December 21, 2012 is the End of a Cycle

A Commentary by Henry Reed
On the Book
Apocalypse 2012: An Investigation into Civilization's End
By Lawrence E. Joseph

What is the meaning of the Mayan's calendar ending on December 21, 2012? Prophecies surrounding that date have been causing much speculation.
Separating the objective information from the mythical is not always easy. One book that stands out because of its exclusive emphasis upon examining the scientific data relevant to that date is Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation into Civilization's End (Morgan Road Books), by Lawrence E. Joseph.
It is a "just the facts" type of book. The author is a science writer for the New York Times. With no agenda to push except for a father's concern for the future of his children, Joseph set out to discover just what we really do know about the circumstances of the planet as that notorious date approaches.
It is an earth cycle that provides the Mayan end date. The earth tilts on its axis, and as the earth revolves around the sun on its annual cycle, that tilt creates the seasons of the year.
Furthermore, the earth's axis wobbles slowly, so that the tilt's direction shifts with the wobble, making its own predictable, cyclical journey that takes 26,000 years for it to complete. That is one, long cycle. To mark the beginning and end of that cycle, the Mayans chose a particular point of reference, based upon their tools of observation.
One's line of sight aimed toward the sun as it rises over the horizon on the winter solstice projects beyond the sun into the Milky Way galaxy, in which our solar system is embedded. The Mayans, and other ancient people, noted that at each winter solstice's observation, the line of sight to the rising sun points to a slightly different spot in the Milky Way.
The Mayan end date was set for when the line of sight was projected to aim at, or to be aligned with, exactly the center of the Milky Way. How they determined where the center was, or why they chose the center as their point, he doesn't explore. He does point out that scientists believe that the center is the site of a black hole.
What might be the impact of the sun blocking earth's view of that black hole once every 26,000 years is uncertain. Nevertheless, that alignment, coming up on December 21, 2012, is the basis for the Mayan's marking point of an end of an age, and the start of a new one.
The author explores many other geophysical phenomena that coincide with this timing. He finds a disturbing number of potentially hazardous phenomena, many of them cyclical and reaching their maximum potential harm to earth around the time of 2012.
The aggregate effect is an objectively stark picture of the possible fate awaiting the planet, as if the Mayans may have had other reasons for choosing to link their calendar to this event.
The earth's magnetic field, for example, has a long cycle of strengthening and weakening, and is in a weakening phase now. A pole shift is preceded by such weakening, so perhaps a polar shift is coming due. In any event, the protection the magnetic field provides, by shielding us from the effects of harmful solar radiation, is weakening.
At the same time, the ozone layer, also a protective sheath, is dissolving. The earth's path around the sun varies, so that sometimes the earth is closer and sometimes farther away from the sun. As the end date approaches, that eccentric cycle will bring earth its closest to the sun. Moreover, sun spot activity, which has enormous influence on events on earth, and follows an eleven year cycle, will be reaching its maximum activity at the same time.
Thus, as our vulnerability increases to disruptive, even deadly, solar radiation, earth will be approaching its closest point to the sun just as the sun is having the worst days of its cyclical upheavals. There are other heavenly events that seem to be reaching maximum danger around the same time, but we will stop here.
The author maintains his purpose is not to scare, but to lay out the facts. Completing a cycle is simply a fact. But facts can have emotional, symbolic overtones. Our New Year's holiday, birthdays, and seasons, to mention a few common cycles, have a deeply embedded meaning in our psyche that an end of a cycle fosters an end to some life circumstances as well, and an opportunity to start anew.
Even though humanity has lived through this 26,000 year cycle before, it's still natural to imagine that as the earth completes the cycle this time, coinciding with many other projected ominous events, some kind of enormous ending in circumstances on earth will occur, while some great new opportunities will appear to allow us to "start fresh."
The author's concluding sentence is the only hint he gives that he's in accord with the consensus among the metaphysically minded that wonderful possibilities for humanity's evolution lie within the coming challenge: "If we can find it in our hearts to look forward to it all, we'll also find a way to rise above the threat."

