http://cura.free.fr/xx/20palden.html

History and the cycles of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto

When I was young I asked my history teacher whether there were such things as cycles in history. He told me to get on with my work, since questions like that would not help me pass my exams. Hmmph! From that moment on, something in me resolved to find out the answer to this question. Little was I to know that I was to become an astrologer seven years later, and that, twelve years after that, I would start studying astrological cycles in history. What a fine way to advance a career! Historians won't touch it because it's ideologically way-out, and astrologers hardly touch it because of a lack of knowledge of history - and also because of a fixation on birth charts and specific events.

So here, in this short series on astro-history, I shall be examining some of the major cycles of history - focusing not on events but on trends and timespans. Now, here, it's dead easy to pluck events out of history to prove one's point and, hopefully, I'm not going to do that. Nevertheless, some remarkable perspectives on history arise.

In this article, I want to look simply at the conjunctions of Neptune and Pluto, the slowest simple cycle of time (unless one wants to get esoteric or precessional about it). Before starting, however, here are some initial observations.

We're looking at historical trends, undercurrents and threads. Trends take at least decades, if not centuries, to unfold. Therefore, there can often, but not always, be a time-delay between an astrological and an historical event. Also, as astrologers, we're privy to understanding the underlying tides of human thought and feeling. In other words, we're looking at humanity's 'psychosphere' - its body of collective psychological motion and the way it oozes, leaks and expresses itself into the world. This means we can (theoretically, at least) detect the points at which historical thought-processes begin, change and go through their modulations. It also means there can be a time-delay between inner process and noticed event. However, this said, there are exceptions. Sometimes a thought-form can surface before an astrological event - especially if there is receptivity to it. One recent example is the surfacing of the idea of perestroika (restructuring) which emerged in the mind of Mikhail Gorbachev and his mates on behalf of the Russian collective psyche a few years before the Saturn-Neptune-Jupiter-Chiron aspect which brought down the Iron Curtain in 1989, and some seven years before the Uranus-Neptune conjunction in Capricorn in 1993. Though seven yers in history is small-fry - and perestroika is yet to hit the more resistant capitalist West! But it's coming.

So, in examining longterm cycles, we need to be discerning in our interpretation, non-simplistic. Nevertheless, direct hits do occur - and 1989 was a recent example. The Wall fell down within a couple of days of the conjunction. We need also to watch out for our own prejudices and misunderstandings of history. An example: we are taught that the 'New World' was 'discovered' by Columbus in 1492. Historically, this is incorrect (there was much more transoceanic traffic than we are taught). Now, while it so happens that Pluto went into Scorpio in 1491 and that Pluto was in Perihelion in 1493 (which are significant in themselves), this 'discovery', and the widening of public horizons that it meant for Europeans, Columbus is really an expression of a dynamic which arose long before, in 1394-98, during a super-configuration involving Neptune conjunct Pluto in Gemini opposed by Uranus in Sagittarius. It would be easy to ascribe the 'opening of the New World' to, say, Pluto perihelions, but this would be inaccurate. Here one wouldn't be entirely incorrect - we had another Pluto perihelion in 1988, at the time of a dawning into world consciousness of the full impact of the Global Village. It's probably more correct and relevant to connect the 'discovery' of 1492 to the undercurrent of the 1380s and the massive turning-point which occurred then. A symptom of this is seen, in the 1390s, in the form of the Genoese Prince Henry the Navigator, who sponsored the earliest Portuguese explorations down the coast of Africa. Astrologically, this was the real symptom of the times, and Columbus, in this light, was but an effect of this. In other words, astrology can help us identify the really significant points in history which other historians might pass over. Let's look at some examples. Neptune-Pluto cycles last about 495 years - half a millennium. They characterise an underlying driving-force behind history, an undertow of reality which marries the inevitable ram-force of Pluto with the imaginal, ideational power of Neptune. This combined force helps us define our underlying historical reality on a collective-unconscious level - this world-view being a combination of actualities and perceptions.

Immediately, one absolutely major time-point emerges if we look at the tables, and another follows up behind. The first is the -570s, and the second is the +1390s. Between -579 and -577 there was a pretty exact mutual conjuction of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, at 8-10° Taurus. How amazing. How can that happen? Well, it's part of the remarkable elegance of planetary motion which reveals itself when we study these things! This represents a mega new start, an entirely new cycle for humanity. By the way, the next event of such magnitude comes around the year 3370! So, stick around for some more action! The 1390s (Neptune-Pluto conjuncting at 2° Gemini, with Uranus opposing just beforehand), represents a half-way point in this cycle. What is amazing is the relative accuracy of these configurations: the -570s one happened in just two years, and the 1390s one (a bit more staggered) took just eight years (peanuts when we're talking millennia).

It just so happens that the -570s represent the beginning of history as we know it. Before this, we rely on archaeology and mythology. After this, we have written history (and newer mythologies!). There's more. This was a time of transition of consciousness, worldwide. It was as if humanity was really beginning to think about its situation - and new cultures emerged in the succeding centuries to prove the point. Some of the world's most influential thinkers were alive around this time and in succeding decades - and for a configuration like this, 100 years (at least between semisextiles in the cycle) is an acceptable historical 'orb'. Lao Tzu was active within this period, as was Confucius, Sakyamuni Buddha, Zoroaster, the first Greek philosophers and reformers (Peisistratus, Xenophanes and the Seven Wise Men), the Jewish Old Testament writers (often called Deutero-Isaiah) - and things were happening in the Americas too, such as the beginnings of the pre-classical Mexican and Peruvian civilisations. I'd hazard to guess that the Arthurian cycle, as a religious-magical path of the West, was cooked up at this time - the ascendancy of the Celts. Humanity was becoming more objective, more individualised, and it was tearing itself away from its roots. The ancient civilisations of Egypt and Mesopotamia were on their way out.

