THE ASTROLOGY OF SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE

The Scottish National Party (SNP) is a centre-left political party which campaigns for Scottish independence. It currently regularly polls the second highest number of votes [after Labour] for a political party in Scotland. The SNP has 6 of 59 Scottish seats in the UK Parliament, and 25 of 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, where they are the official opposition. (Wiki)

This Thursday 3rd May, elections are being held for the Scottish Parliament, which was established in 1999 under the present Labour government, devolving certain powers to Scotland. All the signs are that the SNP will emerge from the election as the largest single party in the Parliament, displacing Labour, though without a majority. Polls among Scottish people have regularly begun to show a majority wanting full independence.

This is not good news for Labour, as it currently has 39 MPs in Scottish seats (compared to the Tories’ single seat), and independence will make it that much harder for them to win general elections in England. There does seem to be an unstoppable momentum developing, however, and I think it is a good thing. Small countries (like Ireland) seem to do well economically within the EU, so I don’t think they will have to worry on that score. But more importantly, the Scottish are a separate race to the English, by whom they have been effectively ruled for centuries, and I always think it’s a good thing if a people can govern themselves. I think it’ll be good for England too.

I also think that the smaller the country is, the easier it is for the individual to feel that they count, that they can make a difference. In a democracy, what does an individual vote count for? Absolutely nothing. It makes no difference at all. The individual is powerless at a national level, and often at a local level, and the outcome you are therefore most likely to get in an election is herd-think, rule by the unconscious mob-mind – and remember Hitler was initially elected democratically. Of course, democracy does have the ability to chuck out a leader who is a bad lot, and that is a strength. But as Churchill said, Democracy is the worst sort of political system - apart from all the rest!

I digress. Time for some astrology, and a chart for Scotland. This is not easy, as we can't be entirely confident of the year of its founding (842 AD), let alone the actual date. Scotland was formed from the conquest of the Pictish kingdom by the Irish kingdom of Dalradia (in what is now Argyle) by Kenneth MacAlpin. In his ‘Book of World Horoscopes’ (from which the above information comes), Nicholas Campion says: “We do not know precisely which year the union took place. However, if we set a chart for the Aries ingress of 842, that would fit with the astrological practice of the time, as practised in the Arab world, in which the Aries ingress prior to an important political event would have signified that event. Given that military campaigns usually took place in the summer, there is an excellent chance that the Aries ingress of 842 immediately preceded the Dalridian conquest of Pictavia.”

So we have a chart for March 16 842, 16.21, Edinburgh.

Click to Enlarge

In my blog of 18th March, I pointed out that the next day’s partial solar eclipse at 28 Pisces was conjunct the UK Moon at 29 Pisces (1066 chart) and square the UK Uranus at 29 Sag. I continued: “Uranus is, amongst other things, about splitting, and only today Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish Nationalist party, has been announcing his plans for how a Scottish government would work and his plans for a referendum.”

So there you have it, with the added point, that I hadn’t clocked at the time, that the Scottish Pluto is at 27 Pisces! So that eclipse really did have a lot to do with Scotland’s desire to break away from England (Uranus) and assert its own power (Pluto). On top of this, Pluto is squaring the Scottish natal Pluto by transit this year. So the astrology seems to suggest that this week's elections are likely to play a crucial role in Scotland’s moves towards independence. And the Scottish chart, artificial as it is, is already looking like it might work.

The Scottish chart has Moon at 7 Aries conjunct Uranus at 13 Aries (an interesting correspondence with the UK 1066 chart Moon square Uranus). Freedom and independence are important to the Scottish people. This Moon-Uranus in Aries is square to Mars at 14 Cancer, showing that we are dealing with a warrior race. If we add on Saturn-Neptune in Capricorn, we have a Cardinal t-square, which becomes a Cardinal Grand Cross if you add on Node in Libra. With this sort of astrology, I am amazed there haven’t been more rebellions, and given that conditions are now right, it can only be a matter of time before Scotland is independent. Maybe it is their Saturn in Capricorn that has kept them realistic about independence and actually quite at home in the Union, through the Protestant work ethic that they share with England (1801 chart - UK Sun at 10 Capricorn conjunct IC).

What about timing? By transit, Pluto and then Uranus will be hitting this Moon-Uranus-Mars-Saturn-Neptune-Node from 2011 onwards, at the time of the next Scottish elections, and a year or two after the next UK general election. So the move towards independence will probably be greatly empowered by these transits and the run-up to them: it seems reasonable to suppose that these 2 elections will result in greatly increased numbers of SNP MPs in both the British and Scottish Parliaments, with probably a clear majority for the SNP in the Scottish Parliament from the 2011 election onwards. This will only be the start of the Pluto transit, and we can expect to see full independence as the Pluto transit to the Grand Cross finishes about 5 years later, around 2015/2016.

