The future of humanity depends on its most developed and highest evolved representatives. To form as complete a liaison group of them as possible is the great opportunity... that is offered humanity until 1994: an emergency door to an evolutionary process that would otherwise be aborted. Thereafter the liaison group continues the process.112
This liaison group is to have a momentous task:
Nothing less is in the offing than the possibility of the course of human history being changed via the group of persons who will have availed themselves of the various starting times and who will have followed through for the development called for.113
(The original exercises for the Lion Path were intended to culminate in April 1994; however, as that date approached a new edition of the book announced that the Path had been extended to 23 November 1998.)
The intention appears to be the creation of a group of people who have done the spiritual exercises of the Lion Path and successfully achieved contact with Sirius. Then they will rule - or at least speak for - the world.
Musaios sums up the objective of the Lion Path with this quote from the Book of the Dead: ‘Now I speak with a voice and accents to which they listen and my language is that of the star Sinus.’114 (It should be pointed out that this is Musaios’ own translation of this passage. R.O. Faulkner’s rendition is: ‘I have spoken as a goose until the gods have heard my voice, and I have made repetition for Sothis.’115)
Attempts to contact beings from Sirius are not, by now, unfamiliar to this investigation. Not only do the Council of Nine claim that their chosen followers on Earth are conduits for Siriun communications, but Alice Bailey also wrote of the Path of Sirius as being the highest aspiration a seeker could have. But what is Musaios’s intention with his Lion Path? And who is the man behind the pseudonym?
It is not difficult to discover his true identity. ‘Musaios’ is none other than Dr Charles Muses, the internationally renowned mathematician and cyberneticist. We know, not just from suspicions arising from the way Musaios frequently references Musès’s work, and indeed vice versa, but also - significantly - from the fact that John Anthony West reveals the identity of the two in Serpent in the Sky when discussing The Lion Path.116
Undoubtedly, Musès is one of the most erudite and brilliant thinkers of today. A highly respected mathematician, inventor of the complex theory of “hypemumbers‘, Muses’s work, in the words of his biography, ‘span[s] problems on the complex interfaces between sociology, biology, psychology, philosophy, and mathematics. ’117 He has also written extensively on mythology. Muses is also famed as a neural cyberneticist: tellingly, however, in the early 1960s he worked with Warren S. McCulloch,118 who was Andrija Puharich’s mentor in his early work on electronic implants, such as tooth radios and the like. Curiously, Musès’s master work, entitled Destiny and Control in Human Systems came out the same year that his pseudonymous The Lion Path was published, yet the contrast between the two is, at first, inexplicably extreme. On the one hand, his masterwork is scholarly and erudite, revealing an immense breadth of learning, and providing astonishingly astute insights, yet on the other he produces what many of his academic admirers would dismiss as quaint and — frankly — almost mindless New Age pap. What on earth was Musès up to?
Perhaps it is significant that he was also one of the pioneers of the idea of extraterrestrial visitations in mankind’s early history. In the late 1950s, he undertook a study of certain Babylonian legends, reaching the same conclusions as Robert Temple in The Sirius Mystery: that they were actually accounts of visitations by amphibious aliens.119 Temple never mentions Musès’s work, which is curious because they were both close to the same hugely influential man: Arthur M. Young. Musès was the editor of the journal of Young’s Institute for the Study of Consciousness, and also co-edited a book with Young. Temple - as we have seen - was Young’s protégé, and briefly secretary of the Foundation For the Study of Consciousness.
If nothing else, the Musaios story reveals that some of the finest minds in the world are being co-opted, or volunteering themselves, into a network of people willing to contact beings from Sirius. Yet do people such as Muses — and indeed, James Hurtak — really believe that such things are possible? And can they really find no better representatives for our home planet Earth than ‘flaky’ New Age channellers?
