Mario Garza | Symbolic Studies: The Polar System, Circumambulation Rituals, & Portals to the Heavens

You're about to start the free first hour of the Higher Side Chat Show. And before we get too deep into it, there's a couple things to know. The shorter version proves the value and lays out what we can do. It's just about an hour long, but imagine hour two. Fun, but it can't provide no crack. Let there be light, Higher Side Chatters doing what we do. From the Sunshine State, I'm Greg Carlwood. And while the importance of symbolism and symbolic language isn't as consciously center stage as it might have been in previous chapters of the human story, its subconscious impact seems to be as relevant as ever. City names, car brands, statues in prominent places in a near-endless assembly line of corporate logos implementing chevrons, tritons, arches, pyramids, stars, sunbursts, staffs, ancient gods, and of course the siren's call for our daily caffeine infusion. All entangling their identity with potent symbols as if hoping to add some type of potency multiplier to their cause. DMT trippers report a geometric tapestry just beyond baseline reality. Potent dreams call us to unravel their meaning. And individuals sometimes find themselves initiated into strange strings of potent synchronicity and elevated meaning, oftentimes not even knowing what to do with it. The importance of symbolism and its language have not left us, only our understanding has atrophied. Most likely by design, so powerful people can monopolize and weaponize these aspects of the deeper reality without us understanding how impactful they can really be. But fear not, people, this is why we have guests like the great and powerful Mario Garza, teacher of the Lost Arts and headmaster of SymbolicStudies.com. Mario has been an art director and graphic designer for nearly 25 years, and through his social media channels, YouTube channel, and website, he gives deep lessons on everything from the tarot's major arcana and astrological symbols to sacred geometry and a symbolic reality that might even predate the realm of matter itself. Take your seats, kids. Class is in session. The Symbolic Scholar, Lost Language Revealer, and Freshly Minted Married Man, Mario, welcome to the higher side. Excellent, Greg. Thank you, man. That was a fantastic intro, as usual. Too kind. Well, congrats on getting married last week, and thanks for taking the time to do this so quickly after that. Odd honeymoon, but okay. I have learned a lot from your work. Decoding symbolism seems to come so effortlessly to you, whereas I find the tapestry of associations to be pretty confusing beyond a first- or second-level understanding. I figured a good way to kick this off is to just ask you about the symbolic layer of reality itself. I've heard you say it might predate the material world, sort of like Jungian archetypes, a layer of the onion a bit closer to the core, perhaps. Yet a lot of symbols we might talk about tend to freak people out. I feel like there's a conditioning to almost be afraid of some symbols and a bunch of their related themes and imagery. And to me, that's like being afraid of gravity or constellations in the night sky. It's just a thing that is. But talk to us about how you conceptualize the symbolic layer of reality itself. And assuming you see that too, why there might be such trepidation in the modern mindset in this regard. That's a fantastic question. The way I tend to see it is that the symbolic world precedes the material world, as you just mentioned. And so I see it that the realm of dreams and narrative stories and folklore and things like that, I think actually predates the physical realm in many ways. And so I see it that ideas perhaps are completed on a more etheric realm before they actually come to reality. So say the symbolism of the tree or the symbolism of the mountain perhaps was conceived before these things themselves. And so I see it as completely the inversion of what we were taught in school, essentially, that the material world came first. And then from there, meaning and purpose and intention and things like that came about. I see it flipped. You know, I think it's kind of the opposite of that. And so I put a lot of stock into the symbolic realm. And I'm more of a contemplator. And so I like to think about things. I like to try and understand things. I like to pierce the veil with different symbols and with mythology and things of that sort. And the more I do it, the more I realize that there's so much value there. And I tend to see that the value is in sort of the lessons in the symbolic sort of landscape of what these stories are all about and not so much actually what's happening physically. You know, there's a lot of people, as an example, they're looking for relics, lost relics, the Holy Grail or the Spear of Destiny or things like that. Right. And I see that these things are more valuable to me personally on a symbolic sort of level and that there's actually like a universal sort of quality to all of these things. And, you know, my sort of interest in symbolism really came from my graphic design background. And so for a long time, I've been creating artwork for different clients. And, you know, I've worked with clients large and small. And that really was kind of the catalyst for me to want to understand, like, what's the meaning behind the circle or the square or this kind of star or this color? And so I kind of had a background that allowed me to really dive into this on a deeper level than I think a lot of other people because I've refined my eye, you know, to work with these different sorts of shapes and icons and things of that sort. But everything, simply put, is symbolic. You know, our language is symbolic. Our dreams are symbolic. Everything is sort of a representation of something else. Right. And so kind of going through that material and seeing the deeper meaning behind the elements or different colors or numbers or whatever has been really interesting to me. And I feel like I have a knack for it. And I just kind of go through these different phases of wanting to understand different symbols. And so it's kind of a natural sort of thing for me to really get interested in, say, a constellation or a certain myth or a deity or something like that. And just over the years, I've kind of built up this little archive in my mind of things that I've researched. And it was time for me to put things out. And so I created symbolic studies so that I can actually share some of this information with people. Yeah, man. And you do a great job. You're very clear. And it's tough because a lot of this stuff is confusing. There'll be gods with different origin stories or associations in one culture that didn't spill over into another culture. And when that happens, I'm just like, so what is the point? But I guess I kind of get into this stuff. I have a curiosity really out of spite. Because like you mentioned, the inversion of what we're taught compared to how reality probably came into being, it's like this is one of those areas of cultivated ignorance or a sin of omission when it comes to what society tells us is valuable in an education. And it's likely that the reason it's so far removed from us today is because it does hold value. And the symbols can have a greater effect on those who are ignorant of them. Do you think there's any truth to that? Yeah, absolutely. 