Uranus

                                 Photo of Uranus taken by Voyager 2

  

230 years ago today the German-born British astronomer Sir William Herschel observed a new planet. (March 13, 1781). Herschel’s discovery expanded the known boundaries of the solar system. At first the new planet was named after its discoverer, but was later named after a Greek god as other planets of the solar system. The name of the new planet was chosen  from mythology as the logical progression in genealogical sequence; for Mars was believed to be the son of Jupiter, who in turn was the son of Saturn, who was born from Uranus.

In Greek mythology Uranus (from Greek Ouranous, sky) personifies the heavens and the night sky. Believed to have been born from chaos, Uranus was the primogenitor  of all Greek gods. He was castrated by Cronos or Saturn with a sickle because of his  fathering of monstrous progeny.

Astronomically, Uranus is the seventh planet in orbit from the sun and the third largest of all planets. It was detected as having a ring-system similar, if less spectacular than Saturn on March 10, 1977 by an American astronomical  team led by James L. Elliot (b. 1943 – d. March 3, 2011). Only a little more than 200 years since its discovery, the American space-probe Voyager 2 reached Uranus in 1986, its closest approach occurring on January 24, 1986.  Voyager 2  which was launched in 1977 encountered  the Jupiter system  in 1979, Saturn in 1980 and finally Neptune in 1989. It was the first space probe to provide detailed images of the  ice-giant  planets Uranus and Neptune.

 Astrologically, Uranus is associated with individuality and eccentricity, new and unconventional ideas, discoveries such as electricity, television and invention in general. When Uranus was discovered the events of the French and American revolutions along with the Western Industrial revolution  were shaping the modern world of today. Uranus is also believed to govern societies and any group dedicated to humanitarian or progressive ideals. It  is also the planet associated most with sudden and unexpected change, ruling freedom and originality. Above all planets Uranus rules genius and the characteristics of the zodiac sign of Aquarius. Astrologers noted that the slow-moving  planet of Uranus which takes 84 years to orbit the Sun, entered the zodiac sign of Aries on March 12, 2011. The orbit of the planet Neptune is even slower;  first observed in 1846 it will have completed just one full circuit of the Sun since its discovery on July 12,  2011.

The Mutiliation of Uranus by Saturn by Vasari circa 1560

 Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

 Book  -   Uranus by John Townley  pub. Aquarian Press 1978

Hebrew Zodiac

Mosaic on the floor of the 6th Century (CE) synagogue at Bet Alfa, Israel.

More incontrovertible evidence of the syncretic nature of religious beliefs. The long time spent in exile by the Jews in Babylon resulted in the adoption of aspects of Babylonian astrological symbolism. This is most clearly evident in Ezekiel's vision of the Tetramorph which was later adopted by Christianity to symbolize the various attributes of the four Gospel authors. The quaternary of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John corresponding to the 'Fixed Cross' of astrology, Aquarius, Taurus, Leo and Scorpio. Clearly no taint or impurity of religious belief was felt by such syncretic association, even after almost a thousand years post Babylonian exile.

Cryptography

James Gaffarel (1601-1681) was a French scholar of Hebrew and astrology who was appointed as librarian to Cardinal Richlieu. He proposed in his Unheard-of Curiosities (English translation 1650) that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet could be read in the night-sky. Using the stars as a form of geomatria and an alternative to the Babylonian-Greek circle of animals or Zodiac, Gaffarel's cryptography was of sufficient interest to Sir Thomas Browne to not only introduced the word 'cryptography' into the English language in Pseudodoxia Epidemica but also alluded to Gaffarel in The Garden of Cyrus -

Could we satisfie ourselves in the position of the lights above, or discover the wisdom of that order so invariably maintained in the fixed Stars of heaven; Could we have any light, why the stellary part of the first mass, separated into this order, that the Girdle of Orion should ever maintain its line, and the two Starres in Charles's Wain never leave pointing at the Pole-Star, we might abate the Pythagoricall Musick of the Spheres, the sevenfold Pipe of Pan; and the strange Cryptography of Gaffarell in his Starrie Booke of Heaven.

Cabalistical heads, who from that expression in Esay (Isaiah 34:4) do make a book of heaven, and read therein the great concernments of earth, do literally play on this, and from its semicircular figure, resembling the Hebrew letter כ Caph, whereby is signified the uncomfortable number of twenty, at which years Joseph was sold, which Jacob lived under Laban, and at which men were to go to war: do note a propriety in its signification; as thereby declaring the dismal Time of the Deluge. (Bk 1 chap.4)