Assange, Obama and Bush: the Outer Planets and Collective Projections

There was a period in 2008, when Barack Obama was campaigning to be the Democratic Presidential candidate, when you weren’t likely to get a good reception if you said anything critical of the man. He was sweeping people away on a wave of hope for a better world. One astrologer told me at the time that my Saturn in Sagittarius gave me a fear of faith, which was stopping me from seeing Obama as he really he was. (I’d say it gave me sense!)

It was all very Neptunian, and it was Obama’s natal Sun square to Neptune that gave him the ability to sweep people away like this. Even the Nobel Peace Prize Committee got swept away by his promise. Now, 2 years later, he appears much more ordinary. Smart and trying to do a good job, but also at ease with the less savoury tasks that come with his position – wars, black ops, no doubt a certain amount of torture, putting pressure on big companies and other countries to do America’s bidding, and so on. America has changed a bit, but its big resistance to change has also become clearer.

Now, in late 2010, we have a similar situation with Julian Assange, the Great Rebel, who has become a cultural hero to many, especially as his leaks have provoked the inevitable response from the US and other western countries. He is now not just the Great Rebel, he is also the victim who needs protecting. (My last piece, suggesting a less savoury side to Mr Assange, has come under sustained, irrational attack in the comments section.)

I am not trying to say here whether or not I think Wikileaks is helpful. It is complicated, and how you view Wikileaks will probably determine whether or not you think he is a cultural hero. This time the relevant planet is Uranus, which natally squares Assange’s Sun and which is the planet of rebellion. (Chiron, which makes a t-square with the Sun and Uranus, gives him his victim/scapegoat status.)

The world is as it is because human nature is as it is. Why do we think that an Obama or an Assange can make it radically different? Why do we need the world to be radically different? I think that what happens in these situations is essentially a projection onto the world, and onto prominent individuals, of our own unrealised potential, or even our own dissatisfaction with ourselves.

To the extent that you feel the outer planets to be consciously operative in your own life, to that extent you won’t get carried away by these figures. It’s going to be a mixed thing for most of us. And what others are collectively feeling also affects us.

Living the outer planets is not an easy task. It takes many years, and is always work in progress. And it’s not really under our control either. The temptation to be drawn into collective projections of the outer planets, to have someone else seeming to live those planets for us, is quite natural. And maybe a bit embarrassing afterwards. But that is precisely how we can learn, how we can become more conscious.

Say you find very appealing Julian Assange as a harbinger of revolutionary change. He may or may not be – that is beside the point. The real point is that deep appeal, which is like a gift in that it contains the potential for awakening. In this case, it is a call to live Uranus more fully. It is a call to allow a constant sense of progressive change into your life, to welcome the unexpected, and to be deeply unconcerned by what the neighbours think. Uranus breaks us away from convention. In its unsophisticated form we enjoy the breaking away, the rebellion, for its own sake, and maybe project it out onto the world. In its more developed form it enables us to progress our own lives, to have a deep sense of our own very individual life, unhindered by what others (family members!) may or may not think.

And say you find/found Barack Obama deeply appealing. He embodied the hope for a better world and a leader who could be completely trusted. OK, people were sick of George Bush and all he stood for and of course they wanted someone different and hoped Obama would be. But the feeling around Obama went much further than that, it was religious, it was numinous; for many, for a while at least, he could do no wrong. And in this sense he was a call to live Neptune more fully: a sense of being part of the ocean of life and a sense that life is always unfolding and that you are part of that and you can trust that process and that just being part of all that makes life meaningful and hopeful. Again, we may start with someone out there – and with Neptune in the 9th Obama carries the ‘spiritual teacher’ and ‘redeemer’ archetypes – but wisdom and compassion and trust in life are ultimately to be found within.

What about Pluto? I think this type of cultural figure is more obviously dark to start with. And we can look to our old friend George W Bush, who like Obama and Assange has the ability to stand for something. Bush has Pluto Rising. He came into his own once he had a clear enemy to focus on, which was firstly Al Qaeda and Bin Laden, and then Saddam Hussein. And he had much of America behind him, often in a very ignorant way – like the people who thought that Saddam was responsible for 9/11, which Bush was happy to let stand.

So Bush keyed into the unconscious shadow projection which collective humanity is prone to, and the lies and deceit that goes with it. Hitler was also, via the demonization of the Jews, a Plutonian figure (as well as, in other ways, a Neptunian figure.)

The real lesson here is to become conscious of our own darkness. What gives the game away is the sparse knowledge we often have of the people like Bin Laden to whom we attribute ‘bad’ qualities. Classically, the evil we associate with them is precisely what we are ashamed to admit about ourselves.

I was on a Liz Greene seminar once, and she said that our shadow is that which we are ashamed to admit to. She said some people claim to be at ease with their shadows, and may list off certain ‘bad’ things about themselves. But then that is not their shadow. The shadow is that which we are ashamed to admit to, and it may not be anything that is harmful to anyone else. You might just be a secret cross-dresser or something!

What is needed with Pluto is honesty and a lack of being judgemental of ourselves. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with being the way we are. We are what we are. It doesn’t of course mean we always have to act on it. And it doesn’t mean we can’t transform. But in a way the transformation isn’t up to us, with our limited human perspective and narrow sense of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Our job is just to show up, and let Pluto take care of the transformation.

Sooner or later the public figures who carry the outer planet projections will let us down, and if we haven't spotted the projection before, that time of betrayal is also when we can learn. Or we can stay feeling betrayed, and carry on hating Neptunian Tony Blair or whichever figure it is.