December 21, 2012 is the End of a Cycle

A Commentary by Henry Reed
On the Book
Apocalypse 2012: An Investigation into Civilization's End
By Lawrence E. Joseph

What is the meaning of the Mayan's calendar ending on December 21, 2012? Prophecies surrounding that date have been causing much speculation.
Separating the objective information from the mythical is not always easy. One book that stands out because of its exclusive emphasis upon examining the scientific data relevant to that date is Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation into Civilization's End (Morgan Road Books), by Lawrence E. Joseph.
It is a "just the facts" type of book. The author is a science writer for the New York Times. With no agenda to push except for a father's concern for the future of his children, Joseph set out to discover just what we really do know about the circumstances of the planet as that notorious date approaches.
It is an earth cycle that provides the Mayan end date. The earth tilts on its axis, and as the earth revolves around the sun on its annual cycle, that tilt creates the seasons of the year.
Furthermore, the earth's axis wobbles slowly, so that the tilt's direction shifts with the wobble, making its own predictable, cyclical journey that takes 26,000 years for it to complete. That is one, long cycle. To mark the beginning and end of that cycle, the Mayans chose a particular point of reference, based upon their tools of observation.
One's line of sight aimed toward the sun as it rises over the horizon on the winter solstice projects beyond the sun into the Milky Way galaxy, in which our solar system is embedded. The Mayans, and other ancient people, noted that at each winter solstice's observation, the line of sight to the rising sun points to a slightly different spot in the Milky Way.
The Mayan end date was set for when the line of sight was projected to aim at, or to be aligned with, exactly the center of the Milky Way. How they determined where the center was, or why they chose the center as their point, he doesn't explore. He does point out that scientists believe that the center is the site of a black hole.
What might be the impact of the sun blocking earth's view of that black hole once every 26,000 years is uncertain. Nevertheless, that alignment, coming up on December 21, 2012, is the basis for the Mayan's marking point of an end of an age, and the start of a new one.
The author explores many other geophysical phenomena that coincide with this timing. He finds a disturbing number of potentially hazardous phenomena, many of them cyclical and reaching their maximum potential harm to earth around the time of 2012.
The aggregate effect is an objectively stark picture of the possible fate awaiting the planet, as if the Mayans may have had other reasons for choosing to link their calendar to this event.
The earth's magnetic field, for example, has a long cycle of strengthening and weakening, and is in a weakening phase now. A pole shift is preceded by such weakening, so perhaps a polar shift is coming due. In any event, the protection the magnetic field provides, by shielding us from the effects of harmful solar radiation, is weakening.
At the same time, the ozone layer, also a protective sheath, is dissolving. The earth's path around the sun varies, so that sometimes the earth is closer and sometimes farther away from the sun. As the end date approaches, that eccentric cycle will bring earth its closest to the sun. Moreover, sun spot activity, which has enormous influence on events on earth, and follows an eleven year cycle, will be reaching its maximum activity at the same time.
Thus, as our vulnerability increases to disruptive, even deadly, solar radiation, earth will be approaching its closest point to the sun just as the sun is having the worst days of its cyclical upheavals. There are other heavenly events that seem to be reaching maximum danger around the same time, but we will stop here.
The author maintains his purpose is not to scare, but to lay out the facts. Completing a cycle is simply a fact. But facts can have emotional, symbolic overtones. Our New Year's holiday, birthdays, and seasons, to mention a few common cycles, have a deeply embedded meaning in our psyche that an end of a cycle fosters an end to some life circumstances as well, and an opportunity to start anew.
Even though humanity has lived through this 26,000 year cycle before, it's still natural to imagine that as the earth completes the cycle this time, coinciding with many other projected ominous events, some kind of enormous ending in circumstances on earth will occur, while some great new opportunities will appear to allow us to "start fresh."
The author's concluding sentence is the only hint he gives that he's in accord with the consensus among the metaphysically minded that wonderful possibilities for humanity's evolution lie within the coming challenge: "If we can find it in our hearts to look forward to it all, we'll also find a way to rise above the threat."

Mesmer, Swedenborg and the Roots of the "New Age"

The “return of Queztalcoatl,” as in the “return of Christ,” or the “restoration of Eden,” has been a common apocryphal theme. Someone or Something that is wonderful, but that has been “lost,” will be reinstated, will appear again, and things will be different—such is that theme. I’ve been wanting to do some historical research on the origins of many of the themes we’ve been considering, in order to lengthen the “arc” of each story, farther back into time, to perhaps give us a better sighting into the future.

