and is initiated into his caste, religion or tribe, according to the practice in the various countries. Among the Western nations, however, who follow the outer and physical manifestations of the Law, the age of majority is 21; i. e., 12 is reflected as 21, just as many other esoteric truths are reversed and misunderstood in the West. When the evolving child has reached this period, the Soul (the 1 or 10) has taken possession of the body (2) and made a new number 12. The child must therefore take upon itself new duties and responsibilities or be about its Father's business. The Soul must now take its place in the Temple of the personality as a Light Bearer, for it has now reached a point where it has realized the character of the lessons and recognized the forces of each of the 12 signs and has begun consciously to control and utilize and impress them upon the personality. Previous to this stage of 12, man's entire attention is taken up with his personal and selfish aims, but after that he must begin to be about his Father's business; i. e., must learn to work unselfishly and for the good of all the Father's children. During its many incarnations the Soul naturally must incarnate at different times under each of the 12 signs that it may come under the influences and learn the lessons of each. Incarnation does not necessarily take place in each sign in orderly succession from Aries to Pisces, but varies according to the varying needs of the incarnating Soul. The Soul does not reach its spiritual majority when it has merely incarnated once in each sign, but when it has really grasped the lessons and correlated with the forces of each sign. It may require hundreds of incarnations in each sign before its lessons are truly grasped and the Soul is given a glimpse of its spiritual destiny or its Father's business; namely, manifesting in the personality or microcosm all the perfection, powers and works which the Father manifests in the macrocosm. And even then the Soul is only a child in spiritual development and just beginning the task of the spiritual man; i.e., not only the recognition of the lessons and forces of each sign, but their absolute mastery. Therefore even after it has reached the stage of unfoldment represented by 12, the Soul must spend many, many “days at school" (incarnations) in each sign ere Mastery is reached and it attains "to the measure of a Man, that is, of an angel." We can "expound the law" in our temple or personality only by performing the tasks set for us by our Father, and learning their lessons one by one as they are presented. It is at the age of 12 physically that the child must begin to assume personal responsibility, for it is only then that the Soul has fully incarnated in the body. The incarnation of the Soul may be said to begin at the time of conception, for if there were no Soul present to incarnate conception, would not take place. Another stage is reached at the time of the quickening and a third stage with the drawing in of the first breath. During the first two stages there is a mere overshadowing of the Soul who desires to incarnate and who caused the conception, but with the first breath the Spirit or the Soul begins actual possession of the body, but it is only a beginning. With the first breath the consciousness of the incarnating Soul dies to the higher realms, the first breath in this world following the last gasp in the higher, just as the last gasp in the physical world is the first breath of the Soul's return to the higher world from whence it came. The possession of the body by the incarnating entity steadily progresses as center after center in the bodies of the child is developed and made available for the Soul to function through, until the age of 12 (approximately) or puberty is reached. The actual age of puberty varies somewhat according to race, climate, et cetera, but theoretically it should occur at 12. Indeed 12 is about the average age between the Northern and Southern races, children in the Northern countries reaching puberty somewhat later and those in the Southern somewhat 9 Revelation, XXI, 17. earlier. At that period, however, the bodily centers are sufficiently developed to enable the Soul to take full possession. The power to create which appears at that time and not before is evidence that the Soul is only then in full possession. The planet itself is now upon the threshold of its mystical age of 12 and must assume its responsibilities. This is one reason why there is so much unrest; why humanity is running hither and thither; why the elementals are stirring up all forms of physical unrest and seeking new and higher states of evolution. Since the 12 signs of the zodiac are all represented by animals, it has been said that man receives from the zodiac the forces of his animal nature. This is quite true, for in man's body can be found traces of all the lower kingdoms which he has unconsciously raised to a higher scale simply because they have been built into a human body. Yet through the planets he also receives the higher forces by which to transmute the lower. Just as in the course of evolution the life-wave passed through all the lower kingdoms, receiving from each its characteristic forces, so must man take his animal instincts and characteristics and, through the power given to him as man, redeem and lift them up into a higher expression. For after reaching the spiritual age of 12, as a conscious ruler of his zodiac he must take all the forces of the animal kingdom which he finds within him and lift them above the mere animal and transmute them into perfected powers for the use of the Higher Self. CHAPTER VIII. The Number 12. THE GREAT WORK. "What we have said of certain numbers we hold to ber answers to definite archetypal or noumenal re- The ancient Egyptians attached great importance to the sayings of children after they had reached the age of 12 because they believed that since in the solar system 12 marks the completion of the zodiac, so in the cycle of the child's life the twelfth year marked the complete incarnation of the Higher Self. The incarnation was believed to bring to the child many memories of the higher realms, glimpses of the future and in some cases the power of prophecy to which wise men should give heed. In modern life, altho children continually astonish their parents with visions, prophetic utterances and a wisdom far beyond their years, such remarks are often ridiculed and their significance is lost sight of, hence much wisdom is left ungarnered. The truth is that a Soul which has just completed its full incarnation is quite likely to impress upon the plastic and receptive brain of its new body many profound conceptions which neither the child nor its parents can account for, but which are the result of the mighty inrush of the Soul's consciousness as it leaves the higher realms to enter earth conditions. This is especially true of those of advanced spiritual development. Especially are many memories of the last incarnation brought over, and often a conception of the Soul's life-work and the vital reason for its present incarnation. The child naturally follows its impulse to speak these things, but if it finds its parents and friends inattentive or filled with 58 This stone, which was made at the command of King Axayacatl about 1478, was buried in the marshes near the City of Mexico when Cortez destroyed the Aztec temples in 1521, and was not unearthed until three centuries later. The sun is represented by the head in the center "with its ear adornments, massive necklace and protruding tongue." The four squares surrounding the face symbolize the Ages of Water, Air, Fire and Earth as well as the four seasons. The encircling hieroglyphics indicate the number of years, the twenty days of the month and the sixteen hours of the Aztec day and night. |