How Pluto Created the Modern World
When the International Astronomical Union decided to classify Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006, it was because previous to that year scientists had no strict definition of what a planet was. Astrologers have always known how to define a planet. A planet is a celestial body that has an observable influence on human consciousness. As far as astrologers are concerned, Pluto meets this definition in spades.
Pluto introduced itself to human consciousness with a bang in 1945, fifteen years after it was discovered. That bang was the dropping of the first atomic bomb. Pluto is about power, power that supersedes the paltry ego of any individual. It is the power to shake a world, and maybe even destroy a world. In 1945 human beings learned, much to their shock and dismay, that they had that power.
As with Uranus and Neptune, Pluto began showing its influence years prior to its discovery. The scientific discoveries that eventually brought about the nuclear bomb began early in the 20th Century. These scientific breakthroughs, involving the structure of the atom and quantum mechanics, showed us another face of Pluto.
During this extremely fruitful period of discovery, presumptions about the nature of reality were broken down and transformed, as scientists dug deeper and deeper into the fabric of our world. One result of that transformation was the atom bomb, but another was the great leap forward in technology that has given us computers, cell phones and all the other gadgets that we consider essential to modern living.
In the years just before and after Pluto’s discovery in 1930 we saw the rise of totalitarian regimes: Fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany and Stalinism in Russia. The politics of these governments may have been different, but they were all based on an idea that the will of masses overrode the needs of any individual.
This is yet another facet of Pluto’s nature. Pluto rules mass movements, the motivation of large groups of people toward a single goal. Obvious, this is a kind power that can be put to good use. When it goes awry, however, it is a fearsome thing to see. And, if human history is any indication, it almost always goes awry
.It didn’t take long for astrologers to settle on the symbolism of Pluto. The events of the first half of the 20th Century, certainly the bloodiest period humanity has even known, made it clear that Pluto had arrived and that it wasn’t a planet to be trifled with. We came to see Pluto as a dark agent, bringing into the world destruction and death on a scale and in manner more inhuman than had ever been seen before.
But Pluto isn’t just about destruction. It is also about transformation. The threat of nuclear anniliation transformed the way in which nations think about war, just as the Holocaust transformed the way we think about racial prejudice. We certain cannot say that these manifestations of Pluto are gone for good, but our consciousness with regard to these issues has changed.
Pluto is by no means through transforming us. There are still armed groups and armed individual who seek to impose their will on their neighbors. We may not be dropping atomic bombs right now, but there are economic bombs (such as the one that was dropped in 2008) that allow the privileged to dictate to the unprivileged. Pluto will continue to bring us pain, to spur us to dig beneath the surface and lead us toward fundamental changes in our consciousness. When it stops doing that, then we can demote it to a dwarf planet.
