American Chapters - Section III
Annotated Bibliographies and Misc. Appendices
Images
Petroglyph 1, Chalcatzingo, Morelos, Mexico. 700-500 BC. A female initiatrix is seated within a cave which is also a stylized monster-mouth. h. 3.2m. An Olmec Demeter, or is the one depicted also, potentially, the one who is looking at the depiction?
This image (and discussion from: Coe (1965), pp. 18-19, Miller and Taube (1993), p. 29, Coe (1994), p. 78, Bernal, p. 139, Taube (in Berlo), p. 150, all Bib. I.
Stela 3, Izapa, Chiapas, Mexico (with tracing), mid 1st century AD. A warrior, helmeted with the mask of his god, challenges an erupting earth-serpent, which is, however, contiguous with his left foot. He brandishes an empty atlatl (spear thrower) and holds his throwing arm in a passive position while his avatar observes from his spirit-canoe. Corn sprouts at lower left, counterpart to his discreetly portrayed phallus. 89 such stelae have been catalogued in the Izapa site, many with equally provocative images.
This is the earliest known representation of the serpent-footed god motif developed through the Maya representations of Itzamna, K’awil and the God K, and the Teotihuacano-Azteca Tezcatlipoca. It forms the iconographic (and historical?) basis for all the subsequent manikin scepters which are the ubiquitous emblems of rulership displayed by Mayan priests and rulers.
Malmstrom (1997) places the origin of the seminal Olmec culture (usually seen as arising in Caribbean-coastal Veracruz) in the Izapan Soconusco of the Pacific coast, and finds evidence of this in calendar, language, and cultural diffusion patterns, although most researchers interpret the Izapan culture to be a bridge between the Olmec and the Maya civilizations.
Steiner (1916) offers core indications towards understanding the pivotal Tezcatlipoca-
Quetzalcoatl dynamic: Vitzliputzli as an avatar of Tezcatlipoca. I suggest that this image indicates the mesoamerican prototype for the full-spectrum encounter with the same kundalini forces which, unresolved, wounded the European Amfortas.
The overall gesture could not be more explicit in representing the Manichean stance with regard to the “problem of evil.” This is, in indigenous terms, none other than the role of the shaman. Note that in the dynamic of the encounter, the “Earth Monster” (as it is described in the scholarly literature, which may be only vaguely and partially correct) faces away from the protagonist, and a flower sprouts from its mouth. Hardly the typical “Good vs. Evil” battle-to-the-death kind of thing.
The first human God-agent on Earth in the Mayan Popul Vuh cosmogenesis also was one-footed: Hunrakan. Thus the Izapan initiate partakes of the original creative and world-sustaining function. As does the effectively one-footed Hanged Man of Card 12 in the Western Tarot and the 23rd Path in the Kabbalah.
This image (and extensive discussion) from: Norman (1973 & 1976), Lowe, Lee, and Martinez (1982). Also from Stirling (1941), pp. 276-327, all Bib. I.
Stone sculpture of Chalchiuhtlique, Teotihuacan, c. 500 AD. h. 3.9m, wt. 22 tons. Museo Nacional de Anthropologia, Mexico City. “She of the Jade Skirt”, patron of the day Serpent. Found near the Pyramid of the Moon. Hardly a lithe form, as would befit the goddess of lakes, streams, flowing water, and baptism and birth, it represents a fossilized or embalmed Persephone-figure. According to central Mexican mythology, Chalchiuhtlique is the regent of Nahui Atl or 4 Water; the Fourth Sun or World-Age (destroyed by flooding), which cycled over into the Nahui Ollin or 4 Motion; the Fifth Sun upon formative events in Teotihuacan. As such, she would be closely associated with - perhaps replaced by, perhaps changed into - Teotihuacan’s Great Goddess. But it is from this Sleeper that La Guadaloupana arises!
This image from Pasztory (1997), pp. 88-89. Also: Berrin (ed., 1988), p. 50, Coe (1994), p. 101, Pasztory (in Berlo), p. 289, all Bib. I.
“Net-laced figure with claws”; Detail from a mural painting at the Palace of the Sun (zone 5A),
c. 200 AD - 700 AD. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, Washington, D.C. Jaguar-God figure with mirror-face and regal headdress, from whose clawed hands pour forth all the elements of the world. As the jaguar was likely totem of Tlaloc, the most primordial of deities and Plutonian male god of the Earth, this might also be emblematic of the Atlantean “Teotl” being referred to by Steiner, Meyer, Stegman, and Lievegoed (all Bib. I).
This image (and discussion) from: Pasztory (1997), pp. 214-219, Berlo, p. 140, all Bib. I.
The “Great Goddess” of Teotihuacan; “Spider Woman.” From the Tepantitla murals in Teotihuacan as discussed in: Taube, The Teotihuacan Spider Woman, and Pasztory, Teotihuacan, Bib. I.
Stone sculpture of Coatlique, late Aztec. h. 2.5m, c. 1450 AD. Coatlique was the ancient
Earth-goddess of the Aztecs and the mother of Huitzilopochtli. Dismembered, serpents sprout, replacing her limbs. Similar aspect to the Hindu Kali and Celtic Sheela-na-gig – here she appears in most malignant aspect – yet she is also the obverse face of the Virgin Mother. Imagine her unfurled, mobile and resplendent!
Is this, and the preceding image, Oppenheimer’s “Destroyer of Worlds”? Note the progression from # 1 to #s 3, 4, 5, and then # 7.
This image (and discussion) from: Pasztory (1983), pp. 157-160, Moctezuma, p. 27, Taube (1993), p. 46, Miller and Taube (1993), p. 65, Coe (1994), p. 184, all Bib. I.
1950 A-bomb test photograph, taken at a one-hundred-millionth-of-a-second exposure, seven
miles from ground zero. Dr. Pfeiffer terms this the face of the “Sun of Death” (Compendium I, Bib. III, pp. 129 - 132, Aug. 24, 1952). From article: The Man Who Stopped Time, Joyce E. Bedi, courtesy Invention and Technology magazine, Summer, 1997. Similar image, also by Edgerton, in National Geographic, Oct. 1987, p. 472.
Tilma image of Nuestra Senora de Guadaloupe, known to the Nahuatl-speaking Azteca of 1531 as Tonantzin, one of their ancient Earth-goddesses. Liberated from cosmic exile and the thrall of controlling elites, she is the embodiment of mercy and grace. From out of the cataclysm of the years 1519-1521, she resurrects in 1531, appearing to Juan Diego, a humble personage of significant stature. Many conflicting details surround this image and its story, which have ascended into the realm of Myth – and descended into the maw of political culture - but the reality of her presence is undoubted to millions of all races and cultures throughout the Americas, and this icon fulfills all the functions of an Icon: to serve as an open door into the Realities which it depicts. Mini places her in relation to the Aztec Tecauhtlacuepeuh goddess, whose name would have been passably similar to that of the already-existing Guadaloupe of the Extremadura Spaniards; hence the apparent conflation, but many other unpronounceable Nahuatl names could also be garbled into “Guadaloupe.”
Her relationship to the Mary of Palestine is not one of identity, though all goddesses are related to the same Mother.
This image (and discussion): Elizondo (1997), Bib. II, p. 63.
South Mural at Cacaxtla, Tlaxcala, Mexico, c. 790 AD. Brightly colored in dark oranges, blues, and yellows, it represents a strong Maya influence in a post-Teotihuacan region that – within the heart of the later Aztec Empire - successfully resisted its domination and provided a ready army for Cortez. Identical in both form and function to traditional European images of the Archangel Michael.
This image (and discussion) from: Stuart (1992), p. 127, Miller and Taube (1993), p. 22, Coe (1994), p. 108, Nagao, p. 83 – 104, and Baird, pp. 105 - 122. Color reproductions in Coe (1999), p. 24,National Geographic, Sept. 1992, p. 129, arqueologia mexicana, Vol. VI, Num. 32, p. 14, Miller (1996), and Chan, pl. 8 & 10, all Bib. I, and at:
http://www.webcom.com/lonedeer/cacasth.html
The diptych partner of this image can be seen at:
http://www.webcom.com/lonedeer/cacajag.html
The Four Inner Temples and their Attributes, private Workshop distribution, R. J. Stewart, 1992. Copyright and all rights reserved, and used by kind permission.
Appendix I – The Iconography of N. S. de Guadalupe
The popular image of La Guadaloupana, as retained by Juan Diego’s tilma, is not only an object of intense religious devotion, but also a political and cultural football of the first order. This renders impartial examination of the phenomenon a delicate proposition, one liable to generate much heat and little light, as Alma Rodriguez and the Santa Fe community discovered to their distress when her artistic rendition of the Virgin, exhibited in a local public museum - bedecked in roses but showing lots of skin - recently ran afoul of the large and fervent Catholic population.
Sincere believers objected to what they perceived as the desecration of their revered image. One cannot help but be sympathetic to the concerns of a traditional people who see their soulful pre-right-wing family values culture expropriated, commercialized, and twisted by a secular society who has only sarcasm, dismissal, and contempt for what is not “realistically” mercenary, and which considers nothing sacred, turning everything of hallowed significance into short-term kitsch.
Yet upon closer examination, it’s not as simple as it looks. Not only is the artist in question Mexican-American, but she is a woman who claims to be a devout Catholic. Local priests – even the bishop – have denounced the sacrilegious alteration of the sacred icon, stating that, as a miraculous article of faith, it should not, under any conditions, be tampered with. Yet the whole culture of the Southwest is inundated with an almost infinite variety of individualistic renditions of the Guadaloupe image, ranging from true-color Guadaloupe mouse pads and stunning prison art tattoos to wacky and bizarre Guadaloupe images on everything from hubcaps and beaded curtains to annual gallery shows and festivals in which hundreds of new interpretations of the icon are displayed and marketed. One wonders if the controversy is really about issues that go much deeper than the ostensible ones of public tax money supporting controversial art: the Goddess showing her skin. After all, Jesus on the Cross and in bleeding agony, naked except for a scrap of a loincloth, is the most pervasive image of Christendom, and has been for millenia. What is wrong with a happy, healthy woman?
