Transcendental
Mars
Sooner
murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to
be restrained.
The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
–William Blake, The
Proverbs of Hell.
Core
meaning:
In furthering
the evolution of yang through the symbolic solar system, Mars propels
the “uniquely expressed ego-consciousness” (Sun) into
a larger interpersonal playing field. This is not experienced as
soulful union or a merging of personal (Moon) or romantic (Venus)
feelings but, rather, as the experience of a distinct, particular
identity maintaining its separateness
yet interacting with other “selves.” The experience
of two people engaged in a competitive match is an example of separate,
isolate, individuals joined together in a process (the game) yet
matching their respective skills against one another in order to
refine and further differentiate such skills. The Mars complex describes
the ability to extend one’s will, focus, and concentration
(Sun) in a forceful manner. Therefore, Mars rules experiences
that further discrimination
through acts of separation.
This yang form is
notable for maintaining a spirit of separateness and independence.
Examples include groups composed of specialists (e.g., a battle
regiment; a construction crew) whose combined efforts result in
achieving a desired goal. Such groups are often composed of members
with highly differentiated skills who work in dynamic, stressful
atmospheres replete with displays of dominance assertion.
Just as Venus rules
the personified yin energy, Mars rules the personification of the
yang force. This is often symbolized by an adventurous, heroic,
or idealized male figure. The members of such groups will either
rally around or compete with the central figure upon whom the group
is largely focused and by whom it is directed or ruled. The fruits
of such interactive labor are produced as a result of an aggressive
play of forces directed and overseen by such a key figurehead. Finally,
it is through this interactive extension of the self that individual
identity (Sun) is tested, refined, and integrated into consciousness
and into the competitive group dynamic.
Mars rules the maintenance
of distinctive self-borders. This function comes into play when
one’s identity is threatened (physically or psychologically)
by another person or thing. Martian assertiveness must be relied
on not only to protect oneself from physical intrusion but also
to separate oneself from the web of psychological projection that
others attempt to impose on us. When we are viewed by others not
for whom we are but, instead, as a symbol of some unintegrated aspect
of their psychological material, we will become involved in their
attempt to redeem or to destroy their own unconscious through an
attempt to either “redeem” or “destroy”
us. For example, the scapegoat is victimized by bearing the projection
of society’s unintegrated “dark side,” “moral
inferiority” etc. As a result, he will suffer unjustly because
of an inability to forcefully demand a separation–and to
therefore effect discrimination–between what is “I”
and what is “thou.” Drawing a clear line around one’s
territory (one’s psychic or physical boundaries) and effectively
guarding and protecting it from intruders may prevent such projections
from taking hold in the first place. Indeed, the word projection
is notoriously close to projectile:
an implement of war that, like all weapons and sharply pointed objects,
is traditionally associated with the Martian rulership. Indeed,
one’s martial shield, martial strategy, and martial fortifications
must be positioned properly in order to protect oneself effectively
in the battlefield of life.
This maintenance
of a discrete, separate identity is anticipated by the “light”
of the Sun (i.e., conscious insight), which “show[s] up objects
in all their pitiless discreteness and separateness” under
“the harsh, glaring light of day.”1 Such solar symbolism
also anticipates the Saturn complex, as Saturn traditionally rules
separation wrought through “collectively agreed upon fixed
boundaries and set limitations.” While the Sun engenders a
“psychological light” that illuminates consciousness
and that furthers the ability to discern identity, and while Mars
enhances the process of discriminating between the subject and object
of desire, Saturn provides a fixed structure within which an aggregate
of separate identities may productively function in the society-at-large.
Through Pluto (the final yang symbol), we attempt to discern the
core elements of identity and of objective reality. Such Plutonian
acts of discrimination involve research into the symbolic representations
of the unknown (e.g., symbols of the building blocks of reality,
such as mathematical equations that describe the nature of subatomic
particles; the symbols and imagery of the archetypes of the transpersonal
psyche: the invisible, unknowable realm that lies at the substratum
of being).
