Hypersigil ~ Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius ~ December 4th, 2021

On December 4th arrives the Solar Eclipse in the sign of Sagittarius, the realm of prophets, seers and revelators. Not only is this the last eclipse of the year, it’s the last eclipse of an era—marking the end of the Gemini/Sagittarius eclipse cycle, a wild period of volatility that began back in May of 2020.  

In a speech by Robert F. Kennedy from 1966, the departed senator said:

“For the fortunate amongst us, the fourth danger is comfort; the temptation to follow the easy and familiar path of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who have the privilege of an education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. There is a Chinese curse which says ‘May he live in interesting times.’ Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind. And everyone here will ultimately be judged—will ultimately judge himself—on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.”

The interesting times that Kennedy referred to never ended, they just updated their software and mutated into a new variant. After all, it’s like the Bible says: there’s nothing new under the sun.

A celestial narrative is coming to its conclusion at this solar eclipse, characterized by the dynamic tension between the air sign of Gemini and the fire sign of Sagittarius. This ends an 18-month journey of collective gnosis and revelation that explored the dissonance between matters of knowledge and faith, mind and heart.

These are the darkest days of the year as the Sun ambles through the final degrees of Sagittarius. In this dim light, perception operates on a very slow shutter speed. With eyes wide open and unblinking, all the available light is gathered, developing into visions of eternity.

This long gaze is key to understanding the Sagittarian spirit of revelation, for it is the sign that sees in the dark, living in anticipation of the resurrection of the light. Thus in Sagittarius, true faith is born: an unwavering fidelity to the promise of redemption and renewal after a long struggle.

At this eclipse, the revelatory influence of Sagittarius will become intensified, stirring the primordial chaos. In this spin, the dross of the collective unconscious will be purified by waves of hallucinatory sickness, purging many poisons of deception.

If the Sun in Sagittarius is the eye of awakened consciousness, then the eclipsing Moon is the lid that blocks the light and turns the visions inward, prompting you to see beyond the veil.

At a solar eclipse, everything fades to black. You are drawn into the void, beyond the veil of illusion to see differently than you’ve ever seen before.

This Solar Eclipse will be conjunct to Mercury, purging the mental debris that compromises your quest for truth. This Mercurial Solar Eclipse inspires a philosophical poise as you reflect upon the apocalyptic scene that was 2021.

Reality has ripped apart at the seams, torn to shreds by the fanatical claws of dogmatism. When the ideological atom was split last year, the fallout tore countless relationships and communities apart. In that explosion, the myth of progress was incinerated. And now unholy mutations of the human spirit have crawled out to haunt the earth.

In a cruel twist of irony, all manner of cruelty has been perpetrated in the name of compassion, all manner of illness has been spread in the name of health and  all manner of restrictions have been imposed in the name of freedom.

But the slow shutter speed of the eclipse in Sagittarius takes all this in, patiently developing a picture of everything that has been hidden under the cloak of darkness for the last 18 months. 

Eclipses are volatile times, for they seem to tap into the primal chaos summoning great waves of creation and destruction. Humanity’s struggle with their unconscious reactions and behaviors, their programs and prejudices, will be an increasingly heightened threat. 

No matter how stressful the events surrounding the eclipse may seem, it is important to remember that the axis of Gemini/Sagittarius is about expanding one’s breadth of knowledge and becoming liberated from the mental prison of dogma, or as William Blake called it “mind-forged manacles”. The attack on your mind continues to increase, but so does your heart’s desire to be free! 

With the world erupting in an endless strain of new variants on authoritarianism, you may feel like nobody has ever experienced the discomfort you’re feeling before. But there’s nothing new under the sun and the cyclical forces of history always find resonance and sympathy across vast distances of time and space.

Archons of the Outer Church

Back in the 1st Century CE, the ancient Gnostics lived in a world of imperial corruption and ideological strige. The Gnostics were usually outcasts, often violently persecuted for their beliefs. But they perceived their true enemy as being a host of invisible mind-parasites, the Archons, who acted upon humanity and corrupted their nature. Long before, television or social media, the Gnostics perceived that a war was being waged upon the collective mind of humanity.

