[gvideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=552349952244004940#[/gvideo]

This video goes over both the accepted luni-solar explanation for the precession of the equinoxes as well as the binary star theory. Another factor involved in trying understand just how long the ancients knew about precession (before the Greeks) is the Nabta Playa stone circle megaliths:

[gvideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9157350247036207927#[/gvideo]

I dunno.

I haven't studied astronomy or astrology but because this was narrated by James Earl Jones, I feel compelled to believe it. lol. These ideas are pretty far fetched. I know this because the idea of the Great Year was in fact discovered by Robert Tulip, who shared his discovery with ancient civilizations and has traveled through space and time from long ago to explain these events to us.

There is some suggestive evidence that our sun has a friend and that they meet once every 24,000 years? I share the opinion that it would have probably been discovered by now or at least there would be more scientific inquiry into it? It would be a popular subject is what I'm saying. Black holes are a very popular subject. I can see no reason why a binary sun system wouldn't be. It would be very exciting.

I'm a seeing is believing type person but I am open to new ideas provided that they don't send off alarms in my head. The idea of the Great Year's implications for humanity's development and wellbeing, the implications of the age of Aquarius, and of foretelling fortune or disaster through a cyclical process based on the stars have all tripped the alarms.

We know that man has created myths and made deities to try and explain nature. This just seems like another effort to try and do the same. Of course I mean the idea of the Great Year's implications and not the idea that our sun may have a friend (he deserves one, right?). It's just easy to imagine a high priest using his knowledge of the stars to trick people with his 'predictions'... that and the whole zodiac fortune teller vibe.

To predict the decline of civilizations? They showed pictures of Easter Island. I'd like them to explain themselves. How the stars played a role in the decimation of these people.

He actually opposes Cruttendens binary star theory and has crossed paths with Cruttenden over it on an astronomy forum. Roberts offered an alternative idea of how the wave resonance of the local solar system could cause the rising and falling of civilization effect. Perhaps he will expand on it here.

What's interesting is that the ancients seemed to have been watching the stars for a long, long time. Which makes sense because what else was there to do for hundreds of thousands of years in the evenings, aside from the usual mating of course. It seems that they realized that the precession moved one degree every 72 years and then deduced the Great Year cycle from there. In due time the cycle was mythologized into a rising and falling pattern that mirrors the annual rising and falling of the sun's journey around the houses of the zodiac as light increases into the summer solstice and then decreases into the winter solstice.

Since the annual zodiac began with Aries, and it was observed that precession was moving backwards through the zodiac, Pisces was given as the first age of the cycle whereas Aries is the first sign of the annual cycle. The first sign of the annual cycle is the last sign of the precession, and the first sign of the precession is the last sign of the annual cycle ("Those who are first shall be last and those who are last shall be first..."). The annual zodiac is simply reversed for precession giving it a starting point (Pisces) and completion (Aries) concept. It seems that they pieced it together as they went along and used the already know annual zodiacal cycle to come up with ways of mythologizing the newer found precessional cycle. So as we were coming into the former age of Aries they saw that it marked th end of the Great Year cycle according to the format which had been assigned to it. That when the Old Testament writing period began, coincidentally, and when the age of Pisces had began the New Testament writing period began in likewise fashion. That's a rational explanation for the knowledge of precession in any case. The other explanations consists of alien seeding and visitation and / or Atlantean race knowledge passed down through generations...

But once the format for the precession had been established and the Vedic and Greek Yuga and Metalic age conceptualizations were given to it, the astronomer priests had not only a format for predicting future world ages but also the ability to consciously steer and direct society in ways that match and accord with what is expected and predicted for each of the world ages according to the astrological zodiac cycles (self fulfilling prophecy!). That's one factor not discussed in either video. If it appears that the Great Year cycle actually reflects the course of history in terms of knowledge being lost and gained (as shown in the video), it could well have more to do with the direct influence of knowledgeable esoterics on the political front than strange cosmic forces controling our minds. Let's face it, esoterics / secret society members have a great deal of pull politically speaking. And that extends back pretty far back through history even to the Christian era and before. The Pope, for instance, can hardly be ignorant towards these precessional cycles of change that some average joe off the street like myself is aware of. And I'd assume that it extends all the way back through the Papacy, to the Roman Empire, Greeks, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, and Sumerians even. Strange cosmic forces at work or simply the conscious effort of esoteric initiates who pass down the ancient astronomical knowledge from generation to generation steering society along over the last several world ages in ways which astrological lore suggests each world age should unfold?

