Astronomy, Symbolism and Civilization
“The science of the stars has granted us knowledge of divine matters, magic, divination, teaching, meteorology, mathematics, alchemy, and medicine—thus of the sowing of seed, hunting, fishing, navigation, military strategy, architecture, construction, literature, philosophy, and the arts. Those who envy and slander this truth will be cursed with their ignorance and weakness, while those who worship this truth will be blessed and mighty.” —Hephaestion of Thebes, 400 AD
Today, we exist in sensory overload. Our lives are saturated with artificial things. Manmade objects fill our world, disconnecting us from nature. Most people fear the natural world, and many outright reject it. The stars and the earth are no longer perceived as alive. Those in populated areas rarely even see the stars due to air and light pollution. We can travel continents in hours and communicate globally, yet paradoxically, we feel more isolated than ever.
Where did this technological world come from? Mathematics, science, and imagination made it possible through the efforts of countless generations. But where did that knowledge originate? Everything we possess today is the result of knowledge accumulated, refined, and passed down for eons. And yet, humanity has practically no knowledge of its past before the Common Era. Through the lens of mythology, we can see the evolution of human consciousness from its earliest stages through the Hellenistic era, when mythology merged with the rational thinking we use today. While modern humans are no different from those who lived thousands of years ago, their environments shaped their consciousness and understanding of reality in ways that we have forgotten.
Hephaestion of Thebes wrote that the science of the stars was the origin of practically every branch of human learning, from agriculture to mathematics to military strategy. We will explore the remnants of prehistoric people through myth, symbolism, and reconstruct the beginnings of astronomy. In doing so, the reader can better understand some of the sophisticated symbolism and advanced mathematics underlying ancient star lore.
Part Two will examine stellar alignments in Egypt and their relationship to astrological and Hermetic symbolism. For a historical overview, see Exploring the Origins and Evolution of Astrology and Magic – Cosmic Artifacts.
Contents
Introduction
Ancient Perception of the Cosmos
Evolution of Knowledge: From Intuition to Rationality
Hellenistic Age: Bridge Between Worlds
Suppression and Survival of Ancient Knowledge
Reclaiming Lost Modes of Thought
Consciousness, Mythology, History and Civilization
Revolutions Above and Below
Development of Civilization and Myth
The First Astronomer-Priest
Direction, Dimension, Mapping and Signs
Gods Above and Below – Reason Meets Intuition
The Ancient Perception of the Cosmos
Ancient civilizations perceived spirit as a tangible reality. The physical world was just one layer of existence, interwoven with an invisible but structured network of forces. These forces governed space, time, matter, mind, and body, forming a vast cosmic geometry that could be understood and engaged to benefit humanity. This knowledge, passed down through generations, has since been dismissed as superstition and relegated to the occult. Today, mainstream religions remain the only socially accepted form of ancient magical practice.
Astrology, once considered among the highest sciences, has been condemned as either heretical or absurd, despite its foundational role in civilization. Our modern worldview teaches that human beings were once superstitious savages who slowly evolved into rational beings, culminating in the Enlightenment and the Scientific Age. According to this view, rational thought began in Greece 2,500 years ago, and before that, humanity existed in a state of mystical delusion despite many achievements still unequaled today. Their leading thinkers believed strongly in the ability to interact with the forces governing nature, or magic. Its most advanced forms were deeply interconnected with astronomy and astrology.
Hephaestion of Thebes, a Hellenized Egyptian, wrote that the science of the stars gave human beings advanced knowledge in every field, from agriculture and fishing to theology, warfare and magic. He compiled three volumes of astrology around 400 AD in Roman-occupied Egypt that consolidated the astrological techniques used at the time. In his third volume, he gives a short list of instructions for incorporating sophisticated astrological timing in temple rites using images.
This is among the most obscure and guarded occult sciences in history. It is mentioned in the Corpus Hermeticum as one of the secrets of the ancient world but does not fully explain how to do it. The Neoplatonist philosophers of this period wrote of it but not in depth.
An anonymous occultist in the medieval Arabic period produced the Ghayat al Hakim or Picatrix as it was called in Latin. It is four volumes of instructions in ritually petitioning the stars and creating astrological talismans. It was compiled from numerous older sources, most of them unknown now, and many of its cryptic images resemble ancient Mesopotamian and Greek deities. Hephaestion of Thebes preserved a Greco-Egyptian record of this occult science in the form of seventeen ancient gods and goddesses. Julianus of Laodecia wrote a short treatise in Athens roughly during the lifetime of Proclus, and the Sacred Book of Hermes to Asclepius contains images of the Decans from the 1st to 4th century.
Evolution of Knowledge: From Intuition to Rationality
The Hellenistic Age (323–30 BCE) undeniably shaped the linear, abstract thinking we depend on now, but where did its knowledge base come from? Historians often portray early humans as scattered tribes until the Bronze Age brought them under centralized rule. Yet, the Bronze Age (3000–1000 BCE) produced achievements that remain astonishing and, in many cases, still unexplained. The Mediterranean and surrounding regions were ruled by priesthoods that possessed sophisticated knowledge, particularly in astronomy and astrology, which sat at the pinnacle of learning and wrapped in mythology.
Today, we associate shamans with primitive cultures, imagining them as relics of a barbaric past. Yet, the shamans of early tribes evolved into priests and philosophers, and their methods remained the same. The only difference was scale: shamans served small communities, while priests oversaw empires. Even philosophers of the Hellenistic Age, revered for their rationalism, employed the same techniques of altered states of consciousness, divination, and symbolic interpretation.
The Bronze Age Collapse (circa 1200 BCE) triggered a dramatic shift in consciousness, culminating in the Axial Age (800–200 BCE). Societies declined, literacy waned, and for centuries, knowledge was lost. Thinking itself changed. Human thought transitioned from overwhelmingly symbolic and intuitive to highly analytical and structured. The right-brain dominated perception of the world, which saw holistic connections, gave way to left-brain-dominant thought: logical, detailed, but unable to see the whole picture. This is the basis of the Divided Brain Theory proposed by the neuroscientist and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist.
