Religions

The Monomyth

The hero’s journey, or monomyth, is an idea extensively detailed and explored in author Joseph Campbell’s work, and notably his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The hero’s journey is a narrative pattern informed by a syncretic analysis of numerous myths and folk tales from all over the world. It is a foundational layer of story that generically explores how a person could become a hero.

“Hero” is an archetype. Pioneering psychiatrist Carl Jung talked a lot about archetypes, which are somewhat mysterious in nature, but they are essentially, like the hero’s journey, something like mythic templates. Unlike the hero’s journey, which is a template for a story, archetypes are usually templates for characters. But not all characters are archetypes, which have a particular kind of power that’s hard to come by. Real and fictional heroes actually both have something of this in their nature, being larger than life because of rare and particular achievements, as well being of very good character.

Deconstructing a hero within fiction too much leaves you with something less inspiring, and you usually lose the archetypal nature of the character. You’ll just have a protagonist, then, or possibly even less. They still might be referred to as the hero of the story, but they are usually not an archetypal hero.

I like archetypes a lot as a subject, in part because the more alchemy I’ve practiced, the more a doorway into their arcane mysteries has opened up to me. When I was in eleventh grade, I remember asking my English teacher if there was a list of all the archetypes I could find somewhere. He said there wasn’t one that he knew of, which was the right answer. An exhaustive list is actually probably not available, but nor are archetypes up to the discretion of the writer or audience. They are more objective than that. There’s something about them that’s like those mineral compounds that can be polished into gems. Some may still be unknown, but there are quite a few we know of, and their luster is predictable if they are pure enough.

So what happens to a hero? Campbell’s proposed monomyth contains seventeen steps, which I’ll add concise original descriptions of, according to how I’ve come to understand them after exactly the amount of alchemical work I’ve done plus the sheer amount of suffering I’ve gone through at the time I’m writing this.

The Call to Adventure
The hero is more or less a normal person at this stage, but there’s something about them, or there’s something about the world they’re in, that has the potential to explode into an incandescent adventure. Human condition, I guess you could say.
Refusal of the Call
But the hero would prefer to live some version of the life they can see all around them, thank you very much.
Supernatural Aid
Not so fast, says something genuinely abnormal. To the hero, it is possible that this stage feels very far from what they would recognize as “aid”. Maybe it feels worthwhile, and maybe it doesn’t. It can be a mentor with a certain spiritual connection, or a mysterious happening, or a mystical experience.
The Crossing of the First Threshold
The hero can’t stay where they are, doing what they probably thought they wanted to do when they were refusing the call. They have to get moving.
Belly of the Whale
The bad news is, that this endeavor isn’t going to be quite as easy as the hero probably deserves. A problem arises, and the hero faces it, more or less alone. This moment probably proves something about the hero: maybe that they’re a good person (which heroes have to be), or that they have the right idea (which is helpful for a hero), or that they have skills or potential or fortitude (which heroes have to have).
The Road of Trials
The hero has to keep moving, and alas, the way is arduous. Difficulties arise along the way, defining the adventure as a quest, as opposed to a mere travel log.
The Meeting with the Goddess
This one is rather confusing when you’re doing literary analysis, as most stories do not feature a meeting with any actual goddesses. This is a reference to finding something special. Perhaps it’s adapted from the theological theory that the manifest universe is the domain of the Goddess in a particular way. At this point, the manifest universe somehow seems to have a pinnacle to show the hero. It can be an item, a goddess, a splendid city, or something else, but it is worth seeing.
Temptation
Here is where the question “Why continue?” or “Why go anywhere else?” comes up in one way or another, but it is not wholesome in contrast to the hero’s actual destiny. Once the hero comes to realize this, the hero rejects the temptation to halt the quest, and continues on.
Atonement/Abyss
Something happens that brings up a new idea: someone or something might have a quarrel with the hero based on the hero’s history, nature, or conduct, or based on the nature of reality itself. Suddenly there is a problem that cannot be solved so directly as the prior challenges. The hero must confront something about themselves here, and understand who they the hero are, what they’ve done, and how they feel about the world, all well enough to navigate this stage.
Apotheosis
Oh good, the hero did a good job navigating the last stage! Now they’re the bigger person, compared with before. They are something larger than life, and their instincts will from now on be to do the very right thing.
The Ultimate Boon
Now the hero reaches a key objective, getting something they needed or at least wanted very much and are not entirely undeserving of.
Refusal of the Return
There is likely something on the journey or at the end of the journey that the hero doesn’t want to leave. But one thing the hero has learned is that not everything can stay exactly the same all the time. What we see here is actually usually much more like reluctance than refusal, though stories may vary. A hero at this stage can move forward if they know they’re supposed to. They just can.
The Magic Flight
The hero starts on the journey home, usually with the ultimate boon or something gained from it.
Rescue
The hero deserves help, and sometimes they really need it by now. It’s usually help from someone or something powerful, and this is where it comes in.
The Crossing of the Return Threshold
At this point the hero often returns in some way to what one could call the real world, which is at least semi-distinct from the more single-minded existence of the quest. This is where that shift occurs. The hero may be reunited with previous companions, locales, or pursuits.
Master of the Two Worlds
This is where the hero integrates back into that real world, but this time as a person who has developed new abilities, new understanding, and the right instincts. The world is lucky to have a person such as this. They have the education and life experience that faithfully following the quest offered them, and they are better for it.
Freedom to Live
Life can be good, and the hero is ready– and well-equipped– to live it. Sometimes the status quo even changes because what came before was so pivotal in the world, and part of the hero’s great reward is this: it’s a better status quo.

