Time once again for another Gnostic allegory known affectionately as a Christmas Card. This year we find the child of the pentagram submerged in the emotional waters of the lower nature where the serpents of the subconscious abyss arise out and subdue the seven lower faculties of consciousness attributed to the spheres of Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon, as well as the plane of Earth. These planes correspond to the consciousness faculties of the memory, will, imagination, desires, reason, emotions, and the physical body respectively. This experience is identical to the freeing of the energies of Kundalini in the tradition of the Hindus who will warn the aspirant of the dangers of insanity caused by this experience. This experience is also no doubt related to many legends of the temptation of saints in the western traditions. As the adept begins to attain mystical knowledge, eventually that knowledge is confronted and subdued by the reality which mystical knowledge guides the adept to. This is a critical period on the path of attainment, and requires of the adept to practice differentiating the higher mental body from the lower emotional body in order to convert the lower nature into a tame yet powerful beast submissive to the mind's higher will. The mental body then becomes the rider of this beast, which it is enthroned upon, and rules, subordinate only to the light of the higher supernal way. This is the reason gurus warn students again and again to not become distracted by the manifestation of different forms of psychic phenomenon during meditation. When the adept has brought these serpents under the control of the mental will then the light of a higher understanding can shine upon the child of the pentagram who is then no longer submerged in the waters of emotion but instead is raised up to the Sun in the atmosphere of the mental plane. This Sun in the drawing is eclipsed by the Aztec Sun Calendar, which recorded for the Aztecs the mathematical formulas around which the whole universe was organized. These formulas governed the actions of men and gods alike. From this position around the sphere of the Sun the adept can then receive light from the only visible planet not subdued by a serpent, which is Saturn or the faculty of understanding. This understanding is of the higher supernal way of nature where the adept's introspective "subjective" quest becomes again the "objective" universal light of truth but from a different perspective. Here at the Aztec Sun calendar the mental body can discern the Mayan Tzolkin, which are in 20 squares around the central Sun in the calendar and also surrounding the whole card in stylized form taken from a popular gnosis of this day and age created to prepare modern man for the year 2013. This is the year according to many anthropologists when the Aztec Sun Calendar ends and so does the world as we know it. In response to this the serpents on the card arise from the waters beneath the light of the higher way like shadows formed by breaks in the path of the Spirit's light. This is the serpent with seven heads and ten horns fashioned for the conquest of the ten spheres of the Tree of Life from Hebrew mysticism. The serpents, however, can only rise as high as the sphere of Jupiter and so the serpent subduing Jupiter has four horns which plunge into the planet like the fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that collided with Jupiter earlier this year. This is a historic event that can only be properly appreciated by posterity. The first of 21 fragments hit Jupiter at 4 p.m. Eastern time, Saturday July 16th and equaled 10 million hydrogen bombs thus causing a cloud of hot gas to mushroom nearly 1000 miles into space, leaving a dark scar. This wasn't even the largest of the 21 pieces that pummeled the planet till Friday July 22nd 1994. This is, without contest, the most catastrophic event in the entire recorded history of the solar system. The astrological significance of this event is only hinted at by the symbol of Scorpio on the card, which is the area of the sky where Jupiter could be found at the time of the great collisions. Scorpio corresponds to the Death Arcanum of the Tarot and is the most self-destructive sign in the zodiac. In other words, the collisions on Jupiter were a very Scorpion event. Now at the place on the card where the serpent's horns stab the planet Jupiter there stands the goddess Athena who is the daughter of Jupiter in the Roman tradition, where they are known as Diana, and Zeus in the Greek tradition. Athena was a warrior goddess as well as goddess of the arts, peace, and prudent intelligence. She has inspired her appearance upon the card due to the story of her birth when Zeus/Jupiter received a terrible headache after devouring his pregnant wife, Metis. The headache was relieved when Hephaestus, or Prometheus, (scholars aren't sure which), split open Zeus' scull and Athena came out fully armed, much like wisdom rising from the head of the adept enthroned on the mental plane. So naturally the birth infuriated Hera, the main wife of Zeus, who in turn gave unassisted birth to Typhon, a god of destruction. At this point I would like to point out that the oldest known representations of Athena are the Pallidia. The Palladia were stones said to have fallen from the sky. I mention this in support of this year's Gnostic conjecture inspired by a description in the 21st chapter of the Book of Revelations, describing a New Jerusalem that lands upon Earth from the Heavens. If a reader of the Bible is expected to take scripture as literally true then this scripture is describing, with specific measurements, an object approximately in length, breath, and height 1/2 the size of the United States of America. This is reflected on the card simply by imagining that the sphere of Jupiter is actually a drawing of the planet Earth and the Aztec Sun Calendar is actually an asteroid about to collide. It is a valid conjecture that on this planet where consciousness has been evolving, there is cultivated a type of awareness of objects that often come within 1,000,000 miles of the planet. It could be that this consciousness is reflected in the writings of ancient Aztec and Hebrew sages who believed they saw the future and the end of the world. If any of this is even remotely true, and modern scientists are even more convinced of such an inevitable end to the world than ancients were, than it has been implied that mankind exists predestined to confront such a collision for the sake of this evolving consciousness as well as the life nurtured by it. If this evolving consciousness could foresee an inevitable collision and communicate the approximate date to ancient Aztecs then it explains why the forces of evolution would cause such a unique animal as the human to occur as well as inspiring the current level of technology that we enjoy in this day and age. Finally it should be noted that Athena is also known as a goddess of wisdom. The nature of this wisdom is that of foreseeing and is why her emblem was the owl. So in conclusion I mention that this is the year, congress has proposed to divert funding toward research into the possibility of just such a collision occurring on Earth for the sake of foresight. That money could very well be going to the most important research ever undertaken by mankind. And Humanity who has been such a threat to life on this planet becomes the only hope that life on this planet has.
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