Volume 8, Issue 9, page 8

book ever published. It is called the URANTIA
BOOK-a book of more than 2,000 pages, selling
for $12 at large bookstores. The subject mat-
ter covers cosmology, divinities, and philos-
ophy-without the double-talk and imagery that
is so hard to interpret -and the first 650
pages don't even "get down to" our earth. The
material consists of lectures by many divini-
ties whosenames and positions are stated, given
thru an unwilling subject thru trance and pub-
lished in 1955.
The frame of reference in URANTIA as well
-as in metaphysics in general is that the uni-
verses and their planets and life are governed
by the hierarchy of divinities. While earth's
wars and other ills are man-made, and her cat-
aclysms are due to stresses in nature, the
governing divinities can step in and cause or
hold back events, or modify them. If great
events, man--~made or nature-made, take place ,
they will be under the control but not the
causation of the divinities.
If this is too far-fetched for you to ac-
cept, consider what the founder of modern psy-
chology, William James, said: "I firmly disbe-
lieve, myself, that our human experience is
the highest form of experience extant in the
universe. I believe rather that we stand in
much the same relationship to the whole of the
universe as our canine and feline pets do to
the whole of human life. They inhabit our
drawing rooms and libraries. They take part in
scenes of whose significance they have no ink-
ling. They are merely tangent to curves of Jesus, born at
significant dates of conjunc-
history, the beginnings and ends and forms of tions-and with sucha
major conjunction coming
which pass wholly beyond their ken. So we are up with the sun
eclipsed by the moon (called
tangent to the wider things of life." an eclipse-stellium and very
rare), it is highly
It is not too difficult, then, to believe likely that the greatest
master-teacher is
that the divinities who rule our particular scheduled to be born
at the time of this event.
one of many universes and our planets, chose If the predictions of
the loss of millions
to have our great teachers, such as Buddha and (PLEASE TURN TO
PAGE 13)

D

ASTRONOMER CALLS FEAR OF PLANET-GROUPING "NONSENSE"

By HAROLD D. KINM

F THE following seems at wide variance with
the tone of my article on the "Planetary
conjunction", it is because the writer has
been seeking answers and sharing them, not
trying to convince the reader of either
point of view. The following was learned by
a visit to an observatory- Planetarium in Los
Angeles after the preceding article was mailed
to The ABERREE.

The astronomer who so generously gave me of his time referred me
to an article he had published, from which I
quote:"The early astrologers identified the planets with their
pagan gods. They believed thatthe planets had powers
similar in character to those attributed to those gods. How
absurd it is to-believe that large chunks of rock millions
of miles away exercise influence on us because they are iden_
tified with the names of pagan gods who existed only
in mythology.

"Astrologers do not attempt to explain the mechanism for the
transfer of planetary influence. According to
several books on astrology

persons born from September 24 to October 2i should have musical
ability. Psychologist Farnsworth looked up the
birth dates of 1.498 musicians and found that fewer were born
under Libra than under any other sign except
Scorpius. Thus inpicking a musical sign, astrologers could have
made 10 better choices than Libra.

"About 2000 years ago the signs of the zodiac and the
constellations coincided. Now as a result of the precession
of the equinoxes,

8 The AB

A layman's sketch of the sky showing the luminaries and planets
over the three weeks close to the "conjunction"
and simplified to avoid I Ines too close together to show in an
illustration. Distances are roughly to scale 8XCePt
for broken lines below Jupiter and Saturn indicatIng shortening
to condense sketch.

Al I pi anets I nvo I ved wi I I be to 0 much in line with the
Sun for us to see them at all, let alone as one
"bright star".

There will be a total eclipse of the sun. As th sun sets on
February 4 people on the Pacific Coss will see the
moon just be gin to bits the sun. Onl persons a thousand mi les
west of the coast, and on to Australia, will see the
total eclipse (the moon completely covering it), as of February 5.

the signs,have separated about 30 degrees (exactly a whole sign)
from their constellations. Thus at this time the sign
of the first house, Aries, is actually in the sign of the
constellation Pisces - when the sun is in the sign of Aries, it
is in front of the stars of Pisces. The astrologer inagines that
the sky is arranged as it was 2000 years ago."

This is enough to discredit astrology - if true. Perhaps there
are astrologers who can give a sensible answer to
this riddle. As for pagan gods, I notice that Max Heindel, former
head of the Oceanside group of the three
Rosicrucian schools in the United States, has modernized this to
Creative Hierarchies. It seems to the writer that the
"qualities" ascribed to each planet are highly arbitrary thruout,
as noted in the musicians example. I noted also that
astronomers do not in anyway use or refer to t h e s i gns o f
the zodiac. and the term "eclipse-stellium" is one never
even heard of . The astronomer stated that it was nonsense to say
that this February 4-5 situation is a conjunction,
or that those quoted in reference to past wars of the United
States were conjunctions, since the term means that
planets are in a straight line. not spread out over three or six
or whatever degrees of the heavens. It is equally
nonsense to rate this particular eclipse and grouping of planets
as happening only once in thecomplete cycle of
26,000 years since there are no records dating back and no
possible way of computing when this happened before.

E R R E E - -JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1962