Natal Neptune-Pluto aspects

[Jim Eshelman]

At root of all Neptune-Pluto manifestations is the idea of malleability of how we view reality. Notice that this is not a malleability of reality itself, but of how we view it. Viewing - looking at it, or, more broadly, other forms of observing it - seems a distinctive part of the formulation.

In this, I mean physical reality especially. From the examples, I specifically exclude social reality, although (given Karl Marx) this does not exclude economic reality.

Three categories dominate the list of eminent or famous people with close conjunctions, oppositions, or squares of Neptune and Pluto in their natal horoscopes.

First, we have scientists who have dramatically reframed our view of the universe, including, our very ability to look at the universe. These include: Sir Isaac Newton who discovered the laws of gravity, formalized the laws of classical mechanics, and invented calculus. (In terms of our seeing reality, he was also a pioneer in optics.) Johannes Kepler merged astronomy with physics, establishing the laws of planetary motion which, most likely, are wider laws of all motions in the universe. Edwin Hubble discovered that objects exist outside our galaxy (including other galaxies) and important details that opened up exploration of extragalactic objects and which disclosed that the universe is expanding. Werner Heisenberg articulated the Uncertainty Principle, establishing that the very nature of objects at a subatomic level (and, thus, perhaps all of reality) are altered by how they are observed.

These are remarkable figures who continue to affect how we view the nature of the universe. Heisenberg, in particularly, gives us one of the most important Neptune-Pluto consequences: In the face of malleability of our view of reality, a primary consequence is uncertainty.

Second, we have powerful political figures, including William Penn, Queen Victoria, King Edward VIII, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Adolf Hitler, Otto von Bismark, Francisco Franco, Jawaharlal Nehru, Allen Dulles, J. Edgar Hoover. With somewhat wider orbs, we include every significant leader-figure in World War II. While there is unquestionable grasping at and holding power, I again think that the key matter here is the power to define worldview (Weltanschauung). (I think we can add Karl Marx to this list, even though he was not a political leader.) Note that WW II was, in most respects, a battle over worldviews, which spilled into its aftermath in the polarized effort to define the planet's primary worldview that we call the Cold War. (Neptune and Pluto first entered a 3° orb of their half-century sextile in January 1945 and last left it in July 1993 - almost exactly the duration of the Cold War, as the Soviet Union fell in 1991 and the Berlin Wall was came down in 1991-92. (A 2° orb brings the dates to 1947-1990.)

Therefore, I believe the characteristics we are most seeing in these power-climing figures is, as with the scientists, the power to determine the prevailing worldview - the window through which people would view and interpret the nature of the world, the reality within which people would comport themselves.

Third, we have a remarkable collection of authors. Every aspect set boasts it authors, but I don't offhand remember another collection that has this historic scope and power. In my files alone are H.P. Lovecraft, George Eliot, Henry Miller, Herman Melville, Agatha Christie, T.S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, Robert Ripley, Victoria Sackville-West, Adrienne Monnier, Annie Winifred Elleman, Elizabeth Prentiss, Katherine Mansfield, Kurt Tucholsky, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Marcel Jouhandeau, and Martin Boyd.

While individual distinctions may be found if we go author by author (and they are certainly in no respect a homogeneous group), I think this long list expresses one primary commonality: the ability to tell a story. That is, for the third time, they have in common that their minds are able to organize and define reality to the point of creating it.

As a fourth item, in a category of his own, I put the philosopher Martin Heidegger, who contributed to the fields of phenomenology (the structure of experience and consciousness) and existentialism (especially the nature of Being + authenticity), which is as purely Neptune + Pluto as one can get. I suspect that, going forward, the more I learn about the thought of Heidegger, the more intimately I will understand Neptune-Pluto.

[Jim Eshelman]

To summarize thus far, we have a root idea of Neptune-Pluto as pertaining to the malleability of how we view reality. The largest groups of eminent people with the aspect close have the following characteristics:

1. Scientists. They affected, and continue to affect, how we view the nature of the universe, including introducing one of the most important Neptune-Pluto consequences: In the face of malleability of our view of reality, a primary consequence is the characteristic of uncertainty.

2. Political leaders. The power to determine the prevailing worldview, the window through which people would view and interpret the nature of the world, the reality within which people would comport themselves.

