A riotous bonkbuster and a splash of retro-escapism to the 1980s before political correctness set in is the entertainment in the long awaited TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals.

 ‘Everyone commits adultery and smokes like a chimney. They hunt and shoot. People tell off-colour jokes and nobody pulls them up on it with a po-faced lecture about human rights.’ All a reflection of what one reviewer called ‘naughty Jilly’s obsession with bonking, boozing, groping and relentless political incorrectness’.

  In her day with hugely popular pieces in the Sunday Times on marriage, sex and housework, she became an icon for the 1970s and 1980s before moving on to write international best sellers in a series called The Rutshire Chronicles set in a glamorous and wealthy milieu, such as show jumping and polo, heavily featuring sexual infidelity and general betrayal, melodramatic misunderstandings and emotions, money worries and domestic upheavals.

 Jilly Cooper, 21 February 1937 12 noon (memory) Brentwood, England, is a Sun Pisces sextile Uranus, but what dominates her chart is a creative Water Grand Trine of Saturn in Pisces trine Pluto trine Mars in Scorpio, formed into two Kites by Pluto in a confident and lucky opposition to Jupiter and Saturn opposition Neptune. The Grand Trine is heavy duty, darker and more troubled than her devil-may-care novels might suggest. Though she does have a yod onto a focal point Venus in Aries which might be a clue to her ‘adventurous romances.’

 What is puzzling is how similar her chart is to that of P.D. James, the crime writer, who had a tough life with a mentally ill mother and after the war an institutionalised husband. She was born 3 August 1920 7.59 am Oxford, England. She was a Sun Neptune in Leo square Mars in Scorpio. Her Mars was on one leg of a Water Grand Trine to Uranus trine Pluto, formed into a Kite by Uranus opposition Saturn. Her life and the murderous content of her novels make more sense of that Grand Trine than do Jilly Cooper’s with her exuberantly indulgent schtick.  

 Water Grand Trines tend to give the individual a fertile imagination and prolific inner fantasy life, hence the creativity, but for that reason can sometimes make it difficult to interface with reality outside their own self-constructed bubble.

Grand Trines bring a confident flow of energy, are usually associated with talent, luck and ease, though they have a tendency to stick individuals in a comfortable rut and don’t encourage resilience or resourcefulness – life comes too easily so problem-solving is not a learnt skill. What helps is to have an opposition to at least one leg of the Grand Trine forming a Kite. That opposition gives drive, determination and a constructive outlet for the Grand Trine energy.

 Recent examples of an Earth Grand Trine is Lee Miller (see below) which always brings a sense of physicality – the tangible universe being all too prominent a feature of the individual life.

  Fire Grand Trines are inspirational, attention-demanding with high self-belief and feature heavily in the ranks of entrepreneurs, some politicians and actors – Marlon Brando, Trump’s grandfather Fred, and Henry Ford.

Air Grand Trines are thinkers and communicators, live in their heads, can be ideologues and obsessed with their worldview, and can come across as emotionally chilly. Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour leader is one example.

 Another is the late Rutger Hauer, (best Dutch actor of the 20^th century), 23 January 1944 6.18pm Breukelen, Netherlands, who for some reason is back in the news. He played chillingly bad guys, none more so than in the gruesome horror thriller The Hitcher, playing the hitch-hiker who terrorises and butchers those rash enough to pick him up. In the aftermath it was said Hauer single-handedly ended hitch-hiking as a commonplace travel option for young people in the United States. He became a hall-of-famer with his ‘tears in rain’ monologue in Blade Runner.

 He had an Aquarius Sun trine Mars Uranus in Gemini trine Neptune in Libra, formed into a Kite by Sun opposition Pluto North Node in Leo in his 12^th. Which is a perfect recipe for an unemotional sociopath with a subversively power-hungry outlet.    He also had a Capricorn Moon in his performing 5^th house on the focal point of a yod inconjunct his Mars Uranus and inconjunct Pluto North Node.

  Fascinating chart.

Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow, described by one inmate as “Glasgow’s Guantanamo Bay”, which over the decades housed violent criminals is to close. Opened initially in July 1882 it has a starkly descriptive chart with a tough, unyielding stellium in Taurus with Saturn in Taurus conjunct Neptune on one side and Algol, Chiron, Pluto and South Node on the other all square Venus in Leo.