For real life heroes, hewing to the best in themselves can take them into and through some of these steps rather naturally, sometimes in this order, sometimes in a different order.

──── by Lync Dalton ────

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The Mahabharata and numbers

I’m about 1,500 pages into the illustrious Mahabharata. It is an historical epic known in the history-loving Hindu tradition, daunting in size and sweeping in scale.

The story is very old, some of it clearly much older than the text itself. Some believe that parts of it date from an extremely early hominid migration into the Indian subcontinent. Much of the Mahabharata takes place so long ago that it seems (in some translations) perhaps to refer to women going into oestrus instead of having the ovulation and menstrual cycle that modern humans are currently understood to have.

The Mahabharata presents many excellent examples of how numbers in ancient texts and oral histories may not necessarily always translate directly into modern numbers. An extremely long time ago, a word like a hundred would’ve often been closer to the idea of “too many to keep track of easily” than ten groups of ten, and a word like a thousand would’ve been closer to the idea of “effectively uncountable, especially considering the fact that a comprehensive number system has not been invented yet” than ten groups of ten times ten. It was hard to conceive of numbers when we didn’t really have them.

What is still very important to understand is that a looser numerical system would not diminish the text’s portrayal of placing high value on extravagant generosity and prosperity, and the scale of riches it sometimes suggests does become staggering almost beyond imagination.

Our current standard system of numbers used throughout the world today was probably invented about 4,000 years ago or so in North Africa, according to Earth Logos. The Mahabharata in its current form was compiled and transcribed within the span of this time, but the following passage, which occurs near the beginning of the text, before Vaisampayana begins narrating, gives some idea of how numbers were a subject of specialization and how they seemed to fit into oral history.

“Sauti said, ‘One chariot, one elephant, five foot-soldiers, and three horses form one Patti; three pattis make one Sena-mukha; three sena-mukhas are called a Gulma; three gulmas, a Gana; three ganas, a Vahini; three vahinis together are called a Pritana; three pritanas form a Chamu; three chamus, one Anikini; and an anikini taken ten times forms, as it is styled by those who know, an Akshauhini. O ye best of Brahmanas, arithmeticians have calculated that the number of chariots in an Akshauhini is twenty-one thousand eight hundred and seventy. The measure of elephants must be fixed at the same number. O ye pure, you must know that the number of foot-soldiers is one hundred and nine thousand, three hundred and fifty, the number of horse is sixty-five thousand, six hundred and ten. These, O Brahmanas, as fully explained by me, are the numbers of an Akshauhini as said by those acquainted with the principles of numbers.’” – Mahabharata, section II (Vyasa, translation by Kisari Mohan Ganguli)

Keep in mind that at the time the text was codified thus, these sums probably represented the narrator’s mastery of arithmetic in front of his audience, which it’s easy to assume may have been very much in vogue at the time in terms of demonstrating intellectual prowess, almost like a magic trick.

In the Mahabharata, which depicts the lives and lineages of the Pandavas and the Kauravas as well as a war that ensued once between them, the text describes eighteen Akshauhinis meeting on a battlefield, while the fact remains, the kingdoms described were actually most likely city states. It is extremely unlikely that ancient kings fielded, for example, 393,660 elephants all in one place to do battle, and a fortunate unlikelihood it is at that. And indeed, earliest versions of the story may not have defined these things numerically at all. But the numbers thus being stylized seems rather to be an arcane reference to the scope of how epic these matters must’ve been and felt at the time.

