by Robert Wilkinson
As it’s been several years since we visited this subject, today we’re going to explore the general relationship between the septile, novile and elftile spiritual aspect series. I’ve been applying the 7th and 9th harmonic aspects in my readings for about 50 years, and found these three aspect series show us forks in the road of destiny, points of revelation, and time of mastering duality.
Back in the 70s, when doing charts by hand, I needed a way to notate the various aspects in the septile series, novile series, and 11th harmonic series, which I termed “elftile” from the German “elf” for 11. When I began to explore these aspects, I found there are no other glyphs for these aspects anywhere, as there was nothing published on that series in any way, and extraordinarily little on the septile and novile series aspects.
Given the lack of information and glyph, I went ahead and came up with some glyphs which involve archetypal symbols which symbolize what I thought each series is about. I’ve included them at the bottom of this article. I’ve used them for over 45 years, so if you want symbols for the novile series aspects, the septile series aspects, or the elftile (11th harmonic) aspects, here they are!
I have found the 7th, 9th, and 11th aspect series are important phases in any “whole cycle,” and provide points of “spiritual specialization” by which have realizations, choose our destiny at forks in the road of life, and confront the tests of overcoming various dualities as we confront them in people and circumstances. By understanding what each aspect means and how these phases are related to each other, given their places in the larger cycle, we can see the “spiritual pulses” at work for each planet in our chart. We can see the crucial turning points where we must choose one thing or another, times to put things on hold or take them off the shelf for new applications, as well as when to make leaps of faith to overcome some dilemma.
I gave our community the novile and septile series aspect meanings and glyphs in a webinar I did back in 2015. After working with these aspect for many years and seeing how they operate coupled with my knowledge of symbols and archetypes, I created these glyphs for each aspect in each series.
The non-rational 7th harmonic (septile series) aspects and 11th harmonic (elftile series) aspects were assigned symbols involving circles, since the aspects involved all are non-rational numbers. Each of the symbols I gave to these aspects seemed an apt way of representing these aspects, and are easy to draw and instantly recognizable.
The 9th harmonic (novile series) aspects had to in some way relate to the pre-existing glyph for the trinovile, or what is better known as the trine. So these 4 aspect symbols all involve partial triangles and/or diamond shapes.
I began my work with septiles and noviles in the early 1970s, and originally introduced the glyphs I created in my classes on aspects in my Fifth Ray School of Astrology in 1975. I started exploring these aspects as a result of reading two Dane Rudhyar articles published in 1938 and 1948, as well as some work Marc Jones had done.
I then offered the glyphs and meanings for the novile and septile series to the general public in my ancient out of print work Astrology and the Spiritual Path, published in 1979. (This is not the same work as Astrology and the Spiritual Path written years later by the Hubers.) I’ll do a major rewrite on that work sometime in the future, and republish it in a longer book form. I also have the expanded explanations in the webinar material, but it’s all buried in my archives. If there’s enough demand, I’ll try to find it and make it available again.
Mike Meyers in The Handbook for the Humanistic Astrologer (1974) also introduced some possible meanings for the septile, biseptile, triseptile, and novile, but they were sketchy and didn’t extend beyond a brief generalized sentence or phrase. He offered a Star of Solomon as the glyph for the septile, but it never seemed to take root in the lexicon.
I began to explore the 11th harmonic aspect series in the late 70s, and after some time using them and seeking to understand how they fit into the whole system of aspects on the 360 phase wheel, I got some very interesting revelations. These are the aspects in the mis-named “undecile” series.
I realized this series had to be re-named, since there is nothing related to a “decile” in these aspects. Deciles are the 10th harmonic series, and include the Decile (aka semiquintile, 36 degrees), Quintile, Tredecile (108 degrees), and Biquintile (144). I’ve explained in numerous articles that the 5th and 10th harmonic aspects are related, and manifest as various types of specialization, personal gifts, unique qualities and circumstances, interactive gifts, and serendipity.
