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• Vox stellarum: part twelve

Vox stellarum: part twelve — Aquarius

The Voice of the Stars: the testament of the Zodiac unveiled

Introduction

In part twelve of our survey of the hidden message of the stars we turn our attention to the Constellation and Sign of Aquarius — the Eleventh Gate of the Zodiac. This is the second of the three Signs concerned with Consummation, the other two being Capricorn and Pisces. The Eleventh Gate of the Zodiac is the portal of the true scientist whose watchword is wisdom. Not the 'wisdom' of this world, as St Paul discusses in his letter to the Corinthians, but that knowledge which comes direct from God.

In our accompanying Afterword we train our metaphorical telescope on the extra-zodiacal constellations of Pegasus, Cygnus or the Swan (including the Northern Cross) and Lyra or the Lyre. Our principal aim, however, remains to reconcile Astrology with its lost sibling — Astronomy, so that we might restore something of the wisdom they embodied when they were one, unified Science. If you have not read the previous parts of this investigation or our afterwords to them, please do so before continuing, or you will not obtain a complete understanding of the many subjects under discussion. Before we take up the study of Aquarius we would like to say something about the Four Royal Stars which form a cross in the night sky that marked the four cardinal directions when the spring equinox fell in Taurus.

Proem: The Four Royal Stars

"But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." John 4:14

In parts three and nine of our investigation, published in 2025, we promised to tell you more about the four Royal Stars of the Zodiac. They were regarded as the guardians of the Heavens during the time when they marked the four cardinal directions. This coincided with the astrological Age of Taurus which covered the period from ca. 4,300 B.C. to 2,150 B.C. These four stars are Aldebaran, The Eye of the Bull; Regulus, the Heart of the Lion; Antares, the Heart of the Scorpion; and Formalhaut, the Eye of the Fish, which swallows the water which is poured out from the urn of Aquarius. We shall have more to say about this magical urn and what it signifies when we come to discuss the constellation and Zodiacal Sign of the Water Carrier. These four stars conceal a number of important meanings which, so far as we know, have never been fully revealed before, though H. P. Blavatsky, Jean Michaud, and other occultists have hinted at them in their books. The first of these revelations is that each of the Four Royal stars corresponds esoterically to one of the Four Evangelists — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — and the NT gospels attributed to them.

Regulus, the Heart of the Lion, is equal to Matthew, which literally means 'the Sun — the gift, the God', both terms being expressive of the Sun's bounty from a material point of view, and much more so, from a spiritual one. It is also the Sun which rules the Zodiacal Sign of Leo the Lion. Moreover, the Sun, esoterically speaking, was also the SON in the Sacred Mysteries of Greece and Egypt. The Sun being shorn of his rays was one of the earliest pictures of the descent of the Higher Mind into incarnation on Earth. Hence, Matthew's gospel is primarily concerned with the birth, life, death and resurrection of the Saviour. Formalhaut, the Eye of the Fish, corresponds to Mark, signifying the polite or shining one — a most suitable definition for this blue-white, glorious star. Aldebaran, The Eye of the Bull (Taurus) is equal to Luke, meaning 'luminous', and 'resplendent', both appropriate terms for this magnificent, red-giant star, which you can see a little above, and westward of Orion, about the 28th of May in the northern hemisphere. It is the fourteenth-brightest star in the night sky and thought to lie approximately 65 light-years from our Sun. Antares, the fourth of the Royal Stars, is equal to John, the disciple whom Jesus is said to have loved best. In Assyria, as we told you in part nine, Antares was named 'the Lord of the Seed.' This is significant, for in the Bible two seeds are mentioned, one for the 'Lord' and one for the 'woman'. "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15). This is a faithful rendition of the picture preserved in the Heavens in the constellations of Scorpio, Hercules, Ophiuchus and Serpens, as we shall see later on in our Proem.