Humanity was beginning to look afresh at statecraft, psychology, technology, science, society and rationality. I fact, this was the undercurrent-start of the modern world. Across the world, within 400 years, new civilisations had grown up, of a newly-materialistic bent: Greece and Rome, Han China, Mauryan India, Persia, Olmec Mexico and Chavin Bolivia. Humanity was beginning to get more large-scale, more rumbustuous, more mass-oriented. All sorts of aspects and details of human culture can be read into this - it deserves a whole book. What about the 1390s? This marked the very begiining of the Global Village we all now know and love. It was at this time that the peripheral, undercultured Europeans, a smelly, flea-ridden, boozing, cannon-firing lot with big pretensions and a greed for gizmos, undertook to start taking over the world. At this time, the Medicis were in the ascendancy in Florence (the San Francisco of the Renaissance), and Europe was within reach of developing printing, changing its religion and society and exploring the world. There was a post-medieval questing for something new (Gemini-Sagittarius!). Not only in Europe: the Ottomans were about to take over Constantinople, the Incas and Aztecs were on the rise, and Ming China was getting adventurous too. The world was up for grabs, and it could have been the Chinese, the Arabs or the Europeans who globalised it. Let's look briefly at the other conjunctions of Neptune and Pluto. Following the -570s was the conjunction of -84/-83. This represented the dawning of a new secularism and materialism across the world.

Specifically, it took the form of the civil wars of Rome (Julius Caesar et al), the institutionalisation of classical China by Han Wu Ti, the collapse of Parthia, the rise of the Kushans and the spread of Buddhism outside India. Generally, it meant a watershed, a "well, what next?" phase, in which newer civilisations and cultures were now challenged to make something of it. In terms of Arnold Toynbee's understanding of the rise and fall of civilisations (see his Study of History OUP, many editions), various civilisations, having made themselves evident, were confronted with a crisis of meaning, a need for choice. Interestingly, Rome and China of this time have many parallels and synchronicities: around the time of Jesus, for example, both were undergoing major crisis and change - Rome under Augustus and China under Wang Mang. Meanwhile, India, Greece, Babylon and the Olmecs had stumbled.

On the next conjunction in 411-412, Rome fell (to the Visigoths in 410), Japan and China opened up to foreign influence, Churchianity was on a roll in Byzantium and West Europe, the Europeans (former 'barbarians') were settling into their places after the Folk-Wandering period, Teotihuacan and the earlier Mayan cities were being built, Tiahuanacu (Peru) and classical Gupta India were at their zenith and China was in disarray. Civilisations of the previous millennium were proving either to be transitory, by dint of choices perhaps not made at the previous conjunction, or to have lasting qualities which carried them through, because they had changed themselves. This was the beginning of the world's medieval (in-between) period. The following conjunction was in 905. This marked the fall of Tang China (one of China's greatest phases), the birth of Russia (Kiev), the emergence of strong European nations, of Fujiwara Japan and Toltec Mexico, the prelude to the Muslim invasions of India and the zenith of Arabic and Byzantine civilisations. Things were changeful and turbulent, and something was trying to come through: world medieval cultures were painfully giving birth to something. This was to come in the 1390s.

In retrospect, the world sought unconsciously to globalise, and the only civilisation capable of doing it was the Europeans - mainly because they were sufficiently violent and uncultured to overcome all resistance. The Mongols gave it a try in the 1200s, though, and the Muslims before that. The 1390s saw the downfall of most African civilisations, and most of the Old World civilisations were in bad shape, mainly due to the Black Death 50 years before - a wipe-clean of history. The Americas were in transition too: the Mayans, Mississippians and other cultures were gone, and new militaristic, materialistic empires (Aztecs and Incas) took their place. This was the beginning of the European Renaissance, which was to lead to the subsequent Reformation (religious change) and the scientific, industrial and political revolutions which were to characterise an utterly new civilisation. During this Neptune-Pluto cycle, Europe was to dominate the world, and by 1891-92, the next conjunction (in Gemini), the job was complete. The world was carved up, mapped out, bought up, buzzing. Entirely new cities like New York, Shanghai, Bombay, Joburg and Buenos Aires had appeared.

In terms of specific events, the 1890s were a relatively quiet period - the Euros were by now world masters, by both fair means and foul - and they were beginning to lose the initiative too, to their colonised subjects. But first, there were some seeds to sow. The decades around the 1890s saw the beginning of flight, the internal combustion engine, electrical technologies, plastics, pharmaceuticals, corporate multinationals, telegraphy, psychotherapy, the new age movement (Theosophy and spiritualism), socialist parties, third world nationalism, feminism (suffragettes), quantum physics, nuclear technologies... and a few other things which, within a century, were to change our world. Not a small, uneventful seed-point! The action lay not in major events, but in rooms and workshops where major innovations were gaining ground.

In this light, the late 20th Century and the Bi-millennium are not so much a new beginning, as an expression of a previous beginning. The next Neptune-Pluto conjunction is in the 2390s (again in Gemini). This means that we are in the opening stages of a cycle (amidst a long-running waxing sextile of Neptune and Pluto), not the end-beginning of one. Many things might end in the coming decades but, astrologically, this is a progression of themes already established, not an utterly new start. The new start already happened in the 1890s. Perhaps 1900 might have been a better Millennium than 2000.