Numbers are admirably objective, but their objectivity is actually subtly finite. Chaos theory is a theory that involves the fact that modern numbers and mathematics ultimately break down and get confusing because we made them up. It essentially deals with what happens when they do.

──── by Lync Dalton ────

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Welcome to the straightaway

Technically speaking, we’ve run out of Kali Yuga. As such, we’re now experiencing the earliest part of the Satya Yuga (also called Krita Yuga; Satya means “truth”, and Krita means “perfect”). This is in terms of galactic positioning, as we’ve just navigated a very sharp corner (or type of corner) that’s been associated with the Kali Yuga and the transition into the Satya Yuga at least once before. It is still essential for people to bring humanity and civilization into this highly favorable time by promoting dharma, but the corner appears to be turned, which means that we are officially clean out of the Kali Yuga (and in a Satya hyperimperative), in terms of spacetime and its odd characteristics.

There was a point earlier this year when both the Sun and Moon joined Jupiter in Taurus, which might have signaled the official turning point. The magnetic signal may have been triggered more recently, probably within the last month.

──── by Lync Dalton ────

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Moloch and the Bible

Moloch (or Molech) is an evil concept that’s plagued Judeo-Christian continuities for quite a long time. Usually depicted as an idol that looks like a minotaur, with a bovine head, there are accounts of people doing atrocities in the name of Moloch. These are grievous to recount, including attacks on very young children.

The word Moloch appears to be related to the word “melech” (Hebrew for king), making it somewhat euphemistic, similar to the name “Baal” being an honorific like “lord” or “master”.

One curious aspect of the tragic history involving Moloch is that in the Bible, the God of Israel repeatedly says “I did not tell you to do this”, “these were not my commands to you”, etc. when commenting on the atrocities associated with Moloch. God expresses hatred for everything to do with what is done in Moloch’s name, and quite rightly calls these abominations, but there’s something very haunting about the insistence that they were not mandated by Him, almost as if there was a misunderstanding on that point somehow.

The semiotics of the bull head may give one clue as to why that might be, considering that a sect of Israelites escaping slavery in ancient Egypt identified with a bovine deity, which they rendered as a golden calf upon their exodus from Egypt.

Something the Israelites would have associated with their main deity at that time was the series of miraculous attacks known as the plagues of Egypt. In one of these plagues, many families were said to have lost their first-born children. This story may have experienced some kind of distortion over time, and become connected with the atrocities of the bovine idol Moloch.

A seemingly more recent association of the name or honorific Moloch with the symbol of an owl may be, among other things, an esoteric hint to exercise wisdom in unpacking any Moloch lore, the owl being a symbol of wisdom.

──── by Lync Dalton ────

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On pillars

You never used to hear about societies working without pillars of the community, and enough of them. With their elevation in society, they necessarily become its patrons. The concept of noblesse oblige is that of the upper classes making sure that the rest of the people have a good society to function in, such that it is a symbiotic and positive relationship that is easy to maintain, even across generations. That is a natural mechanism in any sustainable society. These pillars are automatically held up to high standards of behavior and judgment, and society needs that. It’s almost architectural. These are supposed to be the people who hold up the roof of civilization, and the whole structure is better for it. Ptah was a god in ancient Egypt that evoked such an archetype. He is mostly acknowledged as a god of architecture and craftsmanship, but part of his doctrine involved setting a divine example for those humans at the top of society who had an extra measure of prosperity and therefore shouldered extra responsibility in their communities.

──── by Lync Dalton ────

PLEASE DONATE TO WEIRDO CAMP. Do you enjoy and/or enrich yourself with Weirdo Camp and its unique, original content? Please send a donation via Paypal (see site sidebar) or to $alchemylynx on Cash App.
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Christs of the Ages

There comes a time sometimes when one individual has to learn something innovative about dharma and maintaining dharma (which involves being a good and decent person in God’s good graces) for many, many people, and the global conversation about dharmic principles is advanced. That mental and spiritual energy is felt all over the world by that person’s contemporaries. That individual can be termed a christ. This includes Jesus Christ, the Piscean Christ. Some branches of Hinduism acknowledge that Jesus Christ was an incarnation of Vishnu, and many claim that Gautama Buddha, the Aries Christ, was as well. It is also true that Krishna (the Taurean Christ) and Rama (the Gemini Christ) were the Christs of their ages. The Aquarian Christ is the next one after Pisces because it goes in the same order as the Great Precession of the equinoxes. The Christ ages occur through time as a reverse Zodiac story/sacred machine.

