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The educational value of astrology centers in the fact
that, more than any other science, it reveals man to himself. No other
science is so sublime, so profound, and so all-embracing. It sets forth
the relation between the Grand Man of the universe and the little god that
is man. "In the image of God created He him." The Big Pattern is repeated
in miniature human forms. God, the macrocosm, and man, the microcosm, are
related and fundamentally one.
Material science has determined to some
extent the physical effects of the rays of the Sun and the Moon.
Speculations have been offered as to effects of rays emanating from other
stellar bodies. Occult science, investigating the subtler forces that
impinge upon emotion and mind, has charted their effects with no less
definiteness than has academic science the reactions of sea and soil,
plant and animal, to the solar and lunar rays.
Revealing Hidden Causes
With this knowledge, we may determine
the astrological pattern of each individual and know the relative strength
and weakness of the several forces operating in each life. To the degree
that we are in possession of such knowledge, we can begin systematic,
scientific character building. We elect times and seasons cosmically
advantageous to unfolding undeveloped qualities, correcting faulty traits,
and eliminating destructive propensities.
The educational value of astrology lies
in its capacity to reveal the hidden causes at work in our lives. It
enters into the intangible, yet ever present and potent, factors in life.
It transcends form. It discovers Spirit. It demonstrates reality. It
touches every walk of life. It counsels the adult in regard to vocation,
the parents in the guidance of children, the teachers in management of
pupils, the judges in executing sentence, the physician in diagnosing
disease, and in similar manner lends aid to each and all, in whatsoever
station or enterprise they may find themselves.
Astrology and astronomy were at one
time a single subject. The soul of things has not always been so largely
hidden to the great mass of people as it has been during the past century
or two of skeptical, materialistic science. We have been so far removed
from the true and inner science of the stars that its higher knowledge has
been practiced either by the illumined few unknown to the world at large
or by charlatans who have secured fragments of the subject and exploited
that little smattering of knowledge by trading upon the ignorance and
superstition of the uninformed.
Ruling Our Stars
Today, astronomy, child of astrology,
after having left its Father's house and wandered into a far and barren
country where it fed on the husks of forms and figures only, has turned
and set its face toward its true home where the feast of spiritual
abundance is awaiting its return. Today, men and women of first rank in
the field of science are dealing with cosmic rays and their influence upon
man and planet. The consciousness of the people is rapidly being prepared
for an awakening on a vast scale to the recognition that, not only do
stellar bodies mark time and tide, but also the impulses of our very
Spirits are subject to their motions. SUBJECT to their motions,
mark, but not SLAVES THERETO. The destiny of every human Ego is to
rule his or her stars; knowledge and obedience are the means of the
stellar forces and obedience to their perfect pattern.
Astrology is the greatest, the most
sublime, and the oldest of all sciences. Its origin antedates history. Its
sources apparently reach back to the time when gods are said to have
walked and talked with men. It would be difficult to assign to primitive
humanity the great invention of an astrological symbology, universally
used throughout the ages and to which foremost seers of many lands and
different religions have looked for pictorial presentation of the
evolution of man and planet. In these glyphs, the understanding eye
discerns the rise and fall of civilizations and the progressive unfoldment
of the world's great philosophies and religions. They constitute keys with
which we may unlock untold treasures in the Bible and the Sacred
Scriptures of all the world.
A Science and a
Religion
Astrology is at once a science, a
philosophy, and a religion. It is metaphysical, occult, and withal
practical. The rudiments may be learned by anyone who can add and
subtract. Its elements may be checked in one's own life with sufficient
exactness to demonstrate the truth of its claim beyond all possibility of
disbelief. An application of the principles it teaches, whether or not
those principles are fully understood, is sufficient to prove their
validity by their fruitfulness in our daily life.
The errors of practicing astrologers
can no more be taken as proof that astrology is not valid than can the
frailties of professing Christians be taken as proof that Christianity is
worthless or the Christ unreal.
Real astrologers, like true saints, are
few and far between. They both represent the fruitage of many lives of
noble endeavor and selfless service. Goodness comes not from creed, but by
living a life of friendliness and usefulness. Wisdom comes, not from
memory-knowledge, but from an age-long extract of experience.
Only those who have purified their
natures and sensitized their vehicles by pure living and high motive can
receive and transmute the lofty spiritual influences impinging upon us
from the heavenly bodies. Lilly, the great seventeenth century English
astrologer, recognizing this, wisely declared to his students that the
purer their lives, the better would their judgments be. By the ear of the
Spirit we may hear the music of the spheres, and by the eye of the Spirit
we may read and interpret their manifold revelations.
Esoteric and Exoteric
Astrology swings our life into wider
orbits. It deals with our earthly span of life as but a segment of the
whole. Our natal chart is what it is, not by an arbitrary decree of Fate,
but as the result of our own past action or inaction. It marks the
magnetic conditions prevailing at the time of our birth and affirms these
to be such as will best favor the acquisition of those lessons most
required during incarnation the beginning. By the operation of this Law of
Consequence, this doctrine of hope responsibility, we recognize the
present to be at once fruitage of the past and seed for the future.
Character becomes destiny.
Astrology, like religion, is divided
into two branches, exoteric and esoteric. The exoteric covers purely
mundane matters. It tells the mariner when best to set out to sea, the
farmer when planting is most propitious, the physician the underlying
causes of disease to be treated, the teacher the basic nature of pupils,
and parents the innate tendencies and capacities of the child. It reveals
the favorable and unfavorable seasons according to which election may be
made.
The esoteric transcends all these outer
concerns. It deals with our inmost nature, with the very principle of
life, the source of our being. It deals not with passing fortunes of the
personality but with qualities of the soul and spiritual development. The
incidents pertaining to the world of form are inconsequential to it. It is
focused instead on that divine element within which is striving toward an
ever increasing realization of its unity with the whole through its
contact with form, time, and space. As such, esoteric astrology becomes a
spiritual science, a universal religion. Only such a science and such a
religion promise to satisfy adequately the united demands of head and
heart of growing, aspiring humanity.
Charting Invisible
Forces
More than any other factor in the world
today, astrology gives promise of leading a materially-minded generation
into conceptions concerning the things of the Spirit. Physical science is
handicapped by its own self-set limitations. Religion is under suspicion
because its ceremonies are too often antiquated and empty. Astrology links
the fundamental elements of science and religion. It is based on
astronomical data. It charts invisible forces. It combines the seen and
the unseen, body and soul, form and Spirit.
When the rapidly quickening spiritual
perceptions of the race will lead it into a serious inquiry of the
celestial scroll, we may expect an era of power and illumination such as
history has never known. No other subject within the entire range of human
knowledge appears to hold for this day and age the possibilities open to
astrologers for helping men to an elevated sense of their own dignity as
citizens of the cosmos, to a greater grasp of universal law, and to
realization that we are eternally secure within the caressing fold of
Infinite Life and Boundless Being.
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