Spiritual Company Newsletter:
Astrological Trends for 2008 and Beyond

By Steffan Vanel • Astrologer • Tarot  Reader

Author of: The Astrological Karma of the USA
And: Charles & Diana: The Inside Story: An Astrological-Karmic View

Dear Friends and Clients, This is another fairly lengthy newsletter. You might want to print it out.

Pluto into Capricorn

Election Day: Uranus vs. Saturn : Responsibility vs. Freedom

The Candidates

Pluto into Capricorn

The slowest moving planet, Pluto, (which I still consider a planet) will move from the Astrological sign Sagittarius, where it has been since 1995, into the sign of Capricorn in January of 2008. Astrologically this is a big deal. Pluto will remain in Capricorn until 2024.

Since Pluto remains in a sign for such a long time its effects are relevant for a whole generation. The effects, however, always involve some kind of Plutonian death and rebirth.

For example, I was born in 1951, part of the ‘baby-boomer’ generation, which has Pluto in Leo. My parents were both born in 1925. They both have Pluto in Cancer. The Ascended Master Hilarion, communicating through the medium Maurice Cooke and published in the book: Astrology Plus, has said that someone who has the Sun in Cancer in their birthchart is someone who has dedicated themselves to the care and nurture of others, as in a home or family or with children. In this lifetime they will have a connection to those kinds of caring and nurturing qualities. He goes on to say, however, that the Cancer’s sense of identity may be too dependent upon the care and nurture of others, in which case they are sometimes forced to experience an increased insecurity in personal relationships in order to be forced to seek the only true security, between yourself and the Great Spirit.

Now, looking at the generation that has Pluto in Cancer, basically the parents of the baby-boomers, we can see that they have had to witness and experience the destruction of the family unit as the basic cohesive unit of Society. Before 1915, when Pluto went into Cancer, an individual almost never did anything that was unapproved by your parents, (unless you had a strong Uranus in your chart). Marriages rarely split up; you followed the ways of your family and social/community group. You rarely moved away from where you were from.

Now, more marriages split up than stay together, and it is much less common to stay where you grew up, or to follow in the path of your parents, childhood society, or community.

Of course it was the baby boomers who really put the nail in the coffin in the death of the family. We have Pluto in Leo, sometimes called the ‘me’ generation. We were the group to emerge the psychological concept of ‘self-actualization,’ basically, the psychological prerogative to enable one to affirm and manifest the innate potentials of oneself, free from the restrictions of previous conditionings, including family (Cancerian) conditionings.

In observing the baby-boomers I’ve evolved a theory as to why they are often a little neurotic in their approach to aging. For example, we spend much more money on anti-aging therapies and surgeries than any previous generation. My theory goes like this: The baby boomers experienced the most radical split from their parent’s generation of any two generations in history. We rejected everything about them, their belief systems, their diet, their music, their dress, their religions, and their styles of sexuality. We rejected everything associated with them, including the fact that one day we would become old and crusty just like them. Think of the 60’s musical anthem by the British band, The Who: ‘My Generation,’ One of the lyrics is: “Hope I die before I get old, talkin bout my generation.

Now that we are getting old and crusty just like our parents, it is a bit of a rude awakening. Ironically we liberated our ability to self-actualize but that self still has to die, or at least the physical aspect of that self. This is Pluto in Leo.

The Ascended Master Hilarion has said that someone who has the Sun in Leo is someone who has, in some previous lifetime, come to the rescue of a group of people through an act of leadership and courage, without that courageous effort those people would have perished. As a reward for that self-less act, the Leo is given, in this life, an extra energy, physically, mentally, or emotionally, and an image of themselves ahead of or leading other people.

The danger is that this extra energy can get attached to their ego, leading to pride and self-aggrandizement. They need to cultivate the other potential quality of Leo, which is kindness. Hilarion points out, however, that even kind Leos can think that the world is a play in which they are the principle actor and everything revolves around them.

Clearly, that Leo karmic situation is relatable to the previously mentioned lessons and actions of the baby-boomer’s stated above. There is yet another arena where the death/rebirth of Pluto has affected the Pluto in Leo generation. That is the death of the ability to have faith in human leaders for identity, faith and security. This has occurred due to their actual physical deaths, i.e.: President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, John Lennon, etc., or their complete humiliation or at least substantial fall from their once great and noble stature, i.e.: Nixon, Stalin, Mao. I will return to this theme about leaders and the current actions of the Pluto in Leo generation when I speak about Pluto in Sagittarius.

