THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE (PART 2)

This is maybe old hat by now, but here's part of an interview from 2004 with Justin A Frank, Director of Psychiatry at George Washington University:

"If one of my patients frequently said one thing and did another, I would want to know why. If I found that he often used words that hid their true meaning and affected a persona that obscured the nature of his actions, I would grow more concerned. If he presented an inflexible worldview characterized by an oversimplified distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, allies and enemies, I would question his ability to grasp reality. And if his actions revealed an unacknowledged - even sadistic - indifference to human suffering, wrapped in pious claims of compassion, I would worry about the safety of the people whose lives he touched.

For the past three years, I have observed with increasing alarm the inconsistencies and denials of such an individual. But he is not one of my patients. He is our president. George W. Bush is a case study in contradiction. The gulf between his personality and those policies - and the style with which they are executed - grows ever wider, raising serious questions about his behavior."

Elsewhere we read that: "The head of the world’s unchallenged hyperpower, Dr. Frank further diagnosed, "fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated." The result: a "paranoid megalomaniac", as well as “a sadist”.

Dr. Frank found Bush’s "lifelong streak of sadism” has ranged from blowing up frogs with firecrackers “to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions, and pumping his fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad."

Not unlike the Americans who continue to cheer him on. [This was 2004].

But at least GW has an excuse. The psychiatrist concluded that Bush’s binges "may have affected his brain function.” What is really important, Dr. Frank declared, is that because the issues around death and personal failure that led to Bush’s years of heavy boozing were never treated, “he has no capacity to take responsibility for his behavior. Black and white thinking results most often from untreated alcoholism.”

THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE

In my posting of 12th Dec, regarding the present retrograde phase of Saturn, I commented that: “The outcome of this particular Saturn phase may well be some sort of crisis as we approach April, in which George Bush is forced either to become more flexible, or see the wheels of government grind to a halt.” I meant this specifically in relation to his Iraq policy.

Well so far he’s certainly made noises about being more flexible and working with the Democrats, but in reality he’s carrying on with the same old policy through his ‘surge’ of troop reinforcements. A clear majority of the population is against this. Congress is against this, including an increasing number of his own party, who are now prepared to openly oppose him. Congress isn’t going to deny him the money to pursue his new ‘strategy’ (The Republican Chuck Hagel was rightly scornful: “This isn’t a strategy. It’s a game of ping-pong…”), because then they could be blamed for the Iraq policy failing. But both Houses are preparing to vote on a non-binding resolution opposing the troop surge.

Technically, George Bush can carry on with his ‘policy’, even with the population and Congress against him. What we are starting to see, I think, is a breakdown in the process of government. In the UK, we would have got rid of the PM by now. That can happen quite quickly through a vote of no confidence in Parliament. But the American system doesn’t allow for this unless there has been some sort of criminal behaviour by the President.

Either way, it seems to be meltdown for GWB. If he co-operates with Congress, he is admitting his main policy has failed, and he will just be a ghost in the White House. And if he carries on like he is, he threatens the democratic process itself. How do you cope with a President who has become a runaway horse, a loose cannon?

With his 12th House Sun square to Chiron, and Moon conjunct Chiron, I don’t rule out some sort of mental breakdown for George Bush. I think that part of his coping mechanism is to shut out aspects of reality, which is why he is so inflexible. In order to cope in his present circumstances he is going to have to shut out more and more, maybe to the point of some sort of clinical madness. But as far as I am aware, unless he engages in criminal behaviour, there is no way to get rid of him. What happens even 2 months from now, with both Houses having voted against his policy and his troop surge probably failing?

Whatever the outcome, I think the reign of George Bush II may well lead to a lot of questioning, and even changes, to the institution of the Presidency.

The Saturn-Neptune opposition has presided over the political fallout around Iraq. The first crunch point was at the start of September, with the first exact opposition, and admissions that all was not well in Iraq began to be made. In a month’s time we have the second exact crossing, the pressure is again piling up, and we may reach the next crunch point then.

Now for some astro-number crunching, so be prepared.

The institution of the Presidency is based on the chart for the swearing in of George Washington, on 30 April 1789 in New York between 12.40 and 12.45 pm. This chart has MC at 22 Taurus, square to Pluto at 19 Aquarius, suggestive of the balance of power that the President has to work with between himself and Congress. Since last September, the Saturn-Neptune opposition has been hitting this Pluto-MC square full-on, and will continue to do so until June. It’s reality-check time, and I’d read it as being for the institution itself (the MC) rather than just the person of the President, which I’d read as the Sun (at 11 Taurus, also square to Pluto – and which was squared by transiting Neptune at the time of the Iraq invasion).

If we progress this Chart to the present, we find Prog Chiron 2 degrees off the Prog IC, and at the swearing in of the next President, on 20 Jan 2009, this Prog Chiron will be just 3 minutes off the Prog IC. This suggests that some real damage is being done to the Presidency, that will need to be addressed by the next incumbent.

The chart for Bush’s inauguration on 20 Jan 2005 at 12pm has Chiron at 27 Capricorn conjunct MC at 26 Capricorn. And the composite between Bush’s natal chart and that of the 1st Presidency (the 1789 chart) has Chiron 1 degree off the ASC in Leo. So we keep finding a prominent Chiron, whether in Bush’s natal chart or in the various charts around his Presidency.

Using the USA 2nd July 4pm Chart (which I argued for in my blogs of 4th Dec and 23rd Jan), we see Neptune in the 10th House at 22 Virgo. I see the 10th House as being the institutions of government, including the Presidency, and this Neptune points to the trust based in the President, and his hallowed position, and the illusions around that. Pluto was coming up to square that Neptune in 2003, as President Bush betrayed that trust through his lies and incompetence over Iraq, and continued to do so throughout the rest of transit. Now Uranus is coming up to oppose that Neptune, and who knows what is going to happen?

The composite between Bush’s natal chart and the 2nd July USA chart gives Neptune at 29 Virgo, 2 degrees off the ASC. So we have a repeat of the Neptune/trust theme, and as Pluto comes up to square that Neptune this year and next, I would expect to see a further and radical dissolution of his relationship with the country. At his initial inauguration in 2001, the Sun was conjunct Neptune in the 10th, a further repeat of the Neptune theme.

Progressing the USA 2nd July Chart, we see Neptune opposite the MC in 1974 when Nixon resigned, Mars opposite the MC when Clinton was having his battles over Lewinsky and impeachment in 1998, and retrograde Saturn will start to oppose the MC in 2009, as the task of re-building the Presidency after the Bush betrayals begins.

In 2008, election year, Chiron will be moving up to conjoin Neptune in Aquarius, and will actually do so in 2009, bringing together, and perhaps giving some perspective on, the 2 problematical and repeated astrological themes of the Bush years: the illusions and lies of Neptune and the damage to the Presidency of Chiron. This Conjunction, at 26 Aquarius, will exactly Square the USA ASC at 26 Scorpio.

SATURN-NEPTUNE IN YOUR CHART

For some reason the number of visitors to my site shot up yesterday, just like they did a few weeks ago when Elsa of Elsaelsa.com promoted me on her site as a ‘manly man’. I don’t seem to have been promoted by anyone yesterday, so I can only conclude that it was because I used the word ‘sexy’ in the title of my last blog. The word sexy was referring to the unlikely person of Mr Gordon Brown, soon to be the British Prime Minister. So it looks like I need to use the word more often e.g. ‘The Sexy Galactic Centre’. And who’s to say it isn’t sexy? Or what about ‘Sexy Saturn in Capricorn’? Even talking about it like this should do my stats the world of good. All those pervs drooling over my site after the wife’s gone to bed.

So down to business. The Saturn-Neptune Opposition has been the most influential configuration in the sky for some time now – I’d say since late 2005, although the first exact opposition wasn’t until last September. There’s another exact opposition in just over a month at 20 Leo-Aquarius – which is why I’m writing about it - and the final crossing will be in June this year.

If you have major stuff in your chart around 20 degrees of the fixed signs, now is probably the hardest time, but I’d say it will all start to move on by the time Saturn changes direction in April. Of course, you may just be moving from strength to strength – all that new inspiration (Neptune) finding adequate form (Saturn), maybe because you’ve been around awhile and you know how to make it all happen.

But for a lot of us it’s a time when we’re feeling perhaps withdrawn and unclear about our life (Neptune) and when generally things seem a bit stuck, we can’t easily move anything forward (Saturn). You’ll just have to sit this one out a while longer –it may even intensify over the next month – but there are good reasons for it all. Something deep is being sorted, and you just have to trust (Neptune) in it. It may be that some issue that has taken a long time to shift (fixed sign) is being softened and healed by Neptune, and being made ready to be lived out in the world(Saturn). It may be old parental (Saturn) stuff. And there may be some deeper resolution in a couple of years’ time when Chiron reaches the place that Neptune is in now.

Or it may be – like one young person I know – that while on the one hand your dreams about what you want to do with your life are taking shape (Neptune), events are conspiring to make you take more responsibility for your life on an ordinary, material level (Saturn).

In all cases, I think that Saturn-Neptune is a highly vocational transit, and as the year progresses you should be getting a stronger sense of what you want to do in the next phase of your life, whether it is deepening what you do already, or heading off and developing some new talent.

THE SEXY MR BROWN

Gordon Brown, who is almost certain to become the British Prime Minister later this year, was recently voted 97th sexiest man in the world by readers of New Woman magazine. What I want to know is, if he’s on the list, why aren’t I? Haven’t they heard of me and my amazing blog? And why is he on the list at all? These poor women obviously think his smile is for real: what I see is a “Would you like to come home and see my puppies?” type of smile. The man belongs in a Dracula film, and if that’s what turns these women on, who am I to question their taste?