3. Authors. The ability to define (even create) reality by telling a story.

4. Heidegger. Principles of phenomenology (the structure of experience and consciousness) and existentialism (especially the nature of Being + authenticity).

The one evident common-denominator, within the understanding that how we view reality is malleable, is that these people all have defined our worldview in their own terms. With this came especially the most natural consequence of unfixed-worldview, which is uncertainty.

[Jim Eshelman]

I'm quite ready to accept the above definition for the ultimately eminent among those with this aspect. However, it is not the nature, so far as I can tell, with the typical example. So far we have discussed the leaders; but what of the followers?

It seems that, with an instinctive (and usually unconscious) understanding that how we view reality is open to debate, the most common consequence is uncertainty. This, I think, must be the pivot idea in uncovering Neptune-Pluto character traits among the ordinary.

I know no one with Neptune-Pluto in conjunction, opposition, or square, but I grew up with people who have them semi-square. These are people born at the end of the 1920s and beginning of the 1930s, i.e., right in the middle of the Great Depression. They became aware of the world as most of the world was embroiled in a war of harshly competing worldviews, just as America was joining the war. They came fully of age in the aftermath of that war, as the Cold War was solidifying and, again, the world was substantially polarized into competing worldviews.

A great characteristic of these people is that they knew what side they were on, and stuck firmly to their side. Western democracies knew they had to resist and bring an end to Communism. Communists knew they had to resist and bring down capitalist governments.

BTW, we have another round of Neptune-Pluto sextiles from 2020 to 2036. We can expect a similar binary competition of worldview. Will it be a renewal of fascism vs. socialism (or their approximations)? Or an acceleration of Muslim nation polarization against the infidel world? Or something else, not yet fully in our cross-hairs? (I think it is already fully in our cross-hairs.)

[Jim Eshelman]

Therefore, for the typical (ordinary) person with a strong Neptune-Pluto aspect, the distinctive traits identified thus far are: Uncertainty and a consequent strong, compelling need for certainty. Thinking in absolutes, to adopt and adhere to a specific worldview and reject its competitors.

BTW, there were exact Neptune-Pluto sextiles every year 1950-1956, then none until 1976. The first batch came under McCarthyism (which was ended at the end of '54). The period 1957-1975 was a time of greater hope, loosening societal definitions, and being introduced to more reality-loosening experiences. There was openness to exploration in years without close Neptune-Pluto, then this shut down for a time. Once more, exact sextiles occurred every year 1976-1986, then the aspect continued in orb for a few more years. Although we have experienced many kinds of division over the years, these dates reinforce a particular kind of division based on competing, polarized worldviews.

Further traits, therefore, disclosed by the McCarthy era include suspicion, bigotry, doctrinal narrowness - all expressions of thinking in absolutes and adamantly rejecting competing worldviews.

[Jim Eshelman]

An aside: This is all sounding quite dark, rather suitably Lovecraftian. I leave open that there is a nicer expression (though it evidently does not mean such things as "open to different ways of looking at things").

Confronted with these observations, I suddenly realized, for the first time, that with Neptune-Pluto we are combining a malefic (Neptune) and a neutral (Pluto). What else, then, might we expect? It really seems quite morbid.

[Jim Eshelman]

Prior theories about this aspect often have centered around occultism, expanded consciousness, mysticism. This doesn't seem to be true at all. That is, I don't think I have a single significant occultist, magician, or pioneer of expanded consciousness in the entire batch of Neptune-Pluto hard aspects (other than the scientists that count as astrologers and a few dabblers: I don't think Hitler's interest in occultism was for enlightenment, I think he just wanted to rule the world and create his new reality).

These, as a group, are exactly the people who resisted and fought their own children for experimenting with psychedelics and suggesting the world could be an entirely different way. When confronted by this dismantling of mind, music, and manners, they were really threatened by it.

Nor do I find the generation born from the late '20s to the early '30s to be, overall, people who have a wider, generous view of possibility and malleable reality. They are much more committed, as a group, to things being thus-and-so because, after all, that's how things are.

[Jim Eshelman]

From all of this (and, of course, comparison to people with the aspect), I derive the following interpretation for a Neptune-Pluto aspect. It is darker than I might desire, but I can't find that it is untrue. (There are likely tertiary attributes that may be stated in a positive way, thing that are true about these people incidental to the characteristics mentioned below.)

