Wednesday, November 20th, 1974

SEMINAR at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

November 20, 1974

ASTROLOGY; THEORY

TOPIC: Astrology

SUBJECT: Theory

SUBSUBJECTS: Circle, Fourfold/Cross, 360 Degrees, Dream Analogy, Saturn/Midheaven relation

CONTENTS:

Geometry and number are basic mode of mind's being

Circle represents totality of psychic processes/soul; contains 360 degrees with all possible meanings of existence

Cross: four functions; vertical: metaphysical component; horizontal: psychological component

Soul/Witness creates instrument to experience essences

Dream analogy for soul's manifestation

Cross enables subject-object relationship

Four functions of knowing (thinking, feeling, sensation, intuition); comparison to Yoga/Samkhya functions; Vedanta

Importance of angles in chart; Saturn on angles

Planet/Angle structured by degree

Circle and cross a symbol of anima mundi in Egypt

Equilateral triangle: essence in soul, mind, thing

Stationary planets

Specific chart examples: AB, Anna, Tim

Knowledge proceeds from subjective fantasy to thing to essence; houses as empirical manifestation of psychical essences

Destiny is manifestation of previous thinking

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Proclus, Thomas Taylor (tr.), The Six Books of Proclus, the Platonic Successor, on the Theology of Plato, Vol. II

• C.G. Jung, CW 11, Psychology and Religion: West and East; "Foreword to Suzuki's Introduction to Zen Buddhism"

• Proclus, Thomas Taylor (tr.), The Philosophical and Mathematical Commentaries of Proclus on the First Book of Euclid's Elements, Vol. I

• Marc Edmund Jones, The Astrology of Concepts

• Marc Edmund Jones, The Sabian Symbols in Astrology

DIAGRAMS embedded in this transcript:

• FIGURE 1974 1120-1. Four Functions of Knowing: Thinking, Feeling, Sensation, Intuition.

• FIGURE 1974 1120-2. Yoga/Samkhya Functions of Knowing: Buddhi, Ahamkara, Manas, Jnana Indriyas.

• FIGURE 1974 1120-3. Equilateral Triangle.

SABIAN SYMBOLS: Gemini 3, Cancer 19, Cancer 24, Leo 23, Virgo 28, Libra 3

RETYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2021

NOTES:

• RETYPED PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT (hence V10). From 1974 1120 ASL Astrology Theory 04p.PDF (formerly 1974 1120 ASL natal chart principles seminar Tony 04p.PDF). THERE ARE NO AUDIO CASSETTE TAPES EXTANT.

• The first part of 1974 1201 ASL Astrology Theory 03p.PDF (formerly 1974 1130 ASL natal chart principles seminar Tony 4p.PDF) duplicates the end of 1974 1120 ASL Astrology Theory 04p.PDF.

• All spelling, punctuation, and capitalization errors have been corrected, all abbreviations spelled out except for Asc MC and IC, where I have put the meaning in square brackets next to the first instance of each of these.

1974 11/20 SEMINAR at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Astrology; Theory

[File 1974 1120 ASL Astrology Theory 04p.PDF (formerly 1974 1120 ASL natal chart principles seminar Tony 04p.PDF) Begins]

Astrology Seminar 11/20/74 Tony [Note: Tony = Anthony Damiani (AD)]

Main Headings: I circle - II cross - III signs - IV planets - V houses - VI aspects.

Geometry and number are the basic mode of the mind's being. (Symbolize and Schematize)

In Theology of Plato--Book VII, p.150, 151, are the 3 levels of demiurges. (Jupiter) Sensible, intelligible, liberated.

Sun is Karma, but malefic in Hindu astrology.

We are dealing with universals but our concepts deal with particulars.

Psychologically the cross represents the 4 functions. The vertical is the metaphysical component of our psychology. The horizontal is the psychological component.

The circle is all the aspects of the soul (everything is implicit in it--360). The soul is the totality of all psychic processes and the soul expresses what is in it, which manifests through the empirical individual it creates. When Jung says (in Introduction to Zen Buddhism) that you have to get back to your foundational structure he means to the essences in the soul in their pure form. Vedanta goes beyond this. Every individual comes from the star (spiritual matrix). We don't reach this till you go through what is in the soul--which is the circle.

In 360 are all possible meanings of existence. Before we can get to degrees we must get to constellations. Meaning and non-meaning are both in the chart.

Proclus--commentary on the first book of Euclid's Elements. ________ p.117 -- (on circle and square). Behind or beyond the psychical essence is the simplest substance, which would be in the formless realm (represented by the Point).

With the soul you are still dealing with an entity, an individual. Beyond that there's no individual (in the formless).

Tony is not thinking of the circle as a geometric figure, but as containing 360 which contain or manifest a certain meaning. All these meanings combined represent the powers of the soul, the contents of the soul (your individual soul or psyche). You can reach the level of the Witness Self but that's not the supreme identity. The Witness Self is only a temporary phase, the created intellect. It is not the supreme identity where Overself is identical with God. This is the soul (Witness) to Tony. It has many possible ways to manifest itself, creating an instrument for manifesting the various essences. The essences in the soul are universal (not the universal) and the soul gains experience of these universal essences by creating an instrument to experience them. You have the essences in the soul, thing, and mind. This combination makes possible the experiencing and evolving of the soul. Why does the soul have to experience (cut off, looks like: these?)

You can conceive of the soul as a homogeneous simple unity (without 360) but from our way of looking up at it, it has 360 degrees which multiplied by the planets, parts, etc, is Absolute Knowledge.

