© 2002 Curtis Manwaring
In this era of Pluto in Sagittarius, it is hardly surprising that fanaticism and closed mindedness are very prevalent in today's society. While most astrologers tend to think of terrorism in association with Pluto in Sagittarius, it is much broader than that. The various manifestations derive from the root meaning of Pluto, which represents the principle of alogos. [1] In Greek, "a" in front of a word indicates it's opposite meaning. In this case, because logos translates as "ratio" in Latin, which means reason or due proportion, "alogos" means the opposite of reason, due proportion and logic. Because the sagittarian archetype is correlated with philosophy, this represents a time when lack of due proportion (perspective), lack of rationality, and fanaticism in argument, logic and philosophy, will try to prevail over reason. At the same time Pluto in Sagittarius indicates that great depths of wisdom can be reached. This is because Pluto represents the extremes, both the highs and lows, of existence. The old saying that "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom" is especially true of Pluto in Sagittarius. It is ironic that at a time when great wisdom can be reached, irrationality fights so hard to prevail. As Francis Bacon once said, nature must be tortured to give up her secrets.
Recently, Saturn has been bringing this issue to a head and making the situation worse by transiting Gemini in opposition to Pluto. Saturn represents the principle of agnoia, which means ignorance. And since Gemini is watched over by Mercury, whose principle is logos (as the meaning was already stated above), Saturn in Gemini literally means "ignoring reason". But at the same time, Saturn represents that which is old, or obligatory. So Saturn in Gemini can also mean "old systems of logic or thought", or "old news, information about the past, forced or obliged travel", etc... These two planets are the main reason why kidnappings, betrayals of trust, lack of faith in the church and the old news of catholic priest misconduct are coming to light now.
Unfortunately, the field of astrology is not immune to this influence. It is ironic that many of those who have made the case for an open minded look at astrology in the 70's and 80's and up until the mid 90's (until Pluto entered Sagittarius in '95) are now saying that study of older more ancient forms of astrology should be avoided. This is almost the same position that the christian church espouses! Catholic priests have also been having a terrible time during this era of Pluto in Sagittarius. They took a vow of celibacy and had to repress their sexual urges. As Jung would have said, repression only makes the shadow stronger. Astrologers who repress the urge to look into the past will live in the shadow of historic redundancy, failing to advance in wisdom.
Now, I am in agreement that we cannot automatically take the hellenistic context and use that in modern times. I am also aware that the delineations of ancient astrologers focused on the more concrete, and were fatalistic. I hope there is enough common sense in the general population that I don't have to say that these delineations are not meant to be taken too literally, but are composite representations of case studies based upon philosophical first principles. In other words, many of these delineations represent what can happen if you blindly follow the path of least resistance. Most people have enough sense to avoid such danger once they are aware of it. In the future, I plan to show what these same indicators mean from a parallel psychological and spiritual perspective, which is why understanding the philosophical first principles is so important. Much of modern pop astrology suffers from muddy illogical thinking (in the words of Alan White: the "muffy starbright syndrome"), and these first principles are what is necessary for a cure.
That being said, if you really want to increase in wisdom, it is foolish to avoid hellenistic or other forms of ancient astrology just because "it's old". If you fail to take the history of astrology seriously, your understanding will be shallow, lacking in depth and perspective, and your ability to theorize intelligently will be compromised because you have not paid attention to some extremely important cosmological models.
All of this is why I named these the "x-files of astrology", because it seems that few (even astrologers) are willing to take them seriously.
- Curtis Manwaring, software developer and astrologer (Sep. 11, 2002)
Notes:
1. According to Robert Schmidt.
