The Three Level Cycle of Individual Experiences

*

THE THREE-LEVEL CYCLE OF INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES

Dane Rudhyar

In this book I have defined the natal houses as sections of the space surrounding the new human organism as it takes its first breath, thus establishing its primary and basic relationship with an open environment, the universe. As I went on interpreting the meaning of houses as fields of experiences, however, it should have become clear that what was pictured is actually a cyclic series of twelve phases in a process of individual unfolding; and any process, of course, implies the factor of time. Thus there is some degree of ambiguity in my approach. This ambiguity nevertheless simply refers to the most basic fact of existence — the fact that it takes time to become conscious of all the implications of existence in surrounding space.

We may put it differently by saying that time is the measure of an individual consciousness' inability, at whatever level this consciousness operates, to experience at once all that it is possible to experience. An individual consciousness operates in terms of the capability of a structured mind and of its instrumentalities — the brain and the whole nervous system — to perceive, relate, integrate, and interpret stimuli of various types. This capability is limited; the mind can absorb and process only so much at a time. It is the limits of this capability which determine the relation of space to time; the more limited the mental ability, the more time is necessary to scan and react to the whole of the surrounding space.

All possibilities of experiences open to us as human beings, born at a particular point in space, are correlated, and they interact. Thus, as I have said, an individual theoretically can respond to life at any moment in terms of all the houses. If he rushes out into a fifth house love affair or procreates a child, the seventh house quality of his relationship to another human being, his professional achievements, his friendships, and his dreams may be involved in the background; as, of course, are his self-image — first house — and his possessions — second house. Nevertheless, his focus of attention will be on the love affair; his ego-consciousness will be centered in this type of experience. It could not be centered in this manner if he were only three years old, simply because the glandular and brain functions required for such a focus of attention and the subsequent arousal of specialized body energies would not then be sufficiently actualized, even though they exist in a latent condition.

We are therefore dealing with a gradual process of self-actualization, that is, with a growing person. This growth takes place, or can take place, at three specific levels — though here again the distinction between these levels should not be made too sharply. A "higher" level may be already partially reflected upon and illumining a lower one.

In my book The Astrology of Personality (first edition, 1936, page 229 and following)* I described in some detail "the Unfolding of the Individual Self," and the reader is referred to what is said there. The matter was also discussed from a somewhat different point of view in New Mansions for New Men (1938, Part One: Prelude, pages 3 to 11). What was stated in these works can be summed up in a few paragraphs as follows:

The experiences of a person having achieved a consistent state of individualization can take place at three basic levels, and the natural process of growth in personality — in the broadest sense of the term — is cyclic; as I already said, each cycle theoretically lasts 28 years. The number 28 can be shown to be "the measure of Man," especially of Man in an individually conscious and self-actualizing condition of existence — man as we ideally imagine him today, "archetypal" man.

*A paperback edition by Doubleday & Company was published in 1970 and the reference is to page 212 and following.

During each 28-year cycle a human being normally focuses his attention successively upon, and symbolically passes through, each of the twelve fields of experience represented by his natal house. Step by step he takes as full cognizance as is possible of the possibilities of experience inherent in each house-field from the first house to the twelfth. Then the process is repeated at a "higher" level from age 28 to age 56 and, potentially at least, at a still more inclusive and spiritual level from 56 to 84. The 84-year cycle is that of Uranus, and in astrological symbolism the power of self-transformation is characteristic of the Uranus function. A truly individualized person with a relatively well-developed mind has in him the possibility to transform his state of awareness so that he can move from one level of consciousness to another, and thus keep repolarizing his inner being. Man at a more primitive and tribal state of evolution was not able to individualize or transform his consciousness in this way — though in special cases another type of process was presumably at work, but the results were basically different.

One can therefore speak of three "births" which represent a sort of dialectical sequence — that is, thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Astrologically speaking, a man is born in the physical biosphere of this planet at his first breath — thesis. He is reborn in the psychomental noosphere at age 28. And, potentially, he can be born again in the spiritual realm — pneumosphere — at age 56, provided his consciousness has been truly developed in terms of individual values during his mature period, 28 to 56. If there has been no such development, or this development has ceased, then the period lasting through the sixties until death can hardly mark anything but a slow disintegration or atrophy of the personality.

The first birth in matter is also birth in the field of a particular racial, cultural, and social type of consciousness. There the roots of the personality are established according to a collective tradition as well as a genetic pattern. These are the foundations of the temple of the individual, foundations in the dark, collective unconscious. The young person brings the past to a state of fulfillment in the present, theoretically as he graduates from studies which have enabled him to assimilate the past of his culture and, deeper still, of mankind; but he may also rebel against what he considers to be obsolete, binding, and perverting.

