CHAPTER XIV.

MARS THE PLANET OF ACTION

FROM the Bible we learn that Jehovah was the
Creator of mankind for we find His angels an-
nouncing the birth of various notable personages. Thus
the conclusion is inevitable that He and they preside
over the generative function and impart the quality
of fertility which at that time was looked upon as a
token of the favor of God while barrenness was indi-
cated as a sign of His displeasure. This is in ac-
cordance with the Western Wisdom Teaching which
tells us that in the earliest days when mankind was
still in the making Jehovah and His angels guided
them to great temples at the times of year when"
planetary conditions were propitious to generation,
and men born under those harmonious conditions
lived for hundreds of years without sickness or dis-
ease. It is noticeable that wild animals which are
still entirely under the guidance of their group-spirits
and mate only at certain seasons are also immune
from sickness. Jehovah still retains control over the
fertilization of the animals which are attuned to His
lunar vibrations through their twenty-eight pairs of
spinal nerves that correspond to the twenty-eight
days of the lunar revolution and His vehicle the
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304 THE MESSAGE OF THE STARS

Moon still measures the period of gestation for men
and beasts.

But the Bible also tells us of Lucifer and his
fallen angels who taught humanity to take the pre-
rogative of creation into their own hands and in-
stilled into them the passion that has caused sorrow,
sin and death, because the holy function of genera-
tion which was intended only for temporary purposes
of propagation and which works so well under pro-
pitious planetary conditions has been desecrated and
made subservient to the lusts of humanity at all
times regardless of the stellar rays. Yet it is a mis-
take to think of the Lucifer spirits as evil, for under
the sway of the angels humanity was a mass of mind-
less automatons knowing neither good nor evil and
having no choice or prerogative, but since through
the martial Lucifer spirits we have learned to know
"good and evil we are also able by the exercise of
will power to shun the evil and choose the good, to
flee from vice and cultivate virtue, thereby placing
ourselves in harmonious co-worker-ship with God and
nature and unfolding our divine possibilities so that
we may become like our Father in Heaven.

While Jehovah and His angels are thus working
upon humanity from the Moon the Lucifer spirits
who rebelled against His regime are located OR the
planet Mars and from them also we have received
and are receiving many valuable gifts, chief among
them fire and iron. It is well known that every
living body is warm, for the Ego cannot manifest in

MARS, THE PLANET OF ACTION 305

the physical world save through heat, or perhaps it
should be said that heat is generated in the mani-
festation of the Ego. But without iron, which exists
in the blood in the form of hsemoglobin, there could
be no oxidation and consequently no heat. That was
the condition previous to the fall, so-called, when
man-in-the-making was mindless. But then the Lu-
cifer spirits came and infused iron into the blood,
which made it possible for the Ego to draw into its
vehicles and from that time the Ego became an in-
dwelling spirit capable of evolving individuality.
Thus had it not been for the Lucifer spirits man
could not have become man. It is their fire and their
iron that has made the world what it is today, good
and bad according to the use man has made of it.
The solar force focused through the Moon imparts
vitality and the faculty of growth but the rays of the
Sun focused upon us by the martial Lucifer spirits
give us dynamic power and are the source of all
activity in the world.

Power may be latent for milleniums, as exempli-
fied in coalbeds, which are reservoirs of solar force ;
a furnace and engine are required to transmute and
make it available as dynamic energy, but, once the
sleeping giant has been roused from latency to po-
tency it knows no rest or peace till it has expended
the last ounce of its prodigious strength. Under
strict control, and carefully guided into channels of
useful activity, this fiery force is the most valuable
servant of mankind; the most powerful agent in the

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306 THE MESSAGE OF THE STARS

world's work, an incomparable boon to humanity.
But if it escapes control the servant quickly takes
mastery, its inimical power of destruction and de-
vastation is then as terrible a scourge as its bene-
ficent use under guidance is an inestimable blessing.
It is as precious as it is dangerous; eternal vigilance
is the price of safety from its ravages, but without it
the world would be a wilderness.

Mars, as a focus for the latent solar life, trans-
mutes it into desire, passion and what we may call
animal spirits. It is a consuming fire, more danger-
ous than all the nitroglycerine ever manufactured,
but also more precious than any other blessing we
can have or enjoy.

The Hindoo preacher, nurtured in a land gov-
erned by Saturn, the planet of obstruction, says:
"Kill out desire." He dreams away his days in des-
titution, but as "temper" conserves the edge of the
steel that carves its way through all obstructions,
so the well-directed energetic desires of the martial
Anglo-Saxon have wrought a marvelous transforma-
tion in the earth; they have reared a civilization be-
yond all which preceded it, and though perhaps brutal
in many respects, there is promise in that also, accord-
ing to the proverb : ' ' The greater the sinner, the
greater the saint." Parents should take a lesson
from the book of nations and refrain from applying
the Saturnine wet blanket to the fiery Mars spirit
of children. Saturn always says don't, don't, his
aim is to repress and obstruct. A clear fire under

MARS, THE PLANET OF ACTION 307

proper control is useful, Uut death lurks in the smoke
and noxious gases of a smothered fire; too many
dont's smother legitimate ambition and frustrate ac-
complishment ; they may drive the hapless victim into
ways of evil, for the dynamic energy of Mars must
and will have an outlet, so beware. The worst faults
of Mars are impulsiveness and lack of persistence, but
he breeds no hypocrites like an afflicted Saturn.

From Mars we receive a number of our highly-
prized virtues as well as some of our worst faults.
When well-aspected he gives a strong constitution
and physical endurance, a positive, independent and
self-reliant nature, determined and proud, generous
and energetic, resourceful and quick to learn, espe-
cially when in Aries, Leo, Scorpio or Capricorn, but
when he is weak by sign as in Taurus, Cancer, Libra
or aspected by squares or oppositions he makes the
person quick-tempered, obstinate and spiteful, in-
clined to drunkenness and criminal acts, cruel and
hard, a bully and braggart.

People who have Mars prominent in their horo-
scopes are eminently practical and play an important