When Giulia, a friend of mine and one of my first students, at the beginning of her path started to study the Natal Charts of people around her, the first person she analyzed was her boyfriend. One day, she called me at my cellphone, she was very enthusiastic: – Ehi, I just found out that me and my boyfriend have Uranus, Neptune and Pluto on the same Zodiac Signs! That means we have some traits of our personalities identical, right? There’s affinity! –
Unfortunately, I had calm down her enthusiasm, saying to her that it’s normal having the Trans-Saturnian Planets on the same Signs, because that is a characteristic that she shares with millions of other people on the World.
Then she said: – How is it possible? So, is that means Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are not important in the Birth Chart…? –
Me: – Of course they have importance, but inside their specific role, which is not about the individual sphere of the psyche but it’s about the human being as part of one unique entity: Mankind. In fact, Uranus Neptune and Pluto belong to the Collective Unconscious. –
Giulia answered puzzled: – Collective Unconscious…? Seems stuff for psychologists… –
It’s perfectly normal having those kind of questions and doubts at the beginning.
Too often, we forget that an Astrologer IS a psychologist, or better still, he is the “primordial psychologist”, because he is who dive in deep into the study and the knowledge of the Soul.
We have to remember, that despite the word “psychology” has today the meaning of matter about the study of the mind, its real meaning derives from ancient greek: “psiché – logos”; “psiché” means “soul” and “logos” means “word” or even “logic”. So the psychology is the study of the “Word of the Soul” or “Logic of the Soul”.
An Astrologer, like every other real initiated and esoterist, is the one who studies the human soul under every aspects more than everything else.
Knowing at least the fundamental concepts about psychology it’s really important for those who study Astrology if they really want to understand the human psyche in every part of it.
This is the case of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto; for the Astrologer they symbolize that part of the human psyche called “Collective Unconscious”.
In fact, all the Planets of the Solar System are divided in different categories and that’s perfectly logical if you think that the structure of human being’s psyche is divided in different sectors.
They are:
- The Conscious
- The Unconscious
- The Sub-Conscious or Preconscious
- The Super-Conscious
- The Collective Unconscious
The structure of the human being’s psyche was well showed by the famous diagram made by doc. Roberto Assagioli, an italian psychiatrist and theosophist who was one of the most influential figure in psychology together with Jung and Freud.
Here is his diagram of the psyche’s structure, called “Assagioli Egg”:
Now we will see how this diagram reflects the same structure of the Planets of the solar system on the Astrological System.
In the Astrological System, Planets are divided in 2 big categories called: Personal Planets and Transpersonal Planets.
The Personal Planets are those who constitute your personal sphere, your Individuality, on that diagram is the colored egg. They are the 7 main planets of the astrological system: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
The Transpersonal Planets are those who transcend the individual sphere, in fact, they are also defined “Generational Planets”, because of their extremely slow orbital motion (example: Pluto takes more than 247 years to make a complete orbit), they correspond to the main psychological tendencies of entire generations of human beings or even of entire ages. Because of that they belong to the collective unconscious.
They are the secondary planets of the astrological system: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
Well, we also have that the Personal Planets are divided in 3 sub-categories:
- Luminaries = Sun and Moon
- Internal Planets or Intimate Planets = Mercury, Venus and Mars
- External Planets or Social Planets = Jupiter and Saturn
Each one of those sub-categories correspond to a specific sector of the Assagioli Egg.
Maybe, you already know that the Sun corresponds to the Conscious and the Moon corresponds to the Unconscious, and now, here is the complete scheme of correspondences:
As I said before, the individuality is based on the 7 Traditional Planets, the Personal Planets, because, as you can see, they compose the single individual sphere of the psyche.
Uranus, Neptune and Pluto form a superior plane of the psyche, like an invisible net that connects all the different individualities.
The task and the challenge of today’s Astrosophers, is to study more in depth those 3 Planets to understand completely their symbolism and consequently the psychological concepts they represent. In fact, they was discovered pretty recently to have the complete certainty about the psychological meanings they embody.
That’s particularly true for Pluto, which was discovered just in 1930; 70 years are a too short time lapse to have enough data and enough observations to study and analyze, and make us able to understand the true essence of this celestial body. We have to remember that our masters Astrosophers of the past, had observed and studied the 7 Traditional Planets for thousands of years, before they really understood their true meaning and their place inside the Divine Project.
