Ignorance of One – Part 4

Read Part 1 http://planetarydynamics.com/2018/10/03/ignorance-of-one/

Part 4

If I don’t know it and can’t find it in my Universe, I’m a chump to accept any fiction about it, — especially a fiction written by one who admits he does not know and is only guessing-assuming-inferring-speculating-theorizing. The facts in these fields which I know and are pertinent to this discourse I have told and shall tell you.

What do you really know about your own land?

I was born and reared in what is called the United States. I have traveled about in the land, visited nearly every state. I found every state to be a fiction, and the whole country itself a fiction, — fictions manufactured by words, surveyor’s abstracts, and a few other symbols. None of these fictions is any more real than Uncle Sam himself, the fourth dimension, Paul Bunyan, George Washington, Captain Ahab, the Devil, and Santa Claus. The United States is a myth. So is every state in it. Washington D.C. is a myth, and so is every book in the Congressional Library. The United States is one of the greatest un-realities ever invented by a race of pathological mythomaniacs. — Next.

What do you really know about other lands than your own?

The answer is the same. They are all fictions. The actual dirt, water, vegetation and animal life in each country are realities, but the countries as they appear on the maps are fictions.

So what do you know about the earth and the universe that isn’t fiction?

What I really know about them certainly is not fiction, but if I tell what I know in words what I say will be a fiction. How-ever, honest fictions about reality are not to be despised. There are very few honest fictions about reality in this world, in which most books are religious-scientific romances, or fictions a-bout fictions, imaginings about vain imaginings. From the first, I have been formulating some of the facts I know about the universe. Here, in conclusion, let us re-examine those facts and expand a few of them.
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Planets and Their Effects on Mind and Body

The Solar System consists of interrelating electromagnetic fields. The components of these fields are defined by the eight individual planets along with the two Lights – the Sun and Moon. A planet is the visible core of matter, energy, and intelligence, similar to an atom whose protons and neutrons are orbited by electrons that produce electrical impulses. The fields are encoded impulses perpetually traveling through space with their focus on encompassing the reaches of the solar system including Earth. The planets’ waves of energy interact among themselves to coalesce into a complex messaging system and it is the astrologer’s task to decode their intent and purpose.

The emanation of the intelligent, magnetic fields permeates the solar system, and the earth becomes immersed in its collective energies. The effects of these interacting forces are felt strongly when planets align at geometric angles in relationship to natal planets. In astrological terms, these configurations are called major aspects. The five geometric angles of import are the conjunction, sextile, square, trine, and opposition. These are defined by the planets that are 0, 60, 90, 120, and 180 degrees apart, yet have a 10-degree orb of allowance for the planets, 12.5 for the Moon, and 17 degrees for the Sun. The electromagnetic fields are spherical and three-dimensional.

The human body acts as an antenna absorbing the planetary emanations through the energy centers of the body also known as the chakra system. These energies are usually felt as intense pressures and are felt as emotional stresses within the body and mind, similar to when the opposite poles of a magnet are exposed to each other but not yet actually touching. This magnetic pull is often misinterpreted as being caused by a physical illness or mental pathology. It can be accompanied by anxiety leading the individual to seek to avoid or suppress their emotional and bodily feelings. As planets move into exact aspect positioning they become indicators of an auspicious time for personal growth, however, the ego wishing to remain in a pleasant state often resists these precious times of personal evolution. Planetary interactions communicate in an astrological, geometric language that astrologers can interpret for a person wishing to understand the meaning of the profound feelings that are generated by them.

An astrologer should look to fast-moving progressions and slow-moving transiting planets to identify the sources and meanings of these periodic crises in consciousness. The planets, as representatives of higher intelligent forces, act in this way to gain the attention of the individual. An experienced astrologer is the interpreter of the intense and demanding call to transformation that the planets have in store for the recipient of the forces at play in the solar system.

 

Li Wenliang, the Coronavirus and Saturn-Pluto Conjunction

Dr. Li Wenliang

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus a pandemic on March 11, 2020.  The first official case of COVID-19 was a 55-year-old woman from Wuhan China who was diagnosed on November 17, 2019.  (1)

Astrologers anticipated events of great magnitude to develop near the time of the exact conjunction of Saturn to Pluto on January 12, 2020, when it would complete and commence once again its continuous thirty-four to thirty-eight-year cycle. The aggressiveness of the insidious coronavirus conveniently reflects the combined profile of these two notoriously feared planets. Their slow orbital movement allows a wide time-orb of influence for a significant phenomenon to emerge in correspondence to their coming into conjunction aspect to each other. The illness first appeared in the news during the third week of November 2019 as SARS-CoV-2. For slow-moving planets, the two-month leeway for a manifestation of the conjunction is acceptable when comparing astrological events with their earthly counterparts.

The two formidable planets have varying speeds that create a syncopated slow dance to the rhythm of retrograde and direct motions throughout 2020. As the year progresses, Jupiter joins in as it approaches its new transit cycle with Saturn commencing on December 21, 2020.  Jupiter weaves in and out of conjunctions with Saturn and Pluto during the year and will merge for its 3rd and final conjunction with Pluto at the time of the US presidential elections in early November 2020.

Saturn aligning its forces with Pluto at the January conjunction exacerbated an otherwise normal display of disease often identified by the ringed planet. As a result of this ominous partnership, the world was brought to its knees. Pluto naturally defies constraints and endows stealthy microbes with free-rein activity. The planet rules microscopic realms and its invisible characteristics have promoted numerous theories attempting to track the origin of the virus. (2)

With the number of cases worldwide topping over a million and a quarter with an accompanying 70,000 deaths (as of April 5, 2020), the result is continuous global fear, anxiety, and panic, which are all the combined negative attributes of Saturn and Pluto. As the ubiquitous virus continues on its trek across the globe an astrological picture offers revealing insights. The chart most likely to yield planetary connections with the pandemic should be one that adequately represents an entire world population. The inaugural chart of the United Nations (UN) is an appropriate candidate because the organization is comprised of 193 countries out of a global count of 195. (3) This group of nations first pledged their affiliation on October 24, 1945, and its current functioning as a representative body gives the chart validity.

There is a strong tie between the transit Saturn-Pluto conjunction on January 12, 2020 and the UN chart. Shown with a red arrow in chart #1 is an opposition aspect applying from the exact transit-conjunction to the UN natal Mars-Saturn conjunction. The transit Saturn and Pluto were also opposite natal Mercury in the chart of the United States in January 2020, however, the more powerful indication lies with the chart of all nations since it is a worldwide crisis of which the United States is only a part. The activated Mercury in the US chart does indicate why America was hit so hard with the virus. Mercury’s decision-making process, as far as simple procedures to contain the virus, has been confusing at best and has sparked controversy and polarization of approaches that confound the issue. This may be because the US has not dealt with a catastrophic pandemic since the Spanish flu of 1918 which had its origin in the state of Kansas.

Li Wenliang – the Whistleblower 

An integral part of the story of the coronavirus includes the life and horoscope of ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, the physician and whistleblower who notified his colleagues in a private WeChat social media platform concerning the sudden outbreak of a virus at the Wuhan Central Hospital in Wuhan, China. Li’s concern was that patients were exhibiting severe symptoms similar to those displayed by the SARS virus that infected 8,098 people and killed 774 worldwide in 2003. Li’s leaked warnings alarmed the Chinese government which then sent police out on January 3, 2020, to reprimand and force him to sign a statement that he was making false comments on the internet. The Chinese Communist Party apparently was set to do a coverup of what only was the beginning of the coming worldwide pandemic.

Relatively soon after the reprimand, Li himself contracted the insidious illness while performing an eye operation on a patient who was later found to have been infected with the coronavirus. Li was hospitalized and rapidly succumbed to the disease on February 7, 2020.* Li’s natal chart is shown in chart #2, with his progressions and transits on the day of his death in the outer two wheels. He was 33 years old when he was officially pronounced dead on February 7th. There was confusion over the actual time of death and the procedures that led up to it. Millions of Chinese citizens had been tracking updates on his condition which when his death was announced caused shock-waves and disdain throughout both professional and lay communities.

Li’s horoscope shows that progressed Venus had been in a conjunction aspect with natal Pluto for a while, an indication that something rather deep was transpiring. His progressed Sun was leaving its conjunction with natal Venus, another indication of the finalization (Venus) of personal affairs (Sun). Other than transit Mars passing by progressed and natal Uranus there are very few traditional transits of import marking the event of death.

Transit event chart #3, however, shows a distinct connection with Li’s death by the transit Moon’s position exactly on the 8th house cusp  This temporary placement of the Moon at the door of the house of transitions, with the ultimate transition being death, shows an obvious positioning of an indicator of physical expiration. The Moon, at 13 Cancer 33, sheds light on the deeper meaning of Li’s acts and sacrifice through its revealing Sabian symbol. He was a young man with an old soul on a mission that unfortunately was cut short. The words in the symbol’s description highlighted in bold give stark testimony to his contribution to society.

