Hurricane Helene which has been ravaging North Carolina in particular is the deadliest mainland storm since Katrina in 2005. 200 are known to have died, with hundreds still missing and 780,000 homes are without power nearly a week after it made landfall.
This week’s Solar Eclipse at 10 degrees Libra was a repeat of the October 2005 Solar eclipse at 10 Libra which occurred only a few weeks after Katrina.
Under the shadow of the previous 10 Libra Solar eclipse in 1986 there were a series of strong to very strong earthquakes in California with the Iran Contra scandal blowing up a couple of months after.
One back in 1978 another 9 Libra Eclipse saw another very strong California quake with the Jim Jones cult suicide in the aftermath as well as the assassination of the San Francisco Mayor and City Supervisor.
In March 1968 an 8 Aries Solar Eclipse shook the USA to the core with the Tet offensive and My Lai massacre in Vietnam just before, and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr a few days after and the killing of Robert F. Kennedy in early June.
These repeating eclipses are on or close to the same degree but in different Saros series. They still shook up the USA significantly.
The USA 1776 chart does have Saturn at 14 degrees Libra which might be part of the picture; and also has its destructive, disaster-prone Mars/Pluto midpoint at 9 degrees Aries. Which means the eclipse late next March 2025 will also have an effect.
Greed has always been one of the deadly sins but more obvious recently with the Thatcherite and Reaganite 1980s taking off the restraints and allowing capitalism to run rampant as Pluto powered through Scorpio. Which all ended up in tears in 2008 as Pluto entered Capricorn with the financial crash, theoretically showing the limits and consequences of neoliberalism. Though the money men barely broke stride, merely regrouping to continue much as before.
This is a hotch potch piece more questions than answers. Puzzling over SD’s comment about 1979 being a pivotal year as Thatcher/neoliberalism came in, as did the Islamic Republic in Iran, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan; China was revving up to become a major economic power and just before in 1977 the right-wing Likud (Netanyahu/Sharon’s Party) took power in Israel for the first time which was a key turning point.
In 1979 itself Pluto Uranus Neptune were all around mid degree or just after as was the Virgo North Node. So the Node/Uranus midpoint was conjunct Pluto and the Pluto/Neptune midpoint was conjunct Uranus. In a slightly obscure way, both of those point to a shift in power. Uranus/Node is about reform or change and Pluto wants to grab control of that. Neptune/Pluto has megalomaniac ambition and Uranus aims to upset the status quo where power is concerned. Neptune/Pluto is also about delusional ideas.
Pluto did not move into Scorpio until late 1983 which would certainly coincide with money and power becoming a potential obsession, sticking around until 1995. It was also going to ground down the USSR with its Scorpio/heavily Fixed chart. So the Afghanistan debacle was merely a forerunner to the break up of the Soviet Union at the end of the decade. Israel also has a substantially Fixed chart so Pluto moving through Scorpio would have a considerable impact.
What started this somewhat tortuous thought process was catching the latest season of ‘Industry’, a drama about employees in an investment bank, last night on television which I had missed before. Hugely well reviewed it has been likened to Succession about a Murdoch type mega-wealthy family. I disliked Succession with a passion and occasionally dipped back in to see why everyone else thought it was the best thing ever and left none the wiser. Industry is every bit as unpleasant. Gordon Gekko writ large and deeply unattractive characters. If our culture is not hooked into murder, it is into greed.
The first Gordon Gekko Wall Street movie launched in 1987 on Mars Pluto in Scorpio which figures. The Wall Street sequel hit screens as Pluto moved into Capricorn in 2010. Succession, 3 June 2018, had an emphasized Pluto as the driving planet of a Kite from Water Grand Trine of Jupiter, Neptune, Venus. Industry, 9 November 2020, had an even more jacked-up Pluto in Capricorn conjunct Saturn and Jupiter.
All I can offer to SD as an astro-explanation for 1979 onwards – is the cumulative effect of Pluto in Scorpio sowing the seeds of a movement that imploded at the end of the Pluto cycle two signs on in 2008 and hopefully will run into another grinding down as Pluto moves into Aquarius. Though why 1979 is so marked with events is still unclear given that Pluto is half a sign before a shift.
