to a lack of motor oil. Would you complain, or believe that it's a valid argument, that it was the car manufacturer's fault that your car broke down? I doubt that very much. Of course, it helps to know about the design of the engine, to take a look at other engines, but you can only really understand/fix your engine if you take a look under your own hood.

Recently, I've been discussing the tale of Bluebeard in therapy. Fairy tales are another aspect of creative expression of the ineffable, much as music is. The basic plot goes something like this: Bluebeard is a wealthy charmer who has a certain difficulty attracting women due to the fact that his beard was, well, blue. However, he successful courts a young maiden, who reasons that anyone who is so polite, dashing and considerate can't be that bad, and they get married. One day, Bluebeard is set to depart on a trip, and gives his wife the keys to the castle, saying she could open any door she pleased but one. Her sisters, however, convince her to open the door, and in the room they find the rotting corpses of Bluebeard's former wives. They flee in horror, and the missus notices that the key to the room is stained in blood - a blood that won't go away regardless of how much she wipes. Bluebeard returns and inevitably discovers his wife's "wrongdoing," but her brothers slay Bluebeard before he can get to her.

The key to the story is that the young maiden distrusts her female instincts and marries someone of whom her guts were very suspicious. When she discovers the truth, it is essential that she realise that she had a part to play in the drama, and that it was her own fault for marrying someone she knew, deep down, she had to avoid. Once you acquire knowledge, there's no way to unacquire it. Sadly, most people prefer to simply look away, and play in the castle, leaving the room of Truth closed up. The reason why is very simple: understanding the world implies understand your part in it, both your achievements and your shortcomings. Here hubris rears its ugly head once more.

It does well, then, to take a peek into the forbidden room, where you will discover nothing more than a mirror, for within the dark room lie all potentialities of being - within YOU lie all potentialities, good and bad. Within you lies a shadow, but a shadow whose power is beyond your wildest dreams. Grab a hold of the Devil, but make sure he's aware of who's in charge. History is filled with cautionary tales of men who attempted to harness the Devil without the Wisdom of the feminine:

Theophilus was tempted by the Devil but saved by the Virgin

The modern Prometheus, brought to life (= Moon) by lightning!

The Devil is an imposing figure, but you mustn't forget that he is a figure that lies within you, and is thus a part of you. Therefore, make not bargains with the Devil, for he is your servant. He cannot, however, be approached merely through the masculine - heed the warning of Dr. Faustus. Employ your female side's faculties of patience, reception and rest, then take her on your Chariot for a spin around the world, and grok that, as they say, it takes two to tango.

Take your shadow out to dance this weekend. She'll thank you.

Truth
The truth is that I never shook my shadow
Every day it's trying to trick me into doing battle
Calling out "faker" only get me rattled
Want to pull me back behind the fence with the [cattle]
Building your [lenses]
Digging your trenches
Put me on the front line
Leave me with a dumb mind
With no defenses
But your defenses
If you can't stand to feel the pain then you are senseless

[Since] this
I've grown up some
Different kind of fighter
And when the darkness come let it inside you
Your darkness is shining
My darkness is shining
Have faith in myself
Truth

I've seen a million numbered doors on the horizon
Now which is the future you choosen before you gone dying.
I'll tell you 'bout a secret I've been underminding
Every little lie in this world come from dividing
Say you're my lover, say you're my homie,
Tilt my chin back slit my throat take a bath in my blood get to know me
All out of my secrets
All my enemies are turning into my teachers.
Because, lights blinding, no way dividing what's yours or mine when everything's shining
You darkness is shining my darkness is shining
Have faith in ourselves
Truth
Yes I'm only loving, only trying to only love
That's what I'm trying to do is only loving
Yes I'm only lonely loving feeling only loving
Till I'm feeling only loving
Ya say it ain't loving ain't loving my loving
But I'm only loving only loving only loving
Only loving the truth.

The Truth is out there, but it also within.

The Sun and the Sea

Is that an angel?

hu·bris   /ˈ(h)yo͞obris/

Noun: 1. Excessive pride or self-confidence.
          2. (in Greek tragedy) Excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.

Synonyms: arrogance - hauteur - haughtiness - pride - insolence

When we speak of the Original Sin, we refer, of course, to Eve, and then Adam, eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. From Genesis 3:

1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" 2 And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" 4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.

If you've read my previous post, you'll see where I'm going with this. The idea is that Christianity, along with all forms of monotheism, stems from an original cult down in Ancient Egypt, led by pharaoh Akhenaten, which worshiped one god over all, Aten. You'll be excused if you see the points in common between Akhenaten's story and Moses'. This original one-god religion gave birth to all forms of cults, each a distinct distortion of the original message (already distorted by the Aten cult itself). One of the most important distortions, presented by Christianity, Islam, and many others, is the sublimation and silencing of the female polarity. We can see this clearly in the Bible, with Eve being responsible for the Fall of Man. You'll notice it's not implied anywhere that Eve told Adam that it was the Forbidden Fruit, which essentially absolves him of guilt. Of course, what's not to be missed is that it was the snake who beguiled Eve, which makes her guilty of, at worst, gullibility.

