Temperance movements, often driven by religious groups, have at various times attempted to ban the drinking of alcohol – temperance being a misnomer for abstinence. This in contrast to the ancient Greeks and Romans who regarded wine as the nectar of the gods, a divine elixir and a gift from the immortal ones. The festivals of Dionysus and Bacchus gave testament to its transformative power even in states of intoxication.
The use of heavy machinery in the rise of the Industrial Revolution gave rise to misgivings about the dangers of drink amongst workers. Though beer was often safer to drink than the contaminated water. Methodist John Wesley spoke out against alcohol in the 18th Century. He was born 28 June 1703, England, with (interestingly) Saturn Neptune conjunct in Aries square Uranus in Cancer and trine Pluto in Leo.
William Hogarth’s horrifying Gin Lane cartoon of the mid 18th Century showing drunkeneness amongst London poor was not an argument for abstinence since it was coupled with a second engraving of Beer Street showing a happy city drinking the ‘good’ beverage, English beer. In Beer Street, people are healthy, happy and prosperous, while in Gin Lane, they are scrawny, lazy and careless. Mind you, given the conditions of the time drinking may have been the only escape for the poor from an unendurable life.
The American Temperance Society founded 13 April 1826, had a prominent Uranus Neptune conjunction in Capricorn with Pluto just into Aries. There were two yods as well of Saturn sextile Sun Chiron inconjunct Mars in Scorpio; and Mars sextile Neptune Uranus inconjunct Saturn. A hard, unforgiving chart, with a fanatical streak from Uranus Neptune.
Prohibition came into effect in the USA on 17 January 1920, when Uranus was about to enter Pisces and Neptune Jupiter were in mid Leo with Chiron in Aries, with Saturn in Virgo. As elsewhere in the world the temperance movement started to wane in the 1930s, with prohibition being criticised for creating unhealthy drinking habits, encouraging criminals and discouraging economic activity. It was lifted in the USA in 1933 when tr Neptune in Virgo was conjunct the Prohibition Saturn.
There is a (maybe coincidental) strand of Aries and/or Fire signs running through these charts. I would not have associated Fire or Aries in particular with abstinence or the kill-joy sanctimony which is often what the abstinence lobby reeks of.
Wesley born in the middle of the Saturn Neptune conjunction in Aries did have a positive effect in his abolitionist (anti-slavery) campaigning and his introduction of women preachers into his movement which latter certainly fits Neptune Saturn.
My grandmother supported the New Zealand Temperance Movement. She supported it because alcohol wrecked families when the men spent their wages on it. She had nothing against alcohol itself but the damage it wrought on the working families around her. Annie Early born 1904.
“https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/14/health/alcohol-drinking-health-wellness/index.html”
Social alcohol may be taking a back seat…but certainly replaced by legalized drug use such as weed, heroine, and others that “young people” seem to need in high demand.
Trade one “evil” for a worse one?
The Aries or fire sign influence is very interesting in all this, as we stand on the brink of a new airy and fiery era.
Temperance movements are entwined with religion – the Quakers, Methodists, and Calvinists seem prominent, for instance. Religious Muslims and Hindus don’t drink alcohol either. And temperance movements are
also strongly connected with radical or progressive left-wing politics, including workers’ rights, votes for women, the co-operative movement in the UK, and so on. Obviously, limiting workers’ access to alcohol was partly about getting more out of them. On the other hand, domestic violence fuelled by alcohol was, and remains, a dark and awful problem in many societies to this day. And isn’t limited to the working classes either.
Vegetarianism is another thread that links these issues and ideals – many suffragettes were vegetarian, for example, and also connected to the Temperance movement. The Vegetarian Society, 30 September 1847, has Uranus in Aries, Neptune in Aquarius, and Pluto in Aries. There’s a strong Libran presence too – with Sun, Mercury, Venus, North Node, BML, and Chiron all there. A t-square between Jupiter in Cancer and Uranus in Aries, with Libran Venus and Mercury, maybe adds a dynamic energy.