Historically Pluto on a zodiacal cycle tends to accompany the rise of empires which collapse on their first or second Pluto Return. Shorter term it may also signal the end of what started two or three signs back – Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn.
Phil Shiner, a once esteemed ‘lefty lawyer’, scion of the LSE, the Guardian and human rights lobby ruined lives and ran up a £27m bill for taxpayers with bogus claims of war crimes by British troops in Iraq. He received more than £3 million in taxpayer funding and had described the behaviour of Britain’s troops in Iraq as “the UK’s My Lai”. But the inquiry (costing £24 million) found the allegations of wrongdoing were “wholly without foundation and entirely the product of deliberate lies”. “The falsely accused have paid a huge price — shattered lives, broken marriages, ruined finances, stalled careers, poor mental and physical health.”
He is now struck off, bankrupt and perhaps facing prison time for his offences.
Born 25 December 1956 Coventry, England, he has an ambitious Capricorn Sun trine Pluto, square a go-ahead Mars in Aries on one side a confident Jupiter in Libra on the other, He also has an entrepreneurial, attention-demanding Fire Grand Trine of Mars trine Saturn Venus in Sagittarius trine Uranus in Leo, formed into a Kite by Mars in an opportunistic (and wide) opposition to Jupiter. Not shy and retiring, for sure.
His Scorpio North Node does hint at a life transformation only possible when he lets go everything he held valuable.
His strongest harmonic is the 11H with a Sun opposition Uranus square Saturn Pluto (= war) which in negative form suggests dishonesty and greed, and is associated with disloyalty and betrayal.
He also has a notable 5th harmonic – again on the negative: irresponsible, self-indulgent, deceitful, “the player”. Ditto the money-loving 9th harmonic and the wheel of fortune 10H which contains the seed of both rise and fall, of the good and the bad.
Boris Johnson, Philip Scofield, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, Prince Harry – once shining stars in their respective spheres now brought low by their staggering lack of self-awareness and tendency to handout blame to others rather than ‘fess up to any missteps on their part.
Astrology though illuminating in its own terms about characteristics and temperament is not always a good diagnostic tool when it comes to psychological quirks. But it is worth pursuing in a week when Boris’s self-serving memoir emerged alongside disgraced TV presenter Philip Scofield’s reality castaway TV show on which he whined on about how he was not at fault for his downfall. He exited the screens when an affair with a young runner on the show came to light and is now blaming his sex offender brother’s record for his woes and claiming he was thrown under the bus by jealous colleagues.
A victim mentality often goes hand in hand with an inflated sense of superiority and an inability to take feedback. Victim mentality narcissists have a ‘persistent lack of personal responsibility, view themselves as powerless and at the mercy of others or circumstances, which absolves them from taking ownership of their actions.’
Narcissists have poor self-awareness due to cognitive distortions such as “I am always right” or “Others are jealous of me” and irrational thought patterns that reinforce an inflated sense of self. They avoid self-reflection by using defensive mechanisms like projection or denial. Projection involves blaming others for their flaws or negative emotions, while denial involves rejecting feedback that contradicts their self-perception.
Reviews of Boris’s book suggest it is ‘not the work of a great political memoirist, such as Churchill, Mandela or Obama. Its nearest competitor is Prince Harry’s Spare.’ A colleague from Boris’s early days suggested his difficult childhood with a depressed and hospitalized mother and gallivanting father, taught him ‘how to put on a brave, jovial face and play the clown at school and beyond, ruffling his hair and becoming first popular then populist. In turn, he became the master of satire, subversion and mockery; it perhaps made him too tough, uncaring and unkind.’
Looking across these five charts – various things stand out. Trump and Philip Scofield have Chiron conjunct their Jupiter which can lead to messianic tendencies, a feeling of being special, the chosen one and obsessed with having a vision to fulfil.
Prince Andrew has his Sun conjunct Chiron which suggests a wounding in the area of personal identity and ego, a tendency to create a false self to hide an inner confusion and emptiness. He also has his Sun opposition Pluto which will exacerbate his sense at times of being powerless. [Amanda Abington, whose complaints about her professional partner on Strictly Come Dancing were found to be overblown, has a Pisces Sun inconjunct Pluto.]
