The Illusion of Truth – Are we ‘in our right minds’?[1]
In the darkness charlatans are easily mistaken for sages: Chantal Delsoi
In 2011 Neptune – the planet of mystery and veiling – entered Pisces, the sign that most embodies our enigmatic senses. When he was first discovered in September 1848 he was also in this same sign. In 1846, two years prior to the discovery, the first cinema had opened in London and the world entered the era of film, celebrity, photography – the world of fantasy and illusion, all associated with Neptune. This is a world where we think we have ‘seen’ but we have merely been shown an illusory snapshot, without context. This snapshot speaks to our senses creating illusions – we might think these illusions are real, but they are not. By 2011, as Neptune entered its own sign for the second time since the planet’s discovery, can we see how our modern world of film and computer games has almost desensitised our emotions and separated us from true reality? We are at the closest point ever to another world war and yet do we feel more as though we are watching a film?
Some astrologers had hoped that Neptune’s transition into Pisces would bring a greater sense of compassion but, of course, when you have a sign symbolised by two fish swimming in opposite directions, perhaps they were just too hopeful. Instead it seems that, as Neptune came in the front door, common sense and reality held hands and leapt out of the back door.
On October 28th we have a Lunar Eclipse at 5 degrees of Taurus, the second and last of this current eclipse season. Eclipses always bring unexpected events that have a bearing on mankind’s future destiny. Full Moons, and even more so Lunar Eclipses, always reveal, expose and bring events to a climax. This lunar eclipse follows the Solar Eclipse at the potent degree of 23 Libra on October 14th; it also links with the Solar Eclipse in April this year at 29 degrees of Aries, an extremely unstable degree. Taurus as a sign craves stability, but with two Solar Eclipses in cardinal (action) signs we have experienced just the opposite throughout most of this year. With Pluto squaring the nodes for such a long period, we have experienced a very Mars, and indeed Mars/Pluto, feel to the year. Mars represents the God of War and Mars/Pluto aspects carry an energy of warmongering and brutality, with very little desire for peace, just as we are seeing. Under such aspects there is much machoistic posturing behaviour where neither side wants to give in, each side blaming the other.
At this Lunar Eclipse the Moon (the people) clearly craves peace and stability (Taurus) but the Sun, the leaders, has captured Mercury (the media and our censored voices) and those who always secretly want war (Mars in Scorpio) – and that would be the money makers, the bankers and particularly the military industrial complex. Venus, the ruler of this lunar eclipse, is a warrior queen, rising as she does before the Sun. She is a rebel and a revolutionary (trine Uranus) and she has the potential to act subversively and in an illusory fashion (opposite Neptune). The Moon has Jupiter by her side – she (the people) seeks something greater – a wiser life; a more moral way of life where justice and fairness prevail. A Full Moon always separates the Sun from the Moon, the leaders from their people. How warmongering are the leaders and how much do the people just want to live in peace?
In order to construct an argument for peace it is first necessary to understand both sides of a conflict. And for that we need a non-biased media that will provide facts and context. That is exactly what we don’t have, particularly since Neptune (the media, illusion, TV, media) went into Pisces. Propaganda leads us skilfully to the side that we are desired to support with our money and our actions, but we lack the understanding of the context of previous history and how these wars have developed. How many understand the build-up to the war in Ukraine, the breaking of the Minsk Agreement of 2014 and the subsequent bombing of the Russian controlled areas? The more recent situation in Israel is perhaps harder to grapple. But how many even understand the situation back to 1948 where the UK was instrumental in the division of the land there, let alone the associations that go right back to the time of the Bible and the Holy Land? As such it stirs up some very deep beliefs that we don’t necessarily know we have because they lie very deeply in the ancestral inheritance of our collective psyche. But has this collective psyche – or collective unconscious as Jung termed it – been invaded by a sense of a ‘wounded mind’ of our own creation?
Sadly we live in a world where economic greed is king, a world where deprivation and even killing to make profit possible is almost taken for granted. We have technology to do incredible things, to explore space, to consider colonising space even, but what has happened to our consciousness? As we become increasingly dominated by the objects we have created – phones, social media, medicines, gadgets – our urge to think critically, to consider, to research has diminished as we find that each layer of objects masks our sense of reality, instead replacing it with some kind of hyper reality.
The ultimate goal of using astrology within our lives is to give us a roadmap for individuation – and the ultimate goal of individuation is evolution, evolution of our souls and the soul’s purpose that lies within us. In order to evolve on a personal level we must learn to leave behind the ego and for that Neptune can both help and confuse. Used in a positive fashion, because Neptune desires transcendence and dissolution of boundaries, we can allow our minds to travel wherever we want. But then we need to utilize Saturn to focus and to learn. Both planets are currently in Pisces which might be helpful to our spiritual consciousness – Neptune in his own sign is much stronger, but Saturn struggles to navigate the muddy waters and provide a firm foundation from which we can truly take responsibility. We are now in the third millennium CE and we must realise that the objects we invented to make our lives easier are now controlling us rather than us controlling them. And we must realise this quickly before we layer in AI, so that we use AI in a purposeful fashion.