Hellenistic Age: Bridge Between Worlds
By the time of Herodotus (484–425 BCE), history was being recorded in a way that separated mythology from factual events. Even then, the distant past, especially the Bronze Age, was already shrouded in mystery. Hellenistic scholars sought to reconstruct lost knowledge by blending reason with inherited traditions. Ancient mythology became intellectualized, interpreted literally rather than experienced. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages saw centuries of decline in the Roman world until the reintroduction of Hellenistic thought in the early medieval period.
This medieval era saw the continued use of astrology and mystical traditions and advancements in all areas, particularly in governance. Court astrologers were employed by rulers across Europe and the Islamic world, tasked with predicting wars, famines, natural disasters, and political intrigues. Failed predictions often resulted in death, imprisonment or banishment. This was common practice during the reign of Tiberius two thousand years ago. Their methods were not the vague astrology of popular culture but sophisticated applications of mathematics and observation. Figures like Abu Ma’shar, Guido Bonatti, and Jean-Baptiste Morin demonstrated remarkable accuracy and securing royal patronage. Astrology’s persistence, despite relentless attacks, indicates that it provided something of immense practical value.
Jean-Baptiste Morin enjoyed a successful career as a court astrologer after accurately predicting when the king would become severely ill. His colleagues predicted the same, except they concluded the king would die. Morin predicted that the king would be dangerously close to death but would survive. The king fell deathly ill, exactly as predicted, but he unexpectedly recovered. The other astrologers were sent to prison and Morin was promoted. The Medici family, one of the most prominent families in Europe, employed gifted astrologers and seers for centuries and used their political power to shield them from the Inquisition.
There were highly educated skeptics who publicly challenged prominent astrologers to prove that their practice worked. Many accepted the challenge and were successful. Abu Mashar in the Abbasid Caliphate was highly sought out by kings in the region and took on such challenges. Guido Bonatti in medieval Italy was similarly famous, eventually rising to the position of advisor to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Bonatti’s expertise became well known after he used astrology to help a minor Italian noble defeat vastly superior enemies, military victories that were by all accounts impossible. Bonatti used astrology to formulate a strategy that not only achieved a stunning victory but saved his employer’s life in the process.
Another discipline that has faded into obscurity was the Art of Memory or Memory Palace, a technique allowing individuals to memorize vast amounts of knowledge with perfect recall. Giordano Bruno, a Hermetic mystic and Catholic priest executed for heresy, mastered this practice, using it to develop his groundbreaking ideas on the nature of the universe. It had predecessors in older priestly lineages who refused to commit any secret lore to writing. The Art of Memory enabled a person to perfectly memorize volumes of information quickly and to retrieve all of it, in any order, indefinitely. The varieties of memory palaces are potentially infinite but Bruno’s On the Shadows of Ideas is notable for its overt astrological and Hermetic imagery.
A skilled practitioner was essentially a computer search engine in human form that could perfectly memorize entire books, letter for letter, even immense holy books like the Bible and the Quran. The fundamentals of the Memory Palace were taught in all of Europe’s universities and provided the potential for all of the knowledge taught there to be fully memorized for a lifetime, if that person was dedicated enough. An eidetic memory isn’t magic, strictly speaking, but it is extraordinary and can be learned by anyone. Why this technique wasn’t offered or even attempted in public education, which evaluates students largely on memorizing information should raise questions.
Memory palaces, like astrology, were reserved for the few who had access to education. After the advent of the Scientific and Industrial Age, anything relating to consciousness or spirit was tossed aside as useless superstition. By the time literacy had become widespread in the 20th century, the occult sciences were largely lost and the Art of Memory is a fringe pursuit, perhaps best known for the annual World Memory Championship. Most of the books that were once used in these practices long ago are only recently becoming available to all.
Suppression and Survival of Ancient Knowledge
Despite periods of suppression, esoteric traditions survived into the European Renaissance. Astrology remained embedded in European universities, where only the most privileged students could access the full body of knowledge. It endured because it worked and yielded results well enough to be defended by scholars and clergy alike, sometimes at great personal risk.
Royalty and the higher ranks of the priesthoods held a total monopoly on knowledge. Knowledge is power and this was the main method of control over the populace. People learned only what they needed to perform the job they were born into, through apprenticeship. This was the model of society established in the Bronze Age kingdoms. Very few people could even read or write until the last century, well after the printing press was invented and the oldest astrology texts had been cast into the collective dustbin. What was made available by William Lilly in the 17th century was lacking in many ways, translated from incomplete sources. Despite this, Lilly still made excellent use of his techniques and was extremely effective, as evidenced by his important role in the English Civil War. Ancient astrology was a skill that was never made fully available to anyone who wished to learn. It’s only in recent decades that medieval books have begun to see the light of day.
Reclaiming Lost Modes of Thought
What we call “science” and what we call “magic” were once intertwined, forming a unified approach to understanding reality. The study of the stars, divination, and ritual practice were not irrational superstitions but highly developed sciences that demanded precision, contemplation, and discipline. The key to their effectiveness was also in altered states of consciousness, a capability that modern industrialized society has largely suppressed in a myriad of ways.
All these cultures were obsessed with the stars. Whether or not astrology and occult practices is “real” is irrelevant. The learning process and practice itself required visualization skills that few people today would even consider attempting. Astrologers were required to build a highly accurate visual map of the cosmos within their minds that could be accessed with ease. This was the foundation of Giordano Bruno’s Art of Memory. In the Bronze Age, this skill appears to have been achieved by many without the aid of writing. If nothing else, the ability to visualize at that magnitude would naturally endow a person with a high degree of intuition and unique problem-solving abilities. Even astrology’s biggest detractors would likely agree that intense visualization coupled with deeply contemplating endless chains of cause and effect will alter consciousness in profound ways. It has changed the course of history too many times to count.
