GANYMEDE AND THE COSMIC BROTHERHOOD

SOME MYTHOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE UFO/UAP PHENOMENON

The famous Rex Heflin photo of a purported UFO, taken on Aug. 3, 1965, in Santa Ana, California.

[This article is abridged and adapted from a longer chapter in my 2002 book Signs of the Times.]

I was having lunch with some friends at a restaurant one afternoon and found myself drawn into a heated conversation about intelligent life elsewhere in the uni­verse, and whether humanity had already been in contact with them. One friend was open to the possibility, while the other was skeptical. Not only was it highly improbable, he said, but it was fundamentally irrelevant. "Even if there are other races out there," he explained, "I frankly don't see the importance of it. There are just so many other pressing prob­lems in our world right now. "

It’s an understandable reaction. Playing Devil's advocate, though, I posed a question to that friend: "If you were a journalist and could be transported back in time to Europe in 1492, what single news story would you most want to cover?" After all, there were many pressing social issues during that time, and some fairly convoluted court politics. But in terms of stories with the longest-range impact on the world, is there any doubt which was the most important of the time, the one most of us would choose to cover?

The same thing might apply to our own time when it comes to the question of extraterres­trial or non-human intelligence. Yes, there are many pressing issues demanding our atten­tion now. But if it does turn out that humanity has had (or is about to have) contact with non-human races, it would certainly rank as among the most important developments of our time—indeed, maybe of all time. Like Columbus's arrival in America, it would open our minds to new worlds and new ways of think­ing, with massive repercussions for our technologies, arts, religion, and politics.

If the symbolism of the much-ballyhooed Aquarian Age is any indicator, it's a safe bet such contact will indeed be a factor importantly in humanity's future. More than any other, Aquarius is the zodiacal sign now associated by astrologers with the sky, stars and space travel. With Aquarius's cosmic focus, the prospect of extra­terrestrial or non-human contact seems a natural fit.

The big question about UFOs and NHI is this: Have we’ve already made contact? If one accepts even a fraction of the stories that have come to light over the years as legitimate, one has to conclude that something peculiar is going on in our skies. Having looked at both sides of this question for years, I think it’s clear the UFO phenomenon represents a genuine mystery that likely involve nonhuman intelligences—though whether those prove to be terrestrial, extra­ terrestrial, extra-temporal, or extra-dimensional remains to be seen.

Regardless of what the ultimate truth turns out to be, we can still explore these stories for their symbolism, and the potential clues they hold for the tectonic Age-shift we’re currently experiencing. Psychologist Carl Jung attempted to do that by studying the appearance and behaviors of the UFOs themselves, from an archetypal standpoint; what I’d suggest instead is that we take some time to examine the mythology associated in the modern mind with the sign of Aquarius itself.

The Heavenly Abduction of Ganymede

The mythic figure most identified in the West with the con­stellation of Aquarius is that of Ganymede. According to legend, he was said to have been the most beautiful youth alive. While watching over his father's sheep, he was abducted into the heavens by Zeus, where he became immortal and a servant to the gods.

How is this relevant today? It is interesting that just as we are entering an Age ruled by a tale of heavenly abduction, we see a prolif­eration of accounts from around the world about individuals being abducted by seemingly celestial beings. There have been stories of abductions throughout history, such as the fairy legends of Celtic lore or the Biblical ascension of Enoch, yet there is no question this phenomenon has accelerated in recent decades since the Betty and Barney Hill case of 1961, which seemed to start it off.

The abduction motif figures prominently in many of our notable science fiction films, most famously Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which a beauti­ful young boy was abducted into the heavens. The 1998 film Dark City describes an entire city abducted by aliens, while the closing portion of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey portrays the lead character being drawn, presumably by alien intelligences, through a dimensional "stargate" into another realm. Of course, the Christian doctrine of an impending rapture has also been gaining attention in recent decades, which contends that certain people across the planet will be called up into Heaven. So directly or indirectly, the symbolism of Ganymede’s abduction into the heavens is a theme which has been increasingly permeating our col­lective imagination.