The second birth is "birth in individuality." The still young person, around the age of 28, can realize what or who he is as an individual. He may realize this in terms of a definite vocation within an accepted social system to which he may bring new elements, or he may "find himself" through a long struggle against his tradition. But, before that age, what the adolescent and/or student may believe to be his own is most likely only a form of protest motivated by his dissatisfaction with old patterns. Protest binds as effectively as subservience; one is bound by hate as much as by love. The true birth-in-individuality comes only when through, yet beyond the discontent and the protest the maturing person becomes aware of the tone of his or her true self and destiny. Negative revolt should then give way to positive self-assertion.

The third "birth," if it occurs at all and not merely takes the form of an imprecise feeling or yearning for spiritual values, should transcend both the collective past of the society and the achievements of the individual. But in this very process of transcending, both the collective and the individual factors find fulfillment. The individual comes clearly to realize his function in his community, or in human evolution as a whole; and his society comes to realize the value of his contribution. Even if his contribution is a catharsis-inducing and revolutionary one, during this last 28-year period of the person's life there should be some experience of recognition and acceptance by at least a "seed group" composed of future-oriented individuals. The contribution tends then to take the form of "symbols" which, being transferable to other men, insure at least for a brief period the relative immortality of the individual who through them actualized the spiritual harvest of his experiences. Symbols in this case can be specific deeds which remain in the memory of those who witnessed them, as well as works of art, books, or teachings.

Astrologically, and in terms of astronomical facts as well, when one thinks of a process of self-actualizing through twelve basic fields Of characteristic experiences, one visualizes a cyclic motion of the point representing the essential individuality of a person, namely, the Ascendant. It should be clear that actually the horizon — of which the Ascendant is the eastern end in a two-dimensional birth chart — does move after physical birth. This motion is due to the rotation of the Earth in a counterclockwise direction around its axis — that is, from the first house to the second, third, etc. Yet, as I have already stated, while what is seen in the sky at the horizon may change, the fact that a person experiences a horizon does not change. Everywhere the individual carries with him a horizon and a meridian; they constitute the structuring factors of his individuality and his consciousness. If he were to float in interstellar space, he would not have an experience of horizon.

Most astrologers still think of the series of houses as an expression of the daily rotation of our globe around its axis. From a planetary point of view this is indeed the case, and when I wrote The Astrology of Personality I followed mainly this approach, though I already felt dissatisfied with some of its applications. In subsequent years I came to realize that if one thought of a birth chart as the chart of an individual and not as that of the whole planet at a particular moment, it was necessary to assign an essential place to the space factor. In any so-called person-centered approach to astrology, it must be accepted as a basic fact that man lives at the surface of the globe, not at its center. What the birth chart represents is the individual's relation to the universe at the moment of birth; it is his orientation in space. The individual person is his spatial relationship to the universe and to all that there is in it at that moment. This is the permanent pattern of his individual selfhood — or, one might say, the blue- print of the temple of his selfhood; and blueprints are space factors.

Yet this blueprint constitutes only an archetype, an ideal and potential structure. The ideal must become the real, the blueprint must become an actual building, and this implies a process of gradual actualization. This is what the astrologer means when he speaks of progressions and transits. But these deal primarily, if not always exclusively, with the movements of the planets. Astrologers have also used the motion of the natal meridian — thus the speed of the globe's rotation — as a basis for time measurements and predictions, for instance in the so-called primary directions.

These, however, refer to the actual motions of the celestial bodies and to their influence on the Earth; thus to changes in the environment of the individual. When I refer to the 28-year periods, I mean subjective changes in a person's conscious self-image — that is, the attitude a person has toward himself as he meets the challenge of everyday experiences. This self-image evolves as changes occur in the rhythm and intensity of the body's energies. To a large extent the change follows the age factor. The self-image normally has a very different character in a child, a 40-year-old person or a retired man. These are generic changes, but they are deeply modified by personal characteristics and events.

These changes can be symbolized to a large extent if one uses the following approach. Imagine that the Ascendant, or point of Self, moves around the whole chart counterclockwise every 28 years; every seven years it touches one of the angles of the natal chart. Thus at the 7th birthday the natal Nadir point will be reached; at 14, the Descendant; at 21, the Zenith or Mid-heaven; a new cycle begins at 28, and again at 56.

This is a picture of the well-known 7-year cycle so often mentioned in esoteric writings, and I have dealt with the meaning of these ages—7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 40, 56, etc. — in The Astrology of Personality and in various articles. This cycle, I repeat, affects every human being more or less deeply, and brings more or less characteristic and crucial events or changes in consciousness to him. But the individual character of what occurs in terms of this cycle can also be suggested — I shall not say ascertained — by the contacts that the Point of Self makes with the natal planets as it sweeps around the life-clock which the house-circle represents. These contacts in a great many instances seem to catalyze changes in the consciousness of the individual, but often not in an obvious way. These changes may depend upon or refer to external events, but they need not always do so.

