Seven great energies or streams of force demonstrate the qualities of Deity. The Wisdom Teachings speak of them as the Seven Rays and they are dominant conditioning and qualifying factors in our lives. But not only this; they are, we understand, cosmic elements, reaching us from the unknown spheres of other systems, and no part of the life of our planet is unaffected by them.

In the same way as the seven colours are parts of the spectrum and the seven notes are tones of the octave, so these Rays are differentiations or qualities of the one divine Emanation. In some of the eastern teachings they are called the seven breaths giving life to all forms, and they have been referred to in various ways in different philosophies. It is these great “Energies” that St John called symbolically “the Seven Spirits before the throne of God.”

The Seven Rays, each carrying particular qualities and tendencies, are responsible for the different psychological types. Several Rays will probably influence us, but one usually predominates and gives the main colouring to our character. There is a connection here with astrology … the astrological influences carry these same streams of energy and our alignment with particular Signs puts us more directly in touch with these qualities.

The following summary only gives a very brief idea of each Ray, but serves to indicate their different types of influence.

Since the explosion of the ET/UFO phenomena in 1947, speculation about alien intrusion on planet Earth has been rampant. Half a dozen theories dominate the debate, but there is one theory that has yet to be examined. It did not emerge after 1947, but approximately 1600 years earlier. To be precise, the evidence of this theory came to light through a discovery in Egypt in December, 1945, although the significance of the find was not realized until — guess when? 1947.

In that year, French scholar Jean Doresse identified the Egyptian find at Nag Hammadi as a cache of rare Gnostic texts. “Gnosticism” is the label scholars use for a body of teachings derived from the Mystery Schools of pre-Christian antiquity. Gnostics who protested against Christian doctrines such as divine retribution and Christ’s resurrection found themselves targeted as heretics and were brutally suppressed by early converts to the One True Faith. This is the untold story of how the Mysteries ended. Since that signal year, 1947, some of the lost Mystery School knowledge has been recovered.

Gnosis (“inner knowing”) was a path of experimental mysticism in which the initiates of the Mystery Schools explored the psyche and the cosmos at large. Using psychoactive plants, yoga, and sex magic, these ancient seers experienced altered states and developed siddhis, occult skills such as clairaudience and remote viewing. Gnosis was a kind of yogic noetic science melded with parapsychology. In heightened perception, Gnostics developed a vast cosmological vision centered in a female deity, the Divine Sophia. The Gnostic creation myth is unique in that it includes a full-blown explanation of how inorganic alien beings came to be present in our solar system.
The Nag Hammadi material contains reports of visionary experiences of the initiates, including first-hand encounters with inorganic beings called Archons. Gnostic teaching explains that these entities arose in the early stage of formation of the solar system, before the Earth was formed. Archons inhabit the solar system, the extraterrestrial realm as such, but they can intrude on Earth. Interestingly, this Gnostic insight accords closely with the view of Jacques Vallee, who maintains that ET/cyborgs probably belong to the local planetary realm. Vallee also proposes that the ET/UFO enigma is a “spiritual control system,” a phenomenon that “behaves like a conditioning process.” (Messengers of Deception). This is exactly what Gnostics said about the Archons: they can affect our minds by subliminal conditioning techniques. Their main tactics are mental error (intellectual virus, or false ideology, especially religious doctrines) and simulation. Archons are predatory, unlike a wide range of non-human and other-dimensional beings also know to the Gnostics, beings who are benevolent or neutral toward humanity.

Source: metahistory.org

by Jonathan Young

 

New Perspectives Magazine — July 1994

Mythologist Joseph Campbell was a masterful storyteller. He could weave tales from every corner of the world into spell-binding narratives. His lifelong quest from childhood days as a devout Catholic altar boy to fame as the world’s most noted scholar in comparative mythology makes for a fine heroic story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The adventure picks up when young Joe Campbell sees the Indians in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1912. The future scholar soon became convinced that he had Indian blood. One of the striking details of the early years was Campbell’s youthful studiousness. He read his way through the children’s section of the public library and was admitted to the adult stacks at the age of eleven. He devoted himself to every available fact about Native American life, including the reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology. By high school, he was already writing articles on Native American mythology, presenting many of the themes he would still be working in his eighties.