Boris also has a strongly aspected Pluto (in the 12th like Trump) which may be another pointer to an inability to expose vulnerabilities or weakness in admitting mistakes lest total humiliation follow.
What four out of the five personalities share are planets in the 8th house. Boris has Mars on the apex of a yod there and Jupiter also in the 8th in an over confident opposition to Neptune. Prince Andrew has an 8th house Mercury on the apex of a yod. Philip Scofield has a super-charged Pluto (opposition Jupiter Chiron) in the 8th alongside Uranus and North Node. Prince Harry has his Virgo Sun and Mercury in the 8th. Trump has Scheat on the cusp of his 8th square his Gemini Sun and North Node opposition Moon.
Some similarities, some differences. Referring back to a previous post on the 8th house – The hidden 8th house – pulling back the veil. 16th November 2023
‘Transformation only happens if there is a considerable shift in an individual’s thought and behaviour patterns.’ The inner saboteur is an 8th house issue along with fixation. Ideas on how things ought to be are stubbornly held onto despite the 8th house being the one which should encompass the values of others.
The 8th is about being possessed where the 2nd is having one’s own possessions. Everything is defined by others. Committing to a partnership requires letting go individual values in order to create new shared ones. What is yours becomes mine and vice versa. A loss of control. The 8th is where we are confronted with our own issues.
If the second house has to do with control, then the eighth house has to do with lack of control which tends to lead to an attempt to hang tightly. There is a sense of permanence with the eighth house but only due to the monumentality of change. The individual has ancestral wounds that take not one generation but several to even begin to understand. Planets in the eighth house tend to work in super slow ways.
Having skipped through the harmonics of the above what is pertinent is that only one has a notable 12th harmonic which is the victim/healer harmonic (Scofield). Three have notable 13th harmonics which can point to a search for a solid identity. Four have ultra-determined 16th harmonics so letting go and being flexible is not their super power.
All five have strong 7th harmonics which on Vendla’s numerology interpretations is a spiritual number, imaginative and creative. A perfectionist. Also: too sceptical, critical, sarcastic, cold, self-centred, attracted to alcohol/ drugs and occultism.
No hard and fast answers. What is worth keeping in mind is that although narcissists are tediously draining to be around what lies underneath the overblown ego is a bottomless chasm of shame and, often worse, of nothingness. I remember years ago talking to a child psychotherapist who said certain children were so badly damaged all they had were their psychological defences and you dismantle those at your (and their) peril. Not that all narcissists come out of brutally traumatic beginnings but their defences are there for a reason – to prevent them falling into a total psychological collapse. Life can sometimes provide the impetus to reassemble the personality but it is not an easy journey.
Add On: Sam Vaknin 21 April 1961 9.40 am (from memory) Haifa, Israel, professor of Psychology, author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited and once imprisoned for securities fraud, has himself been diagnosed with NPD and psychopathy as well as other personality disorders.
“In his view, narcissists have lost their “true self”, the core of their personality, which has been replaced by delusions of grandeur, a “false self”. Therefore, he believes, they cannot be healed, because they do not exist as real persons, only as reflections: “The False Self replaces the narcissist’s True Self and is intended to shield him from hurt and narcissistic injury by self-imputing omnipotence… The narcissist pretends that his False Self is real and demands that others affirm this confabulation.”]
“He calls narcissistic co-dependents “inverted narcissists.” “[They] provide the narcissist with an obsequious, unthreatening audience… the perfect backdrop.” “He believes that disproportionate numbers of pathological narcissists are at work in the most influential reaches of society, such as medicine, finance and politics as a manifestation of growing collective narcissism.”
He is a Sun Taurus trine Pluto and square a Jupiter Saturn conjunction with Jupiter square Neptune – not short of Jupiterian confidence, though he will have alternated between highs and lows, over confidence and then crashing self-esteem from Jupiter and Saturn He’s not entirely similar to the above but if his birth time is marginally out his Jupiter Saturn could be in his 8th house.
His Chiron in Pisces conjunct his South Node opposition his Pluto seems significant though I would struggle to articulate why.
