Judas, Scorpio and the Last Supper

[I have renamed this blog Integral Yoga Studies and in late 2016 and early 2017 I will be moving many past articles from my Integral Yoga Studies website here and letting that site go. Patrizia's articles will be moved to Aeon Center of Cosmology's website] 

Judas, Scorpio and the Last Supper

by Lori Tompkins

10 April 2006 

"Nothing will come of these releases of hitherto undisclosed documents until history is put into its proper context, and the role of Jesus is seen as an incomplete process pointing to a future fulfilment. The 12 are emphasised in the Judas Gospel - like no where else - because that is where the secret lies. And indeed its centres on Judas, as Leonardo displayed in The Last Supper. The Crucifixion is the off-centred man, and when the Scorpion is Transmuted to the Eagle, then the axis of the cross shifts, a new balance is acquired, and death is transformed. This is the 'choice' that lies before the human creature. He can choose to go either way.' - Thea [Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet], 8 April 2006

The nature of the surfacing of the Gospel of Judas as an undermining of the Ignorance upon which we have based our civilization can only be properly ENJOYED when one understands not simply the zodiacal content of the gospel, but also the deeper essence of the zodiac. Our modern understanding of astrology is no less in need of serious revision or re-creation (regeneration) than our modern understanding of God and the Bible. The Leonardo DaVinci piece is discussed in depth by PNB in an article that has yet to be made public, but lets just say here that Leonard was quite aware of the 12 signs of the zodiac which arranged themselves around a central sun or solar being. In his painting 'The Last Supper', the 12 disciples are in four groups of threes just as the 12 signs are divided into four groups of three energy flows (Creation, Preservation, Dissolution). Judas is pictured in Leonardo's 'The Last Supper' as the Eighth disciple corresponding to the Eighth sign of the zodiac, Scorpio. ( The Hidden Manna, Aeon Books, 1976.)

Scorpio is known to have two natures. One is the Scorpion - a low-lying insect which will either sting and kill itself or the 'other' if backed into a corner. The other is the Eagle - a bird which is free to use its energies to fly to the highest of mountain tops, where it achieves with its extraordinary vision the highest and widest of views.

With the April 2006 media-blitz of the Gospel of Judas, our entire world is not just witnessing, but also participating in the redemption of Judas. This character which our history has painted as a back-stabbing, money-grubbing traitor is now seen in his greater light, as the only one of Jesus's disciples who could understand his teaching. We witness a complete redemption of his action, we see his action in the highest light. We see that his was only an apparent betrayal. And in the end, as Jesus foretold, we see that his apparent darkness had always been - despite our beliefs about the matter throughout the past aeon or age - a seed of Light, a True, Divine, Conscious and Intentional Act. In this we are witnessing the transmutation of the Scorpion to the Eagle. We are also witnessing a glimmer of the true potency of the zodiac - as a map of our individual and collective unfoldment in time, a map of our evolution (collective and individual), of which sages and magis and seers of other ages have had knowledge [1]. Jesus seemed to know of what needed to be cleansed or transmuted and he seemed to know that it would take at least an aeon (age). He knew that it was a matter of Time, until the true seed of our being would take hold in the Earth and bare its 'fruit' or its Light

The following excerpt from PNB's The New Way, Volume 3, may help readers appreciate Jesus's message to Judas and his disciples in this new Light. Note that in the English translation of the gospel, Jesus speaks of the superior 'generation' as being 'Self-Generating':

'The action of undermining [2] is the favorite tool of Diti, of the queen of the past. The experience lived, known, becomes the means to undermine whatever seeks to be born. The stagnation of the human consciousness, represented in the Gnostic Circle' by Scorpio, the sign of death, degeneration (and regeneration) [3], owes its condition to the fact that there is a blockage of energy produced by barriers in consciousness regarding time-energy. Divisive time, fragmented and separative, results in a caving in, a collapse - precisely at the point when formidable sustaining power is demanded, which expresses itself in the evolution of consciousness as a release of energy that is the very power utilised for the ongoing, upward-moving ascent to the Summit.

In this manner, the black hole is revealed as a luminous container, a source of formidable light-energy to be tapped and utilized; which is precisely the element offered the human being to the effect of the great crossing. Yet to be able to make use of this fount the process of undermining has to be arrested. In the spiritual life this is accomplished by a refusal to allow any suggestions to penetrate the individual consciousness which corrode his or her experience of the intrinsic reality of creation. But when one has made the choice and has agreed to embark upon this new way, then the temperament of the hero is demanded, because one is faced with a world as yet unredeemed, with an Ignorance still in command, with a consciousness wracked day and night by the awareness of human misery - and as yet the clear path out of this darkness is unmanifest.' - Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, from The New Way, A Study in the Rise and Establishment of a Gnostic Society, Volume 3 (written 1983, published 2005 by Aeon Books) 

Footnotes:

[1] The ancient Rig Veda (considered by the most conservative standards to be over 3000 years old, and by others to be over 5000 years old) makes reference to the 360 and the 12 as did Jesus in the Gospel of Judas.

Twelve spokes, one wheel, navels three.Who can comprehend this?On it are placed togetherthree hundred and sixty like pegs.They shake not in the least.(Dirghatama, Rg Veda 1.164.48)

We also find in the RigVeda (1.154) zodiacal reference to the 3 steps of Vishnu the Preserver (whose vehicle is the Eagle) as like the Lion, the Bull and the Man. The Eagle, the Lion, the Bull, and the Man are the symbols of the four fixed (or Preserving) signs, Scorpio, Leo, Taurus, and Aquarius. The mention of these signs in backward order within the zodiac, suggests that Vishnu's famous Steps correspond a movement in time - the Precession of the Equinoxes, which moves 360 degrees backward through the zodiac in 25,920 years. Vishnu's Steps have been seen by PNB to be progression in time from the Age of Scorpio (the Eagle) to the Age of Leo, to the Age of Taurus to the Age of Aquarius. (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, The Gnostic Circle, Aeon Books)

[2] One can appreciate that the word 'undermine' can be positive or negative relative to what it is that is the target to be dissolved. The word itself is made up of the two words 'under' and 'mind' - the mind underneath the surface of things. In terms of Sri Aurobindo's yoga, the Supramind (secretly active in all manifested being) is undermining our limited perceptions based on limited mental capacity and the false structures built upon those limitations. In these terms the Supramind would be our secret luminous self, one day to be re-covered, re-deemed, re-cognized, honored, valued, known and loved despite our long history of knowing ourselves as an apparent darkness. This is of course our choice which PNB speaks of, the choice to re-cognize and know ourselves in a new way, as an ever-present yet newly-manifested ALL consciousness, or remain in our past, in our well-established low-lying view of our selves, our world and our circumstances. 

[3] It is interesting that PNB speaks of Scorpio in terms of Degeneration and Regeneration. Any one who has read the transcription of the Gospel of Judas can appreciate that Jesus (or the translators of the gospel) frequently use the word 'generation'. Jesus give us precisely the picture of the two possibilities of Scorpio - THIS generation and THAT generation, one generation which is unredeamable in the age in which the characters of the story were living (de-generate), and one generation to come which is "Self-Generating" from the Immortal Eternal Realm of the Divine Being(re-generative).

© Lori Tompkins 2006

Related Articles:

'The Gospel of Judas', Surfaces after 1,700 Years

'The Gospel of Judas'  from the Perspective of Integral Yoga & the Supramental Cosmology

Zodiacal & Cosmological References in the Gospel of Judas

The Ordeals of Scorpio