Of course, the real reason they fancy him is down to one thing: POWER. Some women would fancy a 3 foot dwarf with the halitosis of a dead fox if he was in a position of power. And I don’t mean to be unkind to our shorter brethren, but height makes a difference. However enlightened we might consider ourselves, however advanced and liberal and humane, looks and height, and maybe power and wealth as well, have to be weighed up before we even get to the first post. Although height seems to be more of a woman thing.

And while we’re on the subject, what could be more interesting than the sex lives of celebrities? We’re like a pack of dogs, obsessed with other people’s sex lives and hierarchy, as the sales of the tabloid newspapers and New Woman magazine demonstrate.

The real Mr Brown (born 20 Feb 1951, Giffnock, Scotland, 8.40am) has Venus in Pisces hidden in away in the 12th House (along with Sun, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Node) and opposite Saturn, and he has Neptune on the Descendant. OK, he has a compassionate streak when it comes to giving a bit more aid to Africa, but on a personal relationship level the man has real problems. Well, he doesn’t think he has. But everyone else does. He’s just not there. “Totally un-collegiate”, “autistic”, “psychologically flawed” are some of the epithets that have come his way. Good he may be with figures, but I don’t know why anyone imagines he’ll be able to hold a cabinet together.

The man is deeply unknowable, probably even to himself, and no doubt that is also part of his sexiness. Apart from his 12th House stuff, I think the key to his chart is Moon conjunct Pluto in Leo in the 5th/6th. This describes his obsessive need to be king, the childish (Moon–Leo-5th) tantrums at not getting his own way, the endless plotting to unseat Blair, and the remarkable way he has for many years created the impression that he is somehow entitled to be the next leader. He must have been delighted that Mr Blair, like me, doesn’t even appear on this year’s list of world’s sexiest men. With his weak Mars in 12th House Pisces, Brown is not able to fight directly for what he wants, unlike Blair who has Mars Rising.

(On the subject of the Moon, I have had 2 Boing! moments in the last day: (1) Moon in Leo people can be quite childish or child-like (2) The Moon can be important in old-age, as we reach our ‘second-childhood’).

I think one good thing Brown will have compared to Blair is that he won’t toady to America. Blair has Sun square Pluto (as well as Moon opposite), giving him a love of power, but I think the fact that his Sun is in the 12th weakens it, making him susceptible to others more powerful than himself. (Margaret Thatcher also has Sun square Pluto, but Sun in the 11th, and she had no problem standing up to Ronald Reagan – which he found sexy. Which in theory it is. But in Thatcher's case, as President Giscard D'Estaing of France said: I do not like her. She is not a man and she is not a woman.) Brown is the opposite of Blair – it is troubling to him to be around someone more powerful than himself, which is why there has been the constant warring with No 10.

The Composite chart between Brown and Bush has Mars rising in Gemini and Sun square Pluto. So they may not have an easy relationship.

Like Tony Blair, Brown has Chiron conjunct Midheaven in early Capricorn, suggesting that like Blair he will have a damaged legacy. What sunk Blair was his dishonesty over Iraq. Brown may well blow it as well, but it’ll probably be around the fact that though he has a desperate desire to be PM, he is not a leader of people: what he is known for on a personal level is intrigue, plotting and revenge. But with 12th House Mercury opposite his Moon-Pluto conjunction, what else could we expect? His will increasingly be a Cabinet of yes-men, which to his credit hasn’t been the case with Blair.

Brown has both Saturn and Pluto in the 6th House, reflecting his strong (Saturn), even obsessive (Pluto) work ethic. He has Uranus conjunct IC in Cancer: his father was a Church of Scotland minister, who encouraged in him an attitude of helping others. This Uranus, which is square to his Saturn, suggests to me that while Brown has given the impression he will continue where Blair left off, he may have a few surprises in store. With his Moon-Pluto in Leo, he will feel he has to show where he is different from Blair.

(By the way, I have done readings for 2 air hostesses with Uranus conjunct IC: as one of them put it, her home (IC) is in the sky (Uranus)).

To give Brown a bit more credit, he has been integral to the unique achievement of the Blair government, which has been to run a growing economy at the same time as putting more money into public services. In the past, both Labour and Conservative have done one at the expense of the other. Blair and Brown both have Saturn in 6th house Libra, an indicator of this balanced attitude towards work and the public services. And Brown, with Sun and Venus in 12th house Pisces and Angular Neptune, probably has a real feeling for the suffering of others mixed in with his power-seeking and plotting.

The real test will be the next general election, which will be in May 2010 at the latest. The Uranus-Pluto square in early Aries-Capricorn will be starting then, and it will hard aspect Brown's MC at 4 Capricorn. As I said in my blog of 21 January, a leader tends to be characteristic of his/her time, and will therefore tend to have a chart that is being activated by the major astrological configurations of the time. So we can’t rule out Brown winning that election, especially as his Progressed Sun-Moon cycle will still be in a waxing phase: the conjunction occurred in 1996, a year before Labour gained power, so the waxing phase seems to be associated with Brown being in a position of power.

David Cameron, his probable opponent at that election, has Sun at 15 Libra, which the Uranus-Pluto square would hard aspect towards the end of the term following the 2010/11 election. So we can’t rule out him winning it either. The one thing we CAN be sure of is that, whichever of them wins, they will shoot up the list of the world’s sexiest men. And David Cameron was at 87 on the recent list, 10 ahead of Brown.

SCORPIO NATION

In his review of 'The Good Shepherd', a film about the CIA, Philip Brown at Astrofuturetrends says: “The Sibly U.S. horoscope has Scorpio on the cusp of the 12th house and this is one reason why I do like this horoscope. Without buying into a whole lot of conspiracy theories, I think that the U.S. has a tendency to grow secret power cabals that operate independently of any oversight.”

I rather liked this point, and it got me reflecting on just how Scorpionic the USA actually is. And that therefore the Sibly Chart, which is markedly lacking in Scorpio/Pluto influences, cannot be right!

The USA is the wealthiest, most powerful nation the world has ever seen, and has been so for 100 years. I do not think that a nation could achieve this position, and keep it, without a significant Scorpio/Pluto influence. When I read a history of the USA some years ago, I was struck by how, in its path to becoming a world power, the USA was continually re-inventing itself in all sorts of fundamental ways: this was not the mere adaptability of a mutable sign, but a deep and vital and continual re-birthing, which is a classically Scorpionic characteristic.

There are also some of the less savoury characteristics of Scorpio, such as the suspicious, paranoid element that goes in for overkill in response to perceived threats and that seems to need a wholly bad enemy on the world stage, whether it is Communism or Terror. And the USA's use of power on the world stage is to a large extent covert. It does not generally go in for a lot of military occupation, like any normal empire, where its power would be visible to all. It has other ways of bending foreign countries to its will.

Then there is Philip Brown’s point about the secret power cabals, operating independently of oversight. In response to this, there seems to be a lot of mistrust of the government on the part of the American people, with high percentages, sometimes even majorities, of the population believing, for example, that the Moon landings were faked or that there are ongoing cover-ups around alien landings, UFOs and alien technologies such as anti-gravity machines and free energy. Which isn’t to say that some of these beliefs might not be right: it’s just the huge amount of mistrust and suspicion surrounding them, which is so Scorpionic, that I’m getting at.

Incidentally, I do find these sorts of conspiracies quite interesting, and I’m always hoping when I occasionally follow one of them up that I’ll find some good supporting evidence. But I never seem to. Maybe my problem is that I’m not fuelled by a need to believe in these things.

It is interesting that the Sibly Chart has gained such a following among American astrologers, for it is so un-Scorpionic. The Sagittarius Rising of the Sibly Chart (July 4 1776, 17.10, Philadelphia) seems to me to describe how America likes to see itself, and the image it wishes to project: generous, expansive, freedom loving, optimistic, and honest. And America is all those things, but it also has a Sun-Jupiter conjunction in Cancer, which does the job adequately. No individual or country finds it easy to look at its own shadow, and America finds it harder than most (as evidenced by its strong need to identify ‘Evil’ out there). Here I’m probably going to put my foot in it, but you could argue that the American fondness for the Sibly Chart expresses its reluctance to acknowledge its own shadow, and this must include America’s astrologers. Whoops! I’m just putting forward a theory! But not without reason. And it works both ways. You Americans can probably see aspects of the British shadow that are hard for me to identify.

So what chart should we use? I think we need to have Scorpio Rising at the very least. There seem to be 2 possibilities here. There is the 2pm chart for 4th July 1776, for which there is a certain amount of evidence. (See Nicholas Campion’s ‘Book of World Horoscopes’ for a detailed discussion of the various possible charts for the USA). And there is the 4pm chart for 2nd July, which I promoted in my blog of 4 Dec. This hasn’t just got Scorpio Rising, it’s got 12th House Scorpio (for the secret cabals), Moon conjunct Pluto and 8th House Sun. It gives the full measure of Pluto/Scorpio which I think a US Chart needs to have. (The 4pm timing is quite uncertain).

9/11 gave a lot of credibility to the Sibly Chart, because the Saturn-Pluto opposition of the time lined up along its ASC/DESC axis. But with the 2nd July Chart, Saturn-Pluto was squaring the MC/IC axis, which given 9/11’s prominence on the world stage (MC) and the way it shook America to its roots (IC), seems to me to be more appropriate.

When looking at mundane charts, it is important to remember that we rarely find one definitive chart for a country. Different charts can express different levels or aspects or incarnations of a country. In the case of the 2 July Chart (the date the vote for Independence took place), Nicholas Campion says: “Even the participants in the drama regarded this vote as the vital event in both political and symbolic terms…” And of the various 4 July Charts he says: “If the vote was taken on 2 July, on 4 July the collective aims, purposes and self-identity of the thirteen new independent states were adopted.”

