I don’t claim that this is definitively the reason for the continued popularity of Christmas - I am merely presenting this to you as an idea that you may wish to consider, and one that you may never have given thought to before.
After all, we have many festivals of celebration throughout the year but Christmas seems to dominate across the world even in many non-Christian countries.
I spent years playing with the following ideas and still do the following types of calculation from time to time if I am dealing with events for the general public or large groups. I always seem to get favorable results in those cases. I am still trying to figure out for sure whether it is my belief in the system that is creating those positive effects or whether the background effects from these cycles are causing them when applied to large groups of people.
Because I’ve spent so long playing with this stuff, I could drone on and on about this subject but instead I’m going to present this method as briefly as possible, without leaving out anything essential, and leave you to play with it and expand on it yourself if you wish to.
Here we go…
Firstly, read my answer here about how the number 7 seems to lie at the basis of so much in our world and notice the book that is referenced there if you really want to begin to investigate this subject more deeply.
Now, as an introductory example, let’s consider that the Inward Quest website is a person (you can try this with your own birthday too and the principles will still apply).
Inward Quest was first announced to the public on October 4, 2009 so this can be considered when it was officially born.
Our society seems to place a lot of emphasis on birthdays. The following might explain why.
Now a solar year has 365.25 days in it.
We are going to assume that every cycle in the world goes through seven distinct phases so let’s identify what those phases are for Inward Quest.
365.25 days divided by 7 = approximately 52 days per cycle phase
Let’s identify and number those cycle phases.
Remember that we are starting for Inward Quest on Oct 4 and changing phase every 52 days.
Inward Quest - yearly cycle phases
- Cycle Phase 1 - starts Oct 4
- Cycle Phase 2 - starts Nov 25
- Cycle Phase 3 - starts Jan 16
- Cycle Phase 4 - starts Mar 9
- Cycle Phase 5 - starts Apr 30
- Cycle Phase 6 - starts Jun 21
- Cycle Phase 7 - starts Aug 12
…and then next year’s Cycle Phase 1 starts on the birthday again, Oct 4
First thing to notice from this is that I am saying that we should notice something different about the way people behave on the Inward Quest website during each of these cycle phases. We will shortly be entering Cycle Phase 3 (on Jan 16).
We have been in Cycle Phase 2 for a few weeks now. Have you noticed anything different about the personality of the website now compared to how it was from Oct 4 to Nov 25?
I’ll leave it to you to think about it and also to see if you notice anything different as we move into new cycle phases - it usually takes at least a few days for the energies from a new Cycle Phase to become obvious so don’t expect immediate changes on those dates.
Now let’s provide some detail for what is going on in those cycle phases.
I’m going to propose here that each of those phases represents a different “flavor” of energy that is dominant at that time and I’m going to label these “flavors” with the names of planets. I’m not saying this approach has anything to do with the planets.
The names are actually unimportant. I could name them after the colors in the rainbow, the days of the week, or after Snow White’s seven dwarfs, but by naming them after astrological planets I can save you a lot of time and trouble in deciphering what each phase means.
(Just as an aside, have you ever realized that the days in the week are also named directly after our planets? Sunday = Sun day , Monday = Moon day , Tuesday = Mardi (in French) = Mars day , Wednesday = Mercredi (in French) = Mercury day , Saturday = Saturn day . Check on Wikipedia for the origin of each day name and you’ll see they all map correctly to the table below)
Cycle phases vs planetary descriptions
- Cycle Phase 1 - Sun
- Cycle Phase 2 - Moon
- Cycle Phase 3 - Mars
- Cycle Phase 4 - Mercury
- Cycle Phase 5 - Jupiter
- Cycle Phase 6 - Venus
- Cycle Phase 7 - Saturn
Now go to this Wikipedia page describing planets in astrology (or you can do this with any decent astrology textbook too) and look at the descriptions for each planet, especially each paragraph that contains the astrological description for each planet.
