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THE SABIAN ASSEMBLY

With Continuous Activity since October 17, 1923

ARCHITECTURE
Sonnet in the Italian Style

How frail they are: such towers as men do build,
     As though the soul of all were rock and brick
     Inert at every mason's hand! We pick
A keystone for the structure we have willed
To be. We cut and chisel hearts, full-thrilled
     To watch our mounting edifice. But quick
     As dizzy heights are gained by human trick
The Babel voices rise: and work is stilled!

How stout they are: the towers by spirit raised,
     Where every stone is conscious of its place!
The outer world may not stand by, amazed:
     The work goes on with spirit's leisured pace.
Each workman rules himself, by self is praised.
     His stuff of soul illumes the building's face.




Nothing is as fascinating as self, unless it is the world in which self lives. It is for that reason that the first impulse of man is the investigation of these two realities. When he is alert and eager of mind and body, this investigation can be a wonderful adventure. It is because of this impulse, of course, that the human race makes progress, and that man in general becomes more than the animal he remains in his physical origins.

AN INVITATION

We invite you to join us in our high adventure.


What are we doing, in which we would like your companionship?

We are seeking to break out the walls of mind, to bring more exciting vistas to the eye, and to expand the heart.

What do we ask of you?

Nothing at all, if we have to keep asking for it! Everything, if you will present it spontaneously!


We invite you to join us in our high adventure.

There is always more in the depths of people:
   — More enthusiasm to rekindle
   — More appreciation to realize
   — More possibilities to share!


We invite you to join in our high adventure.

The Sabian Assembly is dedicated to the adventure of an increasing mastery of self and the world. Its goal is to help the individual climb to the top of even the most difficult mountain of understanding. Developing an exciting challenge for the mind, so the adventure will be fully appreciated, the Assembly concerns itself with various step-by-step ways to make the ascent to ultimate realization both facile in the accomplishment and progressively rewarding at every point of progress.

To keep its functions focused in immediate self-unfoldment of aspiring individuality in everyday living, the Assembly avoids formal organization and static framework in every way possible. There are no headquarters or salaried staff. The chancellor* receives no remuneration. Virtually all essential services are performed by volunteers.

Basically what holds the Assembly together is the desire on the part of all its members to share as widely as possible in the responsibilities as well as in the rewards of participation in the activities. The primary dedication is to a respect for personality on the one hand, and to a faith in the essential dignity and integrity of mankind collectively on the other. A full account of the origin of the group together with detailed explanation of its materials and methods may be found in the Sabian Manual, a 288pp volume supplied to each affiliate but available by purchase to anybody wishing to investigate the Sabian conceptions and procedures without affiliation.

The Solar Path of Initiation

The principal characteristic of the individual's refinement of his potentials under Sabian direction is the demand for a rigorously precise use of the words of particular significance in the presentation of arcane principles. Because many newcomers in the fellowship find their conformity to this demand a major stumbling block, the Sabian Manual gives early attention to the matter. A few of the special terms even require preliminary explanation in this brochure. For example, the word initiation refers to the expanded awareness or broadened realization that must be gained by every man who seeks to achieve any true measure of control over his own destiny. The word Solar when capitalized identifies the consistent reference of everything to the core of selfhood, as the only possible basis for any exercise of such a control.

CONCERNING
THE ASSEMBLY

It is not a cult, helping its members feel superior to nonmembers.


Rather it is a co-operative project for developing a happier, more fruitful participation in everyday experience.


It is not a new religion offering escape from the necessity for individual action here and now to solve individual problems.


Rather it is a co-operative project for creating more effective understanding and use of man's capacities for an enduring faith.


It is not a new philosophy promising a wealth of easy answers without challenge to well-entrenched prejudices.


Rather it is a co-operative project for refining the analytical gifts with which everybody is normally endowed at birth.


It is not a new science claiming to have special powers to which the world at large is insensitive or hostile.


Rather it is a co-operative project for expanding human capacities in every practical area of individual or group activities.

