There are increasing fears that India has slid into autocracy with PM Narendra Modi’s increasingly despotic and Hindu nationalist policies stifling dissent by labelling any anti-government comments as seditious, leading to incarceration for terrorism without trial. Amnesty International has been forced to leave after its bank accounts were frozen and staff harassed and intimidated after reporting on rising human rights violations suffered by Muslims and other minorities. Police brutality goes unchecked; little is done to counteract the appalling rape epidemic against lower caste women and children.

   Writer Pankaj Mishra said after Modi’s landslide second victory in 2019 that he had seduced India with envy and hate, exploiting inequality, division and grievance. The reputation that India had in post-colonial independence days as a secular democracy valuing personal liberty is being tarnished if not destroyed.

  Modi has made some advances since he was elected in 2014 with expanded rural electrification and banking, cooking-gas and toilet-building schemes. But he has not brought the rapid growth, national security and enhanced global status he promised with a disastrous attempt at currency reform in 2016 and his inept handling of the pandemic. He has picked fights with China and Pakistan and lost; and imposed an effective coup on mainly Muslim Kashmir which is being talked of as the sub-continent’s Palestine.

   India is heading for a significant change of direction and upheaval from mid 2021 onwards as tr Uranus moves to square the entrenched Pluto Saturn and the Aquarius Midheaven in the India chart and the following two years tr Uranus will square the India Venus and Sun. Tr Saturn will also be making its downbeat presence felt in 2021/22 which may be the economic hit from the pandemic and the global recession having an impact.

   Will the pressure for change bring more libertarian policies? Modern India was born out of the repressive, tough-minded and unsentimental Saturn Pluto conjunction in Leo, so will not find the process of change easy. The India Mercury conjunct Pluto Saturn has some similarities to the Mercury opposition Pluto in the USA chart, so both countries will have a tendency to attract demagogues who use inflamed and toxic rhetoric.  

   When Modi was first elected in 2014, with a track record from his days as Governor of Gujarat for inflaming hatred, the tr Uranus in Aries square tr Pluto in Capricorn was moving towards the hard aspect to the Solar Arc Mercury, Saturn, Pluto conjunction, so wakening up that particular dragon from its underground layer. Tr Pluto is still this year and in 2021/22/23 pulled on the Solar Arc Pluto, Saturn and Venus. So it may wait till tr Pluto moves into Aquarius in 2023/24 for the winds of change to really make themselves felt.

  Through the latter stages of this decade and into the early 2030s India will be undergoing a massive transformation, a death and collapse of the old and birth of the new as tr Pluto starts wading in opposition to its Fixed Leo planets and then conjunct its Midheaven. 2022 will start with domestic unrest as the tr Pluto opposes the Cancer Moon but it will take a critical build up of pressure to make much of a difference.

  By 2026 tr Uranus will be out of the India 12^th house into a lighter, brighter, hopefully more libertarian phase, as it moves across the Ascendant and into the India 1^st house for six years thereafter.  

Pluto in Capricorn (with Saturn added) and Neptune in Pisces have much to answer for.

Actress Katie Holmes’ love life is a matter of consuming interest to the tabloids, more because of her long defunct marriage to Tom Cruise, than much to do with her career.

  Having lately parted from a long and private relationship with actor/musician Jamie Foxx, she’s now out and about in public with a New York chef Emilio Vitolo Jr. It’s only been six weeks since they got together – much to his mother’s dismay since he had a live-in fiancée at that point, now gone the way of all things.

  All I can say is that Holmes must like a challenge since her relationship chart with Emilio, has a composite Sun, Pluto, Saturn, Mars conjunction and they don’t get more intense, possessive, dominating and power-struggling than that. Plus a head-in-the-clouds, over-hopeful Neptune opposition Jupiter. They are clearly still in the starry-eyed phase though tr Saturn squaring the Pluto, Saturn and then Mars may knock some of the shine off before New Year.

   Emoilio, 19 August 1987, is a flamboyant and entertaining Sun, Mars, Venus and Mercury in Leo which fall in her 1^st so he will give her image a boost; his Jupiter in Aries is also trine her Sagittarius Sun which will give her a warm glow of confidence.  But his Uranus is also conjunct her Sun for a tendency to go his own way; his Pluto squares her Jupiter for upmanship-fights ahead; and his Neptune is conjunct her entertaining 5^th house Mars which suggests ego-clashes for attention.

