Originally posted as a thread on the Science & Mysticism pod - I have always been drawn towards astrology - even when my interest in things spiritual lay un-sparked. I was never interested enough to learn how to calculate any charts or anything like that, but I was a follower of one particular astrologer, whose writings I particularly related to and whose insights were published in that most British of British institutions - The Radio Times. His name was Patrick Walker and he was most uncannily accurate - at least as far as his writings meant something to me. When Patrick Walker died it was several years before I discovered an astrologer who seemed to be a worthy successor to Patrick Walker. His name was Jonathan Cainer - www.cainer.com - Jonathan most definately has a style all his own and if you read his website on a regular basis you soon become aware that he, himself, is always learning and applying new insights as he travels along the road like the rest of us. He too is "spookily accurate" as he likes to style himself. In addition to his freely available daily, weekly and monthly horoscopes he also runs a subscription service offering a regular and more in-depth insight into the planetary influences via mp3 downloads. They are very insightful, always positive in outlook, and always encouraging one to take positive advantage of the current planetary influences. I think that with any good astrologer there is a connection with something beyond mere chart calculations - probably a psychic connection that draws much more from a chart than 'if Planet A is here then this means B and C. Anyway, I recommend everyone to try him out. Few of my friends shared my enthusiasm, most seeing astrology as trivial at best. As an archaeologist with a supposedly scientist's eye for evidential 'proof' I was meant to have a more skeptical stance. But, in my heart of hearts, I could always argue the certain influences of those supreme of heavenly bodies - the sun and moon. If the moon has the force to make the oceans rise and fall by several feet then what influence must it have on us - creatures who are made up of 70% water? Nobody can argue the moon's influence on us, but the moon is reasonably close to the earth. The sun, in turn, may be far away but its distance is made up for by its size big, it's influence too is obvious. But could a case be made for planets which are so much smaller than the sun and so much further away than the moon? At the time I had neither a physical nor metaphysical framework with which to argue a case - I just liked astrology and believed in it and that was good enough for me. Later I heard about String Theory - the so-called Theory of Everything. The theory is based on the idea that everything, including the sum parts of atoms themselves, are made up of tiny vibrating strings of matter. The only difference between the matter that makes up a rock or a person is that the 'strings' vibrate at a different rate. The theory allows for different dimensions, vibrating at different frequencies - it makes sense of things like ghosts, psychic ability, life-after-death, magic - everything. It also, in turn, made sense of just how a planetary body could possibly have an influence of us little human beings millions of miles away - even if that influence was not particularly great. It is all to do with vibration. (For an aetheric-based, as opposed to a particle-based paradigm take a look at David Wilcock's free E-book, "Divine Cosmos" at www.divinecosmos.com). However, it was when I discovered the psychic readings of Edgar Cayce that I found a whole new metaphysical dimension to my belief in astrology. Cayce, known as the sleeping prophet because he gave his psychic readings for people while lying in a trance on a bed in his office, often mentioned the influences of the various planets on the 'entity' or the soul-self of the person for whom he was giving the reading. 'Astrological influences are effective in the experience of every entity', he states in reading 398-2. For example, in the 4th reading for 'entity' 137 he states: In this we find, with the influences of the solar systems, there are many elements that enter to make this rather an exceptional entity in the present earth plane ... these special influences being Mercury, Uranus, Jupiter, Venus. These all bring extraordinary vivid conditions, yet with the mental forces, especially in the conditions of Mercury, this gives exceptional forces to the entity in many respects. [137-4] And in another reading for 137 a bit more of the process of how these influences are obtained is revealed: (slightly edited for clarity) The influences ... pertain to those conditions through which the entity passed from one condition to another ... through the conscious and subconscious, and superconscious, at times becomes a portion, a spark, a knowledge ... through the conditions experienced in other planes other than earth plane. In the house of birth, many of those conditions coming in the relation from which the entity took its sojourn, or its element of directing force - Mercury. This we see applying to the mental abilities of the entity in the earth's plane, and MUST be manifest through the mental forces of the entity to a material plane. That entity may make each at present a portion of self. [137-12] The important element in the equation here is reincarnation. The 'sojourns' that Cayce speaks of are periods where the soul inhabits the dimension of another place/vibration, in this case one pertaining to the various planets of our solar system, between incarnations on earth. As an analogy, it is like us giving up our daily life and work for a year to go to a university to study a new subject. That subject may or may not be directly relevant to us when we return to our regular life and job in the 'real' world, but it will, at the very least, make us more rounded individuals and may have an influence on how we conduct, or approach our everyday life. To sum it up, think of these sojourns as a university for the soul. A brief of the generally accepted astrological influences of the planets may be given as follows, without reference to the Zodiacal Constellations: Venus - Love, beauty. Saturn - Stabilizing, limiting.  (This is the planet to which souls are cast to be cleansed of all impurities after unsuccessfully completing a cycle of experiences.) Jupiter - Ennobling force, high ideals, breadth of vision.  Neptune - Mysticism, water.  Uranus - Occult, extremes.  after Mercury - Mind. unsuccessfully completing Mars - Anger, strife, force, fire. Earth - Flesh, with all the accompanying emotions. Hugh Lynn Cayce "Life Readings" An ARE Report Kevein Todeschi, Director of the Association for Research & Enlightenment (ARE), the body Edgar Cayce started to promote the study of the Cayce readings and ideas, summed it up very well in his newly published book 'Vibrations': The influence of the planets on us is through vibration - vibration being the connection to all things - the universal 'force' is vibration. "The idea is ... that each of the planets represents the vibration of specific lessons in soul growth. After each incarnation the soul takes stock of its own strengths and weaknesses and may chose to undertake a rigorous lesson in conscious development that will benefit the soul in future earthly incarnations. For example, a soul needing to learn more about love may chose to undertake a period when it surrounded by the consciousness of the vibration of love. That specific energetic vibration corresponds, according to the readings, with the planet Venus. It is important to point out that the soul doesn't "go" to Venus. Instead, the planet Venus represents the consciousness of love that corresponds to a "sojourn in consciousness" which a specific individual may wish to undertake. On one occasion Cayce stated, "Each planetary influence vibrates at a different rate of vibration (281-55) Todeschi K 'Vibrations' 2007 ARE Press As Cayce's son, Hugh Lynn put it: "The nobleness of Jupiter without the driving force of Mars, the love influence of Venus without the tempering action of Mercury, are dangerous.  As you consider the multitude of complex natures represented in mankind, know that you view many degrees of developing entities who have not assimilated the balancing factors of all the solar experiences".  Hugh Lynn Cayce "Life Readings" It is all about learning, developing, becoming a more rounded individual, one that helps in our journey to back to the knowledge that we are eternally connected with the Cosmos and everything in it - we are all One. So the influences on an individual appear to be mainly those pertaining to their birth chart. These planets and their various influences can, in turn, indicate the various sojourns into the 'university of the soul', especially the sojourn made prior to the current earthly incarnation. It may be more arguable just how much influence the physical daily planetary positions can have on an individual, though these may have more significance if the particular planets are strong in one's birth chart. However, one could probably argue a case for a more general background influence of he planets whose individual and combined effects will wax and wane much as does the moon in its particular cycle. As I was putting thought to paper I received my copy of the latest Venture Inward Magazine from the ARE which had an article on Planetary Sojourns by ARE's astrologer Raye Mathis - don't you love it when that happens! - In the article she highlighted another area from the Cayce readings where the planets have an influence - the glandular system of your body. The readings indicate the endocrine glands are a point of contact with the soul forces - a meeting place for the spiritual, mental and physical bodies and by implication, a place where earthly lives and planetary sojourns meet. In the 281 series of readings on meditation and the meaning of the Revelation, a correlation was even made between each endocrine center and a planet: Pituitary/Jupiter; Pineal/Mercury; Thyroid/Uranus; Thymus/Venus; Adrenals/Mars; Lyden gland/Neptune; Gonads/Saturn. [281-29] There is a branch of astrology today that believes one can 'see' and interpret past earthly lives in a horoscope. According to the Cayce readings, however, you can 'read' past earthly lives only from a life reading (or psychic reading). What you see in your horoscope are your planetary sojourns - those influences from youe souls's experiences between those earthly lives. [254-21] Raye Mathis, Venture Inward Sept/Oct 2007, p.11 Having made a case for the a context under which astrology is valid and works, it is important to note one final point that Cayce made time and again: There are material factors that rule or govern or direct or influence such forces. These may be tempered by the astrological aspects, but these are not the major influence or force ... no influence - astrologically or from material sojourns - surpasses the will or the determination of the individual.. [97-2] Whether it be Cayce or Jonathan Cainer, both will tell you - read your astrological charts and horoscopes so that you may gain an understanding of the forces and opportunities that may be available to you, but don't let them have such an influence that they guide everything you do on a day-to-day basis. If your horoscope tells you to 'be careful when travelling', and you are more vigilant as a result when you go out then that is a good thing. If you are afraid of getting into an accident and therefore decide to avoid going out altogether, then you are allowing astrology to influence you far too much.