So take your pick!

THE NEXT AMERICAN PRESIDENT

Under the next US Presidency, which lasts from Jan 2009 to Jan 2013, the Cardinal square from Pluto in early Capricorn to Uranus in early Aries will begin. This will be the next big phase, and testing time, that we collectively have to face.

A leader is characteristic of his/her time, whether or not we like them, and so we would expect a leader's chart to resonate with the major planetary alignments of the period.

I thought I'd test this one by looking at the charts of those Americans who have been President over the last 80 years at the time of a hard aspect between 2 of the outer planets - the times of the most significant change, astrologically speaking - to look for hard transits with their birth charts. And I found it worked every single time, using Sun, Moon Node or Angles.

I got my information from www.astrotheme.fr, and I don't know how reliable they are, particularly as they don't give sources for birth information. Even so, I still found it quite striking.

Herbert Hoover was President from 1929-1933. In the year his Presidency ended, the Uranus-Pluto Square of the time came within a degree of hard aspecting his Node at 24 Aries.

Franklin D Roosevelt was President from 1933 to 1945. His ASC was at 24 Cancer, catching the Uranus-Pluto Square as his Presidency began.

The next major alignment was the Uranus-Neptune Square of the 1950s. Eisenhower had Sun at 21 Libra and Moon at 23 Libra, almost exactly catching the 1954 square from Uranus at 23 Cancer and Neptune at 23 Libra.

Then there was the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in Virgo of the mid to late 1960s. Lyndon B Johnson had ASC, Sun and Moon between 1, 4 and 10 Virgo respectively, and Uranus and Pluto were just finishing with his Moon as he became President in 1963.

George Bush sr has Moon at 18 Libra, which was squared by the Uranus-Neptune conjunction in Capricorn towards the end of his Presidency in 1992.

Bill Clinton has ASC at 18 Libra and MC at 20 Cancer, both of which were hit by the Uranus-Neptune conjunction as his Presidency began.

So what we are looking for in the chart of the next President are significant points in early to mid cardinal signs. Unfortunately, we don't have birth times for most of the official or possible candidates. Philip Brown has done a good job of collating all the charts we have at astrofuturetrends.

John McCain has MC at 16 Cancer and ASC at 18 Libra, and Al Gore has Sun at 11 Aries. So we can count them in.

None of the others - Obama, Giuliani, Clinton, Edwards, Romney - have Sun, Moon or Node in early to mid cardinal signs. What is needed is some good guesswork and rectification around these candidates to see if they might have appropriate Angles. Because however good they might look in the polls, and however good their synastry is with the US chart, they ain't gonna get elected without the right Angles.

SCIENCE AND URANUS-CHIRON

The chart for the first controlled nuclear fission reaction is set for 16.25, 2 Dec 1942, Chicago, Illinois. (Actually 15.25, but Solar Fire software gives the wrong answer!) As such it is a chart for all use of fissile nuclear energy, whether for peaceful or military purposes.

The main symbolic feature of this chart is the Saturn-Uranus conjunction in Gemini: the splitting (Uranus) of matter (Saturn). There could hardly be more apt symbolism. This conjunction is opposite the Sun in Sag, giving us what has become known as the nuclear axis, at about 8-10 Gemini/Sag.

What I am concerned with here, however, is the square that Uranus makes to a tight Chiron-North Node conjunction in Leo – an out of sign square, but still quite tight at 3 degrees. For me, this square is just as significant as the Saturn-Uranus conjunction.

Uranus is the Scientific Mind. Chiron is damage – and the possibility of healing. And the Node suggests some kind of important karmic lesson for humanity. It is Mind (Gemini) vs Heart (Leo).

I think that the achievement of controlled fission was a paradigmatic event for Science: we had finally begun to achieve mastery over Nature at its very core. As such, I think it can be taken as a chart that says something about Science itself. In particular, I think the Uranus-Chiron square is saying that it was a damaged or imbalanced attitude that achieved it, and that this reflects an ongoing problem within the scientific method.

And even at its most safe and peaceful, nuclear power is something that a lot of people have always felt ambivalent about. Even though we may not be able to articulate it, somewhere we feel there is something wrong about nuclear power.

If Uranus-Chiron is saying something important about Science generally, and not just nuclear energy, then we should be able to find a relationship between Uranus-Chiron and scientific breakthroughs.

What I found a couple of years ago is that there is a correlation between the PROLONGED hard aspects of Uranus-Chiron and the pivotal scientific breakthroughs that have changed our relationship to the universe. Because Chiron’s orbit is so elliptical, it sometimes makes hard aspects to Uranus for 30 years or more.

Here is a table:

Aspect......Dates....Event.................Date

Square......1518-50..Publication of........1543
........................Copernicus’ theories

Conjunction.1661-91..Newton’s Laws.........1687
.......................of Motion and Gravity

Square......1805-38..Darwin formulates.....1838
.......................theory of evolution

Opposition..1951-90..Discovery of the......1953
.......................structure of DNA?

What is key about these discoveries is not just the advances in understanding but that THEY CHANGED OUR CONCEPTION OF OURSELVES AND OUR PLACE IN IN THE UNIVERSE. And what they reflect, brilliant as these advances were, is a progressive DISENCHANTMENT, as we gradually moved from a living universe with a divine origin to one based on dead matter that can be manipulated by the use of reason. Both ourselves and the universe were gradually diminished.

The nuclear chart is not in this list, but that was a technological breakthrough, rather than a breakthrough in understanding of the universe. Nor are Einstein’s theories and quantum theory present: they fundamentally changed our understanding of the universe, but you could argue they did not disenchant it: quantum theory moved us away from a mechanical universe, and Einstein’s theories, amongst other things, expanded our notions of space and time.

So they key symbolism in all this is Uranus in hard aspect to Chiron: damaged brilliance. This has been a key theme in the direction of our culture for the last 500 years.

I think the damage lies in the separation between Mind and Heart that we saw in the nuclear chart, and I think it arises out of the very nature of the scientific method. When something is investigated scientifically, it is treated as an OBJECT, and this includes investigation of living things. Pushed to an extreme, this becomes inhuman. The world of living things is made up of subjects, not objects, and part of what makes us human is that we can see this – or rather, FEEL it. If we are taught to believe that the only real knowledge is scientific, and that our capacity for feeling does not contribute to this knowledge, then we become de-humanised. Yet this way of thinking has been a powerful current in our culture for a long time now. And it’s understandable because the scientific method has been spectacularly successful. So it’s natural to start thinking that science is telling us how the universe actually is, not just part of how it is.

To my mind this is the central problem of science: it does actually tell us a lot of important things about the universe, and yet its methods inevitably tend towards de-humanising us. The universe has to be treated AS IF it is purely an object, and being imperfect human beings, we will gradually start to feel that it IS just an object. This is how I interpret that square between Uranus and Chiron.

I think it is a problem that we were destined to meet sooner or later, it is not just an aberration. And the problem is now very much ‘out there’, as we encounter climate change and a diminished environment, brought about by a dissociation of mind from feeling.

I don’t know what the answer is, except to say that somehow the scientific/technological/ rational mind needs to be brought into a healthy feeling relationship with nature. Which is something we all know.

Mythologically, there aren’t many stories about Uranus, though we do know that he was tyrannical – like the scientific mind can be in relation to other ways of knowing – and he was divorced from instinct (through being castrated by his son Saturn). It has been argued, by e.g. Liz Greene and Richard Tarnas, that in many ways Prometheus better embodies the astrological qualities of the planet Uranus and the sign he rules, Aquarius.

Interestingly, there is a mythological connection between Prometheus and Chiron, which I think tells us something about the meaning of the Uranus-Chiron square and therefore about this problem in our modern consciousness.

Prometheus was a Titan who had a strong desire to help mankind better itself. He taught us all the human skills and sciences. This did not go down well with Zeus, the king of the gods, who wanted to destroy mankind. Zeus grew more and more angry at humanity’s increasing abilities and powers. Prometheus was contemptuous of Zeus’ attitude. He taunted and humiliated him, and brought fire to mankind against Zeus’ express wishes. This was the last straw, and Zeus had Prometheus chained naked to a pillar high in the Caucasus Mountains, where everyday a vulture pecked out his liver, and every night his liver grew back again.

In this story Zeus seems to embody that part of our nature that doesn’t want to become conscious. He symbolises collective humanity that can feel threatened by people who have their own, individual values, rather like the rednecks in the film Easy Rider who shoot the hippy motorcyclists, hating their difference to themselves and secretly envying them their freedom.

In my opinion, however, it was Prometheus who was primarily at fault. He could have got away with bringing fire to mankind if he had been more diplomatic, if he had not deliberately taunted Zeus. Zeus was not really at fault – he was simply nature being nature. Prometheus’ fault lay in his hubris, his over-identification with the cause of advancing mankind, and his consequent failure to pay his dues to nature.

Modern Science, at its worst, is in some ways like Prometheus. It desires progress for humanity, but using only that part of our nature that observes, measures and reasons. In its hubris, scientific and technological progress comes to be seen as the only real progress. Our instinctual nature, that has its own ways of knowing, and that is the source of our life energy, is relegated and discounted. What results is a humanity that is only half-alive, a humanity that, perhaps without knowing it, is suffering like Prometheus in the Caucasus Mountains.

In the myth, Prometheus is rescued by Chiron, and it is here that we see the creative potential of the astrological Uranus-Chiron relationship. Chiron was known as the wisest and most righteous of the centaurs. He became the king of the centaurs, and brought up many of the heroes and sons of the gods. One day he was accidentally wounded in the knee by an arrow, let off by Hercules, that had been dipped in the poisonous blood of the Hydra. Chiron was in agony, and the wound would not heal.