CANCER 14 A very old man facing a vast dark space to the northeast This is a symbol of the immeasurable reaches of past experience as a strengthening of the human spirit for its immediate destiny, and of the eternal rebirth through which man may discover that present aspiration and future achievement are without the slightest limitation in any terms of events to come. Here is an absoluteness of self as a completeness of expectation. There are no dark moments of outlook that cannot yield inspiration or assurance. The keyword is SANCTION. When positive, the degree is a highly effective enlistment of deeper and hidden elements of life for some momentary end, and when negative, lack of purpose and utter chaos in understanding.

The Sabian symbol for Jupiter at 14 Capricorn 55 which lies at the other end of the dynamic polarity is also revealing. The symbol literally describes a hospital scene that literally reflects Li’s actual workplace. The sentence in bold explains the randomness and capricious nature of the native’s sacrifice, and the positive of the degree reveals his heroic potentials.

CAPRICORN 15 Many toys in the children’s ward of a hospital This is a symbol of the inescapable richness of life in any normal manifestation of itself, here given emphasis through its ample rewards on the social and ideal side. There are physical and psychological limitations which come to all humankind without apparent reason, and which often seem a travesty of divine justice, but they are always an unrealized opportunity for a deeper fellowship. Experience is real in its fruits, rather than in the means to its ends. The keyword is ABUNDANCE When positive, the degree is man’s ability to develop the real potentialities of himself and his fellows despite every transient accident of circumstance, and when negative, hypocritical sympathy and childish self-pampering.

TRANSITS 2020

Transits Saturn and Pluto

The Saturn-Pluto conjunction clearly identifies Saturnian individuality within the Plutonian collective. Saturn’s capacity for drawing boundaries created the measures that each country dictated to its citizens that included closing bars and restaurants and instructing residents to stay home and avoid large social gatherings with which Pluto is associated. Social Distancing became the moniker of the times with Saturn marking boundaries within the extended social arena. Each citizen was called to be responsible for the care and welfare of all. More than ever before, we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. The stressful and unprecedented times called out from all citizens of the world a deeper understanding of the requirements of Saturn as the planet of individual self-conscious awareness and of Pluto as the representative of the greater collective of which we are all a part.

This powerful and extremely tense Saturn-Pluto configuration will remain effective throughout 2020 as these dominating planetary actors station (4) to go retrograde, a reversing of direction and meaning from time to time during the year. The effects of what Saturn and Pluto brought to humanity with their conjunction in January will continue to manifest throughout the remainder of 2020, and for the United States until 2023, while Pluto completes its 248-year cycle return in the US chart.

Pluto stationed to go retrograde on April 26, 2020 at 25 Capricorn. Saturn will do the same on May 11, at 1 Aquarius 57. Transit stations indicate an intense release of planetary energy that requires a compulsory and critical regrasp of the immediate situation. Station’s readdress astrological trends and the present high number of COVID-19 cases can reverse along with the retrograde, and bring with it the possibility of remission in some areas of the US. (5) As well, cures for ailments are often discovered during retrograde periods, especially while Mercury retrogrades.

Pluto was slowing down for its station in late April synchronous with a decrease of cases in the state of New York, the area with a higher death rate than any other place in the world. It is tempting to read premature positives into changes in planetary directions, and the late Marc Edmund Jones reminded us that Astrology is the science of probability. Stations are markers for imminent change on the horizon near the particular dates upon which they fall, yet they are suggestions, not predictions.

Chart #4 is the inaugural chart for New York City. (6) It reveals that the high number of coronavirus cases and fatalities was due in part by the Moon degree’s close association with the January 2020 Saturn-Pluto conjunction occurring at 23 degrees Capricorn. The City’s natal Moon, circled in red, is located within orb of that point and is also conjunct the US natal chart’s Pluto which was in its return to its natal placement at the time.

As Saturn slows to station-retrograde soon after Pluto, the reminder to shelter in place and keep at a social distance continued for the United States. Saturn is the planet that pointed to the cover-up and condemnation of whistleblowers by China, the slow to declare a world crisis by the World Health Organization, and in the US, the Trump administration’s months of denials that the virus was a real threat and its slow response to hospital requests for testing, personal protective equipment and ventilators. Containment and mitigation are Saturn’s methods of controlling Pluto’s otherwise unstoppable spread of the disease. Although “herd immunity” has been suggested by some experts as the natural way to ultimately conquer disease, very few individuals were willing to risk their health or their lives by participating in that method of control, considering the aggressiveness of the virus.

Transits Venus and Jupiter

The US economy is also due for more fluctuation, with transit Venus coming to station-retrograde two days after Saturn on May 13th at 21 Gemini 50. The station will be conjunct President Trump’s natal Sun and will set off its natal opposition with the Moon. This will intensify the tension concerning his personal yet public image, and also will put pressure on his hopes to open the US economy by putting people back to work. The issue of his own finances takes front stage as well when on May 12th the Supreme Court will hold a hearing concerning the release of his tax returns and financial records.

In an interview on April 10th with MSNBC’s news anchor Brian Williams, the respected director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, (7) stated that he hopes that November could see some normality return. That projection parallels with the Jupiter transit making its final conjunction with Pluto in the early part of that month. The Greater Benefic may manifest in a more positive manner in November, than when it first made its rendezvous with Pluto in March, when it greatly expanded the number of those stricken with the virus, especially in New York and other hard-hit cities and states. In other parts of the world, Jupiter had a kinder effect by lessening the spread, with some countries attempting to normalize and go back to work.

 

 

 

Resources and Links

1. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back

2. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/06/us/coronavirus-scientists-debate-origin-theories-invs/index.html

3.  https://www.worldometers.info/geography/how-many-countries-are-there-in-the-world/

4. Stations are when planets appear to stop in the movement to turn retrograde or back to direct.

5. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/

6. Source of New York Horoscope, https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Manhattan,_New_York_(New_York)

7. A member of the White House coronavirus task force. Discovered the AIDS virus, and participated in the development of the cure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci

* February 7, 2020, is the date of Li Wenliang’s death from the coronavirus. The first death from the coronavirus in the United States was on February 6, 2020, in San Francisco, California. Sara Cody and other health professionals were monitoring the new virus and were the first to pronounce the “Stay at Home” order in the US. Their first initiative was to keep crowds down to less than 100 persons.

 

Ignorance of One – Part 1

THE IGNORE-ANCE of ONE

A Note on Real/Imaginary Mathematics

Copyright 1953-2020 © by A. Ray Johnson

 

I. The Fundamentals

APART from metaphysical speculations, there are no more delusive illusions than may be encountered in the field of mathematics, ancient/modern. In mathematics, the complex of Concrete/Abstract comes to its sharpest and also its most diffuse focus. In mathematics, we have the whole field of Illusion/Reality under both microscopic and telescopic observation. Here we are confronted with unlimited Fact and Fancy, with end-less fancies about facts, with equally end-less facts about fancies. It is no wonder that the most fantastic books in English (the Adventures of Alice in Mirror- and Wonder-land) were the works of a mathematician. Fancy is a prime fact in the structure-nature of man, and mathematics is the most systematically abstract product of man’s fancy or re-creative imagination. Poetry and statistics are twins. Tom-toms and adding machines measure the rhythms of peace and war. At the point where fancies and figures meet, history and mystery make their throbbing appearance. Mystics and masters of the high-er calculus, back to back, search the heavens in opposite directions for the unified field formula. The multiplication table, music, and the molecular structure of Form/Energy: Matter discourse along the same course. It is obvious that a definitive answer to the question, What is the relation of count to reality? would involve a solution of the riddle of the universe. To a fun-da-ment-alist, that ought to be fun.

The fun begins in the recognition of the obvious fact that figures are fancies that have no existence in nature save in the heads of mathematicians (who may here be redefined as figure-heads). There are no such things in earth or heaven as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7; search high and low and you will find that figures exist nowhere but in your mind. In concrete nature such abstract operations as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are merely figures of speech. Two white horses times four red-headed girls, four monkeys plus six stars, one hundred cabbages divided by ten kings, forty oysters subtracted from one bed, — such propositions are nonsensical. They are impractical fancies; you can say them, but you can’t really think them: they are as close to Platonic or immaterial ideas as the race will ever come. Two bankers plus two robbers equals four bank-robbers, — this is a formula that can produce nothing more tangible than a ghost or spirit. One teacher of mathematics plus thirty scholars equals a dull half-hour and thirty-one headaches, is a piece of poetry, not a piece of mathematics. Paint the figure 15 in red on the rear end of an elephant, but it won’t change the actual number of elephants in the circus. There may be fifteen elephants in the circus, but they didn’t come into the world with the numbers 1 to 15 stamped on their foreheads.

Search nature: you will never find anything but analogues to mathematical operations and geometrical designs. The closest, visible analogues to geometrical designs are the heavenly spheres and the terrestrial crystals, but there is no tangible evidence that abstract geometry has anything to do with the formation of these concrete forms. The closest analogy to numerical values is music, but it would be difficult to prove that abstract, mathematical formulations enter into the construction of the nodes in the human throat and ear. Atomic structure and the periodic table of the elements would seem to argue that matter embodies mathematical harmonies, but it is obvious that there is nothing abstract about the embodiment. Other analogues to mathematical operations-formulations are readily seen to be nothing but figures of speech. One analogue to addition is growth, and another is the swelling of mountain streams in the course of a heavy rainstorm; you can compute mathematically the growth of a tree or the rise in the volume of a river over the spring months, but abstract addition has nothing to do with the real processes involved in the growth of the tree and the increase in the volume of water in the river.

