Ayahuasca Addiction and the Ego
Eight years ago, as Venus was eclipsing the Sun and retrograding in the sign of Gemini, I was beginning my psychedelic path. I had an experience with mushrooms at a party I was hosting. The experience opened me to the depth of my psyche and the breadth of the cosmos. It ironically sobered me from substance addiction and expanded my imagination and my sense of what was possible, both within myself and reality in general. Within the next few months, as Venus (unbeknownst to me) continued its retrograde transit, I took a backpacking trip into the Porcupine Mountains of northern Michigan with a childhood friend, a Gemini (my natal sun is also in the 3rd house of Gemini). After tripping out together in an epic wilderness setting we began exploring psychedelics together somewhat regularly for the next year until we traveled together to the Amazon to drink Ayahuasca in the spring of 2005.
Drinking ayahuasca was the most ecstatic experience I had ever had. My mind, body, and heart were opened far beyond what I knew or believed was possible, even considering the psychedelic explorations I had done prior to entering the Amazon jungle. However, they were not my first ecstatic experiences. Prior to my forays into psychedelics I had been a drug addict, and prior to that an evangelical/Pentecostal Christian, and prior to that I had grown up with a liberal preacher father who had been influenced in his early 20's by the psychedelic experience. His lifelong interest in Native American ritual, sweat lodges, poetry, mythology, and the psychedelic music era had been an undercurrent in my upbringing that I was hardly aware of until my first ayahuasca experiences in my mid twenties.
In short, my entire life has been very deeply steeped in "transformational," "ecstatic," and "mystical" states of consciousness. If this range of “peak” experiences has taught me anything, they have certainly shown me both the light and dark sides of the religious/mystical mindset. As Venus has just recently completed its 8 year retrograde cycle this past June, returning to retrograde in the sign of Gemini where it was 8 years ago when I began my psychedelic journeys, and also making its second eclipse of the sun (these sets of Venus/Sun eclipses only happen every 100+ years), I've come to the realization that many of the truths derived from altered states of consciousness, especially ones that wish to kill or eliminate the ego, often reflect a pathological or karmically entangled state unique to people who gravitate toward ecstatic experiences in general.
The Ego and the Moon, the Soul and the Sun
In the field of evolutionary astrology, as in many religious/spiritual traditions, much is made of our successive incarnations occurring because of a primitive "separation desire" that is related, like the concept of sin, the fall of man, or the state of maya (illusion), to duality. From this point of view, we are each one of us experiencing a temporary state (a delusional or illusory state) of being separate from the true source of reality, or God. The goal of our evolutionary development from one incarnation to the next is to exhaust this desire to be separate (through doing every possible thing imaginable that the ego/lower self could desire to do that is based in separateness). Once the separation desire is exhausted on the soul level, then we will merge back into the godhead, or the "oneness" from whence we originated.
This particular view of the flesh, the body, the ego, and the "lower" self, is nothing new. It's as old as Plato's "real world" beyond the phenomenal illusion. It's as old as the Buddha or Jesus teaching people of the temporal nature of the body and material pleasures. In Christendom it's as old as St. Augustine's platonically influenced departure from the City of Man into the City of God. This is the quintessential, mythological quest to free oneself from a material prison into a higher realm of consciousness, and finally into complete absorption with God. It is an old religious story, and there is much to be said for it.
It is true, after all, that the dark side of being a sensory creature, living with a body, is the way in which our bodily desires can entangle us with all kinds of suffering. Our fear of our own mortality can send us down rabbit holes of power hunger, violence, greed, lust, and fear. To restrain and cultivate moderation of the terrestrial, earth-based self is something each one of must learn to do. The first problem comes when we assume that this "lower" self is qualitatively different or "less than" our higher self. The second problem comes when we assume that our "higher" self is any less capable of pushing us out of balance than our "lower" self.
But before going any further, let's take a brief digression into a review of the higher-self and lower-self archetypes as they have been presented, generally, throughout much of the history of esoteric or karmic astrology. In many traditional astrological schools of thought, the Sun is considered to be the archetype of the soul. The Sun is therefore representative of the "higher" self. From our perspective throughout the seasons, although the amount of light in a twenty four hour day waxes and wanes if we live in the northern or southern hemisphere, the face of the sun itself remains constant. The archetype of the "sun as the soul" or the sun as the higher self is therefore related to that which is eternal and unchanging. The soul, like the sun, lives on singularly and steadily despite the vacillations of the seasons or the daily rotation of the earth upon its axis.
In contrast, the Moon has long been corresponded to the opposite archetype of "the ego." The Ego is therefore the contrasting, "lower" self. From our perspective, each month, the light on the face of the moon waxes and wanes. The moon is mutable, cyclical, and time bound. The ego, similarly, is changeable. The ego is governed by time and space and the impermanence of change (which implies the ego's relationship to death).
Many of our spiritual philosophies and world religions teach us to liberate from the ego, the moon, and the lower self, in order to be more steady, singular, and eternal, like the higher, solar self. But is it possible that the solar self is actually no better than the lunar self? Let's take a look at several interesting pieces of astrological symbolism surrounding the moon.
Revaluing the Lunar
From our perspective, although the distance between the earth and the moon compared to the distance between the earth and the sun is vast, the Sun and the Moon still appear exactly the same size from our perspective on earth. This is perhaps no coincidence. Additionally the moon is capable of eclipsing the sun's light from our perspective. It happens twice a year during our two annual eclipse seasons. The next thing to consider is that without the moon's orbit around the earth, and its gravitational relationship to our planet, our 24-hour day would not exist. Instead, the earth would spin on its axis in a breezy 8 hours, and we would not receive the contrast of dark with light or night with day.
Many proponents of a masculine, solar based vision of progress toward "oneness," "singularity," and "enlightenment" or transcendence of materiality and the ego like to point out that the moon's light (representative of the ego's waxing and waning) is only a reflection of the Sun's steady light. Because the moon has no light-giving properties it is thought of as "under the guidance" of the masculine emperor: the sun. But this is short sighted. Without the alternation of dark and light in a 24-hour day, created by the mere presence of the moon's orbit, the sun's heat would be too constant and too intense to birth and sustain life on our planet. For at least our place in the cosmos, in order for life to take root, develop, and flourish, an alternation of dark and light is necessary. The moon is therefore not only a reflective object in the sky that just happens to be the same size as the Sun. Rather, the moon, and the ego in astrological terms, is a kind of integral disseminator, cultivator, nourisher, space holder, and guide for the process of undifferentiated light and energy (the soul/the sun) taking shape and evolving. By degrading the cyclical, time bound and ephemeral movements of the moon in comparison to the Sun's steady light we fail to recognize the necessary nature of darkness and night to light and day.
So how does this astrological lingo translate into human terms? Put simply, our true self is not simply the solar principle. Our true SELF is an integral union between our lower self and our higher self.
When we talk about the "ego" we therefore need to be respectful.
Considering the Fate of Solar Hubris
In this current Aquarian age (a masculine, fixed air sign) it is important to consider the mythological fate of Solar pride. There are several mythological figures that remind us what can happen when we favor the solar, fiery, upward aspiring energy over the downward, earthy energy.
Daedelus & Icarus
In the story of Daedelus and Icarus, the inventor Daedelus creates a pair of wax wings, and his son Icarus uses them to fly as high as he can toward the sun. Flying too high Icarus' wax wings melt and he comes crashing back down to the earth, down into the ocean.
Prometheus
In the story of the Titan Prometheus, we have another story of solar pride. In his heroic angst, Prometheus steals the fire of the Gods to give to the people, but on his way off Mount Olympus he is caught by the Gods and chained to the earth, to the side of a cliff. He is consoled by the spirits of nature as he is made to suffer day in and day out until an immortal being, Chiron, eventually takes his place.
Lucifer
In the biblical story of God's brightest, light-bringing angel, Lucifer meets a fate similar to Icarus and Prometheus. Wanting to be equal with God in the heights, Lucifer is cast down to earth where he becomes the embittered devil.
In each of these mythological stories, the desire to be equal with God, to strive after a kind of solar, singular, transcendence of the body and the lower terrestrial realms is always met with an earthly punishment. When we strive for equality or singularity we are cast back down to earth because it is the fertile ground where equality and singularity are not only already extant, but are always constantly evolving. The Kingdom of Heaven, from this point of view, is right here in front of us. If we attempt to fly too high above our earth-bound reality, then we suffer the fate of the divine rebels and become an embittered devil.
Many religious thought currents on our planet, whether in the guise of America's Chrisitan evangelical churches, mid-eastern Muslim fundamentalists, modern politicians and economists, or the global new age movement, are hugely solar and singular or reductionist in their view of evolution (that is to say they are single minded in their views of why we are here, where we've been, and where we are heading or what we must do as individuals or as a species).
An imbalanced solar impulse likes to reduce things to oneness or to final, absolute answers about what is valuable versus what is not valuable. An imbalanced solar impulse tries to transcend or escape the process of the eternal unfolding right before us, in the material reality. An imbalanced solar impulse likes to break old forms but doesn't know how or why to build new ones. These tendencies also happen to be the shadow side of the innovative and rebellious Aquarian age we have recently entered. Progress, rebellion, iconoclastic and singular thinking, and the deconstruction of the old Saturnian forms may occur regularly without a healthy understanding of what we are trying to pro-create through our acts of rebellion or progress.
Solar Addictions and Altered States
The truth is that most of us, as children, are hugely solar by nature. We come into this world deeply in touch with our eternal (star dust) self. As we age the reality of our lunar, limited self sets in and the balancing act of our Sun and Moon signs begins. Currently, there is perhaps no better ally on our planet for this integration than rites of passage. During a rite of passage a participant will be guided ceremoniously through a microcosmic reenactment of their own death, only to be rebirthed. Through the process of the ego recognizing its own limits, surrendering to its own time and cycle bound nature, and then being reborn with a new awareness of its participation in life eternal (the solar self), an integrated, capital "s" SELF may emerge.
