The Lemming Theory of History

I think that conspiracy theory, in the sense of world events being secretly controlled by small groups of people, is similar in principle to the old-fashioned ‘great man’ view of history, which Tolstoy attempted to discredit in his novel War and Peace. According to this theory, history is largely shaped by great men like Napoleon: “highly influential individuals who, due to either their personal charisma, intelligence and wisdom or Machiavellianism, used power in a way that had a decisive historical impact.”

Tolstoy’s most effective presentation of his case was in describing the nature of battles, of which he had first hand experience. What we might learn in a history book is Napoleon’s brilliant victory at such-and-such a battle, brought about by the orders he gave. What Tolstoy points out in detail is the huge disparity between the orders that were given, and the course of events on the ground. The outcome of the battle, in other words, had nothing to do with the orders given by the ‘great man’. The victorious Russian general Kutuzov in War and Peace goes to sleep in his tent during a battle, having the wisdom to know that any orders he gives won’t make any difference.

It’s not that ‘great men’, or small powerful groups of people, do not make a difference. They can, if they seize the moment. But it is soon gone in the wider current of forces that shape society. In the last analysis, I think it is this wider current, the collective will of society, that has the most power.

Barack Obama may make a difference to America. But he is in the position he is in because there is a collective longing for certain types of change that he has been able to respond to and articulate. There have always been leaders and influential groups of people. Sometimes they are able to rise above the collective and shape it, for better or for worse, at least for a while. But they are like temporary islands in an ocean.

The ongoing world financial crisis, and plunge into recession, is a good example of the unconscious collective having the upper hand. A huge force has swept through the world, and gone are our usual illusions that anyone is in control. The notion that somehow a few people engineered this is risible. It has been a wonderful and instructive example of the ultimate power of blind collective forces. These forces haven’t come out of nowhere. They have been building for years through the reckless, herd-like actions of the banking system, the politicians who are supposed to regulate it, and the millions of people who have borrowed far more than they should have. It’s very hard to point a finger at particular groups of people and blame them. It’s human nature at a collective level that has brought it about.

Hence my title ‘The Lemming Theory of History’, which remarkably doesn’t produce any results on Google. The lemmings go over the cliff because all the other lemmings are, and they are being pushed on from behind. Even if you have been financially prudent over the last decade, you are still having to go over the cliff, you are still being affected by the recession.

So individuals, or even, if you want, secret conspiring groups can make a difference for a period, even for decades, while the currents are with them. But the bigger trends are fundamentally collectively determined.

This view ties in with society seen as a chart in mundane astrology. Yes, the inner planets are there: there is the Sun as the leader, the Moon as the people, Mars is the army and the violent gangsters, Venus is the women, Jupiter the gamblers and empire builders and so on. But then you have the outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. We know from our own individual lives that we cannot control these planets when they are active, we can only do our best to co-operate and to remain conscious. These planets carry the deeper themes of our lives, as well as ushering in the new phases, the big transformations. Living with outer planets can be hard enough for us as individuals, with our capacity to make choices. So how much harder it is for a collective, where choice-making and consciousness are much more problematic, to live consciously with these planets.

It is therefore entirely in keeping with the astrological view of the outer planets to see society as fundamentally, and largely unconsciously, in the grip of collective forces, with the odd moment of inner planet consciousness here and there. The Lemming Theory of History! Yes there are great men and women, and yes there are conspiracies/cabals, but they are small fry in the bigger sweep of things.

With Uranus moving in to square Pluto over the next few years, we are at the beginning of one of those great collective transformations that we see from time to time. The last was Uranus conjunct Neptune in the early 90s. Despite his best efforts, the leader of the USSR at the time, Gorbachev, was completely powerless in the face of the collective forces that tore apart the Russian Empire, with a speed and ferocity that surprised everyone. These moments when outer planets join up and completely take over do not come from nowhere: they are like underground rivers meeting and bursting through to the surface, sweeping through towns and villages. They were there all the time, quietly growing in strength and carrying the collective with them, which in its hubris thinks it controls events.

By the way, what keeps me on these sort of themes is living in Glastonbury, UK. For many people here, it is a common sense fact that any major world event has been deliberately and secretly engineered. They are not clear about who or what or how. But that’s not the point. The point, I think, is to avoid engagement with reality, while retaining a sense of superiority to it.