The quality of “separateness”
that astrologers typically cite to describe Mars portrays only one
aspect of Martian interaction. While never experienced as an “interpersonal
merging” (such as Moon or Venus), nonetheless Mars energizes
partnerships of all kinds. Energy is created through what might
be termed the “tension of opposites”: positive and negative
poles in proximity to one another create a force: action is the
result. (Energeia is the Greek root of the word energy, from energos, meaning
active, at work.)
The energetic dynamic in male friendship is often based on this
quality of polarity. For example, the Mars archetype ruled the eon
of Aries2 (approximately 2,000 B.C.-1 A.D., which preceded the “Age
of Pisces” [1 A.D.-2000 A.D.]). During this Aries eon, Mars
was especially incarnated in the form of dynamic partnerships that
existed between warriors. The notion of “fraternal bonds of
loyalty” adequately expresses the sacred dimension of this
Martian experience (much more so than does the rather profane and
banal social-worker phraseology of “male bonding”!).
The qualities of
“power,” “energy,” and “action”
described in the I Ching correspond to the traditional attributes
of Mars. Often, astrologers ascribe these qualities to Sun and Mars
and do so in a manner that does not properly distinguish between
the solar and Martian forms of expression. While the Sun signifies
power, energy, and action particularly in the context of triggering
the nascent self and catalyzing its function as the central point
of identity (i.e., the ego-complex), Mars has more to do with power,
energy, and action as it is applied with or against others on an
interactive, interpersonally dynamic basis. Interactive expressions of power over others (e.g., a military regiment
dynamically working together to achieve victory over another regiment) or applying one’s personal energy to
complete a group task or to achieve a group goal (e.g., a team effort)
are examples of the Mars effect. The intrapsychic energizing of
one’s spirit as a result of these experiences is also ruled
by Mars (e.g., the feeling that results from expressing interpersonal
power). Unlike the further development of yang through Saturn (expressed
in a larger, social-collective organization) or Pluto (the global
or transpersonal expression), Mars acts on an interpersonal basis:
through differentiated, interactive groups or on a one-to-one interpersonal
basis. Power expressed through the “collective self”
(through institutional means or through the rigid expression of
socially condoned laws [Saturn]) or through the “transpersonal
self” (e.g., the great dictator altering the fate of the masses
through his personification of archetypal forces within the unconscious
[Pluto]) describes, respectively, the collective self of Saturn and the transpersonal
Self of Pluto. With Mars, interactive
self-identity describes the self competing against, or
acting in accord with, other “selves” and how this further
defines one’s identity or the group’s self-identity,
e.g., a regiment receiving group honors. This experience is qualitatively
different from the self-refinement achieved through social-collective
(Saturn) or transpersonal forms (Pluto) of experience. In a similar
manner, Mars rules the manipulation of the immediate environment
by an individual who actualizes his individual will: a will fueled
by Martian potency, determination, and assertiveness. When work
or action is the outward expression of the inner experience of power,
strength, courage, aggression, ambition, adventure, hunger, passion,
sexual drive etc., we witness the Martian desire that seeks to fulfill
itself by obtaining its immediate goal.
Improper
manifestation of the energy:
While
Mars is usually channeled through physical energy and work, internally
it is experienced as psychological vitality and desire. When challenged
by difficult aspects in the birth chart, and particularly when
Mars is lacking in conscious integration, problems will arise in
channeling energy to one’s goals.
Besides symbolizing
male potency, the arrow-shaped glyph of Mars signifies the expansion
of identity through the expression
of desire. When desires are suppressed, the self remains stuck
in a nascent, unvitalized phase of development. The need to express
interpersonal desire will then be usurped by another planetary principle:
for example, through the assumption of an impersonal social role
(Saturn), Saturn may demand an unhealthy sacrifice of personal desire
in favor of fulfilling the desires of the social collective. With
Pluto’s usurpation of Mars, an urge to explore a transpersonal
dimension of the Self will arise, especially in the form of developing
a fascination with archetypal energies of transformation or with
the notion of the Divine Self, which in religious systems promise
a complete “regeneration of the identity” (Pluto). With
the crypto-religious3 manifestation of Pluto, the masses are led
by a quasi-religious belief in the transformative powers of the
“great dictator.” (The personification of the yang energy
in the local heroic figure is here extended to the transpersonal
realm in the notion of a dictator as embodying a global, transpersonal
spirit or Zeitgeist.)
