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THE THUNDERBIRD RETURNS

Transition from Fourth To Fifth World: The "Thunder Beings" Return

by Richard Boylan, Ph.D.

At the Native American Star Knowledge Conference held in South Dakota in June, 1996, senior Oglala Sioux spiritual elder Looks-For-Buffalo (Floyd Hand) revealed that ancient prophecies are now coming true. These prophecies, heralding immense changes for humankind, point to the imminent return of the Star Nations, what the white man would call extraterrestrial cultures.

The Hopi, Sioux and other tribal traditions hold that at this point in history, we are about to transition from the current pattern of civilization to a radically-different way of living. This change is so profound that it is called the passage from the Fourth (current) World to the Fifth World! By "world", the native traditions refer to a slow gradual rise of the human population to a period of widely-shared cultural and technological high civilization. The implications of these indigenous teachings are staggering. For this means that we humans have gone through three previous Worlds, in which our ancestors rose to a peak of civilized living, only to crash back to a primitive level.

From halfway around the Earth comes additional corroborative information. Mac Ruka, a Maori spiritual teacher, has toured America at the behest of his Maori people to share their ancient history. Ruka tells of a civilization, Mu, from which the Maori came. This civilization once reached ascendancy in the Melanesian Pacific, before it destroyed itself and its island empire sank beneath the ocean. Fragmentary memory of this empire still resides in the mythic history of the West as a place called Lemuria. And what of that other high civilization, Atlantis, which the Greek philosopher Plato stated he learned about from Egyptian historians? Were Atlantis and Lemuria the Second and Third Worlds which the Native American oral histories refer to?

If our present "Fourth-World" high civilization is about to fall and be swept away, we would do well to learn from the history held by these native teachers. For, as philosopher George Santayana has said, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Let us examine in more detail what those master keepers of oral tradition, the Hopi, reveal about our previous Worlds. [1]

The First World was called Tokpela ("Endless Space"). The First People understood that although they had human parents, their real parents were the universal entities which had created them through their parents: Father Sun and Mother Earth. Each learned that they had two aspects: as a member of an earthly family and clan, and as a citizen of the great universe. Gradually the First People forgot to respect their creator. They began to use the vibratory centers of their body [chakras] only for earthly purposes. They began to perceive differences and separation between people and animals, and between different ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. The animals began to draw away from people. The First People began to divide up and draw away from each other. They became warlike and fought. The First World's fatal flaw, then, was forgetting the unifying Oneness of all creation.

But there were a few in every group who held to the original spiritual enlightened path. These were directed by Spirit to migrate to a special underground location. Then, the First World was destroyed by fire: volcanoes erupting and fire raining down from the sky, until there was nothing left but the few faithful people inside the Earth.

After a long time the world cooled off, and a Second World emerged. There was land where water had been, and water where land had been. When the faithful remnant emerged from underground, there was nothing to remind them of the previous wicked world.

They emerged into the Second World, Tokpa ("Dark Midnight"), a big land. The people spread across the land. They communicated telepathically. But this time, the animals stayed apart from them. As the Second World people developed material goods to barter, they became greedy, and traded for things they didn't need and became avaricious. They began to quarrel and fight, and wars broke out. The Second World's fatal flaw, then, was absorption in greed and materialism.

But again, there were a few people who kept faithful to the path of spiritual awareness. And, again, Spirit directed these people to go to a safe underground place. Then Spirit commanded the twin entities who safeguard the Earth's North and South Poles to leave their posts and stop keeping the Earth properly rotating. The Earth teetered off balance, spun around crazily, and rolled over twice. Mountains plunged into seas with a great splash; seas and lakes sloshed over the land. Then the world became cold and lifeless, and froze into solid ice.

Eventually, Spirit ordered the polar entities back to the ends of the Earth's axis. With a great splintering of ice and a shudder, the Earth began rotating again. The ice melted, and the world warmed to life.

Spirit created the Third World, Kuskurza [meaning lost over time][Mu?], arranging land and seas, mountains and plains, and all forms of life. Then Spirit sent a message to the few faithful people underground that it was time to emerge. These survivors multiplied and created great cities, eventually countries, and a whole civilization. But then they became completely occupied with their own earthly plans. They created craft shaped like a shield that could fly, and used them to fly to big cities and attack them. Soon many peoples and countries were engaged in aerial warfare. These Third People also engaged in degraded sexual practices. The Third World's fatalflaw, then, was misusing flight for aerial warfare and misusing sex for promiscuity.