To recap what we have learnt so far: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Matthew, the giving God; Mark, the polished one; Luke, the resplendent; and John, the beloved one. Thus we find the Four Gospels pictured in the Heavens. Two of the stars which represent them, Aldebaran (Luke) and Antares (John), are red; and the other two Matthew (Regulus) and Mark (Formalhaut), are blue-white, or pale-looking stars. All four are placed in such opposition to each other, that when one of the red ones is at the meridian, the other is at the nadir, directly opposite in the middle of its course under the earth. So too with the white stars. Aldebaran and Antares are placed near the equinoxes, and are sentinels who keep guard, separating the long days from the long nights. The other two stars, Regulus (Matthew) and Formalhaut (Mark), guard the solstices when the Sun is at its greatest declination South and North of the equator. As Matthew is the longest Gospel, we may associate it with the South, and as Mark is the shortest, with the North. The Gospels of Luke and John, like Spring and Autumn, are about of equal length, so it is right to associate them with the East and West. We shall revisit these important correspondences to the four cardinal directions later on.

There is another important correspondence between the four Royal Stars, the constellations they belong to, and the 'four living creatures' or heavenly beings. These creatures are the Lion, the Bull, or Ox, the Man and the Eagle. Their depiction in religious iconography is called a tetramorph, a term derived from the Greek words tetra, meaning four, and morph, meaning shape, to depict a symbolic arrangement of four differing elements, or the combination of four disparate elements in one emblem. In Christian religious iconography this device has been used to demonstrate a correspondence between the Four Evangelists and the four living creatures, as you can see in the cruciform, wooden tetramorph shown below.

In this iconograph Matthew is pictured as a man, Mark as a lion, Luke as an ox, and John as an eagle. Beginning in the second century, Christian writers sought symbolical representations of the Four Evangelists in the Bible. They found them in Ezekiel 1:10. There, the prophet has a vision of four living creatures, each having four faces. "As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle." A somewhat similar description was found in Revelation 4:7. "And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle."

Early Christian writers argued vehemently about which symbol should be applied to which gospel. Irenaeus, for example, assigned the Eagle to Mark and the Lion to John, while Athanasius assigned them to John and Luke respectively. St. Jerome differed again, assigning the Man to Matthew, the Lion to Mark, the Ox to Luke, and the Eagle to John. St. Augustine, however, reversed the first two by suggesting that Matthew should be the winged Lion, given his royal emphasis on Christ as king, and Mark, as the winged Man, since he specifically describes Christ neither as king or priest. He believed that the Ox or Bull was right for Luke given his emphasis on Jesus as priest, while he assigned the Eagle to John, since he added: "he soars like an eagle," in his elevated narrative, which is quite true. At least the squabbling Church Fathers mostly agreed about the assignment of the Ox to Luke and the Eagle to John! However, as we will see in a moment, St. Augustine was the only one who got the correspondences completely right. This was probably because his long and profound study of Neoplatonism and the teachings of Plotinus had taught him somewhat of esoteric astronomy and astrology. Unsurprisingly, it was the wrong correspondences proposed by St. Jerome in the fifth century that were finally adopted by the Latin Church and remain in force today within the Catholic and Protestant churches.

The prophet Ezekiel is generally supposed to have flourished in the 6th century B.C., while the Book of Revelation antedates the compilation of the NT gospels by many millennia. This makes a nonsense of the attempt of the Church to apply the verses from them exclusively to the Four Evangelists, though, as we shall see, the correspondence is a valid one, but not for the reasons the Church Fathers invented to support their dogmas. Let us begin by adding some additional correspondences to those made by St. Augustine, as set out in the table below.

All four stars are located in Fixed Signs, as befits their function as markers of the four cardinal directions and solstices and equinoxes. Two of the Signs are Negative (Taurus and Scorpio) and two are Positive (Leo and Aquarius). These should not be interpreted pejoratively. Negative means receptive whilst Positive means expressive, so conforming to the Universal Hermetic Law of Polarity described and discussed in part nine of Spiritus Hermeticum. But is it not strange, seemingly, that whereas the central figures of the First (Bull), Second (Lion) and Fourth (Man) Divisions of the Zodiac (Foundation, Resurrection, Judgement, and Consummation) correspond exactly to three faces of the Cherubim seen by Ezekiel in his Vision, and by John in Revelation, only the Scorpion alone being not so represented? But this is not such an exception as it seems, for the central figure of the Third Division (Judgement) as we discussed with you in part nine, is a dual emblem — the Scorpion and the Eagle. It can soar up to heaven on its mighty wings or crawl on its belly down to hell.