UFOs and Conspiracies

The British Government has just started releasing batches of previously classified UFO files after a number of requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The files document reported sightings of UFOs by members of the public and the RAF. With Pluto about to make its final visit to Sagittarius, the timing is appropriate. Eight files have been released, part of almost 200 to be released over the next 4 years.

Here are some drawings made by members of the public. (From the BBC news website.)
They include this diagram, whose author believed alien craft used decoy methods to avoid detection, carrying not humans but "fallen angels".

This drawing of a UFO was made from a description given by a 78-year-old man, who claims he was taken on board an alien craft at Basingstoke Canal in Aldershot during 1983.

This reproduction of a UFO was made by a Metropolitan Police officer after three officers saw an object at Stanmore in Harrow in 1984.

A 1979 government briefing for the House of Lords dismissed the idea of political collusion with aliens:

d. There has been no approach to Governments, and no direct knowledge of UFOs by Governments. Lord Clancarty has an answer: there is a great inter-governmental conspiracy of silence, initiated by the CIA.

15. The idea of the inter-Governmental conspiracy of silence is at once the most astonishing and the most flattering claim of all. On so few things can the Governments of the world agree unanimously, but they have all supposedly agreed to conceal the evidence of UFOs from their peoples. Let me assure this House that her Majesty’s Government has never been approached by people from outer space.

Personally, I have no reason to doubt that these experiences were real. And I'm sure they weren't all just mistaking aircraft for UFOs. Beyond that, I don't know.

It's an excellent subject for conspiracy theorists. I like the point about how hard it is to get governments to agree on anything, so what chance a world-wide conspiracy of silence? Of course there are things we don't get told. But I'm continually disappointed by conspiracy theories, because I'd love it if some of them were true. What I keep finding is that the people who promote these theories make very shoddy use of any available evidence or theories that don't agree with their own theory, and 'facts' are presented which turn out to be anything but. These people clearly have a strong psychological need to believe their theories, quite possibly rooted in a sense of powerlessness.

If anyone knows of a conspiracy theory where the case is well-argued, and both sides presented, please let me know! With Pluto entering Capricorn, a time in which we can expect more government control and secrets, we may be about to enter a Golden Age of conspiracy theories!

WAS 9/11 A CONSPIRACY?

Am I the only person left who still believes that 9/11 was caused by a small group of Arabs who hijacked some airliners? And that their efforts were facilitated by government incompetence in the run-up to the events, of the sort you’d find anywhere? The BBC is doing a series on conspiracy theories at the moment, beginning last night with 9/11. Some people think it ridiculous that I should take the BBC seriously on this sort of thing. But it needs pointing out that while the BBC can be craven in its dealings with the British government, it can also be independent and outspoken.

The most recent major example was its contention in 2004 that Tony Blair had “sexed up” the intelligence about Saddam’s WMD programme. In a time of war you just don’t do this, but the BBC did, and as everyone knows (except Tony Blair), they were right. The government responded with fury and set up an inquiry that was a whitewash and which pointed the finger at the BBC. The governors of the BBC rolled over and axed their 2 top people. So the BBC can be both courageous and cowardly.

What struck me watching this documentary was the tone of the people they interviewed. The people who accepted the airliner explanation of 9/11 were kind of bemusedly shrugging their shoulders: “I went to the Pentagon to help in the rescue work, and there were bits of airliner lying about.” It wasn’t a big deal, just ordinary people describing what they had seen. The conspiracy theorists, on the other hand, had a fervour about them, we were dealing here in CERTAINTIES, there was no room for doubt, and they didn’t attempt to engage seriously with evidence that cast doubt on their theories. I know which group I’d rather hang out with. Which doesn’t make them right. Just more reliable.

Belief in conspiracy theories on a wide scale seems to be more American than British, and maybe I’m just betraying my cultural limitations in my belief that a small group of Arabs brought about 9/11. But fervent believers aside, it still seems to me that a lot of intelligent Americans will treat as straightforward fact unproven theories that cast doubt on the truthfulness of authorities. Whether it’s Liz Greene’s allegedly faked PhD, or the Bush administration’s alleged conspiracy to bring about 9/11. These are not facts, they are opinions. My belief is an opinion, too.

As the guy who co-wrote The FBI Files was saying, Americans have had the experiences of Vietnam and Watergate, and this has gone deep, these events are always lurking large in the background. And Bush himself has clearly lied big-time. If you’ve been lied to and betrayed enough, it will rightly make you distrustful. But I think it’s important to come out the other side of these experiences, with a loss of naivety, yes, but with common sense intact.