After many years of this, Chiron tired of life. However, being an immortal, he could not die. Eventually, however, he did a deal with Zeus, whereby Prometheus was released from his torture, and Chiron descended to the underworld and suffered death in Prometheus’ place. Moved by Chiron’s actions, Zeus placed him in the constellation Sagittarius in the sky.

Chiron was a centaur – half human, half horse – so his wisdom is of a sort that is not alienated from nature. It is a wisdom that grows out of nature and therefore takes into account the whole being. Chiron rescuing Prometheus represents a transformed Science that does not undervalue any of our human faculties and that does not disenchant the universe. So the myth is saying that to re-enchant our universe we need to become part of nature again – the horse - whilst not denying that which makes us different from the rest of nature – the human body emerging from the horse. There needs to be a creative synthesis between the human and the animal which, because it exists in the figure of Chiron, is a real possibility rather than just a nice idea. This seems to be the central message for us in this myth, and therefore the central healing message contained within the astrological Uranus-Chiron.

This healing occurs through Chiron’s descent into the Underworld, which ends his suffering, as well as Prometheus’. This may seem to contradict the alleged incurability of his wound, but I think it is only incurable if addressed on its own level. The collective Chiron is incurable, because collective humanity doesn’t think in terms of radically transforming itself. Here Chiron simply reflects some of the inherent limitations of the human situation. On an individual level, however, it would seem that Chiron’s wound is curable – if we are prepared to be radical enough, if we are prepared, like him, to descend into the Underworld. Perhaps Chiron in the individual chart could be said to reflect where we need to engage in this sort of transformation, or suffer the consequences!

So becoming a part of nature again is not an easy process, because it involves this descent into the Underworld, a death and a rebirth. It involves being torn apart and put together again. It involves surrendering everything we think we know. It is not something we can ‘add on’ to our present selves, which is exactly how the one-sided rational intelligence thinks. That is not the nature of real transformation. The scientific attitude, which has the illusion that it can understand and control nature, has to be surrendered. The rational mind itself, which has overreached itself in our culture and suffers from the illusion that it alone has real knowledge, needs to be surrendered. It is life that is king, not the human rational intelligence and will. Our ability to observe, measure and theorise needs to be in the service of our whole being and the whole of life, rather than attempting to dominate it. The rational, scientific attitude goes very deep in our culture, it has become one of its foundations. So it is not surprising that the services of Pluto are required to transform it. However, I think that this sort of transformation is unlikely for large parts of our culture, particularly as Science continues to be so successful on a material level. But at least the individual is free, if necessary, to undergo this death and rebirth.

What this transformation is perhaps reaching out towards is something primordial, an ancient memory of what we were like before Science and before Christianity. What we may encounter in Pluto’s realm is Chiron in the following form:
“In an old vase-painting he appears in a robe covered with stars, with an uprooted tree over his shoulder carrying his spoils of the chase, and with his dog beside him: a savage hunter and dark god.” (1)

This encounter in the Underworld may result in the emergence of a new type of consciousness, a merging of this dark god of old with the critical intelligence and self-awareness of the modern mind. It is this, perhaps, that the North Node in the nuclear chart is pointing to – it is speaking of our destiny as human beings, which is to resolve these apparent opposites: our rationality and self-awareness, with all its Uranian freedom and radical insights; and the deep well of instinct, natural wisdom and enchantment that Chiron embodies.

(1) The Gods of the Greeks by Kerenyi p160. Quoted in The Astrology of Fate by Liz Greene.

EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL BOLLOCKS?

Lynn over at astrodynamics reproduced an article currently doing the rounds, connecting up junk DNA with Extra-terrestrial life forms. She rightly connected it to the current Uranus-Jupiter square. I also got this article as an email the other day, and I do find it an interesting idea which may have something in it.

The trouble is that the science in it is COMPLETE BOLLOCKS. And – this is my point – I am often amazed how otherwise intelligent and educated people (and I don’t mean Lynn!) can’t spot it.

In the case of this article, the crucial bollocks comes early on: ‘The alien chunks within Human DNA, Professor Chang further observes, "have its own veins, arteries, and its own immune system that vigorously resists all our anti-cancer drugs."’ Now DNA, as we all know, resides in the nucleus of a cell. How then can it have veins and arteries? If you ignore this, some of the rest kind of follows. Or does he mean tissue and veins and immune system coded for by this DNA? The chain from DNA code through to tissue etc is incredibly complex, and a long way from understood in specific detail, as far as I am aware.

It’s also possible the article is a spoof.

Another spoof is the car that runs on water. There is a website devoted to this, and it shows how you have a battery that through electrolysis separates the water into oxygen and hydrogen, and then various technical drawings for an engine that can burn hydrogen to make wheels go round. And people really do believe this, and think it’s the big car companies suppressing new technologies (which they may be – but not this one!) The point is, where do you get the energy from to charge the battery in the first place? What large scale source of energy do we have to do this for millions of cars, apart from oil? Once you’ve got the energy source, it’s easy to design an engine that uses it. And this website has got all sorts of rave feedback from readers and just one lone voice of sanity trying to point out what I’ve just pointed out.

I studied Science up until I was 18, and that was 30 years ago. I tend to assume that educated people at least know the basics so they can’t be hoodwinked, but they often seem not to. We must be reaching the Age of Aquarius, where instead of being bamboozled by Religion (Pisces), we are being bamboozled by Science (Aquarius).

Junk DNA makes up about 97% of our genome, it’s a huge blank area for people to project whatever they want to onto it, and you can be certain they will. Giving a fraudulent scientific basis to the possible functions of junk DNA will facilitate this process. I think that this new myth has got a lot of mileage in it, and there’s plenty of room for accusing the biological researchers of a cover-up. It’s an ancient myth that we come from somewhere else, and this is just the latest take, adapted to the scientific world that we live in.

That said, it doesn’t mean this new myth isn’t true. One take I have is that we find loads of junk DNA in all organisms. Nature isn’t normally wasteful. Everything has a specific and elegant function. I suspect we’ll eventually work out what this “junk” is for, but maybe we won’t – maybe it is alien code!

Within junk DNA (as well as elsewhere in the genome), you get Transposons: “Transposons are sequences of DNA that can move around to different positions within the genome of a single cell, a process called transposition. In the process, they can cause mutations and change the amount of DNA in the genome.” (Wikipedia) Maybe Transposons are alien life forms that direct the course of our evolution? Something, to my mind, seems to be directing our evolution, so why not aliens?

MY NEPTUNE TRANSIT (AGAIN)

If someone has a strong Neptune/Pisces/12th House emphasis in their natal chart, you can be pretty sure they’re going to be empathic/psychic/intuitive/imaginative types. (They are also sometimes very controlled in their lives, as if in fear of the chaos within). However, what I’ve found is that people can be like this without much in the way of Neptune etc in the chart, without anything that, as far as I can see, points to it. Why this should be I don’t know. One person I know who is quite psychically gifted has very little water or Neptune, but does have a Sun, Moon, Jupiter, Uranus Grand Trine in Fire. Anyone got any ideas?

I don’t myself have a particularly pronounced Neptunian influence, in the sense of my Sun, Moon or Angles being involved, but Neptune is part of a t-Square with Jupiter, Node, Mercury, Venus and Uranus. I think Neptune comes out in me when I do Astrology or Tarot, but via my mind (Mercury). People say I use a lot of intuition when I do readings, and they’re probably right, but I’m not aware of it. I can always justify what I say in terms of the symbols in front of me, and I often try to get the other person also to see the connection. But there are always any number of interpretations, and I think the intuition comes in my ability to put together the symbols with what the person has told me about themselves, and make the leap that reveals a truth about the person.

As I said in my blog of 2 January, Neptune will come within 1½ degrees of conjoining my Sun this year. It is currently exactly 5 degrees away, which seems to be about when these transits start to become noticeable. I have had a desire growing in me to be able to do ‘readings’ for people, or to talk usefully to them, without an intermediary such as astrology or Tarot. In other words, to become the sort of Neptunian person that I’m not natally, but which Neptune may be turning me into by transit.

Neptune transits can put you to sleep (e.g. when bits of you disappear, due to tough conditions, when you’re a kid), and they can also wake you up. I have a sense that this transit is going to wake me up to the sort of person I am in quite a significant way. I probably shouldn’t be saying all this, but if I do it right I don’t think Neptune will mind too much.

My natal Sun is in the 4th House (all my personal planets are below the horizon) in Aquarius, conjunct Chiron and opposite Pluto. It has always been problematic for me being ‘at home’ in myself (4th House). When Neptune squared my Sun aged 8, I began my 10 years at boarding school, which was a literal loss (Neptune) of home (4th House Sun). 40 years later, as Neptune comes to conjoin my Sun, it feels like in a much deeper sense I will find my home.

I was brought up to believe that what mattered was DOING, making lots of money, keeping busy and achieving: Thatcherite values, which might have suited me if I’d had more planets above the horizon. (I’ve always thought it interesting, as a reflection on Margaret Thatcher’s values, that her son made money from arms dealing, and is now a pariah, having been caught trying to finance a coup in Equatorial Guinea. He was at the same school as me.)

So this has been a lot to do with why I haven’t felt properly at home in myself, why I haven’t KNOWN myself. I have been at war with these values which are within myself and which I think, in their one-sided form, are so pernicious in our society. It has been a 30 year war of attrition, but the good guys are gradually winning.

