Urania - Rite 9. Magic of Jupiter and Hathor

Priestess: (Invocation) Adorable Hathor, Kindly Mother of all creatures, Goddess Of love and laughter, we are orphaned of Thee. We have turned away from Thy joy which calls us through all Nature to return again to Thy beautiful bounty. Bestow on us happiness and love; health and abundance.

Oracle: Because you ask Me for these gifts, you shall receive them. For long hard centuries you, My dear human children, have sought knowledge and authority, strength and sanctity, believing that these hardly won gains will make you as the Deities. But though it is well to be powerful, without love and happiness you are as nothing. And this love is not some strange and terrible passion that could tear you asunder, as it does when suppressed or misused: rather it is the kindly benevolence that not only seeks the good for others but also for oneself. For who would be the victim of another's immolation?

True friendship and marriage is to share good things such as abundance, laughter and peace. For in the past you clever and hard-working ones have travelled the earth making converts to your puritanical civilization, but have made millions wretched and unrooted them from their own way of living. It is not for nothing that I am depicted with the solar disc between the horns of a cow. Do not despise Me in this form, for as a cow I have four legs and can stand in My sleep, whereas the walking two legged human suffers from unbalance.

I give My milk generously and have the wisdom to stay where I am, either eating grass or meditating, which is what you call chewing the cud. You run around too much in your minds and with your bodies. Be peaceful. Be happy. And in this way you will, through gentleness, find power; through stillness, achieve progress, and by living fully each moment, gain abundance for all time. Know that Jupiter Himself appears as a bull, as does Serapis.

Yet neither of these Gods nor I Myself manifesting in these animal forms derive Our strength and health from killing and eating Our fellows. You petition Me for health. Do likewise. Be happy! For if you are happy now - you are happy forever. To rejoice in the Eternal Now is My secret. My Love abideth, for it is the Love of the All-Mother.

Let the altar be draped in gold. On it are 4 lighted candles, a pot of burning incense, a mirror, a chalice of red wine, small yellow ‘sun’ stones and a golden sceptre with a purple stone in its head. Two Enchantresses wear the Hathor Crown, (the solar disc between cow’s horns), and green and gold robes. 2 Magicians wear laurel wreaths, and green and gold robes. Practitioners wear wreaths and green and gold robes. 1st Practitioner wears white.

1st Magician: Fellow followers of the Olympians, let us perform the ceremonial magic of the mighty planet Jupiter and its encircling moons. May we receive the planetary gifts of sovereignty, nobility, friendship and success.

1st Enchantress: To enjoy ourselves with full expression we need to rule with love, to be generous in success, to recognise the nobility in others and to share friendship with all beings. For this inner expression of Jupiter we need to turn to the Egyptian Goddess of Love and Joy, Great Hathor. For the Priests of Egypt declared to Solon the Wise that the Greeks were as clever children. The Egyptians revered the wisdom of the heart.

1st Magician: May Jupiter and Hathor be invoked. (makes sign of Jupiter in the Southwest, offers incense) I offer Incense to the God Jupiter. Mighty Aegis-bearing Jupiter, the Thunderer, Bringer of power and laughter, bestow on us greatness and majesty. Give us Your gift of entering into all creatures, for only through identity is love achieved.

2nd Magician: Jupiter changed His form many times for love of women. Minerva, daughter of Jupiter and Metis, illustrated her Father's metamorphoses in a great picture embroidered in wool. An air of majesty proclaims Her portrayal of Jupiter as Monarch of the Universe. She drew Asteria struggling with an eagle that had seized her, and Leda laid supine under the snowy pinions of a swan. She added in Her picture how Jupiter, disguised under the form of a satyr, presented the fair Antiope with a twin offspring; how as Amphitryon, He enjoyed Alcmena: how, changed to a shower of gold, Danae, and how the daughter of Asopus felt Him in a lambent flame. To Mnemosyne, Memory, He appeared a shepherd and to Deois, a speckled snake.

1st Enchantress: It was the Goddess in woman that Jupiter ever sought. And She is Hathor and Juno and all Goddesses. For know that there is a transformation of the Goddess for every change of the God, be He Jupiter, Pan or Proteus. We know Hathor and Io as cows, Muth as a Vulture and Kundalini as a flame of fire.

