If we wanted to choose one planet as the star of this upcoming decade, that planet would be Neptune. Neptune transits feature prominently in the chart of the United States with Neptune approaching the opposition to its natal position and also with Neptune conjunct the IC of the United States. Whereas the MC — the Medium Coeli or middle of the sky — represents the outward manifestation of the country, the IC — Imum Coeli or bottom of the sky — represents the foundation or inner core of the country. This is similar to the meanings of those two points in the chart for a human being. In that case, the MC is the ego-consciousness, career, or public persona (and one parent) whereas the IC represents the home and the foundations of the human being (and the other parent); there is, however, a long standing debate in the astrological community as to which parent.
But important also to the United States and very important to the world is the transit of Neptune across the Aries point, the point that represents the world at large. Neptune symbolizes many things, and those things will be very important in this upcoming decade, which either started with the last year or starts with this year, depending on your belief in the Year Zero.
Perhaps the best known meaning for Neptune, though difficult for most human beings and the masses of the world to achieve, is spiritual awakening. This can most easily be seen in those considered spiritual adepts who often have strong Neptunes. Many think that since the world is in such dire straits, it certainly needs a spiritual enlightenment at this time either for many individuals or for the world at large. That is one positive and optimistic interpretation of these upcoming transits: that the world or many members of it will reach some kind of spiritual realization. This corresponds to the notion that it has long been said that the mass of humanity is asleep, so it needs to awaken from its sleep and become consciously aware of what is happening in the world. If that kind of awakening happens, things will surely change, but that is scary to those who benefit from the ways things are now. Perhaps we have made the situation here on earth so dire just so we will wake up as some writers suggest.
Related to this idea is the discussion in June and July of last year in this blog: “The Disenchantment of the World”. The world has lost all spiritual foundations and is now controlled only by what is called “Science”. The examples are everywhere: We now stake our future on the scientific productions of huge industries as discussed below.
One meaning assigned to Neptune is oil, and we can certainly see how that plays out since currently the oil business is one of the most profitable in existence except for another Neptune ruled business mentioned below; many are maintaining that we must leave the oil in the ground in order for the world to survive. Others talk about peak oil, the time when we have used up half of the world’s supply of oil and begin to run out. Much of the oil now produced is unconventional such as the Alberta Tar Sands oil in Canada and oil derived by fracking (hydraulic fracturing) in the United States. People are increasingly realizing that oil from tar sands in Canada is extremely dirty, not at all kind to the environment that we pretend to care so much about. Oil from fracking is increasingly difficult to support since fracked oil production from a source only lasts a few years (unlike much conventional oil from standard oil wells) and depends on financial shenanigans to pay for it; fracked oil discovery and extraction causes earthquakes and flaming water (see the 2010 movie Gasland by Josh Fox). Because so much unconventional oil is now produced in the United States, former President Obama congratulated himself for making the US once again a major exporter of oil. The result of burning oil for a least a century has seen the rise of the waste products of such combustion which pollute the atmosphere, thus preventing much heat radiating away from earth (the greenhouse effect) causing “global warming” or “climate change”. Any way you look at it, oil is very important to the world, and that will be even more so in the third decade of the twenty-first century.
But Neptune can also represent diseases that can not be seen since not only is Neptune not visible to the naked eye, but the concept of Neptune itself represents something not easy to tack down or manifest. Thus the association with diseases or pandemics seems clear. That was discussed in the last post — Neptune Part One.
Because in the current world, insults of a gender or racial nature are no longer acceptable, new insults are needed, an insult above all others, a meta-insult. Neptune again answers this call by providing a new all-purpose insult: anti-vaxxer, which indicates someone who also is anti-science since vaccination is one of the greatest gifts from science. This term is now used often by people who claim that it does not apply to them. I recently heard a prominent and daring anti-imperialist (who is the son of Democratic royalty, which might make him somewhat risk averse in this case) make a mild critique of billionaire college dropout and medical maven Bill Gates. He followed his criticism by the statement that he was not an anti-vaxxer, so no one would think that he was a member of that “disgusting circle”. It is a common refrain by those criticizing our current use of experimental medical procedures that they are not anti-vaxxers. Perhaps we need to make the anti-vaxxers wear a symbol so that we can identify them. Since the pink triangle has already been used, I suggest that anti-vaxxers be made to wear a pink crown sown to their shirt, which represents corona(virus).
