The Dream Seekers: Neptune in Sagittarius

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Neptune, the Guardian of the Great Ocean – this far out in space, the focus is on much broader issues than just you and I and even the future of the human race. Neptune represents something fundamentally beyond (yet one with) material existence. It is the urge to transcend, to unify one’s awareness with the completely boundless, commonly expressed in a yearning to seek escape from the ‘prison’ of a confining material reality through drugs, music, or the imagination, but Neptune is intended not merely for escape but for transcendence into unity. It therefore builds on the influence of Uranus, adding other dimensions and another challenge to the birth of the collective – whereby through the initiation of the planet Uranus we have to wake up and accept one another’s individual differences and emphasise our common humanity or face being fractured into ever more differing factions until we fall apart, by Neptune we have to remain anchored as we drift deep into dreaming worlds that embrace our wider unity, perceiving ourselves as one with all other things and coming to a place of deep mutual respect and compassion for them, or else fall to confusion, the collective dissolving in a stupor of warring faiths and dreams, entranced and overcome by secretive cabals and conspiracies which seek to supplant the collective with the most dominant religious or ideological paradigm, a ‘one truth to rule them all’. Humanity cannot exist in or sustain a healthy collective state of awareness without embracing the equality of all life – not just human life as with the agenda of Uranus – because if it does not move beyond an emphasis that places humans at the centre it becomes vain and egotistical and loses its soul. It is the evocation of the soul of the collective that Neptune is most concerned with, where Uranus is the evocation of its mind and spirit.

This is why Neptune associates itself with the far-out, the extremes of possibility that lie beyond even the inspired but semi-logical reasoning of the planet Uranus. Where Uranus shows us that there are always alternatives to the way things have always been, Neptune reveals that all alternatives are part of a whole, a voyage of awareness towards total awareness of Unity. The seemingly endless routes to enlightenment with their infinite promises dissolve into a single truth – that the multiverse is a living mind, with a soul of sorts that inevitably leads it to become aware of its own reality, throughout all of its diversity. Unconditional love – a phrase and concept often linked to Neptune – then becomes the only authentic way of being.

Neptune was discovered on September 23rd 1846 – just over 170 years ago – by use of (suitably arcane) mathematical equations. Its orbit is very lengthy – it takes Neptune just under 165 years to completely orbit the Sun and pass through all 12 zodiac signs. This has important implications for the 26 keys because it means Neptune will not activate every key of our chart since only about half of it will be visited by Neptune in a normal human lifespan. It means that the influence of Neptune is not just subtle and difficult to discern due to its slow movement, but also that its influence is somewhat of a partial glimpse of the whole – a human awareness of life cannot embrace it wholly – and so Neptune is more confined in form of development than any other planet except Pluto, although new discoveries like Eris now join this group. Neptune, however, was the first of its kind. It is also the most subtle planet to discern at work, bar none (except, again, new discoveries may be even more subtle in influence). As a completely invisible planet (to the naked human eye) Neptune represents completely invisible and intangible influences that generally take time to bleed into the collective or individual awareness, as well as the development of psychic senses which unveil the greater mysteries of the universe. The overall effect of Neptune tends to influence what physical beings are collectively feeling or sensing, while Uranus generally influences what they are collectively thinking, although these distinctions are not at all rigid.

As a reminder, in an earlier article I have had this to say about the influence of the Neptune cycle:

“The Neptune (and Pluto) micro cycles are also mysterious partly because they are parts of the largest order of macro cycles (and thus contain complex nuances from other smaller cycles) and additionally because they are fragmentary as there is no possible transmission of the wisdom of a complete cycle from elder humans. Sometimes, there are historical flashpoints that illuminate the cycle. The Neptune micro cycle tends to manifest in visual and fashion trends, and in the modern era not just with themes and moods in film but also with the ways visual media are consumed, such as vogues in gaming (MMO, shooter, etc) but it also resonates fiercely with religious ideology and spiritual movements, and these are more often the flashpoints. The Neptune in Pisces era, for example, is a generation that will be the first born into a world where the delivery of visual arts is made through virtual reality – total immersion, with a deep shaping of the unconscious – but there is also a religious flashpoint in the form of the ancient feud between Islam and Christianity.