Interestingly, Alex Salmond, the leader of the SNP, was born on 31 Dec 1954, giving him Sun at about 9 Capricorn conjunct Node at 5 Capricorn, which interacts strongly with the Scottish Grand Cross, and indicates a re-empowerment for him, through Pluto, from about 2011 onwards as well.

Back to the Scottish Chart. The Progressed Chart has Node conjunct MC in 2010, and the converse Progressed has Pluto conjunct MC in 2010. So the Government (MC) will have some sort of encounter with its destiny (Node) and be re-empowered (Pluto) around 2010.

So the astrology for Scotland around both the 2007 and 2011 elections suggest to me that the SNP is going to gain considerable ground in both, probably becoming the largest party this time, becoming the majority party in 2011, and this setting the stage for moves towards full independence in the succeeding few years. Looking at it the other way round, events now and where they seem to be going lend plausibility to the 842 Aries ingress chart for Scotland.

SATURN-NEPTUNE AND THE SELF

Buddhism has what is known as the ‘no-self’ doctrine which, applied to all phenomena, becomes the doctrine of emptiness (of which there are a number of kinds!) It’s easy for all this to become very heady – which some Buddhists can be very prone to – but the basic idea is that our sense of who we are is not fixed and enduring. As astrologers we’re on familiar territory here, because we regularly observe ourselves and others changing in times of major transits. But we only believe it partially: if we feel criticised, for example, we tend to want to defend ourselves, to protect our sense of who we are, instead of looking at the criticism with equanimity, and taking it on or discarding it as we feel appropriate.

So this is the reason for the ‘no-self’ doctrine: as human beings we treat what is a working construct – the self or ego – as something permanent, something that gives us a sense of security in an uncertain universe.

And this easily translates into the interplay between Saturn and Neptune. We do need a sense of self, a sense of ourselves as a centre of experience, but we need to get it right. Too much Neptune, and you’ve got someone who isn’t very present, who is too dreamy, lacks a strong sense of what they think and feel, and cannot achieve practical results; they find it hard to take responsibility for their lives, and may become parasitic and manipulative. Too much Saturn and you have someone who certainly knows what they think and believe, but their self is rigid, it is like a great wall around them, and it tends to be based mainly on their ability to earn money and recognition and respectability, along with a sense of superiority to others who are less ‘successful’. OK, I admit it, I’ve just had an encounter with someone like this, who has Sun-Saturn-Jupiter conjunct in Capricorn, and it was bruising!

So while we’re here on this planet we need an ego, a sense of self. There may be other realities before or after death where we don’t need a sense of self, but I wouldn’t know about that. If consciousness continues after death, it’s quite possible that Saturn as embodiment disappears, and we are just left with Neptune, in which we do not experience ourselves as being at the centre of things, and there is no protective barrier between ourselves and reality. That is the Buddhist view, along with the idea that we cannot handle it, and we flee back to embodied existence. That is where I part company with e.g. The Tibetan Book of the Dead, because I don’t believe that I was born just because I couldn’t handle Reality. I’m on this earth because it’s a beautiful place to be, and I want to fully appreciate that before I die. Nor do I believe I have a ‘purpose’ being here: that seems to me to be a bit of an abstraction, it takes me away from my experience, which is that I do what I do, and I feel very happy about quite a lot of it.

So whether or not anything continues after death, what I do know is that I’m here, and that I need a strong yet flexible sense of myself. I need Saturn in order to feel I’ve arrived, that I’m real, and that I am building and creating myself; but I also need Neptune to let go of all that, not to take it too seriously (“It’s only money,” as I said last night to someone who had lost some), to allow in new experiences and perspectives, and to remember that others, with equal validity, are also centres of experience.

And it’s not just an intellectual exercise in having the right attitude. In a society based on a one-sided Saturn, I think that generous actions, doing stuff for other people purely because you want to (NOT ‘ought to’ – that’s Saturn) helps get the balance right. Because practically speaking, the best way to understand the no-self doctrine is to be unselfish, but not in a self-sacrificing way.

I think a good image for a balanced Saturn-Neptune, and a balanced self, is a cell membrane. It’s tough, it lasts for years, it contains, yet it is flexible and delicate and porous.

SATURN AND WALLS

Astrological symbolism can sometimes work itself out very literally. I have noticed this in the case of Saturn, whose presence can result in the building or demolition of walls (one of Saturn’s meanings is to do with defensive boundaries).

Israel was founded in 1948 with Saturn at 16 Leo. The country has just finished its second Saturn Return, and during this period has been erecting the Israeli West Bank Barrier which, whatever the rights and wrongs of it, has succeeded in reducing terrorist attacks on Israel.

