Re-ligare to your own past
The word religion is derived from the Latin word religare which means to re-connect, to tie yourself - to your past. The reality of coherent consciousness can open a channel in which archetypical dreams, maybe passed on from great civilizations long forgotten can be 'awared' and integrated.
 

Do not even for a second think that you are an individual only listening to and governed by reason. You might be an atheist only believing - yes I write believing - in positivistic science. Still, your million-year-old brain parts will not be able to listen to your logic arguments. That is why all our plans concerning shifts in lifestyle and weight loss mostly falter. Our genes are outdated software like the roundworm inside of you controlling your appetite:

Our unique attributes evolved over a period of roughly 6 million years. They represent modifications of great ape attributes that are roughly 10 million years old, primate attributes that are roughly 55 million years old, mammalian attributes that are roughly 245 million years old, vertebrate attributes that are roughly 600 million years old, and attributes of nucleated cells that are perhaps 1,500 million years old.
 
If you think it is unnecessary to go that far back in the tree of life to understand our own attributes, consider the humbling fact that we share with nematodes [roundworms] the same gene that controls appetite. At most, our unique attributes are like an addition onto a vast multiroom mansion. It is sheer hubris to think that we can ignore all but the newest room. David Sloan Wilson, Evolution for Everyone, 2007
 

 
24 * 10 mm
Translucent eye bead
An ancient signature from the
Indus Valley civilization
 

A modern rational human in sync with his inner cave man

Scientific studies have shown that religious people are more empathic, but also more stupid than scientifically minded people, who on the other hand are a little closer to psychopaths.
 
I do believe, extrapolated from my personal experience, that the time has come where the dichotomy between the older operative systems of 'feeling' and the systems of 'language and rational thinking' can come together.
 
Super Wakefulness
This is done in super consciousness, a state of intense wakefulness where the evolutionary most advanced parts of your brain, the frontal lobes, takes charge of your life. In the perspective of this operative system, you will understand the importance of synchronicity between all the different parts of the brain that is inside of your head. They reach back to the cave man and much further and if they are not aligned with your modern mind, you will be in conflict with yourself.
 
You are the Placebo
To meditate with a bead in your hand is pure placebo. New scientific studies have come up with a lot of exiting evidence showing how powerful placebo is in reality. According to MIT placebos works better with a brand name. The same is the case here with ancient beads, maybe with a little difference that my motives behind making this site hopefully are a little purer than the urge to make money.
 
Seen in the light of super awareness it all becomes clear: You are the placebo.
 
In this meta-awareness, you can choose to think symbolic, meta-knowing about yourself, that now I am using this part of my brain to get access to my feelings, my immune system and so on.
 

 
Bead Magic in a post-modern context
This is for me the post-modern way of using a talisman or an amulet. The bead amulet has become real in a new level of understanding and will protect you from the unreality created as a byproduct of our sophisticated cyber civilization!

An ancient bead should be felt by your skin. It should have direct contact with you as a living, breathing and sweating physical being. Let it also be close to the heart. By this direct contact, the bead's surface will be changed by you, while your inner being will be changed by the bead. Just look, feel and sense the bead displayed below in this context.
 
However, not only feeling is involved. Sight is also important. Can you see how the bead below is almost looking at you? If you can, you are protected by the ancient Eye.
 

Hexagon - 18 * 13 mm
This super ancient bead has been shaped,
not only by its makers,
but also by thousand of years of time
and by contact with human skin.
 

SRI YANTRA Tantric-Pythagorean sacred geometry used for spiritual rituals and Meditation

The revival of magick I do believe, as often stated on Ancientbead.com that the time for a 'resurrection' of magick-symbolic thinking has come. This, of course, has to happen in an entirely new set and setting. In a post-modern frame of mind, it is possible to believe in the power of placebo yet knowing it is placebo. This 'quantum position' transcends our old 'navigative' ways of 'neither - nor'.    Magick Pentagon Beads Hence I choose to explain the polygon shaped beads displayed below within a frame of animist magick thinking, but with new eyes that allow me to enjoy the enhanced reality of 'cat states' of believing and non-believing at the same time.   I can in this context recommend the new song of Sting, I can't stop thinking about you. The brilliant lyrics in this song is heard in my ears as being on the same enhanced path of spiritual navigation, transcending the old school dual ways of dividing reality in neither, nor.