What is this current cycle about? Certainly it concerns whole-planet issues, and we know what they are so (especially since the 1960s, though all the pieces were in place in 1900). The questions of this cycle concern humanity (our numbers and the real quality and purpose of our lives), Earth and its ecosystem (an old question, since environmental devastation started 5,000 years ago, though it mushroomed from the 1390s onward), the mass human psyche and its dubious health and, probably, the relationship between Earthlings and others in this universe. And it's in the global domain where the nexus lies - this is new territory.

Inside Neptune-Pluto cycles

Uranus, Neptune and Pluto do a slow zodiacal dance. Their orbital periods are elegantly synchronised: Uranus' orbit is approximately half the length of Neptune's, Neptune's is two-thirds that of Pluto, and Uranus' one-third of Pluto's. Uranus' orbit of the Sun takes 84 years, Neptune's 165 years and Pluto's 248 years.

Most of the planets have close-to-circular orbits, but Pluto's is eccentric, and swings emphatically. Its distance from the Sun varies by a factor of one quarter. As a result it spends around 36 years in Taurus and 12 years in Scorpio. This makes for an interesting pattern of inter-aspects between Pluto, Neptune and Uranus. Uranus-Neptune cycles are quite regular, while Uranus-Pluto and Neptune-Pluto aspects have interestingly varying rhythms. We'll tackle Uranus-Pluto cycles in a later article.

Conjunctions and oppositions

In one conjunction-to-conjunction cycle of about 493 years, Pluto goes round the zodiac twice, while Neptune does it three times. Interestingly, successive conjunctions take place at roughly the same zodiacal position, with a creep of 5-6° each cycle. Here are the figures:

578 BCE 8 Taurus

84/83 BCE 15-16 Taurus

411/412 CE 22-23 Taurus

905 28 Taurus

1398-99 2-3 Gemini

1891-92 7-8 Gemini

2384 12-13 Gemini

Note how the conjunction positions shifted from Taurus to Gemini just before that of 1398-99, which marked the very beginning of the Renaissance - a massive, quantum swing in human history. The first conjunction of the Taurus series was in 1071 BCE, and the first of the Gemini series was in 1398-99 CE. Here astrology can help us identify longer periods of history. The conjunction of 1071 BCE marked a prehistoric watershed, when many early civilisations faded into the past. These included Sumer, Egypt, Crete and Mycenae, Megalithic NW Europe, Harappa and Shang China. These had thrived in the Aries phase, which began around 3540 BCE. During the Taurus phase, and after a slow start, increasingly mercantile, urban and imperialistic civilisations arose. These included Babylon, Greece, Rome, Persia, Mauryan India, Han China, Olmec and Mayan Mexico and Chavin Peru. This phase lasted 2,469 years, drawing to a close at the end of Medieval times, near the 1398 conjunction.

The Renaissance was born at the start of the Gemini phase. This 'eventually-to-be-global' cultural revolution originated in Europe, penetrating most of the world by 1892, within one Neptune-Pluto cycle. The Gemini phase lasts until the 3800s. The urban-industrial and global village eras of recent times constitute but the early parts of this long Gemini phase. Owing to the cyclic co-ordination of Neptune and Pluto, oppositions take place when Pluto sits in the sign of the conjunction, and Neptune in the opposite sign. In about 247 years, Pluto moves one turn of the zodiac, and Neptune one-and-a-half turns. The issues explored in the conjunction sign are therefore given a further airing at the opposition.

Sextiles and Trines

When on the Scorpio side of the zodiac, Pluto moves fast - at a similar pace to Neptune. The two planets stay in aspect for around 80 years. We are in one such period today. Neptune and Pluto formed a waxing sextile in 1950, between Libra and Leo, which will end in 2031, between Aries and Aquarius. The periods of exactness are 1950-55, 1976-84 and 2026-31. When Pluto was in Scorpio (1984-96) it reached its perihelion (closest point to the Sun) and fastest speed in 1988. Previous instances occurred in 1741 (start of the Industrial Revolution), 1493 (Columbus) and 1246 (the Mongols). At the waxing sextile and the waning trine of every cycle, when Pluto returns to Scorpio, such a protracted aspect happens. The last waning trine period was 1704-1785 (continuously exact 1704-39 and 1777-85). Over many millennia, as the conjunctions creep round the zodiac, these protracted periods shift to other aspects. Imagine an 80-year square! This creep-cycle lasts approximately 29,600 years and, if one takes Aries as the start, the current megacycle started in 3540 BCE.

Waxing hemicycles

When a cycle starts at the conjunction, its seeds are already laid. Things don't usually happen in big, dramatic ways (a marked exception being the fall of Rome to the Visigoths in 410). At the 1398 and 1892 conjunctions, few blatantly world-shattering events took place. Yet telltale tendencies were there, hidden away in the drawing rooms of Florence in 1398, or in workshops, societies and consulting rooms in 1892. These tendencies were to change the world.

At the waxing semisextile (30°), new developments ferment surreptitiously. Situations arising or initiatives taken set the stage for future growth, though people might not see this at the time. At the semisquare (45°), vital longterm decisions/adjustments are made, as amassing facts present potent possibilities and their implications. Seeds germinate, and ideas, visions and predicaments spark the need for long-haul action, for 'staying on the case'. At the waxing sextile (60°), germinated seeds become visible plants, growing wildly, everywhichway. This rushing time of escalation and unfoldment, in Neptune-Pluto's case, can be drawn-out but intense, as the 1950s-80s have been in our own time.