100%. This is a thing in marketing. I can't remember what they refer to it as. But there's someone who looks at a billboard and they just take it at face value. And then there's another type of person that looks at the billboard and they wonder, who made it? What's sort of the angle here that they're going for? Or is there a subliminal message? Things like that. And because I did work in the world of advertising, I don't really take anything at face value anymore. So I'm perpetually decoding everything. T-shirts and a bumper sticker or whatever it is. You know, different campaigns and whatnot that I see out there in the real world. I'm always wondering what's going on here. And as you pay attention, you start noticing patterns. So a lot of this really is pattern recognition, right? So there's some people who kind of make it almost like a hobby to recognize patterns, especially some of the people you've interviewed. They can recognize patterns to a really high degree. And so they're not going to be taken for a ride as easily as someone who doesn't really pay attention to things that way. Well said. And one of your big things seems to be center symbolism. It comes up in videos about the Zodiac, as well as videos about the major arcana, like the Fool card. I've heard you say center symbolism is where everything comes from and ultimately returns to. Talk to us about this and why you put so much emphasis on it. Yeah. So my journey symbolically, starting in 2007 or 8, is when I really started purchasing a lot of books on symbolism. So I have a really decent symbolic library. And I've gotten used to the different authors that are out there, sort of the main texts. And I really love having reference books around and seeing what different authors say about different symbols. And the more I looked into, say, I don't know, the tree or the dots or the swastika, a lot of different symbols hinge around this center sort of concept, this center of the universe sort of idea that has a relationship, in my opinion, with the center of earth and also the center of self. And so the idea is that the center is the point of emanation, of expression, the point of origin, but then also the point of return as well. There's a metaphysical sort of aspect to this that you can really dive deep into. And you'll actually see this more in the Eastern world, Eastern philosophy, having different ideas about the center and the center of self. It very much relates to the center of the wheel, where the reconciliation of opposites occurs, where everything is unified, where everything is holistic. But a lot of my center symbolism really started to kind of become even more potent when I realized that there was a correlation between the symbolic center and then also the symbolic center of the heavens, which I like to say that the pole star is the star of stars, the north star. All of the fixed stars revolve around the pole star. They circumambulate. They rotate around this central star. And so for a lot of ancient cultures, this star was considered to be the center of heaven. And a lot of symbolism related to this divine, sacred center was of primary importance to a lot of ancient cultures. And so my understanding is in the primordial ancient world, even people's villages were more circular and there would be a central totem in the middle of it. Even people's homes were more circular. And oftentimes there is a central fire in the middle of the home. And my understanding is that the reason why this was the case is they were essentially mirroring their perspective of the heavens, this sort of circular nature of everything going around this one star. And so they believed that the center of their village, the center of their home was divinely connected to the center, essentially, of all things. And the more I just looked into different symbols in my resource books and seeing how much they relate to this middle, this point of pivot, right, this sort of symbolic hinge, the more I just started thinking that this is really the symbol of symbols, that the symbolic center, the sacred center is like the expression that I think is really giving me a whole new sort of perspective on what symbols actually mean. You know, you just look at any shape as an example and you look at a square or you look at a circle, the center is of supreme importance geometrically, right? And so you have to acknowledge it. The wheel itself, as I mentioned, that axle of the wheel, it's of supreme importance. And so once you start paying attention to it, you realize its significance. And sort of the idea too with the center is that the center is the point of pivot, but it also is symbolic of the sort of totality of everything as well. So if you look at the dot as an example, the dot is a reference to the center. The dot is that hinge, that middle point that everything revolves around, but it's also the universe itself. It's also literally the cosmos. So there is a micro macro aspect to the center. The center is in all things, basically. And so it's almost kind of like this fractal sort of dynamic where it really is truly everywhere. Yeah. Well, you're speaking my language because, you know, I think the center is of supreme importance when it comes to like the earth itself. I always say, look around at everything that nature makes and the inside is always more interesting than the outside. Take any fruit, for example. We don't care about the skin or the rind of something. We care about what's inside. Why would the earth be any different, perhaps? And I don't know how you feel about the flat earth, or I mean, I don't know how you feel about the hollow earth idea, but I know you've used the Mercator map in some of your presentations. And that, of course, is the map with a center mountain at the North Pole with the four rivers flowing out from it. And I've heard you say that if you look at the earth from a top down perspective, it is a dot in the center with a circle around it. And you could say the same if there was a hole there, I suppose. I guess I'm not too vested in what's there. I'm just interested in something provocative being there, whether it's a hole or a mountain. But talk to us about that a little bit. You use the Mercator map. Do you think this is a literal map? Is there a mountain at the North Pole in your estimation? You know, it's really interesting. There's so many things that have been claimed to be at the center of earth. So the mountain, obviously, is one of them. A tree is another one. Sometimes it's a mountain with a tree coming out of it. It's been likened to a stone that there's just a stone up there, this black stone, this lodestone, which actually one of the other names for the North Star is the lodestar. So there's a correspondence between the North Star and the lodestone there. Also, I'll say that this idea of a hole is really intriguing and fascinating because essentially what I've learned is that the center is a gateway. And so that's why know thyself and you'll know the universe. So if you go to the center of self, there's sort of a golden thread or cord or a gateway that actually becomes available to you to travel the rest of the cosmos. This is like what astral projection and ascension rituals essentially are all about. It's getting to that center. My understanding actually is that on a metaphysical level, it appears as though there are actually realms of existence above and below and that all of these realms are connected via their center, that it's through the center that you can actually access these different realms. So the center