Wherever there is life, there also the principle of polarity operates. This may
be because, as biologists are now realizing, life essentially implies positive
and negative electrical phenomena. All cells are electrically charged, and the
nerves operate on the basis of electrical currents. In the total nervous system
of a human being, two great subsystems oppose each other in their action; health
results from their dynamic equilibrium. Indeed, all activities require the
release of electrical charges, and electricity has a bi-polar character a
positive and a negative aspect. In the human organism, many functions are at
work. Health is present when these functions operate harmoniously and in
rhythmic interdependence.
Ancient
Chinese philosophers expressed this rhythmic, self-regulated character of all
life processes in the Tao symbol in which two forces of opposite polarities, Yin
and Yang, are shown to be interrelated within a circle. The picture
is not static; it represents a bi-polar process. It illustrates the yearly
rhythm of the seasons, and the astrological zodiac is a symbolic expression of
this bi-polar process.(1) What I call the Day Force refers to the
"masculine" polarity, Yang; it has the least strength at the
winter solstice (the symbolic Christ birth). The Night Force, Yin, is at
the apex of its power then. Through the winter months, the Day Force increases
(and the days become longer); the Night Force decreases. The two forces have
equal strength at the spring equinox; at the summer solstice, the Day Force
reaches its maximum power, the Night Force its lowest ebb. Afterward, the Night
Force waxes in strength while the Day Force wanes, once more to become equal at
the fall equinox, and so on.
The
principle of polarity also operates in the realm of life as what we call sex.
The earliest forms of life were not classified according to sex. The uni-cellular
organism divided itself into two, each half becoming an independent unit which
also divided, and so on ad infinitum. A human being is born male or
female; but until about the third month of gestation, the embryo in the mother's
womb has in itself the germs of both the male and the female organs; the
structural differentiation which occurs afterward is not absolute. The male body
retains something of the potential female organs, and the female body displays
structures related to the male set of characters. Indeed, the full bodily
expression of sex comes
only
at puberty, even though the actualization of such a fullness of sexual
manifestation has been going on since birth. As Freud has stressed (and
overstressed!), the dynamism of this process conditions important aspects of the
infantile consciousness, especially before the age of seven (the traditional
"age of responsibility"), when something else theoretically happens.
In a very real sense, one cay say that the sex forces build, or power the
building of, the child's body. But the body represents only the outer
aspect of personality. To this outer aspect, one must add an inner aspect,
which is usually called the "psyche." A human being is composed of
both a body and a psyche; every individual person has an inner life as well as
an outer life. The forces which have brought forth the male or female character
of the body are not the only ones. In and through the male body, a female
psyche also is active. It can be said to be derived from the primordial
female characteristics existing during the pre-sexual phase of embryonic growth.
In
other words, the fecundated ovum in the womb is both male and female in
potentiality; and when the "germ" of the male functions becomes
dominant and the embryo gradually develops rudimentary masculine organs, the
female germ does not disappear. We might say it does not entirely lose
its strength, but it grows in a direction opposed to that of the sex-building
male germ. It develops along "countersexual" lines i.e., psychically.
In
the male embryonic body nearing birth, the sex glands produce hormones which not
only affect the growth of the physical body, but also build what we might call a
masculine type of neuro-intellectual adaptation to the outer environment of the
future child. In the case of a female infant, the female hormones likewise build
a feminine type of adaptation to the conditions of the future girl's existence.
For instance, in the male infant, the countersexual feminine energies also
operate. They operate within the subconscious as a potentially
compensating factor in the inner life. They may seem non-existent in the
boisterous all-American boy of 9 or 16, but this is largely because of the
special nature of the American society; in France and in numerous Oriental
countries, a boy before reaching puberty often has an almost feminine
charm and his eyes may seem strangely open to psychic vistas.
If
some physical or organic shock occurs in childhood or adolescence, the sexual
character of the youth may be affected, blocked, or deviated; then the
countersexual factors (feminine in the boy, masculine in the girl) have a chance
to manifest more clearly. They then influence the psychic or
mental
fields of the personality. This may even produce "psychosomatic"
results, or at least condition the development of a somewhat unusual personality
perhaps imaginative and artistic in the boy; intellectual, scientific, or
actional in the girl.
Any
experience which decreases the tone of, or gives a negative emotional value to,
the sexual factors in the growing personality of the youth tends thereby to
increase the influence and actual effects of the countersexual life principle. It
is almost as if, during the summer months which should be an outdoor period of
life, a long stretch of very bad, cold weather forces one to pass the days
indoors and to focus one's mind upon occupations best performed inside the
house. For this reason, many religious disciplines have stressed ascetic
practices to shock the sexual part of the nature into near collapse, allowing
the countersexual energies of the psychic life to emerge powerfully from their
subconscious abode into the field of consciousness.
