*
EPILOGUE
As a conclusion to this study of the twelve astrological houses I would like to restate a point that at this time I consider very basic, not only in reference to astrological practice, but for nearly every field of human endeavor.
I have stressed elsewhere the difference between an "atomistic" and a "holistic" approach to astrology, and I have shown that the conflict between them, and the possibility of integrating these two approaches, is of crucial importance not only in modern science, but in all disciplines of thought.* The issue that cannot be dismissed is whether man's consciousness interprets his experiences most significantly in relation to a whole, on the parts of which these experiences throw some significant light, or as separate facts about which only close analysis can give us valid knowledge. Today, of course, it is the kind of knowledge that provides us with power over definite things that we consider valid.
*Cf. Astrology for New Minds and Astrology of Self-Actualization (Humanistic Astrology Series Nos. 1 and 2)
Astrologically speaking, can we really understand a birth chart and the total person it is said in some manner to represent if we assign definite meanings to each planet — or each zodiacal sign, each house, each aspect — considered as a separate factor? Should we first analyze, and then try to piece together the data, contradictory as it might be, or should we approach the chart first as a whole having a definite "form" and consider it a complex "word" that can reveal "meaning" to us? A careful study of the whole — the "letters" comprising the word — would still be necessary in order for us to grasp the details of the whole picture. This analytical study could alter considerably as well as give precision to our first "holistic" perception of the chart, but what we would learn analytically would still fit into the picture of the whole. The overall form of the chart would remain what it is.
Another way of stating these two possibilities is to say that one can look at anything we experience — whether if be a life situation or an astrological chart — either in terms of it being a sharply definable and persistent — that is, relatively permanent — entity, or in terms of its representing one phase of a process.
If we take the first approach we tend to personalize whatever appears to be the cause of our present experience. This is the attitude of what we call primitive man. Everything he sees or feels is considered a "spirit." The cloud, the lightning, the season of the year, dawn, a disease, etc., are given names and considered separate entities or gods to whom one may pray or who can be propitiated or controlled by adequate ceremonies and specific acts. Mankind is still operating very much at this level, even in our supposedly highly advanced society. We give to the person we meet a name, and perhaps an immortal soul. Even though he may alter his appearance, from that of a child to an old man, we still speak of him as the same individual. We speak of anger as if it were an entity absolutely distinct from compassion. We refer to the disease named arthritis, and the doctor prescribes remedies which apply only to the removal of the symptoms of the disease. We speak of atoms as separate entities having a permanent character, which can be altered by other specific entities acting upon them. We think of God, in most cases, as a Supreme Entity or an absolute Person.
There are exceptions to this, of course, and today these are fast multiplying. The scientist now presents us with a picture of the universe in which everything not only changes but cannot be defined too closely. The atom has become a field of energies and, to many psychologists, the individual is no longer an irreducible unity but a complex of ever-changing biopsychic factors. Moreover, the individual and the environment are seen in a state of constant transforming interaction. This does not mean, from this point of view, that we cannot speak of atoms, of persons or of special diseases and particular seasons, electric storms or clouds. What it does mean is that all these entities can and should be seen as temporary and sequential manifestations of processes which, in the broadest sense of the term, are cyclic and include many different phases.
A process, when seen as a whole, can be called an entity; but it is an entity in the sense that it has a time structure, a beginning and an end. If I see a caterpillar I know that it will become a a chrysalis and a butterfly or moth. The form of the caterpillar represents only one phase of a process which includes the other forms. Besides, if I want to understand this life process of which this caterpillar is a phase, I have to consider its relation to the plants in the environment, to the seasons, the conditions of the air around it, etc.
The change from the concept of "permanent entity" to that of process was most likely sparked by the teachings of Guatama, the Buddha, over twenty-five centuries ago. The Buddha in particular sought to dis-entitize man's approach to the human person; he did this by denying that one could speak of a human being as a permanent and reincarnating entity retaining an absolute character. A person was, in his eyes, the integration of many constantly changing factors and the result of causes and effects within a most extensive process — a "wheel of existence" — having a cyclic pattern. The process was real; the person experienced at any one time was to be regarded as only a phase within a process, which nevertheless did not make it less "real" for whoever also was involved in the process. In atomic physics it is said that the electron in certain conditions can be considered a particle, in others a wave — a "wave of possibilities." This has seemed a most ambiguous and unsatisfactory concept to many people, yet it is one which can and should be applied to astrology as well and to the study of the houses of a birth chart — as I have already pointed out.
