connections

 

On the Study of the Universe & Ourselves

 

It is not that the Universe is constructed thus that is its reason for being. But, that it allows us to imagine such a construction.

 

It is not knowledge of the universe Astrologers seek, but Knowledge itself, the knowledge of themselves. The universe contains all matter, we are matter; but we are mind as that which Knows I Am. The universe Is so it must contain mind, since we do who are part of the universe. So, in mind we seek to know the Mind. It is as easy as the body knowing matter in its growth. The mind will grow into Mind in like manner, but not matter. The body does not try to grow, it grows as It Is.

 

When we try to know our mind the universe seems to be the only model to use that is as complex. Plato uses the State as his first model of man and mind but soon needs astronomical analogies for the higher functions of man. The simple fact of ‘sunrise’ and the ‘night sky’ can be used as an analogy to express the equally simple facts of ‘thought’ and ‘being’.

 

It is the mix of simple and complex that allows the astrological interpretation to be of such universal use. The Gods are astronomical in all classical cultures as well as anthropological in their meaning to humans. The heavens reflect our intellect in their many facets and brilliance. That man alone astrologizes is assumed from the earliest times as a means of understanding the difference between man and nature in all its other forms.

 

Plato and later the Platonic Hermetica use the heavens as illustration of the higher things of life. Not only do the Gods come down from Heaven, we can ascend as well, making a communication, as above so below. The Gods are body-less where man is first concerned with bodyness then awareness. The world takes our lives in its tender loving care from before birth until after death not leaving much left for the mind to exercise itself on. The lilies of the fields, the birds of the air, it is left for man to invent worry and care. If the mind needs a reason for flood or fire, it looks to the sky. Rain and scorching summer sun are reason enough to recognize the season and its possible extremes. Farmers eternally worry from wet to dry and eternally look to the sky. In some ways astrologers are farmers of heaven who must on occasion look to earth.

 

The Planetary system of astrology explains various personalities; as each soul is influenced in the journey down through the Spheres of the Seven by gaining more or less of their powers according to the position and inclination of each. Thus no two persons are born with the same personality. As each person gathers a differing amount of the powers there is an instability in the makeup of all the various persons in the society.

 

Ritual Initiation serves to mend these instabilities, to even out each variously mixed personality, creating a peaceful co-existence of opposites in each individual. The elimination of the extremes of passion, either exalted or depressed, allows the individual to blend with others in an ordered and peaceful community. Society is freed from the dangerous friction generated by extreme opposites conflicting violently.

 

The soul is mended by an induced mystical Experience, during Initiation, which allows the soul to temporarily ascend to the spheres and repair the imbalance. Thus relieved of the fear of death and the extremes of personality, the returned soul can operate in the world in a tranquil state, purified of the failings of the un-initiated.

 

That many philosophical and religious systems have used the Planetary scheme, through time and place should not surprise us, “there is nothing new under the sun!” But it is not all vanity if the system reminds us of the Gods and helps to make our passage through this sea of tears less storm-tossed, guiding us through the shoals of life, to a peaceful return to our Celestial haven![1]

 

 

Astrology and Know Thyself

 

When these are the themes a wise man spends his days and nights contemplating, what exaltation they will bring to his heart! He will be able to discern the movements and revolutions of the entire universe. He will gaze at the numberless stars which stud the sky and revolve in unison with its revolutions, each in its appointed place; while seven others, far distant from one another in their highest and lowest positions alike, maintain their own special orbits and follow their own different courses, each with exact and well-defined precision. No wonder this varied spectacle excited the men of old and inspired them to extend their explorations ever further afield!

 

From these researches, too, sprang their investigation into the sources and elements from which every existing thing was propagated and came into being and grew to maturity; and inquiry started into the beginnings of everything there is, whether inanimate or animate, vocal or mute, and into the meaning of life and death, and into the changes and transmutations of one thing into another, and into the origins of the earth, end the forces that maintain its equilibrium, and the abysses through which the waters of the ocean rush upon their courses; and into the force which weighs all things down towards the centre of the universe, the lowest point of the sphere.

 

To men immersed day and night in these meditations comes understanding of the truth pronounced by the God at Delphi, that the mind should Know Itself; and there comes also the perception of its union with the divine mind, the source of its inexhaustible joy. For the contemplation of the power and nature of the gods spontaneously kindles in human beings a passion to attain immortality like theirs; and the soul, when it discerns how all things in the universe are linked one with another by a chain of interlocked destined causes, a process which is governed by reason and intelligence and renews itself to all eternity, begins to nourish the conviction that it could not be true that its own life is just limited to this brief span upon the earth. As a man contemplates this spectacle, and gazes upwards and round about upon every part and region of the universe, how serenely, then, can he look back again at our own mere mental activities, close beside where he is standing.[2]

 

It is a point of the utmost importance to realize that the soul sees by means of the soul alone, and surely this is the meaning of Apollo’s maxim advising that each one should Know Himself. For I do not suppose the meaning of the maxim is that we should know our limbs, our height or shape; our selves are not bodies, and speaking to you, I am not speaking to your body. When Apollo says, “Know Thyself,” he says, “Know thy Soul.” For the body is, as it were, a vessel or a sort of shelter for the soul; every act of your soul is an act of yours. Unless then it had been godlike to know the soul, this maxim, which marks a soul of superior penetration, would not have been attributed to the God.[3]

