Sepharial

“ Life has no qualities of its own, it gets them by use or function. The same energy that is expended in rioting and bloodshed could as readily be used for purposes of constructive enterprise. Extravagance is only a morbid generosity, a philanthropy gone astray. The Sun that shines alike on the just and the unjust cannot be credited with all the abuses to which we submit our vital powers. Why, then, should we ascribe to the planets all those evil influences which in truth have no existence except in ourselves, who are both receivers and transmitters of their influence? ”

“ For if it be said that the world has no existence apart from our consciousness, it may with equal truth be said that our consciousness has no existence apart from the world to which it is related. What we understand as the laws of the universe are formulated in terms of our thought, but inasmuch as the laws of thought are imposed on us by existence, it is clear that we do not ourselves impose cosmic laws, but we merely apprehend them. It is not in the Idealistic sense that the universe is a symbol, but in the real sense of it being the embodiment or out-realizing of the Supreme Life and Mind. ”

“ SOLAR INFLUENCE The Sun as the centre of the universe is the gravitational focus of all the forces of the cosmos. It stands to us as the symbol of Deity, or of that Logos which is the manifestation to us of the Inscrutable and Omnipresent. So far as we are concerned it is the source of Light and Heat to the world, and these two properties are the ultimate expressions of the Wisdom and Love of the Creator. When we speak of light and heat we mean those forces which, when they impinge on the Earth’s atmosphere and are sensed by us, produce the sensations of light and heat. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ This idea, applied to the subject of Involution and Evolution, gives rise to the momentous thought that the Archetypal Mind that holds the idea of this universe and is its Creator, is under no contract to complete the scheme of things. God is under no necessity to finish His work. The Great Artificer may at any time destroy his moulds! But long-suffering Nature comforts us with the idea of an infinite patience, and the human mind suggests something indefinitely more steadfast than its own caprice. ”

“ The Hebrew records give us the familiar case of Babel, that achievement of human arrogance which reached to the gates of the Sun. The great civilizations of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome have gone the way of all things temporal. In the modern endeavour to “beat the record” there is an element of danger which is too lightly regarded by those who have no knowledge whatsoever of the forces with which they are playing. These are not of the air and wave alone but of the whole universe, as well spiritual as physical. Let us look at the matter in the light of a modern example. ”

“ For the Spirit of Truth is the manifestation of the Hidden Wisdom of the Father, and its Bride is the Spirit of Charity. Manifesting in the human they are seen as Knowledge and Affection on the Intellectual plane, and on the Psychic or emotional plane as Thought and Feeling, these being derived from the former, and ultimately finding expression as Speech and Action. Thus all the life of man is linked up with the Divine, as all the universe is with its cosmic centre the Sun. ”

“ To the extent that we understand the laws of our being and use them for our personal benefit, and through ourselves for the good of all mankind, we become conspirators with the Divine Will, conscious co-operators towards “that one divine far-off event to which the whole creation moves,” an apotheosis warranted by the trend of the physical and spiritual evolution of humanity, and prophetically indicated by the words: “Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, to crown him with glory and worship.” ”

“ Pouchet rightly says: “Hipparchus and Ptolemy had no instruments to scrutinize the heavens with. The astronomers of the Renaissance, such as Regiomontanus, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler, were scarcely more favoured, and yet how many immortal discoveries do we owe to them! They seem with their lynx eyes to have seen or divined everything!”
They observed not only the courses of the stars and planets as well as those of the luminaries, but what is of more human interest, they watched the effects that these bodies had upon the course of human events and upon nations and persons. ”

“ Our Eugenists leave out of consideration the factor of Season. They imagine that, given healthy parents, you are bound to have healthy children. Nothing is further from the truth, if we regard children as composite beings and not merely as animals. We may frankly admit that the personality determines the final expression of character as the coloured glass through which the ray of intelligence finally strikes upon us, but to confound character with environment—and there is no environment which presses a man more nearly than his physical body—would be to negative the whole effort of reform. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE It is quite a popular misconception that credits Science with exact methods and certain knowledge on all matters concerning which it has given an opinion. There is, in fact, a slavish reverence for the dicta of Science which is as inconsistent as formerly was the submission of the public mind to religious dogmatic teaching. And if, as some writers assert, there still exists a conflict between Religion and Science it is at least satisfactory to see that to-day Science appears to be getting its own back to a creditable extent. ”

