Turn the page of any astrology book to the chapter on Uranus and there’s a fair bet that the first paragraph will frame it in terms of its reference to neighbour Saturn.

Because how can anyone break through barriers without first knowing where they are ?

We are usually told that until the late 18th century, everyone believed that Saturn marked the outer limits of the solar system because it was the furthest planet that was visible to the naked eye.

So Saturn was always seen as the ultimate authority. It was the planet of the nation state and the religious authorities that sanctioned it.

Saturn stands for the status quo and says ” none shall pass “. And for thousands of years, things stayed pretty much the same.

This is not to say that there were no rebellions, there were many but they didn’t really change the fundamental division between the feudal rulers and the peasants that had always existed, all that happened was a few people that had been in the latter class fought to get into the former one.

The discovery of Uranus in 1781 changed all that.

Uranus brought with it a whole new class of capitalists who took advantage of industrialisation to knock most of the old rulers off their perch and grab power for themselves by controlling the means of production.

The middle class was born.

And from that point on, the main focus wasn’t on the relationship between ruler and subjects, it was now between capital and workforce.

As with everything in astrology, it’s not so much the planets that hand out our fate, its our response to their transits that conditions whether we adapt, survive or even thrive.

It’s probably true that Capricorns are better at finding the positives in Saturn transits, while maybe Sagittarians can extract the most from Jupiter ones.

The people most likely to struggle with Uranus transits are perhaps Fixed signs, particularly Leos.

Appropriately for someone with the Sun exactly conjunct Jupiter in Leo, French monarch Louis XV1 believe firmly in the divine right of kings.

Unfortunately for him, he was born a couple of centuries too late to extract maximum benefit from his convictions.

One of my strongest held principles built during 50 years of researching astrology is that while sign placements can say a lot about character, any T square in someone’s chart will clearly demonstrate the most powerful themes of their life.

Louis’ T square is based on the opposition between his Virgo Ascendant and Uranus.

The Descendant is an interesting area in a birth chart. It generally points to the marriage partner, although in mundane charts it will often indicate enemies.

These rather strange 7th house bedfellows are often explained away by referencing the attraction of opposites and jokes about the war between the sexes.

My own view around planets that are opposite the Ascendant is that they can represent parts of the native that they find difficult to acknowledge and integrate as parts of themselves and therefore have to project that experience onto other people in their life, usually the marriage partner.

As a Sun / Jupiter in Leo, Luis XVI would certainly have difficulty incorporating Uranian ideals of equality and rebellion. Whenever he met with such a stimulus he would inevitably double down on his own divinity.

It’s understandable that anyone with an opposition is likely to identify more with one end than the other. If one end is the Ascendant and the other an outer planet there’s no prizes for guessing which end that would be.

So for Louis, anything to do with Uranus would simply make him reassert his own claims, thus creating more of a problem.

Because the more you try to focus on one end of an opposition the stronger the pendulum will swing back to the planet on the other side.

Who knows whether if Louis had been more Venus in Pisces rather than Sun in Leo he would have been able to escape his execution at then hands of the mob ?

One thing is for sure, with this T square it was utterly predictable because the conflicting energies produced by an opposition will always be channeled very strongly onto the apex planet, in this case the revolutionary Pluto in Sagittarius in the 4th house.

So from birth Louis and his family had the divine right to the guillotine.

The French Revolution was a product of the opposition between Uranus in Leo and Pluto in Aquarius.

When you see it in those very simple terms its so obvious that a king had to die.

One thing that always works is if there is a natal aspect involving an outer planet, the energies of that pattern will be very strongly triggered many years later when it is renewed by transit.

On the very day of Louis’ execution the Uranus and Pluto formed an exact opposition.

They were also part of an extremely painful Fixed Grand Cross including the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and the noon Ascendant.

This Grand Cross fell across Louis XVI’s own natal Sun.

What can we learn from Louis’ experience ?

Well the main one is not to presume that a Golden Age for you and your mates will persist forever, particularly with Uranus around.

Astrologers like to think of themselves as essentially Uranian, but I’m not sure if there’s any real evidence for that.

If there is such a thing as a profession of astrologers, it seems that they didn’t respond very well to the discovery of the planet itself.

Because if there was ever a golden age of astrology it would have to be the couple of centuries or so before that.

In that era we had William Lilly who was so adept at prediction that he got the Great Fire of London to within one day, first mentioning it 15 years before the event. This was such a big shock in 1666 that he was even initially accused of starting it himself in order to prove his prediction.

