In order to understand the archetypal Uranus more fully, it is important to understand the meaning and origin of the terms "genie," "magic," and "avant garde." Genie is a hybrid of the Muslim "jinn" and the Latin "genius." The jinn were supernatural, shape-shifting beings that were created by Allah from divine fire. The jinn were more powerful than humans but seated below angels in the spiritual hierarchies. They were spirits found within all humans that could be capable of both good and evil. The second etymological source for "genie," the Latin "genius," literally means to procreate and to beget. Taken together, the genie, then, is a creative, generative spirit of fiery origins. The genie in modern form, as seen in a Tale of One thousand Nights, is a creative figure, that, when summoned, is able to grant supernatural powers to humans often at great cost or with unforeseen consequences. Similarly, the archetypal Uranus is the creative, inspirational force that lies dormant within us until "summoned."
Uranus is affiliated with what the late astrologer Richard Idemon called, "superyang" energy—a hypertrophied, masculine creative force. The creative powers affiliated with Uranus are not the mother of invention dictated by necessity but the father of originality and innovation. When the creative fire of Uranus is ignited societally, cultures take a gigantic advance in novelty, breaking new ground in sciences, the arts, mores and freedoms. However, even though the creativity of the genie may be summoned with benign intent, the unstable and mutable creative fire of the genie—and thus of Uranus—may turn against culture but can never be "put back into the lamp." Genetic manipulation, splitting the atom, and many advances in chemistry—all originally created with benign or good intentions—have been highly destructive and have come at high cost to humanity.
"Magic" has its historical origins in Persia and is the art that is used to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural. Although thought to be a primitive practice that has found its expiration date in modern consciousness, using this broad definition of magic we can see that applied science and related methodologies are indeed forms of magic. Objects all around us are supernatural: televisions, airplanes, computers, and appliances that we take for granted. Although these common objects are not supernatural in the common usage of the term, with its mystical and mysterious connotations, the information age is a supernatural one in the most literal sense. The global monoculture is increasingly becoming a world that is beyond, or transcendent, of nature, (or what is given in life), and we have used rituals of magic to come to this current state of affairs.
The archetype of Uranus is an impulse very much aligned to the art of magic. When the archetype of Uranus is active in us on an individual or collective level, the urge for liberating ourselves from our more natural, "herd-like" impulses—the need for going beyond security, roots, and the shelter of conformity, for example—becomes intensified. We may act out upon this Uranian impulse by simply rebelling against our status quo conditions, or we may channel these energies into effective, strategic means—magic. Hence, magic may be thought of as applied or useful channeling of the psychological force associated with the archetype of Uranus. The Industrial Revolution—at its peak of activity during the discovery of the planet Uranus—had its basis in helping humanity detach and transcend its dependence on economic means based on unpredictable, natural cycles. Similarly, the motivation for the creation of the birth control pill (implemented during the highly Uranian, revolutionary time of the 1960's) was to allow women to have greater sexual freedom through transcending natural cycles of fertility. Arguably, we are on the precipice of the most purely magical, Uranian time in history with the applied technology of genetics a very real social, ethical, and economic reality.
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