  She does have her Progressed Moon moving through her 7^th house now which will put her on the lookout for a committed relationship but she will be pushed and pulled, not knowing what she really wants. Her emotional life will be due a major shake up come mid 2021 onwards with tr Uranus opposition her Venus in Scorpio. And I’d hazard a guess that the great love of her life is several years away.

The leading vaccine manufacturing pharmaceutical companies – Novavax and AstroZeneca – look revved up and raring to go from this New Year or just after.

  Novavax, the US company, was founded 18 June 1987, with a Gemini Sun opposition an innovative Uranus; a go-ahead Jupiter in Aries in a risk-taking and opportunistic square to Mars Mercury in Cancer; with a Yod of a super-ambitious Pluto sextile Neptune inconjunct Venus.  Tr Pluto will square its Jupiter from late this December, repeating throughout 2021; and tr Pluto will trine the Sun/Jupiter midpoint from late January 2021, on and off for two years. So very much a confident, successful, full-steam-ahead phase.

 AstroZeneca, British-Swedish, 6 April 1999, has an upbeat Sun Jupiter in Aries sextile inventive Uranus. With a ruthlessly determined Mars in Scorpio opposition Saturn square Neptune. Their chart hints at a setback or two before the end of the year but is then on full-flood from late February 2021 as tr Pluto is conjunct the Mars/Jupiter midpoint, on and off for two years – which is the classic marker for kick starting successful new projects.

  Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline have less showing on their charts. Though dates can be a moveable feast with pharmaceuticals since they tend to merge and sell on constantly.

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Power-couple-to-be Democratic style are hopefuls Doug Emhoff and Kamala Harris. He’s taken leave of absence from his job as a successful Hollywood entertainment lawyer to campaign for her and is reportedly looking forward to being “Wife-guy” after the election.

  Born only a week earlier than Kamala on 13 October 1964, he has a relatively similar chart. Both are Sun Libras – like the Michael Douglas/Catherine Zeta Jones match. He has a hard-working Capricorn Moon while she probably has an upfront Aries Moon. The only other difference is his lawyerly and balanced Mercury in Libra in contrast to her intense and penetrating Mercury in Scorpio.

  Both are go-getters with strongly Cardinal charts giving them initiative and both have Venus, Uranus, Pluto in Virgo so at least they’ll understand each other’s restlessness.

  Both have Jupiter at 24 degrees Taurus which is being boosted by tr Pluto trine from late this December to late January 2021, which looks like a confidence-boosting few weeks.

Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour’s year keeps getting worse and worse, lurching from economic problems to a scathing memoir by a former colleague, to a row over her approach to racial diversity and now a split relationship. She and her long-time partner, Shelby Bryan, 21 March 1946, a telecommunications millionaire, together for 20 years since both left their respective spouses for each other, are apparently parting company. Though reports say they haven’t been together for some time as he laboured under considerable IRS debts.

  It was a strange connection and an intriguing astrological puzzle. The synastry is in some ways classic for a relationship with his Scorpio Moon matched with her Scorpio Sun; and her Aries Moon chiming with his Sun, Mercury, Venus in Aries. Though Aries and Scorpio are hardly an ideal match.

  The relationship chart is a different matter – with a power-struggling composite Mars, Pluto, Saturn opposition Venus, which suggests dark undercurrents, major aggravations and anger issues. Though there may be a composite New Moon (depending on birth times which aren’t known) which would at least initially give a more-whole-together, complementary feel.

  Not that any of it will stop the ‘Ice Queen’ forging ahead in 2021 with tr Pluto conjunct her Jupiter from late January onwards for two years. But with the tr Uranus square tr Saturn upending her 10 degree Scorpio Sun it won’t be remotely settled for some time yet.

 See previous post: April 26 2020.

Power-couple Senate leader Mitch McConnell and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, married since 1993, are heading into a troubled few months ahead.

