The next statement which I would like to make, and which grows normally out of the above, is that the zodiacal, the systemic and the planetary energies act either as hindering or as stimulating forces, according to the type of vehicle or body upon which they play; the nature of these vehicles and their capacity to attract, to respond, to reject, to absorb and to transmute is entirely dependent upon the point in evolution attained and also upon the general planetary condition and psychology to be found in the human family at any given time. An instance of the latter can be seen today in the world where the forces, beating in an almost violent and somewhat new measure and tempo upon our planetary life, are evoking a greatly intensified response from the world thinkers, thus stimulating them to earnest effort along ideological lines and, at the same time, are drawing forth from the masses and the little evolved people nothing but terror, a miserable fatalism, widespread physical depletion and many other undesirable reactions from the form nature. An understanding of these hindering or stimulating effects can be easily grasped by those who can comprehend the nature of the activities of the planet Saturn. This is the planet which conditions primarily the point in evolution where choice definitely becomes possible, [20] where rejection of opportunity or its acceptance can consciously be undertaken, and the shouldering of personal responsibility becomes a recognized fact in a planned and ordered life. This point in the human evolutionary process is spoken of in the Old Commentary in the following symbolic phrases:

"Amid the whirling forces, I stand confused. I know them not, for, during all my past, they swept me up and down the land wherein I moved, blinded and unaware. From place to place and point to point, they drove me up and down the land and nowhere was there rest.

I know them now and here I stand and will not move until I know the Law which governs all this movement up and down the land. I may revolve and turning face the many different ways; I face some wide horizons and yet today I stand.

I will determine for myself the way to go. Then onward I will move. I will not travel up and down the land nor turn in space. But onward I will move."

There is another revolutionary idea which the esoteric science of astrology brings to its modern and exoteric aspect: In. the greater cycle of man's many incarnations, he - as is well recognized - passes through the zodiacal circle from Pisces to Aries, thus retrograding through the signs as he follows the sweep or path of the Sun's retrogression. This phrase has always disturbed me, but the apparent retrogression, based upon the precession of the equinoxes, is all an integral part of the Great Illusion. The moment a man begins to emerge out of that illusion and is no longer subject to the glamor and to the effect of the world maya, that moment the motion of the great Wheel of Life [21] is reversed and he then begins (slowly and laboriously) to work in the opposite direction. He then passes through the signs from Aries to Pisces. He begins patiently and consciously to function as a soul struggling towards the light until finally he emerges at the end of the Path in Pisces as a world Victor and a world Savior. He then knows the significance of the triumph over death because he has surmounted and overcome desire.

This reversal of the way a man travels through the signs of the zodiac will necessitate a readjustment of the method employed by astrologers when they are casting a horoscope of senior aspirants, of disciples and of initiates.