2nd Enchantress: (makes sign of Hathor and offers incense) I offer incense to the Goddess Hathor! Hear the words of Thy Priestess as called forth of old in the holy scriptures, ‘The Coming Forth by Day’. “Hathor, Lady of Amentet, Lady of Ta-Tchesert, Eye of Ra, beautiful of face in the boat of millions of years, the habitation of peace, Creator of law in the boat of the favoured ones, we give praise to Hathor, the mistress of Amentet, and pay homage to Mehurit. The doors of heaven are opened for us, the doors of earth are opened for us, and the first temple hath been unfastened for us. Behold, we are guarded and watched, we are released.”

1st Enchantress: “I kneel before the Goddess Hathor seated by a tree. I adore the Goddess by Her shrine. I have gained mastery over my heart. I have gained mastery of my breast. I have gained mastery over my whole body. I have gained the mastery of air. I have gained the mastery over the things which were ordered to be done upon the earth. In a clean place I sit on the ground beneath the foliage of the date palm of the Goddess Hathor, Who dwelleth in the spacious Disk as it advanceth to Annu, having the books of the divine words of the God Thoth. I shall place myself in the path of the wind like a guide who is well prepared.”

2nd Enchantress: We are the pure travellers. Behold, O Ahi, Behold, O Ahi. let us be among those who follow the Goddess Hathor.

1st Magician: The Words of Power have been uttered. The magic is begun. Who among us will enact the four transformations of Woman as she wins the gifts of the planet Jupiter?

1st Practitioner: So that we may share these gifts, I will act these roles.

1st Enchantress: It is needful for you to travel backwards through time to the Golden Age. At each age you shall be a woman that Jupiter loved, in changing form appearing.

1st Practitioner: Never! How shall I endure the wrath of the Goddess Juno who persecuted such women and their offspring with unparalleled ferocity?

1st Enchantress: Why, by being Juno!

1st Practitioner: I, a humble mortal? Impossible.

1st Enchantress: Not so. Through the Goddess Hathor, you will receive the wisdom of the heart so that you will recognise the God in each differing creature. And in so doing you will act with virtue, for to receive the God is also to accept his wife Juno. For the twain are as one. Have courage! Olympians and humans and all creatures, whether bulls or swans or snakes, are all children of our Mother Goddess. Trust Hathor.

1st Practitioner: May Hathor bless and inspire me.

2nd Magician: Your first transformation is nearest to you in time, our own Iron Age. You are to identify with Helen, daughter of Jupiter and of Leda whom the wise call Nemesis. Rich-tressed Leda, after her blissful union with Jupiter, in His disguise as a swan, gave birth to two golden eggs. The first gave forth the Gemini twins, Castor and Pollux. The second bore a third child, Helen, a marvel to men.

Some say that Hermes, in obedience to the will of Zeus, stole Helen and carried her to Egypt, giving her to Proteus, the King of the Egyptians to hide there. He then fashioned a phantom Helen as Queen of Sparta and it was this phantom which Paris stole and brought to Troy. Which Helen do you choose to be, the fatal Helen who caused the war of Troy, or the Helen who stayed quietly in Egypt meditating in the Temple of Hathor?

1st Practitioner: For many lives I have lived fully as a woman, loving and caring, marrying and giving birth. Such is the way of women. But now I seek a new life of success. A swan is the most beautiful creature in nature, gliding easily through life, mirrored in still waters. My soul would float in winged loveliness, far from earthly cares. I choose to meditate in the Temple of Hathor.

2nd Magician: Ah, but which was the true Helen?

1st Practitioner: Why, myself in Egypt! For my soul was there, while my body, which is but a mortal phantom, gave birth to Paris's offspring in Troy. Where the soul is, there is true expression.

Music. Beethoven’s “6th” or “8th” Symphonies, Mozart’s “Jupiter Symphony” or Holst’s “Jupiter” are suitable.

2nd Magician: Accept this mirror. You have gained the Element of Water, the success which comes from beautiful tranquillity. From henceforth you shall have the gift of drawing all beings to you by the loveliness of your soul. Your face will shine as Helen's did, who wore a jewel on her brow, which shed perpetual light. Yet remember that Hathor also appears as a cow and a hippopotamus. Beauty lies in the soul of each and every creature.

