Facing Difficult People - Zodiac Course 2025

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The Human Being and His Anatomical Planes

three anatomical planes
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Personality Disorders Reconsidered

William Bento

Space is not just something that can be measured in inches or centimeters. It is not only quantifiable. Space also has quality. It matters to our consciousness if we are walking forward or backward, if we are swaying side to side, or if we are stretched toward the sky.

The somatic sensations that accompany these movements are different in nature. They inform us in unique ways about the world around us. Our movements through space determine the perceptions we process about the external world and leave impressions in our psyche that build the basis of our worldview.

The accumulation of these experiences comprises what we call personality. Within an anthroposophic perspective this formation of personality rests upon the physical body accessing certain experiences from the specific dimensions in space and the etheric body's capacity to remember these experiences in a kinesthetic way.

Once these sensations become feelings, we think about their meaning for us; that in turn provides motive for what we choose to do or not to do. This dynamic describes the nature of the astral body and eventually sets the predictable patterns of behayiors, feelings and thoughts that create a "persona," a personality for the soul to express its self. ...

The framework of threefold and fourfold might remain abstract concepts unless we begin to inhabit all the possibilities of spatial orientations consciously. Reflecting on our own sense experiences will allow us to grasp the qualitative nature of moving into certain spaces. We will need to develop a conscious awareness of our somatic experiences, allow them to resonate within us, and reflect on the relevancy of that resonance in relation to the context in which they arise.

To go beyond the animal circle, the human being must discover the virtues inscribed into the zodiac by the spiritual beings that served as its architects in building the temple of the human being. The human being's uprightness as a column of light brings the moral into the earthly kingdom. Morality is not given to us in the same way as the laws of nature are given to us. Morality is the "not given" that we as human beings are destined to develop and offer to the Earth's kingdom. Morality is not given to us in the same way as the laws.

From The Counselor, ...as if Soul and Spirit Matter by D. Tresemer, W. Bento, E. Knighton, 2015, page 171-173

The human being in his encounter with his anatomical planes

The soul life arises in a threefold way

The three anatomical planes correspond to our threefold being, to our soul life.

  • Thinking (Sagittal, water signs: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces)
  • Feeling (Horizontal, air signs: Gemini, Libra, Aquarius)
  • and Willing (Vertical, Fire signs: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius)

Earth is bodily basis which allows us a soul life. Soul is in-between the physical and the spiritual life.

  • Fixed taurus, Fixed = Feeling
  • Virgo mutable, Thinking
  • Capricorn, Cardinal = Will

The fourfold being follows a different order

  • Sagittal relates to our thinking: the mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces) Etheric
  • Horizontal relates to our feeling: the fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius) Astral
  • Vertical relates to our willing: the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) Physical?

The Sphere of the I (ego)

  • The I is a dynamic rhythmic being which lives in the rhythmic interviewing of layers created by those orders.
  • This is the sphere we want to touch on in our work during the course.