On Neptune, The Keeper of the Waters: II

Greetings and welcome back to Journeys! This month I bring you the conclusion of my long message about the planet Neptune. We will discuss the astrological history of the new planet, the chart for its discovery and its significance for individuals and the world.

 

“Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance.”
                              ― Nikola Tesla

In my previous article in this series I discussed the significance and role of the new planet Uranus. One of the things I pointed out about that planet was that it was very far out in terms of its orbit, being twice the distance from the Sun as Saturn is (18-20 AU instead of 9-10 AU, where 1 AU is the distance between Earth and the Sun). I made the point that astrologically this vast distance resulted in a near invisibility and a scale of activity far beyond the limits represented by Saturn for so many centuries. I argued that the discovery of this new planet represented a paradigm shift in human development, a breakthrough into a new paradigm, one that was specifically initiated by technological breakthroughs. I don’t think anyone would argue that this has not already occurred and is underway.

With Neptune the distances are even more vast, being 29 to 30 AU. If we had to stretch our minds beyond their limits in order to grasp the astrological meaning of the planet Uranus, then we have to leave them behind entirely in order to grasp the meaning of Neptune. “Leave your world behind” is the mindset here. If, as I have argued, hieroglyphic communication was a better way than alphabetic communication for us to perceive the realities of the planet Uranus then it is an absolutely essential one when talking about Neptune. Symbolic language – the language of astral form – is the only way we can communicate the principle of this planet to one another, because it’s how it speaks to us, and so this communication in alphabetic writing is starting out with a giant handicap before it begins. To an extent I will need to speak in metaphors and symbols in order to communicate the essential meaning, and you will have to decrypt that for yourselves. In short, follow the links and read between the lines.

So we must abandon our attachment to reality as we know it. However, and this turns out to be important, it is only our current Earthly way of looking at the universe and reality that we must leave behind, which means that fundamentally it is our mundane, conventional and materialistic mindset that we must abandon in order to comprehend what Neptune brings. We do not stop there either – we have to shed all our ego identification, our attachment to the identity we have constructed, our notion of being a seperate individual. For this is not a planet concerned very much with mundane matters at all, except as a transcendent principle which underlies all of them and from which they all emerge and return in an endless cycle of infinite possibilities manifesting in infinite ways across the vast timeless ocean of existence.

So, let’s dive in.

SIGNIFICATIONS OF NEPTUNE

In modern western astrology Neptune is now a very richly explored influence and few astrologers disagree over it significations. Open up any textbook or web page covering the topic and you will see a very broad agreement on its principles. Primarily these include psychic, mystical, spiritual and occult experiences, imagination, dreams and visions, compassion, unconditional love, transcendence, redemption, subtlety and tranquility on the positive side and illusion, delusion, deception, lies, fraud, escapism, cults, madness, paranoia, instability, disintegration, confusion, ambush, conflation, secret societies and conspiracy on the negative side. Neptune is also commonly associated with Pisces, photography, film, VR and all of the visual arts as well as with drugs of all kinds, gas, the unconscious, chemistry, viruses and bacteria, nausea, unsolved mysteries, absence of boundaries, invisible things (like frequencies or radiation), ocean life, contamination, flooding, oil, fluids in general (especially if leaking or spewing), meditation, music and fashion. In my personal experience I have found that table top role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons are also a thing of Neptune  because they loosen the hold of the awareness over its identity, sense of reality and its boundaries and invite it to see an Other world through the eyes of an Other. Connecting themes in all of these significations are invisibility, intangibility, imaginative vision and concealment.

So we have come to an agreement on something we knew nothing about, but where do we get these ideas from? From what context were they conjured?

EVOCATION OF NEPTUNE

It is now 173 years since Neptune was discovered. When it was discovered astrologers obviously knew nothing about its influence. Today however there are many books, writings, videos, lectures and workshops on the topic, almost all of which are in agreement on the above key principles. The first thing for us to sort out then is how astrologers have come to assign the significations they have assigned. It’s important because we need to leave behind a record for future astrologers, something we don’t have regarding the ancient traditional planets, and it’s important because we need to understand the sources from which we have gained these insights or made these assumptions, depending upon your point of view.

This is actually quite difficult to do. The problem is that the emergence of ideas and notions often takes place outside of print (and almost always takes place in the mind and in conversations first) and even when it does eventually make it into print you have to dig into archives and research to find it, many of which are inaccessible, lost, or hard to find. Trying to do this before the internet would have been a thousand times more challenging, but it still requires some digging. All of this is true for both Uranus and Pluto as well, and is rapidly proving true for Chiron and the asteroids, etc. I lament this, it feels like we’re missing a golden opportunity to create a historical record of something profoundly important for future astrologers. They may just be left with the meanings we hand down to them without understanding who, when or where we got them from. So, building on the work of others (see my sources at the end of this message) and re-presenting it, here is my humble offering on the timeline for astrological Neptune.

