[1st blog entry, writing of these 6,500 words commenced 21 Sep 1923 09:19]
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| Neo-Platonism's three hypostases partly visible within the Universal Intellect and the World Soul. |
Certainly author David Fideler had fun assembling his "Jesus Christ - Sun of God" (1993), an assortment of tidbits and snapshots of metaphysical iconography. At fifty and finding the first edition still on the market 17 years after publication, my inner child awoke yet again. After having spoiled the mind with excessive mercurial problem solving during several years of Internet programming, it took three years before my lost capacity for dreaming returned.
This was a good sign as any of the destructive nature of the overly analytic-technocratic project mankind has embarked on. IT is right now creating a new fascistoid kind of human being and with AI the species will degrade further into a lazy "uses" with no real skills whatsoever, only fit for manipulating various technological utilities. This unshapely blog will ponder whether the fast approaching Age of Aquarius may indicate a new era of mental slavery, since some has much to lose from being this dependent on IT aid when performing even simple tasks... I do hope for mental liberation but presently (2023) mankind's fate looks rather bleak.
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As for the above illustration, the reemergence of the dream enabled "inner child" after the soul killing years as a programmer, I found the Four Elements perfectly suited to further embellish Fideler's merging of the Vitruvian Man with Neo-Platonism's use of Plato's tripartite Soul. In accordance with the correspondence between the higher and lower realities of old it also seemed fitting to insert astrology's Saturn, Sun and Moon to indicate, respectively Plato's Rational Soul and the lower Irrational Soul, with the solar Fire as potentially partaking of either.
The Sun represents Soul (Atman) to Hindu astrology and in the case of the human soul perfectly illustrated mankind's dilemma: standing in the middle and having to choose between its better or worse path. The Hindu expression "jiva-atman" bears a remarkable similarity to the Jewish myth of God creating a "living soul" out of matter by blowing air / pneuma / spirit into Adam's nostrils.
Philosophically the middling Sun would be the soul incarnating a body (the ancient Greeks philosophers agreed with Hinduism that the soul may either degrade itself or rise to higher levels of consciousness, the human form may contain souls having both having experienced the animal kingdom while a select few may have voluntarily lowered themselves into humans, temporarily exiling themselves. Gods may walk among humans as well as the slightly lower kind, what the Greeks came to call daimons. These are to be distinguished by spelling from a lower kind: the demons.
Although having spent years with various traditions, little has been preserved in astrological writings and religious texts must be consulted to flesh out the ancient thinking on being above the human kind. A footnote in the 1940 scholarly edition of Ptotelmy's "Tetrabiblos" only gives the name of the 12 astrological houses, calling the 11the place of social gatherings the "good daimon" while the 12th house, to this day a place of confinement (prisons, asylums, hospitals) the appellation "the place of the evil demon" signifying worldly loss (just as in Hindu astrology). Among other things the place also represents exile or banishment. Both these places will figure in future posts.
The Sun indicating the living NOW fits perfectly with Western existentialism, the need for making decisions and acting in the now, either from the higher rationality or by the lower Nature's impulse or instinct. (the higher or rational soul may be mistaken for instinctivity since it operates above intellect and is INSTANTANEOUS as far as the soul-in-body is concerned. This is why Hindu astrology is so clear that the 3rd house rules ordinary logic or even street smarts while the higher (in fact divine) mind operates through the opposite 9th house. I was a Western astrology hobbyist for decades and although intrigued by the subject didn't advance very far until the study of Hindu astrology side by side with classic philosophy.
Hindu astrology also notes Moon's pliancy and openness to everything - this planetary principle has no enemies. A "lunar orientation" may in some cases actually be good in helping the soul to choose path... Sun plus Moon may combine in numerous ways, some omens being very good but others warning of Man's loss of his true nature, in which latter case he no longer differs from any animal. This is key teaching in Neo-Platonism and the blog will make use of Plotinus' thoughts, the 3rd century vitalizer of Platonism.