The Dorothean Triplicities

I’ve started listening to one of Bernadette Brady’s studyshops on medieval astrology. There is something called Dorothean Triplicities, out of which you can generate planets that rule the 1st, 2nd and 3rd parts of your life respectively. I tried it out at my astrology group last night, and it seemed to work pretty well.

I’ll describe the technicalities later, but I’ll use Barack Obama’s chart as an example.


Click to Enlarge

Using the technique, we find that Mercury rules the 1st part of his life, Saturn the second and Jupiter the 3rd. These periods are not set number of years; rather, by listening to someone’s life story, you can see where the periods change over.

So Mercury and the first part of Obama’s life. It is in Leo, and what his background does seem to have generated, for better or for worse, is a unique individual. Mercury is also associated with thought and curiosity and travel, as is Jupiter, which Mercury is closely opposite. All this fits with his early years. In his chart, Mercury rules the 8th, which describes his exploration of his ancestry, and the 5th, which describes the creativity that led to his books.

I’d say that he has moved into the second phase of his life, which is Saturn. Say no more! You could say it started around 1996, when he first assumed public office, as a member of the Illinois Senate. I’d also say there had been a gradual shift from Mercury to Saturn going on for some years before that. His Saturn is strong in its own sign of Capricorn, and in his chart rules the 12th House, describing his responsibilities (Saturn/Capricorn) for the collective in its widest sense (12th).

The final phase of his life will be ruled by Jupiter. It is in Aquarius in the 12th, conjunct his Saturn, and ruling the 11th House. So I see the last part of his life as being expansive, with a return to the community-based work of his earlier years, but with the world as his arena. He will be a world statesman, with a vision for the future.

I don’t understand why the Dorothean Triplicities are as they are, but this is how you generate them. Firstly, you need to identify the leading planet. If the Sun is above the horizon – a diurnal chart – then the Sun is the leading planet. If not, then you have a nocturnal chart, and the Moon is the leading planet. You then note the element the Sun or Moon is in, and read the following chart:


Click to Enlarge

In Obama’s case, his leading planet is the Moon (nocturnal chart), and it is in Air. So we read the Air line, which is Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter. As the chart is nocturnal, we swap round the first 2 planets, and we get the series Mercury, Saturn and Jupiter.

In the case of say George W Bush, he was born with Sun in Cancer in the 12th. So the Sun was above the horizon, and it is a diurnal chart. So the Sun is the leading planet, and it is in water. Reading this off, the relevant planets are Venus, Mars and Moon respectively.


Click to Enlarge

So Venus in Leo ruled his youth. He was the eldest son, the prince of a political dynasty (Leo) that was also wealthy (Venus). He indulged himself (Venus in Leo) and did not seem to fit in anywhere (Venus sextile Uranus). Venus rules the 4th House Libran Cusp, which is the political home he grew up in, and it also rules intercepted Taurus in the 10th, which describes the difficulty he had in establishing a career.

The second phase of his life, which I would say is now ending, is ruled by Mars, and I’d say this phase began when his life began to work: he began to be able to take effective action, which is Mars. This was from 1988 onwards, starting with being part of his father’s successful run for presidency, then making money through his share in Texas Rangers, and then his career as Texas governor and then US President. Mars rules the 10th House of career in Bush’s chart, describing how his ability to take action translated into career success.

Bush described himself as a ‘War President’, which is very Mars. His Mars is in Virgo, which you would expect to be analytical and considered and service-based. But it is also unaspected, which means that it functioned on its own, without being reined in by the rest of the personality. It was primitive and confrontational, and was ultimately disastrous for American foreign policy. It only seemed to be Virgo in the sense that he had a clear idea of who his targets were, too clear even, and therefore simplistic.

The final phase of his life, which I’d say he is now entering, is ruled by the Moon, which is in 3rd House Libra. Bush governed more by instinct than by reason, and this final phase of his life may be a time when the wreckage of the last years of his Presidency may give him pause for thought; it may be a time when he brings thought (Libra/3rd) to his instinctive responses (Moon), and develops a more balanced view (Libra) and even some wisdom (conjunction to Jupiter). The Moon square to his Cancer Sun further describes this need to balance head and heart. With the conjunction of Jupiter to the Moon, however, he may also return to his youthful self-indulgent ways, and develop a complacent view of his political career.

Pluto in Capricorn: religious extremism as political reality

In the economic world, Pluto’s move into Capricorn is proving to be a corrective to Pluto in Sagittarius: the financial excesses of recent years have led to a dramatic contraction in the world economy, and a re-think about how the money-men should conduct themselves.

In the religious world, however, particularly that of conservative Islam, Pluto’s move into Capricorn does not seem to be providing a corrective to the excesses of recent years. Rather, fundamentalist Islam seems in some places to be slowly establishing itself as a political norm, which is also a meaning of Pluto in Capricorn.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have been making big gains, which is why the US is sending more troops. The war in Afghanistan was announced by President Bush on 7 Oct 2001 at 5pm. Like the chart for the invasion of Iraq, the Saturn-Pluto opposition is lined up along the MC-IC, just as it was lined up along the US Asc-Desc on 9/11, linking all 3 events together. A 'personal' event (ASC) unfolded into 2 very public ones on the world stage (MC).

The Afghan invasion chart has a close Sun-Mars-Jupiter Cardinal t-square, and I think it is plausible to say that the war will be decided one way or another around 2016/17 when Pluto transits this t-square. I think Mars can be a good starting point when looking at the charts for wars.


Click to Enlarge

In Pakistan, parts of its borders with Afghanistan have been effectively ruled by the Taliban and Al Qaeda for some time now. This is why from time to time we read about American missile strikes on these areas. An unintended consequence of these strikes, according to some analysts, has been to drive the Taliban base camps further into Pakistan.