  Elaine Chao, born 26 March 1953 in Taipei, Taiwan, was under investigation for conflict of interest involving her father and sister’s considerable business interests in China which have extensive ties to the Chinese state and Chinese elites. Her department also handed over $78 million grants to Kentucky where her husband is senator – the investigation of this was short circuited when the acting Inspector General was removed.

  She’s a Sun Aries with an enthusiastic Venus Mars in materialistic Taurus and Jupiter also in Taurus in a pushily confident square to Pluto (Moon) in Leo. She also has two Yods of Mercury sextile Jupiter inconjunct Neptune Saturn; and Pluto sextile Saturn Neptune inconjunct Mercury in Pisces. Highly-strung, scattered, not easy to pin down.

  Her relationship with Mitch McConnell has a good many positive points. Her Sun is trine his Pluto, for a close connection; her enthusiastic Venus Mars are probably conjunct his Taurus Moon; and her upbeat Jupiter is conjunct his Mars Saturn Uranus so she’ll boost his morale. There are rough edges though with her Pluto Moon square his Mars Saturn Uranus so it won’t have been without its aggravating moments. Two high pressure jobs will help to soak up some of that.

   Their relationship chart has a close and affectionate composite Sun Venus conjunction which is square a needs-space Uranus, which again the jobs will help to mitigate. On the downside there is also a power-struggling composite Mars square Saturn Pluto which will have created resentment and tensions and a fair amount of teeth-gritting on one side.

  Their relationship is being undermined by disappointment with tr Neptune conjunct the composite Sun Venus now till late January 2021 and jangled by tr Uranus square the composite Saturn over the election to late this November. And it could get extremely fraught from mid 2021 onwards with the composite Mars square Pluto being upended by both tr Uranus and tr Saturn in hard aspect. That may bring a few home truths out in private.

  Elaine Chao has a whole raft of difficulties, uncertainties and disappointments with tr Pluto square her Neptune now, then worse across the New Year to late January with tr Pluto square her Neptune/Saturn midpoint and then tr Pluto starts a discouraging square to her Saturn from late January for two years thereafter. With various Saturnine setbacks between now and Saturn exiting Capricorn in this December; plus a few Neptune sinkers now and running across next year as well.

  Mitch McConnell who is up for re-election is plodding resolutely and gloomily on till late November with tr Pluto trine his Saturn; with a sprinkling of tr Saturnine dips in November as well. Across New Year looks high tension and late January onwards on and off for two years will be depressed and nervy.

  Just extraordinary given all the hoo ha about the great Satan China – that not only has Trump got bank accounts there, Ivanka has a strong foothold, and the GOP Senate leaders’ family are there as well up to their necks. And they have the gall to go after Hunter Biden – who admittedly is a loose cannon who should have been reined in. By the by his relationship with his father looks heavily restricted and irritated from late January, whatever that means.

Singer Don McLean has been talking about his iconic 1971 “American Pie” mega-hit which has spawned an army of fanboy codebreakers . Who was the jester who sang for the king and queen in a coat he borrowed from James Dean? What exactly was revealed the day the music died? The Vietnam war, social revolution, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, JFK, Mick Jagger, Martin Luther King, Charles Manson, Hells Angels, The Beatles, hallucinogenic drugs, God, the Devil.

  He made his name with a few standout hits like “Vincent” and “Wonderful Baby” and cruised along successfully for decades with an amiable image until his second wife of 30 years Patrisha McLean, reported him for domestic violence and divorced him. She has since talked about their relationship in a travelling exhibit about domestic violence called Finding Our Voices. He has issued flat denials and the subsequent court cases were kept confidential.

   But his daughter from that marriage recently published an essay in which she talked about her childhood: “My father was afraid to let us leave the house. He always told us that it was dangerous outside. Friends were not allowed to come over.” She also said her father would grow angry whenever she would show signs of growing up: “He could never forgive us for growing up. He wanted to keep us, his lost children, in a Peter Pan fantasy. Every sign of growth caused an outburst……. Every day he talked wistfully about the good times when we were immobile, mute, helpless against any influence. “I remember when you were first born,” he’d say, “you were the first thing that was ever completely mine.”

