Signs: Fixed Cross—Aquarius

Water of life am I, poured forth for a thirsty humanity

Finding your place in society: what the individual offers to the group

Aquarius: esoteric meaning

Details to follow.

Aquarius: rulers

• Orthodox: Uranus
• Esoteric: Jupiter
• Hierarchical: Uranus

the third ray expresses itself powerfully through this sign, reaching our planet through Uranus and the Moon which hides or veils Uranus symbolically in this case. There is, therefore … the double influence of Uranus, expressing the quality and bringing in the energies of the seventh ray, in one case, and the third ray in the other. The seventh ray is, in the last analysis, the focussed differentiated energy of Ray One as it expresses the will of the first aspect… through the power to relate and bring into objective manifestation—by an act of the will—both spirit and matter. This it brings about through the activity of Ray Three, expressing itself through humanity and its individual units, though combining with the energy of the three rays which are released through the ruling planets. (EA 139)

Orthodox: Uranus ⇧

Uranus—Ray Seven—The will to be and to know simultaneously on all planes of manifestation. … Uranus gives innate spontaneous activity and this produces evolutionary development—both natural and spiritual. It is the urge to better conditions. (EA 139)

[the seventh ray is also] linked with the incoming Aquarian influence, [with one of the personal qualities needed to work with this energy being a willingness] to work in a group as an integral part of the group, …having no idea of personal ambition or any wish to be a leader. —Edited from Bailey, Esoteric Psychology II, p145–6

Esoteric: Jupiter ⇧

Aquarius has the motto “Water of life am I, poured forth for a thirsty humanity”, which embodies the role of Jupiter as its esoteric ruler.

The World Server: Leo and Aquarius, through the Sun and Jupiter, are related to Ray 2. Development of the individual consciousness into world consciousness. Thus an [individual] becomes a world server. (EA 34)

Jupiter—Ray Two—The fusion of heart and mind, which is the subjective purpose of manifestation. This is brought about through the third and the seventh ray activity on the exoteric wheel. (EA 139)

In other words, in Aquarius, the work of Jupiter’s esoteric heart-mind fusion is the result of ground prepared by the odd-numbered Rays three and seven on the ordinary wheel. As an example, Jupiter in Aquarius (or a related connection) is likely to appear in the charts of those working in real-world situations (Ray 3) by using definite systems (Ray 7) in the healing and caring professions (ray 2). Jupiter in general represents the synthesis/cardinal phase of the triple cycle of the three crosses, so this is also where to assess Jupiter’s strength in a chart:

Jupiter gives an inherent tendency to fusion which nothing can arrest. The achievement of ultimate synthesis is inevitable, and this Jupiter promotes. (EA 139)

Jupiter as esoteric ruler of Aquarius is one of the most significant esoteric rulerships in the scheme of esoteric astrology. In a personal sense, it is no co-incidence that many people in the caring and healing professions have this placement in their chart (which recurs approximately every 12 years), although the main focus is the significance of the Aquarian age for humanity:

This coming process of planetary service through… [humanity] is only truly effective when Aquarius rules and when our sun is passing through that [sidereal] sign of the zodiac. Hence the immense importance of the next 2000 years … only when [individuals are] becoming group conscious can this desired objective of manifestation begin to demonstrate. It is beginning to happen today for the first time in planetary history. It is one of the first fruits of initiation and only in the next root race [the sixth, after the current 5th] will we begin really to understand the significance of the process and the true nature of the energies to be released through the medium of humanity upon the planet. It is for this reason that Jupiter and Uranus (expressions of the second and the seventh rays) are the exoteric and esoteric rulers of Aquarius.

The text continues by outlining the flow of this process via three sources of transmission:

1. Alcyone—in the Pleiades, the mothers of the seven aspects of form life and the “wives of the seven Rishis of the Great Bear.” They are connected with the Mother aspect which nurtures the infant Christ [the matter of the Earth and our personality which nurtures soul awareness].
2. Aquarius—the World Server, the transmitter of energy which evokes magnetic response.
3. Jupiter and Uranus—planets of beneficent consummation. The second ray of love and the seventh ray which fuses spirit and matter “to the ultimate glory” of the solar Logos are in the fullest eventual cooperation. (EA 201)

Hierarchical: Uranus ⇧

The energy of Uranus, pouring upon and into humanity, produces the urge to better conditions to provide better forms for the occult and esoteric life and to blend more adequately the inner and the outer [facets of humanity]. This is one of the reasons why the Moon is spoken of… as veiling Uranus. (EA 446)

The main idea behind the rulership of the Moon as a Ray 4 presence is that humanity in general comprises the “fourth creative hierarchy” (four is also the number of the lower self, of the quaternary (Occult Meditation, p80)), and is living out the process of Ray 4 on Earth. This process is especially intensified since 2025 when a new cycle of that ray began (Esoteric Psychology I 23-4).

