Studies in Astrology
by
Elman Bacher
Volume VIII
Chapter VI
Fraternity
FRATERNITY is parallelity in human relationship. In
our endeavor to decrystallize our congestions on "being different from other
people," let us focus our attention now on "how like unto other people we
really are" by meditating on the Great Mandala called the Abstract Horoscope:
a twelve-housed wheel with the symbols of the signs on the cusps starting with
Aries as the Ascendant, and the symbols for the planets placed in the houses
corresponding to their signs of dignity. The fraternity of all human beings to
each other is here illustrated in so far as it is the entire essential
astrological symbology of all human beings. It is interesting--and
illuminating--to note that physical sex, absolute evolutionary development,
and "nationality, creed, and color" are not pictured in this design. The
above-mentioned qualifications are temporary levels of expression by which man
separates himself from his fellows through his feelings of inferiority and
superiority, betterness and worseness, higherness and lowerness and, in
general, "differentness." Man differs from his fellows, in any real sense,
only in the dimension of time; some of us leave the level of primitivity a
little sooner than others and, correspondingly some attain liberation sooner.
But, we all travel the same road and we all fulfill the same evolutionary
requirements as expressions of the idea "Humanity." When we clearly realize
that our reactions of fear and hatred toward a "wrong-doer and his deed" are
simply--repeat simply--memory-stimuli of our commitments of that deed in the
past, then we recognize that condemnation of a "fellow wrong-doer" is the
perversion of what should be fraternal love; he is fraternal to us in so far
as he--and we--are parallel to each other in negative exercise of
consciousness--the releasing of our vibratory resources in ignorance of
principle.
Actually, is not "condemnation of a wrong-doer" a
protest of the consciousness in being made to see an outpicturing of its
"naughty childhood?" We tend to blame ourselves, at times, when we remember
mistakes or foolishness that we have done in past years; does not
consciousness, then, "blame itself" when we exercise a reaction of intense
negative feeling against something done by another person? Our consciousness
is one with that of our brother/sister--essential resource for the expression
of the one love and the one wisdom of our Father-Mother-God. We are parallel
to each other in being expressions of an idea of our bi-polar parent; the
masculine/feminine of each human being is, actually, what is meant by the
brotherhood/sisterhood of humanity.
We are parallel with other human beings in our
patterns of similarity in suffering. Define "suffering" as "the way in which
we involuntarily decrystallize our congestions in consciousness."
We do not consciously invite suffering--the whole
impulse of the human nature is to avoid pain and trouble to the utmost; but
since we do not consciously exercise our capacities for growth and unfoldment,
Life has its way--through rhythmic stimulus of our vibratory patterns--to
alert us to needed correctives for the better releasement of our spiritual
potentials. Suffering is the stimulus of a vibratory congestion and a
parallelity of vibratory conditioning is found in the "doer of the wrong deed"
and the one who reacts to the deed with pain; the former is functioning
dynamically, the latter functions reflectively; both, in composite, represent
the masculine/feminine of the congested pattern. Should not the "parallelity
in suffering" be the ground on which we establish our most acutely sensitive
sympathy with fellow human beings? What about the person who exacts revenge as
a retaliation against a "wrong done unto him?" Is he really "balancing the
account in justice?" His commitment of the same--or a similar--deed ties him
in parallelity to the one through whom he experienced his hurt--the congestion
is intensified and both are further "imprisoned." The negative condition in
the basic consciousness is emphasized thereby and both will have to face a
more drastic "recrystallization" in due time until the parallelity is mutually
harmonized through love-wisdom.