The heart of the matter
Secret Chiefs, Hidden Masters, initiates and higher beings from Sirius: all may appear to swirl around each other like individual bees, but their motivations - and their secrets — lie in their membership of the same hive. We can now see that apparently unconnected cults and esoteric groups share certain key figures and beliefs - surprisingly, even suspiciously, few, in fact. These are the ingredients in a heady mix now being expertly moulded into nothing less than a new religion for the twenty-first century by those with very much their own design in mind.
We conclude that the Council of Nine’s communications have definite antecedents in the occult and mystical milieu of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some of the Council of Nine material of today is strikingly similar to its earlier manifestations, and this is obviously not coincidental. For example:
* Aleister Crowley’s ‘Aiwass’ communications, which began in 1904, led to his creation (or perhaps reformation) of the Argenteum Astrum, his magickal order that laid great emphasis on Sirius. In postwar California, Aiwass and the ‘Secret Chiefs’ (nonhuman intelligences) of the A∴A∴ came to be identified as extraterrestrial rather than occult entities. Then began a tortuous, but undeniable, chain of influence: a member of the Californian A∴A∴, Harry Smith, became an acknowledged influence on Arthur M. Young - Puharich’s ‘second-in-command’ at the Round Table Foundation in the 1950s - who directly inspired the writing of The Sirius Mystery by Robert Temple. This book has, in turn, been extremely influential on the New Egyptology and the belief in extraterrestrial involvement in the origins of Egyptian (and other) civilisations.
* Certain of R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz’s ideas - such as the Nine Principles - turn up in the earliest communications from the Council of Nine. He was a member of the Theosophical Society and a leader of the Synarchist movement, which has close connections with societies of which Crowley was a member and which are part of esoteric traditions in which groups of nine are important. Schwaller de Lubicz has become the godfather of the New Egyptology, inspiring many of its leading researchers.
* Alice Bailey’s ‘Tibetan’ communications are the most obvious precursor to those of the modern Council of Nine. Vinod’s 1952 communications are virtually a continuation of Bailey’s, just as Hurtak’s The Keys of Enoch is essentially an update of her work. Her career also began in the Theosophical Society, and the direct influence of Sirius and its inhabitants on Earth was a key part of the Tibetan’s doctrine. Moreover, Bailey’s communications also made a direct connection between Sirius and Freemasonry, an idea that was possibly already circulating among the higher ranks of American Freemasonry but which in any case would have been brought to their attention by her husband, Foster Bailey. Another prominent American Mason, who, as a student of Theosophy, was open to Bailey’s ideas was Henry Wallace, who was a major backer of Puharich’s Round Table Foundation. To clinch matters, Puharich is known to have studied the works of Alice Bailey shortly before beginning his research at the Round Table Foundation in the late 1940s.
* Other information channelled by famous and influential psychics such as H.C. Randall-Stevens and Edgar Cayce, while not having direct connections with the Nine — as far as we know - does show remarkable similarities with their teachings.
Underpinning the apparently disparate systems of Schwaller de Lubicz, Crowley and Bailey was an unquestioning acceptance of Madame Blavatsky’s basic principles, such as the idea of ‘root races’. Essentially they were Theosophist in background and fundamental belief, no matter how different their own developed systems may appear to be.
The initial contact with the Council of Nine
at the Round Table Foundation in 1952 — 3 seems to draw the main sets of communications together into one coherent scheme. But how do we explain these connections? Basically, there are two options:
(1) The various communications in the early part of this century - through Crowley, Bailey, Cayce and Randall-Stevens - may represent some kind of genuine, non-Earthly intelligence, who are making contact through ‘psychic’ (telepathic) means with several different people in various guises. The variations could have been part of a deliberate plan, or have been merely the side effects of difficulties in ‘coming through’ different psychics. But in this scenario, the final ‘coming out’ of the Council of Nine solved the problem by focusing on a group of ‘accredited’ and ‘official’ conduits (such as Phyllis Schlemmer), effectively making sense of the overall story.