With regards to the roses which adorn her and conceal her intimate features in this controversial rendition, from several vantage points this is entirely congruent with progressive spiritual theology. For instance, in the prime Rosicrucian symbol, roses adorn the Cross. In this Fifth Age of the emerging Goddess, it is a revelation of the American Prophecy that roses accentuate her immediacy, an immediacy demonstrated by her partial but revealing nakedness. Is her power dissipated by being so displayed? One could go either way on this….
With regards to the inviolability of the received image itself, a standpoint which declares it to be fixed and unalterable is simply misinformed. Not only has modern scientific scrutiny unanimously declared the original image – still preserved for public devotion in Mexico City – to have been heavily altered by human hands upon multiple occasions, but the historical record also agrees, documenting various changes which have been applied to it and later removed, accepted all the while by the populace as part of the divine iconography. Different official versions have come into and gone out of fashion with the decades and centuries.
To be specific: the angel and crescent moon, together with the crumple of shift and mantle at her feet is an application of paint by human hands, along with the filigree pattern on her salmon-colored shift, the gold trim and stars on her mantle, the black sash on her midriff, the pendant around her throat, and - most significantly – the famous resplendent mandorla of golden rays which shine out from her (or is it from behind her?) on all sides. Prominent in the 19th-century was a golden crown, since removed, and of which traces still remain. What is left upon deletion of these spurious additions and the accompanying theological baggage is not the Queen of Heaven but the intimate Soul of one’s heart – the divinely benign countenance remains, along with her equally expressive body language. She is revealed, not as a distant impossibility (Virgin and Mother of God; Sophia the Fourth person of the Trinity; a God of the Father variety herself), but fully in character as a Goddess of puissant simplicity and immediacy: a sustainer complement to the original creator; one whose presence is a balm – one who could, with every right, display her tender breast.
Yet such is the felicitous nature of the phenomenon as a whole that the ostensibly spurious additions to the original image only assist to reveal the innate characteristics of La Morenita herself!
So many significant issues swirl about this image, and what it denotes. Or rather who it denotes, for she is not an image on a maguay-fibre cloak, but a self-existent being who seeks to reveal herself to those who know themselves as under her care. Simply put, she can be exactly as she pleases to whomever she pleases. The image commonly used for her, whether of the popular or restored version, does display a magical power which cannot be denied – it exists as an historical and present-day cultural fact – but the preservatory function of Tradition can also be a stifling superstitious straightjacket if the sources of that Tradition are not kept well-tended. In this case of the dispute over iconography of La Guadaloupana, what I suggest we see happening is the assertion, by the originating source of the Tradition, of her inherent authority to shrug off the barnacles of time and speak directly to those who can hear her, using whatever imagery is close at hand. For those that cling to appearance and form, this will be intolerable, the occasional rough sensibilities of the iconoclasts lending support to this contention. But on the other hand, for those who attempt to reinvent the wheel of devotion to the Goddess in their own lives without reference to the immense heritage of inspired and effective Tradition which still exists as a living reality in the lives of millions, one can only regret the self-inflicted loss incurred by such arrogance.
Tradition may not be perfect, but it is the reservoir which our Ancestors make available to us, and it is a well-travelled avenue. We ignore it at our peril.
Appendix II – R. J. Stewart on the UnderWorld, the Goddess,and the Child of Light
THE UNDERWORLD AND THE PLANETARY MIND
The Underworld is the mind of the planet. This planetary mind is the totality of all matter, energy and consciousness associated with the planet; it exists upon a planetary time-scale. The planetary cycles are part of a stellar time-scale which encompasses our own relative time, defined by the movements of the solar system.
Just as our own consciousness is not solely defined by the physical brain and body, the planet has an individuality and awareness that may not be defined by material form. Meditation teaches us through direct experience that we may redirect our attention inwardly, the balancing opposite of our customary direction. When we do so we find a reality that is not limited to the materialist biological model, for we do not experience reduction of awareness to a cellular state, but a powerful expansion. The meditative disciplines also enable access to realms of being that are closed to us when our attention and will are outwardly directed. The Underworld and Earth Light experiences, accessible through various means including meditation and visualization, teach us the reality within the land and planet.
This inner reality is as subjective or objective as any other, for all realities are defined and conditioned by the roles and rules of the participants. Particle physics has recently 'discovered', via the hard road of modern science, that there are no observers, only participants. This simple truth has been taught for millennia in the esoteric traditions, though the models (world-models) within which it is expressed vary from culture to culture and from land to land.
The Underworld traditions teach us ways towards conscious participation in the life-patterns of the planet; through the simple but neglected method of passing awareness downwards into the land. Popular meditation techniques, regardless of their origin, are inwardly balancing, for through them our attention is drawn away from outward-reaching habits and focused inwardly. Underworld work gives us the essential balance below, drawing attention away from our other addiction or obsession, that of escaping upwards to a distant light.
The obsession with elevation is only a variant of the outward-seeking trap, for both depend upon rejection or dualism. We find this at its most serious in religions and spiritual practices which raise energy/consciousness upward above the head, rejecting (or more arrogantly 'redeeming') all that is below.
In externalized materialism, this old spiritual arrogance appears as humanity's self-acclaimed right to exploit nature. Interestingly it is science today that has realized that dualism and lack of responsibility towards the natural world leads directly to our own destruction; the current spiritual revival still uses, to a great extent, the dualistic Christian-materialist model. Light is always above, while superior masters and angels will intervene to save or at least lecture us through channelled communications. In the Underworld tradition the land and all living beings upon and within it are holy, sacred, and spiritually and physically aspects of one being, of which we are an integral part.
As the planetary patterns of awareness and our individual and collective human life-patterns are aspects of a holism, we may enter into planetary awareness directly for, of course, we are already there.
We need not think of the land and planet as having separate minds in an exclusive sense, as we are conditioned to think of each other, but that our own awareness is of the planet, it is the planetary awareness. If, as is often the case, we are unable to make the conscious dive, to plunge directly into a state of planetary being, we should work through the land, that part of the planetary zone upon which we live and to which we are organically attuned.
The Underworld is the mind of the planet and is not limited to the parts that we identify through our self-limited participation. Like our own minds it has many patterns and is protean and (in the true sense of the word) plastic. Although the Underworld Initiation begins at home, as the primal power traditions are always regional and ethnic, it does not stay there. At the present time we are moving out of some of our old racial patterns but not out of the enabling limitation of regions, lands and zones, which are both geomantic and spiritual.
Each relative entity, from zones to microscopic life forms, is a part of the planetary mind. The substance of the world, defined by the Four Elements, is also part of the planetary mind. We are of it and yet we reject and abuse both the planet and ourselves. The Underworld initiates plunges willingly and deeply into the planetary mind, seeking to pass into it and be changed by it rather than reject it and rise away from it.
THE PARADOX OF EARTH LIGHT
There are some significant links between the Underworld and the more widely popularized idea of rising to the light, or 'rising through the planes'. Initially such links seem to be m paradoxical, for the deeper we reach into the Underworld the closer we come to light. In folk tradition, the faery realm is p filled with illumination, but there is no sight of the Sun or Moon. The light is that of the sacred land, the primal world, the light of the stellar universe inherent within the body and substance of the planetary being.
In the pagan myths this light was that of the Goddess, and to be at one with her light involved passing through darkness. The best known name for her is Isis, who was both black and white. The Black Isis is simultaneously the depths of the Underworld and the depths of the universe, while the White Isis is the light of the planet and the light of the stars. The Earth Light experiences bridge between the planetary mind (of which we are an integral part) and the stellar consciousness.
There is a widespread assumption in esoteric literature that the Goddess of the Earth and Moon, known as Isis and by countless other names, is a lesser power than, say, the God of the Sun. This idea is merely propaganda or patriarchy. Apart from the Underworld tradition which does away with such hierarchies and propaganda, we need only do a little home- work to discover that the Earth, Moon, sun and stars manifested deities of both sexes. In psychic and magical terms, the way in which we approach these entities, regarding them as t male, female or androgyne, makes definable changes within ourselves. Ironically, the patriarchal and prejudiced Victorian scholars of myth and legend identified over a century ago that there were many major examples of solar goddesses and lunar gods in ancient religion, a well-documented body of truth that is virtually ignored in the modern revival of paganism and the New Age movement.
Earth Light is a term that developed from the first book, in which the light of the faery realm is revealed. The idea of the Earth as a world of light was once widespread in religion and magic, though orthodox political Christianity fought constantly to suppress such a liberating truth. Today we inherit the suppressive propaganda, both in the form of materialism and in many unchallenged assumptions in our spiritual revival and New Age enthusiasm. Much nonsense is attached to the idea of the Earth and Underworld as negative, dark, even corrupt. We must flee, we are told, the drag of A- matter, or alternatively we must seed the passive Earth with manly light from the higher worlds. This antagonistic sexist propaganda is rehashed in endless ways by people who have never once entered the sacred land in meditation or vision, and found it vibrant and filled with light.
The Christian war waged upon our world has subtly evolved into arrogant abuse through science and industry, but it does not stop there. New spirituality seems determined to find only the higher planes, the Masters, and escape from responsibility. We dread confrontation with any power that will act as a catalyst for true inner change, we fear and reject the Earth by our crass assumption that spiritual Masters, angels or a Saviour will appear in some external manner to save us from ourselves.
