The Red Orb: part 1 | part 2 | The Imperial Astrologer | Mercury Cycles | The Zodiac

Malvin Artley has been a practising astrologer for more than 10 years. He is an accredited member of the American Federation of Astrologers.
Malvin is the author of Bodies of Fire: An Exploration of the Lesser Chakra System. He has authored numerous articles and was a member of the faculty of the University of the Seven Rays, a non-profit organization dedicated to the teaching of the Trans-Himalayan tradition as expressed through the books of Alice Bailey, Helena Blavatsky and others.
His primary focus over the past 25 years has been on the sciences as they express occultism and with bridging work between the two. His special interests are the human subtle energy system and all the chakras, or energy centres, physics and technology, astronomy and all aspects of Chinese occultism. He has done extensive work with Chinese astrology and the cycles they use and seeks to synthesize the great Western and Oriental systems on such matters.
Malvin lives in Adelaide, South Australia. He also works in the engineering trades and sends out periodic emails about astrological happenings and developments. Click here to subscribe to Malvin's periodic letters.

Mars, the Red Orb
Mars, Atlantis and the Human Form (part 2)

Atlantis, the Day After by Leokadia Skotnik

Part Two of this remarkable article by Malvin Artley explores the way the cycle of Mars affected Atlantis and the stimulation of the drive for power. Many people now incarnated on the earth were part of Atlantis in its final days. This final part of the article describes how the cycle of Mars ties in with ancient Atlantis -- and with the conditions on Earth today.

When Mars made its Atlantean approach the entirety of the planet was thus given a great stimulus. As stated, people were like little children then and had no idea what was going on with them. They only did what seemed natural at the time. Since the astral, or desire nature, was the major focus of development then they acquired all they could and, in the latter days of that society, lived lives of excess of which even the most debauched and decadent days of Rome were only a very pale comparison.

The Lords of the Dark Face

The lauded opulence of late Atlantis was actually an obscenity of riches, for the most part, gotten by ill means. But, the wage of sin is death, and death came surely and steadily through the agency of disease and war for those who could not curb their enthusiasm for riches. The use of magic to acquire those riches was widespread as well, which might give us some idea as to why the use of magic for material ends is so offensive to the modern psyche, so strongly is the memory of those days embedded in our collective subconscious. Put simply, such selfish use of magic is what we now know as Black Magic, and it was very widespread-- indeed, endemic --in Atlantis. The Black Lodge, or The Lords of the Dark Face, was/were largely organized during that period of Earth's history due to this overly strong emphasis on materialism.

The most advanced of the Atlantean race were also stimulated--actually, quickened--during that time also. They already had the desire nature fairly well developed, whereas the rest of the populace was still in the process of fully developing that. For the elite, the stimulation took place "on a higher turn of the spiral", and the first stirrings of what we now know as the true reasoning mind took place in those people. The lower mind has been called "the slayer of the real", for it tends to separate and pigeon-hole all experience, and thus all people. It has been said that when people acquired the use of the mind, the die was cast and, thus..."Man's troublous journey then began."

In those days desire was already rampant. When we add to that the separative power of the mind and the ability of that mind to reason out bigger and better means of outwitting one's neighbor and getting even more and better goodies, then it is really a small wonder that Atlantis destroyed itself. It is occult Law: If one deliberately sins and continually flouts God's Laws, then they kill themselves as surely as if they put a gun to their head and pull the trigger. And flagrantly and willfully flout the Law, they did.

The Great Sin

It is said that each major race of humanity exhibits one great sin along with all its accomplishments. Mars is so reviled by some because it can cause overstimulation and thus adverse reactions in a person who is not adequately equipped and/or informed as to how to best handle its energy. We have always equated sin with excess of some sort. The greatest sin in Lemurian times was sexual excess and sexual aberration (due to over-expression of the physical nature), which lead to widespread venereal diseases.

The greatest sin in Atlantean times was theft and unadulterated selfishness (over-expression of the desire nature), leading to tuberculosis and lung diseases. The greatest sin in our present race is separativeness, which leads to hatred and all sorts of "crimes of differentiation" (over-expression of the lower or reasoning mind), which leads to cancer and heart disease. I list these here to emphasize the point that each race has its normal and rightful expression and also its expression of excess, to which all people are prone. The widespread and increasing incidence of these and related diseases we see in the world today is the working out of ancient causes for people in all walks on life and is the result of over-stimulation in some capacity or other, depending upon a plethora of factors, both individual and collective.