Thus the illustration on top, also remembering the ancient adage "as above, so below": this blog will attempt the unlikely fusion of Neo-Platonism and Astrology, using the original sidereal zodiac from Babylonia and the common Indian Lahiri ayanamsha. This is a continously applied offset to nullify earth's slow precession of the equinoxes and keep the zodiac aligned with certain fixed stars, not the least Spica, denoting the border between the Balance (think the Egyptian judgment scene, the weighing of the heart on the Scales) and the soul's actual fall in Earth sign Virgo. Of interest in this sector of the zodiac is also that Venus is the ruler of the Balance, suffering its "fall" in the neighboring Virgo. From where did 3rd century Plotinus, "father" of Neo-Platonism get the idea of calling the human soul Aphrodite/Venus?
The beginning of the teaching of planets in exaltation or fall is lost in the mist of time and several theories have been advanced, not the least by the founder of Western sidereal astrology, Cyril Fagan ("Zodiacs Old and New", 1951).
There may be nothing very new here but for the joining of two topics not often discussed together and certainly not from the standpoint of astrological practice. Uncertain to whom the blog is addressing there will be some perhaps very obvious passages as for instance that the original sidereal zodiac means the zodiac circle and not the starry constellations. The zodiac belt is held in place in space rather than the clueless Western method of tying it to the earth’s solstices as a simple agricultural almanac. The Babylonians used a mundane calendar for timing activities suited to the season but the development of astrology was apparently regarded as a higher form of knowledge, just as Hindu astrology has worked the idea of a Universal Order (Dharma) into itself. (More on this later.)
Probably Universal Fate was in the Babylonian original too even though Assyriology points out an trisected visible heaven. As soon as West had received the Eastern teaching, the Hellenistic (Graeco-Roman) version also placed the root of Universal Fate in the 9th sector of the horoscope and gave called it the temple of the god (Zeus). If the Greeks received astrology by way of India, the connection is obvious: there the 9th house belongs to "Guru", the divine teacher and this Guru is of course the Roman (god and planet) Jupiter - that is, the Greek Zeus.
Plotinus actually wrote disparagingly about astrology but the Classicist A.H. Armstrong noted the contradictory and messy appearance of Enneads II.3 (On Whether the Stars are Causes) and ventured a guess that the very negative stance towards astrologers (using the same rather banal arguments as modern skeptics) is his own voice, while some later pro-astrological Platonist has provided other parts of this tractate.
But there is some remaining confusion as Plotinus’ own teaching about the earthly matter and the spiritual or intelligible matter supports astrology. His contentious tractate II.9 against the world hating Gnostics also lends itself to an affirmation of the stars as the manifestation of the world's spiritual Intellect (Nous). Having read Stephen McKenna's popular translation of the Enneads long ago, now returning to Armstrong's version brings out many new details I never noticed the first time around.
Add to this mess in the making the blogger's initial 25 years as a Western astrology hobbyist before converting to the sidereal system (initially an Indian variant) in 2007 and then spending years trying to assess the truth value of Hindu astrology only to realize it is the same jumble. Traditions (initially only opinions?) and practices having been amassed so that the Hindu methods have fared as badly as those of the West, including two glaringly different ways of regarding planets as being in aspect. It may be a mix-up of Greek astrology into an older and more "Babylonian" influence.
In addition, the Internet has created a good deal of chaos. There is no shortage of low-grade astrology sites indiscriminately mixing Western and Eastern astrology by e.g. including West's trans-Saturnian planets at the same time professing to present Jyotish (the science of the visible planets of which Saturn - the seventh heaven - of course is the outermost and visibly weakest).
In order to mix traditions one must really know what one is doing and to navigate the Internet unharmed one must unfortunately have a good deal of preliminary knowledge in order to sort out idiocy.
Still there is a certain method in the madness some may see on this blog. Used with discrimination, comparisons between different traditions may benefit all. The blog is quite eclectic and includes philosophical tenets, although it would have been satisfying to have studied various more philosophies extensively at a younger age. Reading the complete Plato only at fifty is too late unless being a genius or a fast learner (which I am not). After switching to the sidereal zodiac at least 10 year was spent trying to obtain - mostly in vain - statistically significant results. I used the common Hindu planetary (sidereal) positions and the Hindu aspects which differed from the Western system in that planets only aspect or look forward in the zodiac. The number of aspects are also smaller.
