The New Age

This month I thought I would share a couple of my thoughts on what is happening to the Earth’s energy at the moment and the 2012 Phenomena. I’m sure you have all heard the stories about the Mayan Calendar ending on 21st December this year and I’m sure most people now understand that this is simply the end of an age (or era). I think we can look back on the last 2,000 years or so as the age when religion reigned supreme. It was the thing which kept most people in fear and ruled their lives. We tend to forget this in our day and age, as it is a more personal thing in our lives now (which is an effect of the changing energy), but going back through time, religion was very important to everyone, rich or poor.

In the 5th century, the Roman Empire began to crumble. Germanic tribes (barbarians) conquered the city of Rome. This event started the period in history referred to as the Dark Ages. The period of the Dark Ages saw the growth in the power of the Christian Church which was then referred to as the Catholic religion.

With its own laws, lands and taxes The Catholic church was a very powerful institution. The Catholic Church also imposed taxes. In addition to collecting taxes, the Church also accepted gifts of all kinds from individuals who wanted special favours or wanted to be certain of a place in heaven. The power of the Catholic Church grew with its wealth. The Catholic Church was then able to influence the kings and rulers of Europe. Opposition to the Catholic Church would result in excommunication. This meant that the person who was excommunicated, could not attend any church services, receive the sacraments and would go straight to hell when they died. This may seem almost silly to us now, but people in these times took heaven and hell very seriously.

We all know the story of Henry VIII and his challenge to Rome, and this resulted in the
 1559 Act of Supremacy

This bill, in a few words, gives full authority of the Church of England to the reigning monarch, overpowering the Pope in Rome. Elizabeth I also declared an Oath of Supremacy, instructing those in church office to swear acknowledge the monarch as head of both Church and state. This bill was passed without much difficulty.

Act of Uniformity
This bill made it a mandate to go to Church every Sundays and holidays, with a twelve pence fine for those who failed to do so. The Act of Uniformity had a relatively vague text so as to accommodate both Catholic and Protestant practices.

As well as being terrified of going to hell, people were fined for such misdemeanours as swearing or working on a Sunday. In fact any form of free thinking was punished.

The social upheaval ignited by the seventeenth-century English Civil War spawned many radical millennarian religious groups, including the Diggers, who rejected private property; and the Ranters, who claimed to worship God through drinking, smoking, and fornicating. Only one of the radical religious group that emerged during the tumultuous years of the 1640s and 1650s has survived until now: the Society of Friends or the Quakers.

Today, the Quakers are often associated with austerity and self-discipline, but in the sect's early days, members behaved in very rebellious ways. Some marched into churches, where they denounced ministers. They also refused to doff their hats before magistrates or to swear oaths. They opposed war and gave women the right to speak at public meetings, holding that both sexes were equal in their ability to expound God's teachings.

The Quakers rejected the orthodox Calvinist belief in predestination. Instead, the Quakers insisted that salvation was available to all. It came, however, not through an institutional church, but from within, by following the "inner light" of God's spirit. It was because Friends seemed to shake when they felt religious enthusiasm that they became known as Quakers.

In England as well as in a number of American colonies the Quakers faced violent persecution. Some 15,000 Quakers were jailed in England between 1660 and 1685.

The reason they were so hated by the establishment was that they represented free thinking which meant, to the powers that be, loss of control.
And so it was that religion held a very powerful position for a very long time. Not surprisingly, this Astrological age was the Age of Pisces, represented by The Hierophant in the Tarot deck , concerned with matters of faith, religion, belief and morality. It represents the masculine or paternal energy and is sometimes referred to as the Pope.

As astrologically, the Ages move backwards, we are now entering The Age of Aquarius, another term which I am sure you have all heard. This age is represented by the High Priestess (female/maternal). The High Priestess represents wisdom, , intuition and education. She is the feminine consciousness – the virgin goddess, the moon daughter. She challenges you to find what is hidden below the surface of a situation and remember the possibilities you hold inside.

This signifies a time to uncover secrets in life – and this is what the ‘new age’ will bring.

The Age of Pisces has been led by the masculine influences and there have been many wars based (sometimes very loosely!) on religion. Women have had very little say in politics and governance until the energy of Aquarius began to infiltrate the earth’s magnetic field (about 40 years ago). The Church’s stranglehold loosened and we all began to think more freely and independently. We became more affluent and less naive. As attitudes and ideas changed, so did the thinking of those in power.

Instead of controlling us with the fear of religion and war they began to control us with new things – television, food (convenience foods, take-aways like Mc Donalds etc), alcohol, cigarettes and even cannabis (the use of which is far more prevalent today). They use tools like Facebook and TV shows like The X Factor to numb our brains and put us in an almost zombie like state of acceptance. They manipulate us with the press and feed us lies to gain our trust and complicity – whilst gradually, grain by grain, they erode our rights and freedoms.

As the Age of Aquarius really takes hold over the next 150 years or so, I believe the situation will change for the better. I hope sincerely that people will wake up and realise that the need to have the latest gadget or the hoarding of money are simply things put into your psyche by governments who want to keep us down – they will not make you happy long term and like all material things, will one day pass.

The Age of Aquarius should be about us taking back our power, becoming more spiritual and more at one with the universe and helping us to take control of our own lives. This process will not happen overnight, but I believe ultimately, the new age represents freedom for the oppression of the material world – an oppression we have made for ourselves.

© Sue & Michael Treanor 2012
www.spiritus-uk.com