Observing the archontic influence in the world has persisted amongst seers and mystics throughout the centuries. The 20th Century sci-fi author and gnostic prophet Philip K. Dick often reflected upon the Rulers of Reality:

“Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups… So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.”

What characterizes ancient and modern Gnostics is the knowledge that there is more to reality than meets the eye. That there is some manipulation of reality that traps humanity in delusion. This is why Gnostics defy the consensus reality of their time. Much of the historical lineage of gnostic philosophies have been lost to the sands of time. But some key teachings and texts were discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945. One of them is called The Hypostasis of the Archons or “Reality of the Rulers”, which is an anonymous text presenting an esoteric interpretation of the Garden of Eden story. It describes the Rulers of Reality as spirits of wickedness, acknowledging that the real war is not one of flesh and blood.

“On account of reality (hypostasis) of the authorities, inspired by the spirit of the father of truth…told us that “our contest is not against flesh and blood; rather the authorities of the universe and the spirits of wickedness…”

In the Gnostic interpretation, the Garden of Eden was actually built by the chief of the Archons, who was not a god but a blind and arrogant mind-parasite. The Gnostics said that it was this Chief Archon who proclaimed himself as “the one and only God in the universe”. In the Gnostic interpretation, the Garden of Eden was actually built by the chief of the Archons, who was not a god but a blind and arrogant mind-parasite. The Gnostics said that it was this Chief Archon who proclaimed himself as “the one and only God in the universe”.  So in modern terms, the voice of patriarchy and oppression was first born from the Archons.So in modern terms, the voice of patriarchy and oppression was first born from the Archons.

In the Gnostic texts, the first man Adam, was created by the Archons. They animated his body from clay, but they did not have the divine creative power to make him truly conscious. Thus, Adam was an unholy lifeform without the capacity to think for himself or see the light of the divine. He was merely a simulation.

The story unfolds as the great Goddess Sophia (Wisdom) descends to Eden in the form of a woman, named Eve. It was the presence of Eve, goddess of wisdom incarnate, that awakened Adam to consciousness.

The dualistic split that is described in the Gnostic Garden of Eden is the one that exists between ignorance and wisdom, unconsciousness and awakening.

The Gnostics saw the light of Sophia in Eve’s marriage to Adam. But in this version of Eden, Sophia was also thought to be the serpent that tempted Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit. The Archons were afraid of Adam and Eve awakening to something beyond their simulated reality and so they made the fruit of revelation forbidden. So it was the Wisdom of Sophia once more that coiled around Adam, inviting him to taste what lay beyond the illusion of Eden.

Now it is important to remember that this ancient Gnostic account of the Garden of Eden was not discovered until 1945. And yet, the great Sagittarian prophet/poet William Blake described a similar vision in the early 19th century.

Blake’s 1808 painting of Adam and Eve under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil captures the spirit of the Gnostic tradition. Eve is entwined with the spiraling serpent who feeds her the forbidden fruit in an open mouth kiss of original sin. Coiled together, both aspects of the Gnostic Sophia reveal their unity of purpose, which is to awaken humanity.

Like the Gnostic version, Blake’s Garden of Eden tells a story far removed from the traditional one. In Blake’s cosmology, God was an androgynous primeval entity named Albion, from whom emanated a holy trinity: Adam, Eve and Satan. Thus, each aspect of this trinity was divine, a totally heretical idea.

Blake’s version of Eden is like the ancient Gnostic vision, which remembers the light of Sophia, the divine spark within all of creation. Rather than seeing himself as a fallen creature stained by original sin he saw that was a divine child on a spiritual journey of awakening.

Both Blake and the Gnostics valued the path of liberation from the Rulers of Reality, the Archons, and the high priests of the status-quo. In 2021, these gnostic versions of Eden resonate strongly, for there are many mind-forged manacles in the Information Age that prevent you from seeing the light of the divine. 

