Dear Friends,

Amanda Painting¹, a Cygnus reader, suggested that it would be a lovely idea to describe to you all how Cygnus started, and how it evolved. We’ve never told the first part of the story to anyone except a few very close friends, but my sons tell me it would be good to tell all. So here goes.

Well, the story really began more than 40 years ago, when I had a strange dream. In it, I found myself in a cave with a number of men and women dressed in dark robes. Two of them showed me a huge book with many seals, and then pointed towards an absolutely vast multitude of people – you couldn’t see where it ended – and told me that one day, in the future, they would want me to share with all those people what was in the book. I said, ‘Oh no. I couldn’t possibly be any good at that.’ And pointing to one of the other people there I suggested ‘why don’t you ask him? He would be much better at it than me’. But the answer I received was: ‘Yes, but we want you to do it.’ So I gave them my word.

Then I woke up, and thought with great amazement about the dream, as I had never had one so seemingly portentous in my life before. Soon, though, I dozed off again, and the whole dream repeated itself – identical in every detail. Seems I wasn’t supposed to forget it! This was a defining moment for me, and it has coloured my whole life ever since.

Following a dream

But… I was only sixteen at the time, so had not the slightest clue how to fulfil my promise, and became quite distraught about my ignorance. This perturbation lasted for years, actually, but I decided that the best way forward was to do all I could to prepare myself, and take every opportunity that presented itself to do at least something towards my goal. So, I trained to be a teacher because I thought that might be useful. There, the most important thing I learned was that the role of a good teacher is not to know all the answers, but to empower others to find out the answers for themselves. Later, when I gave up teaching, I learned to type. Then I got involved with publishing. I also joined a spiritual school in Holland, where I met Geoff, and where I hoped I would gain the experience and insight that would allow me to serve the Spirit in others and in myself.

Seeing a sign

Later, when we had our first child and I needed to be able to work at home, Geoff and I started a publishing services company – Cygnus’s first incarnation, as we call it! Why did we name it Cygnus? Well, we had no idea what we were going to call it until one day when – on holiday in Guernsey – we came across a pub sign with a strikingly beautiful swan on it. As soon as we spotted it, we brought the car to a screeching halt in the middle of the road and took a photograph. Afterwards, electrified, we sat together on a grassy cliff-top and shared what we both knew: that our business would be called Cygnus (Latin for ‘swan’), and that it would somehow help to draw us closer to our task.

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Feeling already the overlighting, protecting wings of the great swan, we remembered together some deeply impressive words we had read in the Confessio Fraternitatis, one of the manifestos of the 17th century Rosicrucians which contains many prophecies that are said to relate to the times we are living in now²:

God, indeed, hath already sent messengers which should testify His will, to wit some new stars which have appeared in Serpentarius and Cygnus, the which powerful signs of a great Council shew forth how for all things which human ingenuity discovers, God calls upon His hidden knowledge, as likewise the Book of Nature, though it stands open truly before all eyes, can be read or understood by only a very few.

In the 17th century, two supernovae (only eight have ever been seen with the naked eye) really did appear in the constellations of Serpentarius and Cygnus, causing a great stir, since they were considered to be portents heralding a new era of enlightenment. And we believe that these particular constellations genuinely do have special significance for the great, transformative journey we are all making together, which is why our swan logo has a star above its head.

17th century engraving of The Invisible College showing the new stars in Cygnus and Sperpentarius

In The Cygnus Mystery, Andrew Collins writes:

There is something very special about the influence of the Cygnus constellation on the human mindset. It was seen in the past as the source of cosmic life and death. Our most distant ancestors actually believed that life came from this region of space, and that the souls of the righteous would return there in death. In many ways it was the first location of heaven.

Returning to our quote from the Confessio Fraternitatis, it also refers to the Book of Nature, and this, too, is significant. Over the years we had become convinced that the great tome I had been shown in my dream was not a book in the conventional sense, but the Book of Life, sometimes known as the Book of Nature or the Book M (standing for Mundi – Latin for ‘world’). And the reason why it ‘can be read or understood by only a very few’is that it is not so much a book as a language, inscribed in the natural world around us and in our own hearts, a language that can only be read with the eyes of the awakening soul, and which tells us everything we need to know to reach our goal of True Humanhood, one step at a time.

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So, back to the story. We chuntered on with our publishing services efforts for a few years, and then in 1991 a friend was visiting and happened to mention an old occult novel we had heard was good and wanted to read. Called The Angel of the West Window, it was all about the Elizabethan magus John Dee, who, through his trials and tribulations, miscalculations and mistakes eventually made a living, vibrant connection with Truth, and with the shining, eternal community of other souls who have made that same connection. Well, the book was available in German and other European languages but not, as far as we knew, in English. So our friend said, ‘Why don’t you publish it?’. To which we replied, ‘Well, we wouldn’t want to publish something unless we knew we could sell it. How could we be sure there would be a market for the book? Shops probably wouldn’t want many. We would have to find some way of making direct contact with the public.’ None of us could think of a way to do that, so the subject was dropped.

A moment we will never forget

But Geoff carried on thinking about it and that evening pronounced the fateful words: ‘Why don’t we start a book club?’ In the silence that followed, we both realised that we had gathered all the skills we would need to do it, that we could do it, that we would do it, and that it would be the best way yet of helping to fulfil the task we had always felt was calling us. It was an ‘Aha’ moment we will never forget.

Anyway, just a couple of weeks later, as we ploughed through piles of catalogues looking for books we could sell in our embryonic ‘book club’, we saw that, by coincidence, another publisher had just thought of publishing The Angel of the West Window in English. So all we would have to do was sell it! Dedalus was the name of the publisher, and its owner, George Barrington, has kept the book in print throughout the last twenty years, which is why we are able to offer it to you in this magazine.

For the first few years, the Cygnus Review was just twelve pages of black and white, with very few books and fewer features, but it seemed that, right from the start, people really did feel something special when they opened it. We often used to look at the magazine and wonder why that was – given that there was so little in it and it didn’t look particularly marvellous. We came to the conclusion that the inspiration and comfort our members have always received from the magazine, while partially stimulated by its actual content, was also fed and warmed by something quite intangible – the energy of the overlighting swan itself (we’ll say more about the swan another time).

