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Visions of a Golden Age
cover artwork 2006 Kurt Ozinga.

 

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Visions of a Golden Age

Alex Roces

 

Chapter Four

 

  The image and figure of the Divine Child that emerged from my subconscious in dreams and during meditation is an ancient and sacred symbol found in all religions and cultures throughout the world. It represents the ongoing higher spiritual evolution occurring within our souls. The Holy Child is the Alpha and Omega of our being, for it breaks through all psychic barriers, and harmonizes all conflicting forces into one grand totality, unity and wholeness.

The Divine Child is both innocent and omniscient. Its single, cyclopean Eye of Truth sees all and knows all, even the unreachable heights of the soul's upper world, and the unfathomable depths of its underworld.

One of the greatest propagators of the Holy Child was the glorious saint, Francis of Assisi. In the beginning Francis led a worldly life of excessive luxury and frivolity. Until he suffered a grave illness. When he recovered, his life was not the same. He felt an inner calling. One day he wandered into a ruined and broken down church, and heard the clear Voice of the Spirit speak to him: "Francis, repair my house which has fallen into ruin."

After he heard the Voice of the Spirit, Francis committed himself to follow the Life of Christ. To repair, rebuild, and reform himself to live according to the Truth of the Spirit. He stripped his body naked from all his clothes, as he stripped his mind and soul from all its worldliness, sophistication and hypocrisies. To carnal eyes he put on the habit of a mendicant, but to the eyes of Spirit it was a regal robe of glorious Light. Francis was transformed in mind, body and soul back into the original primal state of Divinity before the Fall. He became a Holy Child of Eden.

Francis lived his life in the child-like spirit of joy and wonder. With angel eyes he saw the good in everyone and loved everything. He viewed Nature as God's holy playground, and called upon Brother Sun and Sister Moon. He conversed and played with the animals of the forest; and sometimes he would spend a whole day just watching a single flower bloom, as it opened its petals in the sunlight, and closed them in the moonlight. All who came to him he blest with love and peace:

"Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.
Where there is hatred let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light; and
Where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much
Seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and
It is in dying that we are born to eternal Life.
"

The words of this divine and beautiful prayer by St. Francis of Assisi glows with the infinite love of the Christ Child within.

It was St. Francis who created the crèche, the Nativity scene found in homes every Christmas, depicting the Christ Child in a manager surrounded by Mary and Joseph, cows and donkeys of the stable, shepherds and their sheep, the three wise kings and their holy gifts, angels singing peace and goodwill, and the God Star shining on high.

The Light of the God Star shines through the eyes of Francis, a child-like saint who was the perfect example of Christ-like grace, purity and divinity.

Another great propagator of the cult of the Holy Child was St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, Founder and Reformist of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Spain. St. Teresa was known for her profound spirituality, wit and wisdom.

"May God protect me from gloomy saints," Teresa once said. She believed spiritual life was an attitude of love, not a rule. "Love is not great delight but desire to please God in everything," she said. She considered obedience to God more important than penance. Rather than punishing yourself for a wrong done—change yourself for the better instead was her advice. One time someone was shocked to see St. Teresa indulging in the luxury of eating a good meal. "There's a time for partridge and a time for penance," St. Teresa quipped to her dismayed observer.

Despite her sanctity, St. Teresa was still subject to slander and hostile gossip even from those around her. In moments of loneliness and sadness she asked the Lord Jesus, her most Intimate Friend, the reason for these troubles upon her. And when her Best Friend, Jesus, responded, "But, Teresa, that's how I treat my friends," Teresa quickly replied: "No wonder you have so few friends."

She also possessed extraordinary psychic powers. During periods of prayer and meditation she would levitate into the air. Sometimes this occurred in front of witnesses. On one occasion St. Teresa had to grasp the bars of a grill to stop herself from rising in the air in a moment of divine ecstasy during Communion.

