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In lesson XVI, we discussed some of the problems involving the Social Survival Dynamic. All such problems are pathological to some degree. It is merely a matter of what standard is accepted. Where does sanity end and where does insanity begin? When the ISD or the FSD get too far out of hand, society classifies the result as crime, but when the SSD gets out of hand, society often rates it as mental illness or insanity. In all cases, it is a matter of the individual being unable to control the dynamic forces that come up from the unconscious, because he knows nothing about them and does not understand them. There are times when whole groups of people lose control. To a certain degree, society itself is pathological. Advertising copy-writers, orators, demagogues and some evangelists make their appeal to the pathological element within society. A large ratio of people never say what they think. They say what they think will make other people have a higher regard for them. We know an astronomer who publicly condemns astrology because he thinks that is what other astronomers and those he works for expect him to do. Yet, on the second floor of his home is a hidden library containing nothing but astrological books. He buys all the astrology magazines. He studies and employs astrology constantly. He proudly disclosed his astrological library to the writer because he thought the writer, being an astrologer, would have a higher regard for him.
Most of our own experience to date has been, not with the insane or pathological, but with the semi-pathological. You find it almost everywhere. Here is a lad who could be considered very close to the pathological. He has many mental and emotional problems. He drinks a good deal in order to escape them. He does wild things. He bought one of the first jeeps to be sold to the public after World War Ii. He amused himself all day Sunday by driving wild through the neighborhood, not over conventional thoroughfares, but over curbs, across people's lawns and gardens, and incidentally doing a good deal of damage. There were not too many complaints, because no one could quite understand what had happened or what it was all about. A few thought. it was good clean fun. After all, nobody was killed. He talked like a child.
He acted like a child, and he could think of a lot of very silly things to say which would probably seem funny to many children. Anyway, he worked for an advertising agency, and he thought of something very silly to say about a product of a client. The agency decided to give it a whirl. It didn't mean anything, but when everybody got to repeating it, it was so ridiculous and suggestive that they all started laughing. Soon, we were all hearing it over the radio and seeing it in ads. It kept repeating itself in the minds of house-wives, and it seemed to have a certain rhythm. Sales began to mount-and then skyrocket. The agency had discovered a genius. He was made vice president, and his salary was jumped from $4,000 to $35,000. The lad is still very much on the pathological side. He has more emotional problems today, but he has more money to pay for more damage. It is possible that we are overlooking our best advertising talent by not combing inmates of mental institutions.
In the late 20's, just before the crash in the stock market, two young men had an automobile company. They were playboys. They got around. They were artistic. Their cars had a smooth design. They appealed to those who liked a sports-car. On the stock exchange, the stock was spectacular. It could jump from here to there at any moment, and often did. It appealed to the speculator. It attracted attention, as did the cars.
A very wealthy and elderly man, looking on from the side lines, decided that here was progress. This company should be a good investment. Whenever the stock would dip, he would buy in and accumulate more of the stock. One afternoon, a Park Avenue friend invited him to a cocktail party. He arrived, but the party got out of hand. Two wild Indians arrived and went berserk. Some of the sedate ladies had part of their apparel torn away. Furniture was wrecked, and the place was almost a shambles. No one could bring things under control.
"Who are those idiots?" the elderly man asked of his host.
"Why, one is the president, the other the treasurer of X-motors," the host replied.
The elderly man hurriedly left, reached his broker on a phone, and ordered him to liquidate all of his holdings in X Motors on the opening of the market on the following day. Oddly, they don't make that automobile any more, and modern youth probably never heard of it. Naturally, X-Motors is not the real name of the company.
Joe Cook was one of the most popular vaudeville actors of three decades ago. He had a very amusing skit.. From the stage, he told an amusing story about four. Hawaiians. As the story proceeded, it kept leading further and further away from the starting point. Since it was told. with great excitement, this was not clear to the audience, but it was still exciting, and the audience listened, awaiting the ultimate climax, or to find out where the story was going. At the outset, Cook had announced That he was not going to imitate four Hawaiians, and offered to explain why he was not going to imitate four Hawaiians. Thereupon, Joe explained how his grandfather's farm had originally been on the site of the theater itself. He talked about his grandfather, friends of his grandfather, drifted further and further away, until the entire audience had completely forgotten about the four Hawaiians or the beginning of the story. Suddenly, Joe stopped and. told his audience,. "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I will not imitate four Hawaiians."The effect was terrific, because until that moment, everyone had completely forgotten about the Hawaiians.
