(From Return of the Children of Light by Judith Bluestone Polich)

The Pleiadian star cluster plays a key role in the Incan and Mayan mythology. An intriguing fact about this star cluster has to do with Mayan knowledge about the number of stars in the cluster. The Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, was supposedly so named because only seven of it's stars are visible to the naked eye, although it actually contains some four hundred stars. Interestingly, among the Maya, one of the names of the Pleiades was "the four hundred boys". Since most of these stars cannot be seen it is not known how the Maya could have known the approximate number of stars.

The Pleiades was particularly important to the Inca in determining the seasons. At certain times during the year, specific stars or constellations are not visible from the earth because thay appear to close to the sun, but they reapperar once they "clear" the sun's brilliance. The date of the reappearance of a star is known as it's heliacal rise. On the day of the return of the Pleiades, which was calculated precisely by the Inca, the star cluster was again visible just before sunrise after a period of invisibility. This was the date of the Festival of the Return of the Pleiades, which was an important tool for calendric measurement, used by the Inca to note the exact time of the solstice. In the time of the Inca, the heliacal rise of the Pleiades was always 30 days before the solstice, allowing the Inca to plan for the time of the solstice, which could not be calculated by watching the sun.

So important was the Pleiades to the Incan worldview that the star cluster provided a basis for the Incan calendar. In the ancient city of Cuzco, some forty-two invisible lines known as sequas, or rays, surrounded the great Temple of the Sun, extending all the way to the horizon. Each seque passed through or near a shrine, or small statue known as a waka. According to the creation myth, the wakas held the power of the lineage and connected the people directly to their origin, the stars.There were between seven and nine wakas per seque, for a total of 328. According to Spanish chronicles, each waka represented one day of the year. However there were only 328 wakas, not 365. Tom Zuidema and Gary Urton, ethnoastronomers who have studied the Inca, point out that the difference can be accounted for by noting that the Pleiades is invisible in the latitude above Cuzco during the missing 37 days.

Ancient astronomers of Wayu's time called the Pleiades the "great Granary". In Quechua, the Pleiades is referred to as collca, which means granary, while the Quechua term used in northern Bolivia for the Pleiades is coto, which means handful of seeds. This is also how the Maya saw the Pleiades.

In veiled language, the esoteric teachings tell us that the divine aspect of the human form came from the stars and that the cluster of the Pleiades provided the blueprints for human consciousness. These blueprints may bethought of as actual codes of light that have been implanted within the human form. These light codes can be seen as divine thought forms that provide the catalysts that awaken in mankind the light that brings higher consciousness.

A helpful analogy for this human process is the seed of any common plant. For example, the seed of any flower has within it a hidden code containing the plant's DNA that becomes activated under certain conditions: time of year, amount of sunlight and moisture. The code causes the seed to sprout, grow, flower, bear fruit, produce seed, and then repeat the same cycle. Similarly, the light codes within the human form may be viewed as spiritual DNA, as the inner forces that trigger the process of enlightenment. The ultimate maturation of the god-seed in each human being is divinity, an example of which is Christ consciousness.

Esoteric texts trace the seed of illumination to the great Granary, the Pleiades. In antiquity, in cultures around the world, the Pleiades was called the "seedbed", the "cradle", and "the throne of codes". Esotericists such as J.J. Hurtak believe that the divine imprint, the prephysical garment of light that enabled human physical form to hold divine consciousness, is associated with the Pleiades.

The prephysical garment of light is similar to the idea of divine intent. It was through divine intent that divine consciousness could enter the womb of matter, the physical parameters of our reality. This is the reality we perceive with the five senses - one that exists within linear time, is measuable, and energetically very dense. Since matter is not readily penetrated by light, the sacred energy that came from the Pleiades provided the necessary interface for more refined energies in the form of light to be held in the three-dimensional world, the physical plane. Thus it helped to join the refined energies of light and consciousness with the denser energies of matter.

In the creation stories of people all over the world, there are many references to intervention by divine sources from outside our solar system. In addition to alludint to the Pleiades in such contexts, some esoteric texts also refer to the significance of the constellation Orion. According to Hurak, Orion provided the pure light bodies upon which the sacred light codes from the Pleiades were programmed. Orion is also said to be the source of all "gnosis" - the spiritual power of divine force itself.

(From Return of the Children of Light by Judith Bluestone Polich)

According to some esoteric accounts, such as Hurak's and Sumerian and Babylonian creation myths from which later Hebraic creation myths may have dirived, a purpose of the spiritual human, the seed, was to create a new species capable of carrying the light of higher Consciousness. This species is known as the Adamic Race, or the Adam Kadmon. Gnostic and other texts emphasize that the Adam Kadmon is a continually evolving species of light made in "the image and similitude" of the Elohim (angels). Hopi and Mayan myths also refer to the concept of a continually evolving creation.

Many of these traditions tell of androgynous god-like beings known in early Hebraic accounts as Elohim. Within the hierarchy of the spiritual world, the Elohim are considered mighty angels who embody high intelligence and creative powers, and who sit at the right hand of God himself. Some sources say the Elohim are connected with the constellation Orion.

The Sumerian and Babylonian tablets, which stem from one of the oldest civilizations on this planet, describe strangers called "serpents", who were "shining radiant ones" with large brilliant eyes and luminous faces. It was these beings who allegedly brought to the Sumarian and Babylonians cultures the seeds of civilization.

Later Hebraic texts, said to be written by a scribe named Enoch, describe beings known as the "Shining Ones" who arrived in what is now Lebanon some 10,000 years ago. The writings attributed to Enoch are no longer found in the Old Testament and are considered among the apocrypha, or "hidden" texts, along with the "heretical" Gnostic texts. Accounts of these supernatural beings eventually made their way into Hebrew angel lore, where the beings came to be called Seraphim, the highest order of angels and "fiery flying serpents of lightening".

It is interesting to note, as pointed out by modern angelologist Malcom Godwin, that the root word El (contained in Elohim), is an ancient term with common origins in many laguages. For example, in Sumerian El means "brightness or shining"; in Babylonian Ellu means "the shining one"; in English elf means "shining being"; and in Anglo-Saxon aelf means "radiant being".

The concept of luminous creator beings is also found in the Tibetan Book Of Dzyan, which describes luminous ones who produced "form from no form", "shone like the sun", and were "blazing divine dragons of serpent wisdom". In addition, aswe will see, there are accounts of intervention by luminous god-men who were also called serpents throughout Mesoamerica and Peru.

The Elohim, who at various times have been known as "god-men", "space beings", the "older brothers", and "world teachers, have a long history of intercession with planet Earth. To them, Earth is a sacred garden in which many plantings have been made. They are the grand gardeners responsible for numerous propagations of the seed, and they have made many attempts to upgrade the intelligence and spiritual consciousness of the human form. We may both metaphorically and literally be the seed of the Elohim.

Those of us shaped by the Judeo-Christian worldview have been taught that "man is made into the image and similitude of God". While this is surely true, it is important to remember that the work of creation is not yet complete. The work of the Elohim in seeding the consciousness of the spiritual race of man is an ongoing process.

Careful reading of the above-cited biblical passage actually supports the idea of a continuously evolving consciousness. The word 'into' suggests that evolution is ongoing, while the word 'similitude' tells us that we were made like the creator (in this context the Elohim), implying that in the physical dimension matter has the ability to hold light. This is a profound realization that means we all have the potential to hold and radiate light.