The integral SELF is therefore a yoking of the ego (our time bound self) with the soul (our eternal self). The point is that there is no good reason to assume that just because forms are temporary that they are not holy. The higher-self within us often hates to be confined or defined into forms, and the material self within us often hates to be taken outside of its familiar home or trappings into the boundless freedom of the higher self.
Freedom, true freedom, is perhaps ultimately found in acceptance and balance. Many people, when they hear this, jump to the conclusion that this strips us of our impetus to change the world or change ourselves for the better. This is a solar rebuttal, but it is not a universal remedy or answer to a universal "problem." Sometimes change happens through ambition and rebellion and crusading. And sometimes change happens through surrendering and suffering. Incarnation is a live balancing act!
The problem, (bringing all of this back around now to the subject of ayahuasca and/or altered states in general), is that the altered states of consciousness open up higher worlds that contain great power and freedom from the lower worlds. Many people who drink ayahuasca regularly, or anyone who alters their state on a regular basis, can therefore become addicted to the downloading of higher information or the freedom experienced during altered states. Here are several signs that are perhaps indicative of an altered state addiction.
Three Signs that You Might Be Addicted to Altered States
1. If you are able to drink ayahausca or alter your state regularly and yet you persist in unhealthy patterns outside of the altered states you enjoy.
Many people who drink ayahuasca or alter their states regularly are, for example, addicted to marijuana and lack a healthy motivation to work toward anything practically contributive to humanity. In fact over the past several years I have witnessed serious marijuana addiction within the leadership ranks of many well established medicine communities. It's one thing to enjoy a sacred puff once in a while, but it's another thing when it becomes a regular way of life. Any lifestyle that needs to stay "high" regularly may not be integrated with the earthly, lunar dimension of the body. After all, how can we integrate if we never come down before going back up?
Secondly, I've witnessed within myself and many shamans or regular shamanic participants the ability, over time and practice, to transcend the purgative aspects of the medicine despite an unhealthy diet, regular alcohol consumption, and other devious behaviors. When I first started drinking the medicine my actions directly correlated to the amount of purging I might face. With time this bodily balancing fades for regular medicine drinkers, suggesting that perhaps the body is becoming immune to "the medicinal" aspects of "the medicine." The body can learn how to go up and up while transcending the reality of the sicknesses present below in the ego and the body (something the medicine is supposed to be all about!).
2. If you live in medicine or altered states communities or participate constantly, but you are not able to relate well outside of them.
I've witnessed an enormously naive quality in myself over the past few years that recently came to a head, and I've honestly noticed the same quality in many of the medicine/altered states communities in general. There is an "us" versus the "unenlightened" or "unconscious" world "out there" mentality. This Scorpio/Aquarius group/cult fusion mentality, at its worst, can be akin to a kind of new age Mafia. The crimes are organized psychic acts against humanity and against the status quo. We sometimes make the egregious assumption that the state of things outside and above the terrestrial world are essentially "better than" exactly what is happening here on earth. We may believe that trusting the fates or the current state of the material world is akin to laziness, yet we don’t stop to seriously consider the idea that we're merely addicted to solar, upward visioning.
3. If you come from a wounded past, you can't complete things, your visions often dematerialize, and you are struggling to survive doing something you love.
This one is hard as it is something I have struggled with myself quite deeply at times.
After counseling many clients in the past two
years through astrology, I've come to learn that the new-age, solar imbalance
often manifests as the person who has wonderful ideas, artistic creativity, and
ambitious things to say but also lacks the integral, practical know-how to
construct lasting results. Results take hard work. They require getting our
hands dirty, and they often require sacrifices of the flesh and bone variety. I
have found, both within myself and within the new age communities, a
consistently lackadaisical work ethic. If we carry ourselves from one vision or
one "trip" to the next, and we never come down to till the soil and
gain the perspective of the earth, the ego, and duality, then nothing we do
will take root. While I admit that there is value to the free-wheeling,
Sagittarian spirit of upward aspiring, philosophizing, constant drumming,
trance-dancing and altered states reveling, there is also a remarkably
predictable karma around this "festive-al" optimism and youthfulness.
As one grows older, and Saturn sets in, there is a kind of burnt-around-the-edges bitterness that accumulates like barnacles. Dogma develops into
ironically material hypocrisies, and the disenchantment, or even worse, the
dismemberment, act of the moon occurs as the reality of the ego sets in. Not all of the time,
but often enough, there is something highly pathological about people seeking
endless freedom and ego-killing highs.
Revaluing the Solar
I've come down hard on the solar in this article at the risk of sounding self-righteous myself. My purpose is not to condemn altered states, ayahuasca, or the new age. I still participate semi-regularly in medicine ceremonies and I believe that solar/altered states practices can be hugely valuable for one's development. The purpose of this article has been to merely point out what I feel is an inherent dogmatic/solar irony and unconsciousness within the new age movement.
We need to get away from the idea that evolution is only moving us up and out of duality. We need to get away from the idea that what is mortal is evil. We need to get away from the idea that what is lower is not necessary, and we need to cultivate a more integrated imagining of ourselves in the universe.
To me, the best solar philosophies and/or the best altered states, not only liberate us from the ego but simultaneously revive our need for the ego's healthy participation in the cosmos.
A Venus Cycle Concluded
After 8 years and over two hundred and fifty psychedelic journeys, as Venus in its 8 year cycle painted another 5 petaled lotus flower in the sky, eclipsing the sun twice during its cycle, and doing so for the first time in over 100 years, I learned these very same important lessons in my own life.
I'm currently learning to let go of my dependency on heavily solar states of consciousness or motivation. I share all of this with excitement, but I am aware that this "imbalance" I perceive generally in the "new age" may not be as pronounced as I see or experience it. I might be projecting enormously. At the same time I know that this message will reach some who may need to hear it.
I offer gratitude to the planet Venus in completion of its recent historic cycle this special 2012 year. To the Mayans the Venus cycle was thought to represent the union between the upper and lower worlds!
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Comments
Thankyou
Adam, this is awesome as
This was a revolutionary article for me :)
Sometimes looking up and down, its hard to see eye to eye
Adam I am a big fan of buddhabrats.com.
Astrology is the result of formalizing thousands of years of sky watching, and the percieved effects in human affairs and all life. Though ancient people were not aware of earth's geomagnetic field and the electromagnetic effects of extraterrestrial bodies causing fluctuations in that field. I am wondering now understanding the prescience underlying astrology, if the symbolic system of the zodiac has now become archaic and obsolete. Perhaps in the future we will see a new zodiac which is more objective and free from the bondage of ancient symbolism, maybe its not plausible or purposeful without it.
I think the zodiac is interesting, the transmutation of the elements through cycles, controlled by planets. Each god of Greco-Roman paradigm is represented as a tone of energy emanating from a planet, with its particular symbolic characteristics. Much like humans, many in number, having degrees of power, causing wars and sending blessings. Many gods for the different tones and colours of the seasons.
Of course the planets rotate around the sun. But then the solar system rotates in one of the spiral arms of our galaxy moving towards the black hole in the center. Which isn't something ominous and evil, its the balanced action of creative and destructive potentials of the universe and the necessary nexus point of being from which emerges; stabalized atoms, which form molecules, and proteins, and DNA etc. So what this tangent has to do with is if you are identifying your self with planetary energies or the suns energies, this is not the true center of creation and existence, the objective absolute reality would be more akin to the empty center of our galaxy.
Of course this is only applicable if we choose to find pseudoreligious understanding in the resonance of the universe. It would make some sense as we are not living in the universe, we are actually created of it, therefore there is no real division in the absolute sense of the one thing that is all things. The many gods of the zodiac and their characteristics are indicative of a stricktly homocentric paradigm.
The idea of Jesus as the sun, and YHWH ( The self-existent one, the interpenetrating oneness of all things, the ever present everything) as the galactic center seems to resonate well if it was put through the lens of astrology.
So i was wondering from reading your article, if your ritualized adherence to an authoritarian system of astrology is a hinderence to your practice as a buddhist?
Do the many gods obscure that knowledge of the indivisible one??
thank you
I enjoyed reading your response, and now I'm interested to check out Buddhabrats.com as well!
I'll offer some small debate with a few of the ideas you present here.
The first is when you said that astrology is the result of thousands of years of sky watching and observing the planetary "effects." I don't think this is the way astrology developed. I think that the more archaic the consciousness was (meaning the farther back we trace astrological thought) the more we see an inherent consciousness of the "as above so below" axiom.
I think early peoples probably had a "felt" understanding of the relationship between singularity and duality in the cosmos. Astrology comes from this integral vision of the cosmos.
Is it possible that astrology appears homocentric to you, and that one might value a singularity at the center of the galaxy, because their mission or personal resonance pattern is more solar/masculine in nature? Why assume that the galactic source is any better than the emanation from the source? Why get any more focused on the source at the center of the galaxy than enmeshed within the creation that comes from it? I think balance is the keyword.
I don't think that astrology is authoritarian. I think it could be.
I think, ideally, the gods point us toward the god, and god points us toward the gods...vice versa.
I do like the idea, very much, of the true "center" (as black hole) being somehow beyond the opposites. It sounds very taoist. Its unnamable, unspeakable, and it is the source beyond manifest or unmanifest ways of holding our notion of "Source."
Lots to chew on there. Thank you much!
Adam Elenbaas
I apologize it was a different Adam
Alteration and Inherent Sublimity
Do the Entheogens really offer us an "alternative" state of consciousness, or just insights into the "cosmic mainstream" Are people really getting "addicted" to non-addicting substances or is the tribe just reacting to more and more waves of progressive "non-entheogenic" domination by the world around them ...
Are we really trying to "break it all apart without knowing how to put it back together" or just trying by any means possible to alter the course or stop inevitable detruction of the earths natural beauty and wonder {by any means} and the consequent social degradation that is truely chronic in it's pervasive influences.