1. Instinctive (usually unconscious) understanding of the malleability of the view of reality.
2. Among leaders, capacity and desire to put forth and impose a worldview (scientific, political, literary).
3. More typically, uncertainty about the world and a consequent desire for certainty (for the world to be a particular way).
4. More centered in experience than in thought.
5. Thinking in absolutes: adopts and holds a worldview, rejects its competitors, regards things a certain way and not other.
6. Suspicion, bigotry, doctrinal narrowness, threatened by things becoming other than how they've known them.
7. Sextile & Trine: Marked about half a century of people open to shifting paradigms, exploration of alternate realities, etc. Characteristically more open to shifting point of view, alternative perspectives, variant possibilities.

The hard aspects concisely: Leaders display capacity & desire to impose a worldview (scientific, political, literary). More typically, uncertainty about the world, desire for certainty (for the world to be a particular way). Thinking in absolutes, adopts & holds a worldview, rejects its competitors, regards things a certain way & not other. (Suspicion, bigotry, doctrinal narrowness, threatened by things becoming other than how they've been.)

The soft aspects (sextile) marked about half a century of people open to shifting paradigms, exploration of alternate realities, etc. In a natal chart, characteristically more open to shifting point of view, alternative perspectives, variant possibilities.

[Jim Eshelman]

This one was really hard.

[Veronica]

I some how got musing about this aspect this morning and thought to look into what was said here about it.

I have pluto sextile my moon neptune and jupiter.
Which also implies I share this pluto neptune sextile with millions of people.
I have an angular pluto and my conjunction is in scorpio which as I read these words hit me pretty hard.
I dont like feeling that neptune is malific.
It doesnt sit right with me.
Because my neptune is dancing with the moon and jupiter.
I read those seemingly difficult and cold delineations and feel that while reality may look dark on the surface the depths have wonderous and positive possibilites that with the right temperment or vision can be brought to mankind to lift the murky veil and give a clarity to a new bright possibility that lays dormant.
But maybe its the idealist in me who loves humanity with her rose colored glasses and doesnt want to accept the hard reality of things.

[SteveS]

V wrote:

I dont like feeling that neptune is malefic.

Me either. IMO, Neptune in combo with the two malefics of astrology Mars & Saturn are the red flags for malefic manifestations in astrology.

[Arena]

Neptune is not a malefic in and of itself. It seems that only when in aspect or concurrent angularity with a malefic will it show a malefic nature.

You can see Neptune aspecting the Moon in many artists, it has a very creative (and beautiful) imaginative nature that is not malefic at all, simply creative.

On the other hand there is nothing "neutral" about Pluto - Pluto is a force of transformation - not necessarily malefic (but can be).

Defining and transforming reality by imagining something new, beyond what is known, might come close. Exploring other dimensions might also be fitting.

I think that maybe, just maybe, you don't really have this aspect figured out yet
Perhaps researching those people who have that aspect on an angle, or as concurrent angularity, might be the best avenue to explore... whereas the people who have the aspect in the background may not be expressing it at all.

[Jim Eshelman]

Perhaps researching those people who have that aspect on an angle, or as concurrent angularity, might be the best avenue to explore... whereas the people who have the aspect in the background may not be expressing it at all.

That would totally distort the aspect, adding two additional factors of Neptune angular + Pluto angular to the solitary consideration of Neptune-Pluto in aspect. It;s a mistake that has been made (including by me) over several decades. My old interpretations of the outer-to-outer aspects were sorely lacking for a couple of reasons, one of which was my delusion that they were only important if angular or aspecting personal planets - but that approached masked the aspect itself.

"Malefic" doesn't mean "only bad things happen." We can come up with plenty of useful consequences of Saturn and Mars and troublesome consequences of Jupiter and Venus. But I think the terms benefic and malefic do correctly capture the fact that most people, most of the time are more likely to like the results of Venus or Jupiter coming at them (and other people are more likely to like Venus or Jupiter behaviors coming from them), while most people, most of the time are more likely to dislike the results of Mars or Saturn coming at them (and other people are more likely to dislike Mars or Saturn behaviors coming from them). In this same sense, Uranus falls most of the time more in the Venus-Jupiter camp and Neptune more in the Mars-Saturn camp.

Neptune isn't only malefic when in combination with malefics. It just obviously hurts more at the time. Neptune tends to afflict (draw unliked or undesirable consequences from) Jupiter and Venus, too. Neptune aspects to Venus can feel absolutely lovely at the time, even if they leave you demoralized and rejected at the end, just as Neptune aspects to Jupiter can give the kind of confidence that has you investing in soap bubbles then wondering why they popped.