The symbolic power of the pentagram Since ancient times beads have been used to invoke a variety of different magical qualities through the particular geometrical shape, patterns and the material itself.   Here I find pentagon shaped beads particularly interesting.    The pentagram has since the dawn of civilizations been used in spiritual rites in a variety of cultures. The earliest known use of the pentagram can be found 3500 B.C. at Ur in Mesopotamia. However, we can also find the pentagram in the ancient European Celtic culture. These cultures were separated by time and distance to such an extent, that the use of these identical practices should be explained not only as results of cultural exchange but also with the help of archetypical behavior and patterns of understanding present in the subconscious of a human being. I can in this context recommend C.G. Jung's writings as an eye-opener for new 'realities' in which one can view ancient beads.

MAGIC PENTAGON YANTRA STAR BEADS RB 5 - Average size  8 to 9 mm Click on picture for larger image Gorgeous beautiful Ancient polygonal Yantra beads in blood red jasper of the highest quality! Most of these beads are shaped as pentagons depicting stars.   Classical Period: From the times of the Buddha up to around 200 A.D. NOTE - The beads are slightly more brownish than the scan shows. In fact, they corectly match the color of blood.

The stunning blood red pentagram jasper beads displayed above are from India. They are more than 2000 years old. Most probably they were used within a Buddhist or Hindu tantric set and setting.    The Tantric-Greek connection I do believe that the tantric understanding of divine geometries developed in North West India in a fusion of ancient Indian animist thinking with 'modern' Seleucid Greek geometric and mathematic.     Indian tantric texts do in fact refer to Yavanacharya, which means Greek teacher. Cultural ping pong is not a new phenomenon. Pythagoras (586-506 B.C.) traveled all over the ancient world and way beyond. On his travels, he shared his knowledge and also got inspired by dialogue with kindred souls.          However, it is not likely that Pythagoras himself was in India. Greek thinking had to wait until the days of Alexander the Great for meeting with the Indian philosophy and science. Most probably the synthesis between Greek and Indian thought took place with the rise of the Seleucid Empire in its friendly relations with the Mauryan and later Ashoka-Buddhist Indians. Both Buddhism and Tantrism got in Northwest India heavily influenced by Greek thinking for centuries. Still today one can in Punjab find the practice of Yavana, Greek, medicine. This important ancient link has almost entirely disappeared under the scientific radar, mainly due to the partition of Greater India into India and Pakistan. Pakistan became the Muslim place to ignore Buddhist history, while India became the politically stated home of Hindus. What today only is known through a tiny fragment of Greek-Buddhist history in the form of Gandhara art, was, in fact, a huge advanced Indo-Greek Buddhist culture, stretching from Syria to India for more than 800 years!     SPIRIT STAR IN UNION WITH MOTHER EARTH The most elementary fivefold symmetric objects are displayed in the regular Pentagon and the five-pointed star. Pythagoras and his followers thought of the 'pentagram five' as hieros gamos, the marriage between heaven and earth. The pentagram was out of simple geometric observations as demonstrated below, associated with a star. The geometrical depiction of a star was seen as symbolic representative of the stars heavenly qualities manifested on earth through pentagram rituals.

A star 'caught' within a pentagon

The magick Star-catcher The early Hindu and Buddhist Tantric writings seem to share Pythagoras' view of the star and its symbology. The ancient Indian Tantrics also saw the Pentagram as a 'star-catcher,' as a way to 'bring down' a Star in Heaven to unify it with Mother Earth.   The Pentagon within the Star within the Pentagon within the star Furthermore, these two geometric forms seem to interact with each other in most beautiful and infinite ways. The Pentagon and the five-pointed star, viewed as objects in the 2-dimensional Euclidian plane, have ten-symmetry operations (five rotations and five reflections). Both these objects are related; each Pentagon contains a star, and each star contains a Pentagon. As illustrated below the central area of the star has the shape of the Pentagon which again contains a star.