Then, in the late 90s, Book Club Associates, the Readers’ Digest and Time Life all decided it would be a brilliant plan to start mind, body, spirit book clubs. Suddenly, we were competing with the big boys! That’s when we learned how good competition is for businesses. It forces you to stand on tiptoe – to grow, improve, and learn. And that was why, in 1999, the Cygnus Review became a colour magazine with a lot more content.

In the palm of a great hand

And then, along came Amazon, and within a few years, all three competing book clubs had folded, unable to withstand Amazon’s policy of putting market share above all else. Little Cygnus, however, remained – partly because our small size allowed us to be more flexible, but mainly because of our determination not to swerve from our task. It has not been easy, however, and it does not get easier, which is why 2012 will at last be the year in which Cygnus is reborn in a form that takes into account all the changes in the world and the book trade, but that allows us to continue with our most important goal – to share with you what we have read in the Book of Nature, and to help you to learn to read it yourself, to find out all you need to know for the next step of your journey, even if there were no books, even if there were no one else on earth who could guide you.

For, as we wrote in our 2012 calendar,

‘We rest in the palm of a great hand. Eternally safe, we can never be lost or go astray, however things may seem. Give thanks then, every day, for life’s utter perfection.’

In a year that promises to be full of upheaval, we hope these words will help you to remember how very safe and protected you actually are, and to keep the ship of your life absolutely on course.

No storm shall toss her, nor tempest turn her,
for strong are her oarsmen and steady their oars.
The good star shall guide her, peace be beside her,
as swiftly she sails to the other shore.

With all our love,

Ann, Geoff, and the Cygnus Team

¹ Take a peek at www.amandapainting.co.uk to discover Amanda’s passion for helping people to follow their dreams and enjoy her singing, too.

² See ‘The Secret Teachings of All Ages’ [170308].

When I was contemplating Kick-Ass Angels, I was at first baffled by the task the angels had given me. I could feel the need for such a book, but at the same time I was unsure how to go about writing it or even what its contents might be. I began to centre myself in the concept of the book, and, like opening a door onto a whirlwind, the Zoroastrian angels made themselves known to me!

The Zoroastrian angels are those revealed to the world by the ancient Persian mage, Zoroaster or Zarathustra. Zoroastrian priests were the famous Magi, known to commune with angels as part of their daily rituals. It was, indeed, Zoroaster who introduced to humanity the concept of angels as we understand them today. The orders of angels, particularly that of the archangels headed by Michael, are perceived in their established guise as a direct result of Zoroaster’s illumination. In addition, his teachings on the God of Light and God’s adversary, the Lie, preceded the teachings of all the great spiritual traditions, which echo them throughout their various doctrines.

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The amesha spentas, the six major archangels according to Zoroaster’s vision, appeared to me in the form of the six-pointed star that so many of us use in our spiritual work. Mithra, Angel of Glory (not to be confused with Mithras!) was there in the scintillating star, overlighting all, disclosing to me her-his revelation of the Golden Twin, our own higher self who gathers us up into our true heart centre when we are flagging and shows us that we are indeed ‘the unconquerable sun’. Each of the six angels was a pulse point beyond which multitudes of radiant beings thronged. Their grace and love and brilliance of unearthly light were measureless.

Dynamic spiritual force

They revealed to me that they were what I had conceived of as the ‘kick-ass’ angels – life-transforming angels of dynamic spiritual force that allow us to locate our hidden ‘prison cells’ and overturn the sentences we have, often unwittingly, imposed upon ourselves. They unbind the aspects of us that dwell there in chains, casting out fears and limitations, changing stifling psychic air and letting the winds of the spirit blow freely, like a bracing mountain breeze.

The kick-ass angels are angels of resurrection, spiritual revolution and resolution. They are a burst of life everlasting. Their potency is in their wake-up call, for, as they themselves conveyed to me, the kick-ass angels are angels of awakening.

The Zoroastrian angels wanted me to look again at a story of our human origins that I had intuited with Margaret Bailey. We had traced what was to us the breathtaking and revelatory outline of momentous but hidden events in human history as they unfolded throughout the descent of the Abrahamic bloodline, whose origin was recorded in the ancient records of the people of Sumer, many thousands of years ago.

Although, according to my perception of what the angels imparted to me, that story was confirmed as accurate, there was a vital element in it only touched upon in our work. That element was the huge significance of the biblical Ham (later termed Zoroaster) and his immense and heroic efforts to turn humankind away from the Shadow, or the Lie, which obscures the full wonder of our own humanity from us. Although we had indeed shone a light upon Ham, I saw that his involvement in humanity’s story was so hands-on that it needed further revelation.

Humanity is give a choice

Throughout Kick-Ass Angels runs the story of Zoroaster (Ham, a Sanskrit name meaning ‘I Am’, the sacred name of God dwelling within humanity), who, with his gift of revelation of the angels to humankind, prepared the way so that we could achieve an unprecedented spiritual breakthrough at this time in history. Zoroaster had a harrowing task to complete. He had knowledge of our beginnings as a human race, knowledge that has been forgotten today but is slowly being restored to us. He knew that his God of Light, and the obscuring Shadow or Lie that sought to divide us from that Light, had their human representations through whom cosmic and divine principles played.

Looking down the course of human history, Zoroaster saw that there were certain culmination points where humanity would be given a choice as to which road to take. These culmination points have been numerous, but the greatest of all is now upon us.

We stand at a crossroads today. The dividing of the way is already coming into focus. Will we collectively cling on to old selfish mindsets and unloving attitudes, or will we at last take a giant evolutionary leap forward into freedom and our higher, greater selves?

Although we stand on the brink, overlooking the chasm, the angels assure us that we will successfully make the required leap – on the condition that we do not fall asleep again in the great Cloud of Unknowing that threatens to engulf us at the last moment. What we need, it seems, are kick-ass angels!

Kick-ass angels will ensure that we stay awake and, with a little prompting from behind, propel ourselves forward! We need their divine dynamism. We need their help in our daily lives and our personal lives. We need their help to fulfil our potential. We need their help in realizing our spiritual selves. And we need their help collectively at this point in our history. Without the aid of the kick-ass angels, the transformation of the future cannot begin.

