Seminar

Wednesday, December 11th, 1974

Student notes of a class/seminar

WISDOM'S GOLDENROD, ALAN BERKOWITZ SEMINAR NOTES

(TYPED)

DECEMBER 11, 1974

ASTROLOGY; THEORY

with Appendix: 1974 1211 Partial Transcript Fragment.

TOPIC: Astrology

SUBJECT: Theory

SUBSUBJECTS: Sun, Gods, Essences, Signs (Sagittarius-Pisces) and Samkhya Terms, Free Will/Determinism

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

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

  • Kathleen Raine, George Mills (eds.), Thomas Taylor, The Platonist: Selected Writings

TYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2023

NOTES:

  • RETYPED HANDWRITTEN NOTES (hence V08). From Alan Notes 4 KCB Plato Astrology 1973-1977.PDF.

  • Scan File 1974 1211 ASL Astrology Theory 01p.PDF (formerly 1974 1130 ASL natal chart principles seminar Tony 4p.PDF, p. 3), the partial transcript for this class, has been appended because it contains some information missing from AB notes. This partial transcript consists of a one page fragment, we are missing the rest. All spelling corrected, abbreviations spelled out in Scan File.

  • All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation corrected, abbreviations spelled out in AB notes.



Highlight:

1974 12/11 SEMINAR at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Astrology; Theory

[Alan Notes 1974 1211 Begin]

12/11/74 Astrology Seminar

p. 92, Thomas Taylor, Book VII, Proclus [Note: Proclus, Thomas Taylor (tr.), The Six Books of Proclus, the Platonic Successor, on the Theology of Plato, Book VII (in Volume II).]

Composite individual:

1) essence -- (Tony) = form -- definition of what a thing is. [Note: Tony is Anthony Damiani (AD).]

2) matter

Sun:

1) fabricates sensible world

2) intelligible light of that world

3) superessential light

Sun provides matter for embodiment and understands that embodiment.

Lion -- symbol of the higher man.

Intellect of a god and the intelligible are unitary with regard to each other.

p. 71 -- Thomas Taylor the Platonist -- threefold Sun [Note: Kathleen Raine, George Mills (eds.), Thomas Taylor, The Platonist: Selected Writings, Bollingen Series LXXXVIII, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1969.]

Intelligible light = uncreated Intellect. Intelligible is first, then Intellect (Greeks).

Essences (degrees) are created by super-mundane gods.

A prior principle is always intelligible to what is below it.


Signs 9-12

Sagittarius

Adhyavasaya -- determination -- felt (unconscious) effect of one's conscious attitude in Scorpio → conscious framework of meaning in Sagittarius to judge experience. Relating of PI [Note: Typist thinks PI is principle of individuation (ahamkara).] to experience. Scorpio is an unconscious reference point for Leo, Virgo, Libra.

Vasana unfolds → subject and object in Libra → samskara in Scorpio.

Samskaras from point of view of meaning as a substratum for individual (function) = Sagittarius. You are that framework and functioning and view yourself as it -- as vritti are actualizing tendencies and structure of the mind which gives world meaning. Adhyavasaya is the uniform motion or transformative process of buddhi. Provides for manifest meaning. Reflection. The structuralizing of the manifesting process.

Adhyavasaya as determination of your own mental processes → certitude of those processes (niscaya).

knowing ↔︎ certitude of being (not in terms of willing")

Adhyavasaya = taking the standing being as purusha -- implicit -- analytic judgment

Niscaya = taking the standing being (of the knowing process) as itself (i.e., the mind taking itself as its own standing being) -- explicit -- synthetic judgment

The basis of the intuitive function.

Planet → Sagittarius → an identification of the 'I' with that planet. Activates and 'inflates' the meaning of that planet. Identification of the 'I' with the content of the mind (which is the mind itself).

Mars in Sagittarius -- self-drive is tied up with doing -- you have to be doing something. You are that action.

Knowing is its own certitude -- implicit in that knowing is an 'I' which knows and determines that knowing.

Knowing knowing -- how you know knowing is determined by the first knowing.

The reflection of the self in buddhi is determined by the nature of buddhi itself and each individual takes that determined reflection to be himself. No reference to object in Sagittarius.

Any willed act springs from the determination of the real subject.

Capricorn

Aisvarya -- "power of the Lord"

Freedom of activity is the accepting of the determination of it.

Spinoza -- free willing is an acceptance of what is determined.

The acceptance of the effect inherent in the cause.

Where Capricorn is is a certain amount of rigidity because that's where it is and you can't stop it.

Sagittarius -- way your mind is structured.

Capricorn -- content of that structure -- natural flow out of that structure.

Aquarius

Vairagya -- detachment -- arising from knowledge.

The knowing of feeling is the detachment from it -- not the knowing of the felt object, but of the feeling subject. Detachment of the false without knowledge of the truth. The detaching mind is still taken as real.

Capricorn -- ideals are lived out.

Aquarius -- ideals are known -- Saturn eats his children -- you know the meaning that was incarnated in your experience and by knowing it are free from it → a dispassion towards life itself -- sannyasin knows the feeling of life and is free from it.

Pisces

Jnana -- knowledge (really wisdom) (of the contents of the mind as cause).

Not real knowledge which implies freedom or liberation. Here the mind taking itself as distinct from its wisdom still perpetuates the mind. → Aries -- where the thoughts take themselves as having an inherent intelligibility.

Pisces -- the vasanas in unconscious.

Actualization through thinking.

Aries -- manifestation of the vasanas and thus some freedom from it.

Thinking is a combination of the past vasanas and their embodiment or manifestation in the body.

Recognition that the mind and its desires are the same → real freedom, no chart (exit).

The universal ideals acquired in the eleventh are subjectivized (then the mind can know itself) and manifest as you in Aries. Mind knowing itself as not the self.

Fifth house Pisces Sun -- net result of life is the deposit of the process of individuation (Sun) as a vasana in his unconscious by a creative act of experiencing it.

Capricorn -- knowing knowing as the implicit certitude of the I.

Pisces -- knowing knowing cleansed of that personal certitude but the recognition of its objective necessity for experience.

[Alan Notes 1974 1211 End]

1974 12/11 V08: NOTES: Astrology; Theory. Copyright 2023 Wisdom's Goldenrod p. i