Guiding Principles for Mundane Astrological Analysis
Pluto through the Social Signs, part 1
Introduction
This is Part 1 of the Pluto through the Social Signs series where I will go through Pluto's movement through the signs of Sagittarius and Capricorn and (soon to be) Aquarius. Social here means "related to society", "societal", "political". As Capricorn is the archetype of society as such, flanked by Sagittarius and Aquarius, these three signs seem to have a particular connection to questions of society and social organization writ large.
I will look at world events and trends during Pluto's stay in Sagittarius (1995-2008) and Capricorn (2008-2024), and I will see if they can be connected not just to the movements of Pluto but to other planets as well. I will also try to glimpse into the future and say something about likely world developments when Pluto is in Aquarius (2023-2044). For all three signs - Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius - I will also take a deep look at their archetypes and say something about what I think they are fundamentally about.
When I talk about astrological archetypes, I am not only referring to the signs. The Capricorn archetype, for instance, does not only contain the sign of Capricorn but also the planet of Saturn and the 10th house. Likewise, the Sagittarius archetype includes the sign of Sagittarius but also Jupiter and the 9th house. Aquarius includes the sign of the water-bearer, but also the 11th house, Uranus, and arguably Saturn, the Aquarian co-ruler.
When it comes to my explanations of these archetypes, a great deal of my understanding comes straight from the teachings of Michael De Baker at the EA School Online. Throughout this article series, you will find that I reference Michael and his school a lot; this is simply because I am indebted to his teachings and have to give credit where credit is due. By no means should it be interpreted as direct advertisements for Michael’s school or for his books. He has not been the slightest involved in the production of this series; all of my content that does not reference an external source is my own creation exclusively.
Some Methodological Concerns
Because this is going to be a rather extensive analysis, a few methodological starting points are in order. I want the analysis to be exact and convincing; I don't want it to look like I'm just seeing what I want to see. I also want it to be useful to you, the reader. I want the analysis to offer you something of permanent value, rather than just another talking point that is quickly recycled and forgot about. To this end, I want to offer you a methodology that is clear, easy to follow and easy to apply in your own astrological work.
For example, if I want to argue - as I will in this article series - that Pluto in Capricorn has been characterized by anger, judgment, and blame, how can I demonstrate this? People have always been more or less judgmental, no matter where Pluto and other planets happen to currently reside! How can I be sure that I'm on track and that I'm not arbitrarily selecting such world events and trends that support my thesis? At first, I had a list of three things I found important to support my analysis. Then the list started to grow and I ended up with no less than seven guiding principles for mundane astrology! As pretentious as it may sound, I still hope you will find it useful!
(Mundane astrology is the astrological study of world events, for those who are new to the term.)
Seven Guiding Principles of Mundane Astrological Analysis
Having a deep understanding of the archetypes.
If you don't understand that Capricorn can be connected to anger, judgment, and blame, you wouldn't be able to see the pattern here. But in order to understand it, you must look at the very core of the archetype: Why is Capricorn connected to these things? Because it is ultimately concerned with responsibility, and the lack thereof. If you are not showing some integrity by taking responsibility for the things you said you were going to do, why should I not be angry with you? Why should I not blame you and judge you?Looking at many different planets
If I made the mistake of only looking at Pluto here, or if I were a traditional astrologer and ignored the outer planets altogether, what would I not miss? Perhaps I would attribute all the anger of the Occupy Wall Street movement to Pluto in Capricorn - status quo upheavals - while failing to see that Uranus had just entered Aries. I should also be open to suggestions that more minor planetoids could play a role, such as Eris and Hygeia which have been connected by some astrologers to the Covid-19 pandemic. In this particular case, I have not found their contributions to be entirely convincing but I should still keep an open mind about it.Paying attention to what happens right when a planet is entering a new sign. For instance, mere days after Jupiter entered Scorpio in October 2017, the MeToo movement went viral. The collective outlook (Jupiter) or perspective (Jupiter) on the world was suddenly colored by the theme of sexual transgressions (Scorpio), abuse (Scorpio) and betrayal of trust (Scorpio). We can therefore say with certainty that this is what Jupiter in Scorpio was about on a collective level - although it was not only about that, of course. If we look at Pluto, we can see that it entered Capricorn in 2008, at the time of the global financial crisis.
