This is thinking-in-process ramble rather than leading to any firm conclusions, may be over hopeful and not very astrological. But there feels as if there are the first whiffs of a sea-change in the air – perhaps with Saturn having had its first four-month foray into Aquarius though it’s now in retreat back in Capricorn till late December.
From this New Year into 2021 Jupiter moves through Aquarius hand in hand with Saturn for a year, with Saturn there till 2023 after which it passes the baton to Pluto moving through Aquarius till the mid 2040s.
The ‘woke’ culture is being called out for its narrowness of outlook – the semi-fascist think-like-us, speak-like-us or we’ll-destroy-you mentality. And the populists who lied to the incredulous masses to get themselves into power – Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro etc – are stumbling in the face of hard reality. Maybe just maybe it is the first inklings of a shift into Aquarius from Saturn having sent out a shark tooth to deflate their balloon.
When the Internet was launched in 1991 it gave a platform to the disenfranchised voiceless majority – with some good and other not so good results. The “online mobs” can build up a critical mass, not there before, to effect positive change. But there is also the risk – in the words of political theorist Gaetano Mosca – that “an organised minority inevitably forces its will upon the disorganised majority.” So the screamers get free rein to set the agenda – for a time.
The World Wide Web was launched in 1991 when Saturn had just put a toe into Aquarius so is now on its First Saturn Return which is grow-up-and-get-real time. Twitter and Facebook were born with idealistic and delusional Neptune in Aquarius and self-righteous Pluto in Sagittarius in the early 2000s – giving a gift and, on occasion, a toxic chalice to the vox populi.
What got me thinking was the review of a new book, Twilight of Democracy, by journalist Anne Applebaum in the Guardian. URL below. Her husband is Polish and she watched as their friends who had fought against the Stalinist dictatorship gradually turn into right-wing nationalists and conspiracy theorists.
She makes some telling remarks, by the by, about Boris Johnson, an Oxford peer of her husband, whom she met years back: ‘She noted his laziness and “all-consuming narcissism”, as well as the undoubted charisma that was to seduce and then ruin his country. In those days – he was alarmed by the global challenge to democracy and wanted to defend “the culture of freedom and openness and tolerance”. “No one serious wants to leave the EU,” he said.’
Her theory is that the nationalist counter-revolution did not just happen. Behind it were opportunistic, mediocre politicians hungry for office, second-rate journalists sniffing a chance of recognition after years of obscurity, and Twitter mob-raisers and fake news fraudsters, all propelling causes that would make their name. In my terms, a case of the ‘hoist their flag up a pole’ and see which way the wind would blow to grab them attention.
‘Populist activists are outsiders only in that they feel insufficiently rewarded. And their opponents should never underestimate what their self-pitying vanity can make them do.’
She writes: “Sometimes the point isn’t to make people believe a lie – it’s to make people fear the liar.” Acknowledge the liar’s power, and your career takes off without the need to pass exams or to display an elementary level of competence. The end result being, as was true of communists and fascists, that they replaced “first-rate talents” with “crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity” was the best guarantee of their loyalty. (Hannah Arendt.)
As true of Boris as of Trump. The Applebaum review is worth reading (URL).
Her argument about recent political shifts is – kind of at a stretch – the same as the internet phenomenon. The lowest common denominator got a voice on the WWW as a side-effect of the laudable attempt to give a platform to the previously silenced majority. Lying populist politics harnessed social media to foster the careers of second-raters on an expedient and unprincipled trip. [While admitting that politicians have always lied through the ages and most often not been top notch.]
I’m trying not to be elitist and say the deplorables should be shut up and sent back into their box. But there is a bewildering sense of the mob taking over, which has been a fear through most societies since Roman times and before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlocracy Looking up a few examples mentioned in wiki for mob violence, transiting Saturn square Neptune seems to be a constant as was the case for Brexit and Trump – though as it comes round relatively frequently it must be as an add-on to larger influences. In its better guise Saturn Neptune helps the cause of the underdogs – workers and women.
Ancient Greek political thinkers labelled ‘bad’ forms of government as tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy as opposed to ‘good’ forms of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Good government acted in the interest of the whole community while bad government acted in the exclusive interests of a group or individual at the expense of justice. So presumably they had experience from history of all such forms which constantly fluctuate.
On the brink of the exit of Pluto from Capricorn into Aquarius in 2023, with the forward scouts of Jupiter Saturn leading the way from late this December there is hope of a shift from the disintegrating days of Capricorn into ??????
On previous occurrences of Pluto in Aquarius (approximately every 250 years):
1778 -1797: The USA declared independence in 1776 with high ideals about a new form of government, followed by the French Revolution of 1793 also visionary (at the start) about the rights of the common man. It was a productive period for philosophical and social thinkers – Emmanuel Kant and Thomas Paine (Rights of Man.)
