Chapter II. THE MEASURE OF AMENABILITY TO PLANETARY（续 1）

We always long for, admire, and aspire to what we lack. In days of savagery when kicks and cuffs were her daily fare woman longed for a caress from her lord. The Venus ray gave her beauty and made her an adept in the feminine arts which have conquered the masculine heart, so that now he plays the

role of protector on the plea that woman is not mentally competent ; meanwhile he is becoming that which he admires in her; he is more gentle and kind, Venus is conquering Mars, but the Mercury delusion of intellectual superiority needs another influence to conquer it. And this woman is now attracted by the aspiration. As she mastered martial brutality by Venus beauty, so also, will she free herself from Mercurial bondage by Uraman intuition.

To primitive man, driven by the whip-lash of Saturnine necessity, when not by the animal lust and passions of Mars and the Moon the World looks gloomy. Fear is the key-note of his extistence; fear of animals ; fear of other men ; fear of the naturt force.s; fear of everything around him. He must «ver be watchful and on the alert, vigilance is eternally the price of safety. But when evolution makes him amenable to the influence of Venus and Mercury, they soften his emotions and brighten the mentality; he begins to feel love and reason as factors in life. The Sun also begins to brighten his outlook upon life, and sunshine in the nature of man during this phase of his evolution partly dispels the cloud of Saturn. Thus, by degrees, as he evolves and becomes responsive to the music of the spheres, one ; string after another in the celestial harp strikes the kindred chord in the human soul and makes him amenable to its vibrations, so that as a tuning fork which is struck, awakens the music in other tuning forks of even pitch within reasonable distance, the

planets in our solar system have in evolutionary succession struck various chords that have found an echo in the human heart.

But the strings on the celestial Lyre of Apollo are not all in harmony, some are in actual discord, and while man responds to some he must necessarily remain, at least partially, unresponsive to others. In fact, before it is possible to respond perfectly to the rays of Venus it is necessary for man to conquer Mars to a considerable degree, and bring him under control so that certain undesirable martial traits in his nature will be kept in the background, while others, which may be valuable, are retained. The Venus love which is willing to give all for the loved ones cannot dwell side by side in the heart with the Mars ray which demands all for self. Therefore the savage must learn to conquer himself in a certain measure ere he may become the more civilized family man of modern times. Under the unrestrained passionate rays of Mars and the Moon, parents bring children into the world and leave them to take care of themselves almost as animals do, for they are products of animal passion. The females are bought and sold as a horse or cow or else taken by force and carried away. Even so late as the mediaeval dark ages, the knight often carried away his bride by force of arms, practically in the same manner that the male animals battle for the possession of the female at mating time.

Thus we see that the first step toward civiliza-

tion requires that a man conquer one or more of the planets to a certain degree at least. Unbridled passion such as generated by the primitive Mars rays is no more permissible under the regime of modern civilization, neither is the tenet that "might is right" any longer admissible, save in wars when we return to barbarism. The Mars quality of physical prowess, that at one time made it a virtue to attack others and take away property, is no longer admired in the individual. It is punished by various means, according to law, though it is still effective as far as nations are concerned, who go to war under this primitive impulse in order to secure territorial aggrandizement. However, as said, Mars has been conquered to a great degree in civil and social life in order that the Venus love might take the place of the Mars passion.

As previously noted, the children of primitive man Avere left to their own resources, as soon as they had been taught to defend themselves in physical warfare. With the advent of Mercury another method is observable. The battle of life nowadays, is no longer fought with physical weapons alone. Brain, rather than brawn determines success. Therefore the period of education has been lengthened as mankind advanced, and it aims principally at mental accomplishments because of the Mercurial rays which accompany the Venus development of modern civilization. Thus man sees nature from a more sunny side when he has learned to respond to the

Sun, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Moon and Saturn, even if only in a very slight measure.

But although these various stages of evolution have gradually brought man under the dominance of a number of planetary rays, the development has been one-sided, for it has aimed to foster interest solely in things over which he has a proprietary right: liis business, his house, Ms family, 7m cattle, farm, etc., are all vitally important, and must be taken care of. His possessions must be increased, if possible, no matter what happens to the possessions, family, etc., belonging to anyone else, that is not his concern. But before he can reach to a higher stage of evolution it is necessary that this desire to appropriate the earth, and retain it for himself if possible, must give way to a desire to benefit his fellowmen. In other words, Egoism must give way to Altruism, and just as Saturn by wielding the whip lash of necessity over him in his primitive days brought him up to his present point of civilization, so also Jupiter, the planet of altruism, is destined to raise him from the state of man to superman where he will come under the Uranian ray in respect to his emotional nature, where passion generated by Mars will be replaced by Compassion, and where the childlike consciousness of Lunar origin is replaced by a Cosmic consciousness of the Neptunian ray. And therefore the advent into our lives of the Jupiterian ray marks a very distinct advance in the human development. As taught in the Rosicrucian

Cosmo-Conception, we are to advance from our present Earth period into the Jupiter period, and therefore the Jupiterian ray marks that high stage of altruism which will then be a prominent factor in our relations, one with the other, and it will be readily understood that before we can really respond to the rays of Jupiter we must in a measure cultivate altruism, and conquer the Egoism that comes through the Mercurial reasoning power. We have learned to conquer some of the phases of Mars and the Moon, we may have also learned to conquer some of the lower phases of Mercury and Venus; the more we have overcome these the better we shall be able to respond to the highest vibratory forces emanating from these planets; yes, if we strive earnestly we shall some day be able to overcome even the highest stage of the Venus love, that always attaches itseli to an object which is owned by us. We love our children because they are ours ; we love our husbands and wives because they belong to us; we take pride, Venusian pride, in their moral characteristics or Mercurial pride in their accomplishments, but Christ set a higher standard: "Unless a man leave his father and mother he can not be my disciple." The idea that we should neglect our fathers and mothers or that we must hate them in order to follow Him was far from His mind, of course, but father and mother are only bodies; the soul that inhabits this body of the father and mother is to be loved, not the mere physical garment. Our love should be the

same whether the person 'is old or young, ugly or beautiful. We should look for the beauty of the soul, for the universal relationship of all souls and not mind so much the relationship of the bodies. Who is my mother and my brothers, said the Christ, and pointed to his disciple.s, those who were at one with Him in that great work. They were closer to Him than anyone else could be, because of the mere physical relationship. This attitude constitutes an upward step from the Venus love which places the emphasis on the physical garments of the loved ones and leaves out of consideration the soul that is within. The Jupiterian love on the other hand takes cognizance only of the soul, regardless of the body it wears. The Mercurial or reasoning phase of mentality is also changed by response to the altruistic Jupiter. Cold calculation is out of the question. One who feels the expansive ray of Jupiter is big hearted, first, last and all the time, and in every respect ; big hearted where his emotions are concerned, his love; big hearted where all the things of the world are concerned. "A jovial fellow," is an apt expression. He is welcomed and loved by everyone he meets because he radiates not the common selfishness, but a desire to benefit others that breeds in us a feeling of trust, diametrically opposed to the sense of distrust we instinctively feel when we come in contact with a Saturn-Mercury man.