The only reason Rob has yet to comment is because he is still typing.

That seems extremely likely. A self fulfilling prophecy type scenario? Is that what I'm reading?

Yes, it's something that I've been contemplating for a while now and Robert is aware of it. There has to be something along the lines of a rational explanation for all of this.

Hello, as Tat and PC have noted, the Great Year is a topic close to my heart. It would be great if anyone reading this can respond to tell us if the discussion here makes any sense to them. A problem with this topic is that people who are familiar with it can easily assume knowledge that other readers don’t have, so the premises and definitions need to be made very clear.

The Great Year is the physical measure of earth’s spin wobble, with period estimated at 25,765 years. There have been about 200,000 Great Years since the dawn of time. The earth spins like a wobbling top, with one spin per day and one axis wobble per Great Year. Scientifically, the Great Year is readily explained by the theory of gravity. The earth has a ‘spare tire’ at the equator, and the gravity of the sun and moon pull on this spare tire, with what is known as ‘lunisolar torque’ to produce a slow wobble of earth’s spin axis. As a result of this wobble, the position of the sun as viewed from earth moves backward around the zodiac at the rate of one zodiac sign every 2148 years. This zodiac period is what the Bible calls the Aion, or Age. We are now reaching the end of the Age of Pisces and the dawn of the Age of Aquarius.

The interest in this topic is because the Great Year sits at the intersection of astronomy and mythology. It provides an empirical context for the narrative of human social evolution, and is discussed indirectly in many ancient texts. The Great Year is the foundation of the perennial philosophy of ‘as above so below’ and the ‘eternal return of the same’, providing the physical basis for the idea of the Age of Aquarius as a vision for planetary transformation. However, causality from the Great Year to human history is not possible to prove, although it is an interesting matter for speculation. Because interpretation rests on astrology, through the symbolism of the signs of the zodiac, a basic problem is that there is no proof for astrology, so any real mechanism of the Great Year is extremely weak if it exists at all. As Tat notes, I have theorised on this topic, including in this paper. It is somewhat dense, so only read it if you are keen.

Camacho is correct that I discovered the Great Year before time began, in 1981 in fact. From the start, I viewed the Great Year as a natural way to read the Bible, interpreting the Second Coming of Jesus Christ as the dawn of the Age of Aquarius. However, I rapidly found that this idea was seen as baffling and crazy by almost everybody else, and was universally reviled as taboo by Christians, scientists and astrologers, because of their mutual three-way hostility. Promoting a way of thinking that combines ideas from such antagonistic sources is an excellent way to achieve pariah status. Much of my reading since then has been devoted to understanding this problem.

Regarding Walter Cruttenden’s binary sun theory, my opinion is that his arguments conflict with readily available scientific knowledge. I really think that anyone who wants to be taken seriously in such a fraught area of research should ensure their facts are straight. As Tat notes, I discussed the binary sun theory with Walter Cruttenden at bautforum.com where I described his views as all hat and no cattle. Main problems with Walter’s idea include that (i) he has to argue that the earth and sun are unique in not obeying the law of gravity, given that he sets luni-solar torque at zero, (ii) the sun has many nearby stars and the binary idea conflicts with observed proper motion of these stars, (iii) the speed of motion for the binary theory is ridiculous, and (iv) it reads as an idea similar to Intelligent Design, where facts are ignored in favour of an unscientific theory. Cruttenden starts with the binary sun claim of the yogi Sri Yukteswar in The Holy Science and tries to make the facts fit the theory, which they don’t. Although I have not read The Holy Science, the summaries I have read suggest Yukteswar has a deep understanding of the cyclic vision of time in the Vedic theory of the Yugas. I suspect that the binary theory has more to do with observation of movement of stars such as Canopus and Vega against the poles than with a dynamic relation between the sun and another star. As so often happens in this type of study, comments that originally are allegory are later taken as literal.

