Cancer 2016: Refuge-Refugee. Inner Gardens. Cancer in the USA. Sirius. Bastille in Nice.

Madonna the Protector. (Nicholas Roerich 1933.)

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Cancer Keynote
“I build a lighted house and therein dwell.”
_{(Full Moon: July 19, 2016. 11.56 pm. GMT.)}

“The point of becoming a refugee is to give up our attachment to basic security.
We have to give up our sense of home ground, which is illusory anyway.”
(Chogyam Trungpa.)

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Refuge and Refugee
Creating the Inner Refuge
The Buddhist “Refugee”
Cancer in the USA: Washington and New York City
Pluto’s Ongoing Transit of USA’s Horoscope
Cancer and the Role of Sirius: Sirius & Seven Zodiac Signs
Bastille Day Attack in Nice

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Refuge and Refugee
Cancer the Crab is an ancient sign, hearkening back to the primordial formation of the world; it is a sign of creation and birth, the salty matrix from which all life emerged.

Cancer the Mother was prominent at the birth of humanity some 21 million years ago when human forms were imbued with the spark of mind.1 Cancer governs basic human needs of self-preservation, shelter and food; to find safety, reassurance and an abiding calm – from the turmoil of existence and survival.

According to the United Nations in 2005 – an estimated 100 million people were homeless worldwide and as many as 1.6 billion people lacked adequate housing (Habitat, 2015) – a quarter of the world’s population. Yet there is no lack of food or money in the world to care for everyone, it is simply concentrated in the hands of those who choose either not to share it, corruptly mismanage funding, are simply oblivious or just deliberately ignore the plight of their fellow humanity.

Hence, during the Sun’s annual pilgrimage through Cancer arises the opportunity to cultivate the deep empathy, nurturing and compassion for which this sign is known; at the fundamental level it is the basic instinct that governs most mothers who care for their children. At the highest, it is the embodiment of Cancer’s esoteric ruler Neptune, God of the Ocean of Higher Consciousness. Humanity is birthed from the salty matrix as non-thinking mammals and return to a greater ocean as thinking, compassionate and ultimately liberated souls.

To find refuge is one of the deepest human needs, yet in this supposedly “advanced” modern age there are millions of refugees – without refuge or shelter, dispossessed, rootless, often hungry with no control over their destinies; they are the victims of war, economic hardship and political machinations; they inhabit a brutal no-man’s-land, saddled with unimaginable anxieties and tribulations, held in the balance between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

The hard shell of the Crab symbolises imprisonment, as do the rocks under which it scurries for protection. Rocks are also the symbol of Cancer’s polar opposite sign Capricorn – and the goat that picks its way up the mountainside, who “leads us into arid ways in search of food and water … the “need for green”.”2

This refugee trend has accelerated in recent years with millions pouring into Europe and other parts of the world. The word refuge comes from the French refugier “to take shelter, protect. The word meant “one seeking asylum,” then it evolved to mean “one fleeing home”.

In many ways, nations have expressed great generosity to refugees despite some of them abusing their hosts.3 Yet, some nations have demonstrated hard attitudes toward asylum seekers such as Capricornian Australia, whose detention camps have created even more miserable lives than what they fled in their own nations.

Collectively, many Westerners tune-out to these injustices, cannot see how they could possibly help, or are more focussed upon consolidating their material position in the world. Yet their apathy and inaction contributes to a greater planetary karmic debt, by not sharing their material and human resources:

“The great error of the neutrally minded … is his refusal to identify himself constructively with human pain. Even when he reacts with violent emotion over the suffering, for instance of little children … the defenceless refugee, he does not truly care enough to do anything about the situation, involving as it does sacrifice. This sounds harsh, but is a needed statement of fact. Sympathy which does not produce positive action of some kind becomes a festering sore.”4

Indeed, the lack of response to these many glaring world problems by those who hold concentrated wealth in many Western nations, has created another class of rich refugees. Instead of abiding in the refuge of the heart they have become – refugees of the heart – the homeless of heart, bereft of compassion by ignoring human plight; this is the festering sore in the world today and of course is the disconnect between the 1% and the 99%..