Campbell’s life was a passionate intellectual journey. College years at Columbia University were spent discovering literature while becoming a track star and playing in a jazz band on weekends. Graduate study in the Holy Grail legends of Arthurian mythology took him to Paris and Munich where he discovered the ideas of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung as well as James Joyce, Thomas Mann and modern art. This is when he saw the parallels between mythic themes in literature and psychological lessons such as those revealed in dreams.

Returning to Columbia, Campbell wanted to expand the scope of his dissertation topic beyond the Grail myth to include parallels with psychology and art. His advisors made it clear that such a daring perspective would not be acceptable. The depression had set in and, with no job prospects, Campbell abandoned doctoral work and went off to Woodstock for five years of intensive study of the imagination. At every turn, Campbell met the interesting thinkers of the time – many of whom became friends, from the philosopher Krishnamurti to Adelle Davis, who was Campbell’s first serious romantic interest long before her career as a nutritionist. During a break from his period of unsponsored scholarship, Campbell travelled to California, where he met an unknown novelist named John Steinbeck and promptly fell in love with Steinbeck’s wife, Carol. Another part of his west coast adventure was a trip up the Northwest coast to Alaska collecting marine specimens with “Doc” Ed Ricketts who was later immortalized in Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.

Teaching and writing

Finally, a job offer came from Sarah Lawrence College. This most experimental school provided the setting for the next 38 years of Campbell’s work. He became a master teacher and mentor to generations of notable women. He credits his students for bringing the element of personal application to his writing. His future wife, Jean Erdman, began as a student at Sarah Lawrence the same year that Campbell joined the faculty. She went on to star in Martha Graham’s dance company, then became a acclaimed choreographer in her own right and founded the performance dance department at New York University.

As these two prolific talents energetically pursued their creative careers they moved among the bright lights of New York’s artistic and intellectual circles. Composer John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham were particularly close. Indologist Heinrich Zimmer was such a kindred spirit that, upon his untimely death, Campbell was asked to edit and complete his works. Through Zimmer, Campbell met Carl Jung and participated in the Jungian Eranos Conferences in Switzerland.

It was the publication of The Hero With a Thousand Faces in 1949 that established Joseph Campbell as the preeminent comparative mythologist of our time. He wanted the book to be a guide to reading a myth. Campbell explained how challenging experiences could be seen as initiatory adventures. It was this connection between ancient stories and the emotional concerns of modern life that was distinctive. As Campbell observed, “The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change.”

Campbell’s prodigious scholarship went on to include the four-volume Masks of God as well as The Mythic Image and the lavishly illustrated series The Historical Atlas of World Mythology. As his influence grows, Joseph Campbell seems destined to join Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung as one of this century’s great disseminators of the psychological wisdom of mythology.

Encounters with a storyteller

Coming away from the first seminar I attended with Joseph Campbell, I had a new sense that meaning could be found in every direction. The weekend had been filled with Campbell’s enchanting storytelling. He had explained that the great scriptures of the world’s religions could be understood as metaphors for psychological changes. It was a major turning point in my life.

One conversation with him that first weekend had been especially significant for me. We were sitting down to dinner together and I mentioned that I missed the ritual of saying grace before meals. I said that it just wasn’t clear to me at that time what I should give thanks to. Campbell gently suggested that I say my thanks to the animals and plants that had given their lives so that my life would continue. In a few words, he captured the essence of an old ritual and gave it fuller meaning. It was typical of his way of showing the significance of familiar details of everyday situations.

It might be worth mentioning that Campbell was also eating meat. He liked to tease vegetarians by saying they were people who couldn’t hear a carrot scream. His humor illustrated some of the most important points, like the comment that the mid-life crisis was getting to the top of the ladder, only to discover that it was leaning against the wrong wall.

The same evening that first seminar ended, I was to lead a discussion group at a local church. It was something I did often, but this Sunday was different. It wasn’t just the usual personal problems and philisophical questions. We ended up talking about the symbolic messages available in ordinary life. I realized that Campbell’s vision had really gripped me.

