Many words have been written on the subject of the ‘correct’ horoscope for the USA. Given the contemporary dominance of the USA in the cultural, economic and political life of the world, it is not unreasonable that astrologers have spent long hours poring over the various candidate charts for a national horoscope. Probably the most commonly used charts are those timed for various moments on 4 July 1776, which was apparently the day on which the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia. A Gemini-rising chart cast for the very early hours of the morning, a Scorpio-rising chart for early afternoon and the famous ‘Sibly chart’ with a Sagittarius ascendant have all been utilised extensively. Other possibilities include the chart for the First Continental Congress (5 September 1774 at 10am, Philadelphia), the Battle of Lexington (19 April 1775 at 5am, Lexington, Massachusetts), the signing of the Treaty of Paris (3 September 1783 at 10:30am, in Paris, France) or the adoption of the Federal Constitution (17 September 1787 at 4pm, in Philadelphia).
In this article, I wish to propose a case for the radicality of the chart of the surrender of British General Cornwallis to the American revolutionary forces at the Battle of Yorktown, which defined the end of the American Revolutionary War and essentially de-facto independence of the USA from Britain. The chart is set for 10am on 17 October 1781, at Yorktown, Viriginia. Further, I want to utilise this chart to examine some of the trends in US financial history which set the stage for the current problems besetting the US and world economy, and which have huge implications for the world over the next 2-3 years, irrespective of who wins the upcoming presidential election.
This chart’s basic structure can be summarised as follows. Probably the most striking feature is the new moon in the Libran eleventh house, conjunct the South Node, which indicates that the chart followed a total solar eclipse which occurred 6 hours and 10 minutes earlier. 10º Sagittarius rises, with Saturn following at 16º Sagittarius. There is a Venus/Jupiter conjunction within 1º16 of orb on the cusp of the first house, with Jupiter in very late Scorpio and Venus across the cusp in very early Sagittarius. There is a rather ominous-looking Mars/Pluto conjunction in Aquarius, and Mars closely trines Neptune. Uranus is in early Cancer in the eighth house.
Saturn rising in Sagittarius is suggestive of the religious fundmentalism and Christian moral conservatism espoused by the majority of American citizens; we see here an image of the bulwark of enlightenment and humanistic ideals of freedom, happiness, prosperity, justice and moral rectitude. Being in detriment, Saturn’s weakness is seen in the extremes of religious and moral hypocrisy evident in popular opinions on issues such as the death penalty, the teaching of evolutionary theory, provision of universal health-care and the widening disparity between rich and poor. This is a very traditional image of the shining beacon of democracy, the guarantor of liberty and self-determination.
Although Saturn is close to the Ascendant, we must not overlook Venus, tucked into the very first degree of Sagittarius, which by the whole-sign house system, is therefore in the very first degree of the first house. Venus is also conjunct (though out-of-sign) Jupiter, kind of adding to the Sagittarian flavour of Venus. I think this represents the prevailing image of America – big, brash, fond of risk, entertainment, wealth, gambling, horses, expansion, conquest, international adventure. But also, devoted to pursuing happiness and striving for the freedom to do so, even if this means acquiring enormously disproportionate extremes of material resources and money. I think this Venus-Jupiter conjunction straddling the first house cusp indicates the tendency of America to see itself as fundamentally benign and indeed blessed, particularly with Jupiter being in the twelfth house. There may be a tendency to confuse the strong fantasy of blessed exceptionalism with the reality on the ground, with inconvenient socio-economic data failing to generate attention because it doesn’t fit with the shiny, happy face of the American dream.
Mars and Pluto conjoin closely in early Aquarius, in the third house of transport, communications, intelligence services and early education. Note that Pluto in this chart is exactly stationary, going direct. This is an image of the obsession of the US with violence, particularly gratuitous and shocking violence, as well as the dominating strength of the US military machine. Violence and individual rights (Mars in Aquarius) combine in the liberal gun laws in the US, where the individual’s right to bear arms against a dicatatorial monarchy has retained its place at the very core of American identity and civic status. Weaponry is futuristic, utilising the most modern technologies, as well as consisting of a large nuclear stockpile. But a very important part of the USA’s offensive capabilities, particularly since the end of the Second World War, consists of the work of intelligence agencies such as the CIA. Utilising networks of intelligence operatives across the world, the USA has unrivalled ability to manipulate in the affairs of other nation-states and foment suitable political crises to assist it in its geopolitical aims.
Note the vey close trine from Mars to Neptune, which I think is the fetishization of military life, the inculcation of seductive imagery of bravery and heroism via media and education. The USA is truly a militarised culture, based very deeply on the values of the Western: personal bravery, rugged individualism, fighting the good fight, respect and admiration for the outlaw. This aspect also relates to the slightly grandiose over-glamourisation of the military life, the action movies churned out by Hollywood, the shoot-‘em-up computer games, the contrast between the fantasy of gun-toting heroes being welcomed as liberators and the reality of human misery and cruelty unleashed by the controllers of the state. Mars-Neptune is also helpful for espionage and undermining enemies as opposed to more direct force.
The Libran eclipse New Moon in the eleventh house is to my mind the epitome of classical civilised democratic government, complete with checks and balances and a strong congressional component representative of the people and the component states. Even the most important central public government buildings throughout the US are built in neo-classical architectural style, suggestive of the institutions of Greece and Rome. I think a New Moon carries the mundane symbolism of the marriage of the people with their rulers, and with the Moon eclipsing the Sun, the monarchical rulership has indeed been overthrown by popular revolt.