What strikes me about this whole story is that, if the main message was that Man should not have Knowledge of Good and Evil, why not make him responsible for his choices? In the case of Genesis, Adam is not so much a willful sinner (you could also argue that it is impossible to commit a crime if one has no notion of good and evil - polarity) as an unfortunate victim of fate. This means that the Original Sin is not actually the eating of the fruit.

It's clear that there is an underlying bias in the story against the feminine principle. In addition to Eve being responsible, we have two more allusions to the feminine in the story: the fruit (whose association to the feminine is well-known) and the Knowledge of Good and Evil itself. The Tree gives one knowledge of the idea of polarity, that is, of seeing two where there is one. Polarity itself is, of course, a feminine idea - the number 2 is association with the feminine, from the Tarot (the second card is the High priestess) to astrology (Venus-ruled Taurus being the second sign) to numerology itself. We have a clear message, then: if it's feminine, don't touch it! The irony is that we cannot understand the concept of forbidden without the concept of polarity (for there is no 'forbidden' without 'allowed').

The idea, however, that the feminine is inferior to the masculine is entirely artificial: everything in Creation respects the principles of duality, and two opposite principles are in dynamic equilibrium. It is only Man, in his hubris (ah, a clue, Sherlock), who assumed that he could tilt the balance in one direction without consequence. It is not 'natural' then to disrespect either polarity (notice that the male-female dynamic is much more important in non-monotheistic religions, from the abstractions of Buddhism and Taoism to the co-ed Pantheon of polytheistic religions).

Notice that God even condemns the snake to "eat dust" forever. This implies that being sent to the feminine, yin ground is some sort of punishment (as opposed to the reward of being sent upwards to Heaven for being good), that is, that the feminine is inferior, once again, to the masculine. Gnostics fared a little better here, for they saw the snake's actions as productive:

Some Gnostic sects honored the snake. They did not view the snake as a seducer who led the Adam and Eve into sinful behavior. Rather, they saw the snake as a liberator who brought knowledge to Adam and Eve by convincing them to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and thus to become fully human.

Some even saw the snake as an incarnation of Jesus. They were not, however, without fault: "They believe in the duality of spirit and body: Spirit is of divine origin and good; the body is inherently earthly and evil. Gnostics were hostile to the physical world, to matter and the human body." Once again, the Earth is cast in a negative light. This all speaks to the impressive distortions away from the feminine that can be found in monotheistic religions, which, if you think about it, probably shun the concept of duality from the get-go.

So, if this bias against the feminine is artificial, then the Original Sin did not take place in the Garden of Eden. Let us go back, then, to an earlier part of Genesis:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

We have a few problems here. The first is that God created matter: "1 First God made heaven & earth 2 The earth was without form and void." This means that God is outside of matter, which by definition makes Him non-corporeal. Therefore, He has no image to speak of. If anything, God is all images. Furthermore, it is said that Man is given dominion over the animals and the land, but anyone who's had a run-in with a grizzly bear or a failed harvest knows that picture's not quite accurate (and if you need further evidence, just read about Fukushima, Krakatoa, Pinatubo, Katrina, and so on). In fact, it seems as if the Earth is intent on reminding us that we're not quite the masters we think we are.

Notice also that "male and female he created them," which seems to be at odds with the 'creation' of Eve further on. We can surmise then that Eve is not quite the 'first' woman we take her to be (Lilith would agree here - once more we find a demonisation of the female). In fact, it's telling that Eve was created out of Adam's rib - it's a partial female, because the true female came along with Adam. It's only when Eve eats the fruit (or when she is snakebitten) that she truly becomes a woman again.

A parallel can be drawn to the story of Psyche and Cupid, which I've discussed previously. Psyche is in Paradise after being whisked away by Cupid, with the only condition being that she cannot see Cupid. Her older sisters (unlike the popular conception, older sisters in fables are generally wise - a more mature voice) tell her it might be a demon or beast, and convince her to gaze upon him as he sleeps. However, wax from her lamp falls on Cupid and wakes him (knowledge = fire, pain), and he banishes Psyche from Paradise.

The female principle is thusly torn from the womb, and the woman is truly born. She cannot be truly herself until she has encountered pain and suffering, but she is at an advantage from this point of view: women go through three initiatory experiences (not necessarily all of them, but again, we're thinking archetypically here) - the menarche, the loss of virginity (tearing of the hymen, specifically), and childbirth. It was just a matter of time, then, until Psyche came to confront the masculine through pain.

Persephone is another case in point, but I imagine readers are getting a bit tired of this story. Suffice it to say that wisdom tends to be more natural to women because it comes from pain, loss and confrontation. It's easier for men to avoid suffering (especially in a [pseudo]patriarchal society), and they go through great lengths indeed to accomplish that. The connections of this principle of pain are astrologically linked to, naturally, Scorpio. A few quotations from a post on Global Astrology are worth highlighting:

"And Scorpio, though much maligned and tied to venom, pain, and burning fire, is linked to judgment, wisdom, and insight. After all, fire is the element that both consumes and yet enlightens when it is tamed. Even so pain: if it doesn't kill us, it makes us wiser." 

"Remember, scorpions prefer dark holes and crevices as their hiding places, so in the heavens, it looks as though Scorpio has crawled out from the dark hole that leads down to the land of the dead and damned."