We are told that Atlantis existed for quite some time. There would have been many such cycles of Mars during Atlantean civilization, but the period I am describing here is the last time Mars made its appearance, and thus describes the last period of that great civilization. I am only giving the barest clues as to what happened then. If the reader is interested they should search out this information for themselves. There is a wealth of learning about human psychology and our own history to be had from it. I should add that, parallel to the rampant and willful misuse of a God-given gift and faculty, there was the activity of the White Lodge, counteracting the nefarious activities of the Dark Brothers and teaching people the spiritual way of life.

The White Lodge

The White Lodge lives on as the spiritual Hierarchy of our planet and, as we know, eventually won the day in Atlantis. But to do so They had to destroy the entire civilization by sending it to the floor of the Atlantic ocean and by saving the few who stayed the course and kept the Law pure by sticking to their spiritual rites. The story of Noah's Ark is about the last days of Atlantis.

This brings us to the present days and the causes working out from ancient events. The rim of old Atlantis is the Eastern US, Western Europe, the western-most parts of Africa and the north-eastern parts of South America. It would seem to be fairly clear that the biggest cause of trouble in the world today comes from the US and western Europe--and is quite Atlantean in its approach at that. Remembering that the sin of over-desiring is theft and unadulterated selfishness, what do we see happening on the world stage at this point?

There was recently a war fought in Iraq over supposed threats to world security posed by a dictatorship and its weapons of mass destruction, or so we were lead to believe. It would appear patently clear to all but the most naive that those suppositions about Iraq were mistaken at best and that the war was actually fought over control of a coveted resource for the world -- oil. Oil is a liquid, corresponding in many ways to the desire-nature, is black and from the bowels of the Earth, is of ancient origin, is produced from the magical work of Nature's alchemical processes of the breakdown of once-living matter, is of supposed great value to the world's economy, is concentrated in an area of the world renowned for its passionate and devotional approach to life, pollutes the earth when raised to the surface and burned and fuels the desires of many for power and control over the world's wealth.

Drive for Power and Control

The main drive for this power and control comes from certain of the corridors of power in the US and certain parts of western Europe. There was a great deal of dark karma produced in the last days of Atlantis that had to be left unresolved and unredeemed, simply because the major players in that drama were killed off before it could be so resolved. The times were ripe again in the last century for that to occur. A large chunk of it was laid to rest in the major World Wars of the last century.

The Black Lodge was dealt a decisive blow and sealed away to a greater extent. But, still they seek control. The way the world economy is set up at the moment, whoever controls the oil controls the movement of the world's resources and thus the world economy. The greatest accumulation of wealth in the world lies within the US and Western Europe. People can make all the arguments they want about the reasons for wars and the separative nature of people. It still comes down largely to economics, control of resources, getting the biggest slice of the pie, etc.--greed and theft, in other words. And now we have the mental know-how and the magic of technology to make it all so much easier for those who have to get more of it.

Think about it: The world as it appears today would be a fantastic and magical place to the person of, say, 1890. There were no cars, electricity, airplanes, computers, radio and TV, to name but a few things. We are simply reclaiming at a furious rate what was given to us as gifts in old Atlantis. But now we are doing it for ourselves (and to ourselves) because we have the mental equipment to do it. The minds of the masses are undergoing a still-greater stimulation now than was evident when the last impulse came some 250 years ago. This is a wonderful and God-given thing in so many ways. Of course it brings its attendant problems, but, because we are mentally aware now, we can see and understand the results of our actions.

The Atlanteans did not have such cognition. Thus, their fate was sealed. The more spiritually aware of our present race are also being stimulated to the next level above the lower mind--the realm of the Soul. This is therefore causing a tremendous impetus toward working in a group manner, for Souls only work in groups and for group ends. So, though the mind can cause a troublesome separativeness, there is also a very concerted effort to bring the realization of working together for the common good underway by the White Lodge through all people more aware of spiritual imperatives. This was very much absent in Atlantean times except in a very few individuals.

The Kingdom of Souls

There are a very large number of people living on our wonderful globe now who were players in the drama of the Atlantean conflict and who have come in for the expressed purpose of resolving the last vestiges of that conflict so humanity can move on into a future of Light and Love. The collective subconscious of all people is imbued with the horrors of those final days and of the results of the seven deadly sins of desiring. People, on the whole, are basically very good, if not fully informed. Rebellion leads invariably and eventually to conscience and compassion. And, we do sense that this next level--the Kingdom of Souls--is separated from us by only the most tenuous of webs of materiality, waiting to be rent in two and thus to flood our world with Light.