The Underworld tradition teaches that we must confront and pass through our fear and rejection of the Earth as a transformative illuminating matrix. Earth Light, found by moving our energy and awareness into the body and power of the land. This light is our closest light, the divine Being in matter or substance, in living interaction with its individual and collective creations. The land and planet are alive, and our spiritual reality derives from this life just as much as our physical reality. Indeed, the Underworld tradition makes little or no distinction between physical and spiritual…these are merely clumsy words.
from R. J. Stewart: Power Within the Land, pp. 16 – 19. (Bib. II)
THE WEAVER GODDESS IN THE UNDERWORLD
Our last visualization returns us to the Dark Goddess of the Underworld. In this we pass beyond the faery realm to one of the deep Underworld temples. Serious undertakings in inner transformation, magic, call it what we will, cannot be approached or achieved without experience of two closely related concepts; the Underworld and the Goddess. Although we have used the word concepts the Underworld and the Goddess are not theories but fundamental universal powers. They are presentations or modulations of the unknowable One Being, the ultimate reality and truth beyond expression.
There are many ways of expressing the Underworld and the Goddess, but no amount of discussion replaces actual experience. It is pointless to argue over the 'reality' of words and images, for they all derive from a deeper reality, beyond form.
Both primal concepts and powers, Goddess and Underworld, have been ignored and suppressed with terrible, possibly irreparable, effect upon both humanity and the planet Earth. Understanding the Goddess leads us to sexual balance and maturity upon all levels of consciousness, including those that transcend gender. Understanding of the Under- world brings a conscious relationship between humankind and the land, environment and planet. As the Goddess dwells within the Underworld, we should not separate the two in our imagination.
The Goddess and the Underworld represent energies and consciousness essential to our individual, collective and manifest well-being. Moreover, these two concepts and powers have the potential to rebalance our humanity and our collective world, both of which are in immediate undeniable danger of extinction. In very basic terms we may see the nuclear problem, both civil and military, as a result of ignorance and abuse of Underworld powers; Pluto and Uranus. The heavy metals are Underworld entities or stellar entities, but specifically stellar entities within the Earth. We may see the grotesque extremes of materialism and male stereotypical (rather than archetypical) consciousness as a result of suppression of Goddess powers.
The Underworld tradition, the Light within the Earth (as opposed to theoretical magic or literary occultism) must work with Goddess power. This much was realized by the revival occultists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, just as it had been understood by the adepts of the Rosicrucian movement, the alchemists, and the Renaissance magicians and metaphysicians.
Only one or two generations ago, Goddess workings were unusual in magical groups, though not unknown. Iv1agical arts were still dominated by savage phantoms of male egocentric 'authority' and dogmatic 'hierarchy', phantoms which have by no means been exorcized at the present time. Such male-dominated groups tended and still tend to work with the Goddess only in her Venus or sexual-loving aspect, because this is close to the pernicious stereotype of pseudo-femininity to which they were conditioned from childhood.
As we emerge from a period of monosexual religion and culture, such stereotypical imagery is beginning to be replaced by something new, yet essentially ancient and primal and enduring.
Social conditions change slowly, and often express transformations which were once limited to exploration by magical groups of earlier generations. Thus, the restoration of sexual equality is now a wide- spread social and political issue in the Western world whereas at the turn of the century, equality was often a highly daring experiment in which men and women worked magic together (as opposed to the exclusively male Masonic Orders from which such groups often derived). More significant than the mere fact that men and women were working equally at magical arts, though this was a major step forward in itself, were Goddess-orientated rituals and visualizations that began to appear, often drawing on material from earlier cultures and religions. The late Dion Fortune, for example, spent an entire life in the task of resolving Atlantean and Egyptian Goddess forces in the context of the twentieth century. The results, with many potent Goddess visions and rituals, are found not in her textbooks on psychology and magic (which seem outdated now) but in her remarkable novels.
Further discussions of the explosion of Goddess worship and various aspects of active feminism in revival paganism are not relevant in a book of this sort; nevertheless, one of the most astonishing of the many wonders appearing in the twentieth century is the irresistible return of the Goddess, regardless of her forms of expression. Only a generation ago students heard whispered secrets concerning 'sex magic' in which and something unspeakably mysterious occurred between men and women (and it was not sexual intercourse!). The entire science of polarity magic has now opened out and is becoming increasingly defined and intelligible. Such developments could not occur, in the magical or poetical sense, without the active power of the Goddess restoring our awareness and to a balanced condition.
In Western esoteric tradition, as in the East, there is a wide range of what are nowadays called feminine archetypes, They are preserved in legend, myth, folklore and in magical, alchemical and mystical allegory, including the heretical Grail legends. Such archetypes have been banished, often unsuccessfully, from political orthodox religion, though they frequently resurface in the form of female saints who replace pagan goddesses, or as folklore and popular superstition, and revivals of the cult of the Virgin Mary.
More important than any of the sources listed is the inner tradition of they making contact with empowered images of goddesses, through meditation, visualization and ritual, It is quite facile and inaccurate to suggest, such that the West has no goddesses and that such images can play no part in new, mystical or magical work; but a clear definition and firm contact with such images is often difficult to establish, due to centuries of orthodox suppression and conditioning, Once the contacts have been made, her however, the Goddess is an undeniable force, and experienced as a powerful presence in many ways.
In the Underworld tradition there are two aspects of the Goddess that are especially relevant and potent, We might call them She Who the Dwells Below, the Goddess of the Underworld, the Dark Mother, and She Who Dwells Above, the universal Goddess of the Stars. They are ere extremes of one unity, and are found in practical terms to be very close to one another, when we visualize or meditate upon them; but they are not interchangeable in a facile manner through human arbitration.
The Western tradition has a shortened way to enlightenment, which of has much in common with similar methods found in Tibetan Buddhism the or Zen, though there is no suggestion here that they are identical; we do and not need to turn to Eastern variants when we already have well-defined and powerful initiatory techniques of our own. The similarities are due to shared properties of human consciousness; the differences are due to ancestors, environment and psychic patterns, all of which are transcended only by working with and moving through a native tradition to any its very end.
The shortened way simply consists of going into the Underworld and ion encountering the Goddess. For many people this is a terrifying experience to be avoided at all costs: such people should not be involved in empowering traditions or initiatory arts of consciousness and energy. If they do become so involved, most soon abandon the effort or become side-tracked into the various self-perpetuating dead ends of occultism or New Age cosiness and mutual congratulation. These may seem like hard words but no growing experience, no transformation, is ever easy.
By descending into the Underworld we are paradoxically reaching towards comprehension and experience not only of the Dark Goddess, the Power of Taking and Giving, but also of Her universal stellar aspect. First the catabolic destroying force that we fear, which is the Dark Goddess, then her universal aspect beyond all concepts of self-hood or false limitation. In this phase we comprehend the Goddess as a conscious power permeating all time, space and energy.
We find the imagery for this Goddess in various forms in myth and legend, and such imagery is particularly active upon inner levels of visualization and contact. In our present context we can exclude intermediary forms such as culture goddesses, love goddesses, sister goddesses, war goddesses and specific localized female deities: these are strung like beads upon a cord that reaches from the Underworld to the Stars. During the Underworld Initiation, we realize that the linear concept of this cord is an illusion, and that both ends are one, giving us the image of a circle or sphere. This sphere contains the universe in one dimension, and the planet or Underworld in another: the Goddess weaves all dimensions and energies together.
In human terms, this power is found both beneath and within, a practical matter of the direction of energy and consciousness through ritual and imaginative constructs such as goddess forms and guided visualizations. T o our ancestors there was an eminently simple method: they went underground into chambers, caves, catacombs, and sought enlightenment. This physical movement is analogous to a visionary transformative experience in which we enter a realm beneath the Earth, yet find that it is full of stars. In both Celtic and Greek mythology, we find the goddess known as The Weaver, and She appears in several important magical or mystical visions.
from R. J. Stewart: Earth Light, pp. 101 – 106. (Bib. II )
WHAT THE BIG MAN TAUGHT
The Big Man taught me many things, but the best of them is the story of the Fall, which was never a fall but rather a loving embrace.
“In the beginning”, he said, “the world was in many places. Yet it longed to be in one place at one time and yearning drew in its presence into a few places only. In the heart of the stars great ones of light and power felt the world draw in, just like a breath inhaled and held tight. One of the star beings saw her and loved her then, knowing that she must exhale and that she could not, and that her fullness would destroy her in time. So he fell from the furthest star, through the Sun and through the planet Venus, into the earth, who was still holding her breath.
Now as the Bright One came into the Earth, many lesser beings were drawn in also like burning flames in his wake, a cloak of light weaving through the stars, and perhaps it was her, daughter of the Great Mother, who drew them all in with her holy breath, for the Mother was of her and in her also, She who draws all things unto herself. And when the saints took up the story, handed own in poems, dreams, and visions of the first breath of the World, they called the Bright One Lucifer, who is the light of Venus in the morning and evening. And they said he was a fallen archangel, out of Heaven. And they said that when he fell many angels fell with him, so many in fact that God and Jesus had to shut the heavenly gates, for fear that they might jot have no hosts to shout holy holy holy any more. And those that fell into the earth were the faery races, sons and daughters of Lucifer, star-cousin to the Sun, reflected to us in Venus. And this reflection of Lucifer through Venus is one of the great Mysteries of Liberty.
And now the Earth is breathing out. She has been doing so since before the coming of mankind, for Lucifer burning within her causes her to whale and come into being in many worlds. First she breathed out the smallest of living creatures, so small that they cannot be seen, only their effects can be felt. Then she breathed out the first plants and grasses. Then she breathed out the fishes and the land animals. And all the while the faery races were in and on the Earth, excelling in beauty and light.
