The twelve signs in history order unfolding developmental stages, the compaction of events, understanding, and population through history.
The duration of phases in history contract in the same proportion as the house time periods expand in individual life. The resultant combi-nation of the two temporal processes — the individual life experienc-ing longer and longer developmental stages and the collective life com-pacting — are what make the flow of time seem to be constant. The sense of expansion in the inner world balances the compaction of the outer world. We identify with the outer world and its time or our inner world and its time. Time affects us profoundly, but alters its effects by meditation, life experience, food and drink, psychological states, drugs and in many other ways. Consciousness briefly balances (the Tao) where the two systems equilibrate, which we designate the “present”.
When the Time Scale extends into the past to cycles longer than a World Age, time sense expands, while in the future cycles are shorter, and time is compacted more and more until the speed of light is approached. The movement of time into the future always balances a counter movement into the past. The present moment is powerful because it lies at the junction of past and future.
Each octave describes a developmental phase of history:
— First octave of self-assertion is mythological and instinctive, as the domain of the child.
— Second octave of self-consciousness is individualistic and civilized, as the domain of the adult.
— Third octave of self-realization is collective and conscious, as the domain of the parent.
The duration of every fourth sign (of the same element) decreases by one-tenth. For the fire signs the cardinal Aries lasts 22,000 years, the civilization counterpoints the chaos out of which it emerged, and its
fall is a precondition for its successors.
Oppositions act across the circle as polarities at opposite times, yet carry great attraction, like the attractive fusion and repellent fission forces in the atomic nucleus.
The four elements Fire, Earth, Air, and Water occur three times in sequence in the zodiac, once within each octave of the Time Scale, cre-ating a resonant inner structure. The Platonic elements are a numero-logical system of successively greater densities underlying Nature. For the alchemist and philosopher Robert Fludd, the elements are propor-tional to each other as they ascend from earth to heaven. The physicist Heisenberg stated: “in all elementary processes, from which all natural phenomena evolve, four different groups are to be distinguished.”139 The elements act in a number of ways. In classical terms, fire is ener-gy, earth is matter, air is mind, and water is emotion. According to the psychological typology of Jung, fire is the intuitive function, earth the sensation function, air the thinking function, and water the feeling function. In physics, fire is the energy that motivates the universe, earth the particle nature of reality, water the wave nature of reality, and air the complementarity between particle and wave. When such similar ordering principles operate in the physical sciences as in historical processes, interesting parallels arise.
The elements describe similarity of focus in each octave. The fire signs Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius indicate initiatory, creative, energetic, spiritual impulse and concentration upon Self. The earth signs Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn indicate the descent of spirit into matter (the root of mother, matrix), physicality, tangibility and experience of sen-sation. The air signs Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius combine and medi-ate between heaven and earth, between energy and matter, creating communication, balance, and abstraction through ideas. The conclud-ing water signs Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces end each octave as dissolu-tion of barriers, the accumuladissolu-tion, and synthesis of previous develop-ments and the emergence of feelings about the action of the cycle that ends and creates the possibility of the next higher cycle.
The three historical times of each element show the three-phase development required to manifest the qualities indicated by the ele-ment within the World Age. Each eleele-ment has a cardinal initiating phase, a fixed manifestation phase, and a mutable phase that synthe-sizes the elemental quality.
Astrology expresses the complexity of human existence, and it pro-vides a viable and rich matrix, model and language of symbols that aid the discovery of the whole within us, represented by our inner histor-ical process. Using astrology illuminates parallels between the
individ-The Octave of Mythology (Aries-50,000 BC to Cancer-3000 BC)
The first octave of the World Age is the development of humanity in the mythological stage of evolution from the origin of consciousness in Aries at 48,000 BC until the recognition of individuality and the first historical individuals in 3000 BC at the end of Cancer.
Mythology really cannot be ordered in a linear way, as its essence is dreamlike and random. It transmits information from archaic pre-his-toric ages, before chronology existed, as oral traditions that vary and distort through constant retelling. Myths pass through many genera-tions and shifts of locale, and absorb and transmit cultural and a his-torical models accepted by a society.