While the modern world developed, some held onto their old way of life. In parts of the world like the Amazon, shamans are now being recognized for their incredible knowledge of plants obtained purely through intuition. Shamans enter an altered state of consciousness and communicate with nature on a purely intuitive level. It’s being discovered that these people developed plant medicines that not only work as intended but went undiscovered by science.
First, we will explore how human consciousness evolved alongside civilization from the most remote times until the Bronze Age brought rapid developments in all areas. Civilization and consciousness declined in the Iron Age and the Hellenistic era was an attempt to reconstruct and resurrect what remained. This challenges the assumption that rational thought is the pinnacle of human development. The development and integration of reason and intuition was held to be the peak of consciousness by the greatest thinkers of the ancient world. Ancient cultures did not separate spirit from science; they saw the world as a living, interconnected whole. By examining their knowledge, through mythology, history, astrology, and esoteric traditions, we may rediscover a lost dimension of human experience.
We will examine the most important discoveries in human history and their representations in mythology. This will provide a much deeper understanding of mythology and why it was considered sacred and help the reader to build a spiritual worldview like that of the ancients with a thorough knowledge of the most important symbolism in mythology and ancient astrology. All these developments culminated in the Hellenistic and Roman era, when ancient spiritual practices were combined with rational thinking and more thorough written explanations. The writings of the Neoplatonist philosophers will prove to be an invaluable resource.
Consciousness, Mythology, History and Civilization
We will probably never know the origins of humanity with full certainty, but we can understand consciousness and thought processes. Most everyone has experienced intuition at some point in their lives and uses imagination to some extent. Some experience it more strongly than others, but it’s an innate ability we are all born with whether we value it or not. We can use this as a starting point to understand how consciousness developed with the science of the stars and observing the natural world.
Astrologers of the Hellenistic era used terms that depict our individual life as a ship on a journey. The ascendant is the most important point in an astrological chart and it symbolizes the individual person experiencing the world from birth to death. It was called the “helm” which is the wheel used to steer a ship.
Egyptians depicted Re, the Sun, as a king on his ship who makes eternal journeys through heaven and earth, encountering obstacles represented as a giant serpent or dragon. Re’s boat is powered by 24 men rowing the oars, the hours of one day. One of the oldest Greek stories is Jason and the Argonauts, who sail in search of the Golden Fleece and must overcome a dragon and other creatures. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey have the same symbolism. Both these poems are divided into 24 books each. Odysseus sails an immense ocean, having many battles with monstrous creatures and endures cruel treatment from gods before he finally reaches his home. Most of the key events in these Greek stories have been depicted as groups of stars in ancient maps of the sky.
The symbolism of the helm and our lives as a ship has a lot of depth when we really think on it. The astrological chart is a map of the chaotic paths it’s destined to take. Why would any of this ultimately matter if everything is fated? An astrological chart interpreted as an individual following Odysseus’s or Jason’s dangerous but ultimately successful journey takes on a new meaning.
In ancient times, magic was considered a very real thing. Egyptians called it Heka and it was a force of nature in and of itself, binding everything together It did not resemble magic as imagined today, where a person gains special abilities that allow them to exert their will on everything, avoid all hardships and defy the laws of nature. Far from it. For ancient people, magic was an invisible but very real connection between everything, from God and human beings to the smallest grain of sand and countless intermediary beings in between. Everything, no matter how different it appeared, emanated from the same source and followed the same underlying patterns. Those patterns were universal laws that were impossible to circumvent because they’re necessary for everything to exist in the first place. Duality is one of these unbreakable laws. Everything that has a beginning has an end. The value of magic was that it offered some degree of participation. Rather than experiencing life as the result of random and chaotic events, those learned in it could understand their place, and that of others, in the grand scheme. Magic allowed for choices in how the path was traveled… if the practitioner was skilled enough to recognize opportunities and how to use them.
Everything is fated to end, but the journey from point A to point B doesn’t have to be a straight line. The seasons are fated to happen, but if we understand them well enough, we don’t have to blindly fumble our way through into winter months with no hope of the cold letting up. The time that passes can be made more comfortable and some hardships minimized by knowing what to expect and when.
At the helm of a ship, we have no control of what happens outside of it. The winds and the currents obey their own laws. But if we have a map we can prepare for what’s on the way, or even steer the boat around some things rather than crashing into them. Knowing how to predict the winds and currents can even make the journey better. Using sails and going with the currents makes them allies rather than obstacles. This is what magic was for the ancients. They saw the patterns underlying all of existence, connecting everything, and did their utmost to exist in harmony with it.
Under certain circumstances, it was possible to perform actions that influenced nature and the course of events. In other words, it was a science of prayer. Intimately knowing one’s place in the grand scheme of things was the key to magic, and if done properly there was a reasonable expectation of success. Rather than imposing one’s will on the world, magic was aligning the self with the divine order. In doing so, beneficial things occurred, and the forces of nature became allies rather than foes. The study of the stars was directly responsible for seafaring, navigation and agriculture and its symbolism heavily reflects this. The science of the stars was a means of understanding one’s place in creation handed down from prehistoric times and served as a map for navigating life in the mortal body and in the afterlife.
This is the basis of a complex occult practice centered around ancient astrology. Studying the movements of the stars to select a time when the cosmos favors that activity is called electional astrology, or inceptions in Hellenistic terms. Inception means “foundation”, “birth”, “the creation of” or “beginning of”.