Moods in music shift in a Neptune way as Neptune transitions between signs – Disco and Punk (Neptune in Sagittarius – do not forget this is not only a gregarious and flamboyant sign but the only sign armed with a fashioned weapon in the zodiac) became ‘New Romantic/Pop’ (Neptune in Capricorn, the ‘glamour’ of the materialistic utopia lifestyle of the 80s) and eventually went with yellow faced smiley Techno and spontaneous, socially aware Rap (Neptune in Aquarius), but how exactly did those transitions happen? They were all gradual, seamless changes, not the jarring ones they might seem to be from different styles of the music, and yet they neatly encapsulate the mood of a specific era and make it look more dated as fresher visions emerge. This is the slow erosion of Neptune at work – once it leaves a sign, the ‘visions’ cease, and artists attached to them adapt or ‘lose their muse’ and fall out of popularity.

However, this is where the Neptune tribes come in, because they still carry a torch for that wave and still seek its visions. They will tend to cluster together in nostalgic recognition of certain ‘classic memes’ as time goes by. Once one of the other slower moving planets enters their Neptune sign, say Jupiter or Saturn, they will get busy with it again on some level. When Neptune goes into a different sign but one with the same Element, the muses are with a different tribe but what that tribe does sends ripples into our tribe which also get it working on the vision again, though this time more astrally, in daydreams and other forms of astral interaction. Yet when Neptune squares itself when we are about 41-42, it is part of the mid-life crisis our generation goes through, because the vision we came in with is challenged by its lack of realisation (and there is always a lack, because 42 years is not enough with only fragmented individuals working on the agenda, this should be a unified team effort). For all these reasons and others the collective astrology generated by Neptune in the signs is not as compelling or forceful compared to other planets discussed here, and this means that organised groups of these Neptune tribes rarely form and remain cohesive. But what if they did? What power might they hold if the tribes heard the voice calling them, saw the vision that was before them and followed in its light from childhood on as part of the sacred wheel of life? It was once so, when we took notice of the spirit world.

This square of Neptune to its own position is part of the macro cycle, and between one part of the micro cycle starting and this square Neptune will pass through 3 signs. Once it reaches the 4th sign, the total effect of what has already passed plus the arrival of a new generation starts to trigger the mid-life crisis. So even though the macro cycle is so massive and only partially encompassed in a human life, we still have enormous individual sensitivity to it. Our collective awareness is similarly endowed, but this is dulled to our sight. The other major challenge in the partial macro cycle is the Neptune opposition to itself which we encounter in our early to mid 80s. This dovetails into the Uranus return to show us again how far away from our vision of the future actual reality is from where we expected it to be. Our minds can begin to balk at the immense mystery of life, and if we have trouble this can even result in loss of faculties and senility. At the very least, the world looks like a very confusing place, but at the same time there is also a potential for us to see it all as a metaphysical exercise, even if we cannot grasp its point. The loss of detail is replaced by a perception of essences.

The micro cycle and macro cycle of Uranus and Neptune are roughly synchronised in a 2:1 relationship – for every orbit Neptune makes around the Sun, Uranus makes about 2. This also means that Uranus takes 7 years to go through a sign on average while Neptune takes 14, so for every Neptune generation seeded there are 2 Uranus generations seeded within them.”

Neptune has an influence on the break-up and disintegration of rigid and outdated social patterns like Uranus, but unlike Uranus it does so subtly and through slow wearing away or osmotic disintegration, seeping through but permeating everything. It infiltrates and takes over from within rather than overthrowing the old order by external pressure. It is the difference between a revolution (Uranus) and a fashion trend (Neptune) or a pressure group and an aid concert. The two planets are complementary forces in awakening us, with the focus of Uranus being primarily mental and the focus of Neptune primarily astral. Uranus awakens us to new alternatives and innovations, new paradigms, and Neptune brings visions, access to intangible realities and the possibility for material transcendence.

In our modern human society the sign in which Neptune is in when we are born qualifies the way in which the spiritual selflessness or material confusion of a generation will attempt to resolve or escape social problems (rather than revolutionise or rebel against them, as Uranus urges) often through heretical, pioneering and controversial or even delusional ideals or visions which are not in vogue at the time because they are perceived as being too futuristic, heretical, dreamy or simply illusory, yet which gradually bleed into and are absorbed by the collective by the time that generation has matured so that they smoothly become part of the zeitgeist, taking form in imagery and vogues. Visual trends in fashion, drugs, epidemics and pandemics, general tones of mood in music (and also in earlier times poetry), religions developments, cinema trends, the visual arts and glamour industries and broad but subtle phases in the spiritual evolution of mankind alongside the mass development of psychic perceptions are linked to Neptune. The influence of Neptune in a sign seems to be especially clear in musical trends. Wherever it appears, with Neptune there is always a danger of substance addiction as a form of escape whether the substance is crack or communion wafers, to forms of paranoid conspiracy theory, to vain glamours and to delusional apprehension of reality and filters of perception which must be lifted so that what is hidden beyond the veil can be perceived. That is, in essence, the mysterious and mystifying path Neptune invites us to walk, using symbolism and the influence of the spirit world to do so – a path whereby we encounter specific symbols which represent, for us, the current face of universal oneness.

