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Euclid's geometry made no allowance for Time. It would be appropriate for a dead world without motion, if there were such a world. We do not live in that type of a world, but in a world of dynamics, where Euclid's geometry is inadequate.
In astrology, geometry involves TIME and MOTION.
Astrology is a study of TIME and MOTION. It shows that the pres- ent is merely the battleground of the past and the future, both of which are contained within the present moment; a startling statement perhaps, but let us look into this matter of TIME and MOTION. These two words are inseparable. Without TIME, there is no MOTION. Without MOTION, there is no TIME. There are different kinds of TIME, and one kind of TIME is just as valid as another. Our kind of TIME is mere1y Solar-system TIME, but our education has so locked us into this kind of time that we are unconscious of any other kind, and we submit to its limitations. Our accepted and conventional kind of time is merely an expression of the relationship of the earth to the Sun. Actually, the whole solar System operates in accord with this same kind of TIME, but the rest of the universe may not. Perhaps our time decelerates when compared to other TIME or other TIME accelerates as compared to ours. Although it is assumed that the speed of light is a constant, this is but an assumption, as yet unproved.
We have succeeded in manufacturing clocks and watches that operate on Solar-system TIME but they might have no value in another part of the universe.
Visualize space as containing but one solid and noncomposite object, a ball. There could be no motion but imaginary motion, and that could be any kind of motion that you wish to imagine, THERE COULD BE NO TIME.
Not until you have two objects in space can there be either time or motion. Then there can be only two motions. All other motions or imaginary motions will be duplication or these same two motions. Either object can move along a straight line drawn through the two objects, but it is impossible to say which one is moving, or whether both are moving.
One object can rotate on its axis, which will be exactly the same motion as the other object revolving around the axis of the first object, unless the axis of the first object is the same line that passes through the two objects, in which event, it will be impossible to say which object is rotating. It may be stated that either object is moving in relation. to the other or either object may be considered as stationary. If the axis of rotation is not the same line that passes through both objects, one will then appear to revolve in a circle. If during rotation, the two objects pull apart, one will appear to revolve in a spiral.
If there is a backward-and-forward motion along the line connecting the two objects, one object will appear to travel around the other in an ellipse.
With only two objects in space, then they pull apart, we do not have to consider them as moving away from each other. It would be just as correct to say that both are contracting, When they approach each other again, that would be just as correct to say they are expanding.
These confusing factors are known as RELATIVITY wherein TIME is questionably described as a forth dimension. Although such views are usually attributed to Einstein, they were earlier advanced by H.G. Wells in 1895 and by C.H. Hinton in 1884, and by others even earlier.
Space containing one object could have no time. These facts can furnish us with reason to question TIME as a fourth dimension. There can be no TIME until we have two objects plus motion. When we have three objects things become complicated. With three objects in space, two stationary in relation to each other while the third moves, we can say that the third is moving, or that the first two are moving together.
SOLAR SYSTEM TIME
Consider the earth as traveling around the Sun in an ellipse. In approximately 365 1/4 days, the earth is back where it started. Or is it? It is only if you consider the relationship of the earth's equator to the earth's orbit. It depends upon what you use as a frame of reference. If you use the so-called fixed stars as a reference IT IS NOT. It is close but it is not exact and in time it will be altogether different.
We can only describe something in relation to something else. The earth rotates on its axis in 24 hours of our time, if we are describing the earth in relation to the Sun, but if we are describing it in rela- tion to the stars, it comp1etes the rotation in 23 hours and 56 minutes. We can talk all we want about CONSTANTS. Actually, insofar as we know, there are none. Any constant is dependent upon an ASSUMED frame of reference. One assumed frame of reference is as good and as authentic as some other frame of reference. If you accept one frame of reference and I accept another, we obtain different results, and one set of results is as authentic as another. This is where science repeatedly falls down. It accepts some frame of reference that is no better than some other frame of reference. The politicians of science get together and agree on a frame of reference, which means that they blind themselves to any other frame of reference. Ptolemy's frame of reference, when he used the earth as a center, was every bit as legitimate as the Copernican frame of reference, using the. Sun as the center, but Ptolemy's frame of reference was more complicated. Insofar as we know, space has no center. If it does have, we have no reason to believe that our Sun is that center, If we deal only with the Solar system, it is convenient to use the Sun as the center. If we deal with an earth astrology, it is more convenient to use the earth as a center.
