Famous Uranus; Cosmic Avenger.
"Longbottom" was already taken.
‘Ye are not here to struggle with things, but with gods.’ -Boehme (Aurora).
Writing on the significance of Uranus came with a serious challenge. His identity and importance shifted through epochs; various names were embedded in places, spouses and rulers; myths and religions included his nebulous identity across seas, lands and ages, and of course Uranus the physical planet required investigation — fifteen times the mass of Earth, tipped on its side and possessing a corkscrew magnetotail thrashing away leaving me no time for manifesting hilarious twerking innuendos.
So, this is but a mere introductory overview: Uranus was a vitally important god in the ancient pantheon but had a strange reputation even back when ‘gods were cool’.
From our barely traceable beginnings, Guénon mentions in a footnote in ‘The Great Triad’ (p.21) that symbolism found in the Vedic god of sky and waters Varuna (Sanskrit root ‘var’ = to cover), was identically contained in the Greek word Ouranos, meaning Heaven. This is again repeated in the ‘Upper waters’ spoken of in Genesis.
Uranus was the rain-maker or lord of rain. However, Uranus is also linked to Prometheus, the bringer of fire to Mankind. Rain-maker... fire-bringer...
Part of the planets anthropomorphic character is also unpredictability.
NASA has some cold hard facts about ice giant Uranus; it orbits the Sun once every 84 years and is the seventh planet from the sun. Its axial tilt of 97.77° gives it seasonal changes completely unlike those of the other planets and on April 3rd, 2033, Uranus completes its third complete orbit around the Sun since its official discovery in 1781.
Luckily the planets Latinised name can be broken apart to reveal Uranus’s true gold.
Most linguists trace the etymology of the name Uranus to Ouranos via a Proto-Greek form Worsanos, enlarged from uorso or oureo ‘to urinate’. -Wiki
Ouranos raining upon Gaia is not a slur on our great, albeit intermittent sky god, nor even a cosmic fetish but an esoteric term for electrically charged plasma. As such he’s a god of electricity and is renowned for sudden flashes of insight and inspiration.
Uranus’s cyclic, electromagnetic effects on human consciousness and development relate to The Deluge myth, which, while possibly literal once upon a time, is primarily metaphoric & metaphysic; a sudden rise in consciousness in which one can drown.
Uranus was first definitively sighted by John Flamsteed, who in 1690, catalogued it as 34 Tauri, so-named for its location in the Taurus constellation (where it is now and will remain for a few years yet). Uranus’ last stint in Taurus (1934-1942) aligned with the Great Depression, WW2, financial reforms and commercial banking collapses.
Taurus also marked the ancient bullseye of the Mesopotamian spring equinox. In time the point moved to neighbouring Aries the Ram. The precession of the equinoxes inch constellations westward but the tropical (or western) astrological birth dating system no longer corresponds to the correct constellations in many cases, thus we dismiss astrology as pseudo-science. However, to this day the highest exploiters of financial cycles use astrology “religiously,” planets being some of the ancient “gods” of old.
For those doubting the practicality and veracity of such an ancient physics, it was mentioned in Time magazine way back in 1951 by an unnamed author here, saying: “The ancient pseudo-science of astrology, which attempts to predict the future by the motions of the planets, may have a bit of science in it, after all. This week Radio Corporation of America, no easy prey to superstition, announced in the RCA Review that it is successfully predicting radio reception by a study of planetary motions.”
“Radio telescopes have mapped magnetic fields for decades. […] They are structured, not chaotic. […] Ordered magnetic fields indicate ordered currents.” -Wal Thornhill
Stephen Smith of the Thunderbolts Group said (in 2010): “Uranus is famous for its magnetic field, probably the most unusual aspect of a planet whose structure is dominated by eccentricities. Unlike Saturn, whose magnetic poles are aligned almost exactly with its axial poles, or Jupiter, whose field is offset from vertical by a mere 10°, the magnetic poles of Uranus are offset at a slant from its rotational axis by 60°”
After Flamsteed’s naming of Uranus as 34 Tauri, French astronomer Pierre Charles Le Monnier observed Uranus/34 Tauri at least twelve times between 1750 and 1769. Could that be why in 1767, The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris set up shop, publishing from the Royal Greenwich Observatory in England?
The Nautical Almanac eventually merged with the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (1832), who produced astro-data for a wide range of users such as astronomers, mariners, aviators, the military, bankers and religious groups.