My wife, Janis, has been reading a book The Spiritual Science of the Stars:A Guide to the Architecture of the Spirit, by Pete Stewart. Its basic premise is that for early humans, the stars were gods. So they watched them closely. The myths we have inherited are the stories these early humans saw acted out in the sky. What is amazing, mysterious, is that they could somehow conceive of a cycle that took 26,000 years to complete. It’s one thing to watch the sun go up and down and predict the coming of dawn, or the cycles of the moon, or the cyclical position of the sun at sunrise, but to notice (intuit, see the pattern) a cycle that takes 26,000 years, well, one more amazement. But the reason I’m bringing it up is that by looking at longer arcs of time, new insights arose that were not noticed by viewing shorter arcs.

In my own research on the dissolving of boundaries, the psychology of intimacy has been a major focus of study, as it is so central to self-concept and interpersonal relations, although the boundaries that are dissolving are many, and not just related to psychology. Anyway, I began to look into when in history the concept of “intimacy” arose, when did Oxford dictionary say it was first used. How did we get from a place in human relations where we did not even recognize the existence of intimacy (never gave it a thought) to a place where we create psychological support to help folks who have a fear of intimacy? From cave person to tribal life, to serfs under kings, from home-based farming to the industrial revolution, the man in the grey flannel suit, to encounter groups, to streakers, to MySpace, we have gone on an interesting journey from oneness, to separateness, and now onto a global, individualized awareness of inter-connectedness. The sense of self has developed alongside this storyline.

Anyway, enough prologue. I came across a book tucked back in my library, Perspectives on the New Age, edited by J. R. Lewis and J. G. Melton. Although the “New Age” is no longer a popular term, as the concepts have gone commercial and “mainstream,” and thus shed itself of anything flaky sounding, nevertheless, for some time, New Age was a meaningful label for a movement. How did it get started? The book is a collection of essays on various aspects of the New Age movement, but the history is what I’ve been reading about and wanted to share with you.

There are many ways to trace the history. In chapter 3, “Roots of the New Age,” Kay Alexander traces the roots of two main themes of the New Age: 1) New Thought (Christian Science to Course in Miracles.. and, of course, Edgar Cayce) and 2) Theosophy, back to two men: Anton Mesmer (1733-1815) and Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772).

Swedenborg was a clairvoyant who psychically perceived levels of heavens and hells, described them, and re-introduced the Hermetic principle of "as above, so below," regarding the correspondences between different levels of reality. Mesmer is responsible for introducing a handle on a mystery we now call “hypnosis,” a primary manner of learning to follow in Swedenborg’s footsteps. How Mesmer made his “discovery” of “animal magnetism” remains unknown to me, but this “juice” was understood to be something important to healing, transformation, and spiritual realities. Today, would we call it the “force,” or the “matrix,” or maybe “spirt,” or “kundalini,” or some other supersensible power that runs through all of life.

Whereas dreams probably had a lot to do with the origins of religion, as well as the stars, being able to enter altered states for accessing special information and inspiration. Whether through meditation, self-hypnosis, my inspired heart method, or some other personal skill, we can explore those same realities that gave rise to much of the worldview that is coming into its heyday now.

The last term, “kundalini,” brings up the Hindu tradition, which of course pre-dates our two gentlemen. Theosophy, founded in New York by Blavatsky in 1875, and developing there at the same time that New Thought was spreading. Hinduism joined forces with this movement through Theosophy and also through the coming to America of such folks as Yogananda, and others. That’s not a line I’m going to explore here, but there are chapters on this particular branch of the history, for even the most ancient spiritual tradition talked about our contemporary time period. As John Major Jenkins demonstrates in his book, Galactic Alignment: The Transformation of Consciousness according to Mayan, Egyptian, and Vedic Traditions, it wasn’t just the Mayans who were aware of the 26,000 year cycle and who prophesied creative upheaval in the 2012 period.