A new development on Monday was the Pakistan government ceding control to the Taliban of the Swat Valley, which is only 100 miles from Karachi. This seems to me to be of huge significance, because it is not just a semi-autonomous tribal area. Pakistan has a weak government, and a President with a history of corruption. It is under a lot of internal pressure from militant Islam.


Click to Enlarge

Pakistan is at the end of a Neptune opposition to its Sun, which describes the dissolution process it has been through over the last 18 months as Musharraf, its military ruler who was just about holding it all together, ceded power to a democratically elected but ineffectual government. The natal Sun is in a wide conjunction to Saturn-Pluto, all of which square Angular Jupiter in Scorpio. So there is a natural tendency in the country to head towards not just the military rule which has characterised most of its existence, but also rule by religious extremists (Jupiter in Scorpio), a destiny it has not yet fulfilled, but may well do so in coming years.

So what was seen as religious extremism under Pluto in Sag may become political reality under Pluto in Capricorn, not just in Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan, but also in Iran through its development of nuclear weapons, a process the West now seems unable to stop. In going for the wrong target, which was Iraq, George Bush weakened his standing to such an extent that he was not able to go after the right target, which was Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.

As for Iraq, it would seem to me that the long-term result will have been to replace oppression of Shias by Sunnis, with oppression of Sunnis by Shias. Iraq will become a natural ally of its neighbour Iran, which is also Shia, a branch of Islam which is in the minority in the Muslim world, but which will gain in standing due to Iran’s ascendancy and its alliance with Iraq.


Click to Enlarge

The US handed over power to a new Iraqi government at 9.26am on 28 June 2004. The Sun-Moon-angular Uranus Grand Trine suggests to me a natural instability and fragility which is unlikely to last much beyond the departure of US troops. Obama intends this departure to be soon, and the major transits of Pluto to the Sun and Neptune to the MC over the next couple of years reflect this major shift that seems likely to happen. Pluto will also be conjoining the Mars of the Iraq War chart around the same time, bringing the war to a close. There is no reason to suppose that militant Islam will not also make advances in Iraq as the US presence recedes.

The Pope takes a pot shot: this time it’s the Jews

Pope Benedict has done it yet again. First in 2006 it was the Muslims: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Then just before Christmas he announced that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was as important as protecting the environment.

And then last week he reversed the excommunication of a bishop who is a holocaust denier.


Click to Enlarge

With his natal Mars at 29 Gemini, Pope Benedict is a crusader who sees life as a battle between light and dark, good and evil. And with Gemini communicativeness, he is not afraid to say so. A sign gathers momentum as you progress through it, so the end of Gemini is one of the most war-like places to have this planet. No doubt it is related to the idea we find in Arabic astrology, that Moon in late Gemini is a good time to start a war: this was the placement of the Moon on 11 Sept 2001.

This theme of opposites, of light versus dark, is also reflected in the Pope’s Moon in Libra, another sign that can be belligerent (e.g. Margaret Thatcher). His Moon is square to tribal Pluto in Cancer, and he also has the Sun in war-like Aries.

Naturally he or his spokesmen always deny that these attacks are such. But the astrology tells a different story.

The above quote about the Muslims was by a Christian Emperor, which the Pope then quoted, and twice pointed out it was a quote and not his own words. But he still found them useful to say. At the time (12 Sept 2006) Pluto was starting to oppose his natal Mars, and Mars had just finished squaring his natal Mars.

When he made the comment about gays and transsexuals (22 Dec 2008), Mars was opposing natal Mars, as was Pluto.

And when he reinstated the bishop last week (21 Jan 2009), Mars had just finished hard-aspecting his natal Moon square Pluto. And Pluto, of course, is still opposing his natal Mars.

So the underlying astrological theme of these attacks has been transiting Pluto opposing his natal Mars, and the trigger in each case has been transiting Mars. While transiting inner planets act mainly as triggers, transiting outer planets transform. And this transformation is not necessarily evolutionary. If the person involved is not very aware, outer planet transits can release primitive, barbaric elements in the psyche that then get acted out.

In the period from 9/11 through to the start of the Iraq War, for example, Neptune was making an opposition to George Bush’s natal Pluto Rising, which is one of a number of loose cannons in his chart. The Iraq War particularly was started for reasons that did not add up, and with little thought as to what to do afterwards. This strongly suggests unconscious, atavistic elements at work.

This also seems to be what is happening in the case of Pope Benedict XVI. Pluto is revealing a deeper level of his natal Mars which, as Pope, he has the scope to act out in an atavistic way if he so chooses. And he does so choose. The Pope is known for being a considerable intellectual, and his Sun, Moon and Mars all back this up. Mercury in Pisces might seem surprising, but Pisces has a great power to absorb information and make connections. So he is a classic case of someone who can seem civilised and advanced because of their intellectual accomplishments, but in whom the emotional depths remained untouched by all this learning. His Moon in civilised Libra but square to crab-like Pluto in Cancer expresses this perfectly.

What the Pope is doing is different to just not being politically correct, and thereby offending people. I have no objection to that. It does us good to get offended occasionally, as the late John Mortimer pointed out. Political correctness is usually about guilt-ridden liberals creating ‘rights’ for others and imagining ways that minorities might get offended. Like imagining that black people want to be called people of colour, or American Indians want to be called Native Americans (they don’t: they like being called Indians). It’s patronising, and it’s often insisted on in an intolerant way. The cardinal rule of PC is that no-one from a minority or another grouping must ever get offended.

