The other day I was checking out the chart of the Marquis de Sade, as you do.
It’s a fascinating portrayal with the main aspects clearly announcing the major themes in his life.
The most elementary astrology textbooks will place sex in the province of Mars, Scorpio and the 8th house.
So Mars working powerfully in its own sign Aries, with Pluto conjunct the Scorpio Ascendant and an 8th house stellium shows where the main action is.
The range of sexual expression is shown by the relative strengths of Venus and Mars, with the former being the principle of attraction and the latter being assertion.
De Sade’s Venus being conjunct Saturn shows the capacity to give and attract love is strongly suppressed, whereas Mars in Aries means sexual assertiveness is projected forcefully.
Aspects between Venus and Mars will show how these different approaches to the act of lovemaking will work out in practice.
The square aspect creates a level of conflict between them that insists on being acted out. So Mars in Aries square to Venus would be very promiscuous.
The Mars/Saturn square introduces a controlling element and a dominance.
Pluto conjunct the Scorpio Ascendant adds a level of intensity and even depravity.
The relationship between the Sun and Moon can give us information about how the person perceives members of the opposite sex.
The square between the Sun and Moon tends towards a division between the masculine and feminine sides of the self, and in a man’s chart can result in a feeling that women in general want to take something away from him.
When we add the close Sun/Moon square to this mix, there could be a suggestion of contempt of and hatred for the opposite sex together with a strong need to exploit and control them, even using violent methods to do so.
Jupiter also enlarges anything it touches, so its conjunction with the 8th house Sun and square to the Moon turns De Sade into a prolific sexual predator.
With the Sun conjunct Jupiter and the Moon in the 10th, De Sade would have been a prominent person, famous for his 8th house activities.
Whenever I write a post about some notoriety, I get responses like “I’ve got a Mars/Pluto square and as far as I’m aware, haven’t murdered anyone to date”.
It’s always important to recognise that astrology is a symbolic science and that each combination of placements has to be related to the life of the person being observed.
Most people manage to find healthy outlets for Mars/Pluto energy and can use it to their advantage in positive ways.
They certainly won’t be killers, no-one is suggesting that, but it also doesn’t mean that for the axe murderer under discussion, it is the single most likely astrological pattern that converted his internal hatred into horrific action.
So with the rider that if you have any of these placements it doesn’t mean that you will inevitably express them in this or that fashion, I wondered if any of De Sade’s patterns might come up in the charts of other people who were particularly drawn to and affected by sado-masochistic sexual practices.
So I checked out the astrodatabank section on dominant/submissive and found a fair number of interesting connections.
Yukio Mishima wrote numerous plays, including the famous “Madame de Sade” and “from adolescence on he was possessed by violent, macabre and sado-masochistic fantasies, playing out imagery of murder for entertainment, cannibalism and homosexuality”.
Mishima had a T Square involving a Sun/Pluto opposition and an apex Mars in Aries in the 8th house.
Jean Barraque “entered into a romantic relationship with the philosopher Michel Foucault. Together, they tried to produce their greatest work, used recreational drugs heavily and engaged in sado-masochistic sexual activity”.
Barraque had Mars in Sagittarius on the 8th cusp square to Jupiter and Uranus. He also had a close Venus/Saturn conjunction in the 7th.
A Brazilian swinger and wife-swapper, “into bondage and discipline” had a Sun/Moon/Ascendant conjunction in Aries with Venus and the South Node also in the sign and a Mars/Pluto opposition.
Gilbert Duquenoix, a “French popular seer and magician with the stage name “Nathaniel.” He was genteel, much in vogue, openly gay. He was found in his home naked, bound head and foot with a cowl over his head, surrounded by sado-masochistic objects and a knife in his back”.
Duquenoix had Venus in Aries in the 8th opposite Neptune forming a T square with an apex Mars in Cancer. He also had a Moon/Pluto opposition.
The disgraced Conservative politician Jonathan Aitken “had a 27-month affair with Paula, a dominatrix who specialized in bondage and chastisement. He kept whips, canes, riding crops and birch twigs at his London apartment”.
Aitken had the Moon in Aries in the 8th house.
Rainer Fassbinder “favoured S&M sex” and had a Mars/Venus conjunction in Aries.
An “American suicide case by hanging in a sado-masochist ritual dressed in leather, chains and mask” had a Sun/Mars conjunction in Aquarius opposite a Moon/Saturn/Pluto one in Leo.
I could no doubt go on furnishing similar examples but one particular story caught my eye was that of Vicki Morgan.
