The Testament of Astrology - © 2002, All Rights Reserved
The Testament of Astrology
Introduction to Astrology as an Esoteric Science
First Sequence:
General Foundation of Astrology
Seven Esoteric Lectures
by
Dr. Oskar Adler
June 4, 1875 – May 15, 1955
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The Testament of Astrology - © 2002, All Rights Reserved
The Testament of Astrology
Introduction to Astrology as an Esoteric Science
First Sequence: General Foundation of Astrology
First Electronic Edition, 2002
Copyright © 2002, Amy Shapiro
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: Pending
Produced in the United States of America by
ONLINE College of Astrology
E-Publishing Division
P.O. Box 85
Basye, Virginia 22810
http://www.astrocollege.com/
Translated from original German by Zdenka Orenstein
Desktop publishing production and illustrations by Tuxedo Cat Enterprises,
Las Vegas, NV
Copyediting by Amy Shapiro
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The Testament of Astrology - © 2002, All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Foreword .................................................................................. 06
Author’s Introduction ................................................................ 10
First Lecture ............................................................................. 14
General Idea of “Astrology as Esoteric Knowledge”
What is Esoteric Knowledge?
Natural Science and Esoteric Doctrine
Man and the Universe
The Human Body and Number as a Bridge to the Cosmos
Astronomy and Astrology
The “Self” as Key to Esoteric Knowledge
Second Lecture ......................................................................... 26
Living Community Between Man and Universe
Macrocosmos and Microcosmos
One-ness and the Number One
Suffering and Sorrow as a Further Link to the Cosmos
The Idea of Fate
Natural Law and Moral Law
Third Lecture ........................................................................... 40
The Enigma of Evolution in the Light of Esoteric Wisdom
The Zodiac
Fourth Lecture .......................................................................... 50
Evolution and Alchemy
The Four Elements
Their Relationship to Inner Life and to the Road of Man’s Development
The Riddle of the Sphinx
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Table of Contents
continued
Fifth Lecture ............................................................................ 60
Cosmic Numbers and Human Development
The Numbers 4, 7 and 12
Zodiac and Planets
Periodicity and the Law of Rhythm
Planetary Symbols and Digit-Symbols
Sixth Lecture ............................................................................ 77
The Three Cosmic Perspectives
The Cosmic Importance of the Moment of Birth
Heredity and Self-Development
The “Second Birth”
Seventh Lecture ........................................................................ 91
Zodiac-segments and Zodiac-symbols
The Precession of the Vernal Point
Eternity and Temporality
The Road to the “Neighbor”
Appendix ................................................................................. 104
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The Testament of Astrology - © 2002, All Rights Reserved
Foreword
This publication of The Testament of Astrology is dedicated to Mrs. Zdenka Orenstein for her
tireless and selfless translation in a ten year long labor of love, for which her sole rewards
were spiritual in nature. Dr. Oskar Adler’s work in English would not exist without her
devotion and steadfast attention to each detail. It is further dedicated to Oskar Adler’s wife,
Paula, who served in every respect as Oskar’s “angel.”
In the 25 years since Dr. Adler came into my life in 1977, my desire to publish his
monumental treastise and my faith in this mission have steadily guided me forward, along
with Dr. Adler’s bright Spirit at each turn in this jouney. Mrs. Orenstein transferred legal
rights to this work to me in 1984, four years before her death. Zdenka wrote that, to Dr.
Adler’s students in Vienna, his teachings “constituted a unique spiritual experience. Nobody
left one of them without feeling uplifted and purified.” She viewed her translation efforts as
the greatest blessing of her life. The following excerpts are from hundreds of Zdenka’s
letters to me from 1978 to 1988. They express how she saw her role as Dr. Adler’s
translator, her reverence for his teachings, her hopes for me and for my students at
Cape Ann School of Astrology, to whom I taught Dr. Adler’s lectures. I offer her
humble comments as a voice from beyond, to inspire new students as you embark upon
a wonderful adventure of learning, which promises to expand new horizons for you.
[1980] I have no regrets: the 10 years I worked on this translation may well
have been the best in my life... I have never become an astrologer, but his
teachings supported me in the greatest obstacles-----to this day. In our modern
language, you would have called him our guru.
[1981] Your description of your classes has lifted a weight of anxiety from
me. You proceed very much like Dr. Adler himself did; he too started his
classes with a group of more or less handpicked students, in his own home.
Everyone felt privileged to attend those classes. Some of us were also invited
to attend a regular Saturday afternoon chamber music program, where Dr.
Adler played the first violin-----another highlight in our existence at that time.
We did not quite realize how fortunate we were! Although we felt that certain
lift after each meeting, as if you had been breathing in a pure, rarified atmosphere
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The Testament of Astrology - © 2002, All Rights Reserved
with a cleansing spiritual result. Since then, great changes in my life, including the
Hitler episode, which tore our circle apart, in many continents, to our great grief,
taught me to realize how much I owed to Dr. Adler’s teachings. It gave me
strength to cope with many difficulties-----and I am forever grateful. This realization, and this gratitude, and maybe, an impulse from the beyond, from Dr.
Adler’s spirit, caused me to start the translation. I had hoped that somebody else,
somebody better qualified, would make the attempt. But since nobody seemed
willing, I started, I don’t remember when, but it must have been around 1959 or
so. My husband was still alive, and rather skeptical. ‘You’ll never finish this’ was
his opinion. I only interrupted when he became fatally ill, in 1961, when I spent
my days in the hospital with him, and for some time after his final release. But
the work on it was a wonderful experience, and I truly consider the time I spent
with it the most valuable and rewarding time of my long life. I hope you will
experience something similar! No money can buy anything like it.