Hellenistic astrologers used terms that are more descriptive of gods interacting with each other. What is now called an aspect, or planets forming geometric relationships to each other, was called “beholding” or “seeing”. The planets were referred to as their older pagan names. When the aspects are expressed in these terms, a myth can be seen occurring in the stars. Everything was understood to be linked together in an infinite web of space and time, and what occurred amongst gods spilled over into the physical world. If a war was brewing, it was a much better option to engage with Ares (Mars) favoring the land you inhabited. This form of astrology was frequently applied in warfare for thousands of years and influenced many battles that changed the course of world history.
The principles of inceptions or elections extended to prayer and ritual magic as well. In the ancient world, most gods had a counterpart in the sky, either a planet, star or group of stars. The source of all (the one God of monotheism) encompassed the entire cosmos with no individuality and created through a chain of separate personas, gods who oversaw specific functions of creation. There was no way to alter fate, but it was possible to get more favorable conditions if that part of creation was positioned to help. Astrology could be used to amplify the effects of prayer and ritual. Appealing to Helios to help a sick person could be done at any time, but he was far better equipped to act when his physical body, the Sun, was emanating its light in spring. The influence of the Sun’s rays brought new life and growth at that time, while it was weak in winter. This is a simple example of what was a highly complex practice called “petitions”. Simply put, if the astrological chart of a particular moment could be interpreted as the desired event happening, a prayer was offered, and the gods could easily influence that outcome to occur.
(Interior shrine illuminated by the equinox sunlight in the Great Abu Simbel temple of Pharaoh Ramses II)
There was one more aspect to this practice of magic: sacred images. These were objects crafted at a specially chosen time based on similar principles. The underlying idea was that the gods could ensoul the object with astrological influences. The subtle energies around that specific moment of time were imprinted into the object. Using Apollo again as an example, if his image was crafted at a moment when the Sun was giving abundant life to the earth, that influence was absorbed in the image permanently. It had the potential to help a sick person who approached it. If a priest of Apollo was charged with establishing a new shrine, he would use careful astrological timing to choose the moment that a statue or engraving of Apollo was created. In this way, people who visited the shrine would encounter a small physical replica of the Sun’s life-giving astral rays. Temple priests also employed deep meditation, contemplation, dreams and altered states of consciousness in the shrines to gain knowledge and communicate with the unseen world.
This principle of synchronizing earthly and celestial events was used in some form as far back as 2000 BC. The true extent of its antiquity will probably never be known but some written instructions survive from early in the Common Era. The rise of Christianity posed a severe threat to it in the areas under Roman control and it was eventually reabsorbed into Europe a thousand years later.
During the early years of Islam’s Golden Age, this tradition was eagerly adopted by philosophers and esoteric circles after the city of Harran was annexed by the Abbasid Caliphate over a thousand years ago. This city was the center of a star religion that had been a home for Persian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek occultists for centuries.
Revolutions Above and Below
Shamans studied the skies and over epochs developed a form of consciousness that combined deep intuition and spirituality with highly sophisticated logic and reasoning processes. The ultimate result was the civilization of the Bronze Age whose achievements still baffle many people today and seem almost otherworldly. Remains of it can be found in the occult practices of the Hellenistic and early Medieval period, especially in the cryptic lore of astrology and myths. In the hopes of gaining a more complete picture, we should start at the earliest possible point in time and try to understand how and why the heavens came to be the object of obsessive veneration and worship, and why some symbols were sacred.
In the process, the reader can hopefully understand their own consciousness a little better and see it from a new perspective, as the collective product of countless bursts of intuition and problem solving over vast spans of time. Our ancestors were clear on where these bursts of insight originated: from the gods.
In this hypothetical scenario, we will take the point of view of a person in a remote age long, long ago. These scenarios are based on people who still exist today that deliberately have no contact with the outside world and choose to preserve their way of life as it has always been, with no modern technology of any kind. These communities are collectively referred to as “uncontacted peoples” and the largest groups reside deep in the Amazonian jungle. What is known about them is mostly secondhand accounts from neighboring people who live in similar conditions but don’t fully isolate themselves. These people live in a way that is alien to us, and vice versa. They are totally immersed in nature and their communities are led by shamans with no use of metallurgy or agriculture. They provide a window into how people would have lived in times before recorded history.
With a little imagination, we can better relate to the people who inherited traditions from priesthoods that claimed to have passed their knowledge down from the dawn of time itself. The practice of observing the stars is showing up in prehistoric cave art from 20,000 years ago or more, and some of the constellation images are the same as we use today. The ancient astrology books we can read now are not prehistoric in the literal sense, but the practice and overall tradition itself is. This will go beyond comparative mythology and examine the close relationship between myth and astrology in the Hellenistic world. Most people are aware that many of the constellations still used in modern star maps originated with ancient Greek mythology, but the specific details are largely forgotten. We will begin with the most relevant and widespread themes so that the reader becomes familiar with the important symbols that carried civilization into the Bronze Age and remained at the core of the Hellenistic world. This worldview is crucial to the study of myths in the Neoplatonist schools.
Development of Civilization and Myth
This scenario is based partially on the works of Joseph Campbell, the 20th century mythologist who made extensive studies of myths and folklore around the world and identified recurring themes shared by all people. Influenced by Carl Jung, he proposed that the collective unconscious has a “psychic unity” that exerts an effect on every human mind throughout time. It contains archetypes that gradually emerged in the human mind as important ideas and discoveries. The same gods and characters wore different “masks” or “garments” depending on the peculiarities and environment of the people whom they originated with. The dying and resurrecting god is a good example of this archetypal being, who became heavily syncretized as the Hellenistic world expanded. Their myths are symbolic visual forms that allow them to become deeply embedded within the mind. “Hamlet’s Mill” took these ideas further and proposed that most myths are symbolic representations of complex astronomical cycles and their corresponding events in nature. Through mythology we can see recordings from the dawn of history. The discovery of fire, agriculture, metals and architecture are contained in these myths and embody the civilizations that grew around them. According to many philosophers of Late Antiquity, the myths are both of these: archetypal beings that exist within the collective psyche while also encoding complex ideas regarding time, space, and nature.
