As has been discussed many times recently in this blog, Neptune is a most important planet in today’s world. As I write this, Neptune is in the third decan (third of a sign – 10 degrees) of Pisces approaching Zero Aries, the cardinal point that everyone in the world shares. By 2025 and 2026 Neptune will finally cross the cardinal axis, so Neptunian conditions will prevail for a while.

Recently I have been exposed to two different opinions on how Neptunian energies are already playing out in the world. These two large assumptions regard the mental state of the world: they suggest that certain groups of people are in fact very deluded and attempting to force their delusions on others making life difficult for them. In just what I have written you see that Neptune — the master of delusion — applies to this phenomena. Neptune is the fulcrum or pivot point around which these two hypotheses revolve.

One branch of this is shown by this headline from the online magazine Salon.com: “Is America experiencing mass psychosis?” and the subhead adds: ”Psychologists say that America is going through what Carl Jung warned us would happen eventually”. Jung warned that societies were in danger of a pandemic of delusional ideas. The author of this article sees signs of mass psychosis everywhere she looks: many people doubting reality, such as skepticism that for the last two years the world has been beset by a dreadful plague and the only salvation is to use drugs provided by pharmaceutical companies. Others signs of delusion are from those who doubt that the 2020 national election was won by Democrat Joe Biden. And though she does not add in the followers of QAnon it certainly is a illustration of delusion. And the author of this piece — which of course reflects a wider viewpoint among those who read Salon — thinks that the recent eruption of the Covid pandemic has brought such feelings to the fore. As the author explains, when you have lost your job and are gripped with a fear of dying from a deadly disease, and hold anti-government beliefs or lack a college education, you are especially prone to such delusional (Neptune again) thinking. One prime example of this thinking is that of Covid-deniers who reject scientific knowledge and turn to purveyors of misinformation such as Robert Kennedy or Joseph Mercola. Some of these miscreants even believe that the Covid vaccines can kill them instead of being safe and effective.

The author references Carl Jung when she suggests that people who are into conspiracy theories or followers of New Age religions are acting out against their parents, or in this case the surrogate for parents, the state. People need myths and in an increasingly secular society that need is not met. New Age religions or QAnon, which the author considers as similar but opposite, draw those who need some myths in their life. These two are mirror images of one another, one ignoring the shadow and the other being only shadow. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out which is which.

A related link in that article is to one about the “Disinformation Dozen”, twelve people whose anti-vax propaganda is the most spread by Facebook. The top two of these 12 are the above mentioned Mercola and Kennedy. But their closed feedback loop is closer than just being the top two. Mercola was a pre-publication reader of Kennedy’s recent book about Anthony Fauci, and Kennedy’s website often publishes articles by Mercola. Facebook denies that most anti-vax posts are from these dozen, saying that only a small percentage of the relevant posts are from those twelve. In this case the “Disinformation Dozen” is more figurative than literal, though Facebook (now Meta) only interprets the statement in a literal fashion. The Center for Countering Digital Hate, the creators of the meme Disinformation Dozen meant, or should have meant, that these twelve are major fountainheads of the misinformation that influence many others, the head of the anti-vax snake as it were. And here is a good take down of Robert Kennedy from a left viewpoint which shows this is the attitude of those to the left of the readers of Salon.

Some even believe that the vaccines were planned to harm people and that many doctors are purposely denying that the vaccines are dangerous for fear of losing their jobs, income, and well-respected position in the community.

And just in time for the New Years, everybody’s favorite podcaster Joe Rogan (whose listener/viewership is at least 10 times that of CNN) interviewed Dr. Robert Malone (who did work leading to mRNA vaccines while in graduate school, is double-jabbed, and gave money to the Biden-Harris campaign). Malone is a true apostate since once he was truly part of the medical establishment and has rebelled against it. Malone mentioned the subject of the alternate Neptunian hypothesis presented below, and this link for the Salon article which covers one view of this other hypothesis, which Salon considers totally fallacious. This article about the most popular podcast from a most popular podcaster highlights the personage who the readers should hate.

This alternative Rogan podcast was not allowed to exist without quickly drawing criticism. 270 “medical specialists” demanded that Spotify, new home to Joe Rogan, ban this current podcast because it contains so much misinformation (hello, Neptune). The upset at the brazen Joe Rogan podcast is previewed by this Salon article. And since this article appeared, the pressure on Joe Rogan has only increased after Neil Young gave Spotify the ultimatum to either withdraw that Joe Rogan podcast or stop using his music.