More to come…

Dissolving the Boundary between Life and Death

If there’s one thing certain about our changing times, it is that boundaries are disappearing. Pollution, computer viruses, terrorism, AIDS, digital information, the world economy—isn’t oneness wonderful? Something is in process that is taking us, kicking and screaming, toward the interconnected world we’ve always preached about, but seem unready to handle. The dissolving boundary between the objective world “out there” and the subjective world “in here” is especially troublesome for our identities. Out-of-body experiences that prove clairvoyant and alien abductions that leave physical scars are two examples where the realm of the mind and the realm of the physical world seem to overlap or coalesce. We keep a tight distinction between what is only “imaginary,” and what is (physically) “real.” But with the birth of quantum mechanics that distinction was destined to be dissolved. What is happening to our world, to humanity? We might suggest that there’s something afoot whose aim seems to be to “shamanize humanity.” There’s a growing collection of bizarre experiences that threaten to transform our very notion of reality and our place in it. Near-death experiences and the enormous amount of research conducted on this phenomena is a case in point.

The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences: The Ultimate Guide to What Happens When We Die (Hampton Roads Publishing) is a big book alright, and it is as much about the nature of the life as it may truly be than it is simply about the journey from life to death and back again. The author, P.M.H. Atwater, has many books to her credit on this theme, many of which draw upon the work of Edgar Cayce. Her Big Book is certainly encyclopedic and comprehensive. We learn in it more than about the enormous body of research that is providing important information about the nature of these experiences. We also learn how NCEs fit into the more general class of all transformative experiences. We learn that there is a general pattern to transformative experiences and that they are becoming more and more common. So common that together they are inspiring a new concept of what is afoot: “the translucent revolution,” meaning more and more people are becoming less egotistically dense and more transparent to the transpersonal light of creation, or God. Humanity is undergoing a transformation, and Atwater sees evidence of it in the children, what some call the Indigo children. As the veil between life and death disappears, it reveals a greater reality. Truly, this Big Book is as much about this larger reality than it is about simply the phenomenon of being dead for awhile and coming back to life. If it were the case that NDEs were the only phenomenon to transform lives, the only phenomenon in which alternate realities were visited, the only phenomenon in which spirit beings were encountered, the only phenomenon in which people experienced their inherent divinity, then NDEs would certainly be anomalous. But by placing NDEs within the larger context of other transformative experiences, Atwater is able to make a credible case for an emerging evolutionary force at work within and around us.

We are moving, slowly but surely, away from being “grounded” in the physical world and becoming more and more beings in the world of consciousness itself. It is as if the physical world could disappear someday, but we would continue living in a “virtual” world of consciousness. Whether or not we experience this coming change as rapture or rupture may depend upon the attitude with which we regard the death of life as we know it

The Purpose of Prophecy

A Commentary by Henry Reed

Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. Those who ignore the future, however, may be condemned to relenquish it.

Does prophecy help us meet the future, avoid it, or is it self-fulfilling? The purpose of prophecy, according to the Hopi, is to give us a role as a co-creator of the future. Thus concludes Rudolf Kaiser in his new book The Voice of the Great Spirit: Prophecies of the Hopi Indians (published by Shambhala).

The Hopi prophecy has an honored place among other sources, such as the Book of Revelation, Nostradamus, and Edgar Cayce. What they share is a vision of global transformation, dramatic and systemic changes in the nature of life on the planet. Kaiser's scholarly book details the history and development of the Hopi prophecy and its relation to other prophecies, including the less well-known Mayan and Oglala Sioux visions of the future.

According to their creation myth, the Hopi were the first ones to inhabit this planet, actually being survivors from a previous age of people who were annihilated by flood. Ours is the fourth world or age. The others were previously destroyed when the population had progressed, as if on a regular cycle, from innocence to ego-centrism, materialism and greed, and finally to destruction. This fourth world is in its final stage, ready for destruction.

The first encounter with the Hopi's prophecy occurred when the Mormons attempted to convert them in the 1850s. It was then that they learned that the Hopis regarded the Mormons as the "Elder White Brothers," referred to in their prophecy as the returning savior. Some Hopi later changed their assessment of the Mormons and of the Europeans generally, for the white man was clearly not a savior. To this day, the Hopi argue the role of the European in fulfilling their prophecy of the "Elder White Brother," much as Christians argue whether a given influence is of the Christ or of the Anti-Christ.

The Hopi went more public with their prophecy in 1947, revealing the mention of a "gourd of ashes," which they interpreted to be the atomic bomb. Just as many Westerners believed that the atomic era put us on the edge of destruction, so the Hopi connected the bomb with the advance of their prophecy--especially in its apocalyptic aspects.

