THINKING AND DESTINY

Harold W. Percival

CHAPTER XIII

THE CIRCLE OR ZODIAC

Section 5

The zodiac as a historical and prophetic record; as a clock to measure progress in nature and on the intelligent-side, and in the building out of a thought.

The zodiac is like a clock that measures the progress of everything from a fire unit to an Intelligence. The zodiacal clock indicates the progress of matter, both of nature-matter and of intelligent-matter, (Fig. II-G). Because it shows the change in the relations of units or of masses of units to each other, which is time, it indicates human time and time which is beyond human conception, and which is, therefore, called by some such words as eternity, duration or everness. To the mind’s eye the hands move over the zodiacal dials in a direction opposite to that in which the hands of ordinary clocks advance. The zodiacal clock has twelve dials. It has four sphere dials, four world dials and four dials for the four planes of the physical world. The lowest dial, that of the physical plane, is made of four states of matter, which are represented by the earth, the moon, the sun and its planets, and the stars. Though these bodies represent the four states they are all in the substates of the solid state, (Fig. I-E). The sun and the moon are the hands on the lowest dial and mark the time there. They are the only hands that can be seen, though there are as to the other dials unseen things which correspond to these hands.

The concealed works which move the hands of the zodiacal clock have aspects which men call God, the love of God, Divine Providence, Supreme Wisdom, creation and maintenance of the world, fate and destiny. These works are the government of the universe. Their mechanical and unintelligent actions, that is, the part of nature, are controlled by loving, understanding and knowing complete Triune Selves and Intelligences, which are on the intelligent-side. Their government is in the permanent physical world, the Realm of Permanence, that pervades this human world of change, but which is not visible to human beings.

The pivots, libra, of all the works are on the physical plane of the human world of change, libra. They are fourfold human bodies. In these pivotal male and female organizations are produced lunar germs, a solar germ and a light germ. There is for each body only one light germ and one solar germ, and they last during life; but a new lunar germ is produced every month, as the result of the working of the four systems in the body. Lunar germs, if retained in the body, build it up towards permanence; if lost, as they are with the run of human bodies, they keep nature going on her bloody and destroying way.

Everything in changing nature is worked from these human pivots on the physical plane. The forces of the Universe flow into them and are transmuted by them. The physical works reach into other works on the other planes and these works work into other works in the worlds and these work into the spheres. It is like one vast system of toothed wheels geared to other wheels, so that a transfer of free units is made from the physical plane of the physical world as far as the highest of the spheres, and a transfer of units that have become transient units is made within the confines of the physical world. During the transfer the matter which is passed on by these various wheels, axles, springs and escapements of the great clockworks, is itself slowly transmuted in the laboratory and workshop of the human body. There it is condensed, combined, compounded, organized and, by feeling and desire and thinking, marked for its circuit.

The works behind the physical dial turn the works behind the next dial, and so on, through all the works and the dials. The works behind the physical dial are the physical bodies of humans, and the whole visible universe is the dial of the zodiac of the four substates of solid matter of the physical plane of the physical world.

The stars located at the boundaries of the radiant layer are receiving and distributing centers of nerve force coming from the nerve centers in the generative system. The sun, between the fiery and the airy layer, is a receiving and distributing center of the life blood of the universe, coming from the heart and lungs in all human bodies. This life blood is sunlight and is fourfold. The moon, between the earthy and the watery layer, cleanses and adjusts the matter going to the sun from the millions of human kidneys and adrenals. From the sun this energy is, through the moon, turned back into the sunlight in the air, to the air, to the water, to the earth, and then into food. From there the energy goes into lunar germs. So the rounds continue and the clock-works carry on.

All this accurate and balanced interplay is automatic and is done by beings that are not intelligent. The machinery and forces which drive it are nature units or masses of nature units, elementals, be they great Gods of the worlds or be they the four units of a cell. But the zodiacal clock is not run without Intelligences. The elementals are controlled and directed by Triune Selves and by Intelligences. With the Supreme Intelligence of the spheres men are not concerned, as they cannot go beyond the earth sphere. But the earth sphere is ruled by the Supreme Intelligence of that sphere with the assistance of Intelligences who are still connected with their re-existing doers and with the assistance of the Great Triune Self of the worlds. These Intelligences under the Supreme Intelligence guide their Triune Selves in so far as the re-existing doers will be guided. Each Intelligence furnishes Light to its Triune Self. The Light in the noetic atmosphere of the Triune Self shines in the light world, where it lights up the units and makes that world a shadowless sphere of colorless light. Some of the Light the doers send into nature, through their human bodies. This Light is mixed with nature-matter and shows in the externalizations the thoughts, the quality of the thinking and the degree of the doer by which the thought was issued. The power that keeps the zodiacal clock going is desire in thinking, the law of thought, as destiny.