There would be many more seminars with Campbell. Usually I would be his aide, taking care of details and being his driver. I would seize any chance to spend extra time with him and ask one more question. Campbell’s style was profoundly natural. He would tell stories drawn from many traditions, often weaving several stories to show similarities. His lectures were usually illustrated with slides of the sacred images of each of the cultures involved.

One setting was an ecumenical retreat center. He would occasionally comment on the images on the walls of the chapel. Noting the crucifix, Campbell would describe some of the many resurrection stories from different cultures and comment on how the symbolism suggests personal spiritual integration. His ease in drawing on a wide range of material was striking.

During his visits to Santa Barbara it was sometimes my responsibility to get him away from the seminar for a quiet meal. One evening I took him to a restaurant out on the local pier with Jean Houston who was presenting with him that weekend. Joseph Campbell was every bit as charming at dinner as at the lectern. He looked out over the oceanfront and remarked on Santa Barbara’s great beauty and how sad he was about the decline of his native New York City. He noted that his new home in Hawaii was also a place of abundant natural loveliness.

Ritual as mythic experience

Campbell believed that participation in ritual could put you into a direct experience of mythic reality. One day he told a beautiful Native American story of the buffalo princess who let herself be married to a buffalo so that her tribe could eat. It showed the deep connection between the indians and the animals they relied on for survival. That evening, Campbell suggested that we enact the story as the indians had in one of their major rituals. When our group gathered to prepare it was decided that I would play the princess. I guess it was type – casting since I am bearded and six-foot-five. Campbell was delighted with our trickster approach and said none of his groups had taken that angle before.

It sometimes fell to me to take him out to Santa Barbara Airport for his departure. This was a prized task because I would have time alone to ask more questions. He was always gracious. One time he had recounted a story from Arthur’s round table in which a horse is cut in half as a knight is entering an enchanted city. I asked why the horse had to die. He explained that I was being too literal in my reaction. The horse was a symbol for our physical nature which was not the vehicle for entrance into the sacred realm. In a few words he explained a great metaphysical principle.

The last time was in 1985, two years before he died. The topic was the beloved of the soul. Campbell described the spiritual dimensions of romantic love. When The Power of Mythtelevision series with Joseph Campbell was broadcast, millions of people were inspired by the wisdom of the late mythologist. Many lives were deeply changed by this amazing teacher. The world found out what a devoted band of Campbell’s students had known – that this man’s message was a great treasure of our time.

My training had been in comparative religion and, later, clinical psychology. Joseph Campbell showed the psychological dimensions of the great spiritual traditions. For me, Campbell was the one teacher who explained how it all fit together. My approach to therapy changed markedly to include story and soul. The seminars on creativity I had been giving became workshops on the symbolic wisdom of mythic stories. Passing on Campbell’s work had become a calling.

A few years later, the college in Santa Barbara that had sponsored the seminars with Joseph Campbell started a graduate program in psychology with an emphasis in mythology and religious studies. I eagerly accepted an offer to be one of the core professors. It was a chance to teach the ideas that Campbell had outlined to future leaders in the field of psychology. The program grew and now the Pacifica Graduate Institute has trained hundreds of therapists and has some four hundred students currently working on Masters and Doctoral degrees.

When the Campbell family was deciding where the archives would be located, Pacifica was chosen. Mrs. Campbell felt that it was the one college that was teaching the parallels between psychology and mythology in the spirit of Campbell’s pioneering work.

A mythic calling

The president of Pacifica knew that Joseph Campbell had been a mentor to me and offered me the task of building an appropriate repository for the papers and books. Beginning in 1990, my labor of love as curator of the Joseph Campbell Archives and Library was to assemble the thousands of books and years of notes Campbell gathered in nearly seventy years of scholarship. Working in his studies in New York and Honolulu with Mrs. Campbell to understand how he used each book and how he arranged his files has been memorable. When I would come across outlines for the very seminars that had effected me so deeply, it was like finding lost jewels.

The library is administered by an independent, non-profit, corporation. The facility, which formally opened in January of 1993, has displays of religious objects collected by Campbell in his travels and an extensive photo exhibit of his life and work. Choosing the pictures from the family albums was especially rewarding. Most of them have never been published and can only be seen at the archives.