Morgan was an “American homicide victim; the mistress from the age of 18 of financier Alfred Bloomingdale. She was 17 and married when she first met Bloomingdale. He paid for her divorce and remained an unstinting patron through her two other brief marriages. For 12 years she dispensed her sexual favors that were predominantly sado-masochistic in exchange for lavish care, houses, clothes and cars”.
Anyone being asked to conjure up the image of a dominatrix would be hard pressed to improve on this one.
The 1st house Leo stellium with Sun/Ascendant/Pluto conjunction leaves you absolutely no doubt who is in charge.
The fact that it is at the apex of a T square fuelled by a Mars in Scorpio/Jupiter in the 10th house opposition makes it fairly clear what kind of activities Vicki would be in charge of and how much money and status she would have made from them.
The other T square involving the Moon in Aries opposite Saturn apex Uranus probably points to a difficulty expressing affection in any other fashion.
An afflicted Mars in Scorpio in the 4th had been operating in Vicki’s life since birth. Her father left home to run away with another woman when she was one year old and her step father died when she was nine.
With Jupiter at the other end, maybe she was compensating for these young losses by looking for love from much older rich men.
Her first was Earle Lamb, a wealthy clothing manufacturer, 31 years older than her.
But Vicki Morgan’s true soulmate was 36 years older than her and she met him in August 1969, when aged 17 with her progressed Venus trine that 10th house Jupiter and sextile her Mars.
At the same time Morgan’s progressed Mars was square to her Venus.
Alfred Bloomingdale was an heir to the famous family department store fortune, and the “father of the credit card” having launched a business called “Dine and Sign” that meant people on a night out no longer needed to carry large sums of cash, which later became Diners Club.
This is probably evidenced by the Sun in Aries right on the Midheaven in a wide conjunction with Jupiter.
“Bloomingdale had shelled out blackmail payoffs in the past because of his habit of beating up prostitutes”.
Morgan spoke of his “Marquis de Sade complex” and he introduced her to sado masochism but once she was his full-time mistress, Vicki “started calling the shots of their S&M adventures”.
Maybe all this comes from Bloomingdale’s Aries placements but also the Mars rising in Leo opposite Uranus in the 7th house.
Bloomingdale met Vicki when transit Pluto was conjunct his Moon.
Their synastry was powerful. Bloomingdale’s Mars was right in the middle of Vicki’s Leo stellium, exactly on her Ascendant.
His Sun was also trine her Venus.
The big problem for Vicki Morgan however was there was another Leo involved in this relationship.
Bloomingdale’s wife Betsy was a socialite and fashion icon. Her Sun was exactly conjunct his Ascendant.
She also had Jupiter rising (exactly opposite his own) and a close trine between that Leo Sun and a Mars/Moon conjunction in Sagittarius always meant she would come out fighting and when she found out about Morgan, she threatened him with divorce unless he ended the affair.
In 1973 with transit Pluto opposite Vicki Morgan’s Moon, Bloomingdale left her.
She continued to have affairs with rich and powerful men including the King of Morocco and property developer Robert Shulman as well as the daughter of the King of Saudi Arabia.
During this time Bloomingdale came back on the scene and reinstated her allowance, but he had also received a cancer diagnosis and had only a few months to live.
Alfred Bloomingdale died in 1982 with both transit Saturn and Pluto opposite his Sun.
He had left half the profits from one of his business deals to Vicki in his will but after his death his wife Betsy rescinded this and ended her allowance on the grounds that the will was a “contract for prostitution” and was legally null and void.
Vicki Morgan fought the case in a high profile lawsuit that brought scandal and embarrassment to the President Ron and Nancy Reagan who were friends of the Bloomingdales. But she lost.
Vicky’s life spiralled downwards into poverty and prostitution. She was evicted from her home and murdered by her roommate only a year after Bloomingdale’s death.
Despite the Leo 1st house stellium, Vicki Morgan was a victim of rich and powerful men.
The real Marquis De Sade character in this piece was Alfred Bloomingdale.
Given that his his Sun at 25 Aries was within a degree of De Sade’s Mars, its not that surprising that Pluto oppositions put an end to both of them.
De Sade died in prison when transit Pluto was opposing his Moon, Bloomingdale expired with it opposite his Sun.
Whether or not the grim reaper took them both straight to hell would depend on the reader’s own belief system, but it would be quite funny to think of Alfred the not so great being told ” sorry, we don’t take Diners Club down here”.
Posted on 28th November 2023
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