Chapter XXII. PROGRESSION OF THE HOROSCOPE

PROGRESSION OF THE HOROSCOPE Fate or Freewill

WHEN a chain is subjected to strain, imperfections in any of its links become manifest, and the weakest link will break first. Similarly, in the case of the body, there are certain inherent weak points and these are indicated in the horoscope. Frem the moment of birth we subject the body to a constant strain, and in time the weakness of the various points become manifest as disease. The movement of the planets after birth measures the time when any particular link is liable to break. This motion of the planets in the horoscope is called "Progression." Study and practice of medical Astrology requires knowledge of how to progress the planets in the horoscope, and we shall therefore take up that subject in connection with the message of the stars relative to disease.

When the Sun rises in the East the day is young and the labors allotted to each are still before us. Gradually the Sun progresses across the arched vault of the heavens, and marks the time set for the performance of our various duties, for keeping our appointments, for taking nourishment, rest and recre-

ation ; and when it has run its course through the day and has ceased to illuminate our sphere of action, its absence invites sleep until the dawn of a new day shall present opportunities for continuation of the activities left in abeyance from the previous day. If the Sun remained stationary in any certain point of the sky it would not serve as a time marker but as it is, all events of our lives are fixed by its progression.

The horoscope is a chart of the heavens for the time when the mystic Sun and Life rises and awakes us from the long sleep between two lives ; then we are born in the physical world, to continue the labors of a previous life, to keep the appointment there made with friend or foe ; to reap the joy or bear the sorrow which is the fruitage of our former existence on earth, and as the progression of the Sun marks the changing time of day and year, as it ushers in season after season in orderly sequence and changes the appearance of the Great World, the Macrocosm, so progression of the horoscope, a veritable ' Clock of Destiny, ' registers accurately when the tendencies, shown by the natal horoscope will culminate in events; it measures the periods of prosperity and adversity; it warns of impending temptation and tells from what quarter it will come, thus aiding us to escape if we will but listen to its warning. The natal horoscope shows unerringly weak points in our character or constitution, but the progressed horoscope indicates when previous indulgence of harmful habits is scheduled to bring sorrow or sickness; it tells truthfully

when crises culminate ; thus it warns us to be on the alert at critical moments, and fortifies us in the darkest hour of calamity, with hope of surcease of sorrow and sickness at a definite time, hence the importance of knowing how to progress the horoscope.

But, some may say, if all is thus foreshown, it argues an inexorable destiny decreed by divine caprice, what use is there then of striving, or knowing ; let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. If we were born into this life on earth for the first and only time, to live here for a while and then pass away from this sphere never to return, fate and favoritism, independent of justice would seem to rule. Such cannot be the case, in a world where everything else is governed by law, human existence must also be reducible to a system, and we hold that a reasonable solution of the mystery of life is given by the Twin Laws of Being: the Law of Rebirth and the Law of Causation.

That which has a beginning must have an end, and conversely, that which is without ending can never have had a beginning. If the human spirit is immortal and cannot die, neither can it be born; if it will live to all eternity, it must have lived from eternity, there is no escape from this truth ; p re-existence 'must be accepted if immortality is a fact in nature.

In this world there is no law more plainly observable than the law of alternating cycles, which decrees succession of >• ebb and flow, day and night, summer

and winter, waking and sleeping. Under the same law man's life is lived alternately in the physical world where he sows seeds of action and gains experiences according to his horoscope. These, the fruits of existence here, are later assimilated as soul powers in the spiritual world, birth and death are thus nothing more than gateways from one phase of man's life to another, and the life we now live is but one of a series. The differences of character, nobility or brutality, moral strength or weakness, possession of high ideals or low instincts, etc., are certain signatures of soul power or soul poverty. Finer faculties are the glorious garments of gentle souls wrought through many lives in the crucible of concrete existence by trial and temptation. They shine with a luster which illuminates the way and makes it easier for others to follow. Coarseness of calibre proclaims the young in Life's School, but repeated existences here will in due time smoothe the rough corners, mellow and make them soulful also.

The horoscope shows this difference in the texture of the soul and the aspects indicate how the soul is ripened by the kaleidoscopic configurations of planets in progression, which fan the fires in the furnace of affliction to cleanse and purify the soul of blemish, or brighten the crown of virtue when victory is won, but though the planets show the tendencies most accurately there is one indeterminable factor which is not shown, a veritable astrological "x," — the willpower of the man, and upon that rock astrological

predictions are ever liable to founder; that, at times, is the Waterloo of even the most careful and competent astrologer, yet the very failure of wellfounded predictions is the blessed assurance that we are not fated to do thus and so because our horoscope shows that at a certain time the stellar rays impel us in a given direction. In the final analysis we are the arbiters of our destiny, and it is significant, that while it is possible to predict for the great majority of mankind with absolute certainty that the prediction will be vindicated, because they drift along the, sea of life directed by the current of circumstance, predictions for the striving idealist fail in proportion to his spiritual attainment of will power which rouses him to self assertion and resistance of wrong.

A beautiful little poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox gives the idea in a most pleasing form :

"One ship sails East and another sails West, With the selfsame winds that blow;

And not the gale That determines the way they go.

"Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate, As we voyage along through Life;

That determines the goal, And not the calm or the strife."