Story of the Three Bears

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Damon and Pythias

–It was held in ancient times that the Twins were the builders of cities and the
founders of empires. Picturing the section of the zodiac related in a natural
birth-chart to brethren, thought and travel, and ruling the hands and arms of human
anatomy, the stories about them show skill in the use of tools, dexterity in war, and
often relate to travel.

In Peru they were believed to have built the first city, the symbol for them there being
a pile of brick; and Rome is held to have been founded by Romulus, after his twin
brother, Remus, had been slain in a quarrel over building a wall. They had reached
the site of the future metropolis as infants, drifting down the river in a boat which
there found lodgement in the marshes.

The Romans thus regarded the heavenly Twins as exerting a special power of
protection over them. Because they relate to travel they were frequently pictured
with steeds, and Grecian temples thus retain them, riding side by side, armed with
spears, on snow-white horses. The Romans, adopting the idea, struck a coin in their
honor. The pence of the Good Samaritan was such a silver piece, on which the two
horsemen were shown.

This protecting power of thought and skill was honored so greatly in the time of
Imperial Rome that it entered into the customary oath. On our witness stands the
Bible, as the sacred word of God, is considered the emblem of that high power which
none should dare defy; but in olden Rome the solemn token of the sacred power by
which they swore was Gemini. Passing to a less reverential generation, By Gemini,
which to us is, By Jiminy, became a by-word of the street.

Six hundred years after the devotion displayed to David by Jonathan, and three
hundred years after the founding by one Twin of Rome, lived Dionysius, the tyrant of
Syracuse. The Pythagorean sect then flourished, and to those who joined its ranks,
revealed the teachings of the still more ancient Stellar Wisdom.

Damon and Pythias were such followers of the great Samoan sage, developing their
spiritual powers and learning about numbers and the stars from the same ordained
instructor. Thrown constantly together in the school, a strong attachment formed
between them, and their friendship grew as the horizon of their knowledge widened.
The bond of religious brotherhood was strengthened by personal admiration.

Then Pythias, through some political indiscretion, came under the disapproval of the
monarch and was condemned to die. He was a man of varied interests, and financial
matters, due to his absorption in his studies, were rather at loose ends. Thoughtful of
others, who might be left destitute by his sudden passing, and of debts that rightfully
should be paid, he begged the tyrant liberty long enough to set right these various
affairs.

Quite naturally, the one who had condemned him to death wanted to know what
assurance could be given, if he were allowed temporary freedom, that he would come
back, and be present on the day of execution. Whereupon friend Damon stepped
forward, pledging himself, standing ready to be slain if Pythias failed thus to return.
In this manner, therefore, was the matter settled.

Damon was kept under closest guard, and as the day approached, speculation ran
high whether Pythias should die or Damon. Some thought the teachings of the
initiates in the school to which they both belonged had so imbued the friends with a
sense of honor that, even though his life be forfeit, Pythias surely must return. Others,
more numerous and more highly vocal, expressed their belief, and backed it with a
wager, that he had made good his escape, having fled to some foreign land.

On the death-day excitement ran high and a huge crowd gathered. Damon seemed the
least concerned of all. And sure enough, as the time for the fateful ceremony drew
near, here came Pythias striding through the gathering, to take his place before the
executioner, true to his word and true to his friend.

So impressed was Dionysius with this loyalty of friend to friend, and with teachings
which gave so high a sense of honor, that not only did he free Pythias, and spare his
life, but he also asked to be admitted as a member of the Pythagorean order.

No less dramatic, and also concerned with the absence of one, is the Greek story of
Castor and Pollux, after whom the heavenly Twins are now named.

They fell in love with the daughters of Leucippus. But as these maidens already were
betrothed to the sons of Aphareus, resentment was expressed by these earlier suitors
toward the Twins. At last the rivalry ran so high that insult was passed, resulting in a
challenge to battle. In the course of the ensuing fight Castor was slain.

So great was the attachment of Pollux for his brother that he walked up and down the
earth, disconsolate and filled with sadness. Interest in life had departed, and he
longed to die, but this he could not do, for unlike the absent brother, he was immortal.