Original creation myths are roots combined with vague tribal histo-ries — invasions, altered godheads, changed locations, the deeds of heroes and the lineages and respect of ancestors. One of the primary ways of subjugating conquered tribes is to dominate their mythology and alter the oral traditions through new names and hierarchies. The conquering gods become fathers and mothers of the gods of the con-quered people. Not surprisingly, Zeus had hundreds of progeny and was involved in virtually all the myths in the Greek domain during their dominant military power over many centuries. Myths contain myriad attributions and complex genealogies, all morphed by the timelessness of the mythological medium. Retrospective mythmaking produces sit-uations where the more powerful and wide the realm of a god, the fur-ther back its legends go, until it approaches the Creator gods in power.
The mythological substratum also carries the history of our instincts.
Aries (48,000 BC until 26,000 BC)
Aries is the birth of consciousness into the world age and the self-assertion of consciousness, analogous to the earliest experiences fol-lowing birth. The rise of consciousness asserts the instinctual world.
The first true humans survived through their consciousness, which dif-ferentiated them from the animals. They were physically inferior to car-nivorous cave bears and lions, and relied on their superior awareness for survival, banding together in groups to improve their chances.
fixed Leo 2200 years and the mutable Sagittarius lasts 220 years, yet the same number of people live during each sign and developments hap-pen at an accelerating pace.
The length of a human lifetime during the time scale occupies a full stop in the first octave, a tenth of a sign or so in the second octave and entire signs in the third octave, reflecting the increasing mathematical power of human perspective in nature. In the course of the Time Scale, humankind goes from being subject to natural rhythms and life, to having the fate of the natural world in its hands.
Each sign describes the following information:
— The Historical Development related to each phase, the advances of civi-lizations, the movements of people, the formation, and dissolution of cultures and nations, and the important individuals who affect the eras.
The description focuses on the evolution of consciousness within the historical process, both internal to individuals and external to popula-tions.
— The Great Works of culture including literature, architecture, art, earth works, utilitarian or religious objects, inventions and discoveries, particu-larly those which are symbolic of the civilization of the time.
— The Mythological and Religious perspective describes the first humans who worshipped gods of the sky, natural forces, or the earth, through the descent of the gods. As humankind develops. the gods become interme-diaries: many gods unite in monotheism; godlike men and women appear;
a son of god is born on earth; humans believe that they themselves are gods on earth; in the end of the world age, there is a lack of belief in god where material wealth, science, popular music, cinema and the artefacts of society are primary objects of worship and devotion.
— Evolution of Consciousness stage as described in “The Atman Project” by Ken Wilber.
— The equivalent Astrology Sign and its stage from LifeTime Astrology shows the parallel developmental stage in individual life, the mechanisms which function and the way in which life energy is transformed from stage to stage.
The intention is to create a higher understanding of the history of humanity and spiritual consciousness as a whole, unified, and formally coherent. Throughout history those individuals who have transcended time and history, and influences that support a spiritual overview of history are noted. In the following description of the World Age, the focus is upon the astrological principles behind history, the mecha-nism, rather than the dry facts. The octave arrangement shows waves of rhythmic developments rather than a strictly linear process.