Students ask: "Why for goodness sake, is the third
house called the house of brothers and sisters?" Let us see what two copies of
the Great Mandala have to say:
Turn one so that the fourth cusp (Cancer) takes the
place of the Ascendant; turn the other one so that the tenth cusp (Capricorn)
takes the place of the Ascendant. In the first, Gemini is the twelfth house-
sign; in the second, Sagittarius is the twelfth house-sign. Basic keyword of
the twelfth house-sign-pattern is redemption of unfulfilled ideals; Gemini is
the ninth--Wisdom--house-sign from Libra, the symbol of feminine
complementation; Sagittarius is the ninth house-sign from Aries, symbol of
masculine complementation. Who makes incarnation possible? The Mother (Cancer)
and the Father (Capricorn), as the bipolar generative expression of life. In
other words, then, why does a woman become a mother and why does a man become
a father?
(1) To contribute to the redemption of human life by
making possible the incarnation of more "Lights;"
(2) To extend their scope of knowledge and
understanding through their stewardship of their begotten;
(3) In present female and male expression to "ignite"
knowledge-resources derived from wisdom when each was incarnate as the
opposite sex;
(4) To experience "karmic return"--the agency of
redemption--by fulfilling karmic relationship-patterns through the experience
chapter of parentage--thereby elasticizing the expression of their Love-Wisdom
resources through a variation of polarity and gender, in an extension (from
the past) of the dimension of Time.
Since the third house is the "twelfth-house-of-the-
fourth-house," we see that the brothers and sisters (replicas, in part, of the
masculinity-femininity of both parents) on the inner planes overshadow the
embryonic seeds in the mother's body. The impregnating action of the father
makes this "contact-ignition" possible and those "in the third house" emerge
(Cancer-Capricorn are cardinal signs) from the invisible into the visible
through incarnation.
In the Great Mandala, the sign Gemini is the "root"
of the fraternal diameter, being in the first quadrant of the wheel. Its
ruler, Mercury--the intellectual faculty--is neutral as far as gender is
concerned; the sign is third of the air-trine initiated by Libra, therefore
"reflective" in quality. The mythological Mercury transmitted messages from
the gods to human-beings; are not our brothers/sisters messengers from
father/mother God to us? It is through our childhood relationships with
brothers and sisters--in the physical sense--that we receive our first
"messages" or relationship-parallelity and acquaintance with the opposite sex.
"Brothers and sisters" also means "fellow-students," "playmates" and
"childhood companions:" the "togetherness of children" in the early years of
incarnation is the root of "togetherness of men and women" in adult life; the
relationship of ourselves with our physical brothers and sisters is a focused,
karmic expression of this parallelity. Also, the "neutral" quality--or
"androgyny"--of Mercury as ruler of Gemini is symbolic of the passionless-ness
(for the most part) of our affections for fellow-children; boys and girls play
together and associate simply as "kids"--it is not until the emergence of the
passional qualities in adolescence and sexual recognition of the opposite sex
that the "differences of male and female" are perceived in a marked way.
Now--an extended approach to the third house
(referring to the Great Mandala).
It is the first relationship house in the cycle of
the wheel starting with the Ascendant; consequently, it represents our
"childhood-relationships" in any experience level. As long as we are new to an
experience-pattern, we are children, regardless of how old we may be
chronologically. A person who starts a study of anything is a "child" in that
particular endeavor. Adults who have congestions to the third house, to the
sign Gemini and to the planet Mercury are persons who have difficulty in
adjusting to a new mental horizon--and very likely will experience
difficulties in adjusting to relationships with fellow-students. In adult
years, there may be an "accumulation of negatives" (rigidity of opinions,
false-pride, envies, and jealousies, inferiority and superiority complexes,
etc.) which have accrued during the years of growth. When such an adult is
moved--for whatever reason--to "inaugurate a new learning," these accrued
negatives will emerge from his subconscious through his "fraternal contact"
with fellow students; he may find his going "a little tough" because of his
negative reactions to others and consequently find that the actual mental
exercise is difficult. He may blame his age or his not having studied anything
for a long time, but contact with other people is the ignition of negatives,
and careful observation may serve to prove that his feelings of "un-
fraternity" are really the root of his difficulties. (The author's experience
in the war--paralleled by that of many other men--bears this out: being
ordered to carry out a line of work that was completely new and unfamiliar,
the third-house-Gemini-Mercury congestions brought about feelings and
reactions of great disturbance and unpleasantness toward fellow-workers; this
made the adjustment to the new work very difficult; when, however, adjustment
to others was established in friendliness and familiarity--brotherhood--the
adjustment to duty-fulfillment became one of harmony and actually, of
pleasure.)