[1983] Dr. Adler insisted that we spend our lives as if in class, proceeding
from lesson to lesson, and if we did not pass one of them, we had to repeat,
until we finally solved our problem. That is why I consider it much more
profitable to have to pass several severe tests than to lead a seemingly “happy”
life which gives us no chance to advance spiritually. That my life seems to
have been rich in such tests makes me feel sort of proud. I hoped I have
worked off a lot of bad karma! Dr. Adler truly was an inspired person,
although he never called himself initiated.
[1984] As I look back over my long life, I find the ONE thing meritorious I did was
the Adler preservation attempt. But it remains an unfinished labor without YOUR
efforts. Thus we are truly intertwined in one of the most important matters-----the
continued efforts to rescue Dr. Adler’s wisdom from becoming lost, contaminated or diluted. I can’t imagine a closer tie than this effort. I am aware
that it means placing a heavy burden on you-----the responsibility towards the
author is a demanding task. I have felt it strongly, and I believe, you too are
sensible to it. Please, even when it should become truly burdensome, don’t
desert it! Even in difficult circumstances! I firmly believe that your role in this
did not come about by accident, that you are CHOSEN for this work-----your
dedication has deep roots somewhere----maybe in Dr. Adler’s spirit? As I
believe I was pushed and upheld in my long labor by inspirations from the
beyond. I consider myself a mere tool, like the chisel in the sculptor’s hand.
Something beyond my insignificant self has driven and sustained me through
the years of my devoted efforts. The only reward I had hopes for was generously
given me through your recognition of the special importance of Dr. Adler’s
wisdom and your willingness to prevent it from falling into oblivion, to keep it
alive and available to deserving students. If there will be a publication in book
form or otherwise it will be due to your efficient efforts. It must have been Dr.
Adler’s spirit who led to our thus meeting, and who inspired you, as I was inspired.
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[1987] Although I did not seem to profit by Dr. Adler’s lectures, never did I
leave one of them without feeling a spiritual uplift. And I did not realize how
deeply his teachings have influenced and developed me. Only many years
later, was I able to recognize that. Owing to the political events our lives had
to pass many severe tests; that we managed unharmed was due-----at least to
a great part, to Dr. Adler’s teaching. Many times I felt a higher guidance in
decisive moments. I hope you and your students will be spared such severe
tests, but it may well be that you too are going to have such experiences, add
I hope that you too will have the moral and spiritual strength gained by HIS
teachings. It is not just astrology that is revealed in them, it is a guidance and
support-----at least that is how I experienced it. I see them as a sort of moral
armor against any evil influence.
[1988] Looking back on these long years, I am sure that the one thing to my
credit is the translation of Dr. Adler’s lectures. That was a gift bestowed on
me-----I was only the vehicle, honored by this choice. I have been blessed
with higher guidance several times-----always in precarious situations. For this
I am deeply grateful. To you, dear Amy, my deepest gratitude! It is a great
comfort to know Dr. Adler’s message is in your competent hands. I trust that
you will finally succeed in your goal of publishing the MS; it may take longer
than you wish, but be patient and don’t lose courage. A firm conviction that
you will finally succeed may be a help. ...thanks again for your great help
and affection. We may meet again in the future, don’t you think?
After countless rejections in the next thirteen years, all hopes of finding a publisher had died.
In 2001, I began the new century with renewed purpose, determined to self-publish these
lectures and fulfill my promise to Zdenka. Within weeks of embarking on this mission, Ena
Stanley of Online College of Astrology phoned by complete surprise and offered to publish
this work. With gratitude and awe, I accepted. The larger story of this multifaceted journey
is chronicled in my biography of Dr. Adler, Dr. Oskar Adler: A Complete Man 1875 -- 1955.
Amy Shapiro, M.Ed.
May these remarks from the original German book jacket flaps of The Testament of Astrology,
translated by Zdenka Orenstein, serve to prepare you for your journey:
The entire secret of astrology’s role in ancient times, and of the path leading
to it, lies in these words of one of the Hermetic Fragments (“The Divine
Pymander”):
Listen to your innermost core, and lift your eyes to the immensity of time and space;
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The Testament of Astrology - © 2002, All Rights Reserved
then you will hear the song of the stars, the voice of numbers and the harmony of
the spheres. Each sun is a thought of God, and each planet a special expression of
this thought. To perceive the divine thought, oh ye souls, did you descend, and with
sufferings and pains do you regain the path of the seven planets and their seven
heavens. What is the message of the stars, what do the numbers tell us, and what
the circling spheres? Oh ye lost and ye saved souls! They talk, they sing, they
circle----they weave your fate.
This book originated in the longing to follow this path, to rediscover the
interior in the exterior, and the exterior in the interior. For this reason the
“staff of Hermes” (Caduceus), with the two intertwining ascending and
descending ways, and the pentacle-pentagram with the mystery of reflection of
the exterior in the interior, and vice versa, have been chosen to symbolize the
path of the human soul, reaching for clarity in all humility.
The author who speaks of himself as a seeker, attempts in the work here
presentedwhich will comprise of 115 lectures-----to contribute, step by step,
to the gaining of insight into the knowledge which was once an all-embracing
wisdom, including not only the miracles of the universe, but also those
of man .
Starting from the general premise, traditionally inherent in the human
mentality, Oskar Adler seeks to lead us on a path toward apperception,
on which he is benignly accompanied by philosophers, poets, scientists and
researchers of all periods. Drawing the circles forever closer around man and
his close affinity to cosmic relations, he follows the artist’s and the scientist’s
path. This route leads thorugh all the high and low points of the human soul,
but also through the long history of exertions to gain spiritual insights, and of
all the moral and psychological problems, as well as the evolution of the
single individual and of humanity.