The Solar path of initiation, as re-established for modern needs in the Sabian Assembly and made available for all who are who are willing to meet the conditions, offers at once a test of the self's stamina and integrity and the possibility of bringing the self to the full of its powers. The person who enters on this path becomes an aspirant, and accepts at the start that it is possible for him to accomplish this complete self-fulfillment in life. He is asked to view his frustrations as a postponement or stimulus and not as defeat. He is challenged to exercise his more latent capacities and to develop his neglected potentials. At the beginning he may have difficulty with the prospect of considerable ritual or patterning in his ongoing. However, he will learn that rhythm is the actual cosmic base of everything, and that to be more than a pawn of circumstances he must establish and maintain a fundamental dedication of act and attitude that is particularly himself.

The Solar self-refinement has its least technical dramatization in the Sabian rituals where the rewards are stated in simpler form as health or the non-diffusion of selfhood, prosperity or the universality of possible self-adjustment, happiness or an expanding freedom from fear or prejudice, and understanding or an avoidance of the provincialism that must be eliminated most importantly. But even in this simplicity these rewards of the initiation cannot be regarded properly either as a species of gift from higher power, since in such a case they would leave man the mendicant, or as the result of some kind of occult magic, since such a manipulation of the supernatural would do no more to develop man in the basic dignity of his being.

Genuine Solar initiation requires continual self-respecting effort as the aspirant expends himself in the business of being himself very consistently and to the limit of his capacity.

The Sabian Conception of Ideas

Since the Sabian Assembly administers a Solar initiation, it must do so essentially as a Solar group. This means that it has no particular concern with the aspirant's religious interests or intellectual allegiances. What alone is of importance is his soundness of self-anchorage at the core of selfhood. In consequence what is involved primarily is his consciousness, or his practical utilization of his ideas as effective symbols of his own experience on the one hand and as the tools of mind or functions of thinking that on the other hand make a vicarious experience possible. Sabian attention centers on human experience in its completely individual potential as directly and continuously as possible, and the Assembly therefore refuses to become a religion or even a religious movement. It offers no competition to the established faiths or intellectual schools of thought of mankind but instead encourages its members to develop or continue a whole-hearted and understanding outreach to some ideal of world-wide or age-old compass for the sake of the advantage in selfless and yet personal orientation of widening scope. It recognizes the right of any member to establish his own devotional life in the Sabian rituals if he wishes to do so, but demands that he do not obtrude his views upon his fellows.

To encourage a continuous realization of the fundamental role of ideas as tools of mind, and of personal points of view as an ordering of thought at some particular moment, the Sabian materials are identified as a presentation of a philosophy of concepts. The word concept is then defined as idea-at-work. All this is to help the aspirant remember that he is training his powers of knowing, and only most incidentally is adding to his store of knowledge.

The principal purpose of the Solar self-refinement is to keep the aspirant's consciousness ever fluid, and his nascent eagerness completely unimpaired. To be avoided is any undisciplined emotionalism or lust for transient excitement, and quite as much a threat to the ultimate fulfillment is any unseemly pride of heritage or intellect. An individual's background, whatever it may be, is an asset to the extent he makes use of it in more than some limited setting. Irrespective of what a person may have made of himself, for better or worse, there is a place for him in the Sabian vision provided only that he associates with his fellows in the enthusiastic warmth born of a mutual respect for personality and human society in general.

The Presentation of Options

The occult validations under which the initiatory program is carried out, together with the detailed procedures, are explained in great detail in the Sabian Manual as already noted. Characterizing the Solar method in this application is a broad pattern of options. Beyond the preliminary two-year refinement of basic aspiration, that establishes the newcomer's effective rapport with the special genius of the group, there is no further step that any member of the Assembly is ever called upon to take. Thus the special activities concerned with the spiritual healing on the one side, or the development of divinatory skills on the other, may be elected but they never are required or even recommended specifically.

In Solar initiation under Sabian auspices there are progressive stages of responsibility beyond the initial two years of neophyte or preparatory orientation. These in order are a five-year acolyte period of drill — then a three-year legate status that may be followed by a lay-brother functioning of which no tangible measure or recognition is possible in any everyday terms. The approach to each of these must be by voluntary decision as the eligibility develops.

There are other obvious options in connection with the various degrees of group participation such as take tangible form perhaps in handling the materials, or in research and editorial or teaching contribution. There always is the opportunity to volunteer for the more spiritual and transcendental sustainment of the group work as a whole, or for a ritualistic part of the healing ministry.

