The Eleventh House

*

THE ELEVENTH HOUSE

Dane Rudhyar

Just as the fifth house refers to the release of powers which were tapped in the fourth house, so the eleventh house deals with the forms which the powers manifesting in the tenth house phase may take as they are released. The energies and faculties concentrated in the fourth house find their expression through mechanisms developed in the fifth house: procreative or creative activities, emotional outpourings of self, risk-taking and all kinds of daring, dramatic gestures in which the individual functions in solitary splendor or as a master of men and conditions. The fifth house is the house of the cosmic autocrat, the Sun, who pours him self into space in effulgent glory, and rigidly controls the motion) of his planets.

In the eleventh house the power of society, of the collectivity or the group, is released through the individual. More exactly this power is released through the activities the individual performs within the social unit — nation, class, church, club, professional group — to which he belongs. As he succeeds in establishing himself as a participant in society, the individual is able subsequently to operate creatively or pleasurably in the social environment his work or his prestige opens up to him. The experience he has gained in the tenth house makes it possible for him to set new social objectives or new professional goals for himself, or to relax in the company of his fellow workers and friends. If this tenth house experience is vital and he meets it with real power and in real openness to the needs of the situation which confronts him, he develops a new vision, new ideals, and concrete plans for social or professional improvement. If his participation in the life of society has been superficial, passive, or based purely on the enjoyment of privilege, he is likely to seek one type or another of social escape, from tea parties to night-club follies, in the company of like-minded friends.

We saw in preceding chapters that the meridian can be considered the axis of power, while the horizon represents the axis of consciousness. In the fourth house, power is drawn by the individual unconsciously, or in purely subjective consciousness, out of the matrix of race, family, tradition, or environment. It is thereafter worked upon and personalized by the individual. It is power that wells up from the roots, from the soil, and ultimately from the center of our globe, which is the sustaining foundation of all humanity. Tenth house power results from the shared participation which has taken form in the seventh house, become productive in the eighth, and reached in the ninth the preliminary depth of understanding required to insure a valid framework for the building of civilization.

Tenth house activities provide this framework or blueprint. In the tenth house, the Indian caste system, the economic and mercantile patterns of the Roman Empire, the guilds of the Free Cities of the late Middle Ages, the "planned society" of many a tomorrow, are established on the foundations of the laws discovered in the ninth house. But a pattern or framework must be filled with substance and vitality. The power of the human personality, alone or in groups must be released in and through these plans. Law and ritual alone do not make a civilization. The interaction of many individuals keeps the workshop of civilization running. But just as a home without progeny — be it biological or spiritual — is but a structure, a society without the creative vision and the means to release the power of creative individuals is a spiritless structure which must in time disintegrate.

But what is the substance of that creative vision, and how does it grow in the minds and souls of individuals?

In discussing the meaning of the meridian, and of the Zenith, I said that the meridian is also to be considered as the line formed by a man's spine when he is standing straight. This erect spine is the "I" made concrete and operative. It is the signature of man's ego power and his individual strength and responsibility. One of the poles of the meridian is the center of the globe — and beyond it lie all the unconscious forces of the inner life. The other is the star which shines at the Zenith of the individual's life. Rooted in center, a star on his forehead, the individualized and conscious human being becomes an agent for the release of the creative power of the vertical axis of all life, root and seed.

In the fifth house, root forces are active. In the eleventh house the new seed is being formed. And this new seed, in the human kingdom, is more than a mere duplicate of the seed of yesteryear. It is a new seed because man has the power to add constantly to his vision and to his creation. All yesteryears can be combined by creative man into a new tomorrow which need not repeat today.

In the words of Count Korzybski, the human kingdom has developed the power to bind time. Man can add to himself constantly because he can remember. Remembering, he can record his experiences and his deductions; recording, he can transfer what he has gained to new generations, which in their turn will do the same. Thus there is a constant process of accumulation and synthesis at work in humanity, and this is what is meant by civilization. There may be periodic Dark Ages, but even in these relatively "dark" eras civilization is retained in seed. Records are kept — in caves, in monasteries, through word of mouth. The flame of civilization does not die. No generation need start from nothing. Revolutions destroy the upper crust of society, but here and there a few remember and pass on their knowledge to avidly seeking minds. And lo! Russia, whose aristocracy and intelligentsia had been wiped out, arose in less than two decades to astonish the world with its initiatives in war and in peace.

What does this mean? It means symbolically that the stars at the Zenith continue to shine and to invest in creative individuals, who have learned in the seventh house the secret of "shared participation," the power of the celestial Company of the Seed. Humanity is an organic Whole. Humanity lives in its total essence as a firmament, as a galaxy. The "dead" as much as the "living" — and in a sense perhaps also the "unborn" — constitute a creative Host. Man is that Host. It operates through and fecundates with vision those individuals who are clear and strong enough, dedicated and powerful enough, to carry the burning torch of civilization.