Einstein maintained the speed of light to be a constant, because of the baffling fact that light always arrives at, or departs from, an object at the speed of 186,284 miles per second, regardless of the motion of the body in space. If an object is going toward light, light strikes that object at the same speed as it would were the object going away from light. This suggests the possibility, which science has not considered, that light only strikes stationary objects. This might be explained by considering the hypothesis that there is no continuous motion, that both matter and light travel in jumps, that when matter moves light stands still and when light moves matter stands still. Such jumps would have to be in very tiny intervals of time, infinitesimal fractions of seconds, atoms of time. Under those circumstances, these atoms of time light possibly furnish a constant, but as things stand we have no known constant in the universe to work from. We have only relative constants.
We measure TIME in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, eons, etc., but this is one particular kind of time. A day is one rotation of the earth on its axis IN RELATION TO THE SUN. All smaller employed intervals of time are fraction of this kind of a day. Insofar as we know, all known factors which can be employed to measure time are mathematica1ly incommensurable. By that we mean that time cycles do not fit evenly into each other. A day is one rotation of the earth on its axis when we use the Sun as a frame of reference. A.year is one revolution of the earth around the sun when we employ the earth's equator as a frame of reference. A year is NOT a definite number of days . We say it is 365 1/4 days but even that is an approximation and is dependent upon what we use as a frame of reference. SUPPOSE WE WERE TO USE THE PERIOD OF GESTATION AS A UNIT FOR MEASURING TIME. Instead of measuring time by how long it takes the earth to rotate in relation to the Sun, what if we were to measure TIME by the period of gestation.? This would be objected to on the grounds that the period of gestation is not a CONSTANT. Neither is any other known period of time. If we are to believe the astronomers, each day is longer than the same day in the previous year The astronomers tell us that the solar system is slowing down, but the solar system can only slow down relation to something else, and it is just as true to say that the something else is speeding up in relation to the solar system. It is all relativity.
Astronomers tell us that the universe is expanding. It might be just as correct to say that all its parts are shrinking in size.
ANOTHER CONCEPTION OF TIME
We divide TIME in another way, into three parts, the PAST, the PRESENT and the FUTURE.
By the present, we mean NOW, but what do we mean by NOW? What do you mean by NOW?
We often think of TIME as being a straight line, running to infinity; at either end. A line has no height or width, only length, and so this would be the visualization of a one-dimensional kind of time.
WHERE IS TIME ON THIS LINE?
WE might represent NOW as a moving mathematical point, progressing along this line in one direction. Although this is a common1y accepted notion of NOW, we will soon find that it is unsatisfactory.
A mathematical point has no dimensions while NOW has length. We cannot conceive of a NOW that does not have length, for NOW is relative. Supposedly, the earth travels over 17 miles per second. If you were in space, try to conceive of NOW as that small particle of time when the center of the earth passes you. It is too small a particle of time for you to conceive, so NOW has to be longer than that.
You might consider your life as NOW, this year as NOW, today as NOW. When you awaken in the morning, NOW may mean until you have to get up. Think it over and you will realize that NOW MEANS UNTIL SOMETHING CHANGES.
There is no TIME until something changes in its relation to something else. Euclid's geometry did not involve MOTION, and so it did not involve TIME.
TIME means CHANGE, and it cannot mean anything else. Our conventional kind of time means change in the solar system. Before there were astronomers, physicists or watch-makers, this kind of time was employed. By whom was it employed? By whom was it originated? It was first employed by the ancient astrologers. It was their time, It is astrology time. It we are to know more about it, let us learn what astrology can tell us about that kind of time, but first, let us consider another important factor.
PHYSICAL SENSES DETECT ONLY THE PAST
You look at a star. You do not see the star as it is NOW. You see it only as it was. If you look at a star 200 light years away you see it as it was when George Washington might have been looking in that direction. Astronomers claim to look at objects as they were 500 to 1000 million years ago.
If we theoretically consider NOW as a mathematical point on the TIME LINE, it becomes impossible to contact NOW with any or the five physical senses, which are fitted only for contacting the past.