  What transformed Barlinnie’s reputation was an experimental Special Unit with an art therapist introduced in 1973 to house intractable prisoners whom a harsh and often brutal prison system could not handle. Prisoners were offered freedom within the unit and access to creative hobbies. Jimmy Boyle incarcerated for murder with a violent past became the unit’s success story writing the best-seller A Sense of Freedom and becoming an acclaimed sculptor.

  Born 9 May 1944 3.35pm Lennoxtown, Scotland, he was brought up by a single mother after his father a well-known robber and local criminal died young. He joined a local gang when barely into his teens and graduated from shoplifting to stealing safes, doing time in young offenders’ institutes when caught. By 20, he was a feared enforcer for moneylenders. He was eventually convicted of murder, having stood trial on two previous occasions for other murders and not being convicted.

 His early years in prison saw him lashing out at prison staff and being beaten up in return, resorting to ‘dirty protests’ covering himself in faeces in order to protect himself and spending years in solitary confinement.

 The Special Unit transformed him from an irredeemable street thug and an ‘animalised’ prisoner to a well-read, articulate and talented artist and writer.   A film version of his book A Sense of Freedom was released to critical acclaim and nominated for a BAFTA. After his release he set up a project offering art therapy workshops to recovering drug addicts and ex-convicts, which became a  resource for HIV and Aids suffers.

  He has a far-travelled, knowledgeable 9^th house Taurus Sun in a confident square to Jupiter in Leo. An unconventional and uncompromising Uranus sits on his midheaven trine Neptune and sextile Puto North Node in Leo – giving him leadership abilities, a talent for influencing society and a tendency to be controlling. Saturn in his 10^th gives him organizing abilities.

 When he was first convicted for murder in 1967 tr Uranus Pluto were moving through his 1^st house which would fuel his drive to tilt against the system and refuse to cooperate.

  When he was transferred into the Barlinnie Special Unit in 1973 tr Pluto was trine his Uranus and Midheaven, which is often a pivotal moment of deep insight and transformation; with a jolting tr Uranus square his Mars.

 At that point the Barlinnie chart was 90 years on from its opening so the Solar Arc Pluto  was exactly square its natal position and conjunct the Venus highlighting the creative project.

  Sadly the unit was not well-disciplined with press reports of alcohol and drug-fuelled parties and it eventually closed in 1994. But whatever its failings 36 of Scotland’s most violent and difficult offenders were there in its 21 years of operation. Of those, only four reoffended. One inmate took his own life and one other suffered a prescription drug overdose. No staff were ever harmed during the unit’s lifespan.

Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s closest aide and architect of the Labour victory has been dropped in as chief of staff at No 10 replacing Sue Gray, who had become a distraction. He is credited with removing Corbynism which has not improved his popularity with the left and has tended to parachute his friends and allies into safe seats.

 According to company check he was born April 19 1977 in Ireland, and, if accurate, has a final degree Sun Aries; with Saturn in Leo on the focal point of a Fixed T Square to Mercury (Moon) in Taurus opposition Uranus. He will have executive abilities though won’t be good at sharing the driving seat, will be stubborn and could be autocratic.  He also has a lucky, confident Jupiter trine Pluto sextile Saturn.

  His emphasized managerial Saturn is conjunct Starmer’s leadership Leo North Node which figures.

 What is of note is their relationship chart which has the composite Pluto rattled up by the recent Lunar Eclipse and two eclipses throughout 2025 which could suggest power and how it is wielded will be a key dilemma. But most interesting is the composite Sun square Uranus, pointing to a reforming spirit, which will be undermined in 2026 with tr Neptune square the Sun and in 2027/28 by tr Neptune and Saturn opposing the Uranus at the same time as tr Pluto squares the composite Saturn.

  On all the government charts it points to 2026 as being period of escalating crises.

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Lee Miller, former model turned war correspondent, with a traumatic childhood is the subject of a biopic starring Kate Winslet.  A review says she “captures the spirit of the character: the brawling, confrontational tough-broad aspects of Miller’s personality, as well as her considerable magnetism – a hardboiled screwball heroine – chain-smoking, whisky-swilling.”

“She balances the tough-cookie determination that took Miller to a frontline – with a sense of the psychological injuries she accrued. She saw the micro-details of combat in a way that her male counterparts frequently overlooked – not just the role played by the unheralded everywoman on the street, but also the shame and humiliation felt by those whom the war had chewed up and spat out along the way.”