The opposing or complementary thesis is proposed by Belgian Professor of clinical psychology Mattias Desmet (University of Ghent) and is called mass formation. He has a book out in English called The Psychology of Totalitarianism describing this. Mass formation is a psychological condition that applies to the collective (mass) just as hypnosis applies to the individual. When a person is hypnotized they are capable of believing such things as the onion they eat is a sweet apple. For the collective the groups can believe that the leader that tells them to hate certain groups or nations is a wise and peaceful person. Previous examples of mass formation are the witch trials (Salem and earlier in Europe), Dutch tulip mania in the Seventeenth Century, parts of the French Revolution, the Dreyfus case in France, the Communist Revolution in Russia, the Nazi rule in Germany, racial massacres, and of course Jonestown, which added the phrase “Drinking the Koolaid” to our vocabulary. But in the future, if Desmet’s thesis is correct, this term could be replaced by “Taking the Jab”.

Desmet divides the population into three groups depending on how they respond to the mass formation. The largest group, 40% to 60%, go along to get along, that is to say they agree with the dominant narrative because that is much easier to do, they win the approval of their friend and neighbors, and they don’t have to think for themselves. The next group are the true believers who accept the dominant narrative fully. This group is smaller at about 30% to 40%. Finally the remaining group are the apostates or dissidents. He found that the more educated are the most susceptible to mass formation despite what some (the highly educated) might believe. Professor Desmet thinks that in the current world those who believe that their leaders are correct in thinking that the largest pandemic in a century has engulfed the world and only by the injection of certain drugs can this pandemic be eliminated are suffering from a mass formation. He doesn’t use the term psychosis to avoid the suggestion of severe mental problems, though some do use that term.

The link to a YouTube is not allowed here, but the video is “youtube.com/watch?v=CRo-ieBEw-8&list=WL&index=10&t=14s”

There are four conditions that Desmet considers necessary for the formation of a mass formation: A feeling of isolation (such as from a strong lockdown); the sense that things are meaningless / they no longer make sense / that there are too many contradictory messages; a free floating anxiety, one that doesn’t have a true center of focus, and a free floating frustration, one that can be directed towards a common enemy, those who in some way do not conform or an opposing state that the rulers condemn.

But of course it would not take long for an official denunciation of anything such as a mass formation: both Reuters and AP report that there is no such thing according to the experts they interviewed. And the Salon article mentioned above concerning Joe Rogan makes it clear that this theory is not accepted.

In either case there is the thought that a mass psychosis is engulfing the world, either to make the masses doubt the wisdom of their leaders or to make the masses accept the wisdom of their leaders. In any case, Neptune is highlighted. As mentioned above Neptune is approaching the zero Aries point, the first time in 168 years. Previously Neptune crossed 0 Aries in 1861 and 1862 and crossed 0 Libra in 1941 and 1942. The commonality is clear. As mentioned in the previous post, both of these were crisis times. This time Neptune will cross 0 Aries in 2025 and 2026 as illustrated. There is already talk of a civil war in America between the two factions indicated above; witness all the protests around the world that are never mentioned in the mainstream media but are still there.

Perhaps a civil war is desirable to those at the top with a civil war keeping those at the bottom involved fighting one another while those at the top can keep making money and taking power for themselves. Seems like a win-win situation!

Postscript. As this cartoon shows, the Covid Narrative was replaced by the Ukraine Narrative without missing a beat. But Neptune still rules.

The fog of war is a common expression in wartime (and also the title of a book by Robert McNamara who was Secretary of Defense during many years of the Vietnam War and so knows a thing or two about wartime fog) and this is the foggiest war at least since World War I. This term refers to how difficult in wartime it is to see what is really happening. Both sides in the conflict have reason to support their arguments with propaganda. And journalists, who at one time were considered arbiters of truth, during war side with whatever government they are under. So as a result of this “fog” it becomes very difficult to tell what is going on. Note how Neptune obviously rules fog (air and water) in both the literal and figurative meanings. Another appropriate saying to keep in mind is that in war truth is the first casualty. Truth is missing, it has disappeared in good Neptunian fashion. The propaganda level is very high and truth is hard to come by. Propaganda, as I set out a few posts back, is also signified by Neptune. The safest course is not to believe anything which is said about a war.

And Nazis are again in the foreground as they were in World War II. While Nazis have been referred to before, like the American Nazis marching in Skokie Illinois in 1977 which was a great test for the ACLU and caused distress among many Jewish people. But somehow this is different, not wannabe Nazis in America but actual Nazis in a country that helped support Hitler back in the last crisis. So in this current time we hear that either Putin is fighting the Nazis in Ukraine or the President of Ukraine is Jewish so how can there be Nazis. In either case, there are Nazis being mentioned.

This is a Twenty-first Century world war and not a Twentieth Century world war so expect it to be a lot different. Our expectations of “world war” are based on the two that we know. Einstein is reputed to have said “I don’t know with what weapons the third world war will be fought but the fourth will be fought with sticks and stones”.