That which is above is as that which is below That which is below is as that which is above The infinite play between heaven and earth. What is above repeats itself below and vise verse.     The occult interpretation of this mathematical proportion (the pentagram) is sometimes expressed in the maxim: ‘Nature is to man as man is to God.’ The proportion itself is often called the Golden Section of Pythagoras, and is associated with the Hermetic axiom: ‘That which is above is as that which is below, and that which is below is as that which is above.’  Paul Foster Case In this sense, the Pythagoreans viewed the pentagram as a geometric representation of a dynamic cyclic transformation allowing the 'logos,' the spirit to ascend into the human body.

PENTAGRAMS IN THE LIGHT OF RELIGION AND IMAGINATIVE MATHEMATICAL MYSTICISM I will in the following present the pentagram in various contexts derived both from imaginative mathematical mysticism, religions and simple analog symbolic thinking. It will only be a fragment of the examples you can find yourself by searching. How you chose to understand and use this information is of course entirely up to you. My job is not to tell anyone what is right or wrong, but to present inspiring information for free download in a new reality of psychological sampling in a cross-cultural open source environment.    The Golden Proportion The geometric dimensions of a pentagram are those of the Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio is found in ancient art worldwide art and is still considered to be most pleasing to the eye. This ratio is a direct consequence of the Fibonacci sequence.    The Fibonacci sequence Nature is replete with five-fold symmetry following the Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonacci numbers exhibit a fivefold symmetry. They are Nature's numbering system. They appear everywhere in Nature, from single cells, flowers, a grain of wheat, to the bones proportion section in a human finger.    The five elements In the West, the tradition has since the days of the Greek philosopher Empedocles mainly operated with four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. In the ancient Indian tradition, these four belonged to the realm of matter and were governed by the quintessential, fifth: the Spirit. For the non-material oriented Indians the Spirit, however, came first as number one and the earth as the fifth and last element.    The five senses There are five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. In this frame of understanding the pentagram represents the five sense portals. While connecting with ancient beads I recommend that all our five senses are used. It is possible even to put a bead in the mouth to have a taste of it!   The Christian Pentagram The pentagram is in the West best known for being used by Germanic and Celtic tribes before Christianity became dominant. In the early Christianity, the pentagram represented the five wounds of Christ on the Cross. Later the church chose the cross as a symbol of Christianity. Most probably the use of the pentagram within the institutionalized circles of Christian religion got problematic because of the pentagrams common use in various 'pagan' settings. This widespread use got it difficult for the Christianity seen as ideological power strategy to monopolize the utilization of the pentagram. The pentagram in modern occultism Hence the Christian use of the pentagram gradually ceased and even slowly got demonized. In this way, this old beautiful symbol, like the ancient swastika, got hijacked by the wrong institutions in wrong places and times and for the wrong reasons. It is time to take back these beautiful symbols by using them following their original history.  When this is said, I also want to pay my respect to certain pagan ways of thinking, which has managed to emphasize and worship the fact that we as humans also have an animal and 'dark' nature. Here I would like to mention Aleister Crowley's occult thinking, especially.   With these thoughts intend to reclaim the pentagram for everyone to use as they like in an open post-modern context. If some people feel the need of reconnecting with their animal nature through more dark rituals, in opposition to Christianity's maybe sometimes immature versions of Christ as light in opposition to darkness, I, however, would point at C.G. Jung as my first choice for downloading inspiration.     The five Pillars of Islam In Islam, there are prayer five times a day. Furthermore, Islam is resting on the five pillars of truth: 1) Shahada: Faith - 2) Salat: Prayer - 3) Zakāt: Charity - 4) Sawm: Fasting - 5) Hajj: Pilgrimage to Mecca    Hamsas protective High five The ancient and trans-cultural interest in the number five can be explained just by watching our own hands.

Hand of Fatimah or Hamsa

Hamsa amulets are used as a magical protection against the evil eye. Hamsa means five. We humans have five fingers. Amulets depicting the hand with its five fingers is still today very common in the Middle East. They are used by both Jews and Muslims. However, the protective and/or blessing hand can be traced back to Buddhism and even further back to the old Indus Valley Civilization.

Blessing hand of late Indus Goddess   Blessing hand of Indus Goddess Ghandaran schist Buddha Jesus with blessing hand/mudra Hagia Sofia mosaic

Where the inherent beauty of mathematic and geometry meets with spiritual symbolism To sum it up the pentagram was one of the most powerful meditative talismans of Buddhist and Hindu antiquity, and also used in later religions and belief systems. It served as a divine protection and as  link between the Spirit-star and the lower orders of the material Earth-realms. In this way, the Pentagram represents the power of the Divine Logos manifested in the human body to effect change through 'spirit.'