Whether you think the Archons are a metaphor for evil or that they are a real supernatural enemy is unimportant. However you define them, both the myth and history of earth reveals how dark forces of power have always thrived by keeping people controlled through fear and ignorance. 

There’s nothing really new going on in 2021 because the Archons have always used science, religion, and/or politics to divide and conquer. They have always operated by manipulating the mind, subtly deceiving and weakening unity.

But the Archons can only win when you’re afraid of your own shadow, too blind to see outside of your mental confinement. They can only win when you ask no questions and simply repeat what you’ve been told. 

This solar eclipse, which closes the 18-month cycle we’ve just endured on the Gemini-Sagittarius axis, is the legendary final of a legendary with the Rulers of Reality in a never ending psycho-spiritual war. Thus, this becomes an opportunity to reach higher, opening your mind and heart to your own inner wisdom that remembers the underlying unity in the cosmos. The light of Sophia within all of creation knows that it is love, not power or money, that binds the universe together.

When facing the grim (false) reality of the Archons, there is no balm that can soothe the soul quite like art. William Blake understood this with every fiber of his being. Art is a purely human invention—an absurd, illogical, irrational pursuit to discover the depths of the soul. Sure, art can be recuperated by the archontic corporate mainstream to pervert into advertising and propaganda. 

But the archons cannot create, they can only produce. They understand not creativity, only productivity—they comprehend not love and wisdom but the bottomline. They’ll never understand the depth of feeling and flavor that real art creates, for they are chemists not alchemists. They can only reproduce the sensation, not endure the Great Work. And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprhended it not.

The Invisible College

A perfect contemporary artist to contemplate this Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius is comics writer and modern mystic Grant Morrison. Following in the tradition of Blake, Morrison channeled divine wisdom to liberate the human spirit from the mind-forged manacles of the status quo.

In the early 90s, Morrison was traveling through Nepal. Morrison had just experienced an unexpected magical success when his occult-themed and Jungian-influenced take on the Batman mythos, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, had been released concurrently with Tim Burton’s 1989 film adaptation Batman. A frenzy of filmgoers mistook Morrison’s Batman graphic novel as a movie tie-in and gobbled it up en masse.

It’s pretty magical that Morrison was able to spread occult imagery to a mainstream audience by a mere twist of fate. But this was only the beginning of Morrison’s meta magic spell.

The sales of Arkham Asylum brought Morrison a small fortune and unprecedented cache from a graphic novel that was intended for a diehard audience only. The financial freedom that Morrison’s newfound success brought allowed him to travel the world and see some of its most revered sacred sites.

It was during his trip to Nepal that things changed for Morrison—and subsequently, popular culture—forever. After visiting a Vajrayana Buddhist temple, Morrison was falling asleep in his hotel room… and then he had a vision that ended up leaving a permanent ripple effect on popular consciousness. As he were falling asleep, the walls of Morrison’s room split open and in walked a gang of glowing orb entities.

Morrison was lifted out of his body and shown the Earth from space. It wasn’t a drug-induced hallucination—nor was it a lucid dream. This was an authentic vision, more real than the real thing. Morrison has described our world to the one that he saw in his vision as the difference between 1950s B&W television and today’s high definition screens.

The entities that gave Morrison his vision had a message for him. As his spirit was suspended above the Earth, the orb-like entities explained to Morrison that in his higher dimension, all is eternal and nothing changes. In order to create change, the entities created the dimension of time for their seed to germinate. Time is the dimension where change happens, it’s the dimension where things can grow—and so the star-children of these orb-entities incubate in the universes that are created by time.

But time is the moving image of eternity. It’s all one thing. Over three billion years ago on planet Earth, a single cell divided. That cell is still in every living being, and just like how that cell is a part of us, we are a part of the gestating divine star-children of the orb-entities—meaning that we are collectively evolving into a divine being greater than the sum of its parts, one that can create and destroy universes at will.

As his vision drew to a close, the entities gave Morrison license to depart and told him to spread the word. And spread the word he did! Morrison translated his experience into his magnum opus, a comic book series called The Invisibles.