The conscious fulfillment
of personal desire (Mars) is all the more crucial once we realize
that, in such subliminal forms of its expression, we may simply
add fuel to the destructive fire of unconsciousness, as in the examples
above. When Mars is properly functioning, however, the social persona
(Saturn) serves as a means of channeling the interpersonal experience
of work (Mars) into a socially productive form (Saturn). In this
sense, Mars, in extending the individual self of the Sun into the
Martian interactive self-identity
(especially through the experience of working with others), foreshadows
the collective achievements wrought through the sum of interactive
efforts: the Saturnian or collective self.
The most common
form of an improperly expressed Mars is the aggressive self that
asserts its presence into the environment in harsh, humanly “unrelated”
manners and that incurs damage upon the self-image of others. In
maintaining a separate self-identity, Mars may, in extreme form,
sever rather than merely
separate. Museum collections
around the world are filled with examples of the chopping, slicing,
bludgeoning, ramming, cutting, impaling, and repulsing implements
of war, all of which attest to this humanly “unrelated”
aspect of Mars: as the god of violence and aggression.4 This form
of yang madness is symptomatic of an ego inflated by the Mars principle,
which is now obsessed merely with dominance over others. The productive
experience of interacting with other self-identities is now replaced
by a form of interactive abuse.
This abuse is centered
on the interpersonal level, rather than through impersonal institutions
(Saturn) or through a dictatorial international dominance of the
masses (Pluto). Mars channels the yang energy directly upon the
environment so that the repercussions of such actions are instantly
felt.
In a similar manner,
Mars rules the immediate gratification of desire (unlike the long-range,
“collective” planning of Saturn’s linear time
management or the transpersonal time frame of Pluto). There is a
sense of immediacy connected to the Martian yang expression: desire
roots us to the present; it demands life, life lived now.
Mars forces us to act. This is the proper expression of Mars,
especially since unlived desire will cloud the ego’s perception
of the social-collective and/or transpersonal nature of the Self.
In Indian religious tradition, certain Hindu temples illustrate
this tenet of spiritual experience through the creation of erotic
stone sculptures that festoon their outer facades. If the worshipper
has experienced a transcendence of earthly desire, he may safely
enter the temple without being distracted by the experience of base
arousal. Otherwise, an inability to transcend instinctive urges
will leave the worshipper transfixed at the facade, projectively
bound to the erotic expression of the godhead.5
Viewed from another
perspective, base desires are expressions of the higher Self as
experienced through a sensual, erotic life force.6 Through the burning
of desire we are cleansed, and the dramatic need to continually
reenact the cycle of desire-and-fulfillment is finally transcended.
Through a continual experience of penetrating ever deeper into the
nature of desire, we eventually arrive at a more sophisticated
understanding of it and of the regeneration of the yang force in
its higher octaves of expression. The sacrifice of personal desire
in order to better assist the collective purpose (Saturn) and the
transpersonal Self (Pluto) represent further stages of yang consciousness,
which are rooted in the red-blooded life force of Mars.
Transcendental
potential:
Mars
triggers the appetites that define and propel the self. Our conscious
identity is expressed through the ego (Sun), and it then develops
in an interpersonal manner, i.e. through dynamic interaction with
others and by effecting alterations in the environment that reflect
one’s true desires. The Mars location may activate such intrapsychic
or spiritual needs, stirring desire to the point that action is
the first and immediate result. This may manifest as newfound courage,
determination, drive, and the ability to actualize the will. Mars
engenders a maturation that in the Sun may remain only a potential
idea, spirit, notion, or nascent thought form.
While the Sun riggers
planetary energies through certain natal transits, or may “illuminate”
the meaning of their symbolism, Mars “fuels” the various
planetary principles. Under the Transcendental Mars location, Mars
extends the Sun principle from “defining the self” to
acquiring the goals of the
desirous self. The means of defining a broader social role may
now come into sight, as dynamic interpersonal contacts create inroads
into larger institutional structures (Jupiter / Saturn) or as interactive
accomplishments prove one’s merit and ability to fulfill collective
responsibilities (Jupiter/Saturn). And sexual vitality and potency
will now properly complement and energize the love experience (Venus).
