Fly To The Moon

by William Hutton

Page Created: August 9, 2004
Last Updated: December 21, 2005

Certain people believe that remote viewing is a psychic skill that anyone can develop. Others say that such may come as a natural result of true inner development, and may cite the Cayce readings as saying that this can happen if one works very hard and very long on spiritual growth. But let’s resist speculating and start with some basic considerations.

A first-rate mind is one that is aware of the solar system in which it lives. A provincial mind is one that has never traveled in time and space. How far and in which direction must one bend one’s mind to increase awareness? Let us mentally fly to the realm of the Moon to answer this question.

The Nature of The Moon, Esoterically Speaking

The Moon is the child of the Earth. In both science and in myth this idea has been expressed from the dawn of history. The nineteenth-century hypothesis that the Moon was a fragment torn by some cosmic cataclysm from Earth merely echoed in a new form the Greek legend that Selene was born of Theia.

Greek legend is in many ways more suggestive. It goes on to add that Selene, the Moon, was the daughter of Theia, the Earth, and Hyperion, the Sun; that she was beloved by Pan, the world of nature, but enamoured of Endymion, mankind, whom Zeus had cast into an endless sleep. Here are hints of many roles, which make our purely geologic explanations curiously flat and unconvincing.

Now for a planet, the distance at which Earth supports its satellite is exceptionally great. The Moon’s orbit lies no less than 30 times the Earth’s diameter away. From one point of view, one can say that the Earth is the most hard-pressed planet in the Solar System. Conditions upon Earth are less free than elsewhere.

All liquids on Earth are subject to the pull of the Moon. The best know example is the influence of the Moon on the tides. It pulls back on the great liquid masses of the oceans, as if applying a brake to Earth’s spin. Its actual effect is to reduce infinitesimally the weight of objects immediately below it.

The tidal effect of the Moon works as well on liquids in organic matter as it does on those that are free. The minute capillaries through which organic liquids move break the liquids up into masses so small that they behave by molecular rather than mechanical laws. Such masses may be more sensitive to the lunar pull than the large bodies of water on Earth. On this molecular scale, the pull of the Moon provides a basis of many country traditions, such as the belief that plant growth takes place at night, and particularly on moonlit nights. The maximum content of water in melons and Sargasso-seaweed coincides with the full Moon. Cuban mahogany contracts have a moon-clause to ensure that the timber be cut at the moment of minimum moisture, which equates to maximum hardness.

Since all Nature is in its essence moist, the influence of the Moon upon it varies only in degree. The world of Nature, engendered by the Sun, built of the Earth, and clothed with form by the planets, is endowed with motion by the Moon. The influence of the Moon - half minor planet, half earthly satellite - thus naturally takes effect on matters in the state between gaseous and solid - that is to say, upon matter in liquid state.¹

What about the Moon as an entity? One finds no signs of organic life or atmosphere on the Moon. Only matter in the mineral state is present. In the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky system (GOS) of esoteric knowledge, the Moon lies at the end of a branch of the Ray of Creation that includes our galaxy, our planetary system, the Sun, and the Earth. In this cosmic ladder of being, the GOS says that Man on Earth is under 48 orders of laws – that is, 48 influences that play on one like shifting spotlights. GOS also says that the Moon is under 96 orders of laws.

To be under the Moon is to be under the greatest possible mechanicalness and, as you know, this is the case in a man, a woman, who is fast asleep, governed by every form of negative emotion, hate, internal considering, and so on. By work on oneself one can come under fewer and better influences or laws. This is why we work on the lines laid down in the practical teaching of the [GOS] work. As a result of obeying them one rises in the "Ladder of Being" represented by the Ray of Creation.

But this is only possible through sacrifice. To behave as you always do, and expect to rise, is impossible. One must, to begin with, sacrifice one’s own suffering. All self-pity, all self-cradling, vanity, secret absurd fears, all self-sentimentality, all inner accounting, all pitiful pictures, all sighs, inner groans, and complaints, must be burned up in the fire of increasing Consciousness. Remember that there is no justice under higher laws such as we understand justice. Higher justice, heavenly justice, is to work on yourself, so that when you die you have no accounts………..

