290 Spiritual Astrology
thus makes him gain sufficient experience. On the physical
body, Saturn governs the skin, teeth, bones, nails and hair.
To a disciple of the spiritual path he plays a very major
role. He along with Mercury governs the throat-centre.
On the higher levels of discipleship, the throat-centre is
the starting point of major initiations. Control over
thought, word and deed, and contentment, endurance,
experience and sustained effort make a man fit to get into
the path of discipleship and build his Antahkaran.a.
In the horoscope of a spiritualist, Saturn influences
Gemini. In the horoscope of an average man, he rules over
Scorpio along with Mars. Spirit comes down into matter
through a converging spiral path in Scorpio. This denotes
the nature of death. Retracing the same path (by reversing
the direction of the wheel) he finds the same serpentine
path but ever-expanding, as the path of new life. When
the journey of the imprisoned soul of man is completed
from Scorpio to Gemini in the reversed direction, Saturn
works through Gemini in constructing the Antahkaran.a
of the disciple. Then the soul is liberated from the bondage
of matter and brought to Taurus along the same spiral
path. But this time the path is white and radiant and is
called the winged serpent. Its further transformation ends
in the eagle. The higher centre (birth-place of Indra) is
awakened and Indra is said to have slain Vruthra (the
serpent of coils).
The raising of man involves Capricorn also, which
is in trine with Taurus and sextile with Scorpio. Man is
liberated from the cycles of birth and death in Capricorn
under the rulership of Saturn. Cancer brings man down
to earth where he has to face the trials and tribulations
and learn the lessons of Saturn in the lower level. In