With this article, on the houses of universal consciousness, we conclude the short series on the houses of the horoscope. Sincere thanks to everyone who has written in with positive thoughts and appreciative comments.

In this area of the chart (houses 9 - 12), a person responds to the impulse to be purposeful, and the sense of needing to be affiliated to something, whether a group, a cause, or a higher level of consciousness which will give meaning to his own, individual life.

House 9      A spiritual quest is the vehicle for revealing the nature of the system in which the individual is an active participant.

House 10        The Establishment/the established order provides the context and ground rules for achievement.

House 11      Group activity and reforming causes give a sense of belonging and the comfort of fellowship.

House 12    A sense of the connection between all things erodes the sense of separation, links a person to his fellow man, and the personality to the level of soul.

When the Sun, inner planets and Jupiter are in houses 9 - 12, a person is attracted to the activities which provide the appropriate context.

House 9      Overseas travel; ideas from other cultures; spiritual activity - i.e. the ‘shock of  the new’ enables a person to break out of purposeless routine into active participation.

House 10       A career, status, and recognition enable a person to make his individuality responsible and accountable

House 11      Political and pressure groups, the armed forces; indeed any kind of organisation with a strong identity and sense of esprit enables a person to hitch his cart to a larger star and make a difference.

House 12     Organisations and activities which supply the common needs of mankind enable a person to make his contribution although, with this house, the sense of the connection between all things may not need to seek confirmation or find expression through external agencies or activities, operating instead as a mystical awareness which may thrive on solitude and express itself on the astral or mental plane.

The outer planets in these houses have a banishing or transcending effect, making it difficult for a person to make headway, as an individual, in these contexts. Their presence indicates that a person is moving out of universal consciousness, back into an area of consciousness which will fine-tune his sense of individuality (Personal) or his awareness and respect for the individuality of others (Relating).

If the inner and outer planets are present together in this area of consciousness, which is not uncommon, then a more considered, less passive approach to group participation is required.

Saturn in any of the houses of universal consciousness, regardless of the placement of the Sun and inner planets, indicates that, in the context of groups, a person is reminded of his inadequacies and perceived limitations. These may express themselves on the physical plane in the form of an inability to establish career or integrate into a team (10th & 11th) or on the mental level as an inability to see or trust in the larger picture (9th & 12th).

In contemporary Western societies, where there is such an emphasis on one-to-one relating, conditioned expectation can interfere to some degree with a person’s capacity to recognise the nature of the impulse which works through this area of consciousness. This interference is likely to have a frustrating rather than a canceling effect upon the search for a context, causing him to seek, initially, what he needs through partnership rather than through groups. It is likely to be during a person’s thirties that the true nature of the impulse to join up with others is recognised and given an appropriate place in the life. This delaying factor is most in evidence in the houses of which Saturn is the natural ruler (10th & 11th) and least evident where Jupiter is the ruler (9th & 12th).

We would also add that the tendency to think in terms of partnership rather than fellowship, which is mentioned above, may well be overlaid in the course of the next decade by a greater attunement to the idea of communality. The astrological work done here, in England, in the last fifteen years by the astrologers now involved with the Foundation, reveals a marked bias towards the 11th house in the charts of the babies born in the 1980-90s. We have no means of gauging how representative of the whole our findings are but we are expecting, nevertheless, that, as this generation comes of age, the numerical weight of people working through the XIth house will be such that it will bring about a greater enthusiasm for and awareness of the potential of group activity.

Another point to be made in connection with the 11th house is that, somewhere along the road, modern orthodox astrology appears to have forgotten that the 11th house is the house of children after birth.

The 5th house is the house which governs the creation of the children; their passage through the world is an 11th house matter. Children represent the coming generation; they are the future, something with which the House of Aquarius, quite properly, is concerned. For some parents, particularly those with inner planets in 11th house, their children and the legacy which the children will inherit in the form of the state of the world are their cause, and with the arrival of the children, a new centre of gravity is created in their lives which often draws energy and attention away from the parents’ relationship with each other. They tend then to align themselves increasingly with the children and, to a degree, the relationship with the children supersedes that of the parents’ relationship with each other. This is particularly the case when Venus and Mars are involved and is particularly evident in the lives of women.

Those in close relationships with people working in the third area of consciousness need to be aware of this need to have a centre of gravity in something larger and more significant than the relationship itself. "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?" Jesus said to his mother, and spoke for all people working in universal consciousness.

A close relationship between a person working in universal consciousness and another working in relating consciousness is likely to be particularly tense because of the difference in focus and priorities, and the principled sense of being in the right that both will have. A person working in personal consciousness  would not have the same awareness of  the differences, nor therefore, the same need to justify his standpoint.

The crises which may result from the presence of Saturn in the houses of universal consciousness tend not to be well-understood either by those suffering or those treating them. This is due, in part, to the reasons already given - in the West we think in terms of and expect one-to one relating to supply a person’s needs - and because a person does not always have the language or the categories to enable him to identify and describe an existential crisis - and this, at root, is what the crises in the houses of universal consciousness are.

This area of consciousness corresponds to the mental level and is Third Ray. It is consciousness thinking about itself. It determines where a person places himself in the scheme of things and what is the nature of that scheme. Behind the lack of formal success and the difficulties in friendship or with the children which are common expressions of Saturn in 10th & 12th house, there is an inability to retain a sense of personal value, effectiveness and integrity when confronted with a  larger context, whether that context is The Establishment, workplace or a group of people. Basically, he is overwhelmed.

The presence of Saturn in 9th house creates difficulty in the matter of belief and acceptance of that which is non-material and interferes with the formation of the larger picture on which he is dependent for his sense of purpose. For such people, an occult path is usually better than a devotional path because it does not eschew the kind of explanations which are intelligible to the concrete mind.

Saturn in 12th produces the ‘existential nightmare’, the fear of the void, and is the cause of a huge amount of distress because it frustrates the capacity to feel connected; it creates a sense of unremitting purposelessness and a focus and receptivity to all that is negative in the collective mind. The bleakness of the experiences brought about when Saturn in 12th is stirred up by planetary activity i.e. progressions, transits and lunations, is such that the fear of being swallowed up by the void is likely to make a person block any kind of discussion about the non-material and what lies beyond the realm of the five senses. Thus the true nature and full extent of the suffering may never be made known to others.

Something similar, although usually less intense, occurs when Saturn, posited natally anywhere in the chart, progresses or transits the 12th House. The light either goes out or becomes very dim.

The spiritual path is not smooth and those who set out expecting it to yield a succession of affirmations, rewards and the support and goodwill of fellow-travelers are insufficiently prepared. There is always a stage of the journey during which self meets self; when consciousness reaches the limits of the world of its own creation. This happens when Saturn is in the houses of universal consciousness.

These are spiritual crises which can be helped only by the spiritual disciplines and only then if the practitioners know with what they are dealing.