This episode is derived from a discussion I had with Cyndy from Soulprint Intuitive Tarot on July 4, 2023. We didn’t intend on publishing this conversation but I thought this was worth sharing part of our discussion with my audience.
This episode was published on July 2, 2023. A transcript may follow.
In a wide-ranging discussion Dr. Becker and I discuss topics including his involvement with noted psychologist James Hillman, the psychology of current trends in society and politics, the prospect of an apocalypse or societal collapse, and how to cope with the epic environmental crisis confronting humanity.
Facing Monsters: An Archetypal Perspective on Climate Change, Globalization, and Digital Technology
Scott H. Becker, PhD
Bibliography
*mentioned in the podcast
Technology:
Scott Becker, “The Matrix and the Minotaur,” in City and Soul, Conversations with James Hillman, published by the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture
Nicholas G. Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
Nicholas G. Carr, The Glass Cage: How Our Computers are Changing Us
Richard King, Here Be Monsters: Is Technology Reducing Our Humanity?
Robert Romanyshyn, Technology as Symptom and Dream
Robert D. Romanyshyn, Victor Frankenstein, the Monster, and the Shadows of Technology: The Frankenstein Prophecies
*Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
Sherry Turkle, The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir
Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age
Ecology and Climate Change:
Amy Brady and Tajja Isen, Editors, The World as We Knew It: Dispatches From a Changing Climate
Jack Hunter, Ecology and Spirituality: A Brief Introduction
Jeffrey T. Kiehl, Facing Climate Change: An Integrated Path to the Future
Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy
*Tyson Yunkaporta, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World
Consciousness studies:
James Bridle, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence
Shelli Renee Joye, Sub-Quantum Consciousness: A Geometry of Consciousness Based Upon the Work of Karl Pribram, David Bohm, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Ralph Metzner, Ecology of Consciousness: The Alchemy of Personal, Collective, and Planetary Transformation
Archetypal Psychology:
*James Hillman, Re-Visioning Psychology
James Hillman, The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World
James Hillman, “…And Huge is Ugly,” in Mythic Figures, Volume 6 of the Unform Edition of the Writings of James Hillman
*Scott Becker, “Aegis: In Defense of Archetypal Psychology,” in Inhuman Relations, Volume 7 of the Uniform Edition of the Writings of James Hillman
*Michael Ortiz Hill, Dreaming the End of the Word: Apocalypse as a Rite of Passage
*Dick Russell, psychological commentary by Scott Becker, The Life and Ideas of James Hillman, Volume 1, The Making of a Psychologist
Dick Russell, The Life and Ideas of James Hillman, Volume 2, Re-Visioning Psychology
This is a transcript of an episode of Aquarian Diary I published at 9:11 am on June 15, 2023 in which I discuss the astrology of right-wing extremism.
Greetings all, welcome to Aquarian Diary.
I’m your host, John Irving.
It is June 15th, 2023.
This topic has been on my to-do list for a very long time.
I’ll be displaying many dates on the screen, so if you’re interested in those kinds of things, you may want to watch this on YouTube.
It took me many hours to calculate and verify all these states. You can’t just go copy them off the internet somewhere, because often there will be mistakes. That’s not to say that I haven’t made any, but I tried not to. With so many numbers, it’s quite possible to make a typo or something like that, or to omit something.
There’s a few reasons why what I want to talk about today is very important.
One, it helps explain recent trends, namely the rise of fascism and far-right extremism, which threatens liberal democracies around the world currently, including the United States, the most powerful country on the planet. Who’d have thought that would ever happen?
And it also of course explains the rise of populist demagogues, people who are typically extremely unqualified to be in the positions they’re in, and not just because of their blatant lack of expertise, but their abhorrently poor moral and ethical character as well.
At the very least, recent history has been shocking and disturbing.
Let’s not forget that a few generations ago, millions of people around the world rallied to defend democracy against the threat of tyranny and fascist dictators. Our ancestors made tremendous sacrifices to protect our cherished way of life and our freedoms. Anyone with even a superficial understanding of history knows that nobody benefits ultimately from those sorts of tyrannies except a very small handful of people. Anyone who thinks that that form of governance will provide them with some form of safe harbor is profoundly mistaken.
The other main reason that prompted me to talk about this now is that it’s just been stuck in my mind for a few weeks. And I have, very gradually, learned that when things stick in my mind, I need to talk about them, that they’re important. And I have a feeling that if I explain what is going on astrologically, it might help some people wrap their heads around this and give them another perspective that might be helpful.