THE STAR-CATCHER A powerful Tantra Mala with 108 magick pentagon beads Made by Mads Kornerup - Shamballajewels.com It is my favorite Mala. I wear it all the time. I call it THE STARCATCHER

THE (W)HOLE IN THE EYE - THE ZERO AND THE SOUL

The eye you see is not
an eye because you see it.
It is an eye because it sees you.
Antonio Machado

The notion of the protecting Eye is linked to the historical culture and the concepts of the spiritual Third Eye as it has been used both in Hinduism and Buddhism or maybe more precise: the animism and shamanism that still prevails deep in the core of these religions.  Before world religions like Buddhism arrived animism and shamanism ruled the spiritual world of human beings. In many ways, it still does, especially in the Theravada Buddhism and in the Tibetan blend of Vajrayana Buddhism and Bön.
 
However, the concept of psychological protection from evil through the eye has been found in almost every ancient culture around the world. We find beads created as eyes as far back as the Neolithic period.
 

The bead as zero

 

Zero
Is where the Real Fun starts.
There's too much counting
Everywhere else!
Hafiz

This is particularly interesting because it was the Indians who invented the zero. The Hindi name for zero is still today the word shoonyo, an old Buddhist word for the fundamental emptines of existence.
 

Neolithic bead from North Africa
 

13 * 12 * 3,5 mm
 Magic Indus Valley Eye Bead - 1500 BC
You can see the same bead displayed on this link
 

When you look at the bead, the bead looks back on you.

Here comes another narrative you can sample and customize for your own personal needs. A common name for beads in India is Baba Ghoria, which means Holy Mans Bead. Generally, beads were worn by Holy men or had a divine purpose used as relics in burial caskets and/or in Buddhist stupas.

The Greek historian Megastehenes, who lived at the court of Chandragupta Maurya, wrote, that Indians according to his knowledge were the most kind, honest and helpful people he knew of. One must not forget that greater India was a peaceful, non-violent Buddhist empire for a long time. Before that, it was the land of the Indus culture, the only known culture in world history, that with toy-like weapons had found other solutions to social conflicts than violence. Mahavir and the Jains bear witness to this ancient culture. Maybe ... who knows .. vibrations from these golden times of peace has charged the old bead you see above by pious Jains, Buddhist, and Hindus, who kept it as amulets in close contact with their skin - close to the heart. Here we can be strung together as beads with good deeds and intentions of the past - if we choose to see it so.
 
The ancient bead has in this way been charged with energy from noble intentions and good hearts for many generations. .. and maybe ...who knows, been in contact with a realized being. At least this narrative will affect your blood pressure, if you allow it to be part of your story told reality.
 

Post Modern Bead Magic & Poetic Quantum Physics
Here is one of my favorite beads. A wonderful Buddhist prayer bead with a natural crystalline eye. This Eye Bead is one out of a million!
 
When you stare at this eye it will stare back at you ... And seen by this old eye you become the original.
It takes an eye to know an eye - an original for an original.
 

28 * 19 mm Click on picture for close up of eye

This magic bead has responded to my intentional and 'self-created' power of belief in such a way that in this moment I would not give it in exchange for even a nine-eyed Zee-bead!
 
This is what I described as Post Modern Magic. Post-modern magic includes a conscious meta level where you are aware of the fact that it is your very belief that creates the magic. It is like a situation where you are cured by placebo medicine even though you know it is placebo!

This phenomenon could be called Magic Realism.
 
Magic Realism & Synchronicity
My understanding of Magic Realism is a product of these thoughts. It is also an extrapolation of a lifelong experience of a series of incidents where my intentions have seemed to create situations that could not be explained by logic and statistic coincidence alone.

C.G. Jung termed this kind of phenomena with the word synchronicity.
 
With a little poetic help from the world of quantum physics, I could say that it seems that a focused human consciousness is able to make small cracks in the space-time fabrics.
   
Of course, you are not able to catch the moon because you wish so. But on a subtle level, there is still some kind of manipulation of time and space going on through a clear and directed thought 'awared' in a clear consciousness. With these thoughts in mind, I will return to the ancient bead.
  
