Hudson Valley Astrologer

IX Commentaries

My notes on Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet’s Commentaries. Please see footnote for information on the source of this essay or go to the source: The Magical Carousel.

Agni, the Vedic god of fire, is said to be “hidden in the waters” according to the Rig Veda. He is the redeeming energy in Scorpio where Inertia takes hold. Thea opens the commentaries by writing, “Inertia is the power of Death. It is the great Adversary of Scorpio.” To understand this, we observe the ruler of the sign, and the element involved, in combination with the energy flow: Mars is the planet, Water is the element, and the modality of the Sign is Fixed. All manifestation comes into being at Aries, but by the time the “precious Martian energy” arrives at Scorpio a blockage ensues. Therefore, the journey ends here for most people. The limits of human mortality confine development to merely eight parts of the wheel. “The great and mighty power is trapped in the Water Element the Zodiac reveals. And the human body is largely made up of water.” Which bring us back to Mars and the reference made to the red planet by the Rishis who wrote the Rig Veda.

What is being described near the end of the chapter, just before the Centaur arrives in Scorpio to awaken the fire as it were and liberate matter through the unleashed power of freedom that breaks through the barriers using the contained energy in Scorpio, is the magical hold of mortality on the state of being. The “inferior warriors” are set against themselves, in an “unrestrained process of auto-consumption or self-destruction” that describes the dying process symbolically. The pivotal point reached in the story of the zodiac is where the enchanted mind grips the mental consciousness and persuades the body by force that this is the end. That there is nothing more beyond Mind, but this is where the Centaur also enters and begs to differ.

The representation of a wild nature in Sagittarius, which is large and untamed, points to a ninth stage in the evolution of consciousness that must join with “a power from above.”  The Centaur, therefore, descends into Scorpio, in the opposite direction of the rising Pegasus, to a point where the twain must meet in the fixed water sign. The airy Libran Horse needs to be transformed because the “rise of a liberated force from below is not sufficient to bring about the integral and harmonious development.” The energy is trapped in Scorpio precisely due to “its utilization in sex or its final consummation in death,” but the intensity and power of such a captivating hold on consciousness, is the force that unleashes itself to rise above previously reached heights found by following traditional paths. What is the zenith in practices from the past, are surpassed when the “Kundalini is liberated.” A task that is more difficult than it looks and hence why the children are required to receive their “education” from Heropodus Heronimus, to learn how to make the heart and mind work together, symbolized by the harmonization of the antithetical elements of Fire and Water, meaning the joining of Spirit and Soul.

The first line in my new book opens with: “The same process that gives birth to our individuality powers the stars.” I’d forgotten all about this chapter in The Magical Carousel because I read it twenty-four years ago, in 1998, nineteen years after it was first published in 1979. I was graduating from high school when TMC was published, and knew little about fusion, and even less about astrology. But we must realize that conception of anything is a point of fusion, and there are two more such points in the zodiac, realizations as it were, each at zero degrees of the fire signs: Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius. Therefore, a sacred marriage of the sacrosanct elements happens, not just at conception in Aries, but at each new successively higher level of creation, at Leo, and then Sagittarius. (Note that each Fire Sign follows a Water Sign.)      

The unkept state of the Foundation represents a state of “neglect” where very few have ascended. But even then, when this stage has been reached, it is merely a “preliminary transmutation.” The power of Inertia still clings to the unfolding development, and the “discovery” that breaks through the barriers in consciousness remains at a nascent stage. The integral realization isn’t felt. But there are remnants all-around of previous efforts, the “broken” and “shattered” forms that no longer serve any useful purpose are strewn about the place. What once was a promising idea, has fallen to pieces here, pulled apart by a supreme and other worldly logic. The characters in Sagittarius represent the “highest aspirations of humanity not fully awakened.” Even the teacher the children are introduced to is a “semi-awakened consciousness, the summit of which is experienced only in ritual.” Heropodus Heronimus is a wizard, a sorcerer, or a druid. He is the Guru that “serves to kindle the inner light of the disciple.” But the knowledge is transferred indirectly to the children, and by a means that passes outside of their perception.

As the Keeper of Knowledge, and the Sage of Immortal Secrets, H.H. is the curator of the Wisdom of the Ages. His role is to lead the children to Truth but not having experienced the things he has professed about, having only imagined the possibilities; his mission is to preserve and protect the Knowledge until some student who will break through the barrier arrives.