"Dsubba and Jabbah and Acrab are all stars in the head of Scorpio, called "the crown of Scorpio," whose names all mean "the forbidden tree of life" or "the forbidden tree of knowledge," which indicate how this struggle all started. [...] We are all lawbreakers because of what our first Father and Mother did, and this is the crown that Scorpio wears, the authority he has to triumph in our death and destruction."

"Bear in mind, that though the stars can be pulled together to show us pictures of evil, the stars are not evil. The stars declare the righteousness of God, and the function of Antares [the heart of Scorpio] is to point out the evil that is upon the earth and God's righteousness in bringing salvation and judgment."

This last one is a hint as to the nature of the discussion on the third entry in the Devil series (here are parts one and two). But enough about the Underworld. Since the Genesis story does not give us the Original Sin, perhaps we can take a look at another story of blissful beginnings. Once again in Greek mythology, we have a lesson in sin. Back in Paradise, there were men, women and androgynes, all living in a blissful state. We all grew insolent, however, and decided we could best the gods. Not happy at all, Zeus and the gods punished us by splitting us into two (thus the idea of finding your better half).

We don't even have to leave the Christian myth, however. Lucifer was banished from Heaven because he thought he was on par with God. What was then this original sin that cast us away from Paradise: as you may have gathered by now, it was hubris, or pride: the belief that we are equal or superior to the gods (which, the gods being noumenal and not 'real,' is quite paradoxal). All mythologies warn us not to believe that we have the power of the gods (we do, but it's an inner, not outer, power). Where does this hubris come from, however?

If you've ever thought that we look oddly like underdeveloped great apes (physically), you are actually quite right. This is actually where the 'missing link' controversy stems from: seemingly overnight, our predecessors became bipedal and erect, their brains tripled in size, their jaws shrunk (allowing for a better development of oral communication, and thus, language) - you won't get a retort from me if you want to argue that this screams of outside interference, but that's not the point.

One of the consequences of this development was that, since our heads grew to such great sizes, we could no longer spend the appropriate time in the womb, for the vagina, flexible though it might be, can only stretch so much. This concept is important in psychoanalysis (and Freudian astrology), because it explains a wide range of behaviours and characteristics of human beings. We may have issues, then, but it cannot be denied that our superior brains led to the development of the intellect, the defining characteristic of Man in relation to Animal*.

That we became vastly more intelligent than the other beasts around us might seem like good news, but it had one terrible effect: we began to see ourselves as superior. Rather than live in dynamic harmony with our environment, we attempted to subdue it, and thus began to lose our connection to this environment. Prometheus gave us fire, but instead of handling it carefully, we waved it around and accidentally burnt half the forest.

It's important that the fire is put into a cup

It is this crime that was the true Fall of Man. It is the shunning of the female principles of wisdom, patience and humility that led us down this path. It is the sense of entitlement and superiority - still pervasive nowadays, as the 2012 election freakshow indicates - that has blinded us from the idea that there is no true superior. The Hittites learned this lesson painfully: they thought their quick and robust chariots guaranteed their superiority in the battlefield, but the Sea Peoples easily defeated them with javelins, possibly the oldest weapon in our arsenal. No doubt America will provide us with plenty of examples in the near future.

If you want to repent, then, do not submit yourself to any hierarchical order. Respect the principle of duality to which Mother Earth tries so hard to lead us. Remember that for every thing there is an equivalent opposite, and certainly do not forget that nothing is truly static in this Universe, especially not one's position in relation to others. Heed the warning the Lucifer cries out from the Underworld: any attempt to equal the gods ends in utter failure. Fear not knowledge, but fear not wisdom either. We have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to the latter.

And never forget that you are One with All - and say a little prayer for Venus or Gaia tonight. One final cautionary tale is that of a young boy named Icarus, who flew too close to the Sun (fire, knowledge, masculine) and thus too far from the ocean (water, wisdom, feminine). We as a species seem to be in need of a good bath, and we are parched. So take a dip!

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, by Pieter Bruegel

* A number of species might challenge the assumption that we are the dominant species on Earth: the mass of all humans is about equivalent to the mass of all ants; furthermore, building a Great Wall of China is everyday business for them.

The Devil is Your Daddy, pt. 2

The first post in the series had a generally optimistic view (as represented by the Nosferatu-to-Edward transition), but I'm afraid the lessons haven't been learned very well. Recent events, including the Aurora massacre and subsequent shootings, such as the Oak Creek gurudwara shooting and the assassination of a member of the congregation ten days later, have been cause for worry. This does provide us, however, with an opportunity to consider what the great Oak can teach us in these times of bloodletting.

First, however, let us take a look at Aurora. Known in Ancient Greece as Eos (famously rosy-fingered Dawn), she is the goddess (though she was a Titaness) of the dawn, of new days and new beginnings. There is no reason to ramble on lengthily, but I invite the reader the investigate further if it feels appropriate. Though Eos represents new beginnings, and, presumably, hope, her stories reveal otherwise.