The conscious integration
of Mars prepares the spirit
for a complementary experience of soulful
qualities (yin). The Martian tendency to maintain separation and
affirm personal strength will enable one to withstand the otherwise
enervating yin qualities of being yielding and receptive (Moon);
of being intimately related with another person (Venus); of the
interpersonal soul expanding upon its contact with the cultural
or collective soul (Jupiter); and of being merged or dissolved
within the anima mundi
or world soul (Neptune). The “revolution and liberation of
self and soul” symbolized by Uranus and the “maintenance
of cognition and communication” symbolized by Mercury each
take a toll on the nervous system and the supramaterial aspects
of psyche, and an effectively functioning Mars will provide the
strength necessary for a healthy functioning of one’s physical
and psychic well-being.
Relocation to the
Transcendental Mars region will result in experiences that test
and challenge one’s courage, fortitude, and strength or that
require an intensely focused concentration, stamina, and will power.
This location will foster the experience of “living in the
moment,” as psychic energy will directly express itself through
the drive to obtain the goal of one’s desire. Perhaps as a
result of this, energy that was previously lacking a focal point
will now manifest in “direct action, “resulting in a
more manageable energetic interaction with one’s immediate
surroundings.
Personalities
with Primary Transcendental Mars:
Clara
Barton (founder of the American Red Cross; known as the “angel
of the battlefield” because of her “energetic work”
in “braving enemy fire” to deliver food and supplies
during the American Civil War; whose Primary Mars line sets over
the Confederate South, the setting of some of the “bloodiest
battles” of the “war”; who wrote: “I wrung
the blood from the bottom of my clothing before I could sleep”);
Lord Byron (born in London, almost precisely under his Primary Mars
line, whose Primary Mars / Secondary Pluto describe the “burning
of desire” [Mars] and the “desire to transcend the identity
of the desirous self” [Pluto]: succinct definitions of the
Byronic quest in literature and in Byron’s personal life);
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (“surgeon” and prolific, “hard-working”
writer; born in Edinburgh, Scotland, near his Primary Mars line);
Henry Ford (founder of the Ford Motor Company, born near Primary
Mars in Greenfield, Michigan; noted for his assembly-line method
of “production”–“a most effective way of
channeling energy in the work place”–and for his “aggressive”
modern business methods); George Harrison (whose equally underaspected
Mars / Jupiter lines pass over the center of India in a narrowly
focused Transcendental Midpoint-Field, reflecting Harrison’s
“ardent, determined pursuit / of higher forms of consciousness,
especially those found in the philosophical and religious doctrines”
of India (Mars / Jupiter); Katherine Mansfield (whose Primary Mars
describes the “adventurousness” and the “passionate
approach to life” that clearly marked her biography); George
Washington (“military general” born in close proximity
to his Primary Mars, whose “military engagements” also
occurred directly under his Mars line; elected first president of
the United States as a result of his successful “command”
of “military forces”; temporarily appointed as “commander-in-chief”
of the U.S. “Army” in 1798, when “war” with
France seemed imminent); Edward H. White II (who “took the
first step” in space in the American space program and who
was called the world’s first “self-propelled”
astronaut; whose Primary Mars line was near the new Mission Control
Center in Houston, Texas, which became the space program’s
nerve-center for the first time during his Gemini
4 flight).
Events: Atom bomb: First controlled nuclear chain reaction;
Civil War: Secession of South Carolina (with Secondary Transcendental
Pluto); Vietnam: The Tet Offensive (with Secondary Transcendental
Pluto).
* *
*
Keynote
phrases for Mars:
•The
“masculine” or yang force expressed through energetic
interpersonal interaction.
•The spirit (animus)
principle in its forceful individual manifestation.
•The masculine lover, especially in his personification of
a virile and potent force.
•The power of desire.