In mystic visions St. Teresa saw and communicated with a Holy Angel Child. "I saw an angel very near me, towards my left side, in bodily form, which is not usual with me; for though angels are often represented to me, it is only in my mental vision. This angel appeared rather small than large, and very beautiful. His face was so shining that he seemed to be one of those highest angels called seraphs, who look as if all on fire with divine love. He had in his hands a long golden dart; at the end of the point methought there was a little fire. And I felt him thrust it several times through my heart in such a way that it passed through my very bowels. And when he drew it out, methought it pulled them out with it and left me wholly on fire with a great love of God."

It was Teresa of Avila who popularized the devotion of the Christ Child as King. She made an image of the Christ Child and dressed it in red royal robes with a tiara on its head, a golden globe held on his left hand, and the right hand raised in benediction.

During holy festivals St. Teresa, her Carmelite nuns, and other devotees would parade the image of the Christ Child, King of the World, in a religious procession, as they intoned the holy words: "Unless a little child ye be, the Kingdom of Heaven cannot enter ye."

There is an old legend about St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers, whose name means Christ-Bearer, for he carried the Christ Child on his shoulders. Years before he acquired the name Christopher, he was known as the pagan Offero, a mighty man of great strength and gigantic build, who was also a sensitive soul. A gentle giant with a golden heart.

One day Offero made a vow to use his super-human strength to serve only the greatest king. He traveled all over the world, serving under many kings, with each succeeding king ranking greater in wealth and power than the last. Until he learned that these earthly kings feared the devil. So Offero sought the devil and served him. But he soon learned that the devil had one great fear: the Lord Christ, King of the Universe.

Offero decided to serve the Christ if he could find Him. His search was long and hard, filled with pain and pitfalls. Until he met a holy hermit, St. Babylas of Antioch. After St. Babylas converted him, he was told that one day he may find the Christ if he waited for Him by the river.

Offero stationed himself at a river's ford, and became a ferryman. For many years many travelers who wished to cross the river climbed on his broad gigantic shoulders, as he walked across the deep waters with his walking-staff, and carried them to the opposite bank.

One dark stormy night, Offero saw a little figure by the riverbank calling for him. In the pouring rain Offero approached and saw a little child, golden-haired and blue-eyed. The child insisted that he be carried across the river on this dark stormy night. Offero felt himself compelled to obey. Holding his walking-staff, he carried the Child on his great shoulders, and crossed the waters of the river. But with every step he took, his load got heavier and heavier. And he wondered, how this little Child, who didn't seem much older than seven years, could be so heavy as the whole world? Halfway across the river, Offero felt his stamina ebbing and feet faltering. His great strength was failing, and he feared how both he and the Child may drown in the raging river. But the Child gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder, and somehow he found the strength to go on. At last he reached the opposite bank, and the Child climbed down his back and faced him.

"Do you know, my giant friend, why your load was so heavy?" the Child said. "Because you have carried on your shoulders the weight of the sins of the world."

"Are You the Lord Christ?" Offero asked. "The One I've been searching for all these years?"

"I AM," said the Child. "Plant your walking-staff on the ground."

Offero did as he was told, and his walking-staff through a miracle became a flowering tree.

The giant Offero knelt down before the little Christ Child. "I vow with all my life to serve thee forever, my Lord Christ."

"From now on your name shall be Christ-Offero," the Lord Christ said, "for you have borne me on your shoulders. O, blessed Christopher, the Christ shall forever be a load of Light in your heart."

St. Christopher spent the rest of his life preaching with holy zeal the Word of Christ to those who came to him in the banks of the river. He bore the Christ forever in his heart with a giant's strength of faith and a martyr's fearlessness, until a wicked heathen king, one that he formerly served, had him imprisoned, tortured and killed.

"The archetype of the 'child-god' is extremely widespread," says the great psychologist Carl Jung, "and intimately bound up with all the other mythological aspects of the child motif."

