Debunking the Lion’s Gate Portal: Ancient Wisdom or Modern Spiritual Myth?

Every year as August 8 approaches, social media starts buzzing about the Lion’s Gate Portal. You’ll hear that a powerful cosmic portal is opening, Sirius is activating us, manifestations are coming faster, spiritual downloads are pouring in, and we need to take advantage of this magical 8/8 window before it closes.

Sounds pretty impressive. There’s just one little problem. The Lion’s Gate Portal, as people talk about it today, is not some mystical ancient Egyptian tradition. It is a modern spiritual teaching that blends some very real ancient history with astrology, numerology, dated New Age teachings and a little internet magic.

So, let’s untangle what is ancient from what came much later. Sirius was Important to the ancient Egyptians. That Part Is Real. The ancient Egyptians absolutely paid attention to Sirius, the brightest star in our night sky. Its heliacal rising is when Sirius became visible again just before sunrise after being hidden by the Sun’s glare most of the year. This was extremely important because Its appearance was associated with the seasonal cycle surrounding the Nile inundation and marked the Egyptian New Year. Sirius, known to the Egyptians as Sopdet and later to the Greeks as Sothis, also became connected with important religious symbolism. As a side fact here: the helical rising of Sirius occurs on different days according to your latitude.

So, when people say Sirius was important to ancient Egypt, they’re right. But that doesn’t mean the Egyptians were celebrating an 8/8 Lion’s Gate Portal.The thing is though, they weren’t using our modern Gregorian calendar and looking forward to August 8 and waiting for some cosmic doorway to open. That part came much later in our very recent modern times, along with some tall tales of how it connected the ancient Egyptians.

Then came The Sirius Mystery.

An interesting piece of this story appeared in 1976 when Robert Temple published The Sirius Mystery.  Temple explored a supposed belief structure surrounding Sirius among the Dogon people of West Africa and attempted to connect them with much older Egyptian and even Sumerian traditions. He went considerably further, suggesting that ancient people may have possessed surprisingly advanced knowledge of the Sirius star system and proposing that this knowledge have originated through contact with intelligent beings associated with Sirius. Yes, Aliens!  The book presents that the Dogon people preserve a tradition of contact with intelligent extraterrestrial beings from the Sirius star system. Temple’s theory is heavily based on his interpretation of the work of ethnographers Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen. Needless to say, earlier and current scholars do not accept these extraordinary claims as any established history, nor do they think the work of Griaule and Dieterlen on which The Sirius Mystery is based has found no evidence that the Dogon considered Sirius to be particularly important in their belief system.

But the book became extremely influential in New Age circles as proof of an alternative history and the existence of the Dogon tribe’s alien encounters. Suddenly Sirius wasn’t simply a star that had been important to ancient civilizations. It became, increasingly associated with advanced beings, higher knowledge and information coming to humanity from beyond Earth especially among “western spiritual gurus”. Who helped create fertile ground for later teachings about Sirius and energetic gateways. But Temple himself wasn’t teaching the modern 8/8 Lion’s Gate Portal. Even today, theories about the Dogon can be found on numerous websites leading to wide misunderstandings and misinformation among the public about Sirus and Dogon mythology. We live in a time where everyone claims to be an astrologer, healer, reader, shaman, etc. It’s a social media culture where information can spread faster than your local nosey neighbor regardless of its accuracy or truth. It’s easy to look like you know what you’re talking about if you have enough Instagram followers.

So, When Did the Lion’s Gate Show Up?

The Lion’s Gate Portal concept can be traced back to astrologer Ray Mardyks. His article, “Decoding the Hall of Records”, from 1999, is supposedly the first mention of the Lion’s Gate Portal or what he refers to as “Galactic Alignment”, based on the two eclipses happening at the time (a lunar eclipse on August 8th and a solar eclipse on the August 21st). He interprets these as a portal, especially as the solar eclipse was conjunct with Regulus – the star AKA “lion’s heart”. The eclipses back then were in the sign of Leo, hence the term Lion’s Gate Portal. He did not actually coin this term or use it within his article; it came about after along with it being a reoccurring event. He did suggest the August eclipse was preparation for the “Galactic Alignment” whereby the Hall of Records beneath the Sphinx would be revealed. Side Fact, it never happened! https://www.seizethemagic.com/lol/05worldinfo/05key.html

