Stonehenge
First of two lectures from series on Wisdom Lore
MBM March 15, 1949,
following Mayan, Mithraic and Flood.
(These notes may not be accurate in all respects, especially in their description of the various circles, names of the stones and their measurements, but this data can be obtained in various books on the subject. I have tried mainly to record the innermeanings. GB.)
We want to see if there are evidences of Wisdom which began more than 2,000 or 3,000 years ago. The humanity of the older past must have had aid and guidance. If there is a great principle, a Spiritual Reality, it did not begin recently. We must not isolate ourselves in time. To understand this is a big step in your development; it frees from fixation.
The evidence regarding Stonehenge is not written, but stones. Sir Norman Lockyer has done the most investigation. Stonehenge means hanging stones. Like many other names, it is derived from the Celtic. But the Druids have no connection with the origin of Stonehenge, but gave names from their language to much that belongs in this pattern.
The structure is near Salisbury, on Old Sarum. Its vista is toward the east. (Around it) a mound 300 feet in diameter. Inside of that, another circle, 108 feet in diameter. Inside of that, another circle of stones originally smaller. Inside the two structures (a structure) like a horseshoe, opening to the northeast. 21 ft tall trilithons. Five groups of three stones shape first set of horseshoes. Another inside.
Outside is an avenue of approach. To the northeast is the Heel Stone; also known in legend as the Friar’s Heel. At the summer solstice the sun rises directly over the Heel Stone (as seen) from the altar.
The structure was built about 1700 B.C. The builders were deeply related to the sun. There are other megalithic structures, some older than Stonehenge. They are nearly always built with circles; with barrows around them. Barrow, a long, earthen grave mound. Most of them are still circular. Stonehenge is the best preserved. The stones are called sarsens. The (or a) folklore story about the Heel Stone, a contrast between what the multitude can accept and the actual fact of the summer solstice. There are two other stones outside the circle.
If it was built about 1700 BC who were the builders? The Stone Age and the Bronze Age vary in time in different places. The theory is that these people came from India. An old idea. There is no place where there is a beginning. These people presumably came from the south and the west. In the old lore, the Iberians originally came from northwest Africa and dwelt in the Iberian peninsula for a time.
Stone circles have been found in many places: Britain, Brittany, Scandinavia, Belgium, France, Portugal and Spain, North Africa, Nigeria, India, Caucasus. They are sometimes called megaliths, or megalithic rounds. Where did it start?
Here we break down our orthodoxy. There is research concerning certain areas in Switzerland. In these areas have been found the remains of Arctic animals — lemmings, musk ox, in a depth of lower strata, above animals of a tropical, or semi-tropical, country. Therefore it appears that both Arctic and sub-Arctic fauna had given way to a forest fauna.
The axis of the earth was once at a different place than it is now. The Arctic regions were once in a different area. Something occurred about 20,000 years ago — the great Flood. Atlantis changed in several great cataclysms. That changed the weight of the earth, so that the Poles changed. . . . .only a short distance to Africa. (People from Atlantis) moved eastward to Egypt and the Nile, and up into the southern part of Europe.
The Iberian people were of a tradition somewhat different from any of our now known peoples. They had a strength and resourcefulness and carried on when they went to various countries something of their tradition. The Iberian culture was the highest. In the new country they could project only a little of what they had. So what they built is not the measure of those people.
So the megalithic rounds did not originate in India. The main structures were (are) in countries near Atlantis.
Now, why the circles? Caesar wrote about the circles Travelers from Greece and Rome met something of what had been in the West. Diodorus wrote considerably about a people who lived north and west of his people, and who had temples to Apollo! They were sun-worshippers!
So does Herodotus. But when Caesar wrote, the Druids were in, not the builders of the circles. A marked impression of the people upon the Greeks who traveled.
What about the peoples themselves? What did they see and record in the stone structures? Not folklore, – the idea that it was seasonal, to help people know the seasons. That is too easy. It was primarily in regard to what the season means: the important (?) cycle, the period of the longest and the shortest day; the measure of the extremes. Therefore, the great cycle, as far as the earth is concerned, and of its humanity. It implies a period of long observation, and a rich schooling in the language of the stars, and particularly of the sun: the pattern implicit in this.
Pattern. The altar stone; horizontal; a point of important observation. What is behind it? The highest of the three stones. From this vantage point there is a vision of the sun and its cycle. The peoples from whom they came must have had some profound wisdom.
The structures vary. They do not all open to the northeast. Recorded them (?) in their sacred structures. The circle becomes a symbol of the great cycles of the heavens, and therefore of Deity.
How much lore to the altar stone! A subjective understanding is necessary. With the three stone back of you. From those is a vision of the planet and the relation of it to the sun: light and dark; difficulty and ease; the pairs of opposites. From that, you see the sweep of the realities outside of our little planet. Degrees to which you may progress if your own consciousness expands. First, the vista, glimpse, orientation to that; if it is followed through it makes for speedy augmentation. And that leads out, successively, to the different barriers, until we come to the great stone circle.
The great stone circle may represent a number of things. The indication of wisdom relates to the sun and its cycle, but also referring to man and his evolution. That there is a progression when you have identified yourself with that which is symbolized by the altar stone, the nucleus, or the higher self. From that comes the vista and the expansion.