There are some key questions we need to answer in this research. One is when and how did Neptune become associated with Pisces? Another question is when it became associated with dreams. A third and perhaps separate one is when it became associated with spiritual and psychic matters. We must also answer the question of when it became associated with drugs and pharmaceuticals, as well as why. Since many of the qualities we attributed Neptune overlap with the qualities we attribute to Pisces it seems likely that many of the qualities of Neptune emerged once a connection with Pisces was established and were simply borrowed from the sign. Even if this is not the case it is still likely that some of these if not all of these key principles emerged together, and settled in gradually, but I think that at this time we can point to key periods in history which hold potential answers to all of these questions. However looking back into the astrological history of Neptune can help us in other ways – it can help us to see which of the early assumptions were discarded, and raise new questions for us about why they were forgotten. Additionally, it may show us which of the earlier astrologers had insights which match hours.

There are earlier publications on Neptune from the mundane astrologers than the natal astrologers, with the first being by R.H. Penny in an 1880 issue of ‘Urania’. Penny turns up again 11 years later talking about Neptune in a natal context in the August 1891 issue of ‘The Astrologer’, in which he defends his character from a perceived slur from another astrologer who had taken a dim view of Neptune opposite Mercury. The first lengthy written discussion of Neptune as a natal influence in an astrological context that I have been able to find was committed to print 44 years after its discovery, in 1890, in John Story’s edition of “W. J. Simmonite’s Complete Arcana of Astral Philosophy”. This was a reprint of an earlier work which had been updated to include a letter on the subject of Neptune by John Ackroyd, a respected astrologer of the time, as well as some notes on Neptune by the editor and publisher, John Story.

The late 1880s and early 1890s seem to be the critical point at which historical records on astrological Neptune begin to emerge, as this is also when the first associations with Pisces seem to appear in print (see below). However it is very likely that ideas and notions about Neptune began to emerge almost immediately upon its discovery. The reason why I say this is that the astrological environment in which Neptune was discovered was very different to the one in which Uranus was discovered. When Uranus was discovered astrology was almost stamped out, characterised as the work of charlatans, but by the time Neptune arrived a revival of astrology led by Raphael (a pseudonym for Robert Cross Smith) had already occurred. His ephemeris, which continued after his death in 1832, standardized the use of the Placidus house system in western astrology and is still in print today. So it is likely that there were active astrologers at the time Neptune was discovered who immediately set about wondering what it meant, especially since they had already had to deal with the new arrival of Uranus.

We get some interesting insights from both the letter and the notes presented in this book. From the notes by Story we are told that astrologers are still struggling to identify what the new planet means, and that they want to keep watching it and comparing notes for some time to come. They are more sure of the implications of Herschel’s planet, but have some disagreement on that too. Story is impatient with this attitude and bravely ventures out to put his neck on the chopping block of printed speculation, and boy does he go there:

“It has just left the sign Taurus, ruling Ireland, and such history has been made for that country that future generations will read with amazement and awe. Remember Dublin, May 6th, 1882. At the present time the Neptune planet is slowly wending its way through Gemini, the ruling sign of our capital city London, and it has already begun to show its disposition. It has just been passing over the Sun, Moon, and Ascendant of our Sovereign Lady, Queen Victoria, and the result is shown in the discontent and trouble in the army, police, postal service, etc., and when it reaches the ruling degree of the city it will, according to the aspects thrown to it, cause such events as will long be remembered. It will put to nought the wisdom of our legislators, and show, ”’tis not in mortals to command success.”

At the same time I do not wish you to understand by this that his influence will be, and produce, all evil. His positions at birth, his aspects, transits over him, and he over others, will show the thoughtful student his power and influence, and I expect he will produce some very novel and striking features in the near future. Most of the readers of this work began their lives in the most important, intellectual, and progressive period of human history; the period of such marvels as the telegraph, telephone, phonograph, electric lighting, anaesthetics, new and powerful explosives, the spectroscope, etc., but I look for greater wonders to be unfolded during the next decade. The preacher, the lawyer, and the medical man, will have to take long strides to keep pace with the times; and who shall say that the undying vigil of the astronomer shall not be rewarded by discovering other intelligent dwellers in other planets, and even discover means of intercourse with them”.

He means talking to aliens, not sexual intercourse with them, by the way. Here we see the Victorian mindset applying itself to the problem of a new planet, impressed with human progress and picturing wondrous new things in the future. Before we laugh at his suggestion about meeting ET we should perhaps ask ourselves if the people of tomorrow will laugh at us for thinking that we are alone. Story is feeling the call of his imagination, and I think that is interesting too, as well as his off the cuff comment about the pace of progress for religions, laws and medicine. He also identifies the chaotic, destabilising and confusing effect that Neptune can have in mundane politics and upon society in general, without yet making the connection to the individual or personal experience. However his overall impression of a planet that reminds mortals of their own insignificance and ignorance in the grand scheme of things feels not too far off the mark. Astrologers are getting that the two new planets create big, important happenings.