Now in the supreme sense, when we begin to "make Moon in ourselves" we are making a Work-Center of Gravity distinct from life. Only a ….force different from the… force of life can do this for and in us. Only a psycho-spiritual force can do it, derived not from life and the dull, heavy, habit-forming mechanizing influences of the "Moon" but from those more graceful who have gone before, up the Side-Ladder to the Sun, and left us memorials of the way to follow them."²

A final point about the nature of the Moon in relation to the Earth, from the teachings of the GOS. Organic life – Nature – originated from the level of intelligence represented visibly by the Sun. It became necessary for the Sun to create a sensitive living film on the Earth capable of receiving influences coming down the Ray of Creation and passing them on to the terminal point of our particular Ray, namely the Moon. We now have to speak in allegory. The Sun was willing to undertake this task, only it made the condition that it must receive something for itself as a reward for all the labor of planning, creating, experimenting and maintaining the sensitive film of Organic Life on Earth.

For this purpose, and having made the conditions on Earth suitable of his existence, it created Man as a self-developing organism. That is, it gave Man more than was necessary. This special creation was purely experimental. It may fail. The point was that if a sufficient number of human beings developed themselves beyond what was necessary or mere existence and survival on the Earth, they could rise in the Scale of Being to the level of what is represented by the Sun. The Sun would then receive something for itself. (Nicoll, 1952, v. 5, p. 1617).

Role of the Moon From the Cayce Readings’ Viewpoint

Now that we are somewhat familiar with the GOS’s esoteric teaching about the Moon, we can entertain – perhaps with a greater level of understanding – the various Cayce readings dealing with the nature and role of the Moon in the transformation of souls on that long journey home to their origin beyond the stars.

Here is a reading that seems to deal with lunar soul habitation in an earlier phase of the Moon’s development. (All words in bold reflect our emphasis.)

With this particular body (in the present), and those influences that are manifested in the material, mental and spiritual affairs of the entity, there is offered an unusual illustration of these truths that have been presented here.

So, in the study, analysis and understanding that may be given or gained from that which is presented, know that this is being given from the actual records that have been written by the activities of the entity through its sojourn in that which may be justly termed reality; a separate entity from the first cause or impulse. And the varied experiences are in the form of matter, mind and spirit; for, as given, the separations must be considered if there would be the more perfect understanding.

As it has been often presented by one school of thought, the dwellers upon the Moon (the satellite of the earth) preceded the abilities for matter (expressed in a form that is known as matter in the earth). And this entity was among those that so dwelt, and is influenced by two sojourns there.

Hence there have ever been in the experience of the entity periods that are governed by the influence of not only the satellite’s drawing upon the earth and the elements of same but of the mental, in such a manner as to make for physical as well as mental and material changes in the affairs of the entity; when the mental being of the entity allows the influence to dominate rather than dominating the influence.

Also as a sojourner in the environ elemental as well as material, the Sun’s activity on the mental has wielded and does wield a powerful influence in the affairs, the activities, the thoughts of the entity. As may be illustrated:

On dark days with little sunshine there is an appreciable manifestation of fear and dread. And especially does this occur when the Moon by its position is on the opposite side of the orb or earth.

As to this influence also, if the entity uses the will in reference to such influences in a spiritual sense, much alteration arises.

Naturally, the question would be: How, when, in what manner, may an entity use such influence as to make for a betterment of those that tend to bring an air or a feeling of oppression upon the mental being?

Realizing, then, that there is an influence from without self of a nature that self may be in accord with or in opposition to; for all entities realize they in themselves are both positive and negative influences, and that the first cause - or the spirit - must of necessity within itself be likewise, yet more positive than negative, for it attracts with attraction and repels with rebellion of that same activity of which every entity is a part. [See 264-45, Par. 15-A, 16-A, in re her aversion to flowers and animals.]

Hence the realizing of self’s dependence upon that influence is that which makes for the change in the experience of the entity, in becoming conscious - through the mental-spiritual forces in self - of the willingness to be led rather than leading or demanding other than, "Thy will be done in me, use me in that channel Thou, O God, would have me be led."

As to the influences then from the astrological sojourn, these become for an entity (as we have given) as the hereditary influences of the mental being - or impulses; while the material sojourns become as the environmental influences in the mental being.

This entity (as we have given) is swayed more by those two greater lights in the experience, both as to hereditary and environmental, from the astrological viewpoint, than most individuals. Why? Because of that influence which has just been given!

264-31; March 18, 1933

The next reading speaks of a time when the Moon itself had a satellite. This assertion has interesting implications both from esoteric and exoteric standpoints. But no information is available as to whether this satellite of the Moon was natural or man made.3 Thus any speculations on our part would be barren.

