In the preceding teaching, we said that despite his birth under all signs, every man is affiliated with a certain sign which in all conditions has ever been his own. When one is born in the month ruled by his original sign, his life during that incarnation exhibits in a pronounced degree the excellences and defects, the virtues and vices, acquired during many past lives. In other words, his hidden traits are then brought to the surface. Especially is this true of him if a unit in a group of twelve persons representing the twelve signs.

Calling his disciples, Jesus, as a Master of Wisdom, chose them with regard to the twelve signs, all of which should be represented in that complete company. Judas was a Capricornian born in the month ruled by his original sign, and in an age when the processional sign Pisces Was casting its earliest influence over the world. For these reasons a two-fold urge was upon the true character of Judas whom Jesus chose to represent the nation in its degenerate days. Inasmuch as the eleven were not yet perfected through trial and suffering, it followed that their every moment of weakness and doubt re-acted upon the most negative of the twelve, and so a three-fold urge hurried Judas on to his infamous deed.

Jesus the Christ corresponded with the sun, and, like Judas, his antithesis, he was born into the month sign of Capricorn, but not yet into its processional sign, concerning which event of some two thousand years hence, a certain teaching declares that when the great wheel in slow turning meets the sun in Capricorn, then, in the twelfth month of the appointed year, the sheep shall be separated from the goats.

The Israelitish people had experienced certain minor judgments or warnings under Aries their national sign, and, ere the Ram yielded to the oncoming Pisces, they were to be dispersed among the nations. The judgment of Judas was a type of the larger judgment about to occur; but that latter would not be an eternal one, for, with the waning of Pisces, and the near advent of Aquarius, their national guilt would be expiated, and they would return to their own. As for the judgment of Judas, that is another matter; enough that it is not eternal. True he succumbed to a three-fold urge, but one component thereof was extraneous, and, at the bar of rigid justice, that influence demands consideration. Again, the judgment upon both Judas and his nation, corresponds with the judgment upon individuals and nations in the latter years of Aquarius when Capricorn begins to supersede the elder sign.

Whenever the probationary members of the White Lodge are grouped in twelves to correspond with the higher aspects of the zodiacal signs, progress is much enhanced, but usually the weakest among them is unable to bear the test resulting from the rapid rise in the group vibration; so he withdraws and, as reaction equals action, he naturally identifies himself with another group the polar opposite of his own. On the other hand, in a group of twelve members of the Black Lodge, which group must correspond with the lower aspects of the zodiacal signs, often there is one who, realizing the rapid descent of his companions into evils of every kind, takes warning and withdraws to seek through repentance and right living, a place in the polar opposite of the group abandoned. Such a one in a former life was Saul of Tarsus, afterward affiliated with the higher members of the White.

In respect to the Black Lodge, the story of Joseph and his brethren has an inner meaning not generally known. Stripped of exoteric embellishments, that story may be briefly interpreted thus: The twelve constituted a group of men, brothers of the shadow, each born under his own sign; hence the group emphasized the negative forces of the entire Zodiac. Joseph, the youngest, separated from the others and entered the right hand path, and afterward through his efforts the eleven were reclaimed. So was it with Saul when as Paul he would reclaim the Gentiles, among whom many of his old group were then re-born.

H.