Pluto in Scorpio, the sign ruled by Pluto and the sign of sex, birth, and death, is an easy call. Pluto entered Scorpio on November 6, 1983. The Sun was also in Scorpio on that day. That was the time period when the full impact of the Aids epidemic was entering the collective experience of the planet. Now you could have sex with someone and you could die. Very Plutonian. I have written about the specific impact of this upon the male homosexual community of the United States in my book: The Astrological Karma of the USA.  In a global context Aids has definitely put a great damper on the ability to indulge in indiscriminate sexuality.

Pluto in Sagittarius. Sagittarius is a sign of religion, philosophy, travel, and belief system. One observation I have had during this time period was the work that Pope John Paul was doing in raising some of the dark Plutonian underworld shadows of the Catholic church, whether of the Inquisition or of historical relations with Jews or the Orthodox church. The Pope made the effort to acknowledge, heal and release these painful memories.

The Church has also had to deal with some of its Plutonian dark, hidden, underworld shadows through the coming to light of all the cases of sexual abuse during this period of Pluto in Sagittarius. The fact that the majority of these cases occurred in the United States is relatable to our Sagittarian Ascendant which creates a certain self-righteousness and potential for denial. It is also relatable to aspects within the natal birthchart of the US which indicate some rather intense karma around sexuality.

Another recognizable Pluto in Sagittarius phenomenon is the large furor and controversy over the radical tenets of the novel/film: ‘The Da Vinci Code.’ This was especially Plutonian as it deals with the possibility of Jesus, whom many believe to be God incarnate, having had a human sexual life.

During this time of Pluto in Sagittarius, people have, more than ever before, been questioning their belief systems. Many have left for non-traditional belief systems. Others have enmeshed themselves into more fundamentalist versions of their traditional belief systems. Perhaps the Pluto in Leo baby boomers, who have lost their faith in traditional human leaders, have now been transferring that need for deference to a leader to their devotion to Jesus or Mohammed.

The shadow side of Sagittarius is moral or religious fanaticism. We have certainly seen plenty of that since 1995. One interesting observation: When Pluto just dipped into Sagittarius for one month, before going back into Scorpio, and then later returning to complete the journey through Sagittarius, was in April of 1995. This was when the Federal Building was blown up in Oklahoma City. Welcome to Pluto in Sagittarius.

The United States is particularly prone to having to deal with this kind of fanaticism as it has, as I previously mentioned, a Sagittarian Ascendant, which, according to Hilarion, gives a self-image of oneself as ‘honest, upright, and morally strong, whether true or not.’ As I noted in my book, Pluto was less than one degree from the Sagittarian self-image of the United States on September 11.

What I have said thus far is to ‘set the stage’ for what we may expect to develop during the next sixteen years or so, when Pluto will be moving through the sign of Capricorn.

Hilarion says that someone born with the Sun in Capricorn is someone who accomplished a lot in material ways in previous lives, and helped other people in practical, material ways. This gives the Capricorn in this life a lot of ambition to make something of themselves in the eyes of the world. It also gives the Capricorn a lot of self-reliance, the ability to rely on themselves. That, however, is where they will tend to put their faith. It is harder than for the average person for the Capricorn to surrender and be vulnerable to what they cannot touch. Although difficult it is not impossible, and the Capricorn who succeeds in opening that Saturnian ‘ring pass not’ of belief (Saturn rules Capricorn), accomplishes more than what other souls have to contend with, and a lot of spiritual teachers are actually Capricorns.

Personally, I expect the time period of Pluto in Capricorn to be a period when the ability to over-rely on concrete, material, economic realities for your identity or security will have the rug pulled out from under it. It may well wreak havoc on the world economy, not just to create destruction, however, but also to allow a new birth of consciousness freed from material obsession.

This Astrological influence may be particularly strong in its effect upon the United States as we have Pluto in Capricorn in our natal birthchart. Indeed, that was the last time period when Pluto was moving through the sign of Capricorn. Pluto entered into Capricorn in 1762. During those following years there was the intense development of colonization of the world by the European world powers. This colonization brought about a transformation of previous economic realities. The world was rapidly becoming ‘one place,’ but one where you could now leave the land and economic status you were born into and seek to create your own economic destiny. This new freedom and the eventual industrial revolution it heralded also allowed societies to rebel against the tyranny of their kings and monarchical, hierarchical societies. This economic expansion was more devastating and destructive to the tribal and third world communities who were dominated by these European powers.

