It is rather difficult for you also to grasp that the involutionary process for all the kingdoms of nature is related to the passage of the soul (this time the anima mundi or world soul) from Aries to Pisces, via Taurus and not vice versa. The anima mundi on the involutionary arc proceeds this way and not as the personality proceeds. The anima mundi passes to Pisces at the close of every great cycle and not to Taurus. It emerges into outer manifestation in Cancer, the sign of mass or group life, of mass or [113] group activity; its diffused consciousness has not yet been individualized as has the consciousness of man. When the world soul after having progressed around the Great Wheel, reached Cancer and the time came for the fourth Creative Hierarchy to manifest through the fourth kingdom in nature, a reversal took place and then proceeded as now. It should be remembered with emphatic care that it is only man, individualized man whose progress we are studying, plus his reactions to zodiacal and planetary influences; we are dealing with his reactions, mental and emotional, to the great illusion and to spiritual reality as these two work in his life, objective and subjective. We have, in the larger issue, to consider the influence of the zodiac and the planets upon:

1. The spirit of the Earth, the embodiment of the physical planet and the sumtotal of the form life in all the kingdoms of nature. These are the expression of the anima mundi or of the world soul.
2. Humanity, the individualized and finally initiated man. This is the embodiment of the human soul or ego, a differentiation of the world soul, which expresses itself as a personality (a correspondence to the spirit of the planet) and finally as a spiritual soul (a correspondence to the planetary Logos).
3. The Lord of the Planet, one of the great Lives or Sons of God, at present regarded as "an imperfect God" as far as our planet is concerned and yet, from the angle of humanity, perfect indeed.

The above triple division expresses the three major aspects of the ancient and esoteric science of astrology and its three divisions as the Hierarchy today studies them. Humanity, [114] having lost the consciousness which permits contact with the spirit of the planet (subhuman consciousness, and which was the basis of animism) and having not yet developed the consciousness which permits him to enter into the Life and Mind of the planetary Logos, has dealt only with the second division and that in its lowest aspect.

Two other points might here be touched upon, and for their understanding you will have to accept my statements as temporary hypotheses at least, for you are in no position to know them as truth for yourselves. Exoteric astrology has said and it is widely accepted that Vulcan, Uranus, Pluto and Neptune do not govern signs but only have affinity with them. I am touching upon this here because we are going to consider the planet Pluto in relation to Pisces. This affinity has only stated a partial truth and is only temporarily true from the standpoint of the modern astrologer. Their existence has only been inferred or discovered within the last two or three centuries though it has always been known to the Hierarchy. I have indicated to you the signs of which they are the rulers and the astrology of the future will accept my statement and work with these planets. Much earlier in human history, they had to accept the fact of Mars and Mercury as rulers of zodiacal signs in a hypothetical manner, and then start to prove the accuracy of the hypothesis. Ancient astrology was obviously incomplete but until man became patently responsive to the influences which come to him from Uranus or Pluto, for instance, which affect the soul life far more than they do the personality life, they remained undiscovered except by trained esotericists. Today, humanity is rapidly responding to the higher spiritual influences and, therefore, we can look for the discovery of increasingly subtle forces. [115]