This series covers events from 11/29/1981 - 01/09/1982

This series of seminars and classes seeks a principled philosophic understanding of the Arabic parts as part of a wider investigation of the theory underpinning astrology. The inquiry situates natal astrology within a Plotinian cosmology in which individual souls, in cooperation with the World Soul, periodically seek embodiment at precise moments in order to develop their potential to become fully enlightened human beings. It thus presupposes that the higher soul of each individual presides over a series of incarnations by a lower phase of itself and that the meanings it seeks to assimilate in a given life are indicated by the arrangement of the planets on various degrees of the zodiac in the natal chart.

An Arabic part is a sensitive place in the ecliptic that reveals the relationship between two points in a horoscope in terms of a third point. The distance between these two points (usually, but not always, two planets) is measured in degrees and minutes of zodiacal longitude as a portion of the 360 degrees of a circle, or an arc. This arc is then projected from a third point to locate the part (the third point is usually the ascendant or another house cusp acting as a derivative ascendant). Each of these relationships has a direct and an indirect expression. For example, the Sun taken to the Moon from the Ascendant is the direct expression of this planetary pair, or the Part of Fortune. The indirect part is the Moon taken to the Sun from the Ascendant, or the Part of Spirit. The idea behind a parts chart is that if a planet, for example, Venus, is put on the ascendant, the other planets it aspects will fall on their respective parts. The angular relationship between the two planets is the same, but the degree symbols are different.

This series shows Anthony Damiani’s probing, open-ended approach to a problem, one not easily satisfied with simplistic solutions. Since the inquiry is at an early stage, we get questions and a host of hypotheses, but few definitive answers. Damiani observes that when a planet transits an Arabic part, very often the circumstances remain the same but the meaning of the situation for that person is illuminated. A new significance arises. It illuminates a course of action or reveals a piece of knowledge. He wonders if this how the Intellectual- Principle operates in us. Knowledge has to be transmitted to our soul, and then from our soul to us through an image, and we operate according to that image.

In an effort to understand the meaning of Arabic parts from the top down, he considers the unities of the planets as symbolized by the planets in the first quadrant of the metaphysical chart (the Triad). Each of the seven Chaldean planets can be considered as both the leader of one of the monads of Being, Life, Intellect, Soul, Nature, or Body and as a henad in its own right. For example, Saturn in Aries, which is in fall, is the leader of the Body monad (consisting of all the planets in fall by sign). It’s also the leader of the henad, or unity, of Saturn (consisting of all the dignities of Saturn). Is the former the indirect part of Saturn and the latter the direct part? And just as the Head, as superessential Number, coordinates which planets will be in dignity in which sign, perhaps Time, as the image of Number, coordinates the Arabic parts of a planet, how the planetary functions will be unfolded over time in an individual. If so, the ascendant, which is the reference point for all the parts, seems to be playing the role of Time.

At a much lower level, it seems that the Arabic parts are concerned with the perfection of the seven vehicles, which results in the complete man (a buddha), symbolized by the Ogdoad, or the number 8 (an important number in Buddhism), which is 7+1. Another suggestion is that each of the twelve parts of a planet seems to be related to one of the twelve alchemical stages. One of the persisting questions is how the twelve parts of a planet relate to the functioning of that planet in the natal chart. For example, are all the parts of Saturn needed to manifest the Saturn complex as part of the personality?

One of the classes most revealing of his methodology is the final class in the series (January 9). The first part of this class is an in-depth examination of the nature and function of symbols, which begins with a review of passages in C. G. Jung’s works on symbols. Damiani comments, “The symbol seems to be the only means at our disposal by which we can, so to speak, allow the unconscious and the conscious to get combined. In other words, it's the only way that apperception can take place. There’s something unknown in us and there's something in our conscious mind that we do know, we've developed certain skills. Now the combination of these two is going to produce a symbol, and it is off of the symbol that we're going to try to understand what those meanings are.” In this view, the natal chart is a symbol, as are the various astrological mandalas Damiani uses in many of the classes at Wisdom’s Goldenrod. Even texts can be symbol—for example, the Enneads of Plotinus or the Buddhist texts on the five constituents of a person (the skandhas). A text becomes symbolic when we approach it as something with a depth of meaning that we are not consciously aware of.

This examination of symbols sets the stage for the investigation of Arabic parts because it seems that the parts have something to do with the way a person assimilates meaning through lived experience: “These meanings, the whole system of parts that are organized in a certain way in your chart, is a kind of innate knowledge that you have. And that by concentrating without objectifying what you're concentrating on, you're going to eventually create a symbol for that. And in that symbol there'll be access to those meanings.”

Classes and documents available in this series