3000 3000 The Great Flood 3000 Minoan civilization 3500 3102 Death Krisha (Kali Yuga)
3500 Founding of Ur 4000 3600 Taxes
3761 Hebrew Era of Creation 4670 4000 Neolithic Greek city states
4004 Bishop Ussher’s Creation 5340 4500 Chinese civilization
5000 Nile valley farming 6080 5800 Tigres-Euphrates settled
6000 Gold, Copper and Bronze 7000 6750 Catal Huyyuk
5900 Turkish Bull God temple 6000 Gold jewelry
7000 7000 Jericho (1st city) 8000 Copper Age 11100 North American plains hunters
Introduction of pottery 12400 Fishing cultures
Neolithic rock paintings 14000 14000 Racial differences emerge
Titans 15400 18000 End of the Fifth Ice Age
Grain planting in Africa 17200 Herding animals
19000 America settled
19100 Upper Paleolithic skull cults Bow and Arrow huntings 21200 22000 Landes Venus head
24000 Beginning Fifth Ice Age 23500 25000 Lascaux cave paintings 26000 Clothing woven
35500 Advanced hunters in Europe End of Fourth Ice Age 39300 40000 Blade tools
Seafaring cultures 43000 End of the Old Stone Age
47000 Cave Bear cults
48000 BC Aries to Cancer
7000 BC
caused great fear and respect. Eventually sun worship morphed into fire worship, its earthly surrogate. The absolute deities Day, Night, Sky, Earth, Fire, and Nature were beyond human control, even the fire in their caves. Feeding the fire was a central ritual and its continuing light and heat the mainstay and protection against the elements and the predators. Celestial cults complemented hunting cults for cave bears or lions and the lesser animals. There were cult identifications of entire groups and for individuals.140
The earliest religion, Shamanism, enacted with the end of the last world age as an ecstatic process of returning symbolically to the death moment, and the shamans were individuals within whom the true beginning was perpetually re-enacted, intermediaries between the world of spirits and the tribe. The ritual production of fire in shaman-ic ceremonies represented the fire both at the end of the world and at the same time the birth of the world. The Vedas describe such a cere-mony: all fires were extinguished and then rekindled on New Year’s Day as a re-enactment of the Cosmic night, corresponding to the fact that the New Year began on the first day of Aries on the spring equi-nox.141
Ken Wilber calls this stage The Pleromatic Self,142where self and cos-mos are undifferentiated and there is a symbiotic relationship to the world. Feelings are oceanic and unconditioned in a paradise of inno-cence and ignorance. There is no conception of space, time, or objects.
Humans are at one with the world.
Aries time is analogous to the time from birth to seven months old, when the infant bonds to mother, learns to receive and focus light, dif-ferentiates nothing other than survival.
Taurus (26,000 BC until 14,000 BC)
Taurus represents the creation, preservation, and consolidation of form. The initial undifferentiated state of Aries led to worship of the Earth Mother and fertility goddesses, together with their related skull cults (connected with the opposing sign Scorpio). The coldest phase of the Ice Age began about 28,000 BC and the movement of mammoths south changed cultural patterns in many ways. Tusks and bones pro-vided a new vocabulary of weapons and material for carving Venus fig-urines (c. 24,000 BC), and models for cave paintings at Lascaux (c.
26,000 BC) and other southern European sites.
The ice caps limited settlements; traces have been found in Pennsylvania in North America (c. 19,000 BC), central and southern Africa, the southern parts of Europe, the Middle East and Eastern Siberia, as well as in Southeast Asia, towards Australia. Groups of From about 48,000 to 35,000 BC, the primitive Neanderthal, who
had been dominant for the previous 120,000 years, were eradicated by the Cro-Magnons. The Neanderthal were short, stocky and beetle-browed, although with a brain size slightly larger than modern man.
They survived during the previous Ice Ages by hunting and foraging, moving with climatic changes and creating a workable culture, evidence of which remains in the ochre-pigmentation used in burials, stone implements and cults of the cave bear. Cro-Magnons were virtually identical to modern Homo sapiens sapiens, yet anthropologists do not know from whence they came. They were supermen who eradicated the Neanderthal so completely that there are only genetic traces left today. The new humans were highly adaptable, even changing physical appearance to cope with their environment.
The first calendars evolved in recording traces of the lunar cycles on bones as early as 35,000 years ago. The moon was magical and its dis-appearance for three days each cycle was a sacred time, when hunters did not go out and the danger from predators was greatest.
Humankind gathered food from near the habitation and ate it raw.
They preyed on and ate small animals, crustaceans and fish, as well as the meat from their hunts for game and woolly mammoths. They were omnivorous by necessity and sheltered in caves when they could oust the dangerous creatures that naturally inhabited them. Flint weapons improved until the invention of blades around 40,000 BC. Ice Ages lasted until about 18,000 BC, and yearly migrations were necessary to find suitable weather and food sources. The most dreaded enemy was other humans and cannibalism was common practice, because every available source of food and energy was greedily partaken. Survival was the total pursuit.