Speed is relative. It takes time for light to travel to the eye, and for the mind to interpret light rays. The time interval may seem infinitesimal to you, but for all we know there may be infinitesimal beings that live and die in less time. To them it would be a 1ong time. Sound travels even more slow1y. You touch or taste something and it takes TIME for a message to go over the nervous system and for the mind to interpret a very small interval of time, but time is relative.
It is always short when compared to a longer time, 1onger when compared to a shorter time. A day is short when compared to a year, longer compared to a minute. To us, the existence of time interval is dependent upon our ability to conceive it.
Since the five phyica1 senses can contact only the past, we must look to the mind for any contact with NOW. Perhaps you can begin to see that NOW cannot be considered a mathematical point along the imaginary time line, because NOW includes various parts of the past. Insofar as the five physical senses are concerned , NOW would have to be completely a product of the past.
DOES NOW INCLUDE ANY PART 0F THE FUTURE?
If you see an object falling from the sky, you may consider NOW AS BEFORE it hits the earth. "Before sunrise" is placing NOW in a frame of reference that involves the future. When you say that it is 100 days till Christmas you are measuring NOW from a "point" in the future. Any such references involve CALCULATION, a mental process, and in all such references, NOW includes apart of the future.
If we consider another sense that science now recognizes, one that is called PRECOGNITION, realize that NOW involves a part of both the past and the future. We can better understand the ancients when they told us that the past and the future are contained within the present moment. The Hindu Yogi, who contemplates eternity, finds himself in a NOW that includes both past and future.
It is possible to calculate both the past and the future. We can calculate where a planet was or where it wi1l be, but all such calculations are dependent upon an ASSUMED constant. There is no real or basic constant that we know about. This is merely a solar system constant, an astrology constant. Nothing can be described except in relation to something else. We say a woman has blue eyes, but this merely compares them with all other not blue eyes. They are not brown. Two girls can have blue eyes, and they are not the same color.
Calculation of the future may be more accurate then memory of the past. All records of the past are subject to error.
Heredity is a record of the past. From his appearance, we can estimate that a dog is not the offspring of a kangaroo, and we can predict that future kangaroos will not be the offspring of this dog. We know the future within limitation. It is our objective to narrow these limitations. We have arrived at a NOW THAT INCLUDES PART OF THE PAST AND PART OF THE FUTURE. It cannot be a mathematical point on a time line, because it has length.
Solar-system Time may be better understood if we consider a watch filled with cog wheels, where one cog is pushing another cog of another size. Perhaps the small cog revolves five times to one revolution of the big cog. This because the cogs are geared together. Solar-system Time is like that. A1though there are no visible gears, the planets move as though there were such a connection. You can predict the motion of one planet in terms of another planet. There is no factor of acceleration or deceleration involved. They all operate according to the same time system. You can fill in the gaps with theories like gravitation etc. Kepler discovered that notion of any planet is determined by abstract laws involving the other planets.
Life on the earth is also geared to Solar system Time. No one has yet claimed that the revolutions of one planet are responsible for the revolutions of another planet and it is not necessary to claim that planets affect people, electrically or otherwise, to explain the phenomenon of astrology. Because the earth spins on its axis 687 times every time Mars goes around the Sun it is not necessary to say that the revolutions of Mars are causing the earth to spin on its axis, and as far as we know, no one has ever so asserted. Because life on the earth operates according to the same kind of time as that to which the planets operate is sufficient reason to maintain that one causes the other. The fact is that we find life geared to solar-system Time, and that is how astrology appears to have come about. It is not necessari1y cause and effect. It is pure mathematics. There is a design of the whole--cosmic design, Mathematics is cosmic design.
We have no evidence that one planet is slowing, down in relation to another. This is quite remarkable when you stop to think about it, but no one seems to stop and think about it. If one single planet were operating in conformance with a different kind of time, it would appear to slow down or speed up in relation to the other planets. When the astronomer tell us that the solar system is slowing down or that the universe is expanding they may merely be pointing to the possibility that all objects do not; operate in accord with the same kind of time. There can be an infinite number or different kinds of time. Let us consider another kind of time, one that is very real to you and me.