In the above quotation, The Tibetan talks about sacrifice, a quality particularly associated with Cancer the Mother in all her expressions. Esoteric ruler Neptune is also associated with sacrifice, a quality of redemptive Love that brings about the salvaging of the world. (In the West, Christ is referred to as Neptune.)

The heart lotus has three tiers of petals: Knowledge, Love and Sacrifice – the latter tier being the last one to open on the road to liberation. The sacrifices and renunciations made in every day life lead ultimately to the Great Sacrifice or Renunciation – commensurate with Liberation.

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Creating the Inner Refuge
Of course, the forgoing has been mainly about physical refuge and refugees. There are many other ways of finding refuge and expressions of what it is to be a refugee. We can find refuge in religion, refuge in reading and creativity; refuge away from family conflict at one’s work; refuge in almost anything – whether it is a vice or a virtue – it is a place of psychological shelter that helps anyone deal with Life.

Yet, there are ways of creating refuges on the inner planes that can benefit many, striking to the heart of Cancer’s keynote, “I build a lighted house and therein dwell”:

“For years, my brother, I have referred frequently to your garden of beauty. First of all, I had to lead you to create it; later I taught you to perfect it and then to use it. I taught you also how to dedicate it and to turn it into a shrine of consecration and connect it in your mind with the thought of service. That which is thus created and used, exists. Today I would like to tell you that on the inner planes your garden is of service to my group of disciples and to others – in larger numbers than you think. It is a place of gathering for many and a place of refuge for a few.

Ponder on this and continue your task of beautifying it. Remember ever, that those who seek its loveliness come not only for the garden but also come in order to contact you who, upon the inner side, appears other than who you fancy yourself to be in physical incarnation.”5

Taking refuge in religion is a path for the majority of humanity, whether that refuge is in Christ, Krishna, the Imam Madhi, the Messiah or the Buddha. One can take refuge under the folds of The Madonna’s gown – as illustrated in the Roerich painting above. Ultimately, whether practicing mainstream religion, or as a solo practicioner of universal spirituality, these paths lead to the vast and limitless Refuge of the Heart. This refuge is like a dynamic miniature sun, possessing limitless creative potential and expansive love and wisdom.

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Refuge of the Heart

Take refuge, weary mariner
In the harbour of my heart
Storm strewn seas
You have weathered
Your stamina measured

But a greater gale awaits
And to the mast
You must be tethered…
Bound to the spar
Pointing heavenward
To the pole-star
Our beckoning beacon
To recover that which you lost
In bygone ages
Over countless oceans tossed
Forfeited and forgotten
Now returns within your grasp
Hold to your course Odysseus
I
Will steer you on your Way.

(From Songs to Varuna)

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The Buddhist “Refugee”
“The moment we take refuge, which is to begin on the path, we hold the title of “sangha” [community]. When we speak of the sangha, we speak of the “arya sangha,” which means the “exalted sangha”. At the time of the Buddha this referred to the arhats and bodhisattvas, the disciples who studied under him and achieved various levels of realization through their practice. But now who is the arya sangha?

It is all of us, all of the practitioners of the present time … As such, you should understand that you are one of the Three Jewels. You shouldn’t put the Three Jewels outside of yourselves; you should always think of yourselves as being one of the Three Jewels – and that includes your body, your speech, and your mind.” (Dhomang Yangthang, The Union of Dzogchen and Mahamudra)

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche shares some fascinating perspectives of the refuge-refugee paradigm, discussing the spiritual refugee – as distinct from the earlier materialistic refugees (who are really spiritual refugees anyway!):

“By taking refuge, in some sense we become homeless refugees. Taking refuge does not mean saying that we are helpless and then handing all our problems over to somebody or something else. There will be no refugee rations, nor all kinds of security and dedicated help. The point of becoming a refugee is to give up our attachment to basic security.