The results were at best meager. If the Nobel Prize winners are taken to represent the genius type of personality only the simple quantitative test of Sun or Moon in the signs revealed that the "soulless" Earth element showed a penchant for the mineral kingdom. Earth and talent for discoveries in Chemistry appeared to confirm what anyone can sense when thinking of this element. A severe lack of horoscopes for gardeners and nature lovers are to be regretted! I only knew one person very fond of walking in woods but rather predictably (for an astrologer at least) the birth time revealed a Water/Earth opposition East to West and one more Sun opp. Moon) in another place on the heavens.
This blogger, being dominated by Air found the lady a pleasant enough person but the friendship expired after three decades due to lack of personal (read: intellectual) development in this very down-to-earth and "natural" person. Even Western astrology, in spite of its shortcomings is absolutely right in stressing the important of the basics for long-lasting relations. The truth is that most people are simply not marriage material due to the wealth of karma shown in a birth horoscope.
While still on the fool's errand and trying to "prove" astrology, Moon/mind in Scorpio, the sign of its "fall," also showed promise with the category Murder. I spent several years of gathering data as murder cases appeared in media. That is, before I spent a few days collecting lesser known Nazis from the Internet and suddenly Sagittarian Moons exploded and passed the murderous Scorpio. The seeming validation of Scorpio having sometimes a very dark side, instead brought to light another astrological "truth": that of the tendency of weaker people to become yes-men and responding to leaders the feel a lunar and sometimes hightly irrational affinity with. Hitler had Moon in Sagittarius and this futuristic and expansive ("Lebensraum") mindset may have appealed to similar people to become more active within Nazism whether as concentration camp guards or within some of the many organization with blurry lines between politics and the military.
After ten years or so, I became intrigued by a secondary system of "virtual" aspects which appears genuinely Indian. I will often return to this numerological type of aspect since it yields interesting results by merely observing the relationship between two (or more) planets in terms of the fixed number of steps between two houses. The gruesome relation between the personal 1st house and the 6th house of sickness or enemies as well as the 8th house of death serves as a good illustration.
The houses contribute their unfortunate significations to what is called the "6-8 relation", which may bind together any two houses (besides the "archetypal" except 6th and 8th). Probably in a problematic way but dependant on the strength of the planets involved. Already Hindu astrology has become complex and capable of a wealth of different outcomes. Somewhere I realized this and gave up the ambition to fathom the full teaching. Instead the cross-disciplinary approach caught my interest.
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A number of quantitative tests with a growing number of saved charts of well-known and local (Swedish) celebrities (now amounting to 11,000 charts, less than 25% of them with known birth times since Sweden is an Atheistic technocracy and birth data scarce and too time consuming to hunt down) - all this empiric labor failed to produce positive results until I realized that this was only to be expected.
Astrology exemplifies the thought of Platonism (and Neo-Platonism). Planets, signs and other entities belong to the Nous, these are spiritual Ideas or Forms within the World Mind. What appears to exist in the sublunary sphere (beneath the moon, in "our world") is the multiplication of outcomes due to KARMA or environmental factors. "What is unitary above become a multiplicity here below".
And with most of the material with no known birth time I had to rely on the Hindu so-called Moon ascendant to at least approximate the local celebrities’ emotional or sublunar tendencies (Plato's lower or irrational soul, the cave dwelling “prisoner”). Fourteen years of blogging (in Swedish) with this incomplete horoscope (a poor man's version) still yielded certain insights.
Power oriented celebrities often had the Moon as their 1st ego house that pointed to active and revealing messages in the 10th house counted from the Moon. This, at least seemed to validate a commonly used Hindu method somewhat akin to planetary aspects but using the traditional 12 houses in order to predict planet's behaviors. This, then, is the "4-10" relation between Moon in 1st and some planet in 10th. Thus I was alerted to the use of the "numerological" way of establishing aspects thanks to all these lunar ascendants calculated due to lack of complete data for Swedish "scandal celebrities".