The intent is to give the reader a perspective outside of the modern world. Much of this is akin to a language barrier, but deeper. We think in terms of purely linear logic while our ancient ancestors thought in terms of intuitive symbolism. Even if the ancient language itself is largely intact, the interpretation is often a matter of opinion, and many different interpretations can be “correct” simultaneously. This older form of consciousness is in the ancient science of the stars. It’s a unique lens of intuition and logic that reveals everything in existence is interconnected and ultimately alive. Nature, the cosmos and human beings are all part of a whole. One source becomes many through an endless chain of combinations and cycles. The explosion of light that created the universe is ultimately within everything. Everything is connected at some level, whether it is understood through modern science or ancient philosophy and metaphysics.
Even though I’m telling a hypothetical story of nameless people who are long dead, we are all capable of relating to them. In our early childhood years, we all exist in a totally different state of consciousness. It is so different that most of us only remember fragments. We are fully absorbed in our imagination and have no idea how to navigate the world around us; if nobody instructs us we rely on intuition along with trial and error. The earliest humans on earth shared this experience too, but they had to navigate the world in its natural, unaltered state through pure intuition. If food, clothing, water and protection from the elements wasn’t secured, they died. If this is hard to relate to, imagine a group of small children being alone in a remote area with no possible way of getting to civilization. This is the life our ancient ancestors had to adapt to. They had developed a small language by pointing at something and making sounds to get others’ attention. The observers first had to use intuition for the most part to understand the intended meaning, the tone of the noise and what was being pointed to. At some point, correlations were made. It was noticed that people could make different sounds and if the same one was used consistently with a specific thing, there was no need to gesture at it. The sound itself conveyed the meaning through a shared understanding, and a spoken word took shape.
We must assume that at some point, human beings had only instinct and the most basic means of survival. Making fire, stone tools, and direct observation of nature and intuition. Gorillas in the Congo’s rainforests were recently discovered to have an innate knowledge of natural medicines, eating tree bark that has stronger antibiotic properties than medicines developed in laboratories. This is one of countless examples of the animal kingdom possessing intuition that arguably meets the criteria of supernatural and shows us some of what intuition is capable of.
The first languages would develop through a recognition of patterns in sound and gestures. The very first people to understand spoken words would have been forced to rely primarily on pure intuition. Gestures and intuition are the only thing they had at that point. The first person to conceive of a spoken word could only hope to be understood if others intuitively understood their intent.
The First Astronomer
You are a person who is living completely at the mercy of nature, with only your own intuition, instincts, crude tools and whatever ideas and ingenuity you can muster. Your senses and intuition are sharp from living off the land, moment to moment. You live in a group to help survive because there is strength in numbers. Everyone gets their food by picking plants, hunting animals and catching fish. You live in small structures made of wood and stone and keep warm with fire.
Shamans are in the community, and they have expert knowledge of plants and animals that has been passed down for ages. They communicate with the animals and plants in dreams. This knowledge was all developed through pure instinct and intuition over generations. People further hone their intimate knowledge of plants and animals simply by observing them endlessly. Understanding nature is a matter of life and death. Basic needs are met, that being food, clothing and shelter, but there is little comfort to be found and nothing to ponder except for nature. Nobody travels further than necessary. Being lost in the wilderness means death.
The words everyone speaks are related to nature. That is the only common reference point and experience that everyone has. Everyone knows what water is and there is a common word for it, but differentiating types of water is a matter of relating it to something else. A river is water like a big snake, it constantly moves and winds just like a snake slithering on the ground. The word for it is a blend of water and snake. A waterfall is water like a storm because its loud and chaotic. The word for it is a mixture of water and storm. Abstract words that we use today like “strength” don’t exist. The idea of strength is conveyed by comparison to a large powerful animal. In our scenario everyone thinks this way and it’s a natural, intuitive thought process that only requires some imagination. Unlike today, there was no suppressing imagination. Children are pressured to stop daydreaming and focus purely on their physical senses, but people of this time relied on visualization to survive. Memorizing every plant and rock was crucial. If something is disturbed, it means that a predator may have been there. If personal thoughts were experienced as “imaginary beings” there was nobody to pressure them into ignoring it.
In this tribe, some priests know how to use special plants to make the world become a waking dream for a while. When that happens, useful knowledge is sometimes obtained. The world takes on strange shapes and beings unlike any person or animal become visible. Everyone has a basic and practical knowledge of numbers. Simple addition and subtraction are common because all people have ten fingers for easy reference. It makes rationing supplies more efficient, especially when the world gets cold and dark and food is scarce.
You start to notice that the animals and plants always react the same way to the warm and cold spells. It has something to do with the bright lights above. When it’s warm and life thrives, there is more light. When the plants die and animals go away, the cold nights are long. You have noticed that the two big lights move in the same way endlessly and have a hunch that there may be something more to it. Your senses are highly attuned to everything around you because that’s all you have; much of it is spent in utter silence and your mind is still. This is a life that depends on pure instinct or intuition.
One night you have a dream that is incredibly vivid. The two big lights in the sky come down to you and take on an appearance unlike anything else. They look like bright people accompanied by animals. They seem friendly and point to the sky with their hands, motioning with their fingers that they’re counting things in it. They stare at it and move their hands endlessly, counting amounts you’ve never attempted to. You decide to follow this example and examine the sky for yourself. In a short period of time you find that there is indeed some regularity there. When the Moon has grown and vanished twelve times the weather has become the same again. This has transformed the life of everyone in the group and is a realistic portrayal of obtaining knowledge through dreams.
Your interest is growing, and you fall asleep waiting for more dream encounters after long periods of watching the Moon glowing in the sky. The world’s first astronomer/astrologer now exists. The knowledge obtained would be considered astronomical now, but for an animist who doesn’t think of the Moon as a dead rock, it is one and the same. The Moon gave knowledge to the observer and this perception adds a spiritual dimension.
