Studies in Astrology
by
Elman Bacher
Volume IX
Chapter V
Light--Part II
For the purposes of clarifying the expression and
understanding of this material, we will agree that the word "light," initialed
by the small "l," will refer to visually perceptible vibration; "Light,"
initialed by the capital "L," will refer to Consciousness; consciousness, with
a small "c," will refer to human awareness.
It is a wonderful thing to realize, upon
reflection, that for countless ages human beings have revealed consciousness
of the occult or esoteric nature of light as it has been--and is--perceived in
terms of black, white, and the spectrum-colors. The subject has figured
prominently in programs of philosophical teaching and learning in many lands
and, in these later days, it has become an important factor in the fields of
objective and subjective therapy. Those who are now sponsoring and furthering
this subject in healing-work are recapitulating knowledge gained in former
lives. It is not "new" in this age, it is simply being restated for the
spiritual needs of present humanity. Inspirational responsiveness to the
potency of natural or colored light and to that of beautiful color in
substances serves to recharge the aura--which is always seen as color or
colors in clairvoyant study--of the ailing person in such a way that he
becomes conscious of a spiritual heightening; the condition of the aura--the
etheric matrix--is strengthened and harmonized in degree and, in the same
degree, the physical body is brought into healthier alignment. Not all humans
have known, factually, about the aura and its significance to their existence,
but it may be safely surmised that all, at some time or another, have
experienced the uplift "inside themselves" which attends response to the
spiritual value of light in its many beautiful and inspiring aspects of color.
Give this considerable--and meditative--thought:
Reaction to is evidence of correspondence with. We cannot
respond to anything or anyone with which or with whom we do not have some
degree of negative or positive affinity. The indisputable fact that a human
can respond to the shade or quality of a color reveals that "something" in him
has affinity to "something" in the color, or the black, or white. The equally
indisputable fact that such response can lower or raise the quality of his
auric, bodily, and spiritual condition reveals that his consciousness of the
color has affinity with the Consciousness which is symbolized by the color.
Power, in one degree or another, is the only thing that can change any
vibratory state--chemical, emotional, mental, or soulic. Therefore, if a
human's chemical, emotional, mental, or soulic condition is lowered or
lessened by his response to black, white, or color he reveals a weakened or
immature consciousness of power within himself. If, however, his condition is
improved, strengthened, purified or harmonized, his response to the black,
white, or color reveals an affinity between his Spirit and the spirit which
the black, white, or color symbolizes to his consciousness. Reflect a moment
on those occasions when your reaction to a particular shade of green, red,
black, or combination of colors provoked a feeling of nausea, morbidity,
despondency, or irritation; in that state of feeling were you aware of joy,
health, harmony, peace? Your unhappy reaction revealed a lack of inner
mastery over yourself--something in the power of the color-quality stimulated
a corresponding quality in your astral, mental or soulic nature. Your
reaction, which served to "lower your-tone," simply revealed a need for you to
regenerate some factor of your inner constitution. Don't waste time and
energy "blaming the color." With inner regeneration through redirection of
powers your improved response-capacity will serve to reveal to you hitherto
unrecognized beauty-value and power in the color. Regeneration of our
consciousness always serves to reveal the Spirit to us.
In capacity and inclination to respond with
negative result to states of light, humans, as individuals, vary considerably.
But there is one such state to which humanity--collectively or individually--
has reacted with much more negativism than to any other, for ages of time, and
that is Black. In the cosmic sense Black is life undifferentiated and
unmanifested; White is the consciousness, the Light, which makes all creation
and manifestation possible. By reversal in the plane of physical perception,
Black is the congestion of all Color and White is the state of color
undifferentiated. Therefore, White has symbolized to the subconscious
recognitions of humanity the state of purity, highest spirituality and perfect
Light. Black has symbolized that which cannot be perceived in terms of its
parts or factors. Since our cognitions and recognitions of phenomena depend
on our ability to "differentiate things from things" we, in early evolution,
congested on fear and insecurity and desperation in our reaction to the
blackness (no light) of night-time. This reaction was an individual and
collective experience and still is to this day for many people. As beings who
have been conscious (incarnate and/or discarnate) for ages and ages of time we
cannot even imagine a state of "not-being-ness" or "un-existence." Therefore
as a "color" Black symbolizes those things we call "death, " "the unknown,
"the congestions of extremely unregenerate conscious-ness--in short, all of
those things toward which we respond with feelings of being obstructed or
threatened in our progress through existence. To the degree that we align or
relate ourselves to these darkened states do we intensify our incapacity and
inclination to exist in terms of Life-givingness and Life-expressiveness; we
deplete our consciousness of the Light of Spirit. However, "blackness" in the
soul does not and cannot mean "life-stopping-ness" in any absolute sense; it
simply indicates a state of congestion that, in turn, indicates an urgent need
for regenerative measures. The Light is and is for us always; a human may
create much painful karma by going into action on the basis of his relatedness
to blackness of soul, but that karma, in turn, provides him with subsequent
experience which turns the tide for his regeneration and evolvement toward new
recognitions of the Light of God and the Light within himself.
