[PAGE 341]                                                 PLANETARY OCTAVES
                                 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.   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   Rosicrucian   states   that
man-in-the-making was plant-like and bi-sexual during the Hyperborean  Epoch
and  thus able to create from himself without the necessity of  co-operation
with anyone else.  But at that time he was without  a  brain  and  unable to
[PAGE 342]                                          THE MESSAGE OF THE STARS
think,  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  for-
mation  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  dis-
ability  which  follows the unrestrained 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 children  of  his
brain and mind and give them vocal expression by the larynx.  It is a matter
of  common knowledge to astrologers that man is incited to perform the  gen-
erative  function of the begetting of physical children by the  love-ray  of
Venus; likewise that the ray of reason emanating from Mercury is responsible
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 mental plane.
   Mercury is usually associated with reason and intelligence; to him is as-
cribed  rule over the cerebrospinal nervous system,  which is the medium  of
transmission  between  the embodied spirit and the world without.   Thus  as
Neptune signifies the sub- and superhuman intelligence who live and  move in
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the spiritual realms of the universe, but who work with and upon us, so Mer-
cury indicates the human intelligence 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 of physiology will show that  length-
wise 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,  martial and mercurial;  one of the other
predominating,  according to the stage of 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  beyond;  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,  and railways,  tele-
phones,  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 behold the first lunar God Jehovah,  whose Angels were his first tutors.
Later  a part of Angels,  who under the leadership of LUCIFER  had  rebelled
against Jehovah and who are now exiled on the planet Mars forced entrance to
[PAGE 344]                                          THE MESSAGE OF THE STARS
the spinal cord 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 savage and a brute under the impulses of the Lucifer Spirits, the hier-
archy of Mars but by their promptings man has also learned to conquer  mate-
rial obstacles, 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 proximity to the Sun,  were required to invest  the
spinal cord of man also,  and through their labors civilization has taken on
a different form, mankind is again beginning to look inwards.
   At the present time the right cerebral hemisphere is governed by Mercury,
and  the pineal gland,  its higher octave, is ruled by Neptune who also  has
dominion  over the spinal canal which is the avenue whereby one pole of  the
creative energy was originally turned upward for the building of the brain.
   The  ray of Neptune carries what occultist 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  governed by
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by its lower octave Mercury which acting through the right brain  galvanizes
the  body  into  speech and action, expressing the will  of  the  indwelling
spirit.
   By this diversion of the creative energy the human being ceased,  as  al-
ready said,  to be a physical hermaphrodite,  a complete creative unit,  and
was  them  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 vi-
tal  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 coun-
terparts,  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,  conquer-
ing  for it the dominion over the sympathetic segment of the present  spinal
cord and THE LEFT CEREBRAL HEMISPHERE now ruled by the passionate  hierarchy
of Mars, the Lucifer Spirits.  This work has been completely 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 planes, having  turned  the
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bi-polar creative force,  masculine and feminine,  upward through the double
spinal cord, illuminated and raised in potential energy by the spinal spirit
fires  of Neptune (Will) and Uranus (Love and Imagination).   This  creative
energy conceives in the twin hemispheres of the cerebrum,  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 similar methods but we shall be higher
than  they  are now for we shall have the reason and  intellect  which  they
lack, in addition to the complete creative power.