A house — as I defined it — is a 30-degree section of the space surrounding the newborn, but not of the zodiac. It is thus one of twelve parts of the universe — that is, of the total possibility of experience available to him. One can divide this total possibility into twelve basic categories and, as the newborn is at the center of space, the twelve categories are there around him. But they are there in space and only as potentialities. The newborn himself is also there in space as a total organism, but this organism has to develop in time in order to unfold all its potentialities. As it does so, the twelve basic categories of human experience will be opened one by one to the growing consciousness.
In this sense therefore "space" refers only to what one might call archetypal potentialities of existence. In fact, this is always what space means, for by extending himself in space and — if he is able to do so — moving through space, a human being has the possibility of new experiences. Space "is there" now, but the experiences it offers to us are only potential. Time is needed for us to reach them, as we move through space, either by our own efforts or as the Earth brings us at every moment to a new region of galactic space. This earth movement may well be the basic fact of all evolution, just as the seasons are the basic fact in the yearly growth of plants, and the day-and-night alternation of waking consciousness and sleep conditions — probably much more than we think — the development of man's personality.
To return to the astrological houses: they exist in space as twelve archetypal categories of individual experience, yet these experiences require the passage of time to become fully actualized. Likewise the classical concepts of "planetary ages" and "planetary hours" also refer to the actualization of potentialities. All the planets "are there" always, but at certain ages and at certain times of the day we can experience more focally the functional types of activities to which they refer in astrological symbolism. We can think of the planets as entities sending us "rays" that somehow affect us on Earth, but we can also think of them as focalizing phases of a process that establishes the cyclic relationship of a person to the entire solar system through the days and years of his existence and an organic whole.
This implies a holistic approach to experience and indeed to the fact of actual existence. No doubt we can also picture and interpret the universe and ourselves in terms of "being," but this inevitably means in terms of potentiality of experience. If we are dealing with actual experiences and the problems that result from man's personal development in an actual and specific environment — and this is what psychologists and psychotherapists have to deal with — then we have to translate the archetypal categories of "being" into the facts of "existing." We have to deal with circumstances and experiences — or the refusal to experience! — one after the other, as sequential phases of a process. To this process we can attribute meaning and the purpose of each experience.
It is this psychological or psychotherapeutic approach that I have taken in all my astrological and philosophical works. In this sense I could be called an "existentialist," but unfortunately this term has acquired a very special meaning of late and it refers to a very special attitude to life with which I entirely disagree, and which I consider very illogical as well as depressing. Let me state again that to speak of "process" does not imply that there is no "archetypal potentiality of being." We have to think of space as well as of time. At the birth of any organism space is, yet the particular space which surrounds this new birth has significance for the new-born only in terms of the time this organism will have in which to actualize the potentialities of experience and consciousness implied in the space factor. And with time we also have to consider the organism's speed of reaction, which presumably refers to the speed of transmission of sense data — that is, of "information" — along the nerves of the body.
Thus every living organism — or rather every existential whole, for this should include as well atoms and galaxies — has its own space and time, or at least the space and time of the species of life or the cosmic level of experience to which it belongs. It has been surmised that the speed of light may constitute the characteristic "speed of reaction" of the cosmos — a speed enormously faster than that involved in conveying information from any part of the human body to the brain and back to the organs of action, simply because the life-span of a man is enormously shorter than that of the galaxy.
At birth space is; and therefore it is perfectly valid to discuss the meaning of the signs of the zodiac and of the houses — the two basic frameworks in astrology — in terms of geometrical relationships and of polygons inscribed within a circle, as has been fully explained or emphasized, and because today, at a crucial moment in human history which imposes crisis-producing experiences upon the development of individuals, the most important issue is how to deal constructively with these experiences. And I feel they can best be dealt with, given meaning, purpose, and utilized when they are approached as passing phases of the vast process of human existence.