We will find a similar technique if we read the speeches of Franklin D. Roosevelt. His action was quite frequently the opposite of that promised, but unlike Joe Cook, he never reminded his audience about the Hawaiians. He always went on to something else. Unfulfilled promises were always completely concealed behind exciting new promises.
The average man in the street can become. a hero-worshipper of a clever, colorful crook who can keep from getting caught. He honors the names of Jesse James, Billy the Kid., etc. The Westchester County police arrested such a man who was wanted from California to New York. He was very polished. By adopting a false name, he managed to be received into the homes of the most wealthy. He would case the house, and later return to pilfer it of its jewels, etc. One of the arresting officers told the writer, "Honest, he is the swellest guy. You'll love him."
Cochise and Geronimo, the cruelest of men, are now honored as heroes. They were not understood. Give us time to forget our pain, and we will glorify Hitler and Stalin in our history books in the same manner. We will explain that they were never understood. The principal purpose of the law is to protect the wealth and property of people who have wealth and property, but almost everyone worships a Robin Hood who will take away from the rich and give to the poor. Give us time, and we will make Robin Hoods out of Stalin and Hitler.
If we are going to understand the Social Survival Dynamic. and its functioning, we must realize that society itself is, to an unknown extent, mentally ill. Here is a psychiatrist who had a "nervous breakdown" Let's see what happened. He was a gentle soul. He hated war. He did not want to become a party to it. He became a conscientious objector. He was slapped in jail, and when his freedom was returned to him, he was never the same. There was a conflict within his unconscious, a conflict that involved his conception of justice and righteousness. Society had placed him in jail to teach him a lesson, to teach him to mend his ways, to become a good citizen and go out and kill people when commanded to do so. You are normal in society when you do what you are told to do and soothe your conscience by explaining to yourself that there was no other way.
The warden of a Federal prison shook his head and told us, "They are not punished while they are here. They are punished after they are released. They can never fit themselves back into society. There is no place for them."
There are many varieties of insanity, and we are not authorities on these many kinds, but it is only the extreme cases and the violent cases that are considered pathological. There is a little bit of the pathological in everyone. In the actual pathological cases that we have observed, we have noted many cases where the "disease" appears to have been brought on by a conflict resulting from the individuals inability to fit himself into a society that he considered filled with injustice. There was an attempt to escape from an unjust world which amounted to a retreat within the individual's self. It was more peaceful there. "Reality" was left behind. Mental crackups come when people are under very strong Neptunian aspects, and when people are under very strong Neptunian aspects, they get sentimental. The sadist is often extremely kind and loving to animals.
One day, we picked up a magazine and read a very humorous story by Shane Miller. The theme of the story was that the people in mental institutions are the only normal people, and that it is society that is insane. The hero of the story met a man of great wisdom who imparted great truths to our hero, until two men in white uniforms arrived and led him gently back to the institution from which he had escaped. We probably enjoyed this story more than you would because we were present at its conception. Early one morning, we accidentally ran into Shane Miller at the corner of 57th Street and Seventh Avenue in New York. Neither of us had eaten breakfast, so we entered a restaurant and had it together. We jokingly discussed the inconsistencies of society, until Shane said, "This gives me an idea for a story. I'm going to claim that the only sane people are the insane peoples." We laughed and that was the end of the matter until we ran into the story in a magazine.
We have earlier stated that Neptune doesn't appear to make sense. We might also say that insanity doesn't make sense, but would we be right. The pathological liar is quite common. You don't have to go to an insane asylum to find him. He might be a very successful real estate salesman. You might find him as the top man in an advertising agency. Industry boomed when the men with Neptune in Cancer became old enough to start selling. Of course, all the men with Neptune in Cancer did not become good salesman, but many of those with afflicted Neptunes in Cancer became crack salesmen. They also became crack drinkers, and drinking and selling were closely allied.