If you’re functioning from Saturn, you’ll do well to aim for concrete achievement, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If you’re functioning from Neptune, he cannot be ‘used’ in this sort of way. Neptune’s values are the opposite of Saturn’s; they are not of this world. If you believe measurable achievement is the main thing, Neptune gets shut out.

I have a sense – and this is where I don’t want to pre-empt Neptune – that my real nature is much more Neptunian, much more intuitive and connected to some other source, than I have ever realised. I feel strongly drawn to the idea of being that sort of person, which to me means it’s probably for real. Despite my lack of natal Neptune.

THE ASTROLOGICAL AGES

The Age of Aquarius has no clear starting point. The various ages are based around the fact that the vernal equinox moves backwards very slowly, due to the way the earth spins (Confession: I don’t understand it). The vernal equinox, which occurs in spring when the day and night are of equal length, is the point at which the Sun is at 0 Aries, and this point moves backwards in relation to the constellations at a rate of about 1 degree every 70 years. Our astrology does not take this into account (though Vedic astrology does), so that for what we would call say 24 Sag, the Vedics would lop off about 23 degrees (the amount the zodiac has shifted since about 90BC), and call it one degree Sag. So the point we call 0 Aries - the beginning of the astrological year - has been moving backwards and is now, in reality, somewhere in early Pisces. Which makes this the Piscean Age. When it reaches Aquarius, we will be in the Aquarian Age.

When it will do this is a matter of debate. Do we, for example, treat the constellations as they actually are, or do we use the artificial division into 30 degrees each that our astrology uses?

Whenever that date is, it is clear to me that we are moving from the Piscean Age to the Aquarian Age, if only from the point of view of what is the defining source of knowledge in our western culture. The ultimate source of authority in the Piscean Age was Christianity, whose central motif is the figure of Christ on the Cross – a Piscean motif, if there ever was one. Our new priests of the unseen are the scientists, science has become the ultimate source of authority. And Science is associated with Aquarius.

In my blog the other day ‘The Galactic Age of Sagittarius’, I was arguing, based on the equally slow movement of the Galactic Centre, that we live in a Sagittarian Age, an era of ‘sky religion’, where the ultimate nature of things is to be found in the Christian heaven, or the Muslim paradise etc, though that age is coming to an end, and in 200 years we will be in the Galactic Age of Capricorn.

To say that we are moving from the Piscean Age to the Aquarian Age is the conventional way of seeing things, and it makes sense. The Galactic Ages are my own invention, and they also make sense. But now that the Galactic Centre is part of astrology - and its presence is undeniably fundamental - I think we have to view its 2100 year journey through each sign also as an important Age in itself. So how do we reconcile these 2 systems?

The 2 systems are coming from opposite ends of the psyche. The first system is based on the apparent movement of the Sun in relation to the constellations – that which is brightest and most conscious and differentiated within ourselves; and the other system is based on the movement of the Galactic Centre in relation to the constellations – that which is most unconscious and least differentiated in us, but which is no less powerful for that, and which connects us to our primordial origins and the universal process of evolution.

So with these 2 different symbolisms being in relation to each other, we are in a position to give more clarity to each of them. The Solar Piscean Age (as I shall call it) is not just an age where things are more generally Piscean. It is more specifically an Age where the individual, differentiated consciousness, the ideal human being, if you like, is pointed in a Piscean direction, thinks of itself in Piscean terms. And the ideal human in this Age has been the Saint, one who is above worldly desires, connected to God and working for the benefit of others.

The Galactic Ages connect us to the whole process of unfoldment of matter-consciousness, from singularity to universe and back again, and the meaning of that journey. The Galactic Ages, in other words, deal with cosmology – our conception of the universe in its totality, and by extension, humanity’s place in it. In the west, we are drawing towards the end of the Sagittarian Age, which began in about 80AD, and has had a Christian cosmology as its most defining influence: the universe was created by God, who is a sky god, somewhere up there, and who is also an authoritarian, jealous, fundamentalist God. These are all Sagittarian themes.

The Solar Piscean Age has to a large extent overlapped with the Galactic Sagittarian Age. These signs are square to each other, which suggests that our creation myths – as found in the Old Testament – and our ideal human being, in the form of Christ, do not rest easily together. Christ’s message was one of love, whereas the Old Testament universe was ruled by fear of God. And this contradiction runs right through the church, particularly in its orthodox Catholic form. At the same time, both signs are Jupiter ruled, and the God of the Old Testament is held to be the same God as that of the New Testament.

So what does the future hold? What are the natures of the Solar and Galactic Ages we are moving into, those of Aquarius and Capricorn respectively? I think we can see signs of them already. In the Solar Aquarian Age, the ideal human is rational, scientific, benevolent, forward-thinking, original, individualistic and non-conformist. We can see this emphasis in schools – R.E. (religious education) has a lowly place on the curriculum, the Piscean saint is no longer our ideal. Whereas Science has a very prominent place in the curriculum. And the education system concentrates on the development of the rational mind – one-sidedly, some might argue. And the universe we are moving into – the new Galactic Age - is no longer one created and ruled by Yahweh, by God’s Law (Sagittarius), but one based on Natural Law (Capricorn).

This process is still in a transitional stage, as we have not reached these new Ages. But the combination of Aquarius and Capricorn is an interesting one. On the one hand, we can see them working well together: the scientific Aquarian living in a universe governed by natural law. And to the extent that the co-ruler of Aquarius is Saturn, which also rules Capricorn, this will work well. But Aquarius is also ruled by Uranus the rebel, and will feel trapped in a cosmology that is too relentlessly mechanical.

In 2000 years or so, the Solar and Galactic Age points will coincide (in late Capricorn or early Aquarius), an event that only happens about every 12,750 years. It is a point at which humanity can feel fully at home in the universe, when we’re not scratching our heads, so to speak, and wondering why we are here, and putting ourselves at odds with nature. The last time this conjunction occurred would have been around 8750BC, just before agriculture became widespread and large-scale settlements arose. It was a time before ‘civilisation’ and developed technologies and all the problems that come with them, when we would have known our place in the universe much more clearly.

So in 2000 years or so we will have another chance to feel at home in the universe. We have taken the evolutionary steps of developing technologies and civilisations, but it has inevitably put us at odds with nature, and alienated us from the instinctive knowledge that we too are part of nature. Perhaps, in 2000 years time, as the Solar and Galactic Ages come together again, we will find that new synthesis, and then begin on the next cycle of evolution.

CHIRON IN AQUARIUS

There is a debate raging in the UK at present about the proposed production of human/mammal hybrid embryos for the purposes of medical research. Human egg cells are hard to procure in any quantity, so the idea is to get hold of say a rabbit egg cell, remove the nuclear DNA, put in human DNA, and allow the cells to multiply for a few days to create an embryo on which experiments can then be carried out. The embryo would then be destroyed. We are assured the embryo would not be a hybrid, but 99% human.

Half of me shudders at this proposal, and the other half is excited by what could be achieved. And this reflects the divisions we find amongst people around scientific progress, though what I usually encounter there is partisan support for one side or the other. Public debates about anything seem to be characterised by polarisation, and even otherwise intelligent people often see just one side of many important questions.

The one I encounter most is health care, where you have the conventional medical establishment rubbishing alternative medicine such as homeopathy, and you get some alternative medical practitioners really reluctant to give any credibility to conventional medicine. They’re as bad as each other in my book.

One of our government ministers has recently rubbished organic food, saying there is no scientific evidence that it is more nutritious (fair enough), but then dismissing it as a ‘lifestyle choice’. The minister, David Milliband, is a ghastly young Labour man, and his patronising attitude makes me want to punch him, hard. On the other side of the debate, I know proponents of organic food who dismiss the scientific argument without even investigating it – they have a gut level conviction that organic food is better (which it may well be), but which they do not feel the need to justify.

In the case of genetic engineering, I think I’m the only person I know who thinks there might be benefits as well as drawbacks to it. People simply don’t want to know. And these same people consider their viewpoint to be in some way more enlightened. Well I don’t. To my mind it’s just ignorance, the same sort of ignorance, or unexamined gut-level response, that creates the mob mentality.

An example I like to give is that of the use of bacteria to produce human growth hormone. The relevant DNA from a human is spliced into some bacteria, which are then allowed to multiply, and the hormone is harvested and used to supplement a lack of it in some children, who would otherwise grow up to be dwarves. As far as I know the bacteria have not escaped into the wild and produced mutant monsters. This bit of genetic engineering seems to me to be such a good thing. But you won’t get the anti-GM brigade giving it any credit. They’re probably the same people who in recent years managed to deprive dwarves of a livelihood by stopping the film/theatrical world from using them to play the parts of children.

One of the arguments used against scientific progress is that it may be misused. The critics are right. Any scientific advance that can be misused almost certainly will be misused. Which probably applies to most scientific advances. But on its own, it is not a sufficient argument against any particular scientific advance. It is just one factor to be taken into account.

I suppose at this point I’d better drag in some astrology, or I’d have got you here under false pretences. What struck me about the human/animal hybrid issue is that it is occurring with Chiron in Aquarius. And in July, Chiron will reach the middle of Aquarius, a point which can describe the defining issues of a planet in a sign (like Pluto being 3 months short of 15 Sag when 9/11 occurred).

Chiron is uniquely part human and part animal. He is a centaur, and he is wounded. And he is in the sign of Aquarius, the scientist. Chiron is moving towards Neptune in Aquarius, so maybe we also have the figure of the mad (Neptune) scientist, one who is blurring the boundaries (Neptune) between animal and human (Chiron).

Knowing that there is this symbolism behind the issue has affected how I feel about it. It makes me want to give more credence to the side that shudders at these experiments, because the symbolism is telling me there is something wounded about it.