Then the Sun spoke to the Earth also, responding to her changing breath, which was like the utterance of a sound or word as she exhaled. And the first men and women, partaking of the nature of above and below, sons and daughters of the Earth and Sun appeared, still soft and mutable, on the surface of the Earth. Immediately her Breath blew through them, so that for long ages they absorbed her exhalations and were composed of many animals and fishes, but they also absorbed the angelic sounds, the powers of the Sun, Moon, and Planets, which defined them, and gave them yearning beyond their mutability.
So the men and women yearned for the stars beyond the Earth, moulded as they were by the sounds of the angels. And the longed for the Earth, moulded as they were by her divine breath that caused all creatures that ever were and ever will be to be moulded into them. So they became divided within themselves, and through the pride that comes from excess longing, turned away from the wisdom of the Lordly Ones, the faery races, and behaved as if they were only animals. For the words and sounds of the angels were to come into perfection through the faery union with humans, the angels of above and below balanced through men and women, who in themselves held all the living creatures. But when mankind abandoned the faery wisdom, they became imbalanced, for they heard only the word of the Sun, and not that of the stars within the Earth.
So the Sun consulted with the other Stars, and a great Being was sent into the World, to unite Lucifer, the faery races, the animals, and the humans. And the Great One was to achieve this unity through the humans, who were still capable of joining with the faery races and the living creatures, to make a whole being that was the final pure breathing out of the world. And this Great One travelled right into the centre of the World, through the Sun, the Planets, and the Moon, linking all together. And in the heart of the world he harmonized with Lucifer, to bring great changes to the world, which are still surfacing today.”
Extract from an early 18th century journal
from R. J. Stewart, as included in The Living World of Faery, pp. 175-176 (Bib. II)
- all selections copyright R. J. Stewart, and by kind permission. All rights reserved.
Earth Light: R. J. Stewart, first published UK, Element Books 1992, US edition published Mercury
Publishing USA, 1998.
Power Within the Land: R. J. Stewart; first published UK, Element Books 1992, US edition
published Mercury Publishing USA, 1998.
The Living World of Faery: R. J. Stewart; first published UK, Gothic Image Publications, 1995.
Appendix III – La Leyenda Azteca
Aquinque' Mexi'ca'?
Who were the Azteca?
Quien eran los Aztecas?
The Mexi'ca, were the last of the Native American nations that had wandered south into the Valley of Mexico or Anahuac. They were a heterogenous group of clans, families, and individuals who were the inheritors of an ancient prophecy. These people were the descendants of tribes that had migrated over centuries from far north in what is now northern Mexico, and the southernwestern United States (known historically as Aztlan and Chicomoztoc).
According to the codices written by our post-conquest ancestors in Latin letters and indigenous glyphs, The people we call the Aztecas lived in a land of seven caves Chicomoztoc. There, in the land of the white heron Aztlan, the people's priest Mexi had a dream.
In this dream, the tribal god, spirit or anima (Teotl), called Huitzilopochtli called to him. He was told to call all of the clans together. They were to leave their ancestral homes. The people were to go and journey south, carrying their sacred bundles, family possessions and hunting regalia.
The people were to suffer great hardships, tribulations, and trials. Once they had traveled far enough south to earn their valor, to earn their place in history, they were to look for a special sign. Wherever this sign appeared, they were destined to create a great nation that would rule the world. They would be given the duty of keeping the universe alive. They were to maintain the universe's sacred movement, Ollin, necessary for all life to flourish until the death of the current sun. When the current sun Nahui Ollin died, the world would end and a new cycle of life would begin.
The priest Mexi called his people. He told them of his vision. He told them of his dream. Some people quickly agreed to follow him south. Others felt that they had all they needed in their homeland and they did not want to leave. This was the beginning of the separation of the Uto-Azteca nations.
Soon, those that had taken Mexi's vision as their fate, departed. They left behind their relatives and friends. The pilgrims were saddened by their god's request to leave their homes. Mexi promised them that someday, their descendants would return to once again join their relatives in Aztlan. Thus reunited they would share their stories of all the wondrous things that they had seen. They would share with each other all of the history they had created.
It is the belief of some modern-day Azteca elders that the people who stayed behind are today's Hopi, Pima, Papago and Yaqui nations.
The Mexi'ca (the people of Mexi) wandered south for over three hundred years. About the year 1300 they arrived in Anahuac, the valley of Mexico. At this time, this small and impoverished nation, more a coalition of tribes and clans than anything else, was weak and only slightly assimilated into the great cultural heritage of Mesoamerica. They wore simple clothes made of wolf, rabbit, deer, and coyote skins.
Their cultural legacy was that of the small wandering hunter tribes of Northern Mexico. Many generations had passed since the priest Mexi had called them onto their epic journey.
When they arrived in Anahuac, they found scores of ancient city-states that had inherited the civilizations and cultures of Tollan-Teo'tihuacan, Tollan-Xicocotitlan, Xochicalco, and Cholula. Deep in the murky past, like ghosts that floated behind the consciousness of every kingdom, were the cultures of Cuicuilco, Tlatilco, Chalcatzinca, and the mysterious Olmeca.
At first the Mexi'ca were forced to be vassals and mercenaries of their older, richer, and more powerful neighbors, but by A.D. 1325, ( a date filled with mythical, political, and historical numerology), the Mexi'ca had begun to build their double headed capital city of Mexi'co-Tenochtitlan and Mexi'co-Tlatelolco. In less than two centuries, the poor, humble "illegal aliens" from Aztlan became rulers of the largest empire ever seen in pre-Columbian North America.
Yancuic Tonatlecoc
A New Sun Rises
Un Nuevo Sol Asiende
The Mexi'ca, as the defacto leaders of the Azteca Triple Alliance (which included their lesser business partners Tetzcoco and Tlacopan) were disciplined, arrogant, and bellicose. They saw themselves as the greatest nation on earth. They felt that they had been entrusted with the survival of the universe.
Their city-state was the center of the universe, the navel of the earth. The Mexi'ca felt that they had a right to re-write history in order to make themselves seem to be the logical and prophetic inheritors of the classic cultures of the ancients. The poetry, stonework, artwork, and architecture of the Mexi'ca people reveal a colossal, triumphant psychology that finds modern echos in the cultures of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and Maoist China.
The elaborate Mexi'ca elegance of style and protocol, mixed in with their determination towards greatness, create a cultural experience unique amongst the world's civilizations. Mixteca painted books, Mayan chocolate and jade, Huastecan cotton and other exotic tributes were gathered in the "center of the universe"- Mexi'co Tenochtitlan.
Mexi'ca warriors and nobles bathed in water scented with wild tropical flowers. The elite lived a life of elegance. The nobles ate sumptuous meals and drank hot chocolate, which was made from cacao beans. These beans served as money. The rich could literally "eat their money" while toe commoners ate beans, tortillas, and native vegetables.
Ironically in many ways,( politically, economically, and psychologically), the Mexi'ca were the spiritual ancestors of the United States of America. The Mexi'ca bled their subjugated vassals of economic, and cultural vitality.
According to the "officially approved" history of the ruling class of Tenochtitlan, the Mexi'ca were the center of the universe, and were entrusted with keeping it alive. In their eyes, they were the greatest nation to have ever existed. They were the chosen ones, blessed as God's righteous and sacred people. This has many echos in today's nationalistic, evangelical, supremacist rhetoric from the dominant powers of today's U.S.A. and Europe.
In Tonatemoc
The Sun sets
El Sol deciende
It was no wonder then, that when the smelly strange white foreigners from the east arrived in 1519, the Mexi'ca were quickly abandoned by even their triple alliance partners and left to fight for the independence of indigenous America by themselves.
The "aliens," encased in metal and riding wild "huge deer", came with superior technology to the stone age civilizations of America. The Spanish "sticks that spewed smoke", and the big black dogs that tore apart human beings, suddenly, and painfully, united with the hatred of the Mexi'ca's enemies to create the end of the Aztec universe.
The violence and hatred that the Tenochtitlan imperialism had sowed, came back to create a gruesome holocaust at the very steps of the great temple of the Mexi'ca-Tlatelolca, the Coatepec-Huey Teocalli in Tlatelolco..
The fall of Mexi'co-Tenochtitlan and Mexi'co-Tlatelolco in 1521 after a seventy day siege of starvation, epidemics and bloodshed was inevitable. The death of Moctekwzuma Xocoyotzin, Cacamac, and Cuitlahuac left the 25 year old nephew of Moctekwzuma, Cuauhtemoc, as Tla'toani or speaker of the surviving Mexi'ca. After a bitter battle fought on the waters of lake Tetzcoco, Cuahtemoc was forced to surrender to Cortez, to his steel and gunpowder, and to his tens of thousands of Native American allies.
Today the Plaza de Las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City, is a grim reminder of how indigenous blood was shed for Spanish greed and passion for gold. It is a monument to Mexi'ca arrogance and power. It is a silent scream from thousands of ancient dead that recall with grisly detail the fall of Mexi'co-Tlatelolco on August 13, 1521. For this was truly the first of many last stands of pre-Columbian civilizations against the invading forces of European kingdoms.
Tlatelolco is a tragic symbol of the dis-unity of Native American nations that still haunts us to this day amongst the reservations, barrios, and jungles of America. It is a monument of death, retribution, and vengeance. It was not the Spanish armor, horses, gunboats, and diseases that finally overwhelmed the great city of Mexi'co.
It was the thousands of Native American warriors from the Mexi'ca's own empire that helped bring down the Aztec world. In doing so, the Mexi'cas enemies brought down their own world.
At long last they had gotten what they wanted, the end of the Mexi'ca empire that oppressed them. What they receive in return was a horror tens of thousands of times greater than what they had suffered before. The Totonaca, the Huexotzinca, Tlaxcalteca, Tepaneca, Aculhua, Chalca, Culhuaca, and Coyoacanteca, had put racial and cultural solidarity aside for political expedience, hoping the Spanish would leave, or at least if they stayed, that they would be no worse than the Mexi'ca.
