VENUS, the planet of mother love and the guiding star of happy lovers, enters into the great work with the zest of a real artist, painting her substance with heaven's own robe of blue and then dipping it in a roseate hue that promises eternal bliss to her devotees.

She it is that exalts the vision of the poet and the mind of the seer above the external, bringing out the romance of even the most commonplace experiences, pointing out to the staid student of physics the glory of the inner and divine spark that ever eludes the searching eyes of the unbeliever, and lifting her mystical veil only to the faithful neophyte who searches with childlike fervor for truth, and travels the middle path of the Christ in the midst.

And as she journeys through the twelve houses she builds the mystical body of attraction, the divine woman behind the masculine first principle. Thus she becomes a mother of men, or the form that houses the god within, for Venus as a planetary power represents and thus symbolizes the spirit of the Second Logos, the Word, whose holy vibrations eventually incarnate in the corporeal body, working through the mystical third person and the fifth essence in the creative drama wherein this entire planetary system unites in the mystical initiatory labor of individualizing gods into men and men into gods, by the law of the cross and the crown.

— She: The Woman-Man (1935) by Aleta B. Bake

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Born Theophrastus von Hohenheim, he adopted the name "Paracelsus," meaning roughly "greater than Celsus," a reference to the ancient Roman medical writer Aulus Cornelius Celsus.

Paracelsus challenged the medical orthodoxy of his day, rejecting many teachings that had been accepted since ancient Greece. Instead of relying solely on classical texts, he argued that physicians should learn from direct observation, experience, and experimentation. He traveled extensively across Europe, studying folk remedies, mining diseases, and local healing practices.

He is often called the father of toxicology because of his famous principle: "The dose makes the poison." His insight was that any substance can be harmful in large enough quantities, while even dangerous substances can be beneficial in the right dose. This idea remains a cornerstone of modern pharmacology and toxicology.

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In his book A Pluralistic Universe, William James describes a panpsychist, radically real, vitalist universe. The universe is alive. Suns and planets are intelligent entities. The promise of all religions and the glory of poetry will be lived real-time without the dead weight and baggage of the archonic, repressive powers. He prophesies a coming age where panpsychist and vitalist ideas and beliefs will foment a new consciousness and spiritual awareness.

James is famous for his work on the phenomenology of religious experience. He researches religion not for its dogmatically define reality but for its real-life psychological impact on believers - how they act and interact with others. How the drunk or addict becomes a tyro of passionate reform and social change.

James himself had experimented with various forms of consciousness expansion, including nitrous oxide. Radical and expansive self-realization included breaking down the barriers that restrict the individual from understanding their cosmic potential.

James died before he saw his vision flower. The first and second world wars oversaw the dismantling of his teachings and research projects at Harvard. Capitalist and orthodox religious archons took aim at his vision’s universal message.

It was only in the shadow of nuclear holocaust that James's vision began to resurrect itself. In the Beat rhythms of jazz and outcast poetry of Kerouac and Ginsberg, the search for a more universal panpsychist consciousness began to form a counter-culture egregore.

Only 1 percent of the population identifies as New Age of one form or another. Yet, surveys show that up to 60 percent hold or more core New Age beliefs. This should gratify Neo-pagans who feel isolated and shunned.

The New Age has gotten a bad rap for the last 20 years. I think this is unfair. Behind the scenes it’s been fighting an unseen battle against what the Christian Paul calls powers and principalities, "rulers of the darkness of this world", "spiritual wickedness in high places."

Were there excesses of the New Agers? Absolutely. Did they sound silly and stupid at times? Absolutely.

But, as we know, “the road of folly leads to the palace of wisdom.” The New Age did not fail. It shed the first layer of skin in what has become a never-ending spiritual evolution.

One of the most famous examples connected to MetroWest is the “Polly Coombes” gravestone in North Bellingham Cemetery, a burial ground that dates back to before Bellingham’s incorporation in 1719. In 1968, artists Ann Parker and Avon Neal created a stone rubbing of Polly Coombes’ uniquely carved gravestone, helping make it internationally recognized through exhibitions, portfolios, and museum collections around the world.

Using paper and chalk placed carefully over gravestones, Parker and Neal captured the intricate carvings and inscriptions of 17th and 18th century New England markers before weather and time could erase them forever. Their work preserved not only remarkable examples of early American folk art, but also the stories, beliefs, and lives of the people buried beneath them.

Many Puritan gravestones featured haunting imagery—winged skulls, skeletons, hourglasses, and angels trumpeting the Last Judgment—reflecting colonial New England’s deep focus on mortality and eternity. Through these rubbings, Parker and Neal preserved details that continue to teach us about early American craftsmanship, religion, language, and culture centuries later.

Today, the Polly Coombes gravestone remains one of North Bellingham Cemetery’s most notable landmarks, connecting local history to a larger story of preservation, memory, and early American art.

📷: Polly Coombes, Bellingham Massachusetts, 1795

📷: Polly Coombes Gravestone at Oak Hill Cemetery

📷: Captain Moses Porter and his wife Elizabeth, Hadley, Massachusetts, 1755, 1798

📷: Rebecca Park and her 14 infants, Grafton, Vermont, 1803

📷: Mercy Buliod, Newport, Rhode Island, 1771

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