1532 – 1552: The Roman Catholic versus Protestant schism got under way in earnest, which started to pull power away from an omnipotent and corrupt Vatican.
796 – 816: Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor, united most of Western Europe, lays the foundations for modern France and Germany and institutes political reforms. [For more on Pluto in Aquarius see post August 24 2019.]
In the churning chaos of this years’ triple conjunction of Saturn, Pluto, Jupiter, especially with nailed-down Saturn Pluto in place, there’s a sense of stasis and hopelessness as if the present situation was never going to change or at least the deterioration of values was going to worsen. And a rebalancing may not come immediately as the recent Poland elections with the Nationalists back in power indicate. The previous Saturn Pluto Jupiter conjunction in the 19th Century took two or three years to have an impact on economic rebuilding for example.
But I travel hopefully – from small beginnings come greater things. Democracy may be in a twilight phase but the pendulum will swing.
PS: Anne Applebaum was born the same year as Boris, Dan Brown, Christopher Steele though a few weeks later. 25 July 1964. She has the same Mutable Uranus Pluto in Virgo opposition Saturn and Mars Venus in Gemini plus the Jupiter opposition Neptune – so better able to understand the Boris mindset than most, though she’s much less scattergun than him.
Common predictions from astrologers about the Pluto in Aquarius era:
Mind-boggling technology
Monumental changes to US Financial structures like Digital currency and who knows what else
Humanitarianism
Major Scientific breakthroughs
I wouldn’t be surprised if Andrew Yang ran for president again in 2024 and won. He would make so sense as the face of this new era.
I respectfully disagree regarding the ‘cancel culture’. They are only finally protesting against discriminating, racist, sexist behavior by a historically dominant culture used to never being questioned. As such they are also exercising their free speech, and this has hardly prevented those being criticized from exercising theirs: the question is whether the latter wants to continue doubling-down on reprehensible speech.That this is even a phenomenom is due to social media and to people who finally have a voice when they had none in the past.
So the protests are quite Aquarian, just as, unfortunately, the Trumpers, Libertarian Ayn Rand types we have in the US, the anti-maskers claiming to fight for their freedom.
Personally, with Aquarius rising, I used to hear lots of unsolicited lectures and assumptions from right-wing types on how superior they are, without arguing back. Tired of their one-way, condescending attitudes, I am now speaking up- if this is ‘cancel culture’, then I have nothing to apologize for.
Thanks Marjorie for this.
I always find Aquarius very much to be an intellectual sign in the sense that I associate it with systems of thought, science etc. Its ruler before Uranus was found was Saturn. In Aquarius I think Saturn is quite positive if rigid especially with a Jovian boost. Looking back at previous Saturn in aquarius times; the early 1990s were a time of consolidation after the collapse of the iron curtain, the early sixties the consolidation of liberalism after the second world war, the mid thirties was recovery from the depression, the early 1900s were a time of progress, scientific discovery and so on.
So I would be hopeful for scientific discovery, and a crystallisation of intellectual thoughts. With Jupiter around I would hope these are just and beneficial systems. My caveats are that Saturn and Jupiter are followed by pluto which breaks things up and all this is trine the Gemini planets of our current statesmen, possibly giving them an unwelcome and undeserved boost.
Hope this makes sense
“In most cases, those who want power probably shouldn’t have it, those who enjoy it probably do so for the wrong reasons, and those who want most to hold on to it don’t understand that it’s only temporary.” John C. Maxwell.
Love the Hamster take-over!
Talking about “cancel culture”, as I type, Twitter has essentially been forced to block ALL their verified accounts after hackers apparently got held of some of a master account and sent some bitcoin scam messages through some of the biggest accounts. I know this is terrible overall, but I can’t help but smile thinking about all the Twitter “opinion leaders” who’ve gotten tens of thousands of likes telling how “they can’t say anything anymore because of internet mob” and quotes on traditional media just quietly liking or retweering old, insignificant tweet by other Blue Checkmarks, or having to rely on “nobodies” (although there are accounts that are purposely “non blue checkmark). It might drive some mad, but I think there are also brighter people, who will learn a thing or two on their Blue Checkmark priviledge.
nyc filling with foreign assassins (as posted before. last weeks bronx murders were of these hail guys.)
CNN)A 33-year-old tech CEO was found dismembered in a luxury New York condo, a law enforcement source told CNN.