The emergence of psychic perceptions or the opening of the ‘third eye’ is said to involve seven veils. This signifies a connection to the seven celestial bodies known to the ancients – Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Each planets sphere – the spheres being the dimensions of awareness which the physical planets only symbolise for us – has a ‘veil’ which is lifted when the required maturity is reached revealing a new formerly hidden dimension of reality and the beings which inhabit it. This is what the art of evocation accomplishes in a gradual ascent through each sphere. The sign of Neptune shows how these veils are lifted, or rather, what the process or experience of dissolving them is like for the generation concerned, what it shows them and how it emerges. Each person is subtly guided by Neptune in this gradual process and each generation shares a common experience through their sharing of Neptune in a sign. From a magical perspective this is obviously very important information, but there is much more because the influence of Neptune will colour all of our interactions with the intangible worlds.

The lifting of these veils is really the refining of the awareness so that it is able to encompass and perceive the realms symbolised by the planets. This is not as esoteric as it sounds; in fact, people do this all the time but do not fully penetrate to the depth point of the realm, so they only connect with the surface layers. Consider the last time you had a feeling so strong that you could not think straight – your awareness in such an experience is placed in the realm of feeling, the realm of Venus, so completely that temporarily you cannot clearly access any rational thought process – the Mercury realm. The same is true of the magic of moving the mental awareness around to different places – people do it all the time, for example, when they stub their toe and all they can be aware of is the toe. The difference between this kind of transference of awareness and a magical one is that the magical one is fully, completely conscious and under our direction and observation, and the magician inhabits that level of awareness with the entirety of their being, completely concentrated and yet completely relaxed in that realm of awareness. This kind of fluidity of awareness allowing entities to transfer across any barriers is what Neptune attempts to teach us. Once we have the knack of being able to move between these states of awareness Neptune starts to reveal how they all dovetail into one another.

The agenda of Neptune is thus to lead us through each of these veils, revealing the invisible worlds around us – bacterial, atomic, microscopic, ethereal, quantum, sub-quantum, mental, physical, emotional, ‘divine’, ‘human’, ‘angel’, ‘faerie’, etc. – gradually unveiling the artificiality of any boundaries and the unity of all things, and once this is realised to train us in being able to move or transfer focus freely from one realm to another without barrier or impediment, so that all levels of awareness blend into the awareness of unity. This illuminates the unending and all loving nature within us and leads to familiarity and companionship with the beings that inhabit each of the realms. If Neptune is strong in our awareness and we lose sight of this illumination, we get into deep waters of turbulent trouble as delusions and fantasies take hold in our lives, often wrecking them in ways we do not realise we have done until later. Neptune on the ascendant can be especially dangerous to itself in this respect, as can Neptune in square or opposition with the Moon, which has a similar effect.

So astrologically Neptune is our inter-dimensional portal, one that permits glimpses into other realities through scientific advances that allow us to peer deeper into the ocean of life, and also facilitates our inner journey of becoming personally and individually aware of our innate unity with all that is. It may sound like fantasy or science fiction, but that is only how it looks from where we are now. The reality is that this is actually an ancient state of awareness that we are once more returning to after deviating from it for a very long time. This deviation has been part of our karmic cycle as a collective species, and our amnesia – the collective forgetting of our previous awareness – is actually part of what is guiding us back to the awareness that we are one with all that is. Neptune is like a beacon from a lighthouse shining through the fog of self induced miasma and confusion. As we have now come upon Neptune in the physical universe these themes have entered the unfolding drama of human existence once more, the gods are returning, they are one by one being evoked from the far reaches by Neptune and with them comes the challenge of seeing through and redeeming what we have done in their name in our world. At the same time these new worlds represent opportunities to reacquaint ourselves with sacred truths and potentials, realisations of the magical power that our unity provides. They each pose a test, a threat should we fail or refuse the test, and a sacred truth with gifts.

