Astrology and the Daimon

Astrology does not predict the future. In fact, astrology on its own does not say anything. It all comes down to the astrologer and his/her divinatory ability. Admittedly, if astrology is applied mechanically – in the way a computer does – it will score a few hits. And that can give the illusion that there is something ‘objective’, something ‘out there’ in the stars that the astrologer is reading.

And, just to sort of contradict myself, maybe there is? I’m thinking out loud. When those words come through you, where are they coming from? Are they coming from deep within, or are they being channelled from eg Pluto? We probably each have our own way of seeing that.

And it doesn’t really matter. If those divinatory words are indeed coming from the stars in your experience, the point is that it is not a literal place. Those words – the knowledge within them, the spirit behind them – are coming from someplace else that is not the everyday tangible world.

So how can computer readings be/appear useful? Firstly, we tend to remember the bits that ring true and overlook the bits that don’t. Secondly, people sometimes respond to readings as though they are being told something about themselves from the beyond, but without examining if it is true.

Thirdly (here’s where I get mystical), whoever wrote those computer readings, if they were good, would have written them in a synchronistic way, so that they would apply to precisely those people who would one day look at them. Sun sign astrology can work a bit like that.

One way that this divinatory perspective can affect the astrologer is that it throws us back on our own resources and abilities. Astrology is not something you can become ‘good at’ through stacking up knowledge and ideas, however interesting they might be.

I think that is a bit of a natural human tendency. The exoteric is more readily comprehensible, and requires less effort, than the esoteric. The exoteric is also a place to fall back on when we doubt ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong, the exoteric, the book learning, is invaluable. But it is all a support for that encounter with the gods, that place where you are on your own. And I think that applies right across all ‘spiritual’ traditions.

 Ultimately it’s just you and that Daimon who wants to speak through you, if you have the courage to let him. Or her. It just happens to be astrology that is the means.

That is why I think of astrology as essentially Neptunian. It involves unfolding symbols and letting them speak through you, which is Neptunian. And you are there doing that unfolding because to some extent your life is being guided by something other, a Daimon if you like, and that is also Neptunian.

 I find that sense of something other in the driving seat, so to speak, comes and goes. Sometimes it can feel like it’s just me and all my stuff to deal with, and it’s like this wall I’m up against. And then at other times there’s this sense of it all being how it’s meant to be and there’s this sort of benign plan, and that gives me a perspective that shifts me away from just feeling I’m at the coal-face. And that’s Neptune, who is currently squaring my MC-IC.

I think the IC can be overlooked, but it is the roots out of which the MC  - the branches, our place in the world - grows. The IC, it could be argued, needs to be addressed first in order for the MC to flourish. And my experience of both Neptune and Pluto (in the late 90s) hard-aspecting my MC-IC is that it has been predominantly the IC that is being addressed, my inner world, all my old stuff that still needs sorting, out of which comes a new story of my life.

Traditionally, the MC and ASC are the 2 most powerful Angles, while the DESC, and particularly the IC, it seems, can be treated as add-ons. You could say that it is an expression of the one-sidedness of our culture that the MC is seen as more important than the IC. That what we do matters more than who we are; rather than what we do, in the sense of the things we do that matter to us, growing out of who we are.

The theme of this piece, in a way, seems to be that which is inner, seeing that as the foundation, whether in terms of our psychology (the IC) or the Daimon (Neptune.)

And it’s a lifelong process. There’s no hurry. It can be confusing in our Saturnian culture (eg UK Sun in Capricorn, US Sun square Saturn), with its emphasis on tangible achievement. You can feel wrong-footed by it, doubting yourself for all the wrong reasons.

That inner process is more Moon (natural IC ruler) and Neptune (natural 12^th House ruler) , than it is Saturn (natural MC ruler). Saturn at his worst denies the reality of the inner, but at his best is a protector of it, he is the walls of the mystic’s cave. Saturn needs to serve these 2 planets rather than dominate them: he gives us the wherewithal to keep our life in some sort of practical order, and the ability to find a place in the world for the Daimon. But the Daimon tells him where to go.

