Sabian Symbols The Beginning       We are in a big park near the center of San Diego. It is 1925. Two persons peacefully perform their ceremony. First of them is Miss Elsie Wheeler. Due to arthritis, she is forced to spend a large part of her life in a wheelchair. A withdrawn and nice woman, who along with her everyday life and reserve has one peculiar trait. It is a capacity to directly receive “pictures” using them subsequently to assist people who came asking for help. The other person is Marc Edmund Jones, astrologer and one of the key personalities of American esoterism of that time. In his hands, he holds a pack of cards. He carefully shuffles them and pulls one after one, by random choice. Cards are empty, except that they contain small marks with degrees of the Zodiac. (1st degree of Aries, 2nd of Aries, 3rd of Aries ...). Each time when pulling one of these 360 cards, Jones cannot see the written mark, nor can Miss Wheeler. For each card, she gives him a symbolic picture which she receives from another dimension she has access to. By repeating the same procedure in two sessions, a series of symbols was received corresponding to 360 degrees of the Zodiac. When it was all over, Jones arranged the cards with written symbols according to their real order. This was a first step in forming a full system of symbols which will, until today, keep all of its integrity and fascination for all those who were lucky enough to come across it.       After several years of studying and arranging the obtained data within his Sabian Association where he held lectures and courses on astrology, Marc Edmund Jones finally presented to the public, in his book Sabian Symbols in Astrology, a full system connected with signs of the Zodiac. According to Jones, the word Sabian originates from the old Mesopotamia and relates to an occult Brotherhood. But the story does not end here. It was about time a third person came up. It was Dane Rudhyar, among other things, one of the greatest astrologers, who systematised the whole system of symbols and enriched them with his commentaries. His book An Astrological Mandala - The Cycle of Transformations and Its 360 Symbolic Phases was published in 1974 in which he explained the structure of the Sabian system. We recommend this book wholeheartedly. Thus, according to a similar scenario, a legendary situation of receiving 64 I Ching hexagrams repeated itself. The West got so much needed system of symbols corresponding to its mentality and culture. Significance of Symbols       The word symbol is of Greek origin indicating the process of composing. It is defined as a natural correspondence between the indicator and the indicated. Between the form and the essence, there is a relationship of kinship or sympathy, a connection which conveys the meaning. Anything can be a symbol, i.e. symbolize or be symbolized: event, being, object, thing, condition, feeling, wish, idea, but not anything can be a symbol for something: red colour is a symbol for blood, blood is a symbol for soul, but red colour is not a symbol for soul. Symbol is a gnosis and not a mere indicator. Different traditions define a symbol in different ways: as a means of expression (Aristotle), vehicle of mystic participation (L. Levi Bruhl), as a spiritual connection between man and reality (E. Cassirer), the language of the sacred (M. Eliade), as a direct presentation of the suppressed (S. Freud), archetypal energy (C. G. Jung), correspondence between different orders of being (R. Guenon).       Symbols can be divided according to natural elements (symbol of Earth, Water, Air and Fire), natural languages (primarily numbers, colours, forms, movements, sounds) and natural kingdoms (mineral, vegetal, animal and human). Symbol is an expression of natural analogy and its inherent powers, analogy between elements of “lower”, “material” order of elements, and “higher”, “moral” order in both directions (from literal to metaphorical and vice versa). In initiation organizations and esoteric movements, symbolism can be found at all levels and it is expressed in many ways, for instance in the number of temptations, colour of clothes, in literary genders, in ritual movements or analogical pictures. Unlike sacred rituals, social ceremonies are very bad conveyers of symbols: it would be as if we equalized folklore dance or dance of a group of friends with a dance of dervish which is connected with the movement of planets (“Melody sung to you by the people with santir is one of those that speak of the rotation of the vault of heaven - Rumi, Mathnavi, IV).       