Chapter II. THE MEASURE OF AMENABILITY TO PLANETARY

THE MEASURE OF AMENABILITY TO PLANETARY VIBRATIONS

WHEN judging a horoscope it is of prime importance that we take into consideration the social and racial standing of the individual, for configurations which are of great significance in the horoscope of an educated Caucasian, may mean little or nothing in the figure of a Chinese Coolie and vice versa. Neglect of this factor would inevitably lead to false conclusions, as we shall now explain.

It is a mystic maxim that the lower in the scale of evolution a being is placed the more certainly it responds to the planetary rays, and conversely the higher we ascend in the scale of attainment the more the man conquers and rules his stars, freeing himself from the leading strings of the Divine Hierarchies. This yoke was not, however, placed upon man in order to restrain him needlessly, but just as we in our ordinary life restrain a child from doing things in ignorance, which would hurt it, and maybe cripple it for life, so also are we restrained by the Divine Hierarchies through the planetary aspects in such a manner that we do not hurt ourselves beyond recovery in the Great School of Life.

But coupled with this guidance there is of course the measure of free Will, which grows as we evolve. The child in our midst has really very little free will, it is subjected not only to its parents but to the servants, if such there be in the household, and to everybody with whom it is associated, all exercise control over it for its own good. As the child grows, this measure of restraint is by degrees relaxed, in the course of years the child will learn to exercise its free will. This method has been followed by the Divine Hierarchies in the case of man. Infant Humanity was absolutely guided by Divine rules without having any Will at all, "Thus shalt thou do, or not do," were injunctions laid upon them which must be implicitly obeyed, otherwise the Divine displeasure was at once shown by such strenuous manifestations as appealed to infant humanity's mind, namely, lightning, thunder, earth-quakes and great visitations of plagues. This was for their collective guidance; for individual restraint there were strict laws, commandments and ordinances. Tribute must be paid continually to the Divine Leader and offered up on the altar as sacrifices, and for every offense against the law a certain sacrifice of material goods must be made. Fear was the dominant keynote of that dispensation: for "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of righteousness." This regime was carried on under the planetary conditions of Mars and the Moon. Mars being the home of the dominant Lucifer Spirits, gave to mankind the energy neces-

sary that evolution may be accomplished; this martial energy was of the very greatest importance, particularly of course in the earlier stages. The Moon, which is the home of the Angels, under their Divine Leader Jehovah, gave to infant humanity that childlike brain-mind which is amenable to rulership, and bends itself readily before authority.

These with Saturn were the only planetary rays which affected mankind as a whole during the Lemurian epoch, and if a horoscope were erected for any of the people who lived then, it would be unnecessary to enter the places of the other planets, because they could not respond to their rays. Even today a great part of mankind has not evolved very far beyond that point, a large class, particularly among those we speak of as the lower races, and even the lower classes of our western world are dominated principally by these planetary rays. Under their impulses they act with automatic certainty in a specific manner, and it is possible to predict exactly what they will do under a certain aspect of these planets, because they live entirely in their emotions and are scarcely, if at all, responsive to the intellectual vibrations of Mercury. Neither can they appreciate such emotions as signified by Venus or its octave, Uranus; they respond solely to the lower nature, the animal passions. They move under the impulses of Mars and the Moon respecting sex and sustenance. Their pleasures are of the lowest and most sensual nature, they live like animals. Altogether

in the physical, their creed is eat, drink and be merry. Their desires may be expressed as "wine and women," for they have not yet awakened to the charm of song, neither has beauty had a chance to enchant the savage heart at this stage of development for that comes from the Venus rays which are beyond such people. Woman is to the man of that stage only a beast of burden and a convenience.

Meanwhile "Father Time" represented by the planet Saturn, keeps the score, and wields over them the whiplash of necessity to drive them forward on the evolutionary path, meting out to each the fruits of his labor at the harvest time between lives. When the man has cultivated the savage virtues of bravery, physical endurance, etc., he dreams in the post-mortem existence of new fields to conquer, he sees where he was lacking and why his desires were frustrated because of lack of implements. Gradually the constructive martial ray and the Saturn cunning fertilize the lunar brain which he is building, so that in time he learns to make the crude implements necessary for the attainment of his primitive ambitims. Even today we see the same cunning traits of character, the same crude crafts displayed in and by the lower races for the purpose of irrigating land, mining ores or milling grain. All those earliest implements were the result of the planetary rays of Saturn, Moon and Mars, impinging on the primitive biuin of infant humanity.

A little further along the path of evolution, in

the Atlantean epoch, the Lords of Venus and the Lords of Mercury came to the earth for the purpose of giving a further impulse to the mental and emotional development. It was the task of Venus to combat the lower emotions and raise the brutish animal passion of Mars to the softer and more beautiful Venus-love. She was to add beauty to strength, and to attain that ideal the Lords of Venus fostered the plastic arts, painting and sculpture, these were not taught men of the general public at that time; the ideals which are to be developed in a race are always first taught to the most advanced ones in a mystery temple, and at that time initiation included no spiritual instruction, but consisted of an education in the liberal arts. Sculpture taught how the beautiful may be incorporated in physical form. It called attention to the body and idealized the softly curved lines. The result is now incorporated in our own race body, for it should be thoroughly understood that in a mystery school an ideal is not taught today simply to be forgotten tomorrow or the next generation, but ideals are inculcated so that in time they may become a part of the very life, soul and body of the race. Compare the race body of the Indian, the Bush-man, the Hottentots, etc., with that of the modern civilized man, and you will find that there is indeed beauty added to strength.

It may be objected that we are degenerating compared with what is shown in the Hellenic Arts, but that is positively not so, it is rather that we

have not yet attained to that highest ideal. In ancient Greece the mystery temples occupied a much more prominent position than today, the beautiful form was idolized to the detriment of the mind notwithstanding the fact that she had a Plato and a Socrates. The Lords of Mercury who had charge of the development of mind, at the time when the Lords of Venus exercised their great influence on the emotions, had not then been able to make a universally strong impression on the early humanity. We are well aware even today that it hurts to think, but it is easy to follow the emotions. At the present time the middle class of the west is much further advanced than the ancient Greeks because of the influence of these two planetary rays in our lives. Woman naturally excels in the highly imaginative Venus faculty, because of her part in th& creative function which aids in moulding the body of the race. On that account her figure has the1 graceful curves which naturally express beauty, while man has the worldly-wise intellect fostered by the Lords of Mercury, and is the exponent of reason, the creative agency of physical progress in the world's work.