There is a concept in Hinduism called Sat, which is “the true essence” or “that which is unchangeable.” Sat also refers to the “ultimate reality.” Thea notes that there is a distinction at this point in the process between what is learned in Gemini, and what is discovered in the sign opposite, Sagittarius. The difference is between earning a certificate for having passed some level of study, versus being credentialed, by dint of character and experience, that one is prepared for the road ahead, to continue the journey. This is the supreme level of “Absolute Being: movement and rest become one in the experience of consciousness.” The credentials earned in Sagittarius are meant to signify that the children are card carrying members of an elite force that “very few ‘consciously reach.’” Recognition for accomplishments in the field as it were, not for merely passing a course of study. The accomplishment in this case is breaking the hold of mortality the grips that the individual in Scorpio. The sense of freedom which ensues provokes infinite curiosity to explore which ultimately leads “into the region of unity of being.”

At this point in the commentaries, Thea makes a remarkable shift comparing H.H. not just to a medieval Alchemist, but to a modern-day physicist, and specifically Einstein. Even H.H.’s appearance resembles the mystical genius who single-handedly changed the course of science. But in the story, H.H. is only able to point the way “into the dimensions of consciousness which bring the full experience.” What is described in the action of the story is the children “living the experience” of Einstein’s Relativity Theory, traveling faster than sound and light, and of space and motion disappearing, “to a point right within themselves.” The author only learned about this correspondence after it was all written down, and without awareness of the full nature of Einstein’s work.

Over time, readers of The Magical Carousel identify profound insights that are shared in the story, and that grow in leaps and bounds; soon they jump off the page as the journey ascends. There is an important significance in this chapter that corresponds to the state of the present world, and the advancements of science, many of those advances indeed traced back to Einstein’s discoveries. These ‘breakthroughs’ have advanced the collective consciousness but within the “limits of the mental instrument, touched by the more luminous light of a fine intuition.” The goal, however, is beyond relativistic perception. Einstein’s work only pointed the way, but without a “finer light, of ‘higher speed’,” he was not able to unlock the secrets of his coveted unified field theory.

Sagittarius is a Mutable Quality. Mutable Fire therefore is the third field of Dissolution after Mutable Air in Gemini and Mutable Earth in Virgo.

Answers to the paradoxes of creation cannot be found in the realm of relativity, so the destination of the realm of Absolute Truth has always been the aim, a place where a unified theory is not only possible, not merely probable, but guaranteed. To get there requires a speed faster than light and a capacity yet unknown in the material world. The wonders of discovery that have been issued forth from Relativity, have also ushered forth the threat of complete annihilation. 

Thea draws parallels between the Rig Veda’s “hoarders of light,” the Panis, and Black Holes from modern day science. Which explains the necessity of speed, of intuition, and multiplicity of creation that resembles the sacred marriage of spirit and soul, “no longer a cacophonous or disturbing experience.” Instead, a harmonious energy, complementary of adventure and discovery, emerges. 

Divine intervention is represented in the character portrayed by H.H., who represents Grace in the zodiac. As mentioned previously, he is the Guru who must share his Knowledge and administer the antidote to keep the story moving which allows the journey to continue. Readers are asked to consider the significance of the Signs in relation to each other once more. The glyphs of Scorpio and Sagittarius for example, share an arrow motif that connects the signs, so that they are not “to be understood apart from it.” In Scorpio, the intensity of the energy accumulates. Whereas the same energy is expressed in Sagittarius at incredible speed. Enroute to Sagittarius, “the energy is conserved and used for ‘a higher cause’, this force is the Savior.” But the journey doesn’t end without a fight, so this is where the traditions of world myths conjure up the idea of the spiritual warrior, the ‘Second Coming’, or Christ like figures, who return to redeem things. Thus Mars, enters the story as “the War God, (the Horse, the wielder of the Sword, etc.).

As in the oft told story of a cat left in a box with something that might kill it, and then sealed in the box, the fate of the cat would be unknown without the observer. Edwin Schrodinger suggested this experiment in 1935, long before the theory of perception emerged that considers life to be a controlled hallucination (Anil Seth). In this way, science corroborates the mystical notion that we live in an illusory world. H.H. resembles this remark in his character, a daffy absentmindedness, but Sagittarius is a thriving and abundant Sign, filled with a plentitude of points, for promise and possibility that a “harmonious synthesis” is reached. An urge so tremendous to seek out discoveries that it cannot be contained, and this trait is expressed perfectly in the mannerisms of the Centaur. Sagittarius is where the pinnacle of mindpower is achieved, but the “spere of the unity of being” is not reached until the next quarter where the thrust from Sagittarius carries the movement. Freedom and liberty are motivated by the impetus to resolve the difficulty of containment, of being confined and limited within a worldview of limitless possibility. However, the plot describes the struggle against confinement, of not being able to travel and explore, but also the sense of being “always bound by a feature of his own personality.” He shoots off one idea (arrow) after another, and chases them in an endless pursuit of freedom, which in Sagittarius proves to be a relative sense of freedom. The movements are always in relation to externalities, “the arrows are objects outside himself, used to carry him to various points in the sphere of the Multiple.” The journey becomes interrupted when the Centaur loses his arrows, and the game of pursuing the next point disappears. He consequently loses his gumption and joviality. Entering the Foundation is a respite not from the chase but the lack of one. The halls of knowledge mark a turning point where the search turns inward, which is the only true source of freedom.