The Hopi prophecy has changed over the years. Kaiser traces these changes and explains them. According to myth, when the fourth world came into being, God created some writings on four stone tablets to give humankind a sense of its origins and destiny. The iconoglyphs on the stone tablets notwithstanding, the Hopi prophecy was an oral tradition, enabling the people to interact with it. Rather than making the prophecy invalid, this malleability makes it more alive to the Hopi. It lives within the people and grows with them. It is a means by which they find they can participate in the shaping of the future.

By living with the Hopi and interacting with them concerning their prophecy, Kaiser learned that it functions to remind them that they have choices and that those choices affect the future. Prophecy doesn't take away our free will, he learned from the Hopi, but gives us an opportunity to participate in the future by helping us envision the long-term consequences of our attitudes. Without prophecy, there is no future to contemplate; there is only fate. Humans who have no prophecy have thus surrendered their future to helplessness and unknowingness. To the Hopi, prophecy is God's way of giving us the opportunity to be team players in the future.

Jesus and UFOs: Riders of the New Wave of Imagination

Jesus and UFOs:
Riders of the New Wave of Imagination

They can appear to us coming out of the sky, at the foot of the bed, or even inside our heads. They may seem subjective as a dream yet leave a physical trace of their visit. They may feel real to the touch yet abruptly dissolve through a wall. However they appear our lives are never the same. As momentous the encounter may be we hesitate to mention it to anyone less our credibility be questioned.

Jesus and UFOs have a lot in common. Their appearances in people's lives actually share similar traits with apparitions of Mary, and angels as well as demons. All such visions are occuring more frequently than before. There is a foreboding feeling that in this "age between gods," there is a hole in the ozone layer of the psyche leaving us vulnerable to alien thoughts and images which, like awesome asteroids from the far flung corners of mindspace, threaten to collide with our worldview.

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. What if the idea is something that spells the end of the world as we've known it and the end of the future as we've imagined it? One definition of the millenium may be that it is the time in the crack between the worlds when all that is imaginable becomes real and all that was real becomes imaginary. Maybe "New Age" means the world is undergoing a visionary siege accompanying a near-death experience.

It is perhaps no coincidence then that it is Raymond Moody, author Life after Life, who writes the introduction to the new book by Gregory Scott Sparrow, Witness to his return: Personal encounters with Christ (A.R.E. press). Sparrow, who's previous work, Lucid Dreaming: Dawning of the Clear Light, is generally regarded as a contemporary classic, now brings us accounts of people who have had personal experiences of Jesus, face to face meetings with the Messiah returned. These stories of encounters with special beings of light who inspire awe, who perform physical healings, and who transform lives carries the same sort of potential impact as Dr. Moody's groundbreaking book about near-death experiences.

Sparrow's book should stimulate excitement and debate on many fronts. Think of Sophy Burham's surprising bestseller, A Book of Angels (Ballantine). It spawned an immediate sequel, Angel Letters, because there were so many more people who had had these encounters than the author had originally realized. Sparrow's book is so convincing that a sequel feels inevitable.

Was the encounter real or was the person just imagining it? This question may be the hallmark of the mentality of the rational age. By giving the first name, "Just" to imagination, the rational mind clearly puts the experience in its place, a spot inferior to "reality."

One of the paradoxes of these apparitions, however, is that they are challenging our views about the imagination and blurring the distinction between subjecive and objective, inner and outer. The rational age seems threatened with extinction. Nowhere is this threat more clear than in UFO sightings and abductions.

A new book, Angels and Aliens: UFOs and the Mythic Imagination is probably the most profound book on the UFO controversy yet to appear. That a respected academic press such as Addison Wesley published the book makes you take notice. The author, Keith Thompson, an independent scholar who, by first interviewing Robert Bly in New Age Journal, is credited with unleashing the Men's movement. Here Thompson chronicles the unfolding of the UFO story from flying saucer sightings in 1947 to the millenial mythologizing they've stimulated today. Rather than deciding whether UFOs are nuts-and-bolts flying machines or subjective, symbolic experiences, he allows that they are both and then some. Denizens of the mythic imagination, they are messengers from a deeper reality, he theorizes, who have come to help us let go of our old world and prepare for the new. Like Sparrow who writes that we tend to "create our identity by excluding aspects of ourselves rather than by embracing our wholeness," Thompson suggests that UFOs force us to grant reality status to the imagination, thus admiting into our world regions we've long excluded.

