Jupiter, Sovereignty, and Chaos Protocols
A few days before the Super Tuesday Primary I posted a three card reading on the outcome of the Democratic Primary. The first card was the Emperor, which I interpreted as representing Bernie Sanders. People went bananas! “How could you possibly see Sanders in the Emperor Card”?” He is an activist!” “A protestor!” “A man of the people!” “The very opposite of Emperor!”
What few people seemed to get was that he is also running for President – a position as close to Emperor as you are likely to find.
The situation reminded me of an episode of Coupling (the BBC one, not the crap American one), where Patrick points out that liberals are currently in power and are therefore have become the establishment, making the conservative Tory the scrappy underdogs. Sally, a liberal who used to protest against Thatcher, starts screaming “NO! NO! NO! We can’t be! We are the anti-establishment!”
What does all this have to do with Jupiter?
I think a lot of people in the magical community see themselves as inherently counter-culture and therefore positioned against the mainsteam, not only spiritually but in material terms as well.
In Chaos Protocols, Gordon White argues that Jupiter is a god of Kings and the Elite and therefore not a god of the people. “However you slice it and orderly, lawful, presiding deity of wealth accumulation is not the best ally and may even be asleep at the wheel.”
Since the 1960’s magician’s and pagan’s counter culturalism has been tied to anti-materialism. That is all well and good if you are really doing the anti-materialism thing; becoming a monk, a nun, or a homeless wandering mystic. Most of us are not.
If you are not going to completely renounce money and materialism, you need to deal with it somehow. Gordon and I agree on this. If you ignore it and go with the flow you will get steamrolled, especially in this economy. You need to become Sovereign over your own life, and it is here that Jupiter comes in.
Unless you plan on becoming a criminal mastermind, becoming fiscally solvent and sovereign means that you are going to become part of the establishment to some degree. You want an orderly, lawful, life of wealth accumulation so that you can do good works with it. You want to reign sovereign over your life as much as anyone can. Jupiter and Juno respond to this desire BIG TIME.
Gordon argues that “Modern magic has mistaken the much, much later platonic system – a long defunct explanatory model of the Universe – for an eternal conception of Jupiter”. This is true, but the fact that the planetary associations of Jupiter being benevolent, expansive, and otherwise Jovial are more recent does not make them wrong. The kingly aspect of Jupiter is not wrong because it was laid over an older Sky-God attribution. The Capitoline Jupiter that existed after the Roman monarchy fell is also not wrong. In short, none of it is wrong. Magicians have this regressive tendency to see whatever is earliest as truest, when often it’s what is furthest away.
Gordon suggests that Jupiter may be asleep at the wheel, but I think it is a rejection of Jupiter that led to the fall of Rome and is leading to the economic troubles we experience today. It is the rejecting of good governance, of caring for common good of citizens, of all that is fatherly that leads to level of economic strife and inequality we see today. Jupiter is not asleep at the wheel, he has been overthrown by the powers of idiocy. It is worth noting that in Athenian Democracy, an idiot was defined as someone who was concerned with private good at the expense of public affairs. Jupiter is no idiot.
I wrote Financial Sorcery and placed Jupiter in such high esteem in it because I saw a generation of occultist and pagan elders facing their golden years with a lot of financial hardship that could have been avoided if “being a magician” had not become connected to rejecting material concerns. To me Jupiter can indeed be understood to be the god of Kings, order, and wealth accumulation. If you want to have some sovereignty over your life, if you want order, and wealth – he is exactly the ally you may need.
This point is probably the ONLY disagreement I have with Chaos Protocols by the way. It is a fantastic book and everyone that reads this blog should read it. Given my fondness for Jupiter and Juno, my students have been asking me to comment on this issue, so I thought I would.
Stay Tuned for an announcement about an online event involving Chaos Protocols and Strategic Sorcery.
