America, Land of the Feathered Serpent (1 of 6)

Part 1: The Deep History of America

1. Introduction: Atlantis and the Cycle of the Arya

This article begins the first in a multi-part series on the “deep” (meaning: ancient and occult) history of America.

• As we will be exploring in this article and throughout this series, America’s deep history stretches back before the heyday of the great empires of the Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilizations of Central and South America. It also precedes the wandering tribes of North American Indians that once populated the present day United States and Canada.

• To discover the true origins of American history, we must extend our search back beyond the “dark curtain of history” to the pre-diluvian era of Atlantis.

To the philosopher, the concept of Atlantis represents not just a lost age of civilization destroyed by a global flood but also a previous evolutionary cycle or age of human history.

• Manly Hall explains that “the Atlantean epoch should be understood to be a distribution of culture and races over the entire surface of the earth, rather than a particular nation.”

• Atlantis therefore represents an entire pre-diluvian epoch of global civilization. This previous epoch or age of history existed as an earlier phase or cycle of human evolution.

• During this earlier evolutionary era, an ancient culture played out an entire historical arc of its own before being destroyed by a great flood, the story of which is preserved in the various deluge myths found in ancient cultures around the world.

• As these myths preserve, this flood was an apocalyptic event which involved the sinking of an entire island continent - one that was the homeland of a once-mighty empire, global in extent.

After the waters subsided, surviving remnant groups from this Atlantean Empire worked in various locales to re-established civilization.

• From one source civilization - the Atlantean Empire - emerged numerous progeny, these coming in the form of the mysterious early states and empires of China, Egypt, America, and Mesopotamia.

• Atlantis must therefore be understood as the prehistoric “mother civilization” from which all subsequent civilizations have emerged. Each has draw upon its archetype, and through them its influence has stretched down to today.

In sum, Atlantis was a previous age of human history; upon its historical foundations, a modern cycle of human history is playing itself out.

• In the language of esotericism, our modern age is called the “Arya" or “Aryan Age”. Here, a new, post-Atlantean cycle of human evolution is unfolding.

The “Cycle of the Arya” represent the development of a new race (or more specifically, “root race”), which in esoteric philosophy means a new developmental pattern in human evolution.

• According to the esoteric teachings, this new root race first originated out of a sect of Atlantean refugees who preached against the abuses, greed, and decadence of the fallen and corrupted Atlantean rulership elite.

• This group of dissidents was lead by an Atlantean priest out of the empire’s capital city. This prehistoric “Moses” (given different names in different traditions) migrated these refugees halfway around the world to the region of the Himalayas in North Central Asia, where he established a small tribal nation among them, one secluded from the rest of the world and protected from encroachment by the enormous mountain range surrounding them.

According to the oldest esoteric teachings, it was here, in the Himavat, that a great spiritual being - anciently termed the “Manu”, the godfather of the Aryan root race - incarnated in the form of Vaivasvata Manu.

• This spiritual leader, the Manu, incarnated into human form through the persons of seven Rishi. These seven illumined sages then raised up seven great Adept-initiates, who founded a Mystery School called the “Institutes of Manu”, where further initiates and disciples were raised up to embody the new evolutionary design for human development.

• In this way, the Manu and Rishi worked to establish a new vibratory pattern within the human soul. This new pattern was to form the basis of the next cycle of human evolution. Gradually, over the course of millennia, it would spread out from the Himavat to manifest itself all across the world among the surviving remnant groups from Atlantis.

The wave-like migrations of the Aryan evolutionary pattern, moving out from the Himalaya into the rest of the world, is traditionally called the “Arya” or “Cycle of the Arya”.

• Through the Arya, the new soul pattern first revealed by the Manu has been spread all across the Earth, pulling humanity toward a new growth trajectory.

Its spread has come through the vehicle of great sage-like spiritual teachers and the Mystery School institutions they have worked to found. Together, they work as the “hands and feet” of the Manu, serving his will and laboring to build his vision for a new Solomon’s Temple.

• As Manly Hall summarizes, “a Secret Society, whose origin is lost in the mysterious twilight of Oriental religion, has continued from the earliest (times) to exercise an almost universal influence on the condition of the civilized world.”

• Under the leadership of an esoteric priesthood, a series of successive migrations, separated sometimes by thousands of years, have moved out from the Arya’s North Asian homeland and traversed the face of the globe.

• The term “Aryan” actually refers to the existence of a line of spiritual teachers and initiates descended from a lineage tracing back to Vaivasvata Manu. The name “Aryan” therefore references a caste of Brahman-like sages and gurus who follow a certain tradition and preach a certain doctrine. The term does not refer to a particular ethnicity, as these teachers have emerged in a variety of times, places, and ethnic groups.

In the process of their migrations, the wandering Aryans encountered different separated groups of remnant Atlantean peoples and territories. Meeting these groups, the Aryans worked to gradually modify and transform them to become reflections of the Manu’s vibratory pattern.

• Primarily, the Aryans worked to transform the institutional architecture of the former Atlantean peoples they encountered.

• By assimilating the remnant Atlanteans into a new social order that they, the Aryans, worked to implement, the psyche of the Atlantean peoples gradually became modified and molded into a pattern resembling the Aryan archetype.

• This transformation within their psyches was then reflected downward into the body, resulting in a gradual modification of the physical human form, away from the Atlantean pattern and into a new Aryan-influenced model. In this way the new evolutionary form of the human race - the Aryan form - has taken root all around the world among all peoples. (Again, this pattern isn’t confined to any one ethnicity).

Though this method of spread, the modern human form - the Aryan “root race” - has come into being all across the globe.

• Mankind is now evolving now toward the realization of an archetypal “Aryan” design pattern initially established through the incarnation of Vaivasvata Manu and his seven Rishi almost a million years ago.

• The Aryan archetype is emerging through all nations and peoples, no matter their ethnicity or birthplace. This birth process is still playing out to this day and will not be complete for a considerable period of time.

• Our collective racial origin begins with the fall of Atlantis and its destiny will not be fulfilled until one day a New Atlantis is established: a new global system - a world nation - which is to emerge as the culmination of the Aryan phase of human evolution.

• By means of the New Atlantis, the Cycle of the Arya will ultimately come to completion. At this point, mankind will collectively progress into its next evolutionary cycle of existence and become the Sixth Root Race.