So Spirit directed the few people who lived according to wisdom that they should build vessels and store food in them. Then rainwater was loosed all over the Earth. Waves higher than mountains rolled in upon the land. Continents broke asunder and sank beneath the seas.

Meanwhile, Spirit directed the faithful survivors to travel first to one, then to another island, until finally they reached the Fourth World, Tuwaqachi ("Complete World"). After they had hopscotched across the islands to arrive in the Fourth World, those islands sank into the sea.

That Fourth World is this present world we live in. The survivors spread across the broad lands, and gradually began building up the high civilizations which surround us today. Since this Fourth World is the one we have grown up in, we are aware of the behaviors of those in it. It can accurately be said that, after an initial time of fidelity to the path of wise consciousness, many have fallen into a low level of consciousness. In fact, it can honestly be stated that many people of this Fourth World have fallen into the fatal flaws of the three previous Worlds: forgetting the Oneness of all creation, sinking into greed and materialism, and engaging in promiscuity and aerial mass warfare. But we have added an additional serious element: mass destruction of Earth and its ecological systems. Thus, the Fourth World's fatal flaws are: all of the previous Worlds' ones, plus ecocide, the killing of one's own environment.

And now this Fourth World is coming to an end. Some of the signs indicating this are: extinctions of plant and animal species; poisoning of lands by toxic materials; pollution of the seas; and thinning of the upper atmosphere, "ozone holes", letting in excessive ultraviolet energy, which in turn is killing plant life, causing cancer in humans, and die-offs of phytoplankton, the source of 90%of the oxygen necessary for life. Global warming is destabilizing climates, and upsetting the ecosystems that plants, animals and humans live in.

As the Fourth World careens towards its end, a major new factor is entering the equation: a widespread series of contacts by various Star Visitor cultures with human individuals. What are these Star Visitors communicating when they make contact? They express grave concern for how we are killing our planet and therefore ourselves. Their concern extends to the warfare we are almost continually engaged in, and the other forms of violence going on: including people allowing whole populations to die of starvation or disease, while affluent countries stand by. The Star Visitors want us to take responsibility and turn these situations around, before it is too late.

But the Star Visitors also have come to make us aware that we are not alone; and that our rightful place is to be participants in the larger, cosmic family of intelligent peoples spread across the universe. But first we must eliminate our fatal flaws and reorder our lifestyle. We must live with consciousness of our oneness with all creatures, and with the Creative Source. We must lay aside our greed and materialism, and learn to live more simply and without undue attachments. We must reject promiscuity, and exercise love with consciousness of the sacredness of sexuality. We must set aside aerial mass warfare, and begin to settle differences by diplomacy, by setting good example, by positive peer pressure, and by empowering all peoples. We need to start treating Earth and its ecosystems like our Mother, with respect and cherishing.

As at the end of the previous Worlds, there will be a faithful remnant of this Fourth World who will survive, while the others perish. The Hopi Prophecies say what will happen soon. World War III will be started in the East. Much of the United States will be destroyed, land and people, by nuclear weapon radioactivity. The Four corners area around the Hopi will be preserved as an oasis, to which refugees will flee. But what about those elaborate underground shelters which FEMA [2] has been secretly constructing for the elite to survive in during the coming Earth Changes? The Hopi Prophecy says that underground shelters are a fallacy this time. "It is only materialistic people who seek to make shelters. Those who are at peace in their hearts already are in the great shelter of life."

What will the Fifth World to which we are headed be like? The Prophecy gives a brief glimpse of what is in store. "Those who take no part in the making of world division by ideology are ready to resume life in another World, be they of the Black, White, Red or Yellow race. They are all one, brothers [and sisters]." As for this Fourth World, "Material matters will be destroyed by spiritual beings, who shall remain to create one world and one nation under one power, that of the Creator." The Prophecy goes on to declare the stage we are in now. "The emergence to the future Fifth World has begun. It is being made of the humble people of little nations, tribes and racial minorities. You can read this in the Earth itself. Plant forms from previous Worlds are beginning to spring up as seeds. The same kind of seeds are being planted in the sky as stars. The same kind of seeds are being planted in our hearts. All these are the same." [3]

We are entering the time of Great Purification, as Earth prepares to transition to the Fifth World. This is a period of Earth Changes: major earthquakes, tidal waves, many volcanoes erupting, land subsidence, emergence of new land, climatic changes, disease pandemics, and widespread starvation. Catastrophes of human origin are also in the offing, including: warfare involving weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, rioting and looting, collapse of monetary systems, and forced migrations. As with the previous Worlds, there will be those who want to cling to the old ways of the Fourth World and resist the need to change. We see them all around us now. And just as surely there will be those who seek to live in harmony with the rest of creation. Sensitive co-existence with other life is not ecological romanticism or fuzzy metaphysics. It is recognition of the true extent of family.