Given that Neptune takes 165 years to journey around the Sun, twice the time of Uranus, it also spends about twice as long in each sign, taking about 14 years to pass through each one. As can be inferred from this, Neptune results in a wider generation gap which encompasses almost everyone we go to school with. If we are born at the beginning of Neptune in a sign virtually everyone we grow up with through to puberty will have Neptune in the same sign as us and these are people who feel particularly united with their generation, who know who they are and what their vision is all about with greater clarity thanks to this fortune of timing. Conversely, someone born at the very end of Neptune in a sign will sometimes feel ‘out of place’ growing up among children with different dreams, different ways of expressing imagination, different tastes in music and film, etc – ones that belong to a former Neptune tribe. For example, I was born right at the end of Neptune in Scorpio and when I grew up there were a few children in my years who were interested in things like the unexplained, the occult and horror novels and films, but we were in the minority because we were surrounded by people with Neptune in Sagittarius whose tastes were more inclined towards the romantic, the philosophical, the adventurous or explorative and the optimistic. More often though there will be two more or less evenly distributed Neptune tribes growing up together and these backgrounds result in more imagination and a more nuanced variety of dreams but greater potential for confusion and misunderstanding among both as a result of the mixture.

Below is the recent historical emergence of Neptune in Sagittarius and its appearance for the near future:

Neptune in Sagittarius (1400 – 2100)

• 15th Dec. 1478 – 31st Oct 1493 (Excluding 7th May – 19th Oct 1479 and 29th Dec 1492 – 29th Jun. 1493)
• 6th Dec. 1642 – 14th Oct. 1657 (Excluding 10th Jun. – 7th Dec. 1643 and 29th Feb. – 2nd May 1656 and 21st Dec. 1656 – 6th Aug. 1657)
• 27th Jan. 1806 – 6th Dec. 1820 (Excluding 6th Apr. – 21st Nov. 1806 and 11th Jul. – 12th Sep. 1807 and 4th Feb. – 1st Jun. 1820)
• 4th Jan. 1970 – 21st Nov. 1984 (Excluding 2nd May – 6th Nov. 1970 and 18th Jan. – 22nd Jun. 1984)
• 19th Dec. 2133 – 4th Nov. 2148 (Excluding 23rd May – 22nd Oct. 2134 and 4th Jan. – 13th Jul. 2148)

The current tribe of Neptune in Sagittarius people are still relatively young as a generation – the youngest have just passed their first Saturn returns while the eldest are about 46 years old. This means that modern day astrologers have had only a few decades to observe this generation and it has not yet reached full maturity (which generally waits for the Neptune square to happen – something only the eldest of the tribe have experienced to date) meaning we will not see much maturity of the themes embodied by this tribe yet, but we can expect to see them emerging in the eldest and gradually becoming more visible and influential in the years to come, with clear signals having emerged by the time Neptune enters Aries. We can note, however, that this is the very first generation to be born with Neptune in Sagittarius whilst Neptune was present in our collective awareness – i.e. in an era when we knew Neptune was out there. This is important because the conscious physical discovery of a world allows its principle to manifest more and to potentially arrive in a more healthy expression because of an increase in awareness.

We can turn to history for clues and context, and when we do we must remember that Neptune, like Pluto and to a much lesser extent Uranus, can take some time to materialise their influence in events and sometimes will manifest in earlier periods as moods and memes gradually sweeping in and which set the stage for later events (i.e. before the year in which Neptune enters a particular sign, it can still be manifesting things in the buildup to that entrance). The happenings associated with Neptune are also, given the length of time it has to work with every sign, often very broad and sweeping which means that there are less specific events to identify and more general themes. Below I have compiled a list of major happenings connected with the periods in history in which Neptune was in Sagittarius to help you identify its motifs and serve as starting points for research:

• 1478 – 1493: The Spanish Inquisition; Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias sails around the Cape of Good Hope; Jews expelled from Spain; Christopher Columbus lands in the Americas; The Aztec Calendar Stone or Sun Stone is carved (a 24-ton sculpture honouring the sun god Tonatiuh and depicting the great ages of the world, of which this is the 5th which is prophesied to end in movement or end by earthquakes); Aztec emperor Auitzotl dedicates the Great Temple Pyramid of Tenochtitlan with thousands of human sacrifices; reign of Richard III of England, followed by start of the reign of Henry Tudor; outbreak of the much feared ‘English sweating sickness’ in Europe; Typhus first appears in Europe during the Spanish siege of Moorish Granada; Leonardo da Vinci produces a number of designs for flying machines and his Vitruvian Man drawing; the witch-hunters’ manual, Malleus Maleficarum, is published in the Holy Roman Empire; the “Comet of 1491” comes 873,784 miles (1,406,219 km) away from Earth, the closest ever recorded.