In nature one analogue to multiplication is generation, but there is nothing at all abstract about the process by which one peach be-comes fifteen annual crops amounting to tens of thousands of peach-es. One male guinea pig times one female guinea pig equals hundreds of guinea pigs, but that, albeit natural sense, is mathematical nonsense. Analogues to division and subtraction are decay, disintegration, erosion, and evaporation; you may also say that the passage of clouds over the sun subtracted a number of degrees of heat from the thermometer: but these are all figures of speech, and are that even if you compose very precise mathematical formulas expounding the processes and the rates of decay, disintegration, erosion, and evaporation. Mathematical formulas dealing with these natural processes are practical fancies: although they leave the actual processes really unformulated, they enable men to deal with the phenomenal, the superficial changes wrought by the processes.

In the regenerative process, cells “add” and “divide”, but both natural operations are biological, not mathematical. As yet there are no formulas reflecting the bio-electro-magnetics involved in syngamy, — the penetration of the egg by the sperm, — and if there ever are any such mathematical formulas they will prove to be fictions about an essentially unformulated reality, — fictions perhaps a little more practical than love stories in “explaining” the sexual process, but not a whit more realistic. Mathematical fictions are useful when elements, compounds, and organic tissue are subjected to artificial analysis-synthesis, but the natural realities thus dealt with remain essentially, or really, unformulated. Mathematical formulations provide men with a wealth of practical information, but with no true understanding of the structure-nature of Matter/Life. And the general failure to realize this fact is of crucial significance. Men generally mistake their fictitious formulas for apprehensions, — even comprehension, — of the realities, and in this are victims of a delusion, — a delusion which, if undiscovered, could destroy the race. Persistent and stubborn ignorance of the fanciful nature of mathematics could be disastrous. The subject is worthy of full attention and thorough inquiry-research. The fundamentals should not be funereal. LET us get a more detailed picture of the interplay of mathematical fancies and natural facts. First, let us consider the mathematical fancies that may be in exact accord with simple, obvious, natural facts. Of this order are the number of eggs in the basket, the number of sheep in the fold, the number of persons in the family, the number of citizens in the town, the number of soldiers in the army. For every unit in these classifications, there may be a real, natural fact; eggs are eggs, sheep are sheep, etc., and each one of these is a natural integer. This kind of mathematics is simple arithmetic, — primitive accounting, — and is very useful in dealing with elementary commercial and communal relationships.

Even so, the numerical fancies have little to do with the real facts, and only the fact that each abstract Fancy can be paired, in a one-to-one relation, with a natural, easily identifiable Fact keeps this basic unreality of arithmetic from being immediately discerned. Consider the superficial realities involved in the simple counting of objects. For example, it is possible that a man could own three hundred sheep without being able to count them. In a primitive society, the reality of his ownership is not at all affected by his inability to count. As a matter of fact, learning to count may confuse him and impair his grasp of the realities. For him to know how many sheep he owns, he must master a relatively abstruse system of abstractions called numbers. To do this, he must bring into correlated play two kinds of fancies about the sheep that graze beneath his eyes on the hill-side. For each sheep he must have both a Concrete image and an Abstract or numerical image. To use these images he must reflect twice and ultimately thrice.

First, he must reflect subjectively each actual sheep; second, he must reflect upon that reflection, — identify it as separated from the general image-idea of many sheep; third, he must mentally affix a numerical-symbolic idea or thought-form to the first two reflections. The first reflection is immediate and factual; every time he sees one of his sheep there is one image in his mind of the sheep. The second reflection is a long step away from the concrete fact in the direction of ideal abstraction; subjectively he divides his Many into two artificial groups, — 1) the one, separated sheep, and 2) the remainder. The third reflection introduces relatively pure abstraction: he assigns a numerical symbol to the counted sheep.

He must be able to project these three steps in abstraction and formulate a series of them, progressively separating the groups of the counted from each other and from the remainder. He must avoid assigning two or more number-fancies to one group of real sheep, and also avoid allotting two or more groups of real sheep to one number-fancy. Though practically useful (especially in exercising and developing the powers of imagination and abstraction), elementary mathematics is really very elusive; at the primitive level, the strong man who can’t count fingers and toes is almost certain to have a more realistic grasp of the sheep situation than the dreamer who can count to a thousand. The technical con-fusion of Concrete reality and Abstract fancy begins on the primitive range, and becomes more and more subtly confusing as men progress in sophistication, civilization, and learned ignorance of their origins. The more you know about fancies the less you know about facts, and the more elaborate your fancies for the superficial control of facts the more likely you are to lose realistic contact with the facts.

The basically fanciful nature of all mathematics becomes more patently evident when we consider artificial, not natural units. There are no grams, centimeters, ounces, pounds, pints, quarts, bushels, horse-power, megatons, or light-years in nature. In the invention of such units of measurement, man took a long stride forward in his characteristic work-play of mixing Abstract-Concrete cocktails. Out in the woods and the fields, there are no inches, feet, miles, acres, or sections. These, and all such fancies, including counties, states, and nations, are pure fancies imposed on natural reality. They possess a secondary reality so long as their inventors score the face of nature with these fictions and abide by the fictions in dealing among themselves with the realities. These fancies enable men to handle space-matter as if the fictions did exist in natural fact. The plastic nature of reality/matter makes it possible for men thus to realize their fancies. (Note this fundamental for future reference.)

Although they love these fancies and often mistake them for true realities, most literates of the modern world, even the most scientifically educated, are able to understand and, under gentle but firm pressure, admit that all the units of artificial mensuration I have just mentioned are pure fancies with no reference whatsoever to any natural realities. This nearly universal but sometimes uncertain and often reluctant sanity disappears, almost totally, at the next level of abstract-concrete, systematic, technical con-fusion. Hardly anyone can realize the essentially fanciful nature of the more complex practical inventions, the ones in which mathematical imagination plays a hidden, though never truly subdominant, role. That houses, automobiles, airplanes, typewriters, skyrockets, cathedrals, telephones, radio, TV, books, H-bombs etc. are, au fond, pure though practical fictions, relatively unreal, is an idea that strikes most minds as having all the earmarks of being a suspicious and probably dangerous foreign-er. They just “don’t get it”, and seldom can be induced to consider it seriously, even for a second.

This point is worthy of some illustration. Men much prefer fanciful fabrications to natural realities, manufactures to living creatures. Tell the proud owner of a Cadillac that his shiny car is a mechanical myth that would disappear from the earth if men did not continue to believe in it and serve it, — then watch with cool and scientific but compassionate eye all the mystical and metaphysical antics the devotee will perform, all the absurd fairy tales he will tell, in the defense and adoration of his sacred cow. (Automobiles in the United States surely are as sacred as cows in India.) The idea that his house is not at least as real as any of the trees that went into its construction would strike a professor of literature as a piece of poetry, unworthy of even such masters of line typical perversity and obscurity as T.S. Eliot, H. W. Auden and e. e. cummings. In truth, all the products of men’s arts and sciences are the practical Idols of the mystique of technology. Their secondary reality is unquestionable. Nevertheless, they are masks that disguise pure fancies, the offspring of the re-creative imagination functioning in relative ignorance of prime reality, the outer children of the inner marriage in confusion of Concrete and Abstract thought.

This note is designed to dissipate the confusion and reveal the real facts in their right relationship, — insofar as fiction about fact can do that. This is a serious/humorous undertaking, a comedy of intellect-ion which could easily become a farce or a tragedy if I fail to realize, at any point in the narration, that I am exorcising fancies with fancies, fictions with fiction. I may not be able to clarify your mind, but at least I should be able to avoid confusing myself.

THE preliminary picture is far from complete. We have yet to survey the somewhat special field of money and the 1-2-3 levels of the Higher Mathematics, but I pause to refocus the attention and more clearly define the scope of observation-inquiry.

I have defined the factor in natural reality that makes it possible for men to realize in local practice their fancies as the Plasticity of Form/Energy: Matter. Protyle is fictile. Hyle is impressionable, and may be molded; it receives and to a ponder-able degree sustains-retains artificial forms. Basically, the relationship between the two, between Art and Nature, is not difficult to observe and understand. Men’s artificial forms and formulas are no more naturally real than the sand-castles built by children at play on the seashore. They are a little more practicable, a little more durable; that is all. The children’s hands, their pails and their shovels are essentially identical with their elders’ mathematical formulas and technological designs. The work of men and the play of children are, at bottom, the same thing, but there is a difference between the men and the children. Children never more than fancy that their sandcastles are real castles, but men are completely deluded by their idols, and only in fits of despair or aberration ever surmise that all their arts and sciences and religions are nothing more real than daydreams.

Man’s infatuation with his fancies is an important fact. The realist who doesn’t realize this is not very realistic. Only facts can really dis-illusion, and so to You who are now reading these words, I say: Before you disagree with me, make sure that it is with Me and not with your own mistaken idea of Me that you are dis-agreeing.