Again, there are also positive effects - they just aren't as common. Venus-Neptune people tend to be good-hearted, caretaking, devoted friends, and they tend to most easily see the beauty in people and things - even if they are more likely to end up jaded, disillusioned, and cynical from repeated hurtful betrayals. Is "easily trusting others" a good trait or a bad trait? I think the answer is in whether it has an off-switch or not. (The same with Jupiter-Neptune generosity.)

I think this intersects the larger question of whether the terms benefic and malefic have continued use in modern astrology. I hold that they don't if they are taken as absolutes or if one gets too philosophical about "what is good? what is bad?" But they do tend to correctly identify the "at its simplest" basic feel of a thing. Mars, Saturn, and (more often than not) Neptune aspecting planets make things hurt (whether that's a good thing or a bad thing). Venus, Jupiter, and (more often than not) Uranus aspecting planets makes people smile (whether that's a good or a bad thing).

[Veronica]

Neptune is not a malefic in and of itself. It seems that only when in aspect or concurrent angularity with a malefic will it show a malefic nature.

You can see Neptune aspecting the Moon in many artists, it has a very creative (and beautiful) imaginative nature that is not malefic at all, simply creative.

On the other hand there is nothing "neutral" about Pluto - Pluto is a force of transformation - not necessarily malefic (but can be).

Defining and transforming reality by imagining something new, beyond what is known, might come close. Exploring other dimensions might also be fitting.

I think that maybe, just maybe, you don't really have this aspect figured out yet
Perhaps researching those people who have that aspect on an angle, or as concurrent angularity, might be the best avenue to explore... whereas the people who have the aspect in the background may not be expressing it at all.

Your right
I probably dont have it aspect figured out.
I have my aspect of this colored by many other aspects so its difficult to pull those qualities out in a pure sence from my perspective.
And I do only really have my point of view on things even though I try to understand where others are coming from.
In reading and thinking about this quailty and your remarks I was reminded of a passage in the book The Male Brain in which the author comments on males adaptable view to see obeject in space in a different more complete way the most females.
I think the underlaying neuron networking and cognitive ideas behind that ability may have a fundamental bearing on this aspect.
This is a semi recent research article discussing this sort of malible visual abilty that males seeming have an edge on.
It at least reminds me that...you are right...I dont grasp this completely...it seems like an ungraspable quailty in many respects.

http://m.nautil.us/issue/32/space/men-a ... his-course

[Arena]

Yeah, I understand you guys. It is difficult to put your finger on this aspect. I just know from personal experience, that since having those two planets on my relocated angle I've been introduced to a new world, to another dimension, to a different world view and it has been a profoundly transforming experience. I think I am still just in the early stage of it - but oh boy oh boy, what an interesting perspective. Because of this experience I would never even think of excluding the psychedelic experiences/experiments from this natal configuration. I do have the aspect as a sextile in ecliptic natal chart, but it only manifested in this way when both planets were brought into a conjunction on an angle in my case and they are also both acting on my angles in transits. To me, it is magical. It brought me beyond my imagination.

[Jim Eshelman]

I just know from personal experience, that since having those two planets on my relocated angle I've been introduced to a new world, to another dimension, to a different world view and it has been a profoundly transforming experience.

Sure. And this sits on my root idea, first expressed above, of the malleability of reality.

But you have three separate factors operating. Not just Neptune conjunct Pluto, but:

1. Neptune foreground
2. Pluto foreground
3. Neptune-Pluto conjunction

That's quite a different picture than #3 in isolation.

[SteveS]

Arena wrote:

I just know from personal experience, that since having those two planets on my relocated angle I've been introduced to a new world, to another dimension, to a different world view and it has been a profoundly transforming experience.

I understand your 'knowing' from your 'personal experience' Arena.

Neptune-Pluto: Hidden transformations. Enormous creative force that takes things into and out of existence. Magic and other mysteries. One's personal relationships to change and reform in the greater social order. Social elements that deviate from the norm. Robert Hand.

[Arena]

Thanks Steve, that's helpful from Hand.

Yeah, the Neptune Pluto angularity is going to express differently when both planets are on angle and in conjuction (although this is only seen in the PV relocated chart for myself).