The zodiacal clock reveals a system which extends into the past and into the future and so allows one to use the conditions shown for any given time, as a basis for stating the order of the past and of future events. The zodiac is a systematic historical and prophetic record. It is a calendar that gives the sequence of events, and the largest as well as the smallest divisions of time. By means of the zodiac one can see from one event the order in which other events preceded it or will follow it. This is as true of any condition of the doer in the human as it is of the stages through which its body passes. Here are two illustrations:

The body is conceived in cancer, when or sometime after the breaths of the parents are joined by the breath of the breath-form; it takes life in leo; in virgo it takes on form; and it is given birth in libra. It lives through periods where it develops organs through which desire works in scorpio, where it develops a new structure for mental activities in sagittary, and where it reaches old age or death in capricorn.

The body itself is a libra body and has its own zodiac of which the manifested signs are here given. The five unmanifested signs show the stages of the after death states of the disintegrated body, that is, of the mere matter of the body. But the body is only the mask of the breath-form, which is the entity back of it. It is a libra entity and its zodiac is the same as that of the physical body. It was the breath of conception in cancer; it made the contact with life in leo; it developed its form in virgo; and in libra it brought the physical matter to birth out of the womb and entered the body with its active side, the breath. It carries the physical matter through the stages of youth in scorpio, maturity in sagittary and death in capricorn. There, in capricorn, it separates itself from the body, and after it has passed through purification in the signs of scorpio and sagittary in its own zodiac, it is freed from contamination of physical life and begins the heaven period of the personality in capricorn and then passes through the five unmanifested signs, where it reaches the zenith of the heaven at aries and is disintegrated in taurus and gemini, (Fig. V-D).

Another illustration: The Triune Self is a capricorn knower in the noetic or capricorn atmosphere; its thinker is in the sagittary atmosphere and its doer is in the scorpio atmosphere. In each it has a zodiac. When the ruling thought in the mental atmosphere or sagittary zodiac comes to the point of cancer, it causes the aia to revivify the form of the breath-form which it does in cancer of the libra zodiac. When the body is born in libra, it is developed, and in scorpio of the psychic or scorpio zodiac a portion of the doer is embodied; in sagittary of the mental zodiac, the thinker contacts, and in capricorn of the noetic zodiac the knower may contact the body. During life the doer works through the scorpio and sagittary parts of the physical body. At death, the body is separated from its breath-form in capricorn; the doer carries on in its psychic, scorpio, atmosphere the cleansing of the breath-form through its own feelings and desires, scorpio, and by its thinking in sagittary. Then, at capricorn of the psychic or the mental zodiac, the portion of the doer that was embodied, unites again with the cleansed breath-form, and goes through the five unmanifested signs. This ends the round of the existence of that particular doer portion and of the personality. The doer makes ready for the re-existence of the next portion, which must be that which is under the following zodiacal point.

There are stationary and movable zodiacs. The signs of the zodiacal symbol are always in the same relative position to one another. But as this figure can be used to symbolize various subjects, some zodiacs are seen to be movable against a stationary zodiacal background. In the case of a movable zodiac the zodiacal figure as a whole turns like a wheel against a background which is a stationary zodiac. The zodiacs symbolizing the spheres, the worlds and the planes are always in alignment with one another, and are stationary. They mark that which they symbolize, as permanent institutions through which matter flows. But the zodiac of a unit of nature, of a physical body, of a breath-form or of the outer earth crust is movable; it turns like a wheel against the background of the stationary zodiacs. If the sign aries of the movable and the sign aries of a stationary zodiac start when in alignment, after the wheel has turned one sign the sign aries of the movable zodiac will be aligned with the taurus of the fixed zodiac, and after the wheel has turned twelve signs, the sign aries of the movable zodiac will again be aligned with the aries of the stationary zodiac.

The zodiacs of a human are movable against the stationary zodiacs of the plane and world in which he is. His movable zodiacs show by their positions the condition of the body, of the breath-form and of the doer. The stationary signs show seasons or conditions in which certain influences prevail and certain things can or cannot be accomplished. The relation of the movable to the fixed signs is the origin of physical phenomena.