Aries was the primal time following a cataclysm, when the primary function was instinctive bonding with the world after the shock and loss of memory attending the end of the previous world age. Humans wandered aimlessly over the habitable areas of earth vaguely remem-bering a former utopia and its terrifying end, the dissociation of col-lapse, the darkening of the sun and the irrationality of natural forces caused by environmental breakdown. A feeling of desolation prevailed.
The primary factors were the climate and the vagaries of nature that determined survival.
The mythology of these times concerned celestial deities, Creator, and Creatrix gods. The worship of the elements reflected a one-sided reliance on divine beings — humans crouched in fear before Chaos, Wind, Air, Okeanos, and Chronos in his aspect as Time. Celestial sun and moon cults were primary — the sun was born every sunrise and died every sunset, and the uncertainty that he would return each day
ing of the subjective self-sense forms, albeit collective and archaic. Visceral instincts and rudimentary emotional discharges dominate, yet humankind basks in the arms of the Great Mother.
Reality is primary oral, and myths of by whales and such originated at this stage.
Taurus is the time from seven months old to one year eight months, when the infant begins to discover physical sensation, tastes and begins to differentiate the body as a separate object within other objects.
Gemini (14,000 BC until 7000 BC) During the Gemini time language was developed. Writing and numerals on cylindrical, spherical, or conical clay shards in Iran indicated the first
attempts to account for numbers of animals, loaves, etc. The singular functions of hunting, gathering and raising children diversified and became more complex as the declining emphasis on hunting brought men closer into the tribal fold and encouraged a wider development of skills which increased the quality of life and assured survival. About 12,000 BC the retreating glaciers caused a rise in sea level, flooded coastal areas, and forced many tribes to develop seagoing crafts for fishing in addition to their natural food sources. Harpoons and fish-hooks existed in Europe and Southern Africa as early as 9000 BC. An increase in the artistic merit of clay and ceramic pots, the diversity of cultivated grains and grasses, the variety of animals domesticated, all these meant a wider range of things to do and ways to express the self.
In the western hemisphere hunters ranged over North America into South America, eliminating two thirds of all mammal species, stripping the continents of all but bison and llamas among large animals, and condemning the inhabitants to solely agrarian life until the present.
Words and sounds specific to the new activities arose, creating a mul-titude of variant languages. Communication broadened by trade at market places, the herding of cattle, sea voyages and the multiple func-tions within each tribe. Instead of each individual duplicating the tasks and skills of all others, the various skills spread throughout a tribe or an area, such that specialization became a positive survival characteris-tic. In addition to basic survival tasks, certain families also functioned
Figure 28: Goddess Isis Her cultic associations include the serpent crown, horned lunar orb headdress and ankh.
humans were small and widely spaced over the temperate zones.
The stabilization of the weather at the end of the Ice Ages at about 18,000 BC allowed humanity to settle, which shifted the focus to the cave and engendered many changes in activities. Labour divided into men hunting and protecting the tribe while women tended the fire, cared for children and gathered food. Women discovered that plants growing naturally would transplant to central locations, easing the task of gathering food. Tiny nomadic units gradually enlarged, and as they settled down, they caught and penned animals that surrounded the set-tlement to graze. The herding and domestication of animals was a rev-olutionary change at about 18,000 BC. Cattle provided milk, offspring, meat and skins for clothing and tents, and eventually horses were beasts of burden. Domestic animals made food available through the winter, which further deemphasized the hunting function.
Property could not be taken for granted in the former nomadic stage, so here the concept of ownership or stewardship began. The shift in focus to the feminine domain of domestication, cooking, fertility and the increasing reliance upon the earth itself reflected the variety of artefacts found in the Aurignacian and Upper Perigordian eras.
The genesis from hunters to hunter-gatherers paralleled a shift in emphasis from celestial gods to earth goddesses and the resultant
The genesis from hunters to hunter-gatherers paralleled a shift in emphasis from celestial gods to earth goddesses and the resultant