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When we refer to Social Survival problems as being mysterious, we are telling you that there is a lot about them that we do not understand, but we are also telling you that here is the richest field for research that we can visualize. Solve these problems and you can do away with prisons, mental institutions, drug addicts, alcoholism and much illness, but we will not solve them by Turning our backs upon them. We will not solve them by burning witches. Science will not solve them by limiting itself to a frame of reference that excludes the unorthodox. All of these problems have some correspondence with Neptune, Pisces, the Sixth House and the 150 degree aspect in astrology.
The road to the solution of these problems involves careful observation and the collection and organization of data pertaining to what happens to people and what folks do when they are under so-called negative SSD patterns.
One of the most powerful combinations is found in the so-called negative configurations involving the planets Mars and Neptune. For the moment let us consider the conjunction, square and opposition of these two bodies, and what we find relative to the people who are born under them. Other Neptunian patterns have similar effects, but there are differences.
In the first place, these people are sentimental, and they are very emotional. They have serious emotional problems within themselves. When emotion rises, it is overwhelming, and they are swept by it. It is something that is too great to control. During one moment, they can be overcome by grief. During another moment, by joy, but even joy may express itself in tears. There is deep sympathy for the underdog or for animals and lower beings. In many cases relief is sought through alcohol, drugs, and what is usually described as wildness. There is deep compassion for the ill and for the so-called criminal. He is considered a victim. Prison reform has usually been carried out by this sort of person. If the individual shows any criminal tendencies himself, he is expert at planting the evidence on another person. He can be subtle and secretive.
There is a little of this in everybody, but we must study the extreme cases, the horrible cases, if we are to learn. We must study the insane, the alcoholics, the drug addicts and the inmates of penal institutions. You will find the milder cases all around you.
Much is concealed by the invention of the word illusion. Someone sees something. Most people do not see it, and so it is said to be an illusion, nonexistent except in the persons mind or imagination. On a number of different occasions some very brilliant man has come to us. He has had emotional problems. He has become somewhat of an alcoholic, and he has had delirium tremens, commonly referred to as the DT's. The DT's are merely a form of delirium associated with alcoholic indulgence. There are other forms of delirium, and the dictionary tells us that delirium is a more or less temporary state of mental disturbance characterized by confusion, disordered speech and often hallucinations - - also frenzied excitement or wild enthusiasm.
When the above type of man gets on the other side of the writer's desk, the writer gets curious. After all, here is a brilliant man. He has achieved and accomplished many things, but he has had emotional problems. An attempt to escape them has led to excessive alcoholism, and it has led to the DT'S.
"What happened? Just what did you see?"
We can't suppress this question. We want to know. The story is told. The man had illusions. But, there is always another man. He had illusions also. We want to know all about his experience. We want all the details. Other people do not seem to be interested in these illusions. After all, why be interested in some thing that does not exist? However, after combing a number of these stories, we want to know why there is such a similarity in what these different men report as to what they saw. Why do most of them have to see animals, usually, but not always, little animals? This man specifies that they were all little animals. He never saw any big animals, but here is a man who was in a hospital at the time when the animals came. His hospital room just filled up with animals, and one of them was a big, lazy lion, who just lounged around the room and took it easy. In no case that has been related to the writer were any of the animals violent or unfriendly. The alcoholic merely seemed to find himself in an animal world. Oddly, the ancient religious writers quite often referred to the world of the emotions as the animal world. It is often said that the animal in a person comes out when he is emotional.
There are many heavy drinkers who never have the DT's and never have illusions. There are many people with the mentioned Mars-Neptune aspects who never drink, but when the Mars-Neptune people turn to alcohol or drugs, things can happen. These people are overly sensitive. They seem to contact something the rest of us cannot contact. What they see may be misinterpretation, but they certainly appear to see something. With his own eyes, the writer has never seen Tokyo, but many others who say they have seen Tokyo tell stories that are too similar for us to doubt that there is such a place as Tokyo. There may be discrepancies in their stories, but these discrepancies have never caused us to declare that Tokyo is an illusion just because the rest of us have not seen it.