He does even better when he adds a later note:

“This planet has only been known for a comparatively short time. From my own radix I have found it to be very much after the nature of the planet Herschel, and to have a controlling influence over the minds of those who have to do much with persons who believe in the Art and Science of Astrology, dreams, inspirations, etc. Students will have a very good opportunity to watch the influence of Neptune during its progress through Gemini, the house of Mercury, which rules London and a great part of the United States as well as other places … Taurus rules Ireland, and Dublin particularly. It is well known to the world what happened on May 6th, 1882, in Dublin, and the state of confusion that has reigned in Ireland generally since that time (see Raphael’s Ephemeris for that date). Students, let your own study and observation be your guide with regard to the planet Neptune. I look forward to some notable inventions in arts and science being brought to light during the progress of Neptune through Gemini.”

Here we can see the association with dreams and inspirations, as well as with the spiritual arts like astrology. Yet these early notes also show a picture of Neptune as a troublemaker or instigator of chaos and mayhem in society. The events in Dublin being referred to are the Phoenix Park murders when two senior civil servants were ambushed and stabbed to death by Fenian assassins. This led to a decades long delay of home rule in Ireland amidst chaotic and violent political consequences.

The letter from John Ackroyd at the end of the book goes into far more detail on the new planet. Because it is such an interesting historical document for us I will present it in full here:

Dear Sir,-

From the short time that has elapsed since this planet was discovered not much is yet known about its influence, either in natal or any other branch of astrology, but according to the rules of Ptolemy for judging of new phenomena, and from personal observation, its influence is evil and disappointing to persons born when it is in evil aspect to the Sun, Moon or Mercury. Its effects are something like the combined influences of Saturn or Uranus, obscure, strange, and eventful, so that wherever a nativity is of a discordant nature, that is, the Sun, Moon or Mercury, the ascendant or its ruler, are afflicted by evil aspects of the other planets, Neptune, joining in with the discordant elements, its influence will intensify the evil effects and make the work more disastrous.

When this planet is well located and in good aspect to the Sun, Moon or Mercury, the ascendant or its ruler, so as to have a controlling influence over the mind, it will constitute a character close, reserved, careful, crafty, ingenious and inventive, studious and clever in mechanical arts, chemistry, etc., a person silent, not of many words, greedy after money and property, selfish and indifferent towards others, of a gloomy, lowering aspect, private and anti-social, careless about dress, personal appearance, forms and fashions, curious, odd and retiring in manners, therefore not much adapted for social life and company. This planet appears to have a continuous influence over the minds of spiritualists, mediums, prophets, seers, magicians, clairvoyants, enthusiasts, and persons who believe in inspiration, oracles, and futurity. In certain classes it induces to a faith in dreams, spirits and ghosts, tales of wonder and enchantment, witching, charming, necromancy, and fortune-telling in various ways, as card shuffling, palmistry, geomancy, moles, and other kinds of superstitious craft and artful practices too numerous to name.

When this planet is badly located at birth, that is in evil aspect to the Sun, Moon or Mercury, especially when the nativity is otherwise discordant, it will tend to give or predispose to a morbid condition of the mind, latent wickedness, and a want of moral sentiment. Such persons in the lower ranks of life will be likely to drift into low, immoral habits and practices of various kinds which will cause a loss of reputation, deprive the native of his liberty, or run him into prison and exile, as the mind will naturally be very secretive, daring, and resolute when fully engaged in any enterprise. Although rather procrastinating, cautious, and timid at times, he will have good courage and be a little reckless when prompted and pressed by circumstances, therefore liable to get on the wrong line of pursuit.

Diseases indicated by Neptune are bowel, liver, and spleen diseases, as also bilious and gastric complaints, and affections to the bladder and urinal organs, as gravel, stone, colic, inflammation and obstruction in the bowels and bladder, hypochondria, etc. To females it denotes barrenness, cancers in the womb, hysterical complaints, abortion, difficult confinements, and other diseases common to such organised parts of the body in both sexes. In bad cases sudden and violent death by fire, fire-arms, explosives, machinery, assassination and murder, accidents in games and sports, etc , etc.

The influence of this planet, like Herschel, is evil and unfortunate. Some idea may be formed of its effects by the condition of Ireland for the last fourteen years. Neptune entered the ruling sign of Ireland in 1875 and ever since the Irish people, or a great portion thereof, have been in a state of turmoil and revolution. At the time of the Phoenix Park murders, this planet was exactly in conjunction with the Sun, Saturn and Mercury, in the sign Taurus, all four planets setting at Dublin, May 6th, 1882, at 7-17 p.m., the exact time of the murder, which was a remarkable confirmation of planetary influences. Neptune was discovered on September 23rd, 1846, at which time it was located in 25 degrees of Aquarius, exactly in conjunction with the planet Saturn, which prenoted the Crimean War in 1854.

Past events since 1846 clearly appear to demonstrate the nature of the said planet, viz.,-Home Rule bubble, the discovery and development of new chemical elements of destruction, infernal machines, dynamite, new preparation of chemical poisons, medicines, etc.; also the great changes in the habits and manners of the people. Then, again, Neptune left the ruling sign of Ireland in March, 1889, and entered into the ruling sign of London. Indicating those dreadful murders and mutilation of the victims ‘of the undiscovered” Jack the Ripper.” This is another confirmation of my judgment on the nature of this celestial messenger. What other events will follow during its transit through London ascendant, the Wheel of Time can only unfold. The last time it went through Gemini it denoted the South Sea Bubble.

