After what has been said,* it will not be difficult to understand that the Uranian characteristics, in which love becomes compassion, give a wisdom that is not dependent upon reasoning and a love that is not fixed upon one object alone but includes all that lives and moves and has being. These are similar to the characteristics that are to be evolved by humanity during the Venus Period when perfect love will have cast out all fear, when man will have conquered all the lower phases of his nature, and when love will be as pure as it is universally inclusive.

  When these Uranian vibrations are felt by advancement in the higher life through aspiration, there is great danger that we may disregard the restrictions of law in anticipation before we are really ready to govern ourselves by the law of love divine: namely, that we may disregard the laws that are in the world; we may not render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, whether in obedience or coin, that we may not be careful to avoid the appearance of evil; that we may think that we have so far transcended the stage of ordinary humanity that we can live as superhumans; that the passion of Mars has in our case been changed to Uranian compassion, which is sexless. Under these misapprehensions many people who endeavor to tread the path disregard the laws of marriage and enter into relationships as soulmate or affinity. They feel the Uranian ray but cannot quite respond to its sublime purity; therefore they experience a counterfeit Venusian sensation which usually ends in adultery and sex perversion, so that instead of the natural animal passion of Mars having been transmuted to the compassion of Uranus, it has, as a matter of fact, degenerated into something that is far worse than the fullest sex expression of the Martian ray performed in a frank and proper manner.

  This is a danger that cannot be too strictly guarded against, and it behooves everyone who endeavors to live the higher life not to aspire to the Uranian ray until he first becomes thoroughly imbued with the altruistic vibrations of Jupiter; for more misery is brought into the world by those who have aspired too high and fallen low than by those who are not sufficiently aspiring. That pride goes before a fall is an ancient and very true proverb, which it behooves every one of us to take to heart.

  The Christ took part in the marriage at Cana. Marriage is a regular Christian institution and must exist until abolished in the kingdom to come; the bodies we will have then will not wear out and therefore there will be no need of marriage to generate new ones. Let it also be understood that the minister who marries people cannot really mate them. The finding of the true mate should be done before the marriage ceremony is performed and not after.

  As we have seen, Mars, Venus, and Uranus mark three stages in the emotional development of man. During the stage where he is only amenable to Mars, animal passion rules supreme, and he seeks unrestricted gratification of all his lower desires in the intercourse with his fellow men, but particularly with the opposite sex. During the stage where he becomes amenable to the rays of Venus, love softens the brutality of his desires, and the animal passions are somewhat held in leash. He is even, under the higher phases of this planet, ready to sacrifice himself and his desires for the benefit and comfort of the loved ones. When he has evolved to the point where he can feel the ray of Uranus, the passion of Mars gradually turns to compassion; then the love of Venus, which is only for one particular person, becomes all-inclusive so that it embraces all humankind, regardless of sex or any other distinction, for it is the divine love of soul for soul which is above all material considerations of whatever nature.

  The mentality also evolves through three stages according to the amenability of the person to the vibrations of the Moon, Mercury, and Neptune. While man is only amenable to the Lunar influence, he is childlike and easily guided by the higher powers which have led him through the various stages previously mentioned. Under the stellar ray of Mercury he gradually develops his intellectual powers and becomes a reasoning being. As such he is placed under the law of cause and effect and made responsible for his actions, so that he may reap what he has sown and learn thereby the experiences which life has to teach him under the present regime.

  Being inexperienced, he makes mistakes in whatever direction is indicated by the afflictions to Mercury in his horoscope, and consequently he suffers a corresponding penalty of sorrow and trouble. If he has not the mentality to reason about the connection between his mistakes and the sad experiences growing from them during his lifetime, the panorama of life which unfolds in the post-mortem state makes this clear, and leaves with him an essence of “right feeling” which we know as conscience.

  This conscience keeps him from repeating past mistakes, when the feeling generated has become sufficiently strong to overbalance the tendency to yield to the particular temptation which caused him suffering. Thus he gradually develops a spiritual consciousness which is above and beyond human reason, but which nevertheless is also connected with reason in such a manner that he who has this cosmic consciousness knows the reason why such and such a thing is and must be, and why he ought to perform a certain action.

  This cosmic consciousness is developed under the ray of Neptune, and differs from the intuitional right feeling developed under the ray of Uranus in the following very important particulars: The person who has developed the Uranian quality of intuition arrives at the truth instantaneously without the necessity of thinking the matter over or reasoning, but is unable to give anything but the result; he cannot connect the various steps in logical sequence whereby the final result was reached. The man or woman, however, who develops the Neptunian faculty also has the answer to any question immediately, and in addition is able to tell the reason why that answer is the proper and right one.

  The faculty of intuition built up from the Martian base of passion, through the Venusian stage of love, and through the Uranian ray of compassion depends upon the ability of the person involved to feel very intensely. By love and devotion the heart is attuned to every other heart in the universe, and in this way it knows and feels all that may be known and felt by any other heart in the universe; thus it shares the divine omniscience that binds our Father in heaven to His children, and through the direct heart to heart touch with that omniscience the person obtains the solution to whatever problem is placed before him.

  The noblest men of all ages, Christian saints of the most transcendent spirituality, have attained their wonderful development through the spiritual rays of Uranus because of the intense feeling of oneness with the Divine, and with all that lives and breathes in the universe.

  But there are others who are not thus constituted, and they are not able to walk this path. These through the Moon, Mercury, and Neptune have developed their intellects and attained the same result plus the Neptunian power of ideation.

  This is a very important point, and it is only brought out in the Western Wisdom Teaching; for while it was formerly taught that the spirit involves itself in matter and thereby crystallizes itself into form which then evolves, the Western Wisdom Teaching tells us that there is in addition a third factor in universal advancement, namely, Epigenesis, the faculty whereby the spirit may choose a course that is altogether new and independent of what has gone before. We see the expression of this in all kingdoms relative to form, but in the human kingdom epigenesis expresses itself as genius, a creative instinct, which makes man more akin to the Divine than any other of his accomplishments. This is developed under the Neptunian ray when that planet is well placed in the horoscope. There is of course also such a thing as evil genius, a destructive faculty developed under an afflicted Neptune.

  Only the most sensitive people in the world feel the rays of Uranus and Neptune at the present time. To feel these vibrations the connection between the dense physical body and the vital body, which is made of ether, must be rather loose, for when these two vehicles are firmly interlocked, the person is always of a materialistic turn of mind and cannot respond to the higher and more subtle vibrations from the spiritual world. But when the rays from these two planets impinge upon a person whose vital body is loosely connected with the physical, we have what is called a sensitive. The direction and quality of this faculty depend upon the placement and the aspects of the two planets mentioned. Those who are particularly under the domination of an adverse aspect of the Uranian ray usually develop the more undesirable phases of clairvoyance and medi-umship. They easily become the prey of entities from the invisible world, who have no regard for their victims’ desires, even if in a weak manner they should protest.

  Such mediums are generally used in simple trance communications, and in a few cases known to the writer have lived very beautiful and happy lives because of their implicit belief in the spirits that dominated them. In these cases the spirit controls were of a better class than usually met with. But as this Uranian faculty is built up through Mars and Venus, passion is prominent in such natures, and under the influences of obsessing spirits many of these people are driven into gross immorality.

  Vampirism and kindred disreputable practices are also engendered by a perverse use of the Uranian ray in mediums.