Sidereal sight is more of the same type of investigations using a combination of Classic Philosophy and a narrow subset of Hindu astrology, but now in English since the author's native land seems to have lost it, nobody reading even semi-abstruse blogs anymore. The subject is too difficult for a population of 10½ million people feeding on cheap entertainment delivered through the smartphone, online war games for the disposable population, celebrity podcasts of questionable value or e-book - the Swedes do whatever it takes to stay stupid, a prevalent concern in the media nowadays while already using cost effective AI to stay profitable and laying off workers. Many countries won't get the point until it’s here: the Post-Capitalistic New Order, based on entirely more "grown-out" set of human values.
As for the bad reputation Sweden has earned itself of late - a stupid land of anti-religious Quran-burners - it is true that this is the work of a minority, but still represents the end result of a national horoscope whose 9e house of Religion and Philosophy was dead on arrival and furthermore holds the disposition/owner of the rich elite (5th house), so that Sweden during the terror reign of market liberalism has gone from a vision of social democratic societal equality to the outright horror of "each one for himself".
Interestingly, Sweden's sun sign is the Water Bearer - symbol of the rapidly developing global civilization, indicated by Xi and Putin's repeated agreements to work towards a multi-polar new world order, replacing the present USA as human civilization’s hub. But due to the bad condition of the Sweden's 9th house of High Mind the country is rapidly becoming a reactionary version of this very interesting sign. Lately it applied for membership in the American NATO - an ingenious front professing to work for a free world, but in reality a means to spread Capitalist ideology and thus part of an Imperialist project, precisely the smallish mind the Age of Aquarius behooves Mankind to outgrow.
Later on this blog a few national charts will be discussed and among them Sweden's birth horoscope. I have spent by far most time trying to understand which of Hindu astrology's many and sometimes seemingly contradictory rules actually explains what any Swedish citizen consuming the daily news comes to learn about his homeland.
Note. Needed for this task is least of all brainwashed and fully socialized citizens who never would amount to much, but, as in my case, an academic (History of Art, Philosophy and Religion) of analytic bent, having also read and recommended (or not) books for publishing. (Two-three years for an imprint owned by this country's leading publisher.) I was also a self-taught computer programmer which in the early days of the Internet was all needed in Sweden to get a job at the soon to become fourth largest IT company developing websites, mostly for companies, banks and the like. (This was early, before the consumerist Internet, the Internet for the increasingly dumbed down masses had seen the light of day.)
My current position, as noted, is that the emerging high technology can be put to better use than Capitalism. I should mention this unpractical futurist stance already here. Technology will serve Mankind in a Post-Capitalist future, provided mankind doesn't destroy itself. The all-time low, so far, was probably when an American geneticist tried but luckily failed to take ownership of the human genome - for profit!
The multi-polar tomorrow that was urgently needed yesterday is none other than the well-worn Age of Aquarius, although Classic Philosophy and the study of Comparative Religion might be needed to fully understand the meaning of the Bearer of Water. The escalating climate crisis of course helps bringing this Cosmic Man into focus, this is the Gardener and, opposing his earthly or incarnated counterpart not a Destroyer.
Aquarius is a misleading name as the both the sign and its ruler Saturn essentially belong the Air element. The Roman author Manilius wrote "Astronomica" in the 1st century, the earliest occurrence of the three Air signs (Gemini, Libra/The Scales and the Water Bearer) as emblematic of Mankind.
Virgo is not among them, though a human figure. Hindu astrology has the answer to that, as it deals with Earth and material resources and the Western tradition too, has preserved the worse side of Mankind's penchant to amass material riches and push the weaker down in slavery and elevate the ruthless amongst their own Earth orientation to positions of power/money. But as every seasoned astrologer knows, the Elements are merely representations. A birth to an Earth sign may not even indicate a proclivity. Astrological Earth under heavy stress might indicate one who gives up the worldly striving as pointless, while a fortunate Fire personality may indicate a robber of the first order, although Plotinus likened Fire to the most godlike of the elements.
