《象徵之輪 Sabian符號的起源，結構和力量》（一）靜電魚翻譯

05-11

「THE

WHEEL OF SIGNIFICANCE

The Origin, Structure

and Power of the Sabian Symbols」

___

《象徵之輪 Sabian符號的起源，結構和力量》

引言：一本關於薩比恩象徵的好書翻譯

這是 Dane Rudhyar的一本重要著作。丹恩魯伊爾（Dane

Rudhyar）是法國血統的美國人，當代作曲家，畫家和占星家。他多才多藝，而且在將心理學和占星學的融合中獨樹一幟，他的人本主義佔星思想，於後世有深遠影響。

而這本關於薩比恩象徵的作品《象徵之輪 Sabian符號的起源，結構和力量》，我在讀後感覺頗好，鑒於我對薩比恩象徵研究已久，見到的好書不多，而國內關於薩比恩象徵的謬誤傳誦尤其多，所以，打算從今天開始為大家即興翻譯講解一下本書的精華，也算是為廣大占星愛好者造福之事。

「The Wheel of Significance is the third volume of The Lost

Writings of Dane Rudhyar series; it was written during 1944-45. Chronologically,

The Wheel of Significance follows the material found in the first two volumes

of The Lost Writings — The Universal Matrix, a work on the Zodiac and its

energies, and a work on the astrological houses, entitled The Way of Creative

Accomplishment. Like the two earlier volumes, The Wheel of Significance has

been virtually unseen for nearly seventy years, and the material was not

incorporated into subsequent writings.

The Wheel of Significance is unique in its in-depth

examination of the amazing inner structure of the 360 Sabian Symbols. The

original articles additionally comprise the first full work on the meaning,

power and use of the Sabian Symbols. In view of the out-of-print status of

Rudhyars later work on the Symbols, An Astrological Mandala, it seems

appropriate to make the earlier material available for the benefit of students

and scholars. And as well see below, The Wheel of Significance occupies a

special place in the history of the Sabian Symbols, with its own fascinating

background story.」

「The Origin and History of the Sabian Symbols

Before outlining the inner structure of the Sabian Symbols,

lets review the origin and history of the 360 Sabian Symbols — from their

revelation in 1925 until the publication of The Wheel of Significance in

1944-45.

It happen on an unknown day during 1925, between two

occupants of a car parked in San Diegos Balboa Park — Marc Edmund Jones and

Elsie Wheeler, a clairvoyant crippled with arthritis — and a mysterious third

party. In his 1953 work on The Sabian Symbols in Astrology, Marc Jones

describes the days work in these words:

Miss Elsie Wheeler was very anxious to start, and on the

visible side of things it was necessary to provide uninterrupted hours, with a

problem of inevitable fatigue to be taken into account. She had to be carried,

no others could be present and conditions in general had to enable her to

function in her accustomed manner. Balboa Park in San Diego offered a spot

where a driveway was a matter of a very few yards from one of the citys

busiest traffic inter」

「sections, fortuitously meeting the necessity that work of

this sort be done in the turmoil of some metropolitan center or other unusually

dense aggregation of people active in the business of being. There was a screen

of trees and bushes, and during the day no one would show any interest in a car

parked here for a few hours. Special blank cards were prepared for the 360

degrees, so that they could be shuffled continuously. A quarter of the pile was

taken at random for the first session. One card was put face down before the

medium, and she reported on the picture she saw by inward vision. This was

noted hurriedly in pencil on the card itself. The process continued steadily

for nearly two hours, and then after a brief rest another ninety symbols were

recorded. After a drive well out into the country . . . sessions were resumed

at the same spot in the park and the other degrees interpreted in a similar

fashion.

The author had three tasks in addition to the physical care

of his student sensitive. These were (1) the shuffling which maintained the

immediate synchronization with source material, (2) making pencil notations of

the psychic[…]」

「selection at each point of progress, and (3) sustaining the

ancient mind-matrix, which made the whole procedure possible. The third task

had its expression, in terms of any human experience be captured in words,

through the presence and co-operation on the invisible side of life of that one

of the Brothers (to use the term by which he would be identified in Theosophy)

who has been concerned in every spiritistic phase of Sabian investigation.

