When we are initiated into the world of symbols, we can begin to glimpse the inner structure of the power elite. We trace back the lines of the pyramid to the all-seeing eye. We have awakened to a larger truth.
And this revelation can be truly frightening. These people, or reptilian beings, have enormous, seemingly unlimited power and an evil agenda.
But there are more than dark forces that operate on these fundamental levels of reality. We can turn our newfound vision to more positive messages...
I am exploring what I believe is a set of inner mysteries contained within Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. I believe Tolkien (consciously or more likely not) has set forth a path out of our current dilemma. This is a myth for our times (and perhaps a pre-diluvian history as well).
The end of the novel sees the phallic tower fall and all-seeing eye of Sauron (sauros, Greek for lizard) destroyed. And this was accomplished by an individual act. Tolkien's fantasy on a deeper level is the personal journey to wholeness.
We, each of us, possess a ring of power. When we wear this ring, we become invisible, disappear into an alternate reality, one just slightly out-of-phase with our true nature. We are subject to the control and manipulation of the eye.
But when we resist its temptation for security and freedom from fear, and we remove the ring, we begin to live an authentic life. We become the person we were born to be.
This ring is the hard wiring that allows us to be controlled. Destroy it, and we not only free ourselves, but we indeed destroy the entire structure of power. A balance returns, a King returns, You return.
This is an individual act, no movement or revolution or religion. Of course we can help and provide fellowship and support. The ring is, for want of a better concept, your ego, your false identity. It was forged in your pit of fear, in your Mt. Doom. You are the true Lord of the Ring.
Tolkien has put forth some stages of this alchemical process that we can all follow, and although I have not completely fleshed out this Great Work, I believe I have made some interesting allegorical discoveries...
Let’s take a look at The Lord of the Rings and see if we cannot uncover its more esoteric teachings. As we discover the deeper levels, we can begin to see a process emerge.
The first and most obvious question is what does the ring itself represent? Clearly, I contend, the ring represents the ego.
The ring is an ancient symbol of links and bonding; it simultaneously binds and isolates. It is also a circle which delineates an outside from an inside. This is a perfect symbol for the ego, a ring of consciousness, a ring of self-awareness. It binds us inside, and also isolates us from something greater outside.
After we are born, we have no sense of separateness from our mother. We are simply an extension of her, a relationship termed a dyad. It is not until years later, when we are children does the separate identity emerge. As the Jungian people tell us, this is all very normal and necessary for our development.
I believe that this defining moment, the emergence of the ego for the first time, deeply traumatizes all of us. We are now separate from the world, insecure. Fear is unleashed and its solution with it – Power. As ego selves we seek to acquire power to control the base anxiety of this spiritual separation. We begin to build our own tower of Babel, our identity, the “I,” the tower of Sauron.
We are now the center of this ring of awareness, the eye of a storm, and we build straight up out of it. Later we define ourselves by our likes and dislikes; the car we drive; the clothes we wear; the manner in which we earn a living. We construct our own Shire of security. We are in control; we wield power in varying degrees.
Or so we believe…
What does Tolkien tell us about the ring of power?
It was forged by Sauron in the fires of Mount Doom using the darkest of magic. It secretly unites all the other rings under its single, indomitable power. Anyone who wears the ring obtains the power of invisibility, but also is cursed to forget to their true name. Wearing the ring keeps you young, in a sense. You fail to mature.
This is a good fit for the ego, born in the pit of fear, of doom, that we experience when our own rings are first forged. We believe we wield its power, but are in reality slaves to darker, more sinister worldly forces. When we wear the ring, when we identify only with our egos, our true nature disappears – we lose our true names. We are truly something much greater.
Finally, I believe this ego consciousness is foreign to us in a sense. It is the alien. What Tolkien is telling us, on another mythological level, is that in our pre-history, some discarnate reptilian beings introduced into our genetics this self-awareness Trojan Horse.
This race lives through us, through our false self. Imagine for a moment, that in each us lives a separate alien being. It speaks to us and tells us that it is indeed us, but it is not.
When we look outside of ourselves and begin to interpret occult symbolism, we pierce the veil of black magic being used to enslave us. This is akin to pointing out Mordor, the black land (Egypt?) to the Hobbits. The more you look the more you see, and before you know it, you stand at its gates trembling in fear. Its power appears boundless. This is a very frightening reality to apprehend.