Have you ever had the experience where a song is stuck in your head, an earworm, sometimes for days, until suddenly you stop and you think about the lyrics and it makes perfect sense. It’s that kind of thing.
What I want to demonstrate here today is the role of the Pluto-Uranus cycle in recent history.
As I worked on this, I realized that you could easily do a full documentary on this one topic. I’m going to keep it fairly simple because I would like people who are not highly skilled at astrology to understand the important role that these two outer planets play and how the timing might be affecting us.
The Uranus-Pluto cycle varies a lot because Pluto’s orbit is very elliptical, so it will appear to spend a lot more time in some signs than others.
When Pluto and Uranus conjunct, or when these two planets meet at the same degree, it tends to mark very important points in world history. To give you a sense of scale, Pluto and Uranus conjuncted around 1850, 1966, and the next one will occur in 2104.
Pluto represents deep and powerful transformation, metaphorical death and rebirth, the energy of raw power, which can be used for both good and bad, bringing to the conscious what is subconscious. Pluto rules the underworld.
And Uranus represents sudden insights, dramatic events, changes in perspective or circumstances, and it has a very revolutionary energy about it.
So when these two planets meet, depending on the sign, it can mark very potent and significant periods of change and transformation that can be very dramatic.
Just after the conjunction in Aries in 1850 and 1851, within a few years, the first oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania in the United States. Now when we look back to the effects of the industrial revolution on atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, 1850 is often used as a starting point, and prior to then is effectively a baseline for the effects of human activity.
The internal combustion engine changed every aspect of life on Earth for humanity. Imagine if we still lived in a world where it took weeks or months to traverse the globe.
The era of industrialization officially began in the year 1850 through 1938. Charles Darwin would soon publish The Origin of Species, and The Science of Epidemiology would soon be born.
All of these completely reshaped history, as well as the entire biosphere of Earth.
No aspect of human experience was left untouched.
To illustrate the potency of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in more contemporary terms, let’s consider the 1960s.
Like I said, Pluto and Uranus conjuncted in Virgo around 1965-66. Now those are the dates when the conjunction was exact, but these two planets would have been within a few degrees of each other for some time before then and for some time after then.
So that period of the 1960s is considered to be an extremely important point in modern history. And if we look at the kinds of events that occurred in the United States as a case in point, it represented a very radical shift in many, many ways.
There was the entire counter-cultural movement, feminism, many people rejected the dogmatic cultural approach from the preceding years in the 1950s. There was a very active student movement, protests against the war in Vietnam, clashes over civil rights, the moon landing, widespread concerns about nuclear annihilation – Pluto was discovered in 1930 and the first atomic bomb was used in the second world war. There were powerful movements on the part of minorities and to address segregation. The Voting Rights Act was implemented, the assassination of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X. There were revolutionary changes in areas like fashion, music, art, popular culture, relationships, and sexuality. People explored different kinds of lifestyles and Eastern spirituality.
Virgo is an earth sign ruled by Mercury. Many people even explored doing things like going back to the land, rejecting modern society. Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was published, which many attribute to the birth of the environmental movement. And of course there was a whole movement of people who were, like I said, exploring things like eating and living naturally, exploring alternative forms of medicine. They rejected many aspects of modern society.
I mean, it goes on and on and on. It was enormously powerful and transformative.
And society was quite polarized, much like today in some ways. The effects of that period lasted for decades if they’re not still playing out. Huge changes which also sparked a lot of resistance from the status quo. The powers that be went to great lengths to try and discredit all of this because, of course, it threatened them and their privilege and they’ve been trying to put that genie back in the bottle ever since.
In fact, I have argued here before that that explains why education is so astronomically expensive now because young people are much less likely to rebel if they are in inescapable debt up to their eyeballs.
The next significant milestone in this story is the period around 2012 to 2015 when Uranus in Aries squared Pluto in Capricorn.
So think of the conjunction that occurred in the mid-1960s as the beginning and the first square, some 40 or 50 years later, is a test of the energies or consciousness that were being born in the conjunction back in the mid-1960s.
Even today there are still reactionary and conservative forces who are very much opposed to all of that progress.
The period between 2012 and 2015, give or take a few years on either side, was extremely dynamic.
Again, this was the period when Uranus and Aries was squaring Pluto and Capricorn, during which time we had the Arab Spring, ISIS, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo and the LGBTQ rights movement. Barack Obama was president during this time. Social media, mobile phones and the internet were in their heyday. There was Hurricane Sandy, the Paris Climate Accord was signed, the BRIC nations including China and India began a rapid ascent, the negative impact of dark money really started to become clear, Edward Snowden revealed details of a vast and unprecedented surveillance network, WikiLeaks was active, the news and publishing industries were radically changing. Everything was going online, including entertainment platforms, the anti-austerity movements, there was a lot of tumult and rebellious activity that occurred during this time.