And to tie it all together:

Thanks to Doug Kellogg for this article, originally posted at https://500yearparty.wordpress.com

While Neptune is very important for its prominence at Zero Aries, both Uranus and Pluto are also prominent, each being sextile to aforementioned Neptune and in fact, trine one another. This is the opening trine of those two planets whose conjunction defined the decade called the Sixties, and a trine is a very positive but soft aspect. While hard aspects like the square are overt and demand attention, soft aspects are covert. That means that while the the Uranus-Pluto energies will be dominant in this decade, people will have to work to see them manifested since the trine is, unlike hard aspects, not visible at first glance.

This aspect configuration will be more noticeable as the decade moves on in 2025 and later with Neptune at the midpoint of the Uranus-Pluto trine and will be seen to mediate between those two planets. What this will mean can more clearly be seen by looking at the symbolic representation of the planets Uranus and Pluto. Not only do we have the midpoint configuration discussed previously in a series called Zeitgeist Changes but also what is called a mini-grand trine, both involving these three outer planets.

The mere shaping and positions of planets can often provide an important insight into the chart without even considering signs, houses, aspects, or planets. For example, once someone unfamiliar with astrology saw my chart, and they immediately wondered why all the planets were on one side of the chart. The astrologer Marc Edmund Jones conceived of seven planetary patterns that describe the general tenor of the chart, and one of those fits my chart. These planetary patterns are so famous that for his 90th birthday, Jones was presented with a birthday cake covered with those patterns in frosting. Locations of prominent planets can also tell a story. In the chart of United States, the position of Uranus at the Descendant can be seen as representing the frontier as described by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in his famous “Frontier Thesis”. Turner said: “At the frontier, the bounds of custom are broken and unrestraint is triumphant.” There are even physical manifestations of astrological configurations. The Statue of Liberty is a Uranian figure and the Port of New York, where the outer world meets the country, acts as the Descendant of the United States, so the placement of that monument is the physical manifestation of Uranus on the Descendant. Similarly, Neptune at the Midheaven is a reflection of the eye at the top of the pyramid (and all its esoteric meanings) on the back of a dollar bill, and for this decade, we will see a powerful example of the positions of the outer planets suggesting the major conflict of this decade. These positions apply to the whole world and not just the United States.

In this astrological configuration involving the three outer planets as seen in the above charts, one can think of a teeter-totter or seesaw with Uranus on one end of the teeter-totter and Pluto on the other end, each one trying to be dominant. The fulcrum of the seesaw is Neptune with all the symbolic meanings we discussed previously; how those issues play out in the upcoming decade will help determine which end of the seesaw becomes the most powerful and controls the world.

All planets are symbols that encompass many meanings, and it is difficult if not impossible to assign an exact translation between the symbols (planets) and an English word or even phrase. These planets represent two opposing forces in this context, and it is difficult to specify exactly what they represent since they are symbols and not readily translated into English words. The best one can do is to give some keywords that conjure up images of what the concepts mean. Remember, they are symbols, and the best one can say is that they are Uranian and Plutonian principles.

Uranus was discovered in the late eighteenth century at the height of the Enlightenment, right before the French Revolution and near the end of the American Revolution. Uranus was the first planet discovered by use of the telescope. It can be seen as representing the people, the popular will, and populism among other things in this context. Uranus was discovered by British astronomer William Herschel; the symbol of Uranus, a stylized H, is in commemoration of the discoverer though there is another symbol sometimes used that is somewhat like the Mars symbol. Uranus mythologically does not fit into the astrological meaning of the planet. Uranus and Gaea (who may have been his mother) were the parents of the Titans, who were the parents of the Greek gods. As the author Richard Tarnas points out, Uranus is more like Prometheus, the Bringer of Fire than like the father of the Titans. In Holst’s composition The Planets, Uranus is called The Magician. It was discovered during the Enlightenment, which means the bringing of light, something that Prometheus did; however, for bringing the light to human beings, Prometheus was condemned to have his liver torn out continually after it regrew each night. Astronomers and speakers of Latin pronounce the name of this planet as Yer Anus since that is how the ancient Romans said it, but astrologers call it Yer a Nus, perhaps to avoid scatological meanings. Either pronunciation is correct.

Pluto was discovered in the thirties, the decade of the twentieth century that saw the rise of fascism, large-scale organized crime, and the development of atomic energy. Atomic energy resulted in the the bombing of Japanese cities thus setting the stage for a new world. The Great Depression had started just four months before the planet was discovered by comparing two photographs of the night sky and noticing that something had moved. The twentieth century is the century of blood, with two world wars and many smaller ones. It was a century that saw the appearance of fascism (though one proponent of that belief, Benito Mussolini, thought it should be called corporatism instead). Now corporatism is called neoliberalism; Zen economist Rob Urie reminds us that neoliberalism is fascism with good manners.