A witness is testifying in a murder case. Under direct examination he tells what he saw. A lawyer cross examines. The witness is making every effort to tell what he believes he saw, but the lawyer begins to show that the pieces do not fit together properly. There is something wrong somewhere. Part of the story is in conflict with another part of the story. Part of it could not be true if the other part is true. Did the witness have hallucinations, or did he misinterpret? Did the alcoholic see animals or did he misinterpret? We don't know. An emotional person sees things differently. The facts are often colored by sentiment or other emotion.
An emotional person has to see the world through the emotions, which is like seeing it through colored glasses. It looks different. It isn't the same. A prejudgment is sufficient to blind one. If you believe something exists, you see it more easily. If you believe it does not exist, it is difficult for you to see it. The person with a prejudice is partially blind. Prejudice and emotion are closely linked. Fear and prejudice are closely linked. The Russians have been invaded a number of times. They fear invasion. It is easy for them to see "signs" of invasion. It was almost impossible for Americans to see any "signs" of an attack on Pearl Harbor. It would be easier for them to see such signs today.
The alcoholic has never actually been invaded by these little animals in a physical sense. Yet he sees them. Is evolution involved? Is the mind contacting something in the past, something a million years in the past? Is there a group mind involved?. Does it have to do with Jung's "Collective Unconscious?' Psychologists, in an effort to portray a mystery, have sometimes spoken of the "soul of the mob."
Note that the ancients symbolized Pisces with fish, Cancer with a crab and Scorpio with a scorpion, beings even beneath the animal world. These are the three Water signs, representing the survival dynamics. The Earth signs, representing the SDR were represented by a bull, a goat and a virgin. The RD were represented by a ram, a lion and a centaur, but the RG were always represented by people, Justice holding the scales, the Water Pourer and his jug, and the twins. The ancients portrayed the emotions, the SD, with the lowest form of life, the intellect, the RG, with the highest available form of life. So when the emotional person seeks an escape in alcoholism, he meets up with the animals. If he could sink low enough, would he see fish? If the theories of evolution be true, is the sight of these animals a retrogression in time? Is there a mass-soul memory which is very faulty and subject to a great deal in the way of misinterpretation down in the Unconscious Interpretive Apparatus that we spoke about back in Lesson Two?
In religious revivals, people are often "seized" and no longer have individual control, They go with the mob, but they call it being seized by the Holy Spirit. We hear of savages and some non-savages being seized by demons. Here is a man of high education. He writes us about a demon that is making his life miserable. It clings to his stomach all the time. He tells this story to none of his acquaintances. They would think him insane. in desperation, he writes to us. We have never seen any demons and we wouldn't know what to do about them if we did. The Christian Church doesn't pay much attention to demons because demons are not respectable at present, but Christ drove demons out of people. Nowadays you don't talk about demons, and if you talk too much about the DT's, you will be suspected of keeping bad company. You may even be somewhat suspect if you had a relative who had a nervous breakdown, but a nervous breakdown is more respectable when you call it a nervous breakdown rather than an experience with demons.
Neptunian people often place a premium on any lack of "respectability. " Here is a woman in her 80's who likes to get you aside and tell you in confidence that her husband's family would have none of her, because she had once been a chorus girl. There are those to whom sex holds no thrill unless it is "illicit. " All of these people are born under Neptune afflictions, so often Mars-Neptune afflictions. We see a pattern repeated many times where a young girl from a very wealthy family is always involved with criminals and people from the underworld. Here are four cases of such girls. Each has the Sun conjunct Mars in Pisces, the sign of Neptune. Each finds it difficult to have interest in sex unless it can be regarded as illicit. There is even a thrill to having an illegitimate child. The thrill seems greater if the girl cannot be sure of who was the father.