During this transition more than ever before, each of us is being called to serve the Great Spirit, that Center of Consciousness from which everything derives its being. Each of us has an important role during this Great Purification. We need to help find ways for nations, races and tribes to put aside differences, and join together for the good of everyone. We need to help plant and animal species survive. We have to bring to an end the pollution of Earth, and return to our proper role as caretakers of Earth's ecosystems. We need to lay aside the "success" lifestyle of greed and materialism, and learn to adopt a lifestyle of "just enough" and "good enough". We need to move away from the twin follies of promiscuity and puritanism, and learn to reverence sex as the delightful yet sacred activity of appropriately joining opposites to create a higher truth. And we need to lay aside the weapons of war, and operate with that compassion, understanding and economic justice which make for peace.

Where ultimately is this human voyage through a succession of Worlds headed? The Prophecy says that at the center of the universe, there is a place where all the nations originated. It is in the Star Nations galaxy. Before we arrive there, we will transit through nine Worlds.

Native American tradition honors the existence of Thunder Beings. These Thunder Beings are understood by Native Americans to be messengers from the powers on high, the Star People (extraterrestrial visitors). The Thunder Beings are a force for both dissolution and re-creation. In the Plains Indian tradition, a person who has a visit by a Thunder Being, in person, in vision or in dream, becomes a heyoka, a "contrary". [4] This heyoka then customarily soon starts behaving in a way opposite to the conventions of the dominant culture. The heyoka does so, precisely in order to wake up society to see that there are other and fresher ways of doing things. Thus, the heyokais the human counterpart of the Thunder Beings, who repeatedly dissolve the existing order and fashion a new arrangement from the pieces.

As we transition from the Fourth into the Fifth World, it occurs to me that not all heyokasare Plains Indians. Some have yellow skin, others black, others white. These heyokas of every color are experiencers, and have been changed by their experience of extraterrestrial contact by messengers from the sky (Thunder Beings). As modern-day heyokas, experiencers are charged to live as active witnesses against the ignorance and corruption of the Fourth World, and to live as witnesses of the Fifth World which is emerging. In doing so, modern heyokas honor the Thunder Beings, the Star Nations, who have come as cosmic midwives to help us birth the Fifth World.

And there are others, too, who have not had a personal extraterrestrial encounter, but who are actively helping humanity move towards cosmic citizenship, and helping usher in the Fifth World society. These are heyokas as well.

In Winter, 1996, high in the Rockies west of Fort Collins, Colorado, a Star Visions Conference was convened by Lakota-Dakota spiritual advisor Standing Elk. There numerous speakers talked about our imminent transition from the current Fourth World to a new Fifth World. On the evening of November 9th, Conference ceremonial leadership switched from Native American males to the women. A Cherokee grandmother recited Crazy Horse's prophecy about these very times, as the Old Age (Fourth World) closes. Then, after a series of moving prayers and ritual declarations, the grandmother Elders made a startling official ceremonial declaration: the old era (Fourth World)was ended, and the new age (Fifth World) was being born! A joyous explosion of tumultuous celebration broke out all over the conference auditorium. After a half-hour, the grandmother Elders were finally able to call the conference back to order. The Elders then declared that this new Fifth World would have as its hallmark the attributes of positive feminine energy. They explained that the Fourth World, which had been hallmarked by male energy dominance, had had its time, and made its contributions. Now that World is passing away. The grandmothers pointed out that the Fifth World being born must not be one of separatist female dominance, but rather one of forming a renewed society of women and men as equals. Fifth World society is shaped by the feminine paths of cooperation, nonaggression, inclusiveness, noncompetitiveness, service rather than dominance, use of psychic and spiritual gifts as well as technology, and living in conscious harmony with nature's ways. [5]

The next morning, a major Colorado newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News, carried the story that "a bold group at Estes Park Center [Star Vision Conference] had declared an end to the current era and the beginning of a Fifth Dimension [World] reality." Word of formal declaration of the birth of the Fifth World was beginning to spread out to the wider society. This process will take time. But it is important to realize that the Fifth World has already begun. Just as the Period of Purification which will end the Fourth World has already begun. During this painful but exciting period of transition, each of us must stand up and choose: status quo, or helping usher in the Fifth World.

