Astrology, Prediction and Comment

At the beginng of the week Mercury moves from Aquarius to Pisces, where it aspects Uranus.  Mercury doesn’t function very well in Pisces, and many of us will lose our sharpness.  However some of us might have some brilliant ideas – the kind of brilliant ideas that turn out to be disasters.

Towards the end of the week, Venus moves to the fixed star Scheat, before moving into Aries. Venus is the planet of young women, Scheat the star of drowning, so the tragedy of Ophelia comes to mind.  In a practical sense, don’t worry about another person’s crazy and hurtful actions – there might be a method to their madness.

And here are my star sign forecasts for the week starting on Monday February 3 2020:

Aries Spring is in the air, at least it is if you’re in the Northern hemisphere, and the Rams are in the mood for action.  However for most of the week partners and lovers are feeling introspective.  By the weekend they are back on form, and fresh encounters are a real possibility.

Taurus You’re an interesting person – more interesting than many people realize.  And right now, with Mercury aspecting Uranus, you know how to project your thoughts and ideas.  Avoid activities connected with boats and water.

Gemini Mercury, your ruler, is moving into Pisces.  This is a two-edged sword.  You’re certainly going to be ambitous, and in your career environment you can express yourself very well.  However there is a danger of a misunderstanding – perhaps you’ll rely too much on your feelings.

Cancer Communication works on a sublimal level.  It is not the big statements that matter, but rather the small gestures.  And don’t exclude the telephathic dimension.  A dream that is very vivid, perhaps involving rivers and sea, could be very significnt.

Leo Keep going.  You might not have as much control as you like, but if you hold to what is true you’ll be fine.  And don’t worry if you don’t get enough attention – it’s a passing phase.  At the end of the week you should seek friends and contacts in far-flung locations.

Virgo Life is a zero-sum game, and when one person strengthens, another person weakens.  Right now, with Mercury moving from Aquarius to Pisces, your overall position is below par.  So avoid competitions, and I think battles should be saved for later.

Libra As the week progresses you become accident prone, so don’t do anything dangerous.  Be particularly careful when it comes to water, so it would be a bad idea to perform DIY plumbing jobs.  You also need to decide what your limits are.

Scorpio Keep plugging away on the financial front.  You’re making progress, and what seems like a worry can actually be an opportunity.  Those close to you are worried about something, and the sooner they tell you what’s on their mind, the better.

Sagittarius What you want and what other people want are not the same.  And it’s not a situation where you can compromise.  Sometimes it is necessary for paths to diverge.  They may cross again, they may grow further and further apart.

Capricorn You’re surprisingly talkative, but you may find that your words fall on stoney ground.  So before opening your mouth, consider your audience.  Idiots never listen, the wise already know.  At the end of the week you’re in the mood for home decoration.  But is your taste up to it?

Aquarius As the Moon gets brighter, you feel more able to put your plans into action.  It might also be a good time to discuss your pet projects, but only with people you trust.  Avoid spending money, unless it is on something you really need.

Pisces Mercury moves into your star sign.  Finally the right person moves into your orbit, and you have a chance to win them over.  But respect their boundaries, and don’t try to force things.  In love your magnetism is higher than average.

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What was the biggest maritime tragedy in history?  The sinking of the Titanic?
The Titanic was certainly a disaster, with 1,517 people killed.  However this was nothing compared to the Wilhelm Gustloff, which was torpedoed 75 years ago today, on January 30 1945

The Wilhelm Gustloff was a German passenger ship, that was built by the Nazis for holiday cruises.  It became a hospital ship, and then in 1945, as the Soviet army was crashing into the Eastern parts of the Germany, it became an escape vessel.  At the time there was  terror amongst German citizens, and they were desperate to flee the advancing Russians.  The land routes were blocked, and the only option was to go by sea.

It was under these circumstances that the Wilhelm Gustloff set sail from Gdynia, en route to Kiel, across the Baltic Sea.  It was January 30 and it was very cold.

The rest of the story is tragically inevitable, though surprisingly few people have heard of the disaster.  This is in spite of the efforts of German novelist Gunter Grass, who wove the Wilhelm Gustloff’s sinking into a haunting work of fiction, titled Crabwalk.

Such was the panic to board the Wilhelm Gustloff that no-one is quite sure how many people were on board.  However it was probably around ten thousand.  As the ship crossed the Baltic, it was spotted by a Soviet submarine, which fired four torpedoes at it, and three of them hit. The ship went down quickly, but not so quickly that the officers in command weren’t able to save themselves.  Yet the vast majority of passengers died – that’s right, about 9,400 people were killed.  That’s over six times as many people who died on the Titanic.  Over three times as many people who died in the World Trade Center.

As Gunter Grass pointed out, there are two weird coincidences relating to the sinking.

Firstly, January 30 1945, the day of the sinking, was the twelfth anniversary of Hitler coming to power – he became German Chancellor on January 30 1933.
Secondly, there’s a link with the person whom the Wilhelm Gustloss was named after.