Still, Earth points to a material view-point. Taurus is the ox put to hard labor, Virgo is somewhat more inventive and may represent a farmer (having discovered the art of sowing in order to reap a plentiful harvest in this world) or perhaps only becoming a menial slave or servant. In the West Virgo is not known as a human sign but rather as a soul deprived of its wings due to the Fall (compare the solitary and sometimes very self-serving Virgo to the normally immensely social and cooperative Libra, home of Venus before its fall in Virgo). And at last the ruler of the Earth element, Capricornus (the capricious goat horn representing those in power and their amassing of material wealth due to imposing slavery on both Taurus and Virgo - with brute force if need be).
Capricorn will probably cause contention as long as Mankind remains a fallen being/entity. The sign may represent the State or those in power, with an approving nod from those who sees the need of organization and order. But Capricorn as State will be detested by undeveloped people with only self-interest in mind – the US credo “to go it alone” comes to mind.
Moral thoughts on right and wrong are built into astrology, and nowhere clearer than in the Hindu version. Hinduism seems to have preserved the connection between spirituality or philosophy and mundanity better than its Western sibling. Christianity had philosophical problems from the very beginning inserting itself into older “pagan” worldviews and often resorted to tyranny and forbidding the vastly superior Platonic viewpoints.
Ancient astrology was nothing if not a pictorial but realistic schematic of how Mankind behaves itself while karmically bound to, among other things, the several possible mixtures of the Four Elements, seen as metaphors for various types of spiritual endeavors or the lack thereof. One may argue that Air, Fire, Water and Earth are all needed for the composition of worldly fate, men they work eminently as placeholder for, first and foremost the supralunar sphere (Air/Fire) and the sublunary, at worst entirely mundane sphere (Water/Earth).
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In the movements of the planets Plato saw Eternity unfolding its nature in sequential form (over time - always becoming but never really reaching true existence). Babylonian astrology was not yet established in the West during Plato's lifetime but I'd bet he was very clear about much Eastern teaching. The oldest found Babylonian personal horoscope dates to 412 BC, but the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus (fl. 500 BC) already discussed the Elements (seen as metaphors) before Empedocles, incorrectly called "father of the Four Elements."
The thought of Cosmic Ages of varying worth or quality moving in a cycle was known even earlier (Hesiod, fl. 700 BC) but the real gold nugget was provided by David Ulansey’s little known but careful study, "The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries" (1989).
In this book he convincingly argues that Mithra the bull slayer uses iconography going back to what could be called the Platonic Month of Taurus, the Age of Taurus which preceded not only our dying civilization, the Age of the dichotomous Pisces and the preceding Age of the Ram. Mithra, the Bull Slayer would thus represent the warrior Mithra as supplanting the Ox as a symbol of the Age. The new ruler Aries has always looked suspiciously as the Greek's Ares for the warrior Mars. And Mars being the planetary ruler of Aries/The Ram of course strengthens this suspicion.
The precession of the equinoxes thus explains how a very remote Age emblem has "frozen in time" and still survived in favorite cult of the Roman soldiery while the world gave up the goat slaughtering (think the continuous sacrifices just outside the temple of Jerusalem) and a humankind now entered upon more than 2000 years at the zodiac's rock bottom: the Piscean Age of Loss and worldly losers.
It is well worth realizing the mankind has possibly never been so evilly misled or self-destructive as during the past 2000 years of Piscean dualism. Hindu astrology tellingly sees the necessity of cleansing the lower or irrational soul in the 12th house (the natural place of Pisces).
Hellenistic astrology saw "the evil demon" in the 12th house and Hindu astrology has the same denotation as loss or counter-productive emotionality. Man dominated by 12th house symbolism of some sort is an animal more than a true airborn (or airborne) human soul. Thus the 12th is the house of cleansing or liberation (moksha) in India, necessary to regain full status as a true human soul.