Finally, permit me to share with you a personal Thunder Being experience, and then my understanding of the role of heyokas in the Fifth World.

Some years ago I did a hanblechia (vision quest) in the desert near Death Valley. During my isolation, I was presented with a image of a Thunderbird formed by the shadow of a cloud on a snowfield atop a nearby mountain. The image remained a long time, then finally dissipated. The skeptical part of my mind at first tried to minimize this event. However, an hour later another identical Thunderbird image appeared on the same snowfield, and persisted quite a while. I could not escape the implication for my vision quest: a calling to the path of the heyoka. Later my encounter with Star People confirmed this heyoka journey.

Any and all of you who choose to work to bring in the Fifth World are in my opinionheyokas. Recognize your calling in your behaviors. And then let's get down to work in fashioning this Fifth World. The negative power of the Fourth World cannot be annihilated. It can only be transmuted,by being confronted by the simplicity and cosmic consciousness of the Fifth World's midwives, the heyokas, you (if you wish). We are not alone in this task. The Thunder Beings (Star Visitors) have come to awaken us, test us, and help us transmute. As heyokas, our role is to confront the Fourth World's negative energies, channel and transmute them into cooperative, spiritual, nonaggressive, inclusive, noncompetitive, service-oriented, dominance-rejecting, psychic, highly-conscious, natural and harmonious energies.

As we do so, and thereby evolve forward, the vibratory rate of the biological and consciousness energy fields within us increases. I have noticed that people of like vibratory rate can "hear" and feel each other's inner consciousness level. And here is a miracle. A higher-vibrating person (or heyoka, if you will) is like a tuning fork, tending to create a higher matching (sympathetic) vibration rate in others around who are functioning at a lower (Fourth World) vibratory/consciousness level. Just like a soprano's high note can cause a crystal glass to vibrate, so heyokas can cause Fourth Worlders around them to tend to increase their vibratory rate. But Fourth Worlders have choices. They can go along with the higher vibratory/ consciousness rate, and transition into the Fifth World. Or they can resist and, like the glass, "shatter", as their outlook is increasingly dissonant with the emerging Fifth World. If they remove themselves from all contact with Fifth World people, they may buy some little time, but in the end they will still have to choose.

As for the heyoka midwives of the Fifth World, recognize that your role is in harmony with your fundamental way of being, and is therefore unavoidable. Therefore, I encourage you to operate at your highest vibration, and help usher in the Fifth World.

Another large component of the Transition to Fifth World is the transforming, or establishing from scratch, new social structures: truly-participatory democracies of ecologically-natural and manageable size; schools for Star Kids, and institutes of higher learning for Star Seed adults and regular humans who want to learn the new ways; transport systems which operate on Zero-Point Energy and incorporate antigravity fields as appropriate; an adjudication system which is fair and transparent and incorporates Star Seed psychic ways of determining the truth; truly-complementary health care incorporating psychic diagnosis and healing along with homeopathic and appropriate allopathic medicine; renewed recreation and entertainment modalities which reflect the family of humankind while valuing regional unique cultural contributions; truly-public utilities which utilize Zero-Point Energy and eco-friendly tapping of water and geothermal sources, and which use composting and biological disposal of waste products strategies; spiritual centers where people can gather for group meditation, group joint psychic exercises to bring help where needed at whatever distance, and to honor Source and Mother Earth being; and interstellar diplomatic and cultural-exchange campuses for interacting with our visiting Cosmic Cousins. The thing of it is: all of these technologies and modalities already exist, at least in prototype, and all we need is to work on insisting they become the model of future building projects, and the goal of renewal and reform projects.

[In an adjacent article, Life In the Emerging Fifth World , Dr. Richard Boylan explores some of the aspects of what this Fifth World which is now being created will look like, and how it may well be ushered in.]

End Notes

1. Waters, F. (1963, 1977). The Book of the Hopi. Penguin Books: New York.

2. The Federal Emergency Management Agency.

3. Waters, ibid.

4. Thunderhorse, I. and Le Vie, D., Jr. (1990). Return of the Thunderbeings. Bear & Co.