In the 60's a whole generation attempted to open up peaceful dialog with the "elders" but to know avail ... out came the riot squad ... the only advancement made seems to be that riot squads have become more sophisticated {more high tech weapons}
At some point one has to realize that extremes in behavior are themselves cosmic polar reactions to previous inertial nescience ... quantum inspiration or inertial stagnation {revelation or perpetual relativity}... each of us has influence similar to any planetary influence {just on a different scale} ... as the whole cosmos is reciprocal in it's ongoing interactions.
We are as much causing change as change is causing us .. it is an integral exchange of sorts, from the consciousness perspective that it.
There are often massive cosmic disruptions everytime there is a birthing of a new star ... same with each of our births ... so it is with the social body .. many things that seem chaotic, or beyond our control or understanding are just all different kinds of polarity working themselvers out.
Should we be peaceful, should we be violent .. should we mass together, should we go it alone ... how often and to what degree do we take shelter in entheogenic support ... virually endless variations on all of these themes ... as there always has been .. none of us able to influence any more than we are ourselves subject to be influenced.
It is one big interactive cosmos which is never really subject to only base poles of distinction , like good and evil, male and female, Sun and /moon, yin and yang ... but many,many "shades of gray" are forever also "in the mix" from virtually every angle of perspective.
Let us not try to tell ourselves any more than we are listening as to what is really transpiring all around us, as life is never based on principle alone, forever as much chaotic as intergrated.
Lessons to be learned from every perspective. As we are truly all connected. There are 1.5 million genetic variations humans biologically have just in how they each alchemically transmutate minerals and vitamin intake from our food ... the subtleties of our constitutions are immensely varigated.
Same goes for all of our psycho-socio view points and behaviors. So hard it is to just let the extremes work themselves out ... each of us limited in our completeness ... yet open to virtually infinite types of influence ... what can a poor cosmonaught do but find his place his own way.
Has it ever really been different .. in art, music, religion, science, philopsophy, sociology .. no matter how many micro, or macro plateaus of congenniality reached, in between and after there will forever be continual quantum flux required to find such plateaus of collective agreement{s}anew ... if only for the moment ... as perpetuation and perpetration forever seem to go hand-in-hand as creative-destructive cycles instigate change.
As none of us are omniscient "lifes big lesson" can only be learned in increments. As we each find our limitations in our own lives and in our ability to learn from or tolerate the lives of others ... and then the next moment have to learn all over again but another variation on this same lesson ... all of us forever equal in this regard ...
balance
TZM
Enjoyed
Honest question
Too many beginners...
go study Agrippa
Adam, I like what you are doing here in writing about ayahuasca from an astrological perspective, and I like what you have to say about altered state addiction, and if you inspired even one potentially functioning human to quit smoking pot, that would be of service to the Earth and to the universe, if only they'd stick to it, but I think you've got your astrology ass-backwards, most especially in that you seem to assigning rulership of ayahuasca to the Sun which I will disagree with. Your delineation of the solar and lunar principles are really strange and seem perhaps stuck in some kind of binary remnant of an evangelical christian upbringing. You may be transposing ideas about a higher and lower self onto Sol and Luna, and then calling them Soul and Ego, both wrongly. The Moon has never been corresponded to the ego, and I ravaged my bookshelves for and hour before I would state that. You can call the moon alot of things (and she'll take it), but certainly not the ego. If anything, that egoic drive is more of what the Sun expresses and gives energy to in its being the vital force and will to live that animate the lunar vessel of the soul. I am not here to be nit-picky (or have only just begun), but if you start off your argument with such a misapprehension, you're going to be flooring your house with sheetrock, or just playing fast and loose with the gods to say whatever you felt like saying anyway. Esoterically, the Sun may show where the higher Self may find fullest expression in this incarnation, and what must be "brought forth" to bring that to light, but it's not the "higher self" per se, certainly not on this side of the Abyss, and the Sun is as conditioned by ego response and patterns of self importance, unquestioned assumption, and self-righteousness, as the moon is by emotional need, insecurity, object substitution, and patterns of lack, perceived or actual. Also children do not come forth into the world young solar gods. They come into the world little shrieking bundles of pure lunar Need, and develop into more self-regulating organisms once they've passed through a Mars return or two and can wipe themselves, but childhood is generally considered ruled by Mercury of the Mischief and sneaky little fingers in the jar. And the Moon is not some limitation that sets in with age. That is Saturn, if you're not doing him right (if you meet his expectations and standards, you are rewarded and granted the power you've earned). The Moon is what you take in with your mother's milk, if you weren't denied that, and even the ancestral lineage flowing through your blood and, too, your own incarnational lineage coed in your DNA and auric field, and then, what you need to feel safe and fed, be it knives or cake. And the Sun is no "masculine emperor" guiding the whimsical moon. That would be their dad, Jupiter (or you're thinking of Jesus again, chilling in Tipareth). Nor is the Sun a particularly transcendent force or one that inclines one toward transcendence (unless so placed and aspected). The Sun just likes to shine on you and me, and Apollo is not the greatest of gods. I am reminded here of the story of how Apollo tricked his sister Artemis into killing her lover Orion (Orion was the only one who could keep up along side her in the hunt) because he didn't like her giving her attention and affection to anyone else but him (here Apollo would be played by a blond Tom Cruise, but more smug and creepy about his sister instead of Katie). I'll take Orion. But to equate the Sun with the upward fiery motion of a transcendent force or function of the soul is to mix in the elements and triplicities, and their powers and seats. And- to quote Mr. Bill Callahan "If all you want to do is be the Fire part of Fire"- you're not going to find that in the prancing child of The Sun tarot card. "Cause Sycamore got to grow down to grow up." Which means if you equate the downward force with the "lower" then you're just going to develop shallow roots which topple you easily in wind or storm. And the four Kings reside well past the Sun in Chokmah, the seat of Wisdom. But maybe we agree about all that and the new age mafia types, calling "enlightened " what is merely high and disassociated, and insisting they're fine and past all the pain they really haven't begun to go through. But I thought that was the point of Ayahuasca. Which is perhaps what you are saying? Then I'd argue all the more against ascribing it to a solar principle or rulership. The Sun just doesn't have the Chthonic force in him to rule over such a mordant substance. I asked my friend who is a medieval astrologer, and who also made a trip to Brazil and Peru, what she thought. And she noted that it is of the jungle, gathered (by night?), a mixture of plants and vines, cooked slowly in a big pot, which, drunk ritually, takes you down deep wherever She wants to take you before She lets you go. That all said lunar to her, and the Presence itself a very feminine one. Myself I felt it more as a Moon/Pluto power, but naturally, I have the moon opposing Pluto and squaring Saturn- so it is reflective in that way, too, of what is within one. But go ask the Morrigan what is in her pot. And my friend expressed scorn for the American party/tribe/religion that has sprung up around it, versus the ordeal- in-nature that she went down for, but she has Saturn at Midheaven, and likes to do things the old hard way. But community always expresses an emerging collective need, maybe people are passing through really difficult transitions on ayahuasca and just need a supportive group of people who have been through similarly heavy shit, not necessarily drinking it all the time, but maybe doing other community-building things, too, like saving the rain forests or collecting brush wood to prevent wild fires or holding knitting circles. And maybe more cosmic midwives are needed to hold the space sacred for people who are going through or coming out of big transformations, so they won't just dull the pain and dissonance of coming back to the real world -or continue on avoiding it- with a pharmaceutical or alcoholic epidural. Results don't just take hard work, they take holding to a vision which is amplified many times over if shared, reinforced, and supported. Anyway, my own, sole (not enough to conclude by, I usually have to try things twice, unless I can immediately tell that they're really evil) experience with that beheading brew, brought under the auspices of Jupiter conjunct my south node, was more like a galactic death initiation than anything I'd like to take daily with the sun. It hurt like hell- in soul not body, i didn't puke at all- but then I felt grand after, wonderfully reborn, but I wouldn't do it again lightly. In fact, it was pretty much exactly like giving birth, which I also did squatting on a rug, though at home not amongst people. It hurt like hell, something got born, and then I felt fine and wanted to get up and move around and enjoy the lightness I felt. But I wouldn't have wanted to have too estatic a birth or I might end up with ten kids. Some things should hurt enough to scare you away from them or at least treat them with respect. But I have Mars in exact trine to Pluto. Also anything too readily accessible is too easily misused and made bad of, however good it is. Then I'll leave you with Plato because you mentioned Plato, and also the Venus transit. "Behold Pan and all ye other Gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and the inward man be as one."
ok then,
Brenda
thank you brenda.
i was first attracted by this article due to noticing from my earliest experience with 'the medicine' that one simply must work with the information influx in a way that can integrate the 'learning' with daily life - and that sentiment has been with me as i have continued this plant-teacher path.
it has appeared to me that there is indeed a kind of disconnect between this path and the integration - mainly because our societies do not accommodate such accelerated learning. i whole-heartedly agree with brenda that we need some kind of spiritual midwifery for those coming through this process. and some kind of integration codex - but alas - in our mixed up world we don't have it.
combine this with the fact that i am an ex-pat u.s. american - having re-started my plant-medicine path after more than a decade process of 'de-programming' of being an 'american' - something i realizes provokes some ego-wrenching questions of personal identity as it is so knotted with national identity. therefore - i find that the subject of this essay does a couple things in opposing directions to me.
one - i feel a bit of an awkward reaction in opposition to the simplification of the topic - i feel that there is a kind of 'american' reductionism that makes some quick-sense about infinitely sublime topics that unfortunately turns something unspeakably complex into a sound-bite. i think that indeed - 'altered states' might provoke a quasi-addictive position to maintain some kind of special states - but it seems to me - it is more reflective of a process that needs time to fully be understood and integrated - so the so-called 'addictive' aspect - might more be the compulsion or even necessity to return to that dimension to 'learn more' and that might come up against many aspects of our sorely limited society.
two - i applaud adam for bringing this topic out on the table as i think that it is something that in someway should be addressed - but i'd rather it go in a more radical direction - that is - why don't people integrate more as opposed to creating yet again a new duality to hang our heads around...
finally - as more than half of my experience have been within the context of santo daime in europe - i can say that there is a kind of double edge sword of learning on this path. yes indeed one should be aware of how their ceremonial self is doing - how it is being shown openings - and how these openings are showing ways of living. but one must necessarily integrate this information into their daily-life and this takes a bit of courage and ability to bring over through the experience the capacity to remember, to articulate, to refine the dialog.
this for one is an extremely difficult process for me - as i know i need some kind of stronger community engaged in this process around me - i am quite alone on this path - so - again - i really think many of us could use some kind of supportive 'mid-wife' to be born into a new being that can take on the challenges being necessitated around us...
well, i am quite thankful to brought on the santo daime path - as it has a powerfully organized context and intention to do just that. i am thankful also to have been with guides that have taught always to transcend the outward symbols and go ever deeper into the 'truth' that appears to each of us on that path.
may we all travel further along our paths of 'truth'
is it accelerated?
