Looking over these positions of the Nodes I find one from which I can strike an Epoch at once. It is that of Saturn’s Aphelion ingress to the sign Capricornus, which is found to have taken place in the year 1850. There are four countries which are ruled by the sign Capricornus in which at this time there were great upheavals, namely, India, Greece, Mexico and New Zealand. India was engaged in the Sikh War against the forces of the Moolraj, a whole Bengali regiment was disbanded for mutiny, and Sir Charles Napier shortly resigned the command. Eight years of unrest followed, culminating in the great Mutiny, and the rule of the East India Company came to an end. Meanwhile Mexico was engaged in a fierce war with the United States, and the political convulsions ended in the resignation of President Arista. Four Presidents succeeded one another in the space of three years, and the country eventually established a new Constitution under General Comonfort in 1857. Greece at this time came into conflict with the British and other European governments because of its oppressions and its non-payment of debts to foreign subjects. Insurrections and blockades continued for some years and a change of the Ministry eventually brought about an agreement of neutrality under the royal seal. New Zealand at the same time was acting under the Charter granted to Sir George Grey and founding new townships. In 1850, the year of Saturn’s Aphelion ingress, the New Zealand Company relinquished its Charter and a new Constitution was formed, which was in force from 1852 to 1857, when it was modified.
In every case the effects of such changes as took place in these several Constitutions at this period were, I think, exceedingly beneficial, and this is what might be expected from the circumstance of Saturn coming into his own territory, for Capricornus is one of the cardinal or political signs, and is ruled by Saturn.
But the motions of the Aphelia are so slow that many centuries have to elapse before a new ingress is made, and this is hardly the way in which one would seek to prove or disprove the symbolism of such phenomena. One would rather consider that the influence of the several planets is vested in their Aphelia, and then observe what effects follow the transits of other planets over those places, and what effects are due to the direction of the Significators, Sun, Moon, Mid-heaven and Ascendant, to the places of these Aphelia in the prime vertical. But I find myself talking the jargon of the astrologers, as Lytton would say, whereas I am supposed to be talking about Cosmic Symbolism.
Figure 23.
What are these Aphelia of the planets, and how does their symbolism attach to us as humans? The Aphelion of a planet is that point in its orbit, or imaginary orbit—for we have already disposed of the elliptical theory—where it is at its greatest distance from the Sun. And if these planets severally correspond with certain principles of our human constitution, they may be said to have greater play and to be in a condition to exert more of their own natures at such times than at others, and proportionately less at other points in their orbits, and least when in perihelion. For then those principles and planets are enslaved to the Sun and answer most fully to his all-embracing and compelling influence. A soul that is in its most perfect condition of physical manifestation may be said to be in its perihelion, whereas one that has shaken free to some extent from the gravitational pull of the sun of this nether world, and has winged its way into the outer regions of space, is to that extent in a condition of temporary liberation. One is almost tempted by this analogy to revert to the symbolism of the elliptical orbit, and to place in its empty focus another luminary or Spiritual Sun, such as that conceived by Swedenborg, and to say that these liberated souls are answering to the gravitational pull of that luminary. The idea is fascinating, both astronomically and symbolically, and since the kenofocus of the ellipse is not under lease to any of our scientific theorists, I will place my Spiritual Sun in that centre of the empyrean and complete my figure, as already exhibited in a preceding chapter.
Now we see what comes of rummaging in a lumber-room. All sorts of suggestions and possibilities, yet nothing perhaps that anybody would be willing to bring back into daily use. These musty, time-worn and out-of-date notions that nobody takes much note of may some day claim the attention of a Ben Hassam or somebody with a nose for things of value, and a scramble for priority will be the result. But alas! they have no market value. Planets, principles, orbits, aphelia, and nodes, they are all merely symbols in the everlasting Book of Life.
CHAPTER XXI
THE LAW OF VIBRATIONS
In my Kabala I have shown that in the contest between Chance of the haphazard sort which is merely speculative, and that because it is grounded in ignorance, and Law which proceeds by method because it is based on cosmic principles, the latter wins an easy victory, not once but always. I showed that the divisions of the day and night that we call Planetary Hours, whether they be artificial or not, have a certain security from the fact that they are founded on the cosmic order of planetary velocities. It was also shown that certain numbers answered to the several planets, and that these numbers bore a definite relationship to sound vibrations.
I have received such a lot of correspondence asking for further instruction along those lines that I feel constrained, if only to gain some little respite from my tormentors, to add a few pages here on the subject of Chance reduced to Law.