The houses of the planets were originally formulated by the Chaldeans, Babylonians, or Egyptians, hut on what principles they were deduced is a mystery to the present generation; nevertheless there appears to be some truth in the allotment of planetary houses. According to Ptolemy’s theory Aquarius should be Neptune’s house, but Scorpio or Taurus might answer well, as they are both of an obscure and mystical nature, but it will require more experience, observation, and practice to settle the matter.

Yours truly,

PROF. J. A.

So we can see that this initial account gives an impression of violence and mayhem similar to the astrology we now assign more readily to Uranus and Pluto. The mention of Jack the Ripper is interesting given that Neptune is associated with mental disturbances and psychoses where the mind has breaks from reality. We also see a clear identification with spiritual, mystical and occult phenomena, as well as with dreams – he agrees with Story. Historical context offers us an explanation for this early insight into Neptune’s principle – its discovery was synchronous with the emergence of spiritualism (the Fox sisters story begins as Neptune is discovered, and even when one of the sisters guiltily admits to fraud decades later the tale remains fundamentally Neptunian) and so by the time Ackroyd is writing these words spiritualism is turning into a religion, London is home to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and books on Theosophy are selling like hot cakes. Astrologers were making the connection between the arrival of the new planet and the emergence of occult philosophy. Ackroyd’s letter also reveals that astrological thinking was at least beginning to identify Neptune with drugs and pharmaceuticals since it gives mention to medicines and chemical poisons.

Yet this letter makes no mention of the sign Pisces in connection with Neptune. Instead he makes a suggestion that it might be Aquarius, Scorpio or Taurus that the new planet belongs with. However his reasoning is vague since it’s unclear what he means when he describes Taurus as ‘obscure and mystical’ in nature. Obscure and mystical are, however good keywords for describing Neptune.

The first written records connecting Neptune with Pisces do, however, come from the same era. Thanks to the work of astrological historian and archivist Philip Graves we have an earliest known mention of the connection which traces back to the November 1888 issue of the journal ‘The Astrologer’. In this issue a person by the name of J.T. Campbell writes to the editor about an anonymous friend who mentioned that Neptune was the ruler of Pisces and had its detriment and fall in Scorpio. Although this is a question and not a statement or an assertion (except by the unknown friend) it shows us that by at least that time the idea was already under consideration. Six years later in an 1894 issue of the same magazine a serialized publication by someone equally anonymous going by the name ‘Sagittarius’ gave a more reasoned and committed argument for assigning Neptune to Pisces:

“The Sun fountain of light and life to our system rules in Leo as his own house; the first planet revolving round him (rejecting the inter-mercurial planet Vulcan of R. A. Proctor) is Mercury who consequently gets Virgo the next sign to Leo, as Mercury’s sphere is next to the Sun; then comes Venus next in order, who, of course, gets Libra for her house; passing the Earth, the next in order is Mars who gets Scorpio; the next sign in rotation then, omitting the asteroids (Ceres, Vesta, etc.) in toto, Jupiter gets Sagittarius the next in order; then comes Saturn who follows on with Capricornus the next sign. Here Ptolemy turns around and goes backward Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, etc., from the circumference to the centre, but we moderns who have Uranus and Neptune to complete our system and deal with, must advance and not recede as Ptolemy did for he knew nothing of these two planets Uranus and Neptune; therefore the next planet in the order of nature to Saturn who has Capricorn only is Uranus, who must of necessity have Aquarius; the next sign, and the last of the spheres is Neptune, so he for the same reason must have the last sign (Pisces) for his “domal” dignity. Aries, the vernal equinox and the first sign of the circle, is given to Mars who is akin to the earth in nature, the principle of wrath and selfishness predominating over the principle of love, hence Mars gets Aries next to Pisces in the zodiac. Returning to the Sun Leo the sphere of Venus comes next, so she gets Taurus the next sign for her other house, then below Venus is Mercury, so consequently he gets Gemini for the same reason. Then comes the Moon, swiftest of all the heavenly wanderers, so the fair Luna gets the next sign Cancer for her house, then the Moon joins the Sun Leo, and from the conjoint principles of heat and moisture in union another gestation commences and so on ad-infinitum.

” “Steady, my friend,” says an objector, “why should the inferior planets Mercury and Venus and the small planet Mars (with his two recently discovered moons) have two houses allotted to each of them?” Why, my friend? because they move so swiftly. Mercury is only about a fortnight in a sign when not stationary in it, and for this reason has two signs for houses, and Venus likewise, and Mars, although really a superior, as he moves beyond the earth’s orbit, must, as far as his swift motion and small magnitude is concerned, be considered an inferior, unless he be stationary, being only about six weeks in a sign, hence Mercury, Venus, and Mars being swiftly moving planets, compared to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, have for the aforesaid reason two houses each allotted to them, but the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, on account of their slow and ponderous motion, have only one house each. The Sun and Moon being passive planets, and, according to Ptolemy, the most essential significators translating the influences of all the planets to our earth, have for this reason one house each only, even though the lesser luminary is the swiftest in motion of any of them.”

