The Sword that Slays the Dragon

Is a single idea saving the world?

[This article has a 9/10 Woo Rating]

I know a woman who says she sees angels.

Alison Knox was a traditional corporate executive, quietly focused on her career. An existential crisis in 2001 led her to a succession of surprising encounters with angelic beings. I know her husband, and enjoyed her memoir According to my Angels. She now claims to speak with angels on a regular basis, and paints them. So I asked her to paint a little one to hang above my desk. She asked which one I felt drawn to and I replied Archangel Michael. I didn’t put a huge amount of thought into it, but I’d heard he had something to do with truth, and I felt like he stood for the right usage of my voice in writing and speaking.

My Archangel Michael painting. Painted by Alison Knox at Everyday Angels.

Even with my new higher woo threshold, the concept of angels is still a little hard to swallow. One intriguing theory I recently explored is Robert Temple’s claim that vast clouds of cosmic plasma create superintelligent entities. One of which he believes is the “angelic” figure Metatron. Last week, I also listened to an equally out-there podcast with spiritual scientist Dr. Robert Gilbert.¹ Gilbert remarked that according to a number of esoteric traditions, Archangel Michael is associated with the Sun. This obviously caught my ear, as I’ve been repeatedly drawn to explore the idea that the Sun is potentially another one of these superintelligent entities. According to the Law of One material, the Sun plays a critical role in setting the conditions for the evolution of our consciousness on Earth.

Over Labor Day I read the exhaustively-researched book Jesus Christ, Sun of God. In it, David Fideler makes a compelling case that Gnostic traditions also associated the Sun with “Christ consciousness.” This isn’t to be confused with Jesus Christ the historical figure, who can be interpreted as a representation of that consciousness made form on Earth.

Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner described three forces that influenced humanity: Ahriman, Lucifer and Christ.² Ahriman represents cold, disembodied materialism. It is the force that draws us downwards towards the Earth in search of power and control. At its worst, it’s the psychopathic transhumanist CEO. In contrast, Lucifer draws us upwards towards the heavens. At its worst, it’s the spiritual bypassing false guru distracting us from our earthly responsibilities. Obviously this maps pretty well onto the nature of each of our brain’s hemispheres.

Balancing between them both there is “Christ consciousness.” Like the tree of life, this is the human as a bridge between the material and spiritual worlds. We unveil our divine spark in order to co-create from a place of love here on Earth. Put simply: Jesus was demonstrating and explaining how to balance Lucifer and Ahriman in ourselves.

Steiner also explicitly described Michael as a solar archangel. He also called him the “countenance of Christ” who reveals the Christ impulse to humanity by way of solar forces. Steiner believed that we were currently in the Age of Michael, or the Michaelic Age, which began in November 1879. This era was marked by Archangel Michael's victory over the "Spirits of Darkness." According to Steiner, Michael defeated Ahriman in the heavens and he was cast down into the world of men. Now we must struggle with the same forces of cold materialism. Steiner prophesied that Ahriman would eventually manifest in the physical world. And he was unusually specific in his prediction that the end of the 20th and start of the 21st centuries would see the strongest preparations for Ahriman’s embodiment. It’s almost impossible not to equate this with the rapid rise of A.I. and Silicon Valley Transhumanism.

Whether or not you believe any of these esoteric figures are literally real, they represent undeniable forces at play in our daily lives.

During my darkest hours on Wall Street I felt I had come face-to-face with this archetypal Ahrimanic force. At that time I was in a job that was entirely devoid of joy for me, and it consumed far more of my time than the work itself required. But I was handsomely paid, especially for someone with obliterated self-esteem. I was being drawn away from the evolution of my consciousness by being held down in the world of matter. After months of feeling close to either suicide or insanity, I finally summoned the courage to quit, without a plan other than my vague desire to help similarly stuck people.

I kept telling my concerned wife and therapist about a recurring archetypal vision I was having: that the dragon in my life had to be slain. I eventually reached the very edge of what I could tolerate, and finally summoned the courage to quit. My boss suggested we go for a walk to talk about it. As I explained my desire to leave we passed the statue “Good defeats Evil” that stands outside of the United Nations in New York.

Archangel Michael (left), “Good defeats evil” (right)

The statue portrays St. George, whose iconography often overlaps with Archangel Michael, slaying a dragon. In this case, the artist made the dragon from fragments of two nuclear missiles.

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The Sword of Truth

I recently interviewed author and historian Freddy Silva. His specialty is sacred sites and alternative history. He has told the story of a vision he once had at Stonehenge. He sat against one of the stones, closed his eyes and described trying to connect with the spirit of the place. He then saw a tall humanoid figure with two winglike appendages on its back. It handed him a sword sheathed in bluish flames.

Archangel Michael carries the sword of truth.

Dr. Gilbert has said that the Michaelic Age will see the emergence of a kind of mind he called “cosmopolitan man.” This is someone at home in every spiritual tradition who is driven to synthesize them all to find the core truths.

What kind of idea would be most powerful against Ahriman, what sword of truth would slay the dragon?

This idea would ideally be common to almost all mystical traditions, supported by leading edge science and directly at odds with Ahrimanic materialism.

I think a particularly strong answer is the idea that consciousness isn’t restricted to our bodies.

If Christ consciousness is the natural balancing force between Ahriman and Lucifer, what is the single most influential part of the story of Jesus Christ? His crucifixion and resurrection. Some version of reincarnation is common to virtually every mystical tradition. Silva has identified a host of similar resurrection myths across different cultures.³ Death & rebirth is also a key stage in Joseph Campbell’s culturally ubiquitous monomyth.