Hi Sullie,
I think the medicine path is beautiful, and helpful, but I'm not sure it's accelerated. In fact, I find that this is a kind of commonly masculine/solar/upward aspiring way of looking at how evolution may or may not occur.
There is an irony when we do things that take us up and out of the status-quo and then blame the status-quo for being the status-quo. What makes the upward movement remarkably beautiful is the contrasting status-quo, and I think many people in the medicine communities don't see this--instead they see themselves as "lucky" and they see what we have as a great "secret" or a "blessing" for "special" people who have somehow been led or called to "the doctrine." Although the Daime is not evangelical in the same way many mainstream Christian churches are--it's certainly priviliges what it does in its own quiet "firm" way.
I think, to challenge you in a friendly way (I'm also a Daime member!), perhaps you are responding oppositionally to what you feel is a reductionism in my article because you value the medicine over and above something mundane within yourself? Often people who have found something very special--be it the holy spirit, the daime, meditation, etc, become very angry whenever the element of earth (reduction to the mundane) is used in a description of what the sacrament or ritual does for a person. One of my favorite astrologers, Liz Greene, says, "If you want to make a fiery person mad, tell them their soul is just a complex of chemical reactions that creates a feeling that they have called the soul." She goes on to say that she does in fact believe in the soul but that it's interesting to watch how incredibly defensive people become and that we can learn a lot about fire from a fiery person's defense of the unapproachability of the soul.
Is the medicine really sublime? Infinitely submlime and unspeakbly complex? Maybe. Sometimes I agree--it is that. Other times I believe that these very qualities are merely the exact qualities of certain altered states of consciousness. Namely they are more masculine, fiery, yang oriented states of consciousness. They inspire, in their beauty and unspeakable vastness, a certain desire to evolve, but at their worst they are things we see as shortcuts or ultimate answers that cause us to devalue the very ground that gives us the ability to appreciate the upper worlds in the first place. Desire is still desire, sometimes, right?
Anyway--as a fellow daime member I appreciate the dialog!!
I share all of this because, like I said in the article, I've recently recognized in myself how much "desire" has been involved in my medicine practice over the years. And like I said, it's not that I'm not practicing anymore, but I find it's something happening everywhere in our communities, and I felt compelled to try and address it as simply but sensitively as possible.
It's also a problem, for example, when communities feature huge amounts of marijuana addiction while at the SAME time there is this "unspeakable" beauty nobody wants to reduce to anything. Well, maybe it should be a little more speakable or reduceable--maybe that would help to create some real changes in these communities? Maybe the world is ready for these things and the communities aren't because they don't know how to bring the upper down to the lower? Another, alternative, standard for how great something is is how readily it can elevate the masses, rather than an elite "called."
I'm ranting now--but these are things I am, at the very least, very happy to be processing in a forum like this. And all your thoughts are appreciated!! :-)
much love and respect--adam
Adam Elenbaas
a question of the direction of time.
Dear Adam.
I was a bit derailed by the turd-slinging occurring on these open forums, and as a consequence, did not even see this reply. (perhaps the way these RS forums are organized could be improved.)
Yeah, actually I more or less agree with some aspects of what you say - that people get an inflated sense of 'arriving somewhere' via their experiences with Daime and or other so-called 'altered states' - but I do think that for example, your capacity to articulate your perspective within this topic and within your understanding of Astrology - as well as your current abilities to be a writer - etc - could they have arrived at this level (where you are now) without your experiences with the 'sacrament'?
It is my intuition and experience that there is a 'kind' of acceleration of ones intention and capacities when one is faced with such experiences and that precisely is the beauty and potential of them. So, trying to keep on the positive I do think they are a kind of 'acceleration' - and hence the dynamic and growth of this 'community' - but I do see it is by no means a panacea. One must apply the teachings and stick to what has been 'taught' to go further in the day-to-day. And this kind of learning only happens when one is profoundly humble to them - and so - yes, when one takes rather the 'high-road' and uses them to increase their spiritual 'machismo' - something quite unfortunate can go awry.
I guess for me - I don't see 'altered states' - by medicine, yoga, or any other means as particularly solar - and I don't see the 'non-altered state' or so-called normal state - as lunar. In fact, when considering consciousness in general - I see that we are all, on a daily basis, weaving in and out of 'states' that are both solar and lunar - that this weaving when seen from the some kind 'ground-state' perspective can be difficult to define as this or that. The moment to moment changes that occur to all of us as an apparition of being continuous but when examined carefully and closely are quite dynamic and perpetually 'altering'.
I see as the kernel of your message in your article the remembering and to respecting of the 'ground-state' of affairs as important and basic - and I think this is good, great, and necessary. Because there is plenty of 'turd-slinging' and weird holier-than-thou attitudes that make it very hard to progress in a collective and shared process of learning and adapting to quite extra-ordinary times. (are they not?)
I'd like to avoid the attitude or habit of questing in the direction of wanting to be 'right' - which I find is sometimes the default of many who are taking this road of questioning accepted realities and entering in to new territories of self-reflection. In time - perhaps these sublime lessons that are brought back from medicine experiences will be deciphered, but at the moment we are all different kinds of pioneers of hyper-space (both of the 'altered' and the 'common' kinds).
Yes, I do think there is some incredibly sublime experience that happens, that remains ineffable and beautifully mysterious - and this is not a 'higher-than' or 'more-than' experience, often times i find it incredibly humble, incredibly heart-felt and helpful for me to connect with very basic and fundamental states of mind-heart that I have been overlooking in my search for 'more'. This humbling and respect is crucial as it helps us understand and appreciate the beauty of the 'common-place' - the fact that we are here at all. And so - it is on this point that I originally wrote on this forum. There is much to be learned yet on this path. We are all here just beginning with the ABC's as they say...
I'd like to share with you also, that because of your references to Astrology and this topic. I have returned and had a new look at my own maps - realizing - which I had not before - that my moon is in Aquarius and reflecting that there is a down-to-earth aspect of myself that I have not embraced fully nor even consciously noticed. So I thank you for stirring up the topic and enabling one to consider other points of view.
An old acquaintance, with regards to your essay, pointed out their own take on the same argument - perhaps you know already - but here it is http://www.paratheatrical.com/astro3.html
Viva!
aquarius not grounded
Hey Sullie,
Thanks for your response--yeah the turd slinging gets way out of hand on here. I'm honestly not sure where I would be without the medicine experiences opening me up so much.
I get what you're saying about the solar and lunar being co-present, and yet they are also separate energy fields that can go out of balance. The article you linked is basically proposing the exact same dichotomy, it's just confusing the terms (in my opinion).
Soul and sun etymologically are similar and their history, astrologically, goes more closely together than Soul and Moon.
At any rate, we don't have to agree on the semantics because it seems we really share the same values at heart.
Cool that you found your chart again! Aquarius, however, is an air sign and it's general strength is in progressive idealism, lofty mental states, and intellectual or "yang" like aspiring upward.
:-)
So, even the moon, depending on its sign, can be related to the same exact qualities I describe in the mythology section of the article. This is why some people, in my opinion, end up associating the lunar qualities with the solar qualities...if you have a Moon in Leo (sign ruled by the sun)--another example.
At any rate--that's an entirely different conversation. Astrology is a vast field of study!! Like studying medicine in lots of ways I think!
Adam Elenbaas
This Scorpio/Aquarius
lunar dimensions
pantheon
Adam,
Thank-you for you kind reply. I agree wholeheartedly that the ego is not a bad thing and a healthy one is necessary to function in the world. I wasn't ever saying that ego is bad. I was saying that the moon is not the ego. And I wasn't degrading the ego, or insulting the moon, to say you can call the moon alot of things, and she'll take it, but not the ego, I was flippantly alluding to how the moon has been the recipient of people's projected wishes, hopes, desires, fears, fantasies, and delusions for eons, but still the moon is not the ego. Astrologically, the moon is the body with its emotions and desires. The emotions are not the ego. The sun is, or what comes closest to the modern concept of, the ego. But the chart ruler is the planet whom the ego most strongly identifies with, and the position, sign, and dignity or debility of the chart ruler will indicate how well it functions as captain of the ship. But this from a Kepler graduate, via text: "Yes ego is Freud's idea. Sun is manifest energy, probably most closely associated with ego. Moon is physical body. Ascendant is self, condition of body, and can be used in all calculations of fate. Ascendant is most important of all, and its ruler. The ruler tells much about the person, and all of these things depend upon whether the chart is diurnal or nocturnal." Do you love this stuff? I do, and that's why I'm an astrologer. but I see if you attempt to write astrology into anything you get attacked on all sides, first by people who think it's all bunk, then by people who thinks it's not roomy and allowing enough to contain the beautiful multiverse that is themself, then the hardcore traditionalists crawl out of the woodwork to tell you to laminate a table of essential dignities and use it as a placemat. (I like Liz Greene though, too. and i find it worth my time to read everything Charles E.O. Carter wrote, and a day does not go by that I do not look at Reinhold Ebertin's "The Combination of Stellar Influences", but the best two astrology books I've read lately are Judy Hall's "The Hades Moon" and "The Karmic Journey".
