BookTalk.org

Friday 2nd July 2021
"The Age of Aquarius"
Robbie Tulip
at MacKillop House, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham, ACT (and by Zoom)
http://www.canberrajungsociety.org.au/


The Age of Aquarius is the 2000-year long period starting about now, known as a Zodiac Age, when the position of the sun at the March equinox is in the constellation of Aquarius the Water Bearer.
Zodiac Ages are the slow cosmic clock of history. My interest is to integrate scientific understanding of the Zodiac Age concept with its influence on culture and religion, to see how the resulting cosmology of the New Age can help to place human identity in a systematic framework.
Zodiac Ages are caused by the slow backward movement of the seasons against the stars, due to a wobble of the earth’s axis known as precession of the equinox. The resulting shift of the celestial sphere was measured by ancient astronomers, but its place in culture is strongly disputed.
My hypothesis is that observation of precession was central to Christian origins, structuring the formation of core Christian ideas by grounding the story of how God orders the cosmos. This claim offers a way to transform and renew Christian faith, putting faith onto purely scientific foundations of knowledge rather than belief, and pointing toward new paradigms in science, religion and politics.
Key implications include:
1. Ancient knowledge of precession provided a religious framework for the orderly structure of time.
2. The New Testament used this objective framework of cosmic order and direction as the skeleton upon which the story of Jesus Christ was imagined and fleshed out.
3. The story of Jesus of Nazareth emerged from the much older religious observation of precession as the defining cosmic structure of history.
4. Jesus was imagined from long before his alleged incarnation, personifying the Sun as the founder or avatar of the Zodiac Age of Pisces, the period now coming to an end.
5. Equally important in the Bible story is the idea that the authors imagined the Second Coming of Jesus Christ as the dawn of the Age of Aquarius, as a time of world transformation.
This talk will examine how and why this astronomy is so important for the origins of Christian faith, and why it is so important to understand the Age of Aquarius today as a factor with major potential influence on world religion and politics.
Robert Tulip manages the chaplaincy at the Australian National University. He has BA Honours and MA Honours degrees in philosophy from Macquarie University, with the masters thesis on The Place of Ethics in Heidegger's Ontology. He worked for the Australian Agency for International Development and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for nearly thirty years, and is now working on his intellectual interests including philosophy, theology and climate change, writing at www.rtulip.net.
Cost:
* At MacKillop House:
Jung Soc Members: Free
Guests $15, Seniors/Concession $10
Pay by cash at the door or bank transfer or by credit card via TryBooking.
* On-line, via Zoom:
Jung Soc Members: Free
Guests: $10 via TryBooking.
Preliminary dinner with the Speaker et al is at 6:15pm at Lyneham.
RSVP Trish on (0432) 599 826 for location and details.
We meet from 7:30 pm for tea and coffee and snacks, music, discussion and library.
The Guest Speaker's presentation is at 8 pm for an hour or so,
then we resume for questions and discussion, finishing at 10pm.

This talk I gave last month went really well. It is available on YouTube at https://youtu.be/numjT9pvycw

I have been working on expanding it into an essay, titled Christianity for the Age of Aquarius, which is available here.

Here is a 2000 word summary of the essay.