We have to give up our sense of home ground, which is illusory anyway. We might have a sense of home ground as where we were born and the way we look, but we don’t actually have any home, fundamentally speaking. There is actually no solid basis of security in one’s life.

And because we don’t have any home ground, we are lost souls, so to speak. Basically we are completely lost and confused and, in some sense, pathetic.

These are the particular problems that provide the reference point from which we build the sense of becoming a Buddhist. Relating to being lost and confused, we are more open. We begin to see that in seeking security we can’t grasp onto anything; everything continually washes out and becomes shaky, constantly, all the time. And that is what is called life.

So becoming a refugee is acknowledging that we are homeless and groundless, and it is acknowledging that there is really no need for home, or ground. Taking refuge is an expression of freedom, because as refugees we are no longer bounded by the need for security. We are suspended in a no-man’s land in which the only thing to do is to relate with the teachings and with ourselves.”6

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Cancer in the USA: Washington and New York City
Pun intended – as the USA struggles with its Pluto transit (more later) and its ongoing problems of appalling violence, guns, racism, corrupt politics, economic woes and meddling in foreign affairs etc.etc.

In the 1776 Declaration of Independence horoscope, the USA is a Cancer sun. Esoterically, her two major capitals – Washington and New York – are also influenced by Cancer:

“The capital city, Washington, is ruled [at the soul level] by Cancer … and it is this fact which leads the United States to act like the Crab (Cancer) and be pre-occupied with its own house which it carries on its back …”7

Likewise, New York is ruled by Cancer at the personality level8, epitomised in The New Colossus poem by Emma Lazarus displayed at the foot of the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Indeed, “wretched refuse”, “refugee refuse” or “human detritis” as it has been more unkindly described. Their “tempest tossed” state has not abated because of the “tossers” who govern without vision or skill. We may well reflect upon the statement about Cancer and imprisonment:

“Is the house you are building yet lit? Is it a lighted house, or is it a dark prison? If it is a lighted house, you will attract to its light and warmth all who are around you and the magnetic pull of your soul, whose nature is light and love, will save many. If you are still an isolated soul, you will have to pass through the horrors of a more complete isolation and loneliness, treading alone the dark way of the soul.”9

The sentiments of The New Colossus emerge from a nation that has achieved much success as the Cancerian mother who has embraced many disparate nations and races.

Yet, today there is a great irony in that USA’s foreign policy in the Middle East has created the forced exodus of large populations from their homes – who now seek asylum in Europe and the USA; combined with masses of Mexican illegal immigrants/refugees flowing across the border every day, USA’s Cancerian nature, its capacity to absorb, is being tested to the limit. In fact, in a significant percentage of the population, the Capricorn polarity has emerged, wanting to deny immigrants from the Middle East and to build a wall on the border of Mexico.

The first part of The New Colossus is even more striking on Cancer’s theme of building a lighted house and refugees. Also, the power of woman as harbinger of the approaching Aquarian cycle that conditions USA’s soul:

“A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.”

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Pluto’s Ongoing Transit of the USA Horoscope
Much of the foregoing is part of USA’s Pluto transit through Capricorn, opposing USA’s Cancer sun for the past two years, triggering the natal square of the Sun to Saturn in Libra. Its influence will continue until the end of 2016, whilst its ramifications will last most of 2017. This transit was dealt with extensively in last year’s Cancer newsletter and the following represents a summary:

“Whilst Pluto is opposite the Sun, any entity will go through a rigorous transformation in one or all of their personality vehicles. Pluto reveals the “underworld” of the psyche, all that is repressed, unredeemed and unacknowledged. Pluto’s work is to break down and destroy these impediments by bringing them from the hidden depths to the surface of conscious awareness.