Study the pathological liar carefully, and you can learn a great deal. You will find that his lying conforms to a pattern that he knows nothing about. Its base is probably an unconscious fear. He may, and probably does, believe everything he tells at that moment when he is telling it, but he may wonder about it later and wonder why he told some of the things he did tell. He doesn't know, but there is a reason, and when you dig into the subconscious, you will find the reason. If you can help him to know the reason, he will no longer be a pathological liar. Their children lie, their parents beat them, and the conflict with the injustice of a pathological society begins. The child itself may become pathological. It is having forced down into its unconscious the belief that might makes right and that the only right is that of might. Laws are made by adults, and consequently, you can go to jail if you beat an adult but seldom for beating a child. If the child reported a beating to the police, he might be taken home to his parents where he would get another beating. We can recall cases of children who would never dare tell their parents that they were beaten at school by a teacher, because if they did the parents would beat them again at home for getting beaten by a teacher at school. There seems to be nothing in the law that guarantees a fair trial or any other kind of a trial for a chiId--only for adults. If a man beats his child, it is assumed that the child deserved it, but if he beats the man who lives next door, he is. regarded as a criminal and can receive a jail sentence. This is intended to teach him a lesson, not to beat big people, just little people. However, the law does definitely draw a line. Don't kill the child. Under any conditions, that's murder.
The politician can stir up votes in some sections of the south by talking about white supremacy. He can stir up votes in other sections of the country by taking the opposite view. Hitler stirred up votes by vilifying the Jews. Some physicians complain about women who want an operation over the advice of the physician and will go to the quack in order to get one. All of these things are evidence of disease in society itself. All of these things are the result of the survival dynamics gone wrong. The important thing to realize about mental illness is that there is a pattern in the background. There is a reason. There is a conflict. Some people can become pathological merely because they have consciences and cannot understand the pathological society into which they are supposed to adjust themselves. This is often where an inner conflict begins, and then it gets out of hand. The mild may become violent.
We have talked with some very prominent judges of criminal courts. We have heard them pass severe sentences on people who did not deserve them, because it was what was expected of them, and we have questioned these sentences in later conversations with the judges. One judge said, "Look, you're on the sentimental side. We don't make the laws. We just do what is expected of us. Forget it, and let's have a drink."
Of course, the drink would let him forget it, or at least help in that direction. We questioned the evidence in another case, and asked the judge how he could justify himself if he had sent an innocent man to jail. "I'm only human," he said, "I have to handle a lot of cases, and I have to make some kind of a decision based on what things look like. Do you expect me to get my decision from some higher all-knowing power? There is a job to be done and we have got to do it."
It is interesting to us to observe that many of the judges we have known in the eastern part of the country were heavy drinkers and heavy gamblers in hours when they were not on the bench. We have seen less of that in the west. It is all a part of the pathological side of society itself. You will get along much better with society when you realize; it is somewhat pathological. It won't give you as many problems when you understand what it is, when you realize that society itself is the patient, and that it needs to be treated like a patient. You have to be gentle with a patient. Nevertheless, it can be very amusing when you stand aside and view society in the perspective. It can help greatly when you decide to get along with society without actually becoming a part of it. Then you are free to do your own thinking, instead of allowing your thinking to become a mere reflection of the group thought. It is very easy to get caught up in group thinking, to accept conceptions because they are generally accepted.
Here is another judge. He was a very good judge, a very fair one. We had the Sun conjunct Saturn in Pisces. He was quiet, seldom expressing an opinion on anything when it wasn't necessary, but he was always observing. You never heard him offer an opinion about anyone in politics. One Sunday morning, we stopped in to see him at his home. We discussed certain important political figures. He cut loose. These were some of the most respected citizens we were talking about, but underneath, their principles were of a very low and selfish nature. The judge wouldn't discuss these folks ordinarily. They were powerful and a wrong word uttered about them could cost him his job. This morning, the judge told us the truth about these people in confidence.