2. Atlantis and the Early Americas

Moving our gaze back to human prehistory, we find that the peoples we generally associate with Atlantis - the ones who once ran a global maritime empire out of a large and powerful capital city located on a now-sunken island continent in the Atlantic Ocean - were not the only version of “Atlantean” peoples existing on the earth during this time period.

• Rather, the Atlantean root race - signifying an entire pre-diluvian pattern of human existence - manifested in various states of psychological, physical, and sociocultural development.

• These various branches of the root race - termed “sub-races” - were characterized by differing degrees of advancement, with the Atlantic Ocean-based sub-race rising to become the most advanced, powerful, and influential of these Atlantean sub-races.

• This hegemon established a global maritime empire extending from its island homeland out across the world, linking together a number of peripheral colonies and territories to form one interconnected global empire.

Before the end of the last Ice Age (circa 10,000 BC), the American continents were linked to the Atlantean islands as one of the primary colonies of its empire. They had their own native peoples, but they also had colonies ruled over by the great Atlantic hegemon nation.

• After the deluge and the corresponding sinking of the Atlantean Empire’s home continent, there was an exodus and migration of survivors both west and east. The eastern migrants would establish the First Dynasties of ancient Egypt; the western migrants would raise up the early empires of Central and South America.

Atlantis was therefore the common progenitor of not only the early empires of the Americas, but also those found in Egypt and other locales.

• After Atlantis’s fall, its pattern of civilization was resurrected and progressed in each of these regions; in the Americas, this resurrection came through the Olmecs, then through the Maya, and later through the Inca and Aztecs.

• In this way, the westward motion of Atlantean peoples and culture into the Americas resulted in the blossoming of early American civilization.

Supporting this theory is the fact that the early Central and South American civilizations were built in the style of the previous Atlantean empire.

• Just as in Atlantis’s old capital city, the early American empires were run by a priesthood whose operations were centered around the construction of magnificent pyramidal temple complexes.

• These complexes were built and run by a powerful sect of initiates who, like the priest-magicians of lost Atlantis, possessed the keys to universal knowledge.

• Halfway around the world, in Egypt, we find another high civilization formed by Atlantean survivors of the deluge. Resurrecting the same lost tradition of ancient knowledge once possessed by the Atlanteans, they also established a great empire, one that, due to its common heritage, shared numerous points of similarity with the ancient pre-Mayan empires forming around the same period in Central and South America.

Now turning our attention to North America, we find that here the exodus story is a bit different:

• While the Native American tribes were, like their neighbors in South and Central America, also descendants of the Atlantean root race, they seem to have come from a different sub-race as that of the Central and South America civilizations. Instead of coming in a westward motion from the Atlantean islands, they seem to have reached the Americas through a eastward motion of migration, one moving into North America from North Asia over the Bering Strait.

• Remember: the Atlantean root race was global and multicultural; it contained numerous different sub-races and cultural groups, these varying in the level of social, physical, and psychological complexity each attained.

• The dominant and most advanced of these cultures was the one whose homeland was rooted in the now-disappeared island chain once situated in the Atlantic Ocean between America and Europe. It was this Atlantic Ocean-based culture who created a global empire, which it imposed upon other racial groups and cultures, serving as the global hegemon.

• The early postdiluvian Central and South American cultures were descended from this hegemon.  But the nomadic tribes of North American Indians, having come to the continent from a different route, descended from a different cultural source practicing a different way of life.

• They came from an Atlantean cultural tradition that still embraced a nomadic, tribal, huntef-gatherer lifestyle, with their pattern of social existence organized according to the primordial dynamic of the “brood family”.

The origin story of the American Indians seems to be that, at an early date, a comparatively primitive band of nomadic, wandering tribes from North Asia (perhaps Mongolia) moved East over the Bering Strait in order to populate North America.

• Contrary to their city-dwelling neighbors to the south, the North American Indians were nomadic peoples, more comfortable in wandering tribes than in permanent agrarian communities.

• At some unknown point back before the arrival of these nomadic tribes, back before the end of the last Ice Age, when the Atlantean Empire was still in existence, an earlier, mound-building culture once existed in North America. This culture was almost completely destroyed by a deluge resulting from the melting of a large ice sheet then existing across present-day Canada.

• As scholars and scientists such as Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson have pointed out, North America was particularly hard hit by this deluge event, which took place around 10,000 BC. Consequently, after the waters receded, the North American continent was left largely unsettled, leaving it open to be gradually repopulated by this eastward migrating population of nomadic tribesmen moving in from northern Asia.

In sum, in the millennia following the collapse of Atlantis, the American continents would be repopulated by two different racial lineages, one coming from the East, the other from the West. These would be kept relatively isolated from each other, and also, crucially, from ongoing developments and events unfolding on the Eurasian landmass.

• In his writings, Plato notes that, after the sinking of Atlantis, all navigation from Eurasia to the West ceased for a long period of time. Consequently, civilization in the Americas was left to develop independently and autonomously from its peers in other parts of the world.

• In Central and South America, civilization developed in a pattern that imitated the old Atlantean Empire, featuring large cities and expansive trade networks implemented under the guidance of an elite priesthood, who operated out of a network of state temple complexes featuring massive pyramidal initiation temples at their core.

• By contrast, in North America we find a different lineage taking root, one derived from a Atlantean sub-race that was not sedentary but nomadic. This wave of migrating tribes and brood families came from the opposite side of the world - from North Asia - and in time developed to become the various tribes of North American Indians.

3. The Hero Gods of Ancient Myth

The origin of the great Mayan civilization of Central America begins, according to their own records, with a lost mythic civilization that is almost undoubtedly a reference to Atlantis.

• The lost Atlantean Empire was once headquartered out of a now-disappeared island continent located between Europe and America. From this base, it spread itself out to occupy territories and regions across the world, establishing colonies at key locations worldwide and interfacing with local populations in these areas.

• The prehistoric, pre-Mayan, and pre-Olmec civilizations of the Americas initially existed as extensions of this one great global empire.

In the areas it colonized, local tribal populations, existing in a more primitive state, would be “civilized” by cultural and economic ambassadors sent out from the Atlantean empire’s capital city, Poseidonis, the City of the Golden Gates.

