Yeats's esoteric system of history, psychology, and cosmology — received through automatic writing from his wife George, presenting a cyclical theory of history based on interlocking gyres.
The gyre system: history moves in interlocking 2,000-year cycles (gyres) — each civilization at its apex is also beginning its opposite. The primary and antithetical tinctures: the objective (primary) and subjective (antithetical) modes of being cycling through history. The 28 phases of the moon: a typology of human character. The historical prophecy: the Christian era is ending — a new annunciation is coming ('what rough beast'). The scaffolding for all of Yeats's late poetry.
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