1st Magician: Move back in time to the Age of Taurus, and learn of your second transformation as Europa, daughter of Agenor, King of Tyre. On the shore of Sidonia the daughter of the mighty Monarch was wont to amuse herself, accompanied by a train of Tyrian virgins. Great Jupiter fell in love with the fair princess. Majesty and love but ill agree, nor can long continue in the same abode.

He therefore, the Father and Sovereign of the Gods, Whose right hand is armed with the three-forked thunder, Who with a nod shakes the universe, laying aside the dignity of empire, puts on the appearance of a bull, and mixing with a herd by the shore, lows, and frisks about upon the tender grass. His colour is that of snow, unsullied by the tread of feet or the dissolving blasts of the watery south wind. His neck rises in rolls of fat, and the double dewlaps hang from between His shoulders. His horns indeed are small, but such as you might maintain were polished by a workman's hand, and more transparent than the brightest gem. No threads appeared in His forehead; his eyes have nothing in them formidable, but every look expresses peace.

2nd Magician: The daughter of Agenor admires His beauty, and wonders that He threatens no battles. At first she is afraid to touch Him, though so gentle; but soon adventures nearer, and holds out the flowers to His white mouth. The Lover rejoices, and till He can enjoy the hoped for pleasure, kisses her hands; scarce, ah scarce does he defer the rest. And now He exults and wantons in the green meadows: now rolls His white body in the yellow sand; and observing that her fears are gone, sometimes offers His breast to be stroked by her virgin hand, sometimes stoops His horns in flowery wreaths.

1st Magician: And now the royal maid not knowing Whom she pressed, boldly ventures upon His back. The God by gentle steps advances from the land and dry meadows towards the sea; and first with deceitful mien dips His hoofs in the waves. Thence stealing further, suddenly plunges in, and carried His prize through the middle of the sea. The frightened nymph looks back to the shore she had left behind. With her right hand she grasps His horn, the other is placed upon His back. Her ruffling garments swelled by the wind, hover in a train behind her.

1st Magician: The bull bore Europa to Crete, where He assumed the form of a man and wooed her. The nymph consented, though she had once made vows of perpetual celibacy. She bore Him three sons, Minos, Sarpedon and Rhadamanthus, whose temples are to be seen to this day. And the princess gave her name to the continent of Europe. As Europa, what do you gain?

1st Practitioner: Laughter! There is something in the tale that is so engaging, so natural, with the ways of the cunning Deity and the maid and her unkept vows! At first I thought who could follow such a God, after practicing the severe and virtuous path of Saturn?

But then I felt, the mightiest are the humblest, the gravest can laugh the most, and if one would find many loves and win a host of good friends, one may not be on one's dignity! For if the Sovereign of the Olympians can afford to roll on His back as a bull in verdant meadows, to frisk and gambol in such an unkingly manner - He is a true King, and who are we to set ourselves up to be prudes and pedants? I, Europa, have second thoughts about the perpetual celibacy of pride. I accept Jupiter! He makes me laugh.

1st Magician presents Practitioner with chalice of wine.

1st Magician: You have gained the element of earth, the fruit of the vine, which brings friendship and laughter. Never again shall you be solitary even when you are alone.

1st Practitioner drinks from the chalice and it is handed round from one to the other until all have drunk from it.

2nd Enchantress: Learn now of your third transformation as Danae, in the Age of Brass. Acrisius was filled with terror at an oracle which foretold that he should one day be slain by his own grandson, born of his fair daughter Danae. Thus he caused her to be shut up in a tower of brass. Jupiter fell in love with Danae and, though she was shut off from mortal men in the brassy tower, was not immune to the divine intervention of the monarch. As Danae sat weeping at her cruel life-long imprisonment, Jupiter transformed Himself into a shower of gold, obtained from His Mother, Rhea, who is Ops, Goddess of Wealth. Through heavenly union with this shining shower, Danae gave birth, to a demi-god, Perseus.

She was rescued from her imprisonment, and Perseus became a mighty and compassionate hero. Beloved of his half sister Minerva with Her Gorgon's Head, he rescued the Princess Andromeda, who now shines brightly in the sky of night.

