Modern Theologians Lack the “Gnosis” 

Spill No Secrets

I’m neither initiated into secret society nor sworn to any oath of secrecy in terms of discussing ancient solar mysteries. I speak from the perspective of an independent researcher reporting on what I have learned through information available to the public, and mostly online. However, synchronistic circumstances have helped me connect the dots of publicly available knowledge. I am an independent, philosophically-minded mystic, artist, and musician without constraints on what I can and cannot address or disclose. 

What I report on, I do so respectfully towards the secret societies whose deep knowledge of Hermeticism overlaps with this more general Hermetic knowledge. The Hermetic Order of 21st Century Idealists group on facebook (which I have personally founded) is not a secret society type of group. My goal is to embark on a new way of life in the 21st century but with utmost respect to the old ways. I will not disclose anything that is not already available as public knowledge, through the internet or otherwise. 

The astrotheological (Gnostic-Hermetic) undertone throughout the Bible, but the New Testament (NT) in particular, outlines three world ages and foreshadows a fourth age to come, Aquarius (see Luke 22:10). Revelation is a mystical astrotheological allegory that orients an initiated reader of the ancient solar mysteries to the precession of the equinoxes. Manly P. Hall covers these issues in his comparative Western esoteric books and lectures. Albert Pike is noted for doing the same. It’s 33rd Degree Masonic knowledge that is in print and available to the public. This has always been known in the esoteric circle communities. The 12 Jewels are by old tradition given in correspondence to the zodiacal year, but in reverse order, which is precession. It starts with Pisces and ends with Aries. This is the Platonic “Great Year.” 

The Great Year

The “Dragon” and ‘1/3 fraction’ references in Revelation take the initiated reader to the constellation “Draco” and how precession is viewed from the perspective of the Northern circumpolar constellations where the north pole star moves through different constellations as a result of precession. 

Modern theologians lacking the Gnosis of Hermetic initiation and astrotheological allegory knowledge have mistakenly – for centuries – assumed that “time, times, and half a time” refers to some 3.5-year period in a future that never seems to arrive, as many times as they’ve tried to predict it with no clue what the mythological symbolism actually means. The mystical, precession symbolism suggests otherwise. We’re talking about the long-time count, the Aeons! This orients the initiated reader of the ancient solar mysteries (Gnosticism) to the four lowest or darkest world ages, which equal exactly “1/3” of the total Great Year cycle of precession. It’s the lower region of the cycle, when “darkness” (a metaphor for self-ignorance) is handed “power and authority.” The remaining part of the cycle, the higher or light ages, make for the dominant 2/3 of the cycle.

You have to know how to read this ancient literature like an ancient astronomer-priest to get the references. It’s written in astrotheological symbolism from one initiate to another. This is blinding the uninitiated, who are today’s majority of mainstream theologians! The blind are leading the blind! 

The Tribulation is Ending

“Time” / Taurus > “Times / Aries-Pisces > “Half a time” / Aquarius 

This marks out the lower ⅓ of the lower Great Year, ruled by darkness/self-ignorance. See the descending Dwapara and Kali illustrated below. And the ascending Dwapara and Kali next to them. We are in the ascending Dwapara Yuga headed for the ascending Treta Yuga. The zodiacal signs are set to the autumnal equinoxes on this chart. So, the current axial age of Pisces-Virgo shows the sign of Virgo on this autumnal equinox-oriented chart. Leo is the next autumnal age, which is the axial age of Aquarius-Leo. 

We are not about to enter into a tribulation. Per this Gnostic/Hermetic reading, we are near the END of its reign!!! The entrance into the lower Dark Ages was way back during the axial age of Taurus-Scorpio. When the descending Dwapara Yuga began. It’s the descending Bronze Age to the Ascending Bronze Age, which corresponds to the four precession ages alluded to in the biblical tradition. The “fall of man” is allegory about the descending bottom half of the Great Year cycle.

See the lower left side of the illustrated model. The end of the lower 1/3 of the Dark Ages of the Great Year is just into the ascending Treta Yuga, which is around halfway into the Age of Aquarius. They project halfway into the Age of Aquarius for the big finale where the Dark Ages come to a close and the higher ages begin, according to the ancient cyclic models overlaid against the precession cycle. If you go out to “half a time” during the final age alluded to, the age of Aquarius-Leo.