It is important to realize that in all cases of emotional abnormality, or what we call emotional abnormality, there is a pattern. The individuals did not invent these ideas. There are too many with the same ideas, just as there are too many alcoholics who see animals. Taking these four girls born with Sun conjunct Mars in Pisces, the pattern of their lives and of their behavior is almost identical. These four all happen to come from very wealthy families Here is one who came from a poor family. She is more or less of an invalid. We know little about her, but we do note that she suddenly overcomes her health problems when she has an opportunity of "going out" with some man other than her husband. Concerning the other four girls, none of them have any interest in men on their own social level. They seek men from a lower or foreign world. They feel "at home" with these men, despite the fact that they are so completely different from the kind of men they may have met at home.
These girls all followed a pattern. It seems to have been more or less of an unconscious procedure. They followed their feelings, but their feelings followed the pattern. In doing so, is there any difference between these girls and the bees who build their rooms in the shape of hexagons? Or the snowflakes that freeze in the shape of hexagons? The girls and the bees saw no other way. It seemed the natural way. Had they known more about nature, they might have seen many other ways. They might have been saved from much grief. One of these girls recently died from an overdose of drugs, although the official report called it pneumonia. They all follow a certain pattern, because they are sentimental. Sentiment is a peculiar something. It can take you to strange places.
There are business men with plenty of money who just can't resist the opportunity of making a dishonest dollar,of putting something over on someone. They have good lawyers, and they stay out of trouble usually. But they have a yen for something that is just a little bit illegal. We greatly increased the consumption of alcohol when we made it illegal.
We call a man insane, or we call him a criminal when he is following a pattern he knows nothing about. The pattern dominates his feelings, and he follows his feelings. Does this pattern have a purpose, and if so, what is that purpose? To learn the answers to such questions, it is necessary to view things in the perspective. Stand well back and take another look. Another characteristic of Neptune is socialism in its many and varied forms. Socialism aims to bring those on the lower level up to those on the higher level, possibly to drag the higher level down somewhat to meet the lower level. The aim seems to be to equalize things, even if the result is quite often contrary to the aim. The FSD and the FSR are trying to protect the family pattern as it has been. In the extreme, this can lead to incest, but when the SSD becomes involved with he FSD, there seems definitely an attraction between races. Who can always say who is lower and who is higher? A man with Mars conjunct Sun in Pisces married a full-blooded Indian girl. One of the girls mentioned above, daughter of the wealthiest family in one particular state, was known to have a number of affairs with Negroes. When Neptune becomes involved in sex matters, the inclination seems to be to go to the very opposite extreme from incest. Go so far away that there is no possibility of touching a gene of one's own family. If you are an Englishman and you marry a Chinese girl, this would accomplish such an objective. Meanwhile, royalty will play closer to incest, marrying cousins, etc. Either extreme is often frowned upon by respectability. The mother and father of the boy or girl who marries into a Chinese family are likely to be a bit unhappy.
Below the border in Mexico, life is more Neptunian. All the races inter-marry until it is difficult to distinguish between the Spanish, the Indian and the Negro. No fixed lines are drawn except in some circles, and the rules of these circles have no effect upon the populace as a whole. A girl is protected from men until she is married, and then she is on her own. So long as she has a husband to give a name to her children, little concern is shown as to whose children they might be. Almost everyone belongs to the church with no feeling that the rules of the church are to be considered as binding.
Neither socialism nor communism were invented by anyone named Marx. The pattern was in nature. The Apache Indians were more communist than the Russian Communists. However, their brand of communism or socialism included individual freedom. No Apache ever went to war involuntarily. Conscientious objectors were respected for their views. We Americans are a lot like the English. We feel honor bound to force our views, customs and religion on all other races. To the best of our ability, we try to look down on all other races. We have already prejudged almost everything. How many people are there in Chicago who do not believe that their city is the second largest in the western hemisphere? How many would know that Mexico City which had 630,000 population in 1900, is now larger than Chicago.