• 1642 – 1657: Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman achieves the first recorded European sighting of New Zealand; English Civil War; the death of Miyamoto Musashi, legendary Japanese Samurai warrior, of natural causes; Semyon Dezhnyov makes the first recorded voyage through the Bering Strait between Asia and North America; the Great Plague of Seville; a massive epidemic breaks out in northern and central China; the Peace of Westphalia marks the end of the Holy Roman Empire as a major European power; Parliament orders the theatres of London closed, effectively ending the era of English Renaissance theatre; Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens; the first autopsy and coroner’s jury verdict are recorded in the Colony of Maryland; establishment of the Quakers; René Descartes’ “Meditations on First Philosophy” is published; global temperatures begin to decline as part of the Little Ice Age; wallpaper begins to replace tapestries as a wall decoration; a popular rebellion sacks Beijing, prompting the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty to commit suicide (this marks the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, also known as the Manchu Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China).

• 1806 – 1820: Holy Roman Empire dissolved as a consequence of the Treaty of Pressburg; Beethoven performs his Fifth Symphony; the University of Berlin was founded and proves to be so successful that its model is copied around the world; Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice; Mary Shelley writes Frankenstein; Mount Tambora in Sumbawa erupts, becoming the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, destroying Tambora culture, and killing at least 71,000 people, and the eruption creates global climate anomalies known as “volcanic winter”; discovery of Antarctica; the height of dandyism in men’s fashion in Europe; Napoleonic Wars; gas lighting becomes a practical technology and is implemented in cities in Europe and the United States; the Great Comet of 1811 is discovered; René Laennec invents the stethoscope; Robert Stirling patents his Stirling engine.

• 1970 – 1984: mass transmission and eventual emergence of the HIV pandemic; first outbreak of the Ebola virus; smallpox eradicated; first close-up images of Jupiter and other planets in the solar system; Watergate scandal; end of ‘Cultural Revolution’ in China; launch of the Voyager spacecraft, currently the most distant man-made object known to exist in the universe; dawning awareness of global climate change; invention of artificial insulin; first orbital flight of the Space Shuttle; GPS becomes available for civilian use; notable and iconic Neptune in Sagittarius films include Grease, The Exorcist, Omen, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, The Deer Hunter, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, everything by Bruce Lee, and Superman; the arrival of the VCR is also of critical importance; popular TV shows iconic of Neptune in Sagittarius include Battlestar Galactica, The Six Million Dollar Man, Fantasy Island, Roots, Dallas, Saturday Night Live, Open University; notable trends in fashion and culture are the return to the dandyism of the early 19th century, the emphasis in music on big, extravagant, confident, loud, glitzy and ‘truth’, lava lamps, the influence of black culture and platform shoes, the concern over the influence television might have on moral standards, the decline in Church attendances in the west and the saturation of our lives with visual imagery from all possible far away cultures (the emergence of global culture).

The themes here – or some of them – involve religious and racially based persecutions (Malleus Maleficarum and the Spanish Inquisition, expulsion of Jews from Spain), the often gradual dissolution of religious powerbases (collapse of Holy Roman Empire, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Tambora annihilation), cultural homogeneity and the emergence of global culture (rise of reggae in white music, discovery of the Americas, almost everything that happened in the 1970s and early 1980s), increased awareness of the far reaches of the globe (advances in cartography, mechanisms of long distance travel), major advances in our discovery and window of perception onto darkness or outer space (i.e. farsight – Voyager, discovery of Titan, gas lamps), inventions which involve gas, light and heat (lava lamp, gas lighting), climate change (Little Ice Age, Volcanic Winter, El Nino), comet sightings (1491 and 1811), the emergence of new moral dilemmas and new ethical and philosophic belief systems (Vitruvian man, Aztec Sunstone, Descartes, Quakers, Jane Austen, legal autopsies, Watergate), epidemics which are feverish or transmit with alacrity (Ebola, Typhus, sweating sickness, HIV, Great Plague of Seville), encounters with exotic cultures (Columbus, Cortés, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Fantasy Island, first sighting of New Zealand), passageways opening up or becoming accessible (Cape of Good Hope, Bering Straight), and the spread of and greater access to higher levels of educational information (Open University, University of Berlin, spread of multicultural information).