It is all very complicated I feel, like human nature itself. Thinking of the ecstatic, creative, god of wine and theatre, Dionysus, it’s curious to see that his most prominent and devoted followers were women –
“In the ritual of the Maenads is the ambivalence conveyed in Euripides’ The Bacchae. To resist Dionysus is to deny the irrational within the self, the repression of which can only lead, inevitably, to its destructive release. The human spirit demands Dionysiac ecstasy; for those who accept it, the experience offers spiritual power. For those who repress the natural force within themselves or refuse it to others, it is transformed into destruction, both of the guilty and the innocent. To have this awareness, of one’s own nature and, therefore, one’s place in nature is wisdom (sophia), itself. Of the god, one either is the votary or victim.” (Penelope.uchicago.edu)
Ha, that makes me think of today’s Hen parties!
Veggie too as a Libran. Husband a vegan with Moon in Libra. We’re not teetotal unfortunately.
No more the milk of cows
Shall pollute my private house
Than the milk of the wild mares of the Barbarian
I will stick to port and sherry,
For they are so very, very,
So very, very, very, Vegetarian.
G.K.Chesterton.
What a joyful little poem, VF, thank you! Hen parties as Maenads? Well, they’re setting foot on that path but possibly avoiding tearing men or animals limb from limb!
Regarding ecstasy, though, it too has a long human history of using hallicinogenic plants in a ritual context. Perhaps the ritual context for such things is what’s missing in our society? Saturn/Neptune? Does that have shamanic overtones somewhere? Ancient Egyptians and their blue lotus, cannabis and so on, intoxicating fumes inhaled by the priestesses of ancient Greek oracles? Has our society missed something by “denying the irrational” (Neptune?) and failing to find a contained Saturnian boundaries type of place for this?
I’d add that other mammals also enjoy a spot of intoxication from time to time. I once came home to find my two cats (at that time) had found a way to open the cupboard where I kept the catnip. They had eaten the whole bag, wrecked the sitting room in some kind of frenzy, been sick, and fallen into a deep sleep – they did not wake up properly until the next morning!
I think it is also worth considering the widespread, legal, availability of narcotics and hallucinogens in Victorian Britain, and the US – and probably elsewhere too. This must sit alongside what was going on with alcohol and temperance movements. And late 18th century England began a long addiction to laughing gas, nitrous oxide, which became very fashionable – thanks to the inventor Humphry Davy.
Opium and its products such as laudanum, is a major Victorian theme and influence, and must surely, along with alcohol, belong in Neptune’s realm?
“Opium was legal in Britain in the early 1800s, with British people consuming between 10 and 20 tonnes of the stuff every year. Powdered opium was dissolved in alcohol as a tincture called laudanum, which was freely available as a painkiller and even present in cough medicine for babies. Many late-18th and 19th-century literary figures were influenced by opium, including Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Keats and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.”
Guardian.com
As you say, it’s interesting to ponder the number of great Victorians and citizens of the 19th century who were absolutely wrecked for the duration. There’s the hashish clubs of France, hashish was brought there by Napoleon’s army following the war in Egypt. Baudelaire and other poets and writers experimented with hashish, usually mixing it with wine which would have produced an enhanced numbing effect of the substance.
Then there were the 18th century gin parties, disguised as tea parties and popular among the well off ladies of London and elsewhere. Not only an opportunity to get that gin buzz, but also to establish friendship groups and bonds amongst that class of women. Byron said that taking gin led to inspiration.
One more recent trends is for Westerners to partake in Ayahuasca ceremonies, so-called shamanic rituals as a form of therapy. This is to my mind an extremely risky thing to do, since I’ve read of people who have been seriously mentally afflicted and harmed by the experience.
I’d just like to add a bridge between mind-altering drugs and alcohol in the 19th Century – and thanks VF for the inspiring and useful information about hashish and wine in France.
Vin Mariani (a la Coca de Peru) was launched in 1863. It was a mix of wine and cocaine, said to boost energy (!). 1863 sees Neptune just into Aries, Uranus mid Gemini, Saturn in Libra, Pluto in Taurus, and the Nodes in Sagittarius. Neptune in Aries and Uranus in Gemini approach us again soon. They could symbolise a very talkative kind of dream warrior I think. Quite appropriate for Gemini and Aries Neptune, and the effects of alcohol and coca leaves combined.
Vin Mariani was hugely popular, endorsed by two Popes, and drunk by notable characters such as Thomas Edison, Sarah Bernhardt, and Emile Zola. Queen Victoria was said to be very fond of a glass. It, along with the later Pemberton’s French Wine Coca (1885), was a kind of forerunner of non-alcoholic Coca-Cola which originally blended Coca with the caffeine from Kola nuts. The energy drinks of the past must have packed a serious punch!
