The greatest of the four men is of the spiritual, first race and is the type of what mankind will be in the perfect seventh. The second man is the life race man and will be the sixth. The psychic is the third and fifth race man of form and desire. The physical is our fourth race little man of sex.

The zodiacs of all these men have their connections and correspondences in the lowest man.

—The Zodiac.

THE

WORD

THE ZODIAC

XII

IN our last article it was shown that the foetus epitomizes the history of humanity, of the earth, and of the evolutionary rounds which preceded this our fourth round. In the present article will be briefly dealt with the position occupied in the zodiac by the body of man, the places of his respective constituent principles, their action and interaction during life, their separation and location after death, and the Ego’s reincarnation into another physical body—all according to the signs of the zodiac.

The zodiac is not only the starry belt in the heavens; it can be applied to things immeasurably greater and immeasurably smaller. Everything which has being has also its zodiac, for the zodiac is of the law according to which everything comes into existence, stays a while, then passes out of existence, only to reappear again according to the zodiac. The atom has its zodiac, the molecule its zodiac, the cell also has its twelve signs of the zodiac; each stone, each plant, each animal, has its zodiac; every organ in the physical body has its own zodiac. All the organs, each having its own zodiac, exist in and are controlled by the larger zodiac of the whole physical body. Even so the physical body of man lives in the larger zodiac of the psychic man, which in turn lives in the larger zodiac of the mental man, and all these live in the zodiac of the spiritual man. Thus man is related within and outside him, by the different principles which go to make him what he is, to the atom and to the worlds and systems of worlds beyond him. All of this is shown in the accompanying Figure 30.

Figure 30 is a large zodiac enclosing an inverted right angled triangle and four smaller zodiacs. The horizontal line divides the circle from cancer (♋︎) to capricorn (♑︎). The two sides of the triangle are from cancer (♋︎) to libra (♎︎ ) and from capricorn (♑︎) to libra (♎︎ ). It will also be seen that the four zodiacs are below the horizontal line, each zodiac being within the other; that each of the four zodiacs is divided by a horizontal line, and the two sides of the triangle of the large zodiac go to form the two sides of the right angled triangle in each of the smaller zodiacs. These sides of the triangle from cancer (♋︎) to libra (♎︎ ) and from libra (♎︎ ) to capricorn (♑︎) have each the same sign at the corresponding position in the zodiac, and each horizontal line which halves its respective circle extends from its cancer (♋︎) to its capricorn (♑︎). The vertical line extending in the great zodiac from aries (♈︎) to libra (♎︎ ) has aries (♈︎) at the zenith of each of the four lesser zodiacs; at the zenith of the smallest zodiac is the center of the zodiac next beyond it, and so on until the fourth and largest zodiac below the horizontal line of the great zodiac has aries (♈︎) at its zenith, which is the center of the great zodiac.

We shall call the first and smallest zodiac the physical; the one immediately surrounding it the psychic zodiac; the third and next largest the mental zodiac, and the one beyond that the spiritual zodiac. The zodiac which includes all these we shall call the absolute zodiac.

The line leo–sagittary (♌︎–♐︎) of the absolute zodiac forms the horizontal line of manifestation which divides the spiritual zodiac from its cancer (♋︎) to its capricorn (♑︎), and the line virgo–scorpio (♍︎–♏︎) of the absolute zodiac forms the horizontal diameter of the psychic zodiac from its cancer (♋︎) to its capricorn (♑︎). There remain the mental and the physical zodiacs, whose horizontal diameters, cancer–capricorn (♋︎–♑︎), are not formed by a line connecting signs of the absolute zodiac, but they are formed by parts of the lines connecting signs of the spiritual zodiac, which patterns after the absolute zodiac, for its line, leo–sagittary (♌︎–♐︎), forms the horizontal line, cancer–capricorn (♋︎–♑︎), of the mental zodiac; and its line, virgo–scorpio (♍︎–♏︎), forms the diameter, cancer–capricorn (♋︎–♑︎), of the physical zodiac, even as between the corresponding signs of the absolute zodiac are formed the horizontal lines, cancer–capricorn (♋︎–♑︎), for the spiritual and the psychic zodiacs.