Thus the author arrives at a poetical presentation of the astrological worldpicture, which tries to satisfy the demands of logical and scientific, but also of
artistic thinking. But beyond this, something more exalted results, which
shall here only be hinted at in the words of Goethe:
“He who has science and art,
He also has religion.”
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The Testament of Astrology - © 2002, All Rights Reserved
Author’s Introduction
Author’s Introduction
These lectures were first given in Vienna during the years 1930 -- 1938 to an intimate circle of
interested people. As they are about to be presented to a wider public in seven
sequences, this introduction is meant to prepare you, my friendly reader, for what
to expect when you become engaged in the study of this “Testament of Astrology.” It is the
work of a searcher, and is intended for all who are likewise searchers, who are filled with a
pressing desire for knowledge regarding the meaning of their existence within the
immeasurable and unimaginable greatness of this universe. Overawed by a sense of
our own inessentiality and by our short-termed existence on this grain of sand, “Earth,” as
searchers we are nevertheless elated at the thought of being witnesses of the eternal riddle.
It may be that in this conflict we experience the nucleus of all that has guided the human
spirit since the light of Reason was first kindled within.
Perhaps the words of the Eighth Psalm express this conflict within heart and soul most
clearly:
When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained:
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
For Thou hast made him little lower than the angels,
and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Out of such sentiments and thoughts may have been born the attempt to find access to the
very ancient wisdom, long in human possession. Fragments of this knowledge, embracing
the inner relationships between world and humankind, have been passed on to us today
under the name of “astrology.” Established in a variety of theories, these fragments of
knowledge are presented as old wisdom, yet also claiming acceptance as a modern science.
It is not my intention in this introduction to anticipate the contents of the following studies.
The first sequence, “General Foundation,” shall clarify the kind of “knowledge” we are
seeking. Let me caution all those who are about to delve into this “Testament of Astrology”
to leave both friendly and hostile prejudices behind, and to remember that those who are
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The Testament of Astrology - © 2002, All Rights Reserved
willing to plunge deeply into very ancient wisdom must first fulfill two conditions.
The first condition is reverence for the thinkers of former times and for their pure search for
truth. The second is to understand that the words in which these thinkers expressed their
wisdom cannot be interpreted as by today’s standards. This difference in word usage must
be borne in mind to avoid misjudging them as nonsensical, or as errors due to past
ignorance.
As an example, according to tradition, Thales of Milet, (625 -- 548 BC), taught that everything
originated in water. But Anaximenes, 6th century, put the origin of everything into air;
Anaximander spoke of the “apeiron,” i.e., the uncognizable, out of which the cognizable is
formed: Hieraclitus spoke of fire, the eternal flame, as basis of all world occurrences.
This is the old tenet of the four elements! In the opinion of modern chemistry, that would be
pure nonsense since we know that neither “earth,” nor “fire,” nor “water,” nor “air” is an
“element.” But the significance of the word “element” in those days was completely
different from its meaning in today’s chemistry.
The Bible offers another example. Light was created on the first day of creation, yet the sun
was not created until the fourth day. If we believe that the biblical expression “AUR”
actually stands for “light” by today’s physics, it becomes difficult for us to understand what
was meant. A similar problem applies to the use of the words “day” and “night.” We shall
go into this in more detail in the course of the following lectures.
Physical science’s recent history ought to alert us to not think of the current state of
knowledge as being so much truer than that of preceding eras. Scientific theories change
from generation to generation. As an example:
According to Aristotle, colors originated from a mixture of light and dark, or white and
black, but according to Newton, all colors are contained in the white sunlight, emerging
from it by splitting. From there, the difference in theories continued: Goethe, Schopenhauer,
Hering and Helmholtz all indicated the road of ever-changing tests to get to the core of the
problem, while each successive attempt at a solution fought against its predecessor’s
attempts as erroneous.
There are thousands of examples that mark the road of human struggle for truth like
tombstones, whether in physics, medicine, philosophy or theology. According to
Schopenhauer, each doctrine considers its primary duty to behead all rivals, like the
African despots, including their families.
If the fate of all those striving for truth should be to err again and again, to leave a legacy for
no other future use than to learn its futility, and if all progress were nothing but substitution
of new errors for old ones, must not reason despair of its own power? Would it not be tragic
to have to realize over and over again that we cannot know anything? In addition, is it not
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miraculous that we do not despair in spite of this? Is there perhaps alive in all of us the
incomprehensible but imperishable hope, that a spark of that light of the first day of creation
is lighting our path, and that that light radiates through our inner core as well as through the
universe? Perhaps the thought of seeing the history of human knowledge as nothing more
than a chain of consecutive errors is in itself a great error. Perhaps hidden in all of those
errors is the germ of an eternal truth, which we must first rediscover in order to understand
how those who lived before us walked the same path of learning and bequeathed its fruit to
us in their own language.
If so, then there is really only one wisdom. That wisdom is simultaneously the one truth, one
philosophy, one religion, and the one “knowledge” in which all errors and contradictions are
dissolved. All sciences and philosophies with their continuous changes, all religions and
moral systems, even all arts, are but broken and diffused rays of color of the original light,
and the human ego is but a sound in the great world symphony, though essential to its very
existence.
By becoming ever more conscious of this, and by keeping ever alert to this consciousness,
those who live in this conviction may secure a place in the testament of ancient wisdom,
known today by the badly abused name of astrology.