So we can say that by at least the late 1880s to 1890 astrologers had started connected Neptune with Pisces, dreams, psychic and occult phenomena, drugs, psychoses and many of the core concepts that we now associate with it, but that there was a lot of fuzz around the edges that has been trimmed away. Where, for example, did they get the idea that Neptune signified machinery, death by fire, bravery (perhaps from idealism?), or bowel, liver, and spleen diseases, and when were these ideas taken out of consideration? It’s also clear that there were doubts about the core principles but it’s very difficult to pinpoint when and why those doubts faded away and our vision of Neptune crystallized into its current form. I imagine this took about a further 20 years to take place, but there were key contributions toward our understanding of Neptune by astrologers throughout the 20th century, especially following the growth of psychotherapy (Jung makes a huge contribution with his notion of archetypes) and after the 1960s when the popularity of modern astrology started to rise. Like so much of what happens with Neptune, it slowly crept up on us like a bank of fog until it was all we could see. However it seems that the core notions were in place by the late Victorian era. We can see that the essence of our understanding is there. The evocation of modern Neptune is a Victorian artifact. In fact the whole emergence of Neptune is a Victorian phenomenon, since it was discovered 9 years after her coronation in 1837 and she played a huge role in popularizing spiritualism after the death of her husband whome she longed to be with again. She was born with Neptune in conjunction with Uranus in Sagittarius (the multi-national Empire), and a Jupiter in Aquarius that is near the position of Neptune in the chart for its discovery. She was born, in an astrological sense, to be a transmission device for a planet that had yet to be discovered. The discovery chart itself also shows the imprint of the Victorian era in which it takes place.

THE DISCOVERY CHART

What this chart shows is an image of our relationship to the new planet rather than what the new planet actually signifies and means. It is effectively a blueprint for how we can develop that relationship as well as a picture of the problems that arise through it.

The discovery chart is a nocturnal chart (it’s very hard to discover anything up there during daylight hours!) that has Gemini rising with Jupiter ascending, the Sun at the equinox point in the beginning of Libra and the Moon in Scorpio. Mercury, the chart ruler, is very strongly placed in Virgo. Neptune is in an exact conjunction with a super strong Saturn in Aquarius, the pair of which are in an Air Element grand trine with the Dragons Head and the ascendant and also a sextile with Pluto in Aries, which thereby becomes the apex of a grand kite pattern (a grand trine where at least one side of the trine is bisected by a sextile to both ends). A second grand kite pattern is formed from another Air Element grand trine involving Jupiter, Chiron and the midheaven with Uranus in Aries at the apex. The nocturnal planets – Moon, Venus and Mars – have stronger positions by sect, with Mars and especially Mercury also having strong dignity. Saturn is extremely high in dignity but on the cold and brittle side. The primary tension in the chart comes from squares between the Gemini objects and the Virgo objects as well as oppositions between Chiron and Uranus and Pluto and the Dragons Head/Moon. A subtler problem comes from the strong tendency to over-think things.

Here are Saturn and Neptune as they would have been seen in the sky at the time:

Here we can see them in the constellation Aquarius, near the left hip of the Water Bearer. Above and to the right is the Eagle and Altair. Below them lies the star Fomalhaut while above them lies the constellation of Equuleus, the First Horse, the foal of the larger nearby Pegasus, and Delphinus, the Dolphin. Neptune is in paran relationship with the star Castor (in Gemini), signifying “a wave of spiritual or metaphysical thinking” and with Zuben Elgenubi (in Libra) signifying “people in awe or wonder of events”, according to the observations of Bernadette Brady. Note that the mythological story about Poseidon being the creator of horses and the father of Pegasus as well as his connection to dolphins (his sacred animal) is embedded in the sky around Neptune. Note also that in the natal chart the birth of Poseidon as a son of Cronus is also represented by Neptune’s conjunction with Saturn in its diurnal sign, and his sibling relationship with Zeus and Hades is shown by the trine and sextile to a dominant Jupiter rising in Gemini and Pluto in Aries on the 12th respectively (and a 12th that is huge in Placidus houses). The 5th temple is also heavily pregnant – Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Chiron all situate there – reminding us of the prolific siring that the god performs. The squares to Jupiter in Gemini only act to exaggerate and greatly multiply this feature, as well as indicating force and controversy. Our myths are part of the relationships we form with the planets, and so they are represented in the discovery chart.

What immediately leaps out to me about this chart is the conjunction of the new planet with Saturn in Aquarius, because it is such an apt symbol for how the planet was discovered through years of hard work in mathematical equations and abstract calculation. The strong presence of Air with Gemini rising and Jupiter in Gemini ascending also points to a mind journey or vision quest. It is also an extremely apt conjunction for the Victorian era itself, a time of great scientific discovery and futurism and Utopian visions of the future amidst some extreme social conditions like poverty and air pollution. In the late 1840s anesthesia, airships, and the gas mask appear and the first trans-Atlantic cable is laid, opening the way to the modern communications age. It’s also worth pointing out that at this time in history not only was the Victorian era beginning but the Communist manifesto was being published by Marx, Communism being strongly associated with the sign Aquarius. This conjunction alone points to massive reforms in society and in human understanding of the universe, to things of science fiction becoming science fact.