Then comes the waxing square (90°). Possibilities must become more actual, get real and work, or crash or dwindle. It's crunch-time, and reality wrings out the excess and the unlikely. These can be testy times, times of showdowns, disintegrations, reintegrations and shifting agendas. At the waxing trine (120°) things are developing well, or willy-nilly, settling in, establishing roots, extending - or, at times, lapsing into chaos or doldrums. The doors are open and the buds are showing. At the sesquiquadrate (135°), there can be snags and hurdles, cutting away the dross. It's a course-adjustment and final check, as if to say "Are you sure?". Sharp distinctions, rivalries, hidden agendas or inevitabilities show themselves, and some hard swallowing or clinching events can occur. Intention and reality can grate. At the waxing quincunx (150°), if intention and reality are disjunctive, weird situations develop, and if they are 'in order', then a new reality presents itself. The flowers are coming out. This new reality, and its implications, fully present themselves at the opposition (180°). Whatever was sought, it is answered by reality, and whatever was unfolding becomes fact. This is it. Whatever was born on or after the conjunction has now become established fact - or it proves itself to be unrealisable. Whatever the case, reality shifts, and there's no going back. Now that we've got here, what do we do?

Waning hemicycles

At the opposition, it's too late to regret or change anything. Reality has changed, and reassessment is needed. Now we have to handle the outcome! Many consequences reveal themselves during the waning quincunx (210°), and successes and failings, achievements and shadows, are all visible, bringing unforeseen rewards or problems, and usually both. At the waning sesquiquadrate (225°), something must be done with this. We're much the wiser, yet a crisis of reorientation appears. Fruits are developing, but if people are lax the harvest will be wasted. Then comes the waning trine (240°): what once was new is now settled, established and normalised, for better or worse. This is what we have become. Things trundle along the groove they have settled into, though the possibilities inherent in that can now be drawn out. In Neptune-Pluto's case, this is a protracted aspect, lasting up to 80 years.

Then comes the waning square (270°), and trouble. Whatever is now established and routine, whether helpful or problematic, is thrown into question. It's harvest-time, with a lot of work to do. What was once new is now a thing of the past, busily delivering consequences, even holding things back. Yet the harvest produces seeds for the next cycle. The world must now build on this, and lessons learned must be applied. The past dominates. Change becomes advisable, though the preference is to continue with tried and tested habits. However, dross and dead leaves must be cleared away. During the waning sextile (300°), dividends are reaped, feasts are held and conclusions drawn, or stultification and gridlock set in. Usually it's a mixture of both. Now we are definitely continuing tradition for its own sake. At the waning semisquare (315°) the past must be released and wrapped up. If anyone is unhappy, too bad. Final details must now be put in place. Future possibilities emerge, though immediate change seems improbable or unwanted. The past dominates. Lessons must be learned and issues clarified. The wish to move forward into the future is now generated. During the waning semisextile (330°) it's reminiscence, understanding, forgiveness and completion time. We're stuck with what we have. Things must be put in perspective and in context. The next conjunction approaches, bringing a new start, bringing a new agenda and starting-point.

Now we shall review a whole cycle of Neptune-Pluto aspects - the last full cycle and the opening of the modern age.

Renaissance and Discovery, 1398-1644

This whole cycle brought Europe's ascendancy. The 1398 conjunction came just fifty years after the Black Death, one of humanity's greatest ever crises. One third of Eurasia's population died. Whole towns, regions and institutions dwindled. God and reality came into question. The Medieval order crumbled. Humanity suddenly became more materialistic and pragmatic. Around 1400, the new Ming dynasty was modernising China. West African states such as Songhai were wealthy, educated and advanced. The Incas and Aztecs were on the rise. Turks were impacting seriously on the Middle East and the Balkans. Northwest Europe was rising in momentum and influence. Quietly, Renaissance ideas, arts and letters were being incubated in places like Florence, under the patronage of mercantile families such as the Medicis. And a quiet development happened in Portugal: Prince Henry the Navigator opened a mariner's college, sponsoring Atlantic and African explorations. Something enormous was beginning.

Around the semisextile of 1423-24 (Cancer-Gemini), early Protestants (Bohemian Hussites) started causing trouble for Catholic Rome, and the Portuguese occupied Ceuta, their first north African outpost. Holland became the centre of European business and music. The ingredients of change were building up. At the 1438-1440 semisquare (Virgo-Cancer), Gutenberg published his first printed book - this alone was an incredibly significant event. Africa's richest state, Songhai, was at its peak, the Inca conquering period was starting and, before long, Byzantium was finally to fall to the Ottoman Turks. Admiral Zheng He took a Chinese fleet to India, Mecca and Africa - though these imperial probings later came to nothing. At this time, China, the Muslim bloc, the Incas and the Europeans were all subconsciously contemplating continental-scale expansion.