The square is like a testy, challenging aspect where the two forces are kind of at odds with each other and there’s no real clear or easy resolution. And the energies, like I said, that are unleashed from these events can take quite some time to play out.
Donald Trump began to rise to prominence around this time and was first elected in 2016. That was an extremely radical outcome.
We have also seen the rise of a lot of far-right extremism, populists and demagogues, the rising threat of fascism, liberal democracy under attack, in ways that are entirely unprecedented in modern history, concerns about civil unrest, and even the possibility of civil war. We saw Brexit, the post-truth era, rampant conspiracy theories and conspiracy-theorism, extreme forms of fundamentalism, Christian nationalism, and all of these kinds of things.
To put that in a bit of historical context, as I mentioned earlier, Uranus and Pluto conjuncted in 1850-1851, they squared each other in 1932-1934, again with some give and take on either side.
At that time, in the 1930s, Pluto was in Cancer and Uranus was in Aries. Again, that very fiery Mars ruled energy. Cancer can be very protective of home and family, or on a mundane level, the nation.
During that time, of course, we saw the rise of Hitler, which led to World War II, in following years. But it wasn’t just Germany, there were fascistic movements in other countries as well, such as Spain and Italy. Very intense and dark stuff.
Of course, the world was in the midst of a great depression, and programs such as the New Deal under Roosevelt were initiated to try and address that.
The failure of the investment, banking and finance industries created the conditions which led to the rise of far-right extremism and ultimately the Second World War.
The period of the early 2010s, of course, followed closely on the heels of the great housing market and bank failures of 2007 and 2008. The parallels between the early 1930s and the 2010s are eerie.
So we went through another square between Pluto and Uranus, like I said, around the period of 2012 to 2015, and at that time as well, I recall things like Golden Dawn in Greece, which was very fascistic, and these kinds of trends started to show up around that time. And polarization really started to take off then as well. And we saw the spread of propaganda and disinformation.
Many have said that if the US government hadn’t bailed out the banks, there would have certainly been another global depression. There’s many parallels to what happened in the 1930s.
Astrology never repeats exactly twice, because all of the other planets are moving at different speeds. So, for example, in the 1930s Neptune was in Virgo, up until the early to mid-1940s, and in the 2010s Neptune was in Pisces. And of course, Pluto has been in Capricorn more recently, whereas in the 1930s it was in Cancer.
So these are different energies and things played out differently, but there’s a lot of parallels and similarities between these periods and these events and the timing of them,
And that is what I want to make people understand. Because I have heard people make reference to, “Oh, astrology explains this, what’s going on.” And a lot of it can be explained by this cycle.
So to some degree, and again I’ll be putting dates on the screen – I’m not going to state them all here because there’s just too many of them and it’ll bore people – but the whole time that Pluto and Uranus are in squaring signs, they are kind of at each other in a somewhat antagonistic relationship.
So, for example, when Pluto was in Capricorn and Uranus was in Aries, there was that tension there.
As of now, at the time of this recording, Uranus is in Taurus, Pluto just retrograded back into Capricorn until early 2024, then it will resume its journey through Aquarius through the mid-2040s.
So Uranus and Pluto aren’t actually squaring each other anymore, in effect, is what I’m getting at.
So there was a period when Pluto was in Capricorn and Uranus was in Aries. These are both cardinal signs. And Aries is very fiery and can be assertive and aggressive and even violent in its lower expression.
And Capricorn represents the institutions and power structures of our society, everything from corporate to the law and government and so forth.
So we’ve seen tremendous amount of activity in those areas where there’s been people fighting for their freedom and independence against what they perceive as tyranny, or trying to, conversely, impose tyranny on others.
The energy can go either way. It’s kind of up to us how we express it.
But the bigger point of all of this is that we’re out of that square energy. Uranus left Aries on March 6th of 2019.
So there will be some spillover of these energies into subsequent years. But the really intense phase of that, or the triggering phase, is over. It may not look like it because things are still playing out.
Like for example, in the United States, a lot of people who abused their power or broke the law are starting to be held accountable for actions that they committed years ago. Hopefully as they are prosecuted and held accountable and brought to justice, that will put a damper on things.