Construction of the Berlin Wall began on Aug 13 1961, with Saturn at 24 Capricorn. Demolition began in November 1989, 5 months short of its 1st Saturn Return. This wall was erected to stop defections from East to West Germany, and was known in the East as “The Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart”.

Glastonbury Festival, now the largest Festival of its kind in the world (and down the road from me) began as Glastonbury Fayre in June 1971. In the year 2000 100,000 tickets were sold and there were a further 150,000 gatecrashers. This caused such public safety concerns that its future was under threat, so the outcome of the Festival’s Saturn Return was the erection of a huge fence in time for the 2002 Festival. It certainly worked, but my experience at the Festival was that while the criminal element was hugely reduced, which was a relief, a lot of the interesting characters were also not there. I guess this is the price of Saturn: he is needed for social order, there is no way round that, but that means rules that edit out whatever doesn’t fit, which can be interesting, wacky and creative as well as criminal. But in myth he did eat his own children, so we have to expect it.

On April 10 this year, the Americans began the construction of a wall around a Sunni district in Baghdad. The chart for America’s efforts in Iraq – the Iraq War – is set for 5.33am, 20/3/2003, Baghdad. This chart has Saturn at 22.45 Gemini closely conjunct the IC. The Moon, being the closest ‘planet’ to the earth, triggers the energy of all the other planets. On April 10, the Progressed Moon of the Iraq War chart was at 21.28 Sag, almost exactly opposing the natal Saturn. So again we have a connection between Saturn and the erection of walls/boundaries.

Will the Baghdad Wall be successful? Saturn in the April 10 Chart is of course opposite Neptune, which must be the stupidest time conceivable to start building a wall. What has become apparent lately is that despite the hugely heightened security in Baghdad as a result of the American ‘surge’, the bombers are still getting through, the most prominent case being the bombing of the Parliament building. This is probably a function of Mars’ present passage through Pisces. Mars was in Pisces in the Baghdad Wall chart, and in this sign is probably very good at flowing through walls if it needs to. So the Baghdad Wall probably won’t work very well.

GLASTONBURY CALLING

A short article on the front page of the local newspaper is announcing a house for sale that has a front door carved in the shape of female genitalia, while the inside of the house has been turned into a Tantric Sex Temple. It’s business as usual in Glastonbury, UK. The local Catholic Church has a youth march up the High St every year, but last year proved to be the final one, due to those nice young Christians confronting many of the crystal-selling wand-purveying shop staff in the High St, spitting at them and calling them Satanists etc. This event made the headlines of the local paper.

Glastonbury has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries, and in the Middle Ages it was home to Glastonbury Abbey, one of the 2 great places of Christian power in England, along with Canterbury. All that changed in the Reformation, and all we have now are the ruins. It’s a small town in Somerset with a huge number of healers, astrologers, shamans, charlatans, tarot readers, psychics, mediums and just about every religion you can think of. The High St, according to Vajramala, is like Diagon Alley in Harry Potter, and she complains that you can’t even buy a pair of knickers. Mind you, it gives me an enhanced appreciation for Woolworths and Morrisons, which someone once described to me as “Gateways to Ordinary Reality.”

Of course we get a lot of tourists, and just as a lot of Brits are prepared to believe the wild claims that Native Americans sometimes make, so too are many Americans prepared to believe the invented religions and spurious claims to authenticity that you get in Glastonbury. There is, for example, an artefact called ‘The Blue Bowl’ that was arranged to be ‘discovered’ 100 years ago, and it’s put about that it is the Holy Grail. One American I know felt very disillusioned when a group of us were looking at the chart for the ‘discovery’, and not taking remotely seriously this claim. She had thought for years that it was literally true, and had brought over parties of tourists from the USA where she introduced them to the ‘Holy Grail’. Mind you, there are plenty of Brits who are prepared to believe this sort of stuff, often members of what I call the English Head-mysticism tradition. They’ve often got degrees, they know about lots of ‘occult’ things, often spurious (in my opinion), such as the Glastonbury Zodiac, and they mistake their ‘knowledge’, which is endless, for wisdom. My considered response is a desire to strangle and pulverise and dismember these people, not out of hatred, but from a sincere wish that out of such annihilation something real may emerge.

I think, though, if you leave something spurious for long enough, what you get is an established religion that does act as a genuine vehicle for something more profound. Who says mythology has to be based on historical fact? Let’s just not confuse the two. But I’ll never be able to take seriously the idea that Christ or the Buddha, who were only in their early 30s, could possibly have had the level of wisdom they are credited with. At a certain age you have to start trusting your own experience, and I ask, has anyone reading this ever met anyone in their early 30s with a full quota of the sort of experience-based insight that you can very occasionally get in old people? And how could you tell, apart from knowing someone well? I also find hard to take seriously the idea that a military general, i.e. Mohammed, could have been God’s special messenger, unless it was the Old Testament God, which fits quite well.

