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An Astrological Mandala: The Cycle of Transformations and Its 360 Symbolic Phases

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Review: Dane Rudhyar: An Astrological Mandala: The Cycle of Transformations and its 360 Symbolic Phases.

Rudhyar's books are like Dane Rudhyar the man,- profound, universal and original- A true Renaissance man. His book is for every thinking person, who wants a guiding star to steer his life's course. Knowledge of astrology is irrelevant here, the casual reader can find much in Rudhyar's book, that will give clues and guidance in dealing with both, disturbing trends in society and anxieties in personal lives. Rudhyar has transformed the zodiac into a re-interpretation of the 'sabian symbols', giving each degree of the circle beginning with Aries 1', ending with Pisces 360', a profound significance that penetrates through the heart of the matter. The Mandala, not being static slowly reveals the "unfoldment of the personality not unlike Jung's process of individuation". Each degree has a mystical and significant interpretation, with exquisite imagery, that delve straight to the core of the problem providing an insight that rivals I Ching, e.g. "(Cancer 29') A Greek Muse weighing Newborn Twins in Golden Scales. Keynote: The Intuitive weighing of alternatives..." A clarifying explanation follows the keynote. These symbols can be a significant tool in the hands of an intuitive reader, who allows the detail of the symbolic image to speak for itself. It is in this potent use of imagery that Rudhyar has distinguished himself.

The book is divided into 4 lucid parts Each part unique and distinct from the whole with a wealth of knowledge and insight in each one. You can enjoy the book flipping through random pages or start from the beginning to the end, either way it will refresh and revitalize your thinking. It lifts astrology from the mundane and turns it into an esoteric philosophy that is completely credible. This book is not a frivolous treatment of planets and aspects. It is a mystical treatise, on the forces that propel or impel our lives and the author has a tenacious understanding of these forces that spin us around.

Buy the book. Read it leisurely at bedtime and savor Rudhyar. At the very least it will sharpen your mental acuity and creative visualization.

I did not know the work of Dane Rudhyar. Now that I'm reading this book, I find him a true sage, and a friend. The human mind can be so vast that it can become also fraightful... But with books like this, our inner drive to find meanings in life is enhanced and encouraged.

This book of Sabian Symbols has become one of my handiest, most used books. It is not for the faint-of-heart..not for the idle seeker. If you want transformational info, buy this book. Use it for more depth/layers for your natal (birth) chart, your progressed charts, solar returns, etc. Few charts escape its evaluations at my house !

Of all of Dane Rudhyar's informative books on applied astrology - his analysis of the Sabian symbols has become my favorite - and the most useful when it comes to reading horoscopes. That is not to say that the Sabian symbols are easily dealt with. I spent a number of years holding this method at bay because of its obvious idiosyncrasy and discursiveness. After all, mastering even the basic implications of 360 symbolic notations still seems to me a daunting, if not impossible task. Also, as astrologers, we are constantly working for some semblance of objectivity in our analyses - and the symbols seem to enhance the vagueness which is the plague of modern astrological interpretation.
Now, as I look at the book, twenty years later, I feel a lot of the problems stemmed from too lazy a reading of Rudyar's excellent introductory and concluding essays which, in a succinct and precise manner, explicate the project he as been working on since his seminal "The Astrology of Personality". The book is worth the price, if simply for these ten essays alone, in which Rudyar shares his deep, and I believe essential, understanding of the subject, and they do give you a handle on using the symbology to enhance horoscope interpretations.

". . . for the humanistic astrologer, a birth chart is a person-centered symbol. That is to say, it carries a "message" - the symbolic formulation of the individual's dharma. It suggests how he can best actualize the innate potentialities of his particular and unique selfhood."

". . . human experience is essentially cyclic and it unfolds according to structural principles."

"Even though a normal cultured person meets all the facts of experience that can possibly be crowded into the few decades of life, only those experiences from which meaning has been extracted count spiritually, and are remembered. These meanings, finite in terms of their archetypal characteristics, constitute an organic whole because they are creative products of the person's total personality, which is an "organism" in the broader sense of the term. In their sequence and unfoldment, they display an organic and cyclic quality; and the structural factor in this process of extraction of meanings from experience can be derived from simple numerical principles, such as those of the I Ching or the Sabian cycle of symbols."

When I began studying astrology, my teacher made a very bold statement. She believed that to be an effective astrologer all you really needed was an ephemeris and a copy of "An Astrological Mandala". That may be stretching it a little bit, however, I do find it most handy when preparing a client's chart. I'm now on my second copy, having worn out the first one from constant use!

It is interesting and informative to consider the Sabian Symbol when evaluating a chart.
I do consider this book a very valuable resource in my astrological library.

Master Astrologer Dane Rudhyar has contributed a remarkable tool for all serious students of astrology with the introduction of his "Sabian Symbols". This book offers an archetypal image with interpretation for each of the 360 degrees of the zodiac. I have been using this reference for over twenty years and find it a constant source of inspiration and understanding.

This resource book delineates each degree into a modern day tapistry of unique qualities for each individual. Especially usefull for the essence of the rising sign and each planetary placement.

The Sabian Symbols were images visualized by a psychic in 1925, randomly (or supernaturally) assigned to the 360 degrees of the Zodiac. They are peculiarly evocative, and the insightful astrologer Dane Rudhyar does a masterful job of analyzing the 360 symbols as a coherent sequence. I've found the symbols to add a new, more individual layer of meaning to an astrological chart. People who are drawn to Tarot would probably relate strongly. It would be interesting for someone to design a Tarot-like deck of cards based on the Sabian Symbols--though it might be hard to shuffle 360 cards!

A friend wanted to do a star chart for me. He told me to hunt down this book in order to understand what the chart said once he finished it. It's easy to read. It explains things pretty well. But, then again, I needed my friend to help me understand correlations from one end to the other. You can tell that the writer is very enthusiastic from his generalizations and how they are grouped together. However, this is not a book that you can go through by yourself. It definitely requires a second set of eyes.
Oh, and in case you're wondering if my chart was accurate based on the author's cycles. Extremely accurate!!

An Astrological Mandala, The cycle of Transforations and its 360 Symbolic Phases, by Dane Rudhyar, is the Opus-guide to delineate every degree of the astrological mandala, the zodiac. The mandala's of one's life that can be better delineated to find the hidden gifts of treasures of one's life are not only the natal chart, but one's relocation mandala, graduation mandala, wedding mandala, residence mandala, professional-career mandala, or any mandala of the beginning of a new journey. The essence of symbolism and symbolic transformations is to train the inner eye to see beyond what appears to be, and to connect with the meaning of the greater essence of one's thought, inner spirit, and what it is that one wants to leave as one's personal legacy as one's spiritual gift to every essence. This opus-guide can be used as a daily guide, as the sun transits each daily degree of one's personal mandalas, and as each of the planets contribute their transits and retrogrades over degrees that have been, to guide one's inner eye to a higher state of seeing and being. I thank the publishers of this book for continuing its publication for the generations that follow.