The pictures which Miss Wheeler saw came from various

sources, as far as their substance was concerned. Some were directly out of her

own experience, or as she reached out to take them from other minds directly

available to her. Some were beyond her range of comprehension and were

impressed upon her consciousness, and so were received in distorted fashion or

with an overlay of detail which had to be screened out. As events have shown,

her total contribution was an exceptional achievement, and this one of the

authors volumes is dedicated to her memory, in the hope that it may in time

become a monument to the beauty of her character and the immortal quality of

her ideals. (pp. 333-34).」

「What happened next in the story of the Symbols is best

described by Gavin Kent McClung in his article The Prophetic Sabian Symbols:

After Marc Edmund Jones and the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler

discovered the Sabian symbols, Jones placed in storage the cards on which they

were recorded. He felt that making scientific use of the symbols in astrology

might not be possible. At the time (the mid-1920s), Jones and others were

involved in the scientific reorganization of astrology itself, and in various

types of occult investigation.

It was these other interests that brought him into temporary

partnership with Elsie Wheeler to obtain a new set of symbols for the degrees

of the zodiac. He had found the degree-symbols of Charubel to be useful, but felt

that the Charubel series was overly moralized or slanted in terms of

"good/bad" interpretation. Also, as Charubels symbols were meant to

illuminate the Ascendant degree only, Jones believed that a fresh approach

could produce a set of symbols with more universal significance.

When he came to realize that it might never again be

possible to re-create the situation that had allowed the original discovery of

the Sabian symbols, Jones decided[…]」

「copies of the mimeographed courses on astrology he was then

sending to the members of the Sabian Assembly which he had founded.

"Symbolical Astrology" was written in 1931, and it listed and

interpreted symbols for each degree of the zodiac. I became very much

interested in these symbols which, for various reasons that I will presently

state, I found far superior to previously published sets of degree symbols; and

when urged by my friend Alice Bailey, I decided to write my book The Astrology

of Personality (summer 1934 to spring 1936) I asked Marc Jones for permission

to include in it a condensed version of the symbols and their interpretations.

This permission was readily granted. . . .

As I came more and more to use the 360 Sabian symbols I grew

dissatisfied with many of their formulations and interpretations, even though I

was ever more amazed by the inner structure of the entire series, especially

considering the totally aleatory manner in which the symbols were obtained. As

a result I started to write a long series of articles, entitled The Wheel of

Significance, which were published serially in American Astrology magazine

between October 1944 and December 1945. (An Astrological Mandala, pp[…]」

這本書創作於1944年至45年。在深入研究360 Sabian符號令人驚嘆的內部結構方面是獨一無二的。

開篇再次說明了一下「Sabian符號的起源和歷史」，是由馬克·埃德蒙·瓊斯和埃爾西·惠勒兩位人物在1925年機緣巧合的完成的。

馬克(Marc Edmund

Jones (October 1, 1888 - March 5, 1980)先生這位被譽為美國占星學之父，他受到一位西班牙基督教徒的一本「生命之源」獲得啟發，並結識了他的學生Elsie Wheeler，這位小姐是一名通靈者，他們互相合作，在序言里詳細描述了他們如何製作這套象徵系統的。

馬克為黃道360度準備了特殊的360張空白卡片，以便可以連續洗牌。當惠勒手上拿到卡片時腦中所浮現的印象加以一一紀錄在紙條上，一共有360條，每一條如同詩般地描述黃道360度上每一個度數涵義，最終形成了這個珍貴的靈光乍現卻充滿隱喻象徵的重要體系。

而在後續的使用中，本書作者發現薩比恩象徵系統的科學性，以及在解釋上的不確定性，這令他終於下決心開始好好的為這個珍貴的象徵系統做注釋，這才有了這本珍貴的書籍誕生。

這個序言簡潔扼要，再次重複了這是一次珍貴的通靈隱喻結構的象徵系統，後文還將與中國的易經等結合起來，是個非常有意思的占星學研究方向。

有興趣的朋友，敬請期待下次的翻譯。