The zodiac of the breath-form is movable, (Fig. VII-K, b). The movements of the zodiac of the breath-form are coincident with those of the zodiac of the physical body. At conception aries of the zodiac of the form of the breath-form is at cancer, breath, of the stationary zodiac of the physical world and of the physical plane, represented by the body of the mother. When the fetus takes life the aries of the zodiac of the form of the breath-form is in leo of the stationary. When the fetus takes on the human form, that aries is in virgo of the stationary. When the child is born into the world, its head being down and coming through the birth canal, out of the invisible into the visible world, the aries of the form of the breath-form is in libra of the stationary zodiac. As soon as the child takes breath and is separated, the breath of the breath-form enters as the breath, the aries of the zodiac of the breath-form remains in libra until youth, when the child develops its sex power in scorpio, then maturity of the body brings the aries into sagittary, and death takes it through the gate of capricorn. The gross matter of the body is thrown off and the essential matter of the breath-form goes through the five unmanifested signs.

Every unit as well as every being composed of units, like a cell, an organ, a human body, the earth crust or the moon may be represented as a zodiac. It is a movable zodiac against the background of the stationary zodiac in which it is manifesting or working. The aries of the movable zodiac shows by its position in any sign of the stationary zodiac in what degree the entity is conscious, or working.

There is a circular and an extended zodiac, (Fig. VII-C). The distinction goes back to the time of the breaking of the front- or nature-column in the body. The doer once functioned consciously in a perfect, two-columned, balanced, sexless body, and Light of the Intelligence was in its psychic atmosphere. Each doer now in a human body was at that time conscious in its atmosphere, in its perfect physical body and in all the worlds. The doer was then conscious as a doer and was conscious of its parent Intelligence, of the Intelligences and of the elemental beings on the nature-side. When the doer broke the column it lost connection with the knowledge of its Triune Self. It lost the knowledge of its identity and so lost the Word; for A O M is the name of the three bodies for the three parts of the Triune Self. A O M is the Word. The doer became conscious merely as a man or a woman. Then began the use of the sexual organs to reproduce bodies. He broke through the circle.

The circular zodiac represents the twelve signs arranged in a circle. The extended zodiac is the broken circle, and represents the twelve signs arranged on a double curve. The circular zodiac is to be found on the nature-side in the spheres, the worlds and the planes, and on the intelligent-side in those who are Triune Selves or Intelligences. The extended zodiac is shown in the human figure and in the animal and vegetable bodies that are patterned after it. In the human figure the signs scorpio, sagittary, capricorn, aquarius and pisces through which it was made the dwelling place of a Triune Self, are now turned away from aries and are extended to the earth, libra.

The arrangement of the signs of the extended zodiac is the same as that of the signs of the circular zodiac in the torso of the human body down to libra. The head is related to aries, the throat to taurus, the shoulders and arms to gemini, the breasts to cancer, the heart to leo, the womb and prostate to virgo and the sex and alimentary openings to libra. The male organ and clitoris are the representatives of scorpio, the thighs are related to sagittary, the knees to capricorn, the legs to aquarius, and the feet to pisces.

The landmarks and the path of the circular zodiac are still in the upper part of the body, but they are used only for physical functions and not as the path of the Triune Self. The end of the terminal filament is related to scorpio; the terminal filament itself up to the first lumbar vertebra to sagittary; the spinal cord in the lower dorsal vertebrae to capricorn, and that in the upper dorsal to aquarius; and the spinal cord in the cervical vertebrae to pisces. When man uses his creative force, not so that it will bind him to the earth, but so that it will build him an immortal physical body, he will still walk the earth, but will also re-establish the circular zodiac in his body.

Among the subjects that are made accessible to human thinking by geometrical figures and which receive meaning from the zodiac, are further relations of man as the microcosm to the macrocosm, the processes by which a thought is developed, exteriorized and balanced, the relations of the manifested to the unmanifested, and some of the meanings which the zodiacal signs have for human beings when arranged in characteristic groups.

In one sense the macrocosm is the manifested half of the universe of nature, or as it is here called the sphere of fire, and a human body is a microcosm, through which all things in the Universe may be reached and affected. Through the human body the spheres cannot be operated, but human bodies, which are connected with the physical plane, keep in circulation the human world of change. The twelve signs are in both the macrocosm and the microcosm. In the microcosm the signs are centers or parts of the body through which the human acts on the macrocosmic signs and through which the macrocosm reacts on the human.

In another view the macrocosm is the physical body itself and is represented by the macrocosmic signs cancer, leo, virgo and libra, while the microcosm is the doer portion in the body, affecting and affected by the macrocosm. Then the microcosmic signs representing the Triune Self are scorpio, sagittary and capricorn. The body is the Universe and the dweller in the body is the microcosm. From this standpoint, the body, and not the outside world or the heavens, is the Universe. The body as the Universe, acts upon and influences the dweller in the body by the four senses, cancer, leo, virgo, libra, acting upon the centers and organs of the body. The action and reaction are carried on through the breath-form which is libra in the macrocosmic and in the microcosmic symbols.