I shall not always do so, but at this point, I am going to call my next shot. I am going to deal with the subject of Money in a somewhat fanciful and disorderly fashion.
Men’s deluded worship of their idols, their absurd adoration of the works of their hands directed by their re-creative imagination, is most easily analyzed and illustrated in a consideration of that masterpiece of mythical-mystic mathematics, Money. In Money, man has come as close as he ever will to manufacturing something that is nothing. Plato shot his immaterial Idea into the Attic air one balmy afternoon two thousand and four hundred years ago; in that hour High Finance was born in the mind of an anonymous Greek, who happened to overhear Plato’s immaterial prattle, and has been going strong ever since. Compared with the nonsensical metaphysics of the mint and the bank, the systems of hyper-spacial hocus-pocus invented by Buddha, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas, Swedenborg, Calvin, Missus Eddy, and Einstein are infantile. When it comes to converting fancies into facts, Freud and Marx and the Pope are tyros compared to Santa Claus, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the girl at the cash register. If there is any matter in creation in which “there is no life, truth, intelligence or substance”, it is Money. It is far more holy than holy water, and when it comes to stimulating mass action and class consciousness, it reduces the Communist Manifesto to muttering and imbecilic impotence; yet it is a Thing that is next to No-thing, a some-thing like the square of the square root of minus 1. It is mathematics made tangible, “in”finity made finite, pure poetry made ponder-able, — the most popular fanciful fact in the whole Pantheon of technological mystification and practical metaphysics. No one in his right mind would exchange the real figure of a fine horse for the figure 300, whether that number was stamped on a piece of paper or metal or not.

What is the real value of any coin, of any unit in any monetary system? No one has ever been able, no one will ever be able to give any save a purely fanciful and basically nonsensical answer to that question. The only realities involved in the exchange of 1 penny for 1 lollipop are a childish lust for sugar and an adult lust for counterfeit. Money is magic, myth. Its very nature is that it is fiction and has no real value, unless you equate it to the complex of greed-fear-ignorance-superstition-credulity that is its source and substantiation. Its hypo-stasis is irrational faith, — credit. It is the every-day religion in every land. Currency is the bread-and-wine which ceremonious belief transforms into body-and-blood. It is frozen sweat, manufactured muscle, the corporeal ghost of an incorporeal idea. It is a vicious circle of ciphers kept in motion by a ring of enchanted integers. At the highest level it is the hocus-pocus performed by the high priests of financial theology, as insubstantial as a pen-scratch; at the lowest level it is the sacred wafers, the Host made visibly veritable to reassure the unenlightened and half-doubting layman, — the government-banker’s Word made tangible coin so that incredulous Thomases may handle it and be convinced.

It is a system of signs designed to perform the continuous miracle of transubstantiation labor into goods and goods back into labor. It is the imaginative animal’s inability to understand and control his imagination. You cannot eat it, drink it, wear it, or build anything of it, but unless you are a mere animal or an angel you can’t eat, drink, wear or build without it. It is materialized mirage. The mint is the factory that turns out the great fairy tale, Money, the most charming of all fables. It is one with the serpent in the garden of Eden and Balaam’s ass, and greater than any such: though inorganic, it talks. Money is Time, the fourth dimension. Money is counterfeit. It reduces every real fact to a fancy. It is the most obvious proof that men are creatures who believe far more in Fictions than in Reality.

In finance you can observe and study the trinity of human ignorance, — Mathematics the ghost, Machinery the father, Money the son, — in impractical, religious-scientific action. Money is price-less and in-valuable. It is the delusive potential of everything, and you really don’t know any-thing or something until you know the nothingness of money. Men will remain highly civilized savages, very learned idolaters, deluded devotees of technological animism, so long as they are unable to project a communion not dependent upon money, so long as they fail to transcend faith in Fiction and come to a realization of Reality. It is obvious: those who really love lies cannot really know the truth. But man is the imaginative animal. Imagination is a part of the whole of reality, and all illusions, whether objective or subjective, are aspects of reality-imagination. Myths and other lies are re-creative “truths”, which the plasticity of Imagination/-Matter: Reality will substantiate so long as men believe in and serve them. The understanding and control of illusion-imagination is the negative complement of the understanding and control of fact-reality. And one must admit that such a project is not the province of mere poets, priests, professors of physics and politicians.

THE picture of abstract-concrete con-fusion is still far from complete. We have yet to consider the intellectual money current in the constellations of the Higher Mathematics, — in the heavens of the whole shebang of Im-Practical Symbolisms. This upper world is the realm ruled by the metaphysics of science; here we encounter the more rarefied of the systematized fancies employed by men in their Knowledgeable/Ignore-ant endeavors to understand and control themselves and their environment. In this field I define three levels of reference, as follows: 1) the Mathematics of Form, 2) the Mathematics of Energy, 3) the Mathematics of Mathematics.

Geometry is the ancient-modern core of the mathematics of form. The simple elements of geometry are point, line, plane, and solid. All four are meta-physical, seemingly hyper spacial, ideals above or beyond the gross world of real, three-dimensional things. The first three are merely imaginary, — pure abstractions, or, as the more erudite gobblygook has it, conceptions. (Note that term, conception, for subsequent reference.) A point has position (+) but no (-) dimension; it is the first positive-negative in scientific mythology. In the line the negative becomes a trifle more positive; it has length (+) but no (-) breadth or thickness. In the plane the negative becomes still more positive; it has length and breadth (+) but no (-) thickness. In the solid, ideal abstraction-projection becomes perfectly positive; Imagination here apprehends three-dimensional reality. All four are imaginary, and unless Imagination is operative at every point in natural Reality, there is no place in reality, save the head of man, where these elements of geometry may be found. Even in man’s head, they do not exist as defined; you cannot really imagine a non-dimensional point, a two-dimensional plane, a one-dimensional line, a solid composed of these. If you draw them on a three-dimensional blackboard with a piece of three-dimensional chalk, they will be basically three-dimensional objects. You cannot really isolate any one of the dimensions from the other two, or separate all three from anything. Subjectively, these abstractions exist in your concrete, three-dimensional body. By no magic of imagination can you really transcend three-dimensional reality.

At this point, Imagination and Reality, — “Mind” and “Matter”, — squarely confront each other. At any other point in this note, from the first sentence on, I could have engineered such a confrontation, but for two reasons did not choose to do so. First, in the interest of precise and comprehensive communication, I desired to pose this crucial meeting of the prime poles of the field under observation-integration against an elementary, general survey of the Order of the Whole, — against a picture in perspective of the major factors and their relationships. Second, I desired the inevitable confrontation to happen in relation to terms of such a nature as to facilitate exclusion from the focus of your attention of the greatest possible number of distracting associations. For example, had I precipitated the confrontation in relation to money, I would have compelled myself to formulate my exposition in terms most heavily charged with distracting associations. I not only did not choose to make money the verbal lens of focus, but in the interest of a strong contrast, I chose to treat money in a way both frivolous and disorderly. I trust my non-sense about the non-sense of money, — in which I said nothing about the price of labor as correlated with the price of eggs, and also, which is even more to the point, refrained from introducing the factor of symbolism, — will serve to define more clearly the very rigorous order of discourse I am about to indulge and divulge. (If all that I have said thus far does not make sense, it isn’t likely that anything I shall say from this point on will make sense either. So — ) … Now — Mind is the most general term for the subjective half, and Matter is the most general term for the objective half of Reality conceived as an Organic Whole. When Mind squarely confronts Matter, what is the first thing that happens? Answer: Matter is reflected in Mind. The best way to study the results of the confrontation is to conceive of Mind as a living mirror. And the very best way to illustrate this conception is to study a non-living mirror.

II  Reflections and Symbols

IMAGINE a large, clear mirror on the wall of a beautiful drawing-room. Step before this mirror, and examine it systematically. As you do so, realize that your reflective body-mind is face to face with its prime analogue in the relatively impersonal, objective field of overall reality. The mirror is full of images of the things before it, and your body-mind is full of images of the things around it. The mirror and your mind are similar and also dissimilar. (Note this Positive/Negative relationship, for it is a prime factor in the analytic Dis/Integration of Real/Imaginary form-energy.) Let us consider the similarities first.

The mirror is a three-dimensional plate of glass, to the back of which a coat of silver paint has been applied. It is the coat of opaque silver at the back of the glass that transforms the otherwise transparent glass into a relatively perfect reflector of light and the objects before it illuminated by light. The uniform coat of silver together with the uniform transparency of the glass makes the reflective medium, a brilliant blank. The silver is not (-) transparent, but the glass is (+); the two opposites complement each other in structural union to compose a surface-depth capable of reflecting the many different forms of the objects in the drawing-room. The brilliant blankness, the product of a uniform Positive in one-to-one opposition to a uniform Negative, is the mirror’s three-dimensional zero (0), the potential of all reflections. The first, simple facts about the Mind are that it is exactly like the mirror and does exactly what the mirror does. The mind is the reflective function of a three-dimensional body. The uniform darkness of the body’s interior and the uniform sensitivity of its exterior combine to create a reflective medium, basically neutral or “blank”, capable, like the mirror, of receiving and reproducing in-differently all manner of different impressions. The mirror faithfully reflects form-color-motion, and so does the mind; both have a relatively opaque back, and neither one can “see” objects that are not in front of it.