Originally posted as a reply to a thread on the Science & Mysticism pod - Does Atlantis exist? I don't know about procession and equinox - that is something I will have to follow up on - but for me, as an archaeologist, the question of whether Atlantis existed or not is an interesting and timely one. Archaeologists are trained to discover information about past civilisations by studying the material remains left behind by those ancient peoples. They are also taught to question the context of written evidence, and to ensure that hypotheses are based on artefactual evidence from strong and sealed contexts - not stray finds that could come from anywhere. Thus, for most archaeologists, until there is physical evidence to the contrary, Atlantis remains merely a myth, at best one based on a half-forgotten reality of a similar catastrophic event elsewhere, sometime in the distant past. However, what really drew my attention back to the subject of Atlantis was the discovery of the psychic readings of Edgar Cayce. The Evidence of Edgar Cayce’s psychic readings Overall, Edgar Cayce gave some 700 readings pertaining to Atlantis, with some 400 individuals named, usually within the context of a past life of the subject of the reading. Through these many readings, conducted over the course of many years, a coherent story of the rise and fall of this great civilisation began to emerge. It also became apparent that the story of Atlantis was also intimately tied up with the history of mankind's early development. The story also highlighted the concept of a Universal Oneness and the effects caused when individuals and groups acted contrary to the Laws of One. In the beginning, when human beings first came to the earth to experience the sensations of being in a physical world, they entered in their natural form - their spiritual form - their soul form (for more on this see the thread entitled Darwinism vs Intelligent Design). In his readings Cayce refers to individual souls as "entities" meaning that part of the individual which Cayce said survives death. When souls or entities first began to experiment with physical forms these forms were manifested from projections of their thoughts – thought forms – taking on all manner of weird and wonderful characteristics with varieties of size and animal attributes. But in succumbing to the pleasures of being physical entities they forgot their spiritual origins. It was only later, in own present form, that we had body, the temple, the physical attributes to reconnect with the spiritual. Cayce's son, Hugh Lynn Cayce, (in Atlantis Revisited, 2006), explains what happened to these earlier experiments with physical form: Very early in Atlantean history, two factions arose that were deeply split over the issue of how to treat these souls that had become so entangled in matter. The readings coined the terms “sons of the law of one”` and “sons of Belial”. The sons of the law of one were those who believed the soul was a gift from God and strove to keep the race pure and free from animal characteristics and appendages. They wanted to aid those deeply entangled in the physical world and help them regain their positions as creatures of God. The sons of Belial were those without standard or morality and believed in gratification of the senses without respect to others. They looked down on these entangled souls as “things” to be treated as slaves or machines. (Hugh Lynn Cayce) The conflicts between these two groups were to be long lasting and eventually to lead to the destruction of the entire Atlantean civilisation. For a full account of the Atlantean story see the bibliography at the end. It is too long to go into detail here. I shall just give you an overview of the destruction of Atlantis which might serve to highlight some of the problems and potentials in finding evidence of the existence of Atlantis. The First Destruction The first destruction seems to have been caused as an accidental consequence of the misuse of Altlantis’ advanced technology, occurring sometime around 50,000 BC. The lands at that time were plagued by large numbers of monstrous beast-like animals which would prey on the unwary. In Cayce's reading 1378-1, he states: . . . in Atlantean land during those periods when there were the first rebellions that brought the misapplication of the knowledge; or the forces that might have been used constructively but were used in destructive activities. The entity joined with the sons of Belial who brought about destructive forces in the attempts to destroy the animal life that in other lands overran same. 1378 – 1 Other readings expand on the misapplication of such technology, talking of a “death ray” or “super-cosmic ray” (possibly a laser type weapon) being used; In reading 364-4 he says that: These destructive forces combined with those natural resources of the gases, of the electrical forces made in nature, caused volcanic eruptions in the slow cooling earth, and that portion now near what would be termed the Sargasso Sea first went into the depths. With this there again came the first egress of peoples. 364 – 4 In the end, the readings go on to say the animals were destroyed not by the actions of the Atlanteans, but by a shift in the earth’s magnetic poles causing a destruction of their habitats. Although many Atlanteans perished and others were forced to flee from these destructive forces, the readings speak of a continued high civilization and advances in technology. Many readings imply the ability to harness and transmit power from the sun through the use of crystals, specifically what Cayce termed the “Firestone”. The Second Destruction The second destruction occurred sometime around 28,000BC. The readings indicate that at that time the Atlantean continent had split into three principal islands (Posidia, Aryan and Og), together with a few smaller ones. The readings suggest that the feuding continued and that many Atlanteans were leaving to escape it: for example in reading 470-22 he says: There were those . . . who left the activities to engage in the building up of then activities in the Peruvian land. For the Atlanteans were becoming decadent, or being broken up owing to the disputes between the children of the Law of One and the children of Belial. 