Now we are approaching the next octave of what Pluto in Capricorn has wrought. Through globalization, the world has more than ever before become ‘one place.’ The United States, the nation which first created the legal framework currently used for the existence of corporations, entities with the rights of an individual but with no innate human conscience, whose primary or even sole purpose is profit. The US has been instrumental in facilitating this immense economic development and globally connected economic network.

At the time of this writing we are already on the cusp of Pluto going into Capricorn. We can already see the ‘writing on the wall’ as it were. Using only one lens to look into this likely economic death/rebirth global reality with intense Plutonian dimensions is enough to get the picture: Global Warming. There are now over 6 and a half billion of us on this planet and virtually every one of those individuals wants to live the ‘American Dream.’ They all want to own at least one car, have their own large house with their own appliances etc. Clearly there is something wrong with this picture. If we continue to promote the American Dream as the economic model for life on this planet Global Warming will likely turn the dream into a nightmare.

The other factor we can surmise will emerge during the next sixteen years is that somewhere in that time period, some people say sooner, some people say later, but somewhere in there, there is going to be the likely admission that world oil production has peaked. This approaching reality is something the world has clearly not prepared itself for at all.

Capricorn and its ruling planet, Saturn, are associated with governments, businesses and other organized authoritative structures. Pluto in Capricorn could very well dig up secret underworld conniving among these groups, and/or lead to their destruction. Pluto makes you look deep within yourself, to assess what are your deepest truest motives. Are they of love, or of fear and greed?

Now this may sound a bit like doom and gloom. I tell my clients, however, that the planets move in the sky and hit things in your chart so that you may learn a lesson. We can learn these lessons gracefully, or we can learn them kicking and screaming. As they say: “Pain is necessary, suffering is optional.

If the world can see the ‘writing on the wall’ and see that we need to transform the way that we live, materially and economically, on this fragile planet, then we can go through a tremendous transformation of the way in which we live, not only economically and materially, but also sociologically and spiritually. It is time for the focus of our physical, material life on this planet to be one which is liberated from selfish self-interest, which is lacking compassionate sensitivity to the reality of the whole and the purposes of spiritual evolution on the planet.

I could imagine the inscription I saw on a t-shirt in Hawaii becoming the logo for the approaching years of Pluto in Capricorn: “He who dies with the most toys…..still dies!

Sagittarius is a fiery and rather feisty sign. Capricorn is an earthy and a rather more stable sign. I don’t know if Pluto going into Capricorn on January 26, 2008 will be as dramatic as was Pluto going into Sagittarius in April of 1995. But you can be sure, I’ll be watching.

The Election: Uranus vs. Saturn : Responsibility vs. Freedom

The other major Astrological factor to affect the world next year is the fact that Saturn will move into opposition to Uranus. Saturn relates to the concepts of responsibility, commitment, structure, authority etc. Uranus relates to concepts of freedom from old patterns that have outlived their purpose, sudden change, and openness to the unusual and non-conventional. I would say this opposition will also be known as the 2008 American Presidential election. The opposition will begin to be within six degrees of orb of influence on September 21, but it will not be exact until November 4th, which happens to be, as ‘luck’ would have it, Election Day.

It seems that after the conventions and the prelude is over, it will again be another intense 50-50 cliff hanger tilting on the swing states, undecided until the night of the election, whether we are going to go with the Saturnian Republican who will ‘stay the course,’ or we vote for a woman or an African-American or another Democrat with the possibility and uncertainty of Uranian change.

The opposition will be at the 19th degrees of Virgo and Pisces, which means Saturn and Uranus will conjunct and oppose the Mars/Neptune square in the US natal birthchart. This square between Mars (the God of War) and Neptune (God of Illusion and Deception) is what got us involved in the War in Iraq in the first place. The election will obviously be intensely polarized Saturnian and Uranian approaches to the War.

Personally I find that both ‘staying the course’ (Saturn) and ‘just pulling the troops out in six months’ (Uranus) are scary propositions. Clearly what we need is a balanced integration of these two energies. With our political system which is based on polarity, it makes it that much more difficult for healthy integration of these energies to emerge.