Yes, I am arguing semantics, but I believe semantics are important and worth arguing. If you are going to say the moon is the ego, then why use astrological language to describe states of consciousness anyway (if you were coming from another tradition or school of thought, I was trying to figure out what that might be)? Especially when you are writing about personality and ego distortion that can arise from misuse of altered conscious states. An example of semantics:: Once at the cafe where I tended the coffee bar I asked the new girl if she would like to do the dishes before her shift ended. I said it would be character building. "I'm full of character," she protested (I think she promoted raves). I said personality is not the same as character. That is a semantics issue, but I still wanted her to get off her barstool and do her dishes before my shift began.
I haven't read the Bhagavad Gita. I've only looked. at the pictures. I prefer the Thunder, Perfect Mind
I'm not disagreeing with what you say, and I think pointless things are the best things to argue because nobody has to win but everybody has to refine their positions and re-consider what they really believe. Also I am aware that you have done wayway more ayahuasca than me, and I respect that, and what you are teaching. However I feel that all the things you are calling solar aren't simply solar, and "solar" does not mean masculine in general, and that upwardly directed, "leaving the body" force isn't really what I would describe as solar, nor was I saying ayahuasca is something strictly feminine, and not a fiery, fiery thing, and of course everyone meets themself along the way, their own reflection, their own teacher. Unless you are just talking about yin and yang as solar and lunar. I'm saying, yes, yin and yang, and everything else besides. That "expansive" quality i generally think of as Jupiter. Escapism in general is usually considered Neptunian. Also there are alot of Uranian types among the iconoclasts welcoming in the age of aquarius, and they don't like to be held back by mere matter either. Then Pluto is strong, strong in shamans. Then there are the mercurial gods, with their psycopomp aspect, able to traverse planes and travel up and down the world tree, the vertical and horizontal axis both. Then there is Pan, who likes to trump all. Osiris the Green God, dying and ressurrected, seems to my eyes to play no small role in this sort of plant medicine, too. Didn't someone write a book, "The Flayed God"? My experience with the Mesoamerican pantheon is next to nonexistant, so I'm speaking of Western and Egyptian traditions, but they all generally correspond. These are all non-solar masculine deities who offer viable alternatives to tripping one's ass off and then burning out. I would just like to offer some variety to the relentless solar heat, especially in summer (not to sound like a shallow pantheist without a path. The gods choose you.n Still it helps to recognize and name forces active in one's unconscious because they tend to emerge or try to emerge when the way is opened.) But Ra is great, too. I adore Ra. But Ra will take you down as well as up.
Brenda
yin yang
Hey Brenda,
I appreciate a lot of what you're saying, especially the part about arguing these points to make ourselves refine our positions, and I also agree that the archetypes of the Sun and the Moon can be spoken about in many different ways other than the lower/higher self, or what I'm calling the ego and the soul.
For example--during one ayahuasca ceremony the medicine showed me a vision of the moon as our spirit guide through the process of uconscious matieral either appearing consciously within us or through externalization. In the externalization process (when unconscious content appears through external people or events, for example) the moon, or progressed moon, is often triggering an outer planet, especially Pluto.
At any rate--the ego. Let me define it better for you, from my point of view, and then let me offer you my alternative ideas about the astrological points you've brought up.
When a child is born into the world they are not aware of themselves. In this sense their consciousness is more "yang" or singular. This is the soul condition. In this sense "solar" is about singularity. And yes, I'm suggesting that the sun is primarily "solar" in this sense--the sun is singular. Now, of course, the sun waxes and wanes throughout the seasons in relationship to the earth, and so I too believe that myths about RA or other solar deities are important, in terms of understanding all the ways in which the solar energy can be experienced for bettter or worse here on planet earth. To get an understanding of the solar energy a little less tainted by the human characteristics of the mythological gods, though, I would recommend studying Taoism or Yogic philosophy--something a little more abstract and truly masculine in it's philosophical disposition.
Here is a quote from an astrologer I recently had speak at my school, Adam Gainsburg--who also just wrote a wonderful book on Venus called "Venus Rising."
In astrological interpretation, the ego is correlated with the Moon, 4 th House, and Cancer. As the Moon is a physical body in space, it indeed symbolizes the current-life egoic identity structure, just as all other physical bodies (planets) reflect an aspect of the current-life psyche. The natal Moon in astrology is not an a priori reference to our past. This error results from interpreting the Moon at the level of its qualitative expression, rather than its essential function within the psyche. The nature of our natal Moon energy, just like the nature of ego in general, is to be a bridge between the known and the hidden, the safe and the unsafe, and between my experience of ‘me’ from ‘you’. It is the self which has the experiences and that moves through life with relative self-acknowledgement. It does not correlate with our genetic or karmic past as its primary function.
Here is a link to an Evolutionary School's home page on the ego and the nodes of the moon:
http://schoolofevolutionaryastrology.com/school/essence-of-ea/the-ego
Other books by Eric Meyers--another EA guy, and then the Pluto series by Jeff Green. But, I guess, considering the folks you named on your reading list, the Kepler school, and the archetypal Gods you mentioned, that I shouldn't be surprised that we're disagreeing. We're of slightly different schools of thought afterall! Mine is admittedly more systematized and based, to some extent, on Sagittarian, systemtic "Visions" I've had of the evolutionary development of the soul (they come mostly from ayahuasca ceremonies).
The ascendant is not the self. Neither is it's ruler. (From my perspective). The ascendant is our "this incarnation's" life-line, life force, our sexual pulse, our vitality, and our creative impulse. Mars works the same way (again, my opinion--garnered from many ayahuasca ceremonies and most recently from perhaps a dozen done during the MARS rx of late). Mars, from what I've observed in ceremonies, mediates solar energy through the lower self, and we call this mediation the "will."
Certainly the mediation of this will is linked to our ego and our personality and our body, etc. But it's not the self. It's solar and more singular in nature.
I understand that you don't like my appropriation of the word solar, but I think it's important. The sun is the solar center from our point of view, but solar is primarily an energy not an object. Mars has a largely solar quality in terms of the energy it brings down. Again--I say this because ayahuasca, taken many times over, while knowing your astrology, puts you in direct contact with the energies of the planets themselves--which are different from the mythological stories we've created in the past to describe the ways the energies can be personfied (this personification in myth is super important, but it doesn't mean that it trumps the advancement of an evolutionary or esoteric science in our field, and it also doesn't mean that every myth out there even accurately describes what the energy of a planet is like).
Once upon a time, with a different level/stage of consciousness, our species told stories in order to quantify and delineate how an energy showed up. These myths pointed toward the energy behind the phenomenon, but these stories did not yet know how to conceive of energy abstractly enough to remove the story in order to talk about the energy itself. Now we can do both!
When people don't know how to do this experiencing of energy outside of the ego-bound consciousness very well or haven't had many altered states experiences communing with the literal energies of planets, in my opinion, they aren't going to be good systematizers. Now, I totally admit, capricorn moon in my 9th house, that I love systems, and my love for systems and the pursuit of unifying visions could be simplistic, dogmatic, etc. I trust that my expression of astrology will fit for some and not for others, and I really don't care if people want to run around saying that the Sun is the ego. I will insist that they are confusing their terms because solar energy is more singular and the lunar energy is more dualistic in expression. Insofar as we want to adequately understand these archetypes in reference to how the SELF actually evolves (of course most of my ideas on this subject come from extensive time in the visionary space while reading hundreds of astrology textbooks) we should be aware of the fact that there is a higher self and a lower self--the two are evolving through successive incarnations as they learn to balance with each other. The more they learn to do this the higher the expressions of the form becomes--they become more and more singular as they also become more and more uniquely, separately, formed. Our planet, including us, is one excellent example of a highly evolved, singular life form of which we are one amazingly advanced and separate part.
The evolution of this planet has occurred through the successive balancing stages/seasons of masculine and feminine (yin/yang) elements over an extrodinarily long period of time. Fire, then earth, the gas/air, then rain. Each stage taking millions of years, and each stage producing more and more complex and finely tuned, balanced, expressions of life as a result--and still more to come. We are in many ways the cutting edge of this planet's awareness of itself, and yet the path continues. The sun is related to the progressive, evolutionary pull. Upward is only one way of conceptualizing it (I agree), but the word "upward" does the trick and helps most people to understand things on a basic level. Onward might be a better phrase for the Sun sometimes!
The Moon's job is to integrate and create the results in time bound cycles--the finely tuned lifeforms. The body. The temporary center. These temporary "results" are called the ego because they are an ever changing reflection of the "onward" call of the Sun. We call it "I," in human terms, and it is unique and separate, but it's not absolutely separate. No more than you or I or totally separate from the earth on which we live. And yet--there is a certain degree of separateness that we can all agree upon and sanctify as a beautiful thing.
The psychological ego might be Freud's idea, but it's all of ours to refine if we wish to give it a shot.
Osho describes the ego like this:
The first thing to be understood is what ego is. A child is born. A child is born without any knowledge, any consciousness of his own self. And when a child is born the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself; the first thing he becomes aware of is the other. It is natural, because the eyes open outwards, the hands touch others, the ears listen to others, the tongue tastes food and the nose smells the outside. All these senses open outwards.
That is what birth means. Birth means coming into this world, the world of the outside. So when a child is born, he is born into this world. He opens his eyes, sees others. 'Other' means the thou. He becomes aware of the mother first. Then, by and by, he becomes aware of his own body. That too is the other, that too belongs to the world. He is hungry and he feels the body; his need is satisfied, he forgets the body.
This is how a child grows. First he becomes aware of you, thou, other, and then by and by, in contrast to you, thou, he becomes aware of himself.