has been likened to a ladder or a pole, a mountain, a tree, a pillar or an obelisk. These are all symbolic centers. And when you look at a lot of these things from the top-down perspective, it kind of just looks like a dot, right? The pillar looks like a dot. The tree from a high enough angle essentially becomes a dot. And so many things have been said about the center of this realm. But what I like to say is that a lot of symbols go back to poles and holes. So I see it that there is a symbolic pole at the center of Earth, but there is also a symbolic hole. And so when you look at sexual symbolism, this makes all the sense in the world. Poles and holes. Where there's a pole, there will be a hole. And even the pole itself is hollow. So the pole is also a hole as well. And so if everything is expressed from the center and returns to the center, all symbols are reflections or mirrors of that center itself. And so whether we're talking about a stone or an egg or anything else, so many things have been related to this symbolic center. So I would say personally that all of these things to me feel as though they're appropriate. And I've gone down all of these different rabbit holes with flat Earth and hollow Earth. And that's one of the things that I'm really passionate about is whether you're a hollow Earther or a flat Earther, especially the North Pole is of supreme importance because it is this opening. There is a gateway. There's a transcendental aspect to it. The same way, once again, when you go to your center, there is also this transcendental aspect to it. So what I like to say is that I don't think we live in a solar system. I think we actually live in a polar system. And it all hinges around this central pole, this spiritual pole, which I've actually heard you talk about. Yeah. You know, poles and holes, baby. It seems like you're familiar with the box saga a little bit. I am. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It'd be weird if you would say that and not be familiar. Right, right. Yeah. The box saga is interesting. The way I tend to see things is that humanity has gone through a major shift symbolically and spiritually. And the shift can best be explained as a polar to solar shift. And I see it that in the modern world, we live in a solarized sort of age. And when you look at modern symbolic books, symbolic dictionaries and symbolic reference books, a lot of symbols are attributed to the sun. So I already brought up the swastika. In a lot of modern symbolic dictionaries, it'll say that this is a sun wheel. If you look at the quartered circle, which is a circle with a cross in the middle of it, they'll say that this is a symbol of the sun. If you look at the circumpunct, which is a circle with a dot in the middle of it, a lot of books will say that this is a sun sign, a sun symbol, which it is, right? So in astrology, this is the symbol of the sun. But what I found is that actually all of these symbols and way more, even deities and gods are the exact same way. A lot of gods you look into, they'll say, oh, this is just another sun god. In actuality, a lot of symbols and a lot of deities and a lot of myths aren't solar in nature. They're actually polar in nature. And so there's this idea that humanity came from the north, right? There's a lot of different cultures that speak to this. The box saga is one of them. And so I see it that the box saga and the information associated with it is essentially sort of a remnant of this northern tradition. So if you look into it, sometimes people have referred to this early polar tradition as the northern tradition, also as the primordial tradition. But I really see that it interfaces as well with what people might refer to as the Typhonian tradition, the Draconian tradition, the Setian tradition. I think that essentially the oldest gods are associated with the north, including the northern sky and the north star and Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, which are in the northern sky. They're circumpolar constellations. I see it that the oldest myths are northern myths and polar myths. And I see that the oldest rituals are northern polar rituals as well. And I've seen this backed up so many times now that I'm inclined to think that this is actually the case. Right on. Yeah, that was something I was going to highlight from the email that you had sent me. And really, this idea that the oldest gods are northern gods and the oldest myths are northern myths. Help us out there. Help us to understand that, because the oldest gods, I mean, obviously, you know, Greek is not that old, but Zeus comes from Mount Olympus, which is there's something there. And then you got Egyptian, you got Sumerian. I don't know if we can go much further than that, but I don't really hear this association made all that much. I mean, I get whispers of it, like something from the Bach saga or adjacent material. But help make that case for people who find it to be a bit confusing. Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, I'll say one of the things that really helped me out was talking to a friend who's probably 20 years older than me. And he got really interested in symbolism years and years before I did. And we were talking about some of this stuff. And we don't see things eye to eye with cosmology or things like that. But one day we were talking about this and I'm like, there are so many esoteric storylines and just lots of juicy information associated with the dippers. And they're in the northern sky. And he told me, he goes, all cultures, whether they know it or not, their supreme deity comes from the north. They're essentially worshiping a northern god. And I was like, wow, that seems to track with what I'm understanding about things as well. And so having someone else sort of in my friend circle who was really interested in symbolism, had done a lot of research, his library is absolutely massive. For him to kind of confirm that was really one of the things that helped me digest some of this information. But basically, what I found is that a lot of solar deities, their origin is from the north and that their storyline actually comes from the north. You did a great episode with Hopehead and you guys briefly talked about some of this stuff. And so Hyperborea, that's sort of man's origin, is coming from the north. Because if everything comes from this symbolic center, the center of earth, in my opinion, isn't just the center of earth, it's the center of the cosmos. That the center of the universe is actually much closer than what we realize. I think in school, we're kind of taught the exact opposite, that it's really, really far away. But I actually think it's much more local than what a lot of people think. But when you look at northern rituals and northern mythology, especially in the northern sky, the north star is considered to be an eternal star because it's always right there in the middle of the heavens. It never moves, right? That is just one of those things that's so weird about the way our planet and solar system are supposed to be moving. And this is supposed to be a gazillion miles away. It's very odd that that's always there like that. Right. Yeah, exactly. I thought the same thing. And so this star was of primary importance from my understanding of things to ancient peoples. And it was considered to be eternal. The stars in the northern sky are considered to be imperishable because they're always there. It's the most constant thing in the