The Giza Necropolis bears this out, too. The Sphinx aligns to the vernal age of Leo-Aquarius (lion-water bearer) and the three pyramids align with Orion’s belt stars on their minimum on the meridian. That goes back to the 10,500 BCE range that Robert Bauval has outlined in his books. The opposite of this is the age of Aquarius-Leo that we are entering now when precession is observed from that perspective. We’ve come halfway around the cycle from what is mapped out on the desert floor at Giza. It’s pointing to the precession cycle according to viewing the observable effects on the constellation of Orion. The Dragon reference was the same thing, but from the perspective of the northern circumpolar sky instead of the eastern horizon. Both intensions are aimed at the precession cycle and how it can be observed.

That points to the same astrotheological marker reference that we find in the Bible from a Hermetic, not mainstream lens. This, of course, blocks out the mainstream theologians, again. And there’s a reason the mainstream has been blocked from understanding the cryptic symbolism. This information wasn’t meant to go public during the darkest ages. It’s only meant to be concealed, symbolic, and in cryptic form in the Bible and similar religious works that collected and summarized even older traditions dating back to the last “Golden Age,” or “Satya Yuga.” The transmission of mystery school knowledge is supposed to have come down from the last higher ages. And be kept somewhat preserved for after we cross through the darkest ages of the cycle and begin to increase in collective knowledge and awareness once again, as we go back towards the higher ages.

The metaphor of “Babylon the Great” is better viewed as a cryptic reference to “confusion” in general and the dominant trend within the collective during the darkest ages of the Great Year, which is the lower 1/3 of the cycle given over to darkness/self-ignorance. People often can’t see what’s right in front of their faces in terms of understanding the “Primacy of Consciousness” at a grand, majority-oriented, societal level. That self-ignorance plays out through nearly all human institutions during those “times.” And nearly all human institutions are compromised during the lowest levels and dark ages of the precession cycle.

“Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the Great….” – Revelation through gnosis

The Likely Demise of Materialism and Mainstream dualistic minded Religion

In this Gnostic-symbolized Hermetic context, we could be (I’m convinced personally) looking at a situation where ‘dualistic oriented’ mainstream exoteric religion, along with the entire dominant materialist dualistic worldview in academia, will crash. Both of them! 

Dualistic thinking in religion (spirit/matter as distinctly separate) led to metaphysical materialism (space and matter secular dualism), growing out of the dominant exoteric religious institutional structure and breaking away into its own entity. Materialism went on a rampage, belittling its former incarnation–dualistic religion–to position itself as “dominant” over the former. It morphed into dualistic based ‘secular materialism’ and continued to deceive the world from a new platform of secular-based “authority.” 

Meanwhile, the mystical and original inward-based Christ Consciousness is centrist-minded and necessarily “non-dual.” 

John 10:30: “I and the Father are One.”

The kingdom of the non-dual eternal principle IS spread upon the face of the earth, but people do not see it! That’s a loose take from the Gnostic gospels. Eternity is now–this was the message Joseph Campbell tried to convey as part of the East Meets West books and lectures. And it’s what the truth leads to when not obstructed by “Babylon.”

The inward connotation at the core of Christian mystical tradition has been obscured and perverted from public and popular view, by popular religions, for centuries. The Christ Consciousness has been covered over by dark/self-ignorant forces within individual minds. You have to see it in order to get it. Seeing everything as literally dual and separate keeps you from seeing the non-dual core substratum underlying the very existence of dualistic “perceptions.” But what’s not being seen clearly by most people is the most powerful message in existence from the “mental” perspective; it’s about how anything that exists, any that exists at all, IS necessarily Existence itself! 

You and Ultimate Reality (Existence Itself) Are “One” 

That is the “mystical realization” of unity with God set forth in the John Gospel – when John is viewed in terms of the mystical symbolism that it actually conveys. The very thing that is the opposite or “anti” of the mystical non-dual Christ Consciousness, is the very thing that is out to obscure this self-realized mental state that comes from within. That is what the astrotheological allegory describes through the symbolic imagery–it’s all “mental”–not physical, literal, and material. 

