In the past fifty years or so, orthodox Western astrology has come to recognise Uranus as the planet that liberates us from patterns and realities that no longer serve our development.

Before this time, Uranus was viewed by astrologers as a first rate malefic: disruptive, unpredictable, and uncontrollable, a rogue energy that reached us through the collective mind.

What changed our perceptions of Uranus in the Twentieth Century was surely the number of westerners with the sacral centre under control (i. e., having taken the First Initiation) and with a higher body (the causal or egoic) now in formation. This energetic state of affairs permits the development of individuated consciousness and makes possible a different, direct way of interacting with Uranus.

Uranus rules creative purpose. Up to the First Initiation, human beings come into incarnation to breed and have experiences, which are formative of the collective consciousness. After the First Initiation, we individuate and store our experiences in the causal vehicle, which acts like a drop box and provides continuity between lifetimes. Purposeful living involving a creative contribution through a cycle of lifetimes becomes a possibility. A sense of individuality enables us to access this reservoir of creative energy and know-how.

In orthodox astrology, Uranus rules Aquarius, and is associated with the ethers and the Third Eye, which represent the understanding available to the personality of the esoteric significance of Uranus.

According to Esoteric Astrology, Aquarius governs the form-building creative hierarchy, called in the Theosophical tradition, the Blinded Lives. The Blinded Lives ensoul, i.e., provide vehicles for souls to live in. They do not themselves have souls.

The Moon (veiling Vulcan) is the Hierarchical ruler of the Blinded Lives, and those born with the Moon in Aquarius are of magician-stock able to create the patterns (vessels) in the physical world that attract energies from a higher world, which is the basis of magic, and which expresses the Seventh Ray. All of those with Moon in Aquarius, who have taken the First Initiation have this capacity, whether they recognise it or not.

Uranus is involved in the creation of all the vessels that a human can inhabit: the etheric vehicle on the physical plane; the causal vehicle, created on the mental plane; and the atmic body created on the Buddhic plane when the major head centres are open and connected. They are all vessels to collect up energy to support consciousness of different levels. We are born with the first, but have to build the higher bodies. Uranus governs them all.

G.I. Gurdjieff, who as a teacher took no prisoners, liked to wake up people whom he considered complacent by telling them that they had no soul, by which he meant no causal body yet in formation.

Uranus rules Libra esoterically. Libra being the sign in which the ‘reversal of the wheel’ occurs and consciousness, which hitherto has been drawn out into material experiences, begins to become receptive to spirit and encourages the development and direction of the causal vehicle or soul stuff. Those born with Uranus in Libra are concerned with the Path of Return, and the refinement and return of energy from the physical world to build the higher bodies. Yoga took off in the West when this generation (1968-75) reached adulthood.

Alone of the planets, Uranus revolves on its axis from West to East, as if winding in the golden thread of consciousness. This indeed is what the causal body does: storing the positive extract from innumerable lifetimes to enable human consciousness to rise and release itself from the thrall of matter. The other planets, (Earth excepted), revolve from East to West and pass energy downwards to sustain life.

Uranus also revolves on a horizontal plane, which is associated with consciousness- building, whereas the vertical plane is associated with the down-flowing of life.

According to Esoteric Astrology, Uranus is the Hierarchical Ruler of the nameless creative hierarchy operating on the Cosmic Astral plane and ruled by the sign Aries. It is on this plane that purposeful individuality originates. Those born with Uranus in Aries are agents for the energy of this plane, which Theosophical tradition calls Unity through Effort. In our world this expresses itself through consciously developing individuality in order to make a contribution to progress as a collective experience.

Our awareness of human possibility changes radically when Uranus is in Aries as it is now, and will be until 2018. The babies being born now will grow up to change our expectations of what conscious living involves and of what we are capable. The concern of those with Uranus in Aries is what makes the individual potent, creative, passionate and life–loving and gives the point to human life. They express electric fire in our world; they burn away what is outmoded, and in so doing, will change forever, something about the way we see ourselves.

The process always involves breaking out of the patterns put in place by social conventions and religious customs, which have a constraining effect on the majority. Uranus in Aries has no time for elites or class privilege: the true individual belongs to the world.

The breakout is orchestrated by some outstandingly creative personalities, typically of an earlier generation, who thrive on ignoring conventional expectations and values, and who blaze a trail rather than help others along. Those with Uranus in Aries provide, as a generation, the critical mass, and make the exceptional the acceptable: Unity through Effort.

Regardless of whether they became famous, regardless of gender, those born with Uranus in Aries last time around are strongly defined and feisty individuals, willing students of the socially radical thinkers and personalities with Uranus in Capricorn, who will see change brought through to the material plane. They were born post-War reconstruction years and came of age in the mid 1950s & 1960s when for the first time, youth defined itself and its values in contradistinction to, and not in imitation of, their parents. They were less the thinkers, more those who picked up the scent and ran in pursuit of the vision. Collectively, they are the vessel, which holds the grail.

They are in their late seventies - eighties now, but the whiff of teen spirit is still about them.

The first of those born with Uranus in Aries this time around (2010 - 2018) are now 4 years old. In 2025 they will be 16, just the right age to start creating a Uranian ruckus, inspired once again, perhaps, by the cordite explosion created by the outstanding thinkers / individuals with Uranus in Capricorn (1988-1995), and which will give them, as a generation, another scent to pick up and run with.

If we have any belief left in human progress, we should look forward to it.

In the next article we will look at Uranus in connection with the Holy Grail that, in Arthurian Legend, healed the maimed Fisher King and brought the Wasteland back to life. The quest of the Holy Grail is the story of the formation and the transference of consciousness to the causal body.

We all need to understand and believe in the power that resides in Uranus especially if we are only too aware that the thistles are coming up through the cracks of our own dusty, arid post-2012 lives.

If you have a natal chart, download this image and paste it in the astrological house occupied by natal Uranus. It will remind you in which area of your life and with what means you can construct a new reality. The sign will tell you how, and the placement of the Moon will tell you why.

Suzanne Rough
DKF-K 2014