In the cosmic sense, again, White is the color-
symbol of the purity of innocence--consciousness as yet
undifferentiated or qualified by incarnated experience. White symbolizes the
"color-identity" of Virgin Spirits before their involutionary descent as
individualizations into bodies. At the other end White is the purified
consciousness of the individual after completion of his evolution as a human--
his clear, pure unified realization of his true identity as a creation of the
divine. At the start he was purity unaware of his pureness; at the end he
will be purity realized. His inspirational response to the occult value of
White in his evolving incarnated state is evidence of his Spirit's omni-
presence; remember that if the human did not have within himself something
that corresponds to the pure perfection of White he could not respond to it
with spiritualizing results. Like attracts--and recognizes-like.
To all students who are delving into the spiritual
and esoteric meanings of astrology the suggestion is here made that you become
more concentratedly and more consciously aware of the meaning to you of Black
and White as "color-shades," as personal and spiritual quality-symbols, as
vibratory powers which stimulate you one way or another, and as figures of
speech found in poetry and allegory and legend. From the vantage-point of
philosophical education and understanding become more aware than ever before
how the collective subconscious mind and feeling of humanity have interpreted
these two light-symbols; Black and White--and your cognitions of them--have
much significance to your spiritual approach to astrology and to your evolving
ability to interpret horoscopes--your own or those of other people. The
symbolism of these two words is most profound. Of which--more anon.
The spectrum-colors are light-symbols of soul-
qualities. They refer to the most spiritualized consciousness of body, mind,
and emotion which the human has as yet realized or can ever realize--as long
as he is evolving in the identity of human being. A man of great wisdom once
said that colors are the sufferings and joys in the existence of light and it
is surmised that he meant that colors correspond with--or have correspondence
to--the states of suffering and joy which humans experience in so far as
humans can perceive light and were created by Light. We have been instructed
that beyond the range of colors as we now know them there are infinite
variations and extensions of light-vibration which can be perceived only
through extrasensory perception on this plane or in functioning in higher
dimensions of existence. But there again, we must have affinity with the
conditions of soul or consciousness represented by these color-extensions
before we can perceive them.
Since the aura of a human is an individual matter-
-resulting in his degree of realizing his Spirit-identity--the color--shades
and color qualities which may symbolize his spiritual state at any point in
his development may reveal, here and there, a darkened condition that suggests
a tendency toward "blackness" in one or more of his colors corresponding, of
course, to a state of relative congestion, obstruction, or "little death" in
his consciousness due to accrued fear, hatred, or what not. Remember that
blackness indicates the tendency toward congestion, or "chaos," in human
consciousness but its presence, in aura or consciousness, is helpful in sofar
as it reveals the need for regeneration. The black indication is acting as a
"barometer of the soul" in a specialized way. To the degree that a person's
responsiveness to pure, luminous, and potent color becomes more and more a
part of his natural functioning do we see evidence of his soul-striving, his
aspirational urges, his love, his unselfishness, his idealism, and his
devotion to establishment of Good.
A person's aura may reveal an area filled with a
rich, intense shade of a certain color. This color-quality will reveal the
evidence of considerable effort and attention having been given to a certain
phase of development. Correspondingly his personality will reveal a
pronounced ability along that line of endeavor, and the characteristics of
mind and emotion will mark him in a very individualistic way. His "soul is
strong and focused" on that particular point. But spiritual development and
realization is indicated by the large soul-body, and the colors of the aura
rather than being deep and intense in their shading, will tend toward the
pastel quality--being "charged with White." There is a very significant and
interesting correspondence to be found between the "tendency toward Whiteness
"in the auras of spiritually-evolved humans and their personal inclination
toward simplicity of manner and purity of integrity, motives, and purposes.
