Events and Conditions

It should be clearly recognized that causes of events and conditions result from the hereditary equipment as mapped by the birth chart plus the conditioning energy received from reactions to environmental conditions since birth.

The planets are not responsible for the events and conditions attracted. It is easier for a child to be born when the streams of astral energy from the planets are such, as indicated by their positions in the sky, that they flow through—rather than crosswise of—the stellar cells and stellar structures of the child’s astral body. The child is born when the astral currents of his environment, as shown by the birth chart, correspond as closely as practicable, to the thought compounds and thought structures of his astral body.

Each of the ten planets in the birth chart maps the chief structure in the astral body of one family of thought elements. The aspects between the planets reveal which thought elements have entered into combination, one with the other, in the formation of compounds, and how these compounds have been formed. The prominence of a planet in the birth chart shows the amount of desire energy possessed by the thought cells and thought structures it maps. And the amount of desire energy thus shown indicates how much work, both three-dimensional and four-dimensional, the thought group is capable of, and consequently how important will be the events which it brings into the life.

The events themselves, to the extent they are noticeably either more fortunate or less fortunate than the normal trend of the life, are attracted only at such times as the thought cells relating to the department of life affected receive new energy. This new energy gives the stellar cells thus involved additional power to work from the four-dimensional plane, to stimulate objective thoughts of a similar nature, and to influence the physical conduct.

The more common sources of such additional energy supplies are mapped by the progressed aspects of the planets. Planetary energy picked up, radio fashion, by the aerial developed across the astral body when a progressed aspect is formed, is made available for the use of the thought cells and stellar structures at the terminals of the aerial. But the event is not attracted by the new supply of planetary energy thus made available; it is attracted by the thought activities then stimulated. The stellar cells work with such intelligence as they possess, and with the energy supply thus made available, to bring events of a certain nature into the life.

A detailed explanation of thought cells and their activity will be found in Courses V, Esoteric Psychology, and IX, Mental Alchemy.