The extended sextile came in two phases, from 1461 to 1480 (Libra-Leo to Sagittarius-Libra) and 1536 to 1540 (Aries-Aquarius) - generally in effect for 80 years. This was the High Renaissance and the Reformation in Europe, a veritable rush of ideas, creativity, social and economic change. Many wars and conquests occurred world-wide, the biggest being Spain's destruction of the Aztec, Mayan and Inca civilisations in the 1520s-30s. The sextile brought relentless change and development in technology, ideas, beliefs and geopolitics - just as the 1950s-70s sextile period was also to do. The square occurred in 1568-72 (Gemini-Pisces), during the time of Elizabeth I in England, Nobunaga in Japan and Akbar the Great in India. Protestants and Catholics, modernists and traditionalists angled for dominance in Europe, while Akbar's 'reformation' attempted a reconciliation of Hindus and Muslims. Russia found its feet and Europe grew richer - thanks partially to Mexican gold and the African diaspora (slave trade). In China, conservatives slowed modernisation and returned China to an isolationism which was to last until the end of the cycle. The wide open world-wide possibilities emergent at the conjunction were now narrowing down: the American civilisations were dead, China and India, after a burst, failed to take their expansion further, Africa was being co-opted by Europe, and Europe was on an unstoppable roll.

During the trine of 1594-98 (Leo-Aries), all these developments grew sounder. Tokugawa Japan and Elizabethan England were on the rise, merchant adventurers plied the waves, and the Spanish American empire reached its peak. This was the time of Shakespeare, Galileo, Kepler and Bacon. European modernism was now serious and spreading. By 1607-1609, at the sesquiquadrate (Virgo-Taurus), England and France started colonising North America, Holland found independence (symptomising the growth of mercantile capitalism), the scientific revolution was starting, and Europe was on the edge of an enormous power-showdown, the Thirty Years' War.

The Pilgrim Fathers landed in America at the quincunx of 1619-23 (Scorpio-Gemini). The Thirty Years' War broke out over confused religious conflicts, wrecking Germany. The Manchus, soon to take over China, were mustering power. Traditional and modernistic power each vied for influence, world-wide. This friction reached a climax at the opposition of 1644-48 (Sagittarius-Gemini, with a Uranus-Neptune conjunction too).

Revolution and imperialism, 1644-1892

Europe, especially Germany, was carved up afresh by 1648, the end of the Thirty Years' War. The Manchus took China, the English civil war and the French Fronde rebellion inadvertently squeezed Western Europe into modern times, and European world-dominance accelerated. Capitalism, urban life, scientific thinking and popular opinion were creating a new reality. Europe was tired of God, kings, lords and a fixed social order. It was seeking something new. This would painfully, lengthily unfold during the waning Neptune-Pluto hemicycle.

On the waning quincunx of 1672-73 (Aquarius-Cancer), Manchu China entered a century of greatness and stability, Moghul India passed its peak and European science, architecture and society were transforming the very shape of life. The 1685-89 sesquiquadrate (Pisces-Cancer) established England as the world's leading economic power. China closed itself off and the Ottomans passed their zenith.

Then came the 80-year waning trine, 1704-39 (Aries-Leo to Cancer-Scorpio) and 1777-85 (Libra-Aquarius). The modern world clearly emerged: financial markets, banks and the first multinational corporations appeared, with 'cabinet politics', a growing sense of social rights, and a profusion of scientific, agricultural and technological discoveries. The first modern industrial factories and cities were built, Moghul India turned into the British Raj, Germany was reborn, and USA was founded. All this just flowed out like a torrent - topped by the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars afterwards!

The Neptune-Pluto square of 1817-20 (Sagittarius-Pisces) came close to a Uranus-Neptune conjunction in 1821. Here came the reconstitution of Europe after Napoleon's attempt to unite it. The first railways began to link the smoky, clanking cities of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Trades unions were founded. Latin Americans won independence. The modern world was going strong. The friction between 'progress' and tradition went through another major shift.

The waning sextile of 1844-45 (Aquarius-Aries) clearly underpinned the 1848 European revolutions, the growing workers' movements, the Communist Manifesto, the California Gold Rush (making USA a transcontinental power) and the growth of Australia. Capitalism now dominated the world. The semisquare in 1856-57 (Pisces-Taurus) saw the Crimean War (the first truly modern war), the opening of Japan, the peak of Victorian culture and the Indian Mutiny - glory with complications. Modern society, with serious reservations.

In 1868-69, the semisextile (Aries-Taurus) saw the modernising Meiji Restoration in Japan, the first American transcontinental railroad, the unification of Germany, the rise of the European 'scramble for Africa'. Victorian urban-industrial reality was an established fact, and the world was being reshaped. The dynamic of the Renaissance was fulfilled. Seeds were settling for the future too - their germination, at the next waxing semisextile, came in 1916-17, the First World War.

In 1891-92 came the Neptune-Pluto conjunction. The world made another quantum leap, now interlinked by railways, steamboats and telegraph wires. The 1890s were unremarkable for big events, though rich in trends and initiatives. First the trends: millionaire-driven, big-capital, corporate America, while rising in power, was mirrored by the growth of international socialism; modern world-cities such as New York, Bombay, Shanghai, Rio and Johannesburg were now prominent; modern Japan made its mark; the last corners of the world were explored; Europe was unwittingly passing its world leadership to Russia (then the 'hotbed of capitalism') and USA. Here are some inventions of the 1890s: automobiles, aeroplanes, electrical systems, frozen and canned foods, plastics and artificial fibres, X-rays, photographic film, the oil and advertising industries, phonographs, radio and mass media, skyscrapers and pharmaceuticals. Some big ideas of the 1890s: nuclear physics, new age beliefs (spiritualism, parapsychology and Theosophy), socialism, feminism, electoral democracy, social insurance, psychoanalysis, sociology, independence movements, art nouveau and pre-modern music (Mahler, Debussy and others). The 1890s represented a massive turning-point in history. The 20th Century was defined in this decade, around the Neptune-Pluto conjunction.