It is necessary to remember all this, and, in fact, to observe each of the zodiacs, with its respective signs related to all the others, as each detail has an important bearing on the subject of reincarnation.

In addition to the foregoing, it will be seen that the figure of a man stands in each of the zodiacs; that the head of the smallest man in the physical zodiac comes to the middle of the man in the psychic zodiac; that the head of the man in the psychic zodiac comes to the middle of the man in the mental zodiac, and that the head of the man in the mental zodiac reaches the middle of the man in the spiritual zodiac. Thus the physical man comes to where would be the feet of the spiritual man; the head of the psychic man reaches to where the knees of the spiritual man would be, and also to the middle of the mental man. These men depict the existence of four grades or classes of men who have lived, who do live, and will live in this world. The largest of the four men symbolizes the first race (♋︎), spiritual man, who gave the impetus to our evolution, and also the type of what mankind will be in the perfect seventh race (♑︎). The man in the second or life race (♌︎) also indicates the place in evolution which the sixth race (♐︎) man does and will occupy. The psychic zodiac stands for the man of the third race (♍︎), who was astral in his beginnings, but who later became physical and is or should now, according to the cycle of evolution, function in the fifth or Aryan race (♏︎). The physical zodiac is the smallest, and is the fourth race (♎︎ ) physical being of either sex. Humanity has fourth race bodies now, but mankind as a whole is in the fifth race (♏︎), desire, and, on the upward arc of the zodiac, is beginning to function in the sixth race (♐︎), thought.

Figure 30 contains the geometrical law of proportion. It is the measure of man. There are many other details which enter into the zodiacal calculations in their relation to the history and destiny of man, but these are omitted in order that the most simple form of the measure of a man may be seen according to the great law of proportion. This law of proportion is one of the fundamental laws of creation, preservation and destruction or recreation. By understanding this law, one will know the relation of things according to the signs of the zodiac. The entire life of man is the living of his zodiac. He has his period of manifestation and he has his period of rest according to the signs of the zodiac. His body is fashioned according to the laws of the zodiac; he is born according to the zodiac; his body is built up, strengthened and developed according to the zodiac; he reaches adolescence, he is educated and reaches maturity according to the zodiac; he is related to his family and his country according to the zodiac; develops his mind according to the zodiac; performs his duties and his calling in life according to the zodiac, and he dies according to the zodiac. The elements of which his body is composed are dissipated according to the zodiac; his life is separated from his desires according to the zodiac, and his mental powers, ambitions, and aspirations, are related to or separated from his desires to the degree that they are like or unlike desire, according to the zodiac. He enjoys the period of his rest, called heaven, or devachan, according to the zodiac. The period of his rest being at an end, he leaves his sphere of rest to come into contact with the emotions of the world according to the zodiac. He selects the parents who are to prepare the body which he is to inhabit according to the zodiac; he contacts the parents according to the zodiac; he makes connection with the foetus and transfers his desires and tendencies of thought to the foetus which is being prepared for him, all according to the zodiac. During the entire period of prenatal development he is connected with the foetus according to the zodiac. At birth he transfers a portion of himself into the new-born physical body according to the zodiac, and he reincarnates, dependent on the degree of development of the body, all according to the zodiac.

The life of physical man, from birth to death, is checked off in its development and decline from libra (♎︎ ) to aries (♈︎). At libra (♎︎ ), sex, the body is born. It grows and develops its desires through scorpio (♏︎). Man’s education begins in the sign of sagittary (♐︎), thought, with his ability to think. His mental strength and power is attained in capricorn (♑︎), individuality. If he does not extend his mental power beyond the merely physical world from this sign, he begins to decline and has little experience in the sign of aquarius (♒︎), soul, and no experience in the freedom of the sign pisces (♓︎), divine will. The entering of the sign aries (♈︎) is then marked by death. Having no experience of the life of the soul, of the spiritual will, or of supreme consciousness, during physical life, he can have no similar experiences after death. He passes through the intermediate states between death and conception, directed by the law of the sign taurus (♉︎), motion, loses all memory of the life just ended, comes in contact with the parents which are to fashion his new physical body in the sign of cancer (♋︎), breath, and is in contact with or engulfed into the body being formed in the sign leo (♌︎), life, passes through the phases of transmigration in the sign virgo (♍︎), form, through all the forms of the kingdoms of nature, until at last he is born into the physical world again in the sign libra (♎︎ ), sex.