If the Daimon, the presiding spirit of our lives, is Neptunian, and Neptune rules the 12^th House, then that suggests the Daimon lives in the 12^th House.

I was uncomfortably aware when writing the above that Pluto often turns up when I’m writing, a sort of presiding spirit, and that doesn’t fit with the Daimon being Neptunian. And then I realised my natal Pluto is in the 12^th House: it was one of those moments, that we probably need a word for, when you realise you're on the right track.

Not only that, but the Sun rules my 12^th and is opposite Pluto. So my Daimon lies along that axis, in the working out of that opposition. Which is further suggested by my Jupiter-Neptune-Node conjunction in Scorpio: the need to find a hidden inner power and knowledge.

The Daimon is there, if you like, when you know you are doing the right thing with your life. So that brings in the North Node, the point in the chart where our most important lessons and tasks lie. I tend to think that if you are doing your North Node, then the rest of your life will fall into place.

Consciousness, the World and Mythological Thought

Consciousness and the outer world are inextricably tied to one another. How we treat the world is a reflection of how we treat ourselves. If we see the world as essentially soulless, as lifeless matter to be used without consideration, then that is also how we treat ourselves and each other: as units of economic productivity, to be tossed aside once we are of no use.

I suppose I’d trace it back to Science, with its tendency towards materialism; to Protestantism and its work ethic – good units of economic productivity go to heaven; and to the Old Testament God, who enjoined mankind to rule over all the animals.

So the environmental crisis is really an inner crisis. The environment is suffering because people are suffering; we have become split off from our natural relationship to the world, with its respect and its give and take, and split off therefore from a natural relationship to ourselves.

And I think this broken relationship is also reflected in the scientific view of the macrocosm, a place that is 99.99% chilly and lifeless, and whose destiny is to become increasingly that way, the eventual ‘Heat Death’ of the universe. Give me Armageddon any day!

I don’t see science as the objective art it claims to be, i.e. that it is simply discovering what is ‘out there’. It can easily seem like that if you’re not very reflective. The world so impresses us with its hard, separate reality that it can be hard to experience it as intermingled with, and conditioned by, consciousness. Quantum physics has known this truth for over 100 years, that you can’t separate the observer from the experiment. But it is subtle.

Eurynome Creates the World

So I don’t see the largely lifeless scientific universe and its eventual Heat Death as objective. It is an idea that reflects our broken consciousness, and we have found the evidence to support the idea, something that humans seem to be very good at! I think it takes a balanced human being to be ‘objective’, to see the universe in a way that reflects its real nature, which is one of aliveness: and there are many ways to do this, many Creation Myths, which are true to the extent that they reflect a living universe in which people have a balanced place (i.e. not ruling the animals!)

The Hunt for Dark Energy

From this perspective, the hunt for ‘Dark Energy’ seems to me quixotic. We may or may not find the stuff. But to say that 99% of the universe is missing and undetectable, that it can only be inferred, is also a way of saying that the universe we have in a sense created is woefully narrow.

We need to think mythologically, because that allows room for the part consciousness plays in generating views of the universe. Science is a myth, a story, that does not recognise itself as such. Its mythological nature is repressed, and when you repress something it comes back at you in demonic form: a chilly, lifeless universe that is 99% beyond our ken.

Truth lies more with the intuition, with direct experience, than it does with the intellect, which needs to have a supportive rather than a commanding role. I see an idea as true if it is imaginatively appealing, if it ‘rings true' in my experience, more than whether I can find hard evidence to support it. That way my experience of myself and my view of the world are not at odds.

BUSH AND BLAIR REVISITED (part II)

As Iraq splits apart, we see Tony Blair shrilly insisting that it was not caused by the 2003 invasion, contrary to what a lot of other people see as common sense. In my last piece, I had a look at Blair’s chart to try and explain this departure from reality.