Jove, from his Olympian heights, perceiving the vast distress in the heart of the
surviving Twin, took pity and permitted Castor to share his brother’s immortality.

Yet in granting this favor he made the stipulation that but one of the two could be on
earth at a time, the other remaining meanwhile confined in Pluto’s dark realm.

The mind of man, after the manner thus described, is acknowledged to be two, the
objective and the unconscious, linked inseparably so long as earthly life shall last.
The objective mind being dependent upon the physical brain for expression, is, like
Castor, subject to the forces of death. But the unconscious mind, persisting in the
astral realms after the dissolution of the physical, like Pollux, is, in truth, immortal.

The conscious, or objective mind, embraces those states of consciousness, thought,
feeling, and visual images, which, through the etheric energies that connect the
four-dimensional and the three-dimensional form, impress themselves strongly on
the physical brain. Castor is mortal, because when the physical brain ceases to
function he exists no more.

Yet when Castor is on earth, when the objective mind is active as in the fully waking
state, the unconscious mind, Pollux, is below the threshold of consciousness, unable
to express except imperfectly on the physical plane. He is chained in the realm of
invisible forces, in Pluto’s dark domain.

But when Castor finishes his daily sojourn, and departs through the processes of
sleep, himself to enter the realm of darkness, it is then that Pollux holds full sway. In
dreams the unconscious mind finds experiences such as it desires, visits the halls of
learning, and weaves a pattern of fantasy which, more frequently that not, is all the
memory it brings back to relieve the monotony of the waking state.

Jonathan and David were like Castor and Pollux in the eternal bond of their affection.
And just as David was wont to soothe the troubled spirit of King Saul by playing on a
harp, so is that harp still pictured, as anciently, held by a heavenly Twin.

When Saul sought the life of David, it was Jonathan, who loved David as his own
soul, who saw to it that he escaped. He made a point of reporting to him every whim
and purpose of his father; and on one occasion when the peril was most high, he
devised a means by arrows, that David should be enlightened that danger threatened.

A place was appointed where David should come in hiding to receive the signal
agreed upon. A bow and arrow are still to be seen clasped in a Twin’s hand, and the
robe is there also which was given to David. Three arrows were to be shot, as if
Jonathan were practicing at a mark. If he spoke to the boy with him saying, as he
started to retrieve the shots, that the arrows were this side of him, David was to know
that he was safe. But if he said, as he was compelled to do, that the arrows were farther
on, it should be a signal for David to depart in haste.

On still another occasion it was his wife, Michal, who saved David from the wrath of
her father. This was accomplished by using a pillow of goat hair, and covering it with
cloth, as if it were David prostrated with a fatal illness. The bed was brought to Saul at
his command, with expectation that he would hasten the demise, but the one he thus
sought to destroy had meantime effected his escape.

Thus again was the goat employed, as so often is the case, to symbolize the power of
use. David possessed ability, and after the manner of the adjoining decanate of
Taurus, in which a goat and her kids are pictured in association with the Master,
Elijah, it is made plain that his powers were not being employed for selfishness, but
for the good of the nation.

So long as David worked constructively, so long as his thoughts were directed to the
accomplishment of some good end, he was helped by those nearest to him. And to the
extent that any other person is able to live a completely constructive life, will he also
receive the maximum benefit from his environment.

Nor is the harp pictured with the heavenly Twins without great significance; for to
the extent thoughts are joined harmoniously, as were joined Damon and Pythias,
Castor and Pollux, David and Jonathan, do they enter into beneficial compounds.
Thoughts that are born at the same time, that arc presented to the consciousness in
association, become linked together in such a manner that they present a united
action. The thought-cell so formed works from the four-dimensional plane, with
such energy as it possesses, to attract events relating to it into the life.

To the extentthere are discords present it attracts misfortune, but to the extent
there is that harmony which the harp symbolizes, does it work to
attract events which are fortunate into the life.

The Key-phrase for that section of the zodiac where the Sun is from
May 21 to June 22 is, I Think. The text, therefore, is: Thoughts Are
Man’s Most Potent Builders.