Lilly was also consulted on many occasions by both Charles I and Cromwell over where and when to stage battles in the English Civil War.

There was also John Dee, a senior member of Elizabeth I’s court who elected her coronation date and time and picked such a brilliant one that she was able to reign peacefully for 45 years ( which is 40 more than her elder brother and sister had managed before her ).

Another was Elias Ashmole who was an important figure particularly during the reign of Charles II and who founded the Ashmolean Museum, the first truly public one in Europe.

There was Nicholas Culpepper, a major player in the field of medical astrology.

Astrology was considered the equal and in many cases the prime mover of all the other sciences in those days, confirmed by the fact that the greatest of his day, Isaac Newton, also practiced it. His famous retort to Edmund Halley – ” Sir I have studied the subject, you have not ” is still used in the face of sceptics today.

Other notable astrologers in the field of astronomy were Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe.

There was no division between astronomy and astrology in those days. It was widely recognised that the only point in studying the former was to gain a greater understanding of the latter.

In fact the first really famous astronomer who did not practice astrology was probably the guy that discovered Uranus.

Although we don’t have a birthchart for William Herschel we can see the main theme in his chart.

He was born with a very powerful opposition between a Moon / Venus / Uranus conjunction in Capricorn and a Saturn / Neptune one in Cancer.

It is particularly appropriate that Uranus is opposing Saturn from the latter’s own sign. It seems to portend the revolution to come.

It was initially proposed that the new planet be named after him.

Herschel discovered Uranus with Jupiter conjunct his own Sun.

Uranus was itself conjunct his natal Mars.

The Saturn / Uranus opposition from his natal chart is occurring again with the discovery, this time drawing Mars in and creating a T square with an apex Sun.

Saturn of course rules the authorities and the status quo. Uranus, particularly when in opposition will disrupt both of them.

Note that this is a Bucket type chart and Uranus is the handle planet. This would enhance its powers considerably and mean that it poses a massive challenge for the whole of the rest of the chart.

The fact that the Mars / Saturn conjunction is in Sagittarius suggests that it’s the old time religious view of the world that will be most threatened by the new planet.

And because it was very much part of the fabric of conventional life at the time we would have to include Astrology in that world view.

But far from ushering in a golden age for Astrology, the discovery of Uranus pretty much killed one off.

All the astrologers that I listed earlier were major players in the worlds of science and politics at the time.

They were all Saturnine characters too.

Lilly had a Capricorn Moon with his Sun closely opposite Saturn

Dee had Saturn at the apex of a T square involving his Sun and Moon.

Ashmole had the Moon closely conjunct Saturn.

Culpepper had the Sun opposite Saturn.

Newton was a Capricorn, Kepler had a stellium in that sign.

Brahe was also a Capricorn with a Sun / Saturn conjunction.

Of all that lot, only Brahe and Kepler could be said to have strong aspects involving Uranus.

So all these major players in astrology were all establishment men.

Uranus appearing in Gemini actually helped to create a dualistic separation between science and astrology. The great minds of the 19th century all went with the former.

The tangents of science and astrology probably became even more divergent with the discovery of Neptune half a century later.

Whose fault is this ?

Another great scientist born in the post Uranus era, Charles Darwin, stated that the trick to survival was the ability to adjust to changing environmental stimuli.

I feel that astrology, far from adapting to the Uranian era, failed to adjust to this new world of thought.

What was actually required to keep the subject at the forefront of people’s minds was a complete revolution, a reframing of the discipline with the desire to explain it in a way that could be taken on and used by the scientists and the politicians of the time.

What actually happened was the opposite. Astrologers of the day failed to take up this challenge and became marginalised because of that failure.

The subject became a refuge for outsiders, people who were drawn by the occult rather than those that were actually running things.

As astrologers we have so many advantages now compared to those of the pre Uranus golden age. We have software that can enable us to research with incredible detail the magnificent impact of our science on human life.

But do we actually do it ?

If you study what has been happening in the world of astrology over the last few weeks you would see a whole bunch of people who are totally obsessed with the archaic opinions of others born 2000 years ago.

Astrology in the 2020s is as still tied to old time religion as it ever was.

In 1781 Uranus was in Gemini and Pluto was in Aquarius.

From 2026 to 2033 those two will be back in the same signs again.

Will we take advantage and see another Golden Age of Astrology ?

If the last fortnight is anything to go by I wouldn’t bet on it.

Posted on February 18th 2023

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