In our astrology discussion group, which meets every couple of weeks and is generally quite anarchic but fruitful, the subject of a chart for Glastonbury keeps coming up. We base it on the date when Glastonbury was given its charter, which was on 23rd June 1705. The calendar has shunted forward by 11 days since then (it seems to have taken us a long time to establish exactly how many days!) giving 4th July 1705. But there’s no time of day given. But there is a traditional technique of putting on the ASC the planet that you reckon rules the chart or the event. This is how one of the Gemini Rising charts for the USA was generated: Uranus, the planet of revolution, was held to have ruled the Declaration of Independence, and it was in Gemini at the time. And why not? Astrology is based on the idea that there is a relationship between symbolic reality and experiential reality, and which end you want to start from seems to me a matter of choice. Which isn’t the same as fiddling the chart to fit the facts, i.e. the dark art of rectification, which I nevertheless practice, intellectually indefensible (to quote Nick Campion) as it is.

So what we were left with was deciding what planet to put on the ASC. Neptune seemed the obvious choice, Glastonbury being genuinely a place of pilgrimage, psychic experiences, multiple religions and candy-floss spirituality. We kept returning to this one every so often, and of course plenty of bits fitted, but we weren’t going Wow! Apart from anything, it made the ASC Aries, while Glastonbury can be a very hard place to make anything happen.

A friend reminded me a couple of months back that Glastonbury is traditionally the Isle of the Dead. I’d never really thought about it before (having been here 8 years) but I realised that yes, Glastonbury is a kind of Underworld, people are drawn to live here for reasons they don’t understand (or sometimes spat out very quickly), and almost invariably get immediately shoved into some deep transformational process, often painful, and at double the usual rate of intensity. That’s what happened to me when I moved here in Oct 1998, and things haven’t slowed down since. And now it’s feeling like time to go, I’m realising that I have been in an Underworld all this time without quite knowing it, and that I’m slowly emerging into a more ordinary, concrete, collectively-lived reality again. And because it’s an Underworld, it’s not a place for overt achievement, for 10th House stuff. I’ve found it’s been a good place to build up skills, and do some good work, but it’s always held back, I can keep things ticking over but not much more. If you want to achieve things while living in Glastonbury, I think you often need to have your work elsewhere. And that, I think, is why you get so many wonky projects going on in Glastonbury, all these courses and teachers, for example, where more often than not there’s something a bit odd about them. And plenty of people who can’t see that.

So yes, Glastonbury is an Underworld, and therefore you can argue it should have Pluto on the ASC at 18 Leo. As soon as we looked at this one, everyone started going Yes! This one feels right! There’s still some questions about the Moon, but not on my part: 4th House Sag, it welcomes pilgrims and visitors from afar by the bucket-load. And Moon conjunct Chiron: I notice it time and again when people visit, something gets moved on or healed for them. And Sun conjunct Jupiter in 11th House Cancer: there is a strong community dimension to Glastonbury. It’s square to 9th House Neptune: it’s a ‘spiritually’(Neptune) based community, a good bit of it daft and weird (Neptune). There’s plenty more I could say, but I’ll leave it there.

GORDON BROWN AND CHIRON

For the last 10 years, the relationship between Tony Blair and his Chancellor Gordon Brown has defined the British Labour Government. Despite his unprecedented success in winning 3 consecutive Labour victories and his huge majorities in Parliament, Tony Blair has at the same time been at the mercy of his Chancellor in a way no other British Prime Minister has ever been. Gordon Brown has a big following of his own within the party, and for Blair to have sacked him at any point would have made it extremely difficult for him to govern. And Gordon Brown has used his position as Chancellor to control the other ministerial departments to a degree that is also unprecedented.

In the election to become leader of the party in 1994, Brown did not stand so as not to divide the party (so he said: he would have lost had he stood). He has since built on this myth that he sacrificed his own ambitions for the sake of the party, and has made it seem like he has a right to be the next leader, and that Blair has been repeatedly treacherous in not standing aside for him.

It looks like his moment will finally arrive during the course of this year. There have been mutterings about someone standing against him in an election to be leader, but no prominent MP has put their name forward yet. If one did stand and lost, he/she could expect no largesse from Gordon Brown: their ministerial career would be over.

If I admire anything about Tony Blair, it is his ability to contain the feud with Gordon Brown. Unlike Brown, Tony Blair is not vindictive. I don’t think Gordon Brown is a leader of people – I think he is tyrannical – and I think his reputation as a brilliant Chancellor, so necessary for his self-esteem, is overblown. The fact is that the West has been in a period of sustained economic growth for a long time now, and Brown has managed not to get in the way of that. It was the Tories who set up the conditions for the boom in the UK. If he has achieved anything, it has been in raising large amounts of cash through taxes to put into the public services, without alienating the voters by raising personal income tax.