I had to personally uncover this religious/historical information using Earth Logos; I’d never heard it otherwise, though it is widely understood that Jesus Christ is connected with the Piscean Age, and that has been a powerful message conveyed over the last century.

Here are some notes from 🜄 (Easter egg page associated with: water) about the Gemini, Taurus, Aries, and Piscean Christs, starting with Pisces:

Notes on Jesus of Nazareth as the Piscean Christ:
Jesus of Nazareth was the Piscean Christ. He had a difficult ministry, which happened while the dismal Kali Yuga was in full swing (now in 2021 it is currently in an advanced state of decay and ready to be shed), but he spiritualized life for a lot of people. I think he was very successful in that. Many people have had it very much on their hearts over the years to makes sure that Jesus, his ministry, and his philosophies were not forgotten. Christianity, part of Jesus’s legacy, is one of the most popular religions in the world.

Jesus was Jewish, and studied Jewish sacred texts and philosophies as well as Hindu, Greek, and Egyptian philosophies. Jews were occupied and very oppressed by the Roman State in the time and place where Jesus had his ministry, and Jesus’s message was one of hope in the face of oppression and proving that miracles could happen, as well as one that ended up exploring the idea that death was not a dead end. Another key idea behind Jesus’s ministry was that God is good.

Jesus was a philosopher of the Pisces/Virgo axis, Pisces being the dominant note in the Age of Pisces and Virgo being directly across it on the zodiac wheel. Because the Zodiacal Ages (the various Christ ages) take a long time to ebb one into the other, the Christ of each age may invoke an axis of two opposing zodiac signs and some of their themes. It’s good to have two feet planted, so to speak, if you have to be on a wheel.

Pisces themes invoked:
Healing: Jesus was known to do miraculous healing, curing the sick, the disabled, and more at key points in his ministry. Pisces rules the twelfth house, the arena where most of the healing of serious illness happens (the other being the sixth house, which is across from the twelfth, and focused more about health maintenance and other routine healing).
Mysticism: It’s said that the twelfth house is where we dream and have other experiences of transcendence. Jesus had a close relationship with God that he described as feeling personal to him.
Oppression: The twelfth house is also the house that rules oppression and overcoming oppression. Jesus’s life happened across a backdrop of oppression against Jewish people in his region. His prophesied coming was attacked even before his birth, and Jewish boys his age were targeted for murder around the time he was born in case they were him. It is a very good thing he survived, and he made it clear that oppressed people could be important.
Imprisonment and execution: The twelfth house rules prisoners, punishment, and death. Jesus was murdered via unfair execution for no crime at all, and briefly imprisoned beforehand.
Poeticism: Pisces has a distinct poetic or figurative streak. Jesus was known for wording things beautifully and teaching via parables, narrative analogies that help people understand a philosophical concept without systematically analyzing the main point for them in great depth.
Maturity: Jesus had a mature outlook, and described God as a wise and loving father figure. In the gospels, his disciples seem to look up to him. Pisces is the final zodiac sign of twelve, and at its best signals a peaceful maturity.
Illusion: The devil is said to have tempted Jesus in the wilderness during the ascetic period in Jesus’s ministry. The devil is said to have shown Jesus visions of paths he knew he was not destined to take, and Jesus was able to calmly shut down these deceptions.
Peace: Jesus is known as the Prince of Peace. Pisces carries the philosophies of mutable water, the calm sea that Jesus commanded into being when a boat trip found him and some of his disciples on choppy waters.
Fish: Fish and fisherman are iconography associated with Jesus Christ and Christianity. Pisces is the sign of the fish.
Death and overcoming death: Jesus is said to have died and resurrected. Pisces is at the end of the circular zodiac cycle, and Pisces and the twelfth house represent some of the mysteries of death and dissolution. Pisces is the sign of endings in general. Despite the Zodiacal Ages going in reverse order (e.g. Gemini, then Taurus, then Aries, then Pisces, then Aquarius, etc.), the Age of Pisces is the end of a major cycle, and ends around the same time as the Kali Yuga.

