Greybeard
03-08-2011, 01:06 AM
We have seen how the astrological Signs were developed out of need for an orderly system of measurement. The sky was divided into 360 degrees, each degree corresponding roughly to the daily motion of the Sun against the backdrop of the fixed stars in his annual journey around the celestial circle (the ecliptic -- or plane described by the orbit of the Earth around the Sun -- is the apparent path of the Sun around the Earth). The 360-degree circle then was divided into 12 signs comprising exactly 30 degrees each.
The key idea in the paragraph above I have underlined: orderly system. The motions of the heavens, more than any other natural phenomenon, display order. The motions of the whole sky, and particularly of the wandering bodies, the planets, are highly predictable. Once a planetary orbit has been studied and plotted for a long enough period, the position of the planet can be determined with high accuracy for a couple of thousand years before or after the present moment. The philosophical implication of this fact is that we live in an ordered universe, quite the opposite of what we perceive in our immediate environment here on Earth, which appears to us to be disordered and chaotic. A close study of astrology shows that events on Earth are much more orderly than meets the eye.
Astrology is the study of the correspondences between celestial facts (things in the sky that we can objectively observe and measure) and human affairs, here on Earth. The ordered motions of the planets are seen to correspond very closely to the nature and timing of events in human affairs.
My primary interest, as far as using astrology goes, is the human psyche, that is, the mind or soul of a person. I therefore write about astrology from that viewpoint; the same principles apply to any other application of astrology.
If the universe is ordered and man is a part of the universe, then the psyche must also be ordered. The apparent chaos we observe in the daily events surrounding us turn out to be, on closer examination, as orderly as the heavens above. If we observe people closely and long enough, we see that the life and creations of that person are in fact nothing more than projections of the inner self into the outer world.
I will here relate the single event that precipitated that view of things. When I first read the book Think on These Things by Jeddu Krishnamurti, I said to a friend that the man must have a very powerful Uranus, or perhaps Aquarius, in his horoscope. His principle thesis in the book is "internal revolution". At the time I knew nothing of Krishnamurti other than what was in his book. A few months later I stumbled across his horoscope. Lo and behold!, he has Aquarius Rising and the preeminent planet in his horoscope is a Retrograde Uranus, in Scorpio and the 9th House (the house of religion and philosophy). As I thought about this "coincidence" I understood that a man's works are simply a projection of his inner self. Further, just as a sidelight, one of the two primary theses in his book is what he calls "the Mirror of Relationships"; he has a very powerful opposition of Moon (reflection and mirrors) to Venus (relationships). The opposition aspect is one of "consciousness", so that through relationships of all kinds Krishnamurti was able to "see himself reflected" in them.
We see this same principle of projection of the inner self into the outer world (our actions, surroundings and creations) in the horoscope of Sigmund Freud, whose horoscope is dominated by a retrograde Mars. Is it any wonder that the man created a psychology whose underpinning is sex? There is more to it than that, of course, but that is the picture in a nutshell.
The point is that you and I and all of us are driven by forces beyond our control to project the whole of the inner self into the world. We are first and foremost creative beings, and what we create is the image of ourselves projected into everything we touch.
Another example of this same idea in a different form may help us see how this works. The world was shocked a few years ago when the planet Pluto was thrown out of the Royal Order of Planets by a group of Pilsner-swilling astronomers congregated in Prague. Most laymen and even many "astrologers" don't seem to understand that this was nothing more than the astronomers doing some house-cleaning; their science had become very disordered due the flood of new discoveries made recently and they needed to reclassify things to accommodate those discoveries. But what is most interesting here is that the intrinsic nature -- astrologically -- of Pluto is "the outcast". He is the outsider, the rejected. His fate in Prague was foretold in his very nature. It was simply the projection of Pluto's "inner self" into the outer world that reduced him to the status of planetoid. He doesn't care. He's happy in his solitary life at the outer reaches of the solar system. He is just being in his God-given nature and we might learn something from him.
The planets do not "influence" us. They simply portray us; they describe our inherent nature, and it is that nature which creates our reality and role in life. The order of the universe is inherent in our own psyche, and it is the psyche that projects itself outward into the world of our immediate reality, that becomes manifest as conditions and events and creations in our personal universe.