The exercise of our third house faculties is focused
on exercise of mind; consequently, the impersonality of approach can be a
remarkable corrective for unpleasantness through contact with people with whom
we are associated in both study (Gemini) and work (Virgo)-also ruled by
Mercury--experience. Mentally to let every other fellow-student and fellow-
worker fulfill his pattern according to his equipment is a most effective
psychological decrystallization of false pride, envy, and inferiority. When we
make our goal the best of our own learning and working, we free others from
the unpleasantness of our negatives and we free ourselves from inner
discomforts, resulting in greater efficiency all around. We cannot have
personal feelings about knowledge and work since Gemini and Virgo are "roots"
of our impersonal flowerings--Gemini is polarized by the wisdom of
Sagittarius-ninth house; Virgo is the "modulation" from the lower semi-circle
into the upper semi-circle through the cardinal sign Libra. To perceive and
appreciate the abilities and potentials of fellow-students and fellow-workers
is to charge the study and work-experiences with the glow of Love-power and
congestions automatically loosen.
What are some of the results from holding on to
Gemini-Virgo, third-house sixth-house, Mercury congestions? Create the mandala
of the mutable cross: a wheel with the cusps of the third, sixth, ninth, and
twelfth houses covered by the symbols for Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and
Pisces, respectively. Connect these points by straight lines, forming the
mutable square. Emphasize the Gemini-Sagittarius and Virgo-Pisces diameters. A
significant thing: the two "lower points" of the mutable square give us a clue
to a remarkable "generic composite" through the rulership by Mercury. The
masculine polarity is Gemini (female) and Sagittarius (male); the feminine
polarity is Virgo (male) and Pisces (female). Herein Mercury is seen to be the
only planet which "roots" the entire generic spectrum of two-fold quality of
two-fold polarity, hence Mercury's androgynous nature is pictured completely.
Various types of Mercury-congestion may be classified
as follows:
(1) Gemini: lack of mental focus, organization, and
concentration; this results in superficial inquiry, dabbling, and mental
vacillation; Mercury, remaining "childish" is "mental activity, but to no
purpose," study without perception, thought without wisdom, speech and writing
without pattern or technique; the best that can be said for this pattern is
"acquisition of facts" but absorption of knowledge is difficult or
purposeless, and expression, without wisdom, can be lacking in truthfulness
which, in its turn, is evidence of immaturity. The first line of the mutable
cross cuts across the cardinal sign Cancer, initiator of the second (or
"family") quadrant and Leo, the resource of love-power, to the second mutable
sign:
(2) Virgo--ninth house-sign of the earth-trine,
initiated by Capricorn--symbol of service as the wisdom-aspect of the element
of earth and the releasement of creative-love potentials as a contribution to
life; congested, Virgo is a "doing for material return;" it is "working
without knowledge or wisdom;" the slogan "Employer (Capital) versus
Employee (Labor)" is an archetypal word-symbol for "Sixth House Congestion;"
both capital and labor are workers-in-the-world and only through fraternity
can the slogan be reworded into "Capital and Labor as the composite of
true service--each fulfilling his part with equity--with cooperation and the
best possible personal contribution to the work-pattern; "Capital
versus Labor" is service congested and depleted by lack of technical
knowledge and (very important) its principle: wisdom concerning human values.