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The Wee Small Bear Whose Porridge Was Just Right

–Way to the north, where they may be seen circling close to the celestial pole, is the
constellation of the Big Bear and the constellation of the Little Bear. A Middle Sized
Bear is not shown; for the middle decanate of Gemini, instead, is pictured far to the
south as a good sized dog.

Not only are we led to expect, because Gemini is the natural ruler of thought, that the
constellations picturing its decanates shall relate to mental processes, but the stories
of David and Jonathan, Damon and Pythias, Castor and Pollux quite prepare us to
recognize in the bears a further elaboration of teachings relating to the two types of
consciousness.

Bears, in addition to unconquerable restlessness, and their habit, like mind, of
devouring everything presented that has possibilities as food, have unusual feet.
They are plantigrade, as is man, walking not upon their toes as most beasts do, but
upon the soles of their feet. The feet of a bear are mentioned in Revelation; and in
Second Samuel, 17, it speaks of men that are chafed in their minds as a bear robbed of
her whelps in the field; indicating recognition of this largeness of understanding and
restlessness which associates the bear symbolically with types of mental activity.

Taking the two bears to signify objective thought, which in its latest development
becomes reason, and unconscious thought, which in lower forms gives rise to instinct
and in man to intuition, next must be decided which bear relates to the latest form of
thinking. If we follow the simple system employed by the wise ones of old in their
starry portrayals as similarly we followed it in learning the order of pictorial
succession, we are led to conclude that the mental activity which first developed is
that which also appears first in the constellated pictures.

The Little Bear, exemplifying that section of the Sun’s warm path from May 21 to
May 31, coming first, reveals something of import regarding the unconscious mind.
Just what that something is, let us try to learn from legendary stories about the little
bear.

Some American Indians recognize the constellation as a Dipper and some as a Bear.
Because of its form, just as Whites do, they often refer to it as the Little Dipper. But in
general throughout the world the Pole Star, at the tip of small bruin’s tail, is given a
place of special honor.

One legend of wide diffusion among the American tribes is that once a hunting party
of Indians lost its way and its members were in grave doubt as to the direction to go to
reach their home. It was such a serious matter that they very earnestly prayed the
Great Spirit to give them proper guidance. No sooner had the prayer been finished
than a little child appeared in their midst and proclaimed itself the spirit of the Pole
Star.

Following it, as plainsmen and woodsmen commonly at night look to the Pole Star to
give them direction, they were guided safely to their home; and ever since that time
Indians have recognized the orb, whose spirit is like an innocent child, as the star
which never moves. When they died the huntsmen who were thus guided were
carried up to heaven where yet they may be seen as the stars of the Little Dipper
constellation.

Now that which is ever the same, changing not, but immovable, and which like the
Pole Star is the best of all guides, is Truth. It is the Rock of Ages, upon which any
lasting church must have foundation; the rock which the Psalms proclaim is higher
than I. Thus to the Greeks was the Pole Star known as Mount Olympus, the abode of
the gods; a mountain so high that birds could not fly to the top of it, nor clouds collect
upon its summit. Truth is never cloudy, nor can the thoughts of men ever soar to its
utmost height.

The Big Bear in the sky, by means of its pointers, indicates the way to Truth, but the
tail of the Little Bear actually touches it. As the Pole Star is reached by the Little
Bear’s tail, so are there faculties of the Unconscious Mind by which Truth can
directly be apprehended.

The Objective Mind, with its mature powers of Reason, is a long way removed from
the infantile stage. Not only is it full grown, but also sophisticated and often ruthless.
Suggestions offered it are met with skepticism. But the Unconscious Mind, as dream
life reveals, is not so critical. That which Reason, when it is brought to bear, calls
impossible, takes place in the fantasy of dreams. For that matter, it also takes place in
the reality of the four-dimensional realm, where the restrictions imposed by
three-dimensions no longer hold.

This naivet� with which the Unconscious Mind accepts conditions that the
Conscious Mind rejects as illogical leads to associating it symbolically with a little
bear or a little child. As the Indian legend indicates, so the Bible also asserts, that the
kingdom of God must be received as a little child. There is a faculty of the
unconscious mind which feels assured when things are right.

