Studies in Astrology
by
Elman Bacher
Volume IV
Chapter IX
Condensing the Horoscope
It has been observed that most astrological
students, at one time or another, experience a distressing confusion in their
efforts to study and analyze individual factors of a chart and trying, at the
same time, to relate those factors to the sum total of the chart. This
material is offered in the hope that it will serve to focus zodiacal sequences
in their formations of cross and trine so that chart-factors will be more
clearly perceived. for their individual value as well as for their
relationship to the total. Two sheets of paper-- at least as large as standard
typing paper will be used for mandalas.
The first step for condensation will be to review
what has been said in these articles many times: there is only one
horoscope; one Sun, one Moon, one of each of the planets,
one Ascendant and one Midheaven, one of each of the
houses and signs, one square and one opposition, one
conjunction, one sextile and one trine, one radius and
one diameter. All of which is so because there is only one Center
and one fulfillment of the potentials of that Center.
The Center is, of course, the creative archetypal
idea humanity--of which each human being is a specialized expression,
incarnating by law in the triune dimension of time--space--polarity. Your
individual identity in this dimension is twofold: your unfulfillments and your
relative fulfillments. The purpose of reincarnating is to realize the
perfected identity through fulfillment of all potentials. You are an
individualized vehicle of the Cosmic Law of Cause (positive polarity) and
Effect (negative polarity) because you possess the attributes of expressing
your potentials (setting up causes) and reacting to the effects of causes. The
perfected Identity is made through the processes of causing and reacting in
consistence with Love-Wisdom. Your evolutionary modulations are the ways in
which you choose to express (initiate cause) and to react (interpret the
effect).
With a narrow side on top, divide one paper into
twelve equal sections--three across and four down. The top line is designated
"Fire"; the upper left section is designated "1-Cardinal "; the middle is "2-
Fixed "; and the right section is "3-Mutable." The second "across" line is
designated "Earth"; the third "Air "; and the fourth "Water." (This entire
diagram can be drawn neatly if a compass is used for the circles.)
In the center of the upper-left "square," place a
dot, then draw a straight horizontal to the left about an inch long. End this
line with a large black dot.
As your pencil-point emanated that line from the
central dot, you were creating a motion-picture, symbolically, of the
chemicalization of polarity-forces. This line, as you know, is the Ascendant
of the horoscope-to-be; it symbolizes the appearance of the Sun on the Eastern
horizon-the "body of daytime"--and it also symbolizes your chemicalized
appearance on this plane at birth-the "dawn" of your incarnation. In this line
are symbolically contained the sum-total of your "generic elements"--your
qualities of, and capacities for, being a causer and a sympathetic-vibrator to
the effects of causes. In these terms is found your vibratory identity as
masculine and feminine, respectively. In your physical body is seen a chemical
specialization which we call sex; as long as adherence to biological karma is
maintained, your consciousness of this specialization is ignited by vibratory
contact with persons of the other sex. Your vibratory karma is ignited by
persons of either physical sex whose masculine-feminine "vibratory mixtures "
represent complementation of consciousness to you. Think about this.
This line, being a straight one, is the simplest
way of picturing your generic potentials distilled from all of your previous
incarnations and "brought into focus" during the prenatal development
preceding this incarnation. We will now "unfold" the Ascendant-line as a
flower unfolds its petals and study the significance of the one cross as the
archetype of human relationship-consciousness f rom which all of our
interpretation of experience is fundamentally derived.
From the central dot of this first drawing, draw
an upward vertical, a downward vertical, and the other horizontal--to the
left. We now have an archetypal--pure--picture of the "skeleton" of the four
macrocosms of identity--the masculine-feminine of the male and the feminine-
masculine of the female. Counter-clockwise, starting with the Ascendant,
place the symbols for Aries, Capricorn, Libra, and Cancer--respectively--at
these points. The twofold vertical now composites the line of generation--the
dynamic process by which substance for the new life is generated by the
"collaboration" of the parents. Cancer, ruled by the Moon, is mother;
Capricorn, its complement, is father. Both are life-givers; one--the male--
impregnates; the other--the female--receives the impregnation.