You can read my previous newsletter: ‘Demagogues and Reptilians,’ where I put forth my own proposal to end the War in Iraq.

The Candidates

There are too many candidates to look at all of their Astrological charts. I’m afraid it’s just too much work at this early date. I am going to wait until it gets narrowed down to two and then go to work. I promise that for the new president I will devote a pretty serious analysis for insight into the new captain at the helm of our ship.

One thing I figured I could do for these predictions for 2008 is to cut a Tarot Card for each of the main contenders asking how they are likely to be feeling on the day after the election. So here goes:

Rudy Giuliani – Princess of Swords

Here you have adapted to this mental personality who is very intelligent and perceptive, but who has a certain self-righteous anger or judgment, which she feels justified in having. This is bad enough when it is directed outwardly against others, but it is much more damaging when it is directed inwardly against herself.

Mitt Romney – Princess of Swords

Here you have adapted to this mental personality who is very intelligent and perceptive, but who has a certain self-righteous anger or judgment, which she feels justified in having. This is bad enough when it is directed outwardly against others, but it is much more damaging when it is directed inwardly against herself.

John McCain - Five of Swords - Defeat

Here there is a mental uncertainty, unclarity, seeking compromise, when what is needed is the ability to see what you need to see and do it.

Fred Thompson –  Princess of Swords

Here you have adapted to this mental personality who is very intelligent and perceptive, but who has a certain self-righteous anger or judgment, which she feels justified in having. This is bad enough when it is directed outwardly against others, but it is much more damaging when it is directed inwardly against herself.

Mike Huckabee – Prince of Swords

Here you have adapted to this mental personality who is very intelligent and mentally active, but tends to get caught up in ‘mental gymnastics’. He is seated in a chariot, which is pulled by three leaping children so the chariot is easy enough to move, but it doesn’t go in any definite direction except by accident.

Hillary Clinton – Ten of Disks - Wealth

Here there is the awareness of having an accumulated richness of potential, which however, has reached the point where you cannot become any richer accumulating more potential. It has reached the point where you must begin to use it. Otherwise it may begin to stagnate.

Barack Obama - Princess of Cups

Here you have adapted to this emotional personality who is very flowing and gracious and romantic. However, she tends to live a bit in her own dream world, not totally connected to reality as it is. She tends to blur the rough edges of life.

John Edwards - Six of Cups - Pleasure

Here you are experiencing an emotional harmony and balance, creating an aura and sense of pleasure.

Bill Richardson - Princess of Swords

Here you have adapted to this mental personality who is very intelligent and perceptive, but who has a certain self-righteous anger or judgment, which she feels justified in having. This is bad enough when it is directed outwardly against others, but it is much more damaging when it is directed inwardly against herself.

Joseph Biden - The Priestess

Here you are being initiated into the presence and consciousness of the Priestess, corresponding to the Moon, she is the Goddess of the Moon the Full Moon, the perfect reception and reflection of the spiritual light.

The Princess of Swords, personality of critical judgment and guilt, seems to be a popular identity to latch onto for likely failed presidential candidates.

My question here wasn’t who was going to win, but rather how each was likely to be feeling on the day after the election. For example Hillary Clinton could be feeling the wealth of potential she now has as President, but aware that it is still up to her to use it. Or Barack Obama could be feeling positive and romantic, but blurring some of the rough edges of the reality of now being the President of the United States. The Democrats on the whole, however, are definitely seeming to be feeling more chipper than the Republicans on that day.

Based on these results one could imagine Joseph Biden as President with John Edwards as Vice-President as a positive outcome. We shall see.

PS: I am personally a fan of Dennis Kucinich, but as he doesn’t have much of a chance and will probably be feeling happy just having been able to use his candidacy to promote awareness of a more progressive agenda, I didn’t ask the cards about his feelings on that day.

I would say the same about Ron Paul and his libertarian agenda.

Postscript Jan. 8: Obviously by now everyone is aware that Joseph Biden has dropped out of the race. Of course at the time of this query we all knew that his candidacy was already a longshot. I did hear his last campaign speech the night before the Iowa Caucus, and I must say I was personally quite impressed. Friends of mind who know Biden say that he was more realistically hoping to ultimately land the job of Secretary of State. I still believe that he will be experiencing the initiation of The Priestess the day after the election.

Blessings,
Steffan Vanel

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