Spiritualization results in simplification and so, with evolvement, the colors
which represent the person's consciousness tend toward the simplification of
Whiteness. However pastel a color-shade may be, in the auras of spiritually-
evolved humans these lovely and delicate shades of pastel color have great
vibratory potency or "impinging power." Such phrases as "drop by drop (the
gentle unobtrusive action of water) wears away the stone" and "a soft answer
turneth away wrath" and "forgive your enemies" are correspondences of power
between the en-whitened pastel colors of the spiritualized aura and the en-
spiritual-ized consciousness of a highly evolved human. Also the presence of
"pastel potency" in the aura reveals the degree of integration of the person's
consciousness toward all planes of his functioning--the various aspects of his
being and consciousness are, in degree, unified and harmonized, one with the
other.
All of these observations regarding Black, White,
and Colors have direct and practical spiritual application to the study of
horoscopes. When we are ready to stop our use of misconceptions we
will find that:
The point, which should be indicated by a small
round dot, at the center of the horoscope is a symbol--and the only valid one
we have--of chaos, life un-differentiated, out of which all manifestation is
made. That central point, applying to the horoscope of the individual human,
is the Idea (Humanity) conceived by the Divine Mind of our Logos; it is from
that Idea that we, as an earthian archetype, were projected into
individualized experience. A circle circumscribing that central dot symbolizes
our Logos as an individualized creative Consciousness and Its manifestivity as
the Sun--the central body, or nucleus, of our solar system. Since man is
Spirit this composite symbol of dot and circle pictures his Spiritual Essence,
his Seed-atom and his Potential for perfecting all of his bodies. Then, from
that central symbol the left horizontal line is emanated to form the
Ascendant-line of the individual human's horoscope. If it were graphically
possible and practical we would place the symbols of Sun (as ruler of Leo),
Moon, and planets as well as those of the lunar nodes and Part of Fortune at
the appropriate points on the circumference of the completed wheel; the
circumference is, of course, the complete emanation of the Ascendant-radius.
The picturing of the aspects made by the planetary points would be shown by
straight lines from the central circle to the points on the radius which give
the astronomical positions for that time and place. The angle made by any two
of these lines indicates by numerical degree the aspect created by the two
planetary points in relationship to each other. Every aspect in a horoscope--
as a "thing in itself"--has polarity in the two bodies with are so related to
each other and polarity--however or wherever--is the ignition of
consciousness. The person, from his center of consciousness as a human being,
has evolved certain inter-relationships between the factors of his human
consciousness. These are "aspects"--call them, or think of them as "view-
points;" he looks out from the center of his chart (this central awareness)
into the conditions of his chart, into the conditions of his environment, his
relationships, his activities, his weaknesses and deficiencies, his
aspirations, his ideals, and his relative fulfillments. Every one of these
points on the circumference of the wheel has correspondence to a color which
may appear in his aura and every aspect between the pairs of planets in his
chart-pattern will correspond--basically--to a quality of his auric color, or
colors. The whiteness of a human horoscope is represented not by the contents
of the wheel (because the wheel-contents refer to him, or describe him, as a
personality evolving the consciousness of truth), but by the whiteness in the
central circle of the wheel--the central Sun-symbol. If the factors of the
chart were to be indicated in color-shades, this central circle would be kept
white--because it is the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Spirit.
Black is indicated in the human horoscope only by the central dot, nowhere
else--and as such it symbolizes the infinitude, the measureless and
incomprehensible subjectivity of life itself, from which all creative Logoi
and their manifestations are derived. Nowhere in a horoscope is "badness" (or
black in the sense of absolute evil) indicated. The "viewpoints" we call
"square" and "opposition" aspects are patterns indicative of tension,
inharmony, ignorance, or congestion of whatever kind, but they are still
registrations of the soul-body of the human; the points which make up each
such aspect are divine powers as differentiated by the evolving human
consciousness. Out of the Black of Chaos, the White of Creative Consciousness
establishes a field of evolution and that evolutionary program is what each
horoscope reveals. It is through the purification of the auric Colors
(regeneration of "aspects and viewpoints") that the realization of identity
with the White of Divinity is finally made.