Scene from Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

But what does "abduction" really mean? While such stories may prefigure a broader connection between humans and extraterrestrials happening in our future, these tales may also hold more symbolic significance, pointing instead to an inner shift that humanity is experiencing as it transitions into the next great era. From a more psychological standpoint, "abduction" refers to the process of being caught up in a powerful state of consciousness beyond one's surface ego, as the psyche is overtaken by forces beyond its control.

But there is an important difference between upward abduction and down­ward abduction. What do I mean by that? For instance, the Greek myth of Persephone being abducted into the underworld by Hades suggests a process of getting sucked down into an emotional, subterranean level of psychic energy. In a sense, whenever we're overwhelmed by anger, depression, or fear, we're being abducted into our own "underworld."

In contrast with that, the myth of Ganymede features someone being abducted upward into the heavenly realms—a different connotation altogether! This suggests a predominantly mental shift in consciousness. (There are those who might suggest the direction of "up" has a more spiritual connota­tion, but I’d disagree, since spirituality is more properly related to the balance-point between heaven and earth at the horizon, the proverbial crack between worlds, rather than either up or down.)

In other words, the myth of Ganymede could portend humanity finding itself being swept up into an increasingly cerebral mode of experience in the centuries ahead—a likely probability when one considers the meaning of the “air” element associated with Aquarius. Yes, it could point to a genuine awakening of humanity's higher mind, but practically speaking that could just as well point to a more prosaic possibility—namely, our lives being dominated by TVs and computers, and the dissociated lifestyle accompanying such technologies.

Joining the Cosmic Fraternity

There are other possible implications to the myth of Ganymede besides this. Notice how this tale describes a mortal becoming part of the Olympian fraternity, evoking such classic Aquarian associations as groups, communities, and
”brotherhood,” but raised to a more cosmic level. Could it be that humans will be invited to "join the club," as it were, and link up with other races and civilizations throughout space? If indeed the U.S. is spearheading the Great Age ahead, as I suggested in my previous Substack essay (“The U.S.A. - Forerunner of the Aquarian Age?”), then that would lend another level of meaning to the design of the United States flag with its net­work of stars—which was a unique flag-motif for its time. America’s democratic alliance of distinct states may well portend a vaster space federation in humanity’s future sim­ilar to that depicted in fictional productions like Star Trek or Star Wars.

The Supreme Council from George Lucas’s Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

It is intriguing to contemplate the real-world implications of just such a development. Imagine turning on your TV or going online to watch news transmitted from a distant solar system, courtesy of John Bell’s non-locality principle. Here the Aquarian notion of “networking” takes on truly cos­mic implications. Or imagine transport technology allowing individuals to travel from one solar system to another, possibly even between dimensions, with the same ease that we now change channels on our TV sets. Such things could become a reality in an age that experiences contact with intelligent beings from other worlds or dimensions. This is one way to approach the symbolism of Ganymede.

I also have to point out that in being abducted, Ganymede essentially became a servant to the gods. Over the years, there have been those who contend that contact with extraterrestrials would be a largely negative development, with humans being conquered, enslaved, or even eaten(!) by these beings. Of course, this has been a staple of science fiction films and novels from the beginning. That possibility would take the Orwellian scenario of Big Brother to a whole new level—a cosmic "Big Brotherhood” of sorts in which humans are kept under the thumbs of nonhuman races. Anything is possible, I suppose, though if alien races are indeed plan­ning to take over the planet, they do seem to be taking their time about it.