“Her photographs of the war, its victims and its consequences remain among the most significant and historically important of the Second World War. She changed war photography forever, but Lee Miller paid an enormous personal price for what she witnessed and the stories she fought to tell.”

  She was born 23 April 1907 4.15 pm Poughkeepsie, New York, and graced the cover of Vogue as a model when she was 20, moved to Paris and began a professional and romantic relationship with artist Man Ray, which involved her with a Surrealist and modernist circle including Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and Salvador Dalí. Marriage to an Egyptian produced striking desert photographs and when World War 11 broke out she came to London and was instrumental in Vogue’s switch from couture to war time subjects. In 1944 embedded with the US army, she saw the first use of napalm bombing, was present at the blitz, the chaos following D-Day, the liberation of Paris, the Battle of Alsace, and liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau.

  Her genius as a fashion and war photographer was destined to stay a footnote in art-historical journals until her son found a vast archive of her work, more than 80,000 negatives in an attic, after her death. Since then a foundation has been set up, various exhibitions held and a documentary about her extraordinary and tragic life has brought her name to prominence.

  She had her first child at 40 in 1947 and her later years in England were marred by depression and alcoholism.  Her son knew little of her life and talent and said he believed the trauma she suffered as a child, being raped aged 7 and undergoing painful treatment for a sexually transmitted disease in the aftermath, were a key to understanding her later attraction to surrealism and war photography. He said: “She held incredible secrets right through her life.’ A friend described her as “a remarkable woman, completely unsentimental, and sometimes ruthless.” Another talked of her having a “chip of ice” in her heart.

  She had a Taurus Sun on the cusp of the secretive 8^th house in an Earth Grand Trine to a 12^th house Moon in Virgo trine a 4^th house Mars Uranus in Capricorn. An Earth Grand Trine is practical and resourceful, a hard worker and inspired. An excitable and uncompromising Mars Uranus in the 4^th opposed a 10^th house Neptune Jupiter Midheaven in Cancer square Mercury in Aries which is a complex mix giving her strong creative talents from Neptune in her 10^th along with luck and success in her career. In part her career was fuelled by her self-willed and intolerant father, who by choice or chance inclined her towards a peripatetic adult domestic life. He evidently took nude photos of her when she was an adolescent which can’t have helped. Her focal point Mercury would make her eternally curious, highly-strung, restless and impatient. Her Venus in sensitive Pisces (sign of the image/photographer) was conjunct Saturn and square Pluto which may have been in part why she was drawn to the camera in her career with its ability to spread the word (Pluto in the 9^th). Her photographs from Dachau were headed ‘Believe it’ as they were displayed to an uninformed and incredulous US and UK audience.

  Her creative 5^th Harmonic was exceptionally strong though with overtones of brutality, which would be why she was drawn to dark subjects. Her victim/healer 12H was also marked; as was her 13H associated with exploration, genius, breaking away from the orthodox.

  When she suffered her childhood assault tr Neptune in late Cancer was conjunct her North Node with tr Pluto moving to cross her Midheaven which can be a devastating change of life’s direction.  When she photographed Dachau, at the end of seeing a litany of war time horrors her Solar Arc Pluto was just across the conjunction to her North Node and tr Saturn was on her Midheaven.

The European Union could die because of overregulation and underinvestment says Emmanuel Macron and is running out of time to survive as he backs Mario Draghi’s plea for an investment fund to combat the rise of Chinese and American dominance. Macron said the bloc’s failure to meet the challenges posed by global economic rivalry was due to Europe’s social model, based on high levels of social regulation and welfare.

 The doomsayers are growing in number with many giving the EU only another 20 years, citing over-enthusiastic enlargement taking in eastern European states and problems with immigration as key issues as well as under investment.

  The two EU charts 1957 and 1993 both point to major problems before the end of this decade, never mind 20 years.

The original 31 December 1957 chart has a blocked Solar Arc Pluto opposition the 8^th house financial Moon and square Uranus in 2025 with tr a disruptive Uranus square the Pluto in 2026 alongside a devastating tr Pluto square the 2^nd house Neptune – which suggests a forced change of direction due to financial crises. 2026 also has the Solar Arc Mars square the 2^nd house Neptune for more financial agonies.  But it is 2029/30 which looks like the nadir with tr Pluto in Aquarius opposition the Moon and square Uranus; with an undermining tr Neptune square the Sun and a seriously stuck/deprived SA Saturn opposition Pluto.