470 – 22 The power stations which used this ‘Firestone’, to tap into natural earth or universal forces, were used by the Atlanteans as sources of power, including the remote powering of a variety of types of flying craft, undersea craft, and a communications system which sounds remarkably akin to television. However, it appears that these ‘power stations’, located at various points throughout Atlantis, were tuned too high causing catastrophic earthquakes and volcanic action which broke up the land into a number of small islands. The Final Destruction By the time of the final destruction, sometime around 10,000BC, some of the Atlantean technology had survived the previous calamities, as had the two feuding factions of the Children of the Law of One and the sons of Belial. It was probably no coincidence that the last remnants of Atlantis were to disappear as the last ice age ended - (sounds like an effect of procession to me). The readings suggest the Atlanteans knew beforehand that their remaining lands were likely to disappear under the rising sea levels and many made preparations to leave for other, safer lands in both the east and the west. The readings tell of the Atlantean influence on the early tribes living in what was to become Egypt, as well as various parts of both north and south Americas – the Iroquois are said to be direct descendents of the Atlanteans, as are the Basques of northern Spain. Physical Evidence? Records of the Atlantean civilization, including a history of their peoples and descriptions of their technology are said to have been taken to three different locations around the world for safe keeping – one in an underground chamber located just south of the Sphinx in Egypt; one to an unknown location somewhere in the Pyranees; and one buried beneath a pre-Mayan pyramid mound somewhere in the Yucatan Peninsula, Guatamala. Despite attempts to find them they have remained have yet to be found. However, with concrete evidence still lacking despite Cayce’s predictions of parts of Atlantis “rising again” , and with the Atlantic Ridge dated as being too young and geologically wrong for a lost continent, most archaeologists remain unconvinced that there ever was a high civilisation now lost beneath the Atlantic Ocean. The writings of the Greek philosipher, Plato - who started the whole thing off and were, for a long time, seen as the best evidence for Atlantis being based in fact - are now seen, in the end, as merely the retelling of an earlier Egyptian myth. Some have tried to make a case for Atlantis being located elsewhere - the volcanic Greek island of Santorini for example, or even the Minoan civilisation on Crete, both destroyed by catastrophic volcano eruptions. But Cayce firmly places the lost Continent in the Atlantic Ocean between the American and European Continents. For a good overview of the evidence, and for an interesting alternative interpretation of Plato’s story of Atlantis, be sure to read James and Thorpe’s 1999 book ‘Ancient Mysteries’ published by Ballantine Books of New York (see Bibliography ). I think the key problem in terms of evidence is the timeframe - 10,000 years is a long time for artefacts to survive, especially when they are under hundreds of feet of water or following major geological change. Another problem is that a lot writers underestimate the abilities of prehistoric people's. They think that with primitive technologies they couldn't possibly have achieved some of the great architectural feats that are still visible in the jungles of South America and the Far East, for example. They must have had some help from an advanced civilisation. But this is to do human beings a great disservice. They were far more capable than we give them credit for, especially when it comes to early seafaring, and the intervention of a 'high' technology is simple not required. So Did Atlantis Exist? An if it did, what does it mean for us? Ultimately, if Cayce is to be believed, then physical evidence of the lost civilization of Atlantis will undoubtedly emerge, and interesting discoveries are taking place around the Bimini area thanks to ARE research, which you can follow on their website at http://edgarcayce.org/am/atlantisnews.html - though there is a long way to go do get any definitive evidence. Perhaps, the use of psychic techniques such as dowsing (pinpointing the location of something using rods or a pendulum) and psychometry (gaining psychic insights through the touching of objects) might help archaeology to locate surviving evidence of Atlantis - if the discipline where to be capable of accepting such help. Cayce also stated that many entities/souls around in Atlantean times were reincarnating because of our advances in our technology - the world was becoming interesting once again. The trouble is, some of the individuals whose former lives included Atlantean ones were said to be not only Children of the Law of One but also Sons of Belial. Are they bringing their conflicts into a new age? Or have they learnt the error of their ways in the intervening millennia? There seem to be many disturbing themes to this story with many modern parallels. One has to ask, that if Atlantis did indeed exist, and that their advanced technology is lying there waiting to be discovered, whether mankind is really ready to receive that knowledge. Would we not make the mistakes that they made, and lead us to the destruction of our world as it did theirs? 12,000 years may have passed but has mankind’s propensity for misusing such technology diminished at all over that time span? Maybe the time to discover all that Atlantis has to teach us is not quite here just yet. Maybe after 2012 when the effects of procession (if I understand the term correctly) have had time to make their effects felt. However, perhaps for a lot of people, the time to discover Edgar Cayce is very much here. Bibliography Little G. & Van Auken J. 2004 Edgar Cayce's Atlantis Cayce E.E.,Cayce Schwartzer G. & Richards D. 2006 Atlantis Revisited (2nd Ed) Little L. & Van Auken John 2005 Lost Hall of Records James P. & Thorpe N. 1999 Ancient Mysteries Ballantine Books, NewYork To read Plato’s account of the lost continent of Atlantis see the following website: http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/Atlantis/timaeus_and_critias.html http://www.world-mysteries.com/mpl_10.htm http://edgarcayce.org/am/atlantisnews.html