Understanding how the theme of the previous sign of the planet was carried over as the planet moved to the current sign. This is something I hope to demonstrate convincingly in the current article series. On one level, the transition from Pluto in Sagittarius to Pluto in Capricorn went something like this: As the era of migration, globalization, and the War on Terror (Pluto in Sagittarius) came to an end with the global financial crisis (Pluto entering Capricorn), people felt that they had been lied too (Sagittarius). The War on Iraq had been waged on false premises; the problems of large-scale immigration and globalization had been glossed over (Sagittarius) or ignored; the stock market wasn't nearly as sound as the elites had promised; the optimism (Sagittarius) was overblown. Reality (Capricorn) now began to reassert itself, and as a result, people got really angry. What followed was a long decade of anger, judgment, and blame. I don't suppose I'm the only one who feels like moving on?
Discerning whether a trend is truly global or whether it applies primarily to a particular country.
Especially when looking at the United States, which still has a huge influence on world affairs, it is helpful to see what is going on in the country's natal chart. For instance, while the MeToo movement was fairly global, the George Floyd protests were more particular to the United States, perhaps because of the impending American Pluto return. And while the anger over immigration has been appearing in many countries, I need to remember that this became especially strong in Sweden around 2014, when we had our second Pluto return (in the 4th house no less). Thus even if this was a global trend (or at least a trend throughout the Western world), it was extra emphasized in my home country.Being transparent with your own values.
It is inevitable that people, including astrologers, have different political opinions and beliefs. As much as I try to be objective, I will interpret world events based on my own values. So why not simply be transparent so that others do not accuse me of having some hidden agenda? Broadly speaking, then, I am a centrist, not overly enamored with mass movements on either political side but with a cautious belief that we are moving away from thousands of years of what Jeffrey Green simply called the Patriarchy - the suppression of the feminine, planetary south nodes in Capricorn - towards a world of greater softness, nurturing and care - planetary north nodes in Cancer. I'm also a great believer in scientific fact and in the merits of dialogue (north node of Uranus in Gemini): I wasn't a Covid hawk, but I also don't think that there is a secret plot to distribute vaccines that will make everyone infertile. I strongly support Ukrainian independence but I believe some kind of negotiated settlement will probably become necessary to end the war. These standpoints will no doubt impact my analysis of the past as well as the near future. I must be careful not to engage in wishful thinking with regards to certain future events. Ultimately though, I'm not a very opinionated person but will try to describe many of the observed trends with impartiality and detachment.Identifying the function that each planet has on a collective level.
Sometimes when doing mundane astrology, we can look at things very casually and have a more playful kind of analysis. But if we want to get really nerdy and serious about it, I think we should ask ourselves if there is a specific function that each planet has on a collective level. For example, when analyzing Neptune in Pisces, we may want to ask ourselves what is the Neptune part and what is the Pisces part, or it's going to get really blurry because they are both part of the same archetype (and because they are both blurry to begin with). If Neptune has a function in the collective, I believe it is as the ocean that surrounds us all at a particular moment in time. Pisces, then, shows us what has characterized that ocean from 2012, when Neptune entered the sign. If that's still blurry to you, I hope it will become clearer in the next section, where I will describe these planetary functions, and throughout the article series as a whole.
Planetary Functions in the Collective
As I lay out these collective planetary functions, I am not suggesting that I have nailed it all to a tee. Think of it more as a working hypothesis. It more or less goes back to Jeffrey Wolf Green's planetary functions, although with a few twists.
I'm going through all planets from Jupiter to Pluto. It's not that Mars, Venus, Mercury, the Sun and Moon cannot matter on a collective level - they very much can - but they are too fast to matter on this grand scale.
As far as mundane astrology goes, Jupiter and Saturn may well be called social planets, as they are the ones that most explicitly deal with the structure of society.