The aspirant may decide to place himself in the optionally available astrological classification when joining the Assembly or later, and leave it at any time before he completes the full possible course of horoscopic investigation. This option means primarily the receipt of additional sets of lessons for consideration. At times rather specialized materials are circulated among those seeking to perfect their proficiency in the stellar analysis.

The Framework of Instruction

The Sabian Assembly, while functioning essentially as a school of thought in the historical sense, is in no respect an educational institution of the sort recognized by law and hence chartered by the state. It gives its members no diplomas or certificates, and permits no reference to itself as authority for the practice of the occult arts or pursuance of any professional ministration. Indeed, it provides no indication of the aspirant's progress on the path of initiation but rather affirms that any proof of accomplishment in self-refinement under Solar definition must be in the given individual's competency, or his ability to live among his fellows in such fashion as to call forth spontaneous recognition from them in the terms of their values and what they can recognize of their better selves in his person or his works.

Membership in the Assembly does not require an acceptance of occult phenomena in the usual form of explanation, since in the Sabian presentation there also are adequate nonoccult interpretations that meet every exaction of the current rationalistic and nontheological canons of reason. Hence the question whether the arcane tradition has literal or historical accuracy is quite unimportant in any overall view, since its employment is as an organon or a mechanism of mind ordering. It must be remembered that men in many respects may learn as much from fiction as fact, exactly as the muscles of the body may develop as effectively in play as in work. There is a species of high occult authority in the Sabian background at all times, but this is a ritualistic matter. On the Solar path the aspirant must be equipped to be as much at home in the secular culture around him as in the mystical otherworldliness that for him superficially at least may have the appearance of a greater spirituality. None the less and by the same token he must realize that the rather cavalier rejection of all superphysical experience at the hands of a prevailing secularism is an unjustified bigotry.

The Sabian Administration

The activities of the Sabian Assembly are supervised by the founding chancellor*, whose direction has remained immediate and personal through the present* formative stage of the group. His goal, however, is to share responsibilities as it becomes possible to distribute the various operations in a practical co-ordination of convenience and competence. This policy is designed to establish the future degree of formlessness in the group functioning through which the ideal of an uncompromisingly Solar unity-in-diversity will be able to survive. What is envisioned is a system of interlocking electives exercised by individuals of parallel aspiration, such as essentially and as a whole is self-administering because individually it is self-policing.

The properties of the Sabian Assembly consist of little more than the lessons and other instruction prepared by the founding chancellor*. These analyses, letters, typescript reports and the like are produced and distributed by the volunteer workers in the framework of the Sabian Publishing Society, a nonprofit foundation incorporated in 1949, at Stanwood, Washington. Its trustees, all of whom must be under Sabian discipline, are pledged to the task of keeping both the present and future materials available for members of the Assembly and the public generally.

Membership In the Assembly

Membership in the Assembly is open to any individual of fifteen years of age or older who is and remains of good report in his community. His acceptance must be irrespective of sex, race, religion, economic status, education, political affiliation or any distinction such as tends to establish immutably separate groups in the human family. The initial basis for becoming a member is an agreement to 1) give regular and specified attention to Sabian materials or to other materials in Sabian perspective, although this need not be an excessive demand on time and strength under conditions of special stress, and 2) make a regular contribution of at least a token nature in or in advance of and for each calendar month. The applicant for membership must sign a pledge in a tentative acceptance of this obligation. If the definiteness of self-commital goes against the grain of his temperament, as it may well do in current times, he must remember that this is a symbolical gesture to serve him as a focal point in his thinking and nothing else. As an obligation to himself, it dissolves if ever his present purpose should happen to fade away.

THE NEOPHYTE PLEDGE

(A) Affirming that my supreme desire is the achievement of divine illumination, and that the purpose in such desire is to earn a definite commission of stewardship as a conscious participant in the Eternal Wisdom;

(B) Realizing that individual commissions under the Solar Mysteries must be self-bestowed, and that authority of this nature can result only from some self-assumed obligation that will commit my spiritual self by an objectification of this desire;

(C) Understanding that the higher consciousness of the individual corresponds by spiritual dimension with the normal consciousness of the group, and that the power that identity of purpose creates in a group is made available for the committing of my higher self through my activity within such a group;

(D) Determining that my entire being shall be united by binding all my lower and higher principles to this one purpose, and that the desire of my lower will for my higher self shall now gain objectivity through the group consciousness inherent in this pledge;

(1) I hereby declare that the desire for expanded consciousness that brings me before the Sabian Portal of the Solar Mysteries shall be kept the actuating influence in all my lesser desires through the whole of my life, as far as I can achieve control of my being, and I recognize this pledge as in no way dependent on present or future associations with any teaching, organization or person.

