The Modern Mystic and Science Review

   

Article by Willi Sucher, March 1938

   

DARWIN AND HAECKEL

Introduction by E. Kolisko

   

The editor of The Modern Mystic has asked me to write a few introductory words to the following article. Readers will remember that in my series From Darwinism–Whither? I wrote these words:

“I must now introduce something that appears quite paradoxical and which may be believed or not as the reader feels inclined, but which perhaps may be permitted in a journal which combines ‘Modern Mysticism’ and ‘Modern Natural Science’...While Darwin is collecting his material (during his world-tour) for the Origin of Species, Haeckel is in his own embryonic development making his prenatal experiences concerning the origin of his being.”

Now I think readers will have had rather a shock at this remark. And I must confess that I myself had not, at that time, made any astrological confirmation of the above facts. But I wrote to Mr. John W. Seeker, who is writing the remarkable series of articles on astrology in this journal, and asked him to make a comparison between the two horoscopes by means of his new method of casting prenatal ones. The following article is the result. To my great satisfaction it confirms quite literally the conjecture which I made only from observation of the coincidence of Darwin's world-tour with Haeckel's embryonic period. Moreover it reveals even more striking connections between the planetary positions of both the horoscopes.

The Editor has kindly agreed with my suggestion to celebrate this experiment in ‘modern mystical’ collaboration by reproducing the photographs of the two great scientists in this number. E. Kolisko

   

Fig. 1: DARWIN        AND        HAECKEL

   

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DARWIN AND HAECKEL

The study of the birth-constellations of two such individuals as Darwin and Haeckel, whose world-conceptions linked them so closely together, seems to promise many interesting conclusions. This promise is certainly fulfilled, for the two constellations reveal in a most beautiful manner the interplay of the destiny of these two people.

It is true that the hour of birth is unknown for either of them, but in spite of this we find most fruitful results when we call to our aid the facts of the prenatal constellations. If from this point of view we begin with the movements of Jupiter in the two horoscopes, we observe remarkable things. In Darwin's case, Jupiter comes from the constellation of Aquarius, makes its loop and then, toward the time of birth, proceeds to enter the constellation of Pisces.

Darwin: Born February 12, 1809

Haeckel’s Jupiter, on the other hand, begins its movement in Pisces, goes through its retrogression, and enters the constellation of Aries at the time of birth. Pictorially speaking, we see in this simple fact something like a “shaking hands” between the two personalities. The phase of Jupiter in Fishes seems like a secret and pre-destined pact made between the two, a constellation that is in every way timely and which has a particularly strong connection with the natural-scientific theories and struggles of our age. Still more profound connections are revealed, however, by the respective Mars movements in the prenatal constellations. Haeckel: Born February 6, 1834

Darwin's Mars moves from its approximate position in Aries-Taurus to Libra and is in conjunction with Uranus and the lunar node. During the fourth prenatal revolution of the Moon from the approximate beginning of the prenatal constellations, Mars crosses the cosmic ascendant, which signifies the direction taken by the human soul entering into birth. This important direction is shown by the position of the Moon at birth.

As the Moon is waning on Darwin's birthday we must look to the opposite point of the Zodiac, in this case to the region between the constellations Gemini and Cancer. This is where Mars is passing during the fourth prenatal lunar month. As we know, every lunar month of the pregnancy period corresponds to seven years of the actual life; therefore, this prenatal Mars event must be connected with Darwin's fourth seven-year period, which is the time from his 21^st till his 28^th year.

This is precisely the time of Darwin’s great world-tour. He went to Brazil, through the Straits of Magellan, to South America and the Pacific Islands. His book the Origin of Species and many of his other works all spring from the material gathered during this tour. They became the foundation of Darwinism.

Mars works in the will of a person but is also connected with natural-scientific thought — in so far as it is limited to material sense-observations and experiment. Mars in Cancer is the general direction of Darwin's earthly destiny, indicated by the cosmic ascendant in Cancer and Mars wandering through this region.

What about Haeckel? He brought to a certain conclusion, as it were, what Darwin had begun. While Darwin was traveling about the world, Haeckel was passing through his embryonic development and the early days of his childhood. Is there anything in Haeckel which corresponds to the remarkable behavior of Mars in Darwin's case? Yes, there is a dramatic counter-picture! The path of Mars during Haeckel's embryonic period begins just on the significant point in between Gemini and Cancer and arrives at the region between Sagittarius and Capricorn where the conjunction between Mars and Neptune takes place. Like a drastic gesture it appears as though Haeckel seizes hold of that which Darwin brings back from his world travels. In this moment his destiny is stamped into his etheric prenatal organization.

But there is another connection with Saturn. Darwin’s Saturn moves during his embryonic period from the constellation of Libra toward conjunction with Neptune in Scorpio. Haeckel's Saturn is passing through the constellation of Virgo.

The way in which Darwin's Saturn stands in Scorpio expresses what Darwin called the “struggle for existence”. Saturn, in Scorpio, means evolution through death.

Haeckel experienced and formed his life in quite another sphere — Virgo. He felt the idea of development as a penetration into the secrets of the evolution of life, and its metamorphoses.

In the fifth prenatal lunar month of Haeckel's embryonic period, there is a remarkable conjunction of Sun, Mars, and Saturn in Virgo — the Sun arriving a little earlier than Mars. This corresponds to the time between the 28^th and 35^th years of Haeckel's life. It was in his 29^th year (1863) that Haeckel first stood up for Darwin's teaching. In 1866 he published his General Morphology wherein he aimed at establishing a scientific system from Darwin's theories.

If we follow the further movements of Saturn during Haeckel's life-time, we find in 1863 how Saturn returns exactly to the place where it stood at the time of Haeckel's birth. In 1866 when the General Morphology was published, his Saturn is in Libra where Darwin's Saturn began, and in 1899, when Haeckel edited the Riddle of the Universe, which he himself considered to be the completion of what he had begun 33 years before, Saturn is standing in the constellation of Scorpio; that is, exactly where Darwin's Saturn had stood at his birth. Thus, also from the aspect of Saturn the circle between these two personalities is closed.

These things show that historical events are not only mere earthly happenings, but also facts in cosmic etheric space. To look at this other space in which cosmic reality rules, awakens a feeling for the value and responsibility of human life.

   

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