The drama is described through precession mythology symbolism with allusion to the inward path and the chakra system or “Stations of Mithra” as viewed in the Near East at the time (Alexander S. Holub, Ph.D.). Both of these aspects of the symbolism of Revelation are described in Sri Yukteswar’s book The Holy Science. Lacking the gnosis of mystical allegory means having no clue how to interpret mystical allegory! And just about all modern theologians today have been serving the purpose of a blind guide to the blind, just as stated in Matthew and elsewhere. The religious leaders are doing the very thing that the same religious leaders are preaching against! Due to complete ignorance when it comes to mystical religious symbolism and astrotheological allegory.

Twenty years ago, I went down this rabbit hole, and for 20 years I’ve been led by synchronicity. I have researched my way into relevant, coincidental, but meaningful, information. 

My research led me to many atheist based online forums where I served as moderator and administrator. In these forums, I observed and participated in many of the arguments between traditional non-mystic theists and materialist atheists. I’ve seen a lot over the years and have learned by way of “direct experience” as to where most rabbit holes lead in today’s popular landscape of the theist-versus-atheist debate. 

I’d bet that the “anti” of the original mystical Christ symbolism is simply the “opposite” of the Christ Consciousness concept given through the mystical, non-dual, unity of God and Man platform. This is a platform that was quickly assaulted by the exoteric orthodox traditions rising to dominance during the 2nd and 3rd centuries Common Era (CE)! They didn’t want something that empowers the people, something like the “mystical realization” being open to everyone.

The natural end of that “time” of usurped dominance is drawing near. It’s not just the beginning. The carrot-and-stick routine has lasted for around 2,000 years now without dying off of its own accord. Until coming into this century. Now, it has fallen like a rock, and rightfully so! 

This isn’t a bad thing as the more uninformed may think when seeing graphs like this. It means that the deceptive entity which had been obscuring true spiritual insight, has run itself out of rope! It’s “fallen” of its own accord and of its own various misjudgments and transgressions.

In today’s technologically advancing world, we’re capable of more intelligence and spiritual insight than that, IMO! We can do a lot better than what the outdated and stagnant organized religions of the dark ages have done. The old ways are waning in terms of public appeal and relevance. Not at any singular person’s hand, but at their own hands. The old ways have become too dogmatic and have lost the ability to force people into accept their dogmatism, long after their power has peaked and waned. That mentality of narcissistic egoism ‘masquerading’ as true religion has an expiration date. Coinciding with the end of the darkest ages of the Great Year cycle model. 

Whether or not anyone believes the ancient Gnostic and Hermetic allegories, or the old cyclic models, is another issue. But the fact remains that the ancient religions were crafted and put together by individual mystics with inner visions and insights. The astronomer-priest class and scribes would then arrange those mystical insights and teachings into mythological format according to well-known symbolism belonging to the same time and place that contemporary mystics would understand. This was always meant to be understood by mystics with access to the gnosis. Not to for anyone lacking the same said gnosis.

It’s all Mental

The bottom line is that the entire thing is addressed to “mental” states and relate to consciousness and awareness, not literal and physical calamities as proscribed by the dualistic minded churches. The fall of “Babylon the Great” is the loss of our own preconceived misconceptions about reality itself! Reality isn’t actually a vacuum space where literal particles of matter are literally discrete, literally separate, or literally “unconnected” to the Whole. 

Twenty-three years into the 21st Century, science has realized that physical objects that appear in space are “non-local.” Three Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work with quantum entanglement and non-locality. Local Realism is falling! That’s “mental” and corresponds to this message from our mystical Western antiquity! Everything can be reduced to particles, they can be reduced to fields, and those fields can be reduced to a unified quantum field. What modern idealism is saying is that the unified field has to act as a “spatially unbound unified field of core subjectivity with constant excitation of the unified field.” It’s the next step in advancement. The next step in technological ascension towards the “sacred science” of the higher ages. Which has been preserved through Hermetic and Vedic traditions through the dark ages.

I’d be prepared to see a lot more of that sort of scientific discovery and advancement that confirms what deep mystics have always known. As we continue moving into the ascending Great Year and pushing the limits of modern science and philosophy of mind, I’d expect to see technology take a massive leap forward as more attention is given to the “Primacy of Consciousness” in the sciences. I believe this will continue until we catch back up to what was called the “sacred science” of the last Golden Age/Satya Yuga (which is what the Hermetic Philosophy allegedly dates back to) having gone full circle.

Stephen Wollard

The Hermetic Idealist