(2) Moreover, as an earnest of my serious intent, I promise that for two years from this date I will attend a study group of the Sabian Assembly each week, or make a written report on my thoughts and endeavors in connection with my Sabian commital for each week in which I do not attend such a group, and that for the period of my participation in the activities of the Assembly I will contribute regularly to its support.

The text of this pledge is given in the sidebar to the right, and its provisions are explained very fully in the Sabian Manual. In preliminary fashion it may be noted that the initial four paragraphs, A to D, state the operation of the arcane principles involved. Paragraph 1 is the basic promise, and this is drawn in such a manner that it never is possible for the aspirant to pass judgment on himself and to conclude that he has failed in pursuing his intent on the one hand or has achieved the full of his potentials on the other. Paragraph 2 is the earnest only, and under shifting world conditions is for the moment not interpreted literally, as explained in the 1976 revision of the Sabian Manual.

The Procedure in Affiliation

Inquiry concerning membership in the Sabian Assembly should be addressed to the Administrator, administrator@sabian.org. The two blank forms to be signed as a first step in affiliation will be sent upon request. One is the neophyte pledge and the other a statement of the monthly contributions the newcomer proposes to make. Concerning the contribution, it is the member's privilege to increase or decrease this without explanation whenever he wishes. Copies of the Sabian Manual and the Sabian Book (of Blue Letters) are supplied on receipt of the two signed forms and the payment of an admission fee that covers the cost of the initial materials and of processing the record. The fee is $30.00 unless the aspirant desires astrological classification, in which case it is increased to $35.00. Aspirants who already possess the Sabian Manual pay reduced fees of $20.00 and $25.00 respectively. New students are expected to contribute at least $10.00 monthly, or $12.00 if in astrological discipline, to help meet Sabian objectives. Established members, however, are encouraged to give according to means even if only a token.

*NOTE: The title of Chancellor has not been used since the passing of the founder Dr. Marc Edmund Jones in 1980. This brochure originated in 1976.



THE SABIAN LESSON SETS

These lessons normally run to about twelve hundred words each. The principal part of this material has been arranged in two revolving cycles of weekly issue, with the philosophy series repeating in twenty-one years and the Bible series in a little over nineteen.

THE WEEKLY PHILOSOPHY CYCLE

Ibn Gabirol
Source of Life

Plotinus
Plotinian Ethics Plotinian Personality
Plotinian Ethics Plotinian Personality
Plotinian Cosmology Plotinian Idealism
Plotinian Destiny Plotinian Reality

Plato
Plato's Republic Plato's Banquet
Plato's Socrates Plato's Athens
Plato's Atlantis

Aristotle
Aristotle's Physics Aristotle's Aesthetics
Aristotle's Logic Aristotle's Biology
Aristotle's Metaphysics Aristotle's Taxonomy
Aristotle's Psychology Aristotle's Ethics

The April-October Series
Grimm's Fairy Tales Olympian Concepts
Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine
Life Technique Tools of Insight
Life Analysis Tools of Inspiration
Tools of Intelligence
1001 Nights Studies in Alice
Omar's Quatrains Fictional Symbolism
Elementary Signatures Sabian Psychology
First Principles Modern Thought
Renaissance of Thought
Art of Play Art of Being
Art of Duty Art of Wisdom


THE WEEKLY BIBLE CYCLE

Deuteronomy
Promised Land Mosaic Prophecy
Mosaic Covenant

Matthew
Studies in Matthew Passion Week
Wisdom Gospel

Completing the Hexateuch
Magical Message Legalistic Message
Epic Message Ritualistic Message
Thaumaturgic Message Civil Message

Paul
Pauline Theology Pauline Authority
Pauline Eschatology Pauline Idealism
Pauline Mysticism Pauline Humanism

Jeremiah
Hebrew Destiny Hebrew Politics
Hebrew Worship Hebrew Vision
Hebrew Suffering Hebrew Oracles

Isaiah and the Minor Prophets
Prophetic Source Prophetic Vision
Prophetic Power Prophetic Deliverance
Prophetic Judgment Prophetic Knowledge

Luke
Evangelical Origins Evangelical Consummation
Evangelical Growth Evangelical Fortitude
Evangelical Vision Evangelical Achievement

NOTE: The analysis of Daniel is titled Chaldean Initiation; of Job, Art of Wisdom; and of the Song of Songs, Tools of Inspiration. Chaldean Initiation is not comprised in the weekly cycles.


