The Wheel of Significance

THE FIRST WORK ON THE SABIAN SYMBOLS! The Wheel of Significance was the first full work on the power and use of the Sabian Symbols. It is unique in its in-depth examination of the amazing inner structure of the 360 Sabian Symbols. The Wheel of Significance, which includes Rudhyar's 1936 set of 360 Sabian Symbols, occupies a special place in the history of the Symbols, with its own fascinating background story. This volume is meant for serious students and...
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THE FIRST WORK ON THE SABIAN SYMBOLS!

The Wheel of Significance was the first full work on the power and use of the Sabian Symbols. It is unique in its in-depth examination of the amazing inner structure of the 360 Sabian Symbols. The Wheel of Significance, which includes Rudhyar's 1936 set of 360 Sabian Symbols, occupies a special place in the history of the Symbols, with its own fascinating background story.

This volume is meant for serious students and researchers into the Symbols. It should not to be confused with Rudhyar's important later work -- "AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA" -- which is currently out-of-print and available used at Amazon.com.Here's a sample passage:

"In the preceding section we discussed the universal pattern which can be discovered in every one of the 5-degree sequences of the Zodiac. These sequences, which number seventy-two in the entire Zodiac, were originally defined as the results of a three-fold division of each of the twenty-four 'hours' (15-degree period). Every 'hour' represents a particular type of active, individual orientation toward . . . the creative Spirit; and this orientation operates at three successive levels. These are the generic-physical-evolutionary, the psychic-emotional-cultural and the mental-personal-integrational levels. At every level, a 'magical process' operates which determines the very substance of consciousness at that particular level. This process is depicted . . . by the Sabian symbols for the first degrees of the sequence (or 'pentacle'). It has thus five phases, each of which is the working out of a basic law of individual consciousness."

from the chapter on Gandhi's Birth-Chart Through Its Symbols:

Gandhi's Moon dominates his tenth House, the House of public activity and social integration - and the Moon of a leader refers also to his public. What does, then, the symbol suggest? - the emphasis he placed throughout his public career upon personal drama and spiritual exaltation . . . The Moon is Gandhi's hyleg point; that is, the significator of health and recuperative power. Has he not maintained his frail body through pure "soul force" - a spiritual intoxicant, we might well say?

The lunar symbol becomes . . . clearer when the symbols for the planets dealing most intimately with the personal life (Mars, Venus and Mercury) are considered. All three are in Scorpio, and Mercury is just below the Ascendant (granted that the usually accepted chart is correct). Mercury's symbol (Scorpio 4°) reveals this scene: In an old-fashioned "candle lighting service" a youth gains for the first time a sense of the great "other world". . .

A Peek at the Inner Structure of the Sabian Symbols

"The First Watch: Sunrise to Noon.
The keynote of this entire period of the symbolical 'day' of the ego is DIFFERENTIATION. It is a phase of growth in distinctness of being. The ego realizes itself and its destiny by its discovery of what opposes its urge to be a new song of life (Aries), by experiencing contrasts, joy and pain (Taurus), by sharpening its intellectual tools for observation, analysis and classification (Gemini). The process of self-discovery includes a positive and a negative phase. The positive phase is suggested by the picture-symbol for the first degree of any Sign; the negative phase, by the picture-symbol for the sixteenth degree of the same Sign. The first degree shows a 'confrontation' with a particular aspect of life or human experience; the sixteenth degree reveals the 'solution' which can be seen implied or latent in this confrontation."