There seems to be a widespread perception that the man is ‘not right’, and also a sense that we have no choice but to have him as our next leader. This is not a good omen, and the opinion polls put the Tories well ahead if Brown becomes leader.

Astrologically, he continues the Chiron/Damage theme that we have seen in both Bush and Blair. Both men have a prominent Chiron, and in both cases the transits to or from Chiron have reflected the irrevocable and self-inflicted damage they have done to their reputations through the Iraq War.

Bush’s Chiron is central to his chart, being both conjunct his Moon and square to his Sun, and the failure of his Iraq venture has fatally damaged his whole Presidency. In 2003, as the Iraq War got under way, transiting Chiron in Capricorn squared his natal Moon-Chiron and opposed his Sun. This was not a good omen, and as Chiron moved on to conjoin his Descendant at 7 Aquarius in 2006, the chickens came home to roost. Public opinion turned decisively away from him, and he is now a lame-duck, ‘damaged’ President.

Blair’s Chiron is not so central to his chart, but it is conjunct his MC in Capricorn. And we see the same pattern as with Bush. In 2003 Blair had his Chiron return, and in 2004 Chiron conjoined his MC. In 2006, as the failure of the Iraq War became accepted politically, Chiron conjoined Blair’s North Node at 7 Aquarius. This year it conjoins his Moon. The Iraq War has not been central to Blair’s leadership in the way that it has been with Bush, but it has still done him enormous damage. Apart from the damage to national self-respect that his toadying to Bush has caused, the huge issue has been the falsification of evidence in order to provide grounds for war. To my mind, there could hardly be a more serious offence than this, and a lengthy jail-term should be the outcome. But it won’t be, and I think Blair has that common psychopathic ability to cheerfully carry on as though he’s done nothing wrong.

Gordon Brown has natal Chiron at 1 Capricorn, conjunct his MC at 5 Capricorn. Given that his leadership appears flawed before it has even begun, it is not hard to predict that Chiron is going to play a major part in his trajectory as PM. Blair had 5 years as PM before Chiron was activated and damaged his premiership. In Brown’s case, the transits to and from Chiron will begin almost straight away. Being PM is not going to be a happy experience for him. He has lusted after the job for years, and it is going to turn into ashes. And it will be a self-inflicted wound.

When I do readings for people, Chiron normally reflects some psychological injury early in life, and not of one’s own making. So it is interesting to see, through these political figures, Chiron representing the self-inflicted damage we can bring about later in life, if we don’t develop the self-awareness that Chiron necessitates.

From Brown’s progressions and transits, we can see that 2007 is mainly about the ascent to power, but that the trouble will begin straight away.

Gordon Brown: 20 Feb 1951 8.40am, Giffnock, Scotland. (See also my 2 earlier blogs on Gordon Brown, Should Gordon Brown Be Leader? and The Sexy Mr Brown.)

This year he has the following: Prog Moon opposite Prog MC and natal Sun, and Prog MC conjunct natal Sun. His solar return (SR) has Sun sextile Pluto and (a bit of trouble here) Moon and Venus square to Pluto. His converse SR has Pluto and Neptune conjunct the MC. Tr Chiron is opposing his natal Moon all year. So he certainly looks likely to become PM, but he will have problems around people accepting him and liking him – popular appeal – from the word go (the Venus, Moon, Pluto trouble in the SR, tr Chiron opposite Moon).

Brown has a natal 12th House Mercury (much of his chart is hidden in the 12th) opposite a Moon-Pluto conjunction, which describes his continual power-seeking and plotting. In 2008 Chiron will conjoin his Mercury and oppose his Pluto. This way he has of going about things is likely to seriously damage him next year. Pluto will also be conjoining his natal Chiron all of 2008. With natal Chiron conjunct MC, his general reputation will become damaged. This theme is repeated in Converse Prog Chiron conjunct CP ASC all year.

Uranus will also be conjoining his passive-aggressive 12th House Mars in Pisces in 2008, reflecting the infighting that will be going on, and his difficulties in genuinely asserting himself in relation to others. His Solar Return for 2008 has Pluto conjunct ASC opposite Mars conjunct DESC, further confirmation of the likely power struggles and infighting within his government. This SR chart repeats the Chiron theme through Moon opposite Chiron, and reflects his difficulty in governing through a Sun-Saturn opposition.

Brown’s astrology for 2008 suggests his premiership will be everything one might have feared from his current reputation. He will be forced to call an election by 2010 at the latest, and that year he will have transiting Pluto conjoining his MC. It seems to me that this will signify him losing the general election.