But they were wrong. The Spanish used them for their own needs, when they were no longer useful, the proceeded to destroy them too. For four hundred years, the descendants of all the indigenous peoples of Mexico, have suffered from this lack of unity. The Spanish, English, French, and Portugese, used the indigenous nations' intrigues and jealousies to divide and conquer this land for their "new world of opportunity."
One of the legacies of this tragic lack of unity, is that even today, north and south of the "International" border, set up by the Euro-American powers, Native American people cannot unite for a common cause.
There are some Native American individuals that have bought into the "Mexicans are not indians like us" mentality fostered by many government agencies. Some even seek out the help of immigration agents to keep the "wetbacks" on "their" side of the border.
In Tlalli Omic
The Earth Died
Muerio La Tierra
After the fall of the Aztec empire, the survivors had to face a new world, a new dawn that promised only grief and pain. The old gods had failed and a new pantheon of white faced, blue-eyed icons reigned supreme. New diseases joined ancient plagues. Cortes had said that the Castellanos suffered "from a disease that only gold could cure." This "disease" killed millions of indigenous people throughout the American continent.
Alien invaders from across the ocean took many ancestral and tribal lands for their private use. These "conquistadores," "pilgrims," and "adventurers" came to "civilize" this new savage world. For the sake of the "dreams" of the Europeans, the indigenous people were enslaved for the sake of gold, silver, and sugar cane. When the native people died off in incredible numbers, the Spanaish did the next "best thing." They kidnapped and bought millions of African slaves, so that they could take the place of the original inhabitants of this continent.
The Native American people who survived did so out of genetic, spiritual and psychological strength. These 3 million survivors out of a population of approximately 35 million people throughout Mesoamerica were the ones that carried the ancestor's ancient strength. These survivors of the holocaust of 1521-1698 are our direct genetic Native American ancestors. They are the ones that kept La Danza Azteca alive.
In Yancuic Tletl
The New Fire
El Fuego Nuevo
In this death and pestilence, the old gods gave their blood, and the new gods gave their flesh for a new people, a new creation that would rise from the stench of decaying bodies and pestilence.
Only a survivor of the Holocaust in such places as Aushwitz, or the killing fields of Cambodia or Uganda, could begin to comprehend the horrors of this time. The old gods had failed and a new pantheon of Saints, Virgins, and Demons took their place.
It had happened once, long ago, in Teotihuacan, where the gods of old made blood sacrifices to create the humans of the fifth sun. There too the sun and moon were born anew.
Now throughout the American continent, and especially in Mexico, the roots of the indigenous people were giving life to a new race of Indigenous, African, Asian and European descent.
© Copyright 2000 Mario E. Aguilar
Appendix IV: AMERICA - THE CENTRAL MOTIF
Patrick Dixon
1.
It could be said that the American Dream has lived within and accompanies the generalized westward motion of those civilizations that are collectively known as the Post Atlantean Epoch, comprising seven cultural ages (from 7227 BC 7894 AD)
The impulses for the Post-Atlantean (Aryan) Root Race were taken east; and from a region in the Himalayas the sowing of the seeds of those cultures that would begin their long westwarding sun-following journey was brought about by the Seven Rishis; who were the bearers of the seven Higher senses, as l’lands that would descend upon an arising humanity in the future.
The five Islands sunk as the five senses became immersed in the physical plane and the human being began to rise above the sea of pre-individual clairvoyance; to see the Promised land of ego-based consciousness. This condensation of and separation between the watery and aerial mantles of the Earth (this fall of the sea out the sky) paralleled the fall of the Etheric body of the human being, into closer proximity with the densifying physical body that was rising into differentiation as the less defined etheric body was sinking. This division between the water and air elements reverberated deeper and higher, both densifying the earth as a receptacle for the more gravity-bound water and dividing further the sub- and super- terrestrial fires. Levels that were clearly defined to higher beings then began to form into the Jacob's ladder that would be experiencable to beings bound to a sense world losing consciousness of its supersensible origins.
The great sequence of civilizations that unfolded as the Post Atlantean moved generally in a westward direction, focussing and converging towards the Incarnation in the Middle East. The voyaging of the Sun against the eastward turning motion of the Earth's material body was a reflected image of the Solar Logos as it moved across the Earth, both entering more and more deeply into matter, whilst also becoming more and more committed to strive against it and transform it. This reached a climax in the event of the Incarnation, in a body so constituted that it would be able to lead the newly formed Ego being of humanity out of the dark severance into which it had fallen.
The western experience (for people on all landmasses) became archetypally associated with the setting of the Sun. This picture has several meanings, one being the sinking of consciousness down into the dark unconscious region of the Will, deeper than the feeling realm of the heart, into a place from where there can arise either the light magical acts of an awakened being, or the nightmarish deeds of the self-darkened self. The dawn is a daily remembrance of the time when the Sun left the Earth, just as dusk is a presentiment of that future state when with all its transubstantiating powers it shall rejoin our planet; and that which has poured light into the eyes of physical sense shall dawn out of new eyes as a Spiritual and soul Sun, new eyes that shall become one I that shall bestow life and consciousness on all that it shines upon.
For this 'all seeing eye' to become an all being I' it must set into the darkest, most separate place, die to itself as the seed in the soil, give itself to the deepest purpose of all, then by a mysterious alchemy, the Will of all shall surrender to the one, and there shall arise a type of human being who will perceive the Universe as being an Individual while they and other human beings are experienced as being universes within themselves.
2.
The landmasses of Eurasia and Africa extend from the Arctic to well south of the Equator but the greatest area of land unfolds in an east west direction. The northern Hemisphere is the one dominated by dry land; the southern is more fluid, womblike and feminine, as the metabolic region of the body; and like the interior depths of the body, it lives below the perception of normal sense faculties or thought.
The dry land of the north was a basis for the development of objective consciousness (the dryness of thought rising as a continent above the seas of feeling). The Afro-Eurasian landmass spoke of the Eastern past and of the Western future; it neither c9mpletely remembered the one nor foresaw the other. The Americas are the arriving at the future and the returning of the past out of it.
The Americas stretch from pole to pole linked by an almost continual belt of mountains. In Central America it could be said the Eastern Pacific overreaches itself to almost touch the Western Atlantic as it flows into the Caribbean. In this place the meeting of the great eastern Water and the great western Sea and the touching of the Northern Continent and the Southern landmass describe an immense planetary cross of the earth and water elements. Here, also, there rise in the chain of mountains many that are firetopped instead of snowcapped, and blowing to and fro across these and up and down their length are winds from every quarter It is a heart formed by the rhythms that pulse into it, and like the heart in the human being it receives and passes on influences from the upper to the lower pole and back; and like the heart, it is located above the planetary, bodily centre of gravity of the Equator. It could be called a dynamic centre of levity.
The North polar ice cap, like a skull enclosing, frozen over the more fluid brain, or, in another way, like thought crystallized out of feeling, carries its cold conditions south by way of the high spine of mountains that reaches down through the Americas; and in this one can see how two conceptions of height and upwardness are united, the upper pole of the Earth with its drier nerve sense extremity, and the polar conditions that are found above a certain height on all mountains. Special influences are received by the Arctic from the constellations that are above it; the condition of the water beneath the ice cap is highly receptive to cosmic influences because it is far removed from the rapidly turning Equator and its burgeoning life; these waters like a finely tuned instrument pass tones of infra- and ultra- sonic frequency that are received by the myriad fish and marine mammals that disperse down into the warmer waters; also along the spinal cord of metals and minerals that are contained within the backbone of mountains that straddle the Earth through the Americas are passed magnetic forces and resonances not detectable by present instrumentation; these are those received by the Poles from the Cosmos, that advance and retreat, according as to whether the Pole is tilted away from or toward the Sun.
At the other, Southern Pole, it is not an enclosing of fluid, rather it is a rising out of it by solid land, just as the solid bones of the limbs descend out of the soft fluidity of the metabolic abdominal region. the cold of the upper pole is in a spiritual sense the cold of thought, withdrawn and aloof, the cold of the lower pole is the cold of the will that goes its own way that separates and asserts itself against life; it is a cold that denies and rejects the existence of others. The Antarctic is colder, stormier and more desolate than the Arctic; in human and spiritual terms it could be said that one is as an inner cold of the self, the other a far more dire and active cold that spreads beyond the self and makes all others as itself.)
The primary polarity of the poles to the Equator is again divided in itself into a secondary polarity as to the unique qualities of the North and South; in the great land bridge of the Americas and along its length cross and mingle the currents of these opposites. America was to be the place where human beings would be able to bring harmony and equilibrium between the pole of Thinking and that of Will and this made possible through the development of the Heart center of Feeling. The longitudinal alignment indicates that no longer journeying toward the Promised Land of reconciling these extremes into a new conscious balance, the American will have arrived. This is the real American dream, where each either attains mastery over and harmony between the opposing tendencies of human nature, or is torn to pieces by the conflict between them.
3.
Now we must enter upon a dark passage in American history, that has cast its spectral shadow over all levels of' manifestation, a tunnel that had no light at the end of it, which could have brought the Fifth Epoch to a dead end. It takes a special light to see in this darkness, but see in it we must, if we are to illuminate with new understanding many of the difficulties and trials that America has had to and still will have to face.