Pluto was the ruler of the underground kingdom, and it is not much of a stretch to believe that Pluto rules what is now being called the Deep State, which is called many things from the military industrial complex to the national security state to what must be the most complete — MICIMATT, a term created by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern; this is an abbreviation for the Military Industrial Congressional Intelligence Media Academic Think Tank Complex.

The key word I use for the Pluto is corporations, but so much more is contained in the concept of Pluto, many which start with the adjective “big”: Big Tech, Big Banks, Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, Big Government, and Big Medicine. The Uranian side of the conflict refers to individual and groups of people as well as small businesses owned by them. This can also be seen in the dichotomy of global versus local, and of course people are very small compared to corporations.

We have two different forces, the Uranian and the Plutonian, which can be simplified as the forces of the people versus the forces of the plutocracy. Of course, this plutocracy (wonder where that word came from?) is much larger than just rule by the wealthy, which is the standard definition. These two forces have between them the various attributes represented by Neptune as mentioned in the previous post. This is the conflict that will play out in this decade, and the outcome of this conflict will determine the future of the world. To put it in simple terms, will the people control the world or will the corporations control the world? Neptune will determine the answer to this question.

Corporate media continues to use the term “conspiracy theory” to denigrate any opinion that differs from what they want you to believe. Calling something a conspiracy theory is like saying, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” Anyone who has not already drunk the Kool Aid of the standard narrative will suspect that this conspiracy theory is something that the corporations don’t want you to believe. The corporate media never seem to learn that censoring something just makes it more attractive. Perhaps the elite feel that they have the masses so well trained after years of indoctrination that it doesn’t really matter what they do.

The two major political parties in the United States pretend to be more or less associated with the Uranian principle, that is with people and their concerns. They do this because they still need the votes of the people since we still pretend this is a democracy. A study by professors Gilens and Page should have disabused us of that myth long ago. At one time, fifty years ago, one could even claim with a straight face that the Democratic Party was more associated with the Uranian principle than with the Plutonian one (after Uranus-ruled Aquarian Franklin Roosevelt set the direction of the party), unlike the Republicans (whose first President was Aquarian Abraham Lincoln), but that has long ceased to be true. At present, we have two political parties that do the bidding of the corporations (Pluto), but the Democrats are much better at pretending that they really support the people (Uranus), so in this fundamental way, they are less honest than their opposing party. This is not really a new concept: Just search for ‘Malcolm X foxes wolves’ to see that this concept was alive and well in the sixties.

In the last five years, the Democratic Party has become incensed at even the mere thought of Donald Trump, so much so that this extreme hatred was even given a name: “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS). Trump made “the people” a Republican issue even if it was as phony as that of “Lunchbucket” Joe of the alternate party. The main problem is that the Democrats have a lock on “the People”, and they do not allow anyone else to drive in their lane — they do not like competition for the Uranus vote — that is not allowed!

Perhaps as a result of all the Sturm und Drang of this decade, a political party will be formed that truly represents the Uranian principle since right now both parties support Pluto. Perhaps this will be called the Populist Party even though that term is now met with great disrespect. This disrespect can be traced back to consensus historian Richard Hofstadter and his book The Age of Reform, which was a history of reforms in the United States between 1890 and 1940. Hofstadter was not always so much a liberal; as a younger person, he flirted with the Communist Party of the USA and once wrote a book calling prominent antebellum southern politician John Calhoun (Andrew Jackson’s Vice President in his first term) “Marx of the Master Class”. For an alternate view of Populism see the new book The People, No by Thomas Frank.

The most important question of this upcoming decade is which of these two principles — Uranus or Pluto — will dominate. Since the Pluto side controls the media which sets the narrative, those who get their information solely from the corporate media will, if only unconsciously, reflect the corporate talking points. Since the main alternative media outlets on the Web are being censored or bought out by the corporate masters, it becomes increasing difficult to get a perspective that does not reflect the corporate viewpoint. People must continue to try or else all is lost. One simple rule of thumb is to disbelieve whatever the corporate narrative is; assume everything they say is a lie. To be more refined, look at each individual item. If the story reads, “More people are moving than ever before” that likely does not involve the desires of the elites, so it may well be true. However, if the headline reads, “Designated enemy of this country attacks this country”, it is almost certainly a lie. Judging the truth of a corporate statement is increasingly difficult; in the sixties, the phrase was “Question Authority”; now it is “Distrust Anyone Who Questions Authority.” It is easier to get your truth from the corporate media since they mostly agree on each story. This is the narrative that you are supposed to believe, but if you go to alternative media, there may be different interpretations for each story, so it is harder to know what to believe or what the truth is. This is where research and the use of critical thinking comes in handy. It takes more work to not accept the corporate line, but if you want to support the Uranus side, it is necessary to think for yourself.

