Part Two:
Twelve Phases of Human Experience
SCORPIO - Page 3 of 3

There is nevertheless a negative side to this picture of release of power in Scorpio; a side provided by the waning Day-force which, then, has become more introverted and subjective, perhaps more subconsciously resentful in its action. It is the dark side of civilization: greed for social power and lust. That greed arises in the individual who, instead of merging himself into the greater whole, draws toward himself the energies produced by the living together the human interchange of values and the commerce which are the foundations of society. Commerce, which is born — or at least permanently established — at the Libra level, generates abundant fruits in Scorpio. If these fruits are cornered by the greedy, then there is social sin. Every man who misuses the products of social interchange of values commits a sin against society. All big business trusts which are built on greed, all politicians who barter in public authority, all racketeers and gangsters, all leaders who play upon fear and mass-passions commit the sin of Scorpio. They lust for social power — instead of fecundating society as true civilizers, and of identifying their destinies with the destiny of their people.
      The same is true of individuals who seek forever sexual pleasures and self-satisfaction. In these things, only the negative aspect of Scorpio is to be seen. The negative Day-force turns back to its own use the new energies produced by the molding power of the Night-force. It dreams, where it can no longer act. It creates pictures and temptations; it exacerbates desire. It produces sexual neuroses, where the yearning for merging into a greater stream of power through another human being — or through groups — is frustrated. Lust is born usually from a sense of defeat; just as criminals are often thwarted "men of action" who had it in themselves to fecundate society with their own genius.
      Scorpio is no accursed Sign," and sin or misery comes only where the great creative force is twisted and perverted by fears and complexes born of meaningless traditionalism disguised into virtue, or as a result of chaotic and vicious social conditions. It is where the free-play of energy in Taurus did not occur that the unfulfilled personality, when confronted with its new birth as participant in the life of society, recoils from the step represented by the positive Scorpio. Instead of that exalting union with others through which regeneration would come, a sense of frustration prevails which unfits the individual for that step. Resentment against society, or against the whole of life, prevails. And that resentment, that subconscious violence which would destroy the very means for liberation into the greater state, are, to be symbolized by the stinging and poisonous Scorpio, in whose tail there is social and individual death.
      It is not that the scorpion should be regenerated into the eagle, as symbolists are wont to say. The scorpion is a degeneration. It is not a natural product of healthy evolution. The eagle, or better still the phoenix, is a more adequate symbol of the reality of that phase of the natural cycle of yearly transformation which follows Libra. The phoenix symbolizes the birth of life at a new level through the burning of all limitations into the fire. This fire is the real symbol of the energy which burns in the man who has reached the eighth phase of his journey along the Zodiac. It is the fire which destroys lesser forms and summons greater ones to be developed during the Sagittarius period of the cycle. This fire is the transcendent and occult aspect of sex — which is very different from the instinctual procreative urge released in Taurus as a purely earthy and fruitful energy.
      Much has been said about the thoroughness, ruthlessness, ambition, cruelty, jealousy and passion of persons in whose charts Scorpio is a dominant factor. But it is remarkable how many human beings, beside Scorpio types, display such characteristics and how often Scorpio natives fail to reveal them! Most of these negative traits in historical or living personalities are the direct results of an archaic social state. The Scorpio type constantly identifies himself with society, and society's passions are his passions. Society's ecstasy and glory would also be his ecstasy and his glory. He is a man in whom the energy of the social process flows with compelling intensity. If that energy is turned toward destruction be becomes a superb destroyer; a ruthless chieftain or a criminal. When humanity will have learned to live as an organic whole, balanced, harmonious and healthy, then its Scorpio types will take on wings and commune with the Sun, as eagles indeed.
      Scorpio is one of the four symbolic Gates through which Avatars are born; men who are the mouthpieces of the generic Father of the whole humanity, who is called "God." Scorpio symbolizes God's power as the supreme Civilizer of an united mankind; and it is significant that one whom millions have named "Avatar" and "Manifestation of God" was born in Scorpio: Baha'u'llah, the great Persian prophet who, less than a hundred years ago, proclaimed the Oneness of humanity through a new World-Order, and heralded the great age of organic mankind which will dawn.