Summarising

The movements of Pluto, in history, seem to chart the actual mechanics of fundamental factual change. Pluto's keyword, 'transformation', has 'form' in the middle of it. The movements of Neptune chart evolving social imagery and perceptual constructs - ideas, beliefs and contexts of understanding. When event-fundamentals and beliefs-perceptions interact, we get the basic undertow of history and its themes. Thus, in Neptune-Pluto cycles, we see a basic driving-force which moves and drives historic tendencies and trends. What humans do with this is what makes our world.

Groupthink, awareness and Uranus-Neptune cycles

Uranus and Neptune have relatively regular cycles - their orbits around the Sun are close-to-circular, so the complexities brought along by eccentric Pluto do not apply here. Successive conjunctions of Uranus and Neptune roll along every 170-172 years, and there's a certain consistency to their positioning too. Each conjunction occurs roughly half a sign (16-18°) further along the zodiac, which means that, usually, each sign receives two conjunctions, covering a two-cycle period lasting 240-245 years. This is close to the zodiacal cycle of Pluto at 250 years, almost half the length of a Neptune-Pluto cycle of 495 years and roughly twice the average length of Uranus-Pluto cycles.

All three planets' mutual cycles coincided between -578 and -576. This was a fundamentally formative period across the world. Many important ways of thought were laid down, affecting us to this day. It was an exceptionally tight sequence of conjunctions: Neptune conjunct Pluto in 578 (8° Taurus), Uranus conjunct Pluto in 577-76 (10-11° Taurus) and Uranus conjunct Neptune in 576-75 (14-15° Taurus). Very elegant, very remarkable.

The -570s must have been an amazing time - though no one knew of these outer planets at the time and, therefore, people will not have consciously felt or been able to identify these influences. This said, pieces of evidence hint inconclusively that the ancients indeed did know of the existence of these planets - just as they knew that the Earth orbited the Sun. Yet there is no notable evidence from written history that the ancients of the -570s objectively knew that this decade would be so crucial to human history. No one at that time had heard of Greek rationalism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucian philosophy, the Old Testament or the Grail legends, yet these sprang out of the decades which followed, unfolding their stories therefrom.

Hidden history

Astrological energies do not cause events to happen. Historical events are but symptoms of motions and rumblings within the individual and collective psyches of local and world society. Astrological energies generate ever-varying, yet quite specific kinds of 'energy-weather' - time-holograms of possibility, with their themes, nuances and parameters. Humans respond variously to the vibrational atmospheres and prompts of the time. Human response is the incalculable Factor-X in astro-history.

Though certain things might be expected to occur during aspects or configurations, there is no guarantee that they will do so, or that predictable, habitual human responses might prevail. Historical events often come about with a large dose of fluke and a tenuous thread of intention. An empire can start from an argument between a prince and his mistress, one rainy day. The Wright Brothers won the race to fly because most other aviators had died in accidents!

All this makes it difficult reliably to prognosticate precisely how things will pan out when we look into the future, yet a study of how things have panned out in the past helps enormously. Nothing in astrology indicates how humanity will respond to time's energy-pressures: astrology shows only what is feasible, encouraged and allowed by the underlying swell of the time-energies it studies - often more in retrospect than in advance.

Gods of the sky and sea

Here Uranus and Neptune step in. The Uranus-Neptune conjunction of 1993 was expected by some astrologers to bring noticeable, definitive, even disastrous events - such as financial market dramas or systemic collapses. Yet, if anything, the time passed off with no greater blockbuster events than most years, and less than some.

Did this transit have hardly any effect? No. Uranus-Neptune energies work surreptitiously. They influence awareness and the inner movies playing within the world psyche. Thus, if we seek definitive events, we can miss a lot. Outer-planet astrology identifies background, underlying forces, so we need to look for signs and symbols of these.

Dramatic front-of-stage events connected with the 1993 conjunction started in 1986 with Chernobyl. Then, in 1989, Saturn, Jupiter and Chiron activated the impending conjunction, and the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain fell, Russia radically changed and China nearly transformed itself (but then backed off - this change will presumably come surreptitiously instead, by 'accident'). In the early 90s we had Gulf War Two, Bosnia, Rwanda and South Africa, and the upswinging 'tiger economies'. All these manifested powerful undercurrents, but what was their real meaning? The meaning lies several layers further down.

This conjunction operated in the wider context of the Neptune-Pluto conjunction of 1892, which had launched us into the electronic global village, and the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of 1965-66, in which Twentieth Century issues reached a critical point. Ideas and radical shifts of world-view, bubbling under since the 1890s, broke into the public domain.

The 1993 Uranus-Neptune conjunction slotted a further something into place - the beginnings of a genuinely global mindset, a background shift of perspective and identification, a fundamental and surreptitious break with tradition - particularly on the female side. A new level of world interdependence and integration had taken hold, finding new life on Internet, moving from the background to the foreground of public awareness. This was not primarily visionary or idealistic - more a pragmatic mass subconscious response to the growing 'post-modern' situation, to our new global reality and its experienced facts and side-effects.

Those who believe in a secretive, centralised conspiracy controlling world affairs overlook one big factor: not even the world's greatest power-holders have a sure grasp on everything - especially when contexts shift. They managed to stop and tame erupting social revolutions around 1968, yet it was touch-and-go. They managed to head off rising public feelings of freedom and empowerment after 1989, yet they can never control what goes on secretly, within the social unconscious, in response to the events of the time.