Christianity for The Age of Aquarius
Summary

1. The Age of Aquarius is the period of two millennia from about now until about 4000 AD. Talking about the Age of Aquarius is a way to open broad conversation about our planetary future, aiming to integrate scientific knowledge with respect for spiritual wisdom.
2. This paper analyses the Age of Aquarius against the framework of Christianity. The hypotheses are that observation of the precession of the equinox was central to the origins of Christianity, that this way of thinking was radically suppressed to the point of near invisibility, that the loss of this original astral context is a central factor to explain Christian history and theology, and that restoration of this natural framework provides a path to a new scientific model of Christian faith.
3. The objective is to construct a terrestrial cosmology, using Zodiac Ages against a Biblical vision to explain the connection between our planetary situation and our cosmic context. The ideas presented here include my original research on precession in the Bible and culture.
4. The precession hypothesis proposes a paradigm shift in the explanation of Christian origins, demonstrating a major unrecognised symbolic dimension with capacity to provide rational explanation of anomalies within current interpretations. The proposed paradigm shift begins with a revision of historical understanding of early Christianity, focusing on how primary Christian ideas used astronomy. This shift of thinking has current implications, not only for the meaning of religion but also extending to the politics of climate change and steps needed to sustain human civilization.
5. Although Hipparchus gave the first attested calculation, earlier societies also had knowledge of precession, possibly for thousands of years, based on their practical and religious interests.
6. Exploring the numerous examples of this hidden astronomy in the Bible is a remarkable detective story that provides an important contribution to understanding the meaning of the Age of Aquarius today.
7. The hypothesis that knowledge of precession provided the real original basis of Christian theology means the story of Christ was designed to reflect on earth the grand order seen in the heavens. Reconstructing how ancient cosmology incorporated knowledge of precession can explain lost meaning in prominent myths in Christianity. Observation of precession was a central inspiration for the writers of the New Testament, although records of this interest were couched in deliberately concealed language.
8. Carl Jung analysed the spiritual symbolism of precession in his essay Aion. Jung’s imaginative vision of the Age of Aquarius provides a hopeful framework for our planetary future, through key psychological ideas.
9. Political suppression of astrology in the early church discarded the original theory of Zodiac Ages that was used to construct Christian theology. The religious mythology of literal Gospel faith then completely displaced this natural cosmic vision of Zodiac Age astrology. This model indicates a completely new understanding of Christianity and world history.
10. A problem with this idea that Zodiac Ages underpin Christian theology is that Christians interpret the Gospels with no recourse to the prevailing astrological religious culture of its origins. The key begins with assessing how Zodiac Age cosmology was central to the origins of Christianity, as the empirical basis for its prophetic framework around the story of the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
11. The cosmology of Zodiac Ages places human connection, perspective, purpose and meaning within an empirical framework. The millennial cosmology of precession of the equinoxes provides an encompassing story, a cosmic clock that measures the whole of human time.
12. Cultural evolution has seen scientific knowledge gradually replace religious belief as the dominant social value system. This historical evolution from belief to knowledge is a function of the growth of technological civilization with its requirement for accurate information. It has a direct correlation with the astrology of Zodiac Ages, with Platonic philosophy and with Christian cosmology.
13. Astrological tradition gives the sign of Aquarius the theme of innovative humanitarian knowledge, and the sign of Pisces the theme of mystical compassionate belief. This thematic structure supports a vision of Zodiac Ages as involving successive world ages dominated firstly by belief and then by knowledge. This model correlates directly with the structural basis of the early Christian theory of history, and with the actual evolution of world culture. My hypothesis is that this framework was used by the Gospel authors to construct their vision of time.
14. The precession hypothesis of Christian origins suggests the Gospel authors extrapolated from annual symbolism to imagine the Zodiac Age of Pisces as an age of belief and the Age of Aquarius as an age of knowledge. The authors used precession to construct a vision of the new covenant in Christ as reflecting the shift from Aries to Pisces. This opened the path for them to imagine a far future shift of Ages from Pisces to Aquarius.
15. Cultural evolution of the world from the Piscean Age of belief to the Aquarian Age of knowledge provided the framework for the Gospel authors to imagine the eventual coming of the kingdom of God in the Age of Aquarius. The existence of ancient astrological culture and knowledge of precession support the hypothesis that the idea of Christ evolved as avatar of successive ages of belief and knowledge. This model aligns to both Biblical cosmology and world history.
16. At the time of Christ, the equinox point crossed the line of stars known as the first fish of Pisces on 16 September, 21 AD. This celestial event directly models the Christian symbol of the Chi Rho Cross, presenting a major clue to astronomical influence on Christian origins. This event was predicted to decadal accuracy for centuries beforehand, providing the basis for the prophetic imagination of the advent of Christ at the time of Pilate. Jesus was thereby imagined from long before his incarnation, personifying the Sun as the founder or avatar of the Zodiac Ages of Pisces and Aquarius.
17. A lunar eclipse in 5BC has a striking similarity to the text from Revelation 12:1, “A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman with the moon under her feet.” The Passover eclipse, when the full moon was at the foot of Virgo, marked the dawning of a New Age.