Aurora Ascending the Heavens by Julien de Parme

If you'll notice the face of Aurora's young companion, he doesn't seem to be particularly thrilled. This is probably due to the fact that Eos was cursed by a jealous Aphrodite with an unsatisfiable sexual desire after she hooked up with Aphrodite's Romeo, Ares. Her subsequent affairs end in tragedy, notably the one with Tithonus: faced with the prospect that her lover would die, since he was a mere mortal, she asks Zeus to grant him eternal life; she failed, however, to ask for eternal youth, so Tithonus ages endlessly, until Eos transforms him into a grasshopper.

What can we learn here? That l/Love, essential, wonderful though it might be, goes nowhere if it is not tempered by Wisdom, and this is where the Devil comes in. Here we go back to Greek mythology, to the story of Persephone and Hades. As always, I recommend further inquiries on the reader's part, but to sum up, Persephone was the daughter of the goddess Demeter, Mother of the Earth. The stories vary slightly, but the important point is that Persephone is one day abducted by Hades to be his consort. Demeter becomes depressed, and, since she rules over the cycles of the Earth and all the crops, life begins to wither. It is only when a deal is struck that life returns: Persephone is to spend half the year in the Underworld with Hades (fall and winter, when Demeter is sad) and half the year above (spring and summer, when Demeter is with her daughter).

The return of Persephone, by Frederic Leighton

Persephone is astrologically linked to Virgo the maiden (with Demeter being associated with Taurus, ruling the cycles of the Earth). It is only after she is abducted into Hades (Scorpio) that she can move on to complete the yin cycle with Capricorn (material realization) and Pisces (mystical transcendence). Of course, this myth works in many layers, but one of the more important lessons is that it is necessary for a young wo/man to come into contact with the Devil before fulfilling his/her destiny/role. Keeping in mind that Cancer represents the Dark Night of the Soul and that the goat - Capricorn - is frequently associated with the Devil, we see our your virgin surrounded by all this darkness. It is no coincidence that the loss of virginity is so much more traumatic for women - they are confronting a Devil, whereas for a man this is usually seem as a positive step into adult manhood. This does not mean, of course, that men do not have to confront their own demons, but it has to be more of a conscious move on their part.*

This loss of contact with our shadow side has been the rule for many centuries, though you wouldn't get a retort from me if you were to say that we're headed to a more balanced attitude towards the masculine and the feminine (sadly, it's been a rough ride). One of the reasons women have been seen as inferior or as spawn of the devil is exactly because they tend to be much more in touch with their shadow side, which scares the living hell out of men who are caught up in their hubris. The first mistake made by Man was not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (the knowledge of the balance between yin and yang handed to a male human by a snake, another form of the Devil - the picture is getting quite clear here), as the elitists who co-opted monotheistic religious mythology would have you believe, but to assume that he is superior to other forms of life (known as hubris) - a message carefully added to the Bible by said elitists.

The appropriately named Titanic

Taken to the extreme, Man sees himself not only as superior to other forms of life, but sometimes even as an equal of the gods. The gods, however, in their w/Wisdom, have always warned us that we are not on par with them (any archetype - i.e. god - necessarily loses something when it becomes manifest in consensus reality) - a lesson we learned harshly when Zeus split formerly androgynous Man in two. This is what happens when Man relies too much on the masculine principles of rationality and action, while sensitivity and patience sit on the sideline. We must, therefore, come face to face with the Devil, often a traumatic experience exactly because we deny the Devil in us, before we are to make any leeway on the path to Godhood. Sadly, Man much prefers the sweet red apple to the bitter green apple.

If you'll consider the points made in the first part of the series, it's high time we stopped seeing the Devil as something to avoid and started instead to integrate the Devil with Jesus, the inner demon with the inner saint. When we fail to do this, when we project our Devils onto other people or even onto fictional characters (the Joker and Bane are obvious, recent fodders), the Devil feels neglected, and comes out in a wholly unhealthful way, to put it mildly. If we were to take the social memory of Earth into a therapist's office, there would be much to be said about the Earth learning to consciously integrate the shadow side it has long neglected and which keeps manifesting through unconscious outlets. We must remember that Prometheus gave us fire, that is l/Light, l/Love, the ambition to seek Godhood, to serve this purpose, whether through oneself or through others, but not necessarily the w/Wisdom that should go with it. We must not confuse, then, knowledge, which is attained with masculine, active investigation, with w/Wisdom, which is attained with feminine, passive pondering and digestion (note that Cancer rules the stomach). While we do, great advancements in science will always be followed by terrible crimes**.

This is why it is important to see what we can learn from the Devil after it has come out, to let the memes and the ideas sink in, to integrate it so that violence and chaos are used for noble ends. Thus, we move from the goddess Aurora to the mighty oak tree. The Oak was understandably revered by the Celts as a symbol of honour, wisdom and strength. Oaks have been long associated with royalty (the Round Table is supposed to have been made of oak) - oaks are known to be frequently struck with lightning, symbolizing their access to the heavens. In my view, however, the lightning also gives us a warning: grow too tall and you'll pay the price.

The 16th trump of the Tarot, the Tower (previously discussed here), illustrates this. The main lesson in this trump is that we must be careful not to forget yin when we are out yanging. When we have not learned the lessons of the 15th trump, the Devil, we will inevitably be struck with lightning thrown by dispute-settler Zeus. Lightning also brings us back to Prometheus and our misuse of the divine Fire. There is no need to move in circles here, I believe.

