Pluto in astrology acts as a force for creative destruction. This term, creative destruction, was coined by the Viennese economist, Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter described creative destruction as, a “process of…mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the….structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, and incessantly creating a new one.” The chart of the USA (7/4/1776) has been undergoing some major Plutonian transits. First, Pluto opposed Venus, which brought on a severe financial crisis in America in 2008/10. Then it opposed Jupiter for the year, 2010, and also in 2011 and 2012. By 2014, it moved on to the opposition of the US Sun (see Pluto/Sun page), which is located in the Sibley chart at 13° Cancer 19΄. It was still in opposition by 2° on Nov. 8 2016, when a new president was elected. Pluto and astrology demonstrates the full opposition energy of Pluto opposing the four Cancerian planets of the US chart. It will not be complete until its opposition of the US Mercury is passed in 2022, or even better when Pluto passes into Aquarius.
This type of opposition from Pluto to the USA chart had never happened before and it brought on severe disruptions in the way things were done in Washington.
We need to arrive at an understanding as to how Pluto functions in its influence on nations.
Peter S. Drucker, the philosopher who studied and wrote about the rise and fall civilizations, took this term, “creative destruction”, and expanded its meaning from the pure economics of capitalism into a description of the processes of communist/socialist and free nations, of giant bureaucracies, of armies, and so forth. Let us do the same. Pluto in astrology clears out what is old, worn out, non-workable, dysfunctional; it applies this influence because it has to in the nature of things; it occurs in order to bring in the new, the functional, the effective. Pluto as creative destruction, more than any other single activating agent in astrology, performs this function. In 1890 to 1894, an eonic conjunction of Pluto/Neptune occurred (1891-92, 8° & 9° Gemini); this happens every 500 years or so. These conjunctions denote the rise and fall of nations, kingdoms, governments, dynasties, and even civilizations. The one that occurred in ancient Rome (83,82 BC, 16°, 17° Taurus), in the Republic, ended it, led to a civil war, then to the rise of the Imperium, which would last for another 500 years. The Republic had grown corrupt and dysfunctional; the Pluto/Neptune conjunction that happened a second time in ancient Rome, five hundred years later (411-412 AD 28° Taurus), wiped out the Western Empire, saw the rise of a completely different Eastern empire, Byzantium, which was completely Christianized and transformed, and at the same time it brought it on that long sleep of European culture called the Middle Ages. To understand even further how the eonic cycle of Pl/NE works, you have to follow the aspects that these planets make to each other as they move around the zodiac. World War I began roughly on the 30° aspect of Neptune ahead of Pluto. That aspect, 30°, lasted for much of the war. The 30° aspect is where the astrologer, delving into historical analysis, begins to see results for what was begun at the conjunction.
Pluto in Mundane Astrology
What did World War I do to Europe? It acted on the principle of creative destruction as applied to civilizations. An age had come to an end; a new one was born. Kingdoms fell. The Czar of Russia abdicated, was imprisoned with his family, and later he and his family were murdered. The Kaiser in Germany abdicated; the Second Reich fell. The Austrian Empire fell apart and ended for ever. Numerous smaller kingdoms collapsed, never to return. This was the end of the British Empire, though it would take several decades for it to be completely dismembered; the First World War destroyed most of the vast wealth of the Empire. The British high command had been in power too long; it had served almost a century without major wars, and like any bureaucracy it had grown arrogant and incompetent; it was unfit to decide the direction of the war. Yet stupidly it exerted an iron will: It caused the needless deaths of millions. During the war British generals were heroes; after the war, people learned how bad they really were. The war and its aftermath destroyed the belief of its citizens in the long cherished philosophy of imperialism; it died in people’s hearts. The ancient European custom of rule by royal families and monarchs dissolved. The centuries old belief that Europe was hegemon, well, that too vanished. Much of the old era passed away, helped along by the technology of the new. Our view now of the history of that era shows us how dysfunctional and weak and liable to collapse these governments were. At the time few saw this change coming, typical of Plutonian events. This is the mask of Pluto. European civilization fell under the influence of Pluto and creative destruction. What was born out of this? The eradication of an entrenched but out-dated class society, the eradication of centuries old ways of doing things, now dysfunctional, the loss of spiritual practices that had abandoned their inner meaning and aliveness. The death of old custom. Yet the new was being born in many places. Creative destruction happened in America also. When the old was let go, the new embraced avidly. I believe one of the reasons that the Plutonian influence was lighter in America was it had already gone through a period of creative destruction during its Civil War, when slavery and a philosophy of Plantation aristocracy was eradicated from the American experience, the Union purified and renewed. In 1890, Pluto/Neptune became exact right down to the minute at 8° II. The USA Uranus sits at that degree. This was a period in America of enormous technological explosion. Within that 25 year period of the Pluto Neptune conjunction, Edison designed the first electrical grid ever in history, the Wright brothers flew the first airplane, Marconi transmitted radio signals. One could fill hundreds of pages describing the incredible inventiveness of this era. We now look on that time in wonder at the new that was born amidst the creative destruction of Pluto.
Pluto and Astrology: Collapse or Rebirth
Plutonian energies are rarely peaceful and calm; even in dormancy its energies are seeking to balance what is out of balance in Tao. Briefly, in historical astrology, the opposition brings about either a flowering and consequent stabilization of that energy, or a collapse. Sometimes collapses are total, as in the closing of the doors of a business that has gone bankrupt, as in the destruction of Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War, or as in the Aztecs and their religion of human sacrifice being wiped out in a very few years by a few Spanish soldiers. Some Plutonian collapses allow the shell of an organization to continue but without its former power and effectiveness. Finally, there are those collapses where the organizational energies are purified and cleansed of all toxic matter, and the organization becomes more powerful and effective. This option requires deep and real change; usually, it is accompanied by furious opposition often by those in power followed by firestorms of creative destruction and renewal. Great civilizations like Rome and Israel went through these transformations endlessly.