Another example is it looks like Putin’s days are numbered because of his failures in Ukraine. Reality is coming to bear on all of these people and all of their actions.
Saturn is currently transiting Pisces through 2026. Pisces rules the 12th house.
One of the things the 12th house was traditionally associated with was imprisonment. Both Saturn and the 12th house are karmic. It is where we are held accountable for our karma.
During part of this cycle there was a conjunction of Pluto and Saturn on January 12th of 2020, which was significant as well because Pluto was conjuncting Saturn in its own domain. And the Saturn-Pluto cycle is a whole other subject, but that is considered to be an important development that is also often linked to the rise of the far right. Authoritarianism, fascism, and those kinds of things.
So it’ll take some time for these things to play out, but overall my point is that we are through the worst of it.
The next major aspect between these two planets will occur between 2046 and 2048, which will be the opposition, with Pluto in Pisces and Uranus in Virgo. That is a very polarizing energy as well, and that should be a very dynamic and important milestone. That’s over 20 years from now. But those of you who are younger, take note. There will be a lot of major developments at that time.
I know there’s a lot of dates and terminology. Just to summarize, the main point I wanted to make was that we can look at the conjunction of Uranus and Pluto as the beginning of major new cycles or developments, and often they move us forward to a new level.
Then there’s the squares, which challenge whatever occurred during the conjunction. It tests it. In the case of 2010s, it was questioning how far have we come with respect to what was brought forward in the 1960s, those new ways of being, there was kind of a battle between the two opposing forces.
That gets settled out, the next one will be the opposition in the 2040s when Pluto has essentially begun its transit of Pisces, which that in and of itself should be huge, because Pisces can on a higher level represent spirituality, the non-material realms, and things like psychic phenomenon, but it can also represent major endings and letting go, to create space for the new.
Pisces rules the 12th house. It’s not about ego or materialism.
So we went through a lot of tumultuous times in the 2010s and we’re still dealing with that now. But like I said, those energies aren’t really directly square to each other anymore. We have other issues going on.
Pluto in Aquarius I have talked a lot about here on my channel. I’ll put links to some of those episodes here as well, which I would encourage you to listen to. A lot of the things I predicted actually came to pass within fairly short order of Pluto moving into Aquarius. It’s just at the very beginning though, so it will take some time for that to really fully manifest.
And now we are also starting to become aware – and I think this occurred just after Pluto went into Aquarius – he masses are starting to realize the implications of the climate and environmental crisis. It’s now in everyone’s faces. And people are having direct experience with it.
Aquarius is very global in scope. It’s about all of us. And the only way to solve those problems is for countries to cooperate. Otherwise, we’re in deep trouble, if we’re not already.
So, humanity is becoming aware of global consciousness, just as I predicted.
Pluto moving into Aquarius, when it settles in there, is really about the people. It’s not about the people at the top of the pyramid. So that’s the really important thing to know.
And Aquarius is very egalitarian, and also very rational and intellectual. Whereas a lot of the far-right stuff seems to be driven based on emotion and grievance and things. That is not an Aquarian energy, typically. I don’t see that stuff persisting.
I think we’ll experience that kind of stuff probably from now until early 2024. It’ll make a bit of a comeback. But after that, and Pluto really starts moving into Aquarius, it’s like, forget it, people aren’t going to do that crap.
Aquarius is very progressive, rational, intelligent, and independent. It doesn’t bode well for dogmatic belief systems, trust me on that.
So I hope this is helpful. It’s a huge topic to try and cover in a short period of time, but I wanted to just paint a broad brush, big picture view of this for people so that they could understand what’s going on, why, and what the timing is essentially.
I’ll put links in the episode description to any related content, and if you’re interested in a reading with me, I’ll put a link to that as well.
Many sincere thanks to everyone who supports me, especially my YouTube members.
Thank you very much.
Take care, all the best, and I’ll talk to you again soon.
Anyone following the news, even remotely, is aware that we are now confronted by a barrage of outrageous and ridiculous drama on a daily basis. From patently absurd conspiracy theories, to rhetoric that flies in the face of core democratic principles, the onslaught is relentless. In recent years this has reached such alarming proportions that we can’t help but sometimes wonder if the world has gone utterly mad.
Events that would have been completely shocking years ago now occur with such regularity that they are virtually pedestrian. So much so that many of us have become numbed or inured to them. The “new normal’ is batshit crazy. In other words not normal at all.
This phenomenon is dramatic and stark and thus is easily and readily identifiable. It is obvious and self-evident. It immediately and naturally captivates us. However, I believe there is another more insidious and sinister force at play amidst the melee that, in fact, may be substantially more consequential.