There is also a shockingly voluminous and robust scientific literature on the phenomena of near death experiences, out of body experiences and reincarnation. This research is still underway at mainstream institutions.⁴

As a single concept, it also probably does the most to bring down the edifice of Ahrimanic materialism. Reincarnation directly opposes the transhumanist ethos of Silicon Valley. In a chilling viral moment, influential founder and technologist Peter Thiel recently spoke with surprising hesitancy about the need to preserve humanity.⁵ Instead he proposes turning us all into technologically immortal beings. This risks extinguishing the divine spark of Christ consciousness. Nothing exemplifies this Ahrimanic idea better than the “Don’t Die” mantra of Bryan Johnson. He’s aiming to hack his own biology to live as long as possible. This isn’t to pick on two people I don’t know personally. But it’s to present the thought experiment of wondering how powerful people would behave differently if they believed that it was their consciousness that endures, rather than their material bodies.

Source.

The key idea that emerged for me from Freddy Silva’s research was that many of the ancient initiation sites were intended to elicit an out of body experience. He says “the central theme common to all Mysteries traditions… that the soul is capable of temporarily disengaging from the living, physical body, and journeys independently into the spirit world before returning.” My recent interviewee Emily Lane described this precise experience. She effectively died rafting in Ecuador. Her soul left her body, and when she returned her worldview was no longer bound entirely to the world of matter. This shift in perspective is the most powerful developmental leap we can take as individuals and as a culture.

Once one entertains the mere possibility of reincarnation, it makes us ask why it happens. This can lead to other transformational ideas like Earth School, karma and the importance of unconditional love as a central force in the universe.

There are some anecdotal signs that these ideas are already moving from the spiritual & scientific fringes to the mainstream. Jeremy Renner, star of Marvel’s Avengers franchise, had a high-profile NDE on New Year's Day 2023. He was crushed by a 7-ton snowplow while saving his nephew. He described feeling an "exhilarating peace" and a "beautiful existence" during which he experienced a life review and a connection to universal love. In another recent example, Neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart was on the popular Diary of a CEO podcast telling the story of a series of encounters with her late husband Robin.⁶ She candidly notes that, as a psychiatrist, she would have regarded her own symptoms as psychotic if they had happened to one of her patients. One of the world’s most popular podcasters, Tim Ferriss, also interviewed NDE researcher Dr. Bruce Greyson on his own remarkable story and his findings from studying over a thousand individual cases.⁷

My wife is a national news anchor. She texted me this morning as I was writing this piece. She told me she’d just interviewed Dan Brown about his new book and I might be interested. Thankfully for everyone, she takes a polite-but-limited interest in my mystical life, so she had no idea what I’m working on. One of the best-selling authors of all time, Brown’s new novel Secret of Secrets centers on Dr. Katherine Solomon, a noetic scientist. Her secret? Solomon has developed a theory suggesting that consciousness is nonlocal. Brown said that after eight years of exploring the real-life scientific research: “I discovered that we have a model of consciousness that’s outdated in the same way the geocentric model of the universe was outdated. This research will change the way we view our world.”⁸

A small synchronicity is that, though I hadn’t realized any connection before, Archangel Michael sits above my writing desk besides a ceramic sun. To their left sits an antique telescope, a gift from my late Godfather at my Christening.

I only discovered the accompanying note at the bottom of a box a few months ago. It reads “To my Godson… with the belief that he will be able to see far into the future.”

I hope he’s right, because the future I see is very bright indeed.

1. Source: Activating Your Spiritual Potential Through Angels, Crystals, Colors and Metals

2. I recommend Rudolf Steiner and the Threefold Forces in Our Time by

John Stoszkowski

3. Source: The Lost Art of Resurrection

4.

UNVEIL THE WORLD

did a splendid review of the key research. I’ve written about this topic previously, leaning on the work of

Mona Sobhani, PhD

, who cites compelling work by Dr. Ian Stevenson of UVA. He studied 2,500-3,000 cases from six continents of children reporting past life memories. Children between the ages of 2-5 are allegedly especially permeable to past life experiences. In sixty five percent of cases the identity of purported past life identity could be verified. Creepily, there were also more than 200 case reports of children who remembered previous lives and who also had physical anomalies that matched those previous lives, details that could in some cases be confirmed by the dead person’s autopsy record and photos. One woman who remembered a past life where she was killed by three blows from an axe to her back had three separate linear hyperpigmented scar-like birthmarks on her back. Another boy from India recalled a past life where he was killed by a shotgun wound to the chest. He was able to give the name of the person from the past life, and Dr. Stevenson was able to locate the autopsy report of the deceased person. The location of the gunshot wound matched the boy’s birthmark. This research is still being conducted after his death, as recently reported by the Washington Post. And here’s another article on current professor Jim Tucker in UVA magazine.

5. Source: Peter Thiel and the Antichrist - The New York Times

6. Source: Neuroscientist (Dr. Tara Swart): Evidence We Can Communicate After Death!

7. Source: Learnings from 1,000+ Near-Death Experiences — Dr. Bruce Greyson, University of Virginia (#774)

8. ‘The Da Vinci Code’ stunned the world. Now Dan Brown releases his most ambitious book yet. “For eight years, Brown went deep, schooling himself in cutting-edge brain science and talking to specialists in the field. “I needed to find that pivot point that made it relevant to everyone,” he says. “And I discovered that we have a model of consciousness that’s outdated in the same way the geocentric model of the universe was outdated. This research will change the way we view our world.”