An Archetype is a "primordial image", a first original model of a universal symbol like the figure of God, the wise old man, the hero, the warrior, the savior, the wizard, the trickster, the earth mother, and the child. Archetypes are essential and eternal elements of the psyche. They are autonomous. They have a life and existence of their own and are not dependent upon the personal experiences of the individual. Archetypes are the lords and denizens of the depthless depths, the underworld of our being, or what Jung refers to as the "collective psychic substratum. . .the collective unconscious."

The collective unconscious is the seabed-womb of archetypal forms, "a treasure-house of eternal images". It is different from the personal unconscious, which is the storehouse of a person's repressed psychic material composed of memories, experiences and complexes. The personal unconscious, under ordinary circumstances, can easily summon its submerged contents, and make it accessible to consciousness when needed. But the collective unconscious is beyond the control of the individual.

"This personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer," says Jung, "which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but inborn. This deeper layer I call the collective unconscious."

Jung's discovery of the collective unconscious proved how evolution and heredity designed the psyche just as it designed the body. The psyche is part of the organic evolutionary process. Since the mind works through the organ of the brain, the collective unconscious also depends upon the evolution of the brain. The collective unconscious is hardwired into our DNA code, enmeshed in the circuits of our genes. Man is not only linked with the past of his infancy, but the past of the species through an evolutionary chain. The collective unconscious is like a vast pool of primal universal images inherited from man's animal, pre-human, human—and extraterrestrial ancestors.

The collective unconscious is a universal and impersonal system that is identical in all individuals. This is a link all humanity shares like an invisible but omnipresent web of unity. And the Archetypes that dwell within the collective unconscious are universal patterns found in the minds of all people from all ages and races, religions and cultures.

"The 'child' [archetype] is born out of the womb of the unconscious," says Jung, "begotten out of the depths of human nature, or rather out of living Nature herself. . .It represents the strongest, the most ineluctable urge in every being, namely the urge to realize itself. . . The urge and compulsion to self-realization is a law of nature and thus of invincible power. . ."

I consider Carl Gustav Jung to be a modern-day prophet. A spiritual adept. A new Prometheus who brings the divine fire of spiritual knowledge to mankind. He was a physician, writer, scholar, professor and most of all psychologist. A fearless explorer of the depths of the human soul. He plunged into the unfathomable depths of the psyche, and sought to kindle a flame of illumination that would reveal the mystery and purpose of human existence.

"The goal of the individuation process is the synthesis of the self," says Jung. "I use the term 'individuation' to denote the process by which a person becomes a psychological 'in-dividual', that is, a separate, indivisible unity or 'whole'."

Individuation is the inner urge and striving for self-awareness and self-realization. In the beginning the personality of the individual was like a seed of undifferentiated wholeness. It slept in the womb of the unconscious. At the moment of its awakening, when the sunlight of consciousness stirred, the seed shot forth roots, and grew stems that reached out for the light. Its inner bud unfolded, and the petals of a red rose blossomed, whose fragrance wafted the air under the warmth of the beautiful Sun. And the red rose became a yellow butterfly that flew into the sky towards the Sun. And the butterfly became a blue planet that orbited the Sun God on high like a wandering pilgrim ever-seeking to return to its origin.

The individuation process of the individual personality is an automatic and inborn process where the unconscious becomes conscious. Where the light breaks out and overcomes the darkness.

The solar light that guides the flowering of the individual personality in its quest for wholeness and self-realization Jung calls the Self. Jung describes this Higher Self as the innermost centre of our beings. It is an archetypal figure comparable to Krishna, Buddha and Christ, who represent the totality of the Spiritual Man, the Perfect Human Being. The Self is the innermost point of an endless circle that comprises the consciousness, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious.

The Self is a great Central Sun around which the ego-psyche orbits. It is the magnetizing and unifying force that guides the individual personality to higher degrees of inner wholeness. According to Jung to attain this inner state of unity one must first learn to know oneself in order to know who one is. For self-knowledge is the path to self-realization.

Know Thyself is a dictum written in the living flesh of the mind and body of man.