Readers may remember that in the last issue of this journal I mentioned that when the race to discover Neptune through mathematics began Neptune was in conjunction with Uranus. It seems the actual discovery required the reality manifesting power of a super strong Saturn to finally accomplish, while the influence of Uranus awakened us to the existence of the invisible. This is an important clue about our relationship to Neptune – we awaken to the reality of the new planet through the planet Uranus but in order to truly connect with and manifest it we need a strong relationship with Saturn.

Note that Uranus in Aries becomes the apex for the kite pattern involving the Saturn/Neptune conjunction. This aspect pattern – Jupiter, Saturn/Neptune, and Chiron in trine with one another with Uranus opposite Chiron bisecting the triangle that is formed – is probably the most significant pattern in the chart. Its a clear sign that in terms of Neptune much depends on how we handle the nearly global aspect. It is also pointing at Aries and Libra as keys signs in that process. Think about it and you will realise how interesting that is, and why it makes so much sense.

The relatively tensionless dual kite aspect patterns in the Neptune chart (both Air with a Fire cap) contrast strongly with the dynamic and explosive patterns present in the Uranus chart. This is a much softer, sneakier and subtler chart overall. The potential for great change is definitely there, especially in our understanding of science, but it will be a long, gradual and experimental journey, not one that is populated by jarring, sudden or explosive events or breakthroughs. With the advantage of hindsight what this chart is suggestive of is the gradual exploration of the invisible world of frequencies and of bacterial, chemical, atomic, subatomic, quantum and sub- quantum reality, a steady advance of science from the physical into the metaphysical. The first electric telegraph, the first computer program, the airship, the refinement of kerosene as a liquid fuel and the daguerreotype (early photograph) emerged just as we discovered Neptune, again reminding us of the Saturn/Neptune in Aquarius conjunction as the foundations of the modern age were being laid. Today our modern experiments in search of a “God particle” – the Higgs boson, confirmed to exist in 2012 when Neptune had just returned to its discovery position – continue to resonate with this discovery chart. We seem to be getting very close to cracking the inter-dimensional barrier and understanding how to manipulate gravity and the speed of light. The technology for warp drive is already worked out, we are only lacking a sufficient power source to try it out. That power source is the ‘Zero Point’ energy Tesla was playing with and we will eventually learn how to harness it. In fact it is likely that we have already done so in some Special Access Program that you and I are not meant to know about yet. Neptune is always incredibly secretive, deceptive and veiled. That Moon in Scorpio is a cherry on this cake, suggesting that there are deep secrets in the soul and the world that will be revealed when the time is right. The presence of this Moon in the 6th is a sign that these things will seep into and ultimately saturate our daily lives. In fact the Moon in Scorpio is the main thread connecting the discovery of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

The fact that the foundations of the modern communications age emerged almost immediately following the discovery of Neptune is significant because it is resonant with the exact conjunction of Neptune with Saturn in Aquarius. This clues us into the fact that these discovery charts are responsive to transits. As major transits occur to the discovery chart our relationship to Neptune is transformed or advanced, most often through our own technological achievements. The most significant of these transits I have found in this chart are caused by conjunctions of transiting Neptune itself. For example I have already mentioned inventions which form the foundation of the modern communications age at the time Neptune was discovered. A little later when Neptune was conjunct this discovery charts Uranus in Aries in the late 1860s, the Bahai faith, the basis for genetics, dynamite, the Periodic table, the first transatlantic telegraph cable and the era of Victorian fashions arrive. We discover that light is a form of electromagnetic radiation as the inhuman slave trade brings African music to America, planting the seeds of 20th century blues and jazz music. Shortly after that in the early 1870s as Neptune is transiting the discovery charts Pluto in Aries, heat death or thermodynamic entropy is being defined, the telephone is arriving, the first radiometer, the first electrical generator, America’s Reconstruction and photoconductivity are in the news. In 1895 when Neptune has moved to the position of the discovery charts Jupiter in Gemini, Lumiere brothers release a film leading to the birth of movies. Later in 1932 colour and sound in film arrive when Neptune is conjunct the discovery chart’s Venus. The first satellite, Sputnik I, the first hydrogen bomb tests, the double helix of DNA, the peace symbol, the first video game, the first photos of the dark side of the Moon and the first silicon chip circuit arrive in the late 1950s when Neptune is conjunct the discovery chart’s Moon in Scorpio. When Neptune is conjunct the Aquarius midheaven in 2004 there is a major resurgence of 3-D film and when Neptune returned to Saturn and its discovery position the first quantum machines and AR and VR technologies started to break through into the mainstream. The next stop for us on this trail is Neptune conjunct Uranus in Aries again. The discovery chart is a dynamic mechanism like a clock that advances and deepens our relationship to what Neptune represents, frequently through science or tech, and this is maybe because of that discovery position in Aquarius; although the principle holds true for the other discovery charts as well. .