 The Maastricht Treaty chart, 1 November 1993, also pitches the end of this decade as a nightmare. The Solar Arc Uranus Neptune will conjunct the Saturn in 2028 which looks beyond calamitous especially in terms of neighbourly relations with the Solar Arc Uranus Neptune moving to square the Mars Pluto in Scorpio by 2029. If it survives all that it’ll be a miracle. Plus tr Pluto square the Scorpio Sun which can be a splitting apart transit.

 What may be pertinent is that the ‘big bang’ enlargement of 1 May 2004 which brought in Czechia, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia  has a 10 degree Taurus Sun which will catch the tr Pluto square in 2029/2030 which could indicate a USSR-style split with the eastern satellites going off in a different direction to Brussels.

Even the Roman Empire finally split into east and west in an effort to restore stability.

Add On: Germany has been undergoing considerable changes since Merkel exited stage left with tr Pluto opposition the 10^th house Uranus and tr Uranus conjunct the 8^th house Pluto. What Germany wanted before in terms of goals and visions for the future is no longer held up as an ideal. Tr Neptune and Saturn moving into Aries from mid 2025 will undermine morale and hit Germany hard as it opposes the Mars and squares the Saturn in 2025/26. And again it will be late decade where seismic forces emerge with Solar Arc conjunct the Germany Saturn in 2028 and SA Pluto square the Uranus in 2029, at the same time as tr Neptune squares the Capricorn Sun.

  I remember a year or two back looking at the relationships charts and blinking at the Germany/EU bond which heretofore had seemed immoveable. Much more than France, it was Germany feeling the strain with the EU. On the 1957 relationship chart, tr Pluto moving round a composite Fixed T square of Mars opposition Moon square Venus, exerting almost unbearable pressure for change, has started its trip this year and the challenges magnify in 2025/26 and more so in 2027/28; with Neptune threatening to dissolve the ties-that-bind later this decade as it squares the composite Sun opposition Pluto.

  The Germany/Maastricht Treaty relationship chart also points to 2027/28 as critical years.

  There are some ripples on the France/EU charts and the France/Germany relationship chart, but nothing like as strong.

  At the very least there will be a massive realignment of aims and understandings.

Add On: Poland is becoming a major player – though unfortunately charts for Poland are iffy since it has had such a muddled history. Useful piece in today’s Times by Edward Lucas. Poland is economically in a good position, fuelled by floods of foreign investment, with a strong work ethic and an economy nine times bigger than in 1989. They spend 5 per cent of GDP on their armed forces and have the third-largest armed force in Nato (after the US and Turkey) propelled by a healthy suspicion of their Russian neighbour.

   Poland is looking north to like-minded countries  of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Sweden and Finland have joined Nato. Denmark is boosting its defence spending. The combined GDP of this nascent northeastern “minilateral” alliance is £2.4 trillion, a combined population of 70 million and an economy nearly the size of Russia’s. Poland and its regional allies are preparing for the worst, and to fight alone if necessary given that Biden’s administration ‘paralysed by indecision and timidity’ has undermined the USA’s clout.

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 5^th harmonic  – again on the negative: irresponsible, self-indulgent, deceitful, “the player”. Ditto the money-loving 9^th 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 8^th house. Boris has Mars on the apex of a yod there and Jupiter also in the 8^th in an over confident opposition to Neptune.  Prince Andrew has an 8^th house Mercury on the apex of a yod. Philip Scofield has a super-charged Pluto (opposition Jupiter Chiron) in the 8^th alongside Uranus and North Node.  Prince Harry has his Virgo Sun and Mercury in the 8^th.  Trump has Scheat on the cusp of his 8^th square his Gemini Sun and North Node opposition Moon.

  Some similarities, some differences. Referring back to a previous post on the 8^th 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 12^th harmonic which is the victim/healer harmonic (Scofield). Three have notable 13^th harmonics which can point to a search for a solid identity.  Four have ultra-determined 16^th harmonics so letting go and being flexible is not their super power.

All five have strong 7^th 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 8^th house.

 His Chiron in Pisces conjunct his South Node opposition his Pluto seems significant though I would struggle to articulate why.