I ask you to consider the possibility that the chaos we observe is being deliberately engineered to mask or obfuscate a much more significant and systemic threat which lurks in the shadows. To my knowledge – and I am an avid reader – this hypothesis is rarely, if ever, articulated in the context I will present here.
The far-right extremist and professional provocateur Steve Bannon infamously stated that he aimed to “Flood the zone with shit.” From this very telling statement we can infer that his strategy is to promote disinformation such that it would confuse and distract the public.
Deliberately promulgating misinformation, or lies, is clearly unethical as it can cause great harm. For example, countless people died unnecessarily during the recent pandemic due to rampant disinformation. This conclusion is supported by a substantial body of statistical evidence.
What is the point of flooding the zone with shit? Why bother doing this in the first place? Dark money groups would not be funnelling untold millions of dollars into such campaigns simply for their own perverse pleasure. They may be dark but they are almost certainly not stupid.
The only logical conclusion is that the aim is to distract people from an even more nefarious agenda. To keep the population in a frenzied state so they do not notice developments that they would otherwise disapprove of. To capitalize on the distraction to implement policies that would be highly unpopular.
Not everyone is easily manipulated, however, it is not necessary to deceive everyone. They only need to mislead some critical mass to achieve their objectives.
Contrary to conventional thinking I posit that their strategy is just as effective on both the left and the right sides of the political spectrum, but for different reasons.
Many on the right are true believers – they actually believe the absurd lies.
On the left, on the other hand, people are perpetually in a state of reaction. They respond with outrage, disbelief and protest to every provocation and insult to their intelligence and ethics. Noted affronts to reality and common sense go viral, consuming a great deal of time and attention. The media predictably devotes innumerable hours to analysis. The cycle repeats every day.
One side is consumed and distracted by believing the ridiculous lies and the other is fixated on combatting their existence. It’s as if the left is trapped in a never-ending game of Whac-A-Mole. Both sides, right and left, are being deliberately manipulated.
As I previously alluded to, there is a deeper and more nefarious agenda behind all of this. Assume, for a moment, that what I have already articulated here is true.
These artificial circumstances create an intensely polarized social environment. Under such conditions politics takes on qualities akin to trench warfare and hand-to-hand combat.
Constant bickering over absurd culture war issues dominates. Political candidates who are highly unqualified and of shockingly poor moral and intellectual character are elected based on their ability to engage in the dirtiest forms of political theatre. Representatives must only have big mouths and a propensity for enraging the opposing team. It is no longer about policy or good governance, it’s about winning the culture wars. It’s a zero sum game.
Consequently legislative agendas grind to a halt. Gridlock ensues. Any policies that do get implemented are gravely insufficient, watered down and wholly inadequate. After years or decades of this the population becomes increasingly disenfranchised. Government itself is perceived as being ineffectual at best and diabolical at worst. Apathy, despair, and cynicism – if not nihilism – metastasizes like a cancer.
The constant matestrom and distractions enable dark money groups to push through nakedly partisan legislation – such as tax policies – that favour only their particular interests. Their ever expanding war chests justify and finance further interference and the attacks escalate.
It is also worth bearing in mind that people who are financially stressed are far less likely to be politically or socially engaged or to exercise their agency. They are much more easily controlled or manipulated, in other words. For instance, I have often thought that this is why young people and many parents are currently so burdened by student debt. This was not the case in the 1960’s when there occurred a significant countercultural movement which threatened the establishment. See my episode on the Powell Memo, which I published in September of 2021.
Over time circumstances have deteriorated to the point where they have become so egregious and intolerable that many embrace authoritarianism and even fascism. Surely, the adherents think, a heavy hand could finally return order to our world. Superficially, there is some reasonable justification in seeking radical solutions. However, this perspective has not considered that the current state of affairs was intentionally fabricated, nor for what end.
Many have speculated that a handful of deeply entrenched dark money interests – billionaires or plutocrats – secretly aspire to return humanity to a state of feudalism. The theory goes that they believe they are superior and deserving of privilege due to the power they wield and that have amassed. They subscribe to a very Darwinian perspective of their place in society. Them at the top and the rest of us beneath them.
In this scenario they would have control over the masses who would serve their every whim. The population would be given just enough scraps to sustain themselves but not enough to threaten the ruling class. We would effectively be living in indentured servitude. Those who contributed to their prosperity and security would be valued. The rest could be casually discarded in much the same way we dispense with worn out appliances.