Thus did little Goldilocks, in the nursery tale told over much of the globe, always find
the possessions of the Little Bear just to her liking. The Things which belonged to the
Great Big Bear were too coarse and rough for her; and those of the Middle Sized Bear
were also uncomfortable; but the Little Bear’s were just right.

You doubtless remember Goldilocks, the little girl who lived near a forest covered
mountain, like Mount Olympus, and often went for a walk in the woods.

One bright and sunny morning she had gone farther than usual, picking the pretty
flowers, when she came to a house, and as the door was unlocked she entered; much
as we enter the physical world. But this was the house of the three bears. We call them
Reason, Impulse and Intuition.

The bears were out for a stroll in the woods, while the porridge which Mother Bear
had made– and what a porridge Impulse often makes of life– had been left, already
poured in bowls, on the table to cool. So as Goldilocks was hungry she sampled the
food. The great huge bowl of porridge was too hot, the middle sized bowl of porridge
was too cold, but when she tried the little wee bowl of porridge, it, like the Intuitional
appraisal of life’s experiences, was neither too hot nor too cold, but just right.

After eating her fill she tried the chairs. The great big chair was too high for her, and
the middle sized chair was too low, but the little wee chair was neither too high nor
too low, but just right. These were not immobile chairs. They were such as typify
action; for Goldilocks rocked and rocked until the little chair broke all to pieces, as in
the end man’s body always does.

Then she went upstairs where there were beds; beds that symbolize rest to the body
after the assimilation of grueling experience and the destruction of physical tissues
through the monotonous rhythm of the daily toil. The great huge bed of Reason was
too high for her; for the reasoning process is a foe to sleep. And the middle sized bed
of Impulse was too hard; she would have tossed and turned if she had attempted to
rest there. But the wee little bed was just right- for the Unconscious Mind has
fullcharge in slumber and Intuition can then impress its guidance through the avenue of dreams.

Such impressions are more easily recognized in the moment of
waking. Of course, Intuition often is active at the very moment some
situation is presented, giving instant appraisal of its possibilities and
its outcome. But more often than not the Great Huge Bear of Reason
so intrudes its ungainly force that the wee small voice of Intuition
can not then be heard. But if listened for, it can be heard readily in
that transition state between sleep and waking.

When the three bears came home it was the Little Bear that
discovered Goldilocks in his bed, and spoke in a wee small voice.
Whereupon–just as Reason and Impulse rush in when one starts to
awaken–the two larger bears rushed over to the bed, making so
much noise that they frightened Goldilocks, and she jumped out the
window and ran safely home, despite the Little Bear calling to her to
come back and play with him.

No time is quite so easy, as a rule, to hear the voice of Intuition as in
this transition from the sleeping to the waking state; but its
promptings must be carefully listened for and noted before thoughts begin
to clamor in the mind.

It is because Reason and Impulse so often intrude and create a clamor that the
promptings of the unconscious mind should be subjected to whatever method may be
available to check their accuracy. Like the Little Bear’s tail, Intuition, which is the
Key-word for the decanate this animal pictures, is in constant touch with the Pole
Star. Truth. But its voice is easily deflected and is often misunderstood through the
crowding influences of other forms of thought.

Not that the unconscious mind is able to apprehend all there is to know; but, because
it draws information from the reports of both the physical senses and the
four-dimensional senses, having access to both realms, its possibilities of acquiring
information are vast. In the astral realm the process of tuning in on the knowledge
desired makes the more laborious methods of earth quite unnecessary.

When the unconscious mind realizes what is expected of it, it will endeavor
to meet the expectations, traveling in sleep, using the faculties of clairvoyance
and clairaudience, and the tuning in process to acquire Information.
Yet after it has collected facts from both the outer and the inner plane, and
from them has formed correct conclusions, there is still the more difficult
problem of getting recognition from the objective consciousness.Only through
training can its voice be heard. Yet the text is clear: Only Through the Intuition
Does Man Contact the Real Underlying Truth of Things.