Now, from the mid-point of the Cancer-line, draw
three-quarters of a circle upward through the mid-point of Libra to the mid-
point of Capricorn then downward to the mid-point of Aries. The three
quadrants traversed by this line--compositing nine houses--symbolize the nine
months of the pre-natal period, from conception to birth. The Libra-line
symbolizes the timing during this period when the physical sex of the
incarnation-to-be becomes objectified and the potentials of the opposite sex
are subjectified--to be subsequently out pictured, during incarnation, by the
mate. The complement of this pattern will be seen in drawing the "nine-houses
line" from Capricorn downward and upward to Libra--in other words "from father
to daughter" as the Cancer-Aries line is "mother-to-son." If it were possible
to draw these two lines simultaneously the picture would be that of turning
the "parental vertical" through the pre-natal period to the point of birth; an
"X-ray" of coordinating the generic elements for the incarnation-to-be.
An individual incarnates through his/her
particular parents by the magnetic action of sympathetic vibration of his/her
masculine-feminine combination to their individual and collective masculine-
feminine combination. The other--and very important--factor of this magnetic
action is the "attraction of differences"--the child 's individuality
contrasting with the individuality of each parent. All relationship between
people serves evolution and relationship means vibratory exchange. If the
child were a duplicate of "half of his father and half of his mother" no
exchange could be made--hence no vibratory attraction would be possible.
The " individuality" of the child-to-be is seen
in the one remaining quadrant of this drawing--the three houses of Aries-to-
Cancer. This is the involution--after birth--into the use of physical and
etheric vehicles and no one can do that but the child himself. He, no one
else, uses his body his mind, his feelings, emotions, abilities and talents.
The parents provide body-substance at conception and they exercise their own
minds in love-service to the child after birth, but the child's involution for
use of vehicles is, of necessity, an individual matter. (The complementation
of this is, of course the quadrant from Libra to Capricorn.) What is
"contained" in the composite chemical and etheric vehicle is, of course, that
which is to be expressed, redeemed, and fulfilled in the incarnation.
This drawing of pictures in symbols presents a
strange and remarkable fact: each human-being is his own parentage, his own
fraternity, and his own complementation--husbandhood--wifehood. Other people
are related to us by our feeling-reaction to them but all of our feeling-
reactions emanate from the same source--our consciousness. Therefore, other
people are chemicalized expressions--or outpicturings of our own vibratory
mixtures. Knowing this, the great Ones have told us to "Love Ye One-Another."
Now we have pictured the basis of human
relationships: the masculine-feminine male who is a causer of effects and
reactor to effects ("giver" and "taker ") and she who is bi-polar female-
causer and reactor, giver and taker. All human relationships are derivatives
of this four-fold basis. Therefore, the Cardinal Cross in our first diagram
represents the" four-in-one " identity, the four ways by which human-beings
say "I AM."
But identity is not sufficient unto itself, it needs expression to perfect
itself. So, each one of these cardinal signs emanates from itself--just as a
line is emanated from a dot, or a plane from a line--two expressions of
spiritual identity--love and wisdom. Love is the spiritual goal--redemption--
of desire; wisdom is the spiritual goal--redemption--of ignorance. Desire-
ignorance is the twofold karmic compulsion to reincarnation; through it we
forge the evolutionary path from virginity to ideality-realization. The
cardinal signs are, abstractly, the corner-stones of our "house of life"--the
rooms of which are the twelve houses of the one horoscope.
There is, as was said before, only one cross as a
pattern, the interchange of positive and negative. Now to correlate the fixed
cross and the mutable cross with the cardinal cross, create a twelve-housed
wheel in each of the two remaining sections of the top line, which you have
already designated as"fixed" and "mutable," respectively, of FIRE. On "fixed"
place the symbol for Leo on the Ascendant, Taurus at tenth, Aquarius at
seventh, and Scorpio at fourth; "mutable" place the symbol Sagittarius on the
Ascendant, Virgo at tenth, Gemini at seventh, and Pisces at fourth. Let your
eyes travel from Aries to Leo to Sagittarius. You are impressing your mind
with the fact that the three signs of the Fire-Trine initiate the first
representations of the cross of the great mandala. The pattern of elements in
each are parallel: Fire-Son, Earth-Father, Air-Female complement and Water-
Mother. (Reversing these wheels makes Fire the male complement.) From Aries
through nine signs to Capricorn is "exaltation"--maturity--of the "I AM"; from
being a "begotten, " the arch-symbol of expression--Mars--fulfills itself in
"fatherhood"--becoming a life-giver. This symbolizes the first three quadrants
of the progressed Moon after birth--the climax of physical, mental, and
emotional involution. (Spiritual involution is attained during the 28th and
30th years--the completion of the first cycle of progressed Moon and
transiting Saturn.)
