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THIRD PHASE: REVALUATION - THE VENUS STATION
The two first phases of the process of inner metamorphosis, the reorientation of the power of consciousness, lead to a third phase, symbolized by Venus. Just as we saw that the Mercury period (or function) in the complete cycle of life can be interpreted, first, in terms of the involutionary process of differentiation of primordial spirit-energy into the various forces animating all organic life, then, in terms of the evolutionary development of human faculties and consciousness, and finally in relation to a third process ("transvolution") represented by the Illumined Road, likewise Venus can be understood in three basic ways. Mythological symbolism already represented the planet under two aspects: as Venus-Lucifer, the Morning Star, and Venus-Hesperus, the Evening Star; as herald of light and harvester of the experiences of the day.
Venus within the frame of reference of involutionary differentiation (the Morning Star) represents what we call today "magnetism". As Mercury is the symbol of bi-polar electrical activity, these two planets inside the Earth's orbit should be considered as being closely related; because electricity and magnetism are almost inseparable expressions of energy. They constitute, at least from the point of view of astrological symbolism, the first two stages of differentiation of that Solar potential which is the undifferentiated source of all the energies operating within a living organism. Electricity operating through, or at the core of a "field" gives rise to various electro-magnetic processes. These, seen in their entirety, constitute the dynamic foundation of organic living, the electromagnetic, or "auric field" surrounding as well as pervading the physical body.
Occult traditions, Western as well as Eastern, speak of the "astral body" of a man. Unfortunately this term has been given several different meanings in theosophical or pseudo-theosophical writings. Essentially one should conceive the "astral world" as the realm of "pure" forces in contradistinction to the physical realm in which all we can observe are material changes — changes which affect the behavior of particles of matter within and to-and-from organized wholes (atoms, molecules, cells, organs, bodies, societies, etc.)
When we speak of "pure" forces, we mean forces considered in themselves without the limiting concept of material substance. Thus, when modern physics interprets light as wave-motion, it speaks of pure force. What is considered, is not the substance in motion but the rhythm of the force in motion. In fact the concept of substance has almost entirely vanished from the world-picture presented by contemporary physics. This picture is nearly identical with that to which the occultist of today or the Alchemist-Rosicrucian of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance alluded when speaking of the "astral" realm — the realm of Natura naturans, the world of formative energies.
This realm must not be confused, however, with what is popularly meant by the term "astral"; that is, the realm of illusory perceptions, emotional cravings and disintegrating by-products of consciousness — the Freudian subconscious, Jung's personal unconscious, and the "sub-lunar realm" of medieval occultists. The Venus function, in its involutionary aspect, is a creative and formative power. On the basis of the electrical activity of the Mercury function, it produces electro-magnetic fields. The diffuse and incoherent materials scattered in universal space are drawn within these fields. They are made to assume definite patterns; as iron filings are likewise brought into more or less symmetrical arrangement within the electro-magnetic field of a magnet.
Such patterns, assumed by substantial elements of any and all types, make visible what are called the lines of force of the magnetic field. The Venus power deals with the organization of lines of force, but not with the substances drawn to and precipitating along them. Magnetic lines of force are the results of more or less steady and permanent combinations of wave-motions. They are expressions of "pure forces" in action. From the strictly limited point of view of the Venus function considered in itself, these dynamic patterns in electro-magnetic fields exist without reference to whatever precipitates and condenses along their lines of flow. They constitute reality at the true "astral" level: the level of an involutionary Venus function. The process of condensation of particles of substance beside these lines of force refers to a particular aspect of the Moon function — i.e. to the building of material organisms within the lunar matrix. Venus-Lucifer (literally "Bearer of Light") deals with patterns of light; with the archetypal Form of Man.
With reference to the evolution of actual earthly organisms and of human personalities, Venus essentially symbolizes the factor of "value". The Venusian function, at the level of the individual consciousness, enables man to discriminate between that which has value for his individual growth and that which is valueless or potentially destructive. "Feelings" are the immediate manifestations of judgments of value — not mental judgments, but instinctual, organic, emotional and inbred cultural-social-ethical judgments. Love and hatred, attraction and repulsion, happiness and unhappiness, the emotional sense of what is beautiful and what is ugly — all such oppositions result from judgments of value, in relation to the vital requirements of our body, our soul, our cultural and moral sense of participation in society. These judgments establish the foundations of man's emotional-personal life; in most cases, they largely control, or at least influence and guide, the Mercury-phase of his inner life; thus, the development of generalized images, abstractions, concepts and systems.
Once an individual begins to tread the Illumined Road the Venus function undergoes a deep metamorphosis. The magnetism of the ego must be renewed by a process of identification with the quality and purpose of the Solar entity, the Soul. Every habit of personal behavior and every motive of the ego, all the values of the emotional life and all the cultural and moral standards, gradually acquire a new significance and a new purpose. Christian mystics have referred to such a radical revaluation when stating: It is no longer I who lives; God lives me.