A problem arises concerning the best way to measure the progress of the Point of Self around the chart. One can divide the number of degrees of the zodiac between the horizon and the meridian by seven, and thus calculate how many degrees the Point covers in one year. But as the East-North and the North-West quadrants of a birth chart in most cases do not contain the same numbers of degrees — and the same applies to the West-South and the South-East quadrants — this means that the Point of Self moves at varying speeds. But, according to the concept formulated in this book, what is essential is the spatial character of the houses — which fits the Campanus system of house division — and not the time factor, that is, the time it takes for a zodiacal degree and for the planets to rise from the horizon to the meridian — Placidus system. Therefore it seems to me logical to divide the space surrounding the newborn at the surface of the globe into equal sections. Each house represents 30 degrees of person-centered space and the Point of Self moves through that space at an even speed from house cusp to house cusp, at the rate of 28 months per house — that is, 28 years divided by 12.

This means that in order to ascertain when the Point of Self exactly crosses a planet, one has to calculate its position in terms of house space. This is a more complex calculation, but exactness is not too significant in such a technique, for we are more concerned with subjective changes in consciousness and psychological attitude than with events located precisely in time. The Point of Self reaches the second house cusp of a birth chart 28 months — two years and four months — after birth, the third house cusp 56 months — four years and 8 months — after birth, and the fourth house cusp or Nadir 84 months, that is, 7 years after birth. If a planet is located at the exact midpoint between the cusp of the third and die fourth houses then the Point of Self will first cross this planet at age 5 years and 10 months, and in its second circuit 33 years and 10 months after birth. If we divide the number of zodiacal degrees within a house by 28, the result will determine in terms of zodiacal degrees the space which the Point of Self travels in one month while in that house.

For instance, in my own birth chart the Moon is on the 25th degree of Aquarius in the second house which extends from Aquarius 1° to Pisces 16° — Campanus house system. The house therefore contains 45 degrees. The number 45 divided by 28 gives 1.6, a little over one and a half months per degree of the zodiac. The Moon is 23 degrees ahead of the zodiacal longitude of the second house cusp, which means that it is just past the mid-point of the second house. The cusp of the second house corresponds to age 30 plus 4 months and therefore the Point of Self crossed my natal Moon when I was 30 years and 4 months plus one year and a little over two months, or at the age of 31 and a half. During that month I experienced one of the very rare orchestral performances of a symphonic work of mine, The Surge of Fire, and it was a notable success. The Point of Self touched my natal Mercury at 41/2 Pisces when I was 33 years and about 9 months, and at the time my book The Rebirth of Hindu Music was published in India and a book of poems in Carmel, California. But more important still, during that period I had begun to lecture a great deal and to define my philosophy more strictly.

Exactly at the age of 35 — the Point of Self entering the fourth house — the decision was taken which led, two months later, to my first marriage. The Point of Self had passed over my natal Sun — third degree of Aries — when a death and subsequent events set the stage for this marriage. It led indirectly to devoting most of my attention to astrology, and to a great deal of writing.

At the time when the Point of Self had passed a triple conjunction of Pluto, Mars, and Neptune at the end of my sixth house, I had been gravely ill — age 13 to 14 — and twenty-eight years later a much less serious yet difficult situation developed involving a kind of psychological crisis. Significant contacts and changes in my sense of relationship occurred when the Point of Self crossed Jupiter in my seventh house for the first and second time. When it crossed it for the third time in 1966 I experienced a wide spread of public interest in my works and my approach to life. The third crossing of my natal sixth house was manifested as a vast increase in work, in consequence of which I had to struggle against constant fatigue and to give medical attention to the aging processes of the body.

Such an example does not mean much in itself. There are cases which reveal very significant correlations between the planetary contacts of the moving Point of Self and changes in consciousness; in others these correlations are not clear. Obviously much depends on how a person responds to the possibility of inner transformation. One can say nevertheless that, in general, the contacts between the Point of. Self and the planets tend to indicate the times in a person's life when the functions represented by these planets tend to affect in an especially noticeable way the self-image of the growing person, and they should draw his attention. Contacts of the Point of Self with the positions of planets "progressed" according to the secondary progression technique may also be significant. In some cases they have been found to correspond more closely to the actual events which catalyzed the change in consciousness. The puzzling thing is that one often does not find any correspondence for changes or crises which one considers very basic. It may be that these crises are actually the inevitable outcome of previous turning points and individual decisions which at the time did not appear important. Here we face the most serious of all astrological problems, the determination of when anything really begins.

The Astrological Houses