In the eleventh house every individual's star of destiny, which shines at the Zenith of his living, becomes a vibrant source of power in actual operation. The realizations that fill the tenth house phase of experience are largely conditioned by what occurred during the seventh, eighth, and ninth house phases. When the Zenith is reached, however, some new power fecundates the sum total of these last mentioned phases. This new power is the power of the greater collectivity, of human society, of the nation, of the universal Whole. It is the power of the stars, symbolically speaking. And that power descends from above and crowns the individual who is fulfilling to the best of his ability his function in the work of the world. It is the "tongue of fire" which descended upon every apostle at Pentecost. It is the Holy Ghost. It is celestial power — the power of the community, the power of the Church, the power of God, when God is conceived as the soul and wholeness of the universal Whole.

This power that descends from above operates in the eleventh house as creative vision. Here, the substance of every creative tomorrow is gathered and vivified by the power of the constellation at the Zenith. Here, creative destiny is fashioned by brave hands and farseeing minds. Here at work is the elan vital which forever generates universes, the powerful and unpredictable surge of creative evolution which spots forth tomorrows in spiritual and creative freedom.

Astrologers have often identified all creative processes with the fifth house. But in the fifth house it is the individual who creates, strictly as an individual or as the head of a home, and his creation is essentially based on biological factors. In the eleventh house it is the Whole-that creates through the individual, fulfilling its function in the economy of the Whole. It is creation, not of the individual, but through the individual. Christ — the universal Spirit — acts then through the transfigured humanity of Jesus. This action, then, releases the power of the Christ, the power of the Whole — the power which, if there is not to be stagnation and crystallization, must periodically renew the substance and form of the organism. It is action without personal concern for the fruits of this action. It is the only truly creative and free kind of action. The individual becomes a clear lens focusing Light and projecting upon all virgin soils the image of the Sun, or the celestial harmony of the Brotherhood of the stars.

Traditional astrology speaks feebly of the eleventh house as the house of "hopes and wishes." How weak a conception for one of the most vibrant of all the houses! It is a Medieval concept for in a society completely ruled by biological and feudal patterns what else could the submerged individual, the "sinner," do but "hope and wish" for a better future? The only way open for a more creative action was to become a member of a Brotherhood, and thus to participate in secret in the creative impulses of humanity. It meant banding together with friends, with companions fired by a similar yearning for vision and creative social or religious change.

It still means today the communion of the few who together constitute the seed of a new day. In this communion there is power, and this power alone is a guarantee of immortality, or the ability to become always different while remaining the same. In the twelfth house the seed will perform the ultimate sacrifice in order to make possible a new world. In the eleventh house it gathers power around itself. It brings to a focus within its walls the universal and creative power of life. Life always wins in the end. Yet many are the seeds that perish and become manure for the future. To dream and to fashion ideals is not enough. The eleventh house is a house of activated and concretized power.

If now we look at eleventh house matters from a more psychological point of view we find that the type of experiences normally to be met in terms of this house have much to do with an individual's attitude toward achievement and social success, or the lack of them. Let us say that a man has struggled eagerly and persistently to achieve something, and he has obtained his goal. He has fulfilled his ambition and is rewarded for his efforts by a social position, and perhaps prestige or even fame. What will he do with his success? Or if he has failed to reach the desired goal, what will he be able to make out of his failure?

The eleventh house is a succeedent house and, as we saw, the keynote of these houses is the word use. Failure can be used creatively as well as success, and often more easily. Success as well as failure must be used wisely, significantly, and creatively. It is the use a person makes of either achievement or failure which establishes his worth. If a person proves in the tenth house that he can fulfill satisfactorily a public function, in the eleventh house he has to show — to himself as well as to his friends — what this success has brought to his total being, to the way he lives, feels, and acts in his social circle. Or he must be able to show whether he has the courage and stamina to learn from and rise above his failure.

Success or failure can be used imaginatively and creatively only if one has not become entirely identified with the struggle for achievement. The average "man of action" unfortunately identifies closely with his activity. If he succeeds, he becomes a prisoner of the social pattern that defines what is expected of him; his efforts to reach the top usually have conditioned him to identify with the established character of his social or professional role and with the interests and way of life of all those who belong to his class or group. He has obtained what he wished; he has found friends in terms of his social-professional achievements. Perhaps he has joined a certain club, has learned to enjoy certain types of cultural activities, belongs to a political party or fraternal organization which is open to him because of his success, but he must always be on his toes, for this party or organization must be courted in order to achieve more, to produce more, to grow bigger and bigger.

If, on the other hand, a man has been frustrated in his endeavors or defeated by a system which he comes to despise or loathe, he finds friends among men and women who share his attitude of discontent and resentment. He then becomes a rebel, perhaps an activist and revolutionary. Or he may simply be a man fired with a zeal for reform, the kind of liberal reform he hopes to accomplish within the framework of his profession, or of the legal possibilities provided by some sort of implicit if not explicit "Constitution."