By 1993, public ignorance of the major issues at stake worldwide had disappeared. Life continued more or less as normal, as if people were savouring its hardships and artificial consumptive freedoms. We found ever-new and intricate ways of complicating, avoiding and delaying an acceptance of our true planetary situation. People sought radical changes without things changing radically. Yet, deep down, beliefs, values and understandings were eroding, losing power, creating a blank slate for whatever is next to unfold. This syndrome is typical of a Uranus-Neptune period: powerful issues ferment underneath, without necessarily emerging in drastic forms and events.

Uranus-Neptune cycles

These 170-year cycles seem to affect the way we feel about our slot in history, and how we see the world from there. Between the Uranus-Neptune conjunctions of 1821 and 1993 we saw the rise of the Victorian-colonial world-view, which then melted into the Twentieth Century world-view. The latter arose out of the former, yet they fundamentally differed both in terms of perception/experience and presented reality. The depth-attitudinal watershed between them started in 1892 with the Neptune-Pluto conjunction and completed itself with the 1906-1910 Uranus-Neptune opposition. Our planet has changed drastically during this Uranus-Neptune cycle, and this opposition period marked a cruxpoint.

During the preceding cycle, 1650-1821, in Europe, we saw the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment and the seed-sowing of modern life and values. The cycle of 1478-1650 encompassed the Renaissance and Reformation, a struggle of ideas, initiatives, outbreaks and insecurities as Europe birthed a new civilisation-paradigm. The conjunctions of 1307, 1136 and 965 neatly circumscribe the late, high and early medieval periods, and those of 794, 623-4 and 452 outline distinct stages in Dark Ages Europe.

China

There is a fascinating relationship between Chinese dynasties and Uranus-Neptune cycles. Dynasties loosely represent cultural-social periods in Chinese history. Their rises, peaks and falls have an astrological timeliness to them. The Qin, the first classical Chinese dynasty, who established a unified imperial Chinese system from -221, probably started hatching their plot around the conjunction of -233, just twelve years earlier. The Early Han soon took over, stabilising Chinese institutions. They reached their zenith around the next conjunction of -62. Things deteriorated after some decades and went into free-fall. Then the Later Han rose to power on the opposition of +22-26. Though they survived until 220, their legitimacy subsided at the following opposition of 194-97. During the complex period which followed, the linkages continued.

Then the Tang reunified China in 618-24, on a conjunction. They declined on the opposition of 878-81, after 11/2 cycles. China fell apart, and was reunited by the Song around the conjunction of 965, and divided between the Chin and the Song around the conjunction of 1136. The Ming broke the pattern. Yet their era, from 1368 to 1644, properly lifted off at the major configuration of the 1390s, when Uranus opposed both Neptune and Pluto. The Qing (Manchus) replaced the Ming in 1644 on another major configuration - this time Uranus conjuncting Neptune, opposing Pluto. The Qing fell in 1911 just after the opposition. Also, the Communists nearly fell (over Tienanmen Square) on the run-up to the 1993 conjunction. Russian history, though shorter, has a similar connection with Uranus-Neptune cycles.

The most recent cycle

The 1821-1993 cycle began in the context of the American and French revolutions, Napoleonic wars and early industrial revolution. On the 1821 conjunction in Capricorn the first public railways opened. The Romantics were the first environmental protesters. In England, new industrial cities mushroomed - a boom time accompanied by environmental and social devastation. Colonialism and industry were now big business. On the sextile in 1853-56 the Victorian age was in full swing, and urban-rational-industrial values - and trains and telegraphs - were settling in. Darwin wrote his ideologically-defining Origin of Species.

The square of 1868-70 saw the opening up of Japan (the Meiji Restoration), the French Third Republic and empire, and the unification of Germany. This was the rather pompous peak of the Victorian era, the steam age. Escalating competition for world dominance became a 'mission to civilise', a scramble for Africa and a seriously large-scale worldwide venture on the trine of 1880-83. USA and Russia were becoming great powers too.

The opposition of 1906-1910 brought Einstein's Theory of Relativity, the first Russian Revolution, and an intense transition into the twentieth century world-view. Dominated by USA and USSR, the century was to buzz with airplanes, cars, telephones and movies, isolating people into busy, complex, torn lives. At the waning trine of 1939-43 all hell broke loose - humanity was wrenched around by warfare, with its sweeping changes and force. On the square of 1954-56 colonial empires fell, and Elvis Presley, TV and nuclear power rose - the high-tech age crept in. The sextile of 1966-67 added extra energy to the Uranus-Pluto conjunction and the radical, longterm-oriented contextual shift of that time.

Between 1821 and 1993, worldwide, human awareness made perhaps its biggest leap ever, with ever more people making it. To understand what's really happening underneath, look at protest movements, which express humanity's conscience and heartfelt responses to presented realities. Around the opposition of 1906-10, protest movements fought mainly for social, political and economic causes, yet by the 1990s they concerned environmental, lifestyle, racial and technological causes in the richer world, and nationalist, ethnic and political issues in the 'developing' world.

Truths and illusions

Our world-view is made up of truths, half-truths and untruths, discussed, believed and quietly felt, en masse. Individuals and subgroups in the public eye embody tendencies within the collective psyche, all vying and jostling for airspace and influence. Though subgroup tensions have grown much more complex, mass-consciousness is nevertheless being welded into a more globally-unified wholeness, interlinked by travel, communications and media.

In the next Uranus-Neptune cycle, up to 2165, we are challenged to build a genuine, globally-consensual, planetary world-view, embracing our differences and variety. And the scenario following the opposition of 2080 is likely to sharply contrast that which we are now evolving as the cycle begins.