A discovery like this would quickly be merged with the existing knowledge of animals and plants, what is typically associated with shamanic practices. In further dreams, the sky beings place a staff in the ground upright and watch themselves as the bright orbs from there, counting. Counting and always watching from one place while the plants die and grow back, and the animals come and go. Everything is related to something else and the more you watch, the more there seems to be a rhythm and pattern with everything. Your mind has just grasped a principle of measurement through pure intuition and visualization. You also notice how shadows move and contemplating it reveals a close relationship to light. Night itself is a giant shadow.
Either way, you are the first astronomer-priest living in the most primitive of conditions. This is an important distinction because it’s not only the earth that you devote yourself to, but its deeper connection to the heavens above. Each one gives a different kind of knowledge. The heavens require mastering numbers. You have reached a level of consciousness that will grow over countless generations through teachers and apprentices and eventually lead to people walking on the Moon itself. For now, we will focus on the immediate effects of measuring and tracking the Moon’s movements by people who had no knowledge of it before. We will walk through the immediate discoveries that would follow. These are the foundations of ancient astronomy and of civilization itself. I am using the term astrology in its ancient sense (astrologia in Greek) when it was one and the same practice as astronomy, just as alchemy encompassed metallurgy and chemistry.
Direction, Dimension, Mapping and Signs
You place a marker, a wooden pole, and use it as a reference point. You begin watching it in spring when everything has just started to grow. You notice the shadow of your pole and how it moves. It moves, growing and shrinking, while the Sun moves. When the Sun is directly over your head the shadow disappears for a moment, then starts growing the other way until the night comes.
This has conceptualized the idea of directions. When it has been fully worked out it is a reliable way of determining north, south, east and west. When these imaginary lines are visualized connecting landmarks, the ability to make simple maps is now there. The moment that the Sun’s shadow disappears is what is called the midheaven in astrology. It has reached its absolute zenith overhead and fills the entire sky with its light. With the total disappearance of the shadow, it has vanquished all darkness in that moment. Turning away from the Sun at that moment is facing north. North is also where the Pole Star eternally appears every night. In astrological charts, the underworld or Imum Coeli is in the north and the midheaven is south. While it rises in the east, the ascendant, the darkness slowly gives way until it is totally conquered for a brief time. The shadow slowly grows back but it reaches in the opposite direction. The Sun descends in the opposite end of the earth, west, and darkness returns. The eternal cycle of light and dark is all found in this simple method.
This is also the invention of the sundial, or the clock. Whenever future astronomers take an interest in closely observing and measuring the length of the shadow, hours have been conceptualized. All of this is from a simple piece of wood in sunlight and careful measurements of the shadow. This is one of the practical functions of obelisks.
There’s an even deeper concept found within this simple tool: the shadow itself, a duplicate illusion made from light. This is simple enough at the surface level, but later on the concept of shadows will have profound significance. The light from the heavens creating illusions in the world below is at the core of most mystery traditions.
Sundial from the Valley of the Kings, 1500 BC (University of Basel)
The directions found from the shadow has given people the capability to navigate and explore outside of their immediate areas. Without a reliable means of determining direction, travelers depend entirely on memorizing landmarks. This made navigating through mountains, large forests and plains impossible if they wanted to find the way back. Once you have traveled past the last recognizable landmark you’re lost. Knowing north, south, east and west gives a point of reference and with some time and exploration, maps are possible, either drawn or purely from memory.
Signs are the next development from this discovery. Cairns, a vertical stack of stones, have been used all over the world as trail markers. They’re easy to build and easy for others to identify, more pronounced than carving into trees. Roads exist because of them, and with them the origins of a crossroads as a spiritual concept. The idea of a crossroads as a meeting point between worlds is an ancient one. Cairns and similar stone markers were also used to mark graves in prehistoric times and continues today. A crossroads connects different worlds.
This idea of direction goes even deeper. All your surroundings are limited to a circular view. You can turn and look everywhere and it’s always you centered inside a circle. The idea of a circle becomes a foundation in your mind. The Sun is also a circle, and the Moon creates a circle in cycles. This makes sense because birds, snakes and other animals lay eggs that bring new life. Many of the fruits that are good to eat are circular too. There’s a relationship in it all, and you can imagine this wide world around you as being contained inside of an enormous egg. Over a few years you notice that when the Moon has turned from dark to light three times, the seasons change dramatically. After it happens twelve times the world turns back the way it was, the animals return, the rain comes back and the plants grow again.
The number 12 has been revealed to have a very special meaning. The ability to make small maps and give directions for traveling is available because of a tradition devoted to studying the sky. There is an underlying order to the world. The mystery is endless but enough is known so that people not totally at the mercy of random events. Now you can plan and know when food will be plentiful. Numbers are now of utmost importance because you discovered these things by counting. Numbers are the key to discovering order in chaos, and it’s clear that the lights above give rewards if you pay attention. Looking closer, the Moon makes 28 different crescent shapes in its growth cycle. The lunar calendar has been established, and this would fully serve the needs of a tribe who lived by following herds of animals to hunt and gathering edible plants when available. Those who lived in different climates near water would have had a more settled life, getting their food primarily from fishing. The lunar calendar would have been equally valuable for them in preparing for winter. With no dependence on agriculture, a lunar calendar would be sufficient for most people’s survival.
The concept of time (beginning, middle and end) has become part of human consciousness and with it, space (directions). Both come from the same source: close study of how the lights above connect to the world below.
As generations pass, math and astronomy have become a vital part of life. It’s a gift directly from the gods above. The priests use it to know some of the future. Life is simple and survival revolves around knowing what nature will do, and when. Other people who live far away can be visited thanks to this gift. Traveling is dangerous but it’s feasible, and life improves by trading with other people. Knowledge can be exchanged as well. Journeys are accomplished by looking for the signs above in the heavens and the signs below that mark the route, and we can see the astrological attributes of Mercury here in the foundations of travel, merchants, and long-distance communication.