Before this we find the entity in that land now known as the American, during the periods when the Lemurian or the lands of Mu or Zu were being in their turmoils for destruction.

And the entity was among those that - in what is now not far from that land in which the entity in this sojourn first saw the light - (that must in the near future fade again into those joinings with the land of Mu) - established a temple of worship for those that escaped from the turmoils of the shifting of the earth at that particular period.

The entity, in the name Oeueou, established near what is now Santa Barbara the temple to the Sun and the Moon; for the satellite of the Moon had not faded then, and there was enjoined as to the entity in the worship as the goddess to the Moon and the sun.

The entity brought good and evil with this worship, for the necessity of the repopulation of the land brought to those peoples - with that which the entity had established in the soul’s relationships of life - dissension, and, at last, dispersement of those peoples to that portion which later, much later in the affairs of the earth, became not only the destructive forces to those that journeyed from the land of promise but those that journeyed from the Atlantean land and became those that met with the peoples, centuries later, in the central portion of what is now United States.

509-1; February 5, 1934

Here we find a rather difficult-to-understand message about the Moon in relation to one individual’s soul experience with the Moon.

As to the astrological aspects, then, or those phases of experience of this entity outside the earth, those phases of consciousness are known by those influences that are accredited to and are a portion of the mental and soul experience in those planets that make up the realm of the earthly environ.

That is, as the Sun is the source of life in materiality in the earth, the beauty of the satellite of the earth in the Moon indwellings from which individual or soul experiences (not personally) travel in the planets within this same realm, ALL are a portion of the entity’s experience or soul experience in its passage.

Why?

That the soul - a portion, an expression of God’s desire for companionship - might find expression, the souls of men and women came into being; that there might be that which would make each soul, then, as a fit companion for that realm. There is the necessity of fitting itself through the experiences of all phases and realms of existence, then; that it, the soul, may not cause disruption in the realm of beauty, harmony, strength of divinity in its companionships with that Creative Force.

Hence the experiences, if we will gain that deeper comprehension of same, are but opportunities; for in whatsoever state of consciousness one FINDS self, the awakening is from the desire of the Father that each soul shall continue to have ITS thread of gold that runs through each conscious force for its companionship with Him.

So the use or application of that in hand makes for the awareness within self of ITS, the soul’s, relationships to the Creative Force.

805-4; October 22, 1935

The following reading gives an important statement about the actions of any or all heavenly bodies that might influence a soul and that soul’s right to choose how it wishes to respond. This is reminiscent of one of the dictums of the GOS’s esoteric teaching, “You have a right not to be negative.”

Do the planets have anything to do with the ruling of the destiny of men? If so, what? and what do they have to do with this body?

They do. In the beginning, as our own planet, Earth, was set in motion, the placing of other planets began the ruling of the destiny of all matter as created, just as the division of waters was and is ruled by the moon in its path about the Earth; just so as in the higher creation, as it began, is ruled by the action of the planets about the earth.

The strongest power in the destiny of man is the Sun, first; then the closer planets, or those that are coming in ascendency at the time of the birth of the individual; but let it be understood here, no action of any planet or any of the phases of the Sun, Moon, or any of the heavenly bodies surpass the rule of Man’s individual will power - the power given by the Creator of man in the beginning, when he became a living soul, with the power of choosing for himself.

The inclination of man is ruled by the planets under which he is born. In this far the destiny of man lies within the sphere or scope of the planets. With the given position of the Solar system at the time of the birth of an individual, it can be worked out, - that is, the inclinations and actions without the will power taken into consideration.

As in this body here [Edgar Cayce] born March 18, 1877, three minutes past three o’clock, with the Sun descending, on the wane, the Moon in the opposite side of the Earth (old moon), Uranus at its zenith, hence the body is ultra in its actions. Neptune closest in conjunction or Neptune as it is termed in Astrological survey, in the ninth house; Jupiter, the higher force of all the planets, save the Sun, in descendency, Venus just coming to horizon, Mars just set, Saturn - to whom all insufficient matter is cast at its decay - opposite the face of the Moon. Hence the inclination as the body is controlled by the Astrological survey at the time of the birth of this body, either (no middle ground for this body) very good or very bad, very religious or very wicked, very rich or always losing, very much in love or hate, very much given to good works or always doing wrong, governed entirely by the will of the body. Will is the educational factor of the body; thence the patience, the persistence, the ever faithful attention that should be given to the child when it is young. [GD’s note: I believe above birth data was volunteered because Mr. Thrash did not accept birth data from EC and parents.]

