By Sharron Rose

The Iron Age: The Age of Chaos

Everything that has any kind of existence, even error, has necessarily its reason for existence, and disorder itself must in the end find its place among the elements of universal order. Thus, whereas the modern world considered in itself is an anomaly and even a sort of monstrosity, it is no less true that, when viewed in relation to the whole historical cycle of which it is a part, it corresponds exactly to the conditions pertaining to a certain phase of that cycle, the phase which the Hindu tradition specifies as the final period of the Kali Yuga.

-Rene Guenon, Reign of Quantity and Signs of the Times

Beauty naturally belongs to heaven; on the earth it is only reflected; and when the connection with heaven is broken, when the back is turned towards heaven, then the eyes become focused on the earth and slowly and gradually beauty begins to disappear.

-Hazarat Inayat Khan, Sufi Mysticism

As time passed and our focus on the material aspects of existence increased, the sacred rituals, with their sounds, movements, symbols, and images, although continuously developed and refined, were only fully comprehended by an elite group of individuals. These were the privileged individuals who were initiated into the mysteries and who helped bring some of their grace, wisdom, and moral inspiration to the masses. However, a hierarchy was slowly developing that was keeping these magical and vital secrets for itself.

As the forces of entropy and materialization took hold, the mystic ceremonies and stylized artistic representations gave way to the authority of a new medium: the written word. The beauty and spontaneity of spiritual expression, the vibratory power of the vocalized word, and the loftiness of the sacred image now began to be restricted.²⁸ Written language became the dominant vehicle through which our rites and rituals were preserved. But the written word did not transmit the richness of spiritual experience in the same manner as direct personal communication, verbal expression, sacred gesture, and artistic symbols. The book could never replace these more vital mediums. This new art form lacked that essential feeling of spontaneity, immediacy, and dynamism that are unique to the direct energetic experience. It also lacked the vibrant power of the sacred image to evoke within the reader multiple layers of intuitive connection.²⁹ While the written word helped us keep our memories intact through a graceless age, it provided only a map of reality. After the written word became the dominant medium for expression and transmission we began to mistake this map for reality itself.

Another issue that the increasing dominance of the written word calls forth, is that education in this new artistic form was only offered to certain individuals who were, with the very rare exception, men.³⁰ This exclusive club of men now possessed a new art form that they could claim and control. Some men, such as the mystics and poets, who were still guided by the radiant light of spirit, used this new form of expression to inspire their readers to seek the sacred ideals of truth, virtue, and beauty. Their works were designed to communicate their visions of the artistry and brilliance of the heavenly kingdoms. Their writings, designed to immerse the reader or listener in the dynamic flow of narrative, were filled with nuance, allusion, metaphor, and parable. But with increasing frequency these mystic writings, and particularly any references to the Divine Feminine or women as spiritual guides and mentors, were discouraged and suppressed.

Civilization, a term that actually did not come into existence until the eighteenth century in Europe, once more "advanced." The pure light of spirit had been reduced to one-quarter of its original radiance, and in a devastating wave of fear and repression the Kali Yuga was born. As the light of spirit grew dimmer and the shadow of darkness stretched over the earth, our minds became haunted by images of evil and depravity. Cities turned into nation-states, individual religions became a cause for separation and subjugation, and the world of politics and religion became indistinguishable. The manifold pathways to spirit were now hunted, seized, and patrolled by cadres of religious and political elite consisting of "pious" priests and "noble" aristocrats. Access to the realm of spirit was increasingly permitted only to men who would toe the party line. Unfortunately for women, not only did these men dominate the pathways to spirit, they also began to hold dominion over all aspects of human life. The events of this era of human civilization–starting from the middle of the Bronze Age, when our oral tradition was encoded in stone, an era dominated by the forces of the masculine–are being taught to us in modern schools and universities as "history." It is a fitting description of this time, for it truly is the time of male dominance–his story as opposed to the earlier ages of miss story, or mystery.

At this time, a new relationship with the earth and the feminine was brought forward. From this moment on, we humans perilously lost touch with each other and the natural world. Increasingly, we abandoned our spiritual values for supposed security and material gain. Not only did we continue to lose touch with our spiritual essence, but we also lost touch with our own personal magic, our insight, our imagination and creativity. No longer was the earth seen as an expression of the spirit of the Divine Feminine opening and flowing up to embrace and unite with her divine consort, who was flowing down to plant his seed within her. Instead the earth was considered a wild forbidding place to be feared and conquered.

Men, who frequently looked to the outer world of form, became the vehicles through which this new perspective of reality was transmitted and enforced. The written word became one of the greatest tools of this dominant group. By controlling the art of writing and suppressing, dominating, or eliminating the sacred arts of dance, music, and performance they believed they could grasp the psychic-energetic landscape and manipulate the minds and emotions of the people. They knew that readers and listeners, whose minds were now fully focused on the linear visions provided by the priest or writer, could be drawn into the priest or writer’s inner world; they could be influenced and directed. History could be altered, books could be written, and tales could be told to cut us off from the sacred knowledge of our own divine beginnings.³¹

Fear and the violence that stems from it became the devices by which we were enslaved. The priests and their hierarchy taught us that we were essentially evil creatures cut off from our maker, a wrathful and jealous God. As opposed to the great majority of gods before him, this formless, all-powerful being stood alone, without a consort. There was no goddess to bring him joy and ease his wrath, no female partner with whom he might experience the sacred bliss of sexual union. According to this new telling of our history, woman was regarded as the evil seductress whose curiosity and desire led humanity to fall from grace and perfection. Humanity as a whole was seen as totally divorced from Divinity.³²

With this new view of the feminine came a bias about our physical bodies. Our bodies were now considered imperfect vehicles, and our innate desire to experience the bliss and connection of sexual union was seen as a dark animalistic manipulative urge that should be subdued. The sex act itself was viewed merely as a necessary means of procreation, of bringing more people into the world to provide a greater workforce for the rulers.