About eight years passed. We moved west, and then one day there were headlines in the papers. Mars had been stationary in Pisces for six months. Something had happened to the judge. He had gone haywire. We had swindled some people out of $150,000 and said that he lost it all at the race tracks. We were surprised because we regarded the judge as one of the most honorable people we had known. We looked further. Who were the people swindled Here were the names. We knew them all. They were those same political figures who were enjoying respected places in the community, but who were using those places to practice every type of legal deviltry. Something had happened to the judge. We became a swindler, and he is now resting in jail. We might-say he cracked up mentally, but note the pattern. He had punished the men that others had no power to punish. They were too strong politically. The judge sacrificed himself. This is a typical Neptunian story. It is the strange sort of thing we run up against when we deal with very strong Neptunian configurations. Over the years, there was something that always puzzled us about the judge. We always wondered about that Sun conjunct Saturn in Pisces, the sign of Neptune. We had never seen it manifest. It was something hidden in his nature that we could not detect, but it finally came to the surface in a drastic manner. As this is written, the judge has not been tried, so we do not know the final outcome.
If all the other children believe that it is fashionable to break windows, it is very tough on the one child who does not want to break windows. The other children will jeer him. If he wants to be a part of this society, he must break windows. Adults are like that too. If you are going to be a part of society, you are supposed to adopt its habits. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. If you are going to live in New York, unless you dress like other people in New York, it will be assumed there is something wrong with you. It may be common for women to wear shorts in one community, but in some other community she will be arrested. No matter how insane standards of society may be, you are supposed to follow them. Then people are under negative Neptunian aspects, they often find social customs distasteful. They retreat within themselves, and when they retreat far enough, they seem to lose contact with what we call reality. If we can't reach them, if we can't call them back, we consider them insane. Their behavior begins to be abnormal. However, if your observation is alert, you may soon see that their behavior is following a very definite pattern. Whatever injustices the person may do to others, he is quite likely to believe that he is the victim of just that type of injustice. He tends to inflict upon others the very injustice from which he believes himself to be suffering.
When under very strong and negative Neptunian aspects, it is very common for a person to accuse other people, and when you probe you find he is accusing the other person of his own conduct. This conduct comes up automatically from his own subconscious in the form of compulsions. The pattern of that conduct is within him, but he see it or suspects it in others. In California while Mars was in Pisces two women kidnapped a third woman and left her for dead on the desert. Following this, they appeared at a police station and reported they had been kidnapped and left on the desert. They informed the police that they suspected a certain woman and her husband of being behind the kidnapping. They named the woman they had left on the desert for dead, but she was not dead.
Here is a man who sat up nights dreaming about his employees plotting against him. He suspected everyone who worked for him. Honest employees would take little of that and they soon left. He kept the other kind. They would steal from him, but if they would confess he would not discharge or prosecute them. He would become closer to them and apologize for them. This did not show up in his chart except for an excess of Cancer and Scorpio, but his wife had Mars exactly on his Neptune. They both became alcoholics. Yet, he always prospered financially. Periodically, the man would suffer from fraud or theft, but these were elements that he was continually manufacturing within himself and then projecting into the outside world. He never surrounded himself with honest men. He appeared to be afraid of honest men. He didn't feel at home with them. When he left for the office, one of his private detectives was waiting to take over and watch his wife while he was gone. At the end of the day, he had to have a complete report on what his wife had been doing all day.
A certain pattern of behavior originates in the mind of the person with heavy Neptunian afflictions, and he sees that type of behavior in all other persons. He can see no honest people in the world. For him, they never exist, and if one comes along he will find a way of getting rid of him. He sees the same pattern everywhere in the outside world, but he never becomes conscious of the fact that the real pattern is not out there but within himself. He believes his wife guilty of adultery because why wouldn't she be if she had the chance? To have the opportunity means guilt. In the extreme, this sort of thinking may not be common, but in its milder forms, we find it everywhere. A certain pattern of thought bombards the mind of the individual and he is unable to escape it because he does not understand it.