NEPTUNE IN OUR LIVES

Within an individual chart Neptune has a multidimensional manifestation in every sense of the phrase.

Neptune in the signs has a collective influence because it takes about 14 years for Neptune to go through a single sign and therefore this is something that you will share with millions of people born around the same time as you. It is part of what is featured in your generation. I wrote a lot about this in previous posts and there are individual posts available for Neptune in Libra and Neptune in Sagittarius which I will refer you, with more to come. My introductory post on collective astrology contains information about how Neptune in a sign manifests itself through our sleeping dreams. I also recommend looking at my article on Astrology, Form and Awareness which has much to do with understanding Neptune. 

Neptune in the temples or houses personalises the influence of Neptune in your life and can be considered more significant for individual interpretation. Here is a clear sign for us as to where we will encounter the significations of Neptune in our lives and what activities we need to immerse ourselves in deeply if we go looking for it. I have written two posts about the meanings of the 12 temples and refer you to those here.

Aspects involving Neptune straddle the line between collective and individual/personal depending upon whether they are with fast or slow moving planets. Slow moving planets (from Jupiter outward) have increasingly collective influences as the aspects they form hang around for far longer periods of time and so apply similarly to the signs, while fast moving planets (including the Lights) are far more individual and personal and apply like the temples. Therefore you should pay more attention to the temple position of Neptune as well as aspects to the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars as well as the ascendant and midheaven when you’re giving an interpretation to someone. You should never ignore the sign or the aspects to Jupiter, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus or Pluto but you should consider these as being part of a collective influence affecting many people. Where these collective influences connect with faster moving planets by aspect shows how the personal awareness connects with the collective it belongs to, and the same is also shown by which temples the slow moving planets are in. For example Uranus in conjunction with Neptune in Capricorn is a collective influence but its placement in the temples will act to personalise it, and additionally if you are born with the Sun or the Moon in a conjunction with Uranus and Neptune in Capricorn then you will act to transmit it through your Sun or Moon. The same will be true of your Mars if your Mars is in a square to Uranus/Neptune from Aries, but in this case you will probably be aggressively kicking against something in your generation, something likely connected to its visions or trends (both of which are themes of collective Neptune), maybe its political ideology because of the Capricorn influence.

Wherever Neptune is in your chart, whether that is sign or temple, you will find much greater difficulty in setting your boundaries, idealism, greater confusion, high strangeness and strong psychic hunches (at least) in this area of life. We have to be on guard against deceiving ourselves and being deceived by others, mostly against deceiving ourselves. The weirdness of Neptune leads people to deceive themselves that other people are deceiving them when they are not, more often than it leads people to believe in those who are fraudulent or untruthful. This is especially true when it is conjunct the Sun, Moon, ascendant or chart ruler. The lesson of Neptune is similar to the lesson of Saturn in that it requires discernment. One has to be able to discern imagination and fantasy from the far out realms of reality. If you can’t then there is only a spiral into insanity until you wake up and realise your mistake, by which time it is often too late.

Neptune’s position in a chart can be a very helpful indicator for people who practice meditation because its position in the temples and the signs as well as its aspects can show how deeper and deeper states of meditation can be attained as well as forming a signpost towards specific psychic development. For example in terms of meditation the temple position of Neptune shows the arena of life we can meditate upon in order to dive deeper into the mysteries of life and consciousness. In the 1st temple this is contemplation of the self and of identity. In the 2nd temple, contemplation of innate self worth. In the 3rd temple, contemplation of thought. In the 4th temple, contemplation of memory or time. In the 5th temple, contemplation of bliss. In the 6th temple, contemplation of devotion. In the 7th temple, contemplation of empathy. In the 8th temple, contemplation of mystery or unknowns. In the 9th temple, contemplation of truth. In the 10th temple, contemplation of purpose. In the 11th temple contemplation of hope and in the 12th temple contemplation of transcendence. As I have said the sign and aspects of Neptune can also be interpreted this way. Conduction cycles (see also here) from the Neptune key or from Neptune activations can also serve as a structure for magical or mystical meditation.

At deeper levels the significations of Neptune cannot be put across in words without referring to metaphors that only really suggest what the reality is like. However, this is not necessary as ultimately they are experiences which we can all access and understand in our own way. These deeper levels of Neptune require us to talk about the reality of spirit beings and other dimensions which interpenetrate the physical universe and with which we are in a constant state of communion. To put it simply, Neptune represents the universe that we do not see, a universe which is far vaster than the one that we do see, or can even possibly imagine. Let that sink in. The invisible reality that is all around us is not only even more expansive than the universe we perceive with our physical senses, it also surpasses the ability of even the wildest imagination to grasp, and this is comparing it to a physical universe about which we know almost nothing anyway, compared to what there is to know.