The outer planets are usually called transpersonal (although according to at least one astrologer, they should be understood as multi-personal, as they are connected to trauma from past lives which is indeed highly personal). In mundane astrology, I find that they represent that which lies beyond the social order - energy flows, the laws governing nature, the universe as we relate to it as a whole.
The social planets and the outer planets of Uranus and Neptune have one thing in common - they all have rings. Saturn, the planet of structure, has the densest rings, followed by Uranus, Saturn's Aquarian roommate. Yet for all four planets, the rings seem to express the theme of containment. They are all structural. From Jupiter to Neptune, we are dealing with structures within society (Jupiter, Saturn) and beyond it (Uranus, Neptune). They can all rightly be called structural planets.
Pluto does not have rings, but it is quite unique in other ways. It is of course the first of the trans-Neptunian objects known today as Plutoids. It is also the first planet that varies widely in relation to the ecliptic, sometimes orbiting far above it, other times clearly below. This corresponds to the Plutonian-Scorpionic theme of digging deep into the underworld to recover a treasure, then bringing that treasure with you upward towards the sky. It also suggest that Pluto relates to the other planets in a fundamentally new way: as I have previously expressed it, Pluto represents a deep, underlying theme, or perhaps sometimes an "overarching" theme seeing as Pluto can be both above and below the other planets. Perhaps this also says something about why the polarity point of Pluto is so important: the PPP represents that rising up from the depths of the underworld that is so necessary for transformation to occur.
Jupiter
Jupiter is the collective belief structure, the collective outlook or perspective on things. A belief structure is not merely about holding something to be true, it is about fundamentally seeing something as true. When Jupiter entered Scorpio, we all began to see the question of sexual abuse in a way that we had not done before. How many women have gone through this? Is he a rapist? Is that one guilty? Or has someone betrayed him? Is somebody out for revenge? Who can you trust, and you can you not trust? How deep does it all go? Whereever Jupiter finds itself, it will color the collective belief structure. This belief structure is in turn expressed within another structure - the social structure.
Saturn
Saturn is about the social structure, the establishment, the visible status quo. Since 2020, Saturn has been in Aquarius, which was initially expressed as a status quo of social distancing (Aquarius being distant and cold). But this period also saw the rise of the "woke" establishment, with representatives of the big banks bowing down before the George Floyd protesters (a gesture that not everyone found convincing). We have also seen a lot of emphasis on "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion", strong demands for a more egalitarian society, and contentious edits and reinterpretations of old literary works to make them more inclusive and more socially good (Aquarius). This era, in turn, was preceded by Saturn in Capricorn - a patriarchal establishment; the Trump era.
Uranus
The social structure cannot exist on its own. It needs to draw energy from somewhere. Thus, every society will try to harness energy from the unpredictable forces of nature - Uranus. Such forces can never be fully controlled, but they can be channeled into the system like electricity into a computer. In the modern world, electricity generation is one of our prime methods to do this, which is why the recent Saturn-Uranus square has corresponded to a crisis in energy systems. (Uranus in Taurus: the energy needed for survival - squaring Saturn in Aquarius: the energy system, the power grid.) But Uranus can also be the way a single person contributes to society through a sudden stroke of genius, a new invention or breakthrough; it can be the madman or -woman who is hard to integrate into society, or it can be a new political movement that suddenly demands political power and influence. Saturn must be able to adjust to receive the Uranian impulses. Simply suppressing them won't do; they will probably come back even more violent than before.
So while Uranus lies beyond the social structure, it is clearly concerned with the social. It might as well be considered a social planet too, at least in part.
Neptune
All matter is energy. Every particle in the Universe could be said to be Uranian: moving, vibrating, bouncing off other particles in unpredictable ways. But surrounding it all is Neptune - the All. Just as all land on Earth is ultimately surrounded by ocean, all souls are ultimately swimming in an ocean of Spirit - the Source, our spiritual home, the One God. As some mystics of old would put it, God is in everything and everything is in God. Incidentally, some modern physicists believe that the Universe is ultimately a hologram - a giant projection, at the same time ultimately real and unreal.