• Teachers and civilizers originating from this capital city ventured out to the outskirts of the empire’s periphery and seeded into the tribal peoples they found there something of the Atlantean way of life, with trades and crafts taught to the commoners and a central priesthood and ruling dynasty organized among the intellectual elite of the tribe.

• They established local priesthoods, set up within the tribe as societies of “Elders”. Specialized knowledge was imparted to them, which they utilized in order to lead, guide, and educate the maturing peoples of their tribal societies.

• This knowledge was perpetuated within their structure over generations through the observance of tribal initiation rites, which the original Atlantean missionaries seeded into their cultures.

In comparison to the primitive tribal peoples they were colonizing, the Atlantean missionaries would have appeared as highly advanced, god-like beings.

• Like Prometheus, the Atlantean priests brought knowledge, agriculture, arts, sciences, and government to the primitive tribal peoples on the periphery of their empire.

• They served as civilizing influencers who, through their colonization efforts, worked to lift tribal peoples from all over the world out of an old, primitive, Stone Age way of life.

In the mythic traditions of native peoples from around the world, we find perpetuated the story of a time when the “gods” labored with man on Earth to establish a line of empires.

• In truth, these gods were actually men, ones much more advanced and evolved in their level of mental, physical, and cultural attainment in comparison to the tribal people scattered around the periphery of their empire.

• Consequently, the “gods” of ancient myth may have been mortals from an ancient time. These mortals may have appeared god-like in their powers and lived for very long periods. Nonetheless, these were not “gods” but rather powerful human rulers who were immortalized and deified after death.

• Writing on this topic, Manly Hall wonders if “perhaps the colorful personalities and obvious character flaws exhibited by the gods of ancient myth (actually) hint at a reality that is more based on historical fact than we realize?”

If this be true, then the collapse of Atlantis represents not just the collapse of an ancient order of civilization but also the fall of an old order of “mundane gods" who played a very real part in the developmental history of primitive humanity.

• These mundane gods were the Atlantean priest-magicians (and later the Aryan philosopher-sages) who ruled as shepherd-kings over the Earth’s many primitive tribal peoples, who were still living in a barbaric Stone Age mode of existence.

• The initiated priests of antiquity brought them civilization and installed within their midst a Mystery School institution dedicated to raising and evolving the collective psyche of the population.

Keeping this story in mind, it now makes sense why ancient myths from across the world all tell of a “race of heroes or divine beings who were the primordial teachers of mankind.”

• Manly Hall elaborates: “Most ancient peoples trace their cultures to mysterious persons who came to them from distant places and brought knowledge of arts, sciences, crafts, and trades. Hardly any old nations claim to have originated the learning which raised them from savagery. Wisdom was always bestowed, and those who gave it gradually were elevated to the estates of gods or culture heroes.”

• Furthermore, the idea that these early Promethean heroes were part of a single maritime Atlantean empire also explains why, in most legends, these missionaries were said to have come from a distant shore beyond the sea. Could the distant land they traveled from represent the Atlantean Empire’s fabled capital city?

As Manly Hall summarizes, the early hero gods of world mythology often are said to have come “out of oceans, remained with mortals for a time, and then returned to their watery abode”. In his writings, he offers numerous examples of this pattern:

• “In China, the Imperial family descended from Fue He, who was born from a fish’s mouth and bestowed the knowledge of writing and the trigrams.”

• Similarly, “in India, the first incarnation or Avatar of Vishnu represents this deity rising from the mouth of a fish, or with the lower part of his body in the form of a fish. It was this fish that guided the ark of the Hindu Noah safely through the universal deluge.”

• Meanwhile, “the peoples in the valley of the Euphrates traced their cultures to Oannes, or Dagon, the man with the body of a fish, who came out of the sea to instruct them and to bestow upon them the advantages of civilization.”

• And in Mexico, “Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, came from the sea on a raft of serpents. This Quetzalcoatl was a sage and a prophet, and he established the laws which were later to guide the Indian nations. In this case, the seafarer came from the East, which would be geographically consistent with the concept we wish to advance.”

• In all cases, “these men from the sea always brought knowledge to a primitive or savage group, and as a result of this contact, a civilization arose where it had not previously existed.”

Manly Hall concludes that “if we wish to assume that these seafarers, with their clothing of fish-scales (armor?), were colonizers, navigators, or military expeditions sent out from Atlantis, we would have a simple and reasonable explanation for many legends about the beginnings of cultural motions.”

• The idea that the great spiritual teachers and civilizers of man originated from a line of ancient priests dating back to Atlantis satisfactorily explains the many common similarities found between ancient myths all over the world.

• It also explains why, in these myths, the teacher, after staying with the native tribal populations for a period and bringing them the core elements of civilization, eventually departs, returning to the sea.

• In each case, he promises to one day return, but in no cases does he actually do so. The destruction of Atlantis would explain why: the hero-gods who came out of the sea returned to their own homeland and never came back because this homeland was destroyed.

With the destruction Atlantis’s home island, its colonies were then left to their own devices, to fend for themselves.

• In many instances, these legacy civilizations were able to maintain a high degree of culture for an extended period. But inevitably, each fell into decadence and succumbed to the archetypal karma of empire first established by Atlantis.

• In this manner, civilization gradually deteriorated and lapsed back into savagery, with only a vague cultural memory of a previous golden age remaining within the legends of the people.

4. The Cult of the Feathered Serpent

According to the native myths of the Mayans, it was in the last age of their mythic forebears, the Olmecs (Manly Hall terms them the “Toltecs”), that a great spiritual leader named Quetzalcoatl first appeared in person to elevate the native tribal peoples of the region to a state of cultural prominence.

• Hall informs us that “when Quetzalcoatl took over the affairs of this nation, the people were suffering from droughts and famines” and had fallen into a desperate and barbaric pattern of living.

• For those who became his followers, Quetzalcoatl became their Messiah: their priest-king who guided them out of a primitive way of life and brought them knowledge, culture, prosperity, and dignity. Among them, he established a new kingdom; a resurrection of the previous Atlantean model of empire.

Together, Quetzalcoatl and his society of initiate-priests ruled over the native populations of the Americas, re-ordering their social pattern and overhauling their governmental, religious, economic, and cultural institutions into a pattern resembling that which once existed in the lost Atlantean capital city of “Poseidonis”.