William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781 from his garden in Bath, England, with a home-made telescope which illustrated the technological creativity which defines Uranus; a planet of revolutionary vision. Uranus also rules Aquarius, house of mental studies, intuition, eccentricity, astrology and astronomy. Astrology and astronomy were synonymous until the Age of Reason and were known in Latin as astrologia.
William Herschel named Uranus after his king — George. But 70 years later (1850), the HM Nautical Almanac Office, known as the ‘final holdout’ on the name, formally switched Georgium Sidus (George’s Star) to Uranus, suggesting they had to be quite sure of what they sought, and had finally found. They had been anticipating its return.
A full cycle through the twelve constellations of the zodiac is called a Great Year.
One Great Year cycle spans between 24,900 to 25,900 years, but the thousands of years in one Great Year are still collectively called an annual cycle.
The twelve zodiac constellations esoterically hold great importance: they are linked to the twelve labours of Hercules, JC’s twelve disciples, and twelve cranial nerves that emerge directly from the brain above the level of the first of 33 vertebrae of the spine.
These nerves relay body/brain information, including senses of vision, taste, smell and hearing; overcoming these sensory nerves is part of the reason the mythical Christ was said to be crucified — the five senses bind man to the human condition — and overcoming the human condition truly qualifies as the Labour of Hercules.
The Taurean Bull dates back to the Early Bronze Age, a celestial marker of the Sun during the spring equinox. The importance of the spring equinox inspired ancient cultural use of bull figures and the Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100 BC) whose hero defeats a bull, was the oft-repeated mythical basis of various religions. “Numerous depictions of the slaying of the Bull of Heaven occur in extant works of ancient Mesopotamian art. […] These show that the Bull was clearly envisioned as a bull of abnormally large size and ferocity. It is unclear exactly what the Bull of Heaven represents.” -Wiki
I propose the Bull of Heaven was the electromagnetic effect of Uranus upon man’s mind, its thrashing electrodynamic (or radio) waves raining down in a consciousness-rising deluge — gifting the mythical Promethean fire to mortals; one must defeat the bull, behead the snake, dragon or serpent Kundalini; the hero must kill (overcome) his animal nature to achieve immortality — to be “anointed King of (or by) Heaven”.
Bull fighting is a rite similar to Prince Charles’ modern “gland anointing” behind a modesty screen, but the lower gland was being anointed with an earthly oil; however, that same rite of a king’s crowning by mortal man represents an ancient truth.
Mesopotamia holds Uranian clues in abundance, not least Ur, now modern Iraq, perhaps named after nearby Uruk, whose pre/suffix “Ur” was also found in nearby city Nippur, and rulers like Ur-Nimmu and Ur-Pabilsag.
In the 1920’s, esoterist Julius Evola, and his small group of perennial traditionalists banded together to form the Ur Group to revitalise the ancient Sacred Mysteries. The name comes from the phonetic expression Ur, which in Chaldean and Runic means fire, and bull or ram respectively. The German prefix ur represents ancestral primacy.
Meanwhile, ‘An’ is a root linked to anniversary, annum, annus, superannuation and yes, the famous (YO)UR’anus, meaning ring, or Ring Cycle, as Wagner might prefer.
The Sumerian god An (Uranus) was the divine king of the gods, while in Akkadian, An was spelled Anu, and was written either dAN or da-nu(m). In the major god lists, An (= Anum) was placed on top of the pantheon, believed to be the source of all legitimate power, and was said to possess the anuti, which means heavenly power.
Known as either An or Anu (or Uranus), this heavenly king of gods, spirits and demons had the power to judge those who had committed crimes.
In the Hindu Rigveda, words uti anuti alluded to the sky by ‘coming or not coming.’
Varuna (Uranus yet again) was guardian of moral law, one who punishes those who sin without remorse, and who forgives those who err with remorse.
Varuṇa is also a Sanskrit word referring to the “water god” who was assigned to the protection of the sky/ceiling or ambara, while Latin term obumbratio, ‘overshadowing’ is the same idea in theology, resembling the traditional Jewish Passover each spring.
Although Anu (Uranus/Ouranos) was supremely important, his passive nature was often ambiguous. His anthology was small and he was rarely actively worshipped.