Just as fraternal composites are found in the combination such as
father/mother, husband/wife, etc., so is capital/labor the composite identity
of service. From Virgo the second line cuts across the cardinal sign Libra
(reflective complementation) and its emotional resource, Scorpio, to:
(3) Sagittarius: ninth house-sign from Aries, third
aspect of the fire-trine, the polarity of Gemini, the radiation of knowledge
as wisdom, the fraternity of fathers and the fraternity of our elder
brothers/sisters--our teachers, the parents of our Spirits. Congested, the
ninth house is theory and abstraction that is put to no practical purpose; it
is wisdom that is not demonstrated in daily living; it is religion that
emphasizes forms, distinctions, and differences; it is a subtle testing-point
in higher octaves of development because the congestion that we call "pride"
is herein evidenced in our condescensions toward those we choose to feel are
"lower" or "less wise" than we are; it is wisdom utilized to channel
expressions of personal power-gratification, thus defeating its own purpose
because of being out of line with its own principle; its essence, being
congested, is failure to learn from experience, the consciousness being
unperceptive of the principles involved in experience-patterns. Just as
inharmony and contention between parents can result in the infliction of
grievous wounds on the minds and emotions of growing children, so can--with
much more drastic effect-- jealousies, envies, competitions, and feelings of
unfraternity in the hearts of our teachers, educators, religious leaders and
artists inflict double wounds on our minds and emotions because thereby the
spiritual work of the world is congested, distracted, and depleted; as
children sometimes tend to feel that they are "competitors against each other
for the love of the parents," and fellow-workers (Capital OR Labor) are mutual
"competitors for income-getting," so our Elder Brothers and Sisters may strive
against each other for prestige, acclaim, fame, power, and influence; they
should, actually, stand as living symbols of spiritual fraternity so that the
consciousness of the "younger ones" may be more securely and certainly lifted
in understanding and perception; if they are to "parent" our Spirits, they
must undertake to do so with wisdom that channels their love-power. From
Sagittarius the fourth line cuts across the apex of the wheel at the
sign Capricorn (responsibility-fulfillment) and across the " Soul-quadrant"
to:
(4) Pisces and the twelfth house, polarity of
Mercury's Virgo and sign of "redemption of unfulfilled ideals;" the fraternity
of soul is pictured by this transcendent, Neptune-ruled sign; herein we face
the out-picturings of our most serious expressions of "un-fraternity"--our
violations against the Divine in man and through it, by karmic-return, we are
brought face-to-face with our "fraternity with the worst in man"--the
imprisoned, the persecuted, the betrayer of ideals and the worshipper of
graven images; congested twelfth house is the "Judas" in each of us--through
its picturings we see the "dust" that we have thrown into the eyes of our
brother/sister--blinding him/her with illusions; Neptune, congested, sums up
the worst that is inaugurated by congested Mercury and congested Jupiter; only
the most drastic revisions of consciousness--through realizing and living the
ideal--can bring these patterns into constructive realignment; the twelfth
house and the sign Pisces are interpreted as "self-undoing" (the one
self cannot be undone) because in them we walk into the traps we have
set, in the past, for our brother/sister and make ourselves "messengers of
darkness" rather than "messengers of the gods."
Gemini (abstractly) and your third cusp (concretely),
are the ninth house-sign from Libra (abstract sign of complementation) and
your seventh house (concrete); "ninth house-sign" conveys "wisdom aspect;" the
wisdom we derived from our last incarnation in the opposite sex manifests in
the love we now receive--and happiness enjoyed--with brother/sister of that
sex; and, that wisdom-resource makes possible greater unfoldments in this
incarnation through our new chapters of fraternity.
The first trine from Gemini is Libra itself--the
intensely focused love aspect of fraternity; our husband/wife is truly our
brother/sister and the next "extension" to Aquarius, the eleventh house-sign,
is the picturing of fraternity in its most widely extended octave--that of
friendship, the love-vibration, in parallelity, which unites us in
consciousness with all of our brothers/sisters, transcending all barriers of
relationship-classification and difference. Fraternity, then, is in the final
analysis, the archetypal relationship-pattern of humanity since we all must
fulfill all patterns of inter-relationship with each other to fulfill the
manifestation, on this plane, of the human ideal.