• Here, in the ancient myths of the Maya, we discover that the first in a long line of illumined Mayan spiritual teachers - Quetzalcoatl - originated as one of a line of Atlantean initiate-priests.

• This great leader founded a priesthood and dynasty of kings who together were tasked with preserving the knowledge and institutions he originally established among them.

• Quetzalcoatl’s descendants were born from a lineage comprised of a mix of Atlantean sub-races, with bloodlines from the elite sub-race that ran the Atlantean Empire gradually blending with the bloodlines of the primitive tribes on the periphery of its colonies.

• These comparatively primitive tribes, forming a sub-race of their own, were native to the Americas before the arrival of the civilizing missionaries from the empire’s capital city. Their blood, mixed with the remnants of the imperial sub-race, is what came together to form the basis of the Mayan peoples.

The descendants of Quetzalcoatl formed a caste apart and together formed the ruling class of the Mayan Empire.

• Over time, the legacy priesthood around which this ruling caste was centered adopted the name of their great founder - Quetzalcoatl - with future leaders of this order revered as reincarnations of the culture’s initial spiritual teacher and guide.

• Thus, Quetzalcoatl was reborn through the spiritual attainments of his disciples. Manly Hall elaborates: “As centuries passed, new heroes arose among these peoples. It is possible and probable that some of the greatest of these heroes might be regarded as incarnations of Quetzalcoatl and were permitted, as a special honor, to assume his name and mask, even receiving worship as the embodiment of his divinity.”

In this pattern of thinking, “the Son is like unto the Father”, with the Father principle representing the immortal Divine Self behind creation and the Son the Adept whose consciousness has become one with the Father.

• Esoterically, the Adept and his Mystery School harness and channel the spiritual energies of a divine principle growing up through Nature: God the Son, the Immortal-Mortal.

• We, the humans of Earth, are the mortals. As mortals, we “come unto the immortal Father by means of the immortal-mortal: the Son.” This means that, by means of the sacred institution of the Mysteries, the divine principle of consciousness locked within each individual (the “Son”) is gradually returned to the kingdom of its Father.

For the peoples of the Americas, the line of Quetzalcoatl represents this Divine Child making its presence known through a priestly caste of initiates who channel his energies, preach his doctrine, and serve his will.

• By successfully passing through all the initiations of the Mystery School system, the initiate becomes Quetzalcoatl reborn.

• From his immortal estate, Quetzalcoatl speaks through the souls of his initiates to those still trapped in the mortal cycle of existence. Gradually, though his chosen instruments, he works to raise the Spirit principle trapped in each and return it to the kingdom of the All-Father.

Here we discover a basic pattern that is replicated in all cultures of ancient history: the Hero God of myth is equated with his disciples, who, through initiation, “raise” or “resurrect” Him back to life.

• Wherever we find the archetypal myth of the Dying God, we can expect to also find the corresponding existence of a priesthood who are practicing the sacred rites associated with the mystical raising of this Divine Being back to life.

• This way of approaching ancient myth establishes the American Hero-God Quetzalcoatl in a line of descent that extends around the world through time and place, linking him with other Hero Gods of ancient myth such as Orpheus, Horus, and Mithras.

• The glue that binds the whole pattern together is the Mystery School system: the initiatic pattern of spiritual instruction whereby candidates are taught to “raise” this great Living God within the chemistry of their own Soul and Body.

Quetzalcoatl and other Hero God sects are never comprised of just a single person: always, the pattern being referenced is that of an Adept and his Mystery School, which is comprised of an inner hierarchy of initiates and disciples who are spiritually being raised by the spiritual light of their Master.

• The awakened initiate, in illumination, becomes the Hero God reincarnate.

• In Christian Mysticism, this means that the initiate becomes Christ reborn; in the Americas, it means that they become Quetzalcoatl resurrected.

• In this way, as Manly Hall informs us, “Quetzalcoatl emerges not only as the hero-god, but as the hero-soul in Man, whose birth, death, and resurrection forms the central motif of an elaborate ritualism.”

Delving deeper, we discover that the name “Quetzalcoatl” is a compound word meaning “feathered serpent”.

• In the esoteric teachings of the Maya, the word “serpent” was associated with the sacred power of the Divine Mother, manifested here on Earth as the coiled serpent-energy situated at the root chakra of the human form. The raising of this serpent energy in the body represents the rising of kundalini energy from the coccyx to strike the pineal gland in the brain, which is the body’s specialized organ of spiritual perception.

• The word “feather”, meanwhile, was symbolic of the Phoenix or Thunderbird: the Adept-initiate whose consciousness has become awakened to the spiritual consciousness of the All-Father and his Sky Gods in Heaven. He oversouls the priesthood of the Mystery Schools, serving as their great guiding Light.

The title “Quetzalcoatl” links both concepts together: it denotes the existence of a great illuminated teacher or sage and his Mystery School.

• The Adept is one who has raised the serpent energy within himself and “given it wings” by connecting it with the divine principle within himself - his Higher Self.

• Here we find that Quetzalcoatl is not a person’s name but a title, one referencing the existence of an Adept: an evolved soul who has attained enlightenment by marrying the “lunar and solar" or “serpent and eagle” principles within their own souls.

Having achieved spiritual illumination, the Adept serves as the hierophant of a Mystery School comprised of lesser initiates and disciples. The initiates serving under the Adept are termed his “serpents”.

• Manly Hall writes that Quetzalcoatl’s “mystery cult was served by a hierarchy of priests who termed themselves ‘serpents’ and who, by virtue of their rituals of consecration, partook of the very nature of the God himself.”

• He explains that “the serpent was an ancient symbol standing for an initiated priest: a prophet, seer, magician, or wonderworker under divine protection and enjoying the inspiration of God.”

• In esoteric philosophy, serpent symbolism also has other important occult meanings. For instance, it is associated with the Divine Mother, who is the patron divinity behind the Mystery Schools. The priesthood communes with this Earth Mother during their subterranean initiation rites, which typically tak place in the underground rooms and passageways (i.e. “serpent holes”) associated with their temples. In homage to her, these priests are sometimes called the “Sons of the Widow”.

In sum, the Adept is the individual who has raised the serpent energy within themselves and given it “wings”. His emblem is therefore the Phoenix or, as the Maya termed it, Quetzalcoatl - the Feathered Serpent.

