How important is freedom of speech ?
Does it have limits ? Can we insist on it no matter what pain and suffering our words may cause to other people ?
Do we all have the right to say or write exactly what we think, to or about anyone at all, or is that right just limited to people whose own views we agree with ?
I am a fully paid up member of people speaking their minds, although I could make a good case for Sidereal astrologers to be muted.
But as a triple Capricorn I also believe strongly in personal responsibility and that you have to take complete ownership of your words and their potential for causing suffering to others.
And if your chart shows that they will exact their revenge, you have no choice but to take that on the chin as well.
If there’s one individual on this planet for whom this theme is the central one in their life, that person has to be the author Salman Rushdie.
If there’s one sign and house that corresponds with writers it has to be Gemini and the 3rd.
So an exact Sun / Moon conjunction in that sign right on the cusp of that house instantly shows us exactly what we are looking for.
Freedom is the province of Uranus, it insists on being different and challenging the status quo.
The conjunction of Uranus with the lights in Gemini in the 3rd is perfect for someone prepared to take on a whole religion in novel form.
The exact semi square between the Sun / Moon and Pluto gives us the Satanic Verses.
Which, incidentally was published when Rushdie’s progressed Sun was conjunct Saturn.
The Sun opposite the Moon and Mars in Aries certainly shows that someone is up for a fight.
The T square apex with Neptune in Capricorn shows the focus for that battle would be one of the world’s major organised religions.
But look at the tight Saturn / Uranus conjunction.
It falls exactly opposite Rushdie’s Sun and Moon.
We all know about the power of 42. Thanks to Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which revealed that this number is the answer to life, the Universe and everything.
Forty Two is all about Uranus. It is the year of its half return, when even hitherto conventional men have their mid life crisis, and do something totally different and challenge their own and other people’s orthodoxy.
How challenging will depend on Uranus’ placement at birth. If it aspects the Sun or Moon, then this tangential phase is likely to be extremely disruptive and wilful, as well as revolutionary.
If it falls in Sagittarius on your natal 9th house opposite your 3rd house Gemini Sun and Moon, then foreign religious institutions need to expect to be pilloried in print.
If Saturn is there as well, then the repercussions of such freedom of speech are going to be horrendous.
Especially a few months later when Saturn conjoins that Neptune.
The fatwa calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie with Saturn and Neptune in the noon 8th house was issued in Iran, a country that had been taken over by a dictatorship of religious fundamentalists a decade earlier.
The chart for the Islamic Republic of Iran has the Sun at 11 Aries, exactly square to this Saturn / Neptune conjunction.
The Mars / Pluto opposition points to the violence involved and its T square apex Venus in Aquarius in the noon 9th shows the religious dogma behind it.
This T square forms a Grand Cross with Rushdie’s own ( which also contains Mars and Pluto ).
The Ruhollah (who was just a plain Ayatollah in those days ) Khomeini’s qualification for fundamentalist religious leader was the Moon in the final degree of Sagittarius conjunct Saturn in the 4th house opposite Neptune in the 10th.
Khomeini’s Moon fell opposite Rushdie’s Sun and Moon and his Neptune was exactly conjunct them.
It’s important to remember that when the Saturn / Uranus conjunction opposed Rushdie’s Sun and Moon it was also conjunct Khomeini’s Moon.
Rushdie went into hiding and had round the clock protection for many years, so no-one was able to collect the offered number of virgins in the next life.
However 34 years after the Verses was released, one guy did get through.
At the time of this frenzied attack a Moon / Saturn conjunction was on the Sun of the Fatwa declaration ( 26 Aquarius ).
This forms an opposition to the Sun and a sudden, violent T Square apex Mars / Uranus conjunction in the 8th house of death.
It goes without saying that this pair are conjunct Salman Rushdie’s own Mars.
Most people have strongly developed notions of good and bad, right and wrong, and these have been heavily indoctrinated into us by the world’s major organised religions.
Even when the discussion is about karma, we tend to view it along the lines of ” if you do bad things, you will get your just deserts “.
Astrology, unlike any other subject, gives us the opportunity to distance ourselves from these notions and see the themes in someone’s life as an inevitable consequence of the moment of their birth.
Salman Rushdie had two major patterns in his chart.
The Sun, Moon, Uranus conjunction in Gemini in the 3rd house which insisted that he ” tell it like it is ” to Islam.
And the Mars, Jupiter, Pluto T square which was always going to bring about a violent reaction to those words.
Saturn opposite his Sun delivered the novel.
Saturn square his Mars brought the retribution.
Chapter 1 of the Saturnic Verses begins with the words ” With freedom, comes responsibility. “
Posted on 30th September 2023
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