But this isn’t what the Pope is doing. He’s not offending people in a healthy way, like making fun of the Jews’ pretensions to being the Chosen People, or of Americans for thinking they have the world’s best political system. He is using his position to demonise whole groups of people who are not Catholics, or who do not follow the Church’s teachings.

What we have at the heart of the modern Catholic Church is old-style barbaric medieval religion. And it’s not just this Pope. Ratzinger (the present Pope) was the enforcer for the sainted Pope John Paul II (Dare I say it, but as Rahm Emmanuel is enforcer for the sainted Barack Obama.) At least it’s now all out in the open.

It was under the present Pope that Tony Blair, who also has Mars Rising in Gemini, converted to Catholicism. In an interview some months after stepping down as Prime Minister, Blair was asked if he had any regrets about the Iraq War. He didn’t (though he hadn’t managed to get the previous Pope’s blessing for it!) What we have, he continued is “a visceral struggle between what is right and what is wrong.”

Ratzinger became Pope under Pluto in Sagittarius, a period which saw a rise in fundamentalism worldwide. Now with Pluto in Capricorn, we are seeing the Church establishment (Capricorn) reverting to a more primitive form (Pluto).

The Saturn-Pluto Cycle

I’ve only just realised that Saturn makes a square to Pluto this year, on 15th November. So that makes 3 major configurations this year, along with Saturn opposition Uranus (2 more crossings) and the remarkable Jupiter-Chiron-Neptune triple conjunction at 26 Aquarius in May.

I reckon we’ll begin to feel the effect of Saturn-Pluto from May onwards, when Saturn changes direction. Oppositions usually have a more obvious effect than squares, and with Saturn opposing Uranus all year, the effects of Saturn-Pluto may not be that easily discernible.

All the same, the square will be part of an important cycle that began in 1982 with the conjunction of Saturn and Pluto. One regular feature of the hard aspects of this cycle is the empowerment (Pluto) of Conservatism (Saturn) in American politics. 1982, for example, saw the rise of Reaganism; the opening square of 1993/4 saw the Republicans under Newt Gingrich take control of Congress; and the opposition of 2001 saw George W Bush come to power. It is quite possible, therefore, that we shall see a new impulse towards conservatism in US politics over the course of the next year.

It won’t come from Congressional elections, because there aren’t any. But it may come from Barack Obama. He may turn out to be a much more conservative figure than people had hoped for. Already his spending plans to stimulate the economy are running into trouble with Democratic Senators for not being bold or liberal enough.

From the New York Times online: ‘Senate Democrats complained that major components of his plan were not bold enough and urged more focus on creating jobs and rebuilding the nation’s energy infrastructure rather than cutting taxes’. “There is only one thing we have got to do in the stimulus, and that is how can we create jobs,” said Senator Tom Harkin Democrat of Iowa. “I am a little concerned by the way that Mr. Summers and others are going at this in that, to me, it still looks like a little more of this trickle-down, if we just put it in at the top, it’s going to trickle down. A number of people in there said, ‘Look, we have got to have programs that actually create jobs and put people to work.’ ”

I think a good way to look at Barack Obama as President is through his Saturn-Jupiter conjunction. These 2 planets are not purely personal, for they also describe our interaction with the social/public sphere. In conjunction, they can describe a powerful leader. It is interesting that Obama’s Saturn is in conservative Capricorn, and his Jupiter is in futuristic Aquarius. It mirrors the exact Saturn-Uranus opposition under which he was elected, and shows how important both these impulses are in him. Perhaps what we saw in his campaigning was the liberal who would bring America into a new and united future. But equally strong in his chart is his cautious, conservative Saturn.

This has become clearer to me over time ever since his comment about wanting to see Jerusalem remain the undivided capital of Israel. I found this a shocking, hawkish thing to say. His silence over the Israeli assault on Gaza also spoke volumes.

As Jessica Murray put it last month: “Obama’s approach to the economic crisis is perhaps the most Saturnine feature of his approach. Besides arguing for the banker bail-out, he has chosen as advisors men who have been stalwarts of the Wall Street establishment, taking counsel from the very man who led the crusade for deregulation at the Clinton Treasury: Robert Rubin. Tim Geithner, one of the premier architects of the current global financial disaster, is a contender for his cabinet [and as of publication of this issue of Daykeeper, Geithner has been named Secretary of the Treasury—Ed.]. And then there is the odious Larry Summers, also at one point on the short list for Treasury Secretary. Another Clinton-era Friedmanite, Summers not only promoted the export of toxic debt to the rest of the world, he took the idea to its most literal extreme by advocating the export of actual toxic pollution to impoverished nations.”

So it will be interesting to watch these 2 impulses at play in Barack Obama. With a Saturn-Pluto square coming up this year that hard aspects both the US MC and Obama’s Venus (popular appeal), it may well be that the man increasingly defines himself to the right of the political spectrum.

On the other hand, Saturn doesn't finish squaring Pluto till August 2010, just before the mid-term Congressional elections. So it may be that Congress lurches to the right at that point instead of - or as well as - Obama doing so.

Saturn-Pluto is also associated with war, terrorism and violence. The present cycle, which began in 1982, saw “the depths of the Soviet war in Afghanistan that led to the rise of the Islamic jihadist movement, fuelled by clandestine US support” (Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche, p215.) The opening square of 1992-4 “exactly coincided with the first World Trade Center bombing, Osama bin Laden’s first call for a jihad against America, and the coming to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan." (ibid, p216). The opposition of 2001 of course saw the World Trade Center attacks and the start of George Bush’s War on Terror.