A series of slides I made about the Great Year are at Astrology in the Bible.

Hello Tat and Robert!

Yes, the information about mythicism and the Great Year all make sense to me. I've lurked for over 2 years studying your posts over at TBK and recently here and I feel so much wiser for it. I got accidently exposed to Ms Murdock and the MP when I was merely looking up the name of an egyptian god and the next thing I know years have gone by and my life has been forever changed by what I learned. I have so much more confidence that the mythicist position is closer to the truth than the alternate faith based approach. I'm grateful that you guys spend so much time going over this material in such detail so as to make it understandable. It feels like being awakened outside the matrix into the real world.

Hi Akhenaten, many thanks, and welcome to Booktalk. I see this is your first post, although you have thanked 8 posts (including one of my favourite recent comments).

Your comment about being awakened outside the matrix into the real world is very astute. Since the Matrix movies were made a decade or so ago, the internet and ipods have steadily intruded into people's lives such that the electronic realm has become the new reality. The Matrix vision was prophetic. I wrote reviews of the movies here and here which you may care to read.

Welcome Akhenaten, and thank you for your kind words of encouragement. I suppose that over the last few years you've seen several of the directions we've tried considering the astrotheological Great Year lore of the ancients. I started off with the two videos so as to give a basic summary of what the Great Year is for readers unfamiliar with it. Like you, there are those watching these conversations silently for whatever the reason who don't necessarily chime in on the topic. But I'm glad that you were able to benefit in some way from reading through our theorizing and debate over the years.

Alright, lets see what one of your followers is all about...

Tell us a little about yourself in an introduction post Akhenaten. Don't forget to include why you chose the name Akhenaten and what you truly think about him, his beliefs, and where he originally came from.

The stars were the television of the ancient world, providing the framework of constellations to develop a mythical narrative explanation for all questions. The Egyptians and Babylonians had particularly good dark clear skies, with the opportunity to elaborate detailed stories about how life on earth was reflected in the heavens. Greek myth is often a distorted reflection of these older sources, such as the comparison of Jason and Gilgamesh. Most myth was transmitted orally rather than in writing, and much that was written down was destroyed in the frenzy of Christian fanaticism, which specifically targeted pagan star wisdom in its campaign of cultural genocide. The loss of ancient star lore means we now only have fragments, such as those ideas that were recorded on stone and clay rather than paper, or those which were deemed acceptable by the curial censorship. Just from the pyramids of Egypt, precession would have been obvious to ancient priests. Because the pyramids have exact alignments to the compass and the stars, the steady movement of the stars could have easily been measured. This knowledge was kept secret, although it comes through partially in sources such as the Timaeus by Plato, which suggests that the relation between observed movement of the galaxy and of the solar system is the main basis of wisdom, and that fragmentary knowledge of these matters was obtained by the Greeks from Egypt. There is strong reason to assume that Egyptian priests had contact with their counterparts in Babylon and India, and we see the fragmentary motifs of precession in the ancient writings of these cultures, such as in the Epic of Gilgamesh and in Indian astronomy.

My reading is that the rising and falling pattern of the Great Year is the basis of the discussion of the Mayan End Times prophecy for 21 December 2012, harmonised against the Vedic vision of the Golden Age and Iron Age as opposite points in the Great Year.

In observing the precession of the equinox against the fixed stars of the Milky Way, the Vedic cyclic model proposes that over the 26,000 year period, the time when the March equinox is north of the Milky Way corresponds to summer (Golden Age), and the time when the March equinox is south of the Milky Way corresponds to winter (Iron Age). Spring and autumn correspond to when the equinox is crossing the Milky Way (Silver Age and Bronze Age).

This Vedic cosmology aligns exactly to the Biblical vision of fall and redemption, and appears likely to be the source of the Biblical theory of time. The cherubim with flaming sword at the gate of Eden is the constellation Gemini, standing at the X intersection of the zodiac and the galaxy, and mythically guarding the way back to the previous golden age before the fall. Some other major correspondences are listed at the end of the paper I linked at my previous post.