May these lectures now find a wider audience. I thank my friends, without whose help this
could not have happened. First, it was the farsightedness of my friend Ernst Orenstein, now
doing valuable work in the field of music in Honolulu, who, while we were all gathered in
Vienna, insisted that my lectures be taken down, and so preserved. I am further grateful to
a kind destiny, granting me the happiness to be active in three fields, which in their reciprocal
supplementation prepared the soil from which my development grew: I was physician,
musician, and teacher.
As a member of the board of directors of the “Wiener Volksbildungshaus” and “Volksheim”
(institutes for adult education), I found opportunity to develop the basic elements of my
philosophy in my lectures. These were concerned with the boundary line between music
and philosophy, which I put forth in a book entitled The Critique of Pure Music, 1
completed in 1918. It was the Baroness Hamar who interested me in the study of
astrology before and during World War I, a study that I began at first as a cautious
skeptic. Wishing to attain a clear understanding of the foundations of this doctrine, I soon
went my own way. Thus I learned to explore the esoteric side of this study, of which
astrology is a part. Without this esoteric foundation, it remains unsatisfactory. This esoteric
foundation was the topic of a series of lectures, “Introduction to Esoteric Thinking,”
concurrent with the ones you are about to read.
_________________________________________________________________________
1
Translator’s note: Analogous to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Editor’s note: Kritik... was due to be published in Austria
in 1999, but financial, editorial and political problems halted the project. It is now being translated into English for future
publication.
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I wish to wholeheartedly thank all those who have faithfully contributed to the publication
of this work. First of all, Olga Novakovic, a lady, and a great artist, who loyally fortified me
in the belief that I was on the right path. She no longer inhabits this earth, and to her pure
soul, the “First Sequence” shall be dedicated.
The whole work is dedicated to all the members of our circle, who since 1938 have been
scattered throughout the world. Some stayed at home, many, I among them, emigrated-----to
England, America, Australia, South Africa, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark,
Sweden...
Of those remaining in Austria, my special thanks go to Mr. Ernst Forster and Professor
Erwin Ratz, who took upon themselves the final proofreading of this work, to Mr. Felix
Deutsch, now in New York, who critically reviewed the first sequences and made some of
the drawings, and to the young artist Helene Grunwald, for her drawings. I remember with
gratitude the aid of Professor Franz Strunz, court-councilor, and Mrs. Schmidt, widow of the
late and revered Master Franz Schmidt, with whom I was privileged to spend never-to-berepeated hours of bliss in playing quartet together.
And now another word to the reader...
This work does not contain technical instructions for calculating or constructing a
horoscope. This was not necessary since there are already many excellent works on
the subject in existence to which the reader may refer.
London, September 1949
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The Testament of Astrology - © 2002, All Rights Reserved
First Lecture
Were not the eye akin to Sun,
The Sun it never could perceive.
~ Goethe, “Plotin”
We have come together to study one of humankind’s oldest sciences. Since the most remote
of times, astrology has been surrounded by a halo of holiness. This is largely because this
all-embracing subject emerged into being as revelation, and through experiment and
careful observation. The nature of astrology’s suppositions were of a much more intimate
nature than anything we today call scientific observation. As such, I must emphasize to the
beginner that you are about to enter a realm whose essence is entirely founded in esoteric
wisdom.
To make this clear, let us first define “astrology.” Astrology is the doctrine of the absolute
and inviolable cohesion of all occurrences on Earth, and especially the human occurrence.
It is not only concerned with humanity in general, and the history of our development, but
also with each individual’s existence and entire history. This includes external events as well
as subjective experiences with pain and joy, fear and hope, love and hate, error and
perception, with sickness and death-----in short-----with one’s fate!
This tentative definition already indicates that the science of astrology cannot follow the
path of today’s exact science, nor could it have originated in our time. For modern science
follows the opposite path, stemming from single phenomena and individual observation,
rather than from the concept of a general cosmic cohesion. It proceeds from the particular
to the general, and verifies its results by experiments whenever possible. Today’s science
seeks to prove the validity of its “insights,” gained by observation, of artificial material that
has been arbitrarily freed from outside influence, as a substitute for the natural existing
material of experience. Since its detailed and diversified research never comes to an end,
we can understand why such a science could never concur with the basic idea of astrology
as explained above; the experiment would encounter insurmountable obstacles.
Ironically, however, we are confronted now with the odd fact that, today, this exact science
shows an interest in the teachings of astrology. Exact researchers, filled with the spirit of
modern science, are turning to this old doctrine, and include it in their circle of physical
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knowledge. Thus, we are witnessing at present the evolution of a “scientific” astrology
which would absolutely deny its origin in sources of esoteric wisdom, and which
consequently leads a sort of bastard existence within the science of our time. It can
neither be fit into the framework of modern science nor in that of the old sacred teachings.
The hitherto hostile attitude of strict and exact scientific research could only be shaken by
overwhelming reasons.
Actually exact natural science is currently finding itself in a critical stage of its development,
one that I refer to as the causality crisis. As is well known, the catalyst to this crisis came from
the English philosopher David Hume, who pointed out that causality, or the cause-effect
relationship, could only be conjectured, but never recognized by objective observation.
What we perceive are simply sequences of phenomena, never causal connections. It is we
who add causal connections to the sequence of phenomena. Are we justified in maintaining
that causal connections actually exist?
This difficult philosophical problem originally only concerned philosophers. Nowadays it
has found its way into natural science as well, and is the basis of what scientists proudly term
“exactitude,” chiefly based on the total renunciation of causality. Yet, this very renunciation
is responsible for creating that critical state.
The ingenious expositions of Frenchman August Comte show what led to this critical state.