That it is the imagination indeed that is both the source and the target of what we call the "New Age," or millenium, is a subject treated with even broader historical perspective in another recent book, Reimagining the World: A critique of the New Age, Science and Popular culture (Bear and Company). A record of a public dialogue between two great metaphysical philosophers, David Spangler & William Irwin Thompson, it is an intellectual feast that provides a good context for digesting Sparrow's and Thompson's reports. The authors are both mystics who have "retired" from the "New Age." Spangler, once of Findhorn, and Irwin Thompson, once of Lindesfarne, identify the imagination as the creative spiritual force moving us into a completely new future. They condemn the "New Age," however, as vulgarized by the media serving our desire to "perpetuate the familiar in the guise of the new." Specific images of the New Age must die, THEY ARGUE, for the New Age to live. Worship no graven image. It's too easy to get stuck on a particular "image" of the future, they contend, rather than the force of imagination itself.

The new wave of the imagination sweeps upon our shores many travelers. What type of passport will help us discern the dark invaders from the bright avatars? The encounters Sparrow describes all have constructive side-effects--lives are changed for the better. There is no such consistent positive impact in the encounters Keith Thompson surveys, even when he places them in the politically correct context of shamanic initiations. This distinction readily suggests the ideal of "fruits of the spirit." God is love, Jesus is comforter. Yet if we assume we can always recognize the fruits, how do we know we might not exclude a new form of fruit never before encountered? Prepare to imagine the unimaginable.

To learn about Henry Reed’s upcoming School of the Prophets seminar on the future of consciousness, go to henryreed.com/futureconsciousness

The Shamanizing of Humanity

I hope you’ve had a chance to read the summary of Kenneth Ring’s The Omega Project, prepared by Quentin Benson, and appearing in the latest issue of intuitive-connections.net. You can find it at http://www.intuitive-connections.net/2008/b00k-omegaproject.htm

There are at least three important books that outline “the shamanizing of humanity,” as described in this book. The other two are Passport to the Cosmos, by John Mack, and The Final Choice, by Michael Grosso. There could be others. Ring’s and Mack’s books are the result of enormous scientific research. They all point in the same direction, that being labeled “the shamanizing of humanity.”

Ring studied both UFO encounters and Near Death Experiences. From the summary: “Despite the obvious differences between the UFOE and NDE, Dr. Ring declares that at a deeper level, there is a common link between these extraordinary encounters—the archetypal structure of both experiences. As the UFOE takes the general form of the Hero's Journey, so does the NDE. The domains of the two experiences are quite different, yet both NDE and CE4s appear to represent the Initiatory Journey.”

“Both NDErs and UFOrs enter a non-ordinary reality where they undergo an initiatory ordeal after which they return to their "real" life, but in some way transformed by their experience. Both NDEs and CE4s have the same structure and contain the same factors. The personal changes that occur after NDEs and UFOEs are permanent in other words. In Dr. Ring's own words, ‘Extraordinary encounters appear to be the gateway to a radical, biologically based transformation of the human personality.’"

Ring’s book concludes by referencing the little known work on the “imagination” as a dimension of reality, a “supersensible” dimension known intuitively or psychically, rather than with the senses. He argues that the changes coming have to do with this dimension becoming more “real” in our lives. That idea echoes Terrance McKenna, who in his book, Archaic Revival, predicts, without any evidence from the research above, that we are moving into the realm of the imagination. What that might mean for life on our planet is a fascinating subject which I intend to explore more.

We have the books, Passport to the Cosmos scheduled for summarizing by Connie Livingston Dunn, and The Final Choice scheduled for summarizing by Andrea Rumpsza. I’m looking for someone to summarize McKenna’s Archaic Revival. There could be other books along this line, which I hope to find, and if you have any suggestions, let me know. The above books are very high quality, grounded material for such mind-blowing topics.

If you have any hopes of joining us at our School of the Prophets, September 14-20, please go register at http://tinyurl.com/ywzs7t

Henry