I know you have your reservations about Ebertin when it comes to Pluto... but he does have this to say about this aspect:

The supernatural. Peculiar people, mystics, mediums, occultists, people engaged in psychical research.

and

Probable manifestations: The tendency to occupy oneself with unusual problems, the pursuit of peculiar hobbies and aspirations, a progressive spiritual evolution.

[Jim Eshelman]

Yes. That was part of my original looking. However, what I want from an aspect interpretation is that it clearly fits something like 70 to 80% of the people who have the aspect close, regardless of any other consideration in their chart. (The other, individually distinctive chart factors account for the 20 to 30% where the general interpretation doesn't fit.)

The interpretation you quoted does not fit 70 to 80% of all people with a Neptune Pluto aspect within three degrees.

[Arena]

Do you mean because of angularity?

What I quoted is not Nep-Pluto on angle... it is just the Nep-Pluto aspect alone from Ebertin's perspective.

But when people have this aspect middleground or background, it is likely to maybe not be as strong an urge and not be expressed as much into the public eye... they might still be into those things but without ever revealing it to the public. Therefore you would never have known about their tendency towards or belief in those things. That is how I went about things before. Was always interested in mystical things, but even more so now. I used to hide it from most people, so only very old and close friends would know ... but am more open about it now, at least to the new crowd of people around me.

I wonder how many of the people you mentioned in this thread were actually very interested in "peculiar" things/concepts even though the public did not know about it. But then again, I know that is very hard to assess

I don't know how true this is, but they say Eisenhower was extremely interested in life on other planets. He started up NASA. https://www.gaia.com/article/eisenhower ... lloman-afb

Hoover first director of the FBI and their forensic science.

Newton:
"Scientists occasionally conduct experiments on themselves. Among the most famous was Isaac Newton's extraordinary method for probing the nature of colour. He stuck a bodkin, a long sewing needle with a blunt point, into his eye socket, between eye and bone, and recorded seeing coloured circles and other visual phenomena."

"Newton spent more time investigating the true meaning of the Bible’s words and on the pseudoscience of alchemy than he did on mathematics or physics!"

[Jim Eshelman]

Do you mean because of angularity?

What I quoted is not Nep-Pluto on angle... it is just the Nep-Pluto aspect alone from Ebertin's perspective.

Yes, I knew it was just the aspect. That's what I meant: I want a core Neptune-Pluto interpretation that fits 70-80% of people with a Neptune-Pluto aspect (including all those born in the [roughly] 50 years the two were in sextile. The Ebertin interpretation does not, for example, fit most people in the group born in the late '20s and early '30s (the Great Depression kids) and fails to fit half or more of the people born during the long-term sextile (though I'm not as worried about that since the effects would be expected to be more subtle).

But when people have this aspect middleground or background, it is likely to maybe not be as strong an urge and not be expressed as much into the public eye.

I agree with that in principle (the exact way you stated it), but even non-foreground aspects show very distinctly in the character. (I considered all the examples you gave. Read my section above on scientists in particular.) - The kind of interpretation you quoted actually fits the famous / public examples better than private ones, and the private ones I used are all people I know quite well, often for decades. For them it doesn't usually fit.

[SteveS]

Arena wrote:

I know you have your reservations about Ebertin when it comes to Pluto... but he does have this to say about this aspect:

The main reservations I have about Ebertin when it comes to Pluto is Hand’s reservations about Ebertin’s malefic words with Neptune and Pluto. Hand who was probably the number one disciple in the US with Ebertin’s work, re-wrote possible delineations for Ebertin’s words focusing mainly on Pluto’s malefic manifestations. Hand was a great believer that anyone who was under potent Pluto symbolism should get into the healing arts/research for positive Pluto manifestations. You can find Hand's opinions about Pluto in his book 'Horoscope Symbols.

[Veronica]

" Hand was a great believer that anyone who was under potent Pluto symbolism should get into the healing arts/research for positive Pluto manifestations. You can find Hand's opinions about Pluto in his book 'Horoscope Symbols."

I would say that anyone under potent Pluto *is* involved with healing and the powers of Genesis/Creation/destruction either consciously or subconsciously. I think those quailites run through them and it is what else going on in the chart whether it is for good or ill.

One thing I have seen in my generation who have this neptune pluto sextile is either one extreme of being hard core partiers or of being super health conscious. At least with what I have seen in my local. Little to no middle ground.