Tony Blair by GWB

George W Bush, by contrast, does not seem to have said anything about Iraq as it is splitting up. A few months ago he revealed his paintings to the world. He isn’t brilliant, but who is? He has done a painting of Blair that is recognisable. He has done one of Putin in 2 halves, one of the face he shows to the world (which may just be a photo), and the other half of the man behind the mask. Bush said that when he met this closed book of a man, he could sense his soul. Much of Bush's diplomacy was based on building personal connections, and he now seems to be turning this ability to connect into paintings. In a way, he is reflecting on and digesting his experience. We don't know what this sensitive man feels now about Iraq. And it is in such contrast to Tony Blair.

While he was President, a lot of people seemed to feel that Bush wasn’t leading his own life, that he was following in his Dad’s footsteps and was swayed too much by the old men from his father’s administration that he surrounded himself with.

His chart is not a very public one. I can see ‘leader’ in Blair’s chart quite easily, but not so in Bush’s. I can see a power of expression through the Mercury-Pluto Rising in Leo, but I would see that more in an artistic context: the feelingful and imaginative 12^th House Sun in Cancer square to Neptune, and the aesthetic Moon-Jupiter in Libra.

I see what he is doing now as so much more in accord with who he is.

His Sun is not very strong in a worldly, assertive sense, being both in the 12^th House and square to Neptune and people-pleasing Moon in Libra. I’d say that caused a ‘loss’ of his identity earlier in his life (the alcoholism would have been part of that) and a vulnerability to the expectations of being the eldest scion of a wealthy political dynasty. He would have to both make money and succeed politically, and he did both in a cack-handed sort of way, through family connections.

But it was never him. That is why he has disappeared. He wouldn’t even help the Republican campaign at the last Presidential election. I think it’s an extraordinary psychological story, which may one day come out.

Putin: Bush felt he could sense the soul of this closed-book of a man

By transit, the news of his painting exhibition came out on 4^th April 2014, while Pluto was starting to station 14 minutes away from an exact opposition to Bush’s Sun: such powerful astrology says that the painting is not just the hobby of a bored ex-President, but part of a process of a profound change in which a more real person is emerging. This process will continue as Pluto goes on to square his Moon and MC in the coming years. He may even become a good painter, because the artistic element is so strong in his chart.

Bush also has natal Uranus conjunct North Node (as has Barack Obama). So he needs to break the mould if he is to feel fulfilled. The mould, I'd say, of his family background (Cancerians are very sensitive to family expectations.) Again, his re-invention of himself as an artist could be his means of doing this.

During the period of leaders with 12^th House Suns which we had in both the USA (2000-2008) and the UK (1997-2010), I wondered about it, because it is unexpected. A strength of this placement is the ability to be a mouthpiece for the collective, and Bush and Blair both had this quality strongly (and it is for the same reason that artists can speak to the collective, and why dictators fear them.)

But in a public person, the 12^th House Sun will also want to hide, being far more comfortable in quiet solitude and contemplation. You are not likely to get a leader that you feel you know. And I think this applied to all 3 of Bush, Blair and Brown.

With Bush, as I said, there was always the feeling that he was living out someone else’s expectations. With Blair (whose paternal grandparents were both actors, and who married into an acting family), there was a wall of rhetoric with enormous public appeal that won him 2 landslide elections. But who was the man, what did he really stand for? None of us really knew who this arch people-pleaser was. Until enantiodroma occurred, the phenomenon of turning from one psychological extreme to another. When the prospect of war with Iraq came about in 2002, he quickly turned from cautious people-pleaser into doing what he believed in, with religion as a back-up, regardless of what others thought. And with a big dose of 12^th House self-deception thrown in.

Gordon Brown having just lost the General Election

Bush and Blair both had a persona they could project, while Gordon Brown did not even have that. Prime Minister for 3 unhappy years, he began his premiership with a telling image, speaking from a podium with half his face hidden behind a recorder. Most of Brown’s personal planets are in the 12^th House, but he also has Moon in Leo in the 4^th conjunct Pluto: that is the hunger for power that was always snapping at Blair’s heels, even though his personality was unsuited to leadership. Lacking, like Bush, planets at the top of the chart, he has gone happily into anonymity since losing office.