The type of ideals for which an individual works as a reformer or a revolutionary may have been built through various kinds of experiences — in his early environment, at home, with his loved ones, in a national military service, with partners and co-workers, through contacts with alien cultures or inspired religious men, and while performing his social-professional duties. Indeed, every area of activity — every house of his birth chart — can be involved. But the eleventh house type of experiences deal specifically with the exteriorization of a man's ideals in relation to people who share these ideals. These people become his companions; they are "friends" operating within a social-professional setup, or fighting against it. This is, strictly speaking, what friends are, for friendship — in this eleventh house sense at least — is not based as much on purely personal attachments — fifth or seventh house types of relationship — as it is on a shared and effectively used orientation which means either the enjoyment of collective patterns or a revolt against them.

A rebellious attitude or a deep discontent with the status quo results from a basic problem inherent in all tenth house conditions. Essentially this is the difficulty of reconciling or satisfactorily adjusting two opposite factors in any social situation which has become stabilized or even crystallized, giving rise to formalism, bureaucratic routine, and privileges. On the one hand there is the value of individual freedom and personal initiative or imagination and on the other the established requirements of the office itself and the drive to perfection in any public performance. The problem may be solved in a negative manner when society seeks to enslave the individual to his office — making of him a depersonalized cog in a machine — or when the individual comes to consider the power and authority of his office as his own, to be used as he wishes. The results of these negative solutions to tenth house problems condition eleventh house experiences. They may produce rebelliousness or abuses of power and wealth which in turn lead to the revolt of the less favored and resentful underdogs.

As I have said, all social institutions develop a powerful resistance to change. Yet change they must, when their negative products have become unbearable. These products may be physically, psychologically, or spiritually unbearable. In any case, a universal process — the change of any overly dominant trend into its opposite — cannot be arrested. Men and women arise who embody such a process of radical repolarization of social values and, in most cases, of destruction of institutions and privileged groups or classes. These men and women are the Promethean spirits who incarnate the Uranian power of relentless metamorphosis — a power assisted by Neptunian compassion and the devastation of Plutonian catharses which leave nothing untouched, no idol left standing. They are the iconoclasts, but they are also the great dreamers of often premature transformations. They are usually persecuted; they may experience martyrdom, and perhaps rebirth.

The eleventh house is followed by the twelfth, and once more by a new banning in a first house experience of creation. The absolutely full must be emptied before there can be room for new growth, new contents. Yet the eternal question remains: How much can be saved of the old? What was the now crystallized and rigid pattern worth when it was fresh and vital? How can one save the seed, the spiritual harvest of experiences of the past? To answer this question, a sharp, penetrating, intense, yet objective inquiry into the fundamental value of much that a society has so long taken for granted is necessary. The historian endowed with a holistic vision and a sense of structural developments has to cooperate with the emotional and passionate muckraker. Both operate in terms of eleventh house activity, but in different ways. Both are needed at the close of a cycle.

There are men and women whose task it is to dramatize discontent and protest; some of them no doubt enjoy tragedy and seek revolution as a way of life; poets and novelists find fame in baring the sordid and decadent, even within themselves. This way too is necessary, for the inertia of the average person is truly appalling and somehow has to be "earth-quaked." But the deeper process is always, symbolically speaking, that of transforming a circle into a spiral — that is, of making it impossible for history to repeat itself. A point moving in a circular way will return exactly to its initial position, but if it follows a spiral pattern the return takes place at a higher level or in terms of a broader — and hopefully more harmonious — inclusiveness. Greater inclusiveness is a disturbing challenge to privilege and exclusive possession; thus the struggle goes on. And the great key to victory and progress is the conquest of fear. The greatest fear may be that of losing one's precious identity as an individual ego. In all "succeedent" houses the negative aspect of life as a relatively isolated being has to be surrendered.

The "pure breath" of potential individuality, related to the Ascendant, clings to its isolated status and to its proud craving for originality. It must surrender at least some of its claim when it has to use materials which a long line of ancestors have built or refined — second house — materials which, as a spiritual factor, it felt to be inferior and merely to be used as it wished. In the fifth house, the experience of emotional desire or passion and of caring for a progeny can mean a surrender of ego pride, the giving up of security, home, rootedness — fourth house matters. In the eighth house type of experience the bliss of the honeymoon — seventh house — fades out, as its exclusivism and glamour are rudely challenged by cooperative requirements and the pressures of the marketplace.

Finally in the eleventh house, the show of success, the special power and privilege of position — tenth house — when they feed pride and pomp, must be surrendered if the individual is to face reality and to accept the possibility of rebirth. He can maintain his position for a long or a short time, but everything based on exclusive possession, pride, and self-glorification through the selfish use of social power faces inevitable decay and death — a death which, when the time comes, will direct a heavy karmic host toward the new birth. The moment of choice is known through experiences which belong to the eleventh house, but that choice has been conditioned by crucial experiences related to the second, the fifth, and the eighth houses. The cadent houses, then, witness the outcome of these choices. In the twelfth house we find the final result, the seed of all future Karma.

The Astrological Houses