(by Thomas Gazis)
There is a certain ignominy that casts its shadow over the shoulders of all the modern astrologers, a sort of disgrace that the skeptics are actually taking advantage of. This ignominy has to do with a colossal failing of ours that occurred in the previous century: the astrologers all over the world had blatantly failed to predict the gigantic event of the World War II! French astrologer Andre Barbault - an internationally recognized expert on Mundane Astrology - is explaing the intricacies of this failure in his book "L'Astrologie mondiale":
"Shortly before the war my older brother (an astrologer himself) was running a journal on world events called: "L'Avenir du Monde" ("The Future of the World"). In those times a grim specter was hovering over Europe - especially after the Munich events - and the crucial question on everyone's lips was: can peace be given a chance? "No, the war will not happen" was the reassuring headline of my brother's newspaper, just a few months before the outbreak of World War II - and actually in full agreement with his astrological "intelligentsia" colleagues".
Barbault got utterly disappointed by the blatant failure of the pre-war astrologers to predict world war II! He wrote later on: "what if tomorrow a third world war or a disruption of global proportions were to break? Would we be able this time to predict it? A new forecast fiasco like the WW2 one would ultimately amount to the condemnation of our celestial art!"
The late 1930's astrologers were very knowledgeable about astrology, almost as knowledgeable as we are! Just think the fact that they were including Pluto in their charts, they knew how to spot the major planetary formations and they were taking seriously in consideration the various Ingresses and Eclipses. Why they failed then so miserably?
Let's see the data they had in their disposition. First of all, in the very year the great war broke (1939) no major stellium was formed upon the sky - nor any major configuration between the outer planets. Let's study then the Vernal Ingress chart that preceded the war. You can see it below:
With the Moon being in the bellicose sign of Aries and both Sun and Moon in the Eighth House - receiving a square aspect from Mars - and with Pluto sitting right on the Ascendant this Ingress chart is fraught with war energies! I am wondering how the 1930's European astrologers missed to see that!
Let's study now the Solar Eclipse that preceded the outbreak of the World War II. You can see its chart below. Surprisingly, the Sun and the Moon are found again in the bellicose sign of Aries, receiving an almost partile square aspect from the culminating Pluto (not to mention the fact that Saturn is conjuncting the Luminaries)!
In both these charts there is a "war odour" which the astrologers of the time apparently did not pick up. In hindsight, it's easy to criticize the astrologers of the 1930's for this blatant failure of theirs but if we would put ourselves in their shoes we would extenuate them a lot. In human history there have been many difficult Ingresses and Eclipses and most of them did not entail an event of epic proportions (likeWorld War II). Back in the late 1930's there was no major planetary configuration on the sky heralding an imminent war. In addition, planet Pluto had been discovered just 9 years before, so they didn't have a good understanding of it - as we don't have today a good understanding of the dwarf planet Sedna, which was discovered in 2003 (we just know that Sedna is an ultra-remote and "exotic" object, with an eccentric orbit that looks like a stuffed cigar).
The newly found "dwarf planets" (or "Kuiper Belt Objects" or "planetoids" as I prefer to call them) are actually constituting our new advanced astrological "tools" and they are making the difference (the 1930's astrologers totally ignored them)! If you consider these planetoids as some sort of minor "asteroids" then you should think twice. Planetoid Eris is bigger than planetoid Pluto and if you consider Pluto significant in astrology then you have to consider Eris equally significant! And you should consider significant too the second biggest planetoid: Sedna!
Although it's very early to decipher the astrological properties of these newfound planetoids, we may try to extrapolate some of them out of the "synchronicity" of their name and out of the "zeitgeist" (the "spirit") of the period of their discovery. If you think about it, Eris has a lot to do with war as it is the goddess of discord and strife (in Greek mythology it was Eris that threw the golden apple and indirectly caused the Trojan war). Sedna on the other hand is the most "exotic" and remote planetoid of our (wider) solar system. Its orbit actually looks like a stuffed cigar, with our entire solar system comprised in that cigar's burning edge! The "snuffing edge" of that cigar-shaped orbit extends incredibly far away - till the so called Oort cloud, a "bubble" of unimaginable dimensions that surrounds our solar system. In the Oort cloud the kingdom of the Sun ends (we have discovered there the so called "héliopause") while beyond that "cloud" there is nothing else but the galactic space. So Sedna constitutes a sort of "cosmic link" that interconnects the more tangible reality of our Solar System with the transcendental oddity of the external galactic space, with the deepest mysteries of our universe! Thus I consider Sedna's energies ultra- undifferentiated, universal and fatal - much more than Pluto's energies are!
