Part Two:
Twelve Phases of Human Experience
AQUARIUS - Page 3 of 3

Just as the Leo person makes big social gestures in order to bide his deeply bidden sense of social insecurity or his "inferiority complex," likewise the Aquarian makes big personal gestures in order to hide his usually unacknowledged sense of personal insecurity and his fear of any strong personality. Fear of course can, under favorable circumstances, turn into devotion, but not a little resentment may lurk in the shadow of this devotion, not a little hope of somehow proving himself superior to the object of the devotion.
      The Aquarian feels in his innermost depth the presence of a New Life; but he is often frightened by the implications of such a presence. It might force him to give to his reliance upon social background. It might compel him to be truly an individual and to prove it to himself by a completely unemotional peace rooted in nothing but that "still, small voice" which is as yet barely anything but a presentment and a disturbing promise. And, indeed, the Aquarian does not want to give up his reliance upon his social and ancestral background — except for theatrical exhibitions of "modernism" which merely add to his prestige with friends. Moreover the plunge into the depths of his personality is a fearsome venture, because individual selfhood means very little to him in the way of security. To be an individual secure in one's selfhood — that ideal evokes only as a rule an intellectual assent. Fundamentally, the Aquarian is just as afraid of being himself, independently of all social and cultural props, as the Leo leader is afraid of being merely a "social being" without the privileged personal position of leading whomsoever he is being "social" with.
      Lincoln defined the true democrat as one who "refuses to be a master of slaves." But the Leo type wants to be the leader of his social group because he fears to function socially in any other capacity; and, most of all, as an equal among equals. The typical Aquarian can operate as an equal among equals, for he is at ease in society; he can also use freely whatever social power is his by ancestral tradition and social consent. But he really depends upon a social status and a legal (or fictitiously legal) status to give himself the sense that society needs him. He has to feel that he is a "man of destiny" for those he will lead; whereas the Leo ruler glories merely in being a ruler, because he wants to rule and in ruling he feels he has made his adjustment to society. An Aquarian may sincerely renounce power and, if need be, abdicate; the Leo type will do so only if he thinks that by such a noble gesture he will gain more social prestige than by holding on to a throne which seems insecure.
      Where the Capricorn-organized collectivity comes close to being an ideal society, the Aquarian may emerge from it as the representative of its perfect organic wholeness. In this case he becomes the plenipotentiary of the group, or the seed which, leaving the fulfilled parent organism, is the embodiment of all its vital power. In Aquarius the power of the Christ-seed is released into the new virgin soil; this seed will germinate in due time and become lost as a seed so that the new plant may be.
      In that sense, the great men who, having assimilated in their personality all the most progressive trends of European culture, came to the "New World" and identified themselves with its civilization, presenting to America the gifts of their European wisdom and personality, acted as seed-men and symbolically speaking, as true "Aquarians." The ideal Capricorn is the "White City" or "White Lodge," whose "birthday" is celebrated early in January, at the opposite pole of the year from the date of the Declaration of Independence; a significant symbol indeed. And the "Aquarians" of the Spirit are those mysterious Personages who cyclically go forth from that "White City" — the Pleroma of God — to release therefrom the "Living Waters" of the New Life.
      Thus the Aquarian symbolism of the Water-Bearer, who carries on his shoulder an "urn" whence flows down to the earth a stream of water. This urn is a symbol of the mystic seed-bag, releasing the substance of a new humanity. It is also a symbol of the storm-cloud, laden with bountiful rain which will water the expectant crop, and releasing the lightning — which the old Aryans deified as Rudra. The lightning is not only a destructive force. It is the means for the precipitation out of the air of precious nitrogen necessary to living processes.
      Power flows always from a higher to a lower potential, from the fulfilled to the yet incomplete or the expectant. Power in Aquarius can be, perhaps more truly than in any other fixed Sign of the Zodiac, the Power of God. Thus the Divine Manifestation for the "Aquarian Age" is expected by some to be the most powerful outpouring of creative Spirit. Perhaps that outpouring is even now flooding the human realms. Perhaps the Archetypal Man has already taken flesh and blood, and men's minds are soon to behalf the fullness and the glory of the Revelation that shall be made concrete by many who will come from the celestial "White City," as seed for the new humanity.
      This is the promise of Aquarius, whose "living waters" flow from celestial heights to impregnate the human kingdom as a totality for a new birth of Personality — for the birthing of the "Man of Plenitude" in our children and our children's children.