Claire Nahmad © 2012

For four decades, Richard Heinberg has been observing why our current growth based economy is unsustainable. He has written seminal books on peak oil and the global effects of the end of easily extracted cheap oil. We are now entering that period in human history. Oil prices are on the rise again and companies are mining oil from less easily accessible sites (for instance, BP’s deep water explorations in the Gulf of Mexico). As oil becomes scarcer, the risk of accidents increases along with the price per barrel yet humanity’s insatiable desire for this black gold continues. It is at the heart of how we run our post-industrial societies in the West and is fuelling the industrial expansion of the developing world.

Resources are peaking

Richard has also turned his attention beyond oil and has explored the logical scenario that all our finite energy and mineral resources are peaking. We have seen what happens when a resource peaks and becomes uneconomic to extract in a region. Our history is littered with peaks. Cast your mind back to the demise of Cornwall’s industry or when cheaper coal imports closed much of the UK’s coalmines. Entire communities became unemployed.

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Yet Richard is a visionary rather than a doomsayer. As Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute in California, he not only identifies limits, he explores the cultural, psychological, and practical changes we will have to make as nature rapidly dictates these new limits. His work has inspired and guided many other luminaries like Rob Hopkins, the pioneer of the global Transition movement.

This work – the ability to face the difficult effects of resource depletion and then map future scenarios for our post-carbon world – makes Richard more than an economist or environmentalist. He is a scholar, an intellectual powerhouse, and a man of vision.

A man of vision

The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality is his latest book. Whether you are a seasoned peak oil thinker or new to this subject, it is written with great clarity of mind and in a way that easily engages and explains complex systems. The book makes the compelling argument that the global economy has reached a fateful, fundamental turning point. We are watching it begin to unravel right now. Energy and food prices are rising whilst our levels of debt in the West, which until recently has been funded by continued economic growth, are viral.

Our banks can no longer prop up our economies with cheap loans. Countries like France who have enjoyed decades of high standing for their credit rating are no longer unscathed. The old model of boom and then bust – the bubble effect – is over. Recession can no longer end in a ‘recovery’. We have to face the triple whammy of mineral and fossil fuel resource depletion, climate change, and financial disruptions. Our monetary systems are not able to adapt to the global environmental changes and to service our escalating government and private debts.

This is indeed our new economic reality. Better to embrace it now and make personal, social and planetary changes rather than live in denial and pay later.

To thrive in the coming years

This is a very sober picture. It is, however, probably the only way humanity will wake up and evolve away from greed and the misuse of our Earth’s bounty to a more mature and responsible way of living. Richard acknowledges that this book has the potential to ‘undermine… mental equilibrium in a way that is both uncomfortable and exhilarating’. That is, I believe, a vital aspect of expanding consciousness. We are called to bravely face unpalatable truths about our collective future and begin to work out ways in which to thrive in the coming years. The challenge will be to move away from an obsessively materialistic focus and to work out ways of being happy with less, rather than indulging in the futile pursuit of growth at any cost. This will require profound personal and societal change.

Bridging the transition

I believe that this is a deeply spiritual message and that it needs to be heard. I also believe that we all have a personal responsibility to understand how our world is unravelling in order to contribute to what Joanna Macy calls The Great Turning, the transition to a post-carbon future. It is not enough to be complacent, do nothing and say, ‘It is all meant to be’. Affected badly, our post-carbon future could indeed be a grim apocalyptic struggle for resources with terrible inequalities and progressive eco-system collapse. Therefore, we all need to participate in practical and intellectual ways and help bridge this transition. The End of Growth will push your boundaries, take you on this path and force a change of perspective. You cannot remain unchanged by this book.

Maddy

Maddy Harland is the editor of Permaculture Magazine – inspiration for sustainable living – exploring practical solutions for the Great Turning. She also edits permaculture.co.uk, a regularly updated website exploring this subject.

Richard Heinberg is widely regarded as one of the world’s most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels. Visit richardheinberg.com for more information and discussion.

Have you ever wondered why self-help and healing strategies do not always work – even when practised diligently and even by their own teachers? This has often bothered me, especially when I have seen close friends work hard at these techniques and then not achieve the new life or health they want. Sometimes my friends have been not only disappointed but have also, tragically, even felt stung and ashamed by their lack of success. These negative feelings and thoughts arise, I want to suggest, because people do not have the full picture of what is going on when they strive to fulfil their potential and use these self-help strategies. They do not see what is beneath the surface – the unseen realities.

So let me create a couple of fables to help explain.

Facing reality

The first is about a young beech tree. This beautiful young tree was very happy to be part of his small forest, growing with his friends and family, passing through the seasons, providing a home for small creatures. Then one day he began to develop some self-awareness.

‘I’m not just part of the forest,’ he thought, ‘I am also a unique me, a unique tree.’

That autumn he decided that he did not want to lose his leaves like the rest of his beech tree family. ‘I have my own unique consciousness. I decide my own fate. I shall keep my leaves green and vibrant through the winter.’ He focused and focused and willed himself, using mantra and affirmations, to retain his foliage. I am green and vibrant. I am green and vibrant.

But he lost his leaves. They turned golden and fell to the ground.

The next year he decided that he wanted to be the tallest tree in his forest and carry the most beechnuts. He concentrated hard to deepen his roots and extend his branches and stretch his DNA. He indeed grew an extra few feet but still there were older beech trees far taller and the giant Douglas fir dwarfed them all.

Then the following year the weather system blew in some polluting acid rain from northern industrial Europe. Along with all other trees in his forest, unable to avoid the environmental realities, he suffered the burning effects of the pollution and took some years to recover.

For all his willpower he could not avoid the realities of nature.

Beneath the surface

The second fable turns our attention to Antarctica and to a beautiful young penguin who was sitting on top of a small and icy mound. She was a proud and haughty penguin and felt that she too was a unique individual. She had hatched on an ice shelf along with several thousand others in her colony and had slid and slithered with all her cousins down to the ocean, but she knew deep down that she was special and had a unique destiny.