The personal aspects of folklore and mythology has been the theme of the seminars I’ve been invited to give around the country for the last ten years. My notes from the many occasions I was with Joseph Campbell as he addressed these issues have been the core of my presentations. It is one of those marvelous turns that life takes that I now have the opportunity to edit these materials that have had such a personal impact on my inner life.

One of the most rewarding experiences I have as I travel to present seminars on mythic stories is to meet the many people who have been inspired by Joseph Campbell and his work. Everywhere I go people tell me stories about studying with him at Sarah Lawrence College or meeting him after one of his lectures. Whether through seeing him in person, reading his books or seeing him on television, people describe the profound impact that Joseph Campbell’s ideas have had on their lives.

Campbell’s opus is not yet fully published. His literary executors have nine additional books in various stages of the editing process. These will be released over the next several years. Many hours of lectures on video are to be released in newly edited versions. Joseph Campbell’s influence on our understanding of mythology seems to still be on the rise. When the religious history of this century is written, the impact of Joseph Campbell will surely be a major event in our collective spiritual development.

Via: http://www.folkstory.com

Dr. Jacques Vallee, a French-American computer specialist with a background in astrophysics, once served as consultant to NASA’s Mars Map project.

Jacques Vallee is one of ufology’s major figures – and also its most original thinker.

Vallee, who holds a master’s degree in astrophysics and a Ph.D. in computer science from Northwestern University, was an early scientific proponent of the theory that UFOs are extraterrestrial spaceships. His first book, Anatomy of a Phenomenon (Henry Regnery, 1965), argued eloquently that “through UFO activity … the contours of an amazingly complex intelligent life beyond the earth can already be discerned.” In Challenge to Science – The UFO Enigma (Regnery, 1966) he and Janine Vallee (who is a psychologist by training, with a master’s degree from the University of Paris) urged the scientific community to consider the UFO evidence in this light.

But by 1969, when he published Passport to Magonia (Regnery), Vallee’s assessment of the UFO phenomenon had undergone a significant shift. Much to the consternation of the “scientific ufologists” who had seen him as one of their champions, Vallee now seemed to be backing away from the extraterrestrial hypotheses and advancing the radical view that UFOs are paranormal in nature and a modern space age manifestation of a phenomenon which assumes different guises in different historical contexts.

” When the underlying archetypes are extracted,” he wrote, “the saucer myth is seen to coincide to a remarkable degree with the fairy-faith of Celtic countries … religious miracles… and the widespread belief among all peoples concerning entities whose physical and psychological descriptions place them in the same category as the present-day ufonauts.”

In The Invisible College (E.P. Dutton, 1975) Vallee posits the idea of a “control system.” UFOs and related phenomena are “the means through which man’s concepts are being rearranged.” Their ultimate source may be unknowable, at least at this stage of human development; what we do know, according to Vallee, is that they are presenting us with continually recurring “absurd” messages and appearances which defy rational analysis but which nonetheless address human beings on the level of myth and imagination.

“When I speak of a control system for planet earth,” he says, ” I do not want my words to be misunderstood: I do not mean that some higher order of beings has locked us inside the constraints of a space-bound jail, closely monitored by psychic entities we might call angels or demons. I do not propose to redefine God. What I do mean is that mythology rules at a level of our social reality over which normal political and intellectual action has no power….”

Vallee is also coauthor, with J. Allen Hynek, of The Edge of Reality (Regnery, 1975). A resident of the San Francisco area, he is completing a book which further develops his theories concerning UFO phenomena.

We have talked together at some length about his beliefs. The following interview is a report of these conversations:

Clark: Since the great autumn 1973 sighting wave public attitudes about the UFO phenomenon seem to have changed dramatically, to the extent that society may be entering a pivotal period in its perception of the problem. What do you think will happen now?

Vallee: First, I expect increased government and scientific attention to it. More researchers will be pursuing the physical evidence aspects, conducting much more sophisticated investigations of traces left at landing sites and so on. The people moving into the field now are good physicists and good engineers who know what they are doing and who are convinced it is time for them to get involved.

At the same time I expect that public opinion will change also. Initially it probably will move strongly toward the extraterrestrial explanation. Most people see only two ways to look at the problem – either it’s all nonsense or we’re being visited from outer space. The current spate of movies, books and magazine articles is going to push people toward the extraterrestrial hypothesis. After that I expect a backlash effect may push them in the other direction. I don’t know where that’s going to leave scientists who want to do research.

