My raison d’être is to present the astrological view of the world as the most rational, logical one available to humans.

This is no easy task and it’s not made any simpler by the impression that most muggles have of astrology people having a poor grasp of reality.

Many astrologers have no real interest in changing that perception either. They prefer to preach to the converted and don’t wish to waste their energy casting their pearls of wisdom on stony ground.

This is an understandable approach, but it can bring its own problems.

If you don’t constantly feel a responsibility to prove your subject to sceptics, it is easy to drift off into a place where your theories and methods don’t have to correlate that much with actual events on Earth.

Research is an evidence based approach designed to test, refute or support theories that explain observed phenomena. This applies whatever in astrology just as much as any other subject.

However we live in a world now where people can claim to be doing research when they are simply looking up what some other bloke said on the internet.

For many astrologers, research is reading about what their heroes said 2,000 years ago.

Regular readers will know this is a common theme for me and many people accuse me of having a lack of respect for those astrologers of the past.

This is not true. Astrologers in ancient times were probably the wisest people on Earth.

My problem is with the ones today who wish to live in some kind of Ancient Greek hologram, and specifically with those that refuse to use Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

The don’t seem to recognise that if those ancients had been aware of the existence of the outer planets of our solar system, they would have instantly recognised them as the missing piece of the jigsaw and incorporated them into their practice.

I recently posted on Bluesky about Uranus opposing someone’s Sun. One poster replied saying “I don’t use outer planets but the day I fell between train and platform… Uranus was in exact opposition to my Sun.”

My response was “That is the Universe’s way of telling you to use the outer planets”.

The mind boggles. If such an incident wasn’t enough to persuade this person to consider the outer planets, at least by transit, they either have a life full of far more extreme events or they have their head very firmly buried in the sand.

But it is this kind of observation that makes me realise I need to explain what planetary transits are and how much weight to give to the many different ones that occur in a person’s lifetime.

Many of my readers will have heard all this before, but if it prevents just one person falling under a train I feel obliged to repeat it.

A transit refers to a period in one’s life when one of the planets passes within a range of 1 degree to one of your natal placements.

So if you were born on say January 1st, your natal Sun would be at 10 degrees of Capricorn.

Any planet passing between 9 and 11 of that sign would be conjunct your Sun for that period.

One passing between 9-11 of Cancer would be opposite your Sun, through the same degrees of Aries/Libra would be square to it etc.

All planets (not including the Sun and Moon) have retrograde periods.

This might mean that a planet goes past your Sun (maybe to 14 Capricorn) but then turns backward and reverses (perhaps to 7 Capricorn) before it makes its final pass. In this case a transit would be considered to last from the first time it reached 9 Capricorn to the last time it left 11 of that sign.

Everything in astrology has an effect that is entirely related to its uniqueness to you.

The fact that you have the Sun in Capricorn is relevant because 11/12ths of the population do not have it.

You may, like me have been born in the mid 1950s, in which case you would have Pluto in Leo. This would have no personal relevance to you because every single person in the world born between 1939 and 1957 also has it.

This is the reason why people like our unfortunate railway platform leaver don’t use Pluto.

But they don’t seem to realise that it is precisely because Pluto moves so slowly that it’s transits have such life changing power.

Transits also gain their strength from their uniqueness to you and your life and the length of time that they are in operation.

Say for sake of argument that you were born on January 1st 1950. You would now be 75 years old.

In that time, the Moon would have been in Capricorn almost 1,000 times.

The time that it takes the Moon to move between 9 and 11 degrees of a particular sign would be approximately 4 hours.

If we include its movements through Cancer, Aries and Libra we are looking at a major lunar transit to your Sun occurring almost 4,000 times.

In those same 75 years, Pluto would have made a similar transit twice, during the 1970s (the square in Libra) and the 2010s (the conjunction in Capricorn).

Each would have lasted for approximately 2 years.

Consequently a Pluto transit to your Sun would be 2,000 times as powerful and life impacting as a lunar one.

Uranus moves faster than Pluto but by the same calculations its transit would be approximately 1,000 times more powerful than a lunar one.

I have no doubt that our station platform friend would have been fully aware of the transiting Moon and its position in their own chart at the time.