Virgo themes invoked:
Study: Jesus studied Jewish theology and multiple philosophies. In the gospels we read about him impressing adults as a child with his knowledge of scripture. Virgo and its planetary ruler Mercury are studious.
Chastity: Jesus had attractions, but chose not to be sexual during his ministry. Virgo is represented as a virgin. In Christianity, Jesus is said to have been born of a virgin mother, known as the Virgin Mary, who conceived him through a visitation by the Holy Spirit.
Mildness: We hear about two times when Jesus got angry, and one is apocryphal. He did not do violence. Virgo at its best is mild and careful, and wants to use good judgment.
Service: Christianity ended up being a religion very much dedicated to service to others, where there is good work to do. That type of service is a key Virgo theme, and the sixth house it rules is the house of dutiful service.
Wine: The Virgo constellation is often said to be holding a cup of wine. Jesus of Nazareth used wine at highly symbolic points in his ministry. He was also rumored to have performed miracles with wine.
Feeding people: Virgo is also associated with the harvest and feeding people. When the constellation Virgo is not holding a wine cup, she is often depicted with a sheaf of wheat. Jesus talked about food, especially grapes, wheat, bread, and fish, often and significantly. He was known for feeding people at one of his famous sermons when no one wanted to leave him and there was little food to go around.

Notes on the Gautama Buddha as the Aries Christ:
The Gautama Buddha was Siddharth Gautama, the Aries Christ. He was born a prince of a kingdom in India called Kapilavastu during the Kali Yuga, the most sorrowful of four time periods experienced in the Universe (Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga). He was evaluated early in life by a diviner who declared that he would either be a great king or a great religious leader. Siddharth grew up one of those conscientious children who feel the pain of the world very keenly. Whenever he went out of the palace, he would see that things weren’t going well for the average person in his father’s kingdom, and he was often grieved by the amount of suffering to be encountered in the world. He felt that his path lay in religious innovation, examining and resolving the subject of suffering.

He renounced his engagement in worldly matters while still a young man, and became an ascetic and philosopher. He started Buddhism, a religion that is highly systematic and contemplative in nature. As a basis for Buddhism as a religious system, the Gautama Buddha, as he became known upon his enlightenment, developed the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. After experiencing both opulence and asceticism in life, he advocated the concept of a Middle Way between the two walks of life, incorporating positive things he learned from both.

The Gautama Buddha was a philosopher of the Aries/Libra axis, Aries being the dominant note in the Age of Aries and Libra being directly across it on the zodiac wheel. Because the Zodiacal Ages (the various Christ ages) take a long time to ebb one into the other, the Christ of each age may invoke an axis of two opposing zodiac signs and some of their themes. It’s good to have two feet planted, so to speak, if you have to be on a wheel (especially for many hundreds of years at a time).

Aries themes invoked:
Leadership: Aries is a sign sometimes associated with leadership (especially military leadership). The Gautama Buddha was born into a royal family, and was raised to be a leader. He became a popular and charismatic religious leader after devoutly pursuing religious philosophy.
Ears: Aries rules the head, including the ears. The Gautama Buddha lived during a time when long earlobes were considered auspicious, and is often depicted with very long earlobes. He pulled them habitually throughout his life so that they’d be longer, as I understand it.
Nirvana: Nirvana is a term for disappearing into union with the divine. Esoteric Aries is known (per Alice Bailey) as being where the will of God is known, where a person’s mind can dissolve into the divine mind with the correct amount of discipline and merit.
Nontheistic options: I’ve said before that Aries wants to believe in God, and that tends to be true of that energy, but neither does Aries tend to feel that they absolutely require it to go forward correctly. This is also a precept of Buddhism, which embraces an amount of skepticism (a theme both Aries and Libra have in common), and presents a religious philosophy that can include reference to a divine mind/deity or not.
Extremes: Siddharth Gautama experienced extreme wealth as well as long periods of asceticism. Aries is comfortable with extremes, and as the Buddha he was motivated to learn from them and cheerfully reconcile them, showing mastery.
Choosing to operate as a single person: The Gautama Buddha married young, but chose a monastic lifestyle quite soon thereafter, veering toward the first house (ruled by Aries) and away from the seventh house (ruled by Libra), where themes of long-term partnerships are found. Many other people he knew followed suit and joined his monastery, inspired by him.
Innovation: The Gautama Buddha wanted to go his own way in life, rather than take after his father. He wanted to develop new philosophies to help people. Aries is a sign that tends to be comfortable with innovation, and a lot of personal innovation comes from a person’s first house, which influences nearly everything we do, rendering it more personal to us.
Mendicant tradition: The Gautama Buddha advocated a medicant tradition, that of a community supporting a dedicated religious devotee comfortably, arguing that a community can benefit a lot from sincere religious practice and the wisdom it brings. In a way, this relates to Aries being related to newborns (under the theory where an average person’s biographical life follows Aries to Pisces in stages that range from birth to elder status and finally death), insofar as newborns must in part rely on their community and its correct customs for survival, while offering hope and innocence to the group as a whole.
Dissatisfaction: Buddhism closely relates the concepts of suffering and dissatisfaction, which is a very Aries outlook indeed. Of course there are other kinds of suffering, and Buddhism does admittedly have less to say about those.
Atavism and ancient wisdom: Aries energy– brand new feeling and naturalistically wholesome at its best– suggests something of atavism. Before Siddharth Gautama’s birth, his mother had a dream featuring a six-tusked elephant, which was considered a sign of the Buddha. The six-tusked elephant may have been something to do with the idea of “thinking older”, subtly evoking by-then-extinct four-tusked Primelephas of the Miocene and Pliocene epochs. The Gautama Buddha claimed to have recovered an ancient system that had been used before the full-fledged development of widespread theism, and adapted that into parts of Buddhism.
Aries and the cycle of rebirth: Buddhism discusses the cycle of rebirth, and how to exit it. Aries itself is a symbol of the cycle of rebirth.