The former having never fallen into the Wheel of Imaginary Existence but the latter in full swing as the lower animal part of our being during life of earth. It is obvious that astrology's foundational pair, Sun and Moon, represent the World Soul in its duality, the supralunar and the sublunar parts.
Astrology (both Eastern and Western) possesses a wealth of nuances, and the blogger has Moon rising in the East but in the supralunary Air sign Gemini. Once reading that Hindu astrology saw this rather atypical sublunary mind but fit for philosophy brought a smile to my face as Moon in Hinduism, as noted, has no planetary enemies so that even the Great Evildoer (Saturn) for materialistic and worldly people serves a friend, as someone to learn from.
And it so happened I was born under a rising Air Moon opposed or rather guided by Saturn in Sagittarian Fire – the element closest to the Beyond this world. Due to Gemini rising Saturn becomes the accidental ruler of the 9th house of spiritual topics. These positions are, I suppose, the reason why you read these lines...
So many years with Western astrology and this simple and extremely clear omen had been hidden until the “time was at hand” to discover the Hindu version!
After Sweden's horrendous racial biology in the early 1900s, eagerly taken over by both Hitler's Nazi-Germany and the USA (a universal sickness in fact, one that appears whenever mankind becomes more than tolerably stupid), one might well wonder if this Age of Cleansing backfired badly during its tail end or if the Holocaust was the real demarcation line so that the end of WWII should be seen as the as yet hardly discernible new age.
Eminent French Orientalist Alain Daniélous in his "While the Gods Play" (English transl. 1987) described a Shaivite variant of the four Yugas/Ages.
The Yugas, however defined, is yet another division of the Circle symbolizing Eternity within the bondage of Time, whether or not the Yugas has some connection to the 12 zodiacal Ages still eludes me). In Danilélous' version the years surrounding WWII is truly a turning point in mankind's shaky journey though Time. His Yuga teaching is in fact so perfectly aligned with this point in world history I am tempted to fall in with skeptics whose sole reason to exist is to point out the many frauds committed in matters pertaining to the Occult.
The Orientalist’s exceedingly intellectual and precise book is still highly recommended as the Hindu Samkhya-cosmology is perfectly described as well as a rather scary appendix: "Forestalling the End", delineating a Shaivite version of the Western fixation with Armageddon or the End Time (a problematic term which may simply mean the end of an Astrological Age):
When the moon is in the constellation of Pushya (Aquarius) invisible clouds called Pushkara (cloud of death) will appear in the sky like a herd of elephants" [Shiva Purana 5.1.48-50].
Given that the moon transits the Water Bearer each month, the quote sounds like cheap sensationalism, but quotes from other puranas furnish some context. The end of the world seems to start in the southern part of the Indian Ocean. The underwater explosion closing a phase of human experience is open to all kinds of interpretation: nuclear explosion due to Man's idiocy or some devastating earthquake causing another Atlantis to disappear?
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Back to the 12 zodiacal ages whether the upcoming shift to the Water Bearer has anything to do with the cyclic system of the gunas or not. Due to the Precession the egotistical Age of the Ram and that of Pisces irrationality will soon give way and world driven by a wholly rational soul will appear. The rational Air sign - not water but a Bearer of Water - will handle this watery planet so differently to the shortsighted types of Humans that came immediately before him.
As earth's population will become severely decimated during the 100 years or so, the true doctrine of reincarnation will pose questions: where has all the missing souls gone? The Mahayana-Buddhist "Tibetan Book of the Dead" mention that 49 planet Earth are stringed together, so the answer seems clear enough and very similar to that given by Jesus as to his further whereabouts (after the impending execution as a seditioner, tried and convicted as having tried to get the rebellion against the Roman Empire underway): "In my Father's house are many mansions".
The thought passed me that the Tibetan choice of 49 different "earth dimensions" or mansions is due to influence from the Chinese Ji-Jing ("Book of Changes"). In this text the recurrent need for revolution is discussed in the 49th chapter of the 64 of what is an ancient cosmology as well as a ruler's handbook. The number 49 may simply symbolize the endless cycle of (divine) Nature's permutations. But no doubt there is a hidden rationale behind ordering of the chapters (two very different orderings are now known).