But if Uranus comes up behind you and gives you a shove, you are 1,000 times more likely to end up in front of an oncoming train.

And yet these people are convinced that if given those odds of similar catastrophes occurring in their own lives and those of their clients, their Hellenistic heroes of yore would choose to remain in ignorance because the seven planets that they were aware of at the time had some kind of cute rulership symmetry.

There are some astrologers that reluctantly give credit to the outer planets transits, but they also say that they would not have had that power before the late 18th century because they had not been discovered until then.

This is an obvious piece of nonsense.

Since when did astrology require humans to be aware of it to have an effect on them? The vast majority of people have not the faintest clue about the planets’ daily impact on their life.

Our platform friend’s ignorance of Uranus did not stop it pushing them under the train.

When trying to decide what subject to use for this article I googled “worst marriages in history”.

Naturally that serial wife killer Henry V111 came first, but I’ve already covered him in The Six Wives Of Henry VIII

The next on the list that had timed charts available for both partners was that of Princess Caroline of Brunswick.

As she was born a generation before Uranus was discovered I have included her chart as astrologers of the day would have seen it, without the 3 outer planets.

With the Sun in Taurus and Moon in Gemini in trine to Jupiter conjunct a Libra Ascendant, you would expect Caroline to lead a charmed life.

With her ruler, a dignified Venus in the 7th conjunct Mercury and sextile Mars in Pisces, the 7th house ruler and Saturn in Cancer in the 9th you might expect her to marry someone from abroad but this looks very much like a Prince Charming, happy ever after scenario.

Unfortunately for Caroline, by the time she reached her 13th birthday, Uranus had been discovered. And in a place that would give her own marital ambitions a very particular shove off the platform.

For Princess Caroline of Brunswick, Uranus is exactly conjunct her Venus in her 7th house of marriage.

But we shouldn’t stop there.

Once we see that Neptune is opposite Caroline’s Mars, this 7th house ruler Prince Charming figure starts to look more like a drunken, debauched figure prone to having secret affairs (Mars in Pisces in the 5th house).

And Pluto’s exact square (a mere 4 minutes of arc) to Jupiter would take any ambitions that she had of becoming a Queen into a shredder.

Particularly if we factor in that on the date of her marriage, transit Pluto would be making it’s only aspect of her life to her Sun (a square).

But more of that later.

What about Prince Charming of Brunswick?

George IV of England (yes it was him) “led an extravagant lifestyle that contributed to the fashions of the Regency era.” He commissioned the Royal Pavilion in Brighton as a pleasure palace to entertain his mistresses and “his dissolute way of life… earned him the contempt of the people and dimmed the prestige of the monarchy.

George’s rule was tarnished by scandal and financial extravagance. His ministers found his behaviour selfish, unreliable and irresponsible and he was strongly influenced by favourites.”

This is all fairly well covered in George’s Fixed Grand Cross, particularly the extravagant Moon conjunct Jupiter in Taurus in the 2nd house in opposition to the sleazy Mars in Scorpio in the 8th.

I don’t intend to publish two charts for everything in this article, but it is worth pointing out that while George has a challenging chart anyway, it is made much more difficult in the area of relationships by the inclusion of the outer planets.

Venus in the 7th house in trine to the Moon might be considered favourable. In square to Pluto it becomes very difficult.

The Sun on the Descendant would make relationships a major theme in his life, the conjunction with Neptune means that any kind of marriage would be a disaster laced with lies and deception.

Technically Caroline wasn’t George’s first wife either.

In spring 1784, he was introduced to twice widowed Maria Fitzherbert who was 6 years older than him. “The prince became infatuated with her and pursued her endlessly until she agreed to marry him. Secretly, and – as both parties were well aware – against the law, they went through a form of marriage on 15 December 1785.

The marriage was not valid under English law because it had not received the prior approval of King George III and the Privy Council as required by the Royal Marriages Act 1772. Had approval been sought, it might not have been granted for many reasons, including, for example, Fitzherbert’s Catholic religion. Had consent been given and the marriage been legal, the Prince of Wales would have been automatically removed from the succession to the British throne.