It appears likely Babylonians learned astrologia from the Vedic peoples; the Wheel of Time (also known as the Wheel of the Zodiac) was found in the Vedas from the 2nd or 3rd millennium BC (and earlier), thus pre-dating Babylon. Spokes represent moral values and eternity; in time one's behaviour is judged and sound judgement wins life.
The decline of power seen in Varuna (Uranus) and the rise of Indra (Jupiter) was due to wars that had to be fought in the dynamic, eternal wheel of birth-death-rebirth.
The Vedic god Indra, or (Babylonian) Marduk (Jupiter, Zeus or Thor), was an almighty, thunderbolt-wielding, all-action hero as Man sank down into his Iron Age depths.
Uranus Varuna, in spite of his reputed passivity, was a stern judge whose most punishing weapons were torture, sense of guilt, disease and sudden death. Varuna Uranus returns in 2030-2033, where he is in direct opposition (when Earth passes between the Sun and another planet). His closest approach in 84 years (perigee) is in the house of Taurus, The Bull of Heaven. Puts a new spin on Matthew 3:2.; “And saying, Repent ye: for the Kingdom of Ouranos Uranus An Anu Heaven is at hand…”
12 Dec 2030 – Uranus at opposition
17 Dec 2031 – Uranus at opposition
21 Dec 2032 – Uranus at opposition
25 Dec 2033 – Uranus at opposition
“The profane sciences of which the modern world is so proud are really and truly only the degenerate ‘residues’ of the ancient traditional sciences.” -René Guénon
Addendum (1st September, 2024): In researching this post there were some difficulties with toggling two sets of dates for Uranus in Taurus. This was synthesised through understanding that Tropical or Western astrology is not the same as Sidereal and other astrological systems. This massive can of worms is extremely interesting…
because Pluto, god of transformation only began to work his way through the sign of Capricorn around March this year (2024 - 2040), not Aquarius as Western adherents insist. According to Tropical astrologers, Pluto entered Capricorn at the time of the 2008 bank bust in the U.S.. It appears that was only when Bitcoin etc. was launched — Pluto was still travelling through Sagittarius. The irony here is the astrology through which the Western astrologers prognosticate will likely undergo the precise structural reviews as the anticipated banking, medical, religious, educational, legal (etc.) systems.
One last thing. In True Sidereal which uses actual positions of constellations and stars in the sky, Uranus only entered Taurus the Bull this year, in May. Hold on to your hats!
A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel
By St Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain
I had this book in my library for thirty years and never read it until this last year. It describes exactly what you mentioned here:
"These nerves relay body/brain information, including senses of vision, taste, smell and hearing; overcoming these sensory nerves is part of the reason the mythical Christ was said to be crucified — the five senses bind man to the human condition — and overcoming the human condition truly qualifies a Herculean labor."
It then goes on to describe exactly how to 'overcome the human condition' and exactly what the fruit of that would be.
Here is the table of contents:
CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE
The Attributes of the Mind and the Body
CHAPTER TWO
Concerning the Mind
CHAPTER THREE
Guarding the Sense of Vision
CHAPTER FOUR
Guarding the Sense of Hearing
CHAPTER FIVE
Guarding the Sense of Smell
CHAPTER SIX
Guarding the Sense of Taste and the Tongue
CHAPTER SEVEN
Guarding the Sense of Touch
CHAPTER EIGHT
Guarding All the Senses in General
CHAPTER NINE
Guarding the Imagination
CHAPTER TEN
Guarding the Mind and the Heart
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Spiritual and Proper Delights of the Mind
CHAPTER TWELVE
An Epilogue on the Spiritual Delights
After finally reading it, I couldn't believe that I had waited thirty years!
Oh well, better late than never, I guess!
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet."
Ah, dear Juliette, but you are too dismissive, too hasty. There is mystique in names, and mystique is power!
Teeming with facts and historicity, I have enjoyed reading this more than I have for a long time, and I'll have (more) interesting and deep things to ponder for some time yet.
One small point of discord with my understanding: the ancient calendar consisted of 13 lunar phases - aligning with women's menstrual cycles, a rhythm that carried profound significance in cultures worldwide since time immemorial - was first replaced by the Romans with a 10-month system, equivalent to our March to December, the winter season was not assigned to any month, so the calendar year only lasted 304 days with 61 days unaccounted for in the winter. Later, a 12-month system set around Roman culture and mythology was adopted. If one considers the 13-month lunar phase calendar, I wonder how this wrinkle might propagate through to an enhanced/diminished understanding?