Posted June 12, 2011
December 21, 2012 CE – DOOMSDAY! At least that is what many people are saying, based on ancient Mayan prophecies. Others, however, assert there is reason to believe that date will mark the beginning of a glorious new age. Perhaps Wagner’s Ring Cycle and Parsival operas will help shed light on the nature of this dilemma.
It wasn’t just the Mayas. The ancient Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, Malis, Pueblos, Cherokees, Senecas, Zulus, Maoris, Chinese, Tamils, Buddhists, Hindus, and Tibetans all prophesized a major event around 2000 CE, the time the sun’s equator would travel across the center of the Milky Way. The calendars of many of these same civilizations began around 3000 BCE. Theses synchronicities have to be more than a coincidence.
Three thousand BCE was the beginning of the great Egyptian civilization, when the sun was worshiped, pyramids built, and the attraction to gold became an obsession. According to Rudolf Steiner, this was the beginning of a new 2,160-year cycle in the precession of the equinoxes, a time when new levels of consciousness begin. In this case clairvoyant consciousness was replaced by a consciousness based upon the physical senses.
When people could “see” into the spiritual world, they felt at one with that world and were part of the flow, so to speak. But after 3000 BCE, people felt themselves to be physical beings on earth, not spiritual beings. Their new consciousness was revealed to them through their physical senses. They had become outsiders, isolated beings among isolated objects. That their calendars began at this time is indicative that they recognized the shift from spiritual consciousness to earthly consciousness.
The 2,160-year cycle which began around 3000 BCE is also the time frame of Richard Wagner’s opera The Valkyrie, in which the protagonists struggle to become independent of the gods.
Close to the time when this stage of the ‘fall’ was taking place, what the ancient Hindus called Kali Yuga, the Age of Darkness, also began. They believed humanity would be in the darkness throughout this period, i.e., without high level clairvoyance. According to them, Kali Yuga would last for tens of thousands of years. Rudolf Steiner agreed with the Hindu’s starting date, but said it would last 5,000 years, until 1899 CE. The discrepancy is at least partially due to the fact that Steiner was talking about the first person to ‘see the light,’ while the Hindus were referring to the last ones to see ‘the light.’ After 1899, the Age of Darkness would continue to get darker for some, while, simultaneously, the new Age of Light would get brighter for more and more people, until all but the most materialistic people saw the ‘light.’
There is scientific basis to all this, although much is still speculation. The ancient astronomers, or astrologers, knew the solar system was in the Milky Way and could visually detect the center. They made their predictions with amazing accuracy. In more recent times scientists using state-of-the-art technology have pinpointed the precise center of the Milky Way. The sun began to cross it in 1980 and will complete its passage in 2016, 36 years later. The center of the sun’s ecliptic passed the center of the Milky Way’s ecliptic in 1998.
The ancient Mayas believed it would be crossed in 2012. Some scholars believe the Mayas knew something we don’t, and that on December 21, 2012, something important will happen.
The passing of the Sun through the equator of the Milky Way signifies a new level of consciousness for humanity, just as it does on a smaller level when it, the sun, crosses the earth’s equator during the precession of the equinoxes.
If we accept ancient literature as history, extreme earthly upheavals accompany new levels of consciousness. According to the Old Testament, when humanity’s consciousness had to change from existing in a watery state to that of a solid state the “flood” took place. Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey takes place around the beginning of the third cultural epoch, the time human consciousness became dependent on the physical senses. In it, Odysseus destroys the clairvoyant eye of Cyclops (representing the end of clairvoyance), and the injured one-eyed monster throws rocks at Odysseus (mythologically speaking, a volcano erupted). Even today, it can be seen that around that time the island of Crete, on which this event took place, went through a cataclysm. What was the harbor basin is now 16 feet above sea level and 100 yards inland; part of the island rose 26 feet, and other areas sank 3 or 4 feet. Early in the fourth 2,160 year cycle the New Testament tells of the sky darkening and major earthquakes occurring as Christ was crucified. Early in the fifth 2,160 year cycle a volcano erupted on the Canary Islands as Columbus sailed by, the time when Europeans first had the opportunity to become free of the feudal aristocrats and royalty.
Geological and atmospheric catastrophes occur continuously. But today it would be naïve to say there is not a dramatic spike in their frequency and intensity. Put it all together and maybe this situation deserves serious consideration.
Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle operas follow the evolution of consciousness, in keeping with the precession of the equinoxes. Das Rhingold is about the ‘fall,’ The rest of the operas take place during Kali Yuga. The Valkyrie is also about the beginning of the third 2,160 year cycle; Siegfried the fourth 2,160 year cycle, time humanity learned to think intellectually; and Twilight of the Gods, the fifth cycle and present day cycle, is about humanity struggling to comprehend the fact that there is a non-physical, spiritual realm.
In the opera Parsival a human being finally raises his level of consciousness to that of the higher spiritual world. Parsival succeeded because he always took the ‘high road’ during his earthly trials, and was persistent. When a rock wall allegorically opened up he was able to cross the threshold into the spiritual world. Had he been as materialistic as so many others, he would have considered the opening of the rock wall to be an hallucination and would not have been able to make the transition to the spiritual world. Parsival’s challenges are the challenges humanity is currently being faced with during the period between 1980 and 2016.
Allegories of the Ring 
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