According to Comte, the development of natural sciences occurred in three stages. The first
or “theological” stage has its roots in childhood beliefs. Here people imagined that invisible
spirits or demons, which reveal themselves through natural events, create all natural
phenomena. Jupiter throws lightening; Jupiter “tonans” thunders; Jupiter “pluvius” rains;
river deities move the waters; dryads cause life and tree growth; Aeolus blows the air;
Vulcan forges ores in earth fires.
Following this childhood stage (which Tyler called “animism”) was the second, adolescent,
stage. August Comte termed this second stage in the development of natural scientific
thought the “metaphysical” stage. Here, demons disappeared from the scene and were
replaced by the “forces of nature.”
However, what essentially had been gained by this? Only the names were changed; warmth,
light, sound, electricity, magnetism, gravity, etc, are merely other names for what were
formerly referred to as demons, and they remain equally as invisible. Thus, we carried our
childhood faith into adolescence. However, for science to believe in such “forces” was still
hidden theology, prohibited metaphysics. It took courage to sacrifice this last vestige of
metaphysics as well.
Thus, finally, humanity reached its third and most mature stage-----that of positive or exact
science. This positive science with its highly esteemed claim to exactitude is characterized
by the complete renunciation of all kinds of metaphysics, or of any remnant of
anthropomorphism. Ideally, if we could only eliminate the observer, then we would
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The Testament of Astrology - © 2002, All Rights Reserved
achieve complete objectivity.
Be that as it may, exact natural science is now concerned with “describing natural
phenomena as simply and completely as possible” (Kirchhoff, Mach), and has thus
become reduced to quantifying and classifying natural phenomena as statistics. All resultant
theories, born out of the desire for cohesion of the statistical material, simply satisfy the
suppressed need for causality and are valuable only as techniques of rote memory, for the
sole purpose of mastering statistical material more easily. What we call natural law is a
thought economizing concentration of the most numerous chains of phenomena possible
by formulas of memory.
It is the fate of all such statistics to never be really complete! We thus witness the odd
spectacle, that natural science which regards astrology’s esoteric wisdom with
condescension, will automatically accept astrology providing it relinquishes all
claims of being anything more than pure statistics of cosmic events and their coincidence
with earthy and human affairs.
Nevertheless, the goal of our gatherings is not to study such astrology. Real astrology has
never been a matter of statistics! What is close to our hearts, the penetration into the true
cosmic cohesion with earthly events, can only be attained esoterically.
What then is this “esoteric doctrine?” What does it signify and what can it offer us? “Esoteric
doctrines” do not derive their names solely from the fact that their contents were kept
strictly secret, to be revealed only to chosen people. It is the source of revelation that makes
this knowledge esoteric-----for it can only emerge from where it lies deeply hidden in the
mystery of the human core. Only when one succeeds in disclosing this source and in
discovering its secret approach can such knowledge be perceived, step-by-step, revealing
the truth of the one-ness of all beings.
Thus, the essence of esoteric knowledge remains secret, since it is always immediate and
incommunicable, and since as-“sur”-ance of this knowledge can only be obtained by one
who can reproduce it out of one’s own source. Once communicated, esoteric teachings
cease being esoteric.
But can such knowledge, derived from the pure innermost core, claim to be scientific?
What criterion could determine if esoteric teachings are pure “imag”-ination?
Let us consider the essence and value of natural science and its method. According to Ernst
Mach, scientific perception does not essentially differ from ordinary everyday perception,
except that scientific perceptions are more highly systematized. Natural science is precisely
arranged experience. In this respect, it is similar to esoteric wisdom. It too differs from an
ordinary everyday occult knowledge, which is just as important, as universal and belongs
as much to everyone as do ordinary sense perceptions. This common everyday esoteric
knowledge is the revelation of the “self,” and can only rise out of the depth of our most
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intimate and secret inner core. Like all esoteric knowledge, this knowledge of the fact of our
“person”-ality is direct and incommunicable! Everyone’s self, with all that moves and fills it,
is one’s own secret!
In contrast, and forever strange to this self within us, is the objective world, discernible only
from the outside. Moreover, in it the “thou” too is forever strange and separated, without a
possible entrance to our inner life.
Into the core of nature no created spirit penetrates!
Blessed is he to whom she merely shows her gates.
teaches Albert Von Haller.
Yet, if we could penetrate into the core of nature, as into our own “self,” then we would
have an inner, esoteric knowledge of the outside as we have of ourselves. This has been the
desire of all who sought the light since the beginning of time, the great longing of Goethe’s
Faust:
So that I may perceive whatever holds
The world together in its inmost folds,
See all its seeds, its working power,
And cease word-threshing from this hour.
Is there really no bridge between the inside and the outside? Is all esoteric wisdom but
imagination? There is a bridge, a bridge whose nature is such that it is ever available for
each of us in the same manner in which only our self is given us-----the human body.
I see my body outside as one among many other bodies, obeying all the physical laws as
revealed to natural scientists. Yet, at the same time, my body is ego-bound. While natural
science is limited in knowing the body only as something contained outside, I know it
further as something within, as something that lives in me emotionally and mentally.
Therefore, I know my body in an esoteric way.
If I could enlarge this body such that all of the strange things outside become part of my
inwardly experienced body, then I would have the same secret knowledge of all the strange
things outside, as I know myself; an esoteric knowledge that can be systematized as scientific
knowledge. I would then be in possession of cosmic esoteric knowledge!
Upon closer examination, this thought loses much of its initial fantastic quality. We see this
transition in abundance in everyday life. Our common sensory perception is already full of
this secret of how an outside becomes an inside and how an inside can show itself as an
outside.
As an example, consider the “thunderstorm fright.” Thunderstorm fear is not fear of the
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lightening and fire of the thunderstorm itself. The revolt in nature is concurrent with an
emotional revolt within us, of the same elementary power. The thunderstorm is inside and
outside simultaneously.