Pluto transits to the Sun can be quite traumatic, sometimes the most intense transit in any one life, frequently resulting in life-threatening illnesses connected to karma, individual or collective. Currently the USA has several illnesses and psychoses which are being revealed more acutely as Pluto proceeds with its relentless work.

This is the first Pluto opposition to the USA Cancer Sun since 1776 and precedes by a few years, the 248-year cycle of the Pluto return. Hence, Pluto’s influence is helping the USA to get its house in order (“I build a lighted house”) will last until the end of 2016 when Pluto pulls away from its last square to USA’s Saturn in Libra.

This Pluto cycle brings USA the opportunity to free itself from the dark prison that it has created, not only for itself but the planet as a whole because of its extensive influence politically, economically and culturally. The “bars” of its prison consist of,

• A toxic corporate materialistic culture in every sphere of life. Domination by big agriculture, big pharma etc.
• The domination of U.S. congress by corporate interests and powerful minority political factions, resulting in the death of true democracy.
• Centralisation of money and media into the hands of a few, right-wing biased individuals. 1% versus the 99%.
• Extensive, invasive electronic surveillance in the USA and globally, restricting personal freedoms and privacy.Cowboy banks – a law unto themselves, the Wall Street casinos continue business as usual, despite massive fines.
• Inability to resolve the US debt – currently $18 trillion. Dictatorship by the private body of the Federal Reserve.
• Interference and dominating colonialism in global politics.
• Over the top spending on the military. Domination by the military-industrial complex.
• Racial inequality, despite the paradoxical fact that USA was a pioneer in equal rights for African Americans..
• Gun culture madness.
• Ego mania. Paranoia.
• The deception of the American public over 9/11.
• Morbid obesity and diabetes epidemics.
• Inability to create a free or fair health system like European nations.
• Inability to create free university education (like some European nations), leading to lifetime debts for students.
• Inability to resolve the Mexican immigration problem.
• A medicated nation – high numbers of adults and children on harmful prescription medicine.
• Inability to cope with the problem of the displaced and homeless.
• A crumbling and dangerous infrastructure – roads, bridges, dams etc.

Saturn in Libra
USA’s Sun in Cancer is square to Saturn in Libra. The square is a difficult aspect of crystallisation that demands resolution. Saturn is exalted in Libra and stands for equality, justice and the law, freedom and fairness. Its square to USA’s Cancer Sun needs to be integrated into the USA personality – particularly the mental body (Saturn). The USA is also conditioned by the sixth ray in its personality – devotion and idealism, ruled by Mars and Neptune, the latter the soul ruler of Cancer.

The downside of Pluto triggering the USA Sun square Saturn is to hang onto power, secrecy, institutions and the status quo at all costs, creating such resentment in the population that could lead to major civil disobedience, uprisings and even a virtual civil war. The USA has a very tricky way to navigate in the next couple of years.” (Read the entire analysis here.)

Shelter from the Storm
‘Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form
Come in, she said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm.”
(Bob Dylan.)

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Cancer and the Role of Sirius: Sirius & Seven Zodiac Signs
The much-vaunted star Sirius is associated with seven zodiac signs, Cancer being one. In the Western or tropical zodiac, Sirius is placed at 14° Cancer 18′. The relation of Sirius to our solar system is what the monad or spirit is to a human being.

Sirian influence is most important for those who are awakened and treading the Higher Way that will for most of Humanity, once liberated from the earthly incarnation cycle, eventually lead back to choosing the Fourth Cosmic Path, The Path to Sirius.

This is an unique situation within the solar system because apparently there is a very ancient relationship between Sanat Kumara (the personality expression of our planetary logos) and the so-called Lord of Sirius.10

Sirius has been prominent throughout all spiritual traditions in ancient civilisations where temples, henges and pyramids were aligned/calibrated to Sirius or its cycles of 1461 years in the Pharaonic calendar.11

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The following is a summary of the signs associated with Sirius:

Gemini
“Gemini … is cosmically related … to Sirius. Gemini forms a point of entrance for cosmic energy from Sirius … The great White Lodge on Sirius is the spiritual prototype of the great White Lodge on Earth, of which modern Masonry is the distorted reflection, just as the personality is a distorted reflection of the soul. I would also remind you again of the relation between Gemini and Masonry to which reference has frequently been made.”12

Sirius is also placed astronomically in Gemini in the sidereal zodiac – 15° Gemini 42′.