The mound, or outer circle. We are moving from our little absorption as persons to a larger perspective. Presently it becomes planetary. Then solar, related to Spirit and the sun. But that is not the end of our development, and the ascent is progressive through many stages, where barriers fall down. Something of the mystery of the development of the self is implicit in this structure.
You might say man’s evolution onward and outward is a succession of circles. When a certain stage is accomplished there opens up the vista you have from this high (or height.) The structure carries mysteries of the soul’s evolution.
As we transcend the barriers, hold loyal to the point of the altar stone there opens up the succeeding vista.
Answer to question: The Hyperboreans lived in the north when the north was a temperate zone.
Stonehenge
Lecture II, and end of series
MBM March 22, 1949
Another wave of life that came up from the Iberian peninsula, or from that region. Much speculation but that seems the most likely.
The Druids were leaders of a much larger people. The name means either oak or else magician. There is reason for both.
A bit of their cosmogony and (something of) the story of their initiation. The Cauldron and the collection of the Triads, or Bards. Both were compiled relatively recently.
Three ranks of Triads. Druids, Diviners and Bards, or poets. These ranks were well established at the time of Caesar. They had taken over many of the stone circles to their own preferred place. A circle made of oaks, not stones; but the same predilection for circles. (Stonehenge probably built by the pre-Druids.)
Circles in their teaching. Ceugant is the Circle of Infinity. Eternal Annwyfn(another) which is a kind of heaven. Also, a Circle of Felicity. Abred is the realm of nature and man, and is the place of learning and suffering.
Still another, which is the Abyss. That abyss is the region into which it is possible to fall, by a kind of failure — working off of karmic law; therefore, in a sense, not below the Circle of Abred, but is the circle in between, through which humanity goes before it comes back to earth again or moves on to other planes. These circles are dramatized differences; one, large, and the others within.
Figures in the Cosmogony:
Ceridwen: Spiritual Forces, Dynamics, Spiritual Mother. Has been compared to the Spirit—Isis, in Egypt. Everyone must return to Ceridwen for re-birth.
The Druids taught the continuity of life and the ideal states of progression. To become a full-fledged Druid took twenty years of study and training.
The Thrice-born, through the power of Ceridwen; the Perfected.
Hu, pronounced Hee, is the masculine figure. He was a being who lived on earth, who became, in time, deified. He lived at the time of the Great Flood.
The Cauldron of Ceridwen, a mighty Cup, or Bowl; Awen, the power in it. Everyone, to live, must have something of the power, or the vitality that is in this Cauldron. Man, in order to obtain that, must obtain a mixture like it — ingredients: like is known to like alone; you can only know by becoming like.
The ingredients: Five trees, certain berries, foam of the ocean. The whole brew must be kept under the influence of the moon. The five senses, analogous to the Five Virgins with oil — the growth of that which you have won through your sojourn in earth by the benefit of your five senses.
Berries are fruits, the things that have been grown, won. Foam of the ocean – the sea of life, when you begin to understand it with your mind; that is, air. The foam beaten up by your own activity.
All must be done under the influence of the moon — the rhythms of the soul. This all is done on behalf of the soul. You become a full soul being before you can become a spiritual being: first animal, then human, then soul-man; long after, a nous man
Presumably, we are all making this brew. In turn, it entitles to something of the power that is in the Cauldron. Unless you make yourself like, the power of the Cauldron cannot reach you.
The Druids were in high repute. They had understanding. Were priests.
The old Mysteries of virtually all countries were by word of mouth. It is said that the Druids made their followers memorize terrific lengths of texts, training their memory, but also that nothing false got in. If you have offered yourself as a candidate you are in a different category. You have undertaken, freely, a process; and then something occurs. The Hound of Heaven pursues.
The candidate is changed into a rabbit. He is scared. Next, into a fish; the element of water. The otter, which pursues, is that which catches fish.
Then the candidate changes himself into a bird – the air element. Fire has made the candidate start the whole thing – the higher fire, the fire of the water. Now the lessons of the air element are being learned.
Now he is changed into a grain of wheat. Bread, the allegory, the substance of life. Long before Christianity, the motif of bread radiated out among people. Now the candidate has become as bread; therefore can be absorbed by Ceridwen.
Triads. From these we can get something of the philosophy. They had a profound philosophy. Oral. No physical proof is available that they are the ancient teachings, but they have the flavor, and a large part of the essence of the old Druidic teaching. They were memorized in three’s. “The Druid is: complete life, complete knowledge, complete power.” Shows a perception of qualities. Again: “The three foundations of thought; perception, amplitude” (fullness, and at the same time presence.)
The three requirements of a bard: “To make a country habitable; to civilize a nation; and to improve a science.” Something of an experience of initiation.
The influence of these people radiated across into Europe and the British Isles. Many later teachings have their roots in the old Druidic lore. Some of the Christian tradition: Joseph of Arimathea and the Cup. The Celts gave . . . names. Much in Welsh poetry starts with Druidic lore.
We are studying two successive waves from the West. The second must have been several millennia later.
There is evidence in both the Popul-Vuh and in this (Druidic) of a profound teaching long before what we ordinarily call the dawn of history – evidences by the same profundities as taught to the people who have come from the East. There, are certain common denominators: as, for instance, tonight, of the three great circles: Deity, what man may attain, and the sphere in which the human evolution takes place — the intermediate stage from which we come and go.