The idea of planetary rulership. Under the traditional rulership scheme in astrology, the Sun rules Leo, the Moon rules Cancer, and each of the other planets governs the other signs in a beautifully ordered way: Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo, Venus rules Taurus and Libra, Mars rules Aries and Scorpio, Jupiter rules Pisces and Sagittarius, and Saturn bookends the arrangement with rulership of Aquarius and Capricorn. (For more on the history and meaning of this arrangement visit Skyscript here.)
When the modern “outer” planets came along, they were ascribed joint rulership to some of the signs by some astrologers. I think of the outer planet rulership as being a transformational addition to the influence of the sign to correspond with the advancement of personal growth in modern life. For example, Neptune is widely (and by me) considered the modern ruler of Pisces and adds a more transcendent and spiritual side to the search for meaning of Jupiter’s traditional rulership. Pluto, as the modern ruler of Scorpio, adds the destructive and regenerative force to the passion under the traditional rulership of Mars.
Saturn and Uranus. In Aquarius, we could not have two more different planetary rulers: Traditional ruler Saturn, strict and unyielding, with the modern ruler Uranus which is associated with radical change and breaking through the status quo. Aquarius represents the scientist, among other things, and science itself gives us a very clear illustration of this dual nature of Aquarius: The dogma of established science continually put to the test by the innovation of new knowledge and the resulting battle against the new ideas.
The element of illusion appears. Neptune entered Pisces in 2011, and since then there has been a proliferation of misinformation. With the widespread use now of the internet, ideas spread like wildfire and nothing can be easily verified or disproved. Some of this confusion has been fairly benign, such as the insane debate over whether a dress was blue or gold (it was neither). Others were more sinister, such as the horrific treatment of parents of the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012 when some crazies believed that the event never happened. Then there was the Pizzagate conspiracy theory in the leadup to the 2016 election and was quickly followed by the rise of QAnon in 2017.
I’ve often wondered how much of this is psychological warfare. It is well known that drops of misinformation have been planted by both the Russian and Chinese governments, and this kind of warfare is what we have been expecting with Pluto in Aquarius. With Neptune in Pisces it’s difficult to determine what is the truth and what is a lie, and we then either rely on our governments to tell us or we believe that vaccines turn us into magnets and the earth is really flat.
The establishment fights back. After the first Saturn/Pluto conjunction in January 2020 and the spread of Covid-19, an established narrative over the virus was soon established and any dissent was quickly quashed. Many of the ideas which were censored then, such as the lab leak hypothesis and the folly of total and extended lockdowns, are now considered viable possibilities. The fear generated by the Saturn/Pluto conjunction in 2020-2021 helped to perpetuate this, but the Saturn/Uranus square which followed led to civil unrest and resistance to the approved narrative.
Saturn and Uranus, of course, are the co-rulers of Aquarius and Pluto is now (or will be at the end of the year) firmly in Aquarius. Saturn’s association with science is in the rigor and discipline of the scientific method: testing a hypothesis to determine the truth of it. But then Saturn can become rigid, and the paradigm busting influence of Uranus can lead to new ideas and ways of looking at established truths. I wrote about this recently in reference to Graham Hancock here.
Here finally is my point:
This is all a very long introduction to my point, which arises from this video from Freddie Sayers at UnHerd. I discovered the news source UnHerd during the pandemic in an attempt to obtain information that was not available through conventional sources. The writers and speakers on this channel were all intelligent and the ideas, which I didn’t always agree with, were well thought out. These were not wild-eyed conspiracy theorists; they were experts in their field with something valuable to say. The editors at UnHerd and their advertising agencies discovered that they were blocked from advertisers despite their widespread private support, because of articles that were considered “anti trans” even though some were actually written by trans activists. Freddie Sayers recently appeared before the House of Lords to shared this information with the UK government. Please take a few minutes to watch this video or read the article here.
Regardless of your point of view, the line between the ability to think for yourself and be exposed to the truth should be a right in today’s world. Pluto in Aquarius, the sign of technology and scientific debate, offers limitless opportunity to reinvent humanity in new ways, hopefully better ways. But the compressive force of Pluto could also serve to take us into a dystopian world in which a deep state really does exist and maybe the paranoid are not so crazy.
As Rumi says: “The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep.”
Interesting YouTube video. In the early 1980s I left the fundamentalist religious cult that I had belonged to for 15 years of my teen and young adult life. I came to understand that religious history and reality and the world were NOT as I had been taught b the group. I wanted to know what was the truth of it all.
What I have come to understand is that everything is a matter of centers and peripheries. What is the accepted understanding and (to use the current phrase) narrative, and what is less accepted, and what is downright scorned, is pretty variable and depends on a lot of things. In other words, what is (currently) considered central (in other words, accepted more or less as dogma) and what is considered peripheral and how peripheral it is thought to be (in other words, what is falsehood or downright disinformation) is quite variable.
There are two rules of thumb that I try to always remember when it comes to “truth”:
(1) Who benefits from the dominant narrative as to what the truth is, and who is disadvantaged by it?
(2) On what grounds does this happen? What’s the rationale offered for it?
Another way of thinking about these rubrics is: (1) follow the money (or whatever benefit there may be), and (2) it all depends on whose ox is being gored (whose ox gets gored in the process).
I think that the determination of what is “truth” at the social level (not the philosophical level) has always been fluid, but historically the processes that affected that fluidity moved more slowly and involved more of the high-stakes players while leaving the commoners to just deal with whatever the high-stakes social players did. As communications between members of a social group and between social groups became easier and easier, and as those communications became more durable by virtue of being preserved in writing/records (which became easier to create), the pace of the fluidity of social truth creation increased.
Nowadays a great, great deal of our communications activity is digital and it takes place in the blink of an eye and is available to vast, vast numbers of the “commoners” who thousands of years ago had less of a say in how social truth was configured. Ideas that the high-stakes players thousands of years ago would have not permitted to go much further (for reasons that would have been very appropriate in their point of view), now travel around the world in seconds and engage the folks who were voiceless “commoners” thousands of years ago.
In other words, I don’t think anything new is happening, here, in the social arena. I think what is new is the pace at which it is happening. That pace is very destabilizing, and I think it threatens our long-term future. Perhaps our future as a species, but certainly our future as cultures and societies. I don’t think we can sustain this. We (humanity) will tear ourselves apart, and our level of civilization is likely to take a steep nose-dive long-term as a result of our inability to handle it all.
Thanks Brenda, these are very interesting ideas. 💖
Lynn ~ Thank you so much for the rulership information. But might you fill us in on the Uranus ruler of Aquarius. And also Pluto’s time when last he was in the sign Aquarius in and around the American Revolution which bestowed on us a Republic and a Democracy. Might Aquarius and Pluto connect to a rebirth of Democracy.
We are seeing fascism firing up globally – might that inspire a DEMOCRATIC REACTION – given these planets?
We have to remember that astrology does not take sides. We may believe that democracy is the best way, but democracy is chaotic and not that effective. “Herding cats” is a phrase sometimes used.
Uranus is impartial and primarily concerned with blowing things up, especially if something isn’t working. We may believe in democracy, but can we really say that it’s working right now? Think of how fascism took over in the 1930s.
I’ve always thought that under Pluto in Aquarius when the machines take over they may decide to get rid of humans. Humans are fallible and can make a big mess; Aquarius, especially under the banner of Uranus, prefers a neat transformation where everything is equal and nobody’s personal preferences can interfere.