• Quetzalcoatl is the immortal “feathered serpent” or Adept who oversees a lodge of mortal initiates or “serpents”.

• While the Adept become illuminated to the point of transcending death to become the Immortal-Mortal, the serpent-priests remain mortal and thus remain under the dominion of the Earth Mother, who serves as their supreme Muse and guide.

The core component of the Mystery School tradition is the Adept themselves: a divinely inspired Teacher; a “Feathered Serpent”. This illumined being becomes the hierophant or high priest of the School; a spiritual sun around whom a miniature solar system of initiates and disciples revolve.

• This Mystery School in turn oversees the spiritual development of a lesser internal hierarchy of students and disciples organized by degrees. This School collectively becomes the personification of its Adept founder.

• Like the Hero Gods of old, the initiates of this secret school work together to serve as the “leaders and saviors of their peoples. They were the wonder-working heroes, whose deeds enriched all tribal nations, always and everywhere performing the same miracles, possessing the same powers, and making the same personal sacrifices.”

• In this way, as Manly Hall summarizes, the symbolism of the Phoenix or “Feathered Serpent” “veils the entire Adept tradition, with its secret lodges and places of meeting”, these existing both “upon the heights of mountains and in the depths of valleys.”

5. Traces of Freemasonry in Ancient America

Before moving on to discuss in more detail how the descendants of Quetzalcoatl moved into the Americas to found their great line empires, I want to first emphasize a point related to our earlier discussion of the Cycle of the Arya and its relation to Atlantis.

• Earlier we noted that the first in the line of Quetzalcoatl was a high initiate of an ancient Atlantean Mystery School. But after the fall of Atlantis and the destruction of this Mystery School, the religious leadership of the world was taken over by a new Mystery School, one originating not on an island continent in the Atlantic but in the secluded mountain region of the Himalayas.

• Therefore, we conclude that, while the Cult of the Feathered Serpent originally dates back to Atlantis, its later descendants would incorporate elements derived from the Aryan migrations coming down from North Asia.

In truth, at their innermost levels, the Mystery Schools of the world are all linked together. This means that the line of Mystery Schools established in America have, since the beginning, been connected with their sibling institutions in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. All are commonly derived from Atlantis, and all have been sequentially modified by the incoming influence of the Aryan migrations.

• This idea is supported by the fact that, in the construction of their religious temples, the great civilizations of the world have all adhered to a common standard of architecture and design, with the Golden Ratio being prominently emphasized by each. Furthermore, similar Masonic marks and emblems can be found in temple constructions ranging from the Americas to Europe to the Middle East and beyond.

• Elaborating further on the secret presence of a global society of initiated architects, builders, and artisans, Manly Hall writes that “traces of Masonic philosophy are to be found wherever the building arts have flourished and men’s lives have come to be influenced by the concept of construction.”

• “It is only necessary to examine superficially the cultures of the three Americas to become strongly aware that sacred institutions of this kind flourished in the Western Hemisphere more than two thousand years ago (and probably much longer).” For example, “when contemplating the ruined cities scattered through the great Mayan Aztec area, (one suspects) that this vast program of building was sustained and inspired by the same incentives which dominated the cathedral builders of Europe and the architectural programs of the Near East, North Africa, and Central Asia.”

• It thus appears that “Masonry, as a secret society, flourished among all the of the civilized groups of antiquity, and in various nations it involved its symbolism with the dominant spiritual convictions then and there prevalent.”

To flourish, a Mystery School needs a temple within which to perform its rites. Thus, an aspect of all Mystery Schools involves the training of architects, masons, and artists in the sacred sciences of building, design, and aesthetics.

• Therefore, Masons are always and ever an essential part of a greater Mystery School system: a crucial component to it, but not the only part.

• The builders of the Mystery temples had to be initiated into the symbolism of the priesthood of the community they were working within, as the shrines, buildings, and monuments which they fashioned were “ornamented with a complicated symbolism combining sacred motifs. Each symbol was not only meaningful, but was based upon a legitimate and proper relationship with other figures and designs, thus unfolding a story and causing each wall and balcony to become a mystic picture-book.”

The essence of the Mystery Schools is to preserve and disseminate knowledge according to an initiatic method, where students and disciples must graduate through various initiation rituals and trials before they receive more advanced doctrines of instruction.

• The temples built by the Masons form an essential component of this initiatory system. Thus, wherever we find the marks of Masonry, we know that accompanying these Masons is a larger Mystery School operation.

• Because we find these marks among the native civilizations of the Americas, we can infer that Mystery School institution similar to those in Eurasia must also have flourished among them. Hall elaborates on this view, writing: “We know that, throughout the three Americas, religious institutions arose, taking the form of secret associations comprised of bodies of initiated persons, to whom the deeper and more vital knowledge pertaining to the life of the tribe or nation was entrusted.” This bestowed knowledge was “circumscribed with certain obligations of secrecy and prudence.”

• He continues: “We also know that those who, after due trial and testing, were entrusted with this superior kind of learning, also assumed definite responsibilities toward their brother men, and endeavored in every way possible to advance the spiritual, moral, and ethical lives of their communities. We further know that these initiates were accorded peculiar honor and veneration and were regarded as prophets, seers, and sages. To their keeping was given the sacred lore. They were healers, mystics, and to a degree, the historians and interpreters of that ancient knowledge which was believed to have descended from superior beings inhabiting a spiritual realm above and beyond the Earth.”

• “Whenever such a concept has been prevalent, we are obliged to recognize the presence of that Mystery System of instruction which is identified with the deeper implications of Freemasonry. This is especially true when we observe that initiation into these ancient rites was a progressive procedure, and that the degrees of the sacred order were three in number, the third and highest part dealing with the spiritual truths of man’s redemption.”

6. Quetzalcoatl and the Foundations of Mayan Civilization

As covered above, the name “Feathered Serpent” refers to the native Mystery School tradition of the Americas.

• It has appeared and re-appeared in different times and places, performing many miraculous works and serving as a benevolent civilizing and initiating force everywhere it went.

• Surveying the ancient history of Central and South America, we find the Cult of the Feathered Serpent sprouting up in different places at different times.