‘I will create my own life,’ she knew. ‘I will not only swim. I will fly!’

Bravely she left her colony and set off on her own. She was determined and wilful and waddled for many miles, finally reaching a small mountain. This, she knew, she felt it in her bones, was the magic place! If she could only reach the peak she would then be able to fly. After more days of gruelling struggle, she reached the mountaintop.

‘Now I shall fly!’

She put her all her will and intention into her desire to become airborne. Nothing happened. She remained earth-bound. Dismayed she collapsed on to the ground and fell into a fitful sleep from which she was awoken by terrible cracking and grinding noises. The earth and ice beneath her were moving.

‘If I cannot fly, I will use my will to stop the earth moving,’ she thought. But her thoughts were, sadly, useless. She looked around. To her dismay she saw that she was, in fact, sitting on the peak of an enormous iceberg floating off into the ocean, leaving behind the landmass and her fellow creatures.

‘Stop! Stop!’ she cried. But the iceberg floated away to its own inevitable destiny.

Penguins cannot fly and the major mass of an iceberg is beneath the surface.

Powerful forces

Returning now to self-help strategies for achieving perfect health and wealth. The insights are clear. The unseen problem with these strategies is that they rarely look at the deeper realities and conditions. In fact, many unseen forces influence our physical health and our material conditions.

How many of us are like a tiny penguin sitting on an iceberg, trying to alter our situation, but unaware that the most important realities are below our conscious awareness?

Beneath our desire for a healthier and happier life is a massive substratum of powerful forces: personal karma, family karma, collective karma, unconscious emotions, feelings and histories. All of these cannot just be transformed by, for example, the repetition of an affirmation no matter how diligently or purely it is repeated. Even when we commit fully to deep transformation and do the hard work of personal growth, we will almost always meet the forces of our past.

How many of us are also like the beech tree, wanting the impossible and trying to escape the rhythms and waves of nature and the forces of our environment?

When we focus on our health we cannot for example avoid the reality that we belong to the vast interdependent collective of humanity, nature and cosmos. The actual atoms and molecules of our bodies, for example, do not belong individually to us, but belong to the Earth. This means that, regardless of our unique individual identities, our bodies share the collective conditions of all carbon-based creatures. So illnesses like cancer may arise simply from the contact of our bodies with the toxins of our surroundings. Or epidemics may overwhelm us. Just as beech trees shed their leaves in Autumn, so we too are embedded in nature and our environment.

Spiritual beings

Of course, there are also miracles, growth and development that transcend these collective realities. But in general penguins do not fly!

The real miracle, glory and majesty of being human is that we are also spiritual beings. This means that we have real control over and are sovereigns of our own consciousness and hearts. Regardless of our circumstances or health, we have the absolute freedom to develop spiritually: to grow our love, our awareness, our compassion.

So even when we are not succeeding at self-help strategies to improve our material conditions, we can still develop our spirituality. More compassion, more consciousness. True healing, development and fulfilment.

The wise beech tree and the contented penguin.

All my love, William

For William’s public workshops and presentations visit www.williambloom.com

Since my article ‘Consciousness Change’ was published in Cygnus Magazine last February, I have received numerous requests for an update.

The end of October proved to be a time when all of the planned for energy shifts and the completion of the last ‘Epoch’ of the Mayan Calendar came together to produce a move into new possibilities which lead into a new future. Human energy frequencies have now reached frequency parity with the Earth’s at 3.5 kHz and the end of the last Epoch allows us to move into the start of new cycles of existence.

There were no fireworks to the completion of these two events, just a quiet sigh of satisfaction of a job well done and a quiet acceptance of the turmoil that the new energy will bring into the new year.

A great deal of our true past has been deliberately hidden from us by those who would attempt to keep control over us. As our levels of consciousness continue to rise to our new resonance, all of the ways in which controls have been exerted over us are being exposed and those who are awakening to the new consciousness are now more able to see world events for what they are.

Unfortunately, we are likely to see these kinds of events continuing for a little while longer as those who exercised that control misguidedly believe that they still do – the recent events in Libya and what is happening with banking and the Euro being prime examples.

So what are the rising energy frequencies actually doing? For some people, there is a realisation that they have resolved all of their life’s problems and are ready to move on to the final stage of soul reintegration. For others, long ignored problems and issues are forcing themselves to the surface in such a way that they cannot be ignored any longer – intuition and the chakras need to be paid attention to. However, once these long ignored problems are dealt with and resolved, they too would feel ready to move on to the final stages of change.

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As this emotional clearance takes place, we begin to see world events and the people around us in a new light. Instead of being bogged down in the detail, we can see world events from a higher perspective and, instead of worrying about them we can rise above them and see them as symptoms of change and final clearance instead of seeing them as symptoms of a continuing problem.

For many people, though, there is an increasing sense of frustration and this arises from the fact that they have sorted all of their problems out and feel ready and eager to take the final step.

As far as the Akashic is concerned, world wide, there are currently over two and a half billion people who are ready and able to make that final step into full consciousness reintegration, so what is stopping them? The answer is that there are many who would maintain the current state of control and fear-mongering in the population and they are attempting to prevent any of this change happening. If individuals underwent their final soul reintegration by themselves they would almost certainly be incarcerated in order to prevent the rest of the world from seeing them and knowing that they exist; we would see persecution on an unprecedented scale. However, if there is a mass consciousness shift involving over 2.5 billion people, the move to change becomes unstoppable and cannot be ignored or hidden away.

The timing of the final move to total soul re-integration is still a little in the planning stage. We know what we are doing and we know that we are ready; it is just a question of when. Two and a half billion people represent about 35 per cent of the total population – exactly on track – and when we move forwards together, nothing will be able to stop this change from occurring.

The latest that this mass shift will occur will be during 2012.

All any of us can do until then is try to be patient and not to become depressed or caught up in world events. The world is cleansing itself of all harmful influences as a part of this change and we need to let it happen; attempting to stop it will only prolong the agony and delay our mass reintegration.