The will to be and to know plus the fusion of heart and mind [is] the result of the work carried forward in the fourth Creative Hierarchy [humanity] under the influence of that energy which produces harmony through conflict.

…related here to one of the Creative Hierarchies, you have in the Moon itself the exoteric influences of the ordinary mode of procedure upon the wheel of life [repeated incarnation via Cancer], and in the planet… it veils… (…Uranus) … the esoteric energy which brings this Hierarchy to subjective realisation. (EA 139)

The Moon and Uranus here are also related to the ancient transference of “lives” from the Moon to Earth (on subtler levels long before the emergence of humanity from the animal kingdom). In the occult philosophy (you can take this as part pf the occult mythology, or literally for non-material lives):

Today the Moon is a dead world and the reason is that the Uranian urge became so strong in that far distant time when there were living forms upon the Moon that it led to the complete and final evacuation of the Moon and the transfer of its life to our planet. (EA 446)

The Moon and Mercury are both Ray 4 planets, so there are also connections here via Mercury:

Scorpio and Aquarius are also in a peculiar relation to each other through the planet Mercury which governs the human family (being the hierarchical planet in Scorpio), and through Neptune which rules Cancer [esoterically], thus governing expression upon the physical plane. In this connection the Moon is given as the orthodox ruler [of Cancer] and—via Uranus the hierarchical ruler of Aquarius. (EA 219)

Decanates

See the notes about the inconsistency of decanates in Esoteric Astrology. For comparison, Stephen Pugh’s decanate rulers are listed, alongside current orthodox rulers and those given in the book.

Esoteric/developmental: conscious development (annual signs from Aries via Taurus to Pisces)

0-9°: Saturn G: Aquarius, opportunities to destroy that which holds back free expression of the soul

10-19°: Mercury C Gemini, intuitive illumination of the significance of events and relating past and future through the light of the present

20-29°: Venus D: Libra, the union of heart and mind towards creating human fellowship

Exoteric/experiential: humanity in general (precession from Aries via Pisces to Taurus)

29-20°: Venus D: Libra, the pursuit of material pleasure, beauty and comfort

19-10°: Mercury C: Gemini, difficulty and conflicts created by the volatile mind

9-0°: Uranus H: Aquarius, science penetrating the hidden and more advanced side of form life

• Orthodox: Uranus, Mercury, Venus (Aquarius, Gemini, Libra)
• EAst e/o: Saturn, Mercury, Venus / Venus, Mercury, Uranus
• Pugh e/o: Saturn, Mercury, Venus / Venus, Mercury, Saturn

The passages below clearly demonstrate some crucial points about the decanates. The precession of the equinox backwards into Aquarius at this time is part of the long reverse journey through the constellations that affects humanity en masse. Individuals therefore work on their own progression within this broader cultural context.

The decanates in Aquarius are governed (according to Alan Leo) by Saturn, Mercury and Venus, and the effect that they will produce upon human affairs and world conditions is already beginning to appear. Saturn is the planet of discipleship and of opportunity; it is exceedingly active today, presenting to the world disciple those difficult situations and crises which will involve free choice, discriminative pioneering, wise response and correct decision, thus bringing about the destruction of that which hinders without the relinquishing of any true values of which humanity may be aware. The individual disciple has always been faced with these conditioning and releasing circumstances, and today humanity itself is in the same position. We stand at the gateway of the new world, of the new age and its new civilizations, ideals and culture.

Saturn, having offered opportunity and proffered us a choice to bring about the needed changes and to destroy that which holds back the free expression of the soul, eventually stands aside in order to let His great Brother, Mercury, spread the light of the soul—intuitive and illuminating—upon the situation, to interpret for us, through our own illumined minds, the significance of events and to relate the old and the new, the past and the future through the light of the present. Hence, the subjective usefulness of the present general trend towards meditation processes which bring about the capacity to be “impressed from on high” (technically understood) and to be illumined by the light of the soul.