In the era of 2012, the equinoxes reach their most distant points from the galaxy, and start the slow 6440 year path back to their next galactic crossing. Hence 2012 symbolises cosmic winter and rebirth, the moment when the light again starts to increase. However, 2012 is just one of numerous turning points for the Great Year, and has to be set within a rigorous astronomical understanding. Another one of the numerous turning points is in 500 AD, seen by Vedic thought as the centre of the Iron Age, marking the point when the star Canopus (known in India as Agastya or Noah's Ark) is furthest from the South Celestial Pole. Whether such turning points have any dynamic meaning cannot be known, but they do present a basis to understand mythology against the movement of the heavens.

Myths are symbolic. The true/false assessment of myth in modern science derives from Christian bigotry, with its claim that Christianity was true while myth was false. We now know that Christianity is just as mythical as the pagan stories, and that the derision of myth conceals how the durable myths speak to something meaningful in human psychology.

I read an article about how the Epic of Gilgamesh corresponds to the decline of Taurus and the rise of Aries.

This stuff trips me out a little. I can understand using natural phenomena to interpret why myths were created. As for myths speaking to something in human psychology it seems like it would only speak as proof that humans appreciate knowing and explaining why things are. They also seek meaning and may be afraid of the unknown. They sometimes panic and attribute magic to otherwise quantifiable and explainable events.

I think astrology is just like early cosmology; a pseudo-scientific belief system.

And if we take these various turning points which have significance in terms of crossing certain celestial lines in the sky such as the milky way or canopus, then I'm looking at how knowledgeable people in power could then base a lot of their social manipulation on what the ancient lore suggests should be happening at any given point in the Great Year cycle. Here's more on the earths wobble and how it effects the position of stars (such as Orion's belt) on the meridian over time:

The Leo-Aquarius axis was the leaving behind of the last Golden age region of the sky. And equally the next leaving behind of the Iron age region of the sky, after the turning points which have been mentioned so far, is the Aquarius-Leo axis which also is when Orion will reach its maximum on the meridian and the earths wobble will then cause Orion to reverse direction and start moving back towards its minimum on the meridian once again. This is a delayed reaction to the Great Year changing over at the beginning of the common era, the 500 AD bottom of the Iron age, and the Mayan cycle ending in 2012. It's the last part of the shifting effect of the earths wobble according to what is disclosed in this book.

It does according to this, but the message has to do with using the stars of Orion belt (the pyramids) to project the final turning point of the earths wobble effect. Mystical meaning was given to this movement of the earth. They saw it as indicating changes in society due to the back and forth motion of the positions of the celestial features above the earth. And this apparently passed down to the Greeks who entered the Egyptian mystery schools - like is supposed of Plato - and brought back to Greece information from Egypt which apparently became distorted in the process.

This points to the importance of the Sphinx symbolism along with the pyramids behind it marking Orion's belt on the ground. The Nile marking the milky way above it as well. The Sphinx being the head of a man and body of a Lion is marking the Leo-Aquarius and Aquarius-Leo axis. So it seems that the vernal age of Aquarius-Leo is a part of the mystery of precession which had passed down through the mystery schools assumably making its way into the beginning of the common era as Christianity and the Hermetic literature broke out all of a sudden after the Great Year had ended at the transition between the ages of Aries and Pisces.

Why? I think its plain enough to deduce a much more reasonable explanation. There's no mysterious device and none of this is really all that spooky. It seems that there has been knowledge of this astronomy going around for a long time in initiated inner circles, the circles of which spawn world leaders and now American presidents as well. This has more to do with the manipulation of men and events according to the celestial time table than anything else from what I can tell.

Alexandria Egypt played a major role in the bible writing efforts. First with the Greek Septuagint OT and then with the NT writings and copying periods. So when the bible lays out three world ages while foreshadowing a fourth age to come - Taurus, Aries, Pisces, and Aquarius - comprising the seven thousand year biblical timeline which derives from a strict literal reading of the biblical timeline from Genesis to the New Jersusalem, what Robert and I have found is that it corresponds to the lower 1/3 of the Great Year which is the time of going into and coming out of the darknest "times", or world ages as it were. Not only does the 12 jewels in revelation give away to the reader a blatant reference to precession by stating the signs of the zodiac in reverse order from Pisces to Aries, but it also points the reader to key words such "1/3" in the form of plagues on the earth and "time, times, and half a time" covering the lower descent into Taurus, Aries and Pisces, and the first half of Aquarius. The four lower world ages (1/3 of the zodiac) are the times designated for turmoil and mass confusion (Babylon the Great).