  McLean was born 2 October 1945 4.17 am New Rochelle, New York, and has a stellium of Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, Neptune in Libra in his 1^st, trine Uranus and Midheaven and sextile Pluto in Leo. An emphasised Pluto in the 11^th would make him influential out in society as well as fairly controlling in his attitudes. His Libra planets are also in a square to a volatile, over excitable Mars in Cancer in his 10^th so he would have a short fuse.  Uranus on his Midheaven would also make him inclined to walk his own road and not co-operate.

  It’s not that obviously violent a chart though he would be inclined to flare up at irritations. His midpoints including his Moon are tied into various Mars midpoints. But what is perhaps significant is an unaspected Leo Moon in his hidden 12^th. He would have a strong sense of disconnection, of never feeling at home within himself or supported by his environment. It is seen as the most psychologically traumatic of any of the planets which lack integration in the chart – leaving the individual feeling acutely vulnerable. He admits in a recent interview to never having been happy and also always needing to be in control.

  His Saturn in Cancer will be regretful about hurts of childhood and since Capricorn rules his 5^th house of children he’d over-protect his children as a way of not causing himself pain.

  Not that I’m making excuses. He was old enough to get his act together and get himself sorted – without acting out his ***t over everyone in his close environment.   Never get taken in by showbusiness smiles – the public image usually hides enough secrets to fill a psychiatric textbook.

Poland has ruled that abortions for foetal abnormalities violate the country’s constitution and has effectively imposed a near-total ban on terminations. This in a nation, where the Catholic Church holds undue influence, that already had some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe. Rape, incest, or the mother’s health being at risk will still be allowable reasons.

  Recent polls show there is little public support for a tightening of restrictions and major protest demonstrations are planned for this weekend.

   Poland’s history is messy in the extreme back for 150 years but modern independent democratic Poland got under way on 24 August 1989 at 1.05pm Warsaw. That was hardly an auspicious date for the feminine of Poland with a massively afflicted Gemini Moon square Mars and Sun in Virgo and on the focal point of a strained Yod inconjunct Pluto sextile Neptune.

  The Gemini Lunar Eclipse of late this November will rattle up the Poland Moon with more upsets from the Eclipses in 2021. The Solar Arc Pluto on one leg of the Yod will also be in a totally-blocked and enraged square to the Mars within a few weeks which will bring strong reactions – perhaps involving health, economic and other factors as well as this. There’s also a shocked/upset Solar Arc Sun square Uranus exact now. It’ll be a bumpy ride ahead.

  There are also some concerns in the UK where abortion has not been a contentious matter for several decades that foetal abnormality could be opposed as a reason for abortion on the grounds that it is discriminatory and “eugenic”. There are loud campaigns by disability rights activists to strike down what is known as Ground E (that there is a substantial risk that, if the child were born, it would suffer physical or mental abnormalities that would result in serious handicap) or to restrict the conditions that fall under it. For example concerns about abortion for cleft palate or Down Syndrome.

Why is the world going backwards?

ADD ON:

Poland’s conservative President Andrzej Duda was sworn in for a second five-year term on 6 August this year around 10am. Most opposition parliamentarians and former presidents and prime ministers did not attend the swearing-in ceremony, indicating their disapproval of Duda’s disregard for the constitution during his first term and his almost total acceptance of the ruling right-wing party’s policies that have put Poland at odds with European Union leaders. His party has moved to snuff out opposition through controlling the public broadcaster and eroding the independence of the judiciary by interfering in the appointment of judges and forcing some into early retirement.

   International election observers noted this recent election campaign was “characterized by negative and intolerant rhetoric” and a “public broadcaster [that] failed to ensure balanced and impartial coverage.” “Inflammatory language by the incumbent and his campaign was at times xenophobic and homophobic . . . In the run-up to the election, the public broadcaster became a campaign tool for the incumbent, while some reporting had clear xenophobic and anti-Semitic undertones.”

Duda, 16 May 1972, is a controlling and stubborn Taurus Sun closely conjunct the destructive Fixed Star Algol trine Pluto; with Moon Venus Mars in traditionalist Cancer. And Neptune on the focal point of a Yod making him escapist, preferring to live in his ivory tower than get his feet on the ground and face reality. His imaginative and neurotic Saturn in Gemini opposition Neptune will be rattled by this November’s Lunar Eclipse and by others through 2021, so he will be facing a few sharp checks.