Libra themes invoked:
Luxury and the problems of excess: Libra, being ruled by Venus exoterically, is one of the signs most related to luxury, and it also advocates moderation. Siddharth Gautama was born into luxury in a mismanaged society. His parents’ kingdom was not a happy place for its subjects, and poverty and crime were widespread.
Balance: Buddhism’s concept of a Middle Way recalls the symbolism of Libra: a set of scales, balancing on a central point. There’s a sense in Buddhism of moving from Taurus’s Venus values (e.g. consumption, sensuousness, hedonism) to Libra’s Venus values (e.g. mindfulness, balance, sincere points of satisfaction).
Reaction to injustice: The Gautama Buddha’s renunciation of his royal duties in favor of a religious path was in part a reaction to rampant injustice in his parents’ kingdom. Libra is associated with the tarot card called Justice.
Analysis and systematizing: Libra is an air sign that enjoys analysis and utilizing and developing systems. This is a common theme in Buddhism. It’s fairly easy to pick up on how thoughtful and systematic Buddhism is, even from afar.

Notes on Krishna as the Taurean Christ:
Krishna, the Christ of the Age of Taurus, lived in a very traumatic time. The Dvapara Yuga was almost over during his lifetime, and people were feeling currents carrying premonitions of the dim and downgraded Kali Yuga to come.

Sri Krishna (Sri being an honorific) was beloved and wise, though he did have a difficult childhood. He took refuge in the time he spent with his childhood peers. He grew up to be charming, attractive, and popular, and he stayed nice.

Krishna became a powerful king, who was known for his philosophies and his many wives and concubines, whom he may have been able to visit astrally. He was a responsible and ethically decent husband.

Like Rama before him and Buddha and Jesus after him, Krishna is one of the most important and popular religious figures in the world today.

Krishna was a philosopher of the Taurus/Scorpio axis, Taurus being the dominant note in the Age of Taurus and Scorpio being directly across it on the zodiac wheel. Because the Zodiacal Ages (the various Christ ages) take a long time to ebb one into the other, the Christ of each age may invoke an axis of two opposing zodiac signs and some of their themes. It’s good to have two feet planted, so to speak, if you have to be on a wheel (especially for many hundreds of years at a time).

