The western world in which we live today is the world that human beings have created; our consumer society, our fast food, our materialistic view of life, our high dependency on technology are aspects of a culture that we have all bought into in one way or another. It was a slow and insidious slide that brought us to this point without most of us really noticing where we were going. Those who did notice seemed powerless to halt the slide and their words of warning brought little support until we could no longer pretend that everything was all right.

We are increasingly experiencing the effects of global warming and we are told that our life style is creating this phenomenon, others say that there is a natural cycle of climate change that has happened before and that is occurring again on earth. We would agree that this repeating cycle has begun again and we would like to add our view that human beings, through their shortsighted exploitation of nature, have chosen a path that must incur consequences. We also suggest that these consequences can only add to the difficulties that we may encounter during this process of change. Perhaps if we remember the ancient history of our earth we can begin to understand something of the cross roads where we now stand.

Atlantis

According to the tradition, many thousands of years ago there was a very large continent that is now under the Atlantic Ocean. In the Atlantic Ocean, roughly half way between North America and Europe, lie the Portuguese islands called the Azores, it is said that they are the peaks of high mountains of the sunken continent that we now call Atlantis.

>There were many high mountains and fertile coastal regions on that continent. It was a land of mists and the sun never really broke through, the earth was a very different place then and human consciousness was also quite different. There was what we might call an atavistic ability to perceive the thoughts and ideas of others through something like a telepathic process. This was a means of communication for human beings who were still very much connected to one another in consciousness and were not so much like the strongly individual beings that we are today.

At the height of the Atlantean civilisation there was a very high culture with much knowledge about the earth and the life forces of plants and other life forms. A technology was developed out of this knowledge and natural resources were used to create energy for the developing civilisation. There was a priesthood that protected and taught the spiritual knowledge and wisdom about the true nature of the human being and the earth. They also had a deep understanding of astronomy and of the elements.

As we look back through world history we see a pattern in which civilisations rise and fall. All great civilisations eventually fall into decadence and disappear and another arises somewhere else. We can easily understand this to be the working out of a cosmic pattern that we see in all levels of life; in nature we see the turning of the wheel of the year – out of the darkest night of winter the light is reborn and becomes stronger until it reaches its high point at the summer solstice when slowly it descends again into the darkness for the cycle to be repeated once more; plant growth reaches its high point and then dies away to come renewed in the spring; animal and human life grows, matures, ages and dies to be reborn once again. This cosmic process of growth and “death” is seen in the great systems of galaxies and in the tiniest cell in our bodies, it is a law that applies to all existence and also to human and social evolution.

Eventually the great civilisation of Atlantis became decadent; the knowledge that had been acquired was misused, life forces were abused in a way that went against the plan and the will of God and Goddess. Some of the priests began to manipulate and deceive the people and they worked to control the elements for their own power. These priests became the black magicians of the their time and exercised great power in this land. These deeds, like all deeds, had consequences. Nature had to reclaim her own power and the people had to be brought to a renewed and true path of development.

The priests who remained true to God and Goddess understood the consequences that could be expected. They began to lead their people to the coasts where many took to boats and sought other lands. The rains fell, there were mighty storms and the waters rose. Many were lost in the fall of this great continent but many travelled to new lands. This cataclysmic event took place about 12,000 years ago and remains in the folk memory of many cultures as the time of the great flood.

Ireland was an island colony of Atlantis and some of those who fled from the floods came to settle there. Others went towards the Americas and as far as the southern hemisphere. These travellers from Atlantis were accompanied by their priests, some were true priests and some were those who had become the black magicians. (A black magician is someone who misuses spiritual laws for personal gain or power and thereby misleads the people and holds back the true evolutionary process.)

These events took humanity and the earth into a new era of development. The elements settled into a harmonious cycle and the rains stopped, for the first time the sun fully broke through and the mists began to dissolve. As this happened the first rainbow was seen in the sky, this became the sign of the covenant with God. There would be no more floods or destruction on this scale for as long as humanity honoured the creation and did not abuse it for their own ends.

When the travellers found new lands and settled the true priests knew that they must preserve the knowledge and the spiritual truths in case such a thing should happen again and the knowledge of a great civilisation might be lost. The ancient Orders and Mystery Schools fulfilled this role, teaching those who were ready to receive and protect the higher truths and selflessly work for the benefit of humanity and the earth. These teachings eventually came to the Druid Orders of the Celtic peoples.

With the widespread interest in the esoteric and alternative spirituality Atlantis is the subject of many New Age books and discussions. We believe that it is important to remember the lessons of Atlantis because our current civilisation could be said to be a reflection of that time. We have now reached a stage where it is clear to see that our social infrastructure is failing and our culture is in decline. We have become a secular society of consumers and constantly want more and more. The advances in technology that were supposed to free us have in many cases enslaved us; we are plundering the earth of all her resources for the personal, financial gain of the few; the beautiful and powerful crystals that have become so popular and readily available are ripped out of the earth with explosives for financial gain and with no thought for the millennia that it took for their growth or for their purpose deep within the earth; our food is poisoned with chemicals and even the seeds of the plants are interfered with and patented in the name of progress and food for all; the animals are exploited and many live lives of misery. The divine “blue print” of life is given to us through our genes, interference in the genetic make up of any life form is to work against that divine plan for life on earth and will undoubtedly have consequences. God and Goddess have been forgotten and many now claim publicly that the Godhead does not exist at all.

We are living in a time of conspiracy theory. People are reading the old prophesies about the end time and the apocalypse. Nostradamus is popular, so is the Mayan calendar that comes to an end in 2012. Some people refuse to think about the issues that we need to deal with, others are afraid that the end of the world will come.

We are sure that change will come on many levels – it must because we cannot continue as we are. But let’s remember it is a time of hope, an amazing time to be alive and if we all work together for the highest good of all beings then the possible consequences can be less severe. Not all the prophecies need to be fulfilled. We can become part of the solution rather than remain part of the problem as we move once more into a new epoch and a new covenant with God. The Mayans didn’t foresee the end of the world – they just couldn’t see how the future would be after 2012 - and that future depends upon the choices made by humanity now. We are participating in the birth of a new epoch and if we can make the right choices the birth may not be too difficult.

We know that our Celtic ancestors lived throughout Europe and in the western islands; in their time they had a refined and knowledgeable culture where the God and Goddess and all of Their creation were honoured. They knew that at times when humanity had wandered far from the path of healthy development, God would come into His creation to bring a renewed impulse of the moral and spiritual truth that had been forgotten.

The Celtic civilisation eventually disappeared but at its height the druids who remained loyal to God kept the true and unbroken stream of spiritual knowledge. Later this knowledge was suppressed and the stream was forced underground; it was protected by hereditary druids and Celtic priests for many centuries until, in our time, it could be brought to the people once more.

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