heavens, basically, because the seven wandering stars, the seven planets are always moving around. I tend to reference the traditional planetary system of seven planets, but the planets move around. The sun is constantly rising and then setting, but the stars in the northern sky are always there, especially the pole star. So the pole star has been viewed as essentially the eye of God, the eye in the sky. Because it's perpetually there, there is this eternal quality that's associated with it. And so it's always present. It's omnipresent, right? And because it represents the center, and the center is everywhere, there is sort of this quality about it that seems to permeate literally everything. What I've read is that there are gods like, I'll mention Pata from Egypt. This is where we get the Oscar statue from, by the way. He has a shaved head. He has a staff that he's holding right in front of him. And what I've read is that he actually is not a solar deity. He's a polar deity. Mercury, I would say, is also a polar deity. That might be one of the best sort of examples out there. If people want to understand polar symbolism, learn about Mercury, learn about Hermes, and he's completely polar through and through. And there's a lot of esoteric traditions and mystery schools and lodge systems that really put Mercury and Hermes on a pedestal. But simply put, the North Star is along the lines of what's referred to as the world axis, right? Or the axis mundi. And so this is the idea that once again, there is a bridge or an axis or a pole that extends to the highest of highs and to the lowest of lows. It literally connects all realms above and below. In fact, there was this idea that I've come across several times in ancient myths that heaven and earth were fused together. And it wasn't until this pole came to be that heaven and earth were separated. So now that there was separation between the above and the below, there's actually space for things to kind of occur and for the elements to mix and dissolve and do all sorts of things with each other. And it's this same pole, this same tent pole, if you will, that acts as a central pillar. And what I like to say is that it's a central pillar in the house of God. It's this central pillar or central post that Mercury actually goes up and down between realms. He's the messenger of the gods, right? He's a psychopomp. He's a conductor or a guide of souls. So he takes people to the afterlife. And so this central location was symbolically the first location, right? And so the center of earth has been viewed as paradise, has been viewed as sort of, you know, the origin of mankind. This is something that is nearly universal, I would say, even if it's underneath a lot of different veils. So in the Vedic world, there's lots of information about this, the Arctic home and the Vedas, that man came from this location, and that there was a migration away from the north. So you're really just going back to where things sort of came from. It's almost like acknowledging the seed in a tree. It's like, where did the tree come from? It came from the seed. And so the center would be that symbolic seed. So the oldest part of the tree would have been just that seed itself. And so it kind of relates to egg symbolism. It's almost like the center of the circle or the center of the wheel. Without the center of the wheel, you can't have the wheel itself. You need to have that middle part in order to construct a wheel. And what I found too, is that even if we're talking about astrology, there's a heavy Saturnian aspect related to the North Pole as well. And so Saturn, if you're looking at the traditional seven planetary system, is considered to be like the oldest of the planets, right? It's Father Time, Kronos. There's a lot of crone symbolism associated with Saturn as well. Capricorn is ruled by Saturn. And so this is the beginning of the winter solstice, the beginning of winter. And this is interesting because this is when we celebrate Christmas. And Santa comes from where? He comes from the North Pole. And we have the Christmas tree. I see it that the star on top of the Christmas tree is a reference to the North Star. This is actually a world tree of sorts. So if you look into Saturnian symbolism, there's a lot of things that kind of correlate with the North Pole. Also, Saturn was the ruling planet from my research of the last golden age. Um, and based on my research as well, what defined the golden age was actually the acknowledgement of the center itself and that the dark ages basically are dark because people no longer have a reverence for the center. So when I think of the pole shift, I see it as a shift in perspective away from the North, away from the center. And I also see it that essentially when people had more of a reverence for these things, people were more geocentric in nature. There's a whole relationship between polar symbolism and geocentrism and then solar worship and heliocentrism, right? And so I see it that heliocentrism and solar worship actually took people away from themselves and also took people away from things that were local, local gods and things of that sort, right? Yeah. Damn. I like this stuff, man. You're really nailing it. And I guess when I'm trying to summarize a lot of the visual references and examples that you show in your work, it's always the pole, the lance and the staff. Look for the gods that carry that sort of thing or gods represented as carrying such a thing. And it's a reference to that big cosmic elevator in the center, apparently. But I love the lessons in symbolism because they usually help to explain traditions. Why do we do certain things like you mentioned with the Christmas traditions? I think that stuff is really cool. And I've heard you use the term circumambulation rituals. And when you give examples of that, it does seem like something that's pretty widespread and it relates to this center symbolism. We have the Maypole, which is really like a barber pole even is kind of the same thing. It's like spirals around a central pole. You have shown examples of a voodoo ritual where they have a central pole and then navigate around it. There's the totem pole. It's not uncommon to see tribes and indigenous people dance in a circle around such a pole or even just a fire at night. The zodiac wheel with the earth as the center dot. Like there's so many things. The rotation around the Kaaba cube, I've heard you mention. And apparently ancient cultures used to have center standing stones. You did mention that like villages used to have that. And it was just a constant reminder instead of a guy bleeding on a cross, they would have this center pole and be like, no, this is like our true north in a sense, you know, to use a loaded term. But talk to us about the polar to solar switch. I mean, this seems like such a huge undertaking to accomplish. It has to, of course, be wrapped up in Christianity, the Crusades, going around stomping out all other ideas other than one zone. But do you have any thoughts on how such a transition could be made? Because we're talking about pretty old stuff. And then even the solar stuff predates Christianity, unless I'm completely ignorant of this. But it seems like that. Can you help frame this out with any sort of dates or eras as to where this happened? I actually heard you say we have three traditions. We have a tradition that goes by many names, the polar northern tradition, a lunar tradition, and then a solar, which is