Neptune in Sagittarius is a trailblazer, like a piercing spotlight being shone onto the future trying to prophesy the path ahead, and it is idealistic and enchanted by the exotic. The spirit of this tribe is on a quest for truth like a blazing arrow fired at a distant or invisible target. They are a forward looking, optimistic people who can be easily led astray by faraway wonders and a miasma of Utopian idealism. They see themselves as some kind of a pilgrim making a sacred journey, but they rarely know where it leads and can become perversely fundamentalist and myopic in vision through sheer enchantment and wonderment at their own discovered truth. They often just have hunches about where to be heading as they gallop to whatever it is they are moving towards. They have an internal faith in their compass, an intuitive sense of moral and spiritual direction that can guide them truly, but only if they trust it and only if they do not allow distortions to cloud an objective perception of actual reality. Importantly, they must avoid dogma and a level of idealism that can only bring disillusionment. It is a gift to have a dream or a sense of faith in something bigger than ourselves, but facts need to be checked and involved somewhere along the line.

All these things and others connected to Neptune in Sagittarius will act to subtly shape the imagination and idealism of its tribe, giving it a philosophy, ‘look’ and visions. Like the younger Uranus in Sagittarius generation with whom they share similarities (1981-1988) the current tribe of Neptune in Sagittarius is descriptive of a visionary generation on a quest for truth. The difference is that this generation possesses the gift of a broader and potentially more prophetic vision, but one of the unity rather than of extreme possibilities and groundbreaking paradigms. They will be able to help humanity focus on adventure and become more expansive and inclusive of differing races, cultures and beliefs – or incinerate them, as happened with disease in the late 15th century when the west came to the Americas. That karma and others like it are in some significant way being carried by this tribe and may be a major factor in the spread of multicultural relationships. That is to say, there is an attempt at atonement for racism which takes the form of multiracial love.

This generation is possessed of a particular vision – the vision of exploration and adventure in exotic lands and of the underlying unity of all nations, or conversely, the illusion of the moral superiority and truth of their vision, their initiative, their culture. They are hopeful of being the first adult generation in space. Many of these people will dream of far travelling and if they cannot break out of their country of origin it will seem as if their dreams are being smothered. Many others will adopt the spiritual imagery and philosophy of foreign, far off cultures. Others will sacrifice their discernment on an altar of religious dogma or idealism and become unable to distinguish between those they idolise and their fantasies about them. Some will feel the scorn of religious and moral ideological persecution. They will also sometimes be forced to unite closer together or segregate themselves in order to halt the spread of diseases or of toxic cultural memes. Part of what this tribe is seeking is a new vision of its own cultural identity which is far more inclusive and far more aware of how other cultures perceive it.

Sagittarius is highly aspiring, idealistic, humorous, optimistic, philosophical and flippant. These generations will have a broad and evolved sense of humour, many of them seeing it as a healing force, a way of unifying. Large groups of this generation of people will gather to discuss and acquire spiritual knowledge and the desire for an intuitive re-visualisation and broad spiritualistic transformation of society will be begun by them and the preceding generation of Neptune in Scorpio (the 1956 – 1970 children who possess the psychic gifts to add to these peoples visionary and intuitive foresight). Many others will turn their attention to the institutions of higher learning – the universities, law courts and religious organisations – seeking to open them up to greater freedom, universal access and wider horizons. It is with this generation, for example, that the notion of taking courses on television and then online has developed. Universities have begun teaching metaphysical subjects and cognitive sciences, trends which will continue to develop while at the same time the powerbase of universities is likely to erode and religions will tend to be regenerated by truth or disintegrate into dogma by the actions of this tribe. One of the great dangers this tribe faces collectively is that it can become enchanted by its own knowledge to such a degree that it believes it is always right.

Under the influence of this generation as it grows to take the reins of authority and power, a form of gradual ontological shock takes place in society as old dogmatic religious and cultural belief systems about humanities being and its role in the universe gradually disintegrate or enter a new chaotic phase of clashing ideologies that threatens to dissolve us all. New beliefs, cults and religions form, slowly at first but with increasing visibility; belief in contact with extraterrestrial life and non-physical cultures as well as crossings of dimensional horizons spreads invisibly, subtly yet profoundly altering the fabric of human ideologies. This is happening around us now but will continue cresting into the future. This is the birthing time of new ideologies with a broad scope of vision or of deluded and misguided crusades. It is the modern equivalent of discovering the continent of North America or watching the disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire. The ‘God Particle’ is perhaps just the beginning of a new paradigm which this generation will witness emerging. This is the way with Neptune in Sagittarius, and the paradigm is always exotic and projects humanity forwards like an arrow into wide open spaces.