For more similarities, let us now examine the reflections in the non-living mirror. In the mirror is an image of yourself and images of all the chairs, tables, rugs, and other objects in the room back of you. As you stand facing it, the mirror is like a pair of eyes in the back of your head. The images you see in the mirror are so real that, apart from your experience with mirrors, you might mistake them for real objects. Indeed, in their own system of reference they are real objects, — objects tangible to your sense of sight. They are actual models of yourself, the chairs, etc., models created by light reflected in-from the brilliant blankness of a three-dimensional, silver-backed plate of glass. They appear in true but reverse perspective. They possess length and breadth, and a very real illusion of the third dimension. But they are dead images, and have no life apart from the life of the things they represent. Only to the sense of sight are they tangible. You can touch your nose with the tip of your finger, and the image of yourself in the glass will reflect that touch, but you cannot touch the imaginary nose in the real mirror with the tip of a real, not a reflected finger. If you know its powers and its limitations, the mirror is a faithful but non-living witness.

The images in the Mind are very like those in the mirror. Within their system of reference, they are very real; primitives sometimes find it difficult to distinguish between dreams and objective realities, and civilized men find it all but impossible to realize that their artifacts are projected dreams. Mental images or thought-forms are brain-cell patterns created in the electromagnetic field of your three-dimensional body by stimuli originating in the world outside the body-mirror-mind. If you are not one of the unfortunate ones who do not have subjective visual projection, you can close your eyes and see images of all the things around you; just as you cannot touch the images in the wall mirror with your actual hand, so you cannot touch the images in your mind with your actual hand, but, just as a reflected hand will touch a reflected thing in the mirror, so you can touch the images in your mind with the hands of imagination. Provided you know their system of reference and their limitations, the real illusions of mental reflection are faithful models of three-dimensional realities.

These are the first, simple Facts about Fancy, — the first Realities of Imagination, — the first Matters of Mind. The more complex facts about the re-creative imagination come to light in the study of the dis-similarities that distinguish the living from the non-living mirror. The dissimilarities are radical and far-reaching. The reflection in the mental mirror is not only a subjective impression, but an objective projection; you see things by means of a two-in-one reflection, — a reflection that is at once subjective and objective. In this respect, the mind is less like a mirror and more like a motion-picture camera, — a camera that instantaneously takes, develops and projects moving pictures. The universal sensitivity of the mirror is limited to light, but the universal sensitivity of the body-mind is a complex of light-warmth-touch. Moreover, the body-mind-mirror has special organs of sense; it can reflect not only form-color-motion, but sound, savor, and odor. It does not merely mechanically reflect; it (un)consciously re-presents. Unlike the wall mirror, it can retain and recall images. The Vital Factor in the human body-mind transforms reflections into recreations, by a process of conscious awareness. This process is a vital complex of Three orders of progressively integrated reflections: 1) you first reflect the object, producing a subjective image; 2) you reflect on the image, transforming it into a subjective object, from which you abstract properties, qualities, parts; 3) you re-reflect on the image and the original object, a process that establishes Identification and evolves Nomination. These three-in-one orders of conscious reflection amount to re-creation, — the ability to project into the objective field not only images-models of the things in that field, but images and models of things that have their origin, not in the objective field of Nature, but in the subjective field of Art. The first cycle of the re-creative reflective process ends when the Re-creator projects into the objective field an image of the image in his mind of the objective thing. The archetype of this end-product is the Picture. The vital mirror in man 1) sees, 2) reflects, 3) recreates, and 4) projects, — an image, a picture. And the picture, once projected, becomes a symbol of both the objective thing and the subjective image thereof.

In all this, we discover four orders of vital reflection or re-creative reality: 1) the reality of the objective Thing; 2) the reality of the subjective Image; 3) the reality of the subjective-objective Re-Construction; 4) the reality of the projected image conceived of as a Symbol. All four are interdependent, but each is prime in its own field. In none is there anything less or more than three-dimensional. These four-in-one realities are present in any account of anything. You can’t count anything without using these four realities at every point in the process of counting. This is the Re-creative Order of the Whole of Reality, and it is impossible to abstract any of the four-in-one realities and treat it as an isolated reality. As you stand before the mirror on the drawing-room wall, all four of these realities are present in one: 1) there is the objective whole which includes yourself and the mirror; 2) there is the reflection in the mirror; 3) there is your reflection of the reflection in the mirror; 4) there is your re-creation of the Order of the Whole, which includes yourself and the mirror. You are the ONE that integrates the four-in-one recreation of the three-dimensional, objective-subjective universe.

APART from the vital factor which empowers the mind to perform these are creative operations, the whole “mystery” of the relation of the Mind, or subjective field, to the objective field, or Body, is now cleared up. Nowhere in either field can be found anything that is not embodied in some portion of three-dimensional Form/Energy:-Matter. Organic body and organic mind are complementary “halves”of organic matter. Immateriality is unimaginable, and all metaphysics, religious or scientific, is absolutely anoetic.

In arithmetic, mathematics, and geometry, as in mysticism and theology, misunderstanding of reflections, abstractions, and symbols induces belief in ghosts, spirits, pure ideas, and incorporeal principles. There are no body-less entities, — no non-dimensional points, no immaterial powers. All such are products of mirror-land, — reflections, imaginings. All the abstract-symbolic thinking in the universe takes place in concrete heads, and heads that imagine that such no-things have any save a symbolic reference to overall reality are very concrete indeed. You can’t shake hands with your image in the mirror; for this reason, you will never really see a spirit or a ghost, — an event apart from a material eventer.

The prime gimmick in religious-scientific metaphysics is the symbol. The fact that you can write-speak such terms as immaterial, non-dimensional, and infinite might mislead you into opining that there really is something immaterial, non-dimensional and infinite, — If you use these terms, — these verbally manufactured negations, in a positive way, you talk non-sense, not sense. You can forgive the monkey for mistaking his reflection in the mirror for another monkey, but you shouldn’t make the same mistake yourself. (In this, I am patently talking to myself, and the you addressed is my alter-ego; as for you, you are free to do as you please, of course.)

However, the fact that re-creative imagination is a prime function of the human body-mind, which is itself an integral part of the Order of the Whole Universe, is a certain indication that imagination-conception and abstract-symbolic design are involved in the order of Prime Reality. Before the end of this discourse, I shall come to grips with this crucial fact.

There is no Form apart from Energy, no Energy apart from Form. Light, electricity, magnetism, and imagination never manifest themselves save in the three-dimensional manifold. Inseparable form and energy spell matter, — ponderable, three-dimensional some-thing. Reality is some-thing, not no-thing, and matter is the most familiar, general, impersonal term for that some-thing. Matter reflects itself, both in the organic and the inorganic systems of reference. When you look at the moon and its reflection in the still lake, four moons are present, one of which is the real, objective moon, one of which is the real, objective reflection of the moon, the other two of which are subjective reflections, one of the moon itself, the other of its image in the still waters.

That is all that I need to say at this point about the mathematics of form.

COME we now to consideration of the Mathematics of Energy, — to an analysis of the abstract-symbolic models men have invented and use for the exploitation and control of the Power in all real Form. The best introduction to this subdivision of real-imaginary mathematics is a brief history of the evolution and use of abstractions and symbols. The first symbol was a picture. It may have been simple or elaborate. It may have been drawn with a finger in moist sand or with a charred stick on the surface of a flat rock. It represented some object in nature, — a man or another animal. It was an ideal model, an outline reconstruction, and it did not exist in the objective field until the mind-and-hand of man put it there. Its making was accompanied by human sounds. All of man’s arts and sciences were involved in the making of that first picture, and from it, by a process of progressive simplification and stylization, have come all symbols. Obviously, it was not the real object which it merely re-presented, and therefore, even there in the beginning, was nothing more or less than a symbol. And it is significant to note how intimately related the ultimate symbols are to the first pictures and to all form, abstract or concrete.

T was involved in the first picture of a tree, and so was Y; M was somewhere in the first picture of mountains; W was there in the first picture of waves; H was part of the first plan for a house; O was the first picture of the sun; S is still a pretty good picture of a serpent; and I, the straight line, the universal symbol for one or first, was in them all. All that man, — first or last, — thinks, says or does is immersed in reflection-abstraction-symbol.

Over the centuries, men have developed many different systems of symbolism. Without Something that stood for Something-else, they would have no way to relate their reflections to reality or to communicate with each other at any level above the basic semantics of the brute. To rise above the jungle vocabulary of grunts, groans, shouts, slaps, blows, nudges, grimaces, and gestures, men had to invent articulate symbols, a higher order of elementary signs. This they did. The picture was the first symbol, and the Word, for all practical purposes, was its coeval. The non-verbal picture was accompanied by the verbal equivalent. All systems of symbolism are either Verbal or Non-verbal. For every word there is a non-verbal reference, and for every non-verbal sign there is a verbal reference. There are many, different systems of non-verbal symbolism, but for every sign therein there is a word. It is therefore accurate to say that all of man’s symbolism are Non/Verbal (another example of the Positive/Negative complex at the base of all reflect-ion.)