Dream analogy--You go to sleep with an idea which manifests as a dream-mind and objects. The soul must experience the essences in some way or other (for us it's physical). The circle (Witness) creates me and my world and I experience the essence through the relation of these two. If you remove the cross, you have the psyche with all the essences, but there is no individual here, no one experiencing. You have to bring in the cross. The soul is of a simple nature. In the same way we spoke of the vritti breaking down into a subject and object relationship, so too the psyche has to break itself down into a subject and object relationship which are all part of itself. Otherwise there is no experiencing of these essences. The individual is a combination of certain essences. The ego is a fiction, it is a creation for the experiencing of essences. Primordially he's part of the idea, a working hypothesis with no enduring reality. There has to be a common ontological background for all souls because we all [word missing] the river. The World-Mind is a greater mind which includes all of us. The point represents the entrance into manifestation of the unmanifest. The point has no sensible existence. It is an intellectual construct. The cross is knowing [possibly one or more words missing]

[FIGURE 1974 1120-1. Four Functions of Knowing: Thinking, Feeling, Sensation, Intuition. Computer generated by NT from 1974 1120 ASL Astrology Theory 04p.PDF.]

All experience falls under these 4. Yoga and Sankhya functions [one or more words missing] antahkarana are buddhi, ahamkara, manas, and the jnana indriyas. Chitta is Vedantic and is the whole of mind (all 4). Tim -- the Vedanta 4 are all cosmic, and once you say jnana indreyas you're tied to body. Vedantists would say all you need is chitta (not 4), metaphysics wipes all else out. Dasgupta translated it as manas which is wrong.

[FIGURE 1974 1120-2. Yoga/Samkhya Functions of Knowing: Buddhi, Ahamkara, Manas, Jnana Indriyas. Computer generated by NT from 1974 1120 ASL Astrology Theory 04p.PDF.]

The embodiment of the individual. The ways of knowing (cross) represent the individual. What does he know? The essence of the soul. Tim -- manas organizes and synthesizes experience but first it is represented partitive.

The physical body too is a concept of the antahkarana. It is therefore important when anything is on the angles. Cross and circle represents incarnation of spirit and matter. The ways of knowing bring the individual into being. The vertical is the impersonal, the horizontal is the personal. The vertical is the structuring of your mind, the actual contents. There's a certitude of judgment operational (based on the impersonal content of the fixed knowledge). There may be variations about it from the personal point of view. The ordering and sequence of vasanas is from the 12^th and 1^st (past and present combined).

If you have the part of spirit on MC [midheaven] (intuition), when a planet hits it you have to grasp the spiritual meaning of the function of intuition. The 4 functions themselves don't give you the individual for everyone has them. The cross is the principle that represents the individual. For an individual you must have planets, signs and aspects they make.

Tim -- Saturn conjunct midheaven you get an intuition into the universal character of Saturn. Saturn viewing the midheaven brings out that there is intuitive knowledge of the essential quality of your experience. It's reciprocal, says Tony.

A planet on a degree (essence), the structure of his personality is composed of that essence. The basic constitutive material of the way a function is composed of the degree. The MC function of intuition is composed of the degree.

Tim -- Saturn tells you what's really going on in that part of the psyche. Saturn on MC intuit how myself as an individual is operating. Also you might intuit the way you determine the reality of your own experience.

At MC you experience yourself impersonally.

At IC [nadir] conjunct Saturn is how you experience yourself through the function of sensation -- it's murky.

***************

Chip -- The Asc [ascendant] points east, but MC actually points north. The IC is actually the line going through the center of the Earth and points south. The MC is a point directly above you in the zodiac. The line will first intersect the north polar axis. The IC is a southward direction.

Circle and cross a symbol of anima mundi in Egypt. [Note: "Anima Mundi soul of world" handwritten here.]

[Note: Marc Edmund Jones Sabian Symbols below from The Astrology of Concepts.]

24 Cancer -- feeling could be directed inwardly or outwardly which has to be a very conscious thing. Southern ocean?? is generation: the feelings will be involved with your appearance in the world.

[FIGURE 1974 1120-3. Equilateral Triangle. Computer generated by NT from 1974 1120 ASL Astrology Theory 04p.PDF.]

An equilateral triangle. When the mind experiences the essence in the thing, the truth is the equilateral triangle. The talking about it is unnecessary. It just duplicates. The truth can't be enunciated because it is integral and whole -- when we talk about it we make it into two.

When planet is stationary, they are trying to deliver a message. The ways of knowing in conjunction with the essences.

Alan B. Saturn Libra 3 -- MC 3 Gemini -- which is Garden of Tuileries-------?-------of real world, nobility. Saturn 3 Libra -- Saturn represents the feltness. Saturn must first experience the feeling before it can think what it's about. The feltness is not clear. Inefficiency of personal will, the person is moved by his feeling to do something and only much later realizes what he was doing. (Whenever I get 3 Libra is an emphasis of the meaning of Libra.)

Anna -- Saturn 23 Leo -- MC 19 Cancer -- The feelings are ancient (many experience) priest is Tony -- eager youth is thinking. There's certainty of feeling. Saturn is the incarnated person and is new (the reasoning). When enough residue of feeling is deposited one is assured of himself as a being. Anna's Saturn is not certain yet.

Tim -- Sun on MC, natally 28 Virgo. MC is operating according to the positive meaning and the Sun according to the negative (in Jones Notes). The working reveals the positive side.

Degrees are ideals that are going to be manifested through the objective realities. The essence must be first experienced in the mind and thing (subjective fantasies). When you get rid of your fantasy you get to the object. When you really permeate the object you get to the idea. Houses are where the ideal realities become empirically verifiable. Houses are what are empirical, absolute concretization? of psychical essences.

Destiny is the manifestation of previous thinking -- manifestation of the ideals embraced in the past.

[File 1974 1120 ASL Astrology Theory 04p.PDF (formerly 1974 1120 ASL natal chart principles seminar Tony 04p.PDF) Ends]