Carl Jung, in his introduction to Richard Wilhelm's book on the I Ching, says that "whatever is born of a given moment is of the nature of that moment". I would carry that a step further; "Whatever is born of a given moment is that moment". We are the embodiment of a cosmic moment, the Spirit made flesh. Knowing this we can be content to be what we are (we cannot be otherwise) and, like Pluto, experience the divinity in our solitary pilgrimage at the outer reaches of the solar system.
The key idea in the paragraph above I have underlined: orderly system. The motions of the heavens, more than any other natural phenomenon, display order. The motions of the whole sky, and particularly of the wandering bodies, the planets, are highly predictable. Once a planetary orbit has been studied and plotted for a long enough period, the position of the planet can be determined with high accuracy for a couple of thousand years before or after the present moment. The philosophical implication of this fact is that we live in an ordered universe, quite the opposite of what we perceive in our immediate environment here on Earth, which appears to us to be disordered and chaotic. A close study of astrology shows that events on Earth are much more orderly than meets the eye.
Astrology is the study of the correspondences between celestial facts (things in the sky that we can objectively observe and measure) and human affairs, here on Earth. The ordered motions of the planets are seen to correspond very closely to the nature and timing of events in human affairs.
My primary interest, as far as using astrology goes, is the human psyche, that is, the mind or soul of a person. I therefore write about astrology from that viewpoint; the same principles apply to any other application of astrology.
If the universe is ordered and man is a part of the universe, then the psyche must also be ordered. The apparent chaos we observe in the daily events surrounding us turn out to be, on closer examination, as orderly as the heavens above. If we observe people closely and long enough, we see that the life and creations of that person are in fact nothing more than projections of the inner self into the outer world.
I will here relate the single event that precipitated that view of things. When I first read the book Think on These Things by Jeddu Krishnamurti, I said to a friend that the man must have a very powerful Uranus, or perhaps Aquarius, in his horoscope. His principle thesis in the book is "internal revolution". At the time I knew nothing of Krishnamurti other than what was in his book. A few months later I stumbled across his horoscope. Lo and behold!, he has Aquarius Rising and the preeminent planet in his horoscope is a Retrograde Uranus, in Scorpio and the 9th House (the house of religion and philosophy). As I thought about this "coincidence" I understood that a man's works are simply a projection of his inner self. Further, just as a sidelight, one of the two primary theses in his book is what he calls "the Mirror of Relationships"; he has a very powerful opposition of Moon (reflection and mirrors) to Venus (relationships). The opposition aspect is one of "consciousness", so that through relationships of all kinds Krishnamurti was able to "see himself reflected" in them.
We see this same principle of projection of the inner self into the outer world (our actions, surroundings and creations) in the horoscope of Sigmund Freud, whose horoscope is dominated by a retrograde Mars. Is it any wonder that the man created a psychology whose underpinning is sex? There is more to it than that, of course, but that is the picture in a nutshell.
The point is that you and I and all of us are driven by forces beyond our control to project the whole of the inner self into the world. We are first and foremost creative beings, and what we create is the image of ourselves projected into everything we touch.
Another example of this same idea in a different form may help us see how this works. The world was shocked a few years ago when the planet Pluto was thrown out of the Royal Order of Planets by a group of Pilsner-swilling astronomers congregated in Prague. Most laymen and even many "astrologers" don't seem to understand that this was nothing more than the astronomers doing some house-cleaning; their science had become very disordered due the flood of new discoveries made recently and they needed to reclassify things to accommodate those discoveries. But what is most interesting here is that the intrinsic nature -- astrologically -- of Pluto is "the outcast". He is the outsider, the rejected. His fate in Prague was foretold in his very nature. It was simply the projection of Pluto's "inner self" into the outer world that reduced him to the status of planetoid. He doesn't care. He's happy in his solitary life at the outer reaches of the solar system. He is just being in his God-given nature and we might learn something from him.
The planets do not "influence" us. They simply portray us; they describe our inherent nature, and it is that nature which creates our reality and role in life. The order of the universe is inherent in our own psyche, and it is the psyche that projects itself outward into the world of our immediate reality, that becomes manifest as conditions and events and creations in our personal universe.
Carl Jung, in his introduction to Richard Wilhelm's book on the I Ching, says that "whatever is born of a given moment is of the nature of that moment". I would carry that a step further; "Whatever is born of a given moment is that moment". We are the embodiment of a cosmic moment, the Spirit made flesh. Knowing this we can be content to be what we are (we cannot be otherwise) and, like Pluto, experience the divinity in our solitary pilgrimage at the outer reaches of the solar system.