An objection which has been raised against the Ptolemaic system of Planetary Periods, and which on the same grounds may be raised against this one, deserves consideration. It is said that it is extremely unlikely that all persons are under the same planetary influence at the same age. In this I should concur were it intended that a single planet entered into the equation. Such, however, is not the case. For although all persons are under the influence of the Moon at a certain period of their life, and all of the same age are under the same periodic influence at the same time, yet it must be remembered that in the large variety of horoscopes which arise out of astronomical changes during even a single month, it is extremely unlikely that any number of persons of the same age were born under the same conditions, and in one horoscope we shall find the Moon afflicted, in another well aspected, and so on.
Consequently, the Moon Period in these horoscopes will be variously interpreted. For if the planet governing the Period in force at any age is well placed and aspected at birth, then the period will be a fortunate one, and vice versa. Moreover, the sub-periods involving the introduction of a subsidiary influence into the Period will be interpreted in terms of the aspect the sub-period planet bears to the Period planet at the moment of birth, and thus an infinite variety of interpretations are afforded by the consideration of the various houses, signs and aspects held by the planets in the radical or birth horoscope.
Each planet then will rule in succession for a Period of twelve years, during which it will bring into play the conditions indicated by its position and aspects at birth. The same planet will rule for the first sub-period of that Period, and will be followed by the other planets in Chaldean order. Each sub-period will extend over one year and four months, and will import an influence agreeable to the nature of the planet ruling it, as well as an influence in terms of its radical relations to the Ruler of the Period.
Thus if at birth the Moon were badly aspected, then during the first twelve years of life there would be poor fortunes and changes adverse to the interests of the subject. If Venus were in bad aspect there would be sickness and family trouble at from two years eight months to four years of age, which is the Venusian sub-period of the Moon Period. Any planet in the eighth sign from the Moon would import danger of death in the family, and would threaten the life of the subject himself during the sub-period of such planet. Similarly a planet in the second from the Period planet shows gain; in the third journeys; in the fourth change of residence, adversity to the parents; in the fifth benefits; in the sixth sickness of the nature of the sub-period planet; in the seventh adversity, rivalries, hurts; in the eighth loss and death; in the ninth voyages and foreign affairs; in the tenth honours; in the eleventh new associations and allies; in the twelfth bondage, restraint, anxieties, etc.
It would appear that all the Alfridaries in existence are modelled upon the das’a systems of the Hindus. In some of these the order of the periods and sub-periods is regulated by considerations of precedence established in the horoscope of birth, but I have been unable to obtain any definite information which will guide one surely to a correct disposition of the various factors, and I have therefore abandoned them in favour of one that appears to me to have regard to cosmical symbolism, and at the same time to include the application of considerations of an individual and radical nature, such as those obtaining in the horoscope of birth.
Thus every person born into the world is regarded as a variant of the cosmical elements, a concrete symbol in himself, born under horoscopical conditions which are part of his greater environment and related to a world of life in which, for good or ill, he is required to function in terms of his own nature. Hence the statement, which I hold to be inviolable, that the planets affect us only in terms of ourselves. The superman will have to be content to take incarnation as he finds it. Without lying idle on the shelf for some ages he cannot wait for the stars in their courses to wheel into position for the striking of the perfect die. In all ages and nations there are such things as horoscopical misfits, where the individual finds insuperable difficulty in the way of perfect expression of character. But if we all try to do our best in the circumstances allotted to us, we shall give to the personal symbol a new and a better value than it has hitherto possessed. It is this fact of human perfectibility that gives to astrological interpretations an ever increasing interest. We see how the anciently destructive forces of the planet Mars are converted by human evolution into the executive ability of the man of action. How the ostentation of the Jovian plutocrat is changed to the benevolence of the true philanthropist, and how even the mean sordidness of the ancient Saturn becomes the constructive carefulness of the social economist. And from the remnants of this old universe of ours, maintaining its cosmic integrity for ever, there shall at length be evolved “a new heaven and a new earth.” For as the expression of divine Ideation, the universe is the revelation of God to man, and this His handwriting in the heavens means more than all the wisdom of all the ages has yet deciphered. Cosmic Symbolism, of which here we are only dealing with the crudest elements, will hereafter come to be regarded as the subject of man’s highest intuitions, the embodiment of a perfected wisdom. Only when the last word of the last chapter of the Gospel of Nature has been read and understood will the heavens be rolled away as a scroll and the Word be fulfilled which said: “Behold I make all things new!” For our God is in the making.
CHAPTER XX
IN THE LUMBER ROOM
Almost every home has a lumber-room, a place where all the out-of-date articles, derelict furniture, oddments of all sorts, are stored. Nobody ever goes there except the man who wants a bit of stuff to fit something, one of those quaint little notions that inventive men with time on their hands are always at work upon. And almost every mind has its lumber-room. The world has a huge depository of this sort. Into this lumber-room of forgotten things I would have you come with me, you who are interested in odd ideas.
Time was when the world believed that there was an inherent relativity in things, and that nothing existed for itself alone. That is one of the notions that we have thrown into the lumber-room. But as it fits my needs I will bring it out into the daylight and have a look at it. The belief that is now current in the world regarding the universe is that it is a congeries of detached bodies, each existing for itself alone, inhabited, maybe, or not inhabited, but capable of sustaining life of some sort. There they are, out yonder, but what has that to do with us? Well, the old-world notion was that by taking a dozen or so of pieces of wood of various shapes and sizes and fitting them together you could make what they called a chair. But nobody ever thought either that the chair could make itself, or that the shapes, as they called them, constituted a chair without being fitted together. The fitting was the most important part of the business. A man picking up a shape would call it a chair leg or whatever it might be, a back, thwart, side or seat. None of them could be called a chair, but each of them suggested it. Their use was in their relativity, their interdependence, their connectedness. So it is with the throne of God, which is the universe. That ancient notion of relativity—you will find it in the Mahabharata or that section of it which they call the Sacred Song—was a good one.
This earth of ours is a comparatively small planet in a system of worlds. It does not exist for itself alone, nor do those others which surround it. Crude thinkers, without perspective, believed the earth to be very big because it filled the eye. A threepenny-piece will cover the Moon at arm’s length. It is all a matter of proportion. But the deeper thinkers knew better, and if they were foolish enough to suppose that the planets existed for this earth they also believed that the earth existed for the planets, and they for one another. Interplanetary action was believed in before Ptolemy wrote his book on the Influence of the Stars, or Kepler had framed his cosmic laws, or Newton had found the glue to hold the pieces together. The Carpenter had been at work before ever man opened his blinking eyes to the morning sun, and what I have called the Throne of God was made by Him for His own use. It is ours to look and marvel.