2nd Enchantress: What affect has this transformation upon you, as Danae?

2nd Practitioner: Quite different from that of Europa. Here I find no laughter, rather holy awe. From the Golden Shower I feel a shiver run through me from the top of my head through my body to the soles of my feet. As Danae, I accept Jupiter, as He showers me with fiery gold. My soul feels exalted and my body is renewed from the Fountain of ever-living Fire. I know the nature of heavenly love, through my union with Jupiter. It is not restricted to one part of myself, but glows totally through every atom of my soul and body, now united from the Spirit of Fire which has descended upon me from above, and has freed me from my brassy prison of ignorance and death.

2nd Enchantress: (presents Practitioner with golden stones) Accept these sun stones, emblems of the Element of Fire, the Shower of Gold. You have attained Nobility. From henceforth you will feel the glorious fire of life within yourself, uniting with the flow through all creatures and beings, and within these very stones, animated in the palms of your hands. All will become true gold at your touch, bringing abundance to those whose lives touch yours.

1st Enchantress: Who may approach Jupiter save with Juno's consent? And none dare face the brightness of the Queen of Heaven without the aid of kindly Jupiter. For both are Sovereigns in marriage and we are among their offspring. Harken to your fourth transformation as Juno, manifesting through Her Daughter, Juno's Priestess. During the rule of Saturn in the Golden Age, Jupiter desired to bring in the Age of Silver, of Womanhood. He was not insensible of the charms of the Mother Goddess of Argos, the Goddess Juno. The more powerfully to gain Her confidence, He changed Himself into a cuckoo, and raised a great storm and made the air unusually chill and cold. Under this form He went to the Goddess, all shivering. Juno pitied the cuckoo, and took Him into Her bosom. When Jupiter had gained these advantage, He resumed His original form, and obtained the gratification of His desires, after He had made a solemn promise of marriage.

2nd Enchantress: The nuptials of Jupiter and Juno were celebrated. with the greatest solemnity: the Gods, all mankind and all the brute creation attended. Juno, also called Olympia, Domiduca and Februa, is Goddess of all power and empire, and the patroness of all riches. She is Queen of Heaven and has from her breasts created the Milky Way. She presides over marriage and childbirth, and blesses the most faithful and virtuous of Her sex. She sits upon a throne or in a glorious chariot, with a diadem upon Her head, and a golden sceptre in Her right hand. Peacocks are by Her, and a cuckoo perches upon Her sceptre. Behind Her, Iris displays the thousand colours of Her beautiful aura, in the form of a rainbow. Now answer, what do you learn from your transformation as Daughter of Juno?

1st Practitioner: As Daughter and Priestess of My Divine Mother, I know that no sovereignty is worthy without compassion. For Queenly Juno felt compassion for a bedraggled and shivering cuckoo, and took him to her heart. And so, all unexpectedly, She found Her true Spouse, Great Jupiter. I observe also that Jupiter understood well her compassionate nature, hidden by her veil of authority, and through this both desired to marry Her and was able to do so. For She would not have accepted the King of Gods in any greater form!

Music.

1st Enchantress: (presents 1st Practitioner with Sceptre) Accept this Sceptre of sovereignty, for you have gained the Element of Air. From henceforth you will have the gift of using authority with gentleness: power with discretion, and win success in love and life!

All unite hands and move in a circle dance until a flow of golden power is felt through head and heart until it reaches every part of the soul and body. Rainbow coloured lights may be seen. The rest of the wine is shared when the circle is seated.

1st Enchantress: Fellow sons and daughters of Jupiter and Juno, and of Hathor, let us contemplate Their gifts.

Contemplation

The gifts of the deities are sent forth in radiations to all beings and to those in special need. Reports are shared.

1st Magician: Let us give thanks to Jupiter and Juno and to Hathor.

Sources: "Metamorphoses", Ovid, trans. Joseph Davidson, London, 1748. "The Book of the Dead", trans. E. A. Wallis Budge, Dover Publications. "The Library", Apollodorus, trans. James G. Frazer, Loeb Classical Library. "A Classical Dictionary", Lempries, 1812. "Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica", trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Loeb Classical Library.

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