 

Philosophy! The guide of our lives, the explorer of all that is good in us, exterminator of all evil! Had it not been for your guidance, what would I ever have amounted to - and, what, indeed, would have become of all human life. It was you who brought cities into existence. Before that, people had been scattered far and wide, but you made them come together into communities... Inventor of laws, teacher of morals, creator of order. You were all these things. And now you are my refuge and rescuer... One day spent in obeying your rules is better than an eternity of error. Your aid is the most precious in all the world. It is you who have brought peace into our lives; you who have relieved us of the fear of death![4]

 

 

The Astrologer’s Zodiac as the Way

 

The Astrologers knew the zone of Truth is like the Zodiac, wider than the Way of the leader, exact Truth Itself. The width is to accommodate those who follow, in degrees of opinion, the truth, which leads with exactness the wandering disciples, as the Sun leads the wandering planets. Some, as they catch up with the Sun think they are as important, as they may be, for a short time. Only those who keep close to the Sun and mingle often with Truth are known to those who look for the path of Light and Truth. Of those who avoid the path altogether, the Sun shines not upon them, but for them, as a beacon.

 

The fixed stars are many, those bound by the Zodiac few, those who have movement of their own are seven. These seven travel the path of the Zodiac, interweaving and racing each other in their pursuit of the Sun. Astrologers have noted their complex movements, and as it takes a learned person to note the sameness in their different movements, to find order where to the common person would see only disorder, the learned person is likely to apply the knowledge to problems on earth. The application of the lessons learned from the stars to the world of man is the duty of the person engaging in the art of Philosophical Astrology.

 

The astrology of prediction is based on man’s desires for man. Philosophical Astrology is based on man’s desire for God, and the person who studies this desires God and God alone. To avoid what God has given or to desire more than is given is not to understand the stars, or God, but to understand man and greed. On the other hand the person who looks at the stars as he looks into himself, the great outer limit and the inner one, will see God and Know Himself. A shared Mind is apparent in the fact that Man can know the outer and inner by mind only. So, as God so ordered the universe by Mind, we can see order by mind, it is Mind we share, as Above so Below.[5]

 

 

Man Contemplates the Stars

 

Then moreover has not man’s reason penetrated even to the sky? We alone of living creatures know the risings and settings and the courses of the stars, the human race has set limits to the day, the month and year, and has learnt the eclipses of the sun and moon and foretold for all future time their occurrence, their extent and their dates.

 

And contemplating the heavenly bodies the mind arrives at knowledge of the gods, from which arises piety, with its comrades Justice [Heraclitus frag. 94. The sun will not transgress his measures; otherwise the Furies, ministers of Justice, will find him out!] and the rest of the virtues, the sources of a life of happiness that vies with and resembles the divine existence and leaves us inferior to the celestial beings in nothing else save immortality, which is immaterial for happiness. I think that my expression of these matters has been sufficient to prove how widely man’s nature surpasses all other living creatures; and this should make it clear that neither such a conformation and arrangement of the members nor such a power of mind and intellect can possibly have been created by chance.[6]

 

 

On Planetary Mystical Astrology

 

The Mystical Aspect of the Planetary Astrology is the most important to the knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The Mystical is about the soul, its beginning and ending. The soul is presumed to come into the world from a World Soul, to pass through life and then to return to the World Soul after what we call death.

 

On the journey to earth, begun for reasons known only to God, the soul passes through the Planetary spheres. Each sphere, represented by the appropriate God, bestows on the incoming soul certain powers, or passions, with which the soul may operate in its earthly life. According to the position of each Planetary God the soul receives more or less of the powers, or passions. All individuals are different in character for this reason.

 

In life on earth, which some call the death of the soul, we are subject to the actions of Fate, which corresponds to the fixed stars, and Will, represented by the Planets themselves. From this ‘Hades’, as it were, we are born again in the soul at death and return to our true home. That is, if we had corrected the excesses and deficiencies accumulated on the incoming journey. If we have misused the powers, or passions, granted to our soul by the Gods we will have to answer to them, each of them in order, and be rewarded or punished according to merit. Some hold that progressive rebirths are needed to get the balance correct. Others say that it can be redressed in one lifetime, by correct ritual and practices, or by Grace from beyond us. Either or both may be true, however, it is the Classical Greek conception that we shall examine in detail.

 

The Eastern Religions and Philosophies will be assumed to be a parallel not an exceptional example. The advantage of the Mystical Way for the individual, as well as the society in general, is of great consideration today. The Classical examples reward us with the first and best descriptions of the cure for personal and social ills. That there has never been a long lasting ‘Good’ person or society does not mean that all are totally ‘Bad’, rather that most are ‘Mad’. In other words are personally and socially imbalanced. They have not corrected their excesses nor their deficiencies, in fact like animals, asses, not truly Human. Each animal is given its nature, by the influences of the planets, but cannot change it, as tigers cannot change their stripes. Humans can correct their character defects, by the appropriate knowledge first, and attitudes next, and actions, so as to be complete representatives of the World Soul. When the soul is in order and balance life is automatically Good, things work well for the fortunate ones who have Known Themselves and God as One.[7]