Pluto in Mundane Astrology: Examining the Battle of Britain in World War II
Here is what happened to the German Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain (10 July, 1940, to 31 October 1940). In early World War II, 1939-1940, the Germans were victorious everywhere; their armies had marched triumphantly through almost all of the capital cities of Europe; they had never been defeated anywhere. Their air force was enormous and feared, and it believed itself invincible. The Battle of Britain was about using the German air power, the Luftwaffe, to clear the skies of the British Royal Air Force. Hitler and the German high command understood that a defending air force could destroy their invasion fleet as it crossed the English Channel. Without being harassed by a defending air force, the Germans could then invade the British Isles, despite British sea power. So the Royal Air Force had to be destroyed. Thus the Battle of Britain. The Germans failed. Why? Let us examine the chart of the coming to power of the Nazi Party (Jan. 30, 11:30 am, Berlin), which is derived from the moment Adolph Hitler was sworn in as First Chancellor. This chart has the planets Mercury, Saturn, and the Sun all located in the 10th House, all in Aquarius. During the Battle of Britain, transiting Pluto made the opposition to that Mercury. In the military parlance of historical astrology, Mercury is air power: In a nation’s chart Mercury rules its air force. By mid-August 1940, the Pluto opposition was already within one degree of exact; by October 3rd, it was partile (exact). The German air force was decimated; its effectiveness and power was reduced to a mere shell of its former self; it never recovered. Why? Partly this air force met its match. British Royal Air Force fighters were equal to or better than the fighters the Germans flew; RAF pilots exhibited the same type of courage, sacrifice and willingness to die—all Plutonian qualities—found even in the ancient battle of Marathon. Churchill’s words best describe it: “never in the history of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.” Further, history speaks to us of the growing corruption and arrogance of the Nazi hierarchy: They made a decision to quit bombing the aerodromes, the radars, the aircraft factories, and other war machines of the RAF, and instead to begin bombing the cities in an attempt to terrorize the populations. Terrorizing the populations of the cities the Germans accomplished, while at the same time this arrogance allowed the RAF to repair its damaged aircraft, to build new ones, and to renew its ammunition stores, to come into the fight as strong as or stronger than it had ever been. Every day, more Luftwaffe bombers and fighters were knocked out of the sky. Finally the Germans withdrew, and their invasion plans were set aside. The German air force, so chewed up by the RAF, never again won the kind of victories it won over Poland and Norway and Belgium and France. By the time of the Normandy invasion (June 6, 1944) the Luftwaffe was a shadow of its former power, and it was ineffective in stopping or slowing the Allies’ invasion of France. When Pluto moved into the opposition of Saturn in that chart, well, as the tarot would have it, it was their last judgment. That was called Stalingrad (battle occurred between 17 July 1942 and 2 February 1943: in Jan 1943, Pluto, at 6°40΄Leo was within one degree of opposition of the Nazi natal Saturn; by February 1943, an entire German army had been wiped out by the Russians).
The Astrological Creative Destruction of Hitler
Another interesting opposition of Pluto was the July 20th1944 attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler near Rastenburg, East Prussia. Pluto that day was located at around 8° of Leo, around 30΄ away from the exact opposition of the Nazi Saturn. The bomb was placed under at table by a Colonel Von Stauffenberg, a decorated war hero (awarded the German Cross in Gold), who was now a staff member of the high command. While this bomb did not kill Adolph Hitler, it had several effects. First, the Fuehrer, protected by concentric rings of military guards, composed of one of the fiercest armies in a thousand years, was proven to be still subject to assassination. That was a huge diminution of his power. Many thought someone would get him eventually. More importantly, his body was thrown with great force up against a wall. Hits like this to the body require months, sometimes years to fully recover from.
I believe this bomb turned him into an old man. He was the only one who was holding this war together. Machiavelli coined a term, ability; he discussed it extensively in all his writings. After this bomb crushed him against that wall, I believe he lost his force, his ability to “make things happen”. He had depended on this quality for many years. Every great leader in history has had this force. Hitler had it; so did Stalin; so did Churchill and Roosevelt. After July 20, Hitler no longer had this force. He still had his genius, but not the power to carry out his ideas. The Ardennes Offensive is a good example: it showed his military genius. The Americans and British were taken by surprise. There were 70,000 American casualties alone in that battle, the highest number ever recorded in American wars in one battle. There were many days following the attack when the Allies were gloomily and fearfully discussing retreat. Hitler just lacked the force to make it work. And the bomb sped up his Parkinson’s disease, perhaps threefold, further debilitating him. Before July 20, he was conducting a powerful strategic retreat on the Eastern front, holding back the Russians, causing very high casualties, and the Russians were moving slowly. After July 20, his armies there began to fall apart. He had but nine months to live. Pluto rules bombs. It rules conspiracies. It ruled the creative destruction of Adolph Hitler.
Plutonian Light
The Plutonian opposition destroys that which obstructs the life force; it also brings in what is new, living and vibrant. This I call Plutonian light. One of the finest descriptions of that Plutonian light I have ever read, comes again from Winston Churchill describing England as it was at that time, as it all alone and under great peril resisted the Nazi evil:
There was a white glow, overpowering, sublime, which ran through our island from end to end. (from Memoirs of the Second World War, The Deliverance of Dunkirk, p. 275).