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THE ASTROLOGY
OF AMERICA'S DESTINY

A Birth-Chart for the USA
by Dane Rudhyar, 1974





THE ASTROLOGY
OF AMERICA'S DESTINY


Table of Contents









CHAPTER EIGHT:
Prospects for the Last Quarter Century
- 6

Much is said by astrologers and people swayed by the glamour of "esoteric" pronouncements and exotic beliefs concerning the Piscean character of our present society and culture; the "Piscean" ways of mankind, we are told, should be transcended and first of all overcome. Actually, even if we use zodiacal terms to characterize these precessional Ages, we should realize that because the precessional cycle refers to the backward movement of the two equinoxes, two zodiacal constellations have to be considered: Pisces and its opposite, Virgo. The movement through Pisces is that of the vernal equinox, but the fall equinox moves through Virgo, reaching the 30th degree of Leo (the degree of the Sphinx, Lion and Virgin) around 2060 A.D.
      What happens — and history amply corroborates this — is that the first (or "involutionary") half of the Pisces-Virgo Age was essentially stamped with the character attributed to Pisces, while the second (or "evolutionary") half carries mainly the Virgo signature. The change began to occur at the midpoint of the 2160 period, that is, around the year l000, when Medieval people believed that the end of the world was coming. What happened was simply that at that time the "bottom" of the Pisces-Virgo precessional cycle had been reached. The Piscean "spirit" of Christianity had embedded itself in the collective human consciousness, and this descent of spiritual forces was inevitably followed by an ascent of the creative energies of the mind — an ascent that blossomed out in the magnificent Gothic cathedral and the early polyphonic music of the period preceding the fourteenth century. By the time that century had come, a new type of consciousness was forming, characterized by the then definitely predominating Virgo influence. It became an increasingly analytical, critical and personalized type of consciousness, which led to the triumph of modern science and technology — typical Virgo products. What we have to overcome today is that Virgo-emphasizing type of intellectual consciousness. It is also a consciousness of never-ending personal crises seeking a self-healing and technological miracles — and the term "personal" here also applies to collective persons — i.e., to nations and institutions. The most widespread, influential and Virgo-like of these institutions is the atomistic collection of Protestant Churches, which contrasts with the Piscean Catholic and Greek-Orthodox Churches, the "two fishes" of Pisces, swimming in opposite directions (ritualism and mysticism). Technocracy and the Protestant tradition are twin brothers conceived by Virgo: Nixon and Billy Graham could be their present-day symbols.
      We have to admire individuals who become symbolic figures of the collective mass mind of the period in which they live. But we should also learn to see through the glamour they emanate, and understand what essentially or archetypally they stand for. Then we can look elsewhere for the dawn-light of a future humanity, hidden as it may be under heavy clouds. There is such a light in America, but the sun of the New Day has certainly not risen. Will it rise soon?
      I would like to repeat here two sentences from the preceding chapter: "It has been Europe's destiny . . . to provide the intellectual foundation for the emergence of new powers and new social ideals. It seems to be America's destiny to be the main field within which the two basic possibilities of use and management of these powers have to fight for supremacy."
      The fight is on, as perhaps never before and it need not be a violent fight in the streets, though our city streets every day spawn violence and crime. The basic area of conflict is the mind of American men and women, even if, this conflict is so often masked and distorted by emotional whirlpools and devotional glamour. This conflict is inherent in the whole Western civilization, and has been since the days of ancient Greece. In a sense it is the conflict between individualism and holism, individual freedom and group participation, intellectual curiosity and soul-wisdom, Gemini and Sagittarius.
      It need not be a death-dealing and unresolved conflict. The twentieth century with its remarkably dualistic chart need not see its last quarter (1975-2000) — its autumn — swept by in torrents of blood or nuclear hurricanes. The two-hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence could become a song of overcoming to celebrate a new vision of the universe and of man's place on this still so beautiful Earth — a vision that might be shared by many, respected by most, a flaming reality in the hearts of the consecrated few seedmen and seed women whose minds are attuned to the coming dawn. To hold such a faith vibrant in one's mind is not to be blind to the gathering, clouds or self-complacent in the fear of being afraid. The ultimate enemy is always fear; and everyone should know with ineradicable knowing that "Beaten paths are for beaten men."

(Summer-Autumn 1973)




By permission of Leyla Rudhyar Hill
Copyright © 1974 by Dane Rudhyar
and Copyright © 2001 by Leyla Rudhyar Hill
All Rights Reserved.



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