It’s universally accepted, although there are extreme viewpoints, that two factors count when it comes to the making of you: Your nature aka heredity and your nurture aka environment.
Your nature refers to genetics and heritable factors that were passed down to you from your biological parents. And modern gene science will tell you that they determine many aspects of your physical appearance and other individual characteristics, such as a genetically inherited predisposition for certain personality traits.
It estimates that 40 to 60% of your temperament is determined by genetics and that many (possibly thousands) of common gene variations combine to influence individual characteristics of temperament.
Your nurture refers to all of the external or environmental factors that have affected your development such as how you were raised, socioeconomic status, early childhood experiences, education, social culture, religion and daily habits.
Your heredity is defined as the characteristics passed on to you from your parents; and your environment is defined as your surrounding conditions – the people, activities and practices with which you interact.
So, according to new age thinking your parents and birth place control your destiny.
Gene science will tell you that your home and family life as a child provided all-powerful environmental cues that mold your character and have a lasting influence on what you do and who you become; and that you’re shaped by environmental forces that are, very often, beyond your personal control.
So, according to scientific reasoning you’re the result of your nature – heredity, and your nurture – environment.
Gene science sees the original fertilized egg cell from which your body has grown as somehow containing all the data for your life experience.
It contains 46 chromosomes – 23 from your mother and 23 from your father – and as it divides each new cell also has the same 46 chromosomes. These chromosomes are the key to your physical development.
They’re the carriers of genes. The XY chromosome pairing always produces a male and the XX chromosome pairing always produces a female.
So, your inherited genetic data determines your physical features, gender, psychological traits, mental behaviors and disease predispositions. There’s no other explanation.
Nature vs. nurture
The very old nature vs nurture debate attempts to clarify just what is and what isn’t inherited.
It’s concerned about the extent to which your life is determined by factors present at your birth (nature) and the extent it has been molded by environment (nurture).
It’s about the extent to which your intellect, behavior and emotions are determined by nature and how much they’re influenced by nurture.
It’s about the extent to which your life has been preordained at birth and to what extent you can change what’s predisposed and become master of your fate.
The debate asks questions: How much, if any, of your personality is due to heredity and how much is due to environment? And is character, and the behavior it expresses, inherited or molded by environment?
So, the nature vs nurture debate tries to work out where you end and your environment begins.
Working out the influence of each by assigning different percentages is tricky business and when percentage figures are placed on the findings controversies easily erupt.
But, with the geneticist claiming that your genes control everything including the selection of your environment; and the classic liberal principle claiming that your life is primarily determined by the events and conditions you accidentally encounter, which presupposes that your mind at birth is a blank slate that gets filled in by experience, the debate is ideology driven and skewed.
To underplay, or overplay, the importance of one factor in favor of the other has resulted in misguided ideas and erroneous notions; and to place too much emphasis on environment, which materialists tend to do, indicates prejudice that supports their idea that your life is a chance experience.
It’s best to acknowledge that both nature and nurture work together and determining a precise percentage influence may not have practical usefulness.
So, even though there are individual differences and some people are more influenced by their environments than others, you’ll be on sure ground if you give your nature and nurture a 50% influence.
Hermetic science teaches
Hermetic science teaches that the actual elements of your physical heredity are the vibratory rates in the astral substance associated with your genes.
It knows that the astral substance can’t be seen so it’s convenient to identify and use the physical (seeable) genes as the heredity elements.
It knows that something determines the gene sequence – it’s not an accidental arrangement – and it knows that your life as a human soul is irrevocably entwined with the environment in which you operate.
Hermetic science knows that your mind aka soul is not a blank slate when you were born; that its thought-cell structure had been formatted by previous experience; and that the making of you involves experience and your psychological response saved in memory.
And it knows that as a human being your behavior potential – as indicated by your soul’s thought-cell structure – was conditioned to express in a particular way by environment: the personal circumstances you encountered after you were born.
It knows that your family and home life were distinct and powerful environments that conditioned your character in accordance with its natural potential and that your early conditioning by experience had a lasting effect on what you did and who you became.
Hermetic science expands your nature to include the inherited psychology data that is the result of previous experience saved in memory; and it teaches that this thought-cell data is the primary cause of your life experience.
It teaches that your heredity (nature) is the sum total of all your thoughts, feelings and impulses – conscious and unconscious; and your environment (nurture) is the sum total of all the influences exerted from the moment you were born by everything that is external to your mind aka soul.
It teaches that what you’ve inherited from previous experience is a thought-cell memory – that your consciousness development requires the interplay of heredity and environment – and that your environment includes your body, genes and hormones.
Hermetic science expands your heredity to include your soul’s thought-cell makeup at the time of your birth which exerts psychokinetic pressure on your local environment to attract events.
It teaches that first experiences set a trend and that the character you were born with was conditioned by experiences you encountered as a child.
Hermetic science believes that behavioral genetics is a hit and miss science and that most of the sciences dealing with human nature lack precision and certainty.
It will tell you that nurture is vital to normal development and better nurture ensures the better development of the nature that’s waiting to express. And that nature and nurture have interacted to produce you.
So, nurture makes it mark on nature and nature makes its mark on nurture – each condition mysteriously creating the other.
Nature is shaped by nurture and nurture is produced by nature.
Nature and nurture mysteriously interact, but the apparent complexity of this interaction is simplified greatly when you can see your nature and nurture interacting in your own birth chart.
The planets and zodiac signs depict your nature and the houses depict your nurture.
Hermetic science knows that as a human soul you have to live your life within the bounds set by your physical heredity. You can only do what a human can: you can’t fly like a bird or live underwater like a fish.
And it knows that you and your environment – the home, country and Earth where you live – have a long history.
It knows that the Earth – the place where you’ve acquired your heredity and training – is a planet in the Creator’s grand scheme and it’s moving forward to its own destiny, so you’re a part of its history.
Hermetic science teaches that genetic variation simply reflects astrological diversity; and that it’s quite unwise to identify your nature with your genes, neuroanatomy, or neurochemistry.
You’re a soul whose special type of intelligence and ability gradually develops, matures and advances through experience and your being here is a glorious privilege.
So, admire and enjoy the wonders of Earth and rejoice at your life and self-conscious existence.
Astrology for Aquarius – sharing our knowledge