PSYCHOLOGICAL TIME
Psychological time is INDIVIDUAL TIME. It is different for different people, Time is different for a nervous person than for a relaxed person. Time moves much more rapidly for some people than for some other people. You may say "Well, that is merely the way it seems," This is quite true, but it is true about all time. Time is merely what it seem. The rotations of the earth would be different for a person on the Sun than for a person on a fixed star. The time element would be different. To a person on the sun, the Moon rotates on its axis. To a person on the earth, it does not. We always see the same side of the Moon.
When compared with Solar system Time psychological Time deceleratetes or Solar-system Time accelerates. In psychological Time, one year to a one-year-old child is said to be equal to sixty years to a sixty-year-old man. With age, time speeds up. The older you are, the faster the years speed by. Psychological Time is just as valid as Solar System Time, but it is more conveinient to use Solar-system Time, because Psychological time is different for different people, and SS Time gives a common standard for beings on the earth. Nevertheless, when we use SS Time, we should be conscious of the fact that it is but one of many different kinds of time.
FRAME OF REFERENCE
Keep in mind that if there were but two objects in space one moving away from the other, there would be no way of determining whether the speed of the moving object was accelerating or decelerating, because there would be nothing with which to compare the speed.
When asleep, you dream a long experience in a tiny particle of time. Thus, the mind is not necessarily limited to the use of SS Time. It can employ other standards of time.
One hour of pleasure is much shorter than one hour of pain. When you are in pain, psychological time slows down. When you enjoy yourself it speeds up. Also, pleasure is remembered more readily than pain. A pleasurable event anticipated in the future seems farther away than a painful event anticipated in the future.
The important thing to realize is what happens when we accept a frame of reference. Any motion is dependent upon your frame of reference. According to one frame of reference (FOR), an object may be traveling in a straight line, while according to another FOR, it is traveling in a circle. If we have to consider a straight line as relative then all trigonometric measurements establishing distances become relative. We must realize that it is impossible to establish motion or time without first accepting a frame of reference. It is all right to do this if we know we are doing it and if we are conscious of the fact that there are other FOR. Your whole life is like this, and you can become a complete prisoner of FOR unless you are cautious and on your guard.
CAN YOU RETURN TO THE PAST? Frankly,you often do in a partial way. You do 50 particularly when you go to see your grandmother, but you do not return to it exactly because your grandmother has changed.
With only two objects in space, allow them to move apart and return to their original positions, and they have moved backwards into the past. The more objects you have in space, the more difficult it is to return to the past, because they are all changing in relation to each other. The number of possible combinations increases at such a pace that it becomes virtually impossible to return to the past, and that is the way it; is with our lives. As you think these things out, insofar as our present knowledge is concerned, you will realize that time has no substance or reality at all. It is dependent on a FOR.
It is It is common to speek of the dimensions of space. We try to give it the same kind of reality that we give a material object. Insofar as we know, space can be the zero factor of the universe. We can measure space only in terms of object. Objects have length, breadth and width, but visualize empty space containing no objects How would you measure it? Where would the dimensions be?. You may speak of the amount of space in a room, but in reality you are not measuring space. You are measuring an enclosure. When you atternpt to measure space of itself, are you not asking, how big is nothing? How can you measure what does not exist? Future discoveries might change things, but up till now, no one has been able to prove that space has either substance or dimensions. Physicists debate as to whether space is finite or infinite, as to whether it has limitations. Is zero or nothing infinite? Does it have limitations? If something does not exist, how can it have limitations? How can other than material beings have dimensions cxcept abstract dimensions?
MUST CAUSE PRECEDE EFFECT?
We think of effect as always followin and never preceding cause. You can push an object. You can also pull it. Instead of being pushed into the future, can we be pulled into the future? Can something that is going to happen tomorrow be affecting us today? Let us consider the possibility that it can. This is contrary to conventional conceptions of scientists, but scientists are baffled and confused in the face of psychological and emotional problems. Even scientists have nervous break downs. Sir Isaac Newton had one.
The five physical senses deal only with the past. There are other senses that deal only with the future. The statistical investigations of Duke and other universities and intuition establish precognition and the fact that we have senses that penetrate the future. We discover ourselves dealing with a NOW which combines past and future, tending toward the ancient conception that past and future are contained within the present moment, a thought that is not easily grasped because we have a mental block when we limit our FOR to standardized time.