Quite often, a client sits on the opposite side of our desk. He tells of his experiences. He has been repeatedly victimized. We wants to know whether astrology can offer some explanation as to why he is always being victimized. Investigation reveals that none of these things ever happened. He is the person who is repeatedly swindling people. The stories that he tells are not about things that have happened to him. He is playing the part of the people he has actually swindled. He is telling what he has done to others. He is telling the story of his own victims. He is playing their role. However, it took us a long time to discover or believe one thing. He actually believes the stories he tells. He is not consciously. deceiving us. Things take a peculiar twist down in his subconscious. He actually believes that other people have done to him all of the things that he has done to others, and he is suffering from those acts. This is a strange inverse working of the golden rule. It becomes a form of self-punishment. He is being punished by his own past.
There are Neptunian people who never tell the truth. When the truth makes a good story, they have to think up one that would seem more logical to them. A great many such stories of such people have been told to us by a certain District Attorney who is always hesitant about prosecuting a rape case. He is always fearful that the man may have been framed. One case had been thoroughly investigated by the police, but he was not satisfied. He sent for the girl and asked her to tell him personally the whole story from the beginning. He heard the details of rape out on the desert. Finally, he questioned her on a detail that had not been filled.
"Well now, all of this happened out on the desert a considerable distance from town. When this was all over, what did he do? Did he drive you back to town?" The girl replied, "Well first., we went out for coffee....."
Now, the District Attorney really probed. Finally, the girl broke down and explained the real story. Her husband had been out for the evening. She had made a date. She did not get home till 4:OO A.M., and found herself panic-stricken when she faced her husband. She had to think fast. She told her husband of an awful experience, of how she had been raped. The trusting husband immediately called the police. She had to follow through with the story because she could think of no ether way. The victim was the man who was about to be tried. The police failed to see through the deception of her story.
Another girl had been found tied up on the desert but near the road where her screams attracted attention. She told a similar story of rape, but under questioning ultimately broke down and admitted that she had arranged the whole thing herself, having her boy friend tie her up, because she wanted to make her husband jealous.
All such behavior involves something akin to the pathological, and it is always related to Neptune, its nodes, Pisces or the Sixth House. The pattern varies depending upon how these factors are involved with what other planets, etc. You must not be impulsive about concluding that all Neptunian cases work this way. Don't conclude that a person is guilty because of a Neptunian condition in his chart, because strong Neptunian charts will attract the pathological. Oppositions of Neptune do this,and Virgo, being the opposite to Pisces, can often attract the pathological. The same can be said of strong Mercury conditions or of l2th House conditions, because the 12th is opposite the 6th. Mercury has been described as the Messenger of the gods, which is quite false unless we have some very wicked gods. It is not the nature of Mercury to tell the truth unless it is very well aspected, but this does not mean that the individual willingly falsifies things. He is merely automatically telling what he thinks he is expected to tell. If he is expected to lie, or if he thinks he is expected to lie, he will lie.
The man or woman who wants attention may do almost anything to get it. During the Hauptman case, following the Lindberg kidnapping, the writer spent many months working on the case for a magazine. The case itself was a hysteria. Neptunian people everywhere seemed to sense that Hauptman was not guilty. They came in droves and offered all kinds of information to anyone who would listen. One woman "confessed" that her husband was the real kidnapper. Ellis Parker, famous New Jersey detective who solved many crimes, had Sun in Virgo. He was approached by a man who claimed to have contact with "the "gang" and offered to gain the return of the child. Parker was convinced that he had a man who was a member of such a gang. Wanting to get at the real criminals, Parker captured this man, took him across a state line (which was illegal) and tried to torture the truth out of him. As a result, Parker himself was convicted of kidnapping and died in prison.
We constantly face unreliability when we meet up with negative influences of Neptune, but to understand that unreliability we must face the fact that it has a pathological base. Neptune is somewhere in every chart. The person who has a good moral background and training is less apt to fall victim to Neptune, but there are wide exceptions to this rule. We have forms of religion which are themselves bordering on the pathological. People follow their compulsions and justify them by claiming they were driven by higher forces, when they mean lower forces. Although they did not understand the dynamics with which they dealt, it is probable that the devil was originated to represent the lower forces while the higher forces were associated with God. Following this conception through, it relates the devil to the past and God to the future.