The censoring of dissident views is similar to in an earlier era the Catholic church censoring and excommunicating the early scientist Galileo. He was obviously promoting a conspiracy theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun even though all authorities agreed that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Nowadays, the way of communicating information is much different and much faster than it was in the seventeenth century when all they had were printed books; now the means of censorship is much faster.

Sometimes Satan Comes as a Man of Peace

We must be skeptical of the pronouncements of “authorities” because the Devil often wears a mask so that we are unable to see the truth behind those statements. Satan (Pluto) is called the Father of Lies and Bob Dylan put it more poetically in the quote above. Authorities may give people something they really want, for instance, a guaranteed annual income, but beware of the fine print. Corporations currently disguise themselves with all of the companies declaring that they are feminist or that they support Black Lives Matter. In a simpler time, there was the practice called “greenwashing” where a company portrayed itself as environmentally conscious to cover up some very unsavory practices. Now we have large-scale “Uranus-washing” where Pluto-dominated organizations pretend that they are actually Uranus-oriented. Seen astrologically, this is Pluto dissembling (Neptune) as Uranus.

Uranus by its very nature consists of many who disagree about one thing or another. It would not be Uranus if all the people agreed on everything; that would be Pluto. This is the weakness of Uranus as far as Pluto is concerned. This divisiveness is helpful for Pluto, allowing it to keep the various factions apart and warring. One way of keeping the populace (Uranus) from joining together to fight the powers of the corporations (Pluto) is by getting those same factions of the people to fight among themselves, so they will not turn on their true enemy; if the people were united against the Plutonian forces, those same forces would be in trouble. Pluto knows this and will spend much energy keeping the Uranian forces divided. One popular strategy is to get white people and black people to fight each other so that they don’t see who is really controlling things.

The corporate owned network MSNBC (the MS stands for Microsoft!) convinces Democrats — their target audience — that all dissident beliefs are those of Republicans, Trumpists, or QAnon followers; the corporate owned network Fox convinces Republicans — their target audience — that all dissident beliefs are those of Democrats or the Left or Marxists. Democrats (not elites) and Republicans (not elites) are kept fighting between themselves, so the elites can go back to their business of plundering the world and making as much money as possible even as they destroy the planet. When different factions start to talk to one another, you will hear many say things such as “I never thought I’d be talking to people with those beliefs, but we do agree on this one important thing.” Now they are allies.

It has been said that there are two dimensions, not one, in political discourse: ‘Left’ versus ‘Right and ‘Up’ versus ‘Down’. The terms “left” and “right” were developed during the French Revolution when the supporters of the King sat on the right, and the supporters of the Revolution sat on the left; that spectrum is older than the French Revolution, and the ‘Right’ can be seen as Saturn and the ‘Left’ as Jupiter. Starting at that time, there have been more planets discovered, and that discovery has symbolized the expansion of human consciousness. What was considered in the aphorism given above as ‘Up’ and ‘Down’ can now be seen as Pluto and Uranus. What will be most important in the upcoming century will not be Jupiter versus Saturn but Uranus versus Pluto.

In this new century, we will see that Pluto (elites) are extremely worried that the masses will try to take (back) the power that is supposedly theirs to give. The elites (Pluto) are scared that people will wake up from their Neptunian illusions; all dissent must be extremely limited if not banned. Of course, that is suspicious; thus a certain amount of dissent will be allowed, but only if it stays within acceptable bounds. They don’t want the Overton window (explained in the previous blog entry) to get too large; Pluto defines the terms of debate.

Pluto holds most of the cards. It controls the means of communication and propaganda. Occasionally, a leader arises who could possibly unite the various factions of Uranus; however, these leaders such as Huey Long, Malcolm X, John Kennedy, Fred Hampton, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy have all had accidents that prevent them from leading. It now appears that Uranus will have to merge its many elements itself instead of depending on a leader. Pluto’s problems are that it believes its own lies. If a scheme of Pluto becomes so big and even grandiose, there could be a breakdown and people would see that the emperor is not wearing any clothes. This could be a moment that awakens Uranus.

Note: After this was published, I noticed that Sun was conjunct Uranus with an orb of three minute at the time; that is a hopeful sign.

Thanks to Doug Kellogg for this article, originally posted at https://500yearparty.wordpress.com

Neptune opposes its natal position in 2021 and 2022, and by observing previous conjunctions/oppositions, we will see the strong impact these positions have on the US. However, I am not suggesting a cause and effect: As with much of astrology, the relationship between planetary positions and events is symbolic and metaphoric and synecdochic.