Try to remember that everything is doing exactly what it needs to do and everything is happening for a purpose and that purpose is to cleanse this Earth of all influences that would hold us back. Once we have ALL completed our individual soul reintegrations together, we will then be able to work together to return the Earth to Her original pristine condition and move into a new and unpolluted future.

We are so close to completing the 7,000 years of ‘The Human Plan’ that all we need to be is patient for a few more months in order to achieve a future on our beautiful Earth that has no limits.

© 2011 Chris Thomas

Chris Thomas has been working as a psychic and psychic surgeon for about 30 years. He was born ‘hard-wired’ into the Akashic, the record keeping aspect of the Universal mass-consciousness, which he can access at will without any form of meditation or intermediary.

Click here for the selection of Chris Thomas titles available from Cygnus.

Click here to read Chris Thomas’s other articles.

New Energies

Humanity is primed to undergo the greatest shift in consciousness that has ever been seen in the history of our Universe.

Seven thousand years of human history  – ‘The Human Plan’  – is approaching its fruition and 2012 promises to be the year when all of our hard work, our aspirations and dreams finally come together to re-merge the whole of the soul back into the physical body.

But how will this happen? How will we know when the time is tight? How will we be at the end of this change?

The change we are undergoing has never been attempted anywhere in the whole of Creation and so we are having to feel our way into our new future; but there are some clues and signposts along the way.

One such ‘signpost’ has just begun to emerge from the mists that shroud our future.

The Present

Over the past ten years, more and more people are waking up to the fact that all is not well in the world.

Political posturing and lies are being uncovered; real conspiracies are being brought to light and the mood of the population is for clarity and the end of being subject to the whims of an ‘Elite’ (also known as Illuminati, Cabal, Bilderbergers).

All of this uncovering is a part of our own awakening.

For  almost 300 years we have been mislead by those who see themselves as being above the rest of humanity and these ‘Elite’ have forced themselves into positions of political power in order to create an agenda to which the rest of the world was subjected without our conscious knowledge.

As we moved into the 21st century, cracks began to appear in the elitist’s plans and more and more people have become aware that an agenda is at work and that this agenda affects every man, woman and child on the planet.

However, we have been largely powerless to do much about it. Any signs of discontent are stomped on immediately with increasing severity. The media is controlled to the point where the Elite can tell any lie without being questioned and any proof of the Elite’s agenda is ridiculed as a ‘conspiracy theory’.

But, the energy is changing.

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Cosmic Forces

The year 2012 has long been prophesised as the end of the world. Many have taken this statement literally and see this  year as being one of catastrophe and the end of all things to do with Earth.

But this is not the case.

It is the end of life as we have known it, for the past seven thousand years, and a change into a new way of being.

This duality of endings and new beginnings is not accidental but has been planned for 7,000 years and planned in such a way that a number of different forces and energies all combine together at the same time to produce a new reality.

Time-line

In 1996, a new energy was connected to the Earth from deep within the Universe. This new energy is designed to provide us with all that we would need to bring about a change of consciousness.

This new energy began by gradually changing the way in which we see ourselves, our place on Earth and our place within the Universe.

In 2002, the Earth altered Her own energy patterns. This change on an Earth level was purely to help humans to move on.

The traditional ‘base-note’ frequency of the Earth was 7.56 Hz. In 2002, this was raised to 3.5 kHz. This massive change in frequency was to accommodate the needs of people so that the higher self could be re-integrated back into the physical body.

By 2005, we had reached the point where we humans could begin to move forwards.

We had, to a certain extent, absorbed and come to terms with the ‘push’ generated by the 1996 energy but we were still far away from our goal.

As we moved  through this period, the first people to re-integrate the soul back into the body began to so do. These re-integrations were very successful and virtually no problems were encountered.

People undergoing this process is still underway today but only gradually.

By the end of October 2010, we had raised our individual and collective energies to the point where we could begin a new acceleration.

Between the start of November 2010 and the 28th of October 2011, humans raised their own base-note energy frequencies into full alignment with the Earth’s new frequency. By the end of October 2011, we had reached full frequency parity with the Earth at 3.5 kHz.

Whilst a major step forwards, this was not the start of full soul re-integration  – a number of events need to occur before we can achieve that.

During this period, there were numerous attempts to distract us and prevent us from fully understanding our potential.

The two Gulf Wars,  Afghanistan,  the attack on New York’s twin towers on the 11th of September 2001, the bombing of London on the 7th of July 2005, the attack on Libya in 2011 were all engineered by the ‘Elite’ and carried out by secret services (CIA & MI6) as well as the military/industrial complex in order to create as much fear as possible in the population.

Add to  these atrocities the deliberate manipulation of the banks and money markets and we have a population that is subdued and fearful and, more importantly, fearful of their futures. Adding to this level of fear is the total myth of man-made global warming.

Instead of moving into our consciousness shift with an open heart and understanding, the Elite attempted to stop this change in its tracks by forcing people to see the world as one where they were unlikely to survive.

Fortunately, we are not on our own.

The Earth

All too often we forget that this lump of rock we live on has a consciousness of Her own and despite this lack of  human  regard, the Earth still sees us as Her ‘Children’.

The Earth, too, has been heavily involved in The Human Plan; in fact, nothing could have been planned and worked out without Her.

Along with the new energy source that arrived in 1996, the orbit of the solar system brought  us into growing alignment with the centre of our galaxy.

The energy arriving from the centre of the galaxy also added to the impetus for change.

This galactic alignment has become more direct since 1996 and we are now, at the end of 2011, bathed in positive energy patterns never before seen.

All of these new energy sources are acting together to help us.

When we began to help ourselves and completed our base-note  frequency acceleration, the Earth could begin a new phase of development. This She began on the 13th of December 2011.

This new source of energy brought about by the Earth is feeding into the human mass-consciousness and its purpose is to bring about a new wave of change.

The level of dissatisfaction brought about by the activities of the Elite means that the human mass-consciousness has reached critical mass. This new Earth energy is there to gently push the human mass-consciousness to a point where we create a tsunami for change.

The human mass-consciousness is a region where we are all connected together on a subtle level. If enough people believe the same thing, the knowledge or belief will switch over to a point where we all ‘know’ the same thing. In scientific terms it is known as ‘morphic resonance’ or more generally as ‘the hundredth monkey effect’.

