Astronomers don’t even consider it a planet, but astrologers put a lot of faith in its movement across the sky. Pluto is a veritable celestial superstar, not least because its movement is relatively slow, which makes the aspects it forms generational like in the case of Neptune and Uranus.
Of course, Pluto also has a sort of Goth appeal to it, being the ruler of Death, rebirth and transformation.
As in the case of so much astrology the predictions linked to Pluto travelling through the various signs are rather vague. Most astrologers, however, express the same belief: When Pluto enters a new sign the topics traditionally covered by this sign are highlighted.
I took some time to study the effects of Pluto and found some startling parallels that both fit the political and cultural reality of each “Plutonic Era” and some of the most significant symbols highlighted in the media.
In astrology the Pluto transits have achieved almost the same iconic status as the Astrological Ages that come into place by the movement of the Earth’s axis through the segments of the Zodiac, a process known in astronomy as precession.
Curiously, the symbols of each of the ages, as far back in history as we have records, coincide with the astrological signs.
For instance, the current Age of Pisces has been dominated by two symbols from Christianity, perhaps three:
1) The fish or IXTUS symbol used by the early Christians as graffiti indicating their hideouts during persecution. Fish symbolism is recurring in the New Testament, but the choice of symbol may be rooted in the very Greco-Roman myth related to Pisces, that of Aphrodite and Eros transforming themselves to fish to escape the wrath of the sea monster Typhoon, and thus be incognito in the swarms of the sea.
2) After Christianity became endorsed by the Roman Empire the IXTUS was replaced by the cross, which interestingly enough corresponds to the cross in the lower half of the Virgo symbol. Virgo is the opposite sign to Pisces, and it seems that the opposite sign of whatever aspect indicated by a planet’s position in the Zodiac, is highlighted. The cross at the bottom of the Virgo symbol is said to represent the crossed legs of the virgin goddess Astrea.
Since most people know the Christian cross, here is the earliest monogram of Christ, known as the Chi-Ro, attributed to Emperor Constantine of Rome or Constantine the Great (272-337), today the symbol of the Papal regime in the Vatican
Since most people know the Christian cross, here is the earliest monogram of Christ, known as the Chi-Ro, attributed to Emperor Constantine of Rome or Constantine the Great (272-337), today the symbol of the Papal regime in the Vatican
3) As if that was not enough an entire cult of Puritanism grew out of from the womb of Christianity, best embodied in the worship of or at least reverence for Virgin Mary (depending on sects). The virgin bith of the chaste Christ is, in itself, a poignant and conspicuous representation of the very symbolism that according to the rules of astrology is supposed to be preeminent in the era.
To the right the misanthropic virgin goddess Astrea, later associated with Themis and Justitia, in her role as goddess of justice (likely a fusing of the two adjacent signs, Virgo and Libra, forming the image of a woman holding scales). To the left: Mother Mary in one of an endless number of depictions with conspicuous resemblance in manner and appearance to the Greek celestial.
Go just one step back, to the Age of Aries, and notice how warlike the cultures were, and how dominant lambs, sheep and goat are in the mythology, particularly the Judaic tradition we know from the Old Testament (Torah).
Pluto in Sagittarus: Assault on The Free World
This all lead me to think about symbolism of the past century, as Pluto travelled through various signs.
Recently, in 2007-2008, Pluto entered the realm of Capricorn. But before we go into what that may mean, let’s check if the system fits at all.
Previously, from about 1994-1995, Pluto moved through Sagittarius. It is commonly known as the Age of Terrorism, because it also covered the 911 attack on the World Trade Center. Numerous terrorist attacks have been carried out against American embassies or interests abroad, including Lockerbie that killed many US military personnel and, more conspicously, the 1979 kidnapping of US embassy personnel.
But the terrorist age officially begins with the 1998 terrorist attacks on US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. These events signalled the beginning of a targeted campaign, culminating with the spectacular and unparallelled September 11 2001 attack on US soil.
Amazingly, the event is a virtual exercise in symbolism, astrological and otherwise. First of all, of course, there is the date: 9-1-1 is, through American film and television, internationally known as the number to which Americans direct distress calls.