There is, of course, a very slim chance that Labour will come to its senses and not elect Brown as their leader this year. This would be extremely difficult for him to accept, and in this case I think his upcoming astrology would reflect that lack of acceptance, and the damage it will do to his reputation.

THE US PLUTO RETURN

According to one poll last year, 27% of 18-26 year old college students in the USA had doubts that NASA went to the Moon. In another 2006 poll, 38% of Americans suspected that the government assisted in some way with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A 2003 poll found that 70% of respondents believed there was a plot to kill Kennedy.

I’m not concerned here to pass any sort of favourable or unfavourable comment on these beliefs. What I’m more interested in for now is the enduring level of mistrust in the US government that these beliefs reflect – a level of mistrust that may or may not be justified. This mistrust, if anything, is intensifying. The 27% who doubt the Moon Landings are educated college students from the younger generation, a sign of things to come. And the level of mistrust over 9/11 is phenomenal.

It is not just this particular Bush administration that is mistrusted: it seems there has been a heightened mistrust ever since the cover-ups over both Vietnam and Watergate. (I didn’t know it, but the young Colin Powell was involved in the My Lai cover-up). But it is reaching new heights as Pluto finishes his time in Sagittarius and moves on into Capricorn. Pluto in Sagittarius demands the Truth, and in the UK Blair’s lies over Iraq have become an honesty issue in an unprecedented way. But in the UK we do not have the level of mistrust in the government per se as you get in the USA.

What occurred to me recently is that this level of mistrust cannot endure indefinitely, something has to give, and with Pluto soon to enter Capricorn, it is likely to be the form of government itself that changes. AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AS WE KNOW IT MAY WELL NOT SURVIVE THE PASSAGE OF PLUTO THROUGH CAPRICORN.

The planet Uranus was discovered in 1781, 5 years after the American Declaration of Independence, and just before the conclusion of the War of Independence. The revolutionary nature of this struggle is rightly associated with this planet, particularly as it was discovered during this period. But Pluto was at 28 Capricorn at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and I think this is just as important. Pluto is also revolutionary, but not in the sudden, precipitate, ideological way of Uranus. Pluto change tends to be more of a gradual process with an enduring outcome, in which the old is completely cleansed and a new centre of power is established – either within oneself, or in this case, within a nation. And it was in Capricorn, the sign of government.

In the US, Independence was not just about the country ridding itself of rule by what had over time become a foreign power – i.e. the British. It was also the British – and European – form of rule, monarchy, that was overthrown, to be replaced by elected government (even then there were many who didn’t have the vote.) It was a shift of power (Pluto) to the people (Moon): Moon conjunct Pluto in the July 2 chart, Moon in Aquarius – democracy – in the July 4 charts. It also emerged as a radical de-centralising of power, which was spread between the legislature, the executive, the judiciary, and the individual states.

So with Pluto returning to Capricorn next year, and reaching its natal position of 28 Capricorn in 15 years time, America is about to complete its first full Pluto cycle as a Democracy. It seems to me that the system was very well thought through and in many ways works well. I like, for example, the fact that Senators are only elected every 6 years. This means they have the leisure to take a considered, long-term view, without having to worry all the time about responding to changeable public opinion. And I also like the fact that members of the House of Representatives are re-elected every 2 years. This means that in an urgent situation such as Iraq, where the national self-interest is being harmed by an intransigent President, the situation can be addressed relatively quickly via the ballot box.

But there is also this huge mistrust, which Pluto in Sag has revealed and heightened, and which I think Pluto in Capricorn is likely to address – gradually, culminating around 2022 as Pluto reaches its natal position. What form this will take is anybody’s guess.

Revolutionary activity began in America long before 1776. It started around 1760, with Pluto in late Sag conjunct the Galactic Centre, which is what we have now. So the Revolution itself was the outcome of Pluto’s journey through Capricorn over about 16 years, having been seeded by Pluto’s conjunction to the GC. When the time was ripe, Uranus joined in, and the USA was born.

It might be worth asking: is the current level of antipathy and mistrust towards the US government comparable to that felt towards the British in the run-up to 1776?

What, I wondered, might be going on around 2022, when the US has its Pluto return?

First of all, the Presidency itself has a transit of Uranus conjoining the MC in 2023.

The US Sibly Chart has Prog Uranus conjunct Prog MC in 2023-4.

The Sibly also has a converse Prog Pluto, Moon and MC conjunction in 2024, all around 25 Cap, near the degree of natal Pluto, and within 1/2 a degree of each other. (Converse Progressions are calculated by going backwards a day for a year instead of forwards, and they can indicate conditioning from the past that is influencing the current situation.) With the MC signifying the government, this converse line-up suggests that around 2024 the US government will be experiencing a shake-up that was inherent in its founding.