Every astrological principle involves a pattern of nature. The SSD involves such a pattern. We know too little about it. To know more about it, we must study all forms of illness, insanity and crime. Astrologically, they all have to do with the same pattern. They may involve something far in the past. We don't know. However, the first thing a psychiatrist does is dig into your past. Freud went back to the ideas of the ancients when he began looking for patterns and symbols in dreams and in human behavior. The future possibilities of psychiatry would appear almost unlimited as it may be expected to increase the scope of its frame of reference.
Neptunian people are often accused of dishonesty and falsehood, but a lot is dependent upon our definition of both honesty and truth. There is no question but that Neptune involves much in the way of misinterpretation, but the pathological liar may be telling what he believes to be the truth, while a lot of our accepted orthodox truths should be classified as pathological lying. They are merely interpretations based on prejudgment or prejudice.
Here is an elderly Neptunian lady who was always seeing things, and she believed them to be precognitive. She saw gold beneath the surface of the ranch, hidden, buried gold. She supervised while her husband and son dug a hole the size of a swimming pool. They found no gold. These visions came frequently, but there was no evidence that any of them were precognitive. One day she told us of such a vision She had been watching a road at a certain point when a car had plunged off the road over an embankment. Daily, she was expecting a car to plunge over this embankment. We were reminded of her "vision" five years later when, under the influence of alcohol, her husband was killed as his car plunged over the embankment at this very point.This lady was filled with visions, but insofar as we know, this was the only one that ever came true. Were most of them misinterpretations?
Let us avoid extremes. It would be untrue to claim that orthodoxy is either all right or all wrong, but orthodoxy is a fact that comes into being. Neptunianism is also a fact that ever challenges the wisdom of orthodoxy. When there is too much of a concentration of wealth, Neptunianism is out to scatter it to the masses -- legally or illegally. When royalty gets closer and closer to incest, there is always an unrespectable member of the family born to have scandal with a servant or a commoner. The great trouble with orthodoxy is that it degenerates into habit and becomes a substitute for thinking. At that point, Neptune is ready to have a heyday.
We see Neptunianism flourishing in certain groups, in places like Greenwich Village, in colonies of artists, perhaps in Hollywood, and often among groups classifying themselves erroneously as intellectuals. Neptunianism oddly produces artists, and the greatest of actors and actresses. They actually become the personalities they portray. A man is often viewed as insane when he begins to take on the characteristics of Napoleon.
If we view some of the "crackpot" socialistic ideas that braintrusters were thrusting upon us in 1933, we discover that they could not have been too bad, because they have now become a part of orthodoxy itself. Sacrifice is a part of the Neptunian principle. Cells in the human body will sacrifice their individuality and their bodies to become a part of the wall that is to heal a wound. When gasoline is poured into an ant hill and ignited, ants will dash into the flame and become completely consumed in their effort to save the queen. We see the Neptunian individual sacrifice everything that would be endeared to another in a struggle to follow some hidden pattern that is never even seen by the individual. We merely place it all under the head of sentiment.
We have asked that you stand well back and view Neptunianism in the perspective. When you do this, you will see that individuals are sacrificing themselves and everything the rest of us hold dear. We see that reward comes in the form of illness and imprisonment, loss of individual liberty and loss of an independent place in the world. Yet, so often, when we study the trend of events many years later we can see how a purpose was served. The men who get most involved in international diplomacy are often the most Neptunian type of men. Most international organizations are Neptunian. It would appear to be an effort to supersede familyism and nationalism with something more universal. It is not the Aquarian who talks about the brotherhood of man, as so many writers, usually Aquarians like Evangeline Adam, have told us. The brotherhood of man idea is strictly Neptunian - - not Aquarian. Evangeline Adams actually had Pisces as the ascendant of her chart. Here is another Sun-in-Aquarius astrologer who wrote in like terms, but he had Mars in opposition to Neptune. Pisces can visualize one world where all share and share alike, and it is interesting to note that this Neptunian pattern tends to supersede familyism by also advocating that there be a sharing of mates as is quite common among the Eskimos. If we are to understand Neptunianism, we must look beyond geographical and racial borders. We must look beyond the habits and conventions of anyone people or of any one species. It is something we know very little about. Yet it is one of the most effective forces with which we must deal every day.
