A pupil learning at the side of a master

The image

Two figures, a master and a pupil, sit or work side by side. The master shows, explains or simply does; the pupil watches closely and tries. The picture could be of a craft, an art or a spiritual practice; it is the relationship that matters, attention flowing in one direction and effort in the other. Elsie Wheeler described the picture in 1925, and Marc Edmund Jones pencilled it on the card for Pisces 19.

Meaning

Our keyword is "Transmission", and our keynote: understanding passes from one who has it to one who is ready. Both are ours.

Some knowledge can be written down; some can only be passed from person to person. We read the degree as that second kind of learning, the apprenticeship in which skill and judgement are absorbed by watching, imitating and being corrected. Our keynote puts the weight on readiness, since the same lesson means nothing to one who is not prepared for it. One way to see the image is in a person who learns best from a mentor, or who teaches by example. It can also be read from the master's side, as the generosity of handing on what took a lifetime to learn. The tradition reads the picture as a description.

Lynda Hill reads the image with its two neighbours, the one before for ground and the one after for aim. Before it comes Pisces 18, an enormous tent holding a crowd; here the gathering has become two. After it comes Pisces 20, supper laid out on the table, where the nourishment of teaching becomes the plain nourishment of a meal prepared for others.

As a reading aid, the opposite degree is Virgo 19, swimmers racing one another. The swimmers learn by competing, each trying to outdo the rest; the pupil learns by receiving from a master, and the two pictures can be read as rivalry and transmission.

In a chart

A planet or point anywhere from Pisces 18°00′ up to, but not including, Pisces 19°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Pisces 18°24′ reads Pisces 19, and so does one at Pisces 18°58′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Pisces 20 after Pisces 18°59′, or back into Pisces 18 before Pisces 18°00′. That is why the chart shows the minute beside the degree. In EsoTerrier's Sabian chart the Sun, the Moon and the Ascendant are read first, then the Midheaven and the planets; each placement in Pisces 19 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Pisces 18, Pisces 20 and Virgo 19 beside it.

Correspondences

Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.

Where the image comes from

Recorded by Marc Edmund Jones in Balboa Park, San Diego, in 1925, as the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler described the picture she saw for an unseen card; one of 360 done in a single day; published by Jones in 1953 sourced

Degree before and after

Pisces 18 and Pisces 20, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced

Degree opposite

Virgo 19, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction

A position at Pisces 18°00′00″

Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Pisces 19; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Pisces 18. A computed chart practically never lands on it disputed

How the schools read it

Marc Edmund Jones (1953)

Gives the degree a symbol line, a commentary, a one-word keyword and a positive and a negative reading. We quote none of it.

Dane Rudhyar (1973)

Rewords the image and adds a keynote and a commentary of his own, numbering the degrees as Jones did. In copyright to 2068; not used, and the place he gives the degree in his own structure is not shown.

Lynda Hill (1995, 2004)

Uses the symbols as an oracle, with her own commentary, and reads each degree beside the one before and the one after. Her rule and her two names are cited here; her text is not used.

The Sabian Assembly

Jones's own study group serves the 1953 image and keyword of a degree in its oracle, without commentary, on purpose.

EsoTerrier

Our keynote: Understanding passes from one who has it to one who is ready.

Claims about it

• The image line on this page, or on any site, is Elsie Wheeler's own wording.

  false

  What the record shows: Her words survive only as Jones's pencilled notes of 1925. Jones reworded them in 1931 and 1953, Rudhyar in 1936 and 1973, and Hill in her books.

• Reading the degree before and the degree after is part of how the zodiac is built, or of Jones's method.

  false

  What the record shows: It is Lynda Hill's practice, and the two names are hers. We show the two degrees with her name.

• Dane Rudhyar's 1973 lines are the Sabian symbols and free to print.

  false

  What the record shows: They are his rewording, with his own keynotes and commentary, renewed in 2002 and in US copyright to the end of 2068. None of them is used here.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

• Pisces 18: Gathering under one roof the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
• Pisces 20: Prepared nourishment the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
• Virgo 19: Competitive effort the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
• Pisces in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to