Ideas (concepts, process, qualities), sounds and objects are represented with their natural corresponding spiritual or perceptual notions. For instance, magic often resorts to sound symbolism (onomatopoeia, emphasized words, alliteration), magician imitates the sound of rain in order to provoke it. Sounds, planets and aspects in astrology are not symbolized by scientific signs, but by symbols - glyphs, whose drawing both hides and reveals its nature, its relations and their various meanings. Each being, except maybe for artificially made objects or deformed creatures can, due to existing natural, analogical or non-analogical correspondences, represent or show a greater or smaller number of other beings in a more or less faithful way. This power is the power to be a symbol. Sabian Symbols as an Astrological Mandala       Mandala usually means an esoteric drawing proper to Hinduism and Buddhism serving as a meditation aid. However, mandala is much larger notion including: organization (mandala used to be considered as a magical repetition of the creation of the world), representation (mandala is a representation of microcosm, scheme of the world, pantheon, hierarchy of divinity), reminder (mandala stimulates raising of consciousness projecting a person in himself and by its impact on him). There are spatial and temporal mandalas. Zodiac is a temporal mandala. The system of Sabian symbols also represents a temporal mandala. These 360 symbols are words within a great cosmic story, whose radiance overcomes a large number of attempts of concretization at our material level.       The Sabian symbols represent a full and consistent representation of the transformation cycle which comprises the unification of involution and evolution. If we attach a vertical shift to this obvious cyclical structure of this system (360 degrees of the circle), we will get a final spiral structure comprising the closest reflection of reality (see Kiron no. 2 - “New Age and three concepts of time”). With an emphasized esthetical component, Sabian symbols satisfy ethical one as well. In the whole series, there are no negative symbols so that the final result depends on the way an individual sees them and applies them. Absence of previously strictly determined measures for evaluation of symbols is one of the basic criteria for assessing the value of any full system of symbols.       Let us pay some attention to the structure of the Sabian symbols. In his book on the Sabian symbols, Dane Rudhyar managed to give an unique representation of this inner arrangement. Since the Sabian symbols correspond to the Zodiac, this procedure revealed the inner structure of this basic reference framework for astrology. Rudhyar used the terminology of a theatre play or the terminology of mysteries and initiations. First Hemicycle: Process of Individuation Act I: Differentiation Scene I: Desire (Aries 1 - 15) Scene II: Potency (Aries 16 - 30) Scene III: Substantiation (Taurus 1 - 15) Scene IV: Confirmation (Taurus 16 - 30) Scene V: Discovery (Gemini 1 - 15) Scene VI: Exteriorization (Gemini 16 - 30) Act II: Stabilization Scene VII: Decision (Cancer 1 - 15) Scene VIII: Consolidation (Cancer 16 - 30) Scene IX: Combustion (Leo 1 - 15) Scene X: Release (Leo 16 - 30) Scene XI: Characterization (Virgo 1 - 15) Scene XII: Education (Virgo 16 - 30) Second half-circle: The Process of Collectivization Act  III: Group Integration Scene XIII: Transfiguration (Libra 1 - 15) Scene XIV: Reconstruction (Libra 16 - 30) Scene XV: Communion (Scorpio 1 - 15) Scene XVI: Faith (Scorpio 16 - 30) Scene XVII: Abstraction (Sagittarius 1- 15) Scene XVIII: Transference (Sagittarius 16 - 30) Act IV: Capitalization Scene XIX: Crystallization (Capricorn 1- 15) Scene XX: Group performance (Capricorn 16 - 30) Scene XXI: Contribution (Aquarius 1 - 15) Scene XXII: Management (Aquarius 16-30) Scene XXIII: Federation (Pisces 1 - 15) Scene XXIV: Perpertuation (Pisces 16 - 30)       Now that we have presented the structure of the Sabian symbols, we can already guess your question: What is the use of it in practice? The answer is a very simple one: great. Whenever you analyse a chart (mundane, natal, horary, annual), check what degrees of the Zodiac are activated by the presence of particular components of the chart (planets, nodes, angles, Arabian points and other) and read corresponding Sabian symbols. These symbols will give you an additional, deeper insight into the significance of what you are analysing and it will often introduce a whole new dimension into problems.                                                                                                                                           Igor Ognjenovic