In another view the macrocosm is the physical body and is represented by the macrocosmic signs, aries, gemini, leo, libra, sagittary and aquarius, and the microcosm is the embodied doer portion, represented by the microcosmic signs taurus, cancer, virgo, scorpio, capricorn and pisces. The body has in it the twelve signs, but in this third case six of them are universal or macrocosmic, while the intervening six are microcosmic or of the doer and work through the macrocosmic signs. Two portions of the doer work on or through the part of the body that represents the macrocosmic signs between them, as microcosmic signs. The macrocosmic signs are divided into the sexless signs aries, leo and sagittary; and the signs gemini, libra and aquarius, which are either bisexual or sexless. The microcosmic six signs are divided into taurus, virgo and capricorn, which are female, and cancer, scorpio and pisces, which are male signs. The embodied doer portion may use any two of its signs or powers to act through the intervening macrocosmic signs. Taurus and cancer can meet in gemini, cancer and virgo in leo, virgo and scorpio in libra, scorpio and capricorn in sagittary, capricorn and pisces in aquarius, and pisces and taurus in aries. So when two of the microcosmic signs come together they act in a macrocosmic sign. From the physical standpoint the application of this can be seen only to active and passive and to male and female. However, the statement as well as many other things may be understood by means of geometrical symbols.

The zodiac explains how Light of the Intelligence directed by the doer toward a point of nature-matter in a thought builds within that point, which is unmanifested, until a zodiacal structure within that point is completed, how after the completion of this structure within it the thought is issued, how then elementals following the lines of the zodiacal structure within the thought build them out into acts, objects and events, and how exteriorizations continue on the nature-side until the doer balances its thoughts on its own side, the intelligent-side, and the zodiacal structure is finished.

A thought is constituted of intelligent-matter and of nature-matter. It is made up on the one hand of Light of the Intelligence, joined to desire, and on the other hand of a point of nature-matter. The point of nature-matter is brought in by the senses and is the impression of the object which desire seeks, and which the Light of the Intelligence, directed by thinking, shows it the way to get.

After the object of nature has been tendered by the senses, representing cancer, leo, virgo and libra, has been accepted by feeling and desire, scorpio, and has been carried to the thinker, sagittary, and after thinking in sagittary, working with Light of the Intelligence received from the knower, capricorn, has joined Light of the Intelligence with desire, a thought is conceived, having within it the point of nature-matter which is the object of the thought. Thinking in sagittary, using the Light by which alone this can be done, opens with it the point. Thinking opens it inwards into those unmanifested parts of nature of which the exteriorizations will become the manifested.

The point is on the cancer to capricorn line, between the unmanifested and the manifested, and is a potential circle, into which it will be developed by the influence of the Light of the Intelligence, which thinking and desire direct towards the point, (Fig. IV-A, a).

The point, when the Light of the Intelligence is upon it, becomes the center of the circle which it is to be. When it begins it is a point, when it is ended it is a circle. It begins by drawing on unmanifested nature to get matter of its own kind. With this point-matter it extends a line until the potential cancer becomes the actual cancer to itself. This is the matter line of points from the center to cancer and is the breath of the thought. The zodiacal structure within the thought is further developed when Light of the Intelligence, directed by thinking, extends from the center of the circle a line at an angle to the horizontal or matter line. This is line-matter, attracted by the center of the circle when the Light is upon it. The line-matter is built on the matter line of points. Line after line is built until the last line reaches from the center to leo. Then the first standard angle, which is of thirty degrees and is the distance from cancer to leo, is completed at leo. The Light has created the first angle in the unmanifested, of line-matter which takes on life and is the life of the thought. The zodiacal structure is still further developed within the thought when the effect of the Light attracts to the center of the circle angle-matter. The angle-matter is taken on by the line-matter until angle-matter fills the angle from leo to virgo. This is the second standard angle, which is leo to the center to virgo. The Light has now created the second standard angle in the unmanifested, of angle-matter, which takes on form and is the form of the thought. The development of the zodiacal structure progresses within the thought when the effect of the Light draws surface-matter toward the center of the circle. The surface-matter builds itself on to the angle-matter, until the third standard angle, from virgo to the center to libra is completed.

The thought is now built out in the unmanifested as far as may be. This condition is symbolized by the zodiacal structure of a quarter circle from cancer to libra.