I personally speculate that these select few individuals are actually well informed about the state of the global environmental crisis and its grave implications. I suspect they fear the looming breakdown of society, if not civilization itself, which will quite probably ensue.
It is epically twisted irony that much of the wealth and power they have disproportionately accumulated is directly proportional to their obstinance in preventing this crisis in the first place. Even worse, for decades they have brazenly promulgated disinformation and lobbied against regulations which would have mitigated or avoided the crisis.
Metaphorically there are vastly more people than lifeboats in many future scenarios. Many know this to be true, but few will admit it publicly. Presumably the plutocrats think that a rigid social hierarchy, with them firmly planted at the top, would be the best possible scenario in a world facing anarchy and chaos. Furthermore, they likely fear retaliation for their past obstructionism and profiteering from the root causes of the forthcoming calamity.
To be clear, I am speculating here, but what I have described is rationally plausible.
In summary the intense social polarization and disenfranchisement that we are experiencing was deliberately engineered as a means of distraction.
It’s purpose is twofold.
First, it serves to keep people preoccupied so that other more nefarious plans can be executed with minimal awareness, scrutiny or backlash.
Second, it creates the impression that good governance is ineffectual, if not impossible – that democracy simply does not work.
This then leads many people to conclude that alternatives to democracy, such as authoritarianism or fascism, may be more viable or desirable.
Absent democracy those who have the greatest influence, control or power would be the ones who are very wealthy and are politically organized. This has always been the case historically.
These interests are likely keenly aware of the clear and present danger which the global environmental crisis represents to society, if not civilization itself. This may account for the timing of their agenda, the execution of which, has apparently ramped up at an alarming pace in recent years.
If this theory is accurate clearly many people would find it deeply troubling. Therefore it would never be deliberately expressed publicly.
There is a massive paradox inherent in this grand dilemma. Our very own habits of overconsumption and our materialistic orientation have financed and therefore enabled the twin threats we now confront. The breakdown of the biosphere which has sustained us for millennia; and an epic battle to preserve democracy and the many cherished and hard-won freedoms it affords us.
Thanks to everyone for all your support.
I will put any references in the episode description.
This is a transcript of a an episode I published on my YouTube channel on January 10, 2022.
Transcript:
Welcome to Aquarian Diary where we discuss issues around the emerging Age of Aquarius.
I’m your host John Irving.
Thank you for joining me.
Hi guys. It is John here. It is Sunday, January 9, 2022.
I hope everyone had a good holiday season it was very busy around here, hence my absence, and I have certainly had a lot of time to reflect on a lot of things over the past number of weeks.
One of the main things I’ve been thinking about a lot is the USA Pluto return which is coming up soon to its first exact, which will be the first exact that is. When Pluto – transiting Pluto in orbit around the Sun – returns to the exact position it was at the founding of the United States. Which will be exact on February 20, 2022. That’s not very far away – six weeks or so.
Now one of the things so you know I have continued, because I do every day, I read I scan the press – at least those sources that I find to be reliable and rigorous – and one of the things that I have noticed in the past few weeks is the phenomenal number of articles by well-informed scholars, journalists and commentators questioning the possibility of a civil war in the United States. Whether… whether that is imminent or even possible.
Now one of the things that’s remarkable about this is the quality of the journalism or commentary on this subject. And if we think about this, and what is occurring, uh… if anybody had sort of even pondered this out loud – I don’t know 10 years ago or so – they would have people would have just laughed at them and said they were crazy. But the people who are questioning this right now are serious thinkers (chills right now).
So I find that this is occurring at this point in time to be extremely remarkable because of the astrology and also because of everything else that’s happening in the world. We have this global pandemic on a scale not seen in over 100 years.
Just to be clear this is occurring to the birth chart or the Sibley chart of the United States set around the Declaration of Independence. So although this is particular to the United States at this point in time It obviously would have a significant Impact on the whole world.
Now we have seen the polarization between sanity and insanity, and everything in between, reach unprecedented historic levels. This period of time, without question, will be noted significantly in the history books from a future perspective.
I want to talk about this because I have talked about the USA Pluto return before. And let me just also say that there are a ton of astrologers who have talked about this. And I’ve listened to a lot of that and what I’ve noted is that they don’t really necessarily go into a lot of particulars about… you know… how this will manifest. They just they speak about it in fairly general terms. But I think that if we look at what is occurring, and like I said, the degree to which this situation is being discussed and contemplated. Now even going to these extremes of, like I said civil war, and whether or not that’s possible I think that it has to be taken seriously.