We have had our share of Neptunianism in the world of astrology over the last hundred years. It wasn't the astrology of the ancients. The Neptunian astrologers were a mixed up, confused group. They were sometimes arrested for "fortune telling. " They were not people of a scientific viewpoint. There was nothing scientific about them. Some of them might cheat a little to make a prediction look good. They wrote for astrology magazines, and few of their predictions came true, but let us look at the overall effect. They were sentimentalists. They followed their intuition - - what seemed right to them.
Surely they were more right than the reactionary astronomers who were endeavoring by every fair means or foul to load the public with falsehoods, telling the public that the astronomers had disproved astrology at a time when not one astronomer who had investigated the subject had ever condemned it. These were the same astronomers who were offering their own dogma in the name of Sir Isaac Newton without his consent. Whatever else we may say about the Neptunian astrologers, we owe it to them that they kept the flame alive. Were it not for them, the rest of us might have had nothing to investigate. Even if their presentations were colored with emotionalism, or outright imagination, they did keep our interest alive, and they gave us a starting point from which to begin our own investigations.
We might make a serious error if we conclude that this mysterious Neptunianism has no good purpose. When viewed from a narrow, momentary vista, we are apt to condemn it, but too often its beneficial effect may actually lie centuries ahead. It is a part of Nature herself. We do not know enough about Nature to condemn any of her subdivisions. The stupid man may be following a design that we know nothing about. We know nothing about too much.
There often appears to be no common sense where Neptune is concerned. It never seems to make sense during one century, but perhaps it makes sense over a number of centuries or over millions of years. We have spoken only about the so-called negative aspects of Neptune. What about the so-called favorable aspects? What about the man who becomes greasy with oil millions? The earliest book on Neptune connected it with oil. That was the book of Elizabeth Aldrich, an astrologer with an uncanny ability to predict the future accurately. At the one time in his life when Neptune trined the Sun and Mercury in the writer's chart, two odd things happened. He could write poetry by the yard, and he made money out of oil. It just seemed to happen that way.At no other time in his life could he even tolerate reading poetry. He was not living in that rhythm. It was too slow for him.
Under a strong and so-called favorable influence, one man makes money out of oil. Oil is millions of years old. Another man may make a success with a popular band: but are not most popular bands actually appealing to something primitive within us? Are they not reviving a bit of the savage? Is it not an expression from way back somewhere? We are left with the impression that Neptune has to do with some rhythm that is very, very old. Perhaps we are being Neptunian ourselves in allowing such a statement to creep into these pages, for after all we positively do not know.
Neptune has also been identified with spiritualism. Neptunian people are often found contacting or trying to contact the spirits of the departed. Isn't that a form of retrogression, endeavoring to bring back those you knew yesterday? Take those who investigate such phenomena as haunted houses. We often find them supposedly contacting spirits of hundreds of years ago. Here is an old lady who constantly claims to be in contact with the spirits of such people as Pythagorus. That's going back 2500 years. Let us pay no attention to whether or not there is any truth to what this old lady tells us, but let us observe the pattern that exists in all of these cases
Let us note that the interest is not in the future but far, far into the past. These people are trying to live yesterday. This seems to be true of the negative Neptunian aspects, but the negative aspects deal with the past, while the positive aspects deal with the future. Nevertheless, Neptune itself would seem to have some connection with something way, way back.
