CHAPTERXXIN THE LUMBER ROOM
Almost every home has a lumber-room, a place where all the out-of-date articles, derelict furniture, oddments of all sorts, are stored. Nobody ever goes there except the man who wants a bit of stuff to fit something, one of those quaint little notions that inventive men with time on their hands are always at work upon. And almost every mind has its lumber-room. The world has a huge depository of this sort. Into this lumber-room of forgotten things I would have you come with me, you who are interested in odd ideas.
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. There they are, out yonder, but what has that to do with us? Well, the old-world notion was that by taking a dozen or so of pieces of wood of various shapes andsizes and fitting them together you could make what they called a chair. But nobody ever thought either that the chair could make itself, or that the shapes, as they called them, constituted a chair without being fitted together. The fitting was the most important part of the business. A man picking up a shape would call it a chair leg or whatever it might be, a back, thwart, side or seat. None of them could be called a chair, but each of them suggested it. Their use was in their relativity, their interdependence, their connectedness. So it is with the throne of God, which is the universe. That ancient notion of relativity—you will find it in the Mahabharata or that section of it which they call the Sacred Song—was a good one.
This earth of ours is a comparatively small planet in a system of worlds. It does not exist for itself alone, nor do those others which surround it. Crude thinkers, without perspective, believed the earth to be very big because it filled the eye. A threepenny-piece will cover the Moon at arm’s length. It is all a matter of proportion. But the deeper thinkers knew better, and if they were foolish enough to suppose that the planets existed for this earth they also believed that the earth existed for the planets, and they for one another. Interplanetary action was believed in before Ptolemy wrote his book on the Influence of the Stars, or Kepler had framed his cosmic laws, or Newton had found the glue to hold the pieces together. The Carpenter had been at work before ever man opened his blinking eyes to the morning sun, and what Ihave called the Throne of God was made by Him for His own use. It is ours to look and marvel.
This notion of planetary interaction, the idea that planets act and react upon one another, involves that other which Science has not yet condescended to observe, namely, planetary action in human life. Tycho and Kepler, who argued things to their logical conclusion, believed in it. Well, there are books enough on the subject already for those who would learn about it, and I do not intend to add another to the number. But I would like to revive an odd notion or two which even the dealers in antiques, I mean the astrologers, especially the modern ones, have relegated to the lumber-room.
One may even be excused for believing that planets, so nearly linked up with the destinies of our earth, may have a direct action of a subtle kind upon our lives and thought. But the idea that the Moon’s Nodes may have such an influence is beyond all saving, at least so think our modern astrologers. Yet this was an ancient belief, and it survives at this day in India and other parts of the world. But then, you will argue, they are not bodies at all but mere points. So is the actual centre of the Sun on which the universe revolves. Your point is nothing—or everything, as you will. I am not looking at the bodies themselves but what they signify to us. I am looking at the Universe as Symbol, I am trying to get at its meaning. If the planets may be regarded as symbols, so may the Moon’s Nodes. They tried to give them a real existence as the head and tail of the Dragon, the devourer of the Sun andMoon. But this was for the popular fancy, as one might put off a child with a fairy tale rather than afflict him with a lecture on astronomy. They who calculated the positions of the Sun and Moon and predicted eclipses, knew how to bring the Dragon to heel, and they knew his feeding times. They used that knowledge to enslave a whole people, and haply the same knowledge may help to set them free. Nevertheless, they ascribed to the Moon’s Nodes a specific influence in human life, or more correctly a special signification. One could have affirmed from a mere knowledge of this significance that astronomy was first studied in northern latitudes, for we see that the ascending node, that point at which the Moon crosses the ecliptic in its upward course, was regarded as fortunate, while the descending node was unfortunate. And what they knew of the southern climes was evidently not much, for they called them Patala and Avitchi, and figured the descent of the soul into the depths of a great despair from the circumstance of the Moon’s southern course. But all this was a symbolism not invented by man, for he regulates neither the Moon’s orbit nor its Nodes, and had no hand in the making of eclipses. It was there for him to read, and that is how he read it. Some astrologers say that they were wrong. Others are more cautious. They seem to have observed that certain periods in their lives coincided with the transits of these Nodes over the places of the luminaries, the Mid-heaven and the Ascendant of their horoscopes, and they have made due note of the fact, leaving the uninitiated todecide for themselves by experience as to which is the right way to hang up a horse-shoe for luck. Yet among those who say it should be one way and those who say the other, there are few indeed who are aware of the fact that they are using the ancient symbol of the Moon’s Nodes ☊ and ☋.
But if the Moon’s Nodes have any symbolical meaning and can be used for purposes of prediction, so surely should the Nodes of the other planets, whose influence, gravitation excepted, is quite as great as hers. It is at all events just as well that we should have them under observation, and so I give them here.
Nodes of the Planets for 1900, with their mean motions for one Century.
The Moon’s Node retrogresses through the entire zodiac in 18 years 225 days, which is at the rate of 19° 20´ per annum, and about 3´ per day. The Nodes of all the other bodies are direct in motion.
