JUPITER - Organizer of Functions

The real significance of the great astrological symbol, Jupiter, will be fathomed by those who understand the deepest and most universal implications contained in the terms: organic function. The idea of "function" is closely related to ideas of unfoldment, of development and of growth. Even when used in algebra, the word conveys these same dynamic meanings. Always, function stands as the opposite, but even more as the complement, of the concept of structure. Structure refers to Saturn; function to Jupiter. The former is static and relatively permanent; the latter, dynamic and unfolding. The contents of the structure are symbolized astrologically by the Moon; the substance of the function, by Mercury.

Jupiter complements Saturn. Function, in order to be organic, must be contained within and related to structure. Thus Jupiter cannot be understood apart from Saturn. To attempt to do so, as the astrologer often does, is to miss the central point in an interpretation of the Jupiter factor. One may say, loosely speaking, that function determines form; but here the term "function" is misapplied. Purpose, rather, is what determines form; and form in turn determines function. Purpose is the Sun — or rather "The Heart of the Sun"; form, Saturn; function, Jupiter.

It is the solar purpose which initiates the cycle of manifestation. Before there is systolic and diastolic motion of the heart, there is a solar outpouring of light and a stirring up of the lunar "Waters". It is the solar Will which emanates and projects the purpose of the organism-to-be, in answer to a cosmic need conditioned by a past yet unfulfilled. This purpose becomes a pattern of organization in operation through and as Saturn, lord of form and structure, lord of bones.

Within that structure, which at first is only a "magic circle" isolating a portion of space and of substance as the field for future development, Jupiter, the organizer of functions, begins to operate. But there can be no organic function, no organism indeed, unless there is first of all a "magic circle", a wall or boundary line, to separate the within from the without. Jupiter — in his first and basic role — can only operate in the within. His work is to organize the substance within the pale, "the faithful"; to keep it coherent, harmonic and glorying in its differences from all that is outside. Thus, in terms of historical development, Jupiter, the High-Priest of the tribal religion, acts within the structure set by Saturn, the Great Ancestor and Leader, the conqueror of the tribal "sacred land".

Organic function means therefore unfoldment within the boundaries or structure of the life-unit: unfoldment of the purpose willed by the Sun. To work out this solar purpose, Saturn projects a structure; Jupiter then begins to differentiate the chaotic materials contained within the Saturnian framework. He gives to each unit of substance its most congenial task, the task which answers best to its need for redemption. As he thus builds a "hierarchy of functions" from the most central to the peripheral units, Jupiter is often called the Hierarch. As he sets a schedule of operation and oversees the work of the many departments, he is also organizer, overseer — and efficiency expert. Finally, in order to be sure that the protective walls of the organism do not give in, and later, that whatever the outer world can contribute to the within may be properly accepted, and the refuse of organic activity may be evacuated, Jupiter is made ruler of the walls and of the gates — of the skin and of the senses.

This work of "organic differentiation" transforms the inchoate chemical elements — which, in the beginning, filled the walled-in space of the organism-to-be — into cells having varied and well-determined functions in terms of the total operation of the organism as a whole. In this work, Jupiter — as always — operates in association with Saturn. Both constitute the imaging power of the solar system, the central will of which is the Sun. Solar will transforms itself into the Saturn-Jupiter imagination. The spiritual Monad — the "Heart of the Sun" — operates through the formative, differentiating and cohesive agencies of Saturn-Jupiter, the Twin-builders of the organic whole. The raw materials they work with are symbolized by the Moon — the unorganized crowd, the public as an inchoate mass, the lymph of the body (mostly sea-water, and therefore still subject to the lunar tidal rhythm).

Organic differentiation of itself would not lead to proper organic functioning. Cells, and groups of cells as organs, must be given well-defined works to perform; but these varied types of work must be closely inter-related. The sense of the unity of the organic whole must be ever patent and absolutely compelling to every single cell and organ — lest these units become too separative and self-centered, and thus turn into cancerous formations. This "sense of unity" is religion: that which, etymologically speaking, "binds back" the cells to the constant realization of the unity of the whole.

Jupiter is the master of religion; and he makes of Saturn the Great Ancestor, and of the Law of Saturn (the Law of Manu of the Hindus, the Mosaic Law of the Jews, the Bible of the Protestants) a God to be worshipped by every cell within the pale of the organic whole. Tribal religion is always twofold. It is Jupiterian, as faith in a beneficent God, the All-Father; it is Saturnian, as an observance of set and formal life-regulations and rituals derived from the Law of Saturn. In the universalistic religions which have been slowly superseding the tribal religions, since the great planetary turning-point of the Sixth Century B.C. — when Gautama the Buddha lived and taught — the tribal law of Saturn has become transformed into an ethical law which applies mainly to the individual. Thus Christian ethics superseded the Mosaic law, just as Buddhistic ethics and codes superseded the complex rituals of Hinduism.