So over the next year we are likely to see a new phase open up in this war between Islam and the West. If the US begins to withdraw from Iraq, it may be a winding down of this war. On the other hand, it may intensify in Afghanistan, where it all began.

Saturn-Pluto has its economic aspect, due to Pluto’s association with wealth. Under the 1982 conjunction, we saw the rise of a new economic era after the stagflation of the 1970s, associated with deregulation and monetarist policies. The square of 1993/4 marked the long boom of the Clinton years. The dotcom bubble of 2001/2001 was arguably the peak of this period, as the Saturn-Pluto cycle reached its mid-point. 2009/10 will see the closing square of this cycle, just as 1973/4 was the closing square of the last cycle: the associated world oil crisis was arguably the death knell of that Saturn-Pluto economic cycle.

It is clear to many of us that we are witnessing the slow death of the current economic model, and this year’s Saturn-Pluto is testament to this. The conjunction of Pluto to Saturn represents the planting of a new and potent seed. The opening square is its empowerment, the opposition its peak and the closing square its gradual death, the cleansing of what was impure.

The US Need for Royalty

Maybe I’m just a Brit looking in, but US politics seems much more dynastic than what we have over here. This is ironic, as the USA was founded on the idea of rejecting European ideas of inherited power, and the lack of true representation that goes with that.

So in the US you have your Kennedys and Bushs and Clintons, and members of these families have a much greater chance of becoming a Senator or Governor, or even running for President, than your average person. And these families are looked up to and lionised. This is why there is currently such a fuss about the possibility of Caroline Kennedy becoming a Senator, as her uncle Edward Kennedy fades from politics. She has never shown an interest in politics before now.

Of course an interest in politics, like anything, is likely to run in families. So in the UK you will get MPs whose father, say, was in Parliament. But an MP is not a big deal. You don’t get noticed unless you are a Minister or leader of the Opposition. Hilary Benn, son of Tony, is Minister for the Environment, but even then you’d hardly notice him bumbling along in his glasses. Peter Mandelson, the Business Secretary, is grandson of Herbert Morrison, a post-war Cabinet Minister, but not many people seem to know this.

I think the difference is that in the UK we have a monarchy. The Queen is the repository for people’s need for these semi-divine, regal figures to look up to. This means that the politicians, who actually run the country, can be elected on their merits rather than their name.

As I have said before, I think the US needs a King or a Queen. A decadent family with gangster origins like the Kennedys would suit. Just like our British royal family: it's French founder, William I, was effectively a gangster. It would not only help deal with the falsity of these family dynasties: it would also take a lot of pressure off the Presidents to be superhuman, and let them get on with their work. So Bill Clinton had a blow-job off an intern, and then quite naturally denied it. There would probably have been a lot less fuss if he didn’t also have to carry the semi-divine aura that comes with the President’s job.

The UK has Sun in Capricorn. We understand that humanity organises itself hierarchically, that collectively we are like a pack of dogs sniffing around after sex and status. Through our powerless monarchy, and its occasional soap-operas, we take care of a good deal of that need.

The US has Sun square to Saturn. Saturn is the ruler of Capricorn. So the US has an uneasy (square) relationship with hierarchy. In its Declaration of Independence it is in denial of this fact, it claims that everyone is created equal (Saturn in Libra). If you deny something, it goes unconscious and comes out worse than it would have been. From the word go, the hierarchy between black and white people in the USA was worse than anything we had in the UK. Nowadays, the worship of money and celebrity, the division of society into winners and losers, is much more extreme than in the UK.

You can’t fault the founding fathers for wanting a more egalitarian society, based on merit rather than inheritance. Saturn was in Libra in 1776, which was a great time for ideals of fairness. But when squared to the Sun you will also get the down-side of Libra, which is ignorance of, or disregard for the nature of ordinary, ‘base’, humanity. The way the US treats its Presidents shows what a deep longing there is in the country for a monarch. Saturn in Libra may not think very highly of this, but Sun in tribal Cancer sure wants it. Natal Pluto in hierarchical Capricorn says acknowledge this about yourself or I will be your Shadow, your undoing.

Anyway, in a few weeks time Americans have a Coronation to look forward to. Whoops, I meant Inauguration.

Kennedy and Obama: Dreams from the Father

In my Saturday post Obama the African Chief, I may have lost my point to some people by the way I put it! Because to bring in the spectre of African dictators is like bringing in Hitler: discussion easily comes to an end amid what seems to be an extreme and harsh position. (That said, the great lesson of Hitler is that all collectives have the potential to subsume themselves to heartless authoritarian leaders. I don’t think Obama is one of them, but I think George Bush has a good streak of it, and no shortage of followers.)

Using astrocartography we see that on the one hand Barack Obama has a Moon line running through Washington, so he will feel comfortable as President; and on the other hand we see a Pluto line running through Kenya, his father’s country. Natally Obama has Moon square Pluto, so these Moon and Pluto lines are connected, we have to make something of this connection. It tells us that Obama will bring some sort of inheritance from his Kenyan roots to his Presidency. And because his Moon is in hard aspect to Pluto, it may be creative, and it may also be problematic.


Click to Enlarge

My favourite comment from the Saturday post was Neith’s, that this coming Presidential election is politics as usual! I agree with her, it brings everything down to earth. And it reminds us that a persistent theme in politics is that of the idealistic new leader who will do it all differently: that also is politics as usual. Which is not to say Obama might not also do some genuinely good stuff, like Blair (in the UK) and Kennedy did.

So I take this into account when considering Obama’s Moon square Pluto (and Sun square Neptune). There will be problematic dimensions to these aspects, which will emerge over time. Like many creative, larger than life people, both his positive attributes and his faults are likely to be BIG. He may well do brilliant things, and may well also be impossible in some ways. And afterwards we will think if only he hadn’t been like that, he could have done so much more!