Since the generic sequence is from Fire to Earth
to Air to Water we can now complete our tabulation of the other "emanations."
The three wheels of the Earth-line will have as Ascendants, Capricorn, Taurus,
and Virgo respectively the three wheels of the Air-line will have Libra,
Aquarius, and Gemini respectively; the three wheels of the Water-line will
have Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces as ascendant, respectively. Place the
symbols for the other three structure points appropriately in all the wheels--
the last of which, Pisces Ascendant, will represent the cross that focalizes
the most feminine, receptive and reflective of all twelve. The line of
gestation in each wheel is (being two-fold): from female of vertical to male
of horizontal (as Cancer to Aries) and from male of vertical to female of
horizontal (as Capricorn to Libra)-- always traversing three quadrants.
For practical application, since the planetary
ruler of a chart focalizes the vibration of the Ascendant sign, it is
suggested that these mandalas be studied in reference to the generic chart;
this is the variation of the natal chart in which the chart is turned (unless
the ruler of the Ascendant is in the Ascendant sign) so that the cusp covered
by the sign containing the ruler appears as the Ascendant. If the person is
male and that sign is a male sign, that variation is the male generic chart;
the sign male and the person female, reverse and read as female, etc. Apply
the "gestation line" to the generic chart that coincides with physical sex for
parentage identification--correlate with natal chart. The two generic
variations "splice" the generic composite of the natal horoscope and the
generic elements can therefore be studied separately.
Now the second paper for further condensation.
From the center of the page create a wheel of
about two inches in radius; place the zodiacal symbols in regular sequence
about an inch from the circumference. Between this ring of sign-symbols and
the circumference, forming a second ring, place the symbols from the Ascendant
counter-clock-wise: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius, Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces; Libra,
Aquarius, Gemini; Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo. Cardinal signs, fixed signs, and
mutable signs cover cardinal houses, fixed houses, and mutable houses. This
inner ring of the signs shows us the "unfoldment" of the elements in terms of
their Love-Wisdom potentials--the spiritual expressions of identity. This
"spread" shows us decanates in action. The Identity-congestion, Desire-
congestion, and Ignorance-congestion of the cardinal, fixed, and mutable
crosses, respectively, find their redemptions through the Love-Wisdom
attributes that are inherent in each sign as an expression of the "I AM"
principle.
Each house of the horoscope is a specialized
environmental-experience-relationship focus for evolution; the sign-sequence
of the Great Mandala synchronizes principle with activity; in other words, the
philosophical principles inherent in each of the basic twelve "experience-
departments" are pictured by the essential meaning of the sign that is
abstractly identified with it. Variations of sign-placement on cusps of houses
are matters of individual evolution; but we can perceive them with greater
clarity if we recognize that all variations are emanations--not "differences"-
-from an archetypal base.
The zodiacal belt around the outside of every
horoscope is a complete and unbroken sequence always. The "spread" of each
element into the trine-formation, enclosing the wheel, is the spiritual
enfoldment of each of the four generic bases throughout the chart. The
confusion felt by students is toward the sequence of "cardinal, fixed,
mutable" being synchronized with "Fire, Earth, Air, Water." Recognize now, if
you have never done so before, that the seeming "mixing up" of cross with
trine is a symbolic picturing of a Cosmic Truth: Microcosm is never separate
from the Love-Wisdom of its Macrocosm--or "Humanity from Father-Mother God."
Think about this--quietly, deeply, and with
focused concentration. It has been stated over and over by teachers through
religion and philosophy for ages of time; let the realization emanate from
your inner knowing.
Since we, as "Ascendants" are microcosm of
Father-Mother God the Law of Correspondence (as above, so below; as below, so
above) applies to us in this way: our own potentials for Love-Wisdom are in us
eternally--regardless of our congestions, confusions, and darknesses. These
darknesses of consciousness are evidences of "un-love " and " un-wisdom"
having been expressed--but we ourselves are the sources of their
transmutations.
Try this condensation with many charts if you
have them available. List planets in each chart by cross, then identify their
trine-placement. Make "sketch wheels" utilizing the "decanate-spread"--
starting from the Ascendant sign to establish the picture in your mind that
each sign is a consciousness power that can express into higher and higher
octaves. Your whole approach to chart-analysis and synthesis will be
simplified and clarified thereby.