For example, for Venus, it says…
Astrologically Venus is associated with the principles of harmony, beauty, balance, the feelings and affections, and the urge to sympathize and unite with others. It is involved with the desire for pleasure, sensuality, personal possessions, comfort and ease. It governs romantic relations, marriage and business partnerships, sex (the origin of the words ‘venery’ and ‘venereal’), the arts, fashion and social life.
And for Mars, it says…
Astrologically Mars is associated with confidence and self assertion, aggression, sexuality, energy, strength, ambition, and impulsiveness. Mars governs sports, competitions and physical activities in general.
What I am saying is that the “flavor” of each cycle phase can be worked out from looking at the descriptions for each planet. Remember again that I am not saying the planets have an effect, I am saying that there are seven archetypal energy types and, conveniently, the art/science of astrology has identified them for us.
If you want to start getting more detailed, you could say that modern astrology operates on a 12 phase cycle system - the 12 zodiac signs - while what is being proposed here is a 7 phase cycle system. The link between the two is the same link as having seven white keys on a piano keyboard making an octave (the eighth note is just the first note again) while having 5 black keys (semi-tones) interspersed between them… 7 + 5 = 12
Back to the Inward Quest cycle phases now…
Let’s consider Cycle Phase 3 running from Jan 16 to Mar 9 every year for the website. This is now identified as a Mars phase. From the description of Mars, we can see that Mars has qualities of confidence, energy, strength, aggression etc.
What I am saying is that during that time, it will be noticeable that the website has those qualities. I can’t say exactly how that will manifest. It’s a bit like a weather forecast, it’s the general conditions at the time. We may find that the site grows massively during that period, we may find that people start feeling more argumentative during that period, I can’t say for sure. But watch out during that period and see if you notice anything different.
Now (finally) we know enough to tackle the question of Why is Christmas so popular?
There’s one assumption I have to give you here (otherwise explaining it will make this long answer even longer) and that assumption is this one: The World’s birthday is March 21 every year.
Let’s compute the Cycle Phases for The World as before.
The world - yearly cycle phases
- 1 - Mar 21 - Sun
- 2 - May 12 - Moon
- 3 - Jul 3 - Mars
- 4 - Aug 24 - Mercury
- 5 - Oct 15 - Jupiter
- 6 - Dec 6 - Venus
- 7 - Jan 27 - Saturn
Christmas Day is December 25.
Which cycle phase is it in? → Cycle Phase 6
Which planetary description applies to this phase? → Venus
Look at the Venus description above. Notice how many qualities of pleasure, fun, relationships etc this cycle phase has.
Now you understand why Christmas is so popular.
Yes, the idea that I am proposing is really that simple. But let’s just go one step even further.
Let’s take Cycle Phase 6 for the world and split that cycle into 7 phases…so that is splitting approximately 52 days by 7 = smaller cycle phases of approximately 7 days
Now we get…
The world - cycle phase 6
- 1 - Dec 6 - Sun
- 2 - Dec 13 - Moon
- 3 - Dec 20 - Mars
- 4 - Dec 28 - Mercury
- 5 - Jan 4 - Jupiter
- 6 - Jan 12 - Venus
- 7 - Jan 27 - Saturn
Notice that December 25 lies in the Mars cycle phase (of the larger Venus cycle phase).
Does anyone else notice the aggressiveness of, say, Christmas shoppers from December 20 onwards? Maybe it’s not just about the stress of the build-up to Christmas, maybe there is something more to it? Also, perhaps this Mars cycle phase is why we overindulge so much on Christmas Day? (Mars has those impulsive and aggressive qualities, remember?)
I could even suggest now, based upon all this, that if you wanted to rebrand and relaunch Christmas to make it a genuinely harmonious and peaceful festival then Christmas Day should be moved to sometime between January 12 to January 27…the Venus cycle phase (of the larger Venus cycle phase).
The Chinese New Year celebrations sometimes fall into this date range…notice how happy and peaceful they generally are then?
I stumbled across this on PsiTek which I thought tied in very nicely with these ideas…
Saturn represents the formative principle.
Jupiter represents the spiritual principle.
Mars represents the aggressive principle.
Sun represents the vital principle.
Venus represents the love principle.
Mercury represents the intellectual principle.
Moon represents the emotional principle.