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Why a Mad Dog Shuns the Water

The marriage-decanate of Gemini, so called because it has a sub-influence
ruled by Libra, the marriage sign, is pictured by a dog. This dog is not fat and
plump. Thought, to which the sign as a whole relates, is swift, therefore, this
dog is long of leg and speedy, like a hound.

Character is the real man, the whole man, and represents a fusion, or
marriage, between the unconscious mind and the objective mind,whose powerful
activities are portrayed by the bears. And because character is the truly
important thing, in placing its pictographic symbol in the sky it might be
expected that the ancients would use in its portrayal the most conspicuous of
all the stars. Sirius, the star in the mouth of the greater dog, is the most brilliant
star in the whole expanse of sky.

Joining, as it does, the Reason section of the zodiacwith that section relating
to Intuition, one can not help but wonder how much the ancients knew
regarding it, how much was coincidence, and how much was an intuitive
recognition of the real nature of the Dog Star, Sirius.

The star, like thought and like the hound, has a rapid proper motion. That
is, relative to other stars it is moving at tremendous speed. And it is not one
star, as to the naked eye it appears, but Twin stars, united, or married, by the
mutual pull of gravity, and thus revolving around a common center; bound
together by a tie as inseparable as that which held Castor and Pollux.

But more amazing still, the companion star, the smaller of the two, has a
density incomparable to anything known on earth. Forty thousand times as
dense as water,more than a thousand times as heavy as platinum, an amount
of it such as might be placed in the pocket of a boy weighs not less than a ton.

Like planets revolving around the Sun, and with space between as large
in proportion, the electrons of all atoms of matter revolve around the nucleus
at the atom’s center. And it is supposed that the pull of the nucleus at the
center of the atoms on the companion star of Sirius, under conditions which
are not understood, became so great that the atoms collapsed. The positive
and negative charges entered into a still closer embrace to form a type of
substance that no longer can be considered atomic; a substance having a distinctly
different character to anything existing on the earth.

Very much as electrons and protons, united in a miniature solar system,
are part and parcel of every atom of matter, so while man functions through
a physical body the conscious and unconscious minds unite to contribute to
his character.

As the dog is an animal which frequently gives warning of danger, like
the voice of conscience protesting against the trespass of wicked deeds, and
as both reason and intuition unite to apprise of other peril, so the Dog Star in
ancient Egypt gave warning of the flooding of the Nile.

In the spring of the year this brightest of stars is visible just after sunset.
But each evening it sets about four minutes earlier, so that as the season advances
it is closer and closer to the Sun, until there comes a time when it is so
close to the orb of day that it can no longer be seen. Then some fine morning,
to anyone ambitious enough to be up, it may be seen as a morning star, heralding
the approach of the rising Sun.

This first visible appearance of Sirius before the Sun was of great importance
to the Egyptians because it timed the yearly approach of an event which
to them meant life or death. They were an agricultural race, dependent upon
the harvest for sustenance. That harvest, in turn, depended upon the flooding
of the Nile.

The raising of crops, year after year, on the same piece of soil is made
possible only when the elements removed are in some manner replaced. It is
customary for men to spend time and money thus to prevent the wearing out
of their ground. But in Egypt, each year, the Nile did this for them, overflowing
its banks, depositing a thin layer of rich new silt, and in addition giving
the farms a very necessary soaking.

Egypt was dependent for her life upon this flooding of the Nile. The civilization
which persisted for thousands of years was made possible by it. Is it
any wonder then, that the brilliant star which heralded this event should have
received unusual homage!

Its first visible appearance before the Sun marked the commencement of
their year. It was the first of the month of Thoth (Mercury). Were this not
known historians would have a sorry time with ancient chronology. It serves
them as the reference point from which to calculate the past.

There was a vague year of 365 days and a sothic year of 365¼ days. The
coincidence of the two calendars after 1461 vague years or 1460 sothic years gave
them a Sothic period. And it is on record, fortunately, that one such
Sothic period commenced on the first day of Thoth, in A.D. 139.

