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Proceeding with our comparison of Mars and Venus, let us not make the mistake of thinking that Venus is altogether lovely and Mars totally evil. Each has light and shadow, and ours is the privilege of living in best or the worst of their phases. The intrinsic nature of Mars is "dynamic energy"; from him comes ambition to accomplish; he furnishes the power for the world's work. Necessarily the hustle and bustle incident to the expression of this constructive energy cause friction between man and man. Thus anger and hate are engendered by the Mars energy in operation along various lines. Mars never generates this discordant element directly; it is produced by our method of using his energy, and it is as much a mistake to blame Mars for our temper as it is to blame well prepared food for causing indigestion when our stomach is out of order. In the latter case the stomach should be blamed for not performing its duty properly and for spoiling the good food instead of utilizing it in the economy of the system. Similarly, when the Mars ray works through us as passion, we are to blame for not better using this great constructive force.
Then again, how wonderfully everything is balanced in the Kingdom of God, the solar system, and how necessary these opposites! If we had only the Venus ray, we could never really learn to love the good and the beautiful, for we distinguish only by contrast. if nothing around us were ugly or evil, the desirable qualities of the opposite condition would not appear so marked. People who aim to cultivate exclusively the Venus faculty of love and beauty find their aesthetic sense revolting more and more at the sordid phases of life, which they bewail but in a helpless manner because they have mistakenly repressed the Mars ray and killed out their temper. Mars energy drives people to face disagreeable situations and overcome difficulties that would discourage people dominated by the Venus ray. Blended, the Venus ray softens the harshness of Mars, and thus the highest good is reached.
The dynamic energy of Mars, which is the power that moves the world from the civil and industrial standpoints, under certain afflictions becomes recklessness and destructiveness, making the person so expressing it a dangerous man, a public enemy. When the Venus ray is afflicted, it curtails the sense of beauty and order; hence the person becomes slothful, disorderly, and lacking in proper self-respect. Incapable, because of the affliction, of feeling true love, such a person becomes perverted and licentious, and it is often said of him: "He is his own worst enemy." Such people do not harm others intentionally; yet they spread an immense amount of unhappiness among those whom they profess to love. One of these classes is dangerous to society because it has not the love ray of Venus to guide its exuberant energy; the other, because it lacks the dynamic Mars energy necessary to carry its good intentions into execution.
We see these classes in the world, and the misery they cause themselves and others; but usually their character has become "set," and we can do but little to change their condition and must leave them to the schoolmaster "experience." Children are growing up among us and our chances of helping them are great.
When the "Spirit" spoke to the churches in Revelation, it found fault in many directions; but one received a stinging rebuke: "I wish thou wert hot or cold, but because thou art neither I will spew thee out of my mouth." The so-called "bad boy" is not nearly so difficult a problem as one who is so goody-goody that he is likely to turn out to be a good-for-nothing, a pitiable human wreck. You will do well to look the latter over constantly and thoroughly, and remind him of the slightest neglect or mistake. It takes strength to be a sinner, and the worst boy becomes the best man when Mars has been downed by Venus; but the greatest firmness is required to correct an afflicted Venus and give the child sufficiently dynamic energy to be really, instead of seemingly, good.
The intrinsic nature of Mars is dynamic energy, that is to say, force in action, and people who have Mars strong at birth are people who make a stir in the world so far as their environment reaches. They are so full of life and ambition that they sweep all other people's rights aside and force their own views, ideas, and methods to the front regardless of whom it hurts or harms; they are impulsive and always ready to initiate novelties on the spur of the moment. They strongly resent objections to their plans, but usually lack sufficient persistence to carry their designs into execution. If obstacles of magnitude present themselves, they abandon their plans as suddenly as they conceived them, and commence to ride another hobbyhorse with the same ardor that marked their previous ventures, and with the same disregard of reason.
In the Kingdom of God all things balanced to produce the highest ultimate good to all, and so the influence of Saturn, another so-called evil planet, is used to offset the exuberant life of Mars. The intrinsic nature of Saturn is obstruction; he is as slow and persistent as Mars is impulsive and quick to change; he takes no chances, but looks before he leaps, and his cold, calculating reason misses no flaw in any scheme.
In the horoscope of a young soul Mars is dominant and the man grows along physical lines much as animals do under the law of the survival of the fittest; but gradually the thumbscrews of Saturn are put on, squares and oppositions bring sorrow and suffering, Saturn is placed above Mars in the horoscope to frustrate and check him, till it seems as if every effort is futile because of the Saturnian obstruction.
Elijah could not hear the voice of guidance in the fire, the storm, or the earthquake, but when the tumult was over, he heard "the still, small voice" to cheer him; and likewise with us, while we yield to the unchecked Mars impulses, our lives are too turbulent to admit to communion with the Higher Self, but when the sorrows of Saturn have chastened the unruly Mars spirit, when the night seems darkest, as in Elijah's cave, then we also may hear the voice that shall speak peace after the storm.
— Max Heindel
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