A good book on this subject is H.G.Wells’ ‘The Island of Dr Moreau’, a short, visionary novel, published in 1896, about a mad scientist who creates human/animal hybrids. It’s a gripping read, and the full text can be found on the internet.

There is a connection between Chiron and Uranus, the ruler of Aquarius, and scientific advance, which I did some research into, but I’ll leave that for another blog.

THE GALACTIC AGE OF SAGITTARIUS

Well I got up to Christmas time and I thought I’m going to have a week off blogging, I want a break, and before I knew it I’d done 5 posts in succession on the Galactic Centre. And all out of my own head, because the GC hasn’t yet got much in the way of accepted astrological meaning.

Before I say any more, I have to declare an interest: I have the Galactic Centre conjunct my Saturn, widely conjunct my Moon, and sextile both my Sun and Ascendant. With my Saturn and GC in the 3rd House, it is not surprising that I should be writing about it. And with a staid planet like Saturn being the strongest aspect, the GC is not so likely to go to my head, as it can so easily do. But it also means I am less likely to do something earth-changing. I’m just likely to do quite a good job of writing about it – giving ‘form’ to it. And it happened because I let go of Saturn, so to speak, in deciding to have a break from blogging.

The Galactic Centre is at just under 27 Sag, and moves at just under a minute a year. From the point of view of a human lifetime, it is effectively stationary. It will move just over 1 degree in the course of a human life. So instead of one fixed point – the earth – astrology now has two, one very close to home, and one extremely distant, with the planets and their cycles positioned between them. (The stars, of course, are also fixed, but in our astrology they are a background that shapes, rather than elements of the psyche). These planets – or gods – partake of both fixed points. From the point of view of the earth, these gods are like us, only more powerful. From the point of view of the Galactic Centre, these gods are archetypal forces, elusive and subtle enough to be an expression of Absolute or primordial consciousness, consciousness as it was before time and space and the universe unfolded from its black hole ‘singularity’. That was a bit of a mouthful, wasn’t it?

So the planets mediate between ourselves and what we feel to be the ultimate nature of things (which is not something fixed, but alive and vast and beyond the grasp of any one human consciousness). And as the planets move outwards, they become less recognisably human and more the expression of something other, something bigger and wider than ourselves. If there is anything that Pluto is not, it is a human being. Pluto represents the death of everything that to us is ordinary and human – and in that death lies the possibility of an experience of something very real, not conditioned by the fears and insecurities and delusions that seem to be part of being human. Funny thing, but whenever I write about Pluto I feel him turn up in the room behind me. I'm sure he won't mind me telling you.

From a wider point of view, the Galactic Centre is not a fixed point. It moves through a complete sign in about 2150 years. Which means that it moved into Sagittarius in about 80 AD, and into Scorpio in about 2100 BC.

It’s about the same time-scale – 25000 years for the whole cycle – as the precession of the equinoxes, which gives rise to the various ages, and describes the apparent slow movement of the Sun at 0 Aries in relation to the astrological constellations. (We are currently moving from the Piscean Age to the Aquarian Age, which is allegedly an age of brotherhood. Huh!) They are probably therefore astronomically related phenomena, and perhaps someone could enlighten me here? I guess the answer is that the GC moves along with the stars in relation to the Sun, it is part of the same background, and its movement through Sag is part of the same fiction, due to precession, that we tell ourselves about the signs the planets are in. Presumably the GC occupies a fixed place in the sky at about 4 Sag, and always has done, if you include the precession of the equinoxes (like the Vedic astrologers do). Or am I completely muddled? Can anyone follow me?

So this slow movement of the GC suggests that humanity’s relationship to the Absolute changes over time, we see it through different eyes. We are currently in what we could call the Sagittarian Galactic Age (which has about 200 years to go), and before that we were in the Scorpionic Age. What might this mean? You could say that this relationship to the Absolute is the most fundamental relationship of all. It concerns why we are here at all and what constitutes a fruitful life. It concerns the metaphysical underpinning to life, on which we all have our own ideas, formulated or unformulated, wrong-headed and derivative or intelligent and considered. It concerns religion and ‘spirituality’.

You could say that the present Sagittarian Age is one of sky religion, often of a fundamentalist nature, which fits well the meaning of Sagittarius, as well as fitting in well with what has been going on, in the ‘civilised world’ at least, for the last 2000 odd years. The real nature of things is not to be encountered here on earth but somewhere else, in the Christian heaven or in the Muslim paradise or, in Buddhism, beyond the endless round of death and re-birth. And people often hold these beliefs dogmatically, particularly when they are part of a religious organisation or society where you believe what you believe because your neighbour does.

So it looks like we have another 200 years of this to go before we start to see the Galactic Centre through another lens. But 200 years is also a short time, it is only 10% of the GC’s time in a sign. And though there is no lack of religious fundamentalism in the world, it has nevertheless become possible in the last few hundred years to opt out of the religious orthodoxies, and it is this, perhaps, that is the sign that the GC is gradually coming to the end of its time in Sagittarius. I don’t think ‘sky religion’ is all bad – it’s just not to my taste. I don’t see anything in principle wrong in seeing life in terms of light and transcendence. And the idea of an immortal spirit does appeal to me. It’s just that Sagittarius often also has a well-known reluctance to engage with the earth element running alongside, and informing, its enthusiasm for light and transcendence. And this reluctance weakens people and makes them vulnerable to the crusading, dogmatic element, with all its false certainties, that we also find in Sagittarius.

This disregard for the earth element is reflected, as the GC nears its term in Sag, in our environmental crisis. Chiron (not the usual asteroid) is the image that makes up the constellation Sagittarius, and he is also an image of nature wounded: he has the body of a horse that has an incurable injury to its knee.

In Europe, the time when it was least possible to be heretical was probably from around 1000 to 1500 AD, when the Catholic Church was at its most powerful, and this would have started around the time the GC reached the middle part of Sagittarius; just as, in our own time, Pluto reached the middle of Sagittarius in 2001 at the same time as militant Islam reached a peak through 9/11 and the events following on from it.

So what might the Galactic Centre in Scorpio have meant – i.e. from about 2100BC to about 80AD? Scorpio is a strongly instinctual sign, for Scorpios the instincts and nature are what is sacred and a source of power (Scorpio). This is much more characteristic of tribal, ‘pre-civilised’ religion than it is of Sagittarius, and this is what, to a much greater extent, we would have found in those times. A friend of mine who is Native American, and a teacher from the Chippewa-Cree tradition, refuses to speculate about what came before or will come after this life – for him it is unknowable – and his ideal is to be a balanced human being, entirely content to be here on the earth.

Scorpio is also associated with the planting of a seed – just as a Pluto (Scorpio’s ruler) transit can plant the seed of some new way of being, and just as Christopher Columbus planted the seed of New World settlement through reaching America in 1492, while Pluto was in Scorpio. A seed is something small and hidden, yet powerful in its unfoldment.

The ‘Axial Age’, a coined termed by Karl Jaspers, lasted from 800 to 200BC, while the Galactic Centre was in Scorpio, and was a time when many of the early revolutionary thinkers/mystics were alive in Europe, India and China, men such as Confucius, the Buddha, the authors of the Upanishads, and many of the Greek thinkers. During this period, according to Jaspers, “the spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently... And these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today". (Wikipedia)

As with the events around the GC in Sag peaking in the middle of the sign, so too did the Axial Age begin soon after the Galactic Centre reached the middle of Scorpio.

So what might characterise the Age we are moving into, the Galactic Age of Capricorn? The GC is nearing the end of Sag, so we might expect to see a few signs of what GC in Capricorn might be, even though it’s 200 years away. What immediately springs to mind is the religion of materialism. I don’t think there was ever a Golden Age when humanity was not materialistic. It’s just that we’re a lot better at it these days, to the point where the creation of wealth for wealth’s sake has become a sort of widespread religion, an ultimate value that gives meaning to many people’s lives, or so they think. Even the creation of the wealth we need to live on is given an inflated moral value, particularly in the USA. (So you can take care of yourself - good, now do something interesting!) All this is a relatively recent phenomenon, and may therefore signal the Age to come: the Age of Mammon! It may be that we ain’t seen nothing yet when it comes to mankind’s ability to worship material wealth. More positively, it may be an age when people with real wisdom, based on age and experience, will come to be valued more – hierarchy in the best sense. Sagittarius, with its bias towards the ‘puer’ archetype, reflects our modern youth culture that does not know how to value old people. And the tendency of organised religion to worship dead images of perfection instead of valuing real people. What we're likely to get in the Capricornian Age is the 'senex' archetype, which at its worst is the "appalling old waxworks" - Prince Charles' description of the current Chinese leaders.

IRAQI LEADERS CALL FOR A MOMENT OF VIOLENCE DURING RAMADAN

From

ansur.blogspot.com

, posted on Oct 17 2006, at a time when Venus was opposite Eris -'Harmony through Strife':

IRAQI LEADERS CALL FOR MOMENT OF VIOLENCE DURING RAMADAN

October 17, 2006

BAGHDAD—A coalition of sectarian leaders from the approximately 185 separate political and insurgent groups vying for dominance in Iraq called for a nationwide moment of violence, to be held shortly before noon Friday in the remaining days of Ramadan.

Leaders from some of Iraq's many warring factions called for a unified moment of violence to mark the blessed month of Ramadan.

"All of us fighting for control of this land, whether Baathists, Sunni militants, al-Qaeda sympathizers, al-Sadrites, or just plain street criminals, have one thing in common," read a statement released Monday by the ad-hoc group. "We all share a deep abiding commitment to the indiscriminate use of murder, mayhem, and massacre as a means of achieving our various ends."

"Therefore," the statement continued, "this Ramadan, we shall take time to see past the things that separate us, and celebrate, together, a moment of horrifying brutality for the citizens of Iraq."