Whenever you contact a chart having an over abundance of Neptune, an excess of planets in Pisces or the 6th House, be alert to the possibility of pathological conditions. They may not show up in early life. They are more likely to show up when the individual is under severe strain, when there is fear and insecurity. They often show up when a woman is going through the menopause, but they are most likely to show up when the chart is experiencing very strong Neptunian transits which add to the natal conditions. Violence is more likely to show up if Mars,Pluto, Scorpio or Aries are strongly involved in addition to the Neptunian conditions. There are insane or pathological people who are not violent. Here was an elderly man who was harmless and was never confined, but he spent his days crawling around the floor peeking out windows, waiting for the Germans to attack. He always knew that the Germans were going to attack at any time. This was between World War I and World War II, and during peace time. He died before World War II.
The pathological always involves Neptune, but there is no tendency toward violence unless the Family Dynamics are involved. The violence always has some hidden family situation at its base. That is one thing that the psychiatrist or psychologist must dig out. However, the chart of birth will save him tremendous time because it will show him exactly where to look, what to look for, and after that, therapy is his business.
The sneak thief may not be violent, but remember that fear is usually present in the subconscious where crime or mental illness are involved. Hidden fear is the motivating force. It is behind the compul- sion. There is insecurity. Theft may involve lunar factors with Neptunian factors, or Saturn factors with Neptuntian factors. Deep, deep in the subconscious, however, is that primitive fear of starvation which still exists as a motivating force in a world of plenty. The past is still here.
The neurotic person can often be very convincing, and no one may suspect pathology. This person may gain a big following. He may be very successful. His neurosis may catch on like a song. It may become very popular. He may be very entertaining, and people will go along with almost anything when it is entertaining. Look at the modern news stand. Publishers have long ago learned that if you want to sell magazines, don't try to educate people. Entertain them. That has been a problem for the most sincere editors of astrology magazines sold on news stands. The public is not seeking truth. It is seeking entertainment. There is a phase of pathology involved in that. It is unfortunate that a book called "The Psychology of Suggestion" by Boris Sidis is long out of print, and we can't even locate our own copy which we prized for years. This book gave the best history of mob hysteria we have ever found. Crusades, financial bubbles, religious revivals and various other mass movements have really been of a pathological nature. Some smart people rode the crest of a pathological wave, recognizing it for what it was and making fortunes. Others believed that black was white because it made them temporarily happy. It entertained them and gave them illusions about the future which kept them happy until the bubble burst, untiI they again faced reality. The neurotic always retreats from reality into a world of unreality, and it is quite easy for the mind to accept unreality. The mind is misinterpreting all the time in order to accept reality.
You will meet the person who will tell you that there seem to be no honest people in the world. This person never associates with honest people. He trusts no one. He fears honest people and keeps away from them. The real dishonesty is within himself. The honest man would disarm him and make him uncomfortable. He can associate only with dishonest people, because he can associate only with people with whom he has something in common. In order to like people, you have to have something in common with them, and this all works on the subconscious level.
As we have told you before, the way to learn astrology must finally be to watch it work. When you see it work you understand it, but you understand it better after you realize how it works on the unconscious level. In presenting this course, one of the principal things we are doing is to make it unnecessary to spend years investigating various illusionary conceptions of astrology which have never worked. We have seen a good many students study some of these systems and wonder what was wrong with themselves, because the systems would not work for them. The better astrologers often refer to these systems as Neptunian astrology, because the pathological has crept into systems of astrology. Up till now, there have been more followers of Neptunian astrology than of truthful astrology, and that seems true throughout the worId. Neptunian astrology can sound very convincing until you try to make it work. We note some of this Neptunian astrology in a book that associates the light of the Moon with intelligence, the dark of the Moon with ignorance-very poetical,-- but in no way related to facts. Ultimately, you must learn more about the mathematics of statistics, because statistics is a means of discovering what is true and what is false. Our powers of observation can be very faulty until we have trained them, so as to prevent our wishful thinking from seeing something that is not there, and you must realize how easy that is. Just as the neurotic person sees what is not there physically, the neurotic astrologer sees a poetical astrology that bears little or no relation to reality. Again, it is a matter of unconscious misinterpretation.
