Copyright
2004. All Rights Reserved
The recent passing of Ronald Reagan has afforded as much the opportunity
to eulogize the former president as it has allowed the entire world
to reflect upon the events that defined the Reagan era. Reagan’s
messages and ideology were characterized by a remarkable simplicity;
his was a universe of black and whites with little room for ambiguity.
From Nancy Reagan’s straightforward campaign of “Just say
no” to Reagan’s recurrent castigation of the communists
as the epitome of all that is evil, the world was delivered to the
American public in stark contrasts with easy choices.
This essay
is not an astrological analysis of the complexities and contradictions
of Reagan the individual but rather Reagan in context of greater
historical movements that shaped and defined that latter half of
the twentieth century. Astrology, perhaps as much as any other methodology,
undermines the “great man” theory of history—the
belief that single individuals wield so much influence as to contour
the times in which they live. Rather, astrology suggests that leaders
reflect and act in response to historical cycles and dynamics much
greater than any one individual. Reagan did not define the 1980’s
and the changing values of America, but he did come to symbolize
and reflect the growing conservatism of the Western psyche during
the era.
The Uranus-Pluto
conjunction of the 1960’s
Little known to most, in Reagan’s early years the actor was a diehard
liberal Democrat. As the policies of Franklin Roosevelt assisted members of
his immediate family in getting jobs, Reagan was grateful for the economic
reforms brought about by FDR’s “New Deal.” However, with
his marriage to Nancy Davis, his prominent role with the General Electric Corporation,
and with the assumption that the communist infiltration in Hollywood threatened
American values, Reagan’s political affinities began to shift radically
to the right in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. By 1967, Reagan was
elected governor of California under the Republican ticket.
Reagan
represented the conservative reaction to the tumultuous and chaotic
decade of the 1960’s. Given an orb of fifteen degrees, a conjunction
between Uranus and Pluto framed the entire decade and symbolized
the new horizons, progressive freedoms, and experimentalism of the
era. Looking at the archetypal dynamics involved, we observe the
intense and powerful energies of Pluto compelling the destabilizing,
consciousness-raising, and rebellious expressions associated with
Uranus. Similarly, Uranus’s awakening and liberating influence
was stimulating the chaotic, transformative energies of Pluto. The
mind-expanding, creative, and disruptive energies of the era were
not only a testament to the hard-won freedoms and idealism of the
youth of the decade but a reflection of the cyclical and archetypal
dynamics involved.
Important
alignments between Uranus and Pluto correlate with times of mass
rebelliousness against tradition and the established order. Rather
than be complacent with the security of the status quo, a Uranus-Pluto
alignment compels societies to search for alternatives, grope for
new horizons, and demand new freedoms of expression. The destabilizing
influence of the combination is typically as exciting and awakening
as it is disruptive and chaotic—it truly is “rock’n’roll” energy,
for heads roll if the sociopolitical establishment is not rocked
to its very foundations.
The previous
major alignment involving Uranus and Pluto, an opposition between
the two planets occurring in the first decade of the twentieth century,
also demonstrated the mass rebelliousness of this planetary combination.
Around 1900, the United States experienced political possibilities
that have never been equaled before or since. Matching the melting
pot diversity of its population, social and political movements arose
that threatened the status quo and idle rich. Anarchism, socialism,
and labor movements ascended to challenge politics as usual. The
United States at the turn of the century was rife with change, political
cataclysm, and social unrest.
As governor
of California in the 1960’s, Reagan saw the political unrest
and radicalism around him as a threat to the American way of life
in the same vein as communism. America was being split apart by issues
such as Vietnam and race relations, and Reagan embodied the countervailing
views and ideologies of the establishment. Nowhere was this split
between the new radicalism and the old conservatism felt more acutely
than in Reagan’s own family. Like the United States in microcosm,
Reagan’s immediate family was torn by ideology, ethics, and
lifestyle choice. Reagan’s youngest children, Patty and Ron
jr., came of age during the 1960’s and embraced many of the
new values that emerged during the era, moves that would estrange
the children from their father for many years.
The Saturn-Pluto
Conjunction of the early 1980’s
“Newsweek” magazine
called Reagan’s victory over incumbent President Carter in
1980 a “counter-revolution,” a return to values that
were more readily embraced in the simpler times before the tumultuous
and freedom-loving 1960’s.1 Considered by many to be the most
conservative president since Herbert Hoover, Reagan and his mystique
held the promise of returning America to a time of more old-fashioned
and conformist values.