Vital powers become so concentrated that the means of the “great thrust in consciousness” bursts through the “limits of our external universe, faster than the speed of light.” The Centaur is the symbol of this pent-up energy, and the reference to speed relates the children’s experience to the realization of Einstein’s laws, within their lived experience of those laws. A reversal of momentous proportion propels them forward, breaking the hold of relativism and entering the world of absolute truth.

Sagittarius is the third and final Fire sign, and the “maturing point of Aries.” Mars comes of age and is redeemed here, for the purpose of “universal harmonies.” The last quarter is now about to be traversed. This is the Spiritual quarter and stacks itself upon the Physical, the Vital, and the Mental, in that order. Mar’s redemption in Sagittarius does indeed refer to the Spiritual Warrior, the Savior, or Kalki, and Skanda, “the warrior-son of the Divine Mother.” The Centaur is the embodiment of unconstrained energy, free to apply itself toward the start of the journey across the last three Signs. The “supreme release” of the energy brings them to the foot of the Mountain of Capricorn, “into the heart of mass, the core of matter.” We measure evolution in terms of vast swaths of time and ages, which correspond to something called the Precession of the Equinoxes. It takes thousands of years to traverse one Sign (2,160) and thousands more to traverse three Signs (6,480). Each Sign the Earth passes through by Precession is the measure of an Age (i.e., the Age of Aquarius), but every three Signs the Earth passes through by Precession amounts to a measure of time known as one Manifestation. We are as we speak presently in the ninth Manifestation, or the ninth level of development, which corresponds to the ninth Sign of the zodiac, Sagittarius. We have arrived as a species to a point in time that could be as exhilarating as giving birth to a newborn, “or the stage of a great leap forward is being made and a new race is to rise on Earth. The principal characteristic of this race is a consciousness of truth, of unity, — that is a race that has gone beyond Mind, which is no longer under the rule of the mental consciousness.” The rise of a new race is not a namby-pamby notion of a psychotic hallucination, but with each passing day it becomes increasingly evident that a new race is a necessity. Also, of necessity, is an alignment with the “absolute truth and not relativism.”       

We speak of consciousness as if we ‘know’ more than another what it means to be awake and alive. But often consciousness in lay terms is either attached to some biological function or else it has to do with a nascent spiritual notion that is wrapped in some traditional sense of morality, of what is right, and just, or wrong, and sinful. But these are juvenile and at the same time arrogant ideas. People claiming to ‘know’ about consciousness have put an excessive amount of ego energy into their work, and so much so, that it often appears as not having any ego at all. But the Asura tends to abscond with half-truths to promote Falsity, as in creating networks that promote the ideal in name only: for example, Truth Social. Even among the cognoscenti and high-minded new agers or religiously devout, something is missing. All these expressions, like the Centaur, reveal a show of enthusiasm, and zeal, to ‘know’ and be a part of the elite group who claim an elevated consciousness. But Thea is talking about something entirely new here and unknown in any previous manifestation. This is unfamiliar territory, as the ninth stage of development is akin to a new birth on earth and what many traditions the world over has been alluding to for thousands of years, only here it is spelled out with precision instead of wrapped in belief. The rise of a new race cannot be merely a matter of belief but a certainty. Crossing the border will be difficult. Until that experience is won, uncertainty and relativity prevail. “The human race stands poised at the very borderline, and it faces either salvation or destruction.” Seeing the evolution of humanity becoming capable of “a consciousness of truth, or unity,” versus staying as we are rushing headlong into annihilation only one moment away from pressing the button to a nuclear catastrophe should be an easy choice to make. Thea called it “fragmentary knowing,” which keeps consciousness cemented to the ego. The Mind as it were, born of Relativity, cannot See its way clear of partial perception, no matter how smart the thinker is, or how much science the rationalist imagines itself to possess. When consciousness “exceeds the speed of light” things change, in an instant. But what the state of the world will be in that glorious time, after the plunge, is not fully known.

Norelli-Bachelet, P. (2017). The Magical Carousel and Commentaries: A Zodiacal Odyssey (2017th ed.). Notion Press, Inc.