The real inside your Self
An ancient bead can respond like a microphone held close to a loudspeaker.
A feedback is created between your intentional and directed willpower and the bead, or should I say your knowledge of the bead as being a representative of the ancient and the essential inside yourself. A magic bead is in this way like a meditation device helping you in the constant 'self-remembrance' of your own true Buddha nature.
 

KINGS OF THE THIRD EYE & THE ZERO OF CONSCIOUSNESS
To the left below we have a photo of a Harappan King and/or High Priest. To the right, there is a photo of a Seleucid Greco-Bactrian head in stucco depicting an Indian Buddhist King from the Mauryan Empire. It might be the great Buddhist King Ashoka who formed an alliance with the Seleucid Empire and converted many of Macedonians living there to Buddhism.
 
These photos show similarly designed headband eye-symbols. The Kings are linked through the headband ornaments they wear; displaying what probably is a symbolic all seeing eye. These eyes are made in the most minimalistic way possible, consisting of two concentric circles.
 

        
        Harappan King                         Indian Buddhist King
 

13 * 12 * 4 mm
Etched eye Bead
 

The King of Consciousness
It was most probably a manifestation of the all seeing Eye of the King and the state, with either the ability to administer spiritual blessings or punitive actions, delivered according to the law of karma, not only seen as an abstract spiritual force but also as the 'will' of the Empire. The Priest King, as Ashoka indeed was, was the personification of the omnipresent consciousness that 'awares' everything.

Ancient Buddhist terra cotta
Eye Bead from Sri Lanka
 

This asymmetry makes together with the king's almost sorrowful, deep, subtle and peculiar individual face expression to an almost too human king; too aware of the enormous responsibility it is to rule an Empire. By putting the headband eye to the side, he also is putting himself aside, making way for a spiritual power greater than his own human and frail assessments; namely the all-pervading compassion and knowledge of Lord Buddha himself. I cannot help seeing the similarity between this face and later constructions of the suffering Jesus.

Seen in comparison the Harrapan Priest/King looks more introvert. He has almost closed his eyes to the world. Only his third eye of God is wide open. He leaves it to God to take of his Kingdom, while he himself is absorbed in introspection.
 

Eye Beads made of Glass

          9 * 2 mm       -     9* 7 * 2 mm    -      8 * 5 * 2 mm

These rare Eye Beads are from the early historic time -
Most probably from the Taxila period  300 BC- 100 AD 
 

     
Magic eye bead in orbicular jasper from the
Indus Valley Civilization
 

15 * 8 mm
A strange fossil eye bead from the Indus Valley Culture
 

19 * 6 mm
Magic eye bead is from the
Indus Valley Civilization
 

 
24 * 10 mm
Translucent eye bead
Indus Valley civilization or
early classical period
 

This beautiful translucent natural eye bead is from the
Indus Valley Civilization
 

25 * 10 mm
A mysterious colored agate Eye Bead.
 

Strange Indus Valey
Snake Eye Bead
 

In this old bead the eye is made of crystal
Period: Around 1000 A.D.
 

32 * 11 mm

 
Buddhist beads as cultural ambassadors
 
In Tibetan Buddhism, the use and understanding of magic beads play a major role.
This stone bead culture with its symbolic axis around the magic eye has a wonderful artistic peak expression in the Dzi-beads.
  
The dramatic power and the mystic fascination of Dzi-beads have made them ambassadors of Tibetan Buddhism all over the globe. In this way, it seems that the Tibetan bead culture and understanding has become a mainstream trend for Buddhists in the far east.
  
But the fascination of the Dzi-beads has spread to the West as well where you will not be able to see Sting performing a concert without his beloved 9 eyed Dzi-bead.
  
The upper class of the western world is 'converting' to Buddhism these years. Buddhism has in many ways views that are far more compatible with a modern affluent way of living than Christianity can offer.
Hollywood has always been in love with Tibet and the Dalai Lama. But this conversion is now further amplified by the increasing interest in Meditation and mindfulness. Hinduism can not, with its caste system and Disney like Gods, offer much. However, Buddhism can with its emphasis on compassion and also logic offer a narrative frame that with a little updating fits perfectly to this post-modern world.
 

  
Solomons agate Eye Beads