Strange things happen when some people go into trances, but observe how, in the majority of cases, there is an endeavor to arouse the past. Certainly, our physical bodies - - through heredity and evolution - - have a contact that goes far into the past, and Neptune seems to be in some mysterious way involved with these things. It may also be observed that people who practice trance phenomena as mediums very often degenerate into ill health. We find Neptune associated with the problem of ill health. In many instances good health is dependent upon one's ability to digest the past and get on with the future.
We must be very careful about making any positive statements in connection with these health views, because the research to back them up has not yet been accomplished. Nevertheless we cannot help but observe that we can bring about a great change in the well being of a client by merely asking questions. The questions are always carefully designed to allow the client to digest the past in order to go on with the future. Here is a lady who arrives in a depressive state. She is frustrated, because the things she wants from life never happen. What does she want? What does she want to do? She tells us what she wants to do and we ask why she doesn't do it. Her reasons are not very deep reasons. They are rather superficial, and so we insist that she find better reasons. There must be better reasons. Otherwise, she would go right ahead and do it. From here on, there are two possible courses which she might take. She may go ahead and do what she wants to do, or she may discover that she never really wanted to do it at all. She had convinced herself that she wanted to do it merely because she believed there was something to prevent her from doing it. In either case, the physical change is the same. As one who has seen the light, her face lights up. There is facial expression in a face that appeared like putty a few moments earlier. There is a smile, and there is sparkle in the eyes. Also, there has been a mental change. While we have been talking, a plan for the future has developed. Now, she knows what she does want, and she has every intention of getting it. Her mind has left the past behind and is absorbed only with the future. She is happy because she has a happy outlook. People with a happy view of the future seem to be healthy people, while people with an unhappy view of the past seem to be unhealthy people. Even people with a happy view of the past seem to be less healthy than those with a happy view of the future.
The principle involved here would appear to be that bad health seems to have some connection with an undigested past, although we do not know to what ratio of illness this might apply, any more than we could tell you the exact ratio of all illness which might be psychosomatic. The problem is seldom on the conscious level, however, for it is deep within the subconscious, where the Unconscious Interpretive Apparatus has usually been responsible for misinterpretations plus erroneous conclusions which are based on misinterpretations.
Hubbard has used the term "necessity level. " Take the woman who loves her child and realizes that the child is in danger. She must act in order to change the future from what it will be if she does not act. She reaches the necessity level. Her feelings about the future of the child outweigh any feelings she may have about her own illness or her own welfare. The child is more important. She "forgets" her own illness. It is no longer a part of her consciousness. She acts, and she changes what the future would otherwise have been. Of course this would not supply arms and legs to act to a person who had all limbs amputated.
We are constantly asked to recommend good books on medical astrology. There are no such books in print, and those that are out of print are hardly worth recommending. They contain a lot of very basic errors. What we need is a monstrous research program. We must first identify and classify each type of illness according to the kind of planetary pattern to which it belongs. When we do this, we will have a much broader understanding of illness. We can practically say that it will be possible to express an illness in the form of a mathematical equation involving the human dynamics. We may find that we have to begin by classifying illness into three basic types - - individual illness, family illness and social illness, involving the corresponding dynamics. Our own experience has led to the belief (perhaps premature) that the most difficult illness will be found to be social illness, but that even this may be cured by allowing the patient to see just how he can successfully fit himself into society.
Of course we must be able to reach the patient. In the case of mentioned clients, these people were anxious to be reached. They were willing to pay good money to be reached. There was no reluctance to talk about their problems. They like to talk about their problems and about themselves. They are only too happy to tell you anything you want to know. Other people who regard the matter as very personal, something they do not care to discuss with anybody, must solve the problem for themselves or find some other method.
Next, it must be realized that therapy is not our business. We have no time for therapy. That is the work of the physician. But, if we can help the physician to understand a particular illness as a mathematical equation, then he can employ his own methods to make whatever adjustments may be necessary to bring about good health. The problem is merely to make the body want to behave. We must be alert to notice that illness usually seems to serve some purpose. It may not be a good purpose, but the subconscious must be brought up to the conscious level where the patient can understand what is going on.
