The Guard at the Root of the Tree of Life

The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.

For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at tree of life; and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed and appear infinite and holy, whereas it now appears finite and corrupt.  — William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

This, one of Blake’s more significant prophecies about “the New Age”, certainly seems to have come to pass. The cherub with his flaming sword guarding the tree of life certainly seems to have abandoned his post in this “Age of Extinction”. Hell, it seems, has a sense of irony.

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Whom The Gods Would Destroy

“Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad” — old “heathen proverb”.

It is somewhat sobering to reflect on this old proverb in the context of “post-truth society” and “the collapse of reality”, or in light of those ominous and prophetic words uttered by “Seth” some half-century ago. Whoever first uttered the proverb wasn’t thinking so much of individuals, I suspect, but of whole civilisations and societies or Ages. There are enough examples of this in history — whole Ages gone mad (the Late Middle Ages, for example). And history appears to be repeating itself in Late Modernity. What does it mean for whole Ages to go mad?

What is an “Enlightened Ego Consciousness?” Part IX: “The Man of Knowledge”

Some of you, I’m sure, are already familiar with Carlos Castaneda and his many books recounting his apprenticeship to the Yaqui brujo he names “don Juan Matus”. Castaneda is a controversial figure. Some believe he hoaxed the whole thing. I don’t concur with that judgement, and for reasons I’ve given in the past.

Today I want to show how Rosenstock-Huessy’s “cross of reality” (and related to that, the indigenous “Sacred Hoop”) which we have been slowly introducing over the last few posts, explains many puzzling aspects of Castaneda’s experience.