Now I’m not actually suggesting or and i don’t necessarily believe that there will be a civil war. But i do think that what is going to occur this year in 2022 will involve a lot of the deepest and darkest aspects of the United States and its unresolved karma. And its unresolved psychological baggage – if you can refer to a country as being psychological – that that will be brought to the fore and dissected and put on display for all to see. And that is exactly what is occurring.
We have these extremely polarized factions who are engaging in unprecedented levels of hyperbole and beyond because… you know we did just celebrate the one year anniversary of the insurrection in Washington. So it has very real consequences.
And so the question is, you know, how will this stuff be addressed and will it or not and what will be the outcome. Now I personally think that this is like a major purging, like I said, of the deep and dark and unresolved aspects of the – again I’m going to refer to this country as having a psychology – but it does. I mean every every country has a character and qualities – almost like a personality. And a world view for sure, a paradigm that all of that is up for inspection. Whether It makes us comfortable or whether it’s desirable or not, because that’s kind of how Pluto operates.
Now let me give you some dates. This first came within a two degree orb and that’s – that’s when transiting Pluto’s was within two degrees of its natal position – commencing, you know, the first half of 2021. So it actually literally became within two degrees on February 12, 2021. It will be within two degrees until January 6 of 2024.
Now within that period of time there will be three exacts because Pluto will retrograde which will mean that it’ll cross its natal position. Pluto from our perspective will retrograde and it’ll be exact conjunct exact again on July 11th of 2022 retrograde, and make one more pass where it’ll hit direct on December 28th of 2022.
So this year – and we’re into it now because it was back within two degrees on December 19th of 2021. So from December 19th of 2021 right up until the end of 2022 Is the most intense period of this transit.
So the way these transits work is that they can be incredibly profound and deep and they’re big. You know Pluto transits when they make an aspect – a powerful aspect in your natal chart – can be a multi-year process. So whatever comes up and is brought to our awareness during this period of time could take years to resolve.
Now generally, as I’ve said before, if people are – or institutions or nations are – are in the flow of this energy they will do the work that they’re being called to do – the transformation will occur. Pretty or not, and they will evolve. Right? If there’s a lot of resistance to these energies they can sort of show up and manifest explosively because this energy needs to flow, whether we like it to or not.
So, again, three exacts this year. February 20th, July 11th and December 28th.
A lot of astrologers have talked about this and my own personal view is that it’s going to manifest just exactly as we’re seeing it. I would not be surprised, for example, if during this year an awful lot of dirt comes to the surface politically and socially that rocks the nation.
Things that will be brought to light that people will find shocking and deeply disturbing because that’s what Pluto will do. It’ll dredge things up from the subconscious or from the unconscious and bring it to your conscious awareness. And often it’s not pretty. It’s stuff that we usually prefer not to look at or address or think about. And I’m getting reinforcement energy here as i say this.
So now I think that for example the January 6 commission. Some other things could come to light that were done or activities that occurred during the Trump administration. It could even be treacherous, treasonous. Stuff that people will be find extremely shocking that will change the way Americans and the world see the country and perceive the country. So I would be prepared for some really disturbing things to come to light that could change people’s understanding of themselves and the nation. And it’s not likely to be nice.
So who knows how deep and how far the corruption goes but if it’s going to come to light it’ll be this year. And so I think that what people should do is brace themselves and it’ll be stuff, if it comes up, like it’ll make what happened during the Nixon impeachment probably look like a cake walk in comparison. This is probably going to be like really deep and really big and it’ll forever change the country. Now how far that goes we’ll see.
Now sort of from where we’re operating right now there’s a lot of people really in denial about, for example, January 6 and the whole Trump administration and everything. And a lot, I think, is going to depend on how they react to whatever is brought to light. That might actually cause them to second-guess or question their allegiance to Trump and to that administration or even the Republican party itself. It’s possible that the corruption could be so onerous that that loses a lot of steam. And then the question will then become what are we gonna do to fix this?
I don’t think you’re going to see the fixes in 2022. I think what we’re going to see in 2022 is the problems. So the problems will come to light and they’re going to be deep and they’re going to be significant. And then the fixes to that will probably take years.
So anyway I want to draw your attention to this because I think it’s really big. I mean the fact that this is occurring, like I said, during a global historic level pandemic is just mind-boggling.
So we’ll see how this plays out but I think that it’s going to be shocking probably and disturbing I would imagine what the repercussions of all that are going to be I think remain to be seen.
So heads up fasten your seat belts.