Why such
a turnabout and about face? Astrology suggests a correlation. As
the radical 1960’s was characterized by a Uranus-Pluto conjunction,
the early 1980’s was epitomized by a conjunction between Saturn
and Pluto. With Pluto being the constant, Saturn and Uranus represent
very different aspects of the collective psyche. If Uranus expresses
the new, the radical, and the experimental, Saturn correlates with
the desire for stasis, stability, and tradition. If Uranus brings
creative innovation and chaotic rebellion, Saturn represents repressive
crystallization of Uranus’s revolutions. Thus, the early 1980’s
represented a foundational and all-pervasive drive against the radical
expressions of the 1960’s. In a little over a decade, the zeitgeist
was changing dramatically and Reagan’s presidency reflected
those dynamics.
With Margaret
Thatcher and Ronald Reagan as leaders of the free world, a hardening
of the collective psyche was occurring—a hardening that embraced
traditionalism and shunned the openness and rebelliousness of the
preceding years. This was the height of the Cold War that began during
the previous Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 1946-1948. Pluto forming
alignment with Saturn applies a tremendous force on the defensiveness,
fearfulness, and rigidity of Saturn’s archetypal characteristics.
The build-up in arms with the “Star Wars” program is
indicative of this energy. In our own time, we see the Saturn-Pluto
gestalt with the creation of the Homeland Security program under
the opposition of Saturn and Pluto in 2001-2003.
We can
also see the Saturn-Pluto dynamic at work in the sense of overwhelming
threat or destructive force. The Saturn-Pluto combination is perhaps the combination
for projecting the collective shadow unto other nations and groups.
We can certainly see this as the Cold War began (and as Saturn and
Pluto formed a conjunction), as the Soviet influence began to gain
power and the Red Scare in the United States formerly began. In Reagan’s
time, and at the height of the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of the 1980’s,
Reagan castigated the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire,” the
tremendous threat to national security and the American way of life.
As Saturn and Pluto would form an opposition to each other in the
early parts of this decade, George W. Bush would once again recapitulate
the need to cast the collective shadow, as the “Axis of Evil”—Iraq,
Afghanistan, and North Korea—rose as the perceived threat to
American refuge.
The Triple
Conjunction of Uranus-Neptune-Saturn in 1989
Reagan’s first term as president was characterized by a large build-up
of strategic defense against the Soviet Union. At this time, relations between
the United States and the Soviet Union were at their most tense and most polarized.
Although it cannot be marked by one single event or point in time, a tremendous
and epochal shift occurred between Reagan’s first and second terms as president.
Dynamics between the Soviet Union and the United States began to reverse in sudden
and dramatic ways.
The “how” and “why” of
the decline of the Cold War is enigmatic even to political insiders.
With any objectivity, one would say that the collapse of the Cold
War was due to Reagan’s persistent pressure on arms negotiations,
the rise of Gorbachev, and the economic instability of the Soviet
Union. However, the vision of astrology helps to illuminate dynamics
that otherwise would remain hidden. As the early 1980’s were
defined by the archetypal dynamics of the Saturn-Pluto conjunction,
in the late 1980’s, a new astrological alignment formed with
radically different dimensions and expressions. By the fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1989, a rare and highly significant conjunction formed
between the planets of Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune.
If we
deconstruct the archetypes involved, we have energies of “old”—Saturn—and “new”—Uranus—joined
by Neptune. Whether applied individually or collectively, Neptune
dissolves structures not unlike a metaphysical solvent. Neptune blurs
distinctions, melts that which was once solid, and softens that which
was distinct and hard. In a way which was unimaginable to analysts
of the day but mirrored by an extraordinary triple conjunction of
planets, the forty-five year Cold War was over almost overnight,
signified most powerfully by the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
The ways
in which analysts have described the collapse of Cold War dynamics
is strikingly resonant with the Neptunian dimension and its ability
to liquefy that which seems permanent. Pundits and reporters covering
the events ending the Cold War have used words like “thawing” or “dissolving.” Even
the “Velvet Revolution,” describing the rather yielding
way in which the Eastern Bloc nations fell, is characteristic of
the Neptunian dimension. Thus, not unlike a great wave of dissolution,
the triple conjunction of Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn at the end
of the 1980’s stood in dramatic counterpoint (and disengaged)
the Saturn-Pluto conjunction at the beginning of the decade.
Conclusion
Was Reagan a leader that restored traditional values to America and was responsible
for loosening Soviet-American relations, or was he more representative
of a man caught between eras, dynamics, and historical maneuverings much
greater than himself? Certainly, we cannot disengage the fine interplay
between fate and free will, but one would be remiss not to see Reagan—or
any prominent leader—as a person in context, responding to the shifting
energies of the times. Astrology suggests that Reagan was a politician
challenged and moved by large currents of changing zeitgeists. Reactive
to the 1960’s, symbolic of the early 1980’s, and an instrument
of change toward the end of his political career, Reagan can be seen as
man as defined by his times as much as a leader who changed the course
of history.
1 “Newsweek,” November
17th 1980 issue.
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