The original Neptune conjoined its natal position in 1774, 1775, and 1776 with the natal return being the last of a series; it was during those years that the build-up of tension that finally resulted in the writing of the Declaration was growing. But of course the writing of the Declaration only indicated that the colonists were totally fed up with Britain. The Revolutionary War is considered to have started with the Battle of Lexington and Concord, on April 19, 1775, between the third and fourth exact conjunction.

Neptune then conjoined the IC of the United States, the only other time since the United States was declared a country, which was one Neptune cycle ago in the period 1857 through 1859 right before 1860-1864. That period marked the Civil War, a very important conflict, the most violent on American soil, one that had repercussions for the rest of the century, and one whose lessons we seem not to have learned. This war was between the Northern States and the Southern States, and it has often been said that the North won the war, but the South won the Reconstruction that followed.

The five exact demi-returns of Neptune were 5/24/1857, 7/27/1857, 3/14/1858, 10/31/1858, and 1/4/1859. The main cause of the American Civil War can be considered to be chattel slavery, which was practiced in the southern part of the United States. Those states were attempting to expand the number of states which would allow slavery. The immediate cause was the firing on the Union at Fort Sumter, but two important causes, which spokesmen for the South proclaimed, were the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (published March 20, 1852) and John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. This raid took place between October 16 through 18, 1859. This was following the last exact pass of Neptune and was an attempt to start a slave rebellion. Though John Brown was executed by the United States, he was considered a martyr by many in the North, and a popular song was composed at the time: John Brown’s Body. That song was later renamed The Battle Hymn of the Republic and different lyrics were added by Julia Ward Howe. One can only imagine the fear invoked in Southerners to see many in the North so praising someone that the South considered a fiend and often singing a song dedicated to him. It was reasonable for them to assume that even though Brown’s attempt failed, there would be more actions like that, and eventually the South would be faced by a slave rebellion supported by many in the North.

Moving on to the next Neptune return and the first since the birth of the country, we see the following: The three exact transits of Neptune to its natal position were on 10/28/1938, 2/24/1939, and 8/30/1939. These dates are obviously just before World War II broke out, and the last date is one day before Germany invaded Poland, which officially marks the beginning of World War Two. While I am not suggesting that a Neptune transit will be quickly followed by an event whose significance will be immediately apparent, it is interesting to note the strong correspondence. When looking back at the Civil War demi-return, the transits ended several months before John Brown’s raid, not as close to the significant event as in the case of World War II, but of course, there were certainly other events presaging the Civil War that took place closer to the date of the last return.

We can see the equivalent positions of Neptune opposite its natal position in this year and the next: May 1, August 21, and March 1, 2022. The opposition is very close to exact now in the beginning weeks of 2021. On the first of the new year, Neptune was four degrees away from its demi-return and closing.

By now, we can see that the dominant trend setter of the next decade will be the response to Covid-19. People tend to personify possibly non-living entities like viruses, but those entities actually do nothing except be a virus. It is the human response that causes large scale changes to society. A famous example of this type of personification is the book with the title “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins. Genes do not know lust, pity, selfishness, or any other of the seven deadly sins, and to describe them thusly is extreme personification — ascribing human characteristics to the non-human. This is often done with animals, but to do such personification with micro-entities stretches the bounds of the acceptable.

As of early 2021, the death toll for the Covid-19 pandemic is just over one-half million for the United States, and slightly over 2.5 million for the world. And a death is a binary activity, a person is either dead or alive (unless you inhabit a zombie movie), so one would think the numbers are quite clear in describing the scale of the crises. But in March 2020, after a suggestion from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a directive on filling out a death certificate for deaths from Covid-19, overriding the method of filling out such forms that had been in place for 17 years. In this new method, deaths was no longer considered to be “from Covid” but rather “with Covid” which meant having a positive (usually PCR) test within 28 days of death. As both the WHO and Doctor Fauci have recently admitted, a PCR test is inaccurate if the Cycle Threshold is too big. The PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) test, which earned its inventor a Nobel Prize (he was also into astrology, but I don’t know if there is a connection!!) works by taking small bits of genetic material and magnifying them a number of times, and that number is called the CT. Tests with a CT of 17 are 100% accurate, and the WHO states that those with a CT over 35 provide mostly false positives. Most commonly tests were performed with a CT of 38-45 before WHO spoke. Anyone who has magnified a low-resolution forty times and seen the huge numbers of artifacts that resulted has seen how this problem works.