In Central America at the time when the Solar Logos was incarnated in the Middle East there arose as a counter Mystery of the heart, the practice of human sacrifice expressed in the ritual of cutting out the heart and sometimes the stomach, and there was also widespread ritualized decapitation; these practices vanished and reappeared from then on in Central America right up to the time of the landing of the Spaniards. However they were initially inspired and for a very specific purpose at the turning point of Time (c.1 33 AD). The being that instigated these dark mysteries knew full well that anti-spiritual and materializing forces flowed most powerfully from West to East; an attempt was made to sacrifice, remove the hearts, and shed the blood of as may human beings as had been involved in the lines of descent of the Hebrew people up to the Incarnation; and this quantity of murders had to be performed within a limited amount of time if they were to have the desired effect, for the initiator of this was diabolically attuned to the Divine Mystery that was unfolding itself in the Middle East, and through this was holding, as it were, a shadowy mirror up to those events that would bring forth a reversed image of all that was purposed in the deed of Christ. If this Adept of the dark path had been able to work unhindered and deflect all the light streaming from the acts of Christ into the reversing mirror, the humanity of the future would more and more have become a shadow, a benighted reflection, an inverted image of itself, where all good intentions would be twisted, polarised outwards and manifest as actions of evil effect.
However this being was hindered and caught in his own mirror and all the intended effects were reflected back upon their initiator, for another, a forerunner of those humans of the future who will balance all the sides of their nature and solve the equation of the Poles came with the Great Dream and with that fought the American Nightmare so that the Dream could be realised in the prophesied American Awakening.
Advancement on the sinistral path means the decision to avoid self sacrifice, and the evasion of this, inevitably leads to the sacrifice of others, for the giving out of what has been developed inwardly is a process essential for the evolution and movement forward of all systems. The primal aim of these rituals was to prepare, through deliberate desecration, a climate, location and milieu in which the Ahrimanic entity could work its purposes most powerfully; this Being destined to incarnate and by this we mean, to bring together in embodiment on the surface of the Earth, members of its being that had previously been separated and formerly worked out of different spheres; this incarnation would act as a lens that would bring into focus the unified beam of its Will and its Intellect. But there was one great obstacle to this, and that was the phenomenon of human Feeling which at the time of the Incarnation of the Solar Logos was to receive an irresistible strengthening. So the realm of Feeling had to be cut out, removed from the inner Sanctum from where it was ordained to bring about the transformation of the external world from the Soul outwards. The heart is destined to 'come out' of the body when it has evolved from its present physical objective noun state, in which it is subjected to all the pressures and oscillations that work upon it from the terrestrial and subnatural planes, when it has again become etheric, no longer bound by a physical form, but then become a spiritual force, a verb, as it were, able to subject the world of dead objects to its own ensouling powers that will raise the Physical condition of Form and Mineral condition of life into higher states of conscious communion.
Had the light hierarchies only been involved in our evolution, the internal organ systems of animals and particularly of human beings would never in their finished work state have been revealed to outer perception, but it was the activity of the Luciferic that caused an enclosing away from and separating out of life forms from their cosmic origins, and also a turning of the senses outward while sealing off the organism from consciousness and vision of what Divine cosmic Beings were bringing about within. Therefore it became increasingly difficult for humanity to live in the lap of the Gods, to bathe in the creative light by looking within; the consequence of this was that the hierarchies began their withdrawal, sacrificing a part of their being to become the foundation principle of the more deeply incarnated human body. The ensuing opacity brought forth that severance inherent in a physical and materialized condition of there being one dimension that was visible and one that was invisible; cutting in to, or bringing to the light of the human senses that interior physical world (which can only be safely done by Christ consciousness), removing it from its hidden matrix, meant endangering or bringing to an end the life of that beingness. Exposing the Life pole to the untransformed Consciousness Pole would bring about a divisive death impulse, the converse exposure would bring about madness arid chaos. Wherever there is confusion, order has been taken away; wherever there is death, life has been taken away, somewhere else, stolen into another realm that has no legitimate order or life of its own. One of the signatures of the Adversaries is that they interfere with the rhythmical time aspect of World development. And so, the heart was taken out prematurely in a material state not brought forth in due time as a redeemed power by individuals from within themselves, but cut out by an entity outside themselves. This was so that the sacrificers could grasp hold of the organ which had come to a completion as far as the Higher creative Beings were concerned. Because these latter had withdrawn, leaving the fruits of their Wisdom in its structure, the Lords of the Dark Face knew that now was the time to unseal it, to tear it out, before it was too late, before it changed from being an organ of Cosmic Divine Wisdom to being one of Human Divine Love.
The after-effects, echoes and reverberations from these blood rites have been many and varied and will continue to work so long as we do not bring any heightened awareness to bear upon them: first, the removal of a rhythmical integrator; then, a closing of the gap left, the creation of a Ring of power so that, in the present world, the atavistic clairvoyance of an earlier state of feminine oneness, which the Mexican Mysteries wished to preserve in the Solar Plexus of the Amazon to the south) and the premature onesidedness of masculine intellectuality, as found in the modern United States, would have no mediating influence that would heal them both into a new relationship. Rather the head pole would impose its rigidifying logic of the inorganic upon the life pole; and that, in answer, would react with natural catastrophes and disasters, diseases of the Earth's metabolism.
The Middle East above the Equatorial midline, was the place for the initiating of the evolution of the Heart as being the heart of Evolution. Central America was the location where the Heart won for itself, after a fearful attack had been launched upon it, that magical capacity for reconciling the polarities that is the essence of being human. Although the battle for the heart has been won for the light, the preparation for the Incarnation of Ahriman goes on, and though the full intention behind the Ritual murders was not realised, many things were achieved through them, that can be felt in every aspect of contemporary life.
4.
The history of North America and its peoples reveals initially a tremendous activity of the Will in the pioneers, but a will asserting itself against Mother Nature, and then a correspondingly great activity of Thought, to devise the sciences that would enable the imposition of the technological over the biological and natural.
America is also the story of different Races and how they have all been subject to the American Nightmare, how they have all lived in the Dream and shall all participate in the Awakening. It is a building with many stories and they are all interconnected; it is the story of the Metals, how as Atlantis was sinking, the Etheric essence of the seven planetary Oracles was taken East, and the seven related metals sank further into a physical condition in the West. The way cosmic forces were transmitted through the planetary oracles of Atlantis reappears as the physical properties of electricity and magnetism, which are residues of cosmic powers from earlier times that have fallen under the influence of matter and gravity.
America is a Nation of Races at the present time. Before the arrival of the European, America was a Race with many nations. The situation of a Nation overarching different Races (some of which are again under different Folksouls) marks the beginning of the end of the present Races: each can play their part in attuning to the new moral and social imaginations that are proceeding out of the Second Manifestation of Christ. The Red Indian, the Saturn Race, in living closely within the cycles of Nature, helped to insulate North America, from many of the harmful residual influences, that worked northwards out of the darker Mexican Mysteries: when the white Man came and largely displaced the Indian and their relation to the land1 these influences could begin to infect North America more strongly: some of the Folksouls of the Black Race, in a gesture of sacrifice, allowed their peoples to be enslaved, and as it were to be inserted between the newly forming Nation of North America and these Mexican forces: the Black Race absorbed these in being subject to slavery; and like a new string in the great instrument, did much to heal the damaged rhythmic system of the Continent.
The Indian Folksouls loosened a part of their being from the physical Plane, sacrificing their oneness with nature, and rose - transforming into a Time Spirit, that now and into the future, will bring to all the Earth, in full wakefulness, the harmony in which they lived as in a dream in a part of the Earth. Now in the Happy Hunting grounds, they seek as the Spirit of the Echo - Logos, awakened echoes in the Ego-sphere, awakened Egos in the Ecosphere.
5.
There are certain events and phenomena in the American story that are as it were templates that have already and will further appear in other parts of the world; there is now a kind of eastward flowback of social and consciousness forces of the American Experience. The activities of souls, who are open at this threshold of the West and East that is California, will occur as human acts of light and darkness in the future all over the Earth. The American state goes beyond its Western margin, and via the state of Hawaii closes its ring of power through its influence upon Japan. On a deeper level the war that involved Japan was brought about as part of the Adversary's plan to permeate and inoculate the Orient with those Institutional, Social and Economic structures that would later facilitate the incarnation of a World Government. On a profounder level, this plan is merely part of a much vaster one: the world Unity expressed in one Legal system, one Currency, one Language, one Military, provides those things that Ahriman shall attempt to enforce upon humanity prematurely from the outside, having first created the world situation that seems to justify those measures. This imposing of future forms prematurely (on a smaller scale the introduction of intellectual abstract thinking into the education of very young children) is actually initiated to prevent the integration of the Ego into the Human Being within those rhythms of development that alone make it possible for the person to come to self-possession and responsibility to others. One language and Religion would have within it a reemergence of Ancient Egypt; one Legal and Military would recapitulate the Centralized power of Rome; one Currency would replay the Hebrew and Mosaic Laws of property and the Babylonian application of Number and work which on a small scale was used in connection with slaves.
Before the Incarnation all humanity was in a sense becoming enslaved to the Physical plane, and the enslaving of others was the turning outwards of the idea of work. Both the receding of consciousness of the spiritual behind Nature and the darkening and hardening of substance turned work from being led by and inspired by semi-Divine Beings, to being something that was enforced by beings becoming demonic: from inspiration to perspiration. Yet this slave-driving and wringing of sweat from large groups of people had its place, because through this suffering and toil the astral body was purified and was prevented from either falling asleep on the physical plane or becoming completely diverted by it. This pain drew the I closer to the embodied state and prepared the house to receive its dweller. After the Incarnation, the idea of work was to become more structured, more differentiated and individually chosen. Under the influence of the Second Manifestation of the Logos we can expect the meaning of work to evolve again to an understanding of the individual's place in the Great Work. Outer work will become in the sphere of Agriculture, Architecture, Chemistry and Medicine and many other areas, both the conscious transformation of the self, and of the planet, into higher conditions of Form and Life. The work of one incarnation will also be remembered and picked up in the next; the sense of purpose and fulfilment will extend beyond the limits of one lifetime and expand beyond the bounds of one dimension; work will become being, inner and outer work will become one in a way, as never before; and so masculine and feminine, work and recreation will unite in joy and this Joy is the seed that will be contained within the Love that is the fruit of this Earth-incarnation of the Earth, this fruit to be formed on the Tree of Wisdom that grew out of the living soil of the Old Moon state of our Planet; the seed is the Joy of those human beings who will have mastered the forces of Life and Death, and out of this seed will arise the joyful creation of Jupiter.