The transformation, however, failed to remain true to its own spirit, both in Christianity and in Buddhism; and the Law of Saturn reappeared in other forms, both in the Catholic and Protestant churches, as well as in the Buddhistic churches. It took form also in medieval "ceremonial magic". Truly, the Jupiter-Saturn Twins cannot be separated, and the inertia of Saturn always tries to pull back to old forms and to old techniques the Jupiterian flights toward the beyond and the vaster wholeness.

Indeed, there are periods of sharp, crucial conflict between the Twins. These are the great crises of life, the great transitions between the several levels of being and of consciousness. These crises are caused by changes of solar will. A solar purpose having been worked out, a lunar need having been fulfilled — the two things are always inter-related — then a new purpose is projected by the solar will in answer to a new and deeper lunar need.

Such a process does not take place all at once. First the realization that the purpose has been potentially worked out comes to the Sun at the symbolical Full Moon; then the feeling that a need has been fulfilled is felt by the Moon, at the New Moon — even more accurately at a typical solar eclipse. As this occurs the solar rays release from the innermost core of the obscuring Moon a new need: an ancient and forgotten unfulfillment or failure is projected into active being. The new cycle will be devoted to the fulfillment of this new need for redemption, to the neutralization of the ancient karma.

The relative position of Jupiter to Saturn then conveys to the spiritual Interpreter an idea of how the new cycle will unfold. If Jupiter and Saturn are in conjunction, then an entirely new and virgin start is possible. Life is brimming full with potentialities, unburdened by memories of the past. If they are in opposition — the first period of the cycle will be much obscured by the unconscious memory, by the karma of the past; then quite suddenly the tide will turn and the veil will be lifted. Life will seem to bloom on a new continent. If Jupiter and Saturn are in square (90°), the new cycle will see many trials and many tests. It will be a sharp, perhaps brief cycle of readjustment and self-transmutation. There will be strain and forced soul-activity: a purgation of the spiritual organism. A trine aspect between the two planets (120°) will show the unfolding of a new vision and the revelation of solar purpose; a sextile aspect (60°), the practical application of purpose through harmonious cooperation between "form" and "function".

From the point of view of individual selfhood and destiny, the relationship between Jupiter and Saturn is the basic factor. Great crises of transition occur when the Twins are in square formation. The soul is being released from the dominion of Saturn, and the Jupiterian urge breaks open the gates, or tears through all walls. The without is being absorbed by the within, or else the "I" is being lost into the chaotic immensities of the "not-I". When these things happen we must look to the "messengers of the beyond" (Uranus — Neptune — Pluto) for indications as to what is actually taking place. If the walls of the Saturnian ego collapse, the amorphous overcomes the formed. Man is lost in the "astral sea", in its phantasms and its deceptions. But where the walls of consciousness are strong, the Jupiterian urge opens the gates, that caravans loaded with Uranian gifts from the farther lands may enter. Slowly, steadily — through commerce, through the growth of knowledge and of a love that ignores boundaries — the conscious self expands and grows richer and more mellow with wisdom.

Then Jupiter is the beneficent power of expansion — but only if balanced by the steady restraint of the Law of Saturn. This Law is the law of caste and tribal purity, at one level. It is the law of logic and of intellectual honesty, at another; the law of spiritual integrity, at still another. On the other hand, Jupiter, as he marshals his forces against Saturn's crystallizing inertia and pride, becomes the "Soul": that which compensates for intellectual limitations and the hard shells of logic and routine reactions, that which reaches the consciousness through feelings, through love, through religious yearnings and the thirst for universal truths unbounded by creeds and authority. In such a mode of action, Jupiter is seen in union with Venus and the Moon. Jupiter gives warmth to the Moon's waters which have been sweetened by the Venusian mellowness, fruitage of experience and of love. Through Jupiter the most distant planets (beyond Saturn) operate in answer to the will that reaches them directly from the "Heart of the Sun".

Jupiter becomes thus the pathway of liberation: the spiritual guru — the mediator between the solar will and the blind Saturn, now seen as "devourer of his own children" — as was shown in the Greek myth. The help of this Jupiterian guru (or spiritual Teacher and Guide) is needed to offset the power of Saturn. Through the guru all that is beyond the walls of the ego, all that is universal, is focused as through a lens. The guru is universal Space focused into a Person become absolutely transparent to light and to solar purpose: a lens indeed. He is the dispenser of spiritual food. He conveys safely to the unsteady ego the essence of the dangerously vast beyond.

However, he who needs the help of a personalized guru will receive the solar will colored by the quality, tone, or coloring of the guru's former path or Ray of development. For this must be said: neither Jupiter nor Saturn reaches to the "Heart of the Sun", abode of whiteness and of wholeness. Only the great "messengers of the beyond" — Uranus, Neptune and Pluto — know the "Heart of the Sun". Only the infinitely far knows the infinitely near. This is the truth conveyed dimly by the fact that, from the Earth taken as a pivot, the outer planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are seen to balance respectively the inner planets Venus, Mercury and "Vulcan" (or rather the photosphere of the Sun). Only the three outermost planets beyond Saturn's orbit find their spiritual counterparts in the "Heart of the Sun" — the triune "Heart" that is creator, preserver and regenerator.