The point of this long and technical discussion is that we really don’t know how many deaths have been caused by SARS-CoV-2 that can be compared to deaths caused by such things such as heart disease, cancer, or influenza. Thus Neptune has seeped into what should be a simple binary decision. Since both my parents died of pneumonia, though one had lung cancer and the other had just had a heart attack, I’m very sensitive as to how the cause of death is determined and the problems that can occur in such determination.

It is slowly becoming clear that the response by various governments and other bodies around the world to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 is having the greatest impact on the world since World War II. This will color the rest of the decade and perhaps years after that. This of course is right on time. As we’ve seen before, these Neptune returns/demi-returns corresponded to the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II, with each disaster (which means bad stars) being more widespread than the one before. So we now know what the disaster described in the book The Fourth Turning (Neil Howe and William Strauss) will be. Since we are just at the beginning, there are many more derived things to come down the pike. The response of people to the response to the virus will be large and will play out in unexpected ways. Stay Tuned! For example, what is the origin of this virus? Many claim that the virus was created in a lab, and there has been a huge campaign to deny this, but whatever the truth, there have been experiments to increase the potency of viruses in a laboratory called “gain-of-function” research for many years, and sooner or later, one of these experiments will escape into the human population. There needs to be more awareness of this dangerous research.

For the various crises that will develop in this decade, people will use a code word or synecdoche; I have heard several, such as the obvious Covid-19, or the Great Reset (™ World Economic Forum) or Covid-1984 or Flu D’état. The reason so many terms have already been created is that people realize, perhaps unconsciously, that the implications of what has happened the previous year are great and will effect the course of history. I hope everyone is paying attention because we live in historic times.

I have tried to construct a Covid chart. I first looked for Patient Zero, the first patient to get the disease. I then tried to look for when the disease was first identified. There is much confusion (Neptune again) about these things as well as the actual origin and what animals it moved through before coming to humans. But one date kept being mentioned over and over: March 11, 2020. That was the date that the WHO announced that Covid-19 was a pandemic after changing the definition of a pandemic a few years earlier. More Neptune. As he opened the news conference, the Director-General of WHO said “Good Afternoon”, so we can surmise that it was not in the morning.

Looking at the chart, we should first note that Mercury went direct on the previous day. It was as if the authorities could not announce this pandemic until Mercury had turned around. Since we don’t have an exact time, the angles are meaningless, but the several clusters of planets are not. As has been written about before, the three planets that defined the year of 2020 — Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto — are all conjunct in the chart with the addition of Mars to make it more energetic. Then, to again emphasize Neptune, we see that that planet is closely conjunct the Sun, indicating it is a Neptune day, and both are in Neptune ruled Pisces. Perhaps the conjunction is at the Midheaven if the news conference did indeed start in the early afternoon. The Moon was below the horizon for the next six hours, showing that the public (the Moon) was kept in the dark. There is also a conjunction of Venus and Uranus, and the statement Ebertin gives about this conjunction is worth quoting in full: “A strong and hardly controllable tension in emotional life, a self-willed and obstinate disposition, strange urges and inclinations”. It seems like the perfect chart.

There have been some trends in the past few years for a more progressive, more equitable future. All these trends have now been reversed. I’m sure many who have opposed this movement for a more equitable future will be pleased with these outcomes. Consider some of the outcomes that we already see: This last year has seen the greatest upward transfer of wealth in history. Many small businesses ceased operation, and more sales were seen by Amazon and other massive businesses. In addition, most of the “stimulus” in America was given to large corporations while individuals got $1200 or $600 if they were lucky. The stock market is booming while many struggle to get enough to eat since their jobs are gone.

Since many people were without jobs or income, they found it difficult to pay their mortgage or rent. There was an eviction moratorium that temporarily suspended the prospect of losing one’s home, but eventually, the moratorium must end with a huge lump sum payment due and the strong probability of many evictions in the upcoming months. I personally know a large family with a new baby who had just closely avoided being burned out by last year’s fires, who were just evicted since there are many loopholes to the eviction moratorium. We already have a huge homeless population — a noticeable phenomenon of neoliberalism. With all the upcoming evictions, the population of homeless will increase.

Developed countries such as the United States and the members of the European Union will be relatively lucky unlike poorer countries which will not be so fortunate. Oxfam International estimates a potential death of 150,000,000 in the developing countries as a result of the response, and fewer people have jobs in these areas that can be done from home. Many are in what is called the “informal economy”, which is not covered by any government mandates or restrictions. I saw an estimate of 10,000 extra monthly deaths in Africa because much less aid is coming from the developed countries, which currently have their own problems.

Partially because of the lack of affordable childcare, four times more women than men have exited the workforce, thus fulfilling the dream of some to keep women at home and in the kitchen. Once these changes happen, it is difficult to override them in a short time frame.