This can be attributed to accident or to direct speculation from the conspirators behind the plot, a diabolic timing to play on the associations to the sequence of numbers.
As for astrology, however, the symbolic parallels are staggering:
This can be attributed to accident or to direct speculation from the conspirators behind the plot, a diabolic timing to play on the associations to the sequence of numbers.
As for astrology, however, the symbolic parallels are staggering:
Sagittarius is routinely associated with aviation and long distance travel, the industry to be most directly affected by anti-terrorism measures after 911. The attack itself was carried out by plane.
To the left the vector outline of a passenger airplane, to the right the symbol of Sagittarius, traditionally associated with long distance travel, philosophy and higher learning, and a zest for freedom.
The destruction was, as indicated by Pluto, devastating and unpredictable. The target: Two towers.
To the left the symbol of Gemini, resembling two towers but really depicting two twins, side by side. Remarkably, the towers of the World Trade Center were commonly referred to as the Twin Towers of New York. The second part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers, was released the year after, in 2002.
Again, the "opposite rule" takes effect, with the sign opposite to the one highlighted by the astrological aspects accentuated. In fact, it seems that the opposite symbol almost overshadows the symbolism of the highlighted aspect, whether it is by Earth precession or a planet.
To the left: The picture known worldwide as "the falling man" from World Trade Center, one of the thousands of horrific deaths in the terrorist attack. To the right: The glyph that symbolizes Pluto, strangely resembling a falling man. The 9-11 attack also evokes a popularly known image from the Tarot deck of cards known as The Tower, usually thought of as a harbinger of misfortune and the least beneficial card to draw in a reading.
Pluto in Scorpio: A venomous virus
The most frequently mentioned defining mega-event of the period in which Pluto moved through Scorpio is undoubtledly the AIDS/HIV epidemic and the social challenges it posed to society.
The first registered cases of infection coincided with Pluto's transition - or transgression - into the area of Scorpio, which is routinely associated with sexual activity, particularly eroticism for pleasure and a significant bundle of alternative sexual variants. Scorpio is dark sign, and they say Pluto feel perfectly at home there.
To the left: The symbol of Scorpio and the stylized glyph in which the toxic tail is accentuated. Notice the similarity to the symbol for Virgo, except in the case of Virgo the "tail" points downwards and forms a cross as in the female gender symbol, while here it is "erected" as in the male gender symbol. To the right: A graphic depiction of the HIV virus.
If the "opposite rule" is true the overarching symbol of this problematic age should be closely linked to the symbolism of Taurus, or, perhaps even resembling a bull or the symbolic representation of it.
In many ways the 80s were a period of materialism with a thrifty Yuppie culture, and it was also a period in which the fitness mania was mainstreamed, and where peculiarly physical aesthetics dominated, making many strive towards an idealized physical appearance through bodybuilding.
It was also the age in which eating disorders were discovered and problematized, which also makes sense when it comes to Taurus, routinely associated with health, vigor and aestheticism. So far we are on safe ground.
But even more conspiciously, the very symbol chosen for the public campaign against HIV/AIDS, was the red ribbon:
Turn the Taurus symbol 180 degrees on the horizontal axis, and you pretty much have the symbol for a campaign that transformed the face of society, likely peaking with Tom Hanks' appearance in Streets of Philadelphia, assisted by the haunting score by Bruce Springsteen. All of a sudden society had not just compassion for the terminally ill, but a deeper sense of solidarity with the gay communites - an unexpected side-effect of the epidemic and, in the language of the esoterics, a silver lining to Pluto's aggressive onslaught.
Pluto in Libra: The Great Disruption
Pluto moved from Virgo to Libra in 1970-71, an area in which the social sciences exploded with new insights on human behavior, particularly in the field of relationships. Divorce rates in the West peaked in the 1970s, inducing shattered home syndrome and spawning separation-divorce-conflict movies like Kramer vs. Kramer.
Notably, Francis Fukuyama described the era with the poignant title of one of his studies, The Great Disruption, proving a radical spike of divorce, youth crime and drug abuse in the West, coinciding with female emancipation and New Feminist struggle for equality.