The generation born during this period will put more stress on our personal contact with unity through inner contemplation which will result in increased meditation and the use of the intuitive faculties of the Greater Self, the purpose and use of which this generation will comprehend instinctively. They really benefit in terms of psychic training from having contact with the wilderness and with roofless environments. They are gifted with navigating the inner and outer cosmos by intuitive sensing that manifests as wandering. They are seeking universal truths which they can live up to, truths that they can align their lives with. The presence of the One in All will be intuitively sensed by many of those born in this generation, being largely initiated when Pluto entered Sagittarius in 1995, staying in that sign until well into 2008. This was a period in which the Neptune in Sagittarius tribe was seeded with a mission to profoundly transform our culture and our vision of race. During this time cultural, racial and religious barriers became deeply porous, religious dogmas and ideologies merged and clashed, and a re-vision of human beliefs invisibly began to take hold. Powerfully dark forces living within our religions were exposed and made all too clear. All manner of new frontiers of reality have been opened and explored by advances in quantum physics, and synthetic merges of previously disparate scientific/religious world views are taking place. We have faced a prevalence of corrupt and shadowy religious wars, malevolent deception on a grand scale, holy crusades and spiritual expansionism in the years Pluto was in Sagittarius and activating the Neptune keys of all these people. All of this has served to massively awaken this generation to what is really going on around them and in the wider world. They have more far reaching knowledge, and so now they have more complex moral choices to make. They are also, it must be said, notably more paranoid than they were before.

Thanks to this Pluto activation this generation is now as a mass entity psychically aware of the hypocrisy of the world’s laws and institutions, they have seen enough of the corruption of its moral guardians to know they cannot be trusted, and furthermore that what we know about the universe is accelerating all the time, and what is asserted one day is disproved the next; their faith in the pronouncements of truth that come from the leading edge is now tempered with the awareness that tomorrow there will be a new truth, and none of it can really be trusted. So this generation, which is a truth seeking generation given to ask relentless but subtle questions about the meaning of things, has reached a stage where it no longer trusts anyone who says they have The Truth, which leaves it restlessly seeking for something it knows is too elusive to pin down. It is a generation of searchers and spiritual adventurers, questing for self, new social systems, ecological balance, and spiritual teaching – above all, this ever elusive Truth.

Does the quest have a resolution; is The Truth really out there? It depends on the question you are asking, but in general I believe it does, and it is, but that resolution cannot be given by any astrologer, for it is not anyone’s to give – it is only yours to seek and receive. As for the truth, it is certainly far more unbelievable than most people would be capable of imagining, given the scale of infinity. There is possibly truth in many of the conspiracy theories, but the total truth is certain to be far, far beyond anything even the wildest conspiracy theorist could ever imagine. The way to this truth is within us first and foremost. This is the state of Universal Oneness that is Neptune’s essential principle. The Eye of this Truth is always watching us.