In lessons 2 and 3, we have seen that the WATER and EARTH signs of the zodiac relate to the past. We will later see that the FIRE and AIR signs relate to the future. We are endeavoring to help you to grasp the zodiac and the twelve basic principles of astrology and before continuing along these lines, it becomes important that you reconsider and evaluate your conception of time--that you consider that EFFECT can precede as well as follow CAUSE. Within your mind and otherwise, it is not; necessary that you be limited and conditioned by Solar system Time. You can alter the past and its grip upon you by re-evaluating it, and you can alter the future by recalculating it.
A planet travels around the circle we call the zodiac in a counterclockwise direction. While it is passing through one zodiacal sign we are conditioned by the pattern of the past (or our conception of that pattern), and while it passes through the next sign, we are conditioned by the pattern (or our conception of that pattern) of the future.
HOW CAN SOMETHING BE INFLUENCED BY THE FUTURE?
Remember the day when a B-25 crashed into the side of the Empire State Building in New York City? George Miles a worked in the Empire State Building. His desk was exactly at that point where the plane was going to enter the building, and he would always be at his desk at the time when the plane was going to strike. You can see that George's out1ook would be very dark.
George was a very religious man who lived 18 miles away in Westchester County. On the morning of day when the plane was to hit the building, George was waiting for the bus that was to take him to the train that was to take him to New York and his desk that was to be wiped away by the plane. Just before the bus arrived, he was seized with dysentery. As army men know,dysentery can be caused by fear, perhaps by fear in the unconscious realm. George had not read the following days newspapers, and he had no conscious knowledge that the plane was going to hit the building, but his biological reaction was the same as though his extrasensory system had picked up a message which had been inter- preted by the UNCONSCIOUS INTERPRETIVE APPARATUS we talked about in Lesson 2. He returned home and missed the bus that was there on time to take him to his rendezvous with destiny. Because he missed a bus, he missed a train, the last train that would make it possible to keep his appointment with destiny. The next train was just too late. The Unconscious timing proved perfect.
George did finally arrive in the lobby of the Empire State Building in time to be waiting for an elevator when the plane struck and one of its motors passed George on its way down the elevator shaft. Unhurt, he spent the rest of the day in the gruesome task of identifying his deceased associates.
Modern scientists might make every attempt to pass this off as coincidence in order to uphold and defend the mental blocks that are a part of the accepted conclusion that cause always precedes effect, As Charles Fort asked, what if it shouldn't be coincidence? Scientists will have a difficult time attempting to convince George that it was a coincidence, because George is a very re1igious man.The above facts were obtained from George personally.We should take a broader view of biological reactions. They may be caused by something in the past or something in the future. It would be possible to tell an endless story of similar' occurrences. Those who are alert can find similar cases. There is design to the past, present and future. We must become conscious of design.
CAN THE MIND TELL TIME?
Psychologically, it is not necessary that you function in accord with Solar system Time, but can the human mind tell time by SS Time? It would appear that when we reach what Hubbard has called the Necessity level or some higher state of consciousness, the human mind can calculate SS Time.
THE ASTROLOGY CONCEPTION OF TIME
There can be no conception of time without a frame of reference, and astrology opens the door to an entirely new conception of time. It represents time geometrically½ and in connection with distance, Just as it represents life geometrically in a horoscope. At the top of the next page, we have geometrical figure representing time. We see the zodiac divided into twelve equal parts, half of the parts representing the past and half representing the future. The present moment becomes a combination of the whole. Parts representing the past alternate with those representing the future.
If we consider this diagram as spinning in relation to ourselves, we see the past and future blended together. If we paint the future segments blue and the past segments red, when we spin the wheel, we will see but one color, purple. Under these circumstances, allow purple to represent NOW. It becomes a blend of blue and red, a blend of past and future. It will make your understanding of astrology easier if you keep this diagram in mind.
With reference to the functions of the mind, psychologists have dealt with the terms SUBCONSCIOUS and UNCONSCIOUS, but occultists have sometimes made use of another term which we are going to adopt. It is the term SUPER CONSCIOUS. We will refer to the unconscious as having two parts, the UNCONSCIOUS and the SUPERC0NSCIOUS. We will relate the subconscious to the past, as well as to the WATER and earth signs, while we will relate the superconscious to the future, as well as to the FIRE and Air Signs.
