Pluto’s Influence in the Astrology of War

The astrology of war is the study of applied Pluto power. The planet Pluto in astrology demonstrates the workings of astrology and war. The day Saturn transited America’s mundane Pluto in Capricorn, America went to war (1^st Gulf War, 17 January 1991). Pluto in the study of history has somehow always been involved in war. The astrology of World War II shows the Plutonian influence everywhere. So let us go deeper into the astrology of war.

Dualism and the Power of Two will always be found in the Plutonian influence. Somehow, Pluto is always involved with relationship. The rapist needs the rapee; the terrorist, the victim; in a nuclear reaction, critical mass is achieved by bringing two bodies of radioactive material into each other’s proximity. Plutonian healing always requires a subject and object: first, the elimination of what has been blocking the flow of the life force; and this is followed by regeneration. This concept applies on a personal and a mass level.

Pluto is a double planet system, consisting of Pluto and, its moon, Charon, plus the tiny outer moons, Nix, Hydra, Styx, and Kerberos. The diameter of Pluto is around 2500 kilometers (2376 kilometers), that of Charon is 1210 kilometers. When Charon orbits Pluto, the two bodies keep the same face to each other (they are tidally locked), as does the Moon to the Earth. Astronomy calls it a double planet.

Pluto’s influence on history has not been well understood. It is one of the slowest moving of all the planets, taking 248.6 years to orbit the Sun; its revolution is so eccentric (.2488) that in some years it moves only one degree of arc, while in other years it can travel as much as 2 1/2 degrees.

For us astrologers this configuration implies that Plutonian influence is of a dual nature. Observing its influence upon the play of history, one can easily uncover this dualism. In war, which is a Plutonian manifestation, this dualism is found in the conflict between nations. In sexuality, especially orgasm, also ruled by Pluto, we observe the dance of male and female.

Pluto Rules War

War is a negative duality taken to a mass level. It requires two groups to fight each other. When Pluto transits the chart of a nation, or when an outer planet like Saturn transits the natal Pluto of that nation, it can ignite battle and conflict. This planet rules armies; it rules the warrior, like the Grail knight who rode into the forest seeking adventures, especially one-on-one combat. In wartime, it always rules combat officers. The planetary signature of the battlefield commander often involves some aspect between Mars and Pluto. In Napoleon’s chart, Pluto made the trine to his Mars. In the chart of John Churchill, ancestor of Winston and the general who constantly defeated the armies of Louis XIV, his Sun, which is often an indication of one’s life path, sat at the exact midpoint of his Mars/Pluto. Dwight Eisenhower had a partile biquintile (144°) between Mars and Pluto. Douglas MacArthur had the conjunction, and George Patton the square. Among generals of the American Civil War, U.S. Grant had an exact biquintile, Robert E. Lee had a loose opposition, William T. Sherman, a loose trine, Phil Sheridan, the octile, and George Custer, the square.

Political parties, corporations, the close-knit staffs of the powerful.

Pluto, along with astrological Scorpio, rules those small groups of people who exert tremendous power in history. Those individuals chosen to handle the affairs of state for a republic like the one in America, or the United Kingdom, or the anointed king and his nobles, like Louis XIV of France, are a manifestation of Plutonian power. This planet rules the Founding Fathers in America. Plutonian influence dominated the chart of the Roman Empire, the Imperium, which began with the reign of the Emperor Augustus in 27 B.C. In the ascent-to-power chart for Augustus, Pluto is in opposition to the Sun. Almost every emperor for the five hundred cycle of the Imperial Roman Empire died either from conspiracy, violence or war: Almost every emperor chosen had to have the approval of the military.

In the 1776 U.S. chart, Pluto is antiparallel to the Sun. While this configuration indicates that the president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, it also might imply a karmic connection that America has with the ancient Roman Empire.

Pluto rules any aristocracy, any oligarchy, including the nomenklatura of the Communist Party that ruled the Soviet Union for decades. It governs any group that wields power over larger numbers of people, from labor unions to the College of Cardinals to an officer corps to organized crime. Pluto rules the people who are a part of these associations and organizations.

Exaltation and disgrace

Pluto can take the obscure man and raise him to power and fame. Its touch can reach out and strip away all power. Pluto can bring about an exaltation of power, as happened to Dwight Eisenhower for twenty years. It can destroy those at the very height of their power, as befell President Richard Nixon. In the careers of both these statesmen, the power themes were Plutonian. They both had Pluto placed in the 10th House.

On the night of the Watergate break-in (June 17, 1972), Pluto by transit was exactly square President Nixon’s natal Pluto/Mars opposition. That square would stay partile for over a year. When he resigned from office, Pluto was still within 2 degrees of his lunar south node.

Nixon had a successful first term as president. The economy was booming. The madness of the 60’s, the riots in the universities, the bombings of ‘revolutionaries’ , the general demonstration of insurgence, mutiny and rebellion activated by the Uranus/Pluto synod that conjoined America’s natal Neptune–well, all these he calmed out and put to sleep. He restored balance at home.

Nixon at War

Nixon’s  Mars/Pluto opposition gave him a gift for managing war. He replaced the bad generals he had inherited with good ones.  He developed a hitherto unused global strategy by signing a new treaty with China. He effectively ended the Vietnam War. In fact, the opening he engineered between America and the People’s Republic of China would change the balance of power among the world super powers. These treaties removed the chance of a nuclear war between China and the Soviet Union. The world became more peaceful. Like many highly effective executives, he achieved this in a mere four years.

