Saturn Neptune – at best pragmatism plus vision

Saturn Neptune conjunctions come round roughly three times a century – in 1989 in Capricorn, in 1953 in Libra and in 1917/18 in Leo. The next one falls in Aries in 2025/26.

  Historically they have been associated with the fight for womens’ and workers’ rights, epidemics, religious events and collapsing empires.

From The Astrological History of the World.

‘Neptune’s compassion for the victim meets Saturn’s ability to organize in a constructive way. If the balance is wrong, however, then Saturn’s authoritarian need to exert order and maintain the status quo can completely crush the Neptunian dream.

   The English Peasants’ Revolt during the Saturn–Neptune conjunction in Aries in 1381, demanding an end to serfdom was suppressed and its leader, Wat Tyler, beheaded. Two conjunctions later, in Virgo, Irish rebel Jack Cade leading the Kent and Essex peasants’ revolt, was also killed. Another two conjunctions further on, in Pisces in 1524, there were extensive peasants’ revolts in Germany.

   By 1845 with Saturn–Neptune in tolerant Aquarius, Engels was writing The Condition of the Working Class in England. Still under the same influence, the Irish potato-crop failure of the following year drew attention to the plight of the starving and the suffering. By the next conjunction in Taurus in 1881, British prime minister William Gladstone had passed the Irish Land Act to prevent excessively high rents, although the outrages of 1882, when 10,500 Irish farming families were evicted, gave every indication that Saturnine rigidity and greed still held sway. In the United States, the American Federation of Labor was founded in Pittsburgh in 1881.

   One conjunction on, in 1917 in Leo, striking Russian workers rose up, and were joined by soldiers to overthrow the last feudal tsardom.

   During the last Saturn–Neptune conjunction of the 20th century, in Capricorn in 1989, Solidarity, the Polish workers’ party, came to power in democratic elections. The fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe freed workers to control their own lives and government. There was also mass rehabilitation of Russian citizens who were victims of Stalin’s brutal purges, Stalin himself having succumbed on the Saturn–Neptune conjunction of 1953. Also in 1989, the Tiananmen Square demonstration in China, staged by students and workers, was brutally suppressed, resulting in 2000 deaths. In Britain just a year later there were the violent Poll Tax Riots, the first serious mass revolt against the government in decades.’

  There’s always a dual nature to this conjunction, more so than most since they are diametrically opposed energies – Neptune dissolves and undermines while Saturn aims to build and maintain boundaries.

  Although Saturn Neptune doesn’t sound rebellious it tends to bring the state and the status quo (Saturn) into conflict with spiritual movements or the underdogs (Neptune). The flower power, hippie movement was very much a Saturn Neptune in Libra phenomenon in the 1950s. 

  The 20th Century ones aren’t necessarily a good guide since the 1989 one was a triple conjunction with Uranus; and the 1953 had Saturn Neptune square Uranus.

  The 1917/18 Saturn Neptune oversaw the Spanish flu epidemic which wiped out more people in a single year than the Middle Ages black death plague had done.   

  It doesn’t happen in isolation, of course. In 2025 Neptune moves into Aries along with Saturn and Pluto two years earlier has made the shift into into Aquarius and Uranus is poised to move into Gemini – so quite a shift of the outer planets. At one point there will be a Pluto sextile Uranus with Saturn Neptune as the midpoint. At best that could be a reforming movement that leads to a fairer society. Though that’s probably wildly optimistic.

   Saturn in Aries tends to be tough and hard, producing circumstances that require self-reliance; Saturn Pluto is war-like and deprived; Neptune Pluto fosters megalomania. But there’ll be enough good in there to produce positive changes (Saturn Uranus), creative inspiration (Uranus Neptune) and the perseverance to make at least some benefits of new thinking stick.

I hope Andre Barbault is right about this upcoming Neptune Saturn in Aries though it did sound a touch hopeful. I’ll look tomorrow at previous Neptune in Aries back through history.

16 thoughts on “Saturn Neptune – at best pragmatism plus vision

  1. Honestly, i can’t wait to 2025. However i don’t think that we as human are on a good way to improve our behavior… II WW happend during Neptune trine Uranus, so who knows? Will 2025-2028 shock us in a positive or negative way?

  2. I wondered about the conjunction’s occurrence coinciding with assassination of leaders. In July 1881, President James A Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau, he had been sworn in January of that year. Saturn was then at 10 degrees of Taurus and Neptune in the latter part of 15 degrees. Garfield died 11 weeks later. In March of 1881, Alexander II is killed by a bomb near his palace, though Saturn is at that point, in the final degrees of Aries. It’s I’m sure been noted that with the conjunction of Saturn at 14 degrees and Neptune at 5 of Leo in July 1917, the entire Romanov family were executed in Ekaterinberg. The year also sees many now legendary fights of the American Wild West; Billy the Kid is shot by Pat Garrett, the ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’, Arizona takes place in October as Saturn is at 9 and Neptune, 16 of Taurus.

    Though she survived 8 attempted assassinations in her reign, in March 1882 Roderick MaClean made an attempt on Queen Victoria’s life with Saturn at 8 degrees and Neptune at 14 of Taurus. April to May saw the killing of Jesse James by Robert Ford in Missouri and the Phoenix Park Murders in Dublin, Ireland, assassinations carried out by the INI. In late December of 1989, Nikolei Ceaucescu dies, allegedly by suicide when Saturn is at 14 degrees of Capricorn and Neptune at 11 degrees.

  3. Thanks Marjorie always interesting reading

    Can I ask if tr. Neptune conjunct n.Chiron trine Mercury make someone fuzzy/confused in thinking/keeping motivated mentally?

  4. Thank you Marjorie. It is such a relief to move away from the racket of everyday news out into a world of historical and astrological perspective.

    • Standing back to take a historical perspective is very calming. It damps down the noise of present trivia and makes you realise that humanity marches on no matter what.

  5. FWIW The last time Neptune moved into Aries was the day after the first shots of the American Civil war – 12th-13th April 1861.

    It was primarily about slavery and therefore about the humane (Neptune) treatment of individuals (Aries).

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