The period between death and rebirth is different with the psychic man, the mental man, and the spiritual man. With the psychic man—that is to say, one whose ideals have been a little higher than mere physical—his death is marked at the point capricorn of the triangle of the physical, which is the limit of the physical zodiac, and his period of rest, usually called heaven, extends through the upper half of the psychic zodiac, at the end of which, cancer (♋︎), he begins his reincarnation according to the law governing the world of virgo–scorpio (♍︎–♏︎), form–desire. The mental man may extend his period between lives to a much greater length than the psychic man, while the spiritual man may have a period of great duration, according as his thought and aspiration is connected with enjoyment for himself or with his duties in the work for mankind. In each case the period at which the ego makes contact with the family who is to prepare a physical body for reincarnation is marked by the sign of cancer (♋︎). The birth of the body is marked by the sign of libra (♎︎ ), at which sign also the ego begins to incarnate. The sign capricorn (♑︎) marks the end of life, or that initiation which overcomes life and death.

All this, and much more, can be learned by a study of one’s own life as indicated by Figure 30, but it requires some thought and self-study to follow out all the details as they are related to the whole.

Let us examine the four classes of men as shown in Figure 30. The smallest of the four represents the average human being, while the largest represents the greatest human being who remains human and lives in the world. The other two indicate the intermediate grades of development. The triangle in the physical zodiac of Figure 30 indicates, at cancer (♋︎), the contact with the parents who are to prepare a body for the reincarnating ego. The point of the triangle in libra (♎︎ ), of all of the zodiacs, symbolizes the birth into the world and the incarnating of the ego into the body born. The point of the triangle at capricorn (♑︎) symbolizes the death of the body. All this is in relation to the ego during its appearance in the physical body. As to which of the four men any man is, does not depend on his position in life, his intellectual power or physical body, although all of these are important factors in the development of man. The four men, in their respective zodiacs, symbolize the special attainment for anyone. These are potential and possible for each incarnate being to become, because the four men in their respective zodiacs represent the physical, the psychic, the mental, and the spiritual man, of each individual human being. In the lowest zodiac, which is the zodiac of the physical body, stands the ordinarily endowed man. His period of life extends from libra (♎︎ ) to capricorn (♑︎) within his physical zodiac, which line (♎︎ –♑︎) represents the fullness of his mental attainment. At this point of his physical zodiac he determines whether he will extend his mental power along the line of his triangle to his psychic man, the man above him; in which case the line of his mental activity is not cut off by the cycle of mental decline, which will complete his physical life from capricorn (♑︎) to aries (♈︎) in the physical zodiac; but it will extend to his own psychic man and the psychic world. If he does extend his mind along the mental line and no further, then his mental activity is cut off by the cycle of the zodiac at the capricorn (♑︎) of his psychic zodiac and he dies, because the line of virgo–scorpio (♍︎–♏︎) of the absolute zodiac is the limit of his psychic man, and he enters the psychic world or heaven which he has determined by the action of his desires and mind in life, which is the law that governs the nature and period between death and birth.

Then he has a period of existence in the psychic world which may rise upward in his psychic zodiac from capricorn (♑︎) to aries (♈︎), which marks the fullness of his heaven, having enjoyed which he descends along the arc of the cycle of involution in his psychic zodiac from aries (♈︎) to cancer (♋︎) in his psychic zodiac, at which point he contacts the foetus which is being developed for him, and which is shown by the sign virgo (♍︎) of the absolute zodiac, which is the law of the cycle of birth, and which passes through the sign leo (♌︎) of the mental zodiac; thence along the line of his triangle the foetus is developed, as shown by the signs of the respective smaller zodiacs, until at last it is born into the physical world, and he breathes a portion of himself into his physical body. (See The Word, Vol. I., No. 10, “Breath,” and Vol. IV., No. 5, The Zodiac, XI.)