Tolkien’s approach is to first awaken to our own internal hard wiring for this magic, this ring of power. This is exactly how The Lord of the Rings begins, with the identification of the ring of power. If we are not aware of it, we have no path, no story, and no redemption.
To begin this process, we must recognize that there is something inside of us that is dangerous, and separates us from some greater reality.
It is this separateness, this ring of false consciousness, that must be destroyed.
Alas to heal the world we first must heal ourselves...
Step 2 http://www.redicecreations.com/forum/vi … .php?t=306
So to recap: Tolkien’s ring represents the ego.
Step one of his path is to recognize that we too possess a ring of power, and that it ultimately must be destroyed to save the world.
(I contend that we have been altered to possess this false locus of consciousness, this Trojan Horse of alien awareness. It is this alien presence which has created the unbalance that we see all around us today.)
But unlike the ring, the ego is very difficult to isolate.
Where does it begin and end? How do we know when we are operating inside our ego (and thereby wearing the ring) and when we are not? In the story it is very clear. Frodo is either holding the ring at bay (outside his ego), or he wears it and disappears into this alien dimension.
Can we move as easily from the ring world as Frodo? Tolkien tells us this is a ring of power. How is the ego related to power?
I contend that power is our response to fear of the unknown borne from the isolation and separateness that the ego itself creates. Power is required to hold back the experience of fear, and fear of death, of course, is the paramount fear of Man. Note that when Frodo is afraid, he very much wants to wear the ring.
Power craves knowledge to build its tower walls, its security. And, as we know, knowledge is power. The ego feels secure in what it knows (good and evil), and insecure and fearful in what it doesn’t know. The lust for power, for more security, drives civilization itself.
Since the unknown is classically feminine, I contend the known, the ego’s realm, is masculine. Although the ring is circular, it is designed to go onto the finger, a phallic symbol. And the tower of Sauron is indeed a phallus. Even the structure of the ego pronoun “I” is phallic.
Before we were implanted with this alien consciousness, we were in a balanced relationship with the unknown, the greater feminine. We trusted in the land and our needs were provided. We lived in a paradise.
Tolkien’s story begins to sound more and more like the Fall.
We have been corrupted by the serpent Sauron in the form of a ring of power (knowledge). The ring enters the Shire (Eden) and the decision is made by Gandalf (spiritual guide) to leave.
Here again it is the serpent that corrupts the feminine.
So it may be much easier to know when we are outside of our ego than to know when we are operating from within it. Anytime we willingly face our fears of the unknown, and place our trust in something wholly unknowable, we have in essence rejected power and are holding our ring at bay.
But when we yield to fear, when we need to control all of the unknowns in our life, we slip on the ring and enter its dimension – a world in which control actually flows up to the capstone eye, the elite with tremendous power and black-magic money. Once Osiris was torn to pieces in the Egyptian myth, but in the modern world it is the feminine Isis that is torn into pieces of paper currency.
We become a cog in their machine. We one day find ourselves sitting in a mortgaged home, eating factory food and watching television. Secure, yes, but alive, questionable, and awake, no.
We are educated to see reality only literally, only through a masculine, rational and logical worldview. Her source code, her symbolic language is then used against us, coming at us under the radar of our limited awareness. The masculine power elite have appropriated the feminine’s powers for control and manipulation.
And all of this security only really serves to heightens and sharpen the fear. It is just under the surface of every moment of our lives. It lies beneath, a foundation of darkness. The land itself becomes black and dies, like Mordor (Mort-door, death’s door).
So, not only do we need to identify the ring of power, but we need to leave this Shire of false security. In the East, the practice of meditation is used to calm the mind and disengage the ego. Just sit.
But in the West it’s just the opposite or complementary path. In the West, we take the Journey of the Hero. We leave Eden, the Shire, our couches and go in search of our destiny and healing. This is a time in people’s lives that they remember as a trial and test of great courage.
These are the times we feel most alive!
That is the next step after we identify and isolate the ring of power. We must leave our realm of paradise, of security and risk the unknown. We must leave the Shire.
We, like the Tarot’s Fool, must take a journey. It need not be a physical trip necessarily, but our power-based security must be left behind. Turn off the TV; quit the job you’ve hated; leave the relationship that lacks love and offers only security.
We go to destroy the imbalance, the ring. And we do not travel alone…
I just love saying that outloud. Fish Apocalypse!