John F Kennedy had a Saturn-Neptune-MC conjunction: his career (MC) was an expression of the leadership dreams (Neptune in Leo) of his father (Saturn). This is quite interesting, because 48 years later we have another Democratic Nominee who is attracting a similar kind of idealism, and has written a book called “Dreams from my Father.” Obama has Neptune (Dreams) square his Sun (Father).

I think there is a difference, however, between the 2 men. Obama is a bit older than Kennedy was, and I think his connection to his father is more reflective. Kennedy was the product of a political family with a dodgy history, where politics was what you were expected to do. JFK was expected to be President because his older brother, who’d been lined up for it, died in the War. And Obama does carry the dream from his father and his father’s father of success and of changing the world. Even though he only met his father once, these dreams still have a way of being passed down. Both men have/had the name Barack Hussein Obama, both went to Harvard and both have/had political idealism. But unlike Kennedy he doesn’t have an ambitious family mafia behind him, or the actual mafia.

When he was 29, Obama Senior wrote a report that was sharply critical of Kenyan government policy, and the resulting conflict with the President destroyed Obama's career, and he took to drinking. With Obama junior's natal Sun square Neptune, we could also read an attempt to redeem (Neptune) the father (Sun).

I saw a TV programme recently about the meetings between Kennedy and Krushchev. Kennedy, like a college student, waded in on an ideological level to try to prove to Krushchev that the capitalist system was better than the Communist system. The much older and more experienced Krushchev was not impressed, and was easily able to dance around Kennedy, reminding him of the dodgy foreign activities that the US got up to. You couldn’t imagine Obama being that naïve, but at the same time he does seem to slip up on foreign policy, like saying Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel, or that as President he would be open to discussions with all foreign leaders. It makes me bang my head a bit, and wonder how much wisdom he has.

Back to his Pluto line. Running through Kenya, this also describes the ‘Dreams from my Father’ (along with Sun square Neptune). I haven’t read the book, but the title is very significant. One American Obama supporter was saying to me the other day how the Kenyan inheritance was not relevant, as he didn’t know his father. And then in the same breath she praised his book. I said look at the title!

Pluto is not just his father, it is his ancestral inheritance from Kenya. It describes the ancient currents running through the culture, for better and for worse. I do not know this culture, but what we all know is that African countries tend towards dictatorships, Kenya included. This is one element in that Pluto, and what Obama will make of it when he attains power remains to be seen. More positively, there may also, for example, be a sense of divine kingship, an ancient sense that the leader needs to be connected to some other Source (Sun in Leo square Neptune), but not in the gross Bush/Blair sense of taking orders from God.

Being President inevitably kicks in ancient archetypes of kingship (Democracy? Ha, Ha!) Obama's are as much African as they are American/European. This will be interesting.

Incidentally, his Progressed Chart currently has a Jupiter Rising line running near Washington and a Jupiter IC line through Kenya!

It’s never too late to become a Virgin…

The US has a Federally funded programme which encourages young people to remain celibate until marriage. The programme is known as Silver Ring Thing, because the teenagers involved wear a silver ring (on their finger) as a sign of their commitment to celibacy.

According to BBC news, the US government is considering cutting the funding, following a report that one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. And with some 750,000 teenage pregnancies a year, America has one of the highest teen birth rates in the developed world.

"This national programme which has wasted $1.5bn (£750m) of tax money is a failure and our teens are paying the price," says Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood "We've been wasting money on programmes that don't work and we're seeing the consequences every single day."

“State governments receive federal money they must match to fund abstinence programmes. At least 17 states have opted out of the system and others have suspended funding while Congress investigates whether such programmes work.

Critics say there is no evidence that they delay sexual activity and teenagers who have taken a vow of virginity are less likely to use protection if they break their promise.”

Such teenagers do not get taught about contraception. As 15 year-old Mildred from Arizona says: "We get sex-ed classes in school and that should be where teens get the right information - but that isn't happening."

The argument in favour of abstinence is put by a Texan lawyer, who describes himself as a member of the religious right:

"I am convinced that abstinence is the only way for kids," he says. "You begin by teaching the consequences of bad behaviour and the benefits of proper behaviour and you do that in a way that a child can grasp. "Self control leads to a happy, joyful life. If we can learn to control the most basic of drives - the sex drive - for good, then we can control drugs, gangs, alcohol and abusive anger."

If you’ve already had sex, it’s not too late: Teenagers who do have sex before marriage are given another chance by becoming ‘secondary virgins’. "Of course, if you view virginity as number one, and you've slept with someone, of course it's going to be different and you can never go back - but that doesn't mean there's no tomorrow," explains Ashley, who also says she believes teenagers who experiment with sex are laying the foundations for troubled relationships later in life. "A lot of the young people I know who go around having experiences with lots of different people are just preparing themselves for not knowing how to be committed to somebody. Once you get into the practice of doing whatever you want, it's hard to change when you're older."

16 year-old Josh has this to say: "I have a lot of close friends and we pretty much agree on the same thing so we keep each other in line most of the time.”

There’s plenty of room for comedy in all this. Exactly how do Josh and his friends keep each other in line? Do they spray each other with hosepipes? And how exactly do you control the sex drive ‘for good’? Do you have a special box with a pink ribbon on it called ‘Sex Drive’ that you keep in the attic? And where does celibacy end and sex start? When you hold hands? Or is it more akin to Bill Clinton’s definition of sexual relations? And then there are the secondary – i.e. 2nd class – virgins. Do they have to stand in the corner? Are they infectious?