“ Consciousness as a by-product of organic matter was quite correct science fifty years ago. To-day, in the presence of many well-attested facts which go to prove the possibility of consciousness apart from organism as we know it, the man of science is not at all sure that consciousness is anything of the sort. Modern psychology is a new leaf in the book of Nature which until quite recently had not been deciphered. We are getting our facts sporadically, a few at a time, and each new discovery changes our ideas concerning things which had passed for correct theory. ”

“ The Sun shines upon all and illumines all when there are no clouds of doubt interposing themselves between us and the open canopy of heaven. These clouds arise by evaporation from the ferment of the lower nature. ”

“ Earth-born in their origin, and linked to this Earth’s humanity by a thousand compatriot ties, by bonds of blood and heritage, by lives of tireless service, they wait the time when humanity shall have evolved to that stage when personal intercourse is compatible with their own spiritual status and the needs of our further evolution. ”

“ For obviously the Moon must not only be water-lifter, but also a cloud-lifter, and its effects upon the atmosphere itself must be in proportion to the saturation point of the air from hour to hour according to the incidence of its rays. Only when all meteorological methods have failed to indicate the kind of weather we are likely to have, to predict the kind of summer we shall have, or even to explain such as we have, then men throw about for new ideas, and frequently manage to seize upon old ones. This of the Moon’s influence on the weather is one such. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That there is a great connection with the state of the eye and the general health is a proved fact of which medical men frequently avail themselves in their diagnosis. We have already considered the Sun and Moon as the luminaries of the day and night, and we find this idea associated with the visual power in the Sayings of Jesus: “If thine eye be good thy whole body shall be full of light, but if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness.” In effect we find that when the iris of the eye is firm and clear and of a single unbroken colour, the health is good. ”

“ Given the conditions and the time, the soul that is as black as coal can become, by evolutional processes, as clear and pellucid as the diamond. We begin as fragments of gross earth and end as suns in the galaxy of heaven. ”

“ Astrologers make no claim to any degree of special inspiration. They merely argue from like causes to like effects, finding illustration of the law of periodicity in lunations, transits, eclipses and revolutional ingresses, which, being connected in experience with a certain succession of events, are found to produce events of a similar nature whenever they recur. Astronomy gives us the periodic values of these several factors, while Astrology supplies an interpretation from experience. Nothing could be more scientific or more satisfactory. ”

“ The learned writer of The Story of the Heavens has given us a most interesting account of the manner in which the law of the Tides gradually came to be connected with the Moon, and how at length some astute observer formulated a scheme based on the Moon’s age, by which the time of high or low tide could be predicted. That was a case of scientific foreknowledge. When to the laws of Kepler, which gave a mathematical construction to the whole system of astronomy, Sir Isaac Newton contributed his great law of Gravitation, the coherence of the whole cosmical scheme was manifest. ”

“ Thus every man is a law unto himself, and the truly wise are they who are able to say in all consciousness: “Thy will be done.” For human safety and happiness are only assured by devotion to the highest good, and this is the occult view of the dependence of mankind on an all-seeing and beneficent Spirit “in whose service is perfect freedom.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM There is one star above all others which periodically sheds its light upon the world, but about which very little is known, and on the occult significance of which little or no light has been hitherto shed. ”

“ When we speak of chemical affinity, of magnetism, of polarity, we are really speaking in terms of sex. However far we push back our investigations along the lines of evolution we come at length to the distinction which separates one-half of nature from the other, and which is seen to be at the root of all natural attractions and to be the source of generation. Sex, as considered by itself and apart from function and organism, may be the result of a mode of vibration. ”

“ THE TIME FACTOR IN KABALISM Every system of Kabalism employs numbers in a symbolical sense, and attributes to them a significance as if they were causative factors. This is legitimate from the point of view of a philosophy that regards the Universe as Symbol. In such a scheme every cosmical factor assumes a symbolical value, according to its ratio in the sum of things, and each of the planets may thus be symbolized either as deities invested with attributes and virtues of a distinctly human nature, or yet may be expressed in terms of numerical values, quantities, colours, forms, and sounds. ”