As with the previous series on Saturn, it is recommended that anyone intending to read this series also read the articles on the Areas of Consciousness, which is to be found on this web site. 

In Sepharial’sManual of Astrology, Uranus makes its debut in Chapter Three of that very useful work through the following terms:

• Status: major / masculine / malefic
• Nature: of both natures [positive or electric / negative or magnetic], combining in itself the magnetic and electric influences and this produces cataclysmic and sudden effects.
• Temperament: variable, spasmodic, impulsive, eccentric, cold and barren

From this description, the average student of astrology may not readily recognise that this planet, Uranus, is the planet that brings us our most significant spiritual breaks, just as the average person experiencing the effects of a stressful transit from Uranus may fail to appreciate that Uranus is delivering to the personality a fait from the soul.

It is therefore the job of the eosterically-oriented astrologer to explain what may not be obvious to the personality. The astrologer’s explanation may help to prevent the personality shutting down on what could be turned into a major opportunity.

At this time in our development when the majority of advanced humanity is fighting to get free from control by its desire nature, Uranus is the most effective liberator but it has the soul’s perspective that the ends justify the means. Even when spiritual awareness is present, the personality that is being seriously challenged will have a job accepting this.

The personality is concerned with it own perpetuation; the soul is concerned with making the personality develop itself at any price. Until the personality is properly aligned with the soul, there is a conflict of interest. Uranus insinuates itself into the conflict to enforce the reality of the soul, using whatever means are available to this most resourceful planet.

In esoteric astrology, Uranus rules:

• the ajna centre, the chakra in the head that integrates the conscious of the personality with that of the Ego.
• the sign Aquarius from the point of view of conventional, personality focused astrology
• the sign Libra from the point of view of the soul
• the sign Aries from the point of view of the creative hierarchies of which the human hierarchy is but one. Aries rules the Hierarchy on the cosmic astral plane that Theosophical tradition identifies as ‘Unity through Effort’.

It also rules:

• the passing of the higher into the lower and white magic which is the means of this
• the discipline of astrology itself which studies the patterns through which cosmic energy reach planet Earth
• the passing back of the lower into the higher, and therefore the building of the egoic body

Viewed against these credential, the malefic status conferred upon Uranus by orthodox astrology may seem unappreciative to say the very least.

But as those of you who read the website articles on a regular basis will know, the D.K. Foundation is intransigently resistant to the kind of spirituality that denies the reality of the personality. Whether this denial is inspired by soul yearning, or from the other end of the scale, by spiritual pride and lack of self-awareness, it is not helpful.

How do people start working on a reality that they are told does not exist? The answer is they do not: they usually try to deny it until the day it takes them over and then, in disappointment and shame; they frequently give up the fight. Witnessing people giving up their spiritual quest because the going has got rough makes one aware that what New Age thinking has given with one hand, it can so readily take back with the other.

Uranus can give the personality serious gyp. The job of the practicing astrologer is not to deny it but to explain the purpose that it is serving. Uranus needs neither the consent nor the understanding of the personality. But if the personality will co-operate (and this involves assuming the perspectives of the soul) then Uranus’s effects will go deeper and further.

In the series of articles that follows we will be looking at Uranus through the filter of the zodiacal signs and houses in order to shed some light on the task that Uranus is doing for us at this stage in our development.