The man Wilhelm Gustloff was a Swiss Nazi, who was actively anti-semitic.  In 1936 he was assassinated by a Jewish student, and the Nazi establishment in Germany gave him an elaborate funeral, attended by Adolf Hitler himself.

And when was Wilhelm Gustloff born?  January 30 1895, so the ship named after him was torpedoed on what would have been his fiftieth birthday.

Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on January 30 1933, at 11.07 am.  The chart for his swearing-in is the chart for Nazi Germany.  This means that we can see Nazi Germany as an Aquarian organization.

The sign Aquarius is possibly the most misunderstood of the twelve signs.  This misunderstanding wasn’t helped by the sixties musical Hair, which talked about the dawning of the Age of Aquarius:

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind’s true liberation
Aquarius
Aquarius

This is a million miles from the real meaning of the sign.  Aquarius, in the North Hemisphere, is associated with winter.  If you are a traditionalist, you’ll take Saturn as the sign’s ruler.  However Aquarius, unlike Capricorn, is a positive, Air sign.  This means that Saturn is not just about tradition and restriction.  It is also about the harnessing of technology and modern ideas to enforce its will.  Nazi Germany wanted to control people with the most up-to-date methods.  For example having a modern bureaucracy to run a brutally  efficient police state.  And when it came to warfare, using the power of Germany industry to create the best possible weapons.

At this stage, you might think I am being unfair to Aquarians.  Well, individuals possibly have more freedom than organizations.  They can make their own moral choices, whereas organizations are more likely to get locked into monolithic collective forces.  Yet Aquarians are stubborn.  They might listen to many different views, but very often they won’t change their minds.  Reasonable on the outside, but deep down very rigid.  Going back to Nazi Germany, here is the horoscope:

Notice that the chart includes the eight hypothetical planets of Uranian astrology.  More about that in a bit.

In many respects the chart is dominated by Saturn.  It is in the Tenth House, in its own sign of Aqurius.  We can also use the kind of analysis described by Robert Hand, in his monograph Night & Day: Planetary Sect in Astrology.  Saturn is a daytime planet in a daytime chart, it is above the horizon in a daytime chart, and it is a daytime planet in a daytime sign.  It is therefore completely in sect, and very strong.  The strength of Saturn, which is the natural planet of authority, allowed the Nazis to get their way.  It also amplified the worst aspects of Aquarius – ideological, intolerant of opposition, and using technology and machinery to achieve its ends.

Yet what interests me  most about the chart is the exact conjunction between Hades and Admetos, in Aries.  Hades is the C with a cross, Admetos the Mercury symbol with a crossed circle.   These are hypothetical planets, but I nonetheless use them.  Both planets are about death.  Hades relates to death, garbage and crime, while Admetos is connected to limitation and delay.  Mythologically, Admetos is the postponement of your death through the death of someone else.  For example, in 1945 the German army, including old men and the Hitler Youth, fighting and dying just to give their leaders a few more days of power.  Witte sees the combination of Hades and Admetos as being about something slowly decaying, as vitality and raw materials  slowly drain away.

The Sun in Aquarius is exactly sextile the Hades-Admetos conjunction.  This means that the energy of this deadly combination is brought into the living heart of the here and now.  We can also see how the Hades-Admetos conjunction links to Mars and the Aries Point.  The Mars-Hades midpoint is 29 49 Gemini, the Mars-Admetos midpoint 29 51 Gemini.  In other words, the midpoints are very close to zero Cancer, which is square zero Aries.

The Aries point represents the world.  It is humanity at large, or as Witte described it, “the general public”.  Aries on the Mars-Hades and Mars-Admetos midpoint represents massive  violence inflicted on the world at large.  Aries is also semi-square the Pluto-Node midpoint.  Reinhold Ebertin wrote that the negative manifestation of the Pluto-Node pair is “A common and tragic destiny shared with other persons”.

Britain leaves the European Union on January 31 2020, at 11 pm GMT.  Above is the chart of Brexit, set for London.  We can safely say that an astrologer did not choose the timing of Brexit, at least on the British side.  It is not a great chart, and it suggests that Britain’s leaving of the EU is not going to be an easy process.  The Moon is in the Seven House, in the last degree of Aries, and this indicates that over the coming year Britain is not going to be in a strong position, and getting the better of its enemies will be hard work.

We also see that there is a Saturn-Pluto conjunction on the lower meridian.  In a way this a self-explanatory – it is a signature of divorce.  Alfred Witte is more specific, when he wrote of the Meridian on the Saturn-Pluto midpoint: “To develop slowly.  Hard to adapt oneself.  To separate oneself easily from something.  To be inclined for divorce”.  Reinhold Ebertin was a bit more positive about this midpoint: “The desire to rise from difficult circumstances through the application of tenacity and endurance…”.  This gives the picture.  It is a chart that relates to separation, and while the divorce itself might be easy, it is going to be hard work.

There is also an indication of a shock, something that no-one had thought of.  This is indicated by the Moon’s conjunct with Uranus.  We’re just not going to see the result we expect.  However, Brexit is a long-term project, and I don’t believe that this chart on its own will jinx it.  We just have to be ready for a difficult transition.