According to Monday's statement, leaders deemed Ramadan—the holiest month of the Muslim calendar, in which fasting, prayer, acts of charity, and most importantly, rigorous self-examination and purification are required of the devout—"the perfect time to put others first, whether in the path of an SA-7 anti-aircraft rocket or the blast radius of an improvised explosive device."

Though attendance is voluntary, organizers have strongly encouraged all Iraqi Muslims to participate. Several marketplaces and mosques throughout the country have announced extended hours on Friday, Eid al-Fitr, the Festival Of Fast-Breaking, in anticipation of the activity the moment of violence will bring.

Organizers, such as Sheikh Yusef al-Karim, leader of the small Islamist faction Righteous Blade Of Allah, hope that the moment of violence will allow Iraqis an opportunity for meditative and reflective stabbing, beating, or shooting of their brethren.

"We must set aside a special, holy time to visit death and destruction on our neighbors."
--Rebel Leader Muqtada al Sadr

"In this time of great chaos, rare is the chance for individuals to look deep into their hearts and ask themselves the truly important questions about who they want to kill," said al-Karim, whose group has claimed responsibility for the beheadings of 10 foreign workers in the last six months. "This is when we all should put aside worldly concerns, and remember that what is truly important: harming others."

Militant Iraqis confessing a weariness with relentless violence also hoped the moment of violence would renew their commitment to violence.

"I took the time to really do some good killing in Basra last year, and it definitely helped me rejuvenate and refocus," said one Shi'ite assassin, who wished to remain nameless due to several ongoing manhunts led by coalition forces. "But really, with proper concentration, anyone can achieve that same oneness and serenity in the time it takes to tie a person to a radiator in a foul-smelling, windowless room and torture him."

Rival Sunni separatist Omar Muhammed Bakr agreed.
"In this month of fasting and prayer, we should ponder the mutual rage, hatred, and bloodlust we all share," Bakr said. "This Ramadan, let us all take the time for a moment of quiet conflagration, a moment to turn to your neighbor, look him in his infidel eyes, and send him to hell in a burst of gunfire."

In response to the announcement, Secretary Of Defense Donald Rumsfeld pledged a deployment of an additional 3,500 U.S. troops to join in the special ceremonial hostilities, as a show of solidarity with the Iraqi cause.

"When the moment comes, we will be there right beside the Iraqis with rockets, armored convoys, and possibly even a new air campaign to commemorate this historic event," Rumsfeld said. "This is about all of us."

Organizers did voice private concerns, however, that outside insurgents could disrupt the sanctity of their unified national moment by launching rocket attacks, staging executions, or setting off car bombs throughout the country.

While Inside the United States...

Jerry Falwell, of the 700 Club, announced today that although he normally condemns all of the actions of any followers of Islam—because they were following a false God, this one time they really did come up with a good idea.

Therefore, during the Holy Christmas Season, Reverend Farwell would like to see some killing and murder between the 5500 sects of Christianity. He said, “We could start off by setting the Methodists against the Presbyterians. Then follow that up with an exchange of gunshots between the Evangelical Churches and the Baptists.”

However, later, Rev. Falwell said, “But before we go our separate ways, all the Christian factions should unite to eliminate the unchristian cults in our midst and massacre the Mormons, Catholics, Unitarians, Christian Scientists, and especially, those Jehovah Witnesses! And we need to remember to bomb any Abortion Clinics that get between our warring factions.”

Other conservative Christian Groups have joined Rev. Falwell in his plea to turn the Christmas Season into a final unifying celebration of death that will eliminate all the contesting denominations--thereby leaving only one faction supreme. “God will know His own!” He said, “And only his final chosen will be able to worship George W. in the freedom of a new age of Christian Unity and Control. That will be a truly Merry Christmas.”

Amen

ISRAEL, IRAN and MARS

Uranus makes it final square to the Iran-Israel composite Mars in the early hours of this coming Friday, 12th January. After that the likelihood of a surprise surgical strike by Israel on Iran's nuclear installations begins to recede, but remains distinctly possible, until the end of the year.

The main article in the Sunday Times today detailed plans released by the Israelis as to exactly how they would destroy Iran's facilities. The plans were presumably released yesterday, a day in which the Moon passed over Israel's natal Mars at 28 Leo.

It seems that Iran has 3 main installations, 2 of which could be taken out by conventional bombing/missiles, and the 3rd of which would require a bunker-busting bomb (don't the Americans call them daisy cutters?), followed by a 'tactical' nuclear warhead of about 1 kiloton (1/15 the size of Hiroshima) which would explode underground and destroy the centrifuge facility, which is currently under 70ft of concrete and is, apparently, the most heavily guarded site in the world.

Though it may be some years until the Iranians have a bomb, they will have developed the know-how within 2 years, and it is this as much as anything that the Israelis want to stop. The President of Iran has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, and it would be entirely in character for Israel to launch a successful surgical strike.

When Israel was founded in 1948, they immediately faced attack by a whole gang of Arab states, and they beat them off. I have to admire them. Israel has Mars in Leo, and they are fearsome warriors. (Which doesn't mean I don't also think it might have been better if Israel had never existed in the 1st place. We have the 19th century pogroms to blame for that, and fundamentalist Christianity to blame for the pogroms, and Roman imperialism to blame for both the Jewish diaspora and the rise of Christianity...)

If Iran is attacked, they are liable to close down the Straits of Hormuz, through which passes 20% of the world's oil. The British and Americans have recently sent naval ships, including an aircraft carrier, to that area, which apparently they would have no reason to do unless they were expecting some kind of action by Iran.

Why has Israel released these plans? There's no point sabre-rattling with Iran, they're going to carry on as they are anyway. It must be to prepare the world for what they are going to do, and to be able to say that they had warned Iran. It would suit George Bush at present, because the more trouble there is in the Middle East, particularly with a 'terrorist' nation like Iran, the more likely he is to get the backing to send extra troops to its neighbour Iraq.

Countries like Saudi Arabia, which are ruled by Sunnis, would be only too happy to see Shia Iran stopped in its tracks. BUT Pakistan is a nuclear power, currently run by a military dictatorship that has to appease its fundamentalist Islamic constituency. An attack by Israel on Iran may well tip the balance in Pakistan and lead to the fundamentalists gaining power. Then there really would be nuclear trouble. It's the law of unintended consequences. Like the invasion of Iraq leading to a Shia Iraq becoming buddies with its Shia neighbour, and arch-enemy of the USA, Iran.

On the face of it, I would like to see Iran stopped from developing nuclear know-how. George Bush may be a nutter (technical term), but he is restrained by the American governmental system. President Ahmedinejad of Iran is also a nutter, but one who appears to be a lot less restrained.

By Progression, Iran is currently at a peak of aggression. Its prog Mars is at 17 Aries, exactly opposite Prog Pluto at 17 Libra until March, when it starts to wane. With an opposition, it is inviting attack from without.

Israel's prog Mars is currently at 27 Virgo, exactly squaring prog Uranus at 27 Gemini. Say no more. Between Israel and Iran, the composite Mars and each of the prog Mars are like a tinderbox, particularly over the next couple of months. And just to put the cherry on the cake, Iran's natal Mars is at 25.37 Pisces, which Pluto will still be squaring, though not exactly, this year.



Israel Iran Nuclear

COSMOS AND PSYCHE

I've never been very good at reading astrology books, but I'm going to quote from one today that I think is a required reference book for astrologers. It's by Richard Tarnas, it's called Cosmos and Psyche, and it was published in 2006 by Penguin. It's a rather brilliant look at the outer planets, particularly the pairs and their cycles, through history. His previous book, The Passion of the Western Mind, is a history of the western world view. It's also rather brilliant, but again for me it is a reference book.

"A comparison of the central crises of the two consecutive Saturn oppositions - first with Pluto, then Neptune - that have marked this first decade of the twenty-first century is instructive. The fiery hell and ashes of Ground Zero in New York on September 11 followed by the "shock and awe" destruction of the Iraq invasion during the Saturn-Pluto alignment stand in sharp contrast with the tragic water nightmares of the Asian tsunami and the New Orleans flood during the Saturn-Neptune alignment. The difference in the collective emotional responses of the two crises is striking as well - the intensified power struggle, conservative empowerment, grave determination, armored security, and mutually demonising hostility during the Saturn-Pluto alignment, compared with the widespread sense of diffuse helplessness, disillusionment and despair, bitter dissappointment with the government's massive failure and negligence, and private outpouring of compassion, prayer, sacrifice, and aid during the Saturn-Neptune alignment.

Similarly, whereas in the aftermath of the 2001 crisis during the Saturn-Pluto period the focus of collective judgement and division (Saturn) was on power, violence, terrorism and war (Pluto), both in the United States and abroad, the focus of collective judgement and division in the aftermath of the 2005 crisis during the Saturn-Neptune period was on empathy and the failure of empathy, on systemic negligence, the acute as well as chronic lack of care for the poor and disadvantaged, the narcissistic bubble enclosing the current U.S. leadership and its policies, and the immense human cost of that blindness and insensitivity. With a kind of precision of symmetry and aesthetic coherence, the reactionary structures that were empowered by fiery events and ruthless violence in the earlier period were now weakened or dissolved by watery events and compassionate concern. As often occurs during Saturn-Neptune alignments, the hidden shadow of past actions and policies became visible, haunting the present."

THE DEMOCRAT VOID MOON

At 12pm local time today, the Democrats were formally sworn in as the majority rulers of the House of Representatives. What many of us are looking forward to is the reining-in effect that this will have on George Bush, particularly in forcing him to change policy in Iraq, a process that has already begun, though he has yet to make any formal announcements.