obviously the current. But help map this out and how it was accomplished to have such a huge switch made. Well, I think in many ways, the polar to solar switch over time probably correlates with the fall of man, the symbolic fall of man as well, away from the center, away from being centered, away from being grounded. Right. And so I see it that polar symbolism tends to revolve around that middle and tends to go to the middle. So even with circumambulation rituals, so this is just rotating around a central totem. If you go counterclockwise, symbolically, that brings you closer to the center. If you go clockwise, that actually is more expansive. And so a solar rotation, clockwise rotation, which is what we see on our clocks, right? And the number 12 is very solar in nature as well. So we have 12 numbers on a clock and then the hands are going clockwise. That's more expansive. So I think that that is actually you're getting away from self, basically. And so you're looking for external validation. You're probably going to give away your energy with a polar rotation. You're going closer to the center. When you go closer to the center, you're getting closer to God. You're getting closer to unification. You're getting closer to things being reconciled, basically opposites being reconciled. And so there's more of a holistic sort of thing going on with polar symbolism and the polar tradition. So I see it that essentially the church obviously had a major, major part in promoting solar symbolism over polar symbolism. I'm actually reading a book right now by this guy named Michel Pastoreau, and it's about bear symbolism. And he's really going through how the church demonized the bear and dethroned the bear, called the bear satanic and lumbering and, you know, all of these really negative sort of things. And the reason why the church did this is because the bear itself is connected to paganism and connected, in my opinion, to polar symbolism and this primordial tradition. So what it did was they dethroned the bear in favor of the solar lion. So there's a lot of people that actually say that this perhaps great occult war is actually between solar and polar factions, which I think is very, very interesting and actually holds some water because there's just so much to be said about that. And I see it that World War II with the Nazis, actually, there's a lot of symbolism with occult Nazi objects and symbols and things like that that are heavily polar in nature. So the swastika to a lot of the world was viewed as essentially it's Ursa Major, the great bear, by the way, Ursa Major going around the pole star. And if you look at it once every season, you're going to see each arm of the swastika in the Eastern world, you're going to see that this is something that's discussed sort of openly. And it's not even like this taboo sort of thing that this is an acknowledgement that people have made over time. And I've seen this from so many different sources now that I'm inclined to think that this is actually the case. Related to this, by the way, this is a quick tangent, but when you look at the arms of the swastika, each arm kind of looks like the number seven. I'm inclined to think that the shape of the number seven literally comes from Ursa Major. And there's other objects that look very similar to the number seven and look similar to Ursa Major that have been used in northern rituals. There's this object in ancient Egypt called the ads tool, and it looks like the number seven. It was well known for being used as a substitute for Ursa Major. This was an afterlife ritual. Real quick, just to go back to your previous question, when people refer to seven sages or seven deities that bestowed wisdom upon humanity, so this would be like the Apkalu, this would be the Rishis in the Vedic world. They come from Ursa Major. When you look at their origins, when you look at where they came from, oftentimes it says that they came from the northern sky and specifically the seven stars of Ursa Major. So I see the seven stars of Ursa Major as essentially being the original seven stars of enlightenment. And the symbolism associated with those stars were later transferred over to the seven wandering stars, the seven planets. And I also make the case that essentially the zodiac and the symbolism related to the zodiac came from the northern sky that when you make reference to these three different ages, these three different symbolic ages, they each had a different sky clock. So during the polar age, the sky clock was Ursa Major and Minor going around the pole star. My understanding is that around 90% of the world can actually see Ursa Major in the sky because they are circumpolar. So they're up in the north, so they don't dip below the horizon for a lot of people. During the lunar age, which I think was probably a transitional age, the main sky clock was the moon, keeping track of the moon and what the moon does. And then in today's world, in the solar age, I see it that the main sky clock is the zodiac, right? Because we're talking about the path of the sun. But I've read this from a couple of different authors now that it seems as though the symbolism of the modern zodiac came from the northern sky, this author named John Major Jenkins, he has a book called Galactic Alignment. And he says that in the ancient Chinese world, they believed or they looked towards the northern sky. They saw eight constellations, one constellation per trigram of the I Ching. This is when they were more polar in nature. And then when they became solar, that they transferred these eight northern constellations to the path of the sun, and then added four more constellations, giving them 12 zodiac constellations. So whether you're talking about the origin of humanity coming from the north, or you're talking about literally the zodiac signs, there's something to be said about there being a northern origin for those things as well. But I see the polar to solar switch as lining up with the cycles of the great ages as well. That during this last golden age, it was more polar in nature. People were more centered, people were more grounded. And I would argue too that Saturn itself is heavily polar in nature. There's a lot to be said about that. I know you've talked about Saturn potentially being the original sun. I actually wonder if it was the original Polestar. Very interesting. When you get into the Electric Universe, Thunderbolts of the Gods thing, there is often a depiction of if they try to have an artist's rendering of what it looked like when we were in this Saturnian envelope. There is like a center pillar type imagery. It almost looks like Sauron in the Lord of the Rings. But I'm glad you mentioned that 90% of people can kind of see the North Star and Ursa Minor because this kind of stuff is often presented as kind of icky that it's a white centric thing that the white people want to be the origin rather than the Africans. And we came from the North and it is wrapped up in the whole Nazi thing. And, you know, I can't help what they did. I mean, if there's a philosophy that they globbed onto, like the philosophy itself, the reality of the history, that would be totally separate from any atrocities that they may have committed. But I've heard you talk about how the cross symbol predates Christianity and you've made the point that it's just a cross is four directions around a center point and they added the cross bar way later. But the reason that the cross really probably became