The machinations of the forces of materialism will surely come to naught as we are quickened toward the new awakenings that await us all. All that remains is for us to dutifully attend to our spiritual Rites, to live to our highest Ideals, to maintain and expand our sense of community and to ensure that we face our fears, dispel our own individual darkness as it arises and incorporate the incoming vibrations within our daily lives as best we can. As we progress, so the world around us progresses. We may think this to be a small thing, but be mindful that there are no little things and that even a steady drip of water contributes to a great river that carves out vast canyons.

Planetary Configuration

The planetary configuration at the end of August 2003 coinciding with this Mars approach is inspiring and magnificent. On the one side of the chart we have the Sun, Venus and Jupiter conjoined, representing the most beautiful, expansive energy--the promise of all things good to come, the uniting of people and nations for the common good, the growth of all people toward a more harmonious society and the full flowering of human potential for this present world period. This is as the herald of the New Age--the usher of the Aquarian Age--of which Jupiter is the higher and true ruler. It represents the Christ energy on Earth--both benefics conjoined in Virgo--the redemption of substance and the restoration of the Law, ".....For I come not to destroy the world, but to save it....." On the other side of the chart, opposing this configuration, is a conjunction of Mars and Uranus in Pisces, representing the final destruction of the old Piscean societal archetypes and the inauguration of the new saving forces for humanity, along with the seeds of a new world Religion and the birthing of a fresh sense and set of ideals, borne within the chaotic waters of our present human suffering and passions.

Saturn in Cancer

Cementing all this in place is Saturn in Cancer, trining the Mars/Uranus conjunction and sextiling the Sun/Venus/Jupiter conjunction, establishing that what is given impulse today shall be as the bricks and mortar of tomorrow's house of Light, which shall be this blue-green jewel in the heavens--our Home. Conflict is here now, but Light and Wisdom shall come as surely as the sunrise and as quickly as we aspire ardently toward God. The compassionate awareness as indicated by this amazing planetary alignment and commencement of Mars' cycle comes quickly on the heels of our passions and conflicts in the world stage now as Mars wipes away the sins of our past, quickens us for the task at hand and stimulates us all to be more than we have ever been--to realize that after long ages of groping in the dark we are all Beings endowed with blazing Light and Love and that we are a huge part of the Light of the world and are far removed from the cause of world Darkness.

For all those people born around the last days of August, I send out my most heart-felt congratulations. What a configuration to have in a solar return! Take full advantage this year, by all means, for the gifts can be bountiful. But, this applies for the world at large, too. The energies extant at the commencement of any cycle define the course of that cycle. Not bad for the next 73,000 years of Earth's history!--and for a Mars cycle, at that.

Yes, we are all being quickened now and feel the effects acutely. Every aspect of our personas are being activated. But the most important one by far is the next step up into the world of the abstract and of true group life. Atlantis and Lemuria are fading quickly into the past where they belong. As our planetary Lord sheds His load of karma and becomes a greater Adept, so are we also having to shed ours as well. I have said all along I feel very excited by these times and that I can feel the potency of the spiritual awakening upon us.

This is no time to look back on old pains. It is time to embrace them, let them go and move on into our spiritual birthright. At the end of our days we will look back on these times and say to ourselves, "Wow! We were there and lived through it!", and we will feel that we have done well and done our part. I am happy to be here with you all in these fantastic times--fantastic in so many ways--and to be able to share and to contribute with you all in the rich variety of our unique expressions. I hope Mars is good to you in the coming years and that you will all be able to balance the energies that never do seem to stop flooding in. Take some time to gaze into the red, fiery orb (Mars) that is our close neighbour in space and feel the passion for your lives more fully as the approach draws nigh.

Blessings to you all,
Malvin.

Return to the start of Mars, the Red Orb

Malvin Artley is an accredited member of the American Federation of Astrologers. His primary focus over the past 25 years has been on the sciences as they express occultism and with bridging work between the two. His special interests in those fields are the human subtle energy system and all the chakras, or energy centres, physics and technology, astronomy and all aspects of Chinese occultism.
He sends out periodic emails about astrological happenings and developments. These email messages are sent as a gift and a sharing. They are sent to people of many persuasions, not just astrologers. Blessings. Click here to subscribe to Malvin's periodic letters.

The Red Orb: part 1 | part 2 | The Imperial Astrologer | Mercury Cycles | The Zodiac