Astrology
offers a very revealing picture of the processes which have just been outlined,
for in the Sun and the Moon, we find symbols of the sexual aspect of human
nature, respectively, in the male and female
bodies;
while Jupiter and Saturn give us significant clues to the activity of the
countersexual forces in the masculine and the feminine psyches, respectively.
The Sun (male) and the Moon (female) are the "Lights" of life on the
earth's surface. The Sun is the primary source of all energy on the planet; it
is the active releasing principle, the fecundator and dynamizer of all life
processes. As to the Moon, I believe that we can never fully understand its
astrological and occult significance unless we realize that it does not refer
only to the earth's satellite as a material globe but, rather, that it
symbolizes what ancient astrologers called "the sublunar realm" that
is, the entire space around the earth outlined by the monthly revolutions of the
visible Moon. This sublunar realm is, as it were, the matrix (or, if one
prefers, the aura or electromagnetic field) inside of which our planet and,
therefore, humankind as a whole exists. In this sense, our astronauts will not
have fully left the earth's sphere until they are able to go beyond the Moon and
(symbolically, at least) to rise from the "hidden side" of the Moon
which is always turned toward outer space and away from the Sun.
The
Moon, therefore, symbolizes the traditionally "mysterious" aspect of
sex in the woman; and the changes of appearance of the Moon represent the female
cycle of ovulation and menstruation and the bioglandular moods of women.
Likewise, the Sun in astrology stands for
the
sexual body-building power of sex in the male person. With the Sun and Moon, we
are essentially dealing with the outer biological and sexual aspects of man and
woman. Moreover, the sexual power operates through organic structures which are
"ruled" by Venus and Mars in both sexes: Venus referring to the
testicles and ovaries, Mars to the mechanisms of release of the sexual energies.
When we come to the countersexual aspects of the total human individual, we
enter a realm in which a great deal of elucidation is needed, at both the
psychological and the astrological levels. I relate such a countersexual aspect
to Jupiter and Saturn. Marc Edmund Jones long ago spoke of these two planets as
the "social planets" and, in another context, as the "planets of soul." In the
most basic sense, they refer to whatever emerges from the living together of
human beings; they deal with the organization and maintenance of communities,
social and religious institutions, and nations. Jupiter refers to the social
sense thus, to the rhythms of group feelings, the companionship
between people who share common interests. Saturn is specifically concerned with
the place that any member of a group or community rightfully occupies and the
social function he can perform efficiently when at his proper place and under
his legal, socially guaranteed name. Saturn thus refers to the problems of
defining, stabilizing, and keeping secure this place and mode of operation in
the group.
Saturn
and Jupiter deal with collective factors in the human being; the Sun, Moon,
Mars, and Venus (the organic instrumentalities-building planets) with individual
factors. I have shown in my books that these two principles individual and
collective are the two most basic polarities in
all
forms of existence. The Day Force in the cycle of the year (the Chinese
Yang) actually manifests in
life as the drive toward individualization; it builds limited, clearly
defined organic systems and outwardly operating personalities. The Night Force (Yin)
operates as the drive toward
socialization
and the building of more or less large collectivities of individual
units.
The
emergence of an infant human body out of the womb and, in larger evolutionary
terms, of the first living organism out of the sea is
the
outcome of the drive toward individualization; and sex (i.e., the process of
self-reproduction and self-multiplication) is a force acting at the very core of
such a drive. But the newborn and, later on, the self-sufficient mature
individual is not alone in the world. He could not exist and unfold his human
birth potential alone. He is born within a
group, a collectivity of human beings; and it is this collectivity and its
tradition which provide this individual human organism with what he needs, at
both the biological and the mental level i.e., food and the knowledge, language, and
social institutions absolutely required for the fulfillment of any individual
personality.
What
we call the "inner life" of a person is conditioned mentally by
the language, symbols, and collective thinking attitudes of his or her society
and culture; it is conditioned emotionally by at first taken-for-granted
patterns of interpersonal relationship, the parental example, the contagion of
group feelings. Even if the individual rebels against the ways of thinking and
the ethical, religious, and social ways of living of his family, group, or
nation, this rebellion itself is conditioned by and starts from the primordial
sense of "belonging" to the group.