a symbol is because the pole was a previous symbol. And swastika, same thing. If people are trying to visualize, it's going around that center point. I always thought the cross came from just looking at the sun and the way light beams out in four directions from it. And then Christianity picked that up and ran with it and built their whole story around it. And that might be true. I mean, you got to find some way to get people to adopt to your new idea if they have an idea that they do think has some merit. So, I mean, this stuff is really interesting. But of course, when people try to say, oh, this is a white thing where white people are just wanting to put themselves at the center of the human story. It's like, well, not really, because this symbol goes back to India. I took a tour of Armenia with Graham Hancock. This symbol was etched into stones that we saw. It's like the east also has a north. You know, I don't know if Eskimos are considered to be even white. They're really more Asian, I think. But the whole world, a lot of people have a north that aren't just white. So I kind of dismiss that thing. But I mean, how do you deal with that? That's clearly in the mix. And maybe it's part of that thing of like, make it taboo so that people do not look here because they're afraid to go into taboo areas. That's right. I think that's a big part of it, to be honest with you. Going to India was really interesting. I went about 10 years ago, and in one town, there was a lot of little taxi rickshaw looking vehicles. And so many of them had a red swastika on it with the words Arian right next to it. And so that was fascinating to me, right? And I'm inclined to think basically that Arian, when you really decode it and break it down, it basically is a sort of nod to a northern origin, right? And in fact, it's very interesting. I've seen that a lot of words that begin with AR or UR have a northern correspondence. So you have Arctos, you have Arctic, King Arthur, and the Knights of the Roundtable. I'm not the first person to say this. By the way, all of this information, I'm getting from authors that are brilliant. I have a video on my YouTube channel where people can look at my polar library because I've amassed a number of books now that talk about all of this stuff. And so these aren't my original thoughts. I am making some conclusions on my own for sure because I'm a person or whatever, but this is like a whole entire tradition, right? But King Arthur, he's the King Bear. And so are a lot of deities, even Artemis, the goddess of the bear. There are a number of words and deities that start with UR and AR that go back to a northern polar sort of expression in some way, shape, or form. So once again, URSA major. Even Earth. I've heard that UR was an original name for Earth. And so there's even kind of a northern sort of angle with that. Hmm. You could even say Sumerian kind of sounds like Sun-Aryan. Like maybe that's the first operation to get people to obsess over the sun. Right, right. So what I've heard, and there's some authors like W.H. Mueller, he wrote a book called Polaria. He really gets into this, that there was a concerted effort, a actual campaign against northern polar symbolism because it is too holistic. It brings you back to your center. It's more empowering. There's this whole idea, too, that the world axis is really a sort of symbol that represents stability. It represents foundation. It represents tradition. There's a number of authors from the perennial philosophy side of things that make a big deal out of the world axis as well and northern symbolism. And I think simply put, it really is more holistic in so many different ways. But you see remnants of it everywhere. So this is really sort of the root culture, in my opinion. This is the root culture. This is the root symbolic language, which is why it permeates seemingly everything. What I like to say is that our modern symbolic language is actually wrapped around a pole. It's wrapped around a symbolic pole. I like it. So I can't believe we're almost an hour into this thing already. I really wanted to make sure this fit into the first hour. So one group that uses symbolism more than most is the Freemasons, which probably speaks to its importance. But your most popular YouTube video is Cancer, the Keystone, and the Royal Ark. This is super interesting. You show that there are often seven stars beneath the Keystone. G is the seventh letter. Cancer is often in the seventh month, or most of it is during the seventh month. And we've all seen this image of George Washington on the checkerboard floor, the Freemasonic symbols, the twin pillars. And it's just super interesting because the Keystone is the stone at the top that keeps the two sides of the Ark from collapsing in on themselves. But you've shown imagery from Freemasons where this Keystone is removed, and then there's like rays of light shining down. That looks like a portal. I mean, it's hard to depict a portal or a gateway to the heavens or the great beyond any other way. If you're trying to be coy about it, it's like all you have to tell people is look for the portal and say, oh, well, that's clearly it. So again, it's like an initiation thing. If you know what you're looking at, it's very, very clear. If you don't know what you're looking at, it looks like jumbled up symbolism. But this video is just so interesting because I've really liked the provocative idea that one of the secrets of secret societies is these liminal spaces and the ability to traverse them. Astral travel. I mean, anyone can astral travel. We could all do it in our beds tonight. But I like that there's maybe a tradition of a liminal space, non-material realm where groups of people go to repeatedly by repeating the same rituals or going through the same exact process and that they've preserved this within their ranks. And that video kind of seemed like that's what you were saying. Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's the deal. If people want a book to read that really dives into all of this, Peter Lavenda wrote a book called Stairway to Heaven. And he talks about the ascension rituals of Kabbalists and Chinese alchemists. And he kind of goes throughout the world. And he talks about how much similarity there is between these different groups. And what you'll find is that the number seven pops up time and time and time again. And essentially what they're doing, in my opinion, is they're going through these different rituals to get to the center of self, to get to the central gateway, to go to these other planes. And sometimes they involve different methods, but largely this symbolism remains intact. And so the number seven seems to be kind of the number of this realm in so many different ways, right? We have the seven colors of the rainbow, seven days of the week. A lot of occultists will make use of the number seven, Libra 777, Babylon, the seven-pointed star, Babylon actually having seven letters in and of itself as well. The number seven is quite mystical, but I see it as it really points to the north. And the chariot card is the seventh card in the major arcana. And when you look at the Rider-Waite version of the chariot card, he has a star above his head. And I see this as really being the north star. And there's even Freemasonic lodges. I know there's definitely one in London that I've used in multiple videos at this point. But on the top of their lodge, on the roof, you actually see this huge star. And