The New York Police Department confirmed a man had been found dead Tuesday in an apartment in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The source identified the man as tech entrepreneur Fahim Saleh, a venture capitalist and CEO of Gokada, Nigeria’s motorcycle ride-hail comp
“…..this is the dawning of the age of aquarius……
AQUARIUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ragnar, If you can’t post coherent pieces I’d be grateful if you’d go elsewhere.
“What got me thinking was the review of a new book, Twilight of Democracy, by journalist Anne Applebaum in the Guardian. URL below. Her husband is Polish and she watched as their friends who had fought against the Stalinist dictatorship gradually turn into right-wing nationalists and conspiracy theorists.”
I appreciate Anne Appelbaum’s writings, but she has an obvious blind spot with what happened here. Her husband’s friends probably were much more opportunistic to begin with she thought when getting to know them. I distinguishly remember a response to this article somewhere, where a Polish person living abroad told they knew Appelbaum’s “friends” back in the day, and they were always bigots, who are now show their true colors.
Could be gossip, but it’s true her husband was born in 1963, 10 years after Stalin’s death, so he or his friendshardly fought a “Stalinist dictatorship”. By the time he was of age, in the early 1980’s, Poland had morphed into some sort of a Communist version of a banana republic under General Jaruzelski. Young Polish people could be reasonably “dissident” without risking being sent to coalmines. They could travel abroad and earn money in many “capitalist” countries, such as Sweden and Finland (I may have mentioned Polish doctor and her artist husband who worked at my grandparents’ farm in the 1980’s). This was completely different from what happened in the 1960’s or even 1970’s, when wrong word at wrong place ruined one’s career. By the mid-1980’s, most educated Poles probably could feel Soviet Union collapsing, and people were making plans on thriving in Capitalism. This included Appelbaum’s friends, who would become “elite” in early-1990’s Poland rapidly joining NATO and The EU. This doesn’t mean their thinking wasn’t formed in a strange mental landscape of reactionary Catholism and waning Communism.
BTW, have to add, I know people from Eastern Bloc who had their, or even their children’s lives distroyed for being dissident. People who were expelled from University for marrying the wrong person, or denied not only University studies but studies leading to University based on their parents being “Enemies of People”. These people did not, as a rule, end up leading their countries by the late 1990’s. Most immigrated the moment they could and probably still have “humble” jobs. But their children tend to be successful, because their parents never, for a moment, quit telling them they were lucky to live in a system where there’s at least some meditocracy, and went to great lenghts to get them educated. They tend to be on a more “Conservative” side, and people from Russian sphere often buy all sort of conspiracies. However, they definitely would not be surprised of their leaders being turncoats.
*meritocracy*.
A glimmer of hope perhaps. Thank you for this Marjorie.
Hope there is a better, new era from 2026 onwards when Uranus, Nrptune, Pluto have all moved signs!
Thank you Marjorie.
Probably time to revisit Karl Popper’s “The Open Society and Its Enemies“.
The latter come in many guises but they all essentially share the same totalitarian instincts.
Democracy is in a perpetual fight against creeping tyranny in all its forms. The democratic process is fallible but as a political system it is probably the only one that contains an inbuilt mechanism for addressing its own errors.
As Popper states
“In fact, [a scientific orientation to politics] might lead to the happy situation where politicians begin to look out for their own mistakes instead of trying to explain them away and to prove that they have always been right. This—and not Utopian planning or historical prophecy—would mean the introduction of scientific method into politics, since the whole secret of scientific method is a readiness to learn from mistakes.”
Thanks Hugh. Regrettably with the batch of narcissists we have at present admitting mistakes is a non-starter. Would lead to a psychological implosion. We’ll just have to pray the fates make their mistakes so obvious even to the true believers that they are cast into outer darkness sometime soon.
Thank you Marjorie – so much to think about! I also hold out hopes for the swing of the pendulum away from where we are now. I have found watching “cancel culture” unfold quite disturbing – free speech may be annoying or unsettling, depending upon your own opinions, but without that principle firmly in place we are heading into a dark, dystopian world.
With that feeling in mind, I looked at the chart for the founding of Nazi Germany – 30th January, 1933, Berlin at 11.15 am. This is when Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor. Here, I think, is the fixed and unbending side of Aquarius….Sun, Mercury, and Saturn in Aquarius. Mars, Jupiter (conjunct) in Virgo, Neptune in Virgo close to the Moon’s fateful South Node in Virgo (all that obsession with hygiene and so on?). Moon and Uranus are in Aries, and there’s yet more earth with a Taurus ascendant (with Algol) and Capricorn MC. Pluto was at 21 Cancer (homeland?).