Also Saturn, on a mundane level, Saturn will square Uranus again at the end of the year. It’s an intense period.
My sense is that, you know, Omicron and the Coronavirus will probably settle down. I’m not saying It’s going to go away but I think it’ll be, you know, as people develop more immunity to it and it’s in a less severe variant right now. In terms of the effect that it has on people i think that it’ll be a little easier in that regard in 2022. But it’s not going to be gone. It’ll still be with us.
The main thing I wanted to draw your attention to was the Pluto return of the United States is going to be big this year. 2022 is probably going to blow our minds and for everybody, not just Americans, but the whole world. It’s going to be big and it’s going to be intense.
Now hopefully good comes from all of this you know like if stuff comes to light about corruption or treasonous activity or whatever it is – cheating, lying, deceiving, stealing – that kind of stuff. Abuses of power and privilege. The natal Pluto of the United States is in the second house and in addition to material matters the second house is often equated with material possessions and property and ownership but it also really covers values. Like things that you value. So that’s a very powerful place to have Pluto, in the second house. There’s a lot of power there and there’s a lot of potential for transformation.
So values, you know, the second house being ruled by Venus. The higher octave of Venus is pure unconditional love and the lower manifestations of that would be possessiveness and hoarding and trying to acquire material objects possessions and wealth.
So there has to be some kind of a financial component to whatever that’s gonna occur this year. And certainly it will relate to values and that’s already what we’re talking about. I mean the these values between the left and the right. Those who are dealing with reality and uh those who are living in a pseudo-reality that’s what this is all about. This huge debate that’s going on right now. So I find that very interesting.
Pay attention, 2022 will be a very big year.
There’s a number of other transits going on for the United States as well this year and each one of them is worthy of a significant discussion. But I’m just going to say that Neptune is squaring the Mars of the United States. Neptune is opposing the natal Neptune. Chiron is squaring the Sun. Chiron is opposing the natal Saturn. It’s too much to get into here because this would be way too long.
Another thing that I want to point out or just mention is that I find it that it’s extraordinary that this Pluto return of the United States, with the United States being the most dominant economic force on the planet, and culturally as well. And certainly very visible to the whole world, because the world reports and we’re all aware now especially with social media and whatnot, and the internet, about what’s going on in the United States. And so the whole world’s watching. This but I find it extraordinary that this is occurring. That this craziness that we’re seeing occurring to the most powerful nation on the planet, is occurring at this point in time where theoretically at least we’re supposed to be going through this great awakening. A degree of spiritual enlightenment is occurring on the planet. And that that we’re shifting into this Age of Aquarius. I find the timing of this is just absolutely extraordinary.
Astrologically I mean there’s just no question if we look at what’s going on – I mean with any degree of objectivity or perspective – astrologically this Pluto return is so obvious it to me at least as an astrologer. And I know it is for other astrologers as well. I don’t know if other people appreciate how significant this is and how coincidental it is with the timing. This is an extraordinary time.
You know it takes Pluto 248 years approximately to orbit the Sun. So we’re here at this point in time when this is occurring. Both this shift into the Age of Aquarius, and we’re witnessing this Pluto return in the United States, all sort of wondering how this is going to play out. Is the United States going to crumble or or dissolve in some way? Or descend into some kind of anarchy and civil war and even… and this speculation is occurring from within the nation itself. It’s not just me as an outsider observing this. There’s, like I said, very credible scholars, academics and journalists discussing this now openly. I find just the whole thing is so mind-blowingly extraordinary.
Let’s hope that it plays out well and that the United States goes through a period of meaningful reform that will set the stage for the next 248 years of history for this country. And that it doesn’t descend into darkness, chaos, anarchy and without the rule of law. And that it maintains its status as a democracy. Because that is within… that is in question legitimately at this point in time.
I’m underscoring how significant this is and for those of us who are aware and who are paying attention these are truly historic times. It’s going to be absolutely fascinating, if not nerve-wracking, to watch how this all unfolds. And i’ll leave it at that.
Pay attention, this is an amazing we’re… getting huge energy right now… to be here at this point in time in human history is just astonishing and and we’re very lucky to be here. And you know, I know why Spirit wants us to maintain a positive attitude because everybody is cheering for this to work out well. And at the same time though we can’t take our eye off the ball. And we can’t just go into denial because we we have to be paying attention because things could go in any direction. Sticking our head in the sand is not going to help.
So, fingers crossed. 2022 here we go.
I’ll talk to you again soon. And again thanks again to Kerry Erickson for the fantastic intro music he beautifully created for me.