Or, think of the fragrance of the rose! That which lives within the blossom of the rose
becomes a fragrance experience within me. I have only to become deeply absorbed in this soul
experience in order to experience the rose blossom’s essence. Or, think of commiseration, alien
misery, which becomes our own-----the esoteric knowledge of another’s sorrow!
One of the most impressive parables ever applied to the problem of perception comes from
the Indian sage Rama Krishna. It carries this thought farther to a possible esoteric
knowledge of the universe.
Rama Krishna likens the esoteric process of perception to what happens when one throws a
salt doll into water, in contrast to what happens when a stone is thrown into water. Water
washes around the stone, touching only its surface. Unable to penetrate it, the water must
remain foreign and outside of the stone; the stone cannot unite with it. This is a simile for
natural science’s exact perception of outward matter.
The salt doll dissolves in the water. It weds it, penetrating the water to its farthest extremes.
Even if the whole ocean were involved, the salt doll would penetrate it completely, becoming
one with it, so that it would be impossible to say whether the salt had been dissolved in the
water, or the water in the salt. This wedding act is a simile for esoteric perception, whereupon the self has been wedded to the universe; it has been so widened that it now lives in
the cosmos, as if in its own body. We then perceive this universe-body in the same manner
as we perceive our body in everyday life, when inwardly we feel it as the emotional and
mental fulfillment of our self.
Let us clarify this concept using the geometrical figure (see Figure 1 on page 18) of the
pentagram, also called the Druid’s foot. This is a very ancient mystical figure, built by
extending the sides of a regular five-angled figure (pentagon), until they touch. When these
points of juncture are connected by straight lines, a new five-angled figure is formed in an
enlarged measure. This procedure can be continued indefinitely: the five-pointed star
(Pentagram) grows towards the outside. The same procedure can be reversed toward the
inside: drawing the diagonals in the original five-angled figure gives us a diminished fivepointed star, which again encloses a five-angled figure where the diagonals can be drawn
again, and so forth, ad infinitum.
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Figure 1
The five-pointed star has the remarkable faculty of growing toward the outside as well as the
inside, according to its own laws. It mirrors the outward growth in its interior.
Let us now imagine that the original five-angled figure is our ordinary, everyday self. If it
were possible to draw within us all that is spread around us by a mysterious act of opening
our ego, as the salt doll in the simile of Rama Krishna allowed the water to enter into it, then
we need merely to look into ourselves to find the immeasurably diminished image of the
outside in ourselves. Or, to use the phrase of the ancients: the macrocosm in the microcosm,
the great world outside in the inside world.
Once the barriers that hold it imprisoned are broken, the self becomes the primary source
of all esoteric perception. For this reason were these words inscribed above the entrance of
the temple of Apollon in Delphi: “Know Thyself”-------and in the inner temple (readable only to
those allowed to enter there, after fulfillment of the above commandment), the
continuation of the sentence: “And Thou wilt know God! ”2
Some of you will interpret this as poetic imagination, or as eastern mysticism. Consider the
thoughts of Gustav Theodor Fechner, a German philosopher who was also an eminent
representative of the exact sciences. The main doctrines of his philosophy are contained
in two works, the larger, more comprehensive of which is titled “Zend-Avesta,”----living
word-----living perception-----the smaller one: “The Day View as Opposed to the Night View.” In
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2
Leadbeater
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titling his main work, Zend-Avesta, he implies that he does not want to deal with “dead
words” and notions, but to find knowledge in the immediate experience. Fechner starts
from the fact that our body is composed of millions of tiny living beings known as cells.
Each of these cells leads a comparatively independent life, experiencing all the life
processes of digestion, food intake, elimination, growth, propagation and finally death.
Moreover, connected with all these outward criteria of life we must imagine some kind of
inward life, perhaps in the form of a vague feeling of consciousness, such as the primitive
emotions of attraction and repulsion. No single cell in itself can have a clear perception of
the life content of another cell in the same human body. Yet, we as human beings, in whose
body all these cells are integral parts, have in our life experience the life experience of all
our body’s cells----not as each separate cell, but as the sum of the life experience of all cells
joined together. This sum is not merely the total of separate experiences, but of their higher
unity: their concentration on a higher level, which is as much higher as the human
consciousness is above the cell consciousness. The consciousness of all the cells is
contained in the consciousness of the human being as a higher unit. The constant
replacement of dying cells by their successors does not mean a rift in the consciousness
of the entire human being; in the continuity of our emotional vitality, there is room for the
vitality of all the millions of cells. Likewise, every change of vitality of the total ruling
organism will, in reverse, somehow find its way to those individual cells. This includes our
every upset or thought as it happens by contact with our surroundings, every mood of
sentiment or mind: joy, anger, sorrow, love, contentment or restlessness, calm
contemplation, healthy or sick feelings; in short, everything that human consciousness on
its level, in a human manner, experiences. This will be expressed in the cell consciousness
as a dimly felt alteration of the cell’s vitality-----as an increase of this vitality in the case of
elevated human consciousness, as a lessening, if depressive emotions of the human being
are involved.
Now let us assume that such a cell had the critical thinking faculty of the human being of
whose total organism it is only an infinitely small part. It would nevertheless have no
conception of the entire human body, either its outward appearance, which it could never
see, or its “interior.” It would also have no idea where its own vitality changes really came
from. It could believe nothing else but that the cause of these variations should lie in itself,
or result from contact with its immediate cell-neighbors. The conception that it is physically,
emotionally and mentally contained within a higher organism together with millions of
other cells would have to appear fantastic and unacceptable, as incompatible with its own
exact thinking. What it had heretofore understood as its independent, individual life, was
only a small part, owing existence and purpose only to its being built into a higher organism
out of which, unknown to itself, all the impulses and energies of its supposedly independent
life flow.