Bronze statue of Hermes for marking a road, 500 BC (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
You grow curious about secrets that may lie beyond the Moon. The groups of stars at night move in circles too as the seasons progress. Each season has different groups in the night sky. They’re much slower and don’t have the same paths as the Sun and Moon. Those two big lights move in opposite directions of the countless little lights. The stars move like they’re revolving under a huge dark dome and in the center is one that never, ever moves. They all move in circles around it. This star is in the same direction that you’ve determined north to be with the Sun’s shadow. You’ve discovered the North Star or Pole Star. The land you’re on and the stars above are all spinning around that star like a pole runs from it into the ground.
With some thoughts of up and down, the directions have been mapped much more accurately than before. These are the stakes or angles of the astrological charts we use today and one of the sacred functions of the number four. Three-dimensional thought has fully emerged here.
Practical benefits of three-dimensional thought extend to many things. In only one lifetime, arithmetic could become much more sophisticated with the determined astronomer having little trouble calculating figures in the hundreds and thousands. More advanced geometry is also possible, and with it, architecture and further sophistication in maps. Over the next generation the apprentices would regularly use multiplication and long division while they compare observations and study their calendars. The two lights follow the number 12 but not exactly. What appears to be perfect harmony between the Sun and Moon is revealed to have a small imbalance. It only shows itself over many years but when it happens it causes the calendar to fail. Over two decades it causes the prediction of seasons to be off track by an entire lunar cycle, or month. One month is enough to be disastrous if everyone plans for food being available at a certain time. This forces the astronomers to study the Sun and Moon deeper, looking for slight irregularities that can solve it. To solve this mystery, fractions must be conceptualized in some form. Consciousness has now advanced to a much higher level and the capacity for problem solving of all kinds has expanded immensely.
Close study of the stars as groups reveals an even more accurate method of measuring time, the heliacal rising. Meaning “near dawn”, this is the moment just before the first rays of the Sun make the stars vanish. Closely observing the star clusters on the eastern horizon at this moment is a reliable way to mark specific times of year. Mapping these tiny stars into constellations opens up even more opportunities for human life to improve.
Distinctive star clusters have been used in this way for longer than anyone knows. Because the Sun moves through the stars throughout the year, a different group is visible in the night sky just before dawn every few weeks. Using the Pleaides as an example, they will appear on the eastern horizon right before the Sun’s first rays only in late spring. As the Sun progresses through summer, the Pleaides will appear higher in the sky, little by little, before sunrise. Tracking the heliacal rising of stars is a way to ensure that the irregularities of the lunar year and solar year (354 and 365 days, respectively) do not result in mistakes. For practical concerns, if a plant requires its seeds to be sowed only at the end of May, the heliacal rising of the Pleaides would be an excellent sign. In ancient Greece, the Pleaides were used to mark the beginning of spring.
When the use of numbers was applied to the earth and the things in it, life became much better. The ability to measure carries over into every aspect of life that we take for granted now, but were once unavailable, like construction. Even with the crudest tools, the capacity to chop wood into even lengths brings with it sturdy walls and roofs. Simple dwellings could become bigger and stronger, and with simple geometry it was possible for durable houses to be built of wood and stone.
In our prehistoric scenario, traveling on water wouldn’t always be limited only to carved canoes. Large sturdy rafts could be made with planning and teamwork. If the tribe chose to follow the animals for hunting, they would know when they’ll hibernate or migrate. The animals’ patterns can be discerned, their movements mapped, and people know what to expect. The causes and effects are clear for everyone to see.
Here we can begin to understand how religions developed around the stars. Closely studying the lights above reveals secrets and they lead to people having more power over their surroundings. The heavens offer gifts that are endless if people are willing to do the work to receive them. The patterns reveal eternal laws that all the world obeys, and the more these invisible laws were studied the more wise people became. The thought process of solving these celestial mysteries gave the capacity to think deeply about cause and effect, the foundation of science. Numbers and ratios were applied to material goods and economics was born from it. Thinking in three dimensions, along with an excellent knowledge of the constellations’ movements and direction, allowed for the most perilous journeys to be undertaken: sailing the ocean. From the start of the Bronze Age five thousand years ago, long-distance trade between Egypt and the Indus Valley occurred with ships. The Phoenicians or Canaanites established a vast maritime trade network across the entire region, from Byblos to the British Isles and the coasts of northwest Africa.
Remarkably, the study of the stars produced the first analog computer…over two thousand years ago. The Antikythera Mechanism was discovered in the remains of a shipwrecked Greek vessel and was a sophisticated mechanical device that could be used to predict the positions of stars, planets and even eclipses many decades in advance with an incredible degree of precision.
In only a few generations, the capacity to use simple numbers could become a common skill with astronomers developing and refining solar and lunar calendars. Countless human lives were transformed and it’s the result of the men and women who devoted themselves to the heavens and understanding the gods who made themselves known through it. The heavens have gifted humanity with innumerable gifts.
Perhaps the biggest difference between us and them is that they attributed everything to God or a group of gods. If someone discovers something today, they want to be credited for it. An ancient person would have credited the discovery to a god generously leading them to it. If a person in archaic Greece figured out how to make a better boat, he’d have thanked Poseidon for that good fortune. The community would have likewise attributed the new boat to Poseidon and that’s how it would be remembered by their descendants. Over the generations, their lore would be Hephaestion, the patron god of craftsmen, giving them their tools long ago, along with other significant turning points.
Gods Above and Below- Reason Meets Intuition
For people who experience everything as alive and having a spirit, this scenario presents an entirely new dimension to life. A deep sense of connection to everything can be experienced intuitively, and some people today still have it. Raw intuition can be felt by anyone but prolonged study of the heavens and earth as interlinked gives a structure and order to that intuition. The Industrial Age severed that aspect of life for most people.