The Invisibles defies all genre signifiers and plot summaries. It is an epic postmodern hyperdimensional psychedelic comic book about the unseen war that wages behind the scenes of reality between the Invisible College and the Archons of the Outer Church.

The Invisible College seeks to liberate human consciousness so it can achieve its greatest potential, while the Archons want to enslave humanity to harvest its spiritual energy. Much of the conflict in The Invisibles is fought using ritual magic and psychic powers, in astral spaces beyond the material dimension, between secret societies who may or may not have the best intentions for humanity.

The Invisibles is a chaos magic cut-up of occult lore and popular culture, where deities like Ganesha are invoked alongside pop stars like John Lennon. Reading it is a magic ritual in and of itself, one that forever alters your reality. That’s because Grant Morrison designed it to be that way. Most of The Invisibles was taken from Morrison’s own magical experiences and experiments, from his vision in Nepal to his own LSD-influenced invocation of John Lennon.

Morrison called The Invisibles a hypersigil, which he defined in The Disinformation Book of Lies:

“The hypersigil… develops the sigil concept beyond the static image and incorporates elements such as characterization, drama, and plot. The hypersigil is a sigil extended through the fourth dimension.

“My own comic book series The Invisibles was a six-year long sigil in the form of an occult adventure story which consumed and recreated my life during the period of its composition and execution.

“The hypersigil is an immensely powerful and sometimes dangerous method for actually altering reality in accordance with intent. Results can be remarkable and shocking”

His results were undeniably remarkable and shocking. Inspired by his Nepal vision, Morrison created his hypersigil The Invisibles with the intention of transforming the culture into one of positive growth and awareness.

Even if you’re just finding out about it for the first time, you still are no doubt aware of The Invisibles’ influence on popular culture—because it’s one of the primary inspirations for The Matrix.

The Wachowskis were avid comic fans, and gave issues of The Invisibles to the art director on The Matrix as inspiration for how the film should look. And there’s no denying the influence of The Invisibles on The Matrix‘s plot… an unseen war being waged to awaken humanity to the archontic overlords who secretly keep it suspended in a simulated reality to harvest its lifeforce. You get the picture?

It’s been reported that while at first he was (understandably) pissed off that he wasn’t given adequate credit (or compensation) for inspiring the film, Grant Morrison eventually came to see The Matrix as the evidence of a successful spell.

With The Invisibles, Morrison set out to rewrite the grand narrative with a hypersigil inspired by his own magical experiences. And if you doubt Morrison was successful in his aims, ask yourself: Is there a more ubiquitous pop culture meme than that of living in a computer simulation as proliferated by The Matrix?

If Star Wars popularized the concepts of prana or chi with the Force for a late-20th century audience, then The Matrix is its early-21st century counterpart, popularizing the concept of gnosis or awakening for the mainstream.

Say You Want a Revolution

The Matrix will once again be assimilated back into the corporate swamp from which it crawled out of more than 20 years ago as the fourth installment in the series is scheduled to be released at the end of the month. It is the apotheosis of recuperation.

What was once an original and thought-provoking science fiction film on the nature of reality has become a big budget commercial for the Metaverse. It makes the original film seem not so much like a warning of a dangerous future as it does a preview for a coming attraction.

Much like how The Matrix usurped Star Wars as the mystico-philosophical film saga du jour, the time has come for a new cultural narrative to be written—one that will override The Matrix and liberate the collective imagination from the false gnosis hustled by the archons.

If you feel overwhelmed by these interesting times, remember the words of Robert F. Kennedy, who said, “Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind. And everyone here will ultimately be judged—will ultimately judge himself—on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.”

And if you feel powerless in the battle against the archons, remember the Scottish comics writer who took a trip to Kathmandu and transformed the popular imagination for all time with a comic book series.

Remember that the power of art can change the world, not because of its message or its meaning—but through the sheer power of its creativity, a divine skill that the archons cannot comprehend. And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

Everyone has a part to play in this creating this hypersigil of collective gnosis—especially you.

So at the Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius, you must ask yourself…

What can I create that will change the world?