In general, the non-verbal systems of symbolic reference consist of two, closely inter-related systems, viz., the Spoken and the Written (or printed). Since all symbols are either words or signs for which there are words, it follows that the one, general sign for all human symbolism is Word. The Word is man’s prime tool. The word is a name. All words are names, — the names of objects, groups of objects, actions, motions, qualities, quantities, places, relationships. The distinction between Words and Numbers is nominal: 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. are the non-verbal or mathematical signs for words that name the imaginary-abstract operations indicated. This is equally true of all other mathematical signs. Mathematical formulations are merely short-hand versions of verbal exposition-narration. It is well to remember this, whenever you are tempted to mistake a blackboard or a book full of mathematical formulas for anything other than signs for material-mental operations, — for abstractions divorced from concrete demonstrations.

From the first, numbers were more particularly associated with and referred to power-energy. The number of sheep in the fold, the number of horses in the barn, the number of lamps or candles in the house, the number of children in the family, the number of shekels in the bag, the number of men in the army, — these are simple computations of obvious power. Similar or identical examples of the elementary mathematics of Energy may be found on virtually any page of modern newspapers, magazines, and books. Such formulations compute superficial, natural and relatively unorganized energy. For thousands of years the race’s interests and needs were satisfied with nothing but Obvious Energy and the Simple Arithmetic required for its symbolic calculation and direction. Windmills, water-wheels, and sailing ships, though crude power machines, called for no great understanding or computation of the energies exploited. Neither, in the long days of their retarded development, did levers, screws, pulleys, etc. The eolipile, an ancient toy prototype of the steam engine, failed to interest primitive mathematicians in speculations that might have led to the invention of internal-power machines hundreds of years before their time.

Later, the invention of gunpowder and the telescope kindled no minds on record at the time to imagine ways to tap the energies hidden in all forms-modes of matter. It was not until a little more than a hundred years ago that man began to investigate the inner energies of matter, and invent ways to harness and use them. All the mathematical formulations for the generation and application of steam-power, oil-power, electrical and atomic power have been imagined during the past century and a half.

The exploration and exploitation of non-organic energies, of course, was accompanied by extensive and intense inquiry into the structure and nature of organic energies, but the work in the second field, though productive of much important information, has led to no formulation-s for the generation and release of vital energy. During the past hundred and fifty years, men have learnt more about physiological-biological fact than the race learnt during the whole of recorded time down to the XIX Century. Much as that is, it is not concerned with the Vital Factor, the central and prime reality. The Vital Factor is utterly ignored; it is as if the one thing that makes the difference between a pile of sand and a professor of semantics did not exist. (Maybe the difference isn’t as great as I think it is.) The difference is generally unobserved, and so today, in the hour when the manufactured release of atomic energy threatens to destroy the race (perhaps the planet), nothing, — absolutely nothing, — is known about the power of re-generation that was not known, in practical essence, to the ancient Chinese.

The human race ignores the one thing it ought to be most interested in. For that, it has one, shame-faced symbol, — sex.

ALTHOUGH seemingly better informed about the relatively non-vital energies, men are, in reality, just as ignorant of the realities involved here as they are of the realities involved in the field of vital energy. The authorities in the fields of physics and chemistry freely confess that they do not know what really are electricity, magnetism, gravity, — electrons, protons, photons, neutrons, atoms, and molecules. They intimate, and often explicitly state, that they are not interested in the What, only in the How. And there is no denying that they have considerable know-how now,– at least enough to blow themselves to Nirvana, if not enough to keep from sacrificing thousands of lives annually to the Moloch of Machinery. Their imagined formulas for the release of real energy are practically very efficient, to say the least. Elements and compounds respond as if atoms and molecules were present there-in according to the formulated patterns; the plasticity of matter sustains these imaginings as surely and neatly as water takes the exact form of any receptacle from a thimble to a tank. There are no ohms, volts, amperes, etc. in natural reality, but the Reality does not reject these Fictions. It is now evident that Matter, like Mind, has depth reflection and something very analogous to vital response. If you poise the model of a molecule before the mirror of Matter at the right angle, Matter will reflect that model-symbol. Just as you can project a picture on paper or a motion-picture screen, so you can project into the matrix of matter a dynamo-graph or mathematical formula of energy, and get the predesigned results. Within certain limits, you can impose on Nature-Matter, rape it, and get such bastard children from the enforced mathematical-mechanical nuptials as TV, the airplane, and the H-bomb. But it is not-able that all the imaginary knowledge thus far formulated swiftly goes beyond the limits of Nature-Matter’s tolerance, and ultimately proves itself to be destructive.

Each new discovery, each new masterpiece of fancy formulation, each new invention implementing the fancy is always heralded as a boon or a potential blessing, but without exception, each has proved to be destructive of truly human qualities, of true natural harmony, an unmitigated menace to all life on earth. You can imagine that the speed of light is 186,300 miles per second, and matter will reflect your formula in a way that will deceive you into believing that the image you have held up to the mirror of universal form-energy formulates the reality, but if you persist in foisting this Fiction upon the field of Reality, the real facts will explode the fiction and expose your ignorance. This is the truth, though you may not live to discover it. The obvious reality is that the universe is not a mathematical machine; it may be treated as such for a brief time, with seeming impunity, but in the end the result, invariably and inevitably, is a highly destructive explosion of unformulated Energy.

IT is unnecessary, here, to analyze the never-never-land of mystical geometry and mathematical metaphysics, countless bibles of which you will find on the shelves of the most holy temples of what is called (most solemnly) the sciences of physics, chemistry, astrophysics, and social psychology. The vain imaginings in these volumes are as unconsciously absurd as the speculations of Medieval mystics, alchemists and Schoolmen, but they are far more practical and this-worldly. The miracles of modern machinery, manufactured from the mundane, symbolic visions in their pages, prove that matter, though not informed by conscious awareness, is in its way as volatile and plastic as mind; these machines prove that if you can imagine it, you can find a way to materialize it, whether it be heaven or hell or an in/sane mixture of both. One glance at the mystical mathematics, the maze of symbols to be encountered on the pages of this order of scientific anagogic, — one glance at these precisely diagrammed prayers of devoted technologists, thrown off in the throes of intense mental effort to realize an ideal-statistical-mechanical construction, — just one such glance overwhelms one with the surmise that one is examining the graffiti of lucid lunatics, the rational ravings of dangerously intelligent madmen. This surmise is absolutely confirmed when one turns from the books to examine the objective results of these cortex-curdling, hair-splitting and hair-raising, almost hyper-spatial imaginings, — turns from these typographical terrors, surveys the field in which these fancies have found objectification, and beholds the hosts of modern, mythical-mechanical monsters, — beholds the droves of countless chimerical constructions, the armies of fire-breathing, automatic dragons, — the myriads of engines that now affright the air, the earth and the sea, and devour the minds and the bodies of men, the world around. I repeat, you can materialize a fancy if you fancy the matter analytically and systematically enough, but you can’t realize reality so long as you permit reason to be the slave of either religious or scientific symbols and illusions. And not the least of the monstrous illusions modern men have materialized are the machines of social order, the totalitarian-democratic church-states of communism, fascism and republicanism, all of them the products of psycho-mechanics, the application of statistics to human values, the reduction of men to the status of numbered things in a politico-ethnic-economic equation. The social psychologist is the ultimate engineer of human power, the technological thaumaturge who now seeks to impose his vain Imaginings upon the Reality of man.

It is not necessary, here, to do more than mention these matters, for the essence of the whole matter is to be found in a consideration of the Mathematics of Mathematics, — the mathematics that utilizes and formulates the highest mental energies generally known to man, — terrestrial-celestial mathematics, so to speak.

At this top-level, in the very heavens of the abstract, mathematics encounters itself, mirror face to mirror face, and reflects upon itself in-finitely. At this level, the basic fact, that mathematics is a product of the imagination, ends and loses itself in an end-less maze of count-less mirrors. I define in this field three levels of reference, as follows: 1) the mathematics of space time; 2) the mathematics of number-s; 3) the mathematics of infinity. I consider them in that order.

The least “pure” of the three is the first, for it is chiefly concerned with the nature-structure of the universe as conceived-observed by men on Earth. Except in the common sense of the word, space is imaginary, an abstraction as unreal as the non-dimensional point. As a matter of fact, generalized space is merely an extension of the non-dimensional point, — the brilliant blankness of the mirror conceived as not reflecting anything. Vacuum and 0 do not exist except as convenient symbols of general potentiality, distribution, relative quality, quantity, and composition. Three-dimensional objects are not in space; they are real space: the reality is an end-less but not in-finite manifold of three-dimensional objects. Some of these three-dimensional portions of the universal, three-dimensional manifold are very elastic, even diaphanous, so to speak, but all of them, including the finest gases, are essentially three-dimensional. The universal, three-dimensional manifold itself is a very elastic continuum, capable of in-definite but not in-finite expansion and contraction, about which I shall have some-thing to say in the closing pages of this discourse. Common space, like common time, is such a familiar reflection-conception, — one that is so firmly fixed in the mixture of every-day, symbolic reference, — such a real illusion, — that all but all men would find it impossible to dis-illusion themselves about it and come to a realization of the reality. As commonly conceived, space, time, and money have a lot in common.

Continue to Part 2   http://planetarydynamics.com/2020/11/20/ignorance-of-one-part-2/

How Planets “Talk” to Each Other – What is an Aspect?