This is not to say that lightning is always bad (one could argue there is no such thing). The oak tree was known to the Celts as the door to the inner planes - accessing this higher consciousness was described as "opening the oak door." The point is to remember that being struck by lightning should not be seen as a failure, but rather as a contact with something higher trying to tell us something.

This brings us back to the recent tragic events. It is clear, in both the events of the crimes and the popular/media response, that lightning still causes us to cower in fear. The mainstream media's reporting has been thoroughly superficial, and the alternative seems to be focusing on all the wrong issues (covered here by Chris Knowles). Both analyse these events with a complete lack of l/Love, that is, sending messages of fear (remember that "the only thing to be feared is fear itself). The former describes the murderers as deranged lunatics who could strike anywhere at any time, while the latter describe them as pawns of a sinister group who could strike anywhere at any time. While both pretend to be applying an investigative lens to the tragedies, we clearly see that the focus is truly elsewhere. The bread crumbs lead us to the extreme right and the gun lobby, but the media are clearly still busy discussing the finer points of bread crumb analysis.

While takes us to Milwaukee, the third act in this drama. The origin of the city's name is contested, but there are clear associations to "a beautiful land," "a land by the river," and a "council place." What we can learn here, then, is that we must once again remember to conciliate solid earth with liquid water, cold facts with warm intuition. What we choose to do instead is to bury our heads in the sand. Sadly, this is not to access what might lie underneath, but simply to avoid being struck by lightning.

Milwaukee, complete with phallic Tower and passive water

Wisdom without l/Love (distrusting the consensus, but in fear) leads nowhere, and neither does l/Love without w/Wisdom (passionately defending an unresearched point of view). The Devil is trying to teach us to heed both, but to little avail. Free yourself, then, from the bonds of fear. Look the Devil in the eye, and hear what he has to say. We must all remember that there is indeed a Devil, both inside and out, but this only means that the Devil is a part of ourselves and a part of the world. The key word missing here is responsibility, the concept that will be explored in the third part of the series. For a brief preview of the ideas, check this out. 

One final look through the astrological lens: the Earth is represented in the sign of Cancer, the Imum Coeli of the zodiac wheel. This 4th sign indicates the solid ground we stand on and feed from, our mother (archetypical, not necessarily literal). The opposite sign is that of Capricorn, and it is related, as I've mentioned to the Devil. It is outer achievement and material action (contrary to the emotional digestion of Cancer), the father that kicks us out of the house so that we can make something of ourselves. If the Earth is your mother, don't forget the Devil is your daddy.

The Pisces Particle

The recent announcement of the alleged discovery of the Higgs boson particle has been met mostly with celebration and reverence, but also with some controversy. In order to understand what's happening, which always goes deeper than what you hear about in the media, I'm going to take a look at the astrological correlations regarding this event.

I was going to post a video as an introduction, but as I opened the YouTube main page, I saw this video. I will post the other one further on, as this is not only the excellent Rap News (which I really recommend, if you haven't seen it yet), but it also sums up the issues pretty nicely.

So the central issue is the Higgs boson, controversially referred to as the 'God particle,' which is the last remaining particle to be proven in the Standard Model of Physics. As we will see, I think it's unlikely that this will ever be confirmed beyond any doubt, as the Higgs boson is associated with Pisces. But first, I'd like to take a look at the video I was originally going to post first.

Who appears on the video preview? None other than God himself.

What strikes me about this Symphony of Science series (if you haven't, check out the other ones) is how distinctly alchemical these videos feel. They take quotations from prominent atheists and scientists and turn them into something that's almost magical. Thus, we can see that what's really at the heart of the matter is not so much a dispute between science and metaphysics, but condescending and defensive mindsets, because all is One. This shows that it's possible to embrace both science and poetry, and that both are really two different ways of seeing the same thing.

You'll notice what Brian Cox talks about: 12 particles of matter, 4 forces of nature. I don't understand how this doesn't seem amazing to anyone who knows their basic astrology. The astrological cycle is composed of 12 numbers (Aries - 1 to Pisces - 12), divided into 4 elements (Earth, Air, Water, Fire). Since the Higgs boson is the last particle to be discovered, we can associate it to the sign of Pisces, the last step of the Zodiac.

The associations go further than that. From the previously linked article, we have this nifty paragraph:

What CERN announced last week was the discovery of a new particle in the correct mass range to be the Higgs, but further analysis of the data from particle physicists at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois suggests that CERN is just about as likely to have found evidence for more exotic varieties of the Higgs particle, called Higgs doublets or Higgs triplets. These "impostor" Higgs particles are part of a non-Standard Model interpretation of the Higgs concept, where a bunch of different Higgs-type particles (instead of just one) are together responsible for the Higgs field.

This perfectly fits the idea of Pisces, one of dissolution and lack of monads. Pisces is all about merging with the Collective, about surrendering your ego. Pisces, for instance, rules asylums and prisons, where everyone has equal status and is practically anonymous. This is why I believe we're never really going to find one Higgs boson particle, and this concept of a multi-particled Higgs field fits perfectly.

