The Sequence of the Aspects
26.1
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Thierens’s Aspect Principles
The general introduction to ‘The Aspect’ has given us a foundation for discussing the significance of the successive sequence of aspects.
The first person to break this new ground was Dutch astrologer A.E. Thierens. Thierens was a sea captain and student of Theosophy. In the early 20th century, he co-founded the Nederlands Astrologisch Genootschap (the Dutch Astrological Society) and propounded his renewing and intuitive insights into Man and Cosmos in numerous publications. To his merit, he was the first astrologer to arrange the aspects in a coherent, dynamic context, by regarding them as a series of consecutive stages in the process of developing Self-awareness. Later, his vision would get mathematical support from Knegt (25.5).
In the 1930ies, a few prominent astrologers took his views even further. One of them was Th.J.J. Ram, who would acquire great fame.
Force and resistance
In any aspect made by two planets, one will be the faster one and the other the slower. In this speed difference, Thierens saw a lead for the process of personal development in the horoscope. After all, a force can only have an effect if it encounters a resistance, in its point of application.
Thierens regarded the faster planet as the force and the slower one as the resistance. In his vision, the faster planet develops itself thanks to the slower one, because the latter will serve as resistance to the former, at its point of application. In other words: in the resistance, the force finds a ‘pièce de résistance’ against which it can react and take off into action.
Moon ruling the reaction
In this vision, the effects of an aspect is seen as a re-action of the force at the point of application. Therefore the aspects, being forms of reaction, fall under the rule of the Moon (9.1, 21.3, 22.7). According to Snijders, from a psychological viewpoint, all forces on the outgoing arc are being projected outwards, and through their interaction with persons or circumstances, our inner force is pulled outwards. The Moon’s position in the horoscope presents a further indication for the basic blueprint that can be found in that personal projection and reaction.
In the sequence of the major aspects (25.5.a), the force evolves along the circumference, activating the subsequent aspects on the arc one by one (25.5.a), enabling the Self to grow in Self-awareness.
The fastest and the slowest
For the Moon itself, being the fastest of all horoscope factors, this means that she can never serve as resistance for any planet. In other words, in this vision, the Moon will never be the point of application for any force. She will always be the one developing herself, as the executor of the aspect involved. So it is the Moon that activates the aspect combination. This underlines the view that the Moon rules over the general functioning of bodily processes and reaction patterns (22.8), and that functional disorders of any kind can always be traced back to the influence of the Moon.
By contrast, Eris’s revolution time around the Sun is the longest of all planets that have been discovered so far (23.10). For the other planets, she will therefore always be the resistance. Further investigation will indicate how her influence, as point of application for all other planets, will reveal itself in their aspects with her. She, too, will set the tone, only this time coming from the other side, as spirit of the age.
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