This awareness is a reflected awareness. He is not aware of who he is. He is simply aware of the mother and what she thinks about him. If she smiles, if she appreciates the child, if she says, "You are beautiful," if she hugs and kisses him, the child feels good about himself. Now an ego is born.
Through appreciation, love, care, he feels he is good, he feels he is valuable, he feels he has some significance.
A center is born.
But this center is a reflected center. It is not his real being. He does not know who he is; he simply knows what others think about him. And this is the ego: the reflection, what others think. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, then too an ego is born: an ill ego; sad, rejected, like a wound; feeling inferior, worthless. This too is the ego. This too is a reflection.
------------------------------
I take issue with the last line of his argument. That it's not "real." It's real, it's just that it's reality, it's ontology, is dualistic rather than singular, and there is a devaluing in much religious thought (that I believe is too solar/yang in nature) of what is dualistic. This kind of thinking ironically sets up another duality when it says that the ego is not "real." The ego is just a different kind of real.
If you notice in his explanation (which is yogic and why I recommend the Bhagavad Gita for an old school evolutionary understanding of the Moon as ego) he describes the beginning of childhood as singular. We are not self aware because we are primarily solar/yang in consciousness. We move into an awareness of ourselves through others (duality--the moon), and hence a temporary "center" is created. This temporary center is the ego, and it is ruled and protected and guided (as holy) by the Moon. I simply take issue with the labeling of this temporary center or the cycle of reincarnation into these centers as something we need to get out of or get away from. To me the astrological theory is not sound in terms of how it describes where things are heading or where they come from (in terms of an origin or final destination).
These evolutionary astrologers, historically, have suggested that the individual is an illusion, arising from source and returning to source once having exhausted the separation desire. But I think there are other interesting possibilities. Here's my favorite.
What if it's impossible to separate the yang from the yin? I'm thinking now of the film The Tree of Life, which, in the very beginning, imagines a light floating in the void. The big bang explodes out from the light into the void and creates the universe, which then ends up reflecting the same mirrored qualities of darkness and light. In this sense, our source is truly both of these qualities, equally wed, rather than just one over the other. Equally wed we call it the Tao, and it's essence is unspeakable and beyond things like the word "source." There's no reason to think we're heading back to some original state because that original state has never left us--it's simply evolved.
Anyway--I'm sure you get where I'm at now a little better.
:-)
Would love more, but I'm guessing we'll be at an impasse because our schools of thought, astrologically, are very different. I struggle with schools like Kepler because I'm not sure they really offer much of an evolutionary vision regarding the evolution of the self. I think, even if they are just stories, that evolutionary theories are worth exploring!
blessings--adam
Adam Elenbaas
out of orb
Adam,
Ahem. Now that the mars t-square is no longer in effect, trining my natal mars and opposing my natal ARIES moon, as I only too late noticed, my words may be less inflammatory, if that counts by way of apology for any hot air thrown your way. I don't disagree with you, I just like to hash things out. I don't actually have one fixed perspective or adherence or allegiance to single school of thought (if a pisces ever could, or would,really take sides). And the only astrological insight that i've had in the past few days is that the more one thinks one is a self-created, evolved or evolving, enlightened or enlightening being the more one is simply the product of one's background and upbringing, at least on one level. That would be the moon. Which makes me a sicilian pugilist's daughter and a pendantic one at that.
I've read and own Jeff Green's books, too, and will look forward to checking out Adam Gainsburg's book. And I believe that directly contacting energies and archetypes (very carefully) is more valid that any myth, which is why the lwa are so educational as a living system and forcefield. Sometimes I feel myths need to be relived and rewritten- with better endings- to give those gods or archetypal forces a chance to evolve themselves. I often have wanted to tell the Kore to watch where she goes picking flowers, or ask Loki if he really needs to throw that mistletoe spear just to prove his point, if there isn't a better trick he could play that wouldn't result in total destruction. But then there wouldn't be a story to tell. but when i put a name to something it is because it is the closest thing I know of to describe a force, not because I mistake the name for the force.
None the less, a huge question for me would be- do people really clear their family lineage and ancestral karma on ayahuasca or not-that and the replaying of family patterns in their life? In my one experience with it, I was looking straight back down a female family line, perhaps back down my DNA, and seemed to be feeling all their choices and pain. Or is clearing one's DNA -or mending it- merely prelude to the real work of ayahuasca, to create some authentically new state? I think old Ginsberg quote about how if you think you're enlightened, go visit your parents for two weeks is apt for whatever I might try to say about not tripping over one's feet in a quest to evolve past them. It seems to mean combining a cultivated dispassionate detachment to all things with love as two points of awareness.That might be a balance, also to what you were originally talking about as a tendency towards altered-state addiction and self-herding cat cliquishness. I drank ayahuasca, and then I had to clean my house, and then I had to clean my shed, and then I had to help my parents clean their attic. But I must have been given the kind with extra scrubbing bubbles in it.
The concept of ego- and the astrological mapping of it, I agree, is tricky and ripe to be refined. The daimon or genius, inner guide or nous, is probably the part I'm most interested in finding the demarcation of and restoring the place of as part of a new ego.
The Osho quote is good but I do believe a child is born with a certain knowledge or consciousness of himself, or maybe that's just the gleam or spark of light in his eye that he carried over with him. I've watched every bit of the 'baby unfolding into awareness' thing and some of them smile like "Yeah, this is exactly how I planned it." It's not all reflected awareness.
Brenda
hot t-square!!
Right--yeah, well, this article was a bit of a product of that t-square, so I think I was venting something of my own, something a little collective...yeah..haha. No offense taken and my own apologies if I did the same.
At any rate--I also feel that the Osho quote is limited too--I agree--it's not all reflected awareness. There is more complex mapping to be done--and I can sincerely thank you for the most valuable piece I got from this was the fact that these conversations help us refine our own thought processes--I had to look back through notes because you pushed me to. I appreciate that! :-)
big hug--adam
Adam Elenbaas
thanks, thoughts, and reminds me of...
I'm feeling a tad lazy and a bit frustrated with myself right now, having "wasted" much of an afternoon reading articles and comments on reality sandwich. There was a link on fb which led to, which led to...Still, a reasonable effort to get to the end has had some rewards, along with some satisfaction of completing what I let myself be drawn into.
For instance, to piggyback on some things that adam has said, it became kind of obvious after reading through multiple comments that presenting multiple perspectives through interactive feedback is a really, really good idea before taking something from any finished, written product and adding it to a personal gospel list or deciding that one's own perspectives and grasp of a topic isn't worthy of consideration.
It also reinforced the characteristic of astrology that I find so steadfastly appealling - it's ability to validate, explain, and accomodate people's many differing perspectives, which should allow for some place of understanding to be reached among them - or more importantly, between the people presenting them.
I first encountered evolutionary astrology in the writing of Stephen Forest, and also attended conference lectures by a few evolutionary astrologers, including Eric Meyer. I am currrently reading Maurice Fernandez's deeply insightful book on Neptune, and I have read Adam Gainsberg's book on Chiron. With the latter, I thought, now, this is really great, and then, this is too coldly impersonal, abstract, and systematic to be realistic - or enjoyable - but then the ideas revealed themselves to be just about the opposite of that.
I sensed a simliar kind of opposing reactions to Eric's lecture, which was on the evolutionary astrologer's perspective of the Moon and Sun, simliar to the side piece in this article. One of my friends actually got up and left, and it wasn't to use the restroom. Interestingly enough, his natal chart features a Leo Sun and Cancer Moon, while the speaker's chart features the opposite. Perhaps it is not the best thing to include this kind of personal knowledge of other people charts, but I thought this particular inconjunct of personalities was interesting and in some way relevant, since we are talking about the sun and the moon.
I was feeling the pull in different directions, too, but there was definitely a kind of nostalgic attraction for such a neat system (perhaps that was the Sag south node in my own natal chart?). At the same time, I didn't feel like I should incorporate it into my growing study of astrology now, because there was a deeper sense that for me, at least, the theory was a nice toy, useful in some ways, definitely worth discussing, but not exactly the path for me to set out on.
I've been kind of stuck here with this whole idea of ego/emotions/ideals and moon/sun and what represents what until this article and, specifically, brenda's reply - so, one more little reward for the discomfort of sitting before a screen. And thanks for those efforts in hashing it out a bit more, too. Maybe there are others for whom it also did something positive.
Despite my own double Capricorn nature, I do usually start out being deeply enamored of Aquarian (or Uranian) patterns and possibilites and it is only through a disciplined effort that I let go of their allure and pry my heart and mind open to the cricticisms that more established, grounded, and maybe even darn less exciting astrologers have to offer. I try to keep this principle close by in my everyday life: There is usually a good reason for something having lasted for so long, just as there are good reasons for change. Get to know something that has been around for a long time, find out its value firsthand and consider that deeply and respectfully before deciding you've found the newest, greatest way to slice your bread. Then go back to having fun being the rebel that you are. :)
Also, Adam, I enjoyed the inclusion of Icarus in your article: the asteroid Icarus is in the same degree as my natal Venus retrograde, in Aquarius. It is one of the asteroids that orbits in the neighborhood of Mercury and comes close to the sun at times, and yes, I do face a challenge there, knowing when to heed the advice of others, while still honoring a desire for independence.
Much of what you wrote about the sun versus the moon reminded me of my college philosophy class, which was taught by a very positive and spirited feminist philosopher. The idea of the medieval church, for instance, debasing the physical and the feminine while elevating the spiritual and masculine...it's effects on the environment...this is an attitude problem that has been around for a long, long time. In a more mundane way, I find the sun tiring after a while and seek water, breezes, and clouds, even though I also seem to be very sensitive to a lack of natural light.
Brenda, Yes! I do love this stuff, too!