But let's get back to the event. I have superimposed the chart for the public announcement of the particle, on July 4, with the transits representing the one whom the boson is named after, Peter Higgs.

• What jumps out at first I think is Higgs's Sun @ 7Gem conjoining fortuitous Venus @8Gem and Jupiter @4Gem in the 10th House of public relations. Obviously, he's the star of the event, basically the Father of this particle. This is truly his moment to shine, as Venus (social events) is in close sextile with both Mercury @8Leo (communication, announcements) and Uranus @8Ari (breakthroughs, discoveries). Higgs's North Node @20Tau, less than one degree from the Mid-Heaven, indicates that this is really his crowning achievement.

• It's also an important moment for materialism, as highlighted by the Mid-Heaven @21Tau. If the Higgs boson is confirmed, so is the Standard Model of Physics.

• Mars @0Lib in the Second House of money and possessions indicates that there is money to be made in the announcement, as no doubt endless grants will flow towards the LHC and CERN. It is, however, opposite Uranus in the Eighth House of deals and shared capital, so in this moment of economic crisis, essential funds being diverted to theoretical pursuits might not please a whole lot of people.

• Saturn @22Lib is in the Third House of press and divulging, which fits with an announcement coming from the scientific authorities. It is, however, square the Moon @20Cap, the significator of the public, which shows that the relationship between the public and the figureheads of science might be a bit strained in the long run.

• This is corroborated by Higgs's Neptune @28Leo conjunct the announcement's Ascendant @29Leo, not to mention the mundane Neptune @2Pis close to the Descendant. This means the waters are being muddied so that someone may profit from the situation, especially in terms of calling for attention. 

• Higgs is quite close to his Uranus return, but this seems, due to the shades of Scorpio surrounding this aspect, to be foreshadowing a situation where Higgs will die soon, and be posthumously awarded the Nobel prize in Physics, regardless of how this boson situation will end up.

• Mercury in the Twelfth House of secrets also sets off alarm bells as far as the veracity of the announcement is concerned. This house rules secret enemies, and it seems that the scientific authorities involved in this announcement are concerned with something other than the benefit of the public. This is further corroborated by the Sun @12Can being opposite to the Moon (in fact, some have speculated that the full Moon may have influenced the measurements).

• The Ascendant @29Leo is quite intriguing. What this seems to signify (I just read a wonderful article about the meanings of the extreme degrees) is that the public is just about fed up with pompous declarations, and will begin to investigate (Virgo) the matter more carefully. I think this will be especially true when it becomes widely known that this confirmation wasn't as final as most have thought.

• In the end, I believe this will be in the interest of the people (North Node in the Fourth House), but not necessarily in an obvious manner, and certainly won't be immediate (North Node opposite Jupiter and square Neptune). We will come out of this whole story having learned not to trust extravagant declarations made by the scientific elite, but most of this figures to happen quite unconsciously. I can only hope we will figure it out, at any rate.

In conclusion, the general idea seems to be that this announcement is quite significant, but especially for the intelligentsia itself. The public might be celebrating this news at first, but as news trickles in about potential problems or misinterpretations with the Higgs discovery, we will begin to question what's really going on. The more we try to get a grasp on the Higgs boson, the more frustrated we will becomes, and we will hopefully come to a conclusion that sometimes taking things on faith (Pisces) is not just a good idea, it's necessary.

Hat tip to Jeremy Puma at the Secret Sun.

The Devil is Your Daddy, pt.1

Today I would like to discuss one of the most important archetypes out there, the Devil. This figure features prominently in all mythologies, from the god Set in Ancient Egypt to the classic horns-and-tail Satan. It is also possibly the most misunderstood out there. The Devil is typically associated with evil, with sin, with arrogance (and all the other negative traits), with dark sides. It tends to be a very negative image. However, like the figure of Death, the bad side is just one half of the coin. The Devil is not all hellfire, and is actually a very transformative archetype, dealing with the union of opposites (as do all of them to some level).

The Devil is actually a means to an end, and is a necessary part of every process. If we split the world into the dualities of light, reason and logic on one side and darkness, spirituality and emotions on the other, the Devil would not actually represent the latter, but a means of reaching the latter through the former. A very simple example can be seen in the Moon Landing (whether it actually happened or not is irrelevant here, since we are dealing with memes more than with facts). The Moon represents the female side of Man, as the Sun represents the male. Yet for centuries all the human race could do was gaze at the Moon, although it was indeed a source of great inspiration. We finally did reach the Moon on July 20, 1969 (not coincidentally, Woodstock would occur less than a month later), and how? Through the use of technology, of rationality driven to its utmost. The Devil, then, teaches us to shine a light on our unconscious. We must, however, be careful not to fall into temptation.

Notice how Neil Armstrong's face is clearly divided in two: one half dark and the other golden.