there's a ladder going directly to that star. And they openly acknowledge that this is the pole star. There's other works that I've come across, especially in Sufism. Esoteric Islam is very, very polar in nature, where they openly acknowledge that ascension rituals go towards the north. And there's different accounts of different Sufi mystics meditating on the central axis, on this central pole, the central pillar, and actually having a complete transcendental experience. So the way I see it is that a lot of these rituals are northern in nature, meaning that they are polar in nature and they relate to the center. So that's kind of how I tend to see things. And I think that there is sort of a universal quality here. And there is this sort of central gateway. And I wonder if there are portals or wormholes and things like that around Earth, if they actually all go to the same place, kind of all roads lead to Rome sort of thing. All roads, all gateways actually go to the same central sort of gateway, which again connects all the realms above and below. So I also see it that basically it's possible that ETs aren't coming from outer space. They're actually coming from inner space. They're coming from the center. And one of the things you can look towards as evidence of this is when you look into the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and you start looking into the hidden Sephiroth, the 11th Sephiroth, Doth or Dot. People have said that this etymologically connects to death or Thoth, and sometimes it's hidden, sometimes it's present. But when you cross Doth on this central path, you are symbolically crossing the abyss, right? Crossing the abyss has been likened to crossing a desert as well. And so the Hebrew letter that corresponds with this path that crosses Doth is Gimel, which means camel. And the camel is basically a vehicle that'll take you across the desert. So in the Western esoteric tradition, crossing the desert is crossing the abyss. This is a metaphor for crossing over to the other side. And occultists like Kenneth Grant in his book, The Nightside of Eden, he talks about Doth correlating to the north. So it's the central pillar in the Kabbalistic Tree that extends above and below the other two side pillars. And when you're making reference to royal archmasonry, we're talking about the central pillar in between these two pillars. Whenever you see two pillars, there is an implied third pillar, which would be the middle way, which relates to the center and northern symbolism and polar symbolism, in my opinion. Yeah, yeah. That's what got me on that train of thought is seeing a lot of Masonic images where there's two pillars on the side and then there's another pillar in the center. And it usually goes up to like a window in the sky. Again, how do you depict a portal out of this realm? Any other way. And the other two pillars, usually you can see their tops. And then in a lot of the images, the middle pillar, you can't see the top. It either goes through the clouds, it penetrates the clouds, or there's a literal window there. And then you have the Jacob's Ladder imagery that you could tie in there. And the seven, I started to think about the Chevron of most of the major space industries. People always are talking about NASA conspiracies and how is it that all these space agencies across the whole planet, whether they're adversaries or friendly countries, they utilize the Chevron. That's basically a seven. It's like the same kind of thing. So maybe this whole association with the North Star, space, travel, it's kind of all right there in the mix. They're going into an externalized way, like they've externalized that, but to internalize it would be a spiritual path through space, essentially. Yeah, you got it right. I mean, that's how I see it. I see it that we cannot travel to the stars physically, but we can travel there spiritually. And you get there through the center. You get there through this central bridge, this central axis. And just to kind of add something else to your previous question about Royal Archmasonry, in Freemasonry, they actually have a symbol for the world axis, this exact same bridge. And it is the plumb line. So they refer to it as the plumb line of the great architect of the universe. So the plumb line, right, is just a string with a weight at the bottom of it. This is a known world axis symbol in their system. Damn, I love it. Man, it is getting to be that time. Your work can be really diverse and interesting. I mean, you definitely know what you're talking about. Is there anything we left on the table? It seems like you might have prepared a bit more for this than the average guest. I don't want to miss anything that you might consider important. I appreciate that. You know, I think I got most of everything I really wanted off my chest. We talked about the solar and polar dynamic, how there was that major shift. One of the things maybe that I can just highlight real quick is just this idea of older kings and lords and emperors believing that they're ruling from a central location. And that my understanding is way back when people who were in places of authority, especially the king, believe that they were the northern polar king. That essentially the blueprint for a king actually comes from the north. Rene Ganon actually talks about this. You even briefly talked about the lord of the world, the king of the world with Popehead. And in that book, he really, really outlines what's going on there and that the king would rule from a central location. From that central location, the land was quartered. It was divided into four. And so there was a major cross that emanated from the central location. There is a north, south, east and west. My understanding is actually it used to be an old ritual to pit the different sides against each other, say north versus south kind of sounds familiar. And there's a bunch of examples of this actually being the case of the east and the west actually fighting each other or the north and south fighting each other. But that the king was actually the one that kind of orchestrated this whole entire like dynamic to pit factions against one another. And so this idea of a king goes back to a polar king, a northern king, and their belief was that they unified heaven and earth together. This idea is sometimes referred to as the great triad, that there is a relationship between heaven, earth and man, but that ancient rulers had this sort of baked into their spiritual kind of framework. There's a whole science called centrography, and it's about finding the center of any given landmass or any given empire or village or whatever. And this central location is where they would oftentimes have this central totem. But this quartering of the land business is why kings and emperors and lords are associated with the number four. So the emperor card is the fourth card of the major arcana. Christ is associated with the cross. Jupiter, the king of planets, his main glyph looks like the number four. So there's an interesting dynamic with the cross and the center of the cross being kind of this polar symbol, right? And the cross itself, actually, what I understand is that it represents crossing over and that the central point in the middle of the cross, which would be the fifth point, would be sort of the transcendental location in any given cross. And so the number five relates to crossing over as well because of that fifth point. It also relates to spirit