The 2 July 4pm chart has a natal Moon conjunct Pluto (the chart ruler) in Capricorn, and in 2022 this chart will have Prog Moon conjunct Prog Pluto.

The list seems to just keep running. There is going to be a big shake-up, some fundamental re-thinking of the way America is governed, around 2022/3, and there will be a long process between now and then to get to there.

Other charts also say something similar. The chart for the Federal Constitution in 1787 has a conjunction of Prog Uranus, MC and Moon in 2023-4. In 2020/1, Prog Neptune conjoins Prog ASC.

The Presidential inauguration chart for 2021 has Pluto conjunct MC at 26 Capricorn. And a LOT of tension: Sun, Saturn, Jupiter conjunction all square to a Moon, Mars, Uranus conjunction. Also Sun conjunct Pluto, Moon square Pluto.

The inauguration chart for 2025 (assuming there still is a President by then) has Sun conjunct Pluto conjunct MC opposite a Mars-IC conjunction. So these Presidents won't be having an easy time of it.

The thing about Progressions is that they take centuries or even thousands of years to repeat themselves (except the Moon). If we were dealing with transits, we could more easily say oh, this is a cycle the US has been through before. But with progressions, we are encountering something entirely new, partly because America is a young country. For example, the US Sibly Prog Mars went retrograde for the 1st time ever in 2006, and will remain so until 2087: and what we may be seeing, via Iraq, is a long-term military reversal - the first ever - for the USA.

So with all these Progressions around Pluto, Uranus, the MC and the Moon ganging up in 2022/3, we are likely to see something completely new come into being, a whole new phase, a reformed governmental system. And it's likely that the process is beginning around now.

ASTROLOGY, SCIENCE, RATIONALITY AND EVOLUTION

One of the things I like about astrology is that while it demands a lot of use of the rational faculty, there is no rational explanation (as far as I can see) for why astrology should work. The furthest I can get in explaining how astrology works is to say that somehow there is a connection between symbolic reality and experiential reality.

Enduring symbols emerge from the depths of the mind, a level of consciousness where we are no longer separate from the rest of the cosmos. In this way symbols, and hence astrology, connect our everyday experiences to the deeper purposes of the cosmos.

Well, that makes sense to me, anyhow, but I’ve switched over into a non-rational explanation. On a purely rational level, I don’t think astrology can be explained. But because astrologers need to have a developed rational faculty, I think the practice of astrology gives us a gradually deepening insight into the limitations of rationality. Rationality, at any rate, as understood in our culture, which tends to be scientific and ‘objective’. So I think that the practice of astrology is a very good antidote to the mindset that says that knowledge has to be rational and scientific to be real. It is an informed antidote, not a blind one, because astrologers need a good rational faculty.

Even on a non-rational level, I don’t think astrology can be adequately explained. Rather, it gives us a sense of wonder at how mysterious and incomprehensible yet connected and purposeful the universe is.

So scientists see themselves as ‘objective’. In a sense they can be right. They do this by excluding personal emotional response as a valid source of knowledge, as well as by having a rigorous methodology and theoretical framework which can yield some stunning results. It is well-known, however, that scientists can be irrationally resistant to theories that challenge the accepted canon of knowledge. Their capacity for ‘objectivity’ goes out of the window. Or if something happens for which there seems to be no possibility of a scientific explanation. Such as Lynn’s example of putting a bar of soap under your bedsheets to relieve pain. Or the evolutionary theory of “the inheritance of acquired characteristics”, for which there is increasing evidence, but which has been a no-no for 100 years, because no scientific mechanism can be thought of.

What this closed-mindedness demonstrates is a strong attachment to a particular way of seeing the world. This is a strongly emotional characteristic, there is nothing rational or reasonable about it. I refuse to accept that scientists are any more rational than the rest of us. You could argue that because they do not take emotion seriously in their methodology as a way of knowing, they are more likely to be victims of unconscious emotion. I personally do not see rationality as an exclusively logical function. I think that a rational person also has a sense of whether or not their feelings are appropriate to the situation, and whether or not to be guided by them. There is rational and irrational emotion. And I think that scientists are being highly unreasonable human beings when they dismiss outright astrology, homeopathy, bars of soap, or unconventional scientific theories because they don’t ‘understand’ them. It’s like the natives who couldn’t see the sailing ships because they’d never seen anything like it before. But worse, because it’s more wilful.