The earliest of cycles discovered by Man was of course the recurring sunrise followed by the moon's phases and later the understanding of the planetary movements. Using today's popular and simple teaching of planets in transit through the zodiac, a brief period occurs in this century when two of astrology's most highly developed symbols simultaneously become active by their respective planetary rulers "homecoming". In their primary, positively polarized signs that is, not in their secondary or "sublunary" signs. (In Chinese astrological systems years alternate between positive and negative, although the odd numbered are seen as feminine or Yin-polarized.)
This omen "outside" of Plato's sublunar cave (filled to the brim with fallen souls/bound prisoners) might very well signal the starting point of the new multi-polar world order:
Range of search: 1.01.2050 - 1.01.2100
In steps of: 24h 0m
Search for...:
SA.AQU & JU.SAG
Realization intervals (begin - end):
11.01.2055 - 5.02.2055
(Old but good freeware Zet 8 Lite used but I am sure there are online tools too.)
Since the earliest documentation the two big creators of destiny has been connected to the zodiac in a way that reveals much thought behind this system. Zeus/Jupiter ruling the 6th heaven and his pushed-back father Kronos/Saturn (hardly visible to the naked eye and thus similar to the concept of the hidden God, Deus Otiosus), ruler the 7th heaven and the "border" of the ancient cosmos - these two do not make their appearance as Lords or Rulers of signs until the fallen soul has completed two thirds of the zodiacal journey.
The Expansionist Jupiter appears only with the 9e house, the "best house" according to Hindu astrology, only to meet the Border or Delimiting power in Saturn, in its own earthly, 10th house following the order of the zodiac in counterclockwise fashion.
Why Fire neighbor with Earth? Here, I believe, is seen hints of Neo-Platonic teaching (both Plotinus with his Aristotelian influences and Proclus). The One and unreal Matter or at least the lessening of true reality by obscuring matter are, so to speak two sides of the coin. If metaphorically applying the Four Elements to the Platonist and Neo-Platonist tripartite Soul Plotinus' the One has no place, falling even outside/above Being, and seen as the Source of Being.
True Being begins only with Nous or the divine Intellect. This “heaven beyond heaven” reaches all the way down to the human intellect of the fallen soul who works to reach back to its previous condition “before the Fall” - Plato called this the work of recollection, at least during one phase of his development as philosopher.
In Proclus elaborate schema, to ena (The One) and hyle (matter) do correlate in that "beyond being" are far beyond Soul (directions don't ally and may be "above", "within" or "without" and matter and even its sensory representative, the Earth element entirely falls outside Soul. Earth thus lacks true being (similar to illusory Maya in Hindu thought and seen phenomena inevitable falling asunder). Hindu astrology perfectly preserves this Platonic teaching which very well may have come from the East originally.
Just as the fiery of outgoing (phenomenal) side of Jupiter appears in the 9th so the world is redeemed by a "negative" Jupiter, ruling in the dissolving Pisces at the end of the road. But before that Hinduism teaches jnana yoga as the highest form to achieve liberation, the intellectual form. Even within this world system, as depicted by astrology we find an imaginal representation of the "blue" airy or intelligible Nous, the divine Intellect, corresponding to the One in its appearance of a multiplied being This is all awfully Plotinian but beyond anything he explicitly wrote regarding astrology as philosophy writ as code.
There might be an even more potent illustration of the divine or supralunar world if using the Hindu (and Western) "mutual reception", letting the primarily fiery Jupiter into the airy Aquarius while its primarily airy Saturn occupies Sagittarius. This is the best illustration in astrology of the One and its Intellect acting as God-Mind within the universe.
Hindu astrology teaches that Fire and Air blend perfectly and to that adding the two mighty planets and the mutual reception is an unbeatable omen, at least in the supralunar region of the God-Mind. Although this "Platonic form" is an eternal occurrence, seen from earth and in Time this omen last appeared for a few weeks in June/July 1843.