The Devil's power has forever been tempting us. From the Temptation of Christ in the Bible to Goethe's seminal Faust, there are countless examples and cautionary tales on the Devil's influence. The Devil is charming and seductive, as represented by his Succubus/Incubus manifestations. One very simple manifestation can be seen in the corporate globalist elite, who have almost literally sold their souls to the Devil for material gains. Taking rationality to the extreme takes one to hedonism and survival of the fittest (that is, back to the jungle - if you go all the way to the edge of a coin you'll end up right on the other side), and that is clearly what we are seeing: corporations and career politicians destroying the life of the average citizen for a purely financial gain - but all of this is bound to blow up in their faces, sooner or later, as it has a great deal of times before (the Roman Empire, the French Revolution...). Inevitably, though, this will all lead us, though at great cost, to further advancement in the spiritual realm. Remember how one of the consequences of the Industrial Revolution was a boom in spiritual studies and an interest in the paranormal. This is still going on, actually, which can be seen in the explosion in fantasy and paranormal stories (The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Twilight, et al).

Speaking of Twilight, it can be shown that Man is starting to come to terms with his own Moon/shadow side, with the evolution of the Vampire archetype, an offshot of the Devil. The first incarnations of the Vampire were extremely dark. They were hideous and only came out at night, they killed people to satisfy their own needs, they transformed into bats. This figure, however, has been slowly evolving, and now the most prevalent Vampire is handsome, avoids killing humans and actually shines in the sunlight. I hope it's a good sign.

From this...

...to this.

The Devil is also associated with the bat, depicted for example in William Blake's Satan Exulting over Eve:

The bat was, and still is, though to a lesser extent, considered a frightening creature. It only comes out at night, and spreads disease and sometimes even sucks blood. It's a creature of darkness. Studying the bat, however, that is, applying the male Logos to it, it was discovered that they actually use a sonar to navigate through the air, using sound waves to make up for their blindness. Bats are also useful in combatting pests.

The Devil is also manifested in the figure of the Dark Magician, which I've explored before. The DM takes the Logos to the extreme, and a great representative is Saruman, from The Lord of the Rings. He succumbed to the Devil's seduction.

This does not mean, though, that the Devil should be ignored or shunned. The trick is to access your own dark side, to face your shadow, but in your own terms. While denying our own shadow can lead it to be manifested externally (wars, corruption, poverty - Hiroshima is an excellent example), doing only its bidding leads to terrible loss as well, as I've explained above.

The Matrix provides a good analogy. Neo, or Thomas Anderson (or Twin Son-of-Man) gains access to the "real" world through his technological explorations, his hacking. Without computers, he never would have been found by Morpheus. However, he must still confront the Devil, in the form of the Machine (ultimate rationality) to gain access to the REAL real world.

Neo is right to be cautious

This whole adventure, I think, started with a dream I had:

We were in some sort of virtual/artificial world, trapped by the devil. It’s not quite hell, but there isn’t much to do. We’re in a shabby house, very narrow with many floors, and I can’t figure out where I’m going to sleep. Later, we’re having dinner at a restaurant, and then I look at my father and realise that he was the devil in disguise, because he was the only one who was allowed to do fun stuff in that world. He then does reveal himself as the devil, and he’s furious.

Needless to say, there's a personal layer here, although I would say it's not quite what Freud would point out here. However, I believe there's also a deeper meaning at hand. This dream occurred while I was reading The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead, by Stephan A. Hoeller. In the Seven Sermons, Jung mentions the idea that, while we tend to associate the male with the sky and the female with the earth (Uranus and Gaia, for instance), the opposite is also true (everything is also it's opposite). The female can be seen as the sky, and the male as the earth - symbolised by the snake (we'll get to the Eden story soon). After all, the male Logos represents rational thinking, logic, mathematics, but as we've been discussing, there's a dark side to all of this, and this dark side lies underneath, not above.

Abraxas represents the energy of the union of opposites

If we think of the role of the parents in psychology, the mother is the one who nurtures and gives affection, while the father is the one who teaches the child operate in the outside world. In fact, whereas the mother is the womb, the home, the father is the one who compels the child out of the home (through sexual initiation, apprenticeship at the business, and so on). The male parental figure provides the child with rationality. The mother role is essential, though, to remind the future adult to balance his rationality with his emotional side (I wonder how many career politicians and CEOs haven't had mommy issues - or an absent father, for that matter, causing them to compensate with excessive Logos).

We must be careful then, as always, to balance things out. I have also just read Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, which also adds to this theme (the title itself is already very provocative). If you don't want spoilers, skip ahead. The gist of the plot is that a race of superadvanced aliens appears on Earth, and begins to take the reins of the planet, albeit beneficially. They get rid of war and disease, and although there is always a resistance movement, things go on well for 50 years. The catch was that the aliens didn't reveal themselves, and would only do so when humanity was ready for it. It becomes clear why when it happens: the aliens, the Overlords, are essentially demons, horns, wings and tail. It turns out that these Overlords, while possessing extremely advances intellects, are basically soulless, and only exist to serve the Overmind, which one could say is the collective for all the souls of the Universe. The task of the Overlords is to guide humanity to its next stage of evolution, wherein it will come together with the Overmind as one. The first manifestation of this next generation of Man is through psychic powers, such as telepathy and remote viewing. You can draw your own conclusions, but the connections to the theme I'm exploring are obvious.

Tarot also cautions us about approaching the Devil carefully, but adamantly. I will later expand on this, but you can already check out Aeclectic for a good basic idea, and Sallie Nichols' Jung and Tarot: an Archetypal Journey. It's always good, though, to make your own associations first:

More coming soon.