The Silver Ring Thing began in 1996, but it gained Federal funding in 2003 under one of George Bush’s faith-based initiatives. As a Brit, it’s gobsmacking that this sort of stuff could be taken seriously enough to be funded by a government. It’s understandable that a country might have small religious cults that think like this, but not mainstream society. OK, you have Catholic countries which are in theory like this, but they don’t seem to take it seriously. They just go to the confessional and everything is all right again.

Astrologically, I’d see it as Mars (sex drive) square to Neptune (loss and confusion) in the US chart. Mars in Gemini also suggests hypocrisy (like Eliot Spitzer, with his unaspected Sun in Gemini), as well as there being another side to the issue, which is the glamorization of sex that you get in advertising, the film industry and the media generally.

It is interesting that the Silver Ring Thing got Federal funding in 2003, at a time when Pluto was starting to oppose the US natal Mars at 21 Gemini, and squaring natal Neptune at 22 Virgo. It was an attempt at sexual (Mars) repression (Pluto).

So is there an answer? What would you say to a client who turned up with this aspect, who was by turns priggish and licentious? And liked to play cowboys (Mars-Neptune again) at weekends? I’m not sure what I’d say. But I might start with the Sun square Saturn that you get in the US chart, because this is the major character challenge. It makes for someone – or a country – who is very driven and achievement-oriented, but who over-identifies with this and can never get enough and is not at ease with himself, does not feel a solid confident foundation within himself.

A lot of stuff can come out in the sexual arena when we are imbalanced elsewhere. Sexual excess and compulsiveness can be a compensation for the lack of ease and pleasure in the rest of your life, which Sun square Saturn can easily lead to. Sexual repression can be an expression of guilt about bodily pleasure (and the US has no personal planets in earth) and self-loathing: the over-achievement of Sun square Saturn can be a sort of compensation for this self-loathing.

So this is what I might say: as long as you keep driving yourself like this, as long as you have to keep proving you are number one (negative Saturn is very hierarchical), sex is going to remain a tangled and compulsive issue for you. If you can stop and face yourself, and stop running from the imaginary abyss beneath your feet, then your Mars will have a chance to be a bit more normal. Or as normal as Mars in Gemini square Neptune can ever be! If you want normal, try Mars in Capricorn, which is an expert at the missionary position and doing its bedroom duty. Mars in Gemini is more interesting and experimental and – square Neptune – imaginative.

But what about George Bush Himself, who was ultimately responsible for funding the Silver Ring Thing under his ‘faith-based initiatives’ scheme? I never think of GWB as having a sexual dimension, and I sometimes wonder where it is. I can say for sure that he has had sex at least twice in his life, because he has 2 daughters. Do George and Laura pray together for forgiveness afterwards? Do women have orgasms in his world?

What I feel with GWB is that he views sex as something to be controlled, and has channelled much of his own urge into the pursuit of power. This is complete speculation on my part. His ancestor Richard Bush was a member of the Plymouth Colony 300 years ago, and GWB seems to me to be a throwback to those times.

He has unaspected Mars in Virgo. So it may be quite easy for him to shovel his sex drive off to one side, for it is not well integrated with the rest of his personality. Virgo can have integrity, but can also be moralising, prudish and hypocritical. Virgo is the virgin, but is also associated with ‘oriental moon ecstasies’ (Frances Yates, Astrea, p32). Where does George Bush get his ecstasy? Probably in that more war-like manifestation of his Mars, whether it was blowing-up frogs as a kid, sending record numbers to the execution chamber while Governor of Texas, or creating carnage in his war against Islam.

NB Since publication it has been pointed out that Bush's daughters are twins, so we can only be sure that him and Laura have had sex once. Also, he had a reputation when he was in the Texan National Gurad for his taste in coke and hookers. There's the other side of prudish Mars in Virgo. Classic!

Pluto and Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

From the New York Times:

“The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law…

Determining the legal boundaries for interrogating terrorism suspects has been a struggle for the Bush administration.”

This is Pluto in Capricorn: setting the boundaries (Capricorn) around torture (Pluto). I think it’s also a measure of how hideous the present US administration is, that you end up with this sort of debate. It’s like something from a horror spoof.

But it’s no surprise given that the 2005 Presidential Inauguration chart has a Mars-Pluto in Sag conjunction in the 8th House: secret (8th House) torture (Pluto) in a war of ideologies (Mars in Sagittarius). The 8th House suggests that while practices like waterboarding are being publicly debated, the CIA under Bush may well be getting up to much worse stuff that the legal system never gets to hear about.

But at the same time, does the US do anything that other countries do not do? At least it is more out in the open and subject to public scrutiny, which I think is a good thing. Of course, it also means that some practices become formally legitimised and therefore more widespread. It’ll be the local police force wanting to use waterboarding next.

It was the Gestapo, incidentally, who came up with the term 'Refined Interrogation Techniques' as a euphemism for torture. The Bush administration also has 'Special Methods of Questioning', 'Extraordinary Rendition' (for kidnapping), 'Sleep Management' and 'Stress Position'. The themes of political misuse of language and government control are central to George Orwell's 1984, a book whose time may have come under Pluto in Capricorn. I'm not suggesting that society will end up fully like Orwell suggests it could, rather that these themes are likely to be strongly present and strongly debated.

Papal Bull

The Pope is currently visiting the US. He is giving his Church there a hard time over the paedophile priest scandal. He has also said the following: "We will absolutely exclude paedophiles from the sacred ministry…. What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?" Ah, now I understand: the problem of paedophile priests has nothing to do with the Church and everything to do with American culture. And if it does have anything to do with the church, it is the American church and not the Vatican at which we must point the finger.

