Stargate article 1

The soul's journey

In June Adrian hosted a tour group that went to Egypt and Israel under the banner "Opening the Stargate". This begs the question: what is a stargate?

To answer this question in full, with academically sound references and the like, takes quite a lot of explanation. For those who are interested and have been following Adrian's work this will be found in Signs in the Sky. However a brief answer is as follows.

Now in the ancient world there was a conception that the earth lay at the centre of the created universe. Being composed of dense matter, it was considered as standing at the bottom of the ladder of creation. Surrounding the earth were higher "spheres", firstly the other elements (water, air and fire) and then those of the moon, sun and planets. Each planet travelled on the surface of its respective sphere, which was thought of as being like a glass bubble. It was the "governor" of its respective sphere and ruled over different aspects of nature.

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This idea can be seen illustrated here in this famous lithograph by Robert Fludd. Here "Nature" is shown as the mediator between God and man (shown as an ape). The planetary spheres lie between the stars and those of the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms. Fludd, an alchemist and polymath who lived during the Late Renaissance, was familiar with the Hermetic Philosophy and probably derived much of his philosophy from the Hermetica itself. Undoubtedly he would have read the following:

‘There are seven wandering stars which circle at the threshold of Olympus, and among them ever revolves unending Time. The seven are these; night-shining Moon, and sullen Kronos [Saturn], and glad Sun, and the Lady of Paphos [Venus: Paphos was her mythological birthplace in Cyprus], and bold Ares [Mars], and swif-winged Hermes [Mercury], and Zeus [Jupiter], first author of all births, from whom Nature has sprung. To those same stars is assigned the race of men; and we have in us Moon, Zeus, Ares, the Lady of Paphos, Kronos, Sun and Hermes. Wherefore it is our lot to draw in from the aetherial life-breath [i.e. from the aethr which is the life-brath of the universe] tars, laughter, wrath, birth, speech, sleep, desire. Tears are Kronos; birth is Zeus; speech is Hermes; anger is Ares; the Moon is sleep; Aphrodite [Venus] is desire; and the Sun is laughter, for by him laugh all mortal minds, and the boundless universe. [Hermetica p.206].

It was believed by the ancients that when a soul incarnated, it came down from the "Higher Heavens", through the outermost sphere of the fixed stars, and passing down through the planetary spheres, eventually entered a mother's womb on earth. As it passed through the planetary spheres, so it received a portion of each planet's nature. This would vary in quantity and quality according to the position of the planet in the sky at birth. The agglomeration of this starry or "astral" stuff gave the person being born their character. According to the quantity or deficiency of these gifts of the planets, so would be determined the talents and weaknesses of the incarnating individual. This idea is still, of course, the basis of astrology today, though the philosophy is not usually put in such material terms. It is also the idea behind such fairytales as the Sleeping Beauty, where the fairies (symbolizing the planets) cast spells on the new-born "Beauty"—each in accordance with its own nature.

These ancient teachings, which owed their origins to Hermeticism, passed into Gnostic Christianity but were later suppressed as heresy. Nevertheless it is clear that the idea of astral gifts at birth is the secret meaning behind the Magi story at the start of St Matthew's Gospel [See my book Magi: the quest for a secret tradition]. It also underlies Jesus's parable of the talents [Matthew 25], though here he alludes to a further elaboration of this idea.

According to the Hermeticists, after the death of the physical body the soul of an individual would attempt to ascend through the planetary spheres on its way back to its Maker. The spheres represented stages on this journey, rather like rungs on a ladder. As it passed through the domain of each planet it was required to give back to its "governor" the portion of astral stuff it had earlier received on the way down. Thus we read in the Hermetica:

‘At the dissolution of your material body, you first yeield up the material body to be changed, and the visible form you bore is no longer seen. And your vital spirit [literally breath] you yield up to the atmosphere so that it no longer works in you; and the bodily senses go back to their own sources, becoming parts of the universe, and entering into fresh combinations to do other work. And thereupon the man mounts upward through the structure of the heavens. And to the first zone of heaven [Moon] he gives up the fore which works increase and decrease; to the second zone [Mercury], the machinations of evil cunning; to the third zone [Venus], the lust whereby men are deceived; to the fourth zone [Sun], dominating arrogance; to the fifth zone [Mars], unholy daring and rash audacity; to the sixth zone [Jupiter], evil strivings after wealth; to the seventh zone [Saturn], the falsehood which lies in wait to do harm. And thereupon, having been stripped of all that was wrought upon him by the structure of the heavens, he ascends to the eighth sphere, being now possessed of his own proper power. [Hermetica p.52-3].

This in outline is the Hermetic doctrine of the soul's journey after death but there is more. Having traversed the planetary spheres, before the ascending soul could get back to God, it had to pass through the sphere of the fixed stars, known today as the "Celestial Sphere". This represents the "Higher Heaven" and lies beyond the jurisdiction of our local solar system with its governors the sun, moon and planets. To get to this Higher Heaven, which could in any case only be approached if it had successfully passed through the spheres of the Lower, the soul had to find its way to a gate. According to the ancient cosmology there were two of these: one was in the northern hemisphere and the other was in the southern. These "stargates" were positioned at the points in the sky where the ecliptic, the pathway of the sun, crosses the Milky Way. Therefore one of these positions was in Sagittarius, above the sting of Scorpio, and the other was in Gemini, above the outstretched arm or "club" of Orion.

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The knowledge of the existence of these "Gates of Heaven" seems to have passed into Christianity. Indeed according to the Bible St Peter was appointed "gate-keeper" of heaven by none other than Jesus himself [Matthew 16]. It is noteworthy that in statues and pictures Peter is generally shown as holding two keys. These are clearly intended to be the keys to the two different gates,

(Statue of St Peter in Antwerp Cathedral)

The idea of heaven having two gates was known to Christians until very recently. The symbolism of the gates and their connection with astronomy seems only to have been lost after the 16th century when it was proven by Copernicus, Galileo and others that the earth goes round the sun and not vice versa. Thereafter the idea of heaven as a physical place above the spheres of the planets fell out of favour. Without its underpinning in an astronomical model, the idea of heaven having gates became an empty metaphor. St Peter himself was left holding keys to gates which were no longer thought to have any sort of real existence except as a psychological construct. Unfortunately, as we shall see in following articles, this has led to further obscuration of the real meaning behind certain Biblical texts dealing with prophecies for the end of the current age. What this means in practice will be the subject of the next few articles.