But if this single cell could break through the limits of its cell-consciousness and rise to the
higher human consciousness, then from this newly won perspective, it would learn to
understand the law, which determines its cohesion with the totality of the person. This
thought may be further enlarged. Humanity, too, is but a cell in a higher organism. As the
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single cells have been built into the human body, participating in our higher life in their own
manner, we too are built into a higher organism. We participate in a human way in a higher
life, even though we may never be able to see it or to recognize it.3
Where is this mighty organism, this higher being, in which we each represent merely a tiny
cell? A single, perishable cell of its giant body! This giant organism, which comprises all
humankind as part of its being, in which all thoughts, emotions, experiences, perceptions
-----indeed in which the complete physical, emotional and mental life of all people on earth
are contained-----is the Earth. Human life is contained in Earth not as a mere sum total, but
as a higher unit of all these life contents. Earth’s level of consciousness supersedes that of
humankind as our own consciousness supersedes the dull consciousness of our cells.
Earth is an enormous living being, which not only contains all people, but also all fauna, all
flora, all the mineral substances, the water, air and fire-----in short, everything we see around
us. All this lives as an integral and organic part in Earth’s body, participating in its immense
life. Inside Earth’s life, every person, with all thought and feeling, is just a fleeting thought,
which burgeons in an incomprehensibly higher connection. All human wisdom and art
inside of this life is but a letter in a higher word, which only Earth can think.
We can extend this thought of the one great, united life, still further. Earth, to whom Fechner
ascribes the rank of an archangel, is also only a cell in a still greater body. Together with
other similar “cells”-----the other planets of our solar system-----Earth is built into the solar
system from which all the planets with their moons receive the laws and meaning of their
lives.
And further...! All these millions of sun-worlds are again united in a highest being, in whose
consciousness each single sun world is but a letter of the universal word, which has been
since the beginning. Thus, we are all members of an immense organism, of the universe, or,
if you want, of “GOD,” within whom we live, reciprocally. It is, therefore, a knowledge from
the inside-----or, as we said, an esoteric knowledge of all which is outside-----possible only
because it is an immersion in the knowledge of God. Full of such thoughts, the old mystic
says:
Were not the eye akin to Sun,
The Sun it never could perceive;
If not God’s power lived in us,
How could the Divine delight us so?
~ Goethe, “Plotin”
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3
Editor’s note: Whereas this text predates the “Space Age” and “New Age,” it is interesting to pause at the thought of how
our relatively new-found capacity to witness the Earth from beyond her physical limits is concomitant with our capcity to
go beyond the boundaries of our limiting ego-separated selves. In this ideas, as in many others, Dr. Adler was well ahead
of his time.
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To summarize, we have used Rama Krishna’s simile of the salt doll and the figure of the
five-pointed star to indicate how the human body can be considered a bridge between the
here and the beyond. Thus, we have an important starting point for the foundation of
esoteric knowledge in general, and especially for astrology.
This human body, which we now know as a physical link between the profane and the
esoteric doctrines, is not the only bridge. There is still another bridge between the here and
the beyond, one purely intellectual in nature. It too is a form of “knowledge” that is
commonplace in one sense, but which, when perfected into a science, is considered the
ultimate exactitude. This science, which in a way shows a double face-----a “secret” one,
turned inward, and a “profane” one, turned outward-----is mathematics. Mathematics actually
possesses all the criteria of secret wisdom since in complete purity, all its findings can only
be inwardly won. Therefore, mathematical knowledge is immediate, not based on outward experience. Its truth is immediately witnessed by anyone in whose mind its findings
are repeatedly reproduced autonomously. Like the fact of our self, mathematical perceptions
need no outward proof.
Now someone could get the idea that mathematical perceptions, in spite of their close inner
connections, are mere products of the imagination. Nevertheless, we are faced with the fact
that the results of this “imagination,” miraculous as it appears, can be applied not only to
this strange outside world; they also disclose to us the lawfulness of exterior occurrences.
These derive their scientific value through the quality of being expressible in mathematical
formula. This fact gives to mathematics its merit as a bridge between the interior and the
exterior. For, just as the crystal forms of the cube, tetrahedron, octahedron, etc. meet us in
the outer world as natural forms, grown through exterior influence, so grow the geometrical
idea forms on which the crystals are based, through a mental process by purely intellectual
means in ourselves. Thereby, they indicate the secret connection between the outside and
the inside, as by a common source. Mathematics is the living revelation of the secret life of
numbers. All parts grown out of the oneness-----“partes”-----are born as the cell grows, through
partition (partus = birth) out of the one. In this sense Lao-Tzu says of numbers: “The one
begets the two, those two engender the three, and the three all the other numbers.”
All mathematical perception is uniform living esoteric wisdom, born out of the One. Within
the limits of this secret number knowledge, these numbers present themselves, not as
measures of space and time, but as the natural system of the living organic cohesion
between the original one and the parts grown from it, into which it is inwardly divided.
What is thus lived inwardly through number is the consciousness of the harmony between
the universe as the large, and the ego as the small, unit: the general form of the absolute
cosmic connection, of which we spoke at the beginning: of the one and its parts. For this
experience too there exists an everyday example, a semi profane earthly echo of that
cosmic harmony: music. Music is the immediate inner experience of number. It is a message
of the inner connection of the universe. In this sense the ancient sages spoke of the harmony
of the spheres, and Goethe through the mouth of Raphael in “Faust”:
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The Sun intones, in ancient tourney,
With brother spheres, a rival song.