At the other end of the scale, and I may be wrong, but I think the whole ‘dark matter’ theory is a desperate attempt to hang on to an outdated way of seeing the universe. Apparently, gravity as it is understood is not strong enough by a long way to hold galaxies together. Therefore, it is said, there must be another source of gravity, so called ‘dark matter’, which constitutes 90% of the universe, which we cannot see or detect and have no evidence for. They may be right, but I suspect it is more akin to the ‘ether’ that matter was supposed to reside in, but for which there was no evidence, until Einstein came along and said no, what you can see is all that is there, it’s just that you need to look at it differently.

I was very pleased to see a programme on Lamarckian inheritance about a year ago. This is the theory that, for example, if a giraffe has to stretch its neck to get leaves off trees, its offspring will tend to be born with longer necks than they would otherwise. This is the “inheritance of acquired characteristics” that I mentioned earlier. Without something like this, evolution seems to me to be not only incredibly slow, but random: it is purely a matter of chance if you have advantageous characteristics. Whereas I think there is some sort of direction going on, some sort of participation by consciousness.

I can’t remember too much about the programme now, but one finding was that a people who had gone through famine 100 or so years ago were more likely, several generations later, to have certain physical characteristics associated with famine. A crucial time for the passing on of acquired characteristics was if the famine – or whatever else – occurred at the time the individual’s reproductive capacity was forming. For women, this is at a certain point when they are in the womb, when all the eggs are formed. For men, this is at puberty. So now they are doing an experiment with a number of women who were pregnant in the vicinity of 9/11, and seeing if that anxiety is in any way passed on to their children, and presumably to their daughter’s children, if their eggs were being formed at that time in the womb. (They kind of have a mechanism for all this, in terms of genes being switched on and off).

Something else I was pleased to read a couple of months ago was an experiment that had recently been done with lizards. Some were introduced to a neighbouring island, where there was a larger, predatory lizard. Within 6 months, the descendants of the new lizards had generally longer legs, so that they could outrun the predatory lizard. Within another 6 months, their legs had shortened again, and they had become climbing lizards, another way of avoiding the predatory lizards.

This suggests that evolution can happen incredibly quickly, which I’ve thought might be the case for some time. Given that evolution has produced incredible structures like the brain, I don’t think it’s asking too much for there to be some sort of feedback system between the demands placed on the body and the reproductive organs.

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.

ASTROCARTOGRAPHY AND THE US CHART

In previous posts I have argued a case for both the Gemini Rising and the 2nd July Scorpio Rising charts for the USA. What would I get, I thought, if I tried some astrocartography?

I put up the Sibly Chart – the one most commonly used for the USA – and there was Pluto on the MC going right through Baghdad! And then down past Mogadishu, scene of the 'Black Hawk Down' episode.

As far as I understand it, astrocartography works by plotting where on the earth all the planets were on the Angles, and therefore most active, at the moment you were born. For example, though you might not have Venus overhead (on the MC) in your chart, there would be a whole line of places on the earth where Venus would have been overhead at the moment you were born. These might be good places for you to get married!

Similarly, the places where you have Pluto on the MC are where you are likely to very publicly meet your nemesis, as is happening to the US in Baghdad.

With Pluto on the MC running not just close to Baghdad but virtually through it, I think that the Sibly Chart has to be included as one of America’s charts, at least one that describes its foreign policy. The Sibly chart is for the moment America declared its independence to the world, so this fits.

That said, the 2 July Scorpio Rising chart has Chiron on the ASC, Saturn on the DESC and Sun on the IC all crossing each other within 40-50 miles of Baghdad, which is another very good hit. So we have to include this chart as well. Chiron and Saturn describe what is happening now, but what about Sun on the IC? I was reading only the other day that the US has involved itself in the Middle East since the start of the 19th century, beginning with missionaries and later building schools and hospitals, well before all the oil stuff started. So there is a sense in which it has been making a home for itself in the Middle East (Sun-IC) for a long time now.

What about the Gemini Rising Chart (also for the Declaration of Independence)? That has Mars on the MC crossing Neptune on the DESC passing halfway between Baghdad and Tehran. So this chart works as well!

If we look at Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, the 2 July Chart has Mars passing fairly close by, which fits. But the other 2 charts don’t seem to work very well. The Sibly has Venus and Jupiter, and the Gemini Rising Chart has the Moon on the IC – all perhaps describing different aspects of US involvement in Vietnam?

As probably with all countries, I think there is more than one chart for the USA. It doesn’t mean that all the charts are valid, but that those that are valid are coming at the USA from different angles, and need to be used as such. For America’s ideals and how it likes to see itself, for example, the Sibly or the Gemini Rising Charts would seem to be the best ones to use. For its government, the 2nd July chart, when Congress voted itself independent of Britain, might be the best one to use.

For my other 3 blogs on the US Chart, see my postings USA: Gemini or Sag Rising?, Born on the 2nd of July? and Scorpio Nation .

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.