The Return of Neptune

It sounds a little like a film title and that would be very Neptunian as Neptune rules illusion, imagery and film. Around it’s discovery time Christian sects had predicted the return of the Messiah in what became known eventually as the Great Disappointment of the Millerites. But in April this year astrologers celebrated the first return of Neptune to its tropical discovery degree, something due to recur again in July and February of next year. However if we take precession into account this is not due until April 2010. Nevertheless get set for an increase in astronomical and astrological articles on Neptune and its relevance. Here’s a brief primer on the distant gas mysterium.

On December 28 1612 the father of modern science, Galileo Galelie , was viewing the heavens through his newly invented telescope when he unknowingly spied the planet Neptune. It lay just outside Jupiter and mixed close to Ganymede one of the four galileon Moons, that he discovered almost three years earlier on January 7 1610 in the first hour of the night. But shadowy Neptune, true to its covert planetary nature, was escaping even Galileo’s scrutiny – if not his observation. He mistook it for a fixed star. John Herschel, Englands foremost astronomer, and the discoverer of Uranus, did the same on the 14th of July 1830.

It was not until September the 23rd 1846 at Berlin Observatory that German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle, ably assisted a quick thinking assistant Heinrich D’Arrest pinpointed the elusive Neptune and finally confirmed it as the eighth planet. It is the only planet conceived purely via mathematical formula, thanks to the celestial mechanics of French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier, credited as the discoverer. True to his painstaking scientific method Neptune was found lying beside the planet that has been statistically proven to indicate scientists – Saturn.

When a new planet is discovered there are three ways that an astrologer may assimilate its meaning. The first and obvious is to note the worldly trends that accompany the planets discovery. What is actually happening when it chooses to make its debut on our consciousness. The other, and perhaps equally obvious is to assume an inherent rightness in humanities naming of the planet and the relevant mythological roots. That has certain limitations culturally of course as all of the planets apart from Uranus are actually named after Roman gods. Nevertheless most astrologers also integrate the Greek Hellenistic myths, and the more eclectic incorporate the original Babylonian sources.

Such analogies provide a basic framework for interpretation, and become increasingly real when we merge with the mundane.

Neptune is the dreamtime planet and is therefore associated with that which may influence us subliminally. Medically it corresponds to allergies that may have a psychosomatic component. Around the discovery of Neptune the Scottish physician James Braid was experimenting with this and lecturing on the natural psychophysiological causes underlying other symptoms. He eventually became known as the father of ‘hypnotism’.

It is interesting to note Braid’s writings on his discoveries to the British medical journal Lancet in 1845, “I adopted the term “hypnotism” to prevent my being confounded with those who entertain those extreme notions…that clairvoyance and other “higher phenomena” are routinely manifested by those in the mesmeric state.” To the trained astrologer this all sound, very Neptunian, even if Braid was attempting to be less nebulous. Braid himself was born with a Sun/Mars conjunction in grand trine with Neptune and Pluto – certainly a fitting chart for a hypnotist.

Politically Neptune is aligned with socialism and The Communist Manifesto was first published on February 21, 1848. It’s author Karl Marx became one of the most influential thinkers of political history. His very introduction invokes the ethereal nature of Neptune as he writes. “A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.”

The “Communist Manifesto” was literally manifesting in Marx’s mind during Neptunes discovery and the Saturn/Neptune cycle (evident at the discovery point) marks pivotal times in the philosophies development. They include the formation of the British Labor Party, the Russian Revolution, Stalinism, and the fall of the Berlin Wall and eventual disintegration the USSR. Marx’s revolutionary ideas stemmed from one who lived centuries before and best exemplified Neptune – Sir Thomas More – born on the 15th of February 1478 with Neptune conjunct his Ascendant. Neptune was conjunct Uranus, which suggests he would project Neptune as a badge of his own ‘individuality’, and both squared his Sun. More is best remembered for writing Utopia – a mythic tale of an island on which personal possession did not exist and resources were shared for the benefit of the whole. It was published in 1516 with Neptune conjunct his Mercury. Utopia had a huge effect upon Renaissance thought.

Neptune can also signify sacrifice and More paid for his own beliefs with his life when he opposed the divorce of Henry VIII and was subsequently beheaded. In 1980 Sir Thomas More was made a saint. You get these kinds of Neptune magical moments in astrology. It’s the planet that we can’t see with a magnitude of 7.8, and yet it seeps telepathically through human consciousness like electricity through a wire. I’ll be talking a lot more about Neptune this June when we examine the “Keys To Mundane” at the Drummoyne Community Centre, and I hope you can join me there.