The Vatican is well known for providing a refuge from the law for its paedophile priests, when it hasn’t been able to quietly move them on to other parishes where they can carry on as before. The Roman Catholic Church considers itself to be above the law, and so does not have a problem with protecting and covering-up for these people.

At the same time, I don’t want to demonise the paedophile priests – demonising anyone is unhelpful, however bad they are, it’s a way of making ourselves feel good. And paedophiles are the modern witches in this respect. The problem that a lot of these priests have is arrested emotional and sexual development. They are shut away in seminaries at a formative age and encouraged to feel guilty about their sexual impulses. These celibate retards in skirts are then let loose on the community in a position of spiritual guidance, and the power that comes with that.

No wonder there is a mess. Pope Benedict cannot address the real issues because to do so would involve changing some of the church’s basic attitudes. He is known for having a phenomenal intellect and subtle mind, but he has spent his life putting those abilities in the service of the church’s stupidity. As such, I do not view him as an intelligent man.

Before he became Pope he spent 24 years as “Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office, the historical Inquisition.” In common parlance, he was known as the previous Pope’s ‘Enforcer’. It was a hard cop-soft cop act, so that John Paul II could appear saintly while someone else did his dirty work for him. This is a fairly common strategy for people in positions of spiritual authority.

The role of Prefect of the Congregation is best known for matters relating to Doctrinal enforcement. And in Joseph Ratzinger’s case (as he then was, of German origin), he came down hard on some of the South American liberation theologians. Other issues also prompted condemnations or revocations of rights to teach.

Ratzinger also had authority over other matters including clerical sexual misconduct. In 2001 he issued his notorious “Crimen Sollicitationis”, which affirmed and clarified the Church’s right to keep secret its own investigations into clerical sexual misconduct. In other words, he legitimised the cover-up that was going on. Under normal circumstances, he could have been prosecuted for inciting people to withhold from the police information pertaining to serious crimes.

So for him to announce in the US that he is deeply ashamed of the paedophile priests, without acknowledging his own role in allowing, even encouraging it to continue is deeply hypocritical. But hey, we are dealing with the Catholic Church, so what do you expect? Just don’t get caught up in the popular fantasy that he is ‘spiritual’. Remember it is a ghoul that you see waving mildly to the crowds from the Popemobile.

Roman Catholicism is the largest single religious denomination in the US, accounting for 23% of the population. I can understand it as a sort of tribal affiliation, I think that’s OK. But to take its rigid and fantastical doctrines seriously is another matter, and I’ve no doubt that many Catholics have enough sense not to do so.

Ratzinger was born 16 April 1927 at 4.15am in Marktl, Germany. He has some very nice bits to his chart – Sun in Aries trine to Neptune; Jupiter Rising in Pisces. This gives him a strong connection to the mystical, the spiritual, to God. This is fundamental to his personality. On its own it’s pretty saintly. Stick in Saturn in Sagittarius in the 9th, and you have a religious leader, a Pope. (The Dalai Lama also has Saturn in the 9th House. The last Pope had Pluto in the 9th.)

But then you have Moon in Libra square to Pluto in Cancer. The Moon is less obvious than the Sun, and Pluto tends to be hidden. Here you have the murk, the appetite for power and control and the ruthlessness which Ratzinger may not be very aware of. It is his Shadow, and what he personally identifies with are probably the saintly bits.

With Pluto in Cancer in the 4th House, he is fiercely protective of his own tribe and its traditions. He also has a Mars-Node conjunction in the 4th, which adds to this quality. And it is a blind quality, for it led to the cover-up over the paedophile priests. It is a ‘My country, right or wrong’ sort of attitude. Under the saintly surface, what we see operating in this man is Pluto at its most primitive and pre-human. He has the Node there as well, so in theory this lifetime involves him coming to understand this aspect of himself. But he was 74 when he issued his Crimen Sollicitationis, so he seems to be in no hurry to learn.

By transit, Pluto is currently opposing his Mars-Node conjunction, so the issue is being activated. At present, he sees it as ‘out there’, as we can see in his criticism of the American Church. But as the transit progresses, the issue may come closer to home, he may find himself under fire as well. This is the way oppositions often work: they begin by being projected ‘out there’, and gradually we come to see (if we are open to it) that it involves us as well.

This Pope is destined to have a strong relationship with not just the US Catholics but with the US as a nation. The US Sibly chart has Sun at 13 Cancer square to Saturn at 15 Libra. Ratzinger has Moon at 14 Libra square to Pluto at 14 Cancer. This is a very powerful connection, and it has a lot to do with power (Pluto) as well as the US Presidency (Sun). So no wonder George Bush (with Sun at 14 Cancer square to Moon at 17 Libra), in an unprecedented move, greeted him. And it was perfectly timed: Ratzinger’s Progressed Sun is currently at 13 Cancer in an applying conjunction to the US Sun.

So we are going to need to watch this space over the coming years. Roman Catholicism is a huge political constituency in the US, and via that constituency the Pope looks likely to be having a huge influence on the US.

It is no doubt Tony Blair’s dearest wish that his friend George should convert to Catholicism, like he did himself last year. The Pope and George Bush are both fundamentalist Christian by nature. Maybe, with their mutual hostility to Islam, it is simply a case of my enemy’s enemy is my friend; but with the Pope’s Pluto-Moon square tightly conjunct to Bush’s Sun-Moon square, I think we are likely to see a very strong relationship developing between these 2 Plutonian men.

In 2006, the Pope made the following statement during a speech: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” I am sure he has a willing adherent in George W Bush.