There are numerous branches of astrology and diverse methods of analysis within the art/science. The techniques used on this blog are predominantly those created by Marc Edmund Jones in the early 20th century, and they are found in his Essentials of Astrological Analysis. This approach makes use of the Major Ptolemaic Aspects*; the Conjunction, Sextile, Square, Trine, and Opposition. The geometric arrangements among planets are derived by a division of the 360-degree circle of the zodiac by 0, 6, 4, 3, and 2 respectively.

The nature of the solar system in terms of geometry must be understood by astrologers in order to interpret a horoscope. Besides the Major planetary aspects, there are highly sophisticated techniques that are based on the foundation of the five aspects. It is fascinating as well as informative to reveal the mechanism on which these planetary interrelationships perform and mirror life experiences. The origin of all events on Earth and personal human experience takes their cue from planets when they contact each other through a merging of electromagnetic fields. In one of their many YouTube videos, The Thunderbolts Project attempts to explain in detail the active result of planetary interactions.

From Symbols of an Alien Sky, The Thunderbolts Project:

“In an electrical Solar System, if two planets or Moons approach each other from regions of different potential, an electrical discharge will occur, producing plasma formations stretching between the approaching bodies.

Plasma laboratory experiments can tell us what the formations might look like. The backbone is typically a column of twisted filaments, but disks and embedded cylinders also arise to evolve in spectacular ways.

The counterpart to such formations looks like ancient depictions of the cosmic thunderbolt. But what an outrageous idea that exotic formations could arise between planets in close approach! The space between the two planets lights up and is set aflame by both planets and produces a train of fire.”

These celestial events are imbued with intelligence as well as fire and light. They are like the synapses that are sparked between brain cells in order to transmit and develop thought patterns in the brain and mind. The chakra system is involved as well. The entire solar system and life on Earth is a closed unit and its purpose is the enlightenment of humanity. All planetary aspects in a person’s chart are designed to bring growth and awareness to that individual.

For more about this subject visit other posts on this blog:

Planetary Aspects, the Electrical Connections of Intelligence

The Connective Electrical Planetary Powers and Human Receptors


*In astrology, the interaction between planets is called an ASPECT. They are geometric relationships that carry unique meanings that depend upon the nature of the configuration.

The five Major ASPECTS:

The Conjunction is 0 degrees and is an Aspect of emphasis and intensity.

The 60 degree separation of planets is called a Sextile, which is a harmonious interchange of energies because the discharge is not confrontational.

The Square is a 90 degree separation is indicative of struggle with the need to take action and change.

An ease of the interactions occurs with planets that are in a Trine ASPECT. It is the separation of 120 degrees. It refers to momentum and inner talents and abilities.

The 180 degree Opposition creates conscious awareness and can be combative because it is a direct confrontation of energies.

All of these geometric relationships have a 10 degree orb of allowance.

Solar System: The Seat of Consciousness

Modern-day astronomers and physicists are exploring the great and the small realms in the universal manifold that the ancients referred to by the axiom “As above, so below.” In their research, it would be beneficial if they were to take note of planetary cycles and their effects on human life on Earth. Astrology is an age-old discipline often overlooked by conventional science. Fortunately, the everyday citizen has a grasp of astrology’s relevance, not only for a better perspective on future events but for an understanding of their life potentials as shown in their birth horoscopes. An increasing number of curious individuals are discarding over-simplified newspaper astrological fortune-telling in an attempt to go beyond where scientists fear to tread.

There are modern scientific theories that have given credence to the all-pervading intelligence in the universe. Some find it in what they call the morphogenetic field, others find a source of life and intelligence in oscillating water molecules and their geometric patterning, as well as other theories that pervade the world as generally interpreted by science. The rhythm of vibratory rates created by the rotation of the planets on their axes in combination with their orbital cycles of the Sun defines numerical tones referred to as the music of the spheres. The source of the universe, consciousness and life on Earth is concealed and remains a mystery for humankind, however, to quote the notable physicist Richard Feynman, It does no harm to the mystery to know a little bit about it.

The Sun lightens and enlightens by the power of electrical fire and by its magnetic properties it pulls the planets along with it through the galaxy in a spiraling path, heading into the unknown, ever forward as it continues on its cyclic journey.

The planets give clues to the conundrum through the geometric patterning they weave in their synergistic fields of perpetual motion. Our bodies and emotions are a vessel for this energy intelligence and are essential for conducting the messages from these forces into the fiber of our physical being. Each heavenly body in the hierarchy of the planets is associated with attributes of human character.

The signs of the year (zodiac) are the backdrop of meaning to our lives as we reflect their archetypal natures in our own being. They are a catalyst, not the cause, of how we interpret universal influences through the sieve of personal consciousness. Each of us is born into a culture that molds and programs our perception of life and holds us back unless we hunger for wholeness and enlightenment. The outer planets in aspect with our natal planetary configurations mark breakthroughs of divine intervention to guide us toward a life worth living.

From the Sabian Symbols in Astrology by Marc Edmund Jones:

LEO 7 The constellations in the sky This is a symbol of the infinite regression in all universal reality, not as a fact of some unreachable end in knowledge but rather as a demonstration that any abandonment of the known for the sake of the unknown is fruitless. The cosmos is illimitable in the sense that man’s questing may ramify in time and space to the extent of any given pertinence, but his assurance lies within his own being and experience. The stars are his confirmation, never his explanation. The keyword is SURETY. When positive, the degree is consistent effectiveness in understanding and self-ordering, and when negative, a loss of all present integrity through an unnecessary retreat to the remote or mysterious.

SOLAR ECLIPSE AUGUST 21, 2017

A solar eclipse is a Super-New Moon. It is a time to “plant seeds” for significant change in the daily pattern of our lives. Light is not the only influence the Sun and Moon have on living things. All heavenly bodies exude an electromagnetic field, which has its influence on other heavenly spheres and life in general. These invisible energies are activated in mysterious ways through interactions of the planets, the Sun and Moon, asteroids and other significant points represented symbolically in astrological charts.

Eclipses are strongest when near or opposite a planet in the horoscope. All other influences are general and are associated with the meaning of the houses where the eclipse falls.
An eclipse can indicate the end and rebirth of behavioral patterns hidden deep within the psyche. When drawing the substance of the unconscious into the sphere of the conscious mind, through meditation or breathwork, a natural catharsis can take place that clears outmoded content. Through courageous observation of personal issues, the need for transformation can be fulfilled. The theme of the crises to be cleared is determined by which houses the solar and lunar eclipses fall in your personal horoscope.

It is not an accident that the Sun and Moon are at the distances where when they are in line with the Earth that the diameter of their disks are the same size. This strategic alignment produces a powerful thrust of energy toward the Earth that motivates a comprehensive evolution of all matter. A solar eclipse occurs twice a year, along with a lunar eclipse either before or after. These are one of the most profound astronomical and astrological events that influence our lives, although there are many other significant celestial occurrences that promote great change.

The shadow of the moon travels the surface of the Earth and marks the countries and the people designated for reorientation. The current eclipse in the astrological sign of Leo represents the heart center and effects the way that we as individuals interact with others and where we express ourselves as unique beings separate from the collective. It is a time to acknowledge the shadows within that await the light of conscious day to be resolved through Love, as one of the features of spiritual enlightenment ruled by the sign Leo.

LEO 29 A mermaid This is a symbol of humanity’s insatiable appetite for experience on the side of psychological self-assurance, and of the nascent eagerness of the soul for a private and personal participation in every possible facet of self-fulfillment. There is an ineradicable purity of man’s make-up at core, and in consequence an ultimate repudiation of all the compromises which seem to be demanded in everyday relationships. The individual forever seeks and responds to the creative needs of life itself. The keyword is IMPORTUNITY. When positive, the degree is a completeness of quickening to inner instincts of the being and a real willingness to trust them, and when negative, a lack of discrimination and an awkward insensitivity.

 

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Planetary Aspects, the Electrical Connections of Intelligence

Ancient civilizations observed the night skies with awe and wonder on a nightly basis. They had no distractions from the starry vault by televisions, cell phones, computers and other digital devices. They dedicated their time to a comprehensive understanding of the movements of the stars, planets and other heavenly phenomena. Observatories were common in their cultural centers with remnants of them remaining as a physical record of their highly sophisticated celestial calculations.

El Caracol, the crumbling observatory tower at Chichen’ Itza’ in Mexico reaches far above the Yucatan jungle and was the means by which ancient Maya astronomers viewed the sky to track solstices, equinoxes and eclipses and specifically the orbit of Venus. The Maya recorded their findings in books, although most were destroyed during the European conquest in the first millennia. One of the surviving three ancient texts called Codices tells of the 26,000-year cycle using the long-count calendar. There is no doubt that sky observation dominated the minds of the Maya during their classical period.

The priests and noble classes of past cultures used astronomical activity as a means of dominance over the lives of the masses they ruled. The predictable synchronicity between activities on Earth as they correspond to celestial conditions and planetary cycles gave the astronomer/astrologer priests a preview of coming events. This foreknowledge was used to prove to their subjects the powers they held in the scheme of daily life. They assigned the planets godlike attributes based on their longtime observations of its effects on nature and humanity. Since astrology developed over a vast period of time it became known as an empirical science.