Let's travel now with our imagination back in the 1930's. We are some French astrologers experiencing the aftermath of the 1931 Saturn - Uranus - Pluto T-Square (in hindsight, we can tell now that Sedna was pivotal in that formation, as it was conjuncting Uranus and squaring Pluto and Saturn).We would feel that something was going terribly wrong with Germany and we would try to figure out astrologically if there would be a new Great War. We would ask ourselves: when do wars break out according to the astrological theory? During major inharmonic planetary configurations of course but chiefly when the sign of Aries is over-activated. So, we would look ahead and we would see no over-activation of the sign of Aries in the 1930's - 1940's. On the contrary, we would notice an over-activation of the peaceful sign of Taurus in the beginning of the 1940's! Thus, our conclusion would be that no war would occur in the 1930's or in the beginning of the 1940's!
Let's change our script a little bit. What about being French astrologers of the 1930's knowing about Eris and Sedna? That knowledge would radically change our perspective. Both Eris and Sedna orbit the Sun in a very long time periods (Eris in 557 years and Sedna in a staggering 11.400 years!). During the whole period of World War II both Eris and Sedna were in the sign of Aries! That's a unique event that occurs only once every many thousands of years (last time i.e. that Sedna was in the sign of Aries the mammoths were roaming over an ice-covered Europe. Not to mention that rarely both Sedna and Eris are simultaneously found in the sign of Aries)! Thus, this must be considered an event of epic proportions!
How much of a coincidence is the fact that the bloodiest and most violent War in human history (that unleashed tremendous energies and caused an alleged number of 70.000.000 casualties) occurred when both Eris and Sedna were in the sign of Aries? And on the other hand, how can such a war break out with just an outer planet in the sign of Aries (Jupiter)? It makes no sense at all. The World War II had a distinctive Aries trait (Germany is traditionally an Aries country and even its "Blitzkrieg" (the "lighting-war" that the Germans introduced in WW2 for the first time ever in world history) is a typically Arietid product. All this makes sense only if we take in consideration Eris and Sedna! In such a case, an entire stellium is formed in Aries on the very moment of the German invasion in Poland (1st of September 1939) that traditionally signals the breaking of World War II:
We can clearly see now a whole array of planets-planetoids in the bellicose sign of Aries (with three of them falling in the bellicose - as well - Eight House). Eris is conjuncted by the Moon and Jupiter while Sedna receives a square aspect from Mars. This is by all means a major war outbreak chart!
And since we have in our hands these new wonderful “tools” (Eris and Sedna) why we don’t apply them to the 1939 pre-war Vernal Ingress chart so as to see what kind of clues will come out this time.
Well, you can see above how much ominous this Ingress chart becomes! Eris is conjuncting both the Luminaries and squaring Mars! That’s a pretty “shady” element on its own (if you think that Eris instigates strife)! Additionally, Sedna is tightly conjunct by Saturn - unleashing its harsh energies over the social and political reality of the time! This Vernal Ingress chart might easily be considered a war harbinger (notice how much the very first degrees of Aries are emphasized in it, as in the case of the chart erected for the German invasion to Poland. The Moon is in both charts in the sign of Aries - almost in the same degree)! If the astrologers of the 1930's had in their disposition the "tools" of Eris and Sedna they would have realized the fact that the 1939 Vernal Ingress chart was a war precursor!
Even World War I can be more clearly understood if we consider the fact that Sedna already was back then in Aries, while at the same time Pluto was forming a square aspect to Eris (actually during the critical years 1914 - 1916 Pluto was forming a broader square aspect to both Eris and Sedna. That was quite unusual and certainly must have bore certain implications on world history that we should pinpoint)!
I have personally re-examined tens and tens of major events in world history and I can assure you that we rarely encounter a chart of some historical significance with none of these two planetoids pivotally participating in it! I am even amazed by the fact of how much accurate are the aspects that Eris and Sedna are forming in each separate case! Beyond any doubt, their discovery is monumental; it is a Columbus kind of discovery for astrology! Eris and Sedna are the new kids on the planetary block. Us astrologers we should call them planets and not planetoids (we are already calling Pluto a planet and we are not regretting it at all). Since the energies of Eris and Sedna are distinctively “collective” and “universal” it is more than obvious that these two planets will enormously enrich Mundane Astrology in the years to come!
I believe that the newly found planetoids - planets have considerably expanded our consciousness and opened us brand new horizons! They are offering us unique new tools, with which we can now improve and enhance - like never before - our interpretative and predictive techniques!
Thomas Gazis
P.S. You can read here some speculation of mine on the properties of Eris.
This is a Thomas Gazis original article
Copyright: Thomas D. Gazis