Sometimes, there’s too much haste in giving meanings and even names and symbols to the celestial bodies discovered recently, and it risks to make completely profanes the knowledges that modern Astrology will give to the near future, especially because the Astronomers, too often completely profanes and ignorants about traditional philosophy, esotericism, and symbolism, now have great influence in deciding names and symbols. Too often they give random names and symbols without meaning to new celestial bodies.
A perfect example about that, it’s the new Planet discovered beyond Pluto in 2005, which was named “Eris”.
This name was chosen arbitrarily and it has not esoteric or symbolic value. The Astronomers chose it just because they had an argument about how to name the new Planet, so they chose Eris just because she was the Goddess of Discord in mythology.
That’s completely nonsense and without any esoteric and initiatory value.
Despite that, unfortunately I already see amateurs and profane astrologers talking about “eris” in the Natal Charts like: – oh, your eris is on a bad position! It creates discordance with your parents/children/friends/etc… –; that’s just ridiculous as well as harmful.
Only after long and meticulous observations, data collections, deep reflections and large symbolic studies, it will be possible for modern Astrologers understanding which “strenght” the so-called “Eris” embodies, and, consequently, which kind of psychological traits it expresses. At that time only, we might give its real symbolic name.
I’m studying it too to try understanding well its role, and I can say that probably the feminine principle of Proserpine (Persephone in greek) perhaps could be the esoteric symbolism which is more adapt to this new Planet.
A clue about that, it’s the fact that this Planet spends half of its orbit “together” with Pluto, and then it spends the other half very distant from him, likewise in the mythology Proserpine spent just 6 months per year in “netherworlds” with her husband Pluto and the other 6 months on Eartht o make it prosper . So, the concepts of “rebellion”, “prosperity”, “fertility”, could fit better with that Planet.
But as I said before, it’s too early to say something for sure.
However I have no doubts that one day this new Planet will find its exact psychological place inside the Collective Unconscious, like it’s already happened and it’s still happening for Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
So, we have seen how those trans-saturnian Planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, have their place inside the structure of the human psyche.
Now, it’s time to see some of their psychological meanings understood by today’s astrologers during these last years of study, to better understand your personal bond with the Collective Unconscious:
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URANUS
Main psychological concept: Progress.
Uranus is the first of trans-saturnian Planets, it takes almost 84 years to make a complete orbit, and transits for almost 7 years on each Zodiac Sign.
It represents the bridge between the individual plane of the psyche and the plane of the Collective Unconscious, it’s the link between those 2 worlds. It is the more pragmatic part of that plane, and that’s a trait that shares with Saturn, in fact, they share even the Domiciles: Aquarius and Capricorn.
Uranus can be considered as the reflection of Saturn on an higher level, it’s the other face of the medal: in Mythology, both were fathers who prevented to their children to live because of fear to be dethroned; Saturn ate them just after they was born, while Uranus prisoned them inside the Tartarus in the netherworld.
But Saturn is pure form, while Uranus is pure energy. It is the primordial masculine principle, so it’s different from the arid and rigid Saturn; Uranus is active, more prosper and creative.
That specular relation is well showed by their specific alchemical symbol.
The alchemical symbol of Saturn is formed by the “Vinegar” (matter) which stands above the “Silver” (Moon: unconscious/intuition/form) and creates the “Lead” (contraction/heaviness/); the alchemical symbol of Uranus is formed by the “Vinegar” (matter) which stands above the “Gold” (Sun: conscious/ego/energy) and creates the “Aqua Regia” (progression/lightness/).
Sometimes that symbol is associated to the Platinum, but that is wrong, for 2 reasons:
1– the alchemical symbol for Platinum is formed by the Moon symbol and the Sun symbol united in equity.
2– the reign of metals ends with Saturn/Lead which is the edge of the manifested-plane. Beyond it, starts the not-manifested-plane and the reign of compounds: Aqua Regia [Uranus], Quicklime [Neptune], and Sifted Ash [Pluto].
The usual symbol often used for Uranus, it’s a profane symbol, meaningless, because the astronomers tried to mock the other alchemical symbols for Planets putting an “H” above a circle, from the name of the astronomer who discovered Uranus: “Herschel William”, so that’s just an icon, very different from a symbol, which as you can see with your own eyes, encloses the keys to understand the knowledge it brings within.
I hope one day we will restore the real alchemical symbols for the new Planets to hand down the Ancient Knowledge to the future.