The astrological name for the interrelationship of energies between planets in the solar system and their potential to affect human experience is called an aspect. Astrological aspects are defined by the mathematical configurations of the ten planets (Sun and Moon included) as they communicate with each other in their cyclical orbits. The planets are viewed from a geodesic perspective because our experience is Earth-centered. The five primary geometric aspect relationships are called major aspects. They are a separation of their orbits in terms of the Conjunction at 0 degrees, the Sextile at 60 degrees, the Square at 90, the Trine at 120, and the Opposition at 180 degrees. apart.

There is a 10-degree allowance of orb for the planets, 12.5 for the Moon and a 17-degree allowance for the Sun. A Sextile for example can be active when planets are 70 degrees apart. There are also a myriad of minor aspects that become pertinent when a chart reading necessitates an examination of more subtle personal capacities.

The chart of physicist Wal Thornhill, the founder of The Thunderbolts Project is shown with lines connecting planets in major aspect. The mathematical division of the circle defines the way the core planetary spheres and their electromagnetic fields interconnect. These geometric relationships describe the unique characteristics of an individual or group entity. It is not numbers or math that endow the planets with power to influence our lives, it is their electrical activity that penetrates the Solar System as a whole. The planetary forces exert their objectives as they activate the potentials of the horoscope through temporary transits and developmental progressions.

In Symbols of an Alien Sky, at 52:10 of the YouTube video, Wal Thornhill states,

In an electric solar system, if two planets or moons approach each other from regions of different potential, an electric discharge will occur producing plasma formations stretching between the approaching bodies.

At 34:32 in the YouTube Video, An Electric Cosmology for the 21st Century, Wal Thornhill states,

The Solar System has currents flowing through it, and there are currents flowing between planets at certain times. In this case Venus.

The diagram below shows Venus in an inferior conjunction alignment with the Sun and Earth. There is a visual energy trail from Venus caused by the Sun. This effect was photographed by the SOHO spacecraft.

Innate within these plasma formations is the intelligent spark of life and consciousness. Circled in green are two planets in Thornhill’s horoscope that were in extremely close contact at the hour of his birth. Although Thornhill’s exact time of birth is not known to this astrologer, there is no doubt that the slowly orbiting planets, Saturn and Uranus, were making this very tight conjunction aspect on May 2, 1942. This is an extraordinary connection between these two planets as they are within 3 minutes of exact conjunction. It is also in a special zodiacal position in the heavens known as the Pleiades. (1) It is a group of stars also known as the Weeping Sisters or the Seven Sisters. This group of stars is known to be in one of the nearest constellations to Earth and many cults from ancient times to the present have developed a belief in its profound and sometimes ominous effects on humankind.

On the other hand, the star group is believed to bring great wisdom and knowledge to anyone born under its influence, and it is also believed to be the source of knowledge channeled from several “non-corporal” entities. Regardless of myths and cults associated with 29 degrees Taurus, the conjunction aspect in Thornhill’s chart endows him with a potential for deep Saturnian wisdom coupled with Uranian higher consciousness.

Often these two planets are seen to be diametrically opposed in their characteristic and meaning. Saturn is conscience. Its sensitiveness gives rise to moral considerations and socially acceptable behavior. The planet’s transits and progressions give opportunities for the native to conform to common customs. If guilt is felt for wrongdoing, a subsequent period of regret and a change of heart is required to assuage conscience. It is the opposite in regard to the trailblazer Uranus. Known as the Promethean impulse, it has the capacity to break free of the common restraints and boundaries for which Saturn is known. It paves new ground and feels justified and responsible for creating new paradigms.

These differing energies in Thornhill’s chart seem to work well together in a blend of tradition and innovation. What might have been a youthful internal ambivalence becomes in maturity a Saturn steadying of focus on the Uranian iconoclastic approach Thornhill developed. His challenge to generations of scientists bogged down in outdated cosmologies helps promote his hypothesis of the more realistic Electric Universe.

The birthright and potentials of the Saturn/Uranus conjunction include a generation of individuals born during the same year as Thornhill. The slow-moving duo lasted throughout the entire year of 1942 and what makes this conjunction so significant for Thornhill is its exactitude and relationship with several other supporting planets at the time.

The Saturn/Uranus Conjunction potential is further understood through an examination of their keyword definitions. Saturn’s keyword is Sensitiveness and Uranus has the keyword Independence. Thornhill broke away from established academia because of an overriding sensitiveness and dedication to the facts he was able to uncover in his pioneering search. Uranus’ keyword when it is prominent in a horoscope takes on a different and more fascinating keyword, Experimentative. Thornhill relies on laboratory experimentation to explain and validate imagery and observations of outer space.

Mercury conjunct Saturn and Uranus bring added meaning with its keyword Inquisitive. This points to Thornhill’s probing Mentality (another Mercury keyword). The Sun too is conjunct in this grouping in Taurus and creates a Stellium in Sign. The four together amplify the meaning of Taurus which is an earth sign and element and is representative of the physical properties of the cosmos. The Sun’s keyword is Purpose and its position is exactly 17 degrees apart from Saturn/Uranus. It makes a conjunction with the two at the widest separation allowable. The Stellium, a Focal Determinator in the chart, points to an important feature of the natal chart. It would be interesting to know the exact placement of the Moon and how it might enter into the chart dynamics but that is only possible when the exact time of birth is known.

The Green lines pointing from Venus to the triple Conjunction of Mercury, Saturn and Uranus reveal the multiple sextiles at birth. The sextile aspect is a derivation of the triangle which denotes in astrology an ease in connecting with people and receiving their assistance. Venus’ benefic effects then add Appreciation to the already stacked potentials for rewarding and supportive experience via the multiple sextiles. The chart’s challenging stresses come from the opposition of Venus to Neptune shown with a red line connecting them. However, this polarization gives rise to another Focal Determinator of importance. It is Jupiter in a symmetrical 90-degree aspect to both Neptune and Venus. This 90-degree angle to the 180-degree opposition is shown with the red and purple lines is called a T-Cross. The configuration forms the letter T, whether it is right side up, on its side or upside down. The planet that creates the stem of the T is considered in Point Focus. This planet becomes the release and outlet for the more static opposition. It stems from and is the point through which the energy intelligence flows and has its potential expression. It becomes a powerful force by being sparked and energized by the electrical charges it receives from the planets in the polarizing opposition. Jupiter, the Point Focus of the T-Cross takes on the keyword Paternal with Jupiter revealing the guiding propensity in the native’s character. Thornhill wishes to spread the truth of the Electrical Universe and with the help of Point Focus Jupiter, he does so by “adopting” those underlings he deems worthy of his enlightened message.

The Pleiades are to the solar system the source of electrical energy and, just as our sun is the embodiment of the heart

or love aspect of the Logos . . . . , so the Pleiades are the feminine opposite of Brahma.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire by Alice Bailey

 

From the American Federation of Astrologers:
The Babylonians are generally credited with the birth of astrology. Their astrological charts enabled them to predict the recurrence of seasons and certain celestial events. So in the beginning and for more than 2,000 years, astrology and astronomy were the same science.

Babylonian astrology was introduced to the Greeks early in the 4th century B.C. and, through the studies of Plato, Aristotle, and others, astrology came to be highly regarded as a science. It was soon embraced by the Romans (the Roman names for the zodiacal signs are still used today) and the Arabs and later spread throughout the entire world.

While earliest astrology was used to bring a sense of order out of apparent chaos, it was soon utilized to predict weather patterns, primarily for agricultural purposes. It was eventually broadened to include forecasts of natural disasters and war and other events in the course of human affairs. Amassing successes in these fields, it was a natural progression for astrology to be used as counsel for kings and emperors and, in time, for all of us.
*From A Treatise on Cosmic Fire by Alice Bailey

The Pleiades are to the solar system the source of electrical energy and, just as our sun is the embodiment of the heart or love aspect of the Logos . . . . , so the Pleiades are the feminine opposite of Brahma. (The third aspect. Page 156.)


The repetition of the symbolic harvest time theme in the chart is notable. There is the reference to a harvest dance in Jupiter’s original symbol of 22 degrees Gemini, as well as with Venus’ 27 degree symbol, A harvest Moon.

**GEMINI 22 A barn dance This is a symbol of complete self-fulfillment through the established or normal activities of the community at large, and of a consummation of self by the broadest possible participation in the divisions of labor which constitute a human society. Richness of living comes from an uninhibited sharing of everyday potentialities, together with a maximum of happy give-and-take between any one indivi­dual and any other. The keyword is GREGARIOUSNESS. When positive, the degree is an ability to plunge into major and re­warding experiences without the least self-reservation, and when negative, a dependence on superficialities for self-satis­faction and on petty indulgences for self-assurance.

***PISCES 27 A harvest moon This is a symbol of life’s mo­ments of culmination as the threshold of new achievement rather than as any canceling out of experience in the given aspect, and it emphasizes the fact that nature in her immeas­urable prodigality is forever showering man with the products of her untiring creativeness. She is saying to him that his productivity is as rich as hers, and that the highly concentrated resources of the world are at the immediate service of anyone who will put them to use and so facilitate their replacement. The keyword is BENEDICTION. When positive, the degree is self-consummation which is successful beyond any possibility of measure, and when negative, loss of self in a welter of op­portunity.