The chart for today’s event, though, has a Void of Course Moon, which is not propitious. This Moon is at 27.42 Cancer, and it will not make any in-sign major aspects until it reaches the first degree of Leo, when it opposes Venus. Traditionally, it is hard to make anything happen under a Void Moon. This is because the Moon, as the planet nearest the earth, transmits the energies of all the other planets. So if it is not aspecting any of them, nothing can happen.

So generally speaking, it looks like it’s going to be hard for the Democrats to be very effective. Living in the UK, my knowledge of US politics is fairly shaky, but from what I understand, the Democrats are not a very united party and Nancy Pelosi, their new leader, put her foot in it right away after the November election by trying to appoint a deputy that her party did not want.

BUT on the big issue of the day, namely Iraq, the chart looks quite good. There is a conjunction of Mars and Pluto in Sagittarius in the 9th House, describing the foreign (9th House), ideologically driven (Sag) war (Mars-Pluto). What is encouraging is that this conjunction favourably aspects the current Saturn-Neptune opposition, which has been driving the re-assessment over Iraq. Neptune changing direction in the autumn caused the fantasy bubble to burst, and then Saturn changing direction 5 weeks later caused the actual re-assessment to begin. This retrograde Saturn trines the Democrat Mars-Pluto, suggesting that the war re-assessment will continue nicely, without the Democrats needing to push it.

And if you think about it, George Bush has dug himself into such a hole over Iraq, that the Democrats do not have to do much more than sit back and let events take their course. Apart from maybe the odd, “No George, we’re not letting you send in 30,000 more troops.” Or "No, George, we're not voting you any more money for Iraq."

As I’ve said before, the current retrograde Saturn may well culminate towards April in some sort of crisis over Bush refusing to actually bite the bullet and present a coherent new policy. And after that, hopefully, as Neptune enters a new phase, we might see an inquiry into the deceit and foolishness (Neptune) that began the war in the first place. You have to feel sorry for GWB, because it will probably happen while he is still in office, and it will finally destroy him. Political academics, apparently, are no longer debating whether or not GWB is a bad President, but whether he is the worst ever or just one of the worst 4 or 5.

The composite chart between Bush and the Democrat Rule chart has Sun in opposition to Pluto, so we can expect to see a power struggle. Interestingly, the sign (Aries-Libra) is the same as the Sun-Pluto opposition in the Iranian chart, and the degrees are very close – so the Iran issue may be one point of contention.

If we compare the chart of Nancy Pelosi (26 March 1940, time unknown) with the Democrat Rule chart, it is full of conflicts: Sun square Sun, her Moon-opposite-Mars-Venus-Uranus squares the Democrat Saturn-Neptune opposition, and her Mercury-opposite-Neptune squares the Democrat Mars-Pluto conjunction. So it looks like she's going to have a difficult relationship with her party, which doesn't make for an effective force in Congress. And particularly with her Mercury-Neptune squaring the Democrat Mars-Pluto (the Iraq aspect), she may prove to be more of a hindrance than a help with this issue. I know it's not easy for an Aries, but you need to let it take it own course, Nancy!

MY NEPTUNE TRANSIT

This year Neptune will come within 1 1/2 degrees of conjoining my Sun. I’ve been looking forward to this transit for some years. It should be one of those major transformations that you don’t get too often in life. In 1993 Pluto squared my Sun, and in 2003 Pluto conjoined my Moon (in Sag). In both cases, the major events surrounding the transits – which were not comfortable! – occurred the year before the transit was exact. By that reckoning, 2007 could be a major year for me. I don’t feel quite so out of balance/lacking in self-knowledge/naïve as I was with the previous transits, so I am expecting the emphasis to be on positive change rather than on painful challenge.

I think that something that has prepared me for this transit has been living with my partner Vajramala for the last 7/8 years, as she has Moon in Pisces as part of a watery grand trine. So that Neptunian way of functioning has always come very naturally to her, despite having an Aries Sun. And that Neptunian way has a lot to do with trust and letting things unfold in their own way and not interfering or trying to ‘make’ things happen - which used to be my habitual way, and which no doubt would have led to a very painful Neptune transit now if I was still like that.

As I’ve said before, I think that transits tend to get easier as we get older, because we have sorted a lot of the things that need sorting earlier in our lives, and the emphasis can move towards positive transformation. I think that people can sometimes get a bit ‘doctrinal’ about transits and go, “Oh, it’s Pluto, that means I’m going to be torn apart and dragged down to the underworld and suffer intensely because that’s the archetypal pattern and that’s what happened last time.” I think that’s a form of superstition.

Back to me. A composite chart between two people is created by putting each planet at the mid-point between the same planet in each of the individual charts. If one person has Sun in Aries, and the other has Sun in Leo, then the composite Sun will probably be somewhere in Gemini. In a relationship, the Sun and Mars say quite a lot about what the relationship does to the man, and the Moon and Venus quite a lot about what it does to the woman. My composite chart with Vajramala gives Sun conjunct Mars in Pisces. Natally, I am not very Neptunian/Piscean, so being with her has put me in unfamiliar, and sometimes maddening, territory. But, having got deeply out of sorts in the past through being wilful, it has been exactly what I needed. (The composite chart also has Moon-Venus-Chiron conjunct in Aquarius, but that is another story, and not mine to tell!)

So I am expecting an interesting year. Neptune, of course, is also opposite Saturn at present, so my Sun is also catching that: making your dreams (Neptune) real (Saturn). Which was the theme of Lynn Hayes' blog (see astrodynamics link) of 31 Dec. I’m not always comfortable with the idea of setting goals and manifesting them, as that has been exactly the problem for me in the past, as I was far too wilful about it, and my goals were therefore limiting of myself. What I have had to do is to learn NOT to have goals, and that where I need to be is usually not for me to know – something bigger and wider knows, and my job is to trust in that. So I was struck when she said, “There's something powerful in the very act of opening up to the possibility of change in our lives.” I thought, yes that’s more how I do it, it’s an opening up. My problem isn’t making it happen – that’s the easy bit for me – my problem has been learning to be sensitive enough to myself and to some sort of wider scheme of things to know what is and what is not an appropriate goal.

This is all the dance of Saturn and Neptune, and some of us are better at one end of it, and some of us at the other.

I don’t know if any of you have taken flower remedies, but I have just started taking one called “Silver Princess.” It is an Australian Bush remedy, and it has started working pretty quickly but subtly. I recently took Red Helmet Orchid for a while, and that was dramatically effective and sorted all sorts of stuff very quickly. I hadn’t found flower remedies very effective until I tried the Australian Bush ones. The guy who came up with them, Ian White, was led to them by spirit guides and told what they were for, and they do seem very powerful. Living in Glastonbury, UK, I’m usually pretty wary when something is said to be channelled, but I’m also aware that when something is authentically from that sort of source it can be very powerful.

Anyway, Silver Princess helps one find direction in life. Not that I’m lacking in this, it’s just that I’m aware that a new one is coming my way, and I thought this might help. And straight away the synchronicities started. There was Lynn’s blog. And then there was the section in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which I’m reading at present, where Pierre has his religious conversion and the freemason helping him is full of emotion at the omnipresence of God. I can’t say I believe in God, but I am moving towards a fuller sense of the benign aspect of the universe, the fact that there is so much help there for us if we will only trust in it and take it. Taking the Silver Princess quickly brought me back to the feeling that finding a new direction is not about scratching my head and working out what to do next, but rather opening myself more to where the universe wants to take me, letting it take as long as is necessary, and keeping trust in this process. I guess you could say that my Neptune transit has already started!

WE THE MODERN PRIESTHOOD...

We the modern priesthood say unto you: “The truth which you experience, namely that the Sun goes round the earth, is a false truth. The truth which you do not experience, namely that the earth goes round the Sun, is the real truth, the Absolute truth, and we shall tolerate no other.”

And we astrologers believe them. I was once on a seminar run by a prominent astrologer, and I tried to raise this issue and got accused of playing games.

If I’ve learnt one thing, it is that I have to give credibility to and trust my own experience. I know that the mathematics of the earth going run the Sun are much simpler and more convincing than the highly convoluted mathematics of the Sun and all the planets going round the earth. Nevertheless, when I look in the sky, what I see is the Sun going round the earth. That is my experience.

My experience, were I to look, would also be of certain planets going backwards in the sky at certain times. It is tempting to say that they just appear to be going backwards, but that in reality they’re carrying on in their regular orbits round the Sun and it is due to the earth’s relative motion to them etc etc. But what we actually see is these planets going backwards, and why should this be seen as a lesser truth? More than this, the backward movements of the planets have observable effects - as in the classic mercury retrograde - so there is a real sense in which they are moving in the reverse direction.

Once you stop giving credibility to your experience, you start to become the victim of other people’s desire to have power over you – in this case, Science at its worst, a fundamentalism that came to replace the old fundamentalism of orthodox Christianity, which was equally rigid in its insistence that the Sun went round the earth.

I am not arguing either for our experience to be granted the status of Absolute Truth. It’s just that it shouldn’t be treated as lesser or non-existent in relation to a system which, from the point of view of our actual experience, is an abstraction.

This is how religions work. They get people to give abstractions such as ‘heaven’, ‘the devil’, ‘historical necessity’, 'the axis of evil’, ‘the Great Satan’, ‘democracy’, ‘the scientific method’ or the national flag a reality that they do not have. Unsure of the worth of their own experience, these abstractions give many people a sense of certainty and belonging that they did not previously have. But it comes at the price of what human life is about - i.e. learning to function independently and discovering one’s own powers and talents.

Now there is also this business of the flat earth, which if I’m honest corresponds more to my experience than the idea of a round earth…..