At a point where we have created a Super AI, humanity seems to be putting itself on a path of self-destruction – but worse than just that – most people seem neither to recognise this nor care. If we continue on this trajectory, are we in danger of becoming not just a danger to ourselves but to all forms of life? We live in a world where economic greed has become the end goal of nearly all actions, but those who become wealthy hoard their wealth rather than contribute to communities. So civilisation does not really benefit and evolve fully. This has been highlighted as Pluto comes to the end of his stay in Capricorn (governments, banking, corporate structures) – what, I wonder though, will happen as he fully enters Aquarius?
Krishnamurti, the Indian philosopher, speaker and writer, once said ‘it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society’. So whilst we run around behaving like good citizens and doing what this sick society expects from us, acquiring all our superficial stuff, what we really need is to be healed from the demands of a world whose soul is wounded from unconscious traumas that lurk unnoticed in the shadows of our minds? All whilst we are encouraged to think it’s right to live a stressful life that offers no balance in the form of internal reflection.
In times gone past societies created their own framework of meaning through their belief systems which allowed the mysterious (Neptune) to stay alive in a magical way. Religion was once an integral part of people’s lives, but no longer holds importance for most. Many churches now stand almost empty with small attendances; most even closed their doors at potentially a time of great need during the time of restrictions. But what has filled the void? Consumerism and self-gratification possibly. Even the most holy times of the year are now an excuse to spend money or eat chocolate. As we have progressed with modern life do we feel a greater sense of lack of fulfilment and purpose within our lives? We consider ourselves sophisticated and the idea of mystery is discouraged and unnecessary, but do we perhaps need those mysteries so that we can allow a sense of the spiritual meaning to come in? We think we have become intelligent/intellectual but we seem to have no room for true spiritual knowledge, instead falling back on to New Agey type principles that we have adopted but don’t truly understand.
What makes our current times so dangerous is that we are now a global species and that has never happened before. We can now be continually ‘connected’ to everything and everyone wherever they may be, something that Kingsley L. Dennis in ‘Healing of the Wounded Mind’ likens to a ‘negative infection of our collective mindset’. The book goes on to suggest this is caused by a form of ‘wetiko’ which corresponds to the rise of ‘civilisation’.
The progress in civilisation has been characterised by inventions that have fuelled man’s technical progress but at the same time has been accompanied by examples of human depravity as empires have been built and lost and borders have continually expanded and contracted. Think of the depravity and cruelty contained within the nuclear bomb and cluster bombs. A wetiko desire for power and control seems to lie within the West, and particularly America. Astrologically this is understandable as the USA goes through its Pluto return; America is desperate to keep itself and the dollar at its Superpower status, but this is being increasingly challenged by other large nations. It’s hard to believe that countries actually want to make their people suffer through war but perhaps we have to face the reality that they do, and it is usually because of economic greed. If the collective unconscious has indeed been infected we then are forced to deal with these cruel events from this point of view.
Rudolf Steiner mentioned an entity called Ahriman that desired to create a materialistic, mechanistic universe that would dominate humanity. This Steiner felt would be the great illusion for man so that humanity would become so dulled within its material paradigm that it would not wish to seek knowledge about ‘soul and spirit in the cosmos’.[2] I am guessing that this is similar to wetiko. Steiner warned that the Ahriman presence would manipulate humanity on an emotional level in order to divide and manipulate individual groups to attack one another. And, at the stage of civilisation we are at, those who survive will be left to deal with the development of AI – will it save us or will it be another of our creations that we allow to control us?
We are led to believe we have free will whilst our senses are conditioned to conform. In the end do we live a life of fear or love? And that eventually comes down to our level of consciousness. A level of higher morality and action – as the Moon signifies at this Lunar Eclipse - requires that we develop a higher level of consciousness. Our current high levels of stress constantly hold us back or push us into acting in a self-destructive manner - ‘the more the fly struggles to get out of the honey, the faster he is stuck’[3]
Life is full of choices and today we appear to be allowing such choices to be made for us, manipulated by a seemingly higher force that makes us feel we are powerless to take any responsibility. Maybe there is a grand master plan and a grand master chess player, but the only way we come out of this situation in a good way is to raise our awareness and raise our level of conscious and make our own choices. Basically, we must think and we must discuss, debate and find out what happened in past times. This Lunar Eclipse chart shows how difficult this is as our minds and our voices are trapped right between leaders and warmongers. In war situations the barbaric acts destroy so much that humanity becomes more and more dependent on Government; is this part of a grand plan?
We must attempt though to connect with those who do keep in touch with reality rather than just obeying orders. We must learn to spot the triggers within events, and we must keep our ‘wits’ – our instincts – sharp, because that is what keeps mankind in touch with his soul. We are in a battle for the survival of our souls and for that we must do all we can to keep our bodies healthy and our minds alert to what our instincts are telling us. Above all the people need to take the stronger, wiser path and demand peace on our lands for our children. As the veil between worlds thins at the time of Samhain and this Lunar Eclipse we can perhaps influence more than we think.
[1] Healing The Wounded Mind, Kingsley L. Dennis, Clairview Books Ltd., 2019
[2] Rudolf Steiner, The Incarnation of Ahriman: The Embodiment of Evil on Earth.
[3] Alan Watts