Middle class people often work in offices, and the mandate to work from home was easily met for those who used to commute to the office. So many have decided that working from home is easy and productive that office real estate is seeing a difficult time. If people don’t need to work in a standard office, what becomes of all those buildings that were rented for a high price?

Many people in the working class do physical work (as opposed to shuffling papers), which requires them to be physically present, and they cannot “work from home”. These are the people who will more often lose their jobs during this time. Those who can work from home are often considered members of the Professional Managerial Class — PMC — and that has become the primary constituent of the Democratic Party, which supposedly represented the working class, so you can imagine how the working class will be more angry that they are being ignored by the PMC-loving elite.

Many of the businesses that require people to be present that are not just office work are run by non-white people, more than would be expected by their share of the population. Black owned businesses were twice as likely to be shut down as white owned businesses during the lockdown, thus further increasing black poverty. This reverses trends that have been going on for several years. It may be considered cynical to point out that this increasing black unemployment and poverty goes along with a celebration of black culture by the PMC.

Speaking of poverty, the upcoming world will see levels of poverty not seen since WWII. Again, while the United States will see increased poverty for many of the reasons outlined above, the non-rich countries that are called the developing nations, and which got aid from the developed countries that has now ceased, will see even more increases in poverty, again reversing trends of the last decades.

In today’s highly-industrial society, mental health has been precarious, and now prisons are one of of the few institutions housing those with mental health problems. The constant bombardment by fear and the increasing isolation from friends and support groups has led to increased mental problems in people. At one point, the daily calls to a suicide hotline were approaching the number of calls normally seen in a month. In San Francisco, at one point, a year’s worth of suicide was seen in a month. That area also saw more drug overdose deaths than Covid deaths, and there is much more consumption of alcohol with foreseen consequences.

There have been warnings of increased mental health problems for youth who normally would be in school where potential problems can be observed, where counselors are available, and where free lunches can be provided. Since most children were sitting at home and staring at screens (if an Internet connection was available), mental health problems are not being caught in time, and there are more cases of physical abuse of children who are now with their parents for long stretches of time. Recently the CDC reported a 400% increase in adolescent depression. A sign of this is the fact that schools in Nevada had to resume classes after a spate of student suicides.

Because of isolation and containment, we have seen increased domestic violence and child abuse. Children had their classes curtailed, so many children are fearful and mistrustful; and children are behind developmentally where they normally would be at their age. The whole “Covid generation” of children who have gone through this will reverberate down through the years as a group of people behind where they should be socially. These children, with Pluto in Sagittarius or Capricorn, will be marked for life, especially since they witnessed the Great Recession of 2007-2009 or the aftermath of it.

With the greatly increased unemployment numbers, some observers estimate that the unemployment will be greater than that of the Great Depression; there will be more deaths. For a long time, the unemployment figures have been deceptive since they only counted as unemployed those looking for work; the discouraged workers who had dropped out of searching were not even counted as unemployed, and the numbers of discouraged workers has been increasing for a decade. It has been estimated that for every one percent increase in unemployment, there is an additional 36,000 deaths in the United States.

There will be many deaths from other causes such as heart attacks and cancer that were not caught by early detection because hospitals and doctors were busy dealing with the pandemic. In the early days, many people would avoid the ER or A&E (in the UK) because they thought they would get the virus if they went in. In addition, many children did not get their scheduled vaccinations because they were at home, and of course many people locked in their homes missed exercise, sunshine, and fresh air, all of which helps build a strong immune system.

All of these massive changes to society will not be overcome or reversed in a few months, but rather — as more authorities are now saying — will take the rest of the decade or more to be reversed if that is even desired by our leaders. That of course is if it is possible to imagine that things could possibly go back to what they were after so many things have happened. If you observe the upcoming transits for the decade, which have been talked about incessantly in this blog, you will see that the changes have only started. Those items mentioned above are only the beginning; the reactions — political, cultural, social — will be far reaching and haven’t really started yet or at least have not been publicly recognized.

This Neptune cycle that also corresponds to the first Pluto Return for the United States suggests even more “fun and games” for the U.S. Note also that the Pluto demi-return happened in the years 1935-1938, just before Neptune conjoined its natal position and the world was in the throes of the Great Depression. You may wonder why one full Neptune cycle corresponded to half a Pluto cycle, and the second half of the Pluto cycle corresponds to just half a Neptune cycle; this is because Pluto slowed down during the second half of its cycle, and was even inside the orbit of Neptune for 20 years recently.

This past year has seen the beginning of a crisis which will mark this decade as an important time in the history of the United States and the World. This period will be a critical change to the world and in the next two posts we will show how a conflict will determine what that change will be.