Brave Seeker, recognize and claim
the dreaming power that brings you here!

Gotta make your own rules, child
Gotta break your own chains
The dreams that possess you
Can blossom and bless you
Or run you insane

The Hawk Written by Kris Kristofferson, sung by Richie Havens

Essentials of Planetary Tantra

Planetary Tantra (PT) is a practice proposed by the Maine Professor, JLL, sixteen years ago. Although the scope of PT is vast and its foundations are deep, the essential practice is simple and user-friendly. Initially defined (metahistory.org, 2008) as “interactive magic with Gaia,” PT can also be described a biofeedback technique for connecting to the mother planet, given that the planet is understood to be a living physical entity identical to the superorganism defined in the Gaia Hypothesis of Lovelock and Margulis is the 1970s. The deep background of PT is the legacy of the Gnostic movement and the Mystery Schools of antiquity. That legacy (restored and upgraded in Not in His Image) identifies the divine presence embodied in the mother planet as the Wisdom Goddess, Sophia. Hence the honorific title, Gaia-Sophia.

Visualizing the Earth

Throughout history and extending into prehistory, human populations in many lands and cultures have sensed and perceived — not assumed! — that the earth is a living organism informed by a superhuman presence. Hence the thousands of names given to the Earth Goddess or Great Mother, represented in many sculptures and works of ancient artists. One example, the Venus of Willendorf, dated to 29,500 years ago.

At first sight, this figurine (4 and 1/2 inches in height) might appear to be an artless and grotesque rendering of a pregnant or obese human female. Archaeologists says that it represents a primitive intuition of the largesse of the Earth Mother, meaning her fecundity, the bountifulness of nature. Perhaps so, but bear in mind that ancient people, like ourselves today, do not actually see the entirety of the planetary body which we inhabit. Absent of genuine photographs of the earth from outer space, there is no way of knowing either the size or shape of the mother planet. Primitive visualization was accurate in representing it as having the body of a pregnant woman of exaggerated size because that is exactly what it is. Absent any knowledge of its actual spherical form, this representation makes sense.

Another example: “The Sleeping Lady” of Malta,  a Neolithic Ceramic Sculpture dated between 4000BCE and 2000BCE. Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta in Malta. Such visualizations of the mother planet are as valid imaginatively and emotively as the hard scientific evidence of the earth as a free-floating planetary body. In fact, the sense of empathic communication and interactivity with the earth as a living organism overrides the factual evidence of science (derived from photography and mensuration). The proof of the planet’s actual free-standing form (an oblate spheroid) is less convincing than the immediate impact of its presence in ordinary life.

Empathy for Mother Nature

Tragically, in our time, many people have entirely lost any sense of a connection to the earth, “Mother Nature”, and consequently live their entire lives without a second of consideration of that vast and sheltering presence. To them, the planet is merely the dumb, unconscious background for the drama of social life enacted in settings of human construction, houses, towns, and cities. Nevertheless, others still do feel a bond of empathy with the natural world. But how deeply can that bond be realized, how far can it be developed, and how might it evolve toward the experience of interactivity with both parties, the mother planet and her human children, consciously and knowingly aware of each other?

Planetary Tantra answers those questions by offering a practice that is verifiable by its results. “Interactive magic” is not a game of pretending or New Age make believe. The term “magic” refers to the larger dimension of this interactivity: magic, magnification, the perspective of the macrocosmos. The cosmic setting you inhabit is bigger than you can ever see all at once. It occupies the magno/macro scale. PT is interactivity with the life force and the life source immediately present to you, but beyond the normal scale of your senses.

PT is not Woo-woo make believe or wishful thinking. Quite simply, it assumes that we all have two mothers: a biological human mother and a divine, superhuman mother, the living planet. In PT, the term of endearment for the latter is PAM, “planetary animal mother.” The earth is a massive animal that supports all fauna and flora, but the composition of its body is more complex and inclusive than that other animals. It consists of rock and soil, minerals and crystals, water both salty and fresh, clouds, weather, the oxygen content (20.947 %) of the livable atmosphere, lightning, the Jet Stream and atmospheric components such as nitrogen (78.084 %), argon (.934 %), and carbon dioxide (.035 %). Still, PAM is all one integral animated super-organism, permeated with life from the microbial level all the way out to the limits of the troposphere. It is the super-alive matrix of all that exists to the human witness. Failure to admit or even attempt to realize this fact leads by default to the ignorant assumption that the material substance of the earth is inert and unconscious, incapable of behaving like other living forms it supports.

PT assumes that PAM is supernaturally alive, self-aware, self-directing, and possessing the equivalent to emotions, moods, thoughts, memories, and acts of imagination and intention. But that assumption is not put out as an article of faith. As mere faith, it is worthless. No better than any other item of unfounded and unverifiable religious doctrine. The only way to verify PT is to test the practice for results on your own, or in collaboration with others in the practice. It’s a discipline based on a clear and consistent method. In that respect, it is elective and exclusive to those who are ready, willing, and able to undertake that discipline.

JLL realizes, better than anyone, that many who feel genuine empathy with the mother planet are fully satisfied with their subjective perspective — even if it amounts to nothing more than a sentimental but self-fulfilling fantasy. They “commune with nature” as they like, consistent with their mental, emotional, and imaginative capacities. Given that the bond to nature is “by nature” something felt as sacred, and intimate, like a private affair between planet and person, those who have it already are not likely to be receptive to prescriptions and practices for that connection coming from a third party. PT is not for everyone who seeks or claims to have found a way of connection to mother nature. Those  who are not disposed to undertake the discipline exclude themselves from what PT can offer. So be it. JLL accepts the conditions that limit the appeal of this practice. The only comment he can offer is this:

You may believe that your intimate connection to the mother planet is a private, self-fulfilling relationship, verifiable to you on subjective and sentimental terms, but those in PT can attest that the connection it offers is neither private nor subjective — no more than is the ground on which you stand, or the air you breathe.

********

Link to the Great Recovery talks on John Lamb Lash YT

SUMMARY

As explained in the first talk, everything you find in Nemeta is based on four factors, like the four cornerstones of a monument:

1. The Primacy of Self-Love: An essential teaching that provides a new answer to the debate over human goodness. Is it innate to everyone? This topic leads into the distinction between genuine self-love and the three pernicious variants of narcissism, the religious, solipsistic, and social.
2. The Origin Myth: The Fallen Goddess scenario is the master narrative of Planetary Tantra. It supports and frames everything else in the Nemeta. You will find an introduction on sophianicmyth.org. This site provides a way to receive the nine episodes by email every five days. (Bear in mind that the FGS is currently in revision toward its final version. Some aspects of the story and some events in the narrative are not quite as you find them in those episodes.)
3. Basic Practices of PT: If you register free as a guest, you can access many units and participate in the PT forum dedicated to discussing PT and related issues. There is a unique thread dedicated to newcomers on the forum.
4. The Restoration of the Humanities: Traditionally defined in academic terms (from the Encyclopedia Brittanica), the humanities are “those branches of knowledge that concern themselves with human beings and their culture or with analytic and critical methods of inquiry derived from an appreciation of human values and of the unique ability of the human spirit to express itself. As a group of educational disciplines, the humanities are distinguished in content and method from the physical and biological sciences and, somewhat less decisively, from the social sciences. The humanities include the study of all languages and literature, the arts, history, and philosophy.”

Registered guest: To access the unit/lessons in the curriculum panel below, you need to click the green button: “Start Course” or “Continue Course.”

“Some days I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  So I do both at the same time. “