The Rule of Three

It is hard to define precisely what the universe is, or what our existence means, but one thing I am sure of is that it is made of patterns. The thing is that it is quite hard to see these patterns, for they appear in a number of unconventional ways, that is to say, it is difficult to see patterns that are not the basic patterns we need for our survival.

One such example is the rule of three. I does seem to be very vague or general, but I see it as one of the most basic patterns out of which others unfold. Astrology explains that this rule of three is divided into the Cardinal, the Fixed and the Mutable. With one of each for each of the four elements (Fire, Earth, Air, Water) we have the resulting twelve signs. Aquarius, for instance, is the Fixed Air sign, and it displays characteristics of both.

We can, however, see how this patterns shows itself in different manners. Let us consider for instance the cycle of rain. The Cardinal rivers flow until they reach bodies of water or underground reserves. Interestingly, the Cardinal Water is Cancer, and crabs dwell in or near fresh water, or close to the coast. The water then lies in the Fixed body of water until it rises and becomes a Mutable cloud. The clouds are moved by the Aquarian wind, ruled by Uranus, god of the masses. Of course, two frequent descriptions of Aquarians and Pisceans is that they have their head in the clouds.

This pattern can be found in the fauna as well. The most obvious is the cycle of life of the butterfly. It starts out as a caterpillar (Cardinal), then transforms into a cocoon (Fixed), out of which comes the winged (Mutable) butterfly. The butterfly is a recurring theme here in NoMII, naturally. The cycle works both ways, though, and we see it in pretty much every living species. The Cardinal Egg becomes the Fixed (cannot fly) chick, followed by the winged (Mutable) chick. A human being starts out as a Cardinal baby, turns into a Mutable adolescent and ends as a Fixed adult. Trees are first Cardinal seeds, then grow (Mutable) into full-grown Fixed plants. Insects go from Cardinal egg to Fixed larva and then Mutable adult.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the lengths of these parts should be equal. A man is usually an adult for much longer than he is a baby, for instance. But this fundamental division in three is present everywhere. Matter exists in essentially three phases: Cardinal liquid, Fixed solid and Mutable gas. Even God is divided into three: the Cardinal father, the Fixed (i.e.: comes to Earth) son and the Mutable Holy Ghost. Notice in the picture below how the godhead is divided into three parts, with Jesus carrying a wooden (Fixed) cross and the the Holy Ghost depicted as a winged (Mutable) dove.

Green = Earth, and Cardinal Earth is Capricorn (= old man/father)
Red = Fire, and Fixed Fire is Leo (=jesus)
Yellow = Air, and Mutable Air is Gemini (=messenger-bird)

We can consider, speaking of religion, the division in three between Hades, (Middle) Earth and Olympus. Hell is frequently associated with caves, and rivers are all over it, making it clearly Cardinal, while Heaven is in the clouds, that is, it is Mutable. We are left stuck (Fixed) here on Earth for now.

There is also the essential family unit of Fixed father, Mutable Mother and Cardinal child. The child then becomes either Fixed father or Mutable mother, who then creates another Cardinal child, and so on and so forth. This is where it becomes interesting to consider mythology in archetypal terms, that is, based on the fundamental patterns of the Universe. The pattern is God, simply. Or, if you prefer, God is the pattern. God is not a separate, individual mind, but just a way of showing the essential underneath it all.

This reminds me of the connections I was trying to make between the Planets and the Greek gods of old, which are just different manifestations of a pattern of a higher level. It is hard to really see all of this because our minds are so focused on the three spatial dimensions. Putting all of this into words is quite complicated (thanks Mercury in Pisces), but hopefully this will all give you a glimpse of how I see things, and a (Cardinal) seed will be planted in your brain, growing (Mutable) over time until it becomes a coherent (Fixed) idea.

The most basic pattern is the pattern of two (Yin-Yang, Sun-Moon, dualism and all that jazz I've been talking about), which unfolds into a double pattern of two, that is a cross (gee, where have I seen that idea before?). Dr. Roderick Peters mentions in his book Living with Dreams this archetypal cross, explaining how we tend to divide allness into four, as Jung said. Quartering the circle, that is. This can be seen in the four elements and in the points of the compass.

The Celtic Cross

If we apply the rule of three on the Sun Circle, we get the tetrahedron (i.e. four triangles, giving us the same number as the zodiac, the hours on a clock and so on do) inside the sphere, that is, the minimum and maximum volumes. Nassim Haramein gets into more detail about this, if you have the patience. Maybe you will disagree with some of what he argues, but that this idea seems pervasive is undeniable. Perhaps you can see a little bit where I'm going with this? I'm not entirely sure myself, but I'm sure we'll get there.

Update: right after posting I read in the Modern Mythology blog:

Geometries branch. The one world becomes two, and the two becomes eight billion—without ever ceasing to be two. As to the order that hides behind the panoramic flux, Heraclitus says, “The transformations of fire—first, sea; and of sea, half becomes earth and half the lightning flash.” (emphasis mine)

Cardinal sea becomes either Fixed earth or Mutable lightning and...oh, you get it