CHAPTER XV.

PLANETARY OCTAVES

BEFORE considering the effect of Uranus and
Neptune in the various signs and houses it may
be expedient and illuminating to study their relations
to Venus and Mercury which are their lower octaves.
That such a relationship exists has been .sensed by
various astrological authors who by speculation and
observation have learned a great deal about these
two planets and what they have brought out does
great credit to their sagacity, but not having had the
benefit of esoteric training it is not to be wondered at
that they have become confused on certain points
which we shall now explain so that students of the
esoteric philosophy may see how these explanations
dovetail into the general philosophy of the Western
Wisdom School, and thus bear out the statement that
Uranus is the higher octave of Venus and Neptune
the higher octave of Mercury.

The Western Wisdom teaching of the Rosieru-
cians states that man-in-the-making was plant-like
and bi-sexual during the Hypoborean Epoch and
thus able to create from himself without the necessity
of having co-operation from anyone else. But at
that time he was without a brain and unable to think,

341

342 THE MESSAGE OF THE STARS

therefore in the Lemurian Epoch the angels directed
one-half of the sex force upward to the part which is
now the head and used it for the formation of the brain
and larynx. The process is plainly traceable in the
antenatal development of the foetus which accounts
for the intimate relation between the sex organs, the
larynx and the brain, observable in the change of
voice which takes place when the boy reaches puberty
and the mental disability which follows the unre-
strained abuse of the generative function. Thus
it may be said that the sex function whereby new
bodies are created in the physical world, and become
our physical children, is closely connected with the
brain and larynx which man uses to conceive the chil-
dren of his brain and mind and give them vocal ex-
pression by the larynx. It is a matter of common
knowledge to astrologers that man is incited to per-
form the generative function of the begetting of phy-
sical children by the love-ray of Venus ; likewise that
the ray of reason emanating from Mercury is respon-
sible for the begetting of the children of mind and
their vocal expression by the larynx, so that both
Mercury and Venus are creative in their functions,
one upon the physical plane, the other upon the men-
tal plane.

Mercury is usually associated with reason and
intelligence ; to him is ascribed rule over the cerebro-
spinal nervous system, wrhich is the medium of trans-
mission between the embodied spirit and the world
without. Thus as Neptune signifies the sub- and

PLANETARY OCTAVES 343

superhuman intelligences who live and move in the
spiritual realms of the universe, but who work with
and upon us, so Mercury indicates the human intelli-
gence focused upon the terrestrial, physical world
wherein we live from birth to death. Therefore it may
be said that Neptune is the octave of Mercury, but
there is a deeper sense.

Reference to a textbook of anatomy or physi-
ology will show that lengthwise fissures in the spinal
cord divide it into three parts which enclose a hollow
tube. Each of these columns is ruled by one of the
Hierarchies in closest touch with us: the lunar, mar-
tial and mercurial; one or the other predominating,
according to the stage in evolution of the individual.
In the spinal canal the rays of Neptune kindle the
spinal spirit fire whereby the human spirit is enabled
to pierce the veil of flesh and contact the worlds be-
yond; this vision is colored according to the column
of the cord most actively excited. In the childhood
days of mankind the creative force which is now
turned outwards to build ships, houses, railways,
telephones, etc., was used inwardly to build the organs
of our body, and as the surrounding physical world
is photographed upon the table of a camera obscura,
so the spiritual world was reflected in the spinal canal.
There man beheld the first lunar God Jehovah, whose
Angels were his first tutors. Later a part of the
Angels who, under the leadership of Lucifer had re-
belled against Jehovah and who are now exiled on
the planet Mars forced entrance to the spinal cord

344 THE MESSAGE OF THE STARS

of man and incited him to abuse of the generative
function. The spiritual inner vision of mankind
faded when "their eyes were opened and they saw
they were naked," then they lost touch with the
higher self; they saw only the person, and the docile
creature of Jehovah was soon transformed to a sav-
age and a brute under the impulses of the Lucifer
Spirits, the hierarchy of Mars, but by their prompt-
ings man has also learned to conquer material obsta-
cles, to build outwardly and become architect of the
world.

To counteract the unmitigated selfishness bred
by the Martian Angels, and to make mankind humane,
our Elder Brothers from Mercury, human like our-
selves, whose high state of evolution required the
high vibration generated and prevailing in close prox-
imity to the Sun, were required to invest the spinal
cord of man also, and through their labors civiliza-
tion has taken on a different form, mankind is again
beginning to look inwards.

At the present time the left cerebral hemisphere
is governed by Mercury, and the pineal gland, its
higher octave, is ruled by Neptune who also has do-
minion over the spinal canal which is the avenue
whereby one pole of the creative energy was origin-
ally turned upward for the building of the brain.

, The ray of Neptune carries what occultists know
as the Father fire, the light and life of the Divine
Spirit, which expresses itself as will. This it focuses
in the voluntary nervous system of the physical body

PLANETARY OCTAVES 345

governed by its lower octave Mercury which acting
through the left brain galvanizes the body into speech
and action, expressing the will of the indwelling
spirit.

By this diversion of the creative energy the hu-
man being ceased, as already said, to be a physical
hermaphrodite, a complete creative unit, and was
then compelled to seek a mate in order to propagate
the species. Therefore the Son, the Cosmic Christ,
focused the love-ray of the Life Spirit upon Uranus,
(ruling the pituitary body), who transmits it to the
vital body where Venus, the lower octave of Uranus
gives it expression in propagation and growth.

Between the Divine Spirit and Life Spirit on
the one hand and their counterparts, the physical and
vital bodies, on the other hand, is the Human Spirit
ruled by the Sun, and its counterpart, the desire
body, ruled by the lesser light, the Moon. But this is
debatable ground contested by Jupiter and Mercury
on the one side, Saturn and Mars being on the other.

The ray of Uranus is gradually forging a second
spinal cord by drawing the lower love-ray of Venus
upward and transmuting it to altruism, conquering
for it the dominion over the sympathetic segment
of the present spinal cord and the right cerebral hem-
isphere now ruled by the passionate hierarchy of
Mars, the Lucifer Spirits. This work has been com-
pletely accomplished by the Adepts, therefore they
have no need to marry for each is now a complete
creative unit on both the spiritual and physical

346 THE MESSAGE OF THE STARS

planes, having turned the bi-polar creative force,
masculine and feminine, upward through the double
spinal cord, illuminated and raised in potential en-
ergy by the spinal spirit fires of Neptune (Will) and
Uranus (Love and Imagination). This creative en-
ergy conceives in the twin hemispheres of the cere-
brum, ruled by Mars and Mercury, a vehicle fit for
the expression of the spirit, which is then sent out
and objectified in the world by the spoken creative
word.

This is the secret of how the Adepts form a new
body without going through the womb, and some day
all humanity will attain to this standard of perfection
as spiritual hermaphrodites, then we shall no longer
be " a little lower than the angels ' ' who create by sim-
ilar methods but we shall be higher than they are now
for we shall then have the reason and intellect which
they lack, in addition to the complete creative power.