COVID and
SATURN-PLUTO
On 23rd
March, Pluto will move into Aquarius. A major event for the collective. A new
age slowly dawning, especially with Neptune also changing sign in two years.
About time too. Covid was a rubbish time for so many people, occurring under
the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 2020, and therefore an event of great
significance, whose implications will be with us for years. When Saturn and
Pluto team up, Pluto’s darkness, often ultimately restorative, is given a
channel into the world. The loss of education for many children, that will
impact on their futures. The economic hardship. The enforced isolation.
But why
should this type of school education matter so much? And many people in the so-called 3rd
world would die for what we call hardship. Maybe, in an extraverted culture, we
have learnt to be with ourselves and question ourselves more. There is depth to
Pluto’s darkness. But it is also usually painful.
The
Saturn-Pluto conjunction occurred in Capricorn, the sign of government. The governmental
response to Covid was almost universally totalitarian. Very Saturn-Pluto. I
have heard the US government’s response to Covid traced back to the
totalitarian response to 9/11. Very interesting, because 9/11 occurred during
the preceding Saturn-Pluto opposition. In both cases, it was governments acting
scared, over-reacting like a spooked herd of horses. I don’t think we need read
darker motives than that into the governmental responses, even though they make
for a conspiracist’s dream. Nonetheless, totalitarian responses are a bad habit
for governments to get into.
In the case
of 9/11, there was not a single terrorist attack on the US mainland after that
event. And Covid turned out to be much less of a threat than was initially
feared. Like I said, over-reactions by government. But that is what herds of
prey animals do. And that is what we are, as human collectives. Pluto is a
collective planet, and he can show us our collective nature.
PLUTO IN
AQUARIUS, COVID and GENETIC ENGINEERING
Pluto,
however, is moving into Aquarius, and that is what I want to talk about, having
already written two blogs on the subject (Jan 24th and Feb 5th). But
I had a reason for talking about Covid first. This is because Aquarius is a
sign of human inventiveness, of new technology, for better or for worse. So I
have been on the lookout for hints of those technological advances in the
run-up to the Pluto Ingress. That was the idea behind this piece.
 |
THE WUHAN LABORATORY
|
It has recently
come out that Covid in all likelihood did indeed escape from a Chinese lab. It
was the product of genetic engineering, and caused a worldwide pandemic. What
better example of Pluto in Aquarius could you get? Of course, it happened some
years before Pluto in Aquarius, but the conclusion that it was human-made is
only now starting to be drawn more conclusively. Great advances can come from
genetic engineering, it is a very powerful technology. As well as disasters.
These are the 2 sides of Pluto, its destructive as well as its creative power,
in the realm of technological inventions (Aquarius). Technology itself I prefer
to think of as Virgo, but the initial genius behind it is Aquarian.
There was
always suspicion Covid had come from a lab, some people because they wanted it
to be true, others because there was a plausible scientific possibility. Trump continued
to call it the Chinese virus: he wasn’t just being childish, he had a point. As
ever with Geminis, sometimes what look like lies turn out to be truths.
Trickster Mercury.
The Chinese
were engaged in ‘gain of function’ research with a virus, speeding up, through
genetic engineering, the process of it becoming highly infectious and
transmissible in humans. This was one of the giveaways, because this new virus
became so infectious so quickly. Proper safeguards were not in place. Scientist
Matt Ridley lays all this out in proper detail in his interview with Jordan
Peterson, which you can find on youtube.
It was
cock-up that caused the pandemic, and herd panic was the response. So much can
be explained in these kinds of ways. I think it is psychologically more sound to
do so, firstly because there is a lot of truth in that way of explaining
things; and secondly, because once you start attributing dark motives to
unnamed individuals, you are usually giving them powers they do not have, and projecting
your own malignity and agency (Mars) onto them. Saturn-Pluto and the pandemic
was a notable time for this kind of shadow projection, as might be expected.
Same with 9/11, another Saturn-Pluto era, and the idea that it was a US government
set-up.
So we might
expect genetic engineering to make considerable advances in the coming years,
for better and perhaps for worse, because it has been flagged up as Pluto advances towards Aquarius.
-------------------------------------------------------
I offer astrology readings on a donation
basis. Contact BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk. My offer also remains open
indefinitely, that if you buy and rate at Amazon my astrology book
Surfing the Galactic Highways, I will give you a free reading. The same deal goes for my book The Medicine Wheel.
-------------------------------------------------------
NUCLEAR
FUSION
Nuclear fusion is the Holy Grail of energy research. It had
been 30 years away for decades. Until now. In a recent youtube interview with
Lex Fridman, research physicist Dennis Whyte claimed that, due to recent advances,
the first working fusion reactor is only about 4 years away.