The mass-consciousness has also been manipulated by the Elite to make us all believe the same thing. If all of the media is awash with the same story, enough people will begin to believe that story and then everyone begins to believe it as the morphic resonance takes hold. It is by this means that so many people ‘believe’ that cholesterol and dietary fats are bad for us, or that global warming is man-made or that the planned attack on Iran is justified.

The positive side of the mass-consciousness is that enough people have had enough of the manipulations of the Elite – a ground-swell of discontent has been building to a point where only a final nudge is needed to tilt the balance.

This is what the Earth began to do on the 13th of December – to add that nudge.

We will not see a major change immediately as too many people will be distracted by the Christmas holidays but, when  the holidays are over we should begin to see a rapid wave of change, although this wave of change could very  well begin sooner in non-Christian countries.

Although we are used to seeing changes occur slowly, you only have to think about the events and time-scale that led up to the destruction of the Berlin Wall – from complete oppression to freedom in three days – and there was nothing the Elite could do to stop it.

What is now beginning to build is the impetus to bring about rapid change on a scale that makes the tearing down of the Berlin Wall look like a child’s tea party.

As people begin to return to work during January, and the reality of the workplace begins to take hold, we should see the building of a force for change that will see fruition in February.

From February onwards we should begin to experience the destruction of the hold of the Elite over all aspects of our lives.

These will not be minor changes  – you only have to think about the extent of the Elite’s activities to realise that every aspect of our lives will be affected. Politics, banking, schooling, the military will all begin to collapse and have to be re-structured.

This does not mean that there will be chaos as all that is being done is to remove control and corruption and, potentially, the start of a true form of democracy  – something we have never really had.

As this tidal wave of change moves through January and February, it marks one of the primary ‘trigger points’ for the final soul reintegration.

This is not the final trigger point but will carry sufficient impetus to move us forwards, very rapidly, to other trigger points that will allow us to complete our soul’s wishes.

By the Earth triggering this new energy, 2012 will begin with a fundamental change to the political landscape. In political terms, the ‘hundredth monkey effect’ is very appropriate although it might not be very flattering to monkeys it certainly applies to politicians.

It will not do anyone any good to cause street demonstrations, although many probably will, as this will just lead to incarceration without charge in the many new detention centres that have been built in the last ten years.

What we need to do is to add our thoughts and  intent to the Earth, adding to our own efforts for a rapid destruction of the despotism we have been subject to for so long. Instead of meditations for world peace – they just work into the hands of the Elite – we need meditations for change and the removal of the Elite’s control (we will never have world peace until the power of the Elite is removed as they will always lie their way into another war).

February 2012 will mark the start of the final move towards soul re-integration and it is the Earth working on our behalf, together with our own efforts, that will bring this level of clearance about.

The future is bright. The future is the Earth and those who inhabit Her.

© 2011 Chris Thomas

Chris Thomas has been working as a psychic and psychic surgeon for about 30 years. He was born ‘hard-wired’ into the Akashic, the record keeping aspect of the Universal mass-consciousness, which he can access at will without any form of meditation or intermediary.

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The month of January is very deceptive: Winter may seem to drag on with its leafless trees and gloomy skies, yet, as our Celtic ancestors knew, it is actually a threshold into new light, new hope, the new dawn of the year, and a wonderful time for new beginnings. In Scotland, not so long ago, the family prepared for a clean start by saining (cleansing and blessing) their houses with holy water and herbs.

This is something we can do today and can be a most enjoyable family ritual: Collect fresh water from a local spring or pool, preferably toward the end of the first quarter of the moon. If this is impossible, use bottled spring water from a pure source. If you live with other people, form a circle around your fireplace if you have one, or else around a large lit pillar candle. Pass the water in a sunwise (clockwise) direction for everyone to drink, then take it around the house and sprinkle some in the four corners of each room.

A saining can be done by water alone. But you can also use juniper, as was the custom in Scotland. This shouldn’t be too hard to find, being a popular garden plant as well as one that grows wild in many parts of the world. If you can’t find juniper, other fragrant herbs such as rosemary and lavender can also be used. Cut a few sprigs a few days before the ceremony, and put them on the hearth or other warm place to dry out a little. When you light them, have a small bowl or shell to catch any ash or sparks that might fall. Using either your hand or a long feather, fan the smoke around each member of the household in turn, then take it to each room and blow some into the four corners.

For an even simpler house blessing, light a white candle and slowly carry the flame sunwise (clockwise) around the threshold, the hearth and four corners of each room while reciting this blessing from the Hebrides, (slightly adapted from the Carmina Gadelica by Alexander Carmichael) which invokes the goddess and saint, the Light-Bringer, Bridget:

May Bridget give blessing
To the house that is here
From crest and frame,
Both stone and beam; 

Both clay and wattle;
Both roof and foundation;
Both window and timber;
Both foot and head; 

Both man and woman;
Both wife and children;
Both young and old;
Both maiden and youth

Plenty of laughter,
Plenty of wealth,
Plenty of people,
Plenty of health,
Be always here.

This connection between the New Year and the sacred feminine is also found in Ireland, where Epiphany (January 6th) was often referred to as the Women’s Christmas. Cakes and wine were served and a circle of white candles was lit to invoke Bridget, who was originally a goddess of the Sun and the fertile Earth. At midnight, as the Twelve Days came to an end, three miracles occurred: Water in the well became wine, rushes became silk, and sandstone turned into pure gold.

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When humanity listens to the voice of the soul, rather than being seduced by the astral glamour of consumer-driven culture, then the Soul of the World, the Anima Mundi, will also emerge, like Bride or Persephone, from deep within the Earth where it has been hidden, and the long estrangement between ourselves and our first Mother will be over. This is the true meaning behind the Quest for the Holy Grail, a symbol of the Divine Feminine that was withdrawn from the world when our insatiable desire for dominance turned it into the Wasteland. For the Grail to be found, for the Wasteland to be restored to the Courts of Joy, we must learn to become co-creators in partnership with all the Living Intelligences of our planet: human, animal, faery or Devic.

