Theos-Talk Archives (January 1994 Message tl00107)

Andrew

     An interesting phenomena I have noticed about reports of
disasters is that a general impression arises though the art of
journalism that makes the disasters greater then they are. We
read about the Sydney fire here. My impression from the papers
was that we might as well remove the city from the map. I'm sure
this isn't true. I lived in Los Angeles for 44 years and
experienced more earthquakes than I care to count. Like most
Angelinos, I accepted them as a part of life. They are not
unlike the tornados of the midwest, in that they appear, reap
their damage in a seemingly random fashion on some buildings and
leave others in perfect condition. Of course it is a tragedy for
those who lose their homes, and for those families who lose a
loved one. But compared to the population of the Los Angeles
area (about seven million), the hundred or so people affected
becomes a small percentage. For most people in Los Angeles, the
major inconvenience is the loss of the major freeways--creating
impossible traffic jams (As a side note, I found it interesting
that some of the freeway overpasses that collapsed, were
precisely the same ones that fell in the 1971 Sylmar Quake.
Except this time they had been rebuilt with new "earthquake-
proof" construction). Other daily tragedies such as shootings
and traffic deaths take a much larger toll on life in Los
Angeles, but they are of such common daily occurrence, they get
little or no news coverage.

     From an occult point of view, G. de Purucker made an
interesting statement once, that the emotional atmosphere of a
city is stored in the astral light, and from time to time is fed
back in the form of natural disasters. It is an interesting idea.

     Another observation I have made over the years, concerns
astrological alignments and disasters. I first noted it with the
February 1961 alignment in Aquarius, culminated by a solar
eclipse. The journalists made quite a thing about it at the
time, saying that in India, the people thought it was the end of
the world and everyone was committing mass suicide. Teams of
journalists flew to India to follow up on the story and found
everyone carrying on business as usual. But the popular American
astrology magazines predicted natural disasters and freak weather
to come out of the alignment. I noted that the San Fernando
Valley (a part of Los Angeles) got three inches of snow that
winter. This is odd, because it never snows in the San Fernando
Valley! Also we read about freak storms and disasters all over
the world, and the dams of Holland were under siege from the
oceans storms and were breaking up.

     1964 was another odd concentration of planets in earth
signs. Dane Rudhyar was lecturing on it at First Temple of
Astrology at the time, and a man in the audience commented that
it looked like an earthquake pattern culminating. A few weeks
later, we read about the Alaska quake--one of the strongest
quakes ever recorded in a populated area.
     So this January 11th alignment turned up, one sign away from
the 1961 alignment--the major difference being that the earlier
one culminated with a solar eclipse, while this one culminated
with a new moon. With such similarities, it isn't surprising to
me that the pattern of events that followed it should be similar.
If I correctly recall, the disasters for the 1961 alignment
lasted though the Winter (Summer for you). But more importantly,
the 1961 alignment signaled a primary shift in social thinking
and values--basic changes in society that one could hardly
appreciate if they had not lived through the change. I believe
that this January 11th alignment is another marker for those long
term changes.

     I love the poetry.

With best wishes to you,

Jerry Hejka-Ekins