Having amassed local or worldwide celebrities not one turned up with a birth between 28 June and 28 July that year. Perhaps "Messianic" characters are not due yet... A quick look at Wikipedia's list of mundane events 1843 reveals a, if not important, so at least amusing piece of legislation:
Origin of Latter Day Saint polygamy: Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement in the United States, receives a revelation recommending polygamy.
If memory serves, the reason for Smith's advocacy for polygamy was an alleged and immense queuing up of souls wishing to reincarnate on earth!
Compare this to the Water Bearers astrological symbolism: the collectivistic (e.g. all mankind or the saying "Man is a social creature") together with the pluralistic Zeus who sired more children than any of the old Greek gods - certainly through the sometimes rather riotous Sagittarius - here join forces. One here touches upon the "multivalency" of the archetypes, as termed by Jungian historian Richard Tarnas.
Both rulers at home in their positive signs or their mutual reception would indicate a seriously important and high-minded time if the chart is not spoiled by other omens. (Even a potentially very good sign as this may be rendered useless if in weak/bad houses or unconnected to more personal planets, like the ruler of the ascending sign or the Moon.)
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Future posts will be in a similar vein to this. There will be observations on connections between classic philosophy and basic (mostly Hindu) astrological tenets and a sprinkling of individual charts highly illustrative of (again mostly Hindu) rules of interpretation. Some posts will be slight and some attempting to sound my age (63 - feels I haven't reached this age for several lifetimes...).
I will probably return to the approaching Age of the Water Bearer time and again since my birth chart appears quite driven from this sign in the 9th house, the Pinnacle of Universal Dharma.
Speaking of Dharma, different opinions about the Dharmic houses are seen on the Internet. New to Hindu astrology I had to decide for myself. Is the 1st ego house really part of Dharma? After all it merely signifies the outgoing or active body or tool for the soul's appearance in this life. The 5th natural house of the Sun (atman) was of course Dharmic as was the 9th of the Dharma of this world.
(Conventional morality just like the penal law, appears mainly to be a 10th house matter. It is a material Earth tradition although built on the spiritual 9th, just as Plato and every intelligent person holds worldly steering power to be based upon divine Law/9th. Think Hammurabi, Moses, Hindu rishis and other inspired Lawgivers.)
Interestingly Hindu teaching on the Elements hold Fire and Earth to be outright antagonistic within the world. Much effort (outflow from the divine) yielding but meager material result!
The tv show The Simpsons, simultaneously funny and strangely erudite, came to the rescue in the matter of what houses are Dharmic. Some character gave the solution in passing by way of a question: "Isn't karma just the individual application of dharma?" or something similar. What a brilliant answer!
The fiery or Dharmic triangle is in a flux, personality, soul individuality and divine core is like a shapeshifter! Plotinus "the One" as God's immanence in creation or the Hindu metaphysical expression "Brahman with form" (within the world of phenomena). This way of thinking goes beyond Western astrology (with its ego fixation) and using the increased precision it is even possibly to finely tune the interpretation of both mundane and personal horoscopes. Especially with timed charts one may carefully position the chart owner somewhere in the "great chain of being".
Think the accidental ruler of the 9th happening to reside in the 1st. Here Universal Dharma (of the Fire, Air, Water or Earth variety) merges with the personal or bodily Karma. Who is to say what is what here? A person incarnation the best part of the Zeitgeist?
Some entities are very Dharmic but in this round (or at least during a destined cycle during life) playing an evil role needed for the complete picture... Astrology actually swallows up Psychology and offers a more nuanced picture of the soul-being under study.
After spending so many years with Western astrology, all had not been in vain. Insights now followed in a stream since much had been preserved in the West but lost after the so-called Enlightenment. Even The Simpsons contributed to a rebooted mind.
More clues to the ancient's philosophic-astrological worldview will follow. Much will be rewritten blog entries originated during the hectic time spent with the Swedish predecessor Sideriska siktet (2009-2023). Hopefully bypassing the drivel and writing more clearly the second time around.
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