Libra is traditionally associated with various concepts of justice and equality, as illustrated above. The 70s was a problematic age, where the chill of the Cold War that governed supranational relations was also felt, on another level, in more than one household. The war of the genders, the battle of the sexes. The media were not shy about such terms.
On the upside: Some level of equality was achieved, just as the Cold War was much to be preferred to actual global nuclear war between the Capitalist and the Communist factions. The West did, and Capitalism prevailed, or...?
To the left: The Peace sign that became the dominant symbol of the age, even more powerful than the horrific warning signs against nuclear fallout.
If we take a closer look at the Peace symbol from the perspective of Aries, we notice something interesting: Not only does the Aries symbol look a bit like a dove with its wings spread, but the Peace symbol is, in fact, composed of at least 3 of the lines in the Aries symbol when turned upside down. Far fetched? Perhaps. I admit that the middle stroke, the straight vertical line completed all the way to the rim of the circle, breaks the symmetry.
All, in all, considering we have covered three "Plutonic" areas, chosen the absolutely most potent symbols of the eras and compared to both the sign transited by Pluto and the sign opposite to it in the Zodiac, the correlations are surprising.
Even if a lot of events fall outside the scope of the "prophetic aspect", and the entire thought process is retrospective and, therefore, guided by a tendency to find matches, the "summarizing ability" of Pluto, the ability to define the crisis and critical tendencies of an era are astonishing.
At least on the symbolic level the effects of astrology are immense, whether it has to do with subliminal preferences for archetypes, or a more cunning use of astrological knowledge for crafting symbols - if so, the artful use resembles some sort of Illuminati style conspiracy.
Challenge: Locate the symbols of the past
I'll invite you to continue the exercise on your own, using as a guideline the ephemeris for Pluto, which goes roughly like this:
Pluto moved from Cancer (Nationalism, homeland romanticism, conservatism) to Leo in 1939-1940, where Second World War begins with the invasion of Poland by Germany and Slovakia, and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth.
To the left: The picture known worldwide as "the falling man" from World Trade Center, one of the thousands of horrific deaths in the terrorist attack. To the right: The glyph that symbolizes Pluto, strangely resembling a falling man. The 9-11 attack also evokes a popularly known image from the Tarot deck of cards known as The Tower, usually thought of as a harbinger of misfortune and the least beneficial card to draw in a reading.
Pluto in Scorpio: A venomous virus
The most frequently mentioned defining mega-event of the period in which Pluto moved through Scorpio is undoubtledly the AIDS/HIV epidemic and the social challenges it posed to society.
Pluto moved from Libra to Scorpio in 1982-1984, bouncing as the planet often do - from the geocentric viewpoint - a little back and forth.
The first registered cases of infection coincided with Pluto's transition - or transgression - into the area of Scorpio, which is routinely associated with sexual activity, particularly eroticism for pleasure and a significant bundle of alternative sexual variants. Scorpio is dark sign, and they say Pluto feel perfectly at home there.
If the "opposite rule" is true the overarching symbol of this problematic age should be closely linked to the symbolism of Taurus, or, perhaps even resembling a bull or the symbolic representation of it.
In many ways the 80s were a period of materialism with a thrifty Yuppie culture, and it was also a period in which the fitness mania was mainstreamed, and where peculiarly physical aesthetics dominated, making many strive towards an idealized physical appearance through bodybuilding.
It was also the age in which eating disorders were discovered and problematized, which also makes sense when it comes to Taurus, routinely associated with health, vigor and aestheticism. So far we are on safe ground.
But even more conspiciously, the very symbol chosen for the public campaign against HIV/AIDS, was the red ribbon:
Turn the Taurus symbol 180 degrees on the horizontal axis, and you pretty much have the symbol for a campaign that transformed the face of society, likely peaking with Tom Hanks' appearance in Streets of Philadelphia, assisted by the haunting score by Bruce Springsteen. All of a sudden society had not just compassion for the terminally ill, but a deeper sense of solidarity with the gay communites - an unexpected side-effect of the epidemic and, in the language of the esoterics, a silver lining to Pluto's aggressive onslaught.
