Tag Archives: history

Neptune and the War of the Worlds

Orson Welles’ broadcast his War of the Worlds Halloween radio show on October 30, 1938 at 8:00 PM from the CBS studios in New York City (see the data here).  The radio play was carried by affiliate stations across the country. Some people assumed the story of Martians invading the Earth was real. While historians today tend to feel there was less panic than we’ve been led to believe, the incident demonstrated the power of technology to influence the public, and Orson Welles became famous.

The illusion of truth comes under the purview of the planet Neptune. Some people initially felt uncomfortable with the new radio technology because people could be “there” and yet “not there” at the same time, something like disincarnate spirits. Interestingly, transiting Neptune at the time of Welles’ broadcast was nearly exactly conjunct the U.S. Neptune (a Neptune return, which occurs approximately every 162-164 years, give or take). It was also nearly exactly parallel its own place in declination.

I use Evangeline Adams’ Gemini rising U.S. chart, which has Neptune square the Ascendant. Saturn is also closely contra-parallel Neptune in many U.S. charts. To me this reflects Americans’ preoccupation with image, the proliferation of celebrities, glamour, advertising and marketing, and the conflict between illusion and reality. And so the transiting Neptune in 1938 reiterates and accentuates these themes.

Orson Welles was born on May 6, 1915 at 7:00 AM in Kenosha, WI according to his birth certificate (see the Astrodatabank entry). With Gemini rising himself, he had an immediate resonance with America. His Jupiter in Pisces in the 10th made him a teller of tall tales, especially as it squared his and the U.S. Ascendants.

Welles’ powerful Jupiter in the 10th was also closely parallel a perhaps even stronger Mars in Aries in his 11th house, both in their ruling signs. And transiting Neptune activated these, nearly exactly contra-parallel Welles’ Jupiter and parallel his Jupiter at the time, bringing up the Neptunian ideas of deception, misunderstanding and image vs. reality. Welles gained great notoriety as a result of the broadcast, and become seduced by Hollywood. His first film Citizen Kane came out in 1941.

Some of the exaggerated response from the public to The War of the Worlds in 1938 was probably due to the disturbing events in Europe that would soon lead to WWII. Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin were already in control and Jews were actively persecuted in Germany. But that is a much larger Neptunian story.

Traditional vs. Modern

Many astrologers today blend psychological with traditional astrology, making little distinction between the two philosophies. Many of the differences are historical.

When I first studied with Zoltan Mason (who was born in 1906) in the 1980s, he’d say things like, “Wherever you put Saturn you get some kind of difficulty.” Then I’d read something like Liz Greene’s 1976 book on Saturn and she says, “Saturn fosters the exhilaration of psychological freedom.” A bit confusing! But the difference shows the change in astrology over the 20th century. Mason studied works written in Latin by astrologers like Jean Baptiste Morin (17th century), and Greene had a contemporary point of view.

Over the centuries, astrology often adapted itself to prevailing trends. Alan Leo practiced a more predictive type of astrology until his conviction for fortune-telling in 1917, when he decided for legal reasons to delete all predictive references from his work (he died trying). Evangeline Adams’ work from the same time shows a very predictive bent. But her books from the late 20s and early 30s have a more psychological tone as she tried to reach a wider audience. As time went on, more astrology books described personal development and character, paralleling the rise of psychology.

Bob Zoller has always said that the concept of “evolution” is a very modern idea. Scientists today typically use linear thinking: we at the contemporary end of the line of time are always “better” than those before us, “more advanced” and knowledgeable. And astrology is a remnant of the past.

If we think of how tough it is to understand a Shakespeare play written about 400 years ago, how much more difficult is it to understand Plato, writing almost 2,500 years ago? It’s a stretch, and that’s in translation, too, putting it another step away from us. The first Greek horoscope is from around the time of Plato, but the idea of astrology is at least 2,000 years older and maybe even more.

Modern astrology is an adaptation to a contemporary perspective. Traditional astrology comes from a completely different paradigm, which is not understood very easily today. Whatever appeals to you, use it!