Yet during the Venus phase of "revaluation" the emphasis is not placed upon outer activity; this belongs to the next phase symbolized by Mars. The stress is upon a change in values; and this is what is meant figuratively by the expression, "a change of heart" — or, in religious terminology, the core of the true process of "conversion". A man is what the values are, that he puts on his inner and outer experiences. Change these evaluations, and the man is no longer as he was; his activities change — or, if outwardly the same, they begin to acquire a new quality of radiation and a new potency.
It was Nietzsche who popularized the phrase: the revaluation of all values. But the German philosopher and poet functioned as a destroyer of cultural and religious images. There need be such destroyers, but their fate and their responsibility are tragic. They are like the bomb whose explosion freed the energy locked within the electro-magnetic field of atoms of uranium and plutonium. They release power; but to what end? Liberation from obsolete values itself must be given value; it is worth only what its ultimate purpose is. Whosoever destroys now useless cultural, ethical, religious values, except by the power of new and greater values, becomes caught into the destruction, as Samson under the ruins of the temple. The "Solar" individual — the christed Jesus — does not destroy the temple; he cleanses it. He does not destroy the edifice of human values, but he floods men's souls with a new magnetism; he gives men to drink of the "living water" which supersedes and renders obsolete the water of tradition.
What is this new magnetism? Whence the "living water" of which Jesus speaks? These "waters" emanate unceasingly from the symbolical Heart of the Sun as Rays of the spirit. And these Rays are the electro-magnetic "lines of force" of the Solar "field". The change from the old to the new values is indeed represented by the change from a geocentric to a heliocentric field of values. Just as the Moon function has to be "reoriented" away from Saturn and toward the Sun before the ego, carried by the power of the Solar Ray, can travel on the Illumined Road, so the Venus function has to be re-magnetized by the purpose and the quality of this Ray. The consciousness of the individual has been "repolarized" during the Mercury phase of the Illumined Road; it has become redirected Starward. But a new direction is not enough. New values are needed; a repatterning of the very aim and meaning of mental activities. It is not enough that the thoughts and concepts renewed by changed sense-perceptions be different. The very purpose and quality of thinking must be revalued.The value of mental activity is not to be taken for granted. Why do men think? Why be conscious? To what end the association of images and concepts? These are not senseless questions. The usual modern answer to them is that thought is produced as a tool to insure survival, a better adaptation to environment, a more complex development of the human person — body and psyche. The Illumined Road now requires a "heliocentric" answer. Mind and consciousness are no longer to be seen as instrumentalities for the survival or greater developing of the body or even of the entire personality. They become agencies for the organization and release of soul-power, that power which enables the reoriented and repolarized conscious ego to see itself operating in a new light and with a changed heart, for the single purpose of reaching, in a fully integrated and immortal, spirit-attuned form of consciousness, the Star which is man's permanent Identity.
This new form of consciousness is what European mystics have named the Christ-body or the Robe of Glory. During the Venus-phase of the Illumined Road, this body of light is being formed in seed. It is a solar seed, centered in the radiance of the Sun; and no longer a dark seed, propagating the compulsions of earth-nature. It is more than an electro-magnetic field and more than an expression of value. It is the means for the individual ego to comprehend the Star, goal of his journey along the path of the Solar Ray returning to its cosmic origin. Comprehension is based on a sense of value, but also on the ability to vibrate in sympathetic resonance with what is to be understood.
The revaluated Venus function builds, as it were, a spiritual resonator to the tone sounded forth through the greater cycle of human attainment by the Star, the individualized Father-in-Heaven. This resonator is a web of Solar light-substance. It is, one might say, like a radar-instrument revealing the topography of the approaches to the Star, and the character of all experiences on the Illumined Road. On the basis of what has thus been revealed, the individual can establish new standards of value. He can see, through the fog of earthly illusion and sense-confusion, the realities that count and are significant in terms of the goal of the Illumined Road. He can pierce the many veils of man-made glamour, be they in the field of culture, of religion or of social betterment. He can perceive the essential values of man's spirit-born quest through the confused array of humanitarian and primarily material ideas offered as ultimate goals to good and sensitive men — not denying these goals, but evaluating them in a different way, within a new frame of reference.
As the individual completes this third step on the Illumined Road the magnetism of his personality is fundamentally altered. Light shines through his eyes, in a strangely different way. There is in him, from him, a glow of spirit, a strength, a security, a knowingness which cannot be explained in terms of normal health, or of vigor of body or mind. This glow will increase as the Starward journey proceeds. It will prove itself in radiant acts, in new adjustments, in the power to renew all things. It will prove itself, slowly, gradually — perhaps with temporary set-backs. But the glow of spirit must eventually win over all mental cloudiness and all instinctual glamours. It will win in the furnace of works performed for and as the spirit. It will win through the ordeals of fire precipitated unconsciously by human, all too human loves. It will win in the light and by the power of light, as the individual revaluates the whole of his personality in terms of the 'bearing forth' of light to a humanity still bound by geocentric values. As an ever-shining Morning Star of the spirit such an individual will radiate the subtle essence of his renewed personality beyond the need for sunsets and for the obscuration of sleep, beyond weariness and beyond pain. And he will go on, though scorned and misunderstood, laughed at or reviled, in the steady realization of purpose and truth, carrying aloft this purpose and truth as a light for all men to see and to orient themselves by, if they choose.