Jupiter operates always and only in relation to Saturn: this is one of the greatest of all life-truths, symbolically expressed. It operates with Saturn within the boundaries set by Saturn. It operates also against Saturn, compensating the latter's exclusiveness and crystallizing logic; but even then, Jupiter's action is merely producing the exact reverse of Saturn's operation. He compensates for Saturn. He neutralizes Saturn. Yet his power is always conditioned by his polar opposite, Saturn. The guru's guidance and teaching are conditioned by the pupil's limitations. The former impersonates what the latter fails to see. Likewise, the great Artist or Seer brings to humanity what the humanity lacks.

Such is the great law of psychic harmonization, the "law of compensation" so clearly expressed by the old Chinese wise men, and today by Jung. He who understands this law understands indeed. But such an understanding must ever be renewed by fresh experience, for intellectual knowledge ever formalizes and crystallizes it — and so Jupiter must operate over and over again, always adjusting his action to the new need of the personality.

This is true of the guru. It may be true of the mate, at the spiritual or psycho-mental level, when the realm symbolized by the dualism of Mars and Venus is transcended: thus the idea, so basely materialized most of the time, of "Soul-mates" — which complements and in some cases may supplant the "guru-chela" relationship. The latter refers to vertical alignment (meridian); the former, to horizontal polarization (horizon). In the positive "guru-chela" relationship the pure ideal of spiritual Son-ship operates — in the negative aspect of it, a sense of devotional self-surrender which negates true individual development. In the positive "Soul-mates" relationship Consciousness is the goal, rather than happiness or the reconstitution of the primordial Egg before polarization — the negative aspect, leading to the search for sexual Nirvana.

At a time when the individual is attempting to reach beyond the tribal order and its rigid psychic and social walls, Jupiter is called the "Greater Fortune". He vitalizes the quest for the Grail, or that other quest for gold and riches which opens to the individual all roads and all seas, which makes him absorb — or lose himself into — the vastness of an ever greater social or planetary whole. Thus he is the expansive power of wealth, of fortune — that which, but too often, makes man reach greedily beyond his capacity for assimilation and digestion. He desires the greater whole — and loses his own "I", blurred by the frantic reaching out. He over-eats, be it physical or psychical food. He becomes fat, distorting his own form, rounding out his belly in an inglorious attempt to reach the perfect form of wholeness, the sphere.

Jupiter makes the little self yearn for participation as a cell in the cosmic organism of the greater Self. Yet through over-confidence and an exaggeration of self-importance, often turning into paranoia, he sacrifices the integrity of individual selfhood to a "God" who is often but a mirage or a fraud. Even compassion, the yearning to die for the whole of mankind, is ordinarily a Jupiterian escape from a sour Saturn and its oppressive influence. Jupiter is still bound to the lunar realm and to the solar radiation. He is still working in reaction to the past. And to react against slavery does not mean freedom. To hate hatred is not — love; and to yearn for the greater Whole may be shirking the immediate task of fulfilling one's own individual destiny.

Beyond Jupiter and Saturn stand Uranus and Neptune; and through them the promise of a New Order. But none may reach the actuality thereof who has not fulfilled his own Moon, who has not learnt the lesson of form and of functional organization — and that of Martian initiative and creativeness. Let no one dreaming of Jupiterian hierarchy and expansion forget that, first and last, there must be form. Wherever there is Moon, there must be Saturn.

Nevertheless, form must always be seen from two points of view: from the inside and from the outside. Let us consider a bronze statue as it emerges out of the plaster cast which envelops it. That cast had an inward form; it was formed space. Into that space the bronze was poured, and only as the cast is removed is the outward form revealed: which is formed substance. Inward form is Saturnian; it is a mold or matrix; the shape of a hollow. Outward form is Jupiterian; it is substance ready to function and reveal a message — reflecting light. In this illustration, the original clay figure fashioned by the sculptor represents the solar archetype.

Likewise, man's outer being is Saturnian. The body, however final and of itself significant it seems to our superficial vision, is but a plaster cast. Through Jupiter, soul-substance is poured into it and ultimately man shines in his "glorious body", in his Christ-body, which is substantial light vibrant with consciousness and significance. The Saturnian mold must be dissolved — rather than broken up — before the golden substance is revealed in the perfection of its form. This substance is generated constantly by Jupiter during a noble life; by our aspirations, our faith, our participation in the work of the world. Thus Jupiter is the point of emanation of Soul. It fills the limitations of Saturn until, at the date of fulfillment, the binding power of Saturn is no longer necessary — because the Jupiterian Soul-flow has become solidified and formed. Then the solar Purpose shines, revealed in the statue; made substantial and permanent; made corporeal. Spirit has become Soul — Soul that is an organism of spiritual substance. Man is fulfilled.