This is the course of the ordinary man of the world whose ideals do not extend to high spiritual realms, but it is still higher than the purely physical man whose ideals do not extend beyond his physical body and the things connected with and related to his physical body in this physical world, even though such physical man may be said to have a great brain. A man whose mind is concerned strictly with physical existence, and whose little life is wholly devoted to the pleasing of his senses, would be restricted entirely to the smallest zodiac, whose lowest point is libra (♎︎ ), and whose highest extends only to the plane of virgo–scorpio (♍︎–♏︎) of the absolute zodiac, and the plane of leo–sagittary (♌︎–♐︎) of his mental zodiac, which is also the plane of his cancer–capricorn (♋︎–♑︎) of his psychic zodiac, and which is placed between the planes leo–sagittary (♌︎–♐︎) and virgo–scorpio (♍︎–♏︎) of his spiritual zodiac. Such a man would be born at the sign libra (♎︎ ), and his mental activity would be shown by the line of the triangle from libra (♎︎ ) to his physical capricorn (♑︎), which mental activity would not extend to the psychic man nor to his mental or spiritual man, but would be cut off at the sign of thought (♐︎) of the mental zodiac and desire (♏︎) in the spiritual zodiac, and be kept to the physical zodiac. The fullness of mental activity, therefore, would have reached its climax at capricorn (♑︎) of the physical zodiac and passed to the aries (♈︎), which would be the culmination of his mental and physical power, and would also mark the physical death. Not having extended the mind and thought to anything that was not physical, he would have no conscious existence in the psychic world, but would commence the cycle of his return to life at once, his last thought being of the physical body, and connect at the first opportunity on the plane virgo–scorpio (♍︎–♏︎) of the absolute zodiac; and if it was the law of the absolute zodiac he would at once connect with the family which would prepare the physical body for him and into which he would be born, but he would have no ideal existence between death and his connection with the foetus. He would return to the world with the birth of the foetus, and might suffer much torture during the foetal development and early physical life, unless he slumbered through it all until awakened in the early years of infant life.

Not so with the ideal mental or spiritual man. The line of the mental man extends beyond the physical to the psychic, and beyond the psychic to the mental zodiac, where he has his mental fullness; and if not carried beyond the mental it marks his death. The period between death and the coming back to life is shown by the upper half of his mental zodiac. If, however, the ideally mental man extends the power of thought to the point of capricorn (♑︎), which is his spiritual mind, and this should mark the cycle of his death, he would rise above it into his spiritual zodiac, which is above the plane of leo–sagittary (♌︎–♐︎), life–thought of the absolute zodiac. But if he should not even be limited to the thought (♐︎) of the absolute zodiac and of his ideally mental and spiritual zodiac, but should extend the line of his mental power to the point of capricorn (♑︎), the sign of individuality of the absolute zodiac, then he would meet no death, as he could transcend all the worlds of the manifested universe even while living in his physical body in its physical zodiac. There would be for him no after life, for there would be no death. He would be conscious through all the bodies of the respective zodiacs, through all the worlds into the absolute zodiac of self-conscious being.

It should be remarked that the perpendicular line aries–libra (♈︎–♎︎ ) divides all the zodiacs. This line is the conscious balance of self-consciousness through all of the planes. It unites the cancer–capricorn (♋︎–♑︎) which unite in it. It blends life (♌︎) and thought (♐︎). It links virgo–scorpio (♍︎–♏︎), which coincide in it, and it touches libra (♎︎ ). The physical body of the man of sex, libra (♎︎ ), stands in the physical world of the absolute zodiac and extends to the plane of virgo–scorpio (♍︎–♏︎), form–desire, of the absolute zodiac. This brings him between the planes leo–sagittary (♌︎–♐︎) and virgo–scorpio (♍︎–♏︎) of his spiritual zodiac, and his head touches the plane leo–sagittary (♌︎–♐︎), life–thought, of his mental zodiac and that of the plane of cancer–capricorn (♋︎–♑︎), breath–individuality, of his psychic zodiac, and his limit is at the sign aries (♈︎), consciousness, of his physical zodiac.

In this physical zodiac are all the principles, forces and powers of the psychic, mental, spiritual and absolute zodiacs, which may be awakened and called into active use through the corresponding signs of the physical zodiac, which is the physical body. This is shown in Figure 30.

(To be concluded)