• Its initial entrance into the region seems to have occurred in Central America many centuries before the onset of the Christian era. Its coming is associated with onset of an early pre-Mayan empire, one whose domain once extended from the Yucatan area of Mexico down through Guatemala, and Honduras.

This early empire was established by Itzamna, one of the local names for Quetzalcoatl and his Cult of the Feathered Serpent.

• In other regions, this Hero God took on other names: Votan,, Kulkulkan, Gucumatz. … In each case, the native translation of the title is the same: “Feathered Serpent”.

To get more specific:

• In Palenque, this esoteric school operated under the name Votan.

• In the Yucatan, it went by Itzamna.

• In Central America, it was known as Kulkulkan.

• To the Quiches of Peru it was named as Gucumatz.

• And to the Nahuatlan people of Tulla and Cholula it was called Quetzalcoatl.

Notably, to one ancient Peruvian culture group, this native Mystery School was named “Amaru”.

• The root word “Amaru” is in fact the true, occult foundation behind the name “America”.

• “Ameri-ca” is a re-spelling of “Amaru-ca”, signifying that the entire Western Hemisphere was long ago marked with the occult name: “Land of the Feathered Serpent.”

According to the Maya and the traditions of the various descendant cultures that have followed them (the Aztecs being one), the Cult of the Feathered Serpent has been the common source and inspiration behind the formation of the great civilizations of American history.

• By implication, this esoteric order - the Cult of the Feathered Serpent - remains America’s secret ruler, with its modern incarnation coming in the form of the Invisible College established by Francis Bacon in England and planted here at the outset of the American colonization scheme.

• According to this way of viewing things, behind the US government, Federal Reserve, and the military industrial complex resides the Invisible Government of the World, which is quietly guiding the destiny of the American nation. This destiny is for the nation to one day transfigure itself into the headquarters of the “New Atlantis”: a worldwide democratic commonwealth of nations with the Cult of the Feathered Serpent and its associated Mystery School enthroned at its core.

Since the deep origins of American history, this sacerdotal institution, referenced under the title Quetzalcoatl (or one of several other related names, all translating to “Feathered Serpent”), has served as the guardian, teacher, and enlightener of the American people.

• In each of the various cultural groups it has emerged in, this esoteric society was responsible for elevating the state of civilization among the peoples they encountered to a very high degree of advancement.

To give an example of how this Mystery School has exerted its influence in the Americas, lets examine one of the Mayan traditions originating from the Yucatan.

• According to these peoples, civilization in the region was originally established (or more accurately resurrected after a previous collapse) by “a mysterious priest-king-physician-prophet by the name of Itzamna”.

• According to this tradition, Itzamna arrived in the Yucatan region around 1000 BC after “having traveled by water from a mysterious country called Tulapan.” Crucially, he arrived not alone but accompanied by a retinue of priests, who preached his doctrine and worked with the native tribes to fulfill his plan for establishing in the region a great religious empire.

This empire was to be founded on a monotheistic religious concept, with their belief in the One God becoming associated with the worship of a divine principle abiding in the Sun.

• Next to this Absolute concept of Deity, peculiar veneration was given to the divine principle of “God the Son”, who was regarded as a kind of Messiah, one who suffered, died, and rose again.

• This Messiah was worshipped under the guise of the Feathered Serpent, with his Mystery School and its associated priesthood serving as the “arms and legs” of this great divine being.

In another Mayan tradition, one coming from the peoples of Palenque, this great Hero God and his Mystery School institution was given the name Votan.

• The Votanic priesthood arrived in Palenque around the same time as Itzamna in the Yucatan (1000 BC). Like Itzamna, Votan was said to have come to the region from “beyond the Eastern Sea”.

• Hall writes that, according to Mayan legends, “he came to America by the command of God from a distant place and ultimately founded (a civilization seated at Palenque), building a temple with many subterranean chambers called the House of Darkness. Here, he deposited the records of his nation in the keeping of certain aged men called guardians.”

• While his location of origin is deliberately left vague, Hall implies that the institutional pattern that Votan and Itzamna established among the Mayans was one similar to the “ancient cults which flourished in the Valley of the Euphrates.” Hall elaborates: “Although these parallels have never been fully explained, it is assumed that at some remote time, a contact was established between the old and new worlds.”

• Hall further explains that, upon arriving in America, Votan’s chosen priesthood used the serpent as their heraldic device, referencing the idea that they were practicing esoteric rites and rituals dedicated to the cultivation of occult knowledge.

In his article “The Story of the Navigating Serpent”, Manly Hall offers additional details on how Votan and his esoteric society moved into Palenque and established civilization.

• He writes that “long, long ago, a wonderful person named Votan, who combined the attributes of a culture hero and a divine being, had come into the region. Here he had founded the “Casa Lobrega” or “House of Darkness.”

• “This temple was designed in all probability as a place of initiation into the mysteries of religion for the princes and nobles of the region. Because of its vast underground constructions, it was called the House of Darkness.”

• “It was said that he had fashioned this house with his breath. The meaning is obscure; perhaps it implied extreme speed of construction in the sense that it had been accomplished in the space of a few breathings. For lack of further details, one may suspect that the Casa Lobrega was a cave or place under the earth, for such structures are always associated with Votan.”

Hall notes that Votan, upon his arrival among these primitive people, began laboring with them as a Christ-like missionary. He won their admiration and respect. Later he became deified within their culture and mythology.

• He brought civilization to them, lifting them out of the Stone Age pattern they had collectively fallen into.

• Not only did he elevate them, but, temporarily, during the most active period of his reign, he established a miniature Golden Age among them: a period of great spiritual, cultural, artistic, and material attainment.

As one of his most important labors, Votan established a priestly dynasty, which oversaw the establishment of a vast state-run Mystery School: the Mysteries of Xibalba.

• These Mysteries were rooted in the construction of an elaborate network of temple complexes. These were established at various strategic locales throughout the region.

• Within these temple complexes, Votan committed his sacred teachings and records “to the care of a ‘college’ or assembly of old priests who were called ‘the guardians’. He established at the same time a circle of priestesses, the leader of which had supreme authority and could command even the men who formed the college.”

Hall notes that Votan was physically present as an embodied spiritual leader for only a relatively short period of time, perhaps several decades. Eventually he departs, leaving “orders that his treasure should be guarded until he returned.”