But as has been mentioned many times before in this blog, Neptune also represents illusion, delusion, not seeing things as they are, and deception. These are all words that I believe describe what we will be seeing or not seeing or believe we are seeing in this third decade. As mentioned in previous posts, Neptune has been operative in the United States chart since 2016, shown most clearly by a sesquiquadrate from that planet to the Ascendant, so the United States had a head start on Neptune action.
Because of this Neptunian deception, there is a strong caution not to believe a first impression, to realize that something or someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes, to look beneath the surface of things, and to try to see the truth that lies beneath. While this is always good advice, it is especially important to keep these warnings in mind over this upcoming Neptune ruled decade. Most of the world now seems to be ruled by illusions, so do not trust first impressions, conventional wisdom, or consensual reality. Of course, this will not make you popular with the masses who make up the consensus. Often, that consensus is formed by the corporate mass media in what was originally called “manufacturing consent” by twentieth century writer Walter Lippmann.
Another common association for Neptune is drugs and in this case what is called “Big Pharma” or the Pharmaceutical-Industrial Complex — an alteration of Eisenhower’s Military-Industrial Complex. Pharmaceutical companies are among the most powerful in the world today. If one pays attention to the criminal track record of the various pharmaceutical companies, you will find that the amount these companies paid for lawbreaking and the number of people killed overshadow the fines and crimes of the oil companies or most other corporations. Judged from the law breaking, these companies are criminal organizations though one shouldn’t say so. One currently popular drug they make is called a vaccine.
Vaccines had often been a money-loser for pharmaceutical companies, mainly because of all the potential losses from lawsuits over vaccine injuries. These problems were eliminated because in 1986, the same companies were absolved from paying any suits for injuries due to childhood vaccination; this protection has been extended to adult vaccination, and after those federal laws were passed flu vaccines have become a profit center. Now with newly introduced SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, these drugs will be even more profitable. Pharmaceutical companies have been paid to develop these substances, get much free advertising, and any criticism is eliminated; and have no liabilities if anything goes wrong; this seems like the most desirable setup for any business, and the profit to be made is astronomical. Of course, none of these points are allowed in the mainstream media, who act like an advertising agency for the pharmaceutical companies. These companies are so wealthy and powerful that they can shape most any media to its direction. Any dissenting views are promptly censored.
Censorship is another one of the themes of this decade. Neptune represents censorship, which is just an elaboration of deception or illusion, which are well known Neptunian keywords. It is common in today’s world for dissenting scientific opinions to be censored or shouted down while we are implored to “listen to science”. That attitude, where differing opinions are not allowed, is not science but religion, so more Neptune. Science demands open listening to alternatives because how can we otherwise know the truth. It appears that a new religion has been formed, one which is actually anti-science even as it uses the mantra that “Science Is Real”.
Neptune and Media
The printed word such as newspapers and magazines has become the “legacy media” and not censored much. Most of the legacy media is under the control of large corporations. Currently six corporations own most of the media: Comcast is the biggest; they own anything with “NBC” in its title and also own a major cable company. The problem is with the Internet, which still allows individual citizens to express themselves like writing this blog.
Let us briefly review the progress of the Internet, which looks to be a dominant element of the upcoming decade, though it was hardly a slouch in the previous decade. The Internet, and especially the World Wide Web, is obviously signified by Neptune since the Web is everywhere and exists beyond material reality. In fact it is called “virtual” reality, which is a Neptunian concept. The Internet, with a transmission protocol which allowed information to be transferred/sent over various communication lines and reassembled successfully at its final destination, had its debut on October 29, 1969 in Silicon Valley. This was at the tail end of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the middle sixties. At that time, the “personal computer” did not exist, and the smallest computers were mini-computers, which was discussed in a previous post.
In this chart (above) for the first Internet transmission, set for noon, the most obvious aspect is the opposition between the Sun and Saturn, suggesting restrictions or possibly because of the opposition, an escape from restrictions of the conventional Saturn-ruled world. Note that the Uranus-Pluto conjunction is wide at ten degrees, and Uranus has most clearly moved into Libra.
While there were several developments through 1989, 1990, and 1992, the first public webpage was published on August 6, 1991 at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in a suburb of Geneva. In the years since, there have been millions and millions of web sites published, but it has only really been a short period — thirty years this summer. This chart shows the Uranus-Neptune conjunction that is the highlight of the early nineties. The Mercury Venus conjunction suggests the sweet embrace of this new medium by the populace.