THE ASTROLOGY AND THE PURE PATTERN SERIES

Sabian Astrology Sabian Absolutes
Pythagorean Astrology Occult Dichotomy
Temple Astrology Magic Squares
Professional Astrology Corner Patterns
Divinatory Astrology Cabalistic Depth
Symbolical Astrology Dimensional Reality
Theosophical Astrology Patterns of Circumstances
Directional Astrology Patterns of Function
Arabian Astrology Patterns of Activity
Hermetic Astrology Patterns of Experience
Hegelian Astrology Geometrical Symbolism
Rosicrucian Astrology Dimensional Symbolism


THE ACOLYTE DISCIPLINE

Arcane Sacraments The Sabian Tarot
Racial Cycles Pythagorean Number
Divine Mantras


SPECIAL SUMMATORY ORIENTATION

Sabian Fundamentals


THE SPECIAL SETS

Outlines of 1922-4 Classwork Codex Occultus
Key Truths of Occ. Philosophy Modern Philosophers
Chaldean Initiation Conceptual Training


NOTE: The twelve astrology sets are now superceded by the printed textbooks; Modern Philosophers by Modern Thought supplemented by First Principles and Renaissance of Thought; and Conceptional Training by the six sets on Plotinus from Plotinian Ethics through Plotinian Reality. The full-scale textbook on Fundamentals of Number Significance has minor anticipation in Pythagorean Astrology. The 1925 Key Truths of Occult Philosophy is available in reproduction.

WITH the following exceptions the price of each lesson set is $20.00. The three Matthew sets and three Deuteronomy sets as well as Key Truths of Occult Philosophy and Chaldean Initiation are each $30.00. The Codex Occultus is $38.00. The five sets of acolyte discipline are available only as a unit for $400.00. The lesson sets may be bound in paper covers or left unbound. Please specify your preference when ordering. Sabian students may purchase sets for their own use at a 25% discount.



BOOKS BY MARC EDMUND JONES

1941How to Learn Astrology    208pp
The ideal beginner's text, revised in 1969

1941Guide to Horoscope Interpretation    208pp
A simple exposition of the basic patterns

1943Horary Astrology, Problem Solving    448pp
A thoroughgoing exposition, revised in 1971 with an important primer of symbolism added

1945Astrology, How and Why It Works    448pp
A thorough explanation of houses, signs and planets in their basic significance

1948Occult Philosophy    448pp
Profane, Lunar and Solar Mysteries, basic truths, key concepts and arcane glossary

1948George Sylvester Morris    448pp
A significant study of theistic idealism

1953Sabian Symbols in Astrology    448pp
A full description illustrated in a thousand horoscopes of well-known people

1957Sabian Manual    288pp
The complete rituals and full explanations of Sabian procedures in practical detail

1960Essentials of Astrological Analysis    464pp
The Sabian method for overall approach to the horoscope with numerous examples

1968Scope of Astrological Prediction    480pp
Primary, secondary and tertiary directions; the three returns; transits; rectification

1973Sabian Book    400pp
A selection of letters of insight written for students over some twenty years

1975Mundane Perspectives in Astrology    464pp
Definitive survey of world and political techniques, special events and measures

1976How to Live with the Stars    220pp
Practical analysis of the transits for non- astrologers, beginners and experts

1978The Marc Edmund Jones 500    171pp
Ten astrological typescripts recorded live.

1978Man, Magic and Fantasy    215pp
"The domestication of imagination"

1978Fundamentals of Number Significance    408pp
Overview of the horoscope through the ladder technique, keyed to the author's life and others

1979The Counseling Manual in Astrology    197pp
Practical summation of the author's natal astrological techniques and usages.

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