A Uranian streak of inspiration requires a higher source. A political movement needs a higher ideal to strive for. From the first organic life-form that arose unpredictably out of the ocean, all the way down to the cells vibrating in your own body, we are all immersed in Neptune. If we don't recognize this, life may become meaningless and uninspired. The Uranian fight for a better world can become cynical and violent, driven by a sense of disconnection and trauma. Neptune is there to remind the Uranian impulse what it is really fighting for. Life then ceases to be mundane and meaningless, instead being filled with a sense of miraculousness, deep meaningfulness and gratitude.
At this level, reality it no longer political at all. Beyond the erratic movements of Uranus, there is silence, there is the boundlessness of the sea, there is the slowness and emptiness that underlies all existence. It is the seat of both mystic rapture and existential angst.
Partly because Neptune is not political and partly because of its fuzziness, I find it a bit hard to pin down - but there is one area in particular where I have found clear correlations with Neptune transits: the development of mass media, screens and screen-reliant technologies. The first telegraph was invented in 1844, two years before the discovery of Neptune. It allowed for invisible messages to be transferred across vast distances. When Neptune was in Libra (1943-1955), we saw the breakthrough of the television: a screen (Neptune) in the form of an Other (Libra) who is talking to you, almost like a person you that can always look at and listen to (Libra). In this article series, I will argue that Neptune's recent movement through Aquarius corresponded to the rise of the World Wide Web, that Neptune in Pisces has been the era of smartphones and social media, and that Neptune in Aries will usher us in the age of the metaverse.
Pluto
To summarize, I believe that Uranus operates within the bounds of Neptune, Saturn within the limits of Uranus and Neptune, Jupiter within the confines of all three (although most specifically relating to Saturn - society), and Mars and the inner planets within all four. But underlying all of this is Pluto. Pluto is both beyond and beneath Neptune, signifying something that has gone beyond God, just as the Soul must separate from the Source in order to grow, transform, evolve. Had the sequence ended with Neptune, the world might have been a very blissful place but lacking in evolutionary potential. Instead, we find ourselves abandoned in a strange and cruel world. But in mundane astrology, transiting Pluto cannot signify an individual soul. Rather, it signifies the deep status quo just as Saturn signifies the visible status quo. What is the deep status quo of the world? Nature herself has spelled it out for us: Evolution, transformation, death and rebirth. Eat or be eaten. Grow or stagnate. Succeed in procreating, transforming yourself in the process, or be eliminated from the gene pool. At the end, you will be returned to dust and your body will be recycled, paving the way for new life-forms. Thus the Pluto/Scorpio archetype bears a resemblance to the terrible mother of ancient myths and legends; that merciless face of Mother Nature who eats her own children alive.
As Pluto moves through the zodiac, this deep status quo of transformation, death and rebirth is colored by the current sign. The terrors of that sign are brought to the fore, and the deep existential questions of power, powerlessness, and collective survival are channeled through that archetype. Ordinary people, organizations, political parties, governments, and financial elites - all will deal with issues of power, powerlessness, and collective survival in relation to themes at the core of the archetype in question. For instance, when Pluto entered Scorpio, the AIDS epidemic hit - people were struck by a collective fear for survival (Pluto) because of a sexual (Scorpio) disease transmitted through the sharing of bodily fluids (Scorpio). During Pluto in Sagittarius, the fear of terrorism (Pluto) by religious strangers (Sagittarius) with an alien worldview (Sagittarius) became acute. The Pluto themes need not always be so negative, but I believe there is a tendency in that direction.
Polarity points
For this article series, I have decided to look at the polarity points for all planets that I am investigating more closely. The thought has grown on me that the archetypes themselves - Capricorn, Pisces etc. - need their polarities before they can reach their fullest, highest, most noble expression. I do find the Pluto Polarity Point especially potent and powerful, but that doesn't mean the others should be ignored, especially such a slow-moving one as Neptune. For Neptune in Pisces I have a clear idea what the Virgo polarity point is about.
(I am aware that there are a few different viewpoints in EA regarding this, and I would agree that if there's any celestial body that does not need a polarity point it is probably the Sun. This is getting into extremely nerdy territory though which I don't think should be covered here.)
I have laid the groundwork. Now onto the analysis of the Pluto in Sagittarius years, 1995-2008.