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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 of the stellar forces and obedience
to their perfect patterns are the means for achieving this rulership.
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. By the
operation of the Law of Consequence, this doctrine of hope and 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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