Luke 22:10 reads:

There are a lot of verses referring to the "ages" and more specifically to the end of the age of Aries and the future end of the age of Pisces:

This comes from after the resurrection, in other words after the sun had 'crossed over' from the former age of Aries to the new age of Pisces, marking the end and beginning of the Great Year of the ancients (first and last), Jesus who is being used to represent the Pisces age solar personification tells the disciples that he will be the solar personification until the very end of the world age which he is symbolizing. Before the resurrection, in Luke 22:10 he is pointing to the next world age to come which is Aquarius (Man bearing a pitcher of water) and telling the disciples (the 12 signs of the zodiac) to follow into the house of Aquarius after the sun 'passes over' for the last time during the age of Pisces after the vernal equinox (Passover / Easter). This lays out a lesson on the changing of the ages and being sure to accord with the changing ages. In Revelation Jesus speaks of a "new name" which makes sense with respect to him representing the solar personification of the current age but when the sun crosses over into the next age a new "name" or solar personification will be given. But the new name is not disclosed only the fact that a new name will be known at that time.

Now whether this astrotheological drama was there from the very beginning or added into the narrative later by Alexandrian copyists is unclear. But what is clear to me now is that this fixation with the age of Aquarius has a meaning that appears to date back to the Giza necropolis and a mystery hidden for long ages past dealing with the final turning point of the earths axial wobble which doesn't happen in the age of Pisces but rather in the beginning of Aquarius marked by the stellar maximum of Orion on the merdian. The story is very clear. It's been organized into a 'first and second coming motif' which precisely outlines the coming of the sun into the first age of the new Great Year and which begins a series of turning points for the earth, followed by a second coming of the sun into the second age of the new Great Year (Aquarius-Leo) at which point the forces of darkness (ignorance) are projected to become eradicated!

First age of the Great Year = First coming of Christ motif.

Second age of the Great Year = Second coming of Christ motif.

And with all of this in mind I see a clear situation where self fulfilling prophecy brought about the formation of the Christian religion, perhaps even the final fall of Rome behind that, and the destruction of ancient stellar literature leading into the dark ages with Christianity in charge all the while - all of which corresponded to coming into the 500 AD bottom turning point of the Greek Iron age and original Vedic Kali Yuga. But the mystery of precession was preserved in a lot of ways right there in the Christian gospels accounts. Most of the other source information was lost or destroyed. Probably because those in the know understood that the mystery had been safely hidden in plain view in the Christian NT already before all of these other sources were destroyed by the new keepers of the ancient precessional mystery! Alexandrian Egyptians obviously had much to do with this along the line of reasoning I'm drawing from here. And the rise of orthodox literalism basically kept these allegories locked way safely hidden in plain view from the eyes of "the profane" for the duration of the bottoming out of the darkest point of the world ages - the cosmic winter the Egytians had anticipated and the reason for storing knowledge through the cosmic winter ahead. Only the learned and initiated could decipher the meaning of the astrotheological "mystery of the ages", not the average joe.

But things began to change and knowledge was gradually increasing which brought about the scientific revolution in due time. The power of the orthodoxy began to subside and since then so has biblical literalism and fundamentalism. Scholars began looking back at Christian origins and discovering the pagan parallels by the 1700's and speaking out about it publically. The Reverend Robert Taylor was jailed under Englands "blasphemy" laws for his outspoken position of esoteric Christian origins which were stomped out by the much later orthodox tradition. Also the Rosetta Stone was mysteriously found all of a sudden opening up a way of going back and studying the ancient Egyptian texts unlocking a considerable amount of knoweldge from the past. All of this coincidentally in small steps and stages as we are nearing the end of the age.

