Cutting Edge New Age

I can't help to notice where my spiritual path has taken me in that past few years. Spirituality has always been a big part of who I am. I am a thinker, a kind of philosopher and what has excited me most recently is what would be called 'new age'. New age is an ironic term because it actually invokes ancient wisdom and ancient history, bringing ancient knowledge to the forefront of modern thinking and practice. In this light we honor the Native American tradition, traditions of the east such as Buddhism and Hinduism, and what can be referred to as the Hermetic tradition encomposing ancient Egyptian beliefs, Druids and Celtic tradition. The new age seems to be all about discovering what has been lost to modern humanity. Indeed it is a perspective that beckons to awaken our current society and world from its materialism and ignorance of a greater reality. New Age spirituality is not a science, though much of what is being discovered by modern science (especially physics i.e. What the Bleep Do We Know) is used to support new age thought, such as in the example of quantum mysticism. New agers tend to want to discover for themselves the mysteries and powers of life within. From this perspective it can unfortunately be a narcissistic spirituality, as the forms of service and humility in traditional religions is a bit thwarted, although not entirely, by the self-empowered New Ager. In addition the hidden worlds of our government and speculations about aliens weave there way into this body of thought. And at the crux of the new age phenomenon right at this moment is a newly interpreted 'end times' as the date 2012 has cropped up time and time again. It is not an end of the world, but the beginning of a whole new world. A real sense of permeating change as happening right now, more so than ever before, is well defined and discussed throughout the new age community.

Indeed, I attended a conference called Earth Changes in Sedona, AZ, the Sunday after the spring equinox. Jose Aguelles was the main speaker and, of course, spoke about 2012, which is a code he said. He repeated that several times. In fact, almost every time he gently reminded us of 2012 he would say, "[it] is a code". We are past the point of no return he says. "Are we practicing our telepathy?" he asked as another curious invitation to speculate on what the future earth changes hold. From the galactic perspective, we are just nanoseconds away from the shift of one epoch to the next. No forecasts of great destructions were stated, except a suggestion that the internet won't be around that long. Perhaps this will be due to the increased sunspot activities scientists are predicting. And when do scientist predict the peak sunspots? The historically validated computer models are predicting 2012 for peak sunspot activity or coronal mass ejections. This will disrupt communications and electrical systems as have happened in the past. But from the new age perspective this is not a time of disaster, but an opportunity to awaken to expanded consciousness and a new dimension.

Numerology has 2012 adding up to be a "five”: 2 + 0 + 1 + 2 = 5. Five is a number some say corresponds to love. (The year 2003 was also a year of love. I know it was for me personally as I felt a lot of love that year and a lot of happiness.) The next year 2004 also brought us an astronomical event that I was for some reason very aware of: the Venus transit of the sun. It was a rare event sometimes occurring over intervals of hundreds of years. New age chatter hailed it as an opportunity to bring goddess energy to the earth. I was keenly aware of it. I anticipated the event and knew the exact time of its happening that June morning. I looked for it, but it could not be seen except with special equipment. The very day or next day of the Venus transit did mark a change for me. As a journal writer for years I had always used my journals as a type of therapy to complain about my life and just report on things as there were. But the Venus transit brought a change in that for the first time I took my writing to the visionary level. I decided that I no longer had to just write what was, I could begin to write about what I wanted to be. And to my surprise the visionary writings uplifted my days as I wrote and envisioned more happiness in my life and a better job. The happier days were immediate and the better job came in three months! Related this to the Venus transit I wondered when the next rare Venus transit would occur. I looked it up and what do you know, the next one is due in 2012 a "five" year of love.

I also want to give mention to Terrence McKenna, a leading thinker who devised a mathematical schema for demonstrating cycles in history using concepts of novelty, repetition and the I Ching. This model, as I understand it, shows history as repeating itself, or perhaps as a spiraling phenomenon. McKenna was aware of the work of Jose Arguelles. But the interesting thing is that McKenna sought a number of dates for the end date of his model. No date fit the graphical up and down cycles of history until he tried the date 2012. I honor McKenna, his intellect and boldness of experimenting with altered states of consciousness. He was a pioneer thinker. Although some of his ideas are radical they are convincing enough to receive mention. Also, Zacharia Sitchin is a pioneer thinker. As the previous post mentions his radical ideas of intelligent design from an ancient extraterrestrial race, I know this goes way to far for some people. But the evidence and scholarly work is compelling enough to also deserve a mention. It should not be dismissed just because it is too "far out" to believe. Before reading Sitchin's work I never thought I would consider the possibility of intelligent design. Now I do.

Awakening to our ancient past in Sumer is new age. As well as finding our connection through a greater dimension is new age. Finding an explanation for the rapidly accelerating world that we live in all comes together in a new age philosophy. So too, hope of awakening, transcendence and ascendance right here, right now to the next dimension is the new age.