In all probability, this lesson and the above diagram will give you much to think about. It is important to gain a new conception of time and space. Time is relative and it means change. Of itself time is non-existent. On the basis of present knowledge, it is merely a means of expressing relative motion. Time can be considered only in so far as nothingness can be considered as something of itself. Space has no dimensions. Only objects have dimensions. Astronomers have been unable to measure space because they have found nothing to measure.
They build bigger and bigger telescopes and discover more and more nothingness, completely overlooking the substance of what is immediately at hand, the abstract mathematical zodiac. In
Lesson II, we asserted that everything in life is a matter of interpretation. Not only do we change things when we reinterpret and reevaluate, but we alter everything when we change our frame of refer- ence. We suggest that you study this lesson very carefully to grasp some of the conceptions that have been offered. If things are not clear to you, ask questions. We have covered a lot of ground. You may have difficulty in grasping the idea that a straight line and a curved one can be one and the same thing when you change your FOR (frame of reference). Later, we will have much to say about your FOR. Even in mathematics, you will get what appears to be a different answer to the same problem when you change your FOR.In the decimal system 6 + 7 = 13, but in the duodecimal system 6 + 7 = 11. The FOR has been changed.
We might say that your INTEREST is your FOR. When a man falls in love he changes his FOR, and when he does this everything changes for him. The world looks and feels different. In our civilization, we often find ourselves fighting time. We try to pack so much into SS Time that we never relax. Think of the covered wagons with their oxen, fighting the months to get across the country, while now we cross the same land in an hour by planes. Senses other than the five orthodox senses appear to function better during relaxation. When you press too hard or tie yourself to the past, you appear to cut off your contact with the future. Part of your mechanism isn't functioning. The Religious man has faith in God, which is to say that he has faith in the future and the cosmic design. He relaxes. The materialist places all his faith in the past. He can't escape its effects. He is off balance, unable to relax, unable to change his F0R, and he has no contact with the future. He has neither intuition nor extrasensory perception. He has no precognition. When religious persons pray, they pray about the past only to the extent of asking that their sins be forgiven (re- evaluating the past). Otherwise, they pray about the future. He is requesting a design of the future, they unconsciously help to design the future, because the unconscious tends to obey the command. Biological, mental and emotional reactions begin to conform to the design of the prayer. A prayer is similar to a command to the unconscious mechanism. In this case the "I" makes the demand, while in hypnotism, the operator commands the unconscious of the hypnotized subject, and the unconscious obeys the command.
This discussion has been necessary before we can continue with our discussion of the remaining six basic principles, the remaining six signs of the zodiac, the FIRE and AIR signs. We have studied the survival dynamics, and now we must consider the reform dynamics. While the survival dynamics function to continue existence in its form of the past, the reform dynamics function in an effort to destroy the form of the past that the desired form of the future may come into being.
Some modern mathematicians are returning to conceptions of Pythagorus, because they sense cosmic design in the universe, as it was sensed by Copernicus, Kepler and Newton. Pythagorus stated that the universe is built on number and atomic scientists are beginning to make similar statements. The word ATOM goes back to the ancient Greeks. Some writers today tell us that Einstein disproved Newton's claim that gravity is a force, but Newton did not claim gravity a force. He clearly stated that he regarded it neither as a force nor as a property of matter. His conception of gravity was purely mathematical, a matter of abstract mathematical points. He asked other scientist not to attribute to him any idea that gravity is a force or a property of matter. Yet matter behaves in accord with the abstract laws of gravitation. Newton was a student of the work of Hermes and had a library on the subject of alchemy. He wrote over 50O,0OO words on the subject that no one has ever read up until now. These writings have never been published. He also wrote 1,300,000 words on theology that have been ignored. We want to leave the student with the idea that both mathematics and astrology are a study of abstract cosmic design. Nature functions only in accord with abstract cosmic design. Our purpose is to ever learn more about that design. A plane flies through the air and across oceans only because it is conforming to that cosmic design. Making your own life successful in a broad sense (not using money as a frame of reference) is a matter of living in accord with abstract design. To understand design, we must have a new conception of time and space. The student must remember that our present moment is very much involved with both past and the future and cannot be considered as something in itself.
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