Clark: You say that scientists are entering ufology in search of physical evidence. But is there physical evidence? And if there is, are they going to find it? What happens if they don’t?

Vallee: If I were speaking for them I would say, “Jerry, it’s premature to ask those questions.” One doesn’t know the answers until one really looks – and so far nobody has looked very seriously. So far the people who have looked have been military types searching for enemy craft or direct threats to national security. Or they’ve been superficial investigators, dedicated civilians with good training but limited time and limited resources.

But you’re asking me what I think. I think there are physical data. They are very, very interesting. They may contain a message. My inclination is to look at the message both in a physical sense and in a symbolic sense, but that’s because I’m an information scientist and not a physical scientist. I look for the meaning behind the object.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Recently Paul Cerny investigated a case in northern California in which two older persons saw a UFO take off. Afterwards they saw a sort of ring on the ground. Within the ring they found some molten metal and a pile of sand.

Obviously here is physical evidence. Two tangible things – the molten metal, which turned out to be brass, and the sand. I took some of the latter to a geologist friend who knows about sand. He said it was highly unusual because it did not contain quartz and it was not stream sand or beach sand or residue from mining or anything else. It seemed to be artificial sand created from grinding together stones of different origin.

Well, to a physicist that may not mean too much. It’s an indication of something that turns out to be absurd. We can put it alongside other cases of physical traces and then we may start looking for patterns which might lead us to a better understanding of the modus operandi of whoever’s doing all this.

In that sense, yes, there is physical evidence. But if you mean physical evidence in the sense that we’re going to discover somebody’s propulsion system from it, I would have to say I don’t expect that to happen.

Clark: Can we infer from the existence of physical evidence, then, that there is a physical cause?

Vallee: If the UFO phenomenon had no physical cause at all, there would be no way for us to perceive it because human beings are physical entities. So it has to make an impression on our senses somehow. For that to take place, it has to be physical at some time.

Clark: So in other words there is such a thing as a solid, three-dimensional flying saucer.

Vallee: No, I didn’t say that. That may or may not be true. I don’t think there is such a thing as the flying saucer phenomenon. I think it has three components and we have to deal with them in different ways.

First, there is a physical object. That may be a flying saucer or it may be a projection or it may be something entirely different. All we know about it is that it represents a tremendous quantity of electromagnetic energy in a small volume. I say that based upon the evidence gathered from traces, from electromagnetic and radar detection and from perturbations of the electromagnetic fields such as Dr. Claude Poher, the French space scientist, has recorded.

Second, there’s the phenomenon the witnesses perceive. What they tell us is that they’ve seen a flying saucer. Now they may have seen that or they may have seen an image of a flying saucer or they may have hallucinated it under the influence of microwave radiation, or any of a number of things may have happened. The fact is that the witnesses were exposed to an event and as a result they experienced a highly complex alteration of perception which caused them to describe the object or objects that figure in their testimony.

Beyond there – the physical phenomenon and the perception phenomenon – we have the third component, the social phenomenon. That’s what happens when the reports are submitted to society and enter the cultural arena. That’s the part which I find most interesting.

Clark: Before we go into that, let’s clarify your views on the nature of the physical aspect. When I asked you if there was such a thing as a solid, three-dimensional flying saucer, I was thinking in these terms: Let’s suppose that somebody says he has seen a UFO, the bottom part of which was flat and circular. He says he saw the object come down, settle on the soil and then fly off again, leaving a flat circular impression. Doesn’t that clearly suggest the presence – at least for the duration of the sighting – of a solid object whose physical structure was more or less as the witness perceived it?

Vallee: Not necessarily. We have evidence that the phenomenon has the ability to create a distortion of the sense of reality or to substitute artificial sensations for the real ones. Look at some of the more bizarre close encounter cases – for example the incident from South America in which one man believed he had been abducted by a UFO while his companion thought he had boarded a bus which had suddenly appeared on the road behind then.

It is conceivable that there is one phenomenon which is visual and another which creates the physical traces. What I’m saying is that a strange kind of deception may be involved.

via: UFO Evidence.org