Astrology, numerology, sacred geometry, alchemy, tarot cards all sound like topics of books you may find in a New Age store, right? But could it be that the New Age is really the Old Age?
The Medici Family ushered the Renaissance or Age of Rebirth. Cosimo the Elder’s thirst for knowledge saved many great literally works from being extinguished by the Catholic Church.
The manuscript that was most revered was that by Hemes Trimegistist, an ancient text detailing sacred knowledge handed down through the ages. This book contained the mystical secrets of alchemy, the Philosopher’s Stone, and Hemes Trimegistist’s great work.
Marsilio Ficino a much overlooked but very influential figure in Renaissance history, was the tutor of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Facino translated Hermes Trimegistist’s work, and Plato headed the Platonic Academy where great artists, writers and philosophers such as Michangelo, Botticelli, Raffaella and Piro della Mirandello met in secret at the Medici Villa in Careggi. Ficino even ventured to declare that man was not a miserable sinner, as the Church would have people believe, but a divine spark of God that could return to the divine state. He and Lorenzo helped to pull the world out from the shadows of the Dark Ages.
To this day you can find many of these principals scattered about in New Age shops and psychic fairs presented in a fragmented, disjointed context, because we have lost the connective threads of thought which bound them all together. Take tarot cards, for example. In Italy, the oldest known tarot deck exists under glass in a museum in Milan. Originally thought to be a game, the belief was that those who knew the real meaning of the tarot only pretended to be “playing” cards because divination of the tarot was punishable by death — but the punishment for gambling was only a slight fee.
The real wisdom of the tarot relates to astrology, numerology, sacred geometry, the mystical Kabballah and more. Ancient religions were rich in knowledge of the zodiac and the movements of our solar system, our galaxy, and the rotation of the Earth. These cultures held ancient knowledge that modern science is just now discovering.
In ancient times, astrology was held sacred. There was a story adherent in almost every religion — the story about a son of God born on December 25 to a virgin. The son traveled around in the company of twelve others, died but was resurrected on the third day.
This has been interpreted as the son of God being the sun, and the death and birth the equinoxes. The twelve would be the twelve houses of the zodiac.
Even to this day the Catholic Church is steeped in signs of sun worship, The halo around Christ’s head is a helios or sun sign, and the cross is the crossing of the sun.
However, during the Dark Ages, even to mention that the sun may be the center of our solar system and not the Earth bought you a roasting in the fires of hell, literally and figuratively. During the Middle Ages, all of this knowledge was lost. Man was told that he or she was a miserable sinner who must suffer through life to hopefully be rewarded someday, in the afterlife. It was not a concept wholly unique to Christianity. If anyone dared to mention any scientific truths, they would be burned at the stake.
The first person to say that the sun, not the Earth, was at the center of our solar system was, in fact, burned at the stake. During the Dark Ages, more than 50 million human beings were tortured and killed by the Catholic Church. Even when Galileo had proof that the sun was the center of the solar system, he was forced to retract his statement or perish like his predecessors.
However, Hermetic principals practiced in secret, and they did find their way into the Church and helped to free up the world enough to have a Renaissance that laid way for new growth and discoveries in all areas of humanity.
Perhaps instead of yet another rebirth, or New Renaissance of the old Age of Pisces, which astrologers claim ended with the great cosmic alignment of 12/21/12, it is time for humanity to fully embrace the new Age of Aquarius.