The next age, which is themed around "knowledge", is well underway already in the womb of the current age as Robert has put it. Knowledge which was once very heavily censored is finally being allowed into public domain. With the creation of the Internet there's a mass education of the general public underway right now. These forums are a part of that for sure. The debate between orthodox apologetics and free thought of every variety raging all over the internet at present is a part of that as well. It all points towards the conscious manipulation of men and events to accord with the movements of the earth wobbling axis (precession) as per the way ancient astrotheological lore suggests history should unfold. And the esoteric community spawning world leaders more than likely has everything to do with these coincidental correspondences, not mysterious spooky cosmic forces from the stars and planets infiltrating our minds or 'messianic' devices within the pyramids. This is a perspective of the Great Year material that is rarely mentioned in any of the videos which touch on it. They prefer to go the direction of mysterious hype and fantasy.

Yes, this all makes sense Camacho. The Gilgamesh material is fairly clear, with the man (Aries) conquering the bull (Taurus) providing a mythic correlation to the observed movement of the sun from Taurus to Aries in about 2150 BC. This shift of ages from Taurus to Aries is also a main cosmic theme of the dominant Roman religion of Mithraism, and of the Biblical story of the golden calf, as well as the story of Ulysses and the Cyclops.

I have done a lot of research into astrology, and you are right that it is a belief system that lacks scientific status, but this is not the end of the story. The annual cycle of the twelve signs matches up in an intuitive way to the cycle of the northern seasons, from the breaking open of new life in Aries at the spring equinox around to Pisces as the end of winter. However, there has been quite a lot of effort to find empirical statistical correlations for the signs, in things that astrologers say should be influenced, but the result is a big fat zip. Zero scientific evidence for sun signs, apart from a disputed claims by Gunther Sachs in a book called The Astrology File. Michel Gauquelin, the foremost researcher into the statistics of astrology, promoted disputed findings about planetary effects, but found no evidence that the signs of the zodiac have influence on personality. A finding of reality would show, for instance, that there is a measurable difference between people who are born when the sun is in Pisces from those who are born when the sun is in Aries. No such finding exists. It does not prove that astrological claims are entirely false, but it does prove they are far weaker than astrologers claim. The fact that Sachs and Gauquelin have not been able to convince their critics shows that anything behind their claims is extremely weak, if not zero.

So, what does this imply for the Great Year? It means that when we talk about the shift from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius as matching the symbolic shift from Pisces to Aquarius, this is a symbolic statement without scientific evidence. Astrology claims that the symbolic theme of Pisces is compassionate mystical belief, while the theme of Aquarius is innovative humanitarian knowledge. Intuitively, I find it a very attractive way to describe the evolution of the zeitgeist from Christian belief to scientific knowledge as the driving theme of contemporary history and culture. Matching the stars to history leads to the idea that belief is still dominant, but knowledge is rising, in utero as it were, and knowledge will replace belief as the dominant theme of human culture at the shift of the ages. A similar metaphor applies to the shift from Aries (being) to Pisces (belief). A physical basis for this claim is possible, recognising there have been 200,000 Great Years since life emerged, and that deep cycles could be encoded in our DNA. However this is entirely speculative, and it is hard to imagine any way of proving it.

Part of the story here is that the ancients did see astrology as meaningful, so it makes sense to look for hidden astrological motifs in ancient religious texts, including regarding the Great Year as the structure of time. There is a wealth of such evidence of an astrological framework of time in the Bible, but partly because of the conflicted cultural status of religion, research into this topic is sketchy, and is often mixed up with magical ideas that lack evidence.

Once a person starts to see the worlds religions with the missing link to the puzzle inserted it becomes so easy to understand all this. Without an educated understanding of the mythicist position I see why some people would fall into willful ignorance because of the negative connotations of anything to do with astrology influencing something as sacred to them as religion. It was a bitter pill to swallow for me and I read everything I could get my hands on, searched lots of Christian, atheist, science, psychology and philosophy websites in addition to wrestling with the posts on TBK. My conclusion was that I detoxed involuntarily, fighting the information most of the time. Then one day I came to the realization that I had a paradigm shift and there was a calm that came over me so surreal. This moment of clarity has stayed with me and has been unshaken ever since even through all the attempts at debunking the mythicist position. Once you grasp, understand and verify it against the critics it's hard to imagine going back to holding those ignorant religious beliefs.