"One of the essential features of the child motif is its futurity," says Jung. "The 'child' paves the way for a future change of personality. In the individuation process, it anticipates the figure that comes from the synthesis of conscious and unconscious elements in the personality. It is therefore a symbol which unites the opposites; a mediator, bringer of healing, that is, one who makes whole.

"It is therefore not surprising that so many of the mythological saviors are child gods."

Sri Krishna, Gautama Buddha and Jesus Christ, three of the greatest Avatars to walk the blessed earth in holy flesh, were all child divinities. And their life stories exemplified how they sought to reveal humanity's innate Divinity, and establish a Golden Age of peace and prosperity, love and wisdom upon the earth.

 

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Author Bio

Like the Egyptians, Alex Roces believes writing is a Sacred Art. Through years of writing and researching, he has been seeking to know the mysteries of the Universe and the human soul. Alex is an explorer of the inner realms of spirit and a seeker of Truth. All that he learns and experiences Alex transforms into metaphysical and mythic stories.

Aside from writing, and reading voraciously, his other interests include bodybuilding, mountain climbing, art, music and traveling. Alex is also deeply involved in the study and practice of prosperity techniques for good fortune, wealth and success. Presently he is working on several new novels.

TTB titles: The Moon Child
Visions of a Golden Age

 

###

 

Visions of a Golden Age Copyright © 2006. Alex Roces. All rights reserved by the author. Please do not copy without permission.

 

To order this book:
Format: PDF, HTML, Palm
    Payment Method ~ [U.S. & non-U.S. credit cards accepted.]
PayPal -or- Credit Card -or- Fictionwise
List Price: $5.50 USD ebook

 

  About the book

Visions of a Golden Age is a synthesis of spiritual, mythological, and historical research about the myth of a primal edenic Golden Age, an age of peace and prosperity that once existed upon this planet, and is prophesized to manifest again.

The book is divided into two parts. Part One: Visions of a Golden Age, recounts the author's spiritual experiences and research that led him to discover how divine extra-terrestrial beings known as the Holy Watchers of Heaven, came to earth and created a planetary Golden Age, a "Garden of Eden", that existed more than four million years ago according to Eastern and Western sacred scriptures, occult lore, world myths, and the teachings of three great world-saviours: Krishna, Gautama Buddha, and Jesus Christ.

Part Two: The Prince of Prosperity, is a guidebook on developing spiritual mastery and creating prosperity in your life. How to attain a higher state of consciousness, and live a Golden Age life of happiness, wisdom, love, abundance, wealth and well-being upon this planet, based on spiritual, metaphysical, psychological, and scientific teachings and principles.

 

  Reviews

Praise for The Moon Child.
"...Alex Roces is a natural storyteller. One of the ancients I suspect."
Celia A. Leaman, author, editor, reviewer for eBook Reviews Weekly.
 



Praise for The Moon Child.
"...This book, so artfully blending visionary dreams and cruel realities makes for a unique reading experience. I recommend it to everyone."
Review by Michael Anka for Amazing Authors Showcase Reviews
 



Praise for The Moon Child.
"...Alex Roces creates a remarkable literary work rich in mythos and spirituality in The Moon Child. Like Michiavelli's THE PRINCE, The Moon Child becomes a treatise on the truth about power, revealing the difference between perceptions of one who holds power, and the truth of their nature. Like THE CELESTINE PROPHESY, however, Roces also inspires improvement, growth, and honesty, in addition to examining the nature of truth and love. Specifically, Maria is misunderstood and underestimated. With a sincere heart full of love, she stands misjudged by the very people who need her most because they fear her power."
Cindy Penn, Senior Editor Wordweaving.com and eBook Specialist, Midwest Book Reviews
 



Praise for The Moon Child.
"...This fascinating tale, an allegory of the Garden of Eden, is written with hauntingly lyrical language that draws the readers into the scenes, into the lives and hearts of the characters. Filled with legends of a distant past that are used to explain present-day events, The Moon Child is an interesting story in a refreshingly different setting."
Reviewed by Judy Gill for Scribes World reviews.

 

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