Now came the time of the patriarchy, of male dominance, of viewing nature as a force to be mastered. It was a time of isolation, individuation, and egotism, in which both women and children were thought of as mere chattel. Rather than view the world around them from an interconnected, heart-centered perspective, men began to think of themselves as superior "evolving" individuals who must use the power of their intellect to conquer, scrutinize, exploit, and dissect. This was a time of intellectual dominance, of total separation of the heart and mind, of objectification, of ownership and slavery.

Along with this new view of Mother Nature came a different perspective on the principles of human relationship and interaction. Women were seen as sexual objects to be possessed, utilized, scrutinized, and subjugated. In the name of religion, the sacred mysteries and ancient knowledge that had been preserved throughout the ages were for the most part suppressed or appropriated and then distorted by the forces of the patriarchy. The realms of spirit, like the realms of social leadership, now known as government, knowledge of the forces and forms of the natural world, now known as science, and even the domain of health and healing were considered to be male property.

Increasingly, women were restricted from performing their time-honored roles. As a result, women used the only avenue left open to them to gain some semblance of power: their bodies and sexuality. Women, who had been the teachers of the sacred art of sexual union, were now reduced to using their bodies in exchange for preferential treatment from the ruling warrior caste.

A more disturbing outgrowth of this change in consciousness and attitude toward women was the Inquisition that spread throughout Europe beginning in the thirteenth century. It was during this period, that women began to be stripped of their last vestiges of self-esteem and power. One of the main reasons for this Inquisition, and the destruction of paganism in Europe, was to attack the secret ‘Women’s Mysteries’. The priests and other leaders of the Inquisition, threatened by the innate wisdom and power of women, devised stories to produce fear of women and their time-honored mysteries. Women’s sacred circles were disgracefully referred to as witches’ covens and their mysteries were said to be derived from the members of these covens consorting with the devil. Through the use of torture the men of the Inquisition would extract from their helpless victims whatever deranged nightmares their own warped imaginations could conjure.³³

By the 1700s in Europe industrialization and its factories, toxins, pollutants, and inhuman working conditions appeared. With the arrival of the industrial revolution the raping and pillaging of the planet was now in full swing. This was the complete manifestation of the Iron Age. We collectively entered our current age of the machine, of materialist science and intellect, of rationalism and externalization–an age that has been characterized by the destruction and devastation of the feminine and the earth that gave us life.

Some cultures still sustained a connection with the pure light of spirit. As the force of modernization took hold, however, their sacred art and religion were now perceived by the increasingly dominant Western culture as superstition. In a vain attempt to right the wrongs of industrial society, Marx and Engels, the ‘fathers’ of communism thought that by abolishing private ownership of property and promoting equal distribution of goods they could turn us back towards the same communal lifestyle that was once held by pre-industrial people. Declaring religion to be the ‘opiate of the masses’, they frowned upon its practice altogether. In the name of the collective, artistic expression, religious practice, and individual brilliance were suppressed. This made matters even worse. In communism the state became the new father and god. Meanwhile in the West, science, materialism, and the quest for personal power became the guiding force.

Currently, powerful global corporations and their political and media puppets have become our new parents and priests. In this "advanced" society, our minds are increasingly controlled and manipulated by these forces. In the name of egalitarianism there has been a leveling of society toward the lowest common denominator. In our new "hive" mentality, people are regarded as mere objects, living in mass-produced houses and wearing mass-produced clothing, each one looking the same as the next. With the machine as our inspiration, we are turning into object-producing, mechanical beings who constantly repeat mundane tasks that give us little or no pleasure.³⁴

Today most humans spend very little time communing with nature, their children, or each other. Hour after hour, day after day, women and men sit in their cubicles giving their lifeblood to corporations in exchange for money that will buy worldly thrills and conveniences. Or they sit in front of television and computer screens, pacified, hypnotized, and programmed by other people’s thoughts and images.

In our current Age of Iron, dominated by the forces of chaos and confusion, entranced by the flickering vibrations and images of our technological wonders, pumped full of pharmaceuticals and food additives to enhance our sensations or ease our pain, we have not only lost our fundamental virtue and integrity, but we have literally lost our minds

According to the ancient teachings, by the end of the Kali Yuga the majority of humanity became divorced from the world of spirit and totally immersed in the concrete sensory and phenomenal experience. Yet the Tantras, or sacred texts of the Indo-Tibetan tradition that were created specifically to speak to those of us born in this dark age, say that even the intensity of this material focus can be employed in the pursuit of enlightenment. These teachings tell us that we have the ability to heal our confused and unstable way of life, to restore a sense of harmony and balance. Whether we are in the final phase of the dissolution or, as some teachings argue, merely the beginning of the end, it makes no difference.³⁵ Regardless of our exact location in the great cycle of time, as luminous spiritual beings in material form, as Keepers of the Light, we must remain true to the divine principles of honesty and righteousness. Our task in this time of darkness and oppression is to journey to the depths of our beings and rediscover the essential light and power that has always been hidden there by the veils of corporeal existence.