•Experiences that further discrimination (i.e., consciousness)
through acts of separation.
•A “relational function” in which the self interacts
with others but maintains a sense of distance or “separation.”
•Biological drives demanding expression in everyday life.
•The urge to actualize desire in the immediate present.
•The drive that thrusts the ego (Sun) into manifest action
(Mars).
•Energizing the will (Sun) and directing it upon the environment
in an intense, dynamic fashion.
•The urge to express and defend the self.
•The desire to procreate.
•The urge to possess, ravish, experience, push away, discard.
•Relating through “assertion.”
•The notion of a “personal force.”
•Actualizing the self by counterpointing it against one’s
surroundings in order to realize, through separation and discrimination,
one’s distinctive self-borders (“I am this; I am not
that.”
•The secondary manifestation of yang consciousness (following
the Sun) in the symbolic solar system.
•In Indian astrology, Mars rules strength and corresponds
to “desires and the animal instinct in man.”7
•The yang energy experienced as the interactive self.
1. “The
‘mild’ light of the moon ... merges things together
rather than separates them.” Carl Jung, Mysterium
Coniunctionis, p. 179.
2. Unconscious identification with or ego-inflation by the Mars
principle can result in the usurpation of its planetary complement,
Venus. When Mars dominates Venus, an unconscious romanticizing
of aggression is the result. This violent form of Martian excess
particularly dominated the eon of Aries.
3. A term coined by Mircea Eliade, the modern scholar of comparative
religion, to describe the hidden religious instinct at work within
much seemingly secular activity.
4. “Swords, knives, and sharp cutting edges of all kinds belong
to the [alchemical] symbolism of separatio
... One of its major symbols is the cutting edge that can dissect
and differentiate on the one hand and can kill on the other.”
Edward F. Edinger, “Psychotherapy and Alchemy,” Quadrant,
vol. 14, no. 2, p. 49.
5. “I asked an Indian about the obscenities on the walls of
the Black Pagoda at Konarak. He replied, ‘But see how interested
the people are.’ I objected that they were probably already
far too much interested in sex. But the Indian answered: ‘That
is how it should be, otherwise they keep out of life and then how
can they live their karma right through?’” Jung, “The
Process of Individuation. Notes on Lectures given at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich, October 1938-June 1939.”
Unpublished mimeograph, Lecture II, Nov. 4, 1938, p. 13.
6. “... the West has contrived to fabricate a duality between
body and spirit, whereas the East has striven to unite the two.
For the East, there is no difference between body and spirit; they
are indissolubly bound together. [...] You’ve seen those great
temples in India, with their facades crammed with erotic figures
which exceed anything imaginable. Can one say those temples are
the work of atheists or sensualists? No, they are the work of deeply
religious people. They represent a worship of the flesh, of the
body, which leads men to the gods. [...] Even in the Middle Ages
the co-existence of body and soul was accepted. Look at the cathedrals:
to a certain extent their exteriors remind one of the Hindu temples
I was talking about just now; they bear the mark of the human body,
and this is most evident in the forceful expression of sexuality
in the small sculptures on the cornices. Once you get inside, doubtless
it’s something else entirely.... You could think of man as
a full-scale cathedral, in his way.” Henry Miller, Henry Miller in Conversation with Georges Belmont, pp. 77-78, 81.
7. Ibid., Dreyer, Indian Astrology,
p. 89.
Additional
Mars quotes:
The
poet was a fool / who wanted no conflict / among us, gods / or people.
/ Harmony needs / low and high, / as progeny needs / man and woman.
The mind, to think of the accord / that strains against itself,
/ needs strength, as does the arm / to string the bow or lyre. From
the strain / of binding opposites / comes harmony. (Heraclitus.)
The
strength of one who attacks has in the opposition he needs a kind
of gauge; every growth
reveals itself in the seeking out of a potential opponent–or
problem: for a philosopher who is warlike also challenges problems
to a duel.
(Neitzsche, Ecce Homo.
Here we see how Mars anticipates the symbolism of its planetary
neighbor, Jupiter: ruler of philosophy, “the love
of wisdom.”)