Taurus themes invoked:
Devotion: Krishna advocated bhakti yoga (which is not a kind of physical yoga, which is often referred to as hatha yoga), the practice of spending devotional time with deities. Taurus’s exoteric ruler Venus hints at this when expressed spiritually through Taurus: the connectivity between the divine and a person.
Sex positivity: One of the major spiritual motifs of Krishna’s life is his relatively reckless relationship with his lover Radha, who’d been married off young to another man. Their love is often used as a metaphor for a devotee’s very close relationship with God (or a god or goddess) that emerges when they practice bhakti yoga. Krishna also reportedly had hundreds of wives, later in his life. Taurus is sometimes seen as overindulgent, but is certainly one of the signs most associated with sensuality and sex positivity, being Venus’s primary sensual outlet in the zodiac.
Wealth: Taurus rules the second house, which is assigned to our concrete assets. Krishna was wealthy, and lived a lavish lifestyle. He was able to take care of many, many wives adequately.
Food: One of the most famous stories about Krishna’s early life features the time when Krishna found a large storage container of butter when he was exploring as a toddler, and ended up eating some of it. Food is a theme of Taurus, an energy that often likes to live large and enjoy gustatory pleasures. Butter is a dairy product, usually produced from cow’s milk.
Cows: Krishna grew up in a cow-herding community, where virtually everyone was taking care of cows. The community may have been Shaivite. Bhakti images of Krishna often feature him with pretty white cows (also with Radha, playing the flute, with fists full of butter, and more). Taurus is the sign of the bull (Shiva’s vahana), and by extension, the cow.
Lila: The concept of lila is that life is playful and pleasurable. These are Taurus themes. Krishna was very fun and fun-loving, and he lived passionately.
Music: The planet Venus often manifests in Taurus as musical or appreciative of music. Krishna was famously a musician, being very accomplished at the flute.
Throat: Taurus rules the throat in Western Astrology, and a flute is the type of instrument that functions most like a throat. It’s also true that Krishna gave long speeches. The Bhagavad Gita, a sacred text that describes his life, philosophies, and visions, features a lot of monologue.
Quality: The planet Venus often manifests in Taurus as caring about quality in various ways. Krishna was recognized as an extremely high quality person (right at a point when people were noticing a pronounced dip in quality, as the Dvapara Yuga was starting to evanesce): nice, fundamentally decent, and often correct about things.

Scorpio themes invoked:
Transgressive sex: Krishna’s story features nonmonogamy (unto polygamy) and affairs, and how with careful ethics those situations turned out to be mostly okay. These kinds of complicated sexual patterns are often associated with Scorpio and the eighth house it rules, and it’s interesting to think about how Krishna was able to balance them and keep things running fairly smoothly.
Forgiveness: Krishna and his married lover Radha were recognized as a sincere and caring non-traditional partnership, and their love is usually not seen as sinning, precisely. But what they were doing did require a certain amount of forgiveness, which was extended to them. There’s a certain amount of forgiveness that is both practical and humane, and multiple scenarios in Krishna’s life illustrated this. Scorpio energy must be gracious and forgiving enough, or it is in a state of too much decay.
Wealth: The Taurus-Scorpio axis deals with wealth. Scorpio and the eighth house involve types of wealth that deal with dependency, complexity, financial losses, charity, and money changing hands. One story of Krishna details how one of his wives once offered to give away Krishna’s weight in gold as part of a silly game, with fairly fraught results until Krishna’s first wife stepped in to save the day with a devout gesture.
Death: The Kali Yuga, known as a comparatively afflicted time (compared to the glorious Satya Yuga, the propitious Treta Yuga, and the adequate Dvapara Yuga), began with Krishna’s death. Scorpio and the eighth house deal somewhat with the deaths that you live through, and in this case it was the human world who lived through the trauma of losing Sri Krishna.

Notes on Rama as the Gemini Christ:
Rama (Vishnu’s first human avatar) was the Gemini Christ. His life was characterized by a lot of success, and some hardship. He was born a prince, and heir to a great and prosperous kingdom. The Age of Gemini, and the Age of Cancer and Age of Leo before it, took place (partially in the case of Leo, I believe) during the Dvapara Yuga, which is still remembered as a very gracious time. The Ramayana, an epic poem which describes Rama’s life, is full of people who gave each other lavish gifts, openly respected and adored one another, tried to do what was right, and trusted one another when possible. In fact, other records mention Rama’s father King Dasharatha giving up his only daughter to be adopted by and live with another king in a neighboring kingdom, on the grounds that the latter king had no children. King Dasharatha had no other children at that time. Rama and his three brothers were born later.

By Rama’s time, the Dvapara Yuga was in a slight state of decay, but only so much that the Ramayana shows people being sometimes gracious to a fault, or in the wrong directions. Conduct seems very encoded and formalized during this time, more perhaps than we’re used to in the Kali Yuga that followed.

Rama was a philosopher of the Gemini/Sagittarius axis, Gemini being the dominant note in the Age of Gemini and Sagittarius being directly across it on the zodiac wheel. Because the Zodiacal Ages (the various Christ ages) take a long time to ebb one into the other, the Christ of each age may invoke an axis of two opposing zodiac signs and some of their themes. It’s good to have two feet planted, so to speak, if you have to be on a wheel.