Sincerely, Paul Kelley
the unfolding and the dharma
i wanted to bring up the inherent limitations of astrological commentary in regards to the rather day-to-day spiritual work that one must carry on with.
as i said above - i think the topic is essentially a valid one - but i don't think in needs any astrological commentary to have it discussed properly - furthermore - i don't think that it needs further dualities to confuse the issues.
there is something magical going on - and for each it is precisely as it should be - certainly we all could do better - but globally - yes, we ALL could do better. i think it is already quite a radical step for someone to begin this plant-medicine path - so - i don't really want to instal doubts that it is doing them and the world a load of good. and i do want to agree that there is a concern that folks are just going off to sip-the-tea and then feeling like the work is already done. this is indeed a by-product of our (yes mine, too) convenient, consumer-oriented and instant culture. the real work can be assimilated and one uses the 'high' to feel that they have already arrived. but alas - the work has only begun!
yes - there are loads of tendencies for us to speculate on the alchemy, the symbols and the fascinating insights that we struggle to organize - no matter if one has drank once or a thousand times (the number or the years of participating in this path i think has no consequence at all - and is also a sign of numbering and reducing the sublimity of the experience to a linear concept of development)
i compare this to my background with vipassana meditation - which remains my core 'integrative' daily practice. one can do a 10-day course once - or 50 times - but one can never say one is getting 'better' at meditating - or that one is more 'advanced' - IF they are actually doing vipassana meditation. I get the feeling that long time meditators also can 'integrate' superficially the act of sitting long-hours - and forget somewhat that they are observing with ever increasing equanimity - thus in our western-buddhist tradition - you have a lot of people who have not yet learned the wisdom to gain from such a practice - as it shows in their daily life.
thus - the same with this new and fresh amazonian 'practice' with the work with plants - a parallel spiritual materialism is forming - where i see that people do spend a lot of time running back to the 'altered state' but are not willing to peal off those layers - one by one - in fact - the more often people are going for 'medicine' the more this seems the case. i have a few friends that have drank only perhaps 2-3 times in the last five years - and for observing, i find that the 'medicine' has been indeed 'medicine' because one does not need it unless one is sick. (this goes also for 'addictive' vipassana mediators - one does not want to end up living in the 'hospital') - though there is a good argument for the power and the place in enlightened societies for monasteries or retreats to amplify spiritual potentials.
so - i'd say that the real problem is we live in a world that is for all intents and purpose solely driven by materialistic and individualized motivations. thus - it makes sense that one who dives into this path can see that their society is intensely sick - and collectively we go through a crisis of how to deal with this - how to 'integrate' when the entire society is sucking on a big delusion. and this has nothing to do with lunar/solar dualities. it has to do with a global crisis that we are all facing - and probably will increase to face in this life time. where the actual 'solar' SUN may indeed strike out and catch our collective attention big-time!
so there is something to be said about the Santo Daime's prophetic vision of increasing our capacity to enter into 'higher vibrations' so we can be more capable of dealing with intense climatic, and potentially galactic changes.
however - back to 'practical reality' and 'practices' - i find that the best way of bring myself back and away from any kind of 'addictive' behaviors towards this magical tea we have all discovered - is - to simply sit and observe - and bring it back to the body integration - our molecules KNOW what to do - our heart is aware of what to listen to - and i hope and pray that we can all find ways to plug in our new capacities and experiences to a more productive and healthy surrounding - where ever we find ourselves..
one thing further - about astrology - i do find some of it fascinating - and i mostly follow and am curious what you have to say, adam. however - i do find that this is a partial picture - that we are only imprinted in this materia by our conditions - we however - are always capable of cutting direct to the non-dual source - and this source that is beyond male or female - solar or lunar - will always show us the way with extreme and accurate clarity - a clarity that often short-circuits what we commonly might imagine. maybe you have read this - but i find it very useful when reflecting on astrological fixations: http://www.crystalclarity.com/yogananda/chap16.php
viva juramidam, bro!
astrology is old
Hey Sullie,
I hear you. I'm used to people from all kinds of spiritual walks not liking astrology because it limits and defines things in some ways, and people don't like that, especially not when meditation, yoga, altered states of consciousnes and ecstatic rituals of all kinds liberate us from the dualistic (to a certain extant). I believe it's a mistake, however, to think that where these states bring us is "better than" or entirely separate from dualism. Dualism and oneness (non-dualism) are still opposites to one another, and we can't escape their dialogic relationship. They are the lens through which the mysterium tremendum is experienced, in my opinion.
Nobody argues when Pluto opposes or conjuncts their natal Sun or Moon that astrology is valid!
Adam Elenbaas
ps
You should look at Yogananda's astrology chart (as well as many other yogis--Sri Aurobindo is another great one) to notice the huge amount of dogmatic, solar/fiery placements of the planets. People who say things like this about astrology, mostly, are fighting against what they perceive as a limit to their solar (unlimited/unspeakable/singular/yang) identity. Yogananda, to me, is like most any other preacher--very dogmatic, singular, inspiring, passionate, but somewhat self-righteous and annoyingly reductionist in his reasoning (at least at times--I like his stuff sometimes).
Adam Elenbaas
The name Lucifer is not traditionally evil
yes it does
You can find the Lucifer reference in Isaiah chapter 14. I agree that Lucifer is not "evil." If you read closely that's exactly what this article is suggesting--it's not about good versus evil. It's unfortunate that Lucifer has come to symbolize or personify "evil." Lucifer merely represents the tendency for what goes up too high to come down. Lucifer is therefore linked to Venus....Venus goes up tothe heights and then down into the underworld..Jesus did the same thing.. by ascending in his ministry and then meeting the fate of the cross...you're right! :-) The point I'm making is that this mythological process suggests that the marriage of these two worlds goes beyond merely good and evil!
Adam Elenbaas
Isaiah 14 talks about a king
I quote our Holy Wikipedia (Lucifer):
The Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible points out that no evidence has been found of any Canaanite myth of a god being thrown from heaven, as in Isaiah 14:12. It concludes that the closest parallels with Isaiah's description of the king of Babylon as a fallen morning star cast down from heaven are to be found not in any lost Canaanite and other myths but in traditional ideas of the Jewish people themselves, echoed in the Biblical account of the fall of Adam and Eve, cast out of God's presence for wishing to be as God, and the picture in Psalm 82 of the "gods" and "sons of the Most High" destined to die and fall. This Jewish tradition has echoes also in Jewish pseudepigrapha such as 2 Enoch and the Life of Adam and Eve.
Isaiah 14 revisited
Yes, many scholars point toward a King, but it was common for Biblical prophets to endow mythological status to Kings or Kingdoms when they were calling them out. The mythology of the rising star (lucifer) has also been studied in relationship to Jesus and in several other key places in the bible.
The mythology of Lucifer as the Devil/Satan was developed over time and through many scriptural interpretations (not all of which are in the canonical bible), but the Isaiah reference, as well as several others that end up back referencing Isaiah were commonly understood in relationship to the exact same archetype I'm describing: what goes up must come down. I see the point you're making about the debate around the literalness of the mythology from the book, but I don't think it matters given the general case I'm making in this article.
Adam Elenbaas
What is this Bullpucky?
Blah-blah-blah! More whiteys appropriating Native American or Indian (as in India) beliefs to perpetuate colonization. Guess what, "Adam of the Garden," I've visited Peru, where ayahuasca is advertised as a tourist attraction on virtually every street corner, from Cusco to Lima. Your life story is by no means novel, but exposes an urban subculture profiting off neo-hippies. Why not think for yourself somewhat, or at least consider cultivating the humility required to delve into non-psychedelic ceremonies conducted by people back home in the States? Perhaps you won't be able to experience the high, but something like pure sacrifice? Instead, it seems you'd rather pose as an astrologist, citing innumerable ayahuasca experiences, which is outright arrogant to anyone with the slightest respect for nativist conceptions of spiritual humility.
I've browsed this site since its founding without lashing out, but after reading about self-appointed medicine men and women preaching for the Nth time their meditation and astrology fluff, the site's tongue in cheek. I'm not aiming to be a party pooper, but let's be frank, just the tone of these posts (and the article) are more frat-boyish than solemnly spiritual. Reading this article and its comments is like watching a fireworks display put on by porn stars wearing Day-Glo.
you sound angry
You think you're the first person to spout off on this website about what they don't like or why they think it's not the real deal? There are just as many self-proclaimed criticis who hide out behind their lame judgments and half-baked cynical responses as their are self-proclaimed shamans in this 'new age' world. I never said my life was novel, and I've participated in lots of different kinds of ceremonies here in the states--both with the use of entheogens and without. And you know what? It doesn't make me any better or worse either way. I have no idea what you mean by pure sacrifice, but it sounds to me like it's your way of trying to stick up for your own experiences as just as holy as other peoples--your wisdom just as wise. The problem is that I don't see anyone here attacking your wisdom or experiences.
At some point you have to let go of getting pissed off by whether or not people are where you think they should be or whether what you're into is more "real" or "authentic." I think your post is arrogant too. Have you ever drank ayahuasca? Have you sat with curanderos and asked questions and learned in the jungle about plant medicines? You implicate yourself in this "sub-culture" you call out by being reactive, comparative, and judgmental about it. If you don't like the site, then don't read it, if the vibe's not high enough for you then go somewhere else. I don't think anyone will miss these kinds of comments--we're all doing the best we can, and compassion goes a lot further if you have something real to say here.
Adam Elenbaas
For What It's Worth, I Apologize
Adam, whether you can accept or not, I apologize for personally attacking you, particularly in my identifying you with a rude nickname and ignorantly belittling your beliefs. Although I'm too much a hick to be a former member of any urban psychedelic subculture, I've become increasingly jaded through association with drug addicts who superficially consider entheogens simply dope or aphrodisiacs. I think exposure to many people using entheogens to these ends has made me somewhat of a social contrarian (a trait exemplified in my roundly attacking entheogen users on this site).