18. Virgo and Pisces, the axis constellations of the New Age of Christ, also symbolise the loaves and fishes, another Biblical theme that directly encodes the precession cosmology.
19. Revelation 13 says “the dragon gave his power, seat and authority to the leopard-bear-lion”. The “power, seat and authority” of the visible heavens traditionally rest at the North Celestial Pole. Before 2000 BC, the Pole was in Draco the dragon. Since then, the Pole has slowly shifted into the constellation of the small bear, Ursa Minor, right next to Leo the lion and other groups with names based on the leopard – the Lynx, Leo Minor and Camel-Leopard. For the ancient initiates, the public story was a code for accurate long-term observation of the orderly movement of the heavens.
20. Equally simple analysis of star symbolism and the cosmology of precession applies to a wide range of Biblical language. By old tradition, the Twelve Jewels of the Holy City symbolise the twelve signs of the zodiac in reverse order from Pisces to Aries, like the twelve Zodiac Ages. The Holy City is 12,000 units across, equating to half the precession cycle. The Tree of Life has twelve types of fruit growing on both sides of a river, unlike any real tree but exactly like the twelve signs of the zodiac on either side of the Milky Way, which is symbolised by the River of Life. The Second Coming is the dawn of the Age of Aquarius.
21. This astronomical interpretation of these texts as allegory for precession of the equinox appears to be entirely new, yet its simplicity and coherence suggests it is really very old and was somehow lost. Biblical images were written to encode knowledge of precession, included in concealed form for the benefit of future readers able to understand the meaning of these images.
22. This observation has major implications for core ethical and historical messages in the Bible. Popular myths were camouflaged versions of the secret knowledge of elites.
23. Why this knowledge of precession was so comprehensively lost to public view appears to combine the hostility of both church and state. Deliberate secrecy and oral transmission explain why the pervasive hints of ancient knowledge of precession are not backed by explicit written explanation.
24. A secret wisdom school of astronomer-priests used the Jesus story to put cosmic ideas into a human setting. The sophistication and coherence of this hidden cosmology was then largely lost as Christianity became a mass movement.
25. The real primary meaning of all the stories in the Bible, including the life of Jesus, is found in how they symbolise real natural observations in a mythological framework. The dogmatic belief that the Gospel stories are literally true is deeply corrupt, a product of the long subordination of spiritual wisdom beneath the political stability agenda of the Roman Empire and its successors.
26. Fugitive traces of the actual construction process in stories such as the loaves and fishes can only be explained by the precession hypothesis. The ancient connections between religion and astronomy seen in the precession motifs in the Bible support the natural understanding of religion.
27. Indian mythology has a largely unrecognised concealed coherence with accurate knowledge of precession, seen also in the Yuga myth.
28. The model of time presented here is supported by the science of precession as a primary driver of natural climate change, which correlates to the Vedic myth of Yuga Ages. This mythological cycle between Golden Ages and Iron Ages every 24,000 years places the Golden Age in the period astronomy has calculated as perihelion summer while the Iron Age is in perihelion winter.
29. The political and social trajectory indicated by this analysis is that for the last ten thousand years humanity has been on a path of steadily worsening moral and spiritual culture, mythologised in the Bible and other traditions as the fall from grace into corruption.
30. The inertia and momentum of the trajectory of fall requires a fundamental cultural transformation. To reflect reality, rather than a comforting fantasy, religion has to become compatible with scientific knowledge about the orderly structure of nature developed in modern science.
31. Equally though, the scientific method has its limits. An integrated perspective requires that scientific knowledge be placed within the moral framework that comes from the spiritual sense of how humanity connects to reality. The cosmology of precession offers exactly such a path to an integral theology able to reform religion to become scientific, to find a basis in knowledge rather than belief, rebinding our culture to the cycles of the cosmos, restoring connection, meaning and purpose.
32. The New Age will on this account be a time of planetary awakening when the current planetary trajectory toward destruction will be reversed and humanity will begin to rediscover how to live in a state of grace and truth.
33. Zodiac Ages are culturally constructed interpretations of natural cycles that can provide a historical and philosophical framework to explain religious concepts. The key suggestion is that ideas in Christianity directly symbolise and reflect the ancient understanding of the Zodiac Age in ways that point toward a current emerging transition into a New Age as a way to transform and renew Christian faith.
34. The Age of Aquarius concept has great value as an evolutionary model to imagine future planetary repair through the replacement of belief by knowledge as a primary social organising principle. We can use the astronomy of precession of the equinox to construct a systematic understanding of the connection between our planet and the cosmos, at a scale directly relevant to human history and ethics.
35. Discussion of the coming New Age of Aquarius provides a way to understand the forces of good and evil operating in our world, as a way to marshal support for ideas that will enable long term flourishing of humanity within our natural planetary environment, through integration of science and spirituality, building upon the long heritage of wisdom contained within the diverse traditions of human culture.
36. The power of this moral vision concealed within Christianity provides the underlying logic for the Age of Aquarius as a positive unifying vision for our planetary future.