Cosmic symbolism

by Sepharial

The Old Philosopher of China has said that the virtue of everything is in its use. If Cosmic Symbolism cannot be applied to the practical ends of life it will not succeed in appealing to the average intellect, which sets for its standard the single test of utility. In these pages I have endeavoured to show that the Universe as Symbol is best studied in relation to its bearing on the common needs of humanity. I have also shown that Astrology is the only system of thought and practice that attempts the application. I propose now to examine the educational value of this study and its practical use in daily life, and thus to place it among the list of those subjects that have a serious claim to the consideration of enlightened people.

Tracing our way through the Encyclopædia of knowledge we find that most of the deeper studies that engage the powers of men are valuable, not so much for the ends they lead to, as for the mental training obtained in their pursuit. It is one of the outstanding features of modern scientific methods that we are required to bring our theories into agreement with known facts. The facts themselves are often uninteresting and of small practical value, but they serve as landmarks by which to direct our course towards conclusions which in themselves are often valuable. It is thus with astronomy. The application of the Principia or of the Laws of Kepler to the cosmos as we know it is an exercise requiring the greatest possible care, considerable mathematical ability, and the patience of a Prometheus. The bare facts of astronomy are not generally interesting. We are not solicitous of knowing in exactly how many days, hours, minutes and seconds the planet Jupiter completes its course about the Sun. What is of more practical interest to us as terrestrials is to know Jupiter’s relations to this world of ours, what it stands for in the economy of life, and what influence, if any, it exerts over us.

Now Astrology, while employing all the elements of astronomy that have any certain foundation in fact, is calculated as a study to engage all the highest faculties of the human mind, while it brings to the results obtained the added virtue of utility.

The late Professor Max Müller once paid Astrology a great tribute when he said that many of our most distinguished men of intellect were at this day practiced astrologers, but that “few cared to let their studies be known, so great was the ignorance which confounded a science requiring the highest education with that of the ordinary gipsy fortune-teller.” Possibly he had in mind the late Lord Chief Justice, or Dr. Richard Garnett, or indeed any one of the host of intelligent students who have secretly avowed their adherence to the science. That which held the admiration of Claudius Ptolemy, and received the imprimatur of Tycho and Kepler, which attracted Lord Verulam, Francis Bacon, and was held in the highest esteem by that trained scientific observer and profound thinker, Sir Isaac Newton, and which in all ages and nations has included the highest intellects among its votaries, is affirmed by the great Orientalist to have a real value in the estimation of modern students whose attainments have placed them in a position to judge in the matter.

Let us, therefore, look soberly and carefully at this science of Astrology and see if its study is likely to be at all profitable from the point of view of education.

Astrology is both a science and a philosophy. As science it is concerned with the facts of astronomy and as philosophy with the application of those facts to the problems of life and mind. The astronomical facts are of first interest. Before we can say anything at all about the interplay of planetary action in human life we have to be able to set a map of the heavens for any time and place at which a person may have birth. For this purpose one can avail himself of the Ephemerides of the Nautical Almanac, the Connaissance des Temps, or any of those cheaper publications which are extracted from them. From various handbooks written by astrological authors he may then learn how to erect a horoscope or map of the heavens for any time and place. Such practical knowledge is not to be found in any exposition of astronomy that I have yet come across. It enables the student to observe with perfect accuracy in what relations the various heavenly bodies were at the given time and exactly where they were situated as seen from a particular locality on the earth’s surface. The student finds considerable satisfaction in this piece of practical work. But it is only preliminary to the further study of the subject. For it will be seen that whereas the positions of the planets at the moment of birth have a symbolical value as regards the whole tenor and course of the life, the particular times at which events prefigured are likely to take place can only be known from a study of the subsequent motions of the heavenly bodies after the date of birth. For it is from the constant changes taking place in the kaleidoscope of the greater world about us that we draw our conclusions as to the time and nature of events. The planets are continually altering their relative positions owing to their different velocities and they thus form aspects or certain angular distances in regard to the places of the planets in the horoscope of birth and also among themselves in the heavens. The process of bringing a planet to the place of another in the horoscope of birth is called “directing” and involves a knowledge of spherical trigonometry. This brings me to an interesting fact. It is that the whole science of astronomy and the art of making ephemerides of the planets’ positions was kept alive solely by the personal labours and special knowledge of a handful of practical astrologers.

The Alphonsine Tables which were composed by the Arabian and Spanish astrologers and which were collected under the command of Alphonso X of Castile at a cost of four hundred thousand crowns, and published with a royal preface in the year 1252, are among the earliest examples of their great devotion. The Almagest of Ptolemy was completed about A.D. 148 and was inscribed in the Temple of Serapis. The Rudolphine Tables composed by Tycho and completed by Kepler were digested and recomposed by Morinus, Mathematical Professor to the King of France, and printed at Paris in the year 1650. Ptolemy, Tycho, Kepler and Morin were all practiced astrologers. The Nautical Almanac was first published in 1767 by Dr. Neville Maskelyne, and afterwards greatly improved in 1834. The Connaissance des Temps was published in 1699. Whence, think you, did the astrologers obtain their information regarding the positions of the planets prior to these years of authorized publication? They calculated them for themselves. Without astronomy there could be no Astrology. They kept astronomy alive.

Very few people understand what labour there is attaching to the production of the various elements that one finds in the common almanac. How many of my readers are prepared to calculate for themselves the time at which the Sun will rise or set upon the horizon of a particular locality? How many could say with any certainty at what time the Moon would south, or cross the upper meridian? What percentage of people could say when and where an eclipse of the Sun or Moon would occur, where it would be visible, its extent and duration? The modern astrologer has a remarkably easy time compared with the labours of his predecessors. He can refer to his official guide, or consult the popular almanac for all his elements. But for the working out of a horoscope and its subsequent directions, he must certainly have a practical knowledge of the use of an astronomical ephemeris.

From astronomy his attention is turned at once to Geography. He has to determine the exact longitude and latitude of a place, the name only of which is given, for he has to make his map of the heavens as seen from the place of birth. Here he gets a practical knowledge of localities and of the orientation of horoscopes. In his pursuit of Astrology the student will find himself tracking back through the biographies of great men and women in order to find data from which to test the various ascriptions of the astrologers. He will turn up cases of dementia and insanity in persons of repute and compare the data afforded by their horoscopes with the rules of Ptolemy, Morinus and Cardan. He will incidentally acquire a considerable knowledge of men and things which else had been to him an unwritten book.

Further, testing the theory of eclipse influences he will inevitably find his way back to the ruined cities of Nineveh and Babylon and the three historical eclipses which preceded the downfall of the great Empire, which eclipses we have received from Hipparchus through the Syntaxis of Ptolemy. As to the latter there are the Greek, Latin and English editions of the work open to his study.