PLEASE NOTE: The following elaboration on the experience of the soul-oriented person with Scorpio rising has been excerpted from pages 26 to 27 of An Esoteric Journey through the Zodiac, the Inner Meanings of the Signs, by Adele Barger Wilson.
In Libra a fine point of balance is acquired between Soul and body. When this has been accomplished, the Scorpion experience is entered, and a surge of spiritual energy is imposed upon the personality. This arouses the entire lower nature, which becomes determined to take its last stand against the Soul. This last stand against the Soul and the tests and struggles which follow are necessary in order for the personality to learn, through experience, that it will never defeat the Soul. In the end, the personality willingly surrenders itself to the Soul, marking the final death of personal desire, satisfaction, will, pride, and all other qualities of the lower self. At this point, the disciple is ready for the one-pointed Sagittarian experience.
There are three signs which test and perfect the personality. In each of these signs the tests are worked out on a different plane of consciousness. In Taurus, the tests take place on the astral plane. The final result is that the energy is raised from the astral to the buddhic, or intuitional, plane. In Pisces, the testing environment is the mental plane, and the purpose is to carry the personal will up to the atmic plane of Divine Will. (“Not my will, but Thine be done.”) All of the tests of Scorpio, however, take place on the physical plane and are eventually resolved through the illumination emanating from the Higher Mind. The result is a transfer of energy from the physical plane to the higher manasic plane.
Although the tests of Scorpio take place on the physical plane, all three aspects of the personality are tested on this plane. Each aspect undergoes three tests, giving a total of nine different tests. The physical nature is tested with regard to (1) sex, (2) physical comfort, and (3) greed for money. The tests of the astral body involve (1) fear, (2) hate, and (3) ambition (which must become spiritual aspiration). The mental body is tested regarding (1) pride, (2) separativeness, and (3) cruelty. The test of separativeness is concerned with transmuting the natural Scorpionic tendency of isolation from those who think differently. The basic lesson of the test of cruelty is to learn to use the mind as an instrument of the Higher Self instead of the personality.
The testing and trials of Scorpio begin with the process which the Tibetan Master calls recapitulation. The instinctual tendencies and materialistic attitudes of the past rise to the surface to be overcome. The sum total of these residual, unconquered personality characteristics is called The Dweller on the Threshold. The Scorpion disciple must first face these lower tendencies and then gradually transmute them by surrendering the personal will and attuning to the Will of the Higher Self, which is encompassed by the One Divine Will. When this has been accomplished, the energies of the lower chakras have been purified and transferred to the higher chakras. The Scorpion, instead of stinging itself, has risen, like the Phoenix, out of its own ashes and becomes the eagle which soars high above the Earth.