After this, the surge of early New Age teachings about stargates, energetic gateways and planetary activations were circulating before today’s Lion’s Gate schemes became popular. There is one clearly documented version that looks remarkably similar to what we now call the Lion’s Gate appeared online in 2005. Spiritual teacher Celia Fenn published material she described as messages from Archangel Michael referring to an annual Sirius stargate known as the “Lion’s Gate.” She has helped popularize the Lion’s Gate online with articles such as “The Lion’s Gate” and “The Sirius Gateway”. These appeared in the early 2000s and became widely shared throughout the New Age community. Her August 2005 postings also connected this Sirius Stargate with an 8:8 Harmonic and described its energies as peaking during this period. https://spiritlibrary.com/starchild/the-energies-for-july-2005

So, let’s see… We have Sirius. ✔️ We have a stargate. ✔️ We have 8/8. ✔️ We have name “Lion’s Gate”. ✔️ And we have an increase “spiritual energy”. ✔️

That’s getting pretty darn close to the version we see circulating through the spiritual community today. Does that mean Celia Fenn invented the Lion’s Gate Portal? In all honesty we can’t say that with certainty. What we can say is that a recognizable version of the modern Lion’s Gate teaching was being published in New Age circles by 2005. That’s all quite different from saying ancient Egyptians had been celebrating it for thousands of years.

So, How Did Ancient Egypt Get Mixed into It?

Actually, it’s pretty simple. Take the genuine ancient Egyptian importance of Sirius. Add the Sun being in the Western astrological sign of Leo during August (astronomically it’s actually in Cancer but that doesn’t seem to matter either). Add Some modern numerology and the spiritual significance given to the number 8, making 8/8 especially appealing. Then lastly mix in New Age theories about stargates, ascension, energetic downloads and higher dimensions. To finish off our dish, sprinkle ancient Egypt over the whole thing. And voilà. You now have something that sounds extremely ancient. Once blogs, workshops, YouTube videos and eventually social media began repeating the story, it took on a life of its own. In other words, this is a modern spiritual construct inspired partly by ancient symbolism became “The ancient Egyptians celebrated the Lion’s Gate Portal.”

Sorry to burst your bubble but there is no scientifically established cosmic doorway that suddenly swings open every August 8 and closes again when the special energetic window is over.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have an amazing meditation on August 8. It also doesn’t mean you can’t receive information, experience healing, set intentions or feel powerful energy. It simply means we should know the difference between ancient astronomical observations and a modern spiritual explanation of it.

Angels Don’t Need August 8th

This is where my personal work with the angels comes in. In my work with the angels, I have learned something very different.

We can open energetic portals ourselves. “Gasp”! When we consciously work within the angelic realm, we can create an opening for information, healing, knowledge and higher frequencies anywhere and at any time. We don’t need a star to be in a particular place in the night sky. We don’t need 8/8 to appear on the calendar. If you think 8/8 is special for manifesting because of the repetition, then why not 6/6 or 2/2, 3/3 etc.? Where is the same energy for repeating numbers on these dates? Forcing yourself to do something just because it’s 8/8 and everyone else is doing it, may actually hinder manifestation not help it.

And we certainly don’t need the Universe to send us a notification that a mystical door has finally open. This is where I think some spiritual teachings can become unintentionally disempowering. Instead of teaching people how powerful they are anytime, they teach people to wait (thus giving up control and sovereignty).

But we are told to:

“Wait for the portal.”

“Wait for the full moon.”

“Wait for the new moon.”

“Wait for Mercury to stop retrograding.”

“Wait for the energetic shift.”

“Wait for a sign.”

“Wait for the Universe to deliver.”

That isn’t how I teach spirituality. Spirituality is not supposed to be another reason to sit around waiting for something outside of you to change your life.I have learned and teach that the angels can guide you by delivering information personally meant for each of us. They can help you see possibilities you weren’t seeing before. They can help you work with energy in completely different ways. But you still have to participate, you don’t have to sit and wait for a specific date or time.

Enjoy the Lion’s Gate…Just Don’t Give It Your Power

There is absolutely nothing wrong with celebrating “The Lion’s Gate” if you enjoy it or somehow find the symbolism meaningful. But understand what you’re celebrating and understand that:

You aren’t powerless on August 7th and suddenly spiritually supercharged on August 8th.

The universe, angels or the divine don’t work according to our Gregorian calendar.

You can connect today. You can ask for new information today. You can work with higher frequencies today. You can create your own energetic opening today.

You don’t have to stand outside waiting for something or someone else to unlock the door.

You can learn how to open it yourself.