You
cannot escape from the pressures of your collectivity and your culture; your
very revolt must use words and gestures inherited from the cultural-social past
in order to take a form and become effective. Carl Jung has spoken of the
collective unconscious, not only as the repository of the harvest of experience
of perhaps millions of generations, but even more as the sea out of which arise
the many small islands that we know as individual persons. Thus, when the
biological soli-lunar forces whose work it is to produce an individual human
organism succeed in completing their outward-oriented drive in the development
of the sexual aspect of a human personality, male or female, they do so by
pushing the countersexual forces back into the unconscious. These may not seem
active in a personal, conscious, and willful manner, but they are there,
conditioning the psychological climate of the individual, somewhat as the
sea, its currents and the fog it produces, conditions the climate of the small
island which has risen out of the water and sometimes a tidal wave may
submerge the island of consciousness!
When
Jupiter and Saturn are spoken of as "planets of soul," the term
"soul" refers to the part of the total person which ever seeks to
complement
the outward-oriented,
self-conscious and conscious parts of the personality. Carl Jung spoke of this
part as the anima in the man and the animus in the
woman; he spoke of them as undifferentiated and often archaic psychic functions.
They may manifest in dreams, creative fantasies, sudden intuitions, and
super-normal faculties
some of them now being called "parapsychological." They
constitute the less obvious or "hidden" aspect of what the planets
Jupiter and Saturn represent.
The individual person functioning outwardly as a male organism would fmd, if
able to look into his psychic depths, a countersexual feminine power (the
"anima"). It is this power which, unknown to the individual consciousness, urges
him to seek not only social fellowship with other men, but also perhaps a
dedicated participation in the collective activities of a group church,
nation, or even humanity as a whole. The "soul" of a man is collectively
oriented; that of a woman is individualistically oriented
because, as the childbearer, her outer nature and sex functions have to
be pervaded (in all normal cases) with a dedication to the human species, the
existence of which she has to perpetuate.
Thus,
the feminine type of intellect (also a part of her outer nature) is normally
wide open to collectivizing social currents. A woman tends to conform to
institutionalized religion and ethics as well as to fashion. But within the
unconscious part of her psyche, the basic drive is toward individualization. If
she eagerly accepts a state of dependence upon her husband (so glorified in
Hindu culture), or upon Jesus as Divine Beloved (if she has transcendentalized
her need for a love which will reveal to her her true essential self), or upon
some Oriental Teacher, Swami, or yogi (who supposedly can provide a technique of
self-revelation), it is because
her
unconscious nature is forever seeking to reach a condition of individualistic
integration. It seeks this through a process of identification with some
exemplar, with a catalyzing personality or life situation. Saturn, the
individualizer and stabilizer, is thus the symbol of a woman's inner drive;
while Jupiter, the socializer, is the symbol of a man's semi-conscious or
totally unconscious psychic yearnings.
This
drive within the psyche may actually manifest as a deep, unclear compulsion
seizing the man or woman and dominating his or her outer existence; but, in any
case, it has as its foundations the countersexual forces. Very often what seems
to a man or a woman to be the motive for actions, or the cause of feelings
for a person or a situation, is not at all the
real motive or cause. A man may join a fraternal organization he thinks
because this would serve his outer social or business interests, his power of
self-expression; but the real cause may be that his "soul" is yearning for deep
social fellowship and group belonging and this, in a sense,
represents a kind of psychological "transference" of the infantile
relationship of the boy to the mother in early childhood.
On
the other hand, a woman may consciously believe that she is seeking the
love of a man as an outlet for her sexual feelings while, in reality
(unconsciously or semi-consciously), she is yearning for a transcendent
power that would reveal to her what she essentially is as a spiritual being. Sex
play may be more often than not a pretext, a means to an unconscious or dimly
conscious end. The love act for a woman may actually be symbolic; the reality,
deep beyond the symbol, is the catalytic process which, in some mysterious
manner, will reveal her true self to her. It is, thus, truly an
"initiation" occurring in her inner life an activity in which
the unconscious countersexual part of the woman is the active factor. For the
man, the act of love is normally a conscious expression of sex power, one of
many events (or incidents) in his outer life.
For
the woman, the planet Saturn symbolizes the figure of the solemn Hierophant who
celebrates the mysterious rite of purification from or through
whichever may be the case her sexual nature. Saturn is astrologically
the father image because the father is (or should be, in natural conditions of
life) the symbol of authority and mind power; and as the little girl feels in
her psychic depths he has been her mother's "initiator." The girl, identifying
her collective biological-social role with her mother, projects her unconscious
yearning for individualization (which implies mental development) on her father.
If the father is an unworthy or ineffectual screen for the projection, she feels
frustrated and will subsequently tend to seek someone able to live up to her
ideal image. She may develop a deep confusion in her quest because of mixing up
the sexual and countersexual drives and this brings many
an American marriage to divorce. The "inner" and "outer"
short-circuit each other.