However, with the MC being in the Virgoan tenth house, Mercury, placed in Scorpio in the twelfth, takes the role of the executive branch of government, tensely placed square the rather belligerent Mars. Despite the checks and balances of the constitution, the reality is that the President ends up rather isolated and placed on a pedestal as the idealised leader who makes the tricky and difficult decisions, often decisions related to warfare and defence. Sometimes this has not been so successful, as for example at the onset of the Civil War in the early 1860s, when transiting Pluto in Taurus opposed Mercury, and the country split into the Union and the Confederacy for a 4-year period of blood-letting.
Given the upcoming election, together with the prevailing economic vicissitudes affecting the US economy, it is useful to have a closer examination of the placement of Uranus in this horoscope. Uranus is placed in the eighth house, the house of financial deals, foreign trade, taxation, corporations and national experiences of death and loss. From early in the history of the USA, one of the most lucrative forms of financial activity and trade was that involving Africans, brought to the USA as slaves, and this persisted through much of the nineteenth century, and, some would say, on into the twentieth and twenty-first, albeit in a less overt form. We can see this symbolically reflected in the placement of Uranus in Cancer, the sign of race, clan and birthright. We also see here the mass killings of native Americans across the continent during the years of expansion of the USA in the nineteenth century.
In early 1886, the US Supreme Court argued and decided upon the famous case of Santa Clara County –v- Southern Pacific Railroad which was to grant corporations the same legal rights as juristic persons under the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution, i.e. the rights of citizenship. Transiting Saturn was conjunct natal Uranus, and a transiting Jupiter-Uranus conjunction was square natal Uranus. This was a crucial development in the growing power of corporate America, which seems to be reflected by this Uranus placement in the US horoscope. (The Fourteenth Amendment itself, passed in 1866, explicitly described the rights of citizenship and, controversially at the time, extended citizenship to slaves. At this time, transiting Uranus was conjunct natal Uranus.)
In 1914, when the transiting Saturn-Pluto conjunction was exactly conjunct natal Uranus, the Federal Reserve was formed, a private corporation which was given the role of loaning money at interest to the US Federal Government. This was a major step towards handing over financial sovereignty of the American people to a private interest, and was the final result of a long process of lobbying and persuading politicians on the part of international banking interests. Note that transiting Neptune was trine natal Venus, the symbol of the US dollar, at this time.
On 6 April 1917, following on the sinking of the Lusitania by German U-boats, and the disruption to US-European trade by the war in Europe, a reluctant President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany, with only one more year to go until the end of the conflict. Transiting Pluto was conjunct natal Uranus.
In late 1929, and early 1930, as economic depression hit the USA following the Wall Street Crash, transiting Saturn was opposite US Uranus, and progressed Moon and Venus, conjunct in early Aries, were squaring Uranus.
Towards the end of the Second World War it was apparent that the tide was turning against the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) and that a new system of international financial regulation would have to be set up in the wake of the economic depression and devastation caused by the war. The major non-Axis powers met at Bretton Woods in New England in the first three weeks of July 1944 to settle on a new post-war economic dispensation, as transiting Saturn conjoined US Uranus.
In the early 1970s, interesting events took place regarding the international economic connections and climate in which the USA was operating. On 15 August 1971, resident Nixon ‘floated’ the US dollar, taking it off the gold standard, which effectively turned it into a fiat currency, declared to have a given value by decree. It was no longer exactly exchangeable for a given amount of gold. Transiting Neptune was exactly conjunct Venus (the dollar was ‘floated’), and transiting Pluto was sextile Jupiter. Towards the end of 1973, following on US support of the Israelis in the Yom Kippur War, as well as the depreciating value of the US dollar as a result of the removal of the gold standard, Arab oil-producing countries imposed an embargo on oil exports to the West, resulting the first Oil Crisis. Transiting Saturn was conjunct Uranus and transiting Uranus was conjunct the US Sun. Transiting Pluto was also conjunct US Neptune. Note also, that earlier that year, the World Trade Centre was officially opened on 4 April 1973, when transiting Pluto was exactly square US Uranus.
Transiting Uranus opposed natal Uranus in November 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell and a whole new expanse of the geopolitical map was ripe for economic development and trade, as the old communist regimes in Eastern Europe collapsed. This was enunciated by President Bush in 1990 as a ‘New World Order’ ready for the forces of globalization rooted in the Western capitalist corporate economic model. During the presidency of the younger President George W Bush, the events of 11 September 2001 took the US on a strange new trajectory in terms of the fundamentals of its economic system. Following the devastation of the World Trade Centre on that day, as transiting Mars opposed the US Uranus, and the transiting lunar nodes straddled it, the large stores of gold that were kept in the vaults beneath the World Trade Centre were shipped out under federal security in the course of the removal of the debris of the disaster; none of this has been accounted for since. The day before, 10 September 2001, the then US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, declared that there was a $2.3 trillion discrepancy in the accounts of the Pentagon – following the disaster the next day, this was never followed up or investigated.
The current economic problems besetting the USA are in my view probably the most serious in the history of the country. Earlier this year, and most exactly next year and in 2010, the US Uranus will be opposed by transiting Pluto, and squared by the transiting Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, all culminating at the cardinal climax in mid-2010. I predict that this will involve a radical devaluation of the US dollar, a serious economic depression and most likely severe social and political turmoil in the US as the leadership attempts to maintain control in an increasingly turbulent and unpredictable situation. This may also coincide with the decision by China, Russia and other foreign holders of US bonds to dump their holdings and make a call on the debts owed them by the USA. This would be extremely serious and could well escalate into a major international crisis as the world tries to collectively intervene to sort out the mess that the US economy and national entity has become.