Gemini themes invoked:
Twins and siblings: Gemini, sign of the twins, rules the third house, the house of siblings. Rama had three brothers all born on the same day to three different mothers, and the boys were very close. Two of the brothers were twins, though Rama was not a twin. One of them even went into exile with Rama when their stepmother tried to promote her own son as King Dasharatha’s successor, and that son selected to stay loyal to Rama during the exile. The brothers demonstrate true kinship between siblings, and all ended up marrying women from the same family, another royal house.
Marriage and love: Rama is often mentioned in the same breath as Sita, his beloved wife, and they are often shown together in bhakti images, the triumphant couple. Sita was known as a daughter of Earth, and Rama was the divine incarnation of Vishnu, which may recall the twin brothers Castor and Pullox, one of whom was a terrestrial man while the other was a son of Zeus. Rama and Sita had a celebrated love, one that lasted a lifetime (despite varying accounts on the matter). Gemini is associated with the tarot card called The Lovers.
Being nice: King Dasharatha was a nice, thoughtful, and generous ruler. Rama is known to be one too, in his time. King Dasharatha’s household seems to be so much in harmony that his three wives appear to coexist happily, and their sons love each other. Rama in particular is known to be extremely nice. Even when his stepmother Kaikeyi used an old promise from her husband King Dasharatha to oust Rama into exile for fourteen years, Rama is nice and courteous about it. He even parts with his three mothers lovingly, showing no grudge. Cancer, the sign associated with motherhood and the name of the age that precedes Gemini (a sign for whom it is important to stay personable and nice in general) in the precession, had already decayed. Kaikeyi’s perversity at requesting so much suffering on Rama’s part may be a nod to the passing of the Age of Cancer.
Problem solving: It is in the third house that we first learn the basics of problem solving. In the Ramayana, there are very few problems that have no solutions. In fact, Rama was born to solve a problem and slay a terrifying demonic being who couldn’t be killed by anything mightier than a man.
Verbal weapons: Rama and his brother Lakshmana studied with a holy man in their youth and were given sacred mantras to use as weapons that could slay demons handily. Gemini and the third house are particularly focused on language.
Friendship: Gemini is a sign that values true friendship highly. The friendship between Rama and the monkey leader Hanuman is celebrated throughout the world. Hanuman helped Rama find his wife Sita after she was abducted and aided in her rescue. One common bhakti image of Hanuman is a monkey tearing open his chest to reveal a heart with Rama and Sita visible inside it, as if he holds them always in his heart.
Local community: The third house is the house of our local community. In the Ramayana, Rama is so beloved in his local community that there was widespread mourning in his father’s kingdom when Rama was exiled.

Sagittarius themes invoked:
Not being mean: Jupiter is the ruler of Sagittarius, and prescribes good humor and broad mindedness. In Rama’s culture, meanness seems to be so rare that his stepmother Kaikeyi’s betrayal of Rama is shocking, and the grief ends up killing his father.
Rape and abduction: Barbaric Ravana abducts Sita and seems intent on raping her. Sagittarius’s symbol is a centaur, a creature that brings up themes of that sort of behavior.
Chivalry: Central to the story of Rama is that Rama must rescue his love, Sita, from a violent villain who has abducted her. Sagittarius is an energy that thrives on chivalry.
Destiny: Sagittarius is a sign concerned with destiny and finding one’s destiny. Rama wasn’t just born a king, he was born to vanquish the evil Ravana, and many events in his life set him and kept him firmly on the path to doing so.
Wilderness: Sagittarius is very connected to the wild. Rama was exiled to the wilderness for fourteen years to delay his accession to the throne.
Good and evil: The Ramayana is a classic tale of good versus evil. The humans are mostly very markedly good in the story of Rama, and they defy evil. Sagittarius rules the ninth house, one of the houses where we confront questions of good and evil in the philosophical sense.
Bow and arrows: The centaur of Sagittarius is a bowman. Rama is known to have carried a bow and arrow, and he had to lift a huge artifact called Shiva’s bow to win his bride Sita in a contest for her hand in marriage.
Devotion: Hanuman is known for his personal and practical devotion to Rama and Sita, and his willingness to help and serve them. He is known as an example of devotion to God. Sagittarius and the ninth house do well to never forget devotion to the good higher power that they answer to.

I may expand more on these later. This mystery of the Ages has many mystical and practical features.

──── by Lync Dalton ────

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