The people of Neptune in Sagittarius receive help in all of this not only from one another but from those tribes who have Neptune in Aries (1861-1875, then 2025-2039) or Neptune in Leo (1914-1929), but there is currently nobody alive with Neptune in Aries (they are to arrive in the next decade) and the youngest to have Neptune in Leo are about 88 years old. So at the current time in order to benefit from this kind of support the Neptune in Sagittarius people have to look to the very oldest among us who are also still able to help them, or wait about 15 years for the first Neptune in Aries people to grow up enough and to develop clear individuality and personality. The assistance that Neptune in Aries brings to the Neptune in Sagittarius tribe is one of inspiring newness, creativity and motivational force. The Neptune in Leo tribe can help the Neptune in Sagittarius people to utilise both their charisma and their sense of humour to its fullest extent. Neptune in Sagittarius is stimulated by both Neptune in Libra (1942-1957) and Aquarius (1998-2012). It is therefore more practical at this point for the Neptune in Sagittarius tribe to look for supporters in these tribes since they are recent births. With the Neptune in Libra people this tribe finds kin in its search for truth, while with the Neptune in Aquarius tribe they find the visionaries. The three tribes which the Neptune in Sagittarius tribe have the most clashes with are Neptune in Gemini (1887-1902), Virgo (1928-1943) and Pisces (2012-2026). These three tribes are the tribes whose vision and philosophy are not easy to integrate into the Neptune in Sagittarius worldview. However, once again there are no or very few living Neptune in Gemini souls in positions to pass on what they have learned and they will not appear again for about 30 or 40 years. With Neptune tribes, the age gaps mean that there is always one major supportive tribe not alive and one major opposing tribe that is not alive. The supportive tribe that is not alive alongside the tribe in question will represent something they aspire towards, something intangible at the time, while the tribe opposing them which they clash with but are not alive usually represent the ideology and vision they are kicking against. If it existed, the conflict that would come from the Neptune in Gemini tribe would be extremely argumentative and involved in hairsplitting the truth by asking devilish and troubling questions of the general conclusions being reached by Neptune in Sagittarius. With Neptune in Virgo the effect is similar with the tribe pointing out numerous flaws and problems in the philosophical structure which is at the core of the vision of Neptune in Sagittarius people, pressing them on confusing details, while with the Neptune in Pisces tribe the problem is that the inherent and innate idealism is overstimulated leading to a radical departure from reality. As always of course the challenges from these three tribes would also represent a refinement and improvement of the expression of Neptune in Sagittarius if their challenges were met positively and constructively.

Neptune in Sagittarius can also gain help from any other tribes which belong to Aries, Sagittarius, Leo, Libra and Aquarius – for example from Uranus in Aries or from Pluto in Libra or Jupiter in Aquarius – and also from individuals who have a strong emphasis in these signs (such as Sun and Moon, Mercury and Venus) and likewise it can experience great difficulties and challenges leading to new discoveries and refinements when interacting with cohorts or people who have a strong emphasis in Gemini, Virgo or Pisces. Additionally of course if we have strong emphasis in these signs in our birth charts it can also either hinder or enhance and support the expression of the Neptune in Sagittarius qualities within our own psyche and lives. In the list of individuals I have supplied with this article you will find people who have Neptune in Sagittarius conjunct the Sun, Moon or ascendant indicated in bold. These individuals provide good historical examples of the traits associated with Neptune in Sagittarius and are recommended as starting points for your research.

To Neptune in Sagittarius it may seem that others may question the practicality of the tribes beliefs and philosophies, but as an astrologer I am reminded that those who believed the Earth was spherical were once laughed at by those who knew that it was flat. And I would remind this tribe of the words of Giordano Bruno, the astrologer and hermetic who, in 1600, was burned at the stake by the Church for holding the opinion that:

“Innumerable suns exist; innumerable earths revolve around these suns in a manner similar to the way the seven planets revolve around our sun. Living beings inhabit these worlds.”

Today, few would dispute his once visionary – and ultimately deadly – claims. One thing comes into my mind when I contemplate the message of Sagittarius in Neptune – truth, whatever it is, has a habit of marching on…and on…and on. It can be concealed, even killed, but never made to completely disappear. If it is true, it will always be so. The Dream Seekers of Neptune in Sagittarius – gypsies and pilgrims looking for something to truly believe in – become the sages and teachers of truths that only an exotic wanderer can encounter and comprehend.

Neptune was in Sagittarius during the births of Margaret Tudor, Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII, Isaac Newton, Queen Victoria, Jamie Oliver, Karl Urban, Herman Melville, Martin Agricola, Ben Affleck, Martin Luther, Napoleon III, David Strauss, Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Josh Hartnett, Christina Richi, Michael Fassbender, Giuseppe Verdi, Michael C. Hall, Robert E. Lee, Christian Thomasius, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sean Lennon, Karl Marx, Vallabhacharya, Bernardino Luini, Raphael (the painter), Cameron Diaz, Robert Kirk (a Scottish minister and author of “The Secret Commonwealth”, a treatise on fairy folklore, witchcraft, ghosts, and second sight), John Flamsteed, Eliphas Levi, Pope Clement XI and XII, Kate Winslet, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Ellen MacArthur, George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson, Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, Justin Timberlake, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hernán Cortés, Thomas Cromwell, Emily Brontë, Uma Thurman, Julian Assange, Jacques Cartier, Antonio Pigafetta, Paul Ryan, Simon Pegg, Leonardo DiCaprio, Peter Kay, Prince William, Robert Browning, P. T. Barnum, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ferdinand Magellan, David Tennant, Ewan McGregor and Louis Braille.