You have seen people who can't stop talking. They never listen. This is a typical Neptunian characteristic as are all forms of nervousness. It involves the difficulty of trying to fit one's self into society. It is the poor functioning of the SSD or the SSR, more likely the SSD. Take a woman who can't- stop talking (but there are plenty of men also). Her conversation is very likely to include much in the way of scandal, much of which may never have happened. What she is telling about others is quite likely to be all the things that she secretly wishes to do herself. Perhaps she suppresses these desires, but it is necessary for her to get them out of her system in some way. Let her talk long enough and study the pattern that her conversation follows. You are likely to discover that all of the people she talks about do about the same scandalous things. Upon the slightest opportunity she is living her desires by attributing them to others.
The professional astrologer will find himself dealing with many of these people. The value they place upon the astrologer will be dependent upon his ability to listen. They want to talk. They love to talk about themselves, but quite untruthfully in many cases. It is probable that all physicians meet up with the same people, for they usually have many psychosomatic difficulties. What they need is a probing into the unconscious. They need to be shown what is happening on the unconscious level. Although psychiatry may be needed, the astrologer holds the map of the unconscious in his hands. If the astrologer is also a psychiatrist, he has the map and he is ready for therapy. Although the majority of such cases may not be classified as pathological, astrologically, they are the same thing in a mild form. They are Neptunianism expressing itself. They involve the individual's inability to fit himself into society. In many cases, they compensate for their lack of human companionship by collecting pets. Many of these ills will disappear when the individuals can take to really intellectual interests, when they realize that there is something greater they can cling to in the purely abstract realms of fact.
Another phenomenon that appears to have some connection with Neptune, although we have very little data on the subject is epilepsy. The epileptic loses consciousness, twists and crumbles to the floor. There follows a convulsion and the whole body trembles and shakes. In one instance involving a woman in her 3O's, the woman appeared to go through all the motions of the sex act, although this would be quite untrue of other cases. Here is an odd case involving convulsions in a dog. The first seizure was only partial, and the dog came out of it upon hearing his master's voice. Although the dog had no previous seizures, frothy saliva had been running from the dog's mouth periodically for a week. Its master had been petting it. Fixing its gaze on the floor a few feet in front of it, the dog acted exactly as if it had seen a snake. It skinned its teeth and kept backing up as if the snake was following. It acted like an animal about to plunge into an epileptic fit until its master began talking to it. It obviously recognized the voice but did not appear to see its master, but gradually returned to normal. About ten hours later, its master came upon the dog going through another convulsion, but when spoken to, again the dog appeared recognize the voice, came out of the convulsion and tried to find the voice, but showed no Signs of recognizing its master visually. Five hours later, the dog had a third seizure, after which it did not recognize its master at all and would merely bark at him and retreat as an attempt to approach was made.
In the cases we have observed, which were too few to pass judgment upon, epileptic seizures occurred when the transiting Moon was in opposition to the natal Sun. In other words, the individual was at the bottom of the Lunar Cycle. The top of the Lunar Cycle is when the transiting Moon crosses the natal Sun. The bottom of the cycle is when the Moon reaches the exact opposite point in the zodiac. In the case of the above mentioned epileptic dog, no birth date was known but the dog was born in April, 1936, which would suggest the Sun in Aries. The Moon was in Libra at the time of the first seizure, which would be the bottom of the Lunar Cycle. In fact, it was in opposition to Mars, which was at 26 Aries (l/22/57). Mars was approaching the opposition to Neptune. This strongly suggest that the dog may have been born on April 16th, I956, which would place Mars on its Sun at the time of the first convulsion. If this be true, the natal Sun would be square Uranus and opposite Neptune. In a human, we know that this could involve a health - liability. Sun-Neptune afflictions always give some liability to ill health. In the case of the dog, it had medical treatment immediately, and its condition improved as soon as Mars got away from the 26-Aries position. Diagnosis showed that the animal had a disease known as hardpad.
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