I'm by no means perfect, but I've always felt a resistance to superficially using entheogens. It's sickening to me when fellow "trippers" become sexually suggestive, want to party, pig out on junk food, as if watching a movie, etc. On this note, I think one who uses entheogens must draw a line between authentic ceremonial use and dilettantism. Unfortunately, many of the fuzzy rantings I read on this site connote bacchanalian indulgence spiraling out of control, not careful, disciplined attentiveness to ceremonial procedure. The negative connotation does not benefit from the fact that a pseudoscience like astrology is indelibly linked to the consumptive, careless, and ultimately self-destructive hippies of yore.
thanks !
I appreciate your response. You sound too articulate to be a hick. Haha. I mean--I just came from my parents back 40 acres for some quiet time and reading, and uh...hicks out where I'm from might punch you in the face if you use the word "bacchanalian" --hehe.
I'm just kidding.
Astrology might be considered a pseudoscience, but it's just too real for me to take lightly. I mean...watch what happens when an outer planet hits your luminaries or crosses an angle in your chart--I don't know...especially after seeing what I've seen in altered states--I can't explain it but I can't totally dismiss it. I consider myself a skeptical astrologer most of the time, even though it's my full time job. Like--at best--it's an amazingly artistic thing to do with my life. At worst--fluffy and potentially endangering my ability to make a living! haha.
But yeah--I think Astrology has more to offer than hippies did--mostly because AStrology was the foundational science that led to the Scientific Enlightenment period...Newton, Galileo, Brahe--all those guys were serious astrologers...I like Richard Tarnas' summary of Astrology through his "Passion of the Western Mind" treatise all the way through his "Cosmos and Psyche."
My best friend is a serious Chemist, PhD, and of course we get into it all the time. Mysticism pervades some people's hearts, and the hard part is that there is often a similarity between mystics and madmen! :-)
Anyway--thanks for the exchange--I also can't stand the disrespectfulness shown toward altered states that can be so useful for our learning and inward looking.
Adam Elenbaas
My bullshit is better than
Your Holiness...
So I'm assuming you mean to say that we're both equally full of shit? I'll be damned! I didn't expect that kind of humiliating self-questioning from someone with such a self-aggrandizing username...
But, alas, your humility was superfluous: your reply's archaic language only implies a need to mask shitty content with highfalutin word choice, and, from my reading, many respected writers use cliched word phrases, so I guess that stylistic maneuver actually puts me in good company. (Another putz joyriding Beatnik coattails like a phony literateur...yawn.)
I'll backpedal amid this diatribe to state this: I've re-read my post, and, verily, I was a bit hyperbolic, vague, racist, bigoted, angry, and self-righteous in the first paragraph. However, re-reading the second paragraph, I think my criticisms aren't completely skewed:
I've browsed this site since its founding without lashing out, but after reading about self-appointed medicine men and women preaching for the Nth time their meditation and astrology fluff, the site's tongue in cheek. I'm not aiming to be a party pooper, but let's be frank, just the tone of these posts (and the article) is more frat-boyish than solemnly spiritual. Reading this article and its comments is like watching a fireworks display put on by porn stars wearing Day-Glo.
Have A Nice Day....Excuse me, Namaste!
Preconditions
Being Human
The Point
Three Signs that You Might Be Addicted to Altered States
3 more signs
Haha--love it Mark! :-) Her'es a few more for fun!
1. You spend way too much time wondering if you should defend yourself from 3 page long responses coming from compulsive hate-readers of this site. 2. Your posts become places for others to write 12 page articles, and 3. You wrote a post about altered states addictions while still buzzing from a kundalini class! :-)
Adam Elenbaas
:) www.markheley.com
:)
www.markheley.com
The Taste
And anyone addicted to Ayahuasca certainly has a funny sense of taste. What a God awful retching, stinking, mud and chalk, shit tasting brew! And then the barfing up your innards. Not for the faint of heart!
But seriously, check out some of these Peruvian shamans that have been drinking the stuff all their lives, some of the healthiest, happiest, wisest people I've ever met.
Superb use of Archetypal Depth Psychology
thanks brother!
I couldn't agree more about the Puer Aeternus archetype, and I think a good bit of this collective influence you're speaking of comes from the early seventies into the mid eighties, when Neptune transited Sagittarius...that seems to be the moment when a lot of eastern philosophical migrations ocurred...for better or worse!! Of course there are always so many layers we could look at, but that fiery Neptune passage (I was born under it in 1981) seems to be one of the one's that brought a lot of mystical aspiring to the west!
I'll take a look at your post--sounds super cool! Thanks bro--
Adam Elenbaas
in addic+ion
My favourite way of conceiving the duality you here phrase as "soul & ego" is "spirit & soul" (the idea of "ego" has less and less use the less we're fussed about killing it, or pointing out size differences between our own & others). Yep, "spirit" & "soul" (after James Hillman - a sound & practical polarity!) where spirit is "upward-moving simplifying freedom oneness rationality" & soul is "down-dark-dirty binding-twisting emotional multiplicity".
It amazes me that so many people are seemingly able to drink ayahuasca without welcoming the taste of their own shit into their mouths, so to speak, or if they do get a little mucky they just have a swig of rainbow-wash and put it all down to negative thinking or evil influences or breakfast or whatever. It amazes me, but it shouldn't, it's hard becoming a real human being!
Imbalance of some kind is pretty much a prerequisite for getting into anything new-agey, it's a joke to think the new age is the place to go to find well-rounded human beings. It lives on imbalances and perpetuates them also. The new age is beyond saving, but don't worry, the feathers never belonged to it to begin with.
I'm going to cut & paste some of my favourite quotes from a post a friend of mine wrote recently referencing new age bullshit ( http://a-gnostic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/imitation-genuine-fakes.html )… this is a harder-edged take on an essentially similar theme to your own, the kind of stuff people might once have dismissed as "cynical negativity" but hopefully have a little more time (& a lot more humour) for now-a-days :-)
"
The proposed script, in short: the New Age is a project or magical current (via Aleister Crowley & LSD as the hardcore catalysts) to "enlighten" the masses into a sort of Brave New World, as a more profitable alternative to the Apocalypse. The One World of the New Age is basically the flip side of the Apocalypse on the gold coin issued by the shady entities that appear to pull the strings in human affairs.
*
The New Age glosses over colonialism and entirely obscures essential qualities of human nature, such as racial, cultural and cognitive diversity, the male hunting instinct, aggression, partnerships, the bio-mystical function of sex, real meditation and shamanic techniques, etc etc. By a deliberate confusion of second-hand Oriental mysticism peppered with Christian guilt for not being Jesus/Mary-like all the time; and a co-opted Occidental magic layered over a kabbalistic base of abstraction and dissociation, it misdirects spirituality into a worship of divine hierarchy and of the ego. This is why every single spiritual guru has been found to be an exploitative monster at some point.
*
The New Age's two mantras are : I Love Myself, and We Are One. Both of them sound like neurolinguistic programs very much like the nonsense used by Scientology. The sight of wealthy, white Europeans and Americans dressed up as Indians and chanting these things is really not very far from Huxley's vision.
What they are really chanting is: I Am God, and We Are All the Same. But these don't sound quite as good, do they? The average enlightened New Ager, in every encounter, has this hidden thought running in his/her subconscious: "If I am God, then who the Fuck are you???" This is why human relationships in the New Age movement are just as abusive as anywhere, and their communities do not work as advertised.
*
People keep using words without really knowing what they mean, and Community is a big one these days. I suppose words mean whatever the masses want them to mean, and in this case community means nothing much at all. It does not imply inter-dependence, mutual aid and trust, solidarity or anything that actually brings back any of the indigenous spirit and soul in the whole business of living together. In the New Age community if you have a problem you need healing, my friend, and nobody will get involved or give you what you can only give to yourself, brother. Weakness is basically stomped on in an insidious psychological manner that is in effect much more debilitating than a physical beating. Because New Agers are usually upper middle class people who do not have a serious problem with the system, they fail to see how any real community will be persecuted or assimilated by said system, and turned into more of the same alienation; it needs to be internally strong enough to protect itself from such attack. Hell, they don't even understand how the system operates, that is, it operates via normal people doing normal things, not some remote controllers who need remote healing. Living in real community these days is going against the system and against "society" in every way, and is something only un-selfish warriors can do, not weak-spined soft New Agers suckling on pacifiers. Community is the enemy of the system, the system depends on an absence of human community for its perpetuation, and actively seeks to destroy it or kill it via isolation.
The way of mass domination goes by "divide and conquer" and what better way to achieve that than to encourage self-worship, while preaching that we're all the same? Sure, the London banker or New York lawyer are the same as the African pygmy, the hipster from San Francisco is the same as the guy who grew up in Baghdad. We are all Americans, or we should be. It is a happier existence, surely. A MacDonalds in every town, and a democracy with internet in every country, run by the right people.
The elimination of cultural and psychological diversity has been at the top of the dominator agenda since the early days of Christianity, and it is very much the business of the New Age. It is also its business, like any cult, to demonise and isolate people who point out its fakery. If you reject We Are One, you have some kind of disease (eg you're In Denial) and you are spreading divisive vibes around, and people may give you the evil eye.
We Are One is a christianised co-optation of an experience of unbounded identity and unified consciousness in an all-pervading cosmic love, often defined as enlightenment and pretty much the holy grail of the consciousness seeker. In practice, this experience is simply the starting point or a cornerstone of a spiritually connected life. It does not mean you know shit about reality and people, or that you are somehow advanced or have suddenly become a real human being. The world is not necessarily conformant to your overwhelming mystical vision of it. Millions of westerners have had this experience since the 60s and the planet is obviously not a more peaceful or unified place.
"
awesome quotes
I appreciate the Hillman reference. I've been picking on the word ego because it is so commonly conflated with the feminine in religious thought, but it doesn't really matter what word we use to describe these two polarities within ourselves. Also really enjoyed these quotes!! thanks!
Adam Elenbaas
karaoke keluarga
I, pet goat II