Each year it was the custom, on this first day of the month of Thoth, for
the Pharaoh or one of his sons to go early to the temple. Then, just as Sirius
came into view, and its rays shone through the temple and fell directly upon
the shrine, to make an offering of papyrus and of lotus flowers. This officially
commenced a festival which the populace celebrated with fervor and pageants
of splendor.

When Sirius thus rose ahead of the Sun, Etesian winds were piling moisture
from the Mediterranean against the interior mountains, and soon the
resulting rains would bring inundation. It was time, so the dog in the sky
warned them, for farmers to move their household goods to higher ground
until the flood had passed and it was safe for them again.

Thus the constellated dog may be seen keeping a watchful eye on the
rising river.And although, due to the precession of the equinoxes, the time of
this event is now earlier in the year, when the Greeks and Romans first contacted
the Egyptians, the first visible rising of Sirius before the Sun commenced
the close sultry days of summer, which because of this were called dog days,
and are still so termed in many parts of the world.

Canis Major is a friendly dog with his master’s welfare dominant in his
heart. Ever faithful to the trust imposed in him he willingly risks his life in the
protection of his human friends. The Sun is in the Fidelity decanate he pictures
from June 1 to June 12.

As man looks up to God in service and devotion so does the faithful dog
look up to man. No other animal habitually displays these qualities which in
their fuller bloom become the flowers of religion and altruistic action.

As pictured in the sky he is not fleeing in terror from the rising water. He
is merely warning that temporarily it is better to repair to higher ground. The
soil can bring forth its fruit only when it thus has been moistened; and the
earthly life of man acquires a healthy harvest only when the finer, kinder
qualities of affection have softened its hard, dry selfishness.

The great dog in the sky portrays the character of man, which warns him
when the emotional tide runs high enough to bring him peril; and leads him
back again to moist and fertile ground when there is safety.

But when he develops fear of water,when the character no longer is swayed
by the softer, kinder sentiments, he, himself, becomes a greater peril. To turn
loose the dogs of war,was a customary expression in the days of ancient Rome.
And when the character of a people develop madness, as a dog develops
rabies, it seeks to find expression in acts of military aggression.

Hydrophobia means to have a fear of water, and those engaged in war must
of necessity shun contact with those finer, kinder emotions which give quality
to the soul and build for it an enduring spiritual body, such as symbolized by
the stellar river. Instead there is the cruelty and wanton destruction so well
expressed by the mad dog which tradition says thus shuns the water.

This is the worst of the whole affair, that one nation in the world affected
with this military madness endangers every other nation. As a dog
with the rabies bites right and left with no discrimination, so one jingo nation
infects the others. None can disregard the threat of its armament. And
each thus infected country, strengthening its powers of destruction, becomes
a source from which the malady spreads to others who are fearful of its
possible aggression.

And so, from one country to another, does the disease move forward.Nor
apparently is there any prevention of the spread of this dread madness except
through the restraint of the nation where it develops, suppressing it at
its source.

Still another form occurs within a nation. Reasonable hours of labor, reasonable
wages, and kindly working conditions for those employed are the
dictates of proper character and in the interest of the universal good. But one
firm developing the cruel traits of competitive madness, lowering wages,
lengthening hours,making living conditions impossible as one nation infects
another with vast expenditure for armament—compels other firms in the same
business to develop like methods to prevent being bankrupt.

Mad dogs of industry and mad dogs of military aggression must be restrained
for the protection of all, themselves included. But such madness primarily
is that of character. There is no real benefit to the individual that can
be purchased at the expense of the universal good. It is a sign of hydrophobia
when, within the law or without it, the attempt is made to racketeer.

The good of any man resides in his character, and his character is sound
only so long as it has due regard and sympathy for the interests of others. The
text therefore may be expressed in the words of the bard of Avon: “This Above
All; To Thine Own Self Be True; And It Must Follow As the Night the Day, Thou
Canst Not Then Be False to Any Man.”