When the task of Saturn and of Mercury has been accomplished, then during the third decanate, Venus, which is the union of heart and mind, will usher in the long hoped for era of love-wisdom, of brotherhood and of expressed brotherly relationships. Opportunity—Illumination—Brotherhood: these are the gifts that Shamballa is planning to confer upon mankind during the Aquarian Age, if man will but prepare for them, accept them, and use them. Only the future will make clear man’s reaction.

According to other astrologers, the three decanates are governed by Venus, Mercury and the Moon. You can here see the relation of astrology to the normal or to the reversed wheel of life. The Moon which here takes the place of Saturn hides the planet Uranus. In this case Uranus, the occult planet, stands for exoteric science which penetrates into the hidden side of form life, and thus we have the period wherein man is not alert enough or conscious enough to seize upon opportunity [Saturn] and turn it to esoteric or soul ends, but can identify… with the more advanced aspects of form. The energy which produces opportunity, illumination, and brotherly love as expressed and attained upon the Fixed Cross, demonstrates upon the Mutable or Common Cross as difficulty, the versatile and volatile mind (unstable and dark) and as sex. (EA 148-49)

Connection with the precession of the equinox towards Aquarius

There is no agreement about an “exact date” for this change, as the stellar constellations of the sidereal zodiac do not have the same neat boundaries as the annual ones, and there are vast differences between various claims. However, we could safely presume that the earliest relatively valid point would be around or after 2150 (dividing the otherwise very varied widths of the zodiacal constellations into equal segments) while at the other end of the scale, the boundary between Pisces and Aquarius from the International Astronomical Union locates the beginning of the Aquarian Age around 2600. It would certainly not have been the year 2000! For an astrologer’s salient view on this, see Jessica Davidson on The Age of Aquarius. Esoterically, this precession through the sidereal zodiac is held to affect human cultural periods as a whole.

This is strikingly the case in connection with the sign Aquarius into which sign our sun is now entering, its three decanates, Saturn, Mercury and Venus, bringing inevitably difficulty, illumination and brotherly love. On the ordinary wheel, in all outer affairs, Saturn controls, and we consequently find ourselves today in a state of chaos and trouble, but as far as the consciousness of the race is concerned, Mercury is becoming increasingly active. A steady illumination is taking place and light is being thrown on all problems—light on government and politics through experiments and the study of great and basic ideologies; light on the material nature of the world through all the many branches of science; light on humanity itself through education, philosophy and psychology. This light is spreading down to the very darkest places in our planet and its many forms of life. (EA 172)

The passage below contrasts the effect of the decanates of the sign Aquarius on the evolving individual (forwards after the reversal of the wheel) with the precessional effect of the decanates (backwards by the precession of the equinox into the constellation Aquarius) for humanity en-masse, and the complex interaction between the two, as more people begin the journey of conscious inner development:

The three decanates of Aquarius, from the angle of the disciple, are Saturn, Mercury and Venus. It is in this sequence that they affect… and carry [us] forward on [the] desired way, thus giving opportunity through conflict, the illumination of the mind and eventually the achievement of brotherly love which is wisdom. Ordinarily speaking, the mass of [people] would pass through the sign via Venus, Mercury and Saturn, for… undeveloped [humanity] is influenced by those qualities which can be best described as instinctual mind or affection (Venus), which is brotherly love in embryo; by the slow unfoldment of the mind through the activity of Mercury; finally, as the result of this unfoldment, conflict supervenes and Saturn offers opportunity to suffer and, through suffering, to learn to choose rightly, to analyse correctly and to decide upon the higher values. These points must be carefully considered by the astrologer. But at this time, we are at a point of crisis and the problem takes wider implications, for the reason that, for the first time in its history, humanity is beginning to mount the Fixed Cross of the disciple, thus reversing its progress upon the circle of the Zodiac. Humanity—as a whole and owing to the large proportion of aspirants and thinking idealists—is entering Aquarius, via the open door of Saturn. At the same time, a very large number… are in the non-thinking instinctual stage and their consciousness is predominantly Atlantean [i.e. emotional or desire-driven]. These enter via Venus and hence the conflict. (EA 283)

Esoteric Astrology: 148-9, 172, 283