(2) It is possible that communications with the Council of Nine, begun by Puharich and Arthur Young, were consciously modelled on the earlier communications, perhaps as an elaborate experiment in the creation, and manipulation, of belief systems.
Neither solution is entirely satisfactory. There certainly seems to have been an element — to say the least — of manipulation on the part of Puharich, yet he himself appears to have genuinely believed in the possibility of such communications.
Another important factor in the postwar communications is the evident involvement of official government agencies such as the Pentagon and intelligence organisations like the CIA. We have seen their hand in the Round Table Foundation in the 1950s and in the events surrounding Lab Nine, as well as extending their influence into, and shaping, the daring new thinking of the 1970s.
Since that time, the Nine’s communications seem to have become more driven and purposeful, with a clearer agenda, linking their message to Cydonia and the mysteries of Egypt. And through works such as Hurtak’s The Keys of Enoch, the Nine are now reaching a considerably wider audience. Their message may not stand up to scrutiny, but few people know about their background - or their mistakes. Their impact, as a whole, is increasingly significant.
One scenario does make sense: the phenomenon of the prewar communications emerged spontaneously. Claims of contact with non-human entities were nothing new, but what was different was: (1) improved methods of communication that made it easy to spread the word and for connections to be made (books by Blavatsky, Crowley, Bailey, Cayce and Randall-Stevens were circulating in Europe and the United States simultaneously); (2) all of these contacts carry essentially the same message of coming global change, even if it is expressed in different terms — Crowley’s New Aeon of Horus, Bailey’s New Age, Cayce’s ‘return of the Great Initiate’, Randall-Stevens’s Age of Aquarius. This was a new phenomenon. Whereas, for example, the rise of spiritualism in the mid-nineteenth century had popularised the idea of communication with discamate beings, it had never been associated with any sense of impending upheaval.
It is easy to imagine that when this new trend in entity communication came to official notice, government agencies would have wanted to know what was going on. The corridors of power would have buzzed with urgent questions: Are the communications real? Will the prophesied changes actually take place? Is contact possible with nonhuman, extraterrestrial, beings, even with the old ‘gods’ themselves? Possibly as part of the new interest in psychological warfare and psychic abilities after the Second World War, the US government — through various outlets - seemed to focus attention specifically on the subject of communication with entities from the 1940s onwards. This might not have been official policy. All it needed was some individuals in the military and intelligence community to take the idea of contact seriously. If it was real, it could prove very useful.
It is a mistake to think that the military mind is inevitably coldly pragmatic. General Patton, for example, was a fervent believer in reincarnation, and Britain’s Air Marshal Dowding was a top spiritualist who believed himself to be in touch with dead airmen. By reaching Freemasons, Alice Bailey’s (or rather, the Tibetan’s) ideas also had a hotline to the movers and shakers of American society. It is hard to get much nearer to the top of the tree than the Vice-President, and Vice-President Henry Wallace was steeped in esoteric and mystical ideas. But the political and military mind is conditioned for expediency: its over-riding concern is to use anything and everything to further its goals or cause. If they were interested in contact with aliens, it would be to answer one question only: how can we turn it to our own advantage?
So if ‘they’ began to treat the idea of contact with other intelligences seriously, what would be the next step? It would seem logical to carry out experiments, which is precisely what Puharich’s Round Table Foundation did. In fact, there is no doubt about this: Terry Milner’s research shows that the Foundation was a front for the military to carry out psychological and medical experiments in the background of the public arena. Again, Henry Wallace’s involvement in funding the Foundation is significant. Puharich’s parapsychological experiments at Glen Cove centred specifically on people who, like Eileen Garrett, claimed communication with some kind of entity. This explains why Puharich first took Vinod there — and for whom he was working.
There is another highly significant factor in an assessment of the role of Puharich. It appears that he was actively seeking contact or, more precisely, seeking to observe and experiment with other people who made contact. This is important because the ‘prewar’ channellers seemed to fall into the practice spontaneously. They never sought it. Even the great magician Crowley was taken aback by the appearance of the entity called Aiwass.