Let’s look at the chart for 9/11, based on the impact of the first jet into the World Trade Centre at 8.46 am, 11th Sept 2001, New York.

If there were a secret conspiracy behind it, I would expect to see a strong 12th House, Neptune or Scorpio emphasis. What we find is an exact Mercury Rising, 4 minutes into the 12th and ruling the 12th, and Sun in the 11th, in Mercury-ruled Virgo, 46 Minutes off the 12th House Cusp. So a conspiracy is arguable.

On the other hand, Eris, the Goddess of Mischief, who uses one event to set off something much bigger – in this case, 9/11 leading to the War on Terror – Eris is at 20 Aries, square the Midheaven, and in the 7th conjunct the DESC. The 7th House is the House of Open Enemies, which Al Qaeda certainly is. Using astrocartography, the Pluto-MC line for 9/11 runs through western India and Pakistan and through eastern Afghanistan. All Bin Laden territory. The Saturn-IC line runs through here as well. And the Saturn-Pluto opposition of the time was the biggest astrological factor of all.

So the single biggest factor – Saturn-Pluto – points to Al Qaeda. Does Sun conjunct 12th House cusp suggest the US authorities were also secretly involved? Or does it suggest their powers of analysis (Sun in Virgo) had gone to sleep (12th House)? Because there was plenty of evidence in advance, if they’d put it all together. And you don't need a conspiracy for them not to do so - all you need is argy-bargy between the CIA and FBI, just like you get between the different branches of the British Armed Services.

The people who carried out the attack, the Moon, is in the 9th House of foreigners, and appropriately opposite Mars, and in late Gemini: in Arabic astrology, a favourable time to start a war. I’m thinking from the astrology that Al Qaeda was definitely involved. I don’t think US government involvement can be ruled out, though that’s not my personal belief.

The Composite Chart between George Bush and 9/11 has a 12th House stellium of Sun-Venus-Moon-Jupiter in Leo. This strongly suggests a Presidential cover-up - but we don't know whether before or after the event. Similarly, the Composite between the Defence Dept and 9/11 has 12th House Pluto, in a t-square with Saturn and Eris. Again, something murky going on, but we don't know if it was before 9/11 or after or both.

Neither the Sibly nor the 2nd July US charts have much that indicates a cover-up when composited with the 9/11 chart, suggesting that any cover-up/conspiracy mainly concerned George Bush and the Defence Dept. And Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, both of whose composite charts with 9/11 are significantly Neptunian.

So I think I'd definitely go for a neo-con conspiracy after 9/11, in order to use the events to their advantage, and to cover-up a lot of what went on. But I think 9/11 itself caught them napping.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Next Sunday BBC2 is showing a programme about conspiracy theories. This morning they interviewed a psychologist involved in making it. His observation was that people who tend to believe in conspiracy theories often have trust issues on an interpersonal level, and this easily gets extrapolated to mistrust of governments and big institutions. Another angle raised was that when an event happens that has a huge impact – such as 9/11, or the death of Princess Diana – people often want a reason for the event of comparable magnitude. It’s not enough, despite the evidence, that Diana’s death was an accident, or that 9/11 was caused by a small group of Arabs: there have to be bigger causes, so that, for example, the British government ordered the death of Princess Diana. There are, of course, such things as real conspiracies, as they were quick to point out, examples being Watergate and the Iran-Contra affair.

All good Saturn-Neptune stuff. These 2 planets make an exact opposition in 2 weeks, so the programme is timely. Conventional, grounded reality (Saturn) versus deception, illusion, trust/mistrust (Neptune). What we don’t always know is which end of the opposition is the real one! Are we being deceived (Neptune) by the Government (Saturn), or do we need a reality-check (Saturn) on our paranoid illusions (Neptune)? Maybe we can never be 100% sure.

What I have noticed with people who tend to believe in conspiracy theories is that they really want the conspiracy to be true, and there’s no arguing with them. They think you’re just naïve because you haven’t woken up to what’s ‘really’ going on. It often has the flavour of religious conversion.

I like to be open-minded about these things. I’d be really fascinated if some of them were true, but I don’t NEED them to be true. I find it’s a bit of a balancing act in remaining open to these possibilities without involving myself in the crazy, paranoid minds of the David Ickes of this world.