Chapter III. The Sun and the Zodiac

The Sun is the centre of all life, force or energy, and represents the Positive and primal fount of all existence. In the Sun are contained all the colours of the solar spectrum. Every form of existence manifesting in the solar system is bathed in the solar rays, from which is drawn the life that is at the centre of its existence, all of which may be summed up in the term " Positive Life."

The Moon represents the Negative influence, her light being that which is borrowed from the Sun, having no light of her own, except that which she collects as a reflector.

These two great principles of positive and negative are symbols of the spirit and soul ; the father and mother. The former is the constructive, energising, and creative principle, the latter the preserving, moulding, and formative condition. The Sun is the root of all things in manifestation, without the Sun there would be no life, light, heat or motion in the physical world. In occultism the Sun is known as the vehicle or body of the Logos of the solar system, therefore as the highest physical and mental influence that we can know, while using our brain consciousness as a means of cognition.

There is but one life, and that the life of the Logos. We, as units, are bathed in that one life. ** In Him we live and move, and have our being." The planetary spirits and the planetary bodies have their own specialised forms of this one life, and, humanity in its turn, holds this life in a separate form while moving in the great whole. The holding of this life, or consciousness, constitutes the individual, who individualises the special ray of the great All-consciousness, and thus knows himself as I, the Ego. It is this specialisation of the rays of consciousness, or solar life, that makes the individuality. This work of building up the individuality, as it is called, has taken vast cycles of time to accomplish, requiring many earth lives and physical embodiments to produce the wonderful results that we are familiar with to-day. Potentially we are sons of God, a spark from the great flame, sent forth from the bosom of the Father to become like unto Him, each to acquire a definite self- consciousness and maintain a separate centre from which the individual creative powers may become manifest. When this great truth is realised, we shall

understand the meaning of the word sacrifice, and turn our thoughts in adoration and devotion to those Great Ones who have guided us in this grand scheme of evolution to the point of self-consciousness.

The Sun may stand to us as a symbol of spirit, and the Moon as matter, the two acting in unison as spirit-matter, or life and form. It we can think of these two factors as positive and negative, we shall find it easier to understand all that follows with regard to planetary influence, as it is called.

The one great power and central principle is the Sun, and all other symbols are but representatives of the modifications of this universal principle. Each planetary system will be, so to speak, a modification of the consciousness of the logos. Each is a centre of life and force in the solar system.

The zodiac, as explained in the last chapter, is divided into twelve equal parts called signs of the zodiac, each containing thirty degrees of space. It is in reality an imaginary circle passing round the earth in the plane of the equator, the first point being called Aries o°. These twelve signs are positive and negative alternately, i;i their nature, and contain a certain specialised influence of their own, each having a lord or ruler from which the nature of its influence is obtained. In the following diagram the nature of these signs are indicated.

We now come to a very important part of our study, in which we consider the Sun's apparent passage through the twelve signs of

the lodiac, caused by the earth's rotation round the Sun. From the Sun's position each month we may judge of the character of each individual, and we shall learn that, more or less, each person born during the period in which the sun passes through a particular sign of the zodiac will take on the characteristics as delineated in the following chapter. This will indicate the character of the Individual then bom, and by the same rule when the Moon is found in these signs at birth the Personality will be described. Later on we shall explain the planetary influence in each sign, and also extend tfie main features of this chapter into greater detail, fully explaining the above diagram.