Here as well, one could interpret Ganymede's "subservience" before the Olympian gods in a more symbolic light, refer­ring instead simply to some intellectual or sociological gulf between us and these races, not unlike what currently exists between us and the animal kingdom, say. In the face of vastly advanced cultures, it's entirely possi­ble a formidable chasm could arise between "us" and "them" in terms of conflicting worldviews or levels of intelligence. It wouldn’t necessarily have to be anything oppressive, but it could pose new problems for us similar to what would would happen if a kindergarten pupil were suddenly thrust into the middle of a United Nations' meeting. Perhaps we would be expected to fall into line and abide by cer­tain house rules, which in turn forced us to reexamine our attitudes toward such things as nuclear weapons, space exploration, and environmental exploitation, for starters. Just as that child at the U.N. couldn't simply throw its toys across the room anymore, finding itself hav­ing to behave in new and more mature ways, perhaps humans will have to behave differently and stop throwing its “toys” around the planetary room as well, once open contact is made.

A more unsettling possibility is that the non-human beings we encounter partake in a more "hive mind" type of mentality than we do, ala’ Star Trek's the Borg. Some researchers have theorized that human beings may be more individualistic (and rambunctious!) than other species in the cosmos, and less disposed toward heeding the constraints of some galactic bureaucracy. If so, that would obviously pose serious challenges in terms of our ability to inte­grate with the rest of the cosmic fraternity. On each of these fronts, the negative possibilities of contact could well center on the difficulty of balancing our own needs and values with those of our non-human family.

2001: A Space Odyssey and the Coming Evolutionary Jump

Yet another way of interpreting the Ganymede story would be to see the young mortal’s transformation into an immortal as foreshadowing how humanity could find itself being "lifted up" to higher evolutionary levels through the inter­vention of these advanced beings. There are a few different ways this could come about, actually.

A relatively subtle way would be for non­-human races simply to assume their role as teachers to humanity, by exposing us to new forms of knowledge or ways of thinking. A more direct, biological method, however, would be for humanity to have its physical evolution stimulated via genetic manipulation by non-human intelligences. The most extreme abduction accounts these days often describe a hybrid race of humans being created by aliens that incorporates the best characteristics of each side—perhaps intellect from the extraterrestrials, emotions from the humans.

While commonly associated with supermarket tabloids, it’s worth noting that this theme features prominently in arguably the greatest science fiction movie of all time: Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the film’s closing sequence, the astronaut is drawn up into a hyperdimensional "stargate" and transformed into a cos­mic star-child of sorts, clearly hinting at a new race of humans being birthed into existence. Indeed, that image from 1968 almost seems prescient now in light of subsequent accounts by abductees that describe similar alien/human hybrids.

We needn’t pass judgment on the truth or falsity of such tales to ponder their significance as expressions of an emerging Aquarian mythology. Taken literally, yes, they could point to the possibility of extraterrestrials figuring prominently in our evolution, but on a more symbolic level these tales may simply suggest a forthcoming quantum leap in our evolution instigated entirely by ourselves, self-bootstrapped via intel­lectual, biological, or scientific means. If the former, though, open contact between humans and alien races would obviously represent an unprecedented turning point in our evolution—and possibly our admittance into the galactic community.

Timing Factors

Is there any way to tell when disclosure is likely to unfold? I'm frankly dubious whether astrology can pinpoint a singular date for something like this since an event of this magnitude would likely unfold over many years rather than in a specific moment in time. Nonetheless, I do believe there are certain time-frames that could play an important role in that process of disclo­sure. In the chapter of Signs of the Times from which I’ve adapted this essay, I proposed several possible time-frames to focus on, but I’ll only include the last of those here, since it is especially relevant to our historical moment right now.

2025-2033: A possible "window" for contact with NHI hinges around the orbital cycles of Uranus. As we have seen, the discovery of Uranus in the eighteenth century synchronistically accompanied the birth of modern aviation and the launching of the first hot-air balloon in France. Some 84 years later when Uranus returned to the same sign of the zodiac, hot-air balloon technology was being put to ever wider practical applications and Jules Verne published his best-seller Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863). Even the con­cept of space travel was emerging in the popular imagination at this time through Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (1865).

At the next full revolution of Uranus to this point 84 years later (the 1940s), not only was aviation and rocket technology undergoing a major surge in development, but this period hosted the century's most famous UFO event, the "Roswell Incident." (The Roswell event took place in early July 1947, precisely as Uranus was returning to its 1781 discovery point.)