Now it is not surprising that the great Johannes Kepler arrived at a similar line of thought. In
his main work, “Harmonices Mundi” (Harmony in the Universe), he, like Fechner, sought
to demonstrate that the Earth is a huge, living being, with digestion, elimination, etc. Like
Earth, the other planets are also living beings, with whom Earth is in continuous mutual
relation, like each person to another within our environment. When, in a certain moment, a
child is born on Earth, delivered out of the Earth’s womb, it then bears as a dowry the
fundamental mood that permeated the planetary world in this moment. Whatever thought
the Earth at this moment held in the dialogue with her cosmic surroundings is now carried
within the newborn as the law that governs his or her future life. It is thus the permanent
keynote of one’s life-----an expression of the law, according to which we each enter it.
As on the day that gave thee to the world,
The Sun did stand in greeting to the planets,
Hast thou immediately and ever more been thriving,
According to the law, obeying which thou started.
~ Goethe, “Orphisch”
The above is presented to give a general conception of the basic idea of astrology as an
esoteric doctrine. Now let us compare this with the attitude of exact natural science in
relation to the cosmic world picture.
Here again we may refer to Fechner. Without knowing it, in his Zend Avesta, this ingenious
thinker disclosed to us the meaning of Rama Krishna’s parable of the salt doll. He also
disclosed the simile of the stone in another main work: “The Day View as Opposed to the
Night View.” As “day view,” Fechner understands the above-developed fundamental view
of universal life, of which every single life is an organically integrated part, partaking in the
totality of light that radiates through the cosmos and shines both outside and inside of us.
The night-view conception of the world maintains that the total outside world can only be
properly understood if its “appearance” is freed from all contributions of human experience
(consciously or unconsciously applied). These contributions of our individuality-----with all that
belongs to emotion, to joy and sorrow-----attempt to transform the apparent into “reality.” Also
included in this individuality are the sense qualities, as functional expressions of
the sense organs: light, sound, and heat, smell and taste.
What then remains of this formerly so well known world? Nothing but the specter of a
nightly world, freed of all individuality, in which we ourselves no longer exist. This world is
dark and mute, without soul or spirit; no bridge leads to this dead world but illusion. Truly
a world not worth living in, if it were not wisdom’s last comforting conclusion (resulting
from this view of the world) that our own thoughts and feelings are but vain illusions----23
The Testament of Astrology - © 2002, All Rights Reserved
unimportant, superfluous additions to the only real fact of a soulless occurrence of
vibrations-----the eternal dance of atoms.
There is then an antithesis between a purely objective, dark, soulless world, in which we
ourselves are merely automatically swinging atom complexes, and the live world, which is
flooded by warmth and light, of which we ourselves, with all that moves our innermost
beings, are organically united parts. The abyss between this “night view” of materialism,
which truly won an “objective” world but thereby lost its soul, and the esoteric world-picture
appears as grotesque as the contrast between the astronomy of our day and astrology as an
esoteric doctrine. A writer of popular science wrote the following sentences to demonstrate
the triumph of modern thinking: “Formerly it was believed that the Sun was a divine being, but
now we know that it is a glowing ball of gas.” Could not one say just as well: In former times
it was believed that Beethoven’s symphonies were noble works of art, now we know that they
are merely vibrating masses of air. Or: once I believed that you, writer, were a thinking being,
but now I know that you are merely a chemical combination of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon,
nitrogen, and some other mineral salts!
The grotesqueness of such science (which, as Goethe puts it, holds the parts in its hands, but
lacks the courage to search their spiritual connections) goes even further: Look at this book!
We follow here an example used by the occult writer Papus. In what does its essence consist
and how would you investigate it? It has so and so many ounces; it contains so and so many
letters of this or that size; the paper consists of so and so much carbon, oxygen, etc. Isn’t that
wonderful science? Does this knowledge satisfy you? Now you know about this book? Have
you never felt the urge to read this book? You have omitted this, because you took its contents
to be metaphysical imagination. Take heart, try it, and you will experience something strange
-----the dead book will talk to you as speaks one mind to another mind.
Astronomy also teaches nothing more than the outward measurements of a giant book,
which it defines most accurately. It knows the measurements of all planets and their courses
along with the period of their revolutions, the substances of which the remotest suns are
built. Is that science not wonderful? But, does this knowledge of the universe satisfy you?
Do you know this universe now? Have you never had the desire to seek the meaning
beyond all these measurements and numbers, the meaning by which astronomy became
astrology so long ago? To reveal this meaning, we must have the courage to learn how to
use the secret code key to this giant book, which we carry inside of us, never to be lost. It has
been offered to us in two ways: as our human body, and as numbers.
Out of these two fundamental elements, the sacred old wisdom of astrology may be rebuilt.
Helped by these two auxiliary means, we shall seek to reconquer a knowledge which in
ancient times was alive in human hearts as the knowledge “Kat’exochen”-----the knowledge
of the vast cosmic interrelationships in which each of us in included. We are everlasting
members of the immeasurable universe.
Let Goethe’s answer to Albert von Haller, (who thought the road into “the core of nature”
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closed) accompany and encourage us:
Nature has neither seed nor skin,
She is everything at once.
Examine thou thyself severely,
Whether thou be seed or merely skin.
and further:
You follow the wrong trail,
Don’t think we joke!
Is not the core of nature
In the heart of men?
With this, we will close for today. Take with you as a fundamental mood the idea of the
great living ONE (whose witness is everyone’s “ego,” immediate and forever united) as a
guide to humanity’s oldest science-----astrology.
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