1885 had Pluto at the start of its tour of Gemini, Uranus moving between late Virgo and early Libra, Saturn in Gemini then Cancer. Neptune was in Taurus.
“I’d add that other mammals also enjoy a spot of intoxication from time to time.”
Have you seen the movie “Beautiful People”, which is based around animals in nature, with very few human beings in the movie? It was shot in apartheid South Africa, hence banned in many countries, but it was an amazing (for me as a child anyway) introduction to the animals of Africa. I still remember some of the scenes being outrageously funny.
One of the scenes in the movie is monkeys and elephants eating rotting fruits and getting drunk. So, yes, even in nature, animas like getting drunk. It’s not just a human thing.
Here is a link to the scene I have in mind. Annoyingly the videos have been blocked by Youtube, probably for copyright reasons.
https://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/21/animals-are-people-too-they-like-getting-drunk/
And the IMDB of the movie in question
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071143/
Thanks UM. I haven’t seen the movie, sounds intriguing! There’s a skincare brand named after drunken pachyderms. Wouldn’t want to encounter one of those, cats high on catnip are bad enough!
For those of you interested in the history and impact of Prohibition in the US — and its unintended consequences of alcohol -related lawlessness and the rise of organized crime — there’s an excellent book called “Last Call,” by Daniel Okrent. He traces the roots and rise of the temperance movement, its short-term dominance and total fiasco Prohibition proved to be. A whole range of colorful characters who proved to be historically significant later pop up as actors in the early 20th century saga (including Judge John Sirica, a key player in the Watergate in investigation and trials that brought down Richard Nixon).
The moral of the tale of Prohibition — be careful what you wish for; it had many effects opposite of what the proponents intended.
Just to add — this book is extremely well -written and surprisingly entertaining despite its dour subject. I believe it was a major source for the Ken Burns series.
Mexico has become a narco state due to US drug prohibition laws. Colombia is just now coming out of it. Young women I meet that are from Colombia tell me that they’re not as concerned about their security as they once were., but that’s because it’s been transferred to Mexico. The young women I meet that are from Mexico say that they’re always worried about their security when in Mexico. Look at the giant foothold China is gaining here in the United States/North America where they’re destroying our society by sending those synthetic chemicals to the cartels in Mexico to produce supermeth, which is prohibited in the United States. But then Oregonians voted to decriminalize small amounts of hard drugs and they became inundated with people moving there to be homeless and do drugs openly. Failed experiment that is hard to pivot away from, but they’re supposedly trying. Thanks
@Jody, the problems for women in Mexico go well beyond the narco gangs and cartels. So many women, young women especially in the region around Ciudad Juarez near the Texas border (their twin border City is El Paso) have “disappeared” and been murdered. But the problem of male dominance exists in most of Mexico, though women are making great inroads into the professions and of course politics. It’s considered a major problem and exists independently of any drug or corruption issues.
There are a couple of phrases over here I agree with; “kill-joy sanctimony”, @Speedy’s “blind enthusiasm” (which can apply as easily to MAGA support as it can to temperance zeal).
I would frame the push for abstinence as “miserable puritanical morality”. Everybody is of course free to make one’s own self miserable and limit one’s own life choices, but there needs to be a much better reason to restrict other people’s freedoms than morality.
I will own that I am partial to an occasional tipple now and then. And in my faith, moderate indulgence in alcoholic beverages is allowed (and depending on interpretation, even encouraged). Indeed, it is a part of religious ceremonies (no, I am not talking of the Eucharist). So I would look askance at temperance movements looking at banning or blocking it.
A branch of my family tree comes from a part of the world which still has legal prohibition. But whenever we have visited, alcohol has been available with a nod and a wink. Indeed, many people there die from consumption of illegally produced alcohol or adulterated industrial alcohol (i.e. not brewed or fermented, but things like antifreeze, etc). I’d rather than legally produced and regulated alcohol that is known safe to drink.
As I had mentioned earlier, alcohol has ancient roots in human culture and they will not disappear. What we can do is advise people on appropriate consumption, to an extent regulate it (drinking age, breathalyser, etc). But it is and will remain a part of human existence and I will raise a toast to its wonderful properties when I next have a drink.