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Cancer-Capricorn
In the following relationship, Sirius assumes the role of the first aspect or “electric fire”:
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

“DYNAMIC ENERGY …………………………………………………. Electric Fire
| Cancer
1. Sirius………………. | ……… Saturn………………………………. Fifth Creative Hierarchy
| Capricorn (the 8th Unknown)”13

“Cancer – Capricorn – Saturn (which are an expression of Sirian energy) enable the aspirant to tread the Path of Purification, of Probation. These energies focus and qualify the energy of the Great Lodge of the Most High in that distant Sun [Sirius]. They pour through the Hierarchy upon the mass of men and enable the unit in that mass to “isolate himself and turn his back upon the past and find his way on to that section of the Path wherein he learns to feel.”14

	/	Cancer	\
	Sirius >>>	>>>	>>> Saturn
	\	Capricorn	/

Note the word “probation” – the aspirant upon the Path of Purification is “on probation”, reflected in earthly laws when an offender is “placed on probation”. Taking this analogy a little further, all of humanity are “offenders” (or “prisoners of the planet”), until they have learned to live under Solar Law, achieved by rejection of the involutionary lunar path and, through initiations into the Greater Mysteries. (Cancer is a sign associated with “lunar laws” relating to form.)

Note also the phrase, “isolate himself and turn his back upon the past and find his way on to that section of the Path wherein he learns to feel.” Cancer is one of the main (water) zodiac signs of feeling, representing refinement and integration of the astral body and its competency to be a fit vehicle for higher forces pouring through from the soul.

“These two – the Moon and Neptune – are, therefore, the direct influences which are brought to bear upon the Cancer subject and thus lead to the unfoldment of the form of life and of the emotional-astral body. The supreme usefulness of these aspects will be grasped if you will intelligently realise that without the form and without the ability to bear in mind the need to respond sensitively to the environing conditions and circumstance, the soul would never awaken to knowledge in the three worlds and, therefore, would never know God in manifestation.”15

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Leo
“August, which is ruled by Leo, is the month of the Dog-star, or of Sirius, which thus brings Sirius into close relation to Leo. Leo, in the cosmic sense (and apart from our solar system altogether) is ruled by Sirius. Sirius is the home of that greater Lodge to which our fifth initiation admits a man and to which it brings him, as a humble disciple. Later, when the new world religion is founded and is working, we shall find that the major, monthly festival in August, held at the time of the full moon, will be dedicated to the task of making contact, via the Hierarchy, with Sirian force. Each of the months of the year will later be dedicated (through accurate astrological and astronomical knowledge) to whichever constellation in the heavens governs a particular month, as Sirius governs Leo.”16

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Virgo-Pisces
Virgo is the “triple-goddess” of Eve, Isis and Mary. In the Egyptian tradition, Isis is synonymous with Sirius (the Nile star), just as Osiris relates to Orion. Note the connection of Isis with water, a symbol of the astral plane, just as Eve is associated with the mental and Mary with the physical. With regard to Pisces (a water sign like Cancer):

“The central light of Sirius shone through the eye of the Son; the vision came. The light of wisdom penetrated into the waters and cast the radiance of the Heavens into the depths. At this attractive call, the goddess rose unto the surface (the fish-goddess, the symbol of Pisces. A.A.B.) and welcomed the light within the depths and grasped it as her own …

And then the heavens within the ring-pass-not responded to the light from Sirius which, passing through the sea of Pisces, lifted the fishes into the heavenly sphere (Uranus) and thus a lesser triple light appeared, the radiant sun of suns, the watery light of Pisces, the heavenly light of Uranus …”17

Sirius >>> Pisces >>> Uranus >>> Hierarchy on Earth >>> Heart centre of disciple >>> Solar plexus centre of disciple.18

There is much to be thought out here as Uranus does not traditionally relate to Pisces. However, it is related to the synthesis of heart (Pisces) and mind (Uranus). Sirius represents the blending of both.