The mission of the Earth-incarnation of the Earth is essentially to bring about a harmony between Thinking, Feeling and Willing; the basis of what would later manifest as human Will being laid down upon the Ancient Saturn incarnation of the Earth, that of Feeling upon the Old Sun embodiment and that of Thinking on the old Moon, these three stages also laying down successively the germs of the Physical, Etheric and Astral Bodies. This triangle and the other ones of Goodness, Beauty and Truth; Religion, Art and Science; and Bull, Eagle and Lion, represent principles that once balanced and attuned will turn what is now being composed, into a living symphony of Love that will be received into the Cosmos as a new Music of the spheres; out of the great Pralaya, into which the Earth's planetary body shall be carried by a Humanity changing its Earthly Form into a Universal Force, the Planets, their solid body being leavened, being spiritually potentised as it expands into the sphere of what was its orbit, (this being the result of human beings loving in full awareness across the threshold of Death), so the spiritual worlds shall become as full of conscious human individuality as the Earth existence is imbued with spiritual Community. There will come a point when the veil shall be lifted and we shall see clearly where we have come from and where we are going; physical sensations shall become soul experiences, all subjective states shall be seen objectively for what they are, and all that was previously the immovable dead world of outer objects shall be subjected to an inner life so powerful that it will raise them to a living inwardness in which there will seem to be No-Thing, nothing but Being, no things only Beings. This will be a Pralaya of the second order: this will be the womb out of which the Jupiter incarnation of the Earth will be born.
The preparation of this distant future state is active now and asks that we wake up more and more and participate in it.
In this preparation, the purpose of pain is partly to draw our consciousness to a certain area of our body or being because that part needs healing, which means transforming; for whenever we are healed, at whatever level, our condition is not simply returned to what it was but returns on a higher curve of the spiral; we re-cover, closing ourselves to the Healing activity of others (again able to take up the full responsibility for our own health); we re-cover processes that must remain hidden until our consciousness is strong enough to enter into them and take them over. The premature uncovering of certain soul and bodily faculties before they have truly become our property, that is before we have awakened to the seeds within us and how they should be nurtured, allows these seeds to be taken and grown for other purposes.
This prematurity is one of the hallmarks of America, having found the wealth of all the world, before having found one's own soul America jettisoned the old forms of Church and State and growing synchronously with the new forms of Technology, the steamboat, railways and telegraph, it proceeded westward at an ever increasing rate leaving first villages, then towns, and finally cities in its wake. This first great wave determining the pattern of the next, the establishing of trade routes, the arrival of the internal combustion engine, the laying of roads, the American Engine shifted into a faster gear: mineral resources from one part of the country were freighted to another involved in manufacturing some product; this was transported to a third place; the endless never sleeping circulation had begun. The question of how to do things overtook the question of why they should be done; it seemed unnecessary to ask why any more, that was of the Old world. The New world knew what it had to do and only asked of itself how it should be done. A tide of humanity was surging in from the East; half of Europe seemed on the move. As if in anticipation of this, the West had to be opened up. Forests had to be cleared. The Indians had to conform or be fought. The coming of motorized transport, mass production, aviation and the manifolding power of Electricity spun the web into completion; the nerves of the State now reached into all the muscles of the Nation; but what of the land? Did it have and was it having surgery performed on it? Were its vital organs being removed? Was its heart being cut out to make room for a transplant from another part of the World? Modern America was now embodied, as a new vehicle constructed, a new house built, but would something try to steal that vehicle and drive it off the High-way of evolution, into a cul-de-sac for humanity; some landlord take over the house, and demand a rent the tenants could not afford to pay? The voice of the Land, the Red Indian, was not heeded or even heard amidst the noise of the accelerating drive of the New America. If it had, it would have sounded a warning: to transplant the living heart forces from one part of the Earth to another may be possible and necessary, to bring about new life, but to remove the Heart of a land, then manufacture one of materials that have not evolved within a body and implant it as an artificial heart, will bring about either the rejection of that heart or the death of the body into which the organ is introduced or both.
A great image of the desecration of the land can be seen in much that has been done in the name of agriculture; the deforestation of much of the broad-leaved deciduous forests that stretched for hundreds of miles westwards from the Appalachians, similar to the cutting down of the larger part of Europe's deciduous temperate forests; this did much to the rhythmic system of North America.
The natural zones that traverse the Iandmasses of the Northern Hemisphere appear in belts or rings that modify effects and influences that proceed up and down between the poles and the Equator. This is seen very clearly in the Continent of America with its pronounced North-South axis. The Arctic Ice cap and Ocean yield to the Permafrosted Tundra; this surrenders to the coniferous Taiga which in turn capitulates to great Plains, Evergreen rainforest to the west, wooded hill country to the east; then into what was the vast wooded region of the Forest Indians; this area then bows down along all its varied front, gradually defeated by the vast tracts of scrubland and semidesert to the west and the warm temperate wood and grassland to the east, this region falls away through Mexico giving in to the superior power of the Tropics, and running up and down through all these changing zones, rise the mountains, varying in their foothills as they stride from north to south, but little changed in their heights on their peaks. From these serene and lofty heights a vision of Eternal America may perhaps be beheld, a deep gaze and a high seeing, that could stretch from the time of the American Sleep when it lay beneath the sea of seeing before it rose to become a Land of Being, through the American Dream, unperturbed, through the American Nightmare, to the American Awakening when all gold that is trapped, stolen out of the life into material darkness shall be dematerialised and rise up as an inner Sun force dawning out of the transformed hearts of human beings.
6.
Now we must descend again from such poetic elevations, to the present time and those broadleaved forests. Their partial removal has meant that cold air from the Arctic has been able to descend further south less warmed than it should be and warm air from the Caribbean has been able to go further North, less cooled than it could be; though the great plains are a band that stretch almost from the edge of the Boreal forests to the coastal plains in the South, the grasses of the Eastern plains are generally taller and more luxuriant. This factor like the Broadleaved forests of the East, moderates movements of air and temperature within the day and night and seasonal cycles. The interference with these is an afterworking of the Dark Magician of the Mexican Mysteries; where the unmodified effects of one Pole, the cold, are brought inappropriately and prematurely into relationship with the hot Pole. This has definitely enhanced the activity of what is known as Tornado Alley, (where approximately 700 tornadoes swirl annually, collectively equal to the power of one hurricane).
The tornado is an external image of the way in which forces work in the human being, when the modifying activity of the heart-lung system is unable to relate the inner with the outer and that which is below with that above, in the normal balanced way. The tornado is a kind of meteorological heart-attack, also stroke with the heat of the Metabolic system spiralling upwards on one side and the cold of the Nerve sense system spiralling down on the other; this, transferred within the human being, is similar to what precipitates a heart attack*. The conception of the heart as being merely physical, has the effect of taking it out of the soul rhythms; this makes the middle system more subject to external temperatures and pressures and the oscillations of the Earth's electromagnetic fields which start to affect it adversely. And this is intensified by removing the life cover of the outer environment, forests and such like, which through the Etheric connect the Earth with the Cosmos. The drive towards the denudation of the life realms of the Planet's surface, is part of the Adversary's plan to bring about a uniformity of environment causing a withdrawal of the Risen Ethers and a corresponding exposure and surfacing of the fallen etheric matrix, which compels all organism towards mechanism, denying the threefold lemniscatory movement which socialises the innate antisocial tendencies of both the Metabolic and Nerve sense Poles.
This polarity is expressed in two of the most recent developments in technology, that of Nuclear Fusion and that of Superconduction, the one needing tremendous heat, the other requiring intense cold. Superconduction through the use of newly discovered materials with certain impurities is getting warmer: Fusion, it was recently claimed, was getting colder (this has temporarily been denied - it may yet be achieved).
What is the significance of this? It can be described as a convergence towards the temperature of human blood, the two poles of a Being coming towards incarnation. The incarnation of Ahriman focuses and compresses into one body and one locality. The idea of Fusion and Superconduction are part of the American archetype in many ways. Through the activity of Christ we are all participants in the great Fusion programme, the fusing of the indestructible individualities of humanity into a new Spirit of Form, a Cosmic Pralayic chrysalis, out of which the imago of future states will arise. All these self-important programmes of scientific endeavour, to draw more energy out the material world for material purposes, are only caricatures, parodies compressed into the mode of substance and mechanism, of those nearly silent mighty processes of evolution through which the superstances of Higher Beings are drawn upon by the inner work and moral development of human beings for the transformation of the Earth. The Sun is silent and yet without it there would be no Music, no Sound, and no noise on this Planet.
*(the seed of the spiritual heart wishing to open, meets the resistance of the Adversary, that aims to hold it back, out of the stream of evolution, so that it remains bound in the physical condition of Form & Mineral Condition of Life. It is this meeting of the stirring seed, with the present conditions, that is behind much Heart Disease)
7.
The fourth Occultism can really be called that of the Musical (the Mechanical being more connected with Saturn, Hygienic with Jupiter and Eugenic with the Moon respectively of the West, the Central and the East). The Musical is of the Sun, and is of the whole world harmonising the other three. And it was this Occultism from the Sun Lodge (transformed from the Sun Oracle of Atlantis) which held the mysteries of the Etheric body and its transformation into the Life Spirit. It was this knowledge that lived in Vitzliputzli, Sun Hero initiate of the sixth degree. In growing up he would have learned to attune himself to the experience of the soul as music within the body, and how out of the being of humanity there would arise that which would raise the Americas into a mighty monochordal instrument, strung and fretted with mountains, forests, plains and rivers, in which and across which resounded the Elementals orchestrations of air, water and light; how the Sun plucked the different zones into motion as it moved daily from East to West and yearly North to South; in a fusion of the mystic and the ecstatic he learnt to hear the Music of the Spheres echoing both in the depths of his inner self and in the elementals behind outer Nature.