The Aqua Regia is a chemical compounds of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid and it’s the only substance in the world capable to dissolve the incorruptible gold, the king of metals (Aqua Regia = Royal Water); Gold/Sun is the Self, the Ego, the self-centering which is dissolved by Uranus to enter in the reign of the social consciousness: there is no “I”, there is “We” only.
But all of this, is even a limit for the individual [the Gold/Conscious is subordinate to the Vinegar/Matter] because the social conditionings are very often a great obstacle to the self-affirmation [God Uranus prevents to his children to affirm themselves].
So the active and mental energy of Uranus is focused on will of progress for Humanity, will of change, will of overcome and replace the previous order with a better one inspired by ideals and pushed by new ideas [God Uranus overcomes his father Chaos creating the celestial “order”] .
Because of that Uranus is even associated to the human “genius”: the ability of discovering, elaborating and inventing new concepts and new structures.
It embodies even the nonconformity, it refuses the current order, because Uranus is original; as we saw, god Uranus was the origin of all the other deities.
These concepts of nonconformity and originality are also underlined by the orbital motion of Planet Uranus: its rotation on its own axis is opposite compared to the other Planets, furthermore its axis of rotation is almost horizontal (inclination 82°) so it seems roll instead of rotate like the other Planets of the Solar System. It’s a real nonconformist.
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NEPTUNE
Main psychological concept: Transcendence
Neptune is the next Planet beyond Uranus; it takes almost 165 year to make a complete orbit, and transits almost 13 years on each Zodiac Sign.
If Uranus represents the more pragmatic and mental part of the Collective Unconscious, Neptune instead is the deepest, intuitive and spiritual part of it. We could define it as “the Unconscious of the Collective Unconscious”.
It represents the hopes and the dreams of Mankind, it is the desire of spiritual elevation of Humanity.
If Uranus is the progress, the social progress, the scientific progress, the ideological progress; Neptune is the impulse to transcend every limits of material world; It’s the perception to be part of something bigger, superior, pure; it’s the impalpable awareness of the “Anima Mundi” (the “Soul of the World”), the quest for the “Divine” that lies inside each one of us. Because of that, Neptune finds its domiciles in Pisces and Sagittarius, into the reign of the most spiritual Planet: Jupiter.
But while Jupiter is the religious spirituality, the philosophical spirituality, Neptune is the mystic spirituality: the great intuition and wisdom of Jupiter come from knowledges and philosophical reasoning, instead the great intuition and wisdom of Neptune come from the unknown depths of the cosmic ocean, from the higher layers of Being, where everything in the Universe is connected. Neptune is that sensation of feel part of the Monade (One), so it’s the supreme sensibility, the perfect empathy and the capacity for universal love.
It is a direct channel to the source of the imagination, so it is also able to give birth to wonderful artistic creations.
But the oceanic depths of the Human Soul can be even a dangerous place, where it’s easy get lost and surrender to illusionary dreams.
In fact, the shadow sides of Neptune can express themselves with the insanity used as refusal of the reality, or with the alcohol and drugs abuse in a desperate escape from reality.
Neptune takes almost 165 years to complete an orbit, in the Sixties it entered in Scorpio and so in the final cycle of the Zodiac, the cycle of the most “transcendent” Signs. In fact, we saw a gradual revival of spiritual themes: Yoga, meditation, the new age movement, vegetarianism, etc., and the rediscovery of the ancient esoteric knowledges like Qabballah, Alchemy and Astrology precisely.
Currently Neptune is in Pisces, in its natural Domicile and Joy. The generations that will be born during the next years, probably will become promoters of some great spiritual or artistic movement, it’s already happened last time Neptune was in that Sign around 1850; The generations born during those years were those who in the adulthood started the impressionism movement and the age of Modern Art , and often with the help of absinthe and opiates.
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PLUTO
Main psychological concept: Revolution
Pluto is the next Planet beyond Neptune, it takes almost 248 years to complete an orbit, and its orbit is very eccentric and very inclined respect to the orbital plane of all the other Planets of the Solar System, because of that its transits on Zodiac Signs are not regular: it transits almost 12 years on some Signs but even almost 32 in some other Signs.
Pluto is the Planet of Death and Rebirth. If Uranus is progress, and Neptune is transcendence, Pluto is the radical revolution, very often even through a sudden and violent act.
The concept of “earthquake” is connected with the symbolism of Pluto which often expresses its nature with real “emotional earthquake”.
So Pluto symbolizes the underground energies that are accumulating inside the Collective Unconscious. In fact in mythology Pluto was the god who ruled the Netherworlds, the Underworld, in meaning of the invisible kingdom, and that’s the origin of his greek version name: Hades, which means “the invisible”.