A man's inner longing
for fellowship and sharing of which the Christian Communion and
earlier forms of "sacred meals" taken in common in a mystic
brotherhood are the religious expressions may also become confused and
materialized when mixed up with the outer drive for power and wealth. These
constitute a "socialized" kind of sexual and ego-building activity.
Religious movements and secret brotherhoods (such as original Free Masonry)
become easily perverted or, at least, materialized as the "outer"
invades the "inner" and the body draws the soul into its vicious
circle of desire.
The
difficulty in making use of the foregoing psychological facts and astrological
concepts in the study of an individual's birth-chart is that several other
factors may enter into the picture and affect the person's character and life.
Above all, pressures from the environment, particularly the nature of the actual
everyday relationship between child and parents at an early age and at the time
of adolescence (the latter especially for the girl), can considerably alter the
natural development of the personality.
This relationship operates at both the inner and outer levels and differently at
each level.
For
a boy, the mother is outwardly represented in the birth-chart as the
Moon. The mother normally envelops the child with attention, care, and love. He
depends upon her for his well-being and for his meeting as successfully and
happily as possible the everyday difficulties of existence. This outer
dependence may tenaciously persist after adolescence, and the young man may
transfer it to his wife. But there is also a subtler form of relationship
affecting the boy's inner life, for he normally identifies himself
with his mother in a communion of love participation. He and she constitute a
"we"; they belong together until perhaps this we-feeling is
shattered by the mother's carelessness or lack of real love. If the we-feeling
is shattered, the boy will carry through his life a psychic sense of being
wounded or a feeling of inner emptiness. He will then seek to fill this
emptiness by developing a social and Jupiterian yearning for fellowship, for
being loved by his equals, for belonging to a group.
Thus,
in a man's chart, the position of both the Moon and Jupiter have to be
considered, in addition to that of the Sun, which is always an indicator of the
basic drive for outer self-expression and self-aggrandizement, sexually or
socially. The instrumentality of this drive is the Mars function (which rules
all muscles and organs of action), and also the Mercury function (which deals
with the intellect and its associative memory). The mutual relationships
(aspects, Parts, etc.) existing between these planets should enable one to make
a relevant picture of the sexual and countersexual forces at work in the total
personality of the man.
In
a woman's chart, the Moon represents her female nature and also, during
childhood and adolescence, her relationship to her mother, whom she normally
wants to imitate. Even if she dislikes and rebels against the mother's
behavior, she may eventually see herself repeating some of her mother's life
patterns. Since the countersexual aspect of a girl's personality is represented
by Saturn, the aspect between the Moon and Saturn is quite revealing. When these
two planets are in opposition, it is quite possible for the girl to completely
overcome, sooner or later, the outer bodily pressures of her sexual drives upon
her inner soul consciousness and mind. Yet a negative result can also occur in
some cases some kind of disassociation of the inner and outer life.
A
conjunction of the Moon and Saturn may indicate the beginning of a new cycle of
life (if one believes in reincarnation) or a confused sense of insecurity, as if
one were functioning in a new and unfamiliar spiritual
environment.
It may mean emotional involvement with the father; his presence and influence
may so strongly polarize the girl's nature that ambivalent feelings of
quasi-incestuous attraction and guilt are aroused. Whether this complex reaction
remains in a hazy subconscious background or, on the contrary, haunts the
conscious personality, depends theoretically on the planetary contacts between
the father's and the daughter's charts.
A
close contact between a man's Jupiter and a woman's Saturn can be
an
indication of a karmic relationship whose roots reach deep into the past; a
typical symbol would be a Romeo and Juliet situation. When a man's natal Sun is
conjunct Jupiter, his personality tends to become a forceful expression of a
deep inner compulsion to fulfill a superpersonal purpose. President Johnson was
almost a representative of this situation; but the presence of Mars rising
between Jupiter in Leo and the Sun in Virgo confuses the meaning of a
conjunction which is neither close nor in one zodiacal sign. The best example is
the great prophet, poet, and yogi, Sri Aurobindo, whom his disciples consider
an "avatar," i.e., the embodied expression of a divine destiny and
purpose. He was born with the Sun near Jupiter just rising in Leo.
A
retrograde Jupiter in a man's chart and a retrograde Saturn in a woman's chart
tend to more sharply differentiate the inner from the outer life, the
countersexual from the sexual aspects of the personality. But, I repeat, all
such indications are subtly psychological and should hardly be considered in a
superficial and quick chart analysis. They belong to a new type of psychological
astrology which goes hand in hand with a psychology oriented toward a
realization of the total meaning of the individual person.
1. cf.
The Pulse of Life
(Shambhala Publications, 1970).