Aquarius, the Water Carrier. The Scientist

The constellation of Aquarius has been represented by a man bearing an urn of water since the beginning of recorded history. The water which he pours out is the Wisdom of God which, falling indiscriminately upon all, is rejected by some, perverted by others, and the source of inspired acts and works of all kinds in exceptional men and women. This symbolism provides us with the watchword or keynote of this Zodiacal Sign which, as we said in our introduction, is WISDOM, or the knowledge of God.

Water, as we discussed in our article about this magical compound was anciently chosen to represent the primeval substance from which the universe arose. For the occultist it can also represent the mysterious essence referred to by some as the water or elixir of life. This Divine water was the object of many a hero’s search as we read in the myths and legends of long ago. It is water too, that is employed during baptism and the warding off of evil conditions and beings. For instance, most of us are familiar with the superstition that vampires cannot cross running water.

The faint stars which form the Zodiacal Sign of Aquarius were depicted as the Water Bearer or the Water Pourer thousands of years ago in Egypt. The Babylonians called it the Great One whose pitchers are thought by some to have poured out the floods and rains of winter. The Great One was sometimes represented as a male figure pouring out two streams of water, and was closely associated with the god of the waters and of wisdom known as the Sumerian Enki or the Akkadian Ea, 'Lord of the Springs'. In Egypt, the mystery of these two streams was made clear in the form of Hapi, god of the Nile, who was depicted as pouring out the streaming waters from one jar, while another stream arose from the earth to fill a second jar. This was probably the origin of the mythology of the Babylonian Great One and our modern figure of Aquarius. There is no doubt that the ancient Egyptians understood the meaning of this complex emblem better than any. In the Egyptian mythos it was the Great Mother who fetched the water of life from the lower regions and gave rebirth to vegetation in the upper world. In one legend, which, like several others, is common to both Egypt and Babylonia, the Great Mother, as Isis, also as Ishtar, descends into the underworld in search of the water of life, otherwise represented by her child in Egypt and by her lover in Babylonia.

The water poured out by the man in Aquarius is poured into the mouth of a fish. This is Piscis Australis or the Southern Fish, also called Piscis Austrinus. The principal star in this constellation is Formalhaut, also known as the Eye of the Southern Fish. Aquarius was called by both Greeks and Romans Hydro-choös, "the water-pourer"; and by the Arabs Burj ad dalu, meaning the Constellation of the Pitcher or Urn. Aquarius has been connected with the story of the Deluge, and it is also the month of the rains which announce the coming of Spring, making a new heaven and a new earth, and all things new, according to St. John of Revelation. The Chinese call the Water-Pourer the "resurrection of spring." In the Hindu zodiac Aquarius is called Kumbha or water-pitcher. Kumbha Mela is the name of a Hindu pilgrimage when pilgrims gather to bathe in one of the holy rivers of India, which the devout believe will wash away their sins. A Kumbha Mela is usually held in any one place every 12 years. A Maha Kumbha Mela is held there every 144 years; the significance of these two singular numbers will not be lost on some of our regular readers.

The ruler of Aquarius is Uranus. This has been described as the 'great awakener'. This is an apt name for Uranus awakens the Higher Mind by means of terrible shocks at times, entirely unexpected, giving a person such a shake-up that he or she will either fail entirely in despair, or pull themselves together, take a fresh hold on life and Destiny, and proceed a certain distance towards the Great Light, or, maybe, reach it in one swift rush. Such cases are known to us, and we must regard these awakenings as so many grim Initiations, for that is what they are. Heroic courage is wanted here, but the Hero will obtain their great Reward if they do not give way to despair. The transits of Uranus may also coincide with life-threatening accidents and illnesses. In such cases there is little one can do except pray! In this connection, the eminent English astrologer Charles Carter, whom we shall refer to again later on, had this to say: "One bitterly cold January night in 1919 Uranus was exactly on my ruler. I was being driven from Cologne along an icy road to the small town where we were quartered. The officer driving was mad-drunk. I won't go into details, but I — and the rest of us — had a narrow escape from a very unpleasant death." In his talk to an astrological audience in 1967, Carter related another, equally chilling anecdote about the evil effects of the transits of Uranus. "The late George H. Bailey, my very good friend and (in matters of mathematics) my stern monitor, did not believe in transits. He was operated upon on the very day when transiting Uranus was on his ruler, the Moon. Everything went wrong and after two or three agonizing weeks he expired, and I was left to cope with astro-mathematics as best I can!"