The Mars/Pluto opposition in Nixon’s chart functioned as a deadly sword, making him almost invincible.  Like all Plutonian energies, however, there are times when Pluto confers on the one using its powers a great weakness, an inability to act decisively, often manifesting as making wrong decisions. Pluto functions as a karmic force. Most of the time, in trying to predict the effect Pluto will have on people and events, well, that is almost impossible to determine. Nixon had this karma and experienced the Plutonian obverse—disgrace, a fall from power, a near death experience, then, through his writing and teaching, primarily in offering very good advice to presidents that followed him, a regeneration.

That night, when the Watergate break-in occurred, possibly the Lords of Karma were floating above the Earth asking the American president these questions: “How well are you handling your power? Are you walking that straight and narrow path that we require at this time? Are you are taking yourself and your power too seriously?”

Eisenhower’s Pluto

Eisenhower began his rise to power and fame, when he was called to Washington by General Marshall at the beginning of the Second World War to design a plan of defense against the Japanese Empire. From that stage in his career, he received promotion after promotion, until finally as commander of Overlord, the invasion of France, he was for a while one of the most powerful men of the world. Both times Pluto was making the sextile to his natal Pluto. That was a more harmonious aspect than Nixon’s square. In his adult years Eisenhower’s power never “went to his head”, a Plutonian manifestation of hubris. All through World War II, he radiated, despite his awesome power, a deep personal humility, and it shined bright.

When Pluto made the square to his natal Pluto in 1960, Eisenhower had a rough year. He experienced petty humiliations—a kind of fall from power. But he survived that transiting square: He was weighed in the balance of karma, judged, and allowed to go into his retirement with dignity. Plutonian energies are always fair. The outcome of their impact always depends upon the behavior of the one whom they are impacting.

The Astrology of World War II

Perhaps the first chart the astrologer would examine, when studying World War II, would be that of Adolph Hitler.

If there was anyone who could be judged by history to have started WWII, it would be Adolph Hitler. There were many sides to his genius. He developed an organization filled with and operated mostly by the very young (Mars square Saturn). His organization was highly energetic, and would take over Germany within ten years of its founding. He was an hypnotically effective public speaker (Pluto/Neptune conjunct  in Gemini) and he was a charismatic public figure (Uranus on the  Ascendant). He nurtured and built a powerful war machine (Eris exactly biquintile Saturn). It defeated Poland in five weeks, the armies of France and Britain in six weeks. He had a powerful memory (Moon conjunct Jupiter in Capricorn). He was a brilliant autodidact, self-taught, and, like Lincoln and Churchill, reflecting their gifts, could see and judge affairs of state and military matters with a vision that was fresh and new.

The beginning of the War (9/1/1939) saw Saturn conjunct his Sun. Such a conjunction indicates either a going out of power or a rise in power. In his case it was a rise in power. Within two years, he ruled most of Europe, including France, Belgium, Norway, Denmark Greece, the Balkans and half of the Soviet Union, plus a large chunk of North Africa.

By December 1941, he ruled more of Europe than had Napoleon,

The Descent of Pluto

Yet, in December 1941, he began making a series of deeply flawed decisions, bringing disaster-following-disaster onto his armies. If a hundred most important most important decisions were called for in a certain period of time, like in the months covering the battle of Stalingrad, 95 of them could be judged as bad decisions, either by a not responding to questions for orders from the front, or by blatantly wrong decisions, or by a confused response, or one that may have looked good in written communications, but an order that was impossible to carry out in reality.

In effect he lost his gift of making quick, effective decisions. This leader of these great armies, victorious everywhere, lost his ability to effectively manage the huge machine he had built up. Not that he didn’t try to make things work. He did try, obsessively. He worked very hard at it, and still failed in everything he tried to do. He spent his every waking hour trying to manage the battle of Stalingrad.

Pluto Rules Karma

In Dec 11, 1941, Pluto had moved to the cusp of his MC located at five and a half  degrees of  Leo. While we don’t have a verified time for his birth (again, for years German astrologers have attested to the validity of this birth time), and so cannot confidentially say that Pluto was bringing about a change in his tenth house of career, one thing we can affirm is that it was moving into the inconjunct of his natal Jupiter/Moon conjunction. That Jupiter/Moon represented a large part of his mind; it certainly ruled that encyclopedic memory he was known for; it ruled his intuitive way of feeling a path into the future. He called it his intuition. It was that famous intuition that he used to outsmart and outmaneuver his opponents both domestic and foreign. He used his intuition to pick and emplace younger, highly effective generals like Rommel, Guderian, von Manstein into the army. They would introduce “lightning war”, blitzkrieg, which swiftly overran France and Russia and the rest of Europe.

When that Pluto in Leo began moving into the exact inconjunct of his Moon/Jupiter, his intuition was scrambled. He could no longer use it. What he had built up and held together for so many years started falling apart.

In December 1941, Pluto would  move up to 5 and 6 degrees of  Leo, inconjunct his Moon, the source of his supposed uncanny intuition, and conjunct his MC ruling career (if a true birth time). On December 18, 1941, Hitler arbitrarily assumed supreme command of all the German armies. Many military historians contend that this act was the worst mistake he ever made.  Soon he would be micromanaging the war on all fronts. And soon  the German war effort began making mistake after mistake which it would continue to do until surrender. Also, on December 11, 1941 Hitler declared war on the United States of America (Pluto was then at 5 degrees Leo 32).  When the battle of Stalingrad began on Aug. 23, 1942, Pluto was at  6 degrees Leo 4 minutes; when Stalingrad ended with the surrender of Marshall Von Paulus to the Russians on Feb, 2, 1943, it was at 5 Leo 58, still inconjunct the Moon and conjunct MC. History says that he worked very hard on  that battle, radioing orders to take buildings, to take streets, to take bridges, micromanaging all the way. He still lost. And some historians say it broke him.