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Esoteric Astrology - The Nature of Esoteric Astrology - Spiritual Effects of the Zodiacal Constellations
It is interesting here to note also that through the ruling planet, Mars, the average man born in this sign is related to Scorpio, and thus the Cardinal Cross is related to the Fixed Cross. Points of crisis can thus be noted when the horoscope is considered from this angle. At the same time, Aries is related to birth, through Mercury who rules Aries esoterically, and also Virgo, of which Mercury is the exoteric ruler. Through Uranus also, Aries is related to Aquarius, [99] the sign of world service, leading to death and liberation in Pisces. Uranus is the planet through which zodiacal energy flows, in connection with the Creative Hierarchies upon our planet, from one of the stars of the Great Bear. It is these relationships with which esoteric astrology deals, and from them the universal can be grasped and the particular understood. The human being in his eventual recognized group relationships is of more importance than appears in his individual life, which the orthodox horoscope seeks to elucidate. It only determines his little destiny and unimportant fate. Esoteric astrology indicates his group usefulness and the scope of his potential consciousness.

I would remind you here that frequently when the ruler of a sign is given as the Sun or the Moon I shall speak of one of the hidden planets, Uranus or Vulcan. These are interchangeable in their use and it is difficult to tell to which the esoteric planet refers unless you have been told. Hence my above reference to Uranus.

In connection with Aries, which expresses or is the agent primarily of the first Ray of Will or Power, the ray of the destroyer, it should be stated that first ray energy comes from the divine Prototype in the Great Bear, that it becomes transmuted into the force and activity of the planetary Logos of the first ray, and works out as His triple activity under the guidance of the three ruling planets - Mars, Mercury and Uranus.

Mars embodies sixth ray force which leads to idealism, destructive fanaticism frequently, struggle, strife, war, effort and evolution. God's idea in Aries becomes the concrete plan in Capricorn whether that objective is the full flower of the planetary life in all its forms, the ambition of a personality working out its own ideas and ambitious worldly projects or the spiritual aspiration (worldly ambition [100] transmuted into its higher aspect) of the initiate, who seeks to work out God's plans and make them his own. In every case, Mars leads to the battle ground of Scorpio.

Mercury, embodying the energy of the fourth ray, eventually carries the man around the wheel of life and through the medium of conflict enables him to achieve harmony. Mercury illumines the mind and mediates between the soul and the personality, being the Messenger of the Gods. This mediatorship, in the first instance, produces an inevitable opposition between the pairs of opposites and a long drawn out conflict. This conflict finally works out into victory and the dispelling of illusion through the illumination of the lower mind. Mercury and the Sun are one, we are frequently told in the occult literature. The Sun is the symbol of the Son of God, Who is the mediator between Father-Spirit and Mother-Matter. Mercury, therefore, leads Aries to Virgo (again speaking symbolically) where the idea or Word of God begins to take form, and consequently the latent life in Aries comes to the "crisis of the birth hour," prior to the birth of the Christ, cosmically considered, though the birth of the individual Christ takes place in Capricorn, at the close of the needed gestation period.

Uranus embodies the energy of the seventh ray and its work is analogous to that of Mercury, for the seventh ray is the ray which relates spirit and matter and brings together electric fire and fire by friction, thus producing manifestation. Uranus leads the soul to the burning ground during the final stages of the Path, when the fire of Aries and the fires engendered through the potency of Uranus produce the flaming heat of the final burning ground. Through this burning ground, the initiate has finally to pass. Uranus rules the occult Way and is, in an esoteric sense, connected with the Hierophant of the Mysteries of Initiation. [101]

Therefore, we have in relation to Aries and the life of the soul, which there comes into subjective manifestation, certain related signs wherein the soul, in objective manifestation, passes through peculiar and definite crises:

  1. The crises of the battle field, leading to the culminating battle in Scorpio and the liberation into life in Capricorn, the place of the higher initiations, after the reversal of the wheel.
  2. The crisis of the birth place in Virgo, brought about through the activity of Mercury, leading through Leo to the birth of the Christ in Capricorn. The self-conscious individual in Leo becomes the Christ-conscious Initiate in Capricorn.
  3. The crisis of the burning ground, which is brought about through the activity of Uranus. This is entered through the free choice of the initiate who makes his choice in Libra, the point of balance where - usually - the moment for the reversal of the wheel takes place. There the man has to decide whether to proceed as usual and according to custom or, reversing the wheel, to pass through the burning ground to liberation. Libra is the polar opposite to Aries and therefore closely related.

You will note that the rays which are related to or expressing themselves through Aries are curiously balanced, Rays 1 and 7 are the highest and the lowest, and therefore demand a point of balance upon the wheel which is provided in Libra. Rays 6 and 4 bring to this balancing process the energy of the second ray, the major building ray which enables the man to build anew and provide himself with a spiritual body of manifestation.

I would also call your attention to the fact that through Uranus, Aries is related to Aquarius. The vague beginnings [102] in Aries, the faint emergence of the latent embodied ideas have - after the turning of the wheel in two directions - brought release in Capricorn and produced the world server in Aquarius, who voluntarily stays upon the great wheel (using the Cardinal Cross as his conditioning signs) and thus staying within the sphere of influence in order to help humanity to find liberation from the Fixed Cross.
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