It represents those mysterious and occult impulses that help Humanity to resolve deep crisis and reborn more strong and in a better form after them.
It can be scary, but we have to remember that the seed needs to die to be able to germinate and become tree.
So Pluto is the supreme symbol of transformation, a spiritual and inner transformation that comes quickly and suddenly, and very often is really painful, but also absolutely necessary for the spiritual evolution of the Mankind.
So, even fi Pluto shares the domiciles with Mars, Scorpio and Aries, the fire of Pluto is different from the one of his friend Mars which burns without control, impetuous and destructive; the fire of Pluto is connected with the alchemical flame that burns inside the Athanor, the holy fire which lies buried into the occult depths (hades) of the Soul, which is the only one able to give the philosophical Gold (illumination) to the human being.
In fact, Pluto in latin means “rich”, because Pluto was worshiped in Eleusinian Mysteries as the one who welcome the human souls after death to show them all the cosmic truths, making them riches for real.
So Pluto is even a symbol of power, occult power which is able to make the most incredible transformations.
All those concepts are well showed by the symbol of Planet Pluto. Of course, I’m talking about the true alchemical symbol, not the monogram “PL” that, similar to that one of Uranus, have not esoteric or traditional value and it’s just a profane icon.
The real symbol of Pluto is formed by the Vinegar (matter) under the Coal (darkness) that together make the “Ash”, the residue of a substance after the purify made by the sacred fire; that symbol represents even the Bident of god Pluto. The Ash (transformed matter) surmounted by the Alum (spirit) forms the Sifted Ash or Elevated Ash.
The transforming power of Pluto has been well showed last time during the age of the great revolutions, the american one and the french one.
In April 1775, while Neptune was in Exile in Virgo and Uranus was entering in Gemini giving the intellectual impulse for the imminent age of enlightenment, Pluto was transiting in Capricorn, very exalted, free to unleash all its revolutionary power with the American Independence War.
Some years later, while the tolerance and rationality of Uranus were in Exile in Leo, Pluto was transiting in another good place for it, in the reign of its friends Uranus and Saturn: Aquarius. It violently unleashed the aquarian ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity with the French Revolution.
Pluto is still the Planet of the great mysteries, I think we will discover some other “forces” that it brings in the near future.
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So, we saw how Uranus, Neptune and Pluto represent the wish for social progress, the impulse for transcend every limit of the human being and the ability to die and reborn better from own ashes, that belong to entire generations of humans.
As for the Personal Planets, the Transpersonal Planets express their own qualities according to the Zodiac Sign they are placed: the generations with Uranus in Gemini (the reign of the logical and intellectual Mercury) pushed the technological progress between 18th and 19th centuries. The generations with Neptune in Pisces pushed the artistic movements (impressionism, cubism, art nouveau, the operas, etc.) at the beginning of the 20th century. The generations with Pluto in Aquarius pushed the painful but necessary revolutions.
Observing their positions on the Natal Chart it’s useful to understand the main psychological tendencies of the generation you belong, and it’s even important studying their mutual interactions: how those 3 Planets fit together and of course if they form some Aspect.
The previous example on American Revolution is perfect.
April 1775, the beginning of the independence war: Pluto was on the cusp between Capricorn and Aquarius, exalted [the subterranean fire of the high ideals was ready to explode], while Uranus was entering in Gemini [the logical triumph, the sciences, the inventions, the technologies, new ideas for progress] on the mental plane of his great friend Mercury; and Neptune was in Virgo, in detriment [it’s no time for sensitive and mercy or universal love]; and all of them had formed a Grand Trine during the previous months, working together in harmony inside the Collective Unconscious to predispose the need for a revolution.
On another level, you can understand how the Collective Unconscious acts on your individual psyche and which are your personal connections with it, observing specifically in which Astrological Houses the Transpersonal Planets are placed on your own Birth Chart.
That gives you many clues to understand in which particular areas of your life the psychological influences of the Trans-saturnian Planets are expressing strongly.
Furthermore, it’s important considering the Aspects between them and your Personal Planets; Trines, Sextiles, Squares, etc. They represent your personal bonds with the Collective Unconscious, and that’s particularly important speaking about the Conjunctions, above all if Luminaries (Sun and Moon) are involved; it can indicate a strong connection with the high layers of the Collective Unconscious and a powerful expression of the psychological traits of the Trans-saturnian Planet involved.
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