Venusian Duality

Temple of the Stars
Dec 11, 2024
3 min read

Venus as a celestial body has influenced the mythos of many peoples. Every culture that has looked to the stars have found Her influence to be undeniable, and have revered Her in all Her glory. She is our closest, most incandescent planet. She transforms from the Morning Star to the Evening Star and then back again, bringing a celestial face to the rhythm of Earthly life. For 263 days, Venus is visible before vanishing for 50 days, and returning for a further 263 days. Her cyclical nature has brought forth a dualistic mythos since the beginning of human culture.

Like a dragon,

You poisoned the land—

When you roared at the earth

In your thunder,

Nothing green could live.

A flood fell from the mountain:

You, Inanna,

Foremost in Heaven and Earth.

Lady riding a beast,

You rained fire on the heads of men.

Taking your power from the Highest,

Following the commands of the Highest,

Lady of all the great rites,

Who can understand all this is yours?

– Enheduanna (1)

The movement of the planet Venus to some cultures meant that they did not recognise Her as just one celestial being—but as two separate stars. The Sumerians, however, recognised Venus as one star with a duality.(2) This influenced their conception of Inanna (Ishtar to the Akkadians), Who was portrayed as the dualistic “Lady of Love and War” in the Epic of Gilgamesh. This dual nature is explicitly illustrated in the myth Descent of Inanna into the Underworld. She is both infernal and divine. In Nietzschean(3) terms, She contains the Apollian-Dionysian duality between the harmonic/rational art of sculpture and the non-harmonic/irrational art of music. Inanna is the opposites joined together in one Goddess. She is the cycle of Venus manifest of the stars into one divine Goddess.

In the era of Inanna worship, in the Fertile Crescent, the Persians venerated the Venusian Goddess Aradvi Sura Anahita. The Goddess was very closely related to the Inanna/Ishtar cult(4), but to the Roman/Greek writers she was sometimes referred to as Anaïtis or Venus/Aphrodite—due to the similarities with their own deities. The essence of the primordial Venusian cult has lived on across cultures, from the moment we looked at the stars. In ancient Persia, Aredvi Sura Anahit started as a simple fertility divinity but came upon the mantle of a Goddess of War, seemingly due to convergence with the Inanna cult. Herodotus(5) wrote that the Persians had learned to sacrifice to “the Heavenly Goddess” from the Assyrians and Arabians. Thus, illustrating a link in the formation of dualistic Venusian cult that spanned millennia.

The development of the Venus cult resulted in the Roman iteration of Her divinity; the Goddess Venus. She plays a multifaceted role in the Roman pantheon. She tempers the masculine essence, uniting the principles of masculinity and femininity into a harmonious union. The Roman Venus is assimilative in nature, embracing an array of disparate functions. She may bestow military victory as Venus Victrix(6), sexual fulfilment Venus Libitina(7) and good fortune Venus Felix(8) upon her devotees. Whilst she is revered as a Goddess of prostitutes Venus Erycina(9), in another form she has the power to turn the hearts of both men and women away from carnal vice and toward virtuous pursuits Venus Verticordia(10). Venus’s capacity to unite these polar opposites and manifest a diverse range of blessings underscores her complex role within the ancient Roman religious traditions.

Throughout the Aeons we have looked to Venus, and seen Her as a link to the primordial feminine energy that resides within the Earth and womankind. There can be no life without death, and no love without war. She is our anima and our mother—a dualistic unity made in both the Heavens and the Underworld, and not to be forced into the box of simplistic notions of “love and beauty”. A black-and-white view of philosophy, and of the Occult, leads to a dead end and inhibits our growth and understanding of the world. We must invoke the true spirit of Venus.