• Hall writes that “after Votan had either died or departed from the region, he was elevated to a place among the gods and his successors maintained the supremacy he had won, thereafter perpetuating his name as a family title or a cognomen of dignity.

• Periodically, he would return - at least symbolically - through the person of a great initiate, who would arise from his legacy priesthood to embody the highest standards of the doctrine Votan taught.

• Great initiates of his Mystery School were therefore revered as Votan’s reincarnations, with their life stories and accomplishments being merged with those of the original founder of the Mystery School in the recorded myths of the people.

7. The Golden Age of Mayan Civilization

While the titles Itzamna and Votan were used by certain Mayan peoples to indicate the Cult of the Feathered Serpent that ruled over their populations, the specific name “Quetzalcoatl” belongs to the Mystery School perpetuated by the native Nahuatlan tribes of Central Mexico, these people also forming one of the branches of the larger Mayan civilization pattern.

• According to the legends of these native peoples of Central Mexico, their cultural ascendancy was owed to the coming of a great teacher, one "who came out of the sea riding on a raft of serpents. … He is said to have come from the east, from the land of many colored rocks.”

• According to their own native myths, this initiate-teacher was described as “a white man with a strong formation of body, broad forehead, large eyes, and a flowing beard. He wore a miter on his head, and was dressed in a long white robe reaching to his feet, covered with a design of red crosses. In his hand he held a sickle. His habits were ascetic; he never married, and was most chaste and pure in his life. … He condemned sacrifices, except of fruit or flowers, and was known as the god of peace.”

Hall writes that, to the peoples in this region, “Quetzalcoatl appeared as a great sorcerer, magician, or necromancer. He performed miracles, and upon his departure his secrets were entrusted to an order of priests governed by a hierophant or Master. This priesthood practiced the arts and sciences, treated the sick, administered sacraments, and were diviners and prophets.”

• Regarding Quetzalcoatl, Hall further informs us that he “carried with him the symbol of the Cross. He taught the people of Central America all of the useful arts and raised them from a primitive state to one of excellent civilization. He instructed them in agriculture, architecture, medicine, science, language, religion, and statesmanship.”

• “Having accomplished the civilization of these native tribes, he ruled over them for a time as a benevolent priest-king. Then he returned to the shore of the sea, called upon his raft of serpents, and then floated away to the East, with the promise to return at a distant day to rule over his nation.”

Regrading the founding of his esoteric Cult, Hall writes that, in classic Mystery School fashion, the Cult of the Feathered Serpent taught two doctrines: “one for the people, suitable to their needs and requirements, and the other reserved for chosen disciples.”

• Regarding the inner circle of this Cult, Hall states that, “in the form of a Feathered Snake, Quetzalcoatl overshadowed a dynasty of rulers and priests, some of whom later assumed his name and even his mask-symbol. These later Quetzalcoatls have been confused, like the several Zoroasters of Persia, into one person.”

• Quetzalcoatl’s Mystery School was established at the core of the civilization pattern of Central Mexico, with each citizen interfacing with it in some way. In fact, one’s citizenship in the Mayan tribe was dependent upon successfully passing through the outer rites or Lesser Mysteries of this sacerdotal institution. As Hall explains, “the young man or woman was not born into this tribe as a citizen; he or she was required to pass through certain tests and trials and assume real and deep obligations, ones especially affecting conduct, before citizenship was bestowed.”

• Hall reveals that, during these initiation rites, “the presence of a divine power was solicited for the benefit of the candidate, and he was assured that his obligation was given in the presence not only of the members of his own community, but also of unseen powers. … When the candidate had successfully endured the hardships and trials of the initiation rituals, he was then entrusted with the traditional knowledge of his group, and was sanctified to his duties as a responsible member of this tribe or nation.”

As a result of the spiritual guidance of their native Mystery School, Mayan civilization rose to a great height and experienced among themselves a miniature golden age.

• It would be more accurate to say that the Maya peoples and their ancestors experienced numerous golden ages, these coming and going in cyclic fashion like the oscillation of seasons or the rising and falling of tides. In each case, the rise of a golden age was due to the re-emergence of the Cult of the Feathered Serpent: the native Mystery tradition of the Americas.

• Hall notes that, sometime between 5,000 and 7,000 BC, a very high degree of civilization existed in Central America. For a period it thrived, but eventually the people could no longer sustain it and things collapsed back into a primitive tribal pattern. Later, around 1,000 BC, high civilization again re-emerged in the region, with the momentum of this newer motion culminating in the great Mayan Empire, which hit its peak in Central America around the time of Christ.

• Manly Hall informs us that “the Mayas hold the world record for continued peace. They flourished as a great powerful nation for 500 years without war with other tribes or internal strife.” He emphasizes that the key to this achievement “was due primarily to the laws given to them by Quetzalcoatl. So long as they obeyed these laws, they continued to proper.”

The Laws of Quetzalcoatl laid the foundation for the religious, political, legal, and cultural institutions of the Mayan peoples.

• As Hall explains: “In matters pertaining to daily living, the members of the tribe functioned under a broad but simple ethical-moral code. This code was established upon the authority of religion; to break these laws was to break the laws of God.”

• From an economic standpoint, these societies were deeply concerned with the need for physical survival in the face of constant environmental threats to their food security. They had experienced what it was like to suffer in ignorance and so they respected the power of knowledge, treating it with reverence and veneration.

• Consequently, there was no concept of secular knowledge or behavior to these people. Instead, there was important and often sacred meaning associated with each daily act and ritual, even ones pertaining to economic labor or daily routine. Elaborating, Hall writes that, in Mayan society, “every phase of life was circumscribed by authority and tradition, and all decisions were met on a religious level.”

Describing the overall disposition of their culture, Hall writes that “the Maya were hospitable, kindly, gentle, and industrious. Their cities were beautiful in every way; they were public-spirited, well-governed, and highly educated.”

• Their empire was “resplendent with edifices dedicated to their faith. There were magnificent shrines, temples, and altars, some to sanguinary deities, and others to benign and kindly gods.”

• “The State Mysteries, however, were seldom performed in the sanctuaries of popular worship. Neophytes traveled to remote places. … Throughout the jungles are the ruins of extraordinary buildings constructed for unknown purposes.” To the initiates of Mayan society, these buildings “served as an entrance to a mysterious world beyond the dimensions of the material mind.”