On 23 June 1794, Fitzherbert was informed by letter that her relationship with the Prince was over.”

We don’t have a birthtime for Maria but given her life experience it’s safe to assume that the 7th (marriage) and 8th houses (death) would be strongly tenanted.

So I am tempted to turn the chart so that it would show this.

Like George she is a Leo, her Sun closely conjunct his Mercury.

She has Mars in his 7th house widely conjunct his Venus.

It’s true that her Sun is opposite Saturn, but on it’s own this would not come close to describing her life.

When we include the outer planets we have a much clearer picture.

Like George she has a Sun/Neptune conjunction but the really powerful indicator here is Mars’ role in an exact T square opposite Uranus and with an apex Pluto.

Maria and George were a meant to be combination. Her progressed Sun was conjunct her Venus when they married.

The key players would be Saturn and Neptune because of their involvement with Maria’s Sun.

They married on her Saturn Return when it was opposite her Sun.

They split when transit Neptune made the only aspect of her life to her Sun, the square in 1794.

Their own wedding chart was a mess anyway.

Astrology is very simple. If you are looking to elect someone’s wedding the obvious factors for husband and wife are the two pairs of the Sun and Moon and Venus and Mars, you would naturally look for harmonious aspects between them.

No-one would pick a Full Moon and certainly not an exact Venus and Mars opposition.

That these two polarities were present in Gemini and Sagittarius would say that this arrangement was never going to last.

Mercury being part of a T square with Uranus and an apex Neptune just confirms this fact.

The reason for George and Maria’s split? His marriage to Caroline of Brunswick.

“In 1794, Caroline and the Prince of Wales were engaged. They had never met—George had agreed to marry her because he was heavily in debt, and if he contracted a marriage with an eligible princess, Parliament would increase his allowance. Caroline seemed eminently suitable: she was a Protestant of royal birth, and the marriage would ally Brunswick and Britain. Although Brunswick was only a small country, Britain was at war with revolutionary France and so was eager to obtain allies on the European mainland.

Caroline did not want to marry. On meeting George she complained “the Prince is very fat and he’s nothing like as handsome as his portrait.

Caroline and George were married on 8 April 1795 in London. At the ceremony, George was drunk. He regarded Caroline as unattractive and unhygienic, and suspected that she was not a virgin when they married.

In a letter to a friend, the prince claimed that the couple only had sexual intercourse three times: twice the first night of the marriage, and once the second night. He wrote, “it required no small effort to conquer my aversion and overcome the disgust of her person.” Caroline claimed George was so drunk that he “passed the greatest part of his bridal night under the grate, where he fell, and where I left him”.

Nine months after the wedding, Caroline gave birth to Princess Charlotte, George’s only legitimate child. Charlotte was second in the line of succession to the British throne after her father. Just three days after Charlotte’s birth, George made out a new will. He left all his property to “Maria Fitzherbert, my wife”, while to Caroline he left one shilling.

Gossip about Caroline and George’s troubled marriage was already circulating. The press vilified George for his extravagance and luxury at a time of war and portrayed Caroline as a wronged wife. She was cheered in public and gained plaudits for her “winning familiarity” and easy, open nature. George was dismayed at her popularity and his own unpopularity, and felt trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman he loathed. He wanted a separation.

By the end of 1811, King George III had become permanently insane, and the Prince of Wales was appointed regent. He restricted Caroline’s access to Princess Charlotte further, and Caroline became more socially isolated as members of high society chose to patronise George’s extravagant parties rather than hers.

Caroline, unhappy at her situation and treatment in Britain, negotiated a deal where she agreed to leave the country in exchange for an annual allowance of £35,000.  On 8 August 1814, Caroline left Britain.”

She spent the next few years travelling round Europe.

In 1816, Caroline’s daughter, Princess Charlotte, had married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and the future of the British monarchy looked bright. Then tragedy struck: in November 1817, Charlotte died after giving birth to her only child, a stillborn son. For the most part, Charlotte had been immensely popular with the public, and her death was a blow to the country. Caroline had lost her daughter, but she had also lost any chance of regaining position through the succession of her daughter to the throne.

