The aeon of Aquarius leads us to inquire, at least briefly, what are the qualities of this aeon?:
AQUARIUS AS `WATER MAN,'
`WATER CARRIER,' `WATER POURER'
The term “Aquarius” has three different interpretations that I know of. It is called “water man,” “water carrier” and “water pourer.” Aquarius is pictured as a human figure carrying a jug of water. Sometimes he is pouring water from the jug and sometimes he is just carrying it. This suggests three different things
AL ¶ 0HUMAN FIGURE
First, Aquarius is a human figure, not an animal or fish, suggesting that the aeon of Aquarius is going to be of a human nature, not less
AL ¶ 0CARRYING WATER
Second, the figure is carrying water rather than being immersed in it like a fish. That suggests that the two aeons (Pisces and Aquarius) will have a totally different relation to the psyche; it is the difference between being a fish immersed and being a carrier and pourer
AL ¶ 0IMAGE OF A VESSEL
Third, we have an image of a vessel, an allusion to the symbolism of the alchemical vessel and to the capacity to contain the psyche, rather than be contained by it. Instead of being a fish contained in a psychic fish pond, the individual becomes a conscious carrier and dispenser of the psyche
AL ¶ 0PREPARATIONS FOR THE
LAST SUPPER
Both Mark and Luke recount that Christ directed two of his disciples to make preparations for the last supper. He said “Go into the city and you will meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him,” (Mark 14 : 13; Luke 22 : 10, JB)
AL ¶ 0This man leads the disciple to the house in which they are to go to the upper room for the Passover meal or last supper. This is the aeon to come 2,000 years later, visible even at the opening of the aeon of Pisces. It corresponds to certain symbolic aspects of Christ
AL ¶ 0CHRIST AS A WATER BEARER
Christ was pictured as a water bearer and water dispenser. To the Samaritan woman at the well he said that if she had asked him for a drink he would have dispensed eternal living water for her (John 4 : 10)
AL ¶ 0WATER FLOWING FROM
CHRIST'S BELLY
Also there is an image of a stream of water flowing from Christ's belly when his side was pierced at the Crucifixion. These images indicate that in a certain sense Christ foreshadowed Aquarius as a water dispenser
AL ¶ 0But the water he dispensed did not generate more dispensers; it generated fishes rather than water carriers because the church became the water carrier, the fish pond in which the faithful fish could swim
¶ 0Who discovered water? We know who did not discover itthe fish. We can now say the person who discovered it was Aquarius. Jung discovered water
AL ¶ 0INDIVIDUAL WATER CARRIERS
If my reading of the symbolism is correct, the aeon of Aquarius will generate individual water carriers. The numinous reality of the psyche will no longer be carried by religious communitiesthe church, the synagogue or the mosquebut instead it will carried by conscious individuals
AL ¶ 0CONTINUOUS INCARNATION
This is the idea Jung puts forward in his notion of a continuing incarnation, the idea that individuals are to become incarnating vessels of the Holy Spirit on an ongoing basis. He developed this idea more fully in the next work he wrote, “Answer to Job.” But that is another story
AL ¶ 0