Our current Capricorn trio have been transiting this chart, as has Neptune in Pisces and Uranus in Taurus. Saturn will make it’s return there next year….. Uranus in Taurus activated Nazi Germany’s Sun and Saturn in 1937. Transiting Neptune aligned with it’s Virgo Mars. Jupiter was in Capricorn then. The Nazis were masters of propaganda and spin, fake news and rabble rousing. I know history never quite repeats, but that echoes and resonances do seem to ebb and flow in cycles. So perhaps we’re now partly somewhere in the 1930’s? With the benefit of hindsight and knowledge, I very much hope we can steer our collective ship in a more harmonious direction this time around.
The Aquarian era may well be a journey into the next “virtual reality”. The astrology indicates more reliance on computers and robots Policing the Corvid-19 lockdown in Singapore was carried out by robots taking 360 degree video of misdemeanors. We could truly be seeing more of an Orwellian “Big Brother is Watching you” society. Self-drive vehicles that can always be traced. Robots doing housework, perhaps kept instead of friends or partners, robot pets perhaps? Less social contact. Aquarius is not the most touchy-feely sign.
With regard to politics the Saturn/Pluto conjunction (approx. every 500 years) the 1500’s saw King Henry doing a power grab for the Catholic church riches, approx. 1000 years ago Britain experienced the Norman take-over, approx. 1500 years ago the Anglo-Saxons, approx. 2000 years ago the Roman invasion. Perhaps we are at the beginning of a US take-over of the UK…?
“Robots doing housework” —> honestly, I’d like this NOW!
Having just read the reports about the significant drop in the global birth rate today, I think we’re probably going to need those robots!
What a fascinating article. I think we’ve pretty much passed Ochlocracy and are now veering ever closer to Kakistocracy if you ask me!
Seriously, we do get to hear the loudest, most cacophonous voices on these platforms and one can easily disappear down some frightening Orwellian rabbit holes both on the extreme right and left. But in the real world, people are muddling along as before, generally trying to do their best for their families and friends. Social media is so artificial in that sense, since it is so much easier to condemn, attack and insult when one is hidden behind a keyboard.
I look forward to the coming Aquarian era with a combination of hope and trepidation.
I’m wondering – did the murder of George Floyd (which seems momentous, given that it was committed before the eyes of the world) occur during the Jupiter/Pluto conjunction in Capricorn? It’s that combination of Pluto/Scorpio/Jupiter that I’ve noticed tends to highlight injustice in the system against the powerless. When Jupiter was in Scorpio, the Weinstein affair came into focus as many victims, previously voiceless came forward to tell their stories about abuse in the Entertainments industry. The George Floyd murder has similarly brought into focus the appalling inherent racism within the Police and Justice systems.
PS Are there any examples in history of right-wing populism leading a nation to success? I’m finding it hard to think of a single one, starting from the ill-fated demagoguery which eventually destroyed ancient Athens.
This is a very interesting question, could debate this one all night. Plenty of parties have been successful with right-wing populism in gaining power, but have they led a nation to (sustained) success? Would the British Empire be one?
At the end of the day, society evolves and any system/country will eventually fail an be replaced by something else, so it would be a temporary success. Another interesting question to debate is how The States will fail/breakup/realign, as it inevitably will. Although many americans are incredulous when you mention it 🙂
As intriguing as your question is, I’m deducting a point from you as you made me google terrible phrases such as ‘Nazi success’
Lol. Yes, I realise ‘success’ is the wrong word. Perhaps ‘fruitful’ would be a better word. I’m kind of thinking about it in today’s context as in these strange times we have seen a rise in populism worldwide and I personally don’t see anything fruitful emerging from the rule of Trump, Bolsonaro, etc other than their destructiveness and divisiveness acting as a warning for the future.
Belle – I don’t think you could say the British Empire was a right wing populist success exactly. All men over 21 only got the vote in 1918, alongside some women over 30 (!). Before that, voting was limited to men with property – not the wider population. You could argue the British Empire began more or less around the time the East India Company was founded, in 1600 – their power, vast wealth and influence endured for centuries. Unsurprisingly, the founding date, 31st December 1600 has Sun, Mercury, Mars and Moon’s nodes in Capricorn. Mars trines Jupiter – Big business confidence and travel. They do have a Venus in Aquarius though, square Scorpio Saturn and square Uranus in Taurus. The role of this company and it’s endless shenanigans cannot be underestimated, imo.
All good points. I’m now going to go with 1980’s USA with Ronald Reagan winning 49 states and the economic boom.
@ Belle, after the 1982 Recession there was no where to go but up!!!
Emperor Augustus.
I confess I had to look up Kakistocracy – government by hamsters!
Love it. (Not the reality, just the image).
‘A system of government that is run by the worst, least qualified, and/or most unscrupulous citizens.’