and the quintessence and all sorts of other things. But that was something that I kind of always think about these days. Once I came across it, once I started understanding what's going on here, because the king wanted to be that unmoved mover that I talked about in the center of the wheel as well. They wanted to unify all of the different quarters of the land, but also unify the above and below together. So even when it comes to king symbolism and ancient kings and stuff, they saw themselves as kind of occupying the same space where the throne of God is, and it's in the north. Very interesting. Yeah, I kind of sometimes think about the idea that in the ancient past, there was a more noble aspect to kingship, and it just got lost over time, and power gets abused, as we know. But this has been a good time, man. It just seems like it never really ends. You know, I could throw out any random thing to you, and you could find a symbolic tapestry that we'd be interested in. But talk to us, I guess, about your work itself and where they can find it. It is often quite visual, so I hope this was clear to people. I'm sure it was. It sounded clear to me, but let them know where they can follow up. Yeah, for sure. So people can find my stuff at symbolicstudies.com. I'm all over the place. YouTube, Instagram. I've got a Patreon. I'm doing a series right now on the tarot that's on Patreon and on my site where I'm going through the major arcana, essentially. And really going deep with, you know, my latest research about each card and what I believe it represents. And otherwise, yeah, that's it. You can just go to my website and find all my links there. Hell yeah. And I did like the first one you did on the Fool card. The Fool, of course, the only one who travels, and he does carry a pole. So it all ties back together. That's right. Yep, exactly. But thanks again, man. Excellent work. Really great understanding of all this stuff. Best of luck on the journey and take care out there. I appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me on. And boom goes the dynamite. You know it. You love it. Something different today. Mario is a good dude with a deep knowledge of all sorts of things in the symbolic realm. But the focus on polar versus solar, I think, was the right move. It jives with Popehead. It jives with Jim Chesner and the box saga and the way he talks about it and the side effects and implications of this sort of cosmology and worldview. It's great. You can see how if this was true, it would be covered up and buried. And it has threads that connect to many other things. I mean, if we're talking about the origins of man here, this clearly is an old story. Who really knows? But I appreciate Mario's passion for it and it does make sense. So many things are inverted and altered just to disorient us. Why wouldn't this sort of thing be too? But you know the drill. A guest makes a case for an interesting alternative perspective and you decide if it was convincing or not the whole range of circumambulation rituals from Haiti to the Maypole and the center stone in ancient villages. I love reverse engineering why we have certain traditions. And that was fun, too. Again, makes sense to me. Hope you had a good time, too. I'm preparing for a hurricane right now, so I'm going to keep things moving, though. We did do a lot in the first hour. You know we did even more in the second hour for PLUS members. We talked about polar energy and Antiquitech, the Pleiades, Sirius, and cosmic origins for various beings, Patrice Chapman. Oh, my God. I am so glad I could talk to somebody about Patrice Chapman. It really ties into the Cathars and the French Pyrenees and the mystery out there. It's something I've been following up on since talking to Miguel Conner and Richard Stanley, and I'm really glad Mario could talk to me about that a little bit. We also talked about some Lovecraftian encoding of the polar material, Gemini, and our astral twin as human beings and how we can have a better relationship with that astral twin. And the doctrine of signatures, man, so glad I could put a term to that phenomenon I've been enjoying where certain foods that are good for different parts of our body actually look like the organs they're good for. Oh, we talked about the Simpsons and the astral twin, his high strangeness insights and the higher self-experience, and we rounded it out with Saturn's symbolic trajectory and the Sola Bushka-Tarachi deck. Really cool to be able to touch on that work again, too, with someone who knows it pretty well. Peter Mark Adams was the free show just a few months back also, I believe. Many reasons to become a Plus member. Come on in already. Eight bucks don't get you much anymore, you know? And when it comes to the last episode, another symbolically potent show, Jake Coatsy, the godfather of synchromysticism, a check off the old dream guest list for me, I didn't think we would hit the 4.9 heights of the two episodes before it, and we didn't. We got a 4.4, which I think is fair. Jake has just moved on so much from the initial work, it's hard to talk to him about it. We did fit in some fun sync loops, but there was a lot of conversation that just kept circling back to the same place. So I'm not caught off guard by that rating, but I'm glad we did it, and I'm happy I have that interview in the archive, even if it wasn't as exciting as I might have hoped. And that said, check in the meetup calendar. Right around the corner, October 14th, Auckland, New Zealand, Galbraith's Ale House. Then we have October 23rd, the Natural Law Meetup in Pasadena, California at the Corner Bakery Cafe. November 7th, Montana Tap House in Whitefish, Montana. November 9th, the Trails Cafe in LA. November 13th, the West End Cider House in Athens, Ohio. Oh, shit. And then November 22nd, the Sale Plaza. Someone made an event here in Tampa, Florida. I guess I have to go. Looks like this one's focused on anthropologists. So that's interesting. Hmm. I will definitely be thinking about that. But yeah, go out there, make new friends, expand your network. Another drill you know well. And that said, I gotta wrap this up. Lots of family retreating to my house since I knew it was dumb to live on the coast in Florida. I picked this place strategically because it hasn't really had a hurricane problem in a hundred years. And to even be concerned where we are, it really has to be a storm that cuts right across the state. These storms that kind of hug the coast, never going to be a problem for me. It has to really cut right across the state and it has to make landfall in Tampa to be a threat to us. And sure enough, that's what it looks like we have. I don't get it. St. Petersburg is the largest liberal city in Florida. It's like our Austin, Texas. So I don't know what's going on. I'm sure they'll have to steer the storm south at the last minute if they even want a chance at taking Florida in the election. That's what these storms are all about, right? Of course, that's another show, I guess. But hey, take care of you and yours. Much love. Big thanks to Mario. Dig deeper into his stuff if you like the way he does his thing. And I will see you on the other side. I've done my part. Your move. Polar system suppressors, solar system deceivers, and symbolic language concealers. That's your fucking move. World to wash with symbols everywhere you look From the back of ancient caves to the cover of Where you see flashing on the television Until next time. Part two shreds.