In England, Bridget’s feast-day later became the festival of Candlemas, for it was marked by the blessing of the candles to brighten the long nights. Today we might regard this time as an opportunity to rekindle our own inner flame upon the shrine of the soul. So light your own candle this season, and as you do so, see this tiny flame as a spark of the One Light that shines through all the worlds. Then sense your own inner flame within your heart and know that you, too, are a spark of the Divine. Breathe in the peace of this knowledge, and listen to your soul telling you how to fully awaken into Light in the emerging year.

Blessings, Mara Freeman

www.chalicecentre.net

So… 2012 is with us at last. For some of you, it’s just another year, but for others – of whom I am one – this date has been writ large on our consciousness for a long time now.

I can’t remember when I first heard 2012 set as a date apart, but I think it was in the mid 80s when I was a first becoming immersed in shamanic practice, learning the dreaming and all that goes with it. Then, one of my rather more dangerous teachers had been given a crystal skull, although she clearly had no idea what it was for or really how to work with it. Still, it was a cool thing to have on her altar , to scare the newcomers, which really wasn’t necessary: she was far scarier than any lump of carved crystal, however life-like it may have been.

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In 2006, with the Boudica series finished, I saw an article on the crystal skull that’s in the British Museum and went to look at it, hidden away in a corner, where nobody would ever go if they weren’t not actually looking for it.

I would dearly like to think they’ve moved it somewhere more open for 2012, but doubt that they have.

Even locked in its cabinet, there was a raw power to it that set all my writer-nerves jangling, and brought back the half-memories of myths and legends I’d heard in the shamanic circles with my mad, bad teacher.

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But beyond that, what became obvious was that, while the Popul Vuh legends do speak of the various ages of man, and say that each one was destroyed; once by fire, once by earthquake, once by flood, we have no real evidence to suppose that the end of this Mayan Era was necessarily thought to be another wave of destruction.

But nevertheless, it is the end of an era. We may not have much left in writing, but we have monuments with exquisite, intricate carvings and much has been done to increase our understanding of them in the years since 2006. Then, it seemed plausible that the Maya had set 21/12/12 as their end-date of a 13-baktun cycle. Now, it seems almost certain.

Which means, in turn, that the Maya, who flourished in the middle of the first millennium CE, set the zero-date of their (fantastically complicated) calendar back in 3114BC, which makes about as much sense as a Viking deciding to do the same: the date is so far before the beginning of their civilization that there are no records of their having been around at that time.

But the Maya were not the Vikings and while the latter had supreme seafaring skills, the Maya were mathematicians and astronomers of a standard that leaves the rest of us standing. Even leaving aside that they developed the concept of zero long before anyone in the west thought of it, they were also capable of predicting astronomical events to very tight date spans. They calculated the true lengths of the lunar month and the solar year to three decimal places before we knew what decimal places are (and they were right: we found that when we finally developed computers capable of the same calculations) – and they were able to predict the forthcoming ‘galactic alignment’ when the plane of the ecliptic intersects with the galactic centre, in exact terms. The alignment takes place once very 25,700 years and lasts for 36 years within that ‘era’. 21/12/12 is the mid-point of the 36 year cycle.

So that’s the – very impressive – astronomy. The Maya knew these events, knew their dates and set their entire calendar so that it would roll over 13.0.0.0.0 next winter solstice.

But what does it mean?

Over the next twelve months, you’re going to read, see and hear endless discussions about the implications of the t13 baktun end date. There will be folk plugging everything from the arrival of Planet X, to sun flares, to pole reversals to show that the world is going to fall apart.

You can, of course believe them. If your mind stretches far enough, you can believe them all at once.

For myself, I genuinely think we’re heading for a paradigm shift. We’re either going to fall prey finally to the forces of reaction; the ‘money markets’ and the power-hungry men who drive them.… or we’re going to take a step back, shift from relentless head-mind into heart mind, realise that money isn’t everything, that the 99% function very nicely without the patronage of the 1% and that the ‘Occupy’ movement has, at its heart, the right message: that we need to devise an entirely new way of being; one based on community, on trust, on care, on passion and compassion.

We can only change the world one person at a time, and that person is us. But if each of us makes 2012 the year of our change, between us, we might be enough. Happy Hogmanay, as we used to say in the Glasgow of my childhood. May your New Year bring you all you need, and not everything you want.

© 2011 Manda Scott

The ‘scientific worldview’ is immensely influential because the sciences have been so successful. Their achievements touch all our lives through technologies and through modern medicine. Our intellectual world has been transformed through an immense expansion of our knowledge, down into the most microscopic particles of matter and out into the vastness of space, with hundreds of billions of galaxies in an ever-expanding universe.

Yet in the second decade of the twenty-first century, when science and technology seem to be at the peak of their power, when their influence has spread all over the world and when their triumph seems indisputable, unexpected problems are disrupting the sciences from within. Most scientists take it for granted that these problems will eventually be solved by more research along established lines, but some, including myself, think that they are symptoms of a deeper malaise.

In The Science Delusion, I argue that science is being held back by centuries-old assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. The biggest delusion of all is that science already knows the answers. The details still need working out, but the fundamental questions are settled, in principle.

Contemporary science is based on the philosophy of materialism, which claims that all reality is material or physical. There is no reality but material reality. Consciousness is a by-product of the physical activity of the brain. Matter is unconscious. Evolution is purposeless. God exists only as an idea in human minds, and hence in human heads.

These beliefs are powerful not because most scientists think about them critically, but because they don’t. The facts of science are real enough, and so are the techniques that scientists use, and so are the technologies based on them. But the belief system that governs conventional scientific thinking is an act of faith, grounded in a nineteenth century ideology.

The credibility crunch for the ‘scientific worldview’

For more than 200 years, materialists have promised that science will eventually explain everything in terms of physics and chemistry. Believers are sustained by the faith that scientific discoveries will justify their beliefs. The philosopher of science, Karl Popper, called this stance ‘promissory materialism’ because it depends on issuing promissory notes for discoveries not yet made. Despite all the achievements of science and technology, materialism is now facing a credibility crunch that was unimaginable in the twentieth century.