Within this universe that we do not see there are many dimensions interpenetrating our own dimension, dimensions which in their own experience are just as real as our physical universe is to us. These dimensions are populated by numerous beings, many of which are aware of us and seek to interact with us for various reasons. They are in some cases as diverse and as complex in their motivations as human beings are, while in others they are simple things that perform rote functions. Some of these beings also exist in our material universe as we do but most do not, they must visit it or communicate to it through feelings and ideas. The number of these beings and their dimensions is literally infinite, but not all of them ‘adjoin’ our Earthbound physical dimension directly. Many of the beings in these adjoining spheres are the natural, invisible hands that make astrology function. Others are the beings that make physical things work the way they do, like light, or music, or the tides, or birds, or daffodils, or literally anything in nature that you can name from the highest to the lowest, the most general to the most specific. Some really significant ones watch over entire planets. Religions call these Archangels. A planet can be conceptually conceived of as a single cell or organ in the body of the Intelligence, rather than it’s entire manifest body, although there is a hierarchy which manifests avatars or manifestations of the Greater being as guardian spirits of each world. The adjacent or physically interwoven dimensions are given visible physical representations in our physical solar system by the will of these beings – Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. In other words what we see or can see in the sky from planet Earth is a model of the dimensional layering that we are looking at – from within it – while here. This means that all of these dimensions and their beings are available to be directly accessed by all the beings on planet Earth, because our awareness is naturally structured that way. There is an observer effect at work here. Nature mirrors back to us the structure of awareness that is looking out. 

However those things beyond our visible sight and which only become available once we develop sufficient technology so that our seeing is enhanced represent dimensions which we must extend ourselves to reach into, they are representative of evolutionary stages that we are assimilating. They are not off-limits before the discovery of the planet that physically represents them, but these dimensions of awareness require enlightenment to reach before then. After they are discovered, technology starts to push us all collectively into the same territory, before then it is the choice of individuals. The danger of this collective initiation is that the consequences affect all of life on Earth and not just an individual. The other more occult danger is that once the act of seeing has taken place it becomes easier for beings on the far side not only to look back at but also to visit our reality, whether by their own magic, technology or other means. In other words, once we had discovered Uranus and then especially when we discovered Neptune, we opened the way to being visited more readily by those Intelligences from dimensions which are non-terrestrial, some of which may have a physical existence in our universe as well as a presence in and awareness of other dimensions, just as we do.

The other side of that ‘door’ opening is that the effects of humans in the physical world begin to reach into the non-material world, beginning with the closest, and start to powerfully affect the denizens of those realms. This means that human activity, for example logging and mining, begin to dramatically affect the realm of the Elementals and the spirit beings of nature. On one of the occasions when Graham Hancock took Ayahuasca he saw the spirit of Ayahuasca with a body that was broken into pieces and he understood that the damage that was being done to the Amazon was weakening the power of the spirit. Thus there is a vast invisible ocean of consequences that arise from the human imbalance with itself and nature, and the extent of environmental damage is far greater than we realise. This situation is greatly complicated because collectively we do not acknowledge that spirits even exist any more.

The ultimate reality behind all of this is that spirits exist because everything is alive and everything is alive because it is all One Life, One Self. Things continue to persist in form when no human is looking because things are themselves witnesses to their own existence. Even inanimate things have awareness that they exist. That awareness is not neural or biological but awareness does not have to be neural or biological, it is independent of form. Each and every single thing that comes into existence whether in this universe or any other knows that it exists in its own way. Thus each and every thing that exists has a spirit which arises from that part of it which knows that it exists. Since the reality of One Life, One Self is eternal and cannot be quashed, and since it is present in all things equally at all times, all of life is sacred and all that we do is done only to ourselves.

This key reality is only a part of what Neptune leads us towards, but it is an important, pivotal one – if Uranus is about the collective effort of human beings to act together in order to face the problems and make the choices that they need to, in other words about our need to reconnect with one another as human beings, then Neptune is the next step we need to take in order to heal our planet and ourselves – reconnection with the world of spirit, the One Dream, and so with the spirit of the Earth, our collective sacred Mother. Dogma, ego, ideology and cynicism must lose their grip. The test of whether we can save Her from ourselves is a test of how much we are prepared to sacrifice in order to restore the equilibrium. The temptation may be to escape into fabricated fantasy worlds and virtually crafted universes while the “real world” degenerates, or to throw up your hands in depair and hide away like a hermit, but like any escapism this only leaves a hole yearning to be filled once it is time to return to what is. By facing into reality with our imagination rather than out of reality or spurning it altogether we can bring it to bear on some of the most intransigent and long-lasting problems, opening potential visions toward new solutions, solutions which are always emerging because the infinite knows no limits and is poured forth upon the awareness even when it refuses, blindly, to see.

We must remember always that Neptune represents a path to redemption. That such a thing exists may not always be clear to us, in fact it may seem that there is no hope of it, no way to redeem what we have done. Yet such a path is always open even though it may be invisible, because the truth is what it is and cannot be made false. Enlightenment is inevitable. We can only dream of what awaits us in the endless expanse of eternity, and even then our imagination will fall short of what is there.

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SOURCES

Astrolearn Astrology Library

The first published sources for Neptune being granted rulership of Pisces

Library of Free Astrological Books

Complete Arcana of Astral Philosophy

The Astrolologers Magazine Volume II, 1891-92