George was determined to press ahead with a divorce, at this time in England divorce by mutual consent was illegal; it was only possible to divorce if one of the partners admitted or was found guilty of adultery. However on 29 January 1820 George III died. Caroline’s husband became king and, at least nominally, she was queen of the United Kingdom.

Instead of being treated like a queen, Caroline found that her estranged husband’s accession paradoxically made her position worse. In an attempt to assert her rights, she made plans to return to Britain. The King demanded that his ministers get rid of her. He successfully persuaded them to remove her name from the liturgy of the Church of England, but they would not agree to a divorce because they feared the effect of a public trial. The government was weak and unpopular, and a trial detailing salacious details of both Caroline’s and George’s separate love lives was certain to destabilise it further. 

When Caroline arrived in England riots broke out in support of her. Caroline was a figurehead for the growing Radical movement that demanded political reform and opposed the unpopular king. Nevertheless, the King still adamantly desired a divorce and the following day, he submitted the evidence to Parliament of Caroline’s adultery. Examination of the bags of evidence was delayed as Parliament debated the form of the investigation, but eventually they were opened and examined in secret by 15 peers. The peers considered the contents scandalous, and a week later, after their report to the House, the government introduced a bill in Parliament, the Pains and Penalties Bill 1820, to strip Caroline of the title of queen and dissolve her marriage.

The bill was effectively a public trial of the Queen. The trial caused a sensation. The bill passed the House of Lords, but was not submitted to the House of Commons as there was little prospect that the Commons would pass it.

Even during the trial, the Queen remained immensely popular and despite the King’s best attempts, Caroline retained a strong popularity among the masses, and pressed ahead with plans to attend the coronation service as queen.

George had Caroline turned away from the coronation at the doors of Westminster Abbey.  A witness described how the Queen stood at the door fuming as bayonets were held under her chin until the deputy lord chamberlain had the doors slammed in her face.

The night following Caroline’s failed attempt to attend her husband’s coronation, she fell ill and three weeks later she died at the age of 53. Her physicians thought she had an intestinal obstruction, but she may have had cancer, and there were rumours at the time that she had been poisoned.”

George and Caroline’s wedding chart is probably the worst I have ever seen.

With a Grand Cross involving the Moon, Venus, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto, sitting alongside another one containing the Ascendant, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune, this chart would clearly describe all of the above story.

It is also important to note that Saturn is exactly conjunct Caroline’s natal Sun at 27 Taurus.

Uranus and Pluto are also forming exact squares to that Sun.

Uranus had only been discovered a few years before Caroline of Brunswick married Prince George and astrologers of the day would have no clue as to what the new planet might mean.

Anyone looking at her chart with no outer planets would advise her that she was destined to be happily married.

In a way we can see her ruling Venus in Taurus in the 7th house as her standing on the platform waiting for Mercury, the train of marriage.

The Brunswick court astrologer would not have seen Uranus come along between them to shove her under it.

While they would have known that transit Saturn was conjunct Caroline’s Sun for her wedding, they would probably have seen that purely in terms of her having to settle into a more conformist lifestyle and take on another level of responsibility as a British Queen in waiting.

What they would never have dreamt of would be the transits of Uranus and Pluto forming a T square to her Sun and the calamities that would inevitably follow.

A Saturn transit to someone’s Sun would last on average a couple of months, and we could expect up to 12 of them in a life time.

Therefore using the frequency formula referred to earlier, a Saturn transit would be over 300 times more powerful than a Moon one.

A Uranus transit would be 3 times stronger than a Saturn transit, a Pluto one would be 10 times more powerful.

Saturn transits are difficult, they represent periods of contraction, restriction and limitation, times when we have to put up with obstacles and work harder than usual to get past them.

The outer planets transit are life changing turning points.

Any astrologer that refuses to recognise them would miss out on all the pivotal moments of change in our lives.

They might have all kinds of bizarre substitute methods in their desperate attempts to make up for this gaping hole in their practice, but these would still leave you on the edge of a platform trying to work out a complex timetable for some as yet unscheduled future train, while Uranus or Pluto comes up behind you and pushes you under the oncoming one.

So make sure you get your wedding chart elected, but not by an astrologer still living in the age of the horse and cart.

Posted on March 20th 2025

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