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When the Giants Made an Assault on Heaven

In the long ago there was a race of giants whom the Greeks called Titans.
They were very powerful and became arrogant with the knowledge of their
strength. In this they were not unlike some scientists of the present day, who
triumphant in their conquest of certain laws of matter, believe no information
of importance, of a different nature, can lie beyond their ken.

So certain of themselves did these giants become that they decided to
storm the gates of heaven and dethrone the gods who resided there. That is,
like Soviet Russia at the present time, they deemed there was no power superior
to the physical. Brute force and intellect seemed to them supreme, and in
their atheism they sought to overthrow the very judgment seat of God.

Still further back in Bible times another race of men had kindred thoughts.
The sign Gemini, the third decanate of which is pictured by a Giant Bear,
relates to building, the Peruvian symbol for it being a pile of bricks. Such
bricks were used, as described in Genesis 11, on Shinar’s plain to construct a
city and a tower, whose top should reach to heaven.

The Sun while in this decanate of Reason, from June 12 to June 22, like
the laid brick tower of Genesis, the barrows and pyramids of various lands,
and the mountains which the Titans piled up in their invasion of the dwelling
place of God, mounts higher and higher in the sky. Only at mid-day on
the 22nd of June does it reach its highest,most northern, declination. This is
the longest day of the year, the nearest approach of the earth to gaining
perpetual light.

But the Sun, at the end of this giant decanate, ascends no higher. The Titans
are defeated by the power of Jove, whose Sagittarian sign across the zodiac
opposes to Intellect and Reason the mandates of true religion.
Gemini relates to thinking, but no less also to the expression of thought in
speech.On Shinar’s plain, therefore, the defeat of those who assaulted heaven
with Babel’s tower was accompanied by a confusion of tongues, and a scattering
of forces, such as those born in this sign find often to defeat their ends.
And the Titans, like scientists who pile up facts to refute the possibilities of an
after life, to have other greater groups of facts piled over them, were buried
under the very mountains they had erected; and their blood, as the essence of
atheism always does, gave rise to a race of ruthless men.

It is not to be inferred from this defeat that Reason is without its proper
use, or that the Titans had not a proper function. Reason should be used wherever
possible to check the reports of the psychic senses and intuition. The two
stars in the outer bowl of the dipper which mark the shoulder of the Giant
Bear point directly to the pole star, Truth. Mariners and plainsmen and those
who must find their way through the forest at night constantly use them to
indicate the North Star which gives them true direction.

It was the assumption that objective consciousness and the reports of the
physical senses which Reason commonly employs, were sufficient in themselves
to acquire the whole of Truth that led the Titans to disaster. Reason,
like the Pointers, only indicates the direction of Truth,which is really touched
by the unconscious mind and the Intuition as symbolized in the Little Bear.
Yet as affording a necessary means by which the accuracy of the findings of
the other faculties regarding the inner world are tested, and when true their
doctrines may be upheld, Reason has a fundamental work to do; for Atlas,
one of the defeated Titans, henceforth was compelled to support the heavens
on his head and hands.

This Atlas, one of the fabled giants associated with the larger bear, was
the father of the Seven Sisters now translated to the Pleiades. Six of these
well-known stars are plainly visible in the shoulder of the Bull; and keen eyes
can see the seventh, and perhaps the eighth and ninth, Atlas and Pleione,
father and mother of the famous girls.

Alcyone, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Asterope and Cleaeno were quite proper
in their conduct, and in due course of time, according to the conventional
standards of their kind, were married to immortal gods and lived in respectability.
But the seventh sister, Electra, was of a different turn, and had a disgraceful
affair with a mortal lover. So great was the shame her sisters felt for
her that her light died out, leaving but six stars to be seen by common eyes.
Suffering from the disdain of these sisters, and still disconsolate over her
lover who, being mortal, had died, she wandered far away and became lost in
the cold region of the north. Thus did the Greeks identify the naked eye star,
Alcor, in the constellated Great Bear as the Lost Pleiad, who previously had
been Electra, and in addition to marrying a mere mortal had veiled her face at
the burning of Troy which had been founded by her son.
The Seven Sisters, through their residence in the Bull of material possessions,
indicate their attachment to physical things. But Electra went beyond
mere desire for the tangible things of life and formed so intimate and persistent
a longing for such things that it veiled the light of their transitory nature
from her inner sight.
Like many another who has formed too strong a love for that which is
mortal, she wandered in the region of cold intellect, and found her final abode
in the lair of the icy giant, Reason.
She was like the soul who can not turn from the thoughts of earth to higher
things, even at the time of mortal passing, and thus remains earthbound for a
period after death.