Energy
produced from nuclear fission – the splitting of heavy atoms – is currently the
only realistic alternative to fossil fuels, for the intensity and reliability
of energy needed for our major cities: major cities is where humanity is mostly
headed. Those ongoing giant cultural melting pots. But many people have been unnecessarily
spooked by nuclear energy since the end of the Cold War, when the fear of
nuclear war faded, and the fear passed over to the peaceful use of nuclear
energy. This was as Pluto moved towards the nuclear axis at 2-10 Gemini-Sagittarius.
 |
Click to Enlarge
|
This axis,
which has proved sensitive to transits, is based on the first controlled use of
nuclear energy, in Chicago in 1942. The Uranus (splitting) -Saturn (matter)
conjunction is very descriptive. The axis will next be activated in 3 years
time, when Uranus in Gemini begins to cross the nuclear axis, and Pluto in
Aquarius begins to trine/sextile it. It will also be the first Uranus Return of
the nuclear chart, and this is highly significant, maybe suggesting a
completion of the cycle of nuclear energy as fission (Uranus), as it moves on to
fusion. But also, perhaps, a re-acceptance of fission energy for the meantime, on a
needs-must basis, if we are to gradually wean ourselves off oil. The chart for
the 1st Oil Strike in 1869 is having its 1st Neptune
(oil) Return in the next 2 years, suggestive of this gradual shift – from oil,
to fission, to fusion.
 |
Click to Enlarge
|
Controlled
Fusion needs its own chart, but we have yet to achieve it, so a chart will have
to wait. But we do have a chart for the first uncontrolled reaction – ie the
first H-Bomb – in 1952. That will have to do the job for now. And it does it
very well, in that it has a Saturn-Neptune conjunction: the fusion (Neptune) of
matter (Saturn). This is quite remarkable, given that the fission chart has an
equally descriptive, parallel signature of Saturn-Uranus. Neptune will begin to
oppose this fusion signature in 11 years time, as Saturn squares it. It too, has its own axis, for the Moon
opposes Saturn-Neptune, so we have a tighter axis of 20-23 Aries-Libra.
 |
Click to Enlarge
|
Just as
remarkable is Pluto on the Midheaven in Leo: the power (Pluto) of Leo’s ruler
(the Sun). It is fusion that powers the Sun and all other stars. Astrology can
be eerily descriptive sometimes. The Sun itself is hidden by Sign and House, in
12th House Scorpio, showing perhaps the difficulty we have had in creating
a technology to harness this energy, as well as its hidden power (Scorpio). But Pluto is coming up to square the
Fusion Sun, and then he will hard aspect the Angles in 15 years time – as
Neptune finishes with the Fusion Axis.
Putting all
this together, something will be happening in just a few years as Uranus and
Pluto activate the Nuclear Axis of the basic nuclear chart, and this is in line
with the claim of some kind of working fusion reactor in 4 years time. But it
will take another 10 years or so after that for the technology to reach some
kind of initial maturity.
What has
happened is that the Americans, spinning off from ITER, the giant international
experimental fusion reactor, have used a new superconducting material that
enables the prolonged sustaining of the magnetic field that contains the plasma
of hydrogen nuclei, without using vast amounts of energy. This plasma, heated
to tens of millions of degrees, hotter than the sun, causes a fusion reaction.
And vast amounts of energy are released, with no radioactive waste, and no
possibility of an explosion. Expect the news to get exciting in 2 years time,
when Uranus first enters Gemini, and Pluto settles into Aquarius.
In another
method of catalysing fusion, in which lasers are fired at pellets containing
fusion fuel, more energy was released than was put in. This is a first, and was
reported in December 2022.
This
technology promises to transform humanity in the long-term.
QUANTUM COMPUTING/ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
A step
forward in quantum computing was also recently announced. Data was reliably transferred
from one quantum chip to another. This is another first, and holds the eventual
promise of computational power of an entirely different order to what we have
currently.
This raises
the wider question of machine intelligence, a very Aquarian theme. Already,
computers are producing useful answers to problems where, due to the complexity
of the calculations undertaken, the operators/programmers do not understand how
the computer has reached its conclusions. There is now a branch of computing dedicated
to trying to understand what the computers are doing. This problem can only get
harder as ever more sophisticated and demanding programmes are used. Already
the machines are irreversibly more intelligent than us in certain ways: Pluto
in Aquarius can only empower this trend.
A fortiori
quantum computing. I don’t pretend to understand how it works. But there is
already, to my mind, something a bit spooky about the ability of conventional
computers to be beyond our understanding. Throw in not just the exponentially
increased power of quantum computers, but the fact that they operate on the quantum
level, a universe that is hard to understand rationally, if at all: the
spookiness to come may be of a different order.
Another
advance has been ChatGPT, which I covered in my February blog. It was released
in the autumn, and had an electrifying effect due to the human-like way it was
able to create essay responses to questions.
So these are
4 technological Pluto in Aquarius themes that I have noted activity around in the run-up to the
Ingress: Genetic Engineering; Nuclear Fusion, and Quantum Computing/AI.
The dark
side that we have seen already is a pandemic created in all probability by
genetic engineering in a lab. This is an event of huge significance, but
uncertainty over the scientific conclusions, lack of co-operation by the Chinese,
and political considerations have kept the issue muted.
