Saturn, Neptune and Charlottesville

The shocking events in Charlottesville, Va. have a lot of people wondering what’s happening to this country. I have to admit that I’m one of them. However, being an astrologer I am also curious about what the horoscopes of member of the KKK or the American Nazi Party who descended on that city might look like.

Of course, I don’t have charts for the people who were protesting in Charlottesville, but I do have charts for people I would assume to be like them. One is for Ben Smith, a white supremacist who went on a shooting spree in 1999. (Click on Ben Smith to see the chart.) What struck me about this chart was the trine between Neptune and Mercury and the fact that Saturn is conjunct Smith’s Ascendant (and in an exact semi-sextile to his Mars.)

Then I pulled James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King. Ray had Mercury opposed to Neptune and Saturn square his Sun. (Click here to see the Chart.) I also took a look at Anders Breivik, the Norwegian murderer and confirmed racist.  In his chart Neptune is sextile Mars and Saturn conjuncts the Moon. (Click on Anders Breivik to see the chart.)

Finally, I looked at an original Nazi, Heinrich Himmler, the commander of Hitler’s SS. (Click on Heinrich Himmler to see the chart.) The configurations in Himmler’s chart are striking. He had both Saturn and Neptune square his Moon (a T square) and Mercury sextile Saturn and trine Neptune.

Saturn narrows our thinking. That can be a good thing when we are trying to accomplish a goal, but not so good when it is applied to other people. It can lead to selfishness and an inability to appreciate any point of view other than your own.

Neptune can be about compassion, but it also confuses. It messes with our perception of reality and makes us susceptible to errant idea and lazy thinking.

I’m not saying that these charts are representative of all bigots, but I think we would find an emphasis on Saturn and Neptune in many of them. Nor am I say that this combination always results in narrow-mindedness and delusional thinking. What I am describing here is the lowest function of these planets. We all have a responsibility to seek the highest.

So what does all of this have to do with Charlottesville? For much of last year, during the presidential campaign, transiting Saturn and transiting Neptune were is a square aspect. At the time I described this as Saturn shutting off Neptunian compassion. During this period people who already had Saturn choking off compassion and Neptune confusing their thinking in their horoscopes heard a voice coming from one of the candidates that made them feel empowered. There’s no reason to think that this was intentional, but it didn’t have to be. What we’re seeing in America right now is the answer to that voice.