Neptune & Jonestown

[Jim Eshelman]

In November 1978, I wrote an article, "The Horror of Jonestown," for American Astrology Magazine. It appeared a few months later, in the March '79 issue, bumping my already-accepted article on Saturn in Leo to a later issue.

Joanne Stonnell wrote me, in part: "I also decided to shorten the 3 pages that you devoted to a Neptune interpretation since there's much more to the horror at Jonestown than a broad (good!) interpretation of this planet." For decades, I'd lost the original manuscript, and remembered only that I'd been proud of those three pages. Today, while packing for my first move in 37 years. I found my original typescript and thought I'd post those three pages that got cut. (Yes, I wrote that article in this very house.)

I wouldn't write this the same way today because I'm not the same person I was in November '78. However, I can't find anything I disagree with. It needs editing (that's the nature of writing), and, in retrospect, I agree that it was only one part of a larger picture; but it also expresses the answers that I had dug out of myself in the aftermath of Jonestown, with Peoples Temple just a few blocks down the street and one of my friends having played a significant role in the Jonestown incident. If nothing else, these few pages capture my state of mind and thought at that juncture, just weeks from starting a whole new direction of my life.

So here goes... "The Horror of Jonestown - The Missing Pages!" <g>

[Jim Eshelman]

Neptune symbolizes the very type of cultist religion represented by the Peoples Temple, and therefore warrants a more detailed probing. I think it fair to say that every person who responds to the siren song of a cult is responding through his or her own Neptune. If we translate this only as the individual's gullibility or sense of escapism, or say merely that Neptune signifies the act of being absorbed into something, we are not learning much that is useful. Instructing the naive or protecting the gullible has never seemed to do much good in the long haul if they have other, deeper reasons for following the paths of naiveté or gullibility. However, a deeper consideration of the cult members' motivations promises valuable insight on the issues at hand.

First of all, the Neptunian personality is highly dependent, wanting to be cared for insofar as that is possible. Ultimately, the Neptune within each of us hungers for the Edenic wonderland of the womb, where all of our needs were invariably met without any effort on our part. Sociologically and politically, this translated as socialism and all Utopianisms, as well as the mass of so-called "social programs." We can see immediately that any societal structure, including a religion, which appeals to our Neptune is providing an opportunity for some semblance of this blissful prenatal carefreeness. Some of the clues to this are all references to constituents as "children," or other implications of smallness, weakness, or helplessness. It must be realized that to the extent that we become dependent, protected, and cared-for, we also abdicate all opportunities to be independent, autonomous, free-thinking, and free-acting.

Our Neptunian parts are vulnerable to distress from not knowing something. They acquire security from learning what was previously unknown. Pluto also probes for lost knowledge, but is more justifiably suspicious of such information as comes from outside sources, especially when the bearer of the information seems to have a strong emotional stake in being believed. Yet the Neptunian side of us all likes to think that secrets and deceptions surround us, and that others may be holders of sacred, forbidden information; so this is what Neptune pursues.

Neptune within each of us, while our most sensitive, idealistic, and richly imaginative side, is also the great Achilles' heel through which we demean ourselves, feel tiny, and renounce our strength for the anticipated rewards of protection. Neptune exists as a positive presence for those times when it is desirable to set aside one's ego-burdened individuality for relational, altruistic, and genuinely spiritual endeavors. Yet the cult leader who is able to tap into this same facet of our beings may be capable of using that power to dominate our wills.

It is quite possible to view every extant religion as imposing upon its followers a Great Force, something of such mammoth grandeur and superiority that an individual dwindles to paltry insignificance in any comparison to it. Yet this perspective is not inherent in the religions themselves, only in most modern interpretations of them. The major religions have as their highest promise the opportunity to evoke that selfsame grandeur and divinity from within each and every devotee, where it sleeps, rather than impose it from without.

Sheldon Kopp once wrote, "If you have a hero, look again; you have diminished yourself in some way." Without any desire to be irreverent, I contend that the same c an be said of an external god - especially one that walks the streets in broad daylight. Kopp also said that, "All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation," which I find to be a sobering thought in the face of the Jonestown tragedy. Obviously, along with all other Pied Pipers of modern and historic times, Jim Jones was filling some vacant place in the lives of those who followed him, else they'd not have done so. The Saturn-Neptune angular pair not only captured a scene of death and deception, but portrayed a great number of people who had to acknowledge within themselves the demise of the man who had filled that gap for them. Most of them buckled under the loss.

Is it possible, in our limited wisdom, to find that place of need within each of us and, together, find some way to gratify it without sacrificing either truth for security or self-government for safety? I think so. And it is on that achievement alone that I rest my hope for the eradication of such senseless deaths as those sponsored by the idol of flesh that was Jim Jones.