What did these experiments demonstrate? What did Puharich conclude from them? Were the communications real, or delusions?
Once a phenomenon has been identified, it is then used. The change of direction in the Nine’s communications at the beginning of the 1970s, and the development of more distinct overtones in their message, occurred once they had established themselves and could start to spread their propaganda. But just what are the Council of Nine and their message being used for? Why are so many prominent leaders in so many fields keen to promote them, with greater or lesser degrees of openness, as in the case of Richard Hoagland and his Message of Cydonia?
There is, in our view, an over-riding need for caution here. Alarm bells may be heard clear and strong, for true or false, now the Nine have become the property of the intelligence agencies, it is wise to be vigilant — and perhaps even afraid.
7
Endtimes: The Warning
There is undoubtedly a widespread expectation that these are the ‘endtimes’, that apocalyptic events are on the horizon and that the end of the world may really be nigh. High-profile books and films are now implanting the idea that some major — and highly devastating — event will soon ravage the world. And even if mankind does somehow survive the coming cataclysm it will be as traumatised and hopeless refugees, desperate for strong, empowered leadership.
At the forefront of this mood of escalating doom and disaster is the unique, febrile excitement generated by the very idea of the Millennium. It is as if the year 2000 marks the pinnacle of all our hopes and fears, although the negative aspects are constantly emphasised at the expense of more positive and optimistic expectations. The Millennium, as such, only makes sense in a Christian context, supposedly marking 2000 years since the birth of Jesus, but now virtually everyone is caught up in the hysteria. With all eyes on the next few years, what a pity it would be if nothing happened, and what a temptation for certain individuals and cabals to ensure that it does...
For Christians the endtimes fever means the Second Coming of Jesus, as predicted in the New Testament, with the concomitant apocalyptic events described with perhaps excessive zeal in the Book of Revelation. We are led to believe that if Jesus, believed to be the epitome of Divine Love, returns to Earth in glory then he comes to initiate the final conflict between the forces of good and evil — the battle of Armageddon.
The Christian expectation is only part of the story. For ex
ample, New Agers have been prepared for this time - the dawning of the Age of Aquarius - for years, largely because of their acceptance of the prophecies of the sixteenth-century French occultist, Michel de Notre-Dame, more familiarly known as Nostradamus. From his psychic interpretation of astrological data, he singled out the year 1999 as a particularly disastrous one for mankind if the usual New Age interpretation of his obscurely worded ‘quatrains’ is accepted. Critics have pointed out that virtually any prophecy can be read into his words, rather like the ‘code’ read recently into the words of the Hebrew Bible.1 Yet to question Nostradamus to a New Ager is rather like criticising the Bible to a fundamentalist Christian. Even so, if the author of the Book of Revelation - believed to be St John of Patmos - may be one of the two major creators of the Millennium, Nostradamus is very much the other. On to these gnarled roots have since been grafted all the other endtimes expectations drummed up so expertly by the many characters now revealed to be integral parts of the great conspiracy to exploit Millennium fever.
Even materialists, who scorn all religious or quasimystical beliefs, are experiencing pangs of increasing uncertainty about the future. Perhaps a global economic collapse will open the door through which will burst the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Famine, Pestilence, War and Death. They point to the current economic upheavals in the Far East, in Russia and elsewhere and fret about the future of the worldwide money markets, nervously projecting disaster around the time of the Millennium. If nothing else, the materialists point out that, at best, the Millennium Bug will cause chaos; because of a simple (if disastrous) lack of foresight on the part of many computer-builders, the software will not recognise the year 2000. (Ironically, thanks to the prevailing hysteria, it will be the only thing that doesn’t.) It may well lead to utter financial collapse on an international scale and at worst to rioting in the streets and martial law. And of course it is the Millennium itself that will activate the Bug.
The Stargate Conspiracy Page 33