These anecdotes bear out the writer's own experience of the evil effects of the transits of Uranus to natal planets. We would go further and say that if we were afraid of any Planet, Uranus would be it. Natively, Uranus imparts a rebellious and combative energy to the character, resulting in independence, unconventionality and often eccentricity in all its forms. But there is another side to the planet and that is its close connection with the material and spiritual sciences.

Contrary to popular opinion, William Herschel, after whom the planet was originally named, was not the first to discover Uranus. It was known to both the Babylonians and Egyptians, and probably to early Chinese and Indian astronomers too. Whether its complete orbit was ever fully determined remains another matter. Nonetheless, Anu, the supreme god of the Babylonian pantheon, was associated with the planet Uranus which was thought to embody the celestial order and the divine governance of the universe. It was Hesiod who, in his Theogony, identified Anu with the Uranus of Greek mythology. The classical glyph for the planet, derived from the letter 'H' (for Herschel), still used by astrologers today (though not by astronomers), resembles an old-fashioned TV aerial which the classical glyph shown below symbolises so appropriately. It is interesting that the re-discovery of the planet in 1781 by Herschel coincided with the industrial revolution that ultimately led to our present, technological age. It was just 70 years earlier that Thomas Newcomen developed the first practical steam engine. This was followed in 1764 by the infamous 'Spinning Jenny' that transformed the textile industry. In 1804, Richard Trevithick built the first steam-powered locomotive. In 1825 the first public railway line was opened between Stockton and Darlington. The rest...as they say...is history. Just as the planet Venus has been associated with love in all its forms and expressions since the earliest times, and Mars with war, so Uranus came to be associated with technology, particularly that arising from the use of electricity. Although this force had been known under various names long before the 18th century, it was not until 1793 that the first electric battery was built by the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta. In 1821, Michael Faraday invented the first electric motor. A century later, electricity was used to light and heat homes.

Uranus is no less associated with the spiritual sciences, of which astrology is perhaps the best known but least understood, as we have endeavoured to show in this investigation. The main reason for this is its separation from astronomy, without which it is at best crippled and at worst the pseudoscience its detractors and critics claim it to be. The adoption of the larger asteroids by some astrologers in their analyses is a welcome counterbalance to this regrettable schism. Given that Pallas can remain in one Sign for nearly a year due to its eccentric orbit, and is roughly one third the size of the Moon its influence in a nativity may well be significant. This is even more true of the asteroid Ceres which, at nearly 600 miles in diameter is almost half the size of the Moon. Before we turn out attention to the Aquarian character we must not omit to mention that until the early part of the last century Saturn was regarded as the traditional ruler of Aquarius, not Uranus. There is a good deal of gravitas, even caution about the typical Aquarian — qualities more properly associated with Saturn than Uranus. While Uranian independence and unconventionality may seem completely at variance with Saturnian caution and severity, on closer examination no one is more set in their ideas and purposes than the typical fanatic or revolutionary. So much for the ruler of Aquarius, what of the Sign itself?

The archetypal Aquarian is freedom-loving, original and independent, compared with his or her more pedestrian peers. The demand for personal freedom is insistent, but towards those who will accept this need, the Aquarian is faithful and sincere. The chief characteristic of the evolved type is their extraordinary breadth of vision. They are absolutely unbiased and open-minded, and without taint of prejudice or superstition of any kind. He or she is willing to learn from anyone, even from a little child, for the only thing of which they are sure of is that they do not know very much. If they have made a discovery or exposed a fallacy, they are generally eager to pass the information on to others as quickly as possible, even if in so doing they have to discard views they formerly advocated, and abandon some of their pet theories. Such individuals often make the best possible type of scientist. Not necessarily the practical scientist whose attention is glued to the physical plane, but the genuine truth seeker, patient dispassionate and untiring. Their method is to take a comprehensive view of their subject, form their own hypothesis, and then marshal their facts, trying and uniting their theories until they are proof against all opposition. To get to the inner truth of the matter is the evolved Aquarian's sole concern.