There seems to be a clear through-line connecting all of these periods in a way which concerns aviation advances and our progressive defeat of gravity. Extrapolating forward, it's logical to believe that the next swing of Uranus to this same zodiacal point will see further progressions in aviation tech­nology, and perhaps even open contact with nonhuman intelligences in the cos­mos.

Heads-up: Uranus will pass through Gemini from 2025 to 2033, making this a time to watch for significant developments in this field.

Through the Looking Glass

Examining the most reliable UFO accounts from over the last cen­tury, one easily gets the impression that something very odd lurks behind the sur­face. I’m referring specifically to cases of "high strangeness" that defy simple explanation, such as sightings of UFOs that appear in conjunction with bizarre animals, or close encounters that exhibit a quasi-mythic dimension (like those involving angelic beings). Sometimes, the occupants of these craft are described as behaving more like characters from a Marx Brothers' film than any interplanetary scientists. There are stories of craft displaying peculiar characteris­tics, such as blinking out like an image on a TV screen or changing shapes in ways that challenge conventional physics.

In the end, I suspect the UFO mystery will prove to be a multi-headed hydra involving various explanations and causes, but quite possibly offering us a glimpse into a multidimensional view of reality different from what we currently entertain. I’ve sometimes mentioned Edwin Babbitt's famous book Flatland, about beings from a two-dimensional world interacting with those from a three-dimensional one—and the resulting confusion that results for those in the flatland reality. Could the UFO phenomenon be playing a similar role in ours? Could "ordinary reality" be just part of a multidimensional one, in which phenomena easily slip in and out of our perception on a regular basis?

If so, then the UFO enigma may be prying our minds open to an under­standing of a universe that is not only larger and more complex, but far stranger. Astronomer J. Allen Hynek once wrote: "When the long-awaited solution to the UFO problem comes, I believe that it will prove to be not merely the next small step in the march of science, but a mighty and totally unexpected quantum leap.”

Or was anomalist Charles Fort even closer to the mark when he posed his great question: "If there is a universal mind, must it be sane?"

Postscript: I thought it would be worth closing with a passage from another one of my books, StarGates, which points up how the doctrine of the Great Ages was taken seriously not only by such figures as Carl Jung, Rudolf Steiner and astrologer Rob Hand, but the most famous space traveler in history—Neil Armstrong. Here is part of that passage where I discuss a statement Armstrong made in the immediate wake of his historic trip to the Moon:

What came as a special surprise for me was learning (thanks to my colleague Larry Ely) that Neil Armstrong himself read astrological implications into that first lunar landing. Here is a verbatim excerpt from the Congressional record from a talk he delivered to the United States Congress shortly after that first mission, where he puts the lunar landing into the context of the shift from Pisces to Aquarius:

“We came in peace for all mankind whose nineteen hundred and sixty-nine years had constituted the majority of the age of Pisces—a twelfth of the Great Year that is measured by the thousand generations the precession of the earth’s axis requires to scribe a giant circle in the heavens. In the next twenty centuries, the age of Aquarius of the Great Year, the age for which our young people have such high hopes, humanity may begin to understand its most baffling mystery—where are we going?” [1]

I find it fascinating to think one of the most famous figures in modern history chose to use this occasion to speak before a group of mainstream politicians and scientists about an unabashedly astrological view of history. Did Neil really understand the deeper astrological import of what he was saying? We may never know, since no one seems to have uncovered any other statements from him on the topic. I would hope that those turn up some day.

Notes:

1. The full written transcript of Armstrong’s talk is available here: https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/A11CongressJOD.html

Ray Grasse is a writer, astrologer, and photographer based in the American Midwest. He is author of ten books, and worked on the editorial staffs of the Theosophical Society and the Mountain Astrologer magazine for many years. His websites are www.raygrasse.com and www.raygrassephotography.com.