Pluto in Libra: The Great Disruption
Pluto moved from Virgo to Libra in 1970-71, an area in which the social sciences exploded with new insights on human behavior, particularly in the field of relationships. Divorce rates in the West peaked in the 1970s, inducing shattered home syndrome and spawning separation-divorce-conflict movies like Kramer vs. Kramer.
Notably, Francis Fukuyama described the era with the poignant title of one of his studies, The Great Disruption, proving a radical spike of divorce, youth crime and drug abuse in the West, coinciding with female emancipation and New Feminist struggle for equality.
Libra is traditionally associated with various concepts of justice and equality, as illustrated above. The 70s was a problematic age, where the chill of the Cold War that governed supranational relations was also felt, on another level, in more than one household. The war of the genders, the battle of the sexes. The media were not shy about such terms.
On the upside: Some level of equality was achieved, just as the Cold War was much to be preferred to actual global nuclear war between the Capitalist and the Communist factions. The West did, and Capitalism prevailed, or...?
To the left: The Peace sign that became the dominant symbol of the age, even more powerful than the horrific warning signs against nuclear fallout.
If we take a closer look at the Peace symbol from the perspective of Aries, we notice something interesting: Not only does the Aries symbol look a bit like a dove with its wings spread, but the Peace symbol is, in fact, composed of at least 3 of the lines in the Aries symbol when turned upside down. Far fetched? Perhaps. I admit that the middle stroke, the straight vertical line completed all the way to the rim of the circle, breaks the symmetry.
All, in all, considering we have covered three "Plutonic" areas, chosen the absolutely most potent symbols of the eras and compared to both the sign transited by Pluto and the sign opposite to it in the Zodiac, the correlations are surprising.
Even if a lot of events fall outside the scope of the "prophetic aspect", and the entire thought process is retrospective and, therefore, guided by a tendency to find matches, the "summarizing ability" of Pluto, the ability to define the crisis and critical tendencies of an era are astonishing.
At least on the symbolic level the effects of astrology are immense, whether it has to do with subliminal preferences for archetypes, or a more cunning use of astrological knowledge for crafting symbols - if so, the artful use resembles some sort of Illuminati style conspiracy.
Challenge: Locate the symbols of the past
I'll invite you to continue the exercise on your own, using as a guideline the ephemeris for Pluto, which goes roughly like this:
Pluto moved from Cancer (Nationalism, homeland romanticism, conservatism) to Leo in 1939-1940, where Second World War begins with the invasion of Poland by Germany and Slovakia, and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth.
Pluto stays in Leo far beyond 1945, all the way up to 1956-1957, where it enters Virgo. Pluto lingers in Virgo up to 1970-71. One of the major changes attributed by astrologers to Pluto's interference in this area is the invention and distribution of birth control (!).
Coming up: The Pluto in Capricorn effect
This was the background for the test. Of course, I still have to put forth the bold and falsifiable hypothesis with regards to the current "Plutonic Era", signified by Pluto's mortifying influence in Capricorn. Hang on for that in a later blog post.
On top if that, expect to read more about astrological symbolism in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and particularly how the symbolism of Kabbalah applies to some of the most famous passages of the most popular prophetic book, the Apocalypse or Revelation of John.
The articles on the true meaning of concepts like The Four Horsemen, The Dragon and The Beast, and Anti-Christ and the Number of the Beast, will unlock mysteries in ways that have never before been published, in books or on the Internet.
Disclaimer
Different groups of people may be offended by interpretations or depictions in this article, off the top of my head: Relatives to victims of 9-11, or Americans in general, feminists, Christians, AIDS victims or their relatives and peers, or anyone with a vehement rationalistic distaste for mysticism. I do not mean to offend anyone with the words or graphics in this article, nor do I aim to prove any point about causality, responsibility or culpability in disastrous mega-events.
Different groups of people may be offended by interpretations or depictions in this article, off the top of my head: Relatives to victims of 9-11, or Americans in general, feminists, Christians, AIDS victims or their relatives and peers, or anyone with a vehement rationalistic distaste for mysticism. I do not mean to offend anyone with the words or graphics in this article, nor do I aim to prove any point about causality, responsibility or culpability in disastrous mega-events.
interesting way of looking at things. nice
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