There are few better examples of this commendable aim than the work done during the last century by Charles Carter (1887-1968) whom we mentioned earlier. This celebrated British astrologer and first Principal of the London Faculty of Astrological Studies was born with Uranus rising in Libra, and the Sun, Mercury and Venus all in Aquarius. Uranus was trine Sun and Mercury — a more Aquarian nativity it would be hard to find for any other accomplished astrologer. Charles Carter was a member of the Theosophical Society and is widely regarded as the most important and influential English astrologer of the 20th century, forming a bridge between the Victorian and Edwardian astrologers on one side and the modern astrologers on the other. Margaret Ethelwyn Hone (1892-1969), whose excellent astrological textbooks we recommend in our article about astrology, was Carter's pupil. Together they founded the Faculty of Astrological Studies in London on 7 June 1948. It is still teaching new generations of students over 75 years later. The writer was privileged to complete their diploma course (DFAstrolS) in 1982.

The primitive or undeveloped Aquarian, on the other hand, is not a pretty sight. He or she is a rebel with the fixed idea that everyone is out of step except themselves. Such a person will insist that their ideas for drastic change are what all the world should accept. They are fanatical reformers or the agitators of the worst type. Outspokenness becomes rude tactlessness; originality mere crankiness. The traditional rulership of Saturn will then manifest as depression and isolation when the rebel's objectives cannot be attained. Their faults may be summed up in the one word: inefficiency. Breadth of vision at the early stages seems to bewilder rather than to assist those who possess it. The wide outlook of the archetypal Aquarian becomes deplorable short-sightedness. Practical details get lost in a general haziness, so that, however conscious these people may be of an overpowering number of things they ought to be doing, they have great difficulty in deciding just where and when to begin. They are consequently inclined to fritter away a good deal of their time and energy, often missing their best opportunities by vacillating and wavering over trifles. They have very little power of concentration, and though generally amiable and well-meaning, are apt to blunder into difficulties through lack of imagination. Work is too often undertaken in a hesitating and aimless kind of way that is particularly exasperating to more capable and practical types. If this sounds rather like a character from the Harry Potter canon to those readers who are thoroughly familiar with the books, they would be right! That character is the celebrity author and inept wizard Gilderoy Lockhart. We first encounter him in the second book in the series — The Chamber of Secrets — in which he teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. According to J. K. Rowling, Lockhart was born on 26 January 1964.

Readers of the books quickly discover that far from being the accomplished wizard he claims, Lockhart is nothing more than a plausible rogue who acquired his celebrity status by misappropriating the achievements of more talented wizards and witches and passing them off as his own. His ineptitude is revealed in The Chamber of Secrets when his fellow teachers send him into the chamber to rescue a student abducted by the monster who dwells within it. Lockhart fails to confront the monster or rescue the student and tries to run away. Confronted by Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley while he prepares to escape, Lockhart reveals that he never did any of the things claimed in his books; he merely found the people who had accomplished these feats, asked them to recount their experiences, and then wiped their memories! Harry and Ron disarm him and force him to go to the chamber with them. When he grabs Ron's broken wand and tries to wipe his memory, the wand backfires and it is Lockhart's memory that is wiped instead. We next encounter the hapless wizard two and a half years later in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries in which he is now a permanent patient, barely aware of who he is. Among real Aquarian celebrities we may count the American chat-show hostess and 'media mogul' Oprah Winfrey and actress Jennifer Aniston.

NOW READ PART THIRTEEN

In the Proem to the penultimate part of this investigation we discuss Horus — the archetypal Saviour, and the constellation and Zodiacal Sign of Pisces. In our concomitant Afterword we explore the occult meaning of the extra-zodiacal constellations of Andromeda, Piscis Austrinus or the Southern Fish and Triangulum.

© Copyright occult-mysteries.org. Article published 6 January 2026.