In the United States it is said that violence is the price of freedom. If that’s so, cults might be the price of privacy.
Cult is a shorter form of culture, a subculture. You might have a friend in theater who talks of nothing but Broadway. That’s a subculture. Or people devoted many hours to online gaming or gambling. Those are subcultures.
Cult is used when the subculture is all-inclusive and controls the environment, controls who you can talk to, what you can eat, etc. Authoritarian regimes, then, make cult into culture.
In southern Ohio in 2016, the four-member Wagner family murdered eight members of the Rhoden family over child custody. Three of those members are in prison, two having confessed (younger brother and mother). One stood trial – the older brother – and was found guilty.
During that trial it emerged that he was raised in a cult-like way: homes in rural, remote areas; homeschooled (with mom doing a bit of homework); broken girls brought into the home to be mated to the brothers; dad involving them in crime from an early age