The ability to use numbers, our basis for reason, is unlike anything else. A person who has only the natural world as a reference point will at some point recognize that the process of mathematics is something intangible. It can be expressed and conveyed by gathering a certain number of objects, like pebbles or fingers, and the principles conveyed visually. Subtraction under ten digits can be conveyed simply by holding out all ten fingers and closing the number of fingers that are subtracted. Division can be conveyed simply by putting several pebbles together and separating them into groups. The idea of division by half is simply a matter of making two separate groups of equal number or cutting something. But the process itself is beyond the senses. It can only be perceived by its effects. Symbols can be assigned to represent numbers, but they’re just that: symbols. The mind must first perform the mathematical process before its meaning is understood. The process is invisible, a work of pure thought and is an underlying cause that cannot be perceived. It has no form itself but instead makes itself knowable by embodying everything that can be sensed. This is the concept of divinity according to the Pythagoreans that came to be part of the Theory of Forms.
Deep study and contemplation of the circle and all the possible divisions of it would lead to pondering what is outside of it sooner or later. If everything is contained in a sphere, the question of what lies beyond that and what its source is brings the human mind to its limits. This riddle is still used in various mystical traditions to lead its practitioners to higher states of consciousness.
At this point, pure intuition and instinct have given birth to reason and linear thought. Both managed to coexist with remarkable sophistication like we see in the remains of Bronze Age kingdoms. The astronomer-priests of remote prehistoric times would sooner or later be forced to contend with assigning labels to the increasingly sophisticated math found in the skies. Until the Hellenistic era, learning appears to have relied on the apprentice being presented with symbolic images and arriving at the solution through contemplation and observation. With a little imagination and mental flexibility, we can begin to understand some things about the gods of the ancient world and the seemingly bizarre fables or myths that were sacred. The sacred properties of the circle and sphere begin to have much more meaning. The circular grid pattern found within the Temple of Osiris that has become popularly termed the Flower of Life can be verbally illustrated as a birth process of two circles.
As the properties of symmetric circle patterns are examined deeper, the five Platonic Solids can be found contained within. These are the very building blocks of reality, according to Plato.
As stated already, everything was alive and had a spirit. The most advanced cultures of the ancient world possessed highly sophisticated sciences but equally valued intuition, divination and extrasensory perception. Priesthoods were the keepers of knowledge in every ancient civilization and they enabled governments with kings and queens to function. Priests were scientists, astronomers, physicians, engineers, mathematicians, historians and much more. Some specialized more in certain fields but at the center of their order was gods. Specially trained people, oracles, seers and diviners, had the ability to communicate with them more effectively than others.
Not only gods, but spirits of long-dead ancestors were part of this “other world”. The names of ancient ancestors who accomplished something important in their earthly lives were often given to gods who oversaw that part of life. One example is Imhotep, an Egyptian priest and vizier from the Old Kingdom who was an architect, astrologer, and physician. After he died, his spirit was often consulted on matters that he excelled in during his life. His mortal life was an incarnation of Ptah and Nuit helping to further develop Egypt, especially with medicine. From the afterlife Imhotep could continue his work as an intermediary between the world of matter and the unknowable world of the divine. In this way Imhotep’s soul became a full-fledged god and was one of only two Egyptians to do so, the other being Amenhotep.
Imhotep is one prominent example among many of what is now termed “ancestor veneration” that was a universal practice until relatively recently. Each family performed rites in memory of their forebears and many people buried them in or around the family home so they’d be close. Notable leaders, warriors, priests and people who made important contributions in the past could be venerated by an entire kingdom. As long as their memory remained alive, they could be reached through dreams, divination and gifts left at their graves. If statues or other depictions of them existed, that person could become an archetype in that group’s “collective unconscious” in Carl Jung’s model of human psychology. The stronger that memory was held and the longer it lasted, the more of a driving force it became over time. Even if that person’s legend was not completely real or historically factual, it undeniably exerted an immense influence on others. Such people were called “Heroes” by Greek philosophers, minor gods that were below gods and archangels but above human souls.
In our scenario of astronomers in remote prehistory, the same would apply. The apprentices who learned the craft carried on the work of those who came before. Even when their teacher passed on, part of them remained in the work itself. A burst of intuition that found a solution to a difficult problem could naturally be attributed to their assistance. Even more, the gods themselves could be petitioned to reveal themselves further. This could go beyond bursts of intuition in the form of intense visions. If there was a mystery involving the Moon and the solution was elusive, one course of action would be to hold a ceremony under the Moon’s light, enter an altered state of consciousness and ask her directly. Some participants would find themselves whisked away to experience a vision of the heavens directly, in terms of what they encountered in their daily life.
The shamanic earth practices could integrate with astronomy in this way, giving rise to the first astronomer-priests that would eventually develop highly advanced civilizations five thousand years ago and leave future generations puzzled.
The gods below, in nature, provided knowledge such as the medicinal properties of plants. The gods above in the heavens provided knowledge of a different sort, that gave people some semblance of power over nature as abstract thought developed. Memories of this tradition and the gifts it brought are seen in the Book of Enoch, an ancient Jewish text that had been excluded from the Christian and Jewish scriptures. It describes angelic beings in the heavens called Watchers who taught humans all the arts and crafts of civilization: agriculture, astrology, architecture, metallurgy and more. Like Prometheus, they wanted to improve our lives. The book contains detailed explanations of the divisions of space, time and angels who govern it. Enoch ascends to the heavens and underworld through many dream visions, seeing the souls of angels as both stars and humanoid forms, followed by a history of the Israelites in the form of various animals. This book is mostly known for its stories of angels mating with human women, but it may be an uncensored depiction of an ancient astral tradition that existed in Judea.
Part 2 – Egyptian Temples
