When will life be calm and peaceful again, without the terrifying deluge of carnage and mayhem saturating the media channels on a daily basis? What in part magnifies fear is 24 hour news looking for images – if it bleeds, it leads – for stories which fifty years ago might have made a paragraph at the bottom of page 10 of the Times. Plus we all tend to idealise the past – the way life never was – and wipe out unpleasant memories. For some, somewhere, at all times, life has always been a grim business. The difference is we now have it thrown in our faces.
However there was always an astrological expectation of major upheaval at the moment. The Uranus square Pluto has been causing global mayhem since 2012 and is pulling apart now, with no more exact aspects, though it will stay in orb through 2017.
Life is never exactly as it was in the past since other planets are also cycling – you cannot step twice into the same river. But there are enough similarities to draw comparisons with previous Uranus Pluto hard aspects.
The mid 1960s Uranus Pluto conjunction opposition Saturn – oversaw civil rights and anti-Vietnam war demos in the US; the assassination of JFK and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Parisian students in revolt; and it oversaw the start of Mao’s deadly Cultural Revolution which almost destroyed China and killed countless numbers.
The 1929 to 1934 Uranus in Aries square Pluto in Cancer oversaw the Great Depression with much hardship in the US and Europe. It was worse in Russia under Stalin where a Soviet famine killed 5 to 10 million people; and the forced famine in the Ukraine in 1932/33 killed 3 to 5 million. Admittedly Saturn was also in Capricorn then opposing Pluto which would be part of the extreme deprivation felt.
The 1898 to 1904 Uranus in Sagittarius opposition Pluto in Gemini, also had Saturn involved, conjunct Uranus and opposition Pluto over the first two years. But it’s worth absorbing what went on then, to put the present into perspective. There were several wars started: US v Spain over Cuba; US v Philippines; Brits v Boers in South Africa; Russo-Japanese war over Manchuria; Brits v Tibetans. There was the Boxer Rebellion in China which was anti-foreign and anti-Christian, killing missionaries and 30,000 Chinese RCs etc. Anti-Jesuit riots in Spain; anti-Jewish riots in Budapest. 4 Monarchs and a US President were assassinated mainly by anarchists – Empress of Austria, King of Italy, King and Queen of Serbia and President William McKinley.
This time round the emphasis has been more on the Middle East with the Arab Spring, and the rise of fundamentalist Islamic terrorists waging a guerrilla war against unbelievers. That has been ongoing since the 1990s, but is much more widespread now.
Pluto in Capricorn (2008 – 2024) and Neptune in Pisces (2012 – 2026) have both been associated historically with significant times in Muslim history. Suleiman the Magnificent ruled as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, during the 16th century with Pluto in Capricorn and Neptune in Pisces. He annexed most of the Middle East and fought against the Christian West. He spread fear across Europe until he was stopped at Vienna in 1529.
What is interesting is that the chart for the Islamic Calendar, 16 July 622 AD JC (OS) was being affected by similar influences when Suleiman was pushed back from Vienna, as it is in 2019 to 2022. Tr Pluto will be square the IC Pluto and opposition the IC Sun and tr Neptune opposes the IC Mars. Though Suleiman did reappear a decade later to recoup some of his losses.