Out of this same lumber-room I can bring another piece of neglected furniture, which possibly may suit somebody’s convenience, for some men build shanties out of old timber and others build theories out of anything. Mr. William Lilly, whose patrons were King Charles and the Great Reformer, Sir EliasAshmole, and others of great fame, gave us the secret of one of his most alarming and successful predictions. Not that these latter are intended to alarm, but to forewarn and admonish. He says that his prophecy of the Great Plague and the Fire of London, 1665-6, was effected by means of the Aphelion of the planet Mars, which he noticed was due to ingress to the sign Virgo, that ruling the monarchy of England in his day, about that time. Astronomy was not a neat science in the time of Lilly, and he wisely refrained from giving a date for the fulfilling of his Prophetic Hieroglyphs, but he published them so well in advance of the double event as to secure himself against a possible margin of error in the calculations. In a preceding chapter the reader will find the calculation referred to. In effect Master Lilly was called before the Committee of the House of Parliament and there interrogated as to the founding of his prediction, and what light he could throw upon the matter. It is reported that he acquitted himself creditably and was thanked for his services. But mark you, Lilly said nothing about the Horoscope of the Monarchy nor the Aphelion of Mars, because doubtless he knew himself to be in the presence of learned men who made laws and not horoscopes, and whose business it was to prevent plagues and fires, not to predict them. But to the student of astrology he has very candidly delivered his whole mind on the matter.
Now I have thought that if one man finds the Aphelion of a planet to be effectual in producing or indicating certain events in agreement with thenature of the planet concerned, others may be able to do the same with other planets, regard being had to their Aphelia. Of course the whole thing may be a bogey, and Lilly may be hiding his light in a bushel. Commander Morrison, who was a clever man and a good astronomer, sought to prove that the Fire was due to the precession of the Bull’s North Horn to the ascendant of the City of London. The reader knows that since this entry of the Bull into the City the herd has greatly increased, and there are so many of them as to constitute another Plague, were it not that they have let loose a host of Bears to demolish them. Morrison’s idea is ingenious, and works out to a fraction, but unfortunately he did not predict the Fire and the Plague, while Lilly did. Therefore I am bound to accept Lilly’s explanation of his performance; and his reason appears a good one, is in agreement with the facts, and employs the astrology of the planet Mars in a consistent and satisfactory manner. Further, I am bound by that performance and that reasoning to examine the effects likely to be produced by the Aphelia of the other planets. Here is a statement of their positions.
Aphelia of Planets for 1900, with motions for 100 years.
Looking over these positions of the Nodes I find one from which I can strike an Epoch at once. It is that of Saturn’s Aphelion ingress to the sign Capricornus, which is found to have taken place in the year 1850. There are four countries which are ruled by the sign Capricornus in which at this time there were great upheavals, namely, India, Greece, Mexico and New Zealand. India was engaged in the Sikh War against the forces of the Moolraj, a whole Bengali regiment was disbanded for mutiny, and Sir Charles Napier shortly resigned the command. Eight years of unrest followed, culminating in the great Mutiny, and the rule of the East India Company came to an end. Meanwhile Mexico was engaged in a fierce war with the United States, and the political convulsions ended in the resignation of President Arista. Four Presidents succeeded one another in the space of three years, and the country eventually established a new Constitution under General Comonfort in 1857. Greece at this time came into conflict with the British and other European governments because of its oppressions and its non-payment of debts to foreign subjects. Insurrections and blockades continued for some years and a change of the Ministry eventually brought about an agreement of neutrality under the royal seal. New Zealand at the same time was acting under the Charter granted to Sir George Grey and founding new townships. In 1850, the year of Saturn’s Aphelion ingress, the New Zealand Company relinquished its Charter and a new Constitution wasformed, which was in force from 1852 to 1857, when it was modified.
In every case the effects of such changes as took place in these several Constitutions at this period were, I think, exceedingly beneficial, and this is what might be expected from the circumstance of Saturn coming into his own territory, for Capricornus is one of the cardinal or political signs, and is ruled by Saturn.
But the motions of the Aphelia are so slow that many centuries have to elapse before a new ingress is made, and this is hardly the way in which one would seek to prove or disprove the symbolism of such phenomena. One would rather consider that the influence of the several planets is vested in their Aphelia, and then observe what effects follow the transits of other planets over those places, and what effects are due to the direction of the Significators, Sun, Moon, Mid-heaven and Ascendant, to the places of these Aphelia in the prime vertical. But I find myself talking the jargon of the astrologers, as Lytton would say, whereas I am supposed to be talking about Cosmic Symbolism.
Figure 23.Figure 23.
Figure 23.
Figure 23.
What are these Aphelia of the planets, and how does their symbolism attach to us as humans? The Aphelion of a planet is that point in its orbit, or imaginary orbit—for we have already disposed of the elliptical theory—where it is at its greatest distance from the Sun. And if these planets severally correspond with certain principles of our human constitution, they may be said to havegreater play and to be in a condition to exert more of their own natures at such times than at others, and proportionately less at other points in their orbits, and least when in perihelion. For then those principles and planets are enslaved to the Sun and answer most fully to his all-embracing and compelling influence. A soul that is in its most perfect condition of physical manifestation may be said to be in its perihelion, whereas one that has shaken free to some extent from the gravitational pull of the sun of this nether world, and has winged its way into the outer regions of space, is to that extent in a condition of temporary liberation. One is almost tempted by this analogy to revert to thesymbolism of the elliptical orbit, and to place in its empty focus another luminary or Spiritual Sun, such as that conceived by Swedenborg, and to say that these liberated souls are answering to the gravitational pull of that luminary. The idea is fascinating, both astronomically and symbolically, and since the kenofocus of the ellipse is not under lease to any of our scientific theorists, I will place my Spiritual Sun in that centre of the empyrean and complete my figure, as already exhibited in a preceding chapter.
Now we see what comes of rummaging in a lumber-room. All sorts of suggestions and possibilities, yet nothing perhaps that anybody would be willing to bring back into daily use. These musty, time-worn and out-of-date notions that nobody takes much note of may some day claim the attention of a Ben Hassam or somebody with a nose for things of value, and a scramble for priority will be the result. But alas! they have no market value. Planets, principles, orbits, aphelia, and nodes, they are all merely symbols in the everlasting Book of Life.