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Scorpio
“Scorpio is under the influence or inflowing energy of Sirius. This is the great star of initiation because our Hierarchy (an expression of the second aspect of divinity) is under the supervision or spiritual magnetic control of the Hierarchy of Sirius. These are the major controlling influences whereby the cosmic Christ works upon the Christ principle in the solar system, in the planet, in man and in the lower forms of life expression. It is esoterically called the “brilliant star of sensitivity.” For the first time in the history of both mankind and disciples the energy of Sirius, pouring into the seven groups which form our planetary Hierarchy evokes a response.”19

Hence, students of Esoteric Astrology can trace responses to Sirian forces as they express in these seven zodiac signs – according to various ray and zodiacal expressions. All three water signs predominate, two earth signs, one fire sign and one air sign.

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Bastille Day Attack in Nice
Once more, another horrifying attack upon innocent people – on a day that commemorates human freedom and democracy. Transiting Moon was making a close conjunction to Mars in Scorpio – expressing the lowest aspect of its vengeful, stinging nature. We have all seen too much of Mars in Scorpio in recent weeks in Orlando, Dallas and many other places around the world.

Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a truck into a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais killing at least 84 people and injuring many more. His horoscope shows a Capricorn sun with Saturn in Scorpio – which can be a ruthless combination. Saturn was the planet transited precisely by Moon and Mars in Scorpio.

In the storming of the Bastille chart of 1789, the Sun is in Cancer, representing the masses. Neptune, also a significator of mass consciousness and soul ruler of Cancer, is square to the Sun, indicating the idealism of the people and the challenge to realise their visions. Cancer the Crab carries its house upon its back, and this can be a crystallised shell which imprisons its occupant, prompting again the question, “Is it a lighted house, or is it a dark prison?”

Cancer also represents the family of humanity, and this theme is strong in the United Nations horoscope – reflected in the close synastry between the U.N. 1945 chart and the 1789 Bastille chart. Prison or liberty, it is one of the main pairs of opposites with which Humanity wrestles. The perpetrator was a 31 year old man of dual French-Tunisian origin – was he a refugee at some part of his life?

May we continue to build our lighted houses as individuals and as an united world group, in defiance and defence of the dark forces that seek to imprison our fair planet.

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1. Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey. p.63. [↩]
2. Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey. p.157. [↩]
3. https://esotericastrologer.org/newsletters/libra-2015-european-refugee-crisis-austria-germany-4th-ray-cycle-usa/ [↩]
4. The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, Alice A. Bailey. p.246. [↩]
5. Discipleship in the New Age I, Alice A. Bailey. p.522. [↩]
6. http://www.lionsroar.com/the-decision-to-become-a-buddhist/ [↩]
7. The Destiny of the Nations, Alice A. Bailey. p.88. [↩]
8. The Destiny of the Nations, Alice A. Bailey. p.93. [↩]
9. Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey. p.343. [↩]
10. The Rays and the Initiations, Alice A. Bailey. p.413. [↩]
11. THE SIRIUS CYCLE AND THE PHARAONIC CALENDAR – from R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz’s “Sacred Science” pp.170-180. [↩]
12. Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey. p.349. [↩]
13. Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey. p.50. [↩]
14. Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey. p.466. [↩]
15. Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey. p.323. [↩]
16. Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey. p.299. [↩]
17. Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey. p.432. [↩]
18. Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey. pp.427-8. [↩]
19. Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey. p.197. [↩]