Uranus-Neptune frequencies resonate through groupthink - through the underlying assumptions, conventions, hidden agendas and values of our world. Groupthink perpetually changes, and it's the stuff of collective life. It's what lies behind what people believe is going on. Uranus and Neptune seem to drive this along. Imagination, aspiration and genius pull from the front, and lies, avoidances and fears drag it back - and somewhere in the middle there is the median point of real human evolution.

Uranus-Pluto cycles and the storms of history

Default human behaviour

Trouble is, we humans tend to avoid exploiting many of our big opportunities when they're offered. We drag our feet and resist change until our arms are twisted behind our backs and the pain excludes other alternatives. We're very accustomed to this behaviour. The outcome is that change-potential accumulates until the dam bursts - and then babies get thrown away with bathwaters. This happens particularly when Uranus and Pluto plant hidden mines and lob missiles at all regularity and stability. Blessings and cruelties unite in their hammer action, hitting masses of people, and conscripting those individuals who, by choice or mishap, are called to ride the wave of destiny or go through the mangle on everyone's behalf.

The Chinese and Russian revolutions of 1911 and 1917 rode on the back of the 1901-02 Uranus-Pluto and the 1906-10 Uranus-Neptune oppositions. The time-delay between energy and outcome, caused mainly by the conservatism of the Manchu and Romanov dynasties, did not stem the pressure for change. It gave change more time to build up into an unstoppable force. Had these dynasties chosen reform decades earlier, they might have fared much better in history - not to mention the people they ruled. The grief Russia and China have seen in the 20th Century could have been very different.

The adoption of default resistance-patterns makes the joined action of Uranus and Pluto a radical and overwhelming force in history - a structure-buster. Thunder (Pluto) and lightning (Uranus)! Frequently - though not always - these two planets can precipitate several leaps in one jump. Then it can take decades to assimilate the outcomes. Evidence can be found from most readers' own lifetimes, through looking at the global and social effects of the 1965-66 conjunction in Virgo - about which more later.

Radicalism and conservatism

Uranus and Pluto do not automatically signify forward change. They bend the bars and blow holes in the walls, leaving us to respond to the acute options presented. One sector of society might take one path, and another sector might take another. It's not always 'the people' who lead and the saturnine authorities which resist - 'revolution from above' happens too, as Mao Tsedong attempted in the 1960s Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Uranus and Pluto have their own characteristic styles of creating resistance and conservatism. They can push people up against their fears, exacerbating resistance to change by threatening insecurity or disaster. Uranus' resistances include the diversion of social energies. Two examples are the starting of the Napoleonic wars and of WW1, both of which captured nascent popular energies which became dangerous to the established order. Yet when one plays with such forces, they can backfire. Uranus can hijack new initiatives by forms of trickery too, as in the revolutions of 1848, when European bourgeoisies filched the restless energies of factory workers to strengthen their own power.

Pluto's resisting patterns include outright oppression and escalation of social control. Two relatively recent examples were the stamping out of protest and the illegalisation of LSD around 1968-70 or, worse, the Nazi takeover in Germany in 1933 (during a Uranus-Pluto square). Here, suppression of minorities disguised the subtle control and coercion of majorities. Another Plutonine example is the use of abject fear and destruction - a recent example being the use of defoliants and napalm in Vietnam in the late 1960s.

Genghiz Khan, master of medieval blitzkrieg, set the Mongols on the rampage around the 1201 Uranus-Pluto conjunction (in Cancer). By the square of 1236-39 they threatened Eurasia, and by the opposition of 1283-86 they ruled much of it. The zenith of the neo-Mongol terror-merchant Timurlenk, reputed for his piles of skulls, occurred later during the major configuration of the 1390s (mentioned in an earlier article), with Uranus and Pluto in opposition. Terror indeed.

There's a hidden twist and kick-back: these forces are, after all, uncontrollable. The energy of revolutions can often turn to chaos, leading to the re-creation in new form of what was destroyed: Louis XVI's execution in 1793 turned into the emperorship of Napoleon by 1799, and Czar Nicholas' death in 1917 lead to the rise of Stalin in 1924. The historical lesson here is that, if forces of change are blocked, they turn savage, leading to excess and consequent reaction, giving power to historical figures with the spunk to take advantage of a situation. Yet such power-holders usually embody something in the collective psyche which craves authoritarian control, even if demanding the opposite.

The influences of Uranus and Pluto are not simple and clear-cut. During the Uranus-Pluto square of 1933-34, a pressing need to reactivate sagging economies after the worldwide crash of 1929 led in Germany to Hitler's rise (he was seen at first as a reformer and national saviour) and in USA to Roosevelt's New Deal (an enlightened move which actually gave background military-business interests an insidious leg-up). Similarly, in the mid-1960s conjunction, there was a mixed outpouring in pop music of both light ("All you need is love") and dark energies ("I am the god of hell-fire..."), bringing very confused archetypes into the public domain.

Chips and peaceniks

Let's look more deeply at the mid-1960s. The enormous breakthroughs occurring at this time were so enormous, rampant and fundamental that, even though there was much subsequent suppression of its fomenters, such breakthroughs crept indelibly into wider public consciousness during the subsequent decades. Their implications have still not been fully absorbed by society. Over time, the scale of suppression has actually helped the growth what has been suppressed: the repeated denial in recent decades of ecological, health, human rights and military issues by politicians, media, scientists and other authorities have led to the undermining of those very authorities' power in the public eye.