March 19, 1919

A reading just below describes the Moon and the Sun as rulers of the emotions. It also suggests the wearing of moonstone (or agate) at specific points on the body for the soul obtaining the reading. The entity in question was said once to have had a sojourn on the Moon. Finally, the warning given to never sleep with the Moon shining upon the face suggests that there may be some radiational, etheric, or other related effect incident to moonlight falling on the tissues of one who had had a sojourn on the Moon.

As to those things about the person:

The moonstone or the agate should be as an amulet, either about the neck or as a ring, or worn upon the person.

For these make for the creating of those activities, as will be seen have been, are, a portion of the experience of the entity in its course through those influences that bring experiences in the earth as in the present.

From the astrological aspects we find there was a sojourn upon the Moon.

Hence the Moon is an active influence of the entity, and DO NOT ever sleep with the Moon shining upon the face.

In the sunshine, much; for the Moon and the sun are the ruling of the emotions, and these are - as from the sojourns of the entity in Venus - a greater portion of the experiences as will be had.

1401-1; July 6, 1937

This reading addresses, in part, whether or not a soul’s evolution is limited to the Earth plane. It goes on to explain, using some tortured phrasing, the development of consciousness that a soul experiences in passing through the varied spheres of the solar system.

(Q) Is experience limited to this earth plane?

(A) As each entity, each soul, in the various consciousnesses, passes from one to another, it - the soul - becomes conscious of that about self in that sphere - to which it, the entity, the soul attains in a materially manifested way or manner.

Hence the entity develops THROUGH the varied spheres of the earth and its solar system, and the companions of varied experiences in that solar system, or spheres of development or activity; as in some ways accredited correctly to the planetary influences in an experience. The entity develops THROUGH those varied spheres.

Hence the Sun, the Moon, the stars, the position in the heavens or in all of the hosts of the solar systems that the earth occupies - all have their influence in the same manner (this is a very crude illustration, but very demonstrative) that the effect of a large amount of any element would attract a compass. Drawn to! Why? Because of the influence of which the mind element of a soul, an entity, has become conscious!

A soul, an entity, is as real as a physical entity, and is as subject to laws as the physical body as subject to the laws in a material world and the elements thereof!

Does fire burn the soul or the physical body?

Yet, self may cast self into a fire element by doing that the soul knows to be wrong!

What would make a wrong and a right? A comparison of that the soul knows its consciousness to be in accord or contrariwise with, in relation to that which gave it existence.

5753-1; June 16, 1933

Considering a reading such as 5753-1 above, is it of any consequence to speculate on the whether or not remote viewing of the Moon’s hidden side is of reality or importance? One should not get out of balance by entertaining too seriously bizarre information based allegedly on remote viewing.

References

The previous paragraphs have been copied or paraphrased from a book by Rodney Collin entitled, The Theory of Celestial Influence – Man, The Universe, and Cosmic Mystery, 1954, Vincent Stuart Publishers, London, 393 pp. Note that Collin was a student of the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky system and one of the most brilliant and original of the students visibly to interpret and then promulgate a number of the ideas based upon that teaching. See this URL for a book on Collin the man: http://www.bardic-press.com/rcollin/collinindex.htm
Nicoll, M., 1952, Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Vincent Stuart, London, v. 3, pp. 1090, 1091.
Many amateur and even some credentialed astronomers claimed to have seen lunar, or additional Earth satellites. In 1846, F. Petit, director of the observatory of Toulouse, stated that a second moon of the Earth had been discovered. The idea was popularized by Jules Verne in his novel From the Earth to the Moon, making Petit’s second moon known all over the world. Mr. Cayce and most of those who requested readings from him would all probably have know of such speculations.
W. Pickering did not look for the Petit object, but he looked instead for a satellite of our Moon (“On a photographic search for a satellite of the Moon,” Popular Astronomy, 1903). The result failed and Pickering concluded that any satellite of our Moon must be smaller than about 3 meters in diameter. A follow-up article in the same magazine in 1922 caused a flurry of activity among amateur astronomers, as Pickering had described a tiny second moon of Earth. But all searches remained fruitless. In the reading here, which mentions the shifting of the Earth and the destruction of Lemuria, the time frame for the fading of the satellite of the Moon is something like 20,000 to 30,000 years ago.

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