Then the thought is issued on the light plane of the light world, having in it the point which has in it the unmanifested parts of nature-matter that will become exteriorized as acts, objects and events. The thought affects the matter of the light world, and elementals then build in the life world on the life plane there, out from the point a zodiacal structure according to the unmanifested pattern within the thought. They build with nature-matter of the life plane of the life world point-matter, line-matter, angle-matter and surface-matter, until they have copied the quarter circle from the center to cancer to libra. Elementals build this zodiacal figure again on the form plane and again on the physical plane of the life world, with matter of those planes. Elementals then build matter of the form world out according to this figure. They build the quarter circle of point-matter, line-matter, angle-matter and surface-matter successively with matter of the life, form and physical planes of the form world. The thought then is sufficiently materialized to be in the physical world. There elementals, still following the pattern within the point, build from it the zodiacal figure of the quarter circle, on the life plane and on the form plane with matter of those planes.

Then the thought is ready for exteriorization and waits for time, condition and place to be ready for it. When there is a conjunction of these the thought is exteriorized. It is exteriorized according to the same zodiacal figure that has controlled it all along. The act of writing a letter, chopping down a tree, or building a house, is accomplished with elementals which are point-matter in the generative system including brain and nerves, line-matter in the respiratory system, angle-matter in the circulatory system, and surface-matter in the digestive system to which belong the hands, the feet and the rest of the solid body.

This is the exteriorization of the point of nature-matter, developed according to the zodiacal figure of the quarter circle which has thus come through all the worlds and their planes below the light plane.

The quarter circle from cancer to libra is on the nature-side, and has to be balanced by the corresponding quarter circle from libra to capricorn on the intelligent-side. The nature-side is represented by the point of nature-matter in the thought, the thought itself is represented by the intelligent-side of the circle, from libra to capricorn. The point, which is the concentration of the perceptions made by the four senses, could never have been taken in by the doer, if there had not been a desire for it and thinking about it. Desire and thinking directing to it Light of the Intelligence on the point, create a thought. At the creation there comes into the unmanifested a quarter circle from libra to capricorn. Libra represents the object of the desire; and scorpio, sagittary and capricorn represent the desire, the thinking which made the aim, and knowledge as conscience, producing the balancing factor in the thought.

When the thought is issued the balancing factor, the aim and the design are present as the manifesting thought. When the nature-quarter circle from cancer to libra is exteriorized, only the design is exteriorized. The thought will not be exteriorized until the intelligent-quarter circle from libra to capricorn is built up, to balance the nature-quarter circle and make the thought a manifested half circle of six standard angles. The manifesting part of the thought being complete as a half circle, the unmanifested part makes the upper half and the point is completed in the entire circle.

The zodiacal figure explains symbolically the relation of the manifested to the unmanifested. With words such an explanation can be made only as to things perceptible by the senses or conceivable by understanding. The unmanifested is that which is not perceptible by the senses and which has not been conceived by the human. The terms manifested and unmanifested are relative in their application to the spheres, worlds, planes and states of matter.

The entire Universe is contained in the fire sphere, which is the manifested of Substance. Substance is the unmanifested as compared with the fire sphere. To the sphere of air the sphere of fire is the unmanifested; and the sphere of air is the manifested of the fire sphere. In its turn the sphere of air is the unmanifested to the sphere of water and the sphere of water is the manifested of the sphere of air. To the sphere of earth the sphere of water is the unmanifested and the sphere of earth is the manifested of the sphere of water. In the same way the earth sphere is the unmanifested to the light world, and the light world is the manifested of the earth sphere. The relation is continued through the life, form and physical worlds, so that to the physical world the form world is the unmanifested, and the physical world is the manifested of the form world. So it goes on through the light, the life, the form to the physical planes. Each plane is the manifested of the, to it, unmanifested plane above it. These relative terms of the unmanifested and manifested apply also to the four states of matter on the physical plane. To the solid state the fluid state is the unmanifested, out of which all things come into manifestation in the solid state, where they are seen, heard, tasted, smelled and contacted by the four senses of the human.

The term manifested is usually applied only to the things in the four subdivisions of the solid state. But in a wider sense and with a secondary meaning, as explained by the zodiac, the distinction of the manifested and the unmanifested exists through all the states of matter, and through the planes, worlds and spheres. The manifested part of each sphere, world, plane and state of matter is zodiacally symbolized by a lesser zodiac drawn below the line cancer to capricorn. The lesser circle is so drawn that its center is midway between libra and the center of the cancer to capricorn line. All beyond, that is, around, the lesser circle, stands for the, to it, unmanifested, and is symbolized zodiacally by the upper half of the circle between cancer and capricorn.