At least the development of the mind must seem to run counter to the natural flow of vitality and even of what, under the Jupiterian rule of religion and the tribal spirit of unanimity, the would-be "free thinker" has been taught to consider God-like. Thus when man begins to realize what mind is and to transfer his focus of awareness from the realm of bio-psychic instincts to that of clear thinking and creative ideas, this new mental activity must inevitably at first appear to him as the enemy of instinctual life. Only by rebelling against this rule - and against the secondary rule of Jupiterian religious and cultural traditions which likewise bind while integrating the personality - can mind impress its character upon Earth-conditioned and biologically or socially controlled man. It exalts only those who obey unquestionably its rule. Its gifts are balanced by its compulsions. Life gives abundantly, but commands ruthlessly. Likewise Leo, the sign of the Sun's maximum intensity, is the sign of dictatorial and dramatic persons, whose generosity is only matched by their absolutism. To ordinary mankind at the geocentric and egocentric stage of evolution the Sun is "the great Autocrat of the Universe," the symbol of emotional and emotion-rousing compulsive power. Prometheus is pictured as a rebel, and so are in Hindu mythology the cosmic Intelligences (Manasaputras) who gave to men the "fire of mind" and thus made them potential gods. This apparent paradox can be understood when one realizes that the emergence of strong and focalized mental activity in man means actually a more or less clear-cut rebellion against the dictates of life-instincts and the irrationality of bio-psychic images or idols. Why does Mercury move, from the point of view of man on the Earth, against the direction of the Sun just when it is transmitting in a most focalized manner the Solar potential of energy to the Earth? It occurs when Mercury is retrograde and this obviously throws a new and at first surprising light on the meaning of the retrograde phase of Mercury.
This cyclic fecundation of the Mercury-mind by the Solar energy-potential and purpose occurs about every one hundred sixteen days or every four months, thus three times a year. This marks the beginning of a new cycle of relationship between Earth and Mercury - a cycle thus measured by the distance between two successive inferior conjunctions of Mercury and Sun in geocentric astrology. The Solar will (or energy-potential) flows outward to the Earth and human beings through the channel of Mercury the latter differentiating it into that electrical power which is the occult essence of mind (considered as "creative power" and not as "associative memory"). The heliocentric conjunction of Mercury and Earth means very much the same thing in the realm of mind. Such a Sun-Moon conjunction is taken to be the beginning of the "lunation cycle." At that time, symbolically speaking, the lunar agencies, whose task it is to build life-organisms, are fecundated and given direction by the Sun the will and purpose of the Sun is impressed upon them, and this impression is like the impact of a sound shaping loose sand into vibratory patterns, or like the effect of a magnet upon iron-filings. Mercury retrograde in inferior conjunction to the Sun, in geocentric astrology) is thus analogical to that met at the new Moon, when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, thus is in geocentric conjunction with the Sun.
The situation at such a heliocentric conjunction of Mercury and the Earth (i.e. Thus when Mercury is retrograde geocentrically, Mercury is heliocentrically near the Earth and at the heliocentric conjunction of Mercury and the earth, a line is formed by Sun, Mercury and Earth, with Mercury and Earth, with Mercury between the Sun and the Earth - thus as near to the Earth as it can ever be. In heliocentric astrology the situation is quite different, because an inferior geocentric conjunction of Mercury and the Sun means that the Earth is conjunct Mercury, while a superior geocentric conjunction indicates that the Earth is in opposition to Mercury. In the usual kind of geocentric astrology no distinction is made between the two kinds of conjunction of Mercury and the Sun, except that at "inferior" conjunction Mercury is retrograde, while at "superior" conjunction Mercury is direct.
0 kommentar(er)
