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.
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.
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.
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.
Astrology swings out 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.
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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