It was at the period of the summer solstice, when the Sun has reached the
end of the decanate pictured by the Giant Bear, that the Maya and the Aztecs
built special fires atop their numerous pyramids. Symbolically, because the
Sun was then nearer to them by declination, this represented the closest approach
of the deific spirit to the earth. The day was easily ascertained; for it was the
time when at noon a stake cast its shortest shadow.

This north-most position of the Sun on earth, because thus so simply found
by watching a shadow, was the index more commonly employed to mark the
precession of the equinoxes, and thus to indicate the time of vast changes on
the earth, including cataclysm. That is, when the decanate pictured by the
Great Bear, representing the Tower of Babel,moves to a point in opposition to
the Pleiades, associated with the decanate pictured more completely by the
frightened Hare, such changes are at hand.

At Uxmal, in Mexico, to indicate this relation between the solstice Sun
and the northern constellation, seven pyramids were so arranged as to represent
the seven bright stars of the Great Bear. The Mound Builders also had
altar fires atop their piles of earth; and those who make a study of the origin
of words report that such mounds in the British Isles, through “berw,” the
ancient name of bear, have now come to be known as barrows, after that
animal, and that the Welsh name for hill, “bryn,” is the original of the popular
name, “bruin.”

At least, when Ireland was converted to Christianity one of the most difficult
tasks of the good Fathers was to abolish the ancient custom of lighting
fires on the tops of towers, pinnacles and conical hills in honor of the Sun. The
pyramidal temples of Bel (the Sun) scattered throughout the world relate to
its solstitial position. A belfry is now a cupola in which a bell is suspended,
was once a tower of refuge, and at an earlier date was derived from words
having to do with Bel-fires, that is, places where fires were kindled in honor
of the Sun.

A pyramid of soil or stone is a high point on the earth; and some of them,
those more carefully constructed,were so built that the inclination of the northern
side was in line with the solstice Sun, so that on the longest day at noon
no shadow would be cast, but the Sun apparently would perch like a ball of
fire on the summit, when viewed by those at the northern base. Thus on this
day was spirit symbolically joined to matter.

The pyramid or tower, as the highest edifice of man’s construction, well
represented the apex of his physical attainment, the highest point reached by
the objective mind. But such a physical structure in itself was limited in its
function. It was like the legendary Atlas who failed in his attempt to storm
the gates of heaven; but was given useful employment holding this celestial
region on his head and hands.

This, I believe, quite accurately describes the function of physical life, the
hardships of which compel the development of the power of Reason as an
effective means of escaping painful penalties.

Pain is the warning that the organism is not fully successful in adapting
itself to its surroundings. And to escape the pain, the organism struggles.
When it is successful in making the proper adaptation, the pain ceases and
pleasure is felt instead. Pleasure is the signal to an organism that difficulties
have been overcome and that all is well.

Ants and bees readily sacrifice their lives for the good of their fellows, a
dog will die for his master, and many mother animals will defend their young
to the death.We can not, therefore, place man on a pinnacle due to his altruism.
But in the exercise of intelligence, especially Reason, he is as high above
other creatures of the earth as a pyramid or tower is above its surroundings.
Yet Reason does not perceive all. When we approach an object from one side we may
see all that can be seen from that direction, but not all that may
be seen from the other side. Reason and Intuition thus approach knowledge
from different directions. While Intuition touches Truth, it does not get the
view that Reason does, even though Reason only points in its direction.

Both the inside and the outside of things need to be known to possess complete
knowledge.As for the Great Bear it indicates the text: Reason Points the
Way to Truth, and Offers a Valuable Means by Which the Accuracy of the
Reports of the Psychic Senses Can be Tested.