All these 10th harmonic aspects have glyphs that date back at least a hundred years, and some of the aspect values originated with Kepler (yes, THAT Kepler, not the excellent software created by Fei and David Cochrane.) I learned about these aspects through The A to Z Horoscope Maker and Delineator, Llewellyn George’s 1910 masterwork. I won't give you the symbols here, but they include a horizontal line with a perpendicular line positioned in the middle pointed up for the decile, a "Q" for the quintile (I prefer a 5 pointed star), a "Y" with two slightly angled parallel lines just under the fork for the tredecile, and a math plus/minus sign for the biquintile. In that work he also gives glyphs for others in the fraction of the Quintile (5th harmonic) series, including the Vigintile (18 degrees depicted as a horizontal line with a small peak in the middle - 20th harmonic) and the Quindecile (24 degrees depicted as a modified square root sign - 15th harmonic).
Back to the “Undecile.” I believe that any name involving “decile” is unacceptable for nonrational aspects belonging to another harmonic, so I chose the name “elftile” for the 11th harmonic series, since the word “elf” is German for 11. No problem breaking free of the Greco-Roman names! In this series we have the elftile, bielftile, trielftile, quadrelftile, and pentelftile. Each of these involves non-rationality, as well as the dualities represented by the number 11.
As you know from my articles, the septile, biseptile, and triseptile all involve “forks in the road of destiny,” since any 7th harmonic aspect must in some way be related to Saturn, who is associated with the number 7. They all work in irrational ways or in irrational circumstances, and represent points of choice and change where we determine which road we will take.
The septile is always personal, whereas the biseptile and triseptile are interactive. The novile and binovile are always personal, whereas the trinovile (trine) and quadranovile are always interactive. I explained this in great detail in the webinar on the novile and septile series aspects, which I’ll use when I write my book on the aspects.
Because all is Spirit, knowing when the spiritual aspects are in play helps us understand the spiritual requirements of the moment. These are times when realizations come up which put us at a subsequent point of choice and change, or in the waning phase, when our choices and changes lead us to spiritual realizations. By understanding how the three Septile-series aspects work, and how the four Novile-series aspects work, we can see when choices must be made which determine our future, as well as when spiritual realizations come forth which build on previous realizations and will lead to further revelations. These happen throughout our lives.
By understanding the spiritual aspects, we can see a larger continuity in when we have had and will have spiritual realizations, as well as points in our lives where we can see how prior choices influence current events, and how current choices influence future events, and thus take command of our destiny. These mark the most important points of transformation throughout our lives from cradle to grave.
I’ve only hinted at the meanings of the elftile series aspects in my articles. As they are based in 11, and 11 represents a number of potential mastery by overcoming some form of duality, we can expect that all 5 of the aspects in this series involves overcoming duality to achieve a form of mastery.
Because of the nature of this challenge, I’ve also found that it takes a certain level of faith in the process of dealing with dualities to master them. So each of the 5 different aspects in the Elftile series represents a phase of dealing with duality through making leaps of faith that help us transcend and master that particular type of duality. And due to the degree value for each of the aspects, we find that the Elftile and Bielftile are personal, whereas the Trielftile, Quadrelftile, and Pentelftile are always interactive.
That’s all I’ll give you today regarding the meaning of these 7th, 9th, and 11th harmonic series aspects, which are fertile ground for extensive research into the spiritual dimensions of our unfoldment. And now for the glyphs! Each of these symbols should be self-evident as to why I chose to associate them with a specific aspect. And meditating on them is an exercise in itself, since at least three of the archetypal symbols (biseptile, triseptile, and quadranovile) have been around since antiquity.
Enjoy! Welcome to the leading edge of the spiritual dimension of aspect relationships!
If you want to see a bigger picture of each of these glyphs, as well as the name and specific angle associated with them, just click on the picture and you’ll get a bigger page with all of them displayed.
As I told you, I first posted this on October 1 2015. Offering the spiritual aspects to the world seemed like a truly fitting way to celebrate the birthday of Marc Edmund Jones! (And in an interesting unplanned "coincidence," I first offered the webinar on the spiritual aspects October 2nd, 2014 at 11 a.m. PDT.)
© Copyright 2022 Robert Wilkinson
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