At the center of this whole pattern was Quetzalcoatl’s Mystery School, which was the educator and instructor of everyone in society, from the leaders of the state to the education of the young.

• Quetzalcoatl’s method of instruction was initiatic, combining instruction with ritual. Through this program, overseen by the priesthood, the young were trained and prepared for the responsibilities of community life.

• Likewise, the shared religious rituals of the community were organized by this Mystery School and followed the same initiatic approach. These collective rituals were not just ceremonial; they encoded vital knowledge necessary for the survival of their people, knowledge pertaining to the vital laws of life that the people must follow to ensure their collective safety and survival.

The reward that this civilization enjoyed as a result of organizing its society around Quetzalcoatl’s noble teachings was to enjoy 500 years of continuous peace and prosperity.

• Hall informs us that, in the five centuries immediately following the beginning of the Christian era, the civilization of the Maya was the most advanced existing on earth.

• He writes: “The great Mayan empire was at its height here in the Americas about the time the Roman Empire was declining in Europe. Bound together by a great highway, two hundred Mayan cities had a population of 150 million human beings living together in one great commonwealth of peace. This commonwealth was established and lived for 500 years without a war”, longer than any other nation we know of.

8. Mayan Civilization: a Socialist Utopia

Regarding their structure of political organization, Hall writes that “the Mayan nation was a collective commonwealth living under an advanced form of socialized order. They possessed all goods in common, and shared equally in the benefits of their production.”

• Hall writes that, “theoretically, the Mayan empire was one ruled over by an emperor. Actually, it was a completely socialized structure.”

• He elaborates: “The Mayans were united in a socialized form of life. All their possessions were held in common. They cultivated their land for a common supply; they created their arts and sciences for a common use; all their industry was developed for use instead of profit; and the theory of profit was entirely unknown to them.”

Notably, the office of emperor was not hereditary: it was an elected-for-life position. “He might be nominated from any strata of the people … if it was indicated that he was a man of extraordinary ability.”

• Thus, with the Maya, during their golden age, we find a society not only founded upon a Mystery School system, but also upon democratic principles, with the emperor of their civilization being democratically elected.

• Here we find the prototype for Plato’s Philosophic Empire existing and thriving here in the Americas, this taking place during the same time period when the empires of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia had become plagued by infighting, incessant war, debt enslavement, wealth addiction, and imperial conquest.

While the Roman Empire and the financial oligarchs who backed it were busy ransacking Europe, Mayan civilization was quietly prospering here in the Americas to a very advanced degree.

• Here it is crucial to note that during this time, the Maya “possessed no money or monetary symbol of any kind.” Hall suggests that “this lack of currency was in part responsible for their five hundred years of peace.”

Considering the difference between the types of empires that flourished in the Western hemisphere and those found in Eurasia, its seems as though the native civilizations of America had been deliberately designed from the outset to avoid the capitalistic excesses of their Eurasian counterparts.

• Because the Mayan way of life was socialistic, there was no poverty. And because there was no poverty, there was no crime. Hall points out that “where there is no unjust distribution of goods, there is no incentive for crime,” with policies of equal opportunity and shared wealth offering no incentive for one person to unfairly exploit or dominate another.

Thus, in designing their socialistic system, the Maya seem to have taken great pains to avoid the financial and economic excesses of the European and Mesopotamian oligarchies.

• One aspect of their strategy for attaining this was to deliberately retard economic complexification, which they achieved in part by keeping their technological development to a baseline subsistence level of advancement.

• As Hall further explains, “to the Maya, the wheel was the symbol of death, and they never developed any form of mechanized industry.” Instead, all economic activity was performed as an extension of their religious practices, similar to how the Masonic guilds of medieval Europe used to approach their craft.

Hall point out that the ancient Greeks, Chinese, Scandinavians, and others knew of (and had even visited) the Western Hemisphere long before the European explorers of the 15th century. But they were forbidden from colonizing it by a secret mandate of the Mystery Schools.

• There seems to have been a global conspiracy coordinated by the Mystery Schools to set aside the American continents for the purpose of performing great collective experiments in democratic, socialized, and philosophical ways of living.

• As the records of Mayan civilization attest, some of these experiments achieved real greatness. But none lasted forever, for the reason that the human civilization must keep evolving until it achieves a final, global form: the Philosophic Empire.

Plato laid out the initial vision for this ultimate, idealized state of global civilization, and Francis Bacon updated it in utopian classic “New Atlantis”.

• In his famous short story, Bacon declared that America was to be the site of the birth of the New Atlantis. Here was to emerge the final experimental testing ground for an ideal that is destined to one day be reborn on a global scale: philosophic democracy.

• Through the American nation they founded - the United States - Francis Bacon and his secret society sought to spread the institutions of democracy, science, philosophy, and industry around the world. The aim of their mission was to gradually prepare the nations of the world (not just America) for a global nation to be born, one that would unite all of them.

• In Bacon’s vision, the United States was to become the midwife for the birth of this World Nation, first building and then sacrificing its own global imperium - the Pax Americana - in order that, from its ashes, a new, global nation may be born.

By going back in time and investigating the history of the Americas - in particular, the Maya, the Inca, and the native tribes of North America - we can better appreciate the components of the great philosophic and democratic ideals that the Cult of the Feathered Serpent has always represented here in the Americas. .

• These ideals were hardwired into the American nation from its outset by the Founding Fathers of this country. They are written into our Constitution and Bill of Rights and have been encoded into the collective psyche of the American people.

• Americans today must rediscover these ideals and dedicate themselves to their restatement. Like the empires of old, we have lost our way and are on the precipice of collapse. But America has a great destiny in store for it, and this destiny is not to merely recapitulate the fall of Rome, though it may seem very much at the moment that we are trying out best to replicate it.

• Instead, America is destined to become the nation that will not fail its mandate. It must succeed in its secret mission: to become the empire to end all empires. This it accomplishes by first setting the stage for and then integrating itself into a new global institutional order, one initially conceived by Plato as the Philosophic Empire and by Francis Bacon as the New Atlantis.

• By rediscovering and restating the ideals propounded by these secret Founding Fathers of our country, the American nation will fulfill its mission. This is the Secret Destiny of America, the Land of the Feathered Serpent.