Fear is often involved. The patient may fear the worst, and for that reason, he may not want to know what is going on in the subconscious. In that case, the fear factor must be overcome, but we have found that this can often be accomplished by not allowing the patient to know what is going on. Don't allow him to know that any attempt at therapy is taking place. Just ask questions. Let him think you are curious. Most people do like to talk about themselves. Ignore whether what they are telling you is truth or untruth. Most people will want to be polite, particularly if they don't know you too well. They are apt to have more outward respect for someone they don't know very well. Through questions, you can make them think, and even if they don't want to tell you the truth, you can help them to tell the truth to themselves, and that is what really counts.
One such client repeatedly used the expression, "Well, I didn't mean just what I said. " We would always ask him what he did mean, and he would start over again. His new explanation always proved just as futile. He perspired a bit and it was obvious that he was concealing anger. However, he was fighting a terrific battle within himself, for he was going through a violent reevaluation, of his own past life. When he finally left, he looked anything but cured, but one hour later he telephoned. He wanted our approval of a plan that had developed in his mind within that hour. We gave our approval to the plan, and there has been nothing wrong with this man since. He was rid of a problem that had been constantly with him for twenty years. He had digested the past, and the past was gone. It no longer had any hhold on him. After all, you know that your mind does not function well when you have indigestion, and it doesn't seem to make any difference whether it involves food indigestion or emotional indigestion. Emotional indigestion seems to be one of the principle causes of illness, but particularly mental illness.
We are forced to include all crime as illness, often a form of mental illness. The man who is in prison has had difficulty fitting himself into society, or perhaps difficulty in merely fitting himself into a family. It may not have been his fault. Society may not feel that it owes each man a living, but it would do itself a favor if it would realize that it is brewing trouble for itself when it shirks its responsibility and leaves the individual to shift for himself. Most men like Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini were at some time neglected or ignored by society. The man who is neglected by society may harbor a grudge. He may grow very powerful, and when he does, it is society that suffers. Just count the men, women and children who had to die because of the trend of development of these three men. One of man's most powerful traits is his desire to imitate. We beat children to control them, and in doing so we teach them that the way to accomplish things in this life is to go along with the theme that might makes right. We train men to kill other men for war purposes, but we expect them to be mild at all times except when they are killing our particular enemies.
Although it may be an individual who gets sick, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is society that is often at fault. In fact, it is society itself that is sick. What shows up in the individual is merely a symptom of what is wrong with society itself. It is difficult for society to change its habits. It is sick as long as it clings to hypocrisy and dogma. We cannot afford to spend money on better mental institutions and better research, but we can spend any number of billions on war and preparation for war. We can spend any amount of money to keep tomorrow like yesterday, but we are afraid to have it different and better. Fortunately, this has not been the attitude some of the big corporations, but recent years have also been bringing men into public life who are willing to change things, too.
Yet, how far have we advanced? Suppose that tomorrow we were to ask the government to appropriate a few million dollars for a broad statistical investigation into astrology. We could expect violent opposition from astronomers, physicists, the church, and various organizations interested in keeping tomorrow like yesterday. If we are going to do the job, we have got to do it by ourselves. If we are going to have the rest of the world benefit from our work, we are first going to have to re-educate the rest of the world, including the people who run and teach in universities and schools. Society itself is sick, and it is more difficult to cure society than to cure the individual.