  He certainly dislikes the EU, despite happily accepting many billions from Brussels. The relationship chart has an aggravated Uranus, Pluto, Mars opposition Saturn Sun.

  His Second Term chart like the first has an afflicted Mars, which has moved from an explosive square to Uranus for the 2015 chart – to a deeply frustrated, blocked and enraging Mars square Jupiter Saturn Pluto. If the 10am Swearing In time is about right. The Capricorn planets are in the 4^th for a mutinous domestic scene; with an angry and argumentative 7^th house Mars. Moon Neptune in the 6^th points to unemployment and health being key issues which prove to be a disappointment and won’t be handled with any competence.

    Duda is suffering from Covid at the moment but assuming he’s well enough to continue with his hand on the tiller, he’s facing a hugely disruptive 2021 with tr Uranus conjunct the Term 8^th house Uranus and square the Sun with tr Saturn adding its tale of woe on top. 2023 looks like his nemesis though it will be foreshadowed by a destabilizing 2022.

James Randi, the illusionist and magician turned paranormal sceptic, has died aged 92. He made a media career out of debunking healers, psychics, spoon benders, mind readers, fortune tellers, water dowsers, faith healers, lumping them altogether as fakes, frauds and cons.  He was co-founder of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), which despite its title was not a scientific organization. More of a propaganda movement, it had a damaging effect on parapsychology and retarded its development. Likewise astrology, which it attempted to blow out of the water by repeating Michel Gauquelin’s study showing that champion athletes are more likely to be born with Mars in certain positions in the sky. When the results of their study appeared to back up Gauquelin’s results, they fiddled their conclusions to prove the opposite.

  Randi was born 7 August 1928 in Toronto, Canada with an unverified time of 1.20 am. He had an entrepreneurial, attention-demanding Fire Grand Trine of a Leo Sun and Mercury trine Saturn in Sagittarius trine Uranus in Aries. A bulldozer Mars in Taurus (conjunct Algol) was square Venus Neptune in Leo. His Mercury was in an over-confident square to Jupiter in indulgent Taurus, so he’d over-promise. Not a subtle temperament.

   He made his name on television attacking and undermining spoon-bender Uri Geller, 20 December 1946 2.30 am Tel Aviv, Israel. Though Geller said he always regarded Randi as good publicity and it didn’t dent his career. It was more of a symbiotic relationship with Randi needing a windmill to tilt at. Protagonist and antagonist, one needs the other.

  Randi’s Sun was conjunct Geller’s 10^th house Pluto for an endless tussle.

   I would have to admit to a personal bias since I deeply disliked Randi. Not that there aren’t charlatans out there in the psychic field but in many ways he was as big a chancer as any of the flakes he puffed up his career exposing. I was in a TV chat show with him many years ago and sharply attacked his blanket denials of all matters paranormal and he completely deflated to the extent the show was never transmitted. I also tripped across him in the 1990s during a child sexual abuse campaign where he was on the ‘scientific’ board of the False Memory Movement, whose raison d’etre was to write off allegations of abuse as fantasy. The Memory Wars of the 1990s pitted dinosaurs whose careers were built on outdated theories of how the mind and memory work against trauma specialists generating a flood of new research. Randi was, for sure, not on an open-minded voyage of discovery about new evidence in science and did considerable damage.

ADD ON: The Sun, Baltimore on Saturday June 5, 1993 reported that a US Federal jury ruled that the “Amazing Randi”, a magician, defamed a Finksburg scientist by calling him a child molester and caused him to suffer humiliation, mental anguish, suffering and damage to his reputation because of the false statements.

 “The scientist’s lawyers sought to discredit Mr Randi by playing taped conversations of teen-age boys who called the magician’s home allegedly for sex.”      A copy of that tape is part of the court record. [ Byrd v Randi (Civil Action No. MJG-89-636 in the United States District for the Court for the District of Maryland.] Transcripts of the tape are also part of the court record in Geller v Randi, (Civil Action No 91-1014-SSH in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The transcripts are contained in Exhibit 40 to Exhibit U]. James Randi claimed that this tape sought to “blackmail” him.