As an aside, the video of the day on the “The History Guy”‘s channel on Youtube is about apple pies. And guess what, there was a movement to ban or heavily regulate that too!!! Some people are not satisfied with just being miserable themselves, but also want to drag others to their level of misery.
On a lighter note, this topic puts me in mind of Dorothy Parker’s witticism that
I like to have a martini,
Two at the most.
After three I’m under the table,
After four I’m under the host.
On the astrological side of things, I am interested in @Callie S’s comment below, as I have a Cancer ascendant and a Water Grand Trine, and like their mother, I find it very hard to diet. I’d rather eat well and exercise an hour longer than diet. As for the other observations, my Aries is empty, though the other fire signs do have other planets.
Something very similar to my mother’s chart in the link below to Marjorie’s old post. Gnarly dude got me thinking and looking into Cancer factors. And so far what he said about Cancer needing coddling is very true for my mom and sibling and their issue with food. Cancer also has a hoarding tendency which is very different from Taurus and I think years of reading this blog, a lot of us here have Venus in Taurus more than any other Sun signs. Cancer will see like discount at $1 and since I have $5 I will buy 5 of the same items because I can. I think the interesting part is my mom has a Jupiter in Cancer square Mars in Aries yet the Jupiter seems to rule.
https://star4cast.com/penelope-jackson-a-toxic-partnership-ripped-apart/
Right now,I’m a few blocks away from Bourbon Street, a drunkard’s paradise in New Orleans. There are drunks passed out and laying down in the gutter. Lots of crying beggars. At the Red Dress race the other day, men and women were wearing various red dresses and were getting lubed up with copious amounts of beer and spirits to run/ walk the charity race in over 100 degree temperatures and extremely high humidity. Me, being an Aries, places me in the teetotaling category,; plus reading my chart interpretation, it says that I am super sensitive and to not touch alcohol, which I learned the hard way back in the 80s and 90s when drinking took a big toll on my stability, spiritually and sanity! I used to attend AA/NA meetings with my now deceased ex, who struggled with narcotics addiction. In the meetings, they explained that alcohol does the exact same thing in the brain as barbiturates and downers/ narcotics, which would explain why when he couldn’t access Dilaudid, he’d drink alcohol. That was interesting to me and I am glad I understand my body.Thanks
As a Sun/Mars Aries I have no issues from young to abstain from food that affect my health like oranges cause my throat to itch. In retrospect, my mother with her jupiter in cancer and a sun cancer sibling could not even abstain from any food even if their health depended on it.
The Hogarth engravings, ‘Beer Street’ and ‘Gin Lane’ are contemporary to the Sale of Spirits Act, 1750 or the Gin Act, 1751 which in turn was designed to reduce the consumption of Gin by banning its sale to unlicensed merchants, restricting sale and increasing the merchant fees. The gin craze had caused untold social problems from the late 17th century onwards, William of Orange was on the throne when gin first made its appearance in England, Originally, gin was a medicinal product, flavoured with juniper from which it gets its name – geneva, derived from the Latin for Juniper. It was popular amongst soldiers of the time, taken to increase bravery, hence ‘Dutch courage’.
The availability of small gin shops, where men and women drank together were thought to lure women away from their wifely duties, causing neglect of their children which gave gin the epithet, ‘Mother’s ruin’. By the 1730s, it was reckoned that consumption had risen to 2 pints of gin per week, per Londoner.
With the Gin Act of 1751, consumption at last began to reduce. The powers that be had made gin all but unaffordable and unavailable for working class Britons. The act was given royal assent on 25th June 1751 under a Saturn/Pluto/North Node (at 5/8/11 degress) conjunction in Sagittarius, all squared by Mars in Pisces. There was a Moon/Neptune conjunction in Cancer at the time of the act, perhaps reflecting the public concern with the effects of alcoholism on chidren and the family, as well as fear that the effects of gin on women would lead to prostitution. It was the crack cocaine of its day.
I think fire signs can indicate a blind enthusiasm which can motivate people or organisations to do out of the ordinary things. This may be allied to good or bad causes according to taste. Uranus in these charts can also indicate fixed social views allied to blind enthusiasm. The upside to all this is the success of a campaign the downside bigotry.