There is a philosophy behind Neptune and it is worthy of study, for until we understand it, we are going to have problems. The strongly Neptunian individual secretly, subtly and deliberately opposes organized society. The fault is not all on one side. There is plenty wrong with organized society. One of the worst illnesses of modern society is its so-called "respectability." Even cattle are herded but twice a year, but humans are herded every day. They are told what to wear, how to act, and where to be at a given time. If an individualist wants to survive as an individualist, he must become an employer instead of an employee. The Neptunian person may survive by working against society, by being on the other side, like the old-time bootlegger who became mighty popular so long as he wasn't caught. One of the greatest evils of respectability is that it is just plain phony. Many of these persons who have found their way into Neptunian difficulties were first impressed with the phoniness of respectability. At that point, they showed more intelligence than those who were not so impressed. However, the first inclination is to be respectable on one side and not on the other - - to live a double life and have double standards. Being respectable on one side and not on the other is something that leads to conflict within the subconscious. Any attempt to represent yourself, either to yourself or to the outside world, as something you are not leads to inner conflict which can ultimately manifest as some form of illness. It is even more dangerous to misrepresent yourself to yourself than to the outside world. Mercury-Neptune aspects can lead to mental confusion. Venus- Neptune aspects can add to social confusion, romantic confusion, setting up the criminal as a god, etc. Mars-Neptune aspects can lead to emotional and particularly sex confusion. Jupiter-Neptune aspects can lead to philosophical, religious and educational confusion. Saturn- Neptune aspects, often the worst of all, can lead to physical confusion within the body itself, financial confusion, and bad health. The direction that Uranus-Neptune aspects may take is largely dependent upon other factors in the chart, but they are usually accompanied by a great deal in the way of nervousness and restlessness. Pluto-Neptune aspects may often be associated with efforts that are so broad that they become impossible. This is mainly true of the so-called negative aspects of which sloppiness is also characteristic. The so-called favorable aspects of Neptune are creative. They seem to furnish artistic expression. They may produce the musician, the poet, the artist and the actor as well as the salesman. There is rhythm, and they make life a lot easier. Even the so-called favorable aspects, however, are apt to have a tinge of the negative qualities we have already noted.
A good Neptune likes to live an easy life of luxury. We find it tuning into society as it finds it, and taking personal advantage of all of its weaknesses. A good Neptune can be the biggest asset of the psychologist. It can be very helpful to the physician. A good Neptune is an artist. It is what we would call the bedside manner of the physician, the finesse of the advertising man or the salesman. He is fitting himself into society whether he believes in it or not. He probably doesn't. A good Neptune in a chart seems to give the individual the ability to recognize life and society for what they are and to take advantage of them. The fisherman has learned that fish like worms, but he puts the worm on a hook. It is possible that the symbol of Pisces, with its two fish, should have a hook there somewhere. One of the great difficulties of the negative Neptunian conditions is that whatever is organized breaks down. There is disintegration. There is sloppiness, a lack of neatness and order. A condition of decay sets in, and this seems to be the pattern whether the problem concerns society at large or cells within the human body. It almost seems that when we insist upon living in the past, a condition of decay sets in. An old person has more past to live in. There isn't much for a child to remember. His view is always forward.
Whenever you run up against negative Neptunian aspects, you must be on the alert for health problems. Organization breaks down. There is chaos. This can apply within the cells of the human body, or it can apply to a person's thinking. The emotions can be all mixed up. The medical world is spending millions of dollars for research, while ignoring the most important facts of all. These facts are being ignored for the sake of "respectability. " We must be wrong in order to be respectable. With all of the research we have seen to date relative to cancer, Dr. George Crile, Jr. points out that the death rate among physicians themselves, due to cancer, is just as high among laymen who neglect the signs of cancer. We are very jealous of methods that repeatedly fail. We hang on to them for security. We do not dare let go. "Something" might happen. Thus, our efforts are bound to be hampered until society has been reeducated. We must accomplish this ourselves in our own way. We must by-pass the orthodox educational institutions and build a new institution to a better pattern. This can be done, and it is our intention to do it. Orthodox educational institutions are living in the past to a great extent. We must not allow this to disturb us. We can go on without them. We can build the future while they are living the past.
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