The birth month indicates the day of opportunity. The door stands open. The particular month in which a soul comes into incarnation is indicated to that soul by the month in which it passed out of incarnation in a previous life cycle. If it, for instance, died in the month governed by the sign Leo, it will return into incarnation in the same sign, picking up the thread of experience where it left it, and starting with the same type of energy and the peculiar equipment with which it passed away from earth life, plus the gain of thought and conscious onlooking. The quality of the energy and the nature of the forces to be manipulated during life are indicated to the soul in this way.

The rising sign, embodying another type of energy, should wax in strength during the incarnation, for it indicates the nature of the soul force that the incarnated son of God is seeking to wield through the medium of a particular personality, possessing certain characteristics.

The influence of the moon is primarily physical. The prison of the soul is thus indicated. The handicaps to be met are thus secured; the type of body or of bodies through which the force of the native's sign and the quality of the energy which will bring him to his goal are thus defined. Through the medium of the lunar lords and what they have given him as the result of past experience down the ages must he express himself upon the physical plane.

Owing to the precession of the equinoxes, a situation is brought about in which a fourth type of force makes itself felt. The sun is, in reality, many degrees [437] away in the great round of the heavens from where it is stated to be, as far as the greater zodiac is concerned. This is, of course, from the standpoint of time. As the sweep of the sun through a constellation covers a period of approximately two thousand two hundred years, the shift in the course of the centuries is very slight, - so slight that little difference would be noted in the casting of the planetary horoscope. In the casting of the horoscope of a solar system it would be of vital importance, but this is so far beyond the capacity of the wisest astrologer on our planet that discussion is immaterial.

In casting the horoscope of a human being who is born in a particular month, however, it should be borne in mind (which it seldom is) that now the month and the sign do not coincide at all. The sun is really not in Leo, for instance, during the month of August. The correct interpretation therefore of a chart is largely psychometrical and dependent upon the thought-form of the constellation which has been built up for ages by the astrologers. Energy follows thought. For thousands of years certain types of energy and their consequent qualifying effects on substance and form have been considered to be thus and so. Therefore, thus they are, except in the case of the highly evolved, of the true aspirant who has oriented himself, and is thus escaping from the wheel of existence and beginning to govern his stars, and so is no longer under their rule and domination.

Astrology now deals primarily with the personality for whom the horoscope may be cast and with the events of the personality life. When, through meditation and service, plus the discipline of the lunar bodies, a man comes consciously and definitely under his soul ray, then he comes as definitely under the influence of one or other of the seven solar systems, as they focus their energy through one or other of the constellations and [438] subsequently one or other of the seven sacred planets. Eventually, there will be twelve sacred planets, corresponding to the twelve constellations, but the time is not yet. Our solar system, as you know, is one of seven. When a man has arrived at this point in evolution, birth months, mundane astrology, and the influences which play upon the form aspect become of less and less importance. This circle of solar systems affects paramountly the soul and it becomes the focal point of spiritual energies. This is the problem of the soul on its own plane, - responsiveness to these types of energy, and, of them, the personality is totally unaware.