The personal computer was developed in the seventies, and with developments at Xerox Parc, (in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley) the modern Graphical User Interface (GUI) used by all computers these days was developed. The first common commercial use was on the Apple Lisa in the early eighties. Then in the early nineties, under the Uranus-Neptune conjunction, the World Wide Web was developed, so the Internet could be used by the general public and not just research scientists and the military. The company Google was founded in 1998 just before the new century but went public in the early years of the twenty-first century. During the first decade, it became strong and by the second decade of the new century, it became obvious that this new company was so powerful that it needed some limitation. Some European governments have attempted to provide restraints in a small way, but the home country of Google seemed unable to attempt even minor limitations. The company grew so strong and dominant that the alteration of search results could influence the outcome of elections as Harvard professor Richard Epstein told Congress. Google now owns YouTube, which is the outlet for most videos of an informative kind, and Google has made it clear that they are willing to remove videos that don’t agree with the dominant paradigm; of course they phrase it more “diplomatically” than that. These outlets try to maintain the Overton Window, a concept that delineates the range of acceptable political opinion at any time and is very useful for showing the limits of political discourse.
This first chart shows the founding of Google as part of college research at Stanford University in Silicon Valley. Pluto is in the first house and conjunct the Internet, an appropriate symbol for a transformative company even though the exact time is not known. The Mars-Jupiter-Uranus pattern indicates great innovative changes. Later, Google was reincorporated in Delaware. This chart has few strong aspects that don’t involve the Sun or Moon, both of which move during the day. At a quarter degree, the trine between Jupiter and Pluto suggest the money-making ability of this company.
The first real smartphone — there were combinations of cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) before that — was the Apple iPhone 1, introduced June 29, 2007, well into the new century and not that many years ago. In the years since, smart phones from many manufacturers have allowed the world to be a more Internet friendly place. Even in third world countries, smartphones caught on quickly. In this chart (below), we see a Venus-Saturn conjunction opposite Saturn with the Sun-Mercury aspecting both ends of this opposition. Sun conjunct Mercury obviously speaks to this communication device, but the other planets in this configuration hint at the disappointments and illusions resulting from its use as well. Neptune, remember, is the Internet.
Here we have the situation as we move into the third decade of the twenty-first century. The Internet, also symbolized by Neptune, is becoming increasingly prominent as this decade moves on and Neptune approaches Zero Aries. The Web is the dominant narrative device of this century, and who controls the Web controls the world. It was thought initially, in the primitive days of the late twentieth century, that the Web would allow the people of the world to determine their own reality without the influence of the news media (whose jobs it is to manufacture consent) that have been increasingly dominated by large corporations. This brief period of optimism was quickly overshadowed when those same corporations realized that if people could see the unfiltered truth, it would have consequences for them. People might get upset at the way those corporations have been running the world for their own benefit and perhaps take some action. That could not be allowed, so with a strong propaganda campaign and censorship of this new media, people were not allowed to see any truth but that recognized by these tech-overlords.
We see the censoring of dissenting voices from the World Wide Web. Websites like YouTube claimed to be open to everyone like a bookstore that presents all opinions without bias, and thus cannot be sued for libel; since such media now censors opinions, it is no longer like a bookstore but more like a newspaper that can can be sued. Most of this censorship comes from the demands of politicians or as a way to please those politicians even though that action may reduce the bottom line of those corporations. If anyone tries to create an alternative to these large social media institutions, they will be eliminated as evidenced by what recently happened to the Twitter alternative Parler.
Looked at from a broader perspective, civilization has reached a turning point where it is becoming a new type of entity, a social animal like an ant colony, where all people are connected. The expansion of the Web and the use of smart phones to connect with the Web has allowed the potential for humans to communicate with one another and make decisions without the intermediary of corporate/government run media; almost all media is run by corporations. Many on the right seem to think that the promised “Great Reset” (as discussed in COVID-19: The Great Reset co-authored by Klaus Schwab who is founder of the World Economic Forum) will involve the implementation of socialism, Marxism, or communism over the whole world. This is madness! — as if the uber-capitalists at the World Economic Forum have any intention of killing capitalism. They like socialism only as it has been used so far — socialism for the wealthy. For example, how would the defense industries survive without the socialist funding of their products by the government?
There is some push-back to this discussion by those in positions of power to re-building the world. There has been talk of a “People’s Reset” as an alternative to the “Great Reset”. This casts light on what will be the major conflict of this decade. In the next post, I’ll introduce a concept that will define this conflict we are in.
Thanks to Doug Kellogg for this article, originally posted at https://500yearparty.wordpress.com