In 1963, when I was studying biochemistry at Cambridge University, I was invited to a series of private meetings with Francis Crick and Sydney Brenner in Brenner’s rooms in King’s College, along with a few of my classmates. Crick and Brenner had recently helped to ‘crack’ the genetic code. Both were ardent materialists and Crick was also a militant atheist. They explained there were two major unsolved problems in biology: development and consciousness. They had not been solved because the people who worked on them were not molecular biologists – nor very bright. Crick and Brenner were going to find the answers within ten years, or maybe twenty. Brenner would take developmental biology, and Crick consciousness. They invited us to join them.

Both tried their best. Brenner was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his work on the development of a tiny worm, Caenorhabdytis elegans. Crick corrected the manuscript of his final paper on the brain the day before he died in 2004. At his funeral, his son Michael said that what made him tick was not the desire to be famous, wealthy or popular, but ‘to knock the final nail into the coffin of vitalism.’ (Vitalism is the theory that living organisms are truly alive, and not explicable in terms of physics and chemistry alone.)

Crick and Brenner failed. The problems of development and consciousness remain unsolved. Many details have been discovered, dozens of genomes have been sequenced, and brain scans are ever more precise. But there is still no proof that life and minds can be explained by physics and chemistry alone.

Materialism provided a seemingly simple, straightforward worldview in the late nineteenth century, but twenty-first century science has left it far behind. Its promises have not been fulfilled, and its promissory notes have been devalued by hyperinflation.

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In The Science Delusion, in the spirit of radical scepticism, I turn each of the ten dogmas of materialism into a question. Entirely new vistas open up when a widely accepted assumption is taken as the beginning of an enquiry, rather than as an unquestionable truth. For example, the assumption that nature is machine-like or mechanical becomes a question: ‘Is nature mechanical?’ The assumption that matter is unconscious becomes ‘Is matter unconscious?’

I discuss what difference each topic makes and how it affects the way we live our lives. I also pose several further questions, so that those who want to discuss these subjects with friends or colleagues will have some useful starting points.

The Science Delusion is pro-science. I want the sciences to be less dogmatic and more scientific. The sciences are being held back by assumptions that have hardened into dogmas, maintained by powerful taboos. I believe that the sciences will be regenerated when they are set free. They will be more interesting and more fun.

©2011 Rupert Sheldrake

Dear Friends,

In the last weeks my heart has been moved by the death of two friends, who were also well known to Cygnus readers. You will, I am sure, want to join me in sending condolences to the families of Roger Woolger and Gill Edwards who both died recently, too young for my liking. May their journeys be graceful and blessed. May their families feel love and comfort.

Roger, you may remember, was the author of several books including the classic Other Lives, Other Selves about reincarnation and how our past lives affect us today. He was a full-blooded, incredibly intelligent, wry and independent thinker who helped to pioneer and clarify a therapeutic approach to past life memories and regression. His company was warm and stimulating.

Gill, of course, was the author of the pivotal Living Magically [090740], which was and still is a crucial bestseller and gateway book, opening up thousands of people to their inherent spirituality. Like Roger she too had a background in psychology. She was also a wonderfully accomplished teacher and a beloved inspiration to so many people in the world of contemporary spirituality. Only recently she published another important and inspiring book Conscious Medicine [201201].

Both of them were important pioneers, synthesising the best of modern psychology with the wisdom of ancient spiritual traditions. I knew them both over thirty years and had collaborated with them in various ways, always knowing that I could contact them for advice or suggestions, and sometimes we shared students who needed special support. I was in regular email contact with them and they were supportive friends. Roger and I once holidayed together. And Sabrina, to whom I am married, was the celebrant for Gill’s wedding.

Whenever I met either of them over the last three decades, our conversations were always immediately intimate, good-humoured and helpful. We knew that we were part of a movement exploring new ways of expressing and teaching spiritual development. We shared an affectionate solidarity. I am sure that all of you who knew them too, whether as colleagues, students or readers, also appreciated their strength of spiritual character and presence.

And I miss them both.

They were part of my personal landscape for many years. I am sad that their physical presence is no longer here for me and I feel some grief. I imagine that you too, reading about their passing, may also feel some emotions of loss. This is a normal human response, isn’t it, a normal sadness and emotion?

The invisible dimensions

But here is the irony. From the other side, looking down on us, I can imagine both of them smiling: Hey you down there, stop all that grieving. Life continues after death. We’re still here, but just in another dimension and we’ll meet again. Stop your sadness and get on with life!

Roger’s books and teachings were all about the dimensions after death and between our physical lives, and Gill’s teachings too were filled with this knowledge and wisdom about the invisible dimensions. In fact, after her death Gill’s family posted on her website a letter that she had recently written to someone who had just lost a loved one. Gill’s letter reminded this person about life after death and the continuation of consciousness and connection.

I too write and teach about these realms. I even lead a course on how to support the transfer of consciousness at death and I spend time every day in meditation, contemplating the dimensions beyond the gateway of death. I am sure that most readers of this magazine too are attuned to these spiritual dimensions.

But here’s the rub for us. For all the beauty of life beyond death and for all the spiritual realities, we are also warm-blooded creatures, mammals, beings of feeling and emotion. And Gill and Roger were also flesh and blood – and now they are gone.

For all the wisdom and knowledge we may have about life after death, would any of us dare to tell a parent not to grieve for their lost child? Or dare to advise a young child not to grieve for a lost parent? This would not be humane. It would lack heart.

Surely, heart is at the core of spirituality – heart, compassion, empathy, fully present to human sadness, suffering and loss, as well as to joy, celebration and genius.

Without heart, perhaps all the knowledge of the inner worlds is worth nothing.

So whilst we know full well that Gill and Roger are in a smiling state of grace, enjoying their new dimensions, and whilst celebrating their lives and gifts, it is also understandable, normal and fully human to feel loss and miss them.

And this perhaps is what I value most about Cygnus and its readers, staff, publishers and writers. We have a sense of community, a community of the heart. May it expand and radiate to serve all.

So my lovely friends and companions, whether you are in this world or the next, may the coming year be filled with graceful growth, cosmic enjoyment and abundant blessings.

Wishing you all love. William

www.williambloom.com