This Echo Logos (who was able to be and echo the deed of Christ) would bring a tone to the Americas, that would be sought in the Vision Quest of the North American Indians; and arise again in a materialised form as the modern superhero, bringing harmony to a society out of tune.
The human being as a bridge and a conductor between the elementals and nature Devas and the creator Beings of the Hierarchies, this was Vitzliputzli. Christ was the bridge for the human soul back to the Spirit; the future mission of Vitzliputzli could never be realised without the deed of Christ coming to fulfilment, so the Light Magician of Mexico was drawn in to ensure the success of Christ's task.
The deed of Vitzliputzli in overcoming the Dark Magician, was one preeminently of timing, that is of Music. Christ said not my will but Thine, and sacrificed Himself into the discords of the whirling sympathies and antipathies of the Whirled and stepped into the rhythm of the Passion in Harmony with the Father Force. Vitzliputzli communicated this stupendous performance, to "the dance of the elementals."
The Dark Magician tried to tap into the discords of the Sixth interior Sphere of the Earth, which is connected with the Earth's volcanism. Volcanoes in the Tropics, particularly in Central America (because of the prevailing wind system patterns), have a property unlike volcanoes in higher latitudes, of spreading the plume of their effluvia over the entire Earth. The aim was to excite such an intensity of hatred, such an outpouring of human selfishness, that this would have reacted upon the subphysical Fire Earth of the sixth interior level so that this would have answered with a massive volcanic eruption that could have cast a mantle, a pall of dust and debris, around the entire globe. This would have been the dwelling place of dark elementals, cutting out the Sun and the Cosmos, and making it impossible for human beings to become anything but expressions of what had existed in the interior of the Earth, but now enclosed it.( When the first Atomic Bomb was tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico, the same being was at work, constrained then and for the rest of Earth's evolution to work through human minds benighted by Materialism; both Nuclear winter and the words of the Revelation that speak of the Sun being darkened are all related to this.)
What happened in Mexico was one great attempt at this: the Aztecs feeding of the Sun with human blood was brought about by a fear of the Sun going out if it was not nourished. This fear was kindled by the Dark Magus - "the De-sol-ator"; in a counter mystery of the Etherisation of the Divine Blood given by the Solar Logos as eternal nourishment for humankind. The False Prophet, another name for the Magician, through causing this new Atmosphere to rise out of the interior of the Planet would also have gained for himself, a new sphere-encompassing sheath to his body.
Vitzliputzli, through the presence of Christ on Earth, was able to Orchestrate the elementals of earth, air, fire and water, and the Devas of the mountains, the forests, the rivers and the plains, and the Guardians of wood and metal to resound together and subdue the sixth interior Sphere.
The antiChristian feelings that surrounded the Solar Logos during the Passion were to be the fuel which from the Sixth Sphere, would have enabled Ahriman to have been sucked out of and blasted through the Mineral Sphere, coming to power, in turning the world inside out. The many murders performed by the desolating One" had enabled him to project and incite such a blasphemy of hatred, half away across the world in the Middle East. This power and the knowledge of its use had been gained through a long established pact with Ahriman.
The supreme moment had arrived, between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, before the entrance of Christ into the planetary Etheric. It was then that the Earth's dark Shroud was intended to come forth from the interior: but as in all suspenseful drama, at the last minute of that eleventh hour, such a chorus resounded from the Poles along the mountains, setting in motion chords resonating through the great rings of forests, plains and metals, along the mountain spine, (as notes of changing pitch moved the Devas linking North and South, East and West, inspiring the sylphs of the rivers and streams, and of the rising and falling airs), that the mighty American Cross of the Elements reverberating through the Being of Vitzliputzli as Echo-Logos for an eternal moment set into vibrant sympathy the Rings of Mineral, Plant and Animal, elemental being and Deva around the entire Earth, the Rings that remembered the encircling of Cosmic Creator Beings, as they were whirling the World into being, the whirled into seeing, (because of the fall, the landmasses had separated the rings had broken, the peoples consciousness had fallen apart into locality). This moment was both a memory, of the time before the One Song had fallen into the many Languages, and also a prophecy, of a time when the Rings shall again be reforged, by a world-encircling human Imagination; when the broken rings shall be united and human feeling shall girdle the Earth, as it did then in Vitzliputzli; when human awareness shall encompass the sphere, and the Suffe-ring become a spiral.
The power of the creator beings flowed through him into their estranged offspring, the Elementals, and these answered with a music that in its composing brought about the decomposition of the Dark Magician's plan, so that what would have been the terrible noise, which could have finally deafened the world, and brought the Deaf-end of the planet, in which the Music of the Spheres might never have been heard again, instead became the glorious hymn of the Resurrection.
It was the love of Vitzliputzli for the elementals and Nature spirits (this love made possible through the Being of Christ) that brought to these Beings the idea of sacrifice and heroism, which enabled them to participate with a human being, as they would with all who would rise to a true Ecology in the future.
*
America struggles with its shadow and dark reflection: this landmass was rediscovered, settled and established synchronously with the descent from the higher worlds of the great dispensation of Music that is based upon the interval of the Third; this an image of the Devachanic descending to the Earth. The transformation through Bach into Beethoven offers a kind of Memory of the deed of Vitzliputzli; and a foretelling of the higher human being of the future, who will bring Harmony between the rhythms of world communities and the Melodies of Eternal Individuality.
- included by kind permission of Patrick Dixon (Bib. I)
Bibliographies
These citations are perhaps overly-extensive for the materials in the text, but pending completion of the promised succeeding issues of these investigations, they are given here for the interested reader. Items of especial relevance or introductory value are asterisked (*).
Bib. I: A Selected Mesoamerica and USA Bibliography
Anthroposophical sources:
* Dixon, Patrick: America: The Central Motif. From Shoreline No. 4, 1991. Very imaginative
spiritual-scientific large-context view. Accurate, in this writer's view, and deserves it’s first-place listing. Scanned to digital format version available on request.
Franzen, Peter: Ein Sieg Christi uber den Sorat, trans. by Lathe and Whittaker as A Victory of
Christ over Sorat. From an unidentified European publication, ~1998.
Koslik, Dr. Frederic C.: introduction to Steiner’s English-language edition of Inner Impulses in
Evolution, GA 171. Rudolf Steiner Press, 1984. Very informative critical treatment of both anthroposophical and historical sources on possible forms of ritual technique and early esoteric practice in Mexico. Attempts to address directly the problems connected with some of Steiner’s statements which are at variance with generally accepted modern historical and ethnographic research. Scanned to digital format version available on request.
Lievegoed, Bernard: The Battle for the Soul. Hawthorn Press, 1994. Parting reflections by a
European anthroposophist on Vitzliputzlian karmic relationships (e.g.: Mani and Parzifal) and other topics.
Meyer, T. H.: Clairvoyance and Consciousness - The Tao Impulse in Evolution. Temple Lodge Press, 1991. Well-informed observations about Atlantean Tao-Taotl streams in America.
Morelli, Luigi: The Event of the Dawning in the Popul Vuh. Essay for private distribution. Morelli sees evidence of Vitzliputzli in the Mayan tales of the sacred hero-twins and culture-heroes Hunahpu and Xbalanque, born miraculously to a maiden, who defeat the evil powers of the UnderWorld in the Popul Vuh. Frank Water, in Mexico Mystique, details other Pueblo and Navajo myths that relates tales of parallel hero-twin myths.
Pfeiffer, Dr. Ehrenfried: transcript of a lecture about his trip to Mexico in mid 1950's: a visit to
Guatemalan Uaxuctan obtains legends and insights into nature of Itzamna as Vitzliputzli-figure, the function of the ball games, and various diffusionist streams entering into Central America. Available at:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AllOurRelations/ Files section.
Salman, Harrie: The Mysterious Vitzliputzli. Article from Novalis magazine, 9, 1999. Good
overview. Translation into English available.
Stegman, Carl: The Other America. Rudolf Steiner College Press, 1997. An early attempt by a
German to treat American spirituality early and present but draws together varied elements into a broad view. Includes important considerations of etheric geography. Still the best general treatment of these themes in anthroposophical circles, although it fails to break free of the undertow involved in such a format .
* Steiner, Rudolf: Inner Impulses in Evolution, GA 171. Especially lectures of Sept. 18 & 24,
1916, Dornach. Anthroposophic Press, 1984. The starting point for indications on Vitzliputzli and the "Mexican Mysteries" according to spiritual insight: relatively brief and perplexing, but capable of stimulating profound insights if worked with. The English edition contains seven lectures, from Sept. 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, and Oct. 1, 1916. The German edition of GA 171 contains additional lectures from Sept. 30 and Oct. 2, 7, 14, 15, 21, 28, 29, and 30, 1916: this group is entitled Goethe and the Crisis of the Nineteenth Century. An additional lecture from Dec. 10, 1916 is also grouped with GA 171, although it appears as part of The Problem of Faust, GA 273. No mention is made in the English edition of the abridgements and associated material. The excised lectures contain equally remarkable and highly relevant information; see my notes for Steiner’s closely following Faust and the Mothers
(GA 273) lecture in Bib. II. Online at:http://wn.elib.com/Steiner/Lectures/InnerImpul/InnImp_index.html
Steiner, Rudolf: Karmic Relationships, Vol. II, GA 236. Rudolf Steiner Press, 1974 (from 1924).
The lecture from May 29, mentions Mexican culture and the god Quetzalcoatl in connection with Eliphas Levi, and “a curious man” who might possibly have