The 12th House and the Four Levels of Sensible Manifestation

by the Editors of Astronoesis

Paper V09P

3-LETTER CODE: ASN

TOPIC: Astronoesis

SUBJECT: Nature

SUBSUBJECTS: 12th House, 5 Mahabhutas, Sun in Aquarius (Central Sun), Samkhya

ORIGINAL LOCATION & FILE NAME: nas72rev.doc

CONTENTS:

Central framework: fourfold Idea applied to sensible portion of universal manifestation (12th house)

Mahabhutas as substance of any sensible universe; four dignities organize manifestation at four levels

Great elements as force fields; correlated with alkahest, or prakriti; traces correlated with gunas, space particles, seed-thoughts

Four levels of manifestation:

1) Jupiter—unity of Universal Soul provides unity to chaotic elemental motion

2) Venus—buddhi/intellect; determines instantiation of Ideas in the great elements

3) Mercury Nature—ahamkara; individual cosmic soul manifesting vision of intellect

4) Mercury Body—corporeal world; result of all individual cosmic minds' activity

Cosmic cycles: big bang, universe manifestation/withdrawal, continuity through Universal Soul

Scientific progression: force fields → subatomic structure → evolving individuals → physical compounds

BOOKS / PAPERS QUOTED FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Anthony Damiani, Astronoesis (Astronoesis Master (draft); and published book 2000)

• AD Archives, papers and diagrams

• Plato, Timaeus

• T. Subba Row, A Collection of Esoteric Writings, "The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac" [for 12-fold zodiacal scheme and correlations with different concepts]

• Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)

• Franz Hartmann, The Life and the Doctrines of Philippus Theophrastus, Bombast of Hohenheim, known by the name of Paracelsus

• Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 1, "Studies in Samkhya Philosophy"

• His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Jeffrey Hopkins (tr., ed.), Kalachakra Tantra: Rite of Initiation

• Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself, "Birth of the Universe"

PLOTINUS QUOTES REFERENCED: IV.4.10, IV.4.11

DIAGRAM embedded in this paper:

• FIGURE 12th House-1. Houses 9-12 and Pisces Levels.

REFORMATTED/CORRECTED by IT, MW 2025

NOTES:

• RETYPED ASTRONOESIS ENDNOTE (V09P).

• After Anthony's death, his students held seminars and classes on different Astronoesis topics. This endnote was originally based on class discussion dated 11/07/88, 12 years before the publication of Astronoesis, and put together by the Editors/AS. It was rejected by Larson Publications for inclusion in Astronoesis. The version below is cut down & slightly revised from the original paper. This endnote was revised and has been read/studied in Astronoesis class 2003 and ongoing, whenever the class revisited the System of Nature material. It is commentary on a passage found on p. 69 of Astronoesis.

• Astrological glyphs in the text have been spelled out so they are in a font readable on most computers.

THE 12TH HOUSE AND THE FOUR LEVELS OF SENSIBLE MANIFESTATION

"Further, the fourfold Idea is again applied to the sensible portion of universal manifestation [represented by the 12th house] and thus we may speak of it having a unity provided by the Life of Universal Soul which manifests itself or is veiled behind the 5 great Elements; has an Intellect which we can correlate with the inerratic spheres, within which we can situate an individual Cosmic Soul which manifests its vision of that Intellect; and finally, the corporeal world." [Astronoesis, p. 69; original text = One, 166, I]

[FIGURE 12th House-1. Houses 9-12 and Pisces Levels. Facsimile scan of diagram from Astronoesis, p. 69.]

"The sensible portion of Universal Manifestation" placed in the 12th house includes any and all possible universes and levels which are accessible to the sense and imagination, both gross and subtle.

What is the relation between the 5 Great Elements and the fourfold idea? The Great Elements (called Mahabhutas in Sanskrit) are the "substance" of the sensible universe, and the four dignities (Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and Mercury) represent the functioning of the Gods to organize, determine, and manifest a sensible world-image at four levels—analogous to unity, being, soul, and body.

"the Great Elements": Pisces

The Great Elements are the substance of any and every sensible universe. The five Great Elements are Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether. They are not matter in the classical physics sense, but are close to what science now means by energy or "force fields." The elements as we think of them in the periodic table of elements in chemistry all belong to a lower level of the manifested cosmos. (Paracelsus refers to this as the Mysterium Magnum, the alkahest into which all things dissolve and from which all creatures arise. Plato in the Timaeus may be referring to this when he says that the world is always becoming to be but never truly is.)

These vast energy fields contain the traces of all life activity. The Samkhya/Yoga system of thought calls these force fields "prakriti." KCB [KrishnaChandra Bhattacharyya] says that the unmanifest prakriti as potential stuff is the totality of the traces of past ignorance (or vasanas.) These traces come in three basic types: sattva (meaning pure, light, knowing), rajas (activity), and tamas (feeling). They are called gunas, meaning ropes, because from them are woven together the karmic streams of the individuals. This prakriti is pure becoming, or functioning, or energy, out of which the sensible form of the universe emerges and into which the traces of universal manifestation dissolve between the manifestations of the universe. Tantric Buddhism refers to these traces as "space particles" (see below). KCB also calls them "qualitied spaces." In the "Birth of the Universe," PB refers to them as the seed-thoughts of the universe, held by the World-Mind between manifestation.

Each of the four dignities in the 12th house represents a deific function which unifies, organizes, and manifests the sensible forms on the basis of these great force fields.

These disordered motions need the Life of the Universal Soul as their unifying principle.

"a unity provided by the Life of Universal Soul": Jupiter in Pisces

The Life of the Universal Soul, represented by Jupiter in Pisces, provides a unity and wholeness for the chaotic and disorderly motion of the elements or vasanas. Through Jupiter's life, the force fields can form the basis or ground for manifestation. Science is probably looking for this life when it seeks for the unified field which will hold together all the different forces in the universe. This unified force is the life power of the World-Mind (which is an image of the six unmanifest forces in the 6th house). [from 9/24/81 transcript/notes]: "We can define Jupiter in Pisces as . . . the Life of the universe. For Life must have some vehicle, some ultimate matter. Directionalized space . . . is inherent in the space itself. The form of the Jupiter in Pisces is the particular configuration of the matter . . . Space takes the form of perception, of the object, and has a quality of direction and motion . . ."

Does the Universal Soul manifest the Great Elements, or does the Universal Soul receive the Great Elements, or impose its life on the elements? Jupiter in Sagittarius is the transcendent unity of the Universal Mind; in the 9th house, Jupiter in Sagittarius represents the unity of Universal Manifestation and is said to illuminate the chaos of matter in the 10th. Jupiter in Pisces is the immanent life of Zeus. The force fields are enlivened, or "living" force fields, because they subsist within the "life" or "mind" represented by Jupiter in Pisces.

"But the life in the Cosmos, the life which carries the leading principle of the universe, still needs elucidation; does it operate without calculation, without searching into what ought to be done? Yes: for what must be stands shaped before the Cosmos, and is ordered without any setting in order: there ordered things are merely the things that come to be . . . The leading principle of the universe is a unity . . . (IV.4.10). The administration of the Cosmos is to be thought of as that of a living unit . . ." (IV.4.11)

"...an Intellect which we can correlate with the inerratic spheres": Venus in Pisces

Venus in Pisces represents the intellectual function that determines how the ideas or forms are instantiated in the 5 Great Matters. The inerratic spheres are the sensible image of this intellect. (Inerratic means without error, and the term is used by the Platonists to indicate the realm of the stars—which represent the intelligence of the cosmos.) Another way to say this is that Venus determines how souls are to be "bound" to their vehicles: on the one hand, determining the different ways in which the reason-principles are present in manifestation, and on the other hand determining the different modes in which souls will identify with the world. Venus thus prepares the way for souls to experience the sensible world and make it their own.

Samkhya calls this level Buddhi, or universal intelligence as functioning. KCB says that prakriti only becomes manifest as it forms the bodies for individual Souls (purushas) and that the traces (vasanas) are the imprint of the various identifications of the souls with the Great Elements. Buddhi includes the universal functions by which the souls act as embodied, as well as modes of freedom of the souls—the ways in which the objective world can function as apparent subjects and the ways that individual souls can take their place within the universe.

" ..an individual Cosmic Soul which manifests its vision of that Intellect": Mercury in Pisces (Nature)

Each star soul, such as our sun, is an individual cosmic soul. Each such soul is in a place according to the nature of its thought, through thinking along with the Universal Mind. Each soul attracts to itself a portion of the great elemental force fields which is the proper "matter" for working out its vision. In manifesting its own solar system, each sun further determines the universal elements according to its own idea. Mercury in the soul ring represents the individual cosmic souls. Each star, including our sun, is a cosmic soul, unfolding its vision through its own planetary system. Without a Sun soul making the "forms" available through/as its light energy, the inerratic is a level of the cosmos that is difficult for individuals to contact. Each sun soul, and the individual souls which are participating in its thought, is an individualizing center of manifestation. Samkhya calls this function of individualization Ahamkara.

The totality of the karmic streams of the manifest individuals constitute a universal manifestation, and when they withdraw, the residue of the universe is refunded into the Mahabhutas. This may be thought of both on a cosmic scale and between moments. We may take the point of view that there is no universe until there are individual cosmic souls, i.e., at the level of the Mercury Nature. When a sun soul goes supernova and eventually becomes a black hole, it has gone out of manifestation, its soul has withdrawn (symbolically into the Sun in Aquarius), and the traces of its activity are retained in Venus or Jupiter.

When science talks about the big bang, this is referring to the arisal of a universe out of its latent condition, in association with the next wave of souls. If all the Mercury in Pisces individual sun souls in this universe went out, this would correspond to the "end" of this particular universe. There is no beginning or end to manifestation, however, for the continuity of universes and individuals is kept by the principle we are calling the life of Universal Soul (Jupiter in Pisces).

PB says that the World-Mind acts as the ground receptacle for all the seeds of the universe. These energic seeds may very well be what Kalachakra Tantra calls "space particles." In this view, the space particles provide an objective continuity to the world, just as the individual stream of life-consciousness (of the Soul ring) is a subjective continuum. (So we can trace the universe in its seed form up the house structure to the Jupiter (or perhaps we will also need to investigate the seed-forms in Capricorn), while we can trace the continuity of the individual mind/consciousness to the Soul ring.)

The sensible universe has an unmanifest as well as a manifest aspect. Where is the dividing line between the unmanifest sensible universe and the manifest? Samkhya says that the first manifestation happens at Buddhi, and only the level we have called Jupiter in Pisces remains unmanifest. Even now, while it is manifest, the sensible World-Idea is supported by the vast force-field of the elements.

"...finally, the corporeal world": Mercury in Pisces (Body)

Finally, the physical manifestation that results from the activity of all the individual minds in the cosmos is represented by the function of Mercury Body. Mercury in the Body ring represents the corporeal world, such as our earth, including all its manifest creatures. What we call our earth, the sublunar world and the elements which constitute it, must be distinguished from the universal forces.

Another way to view the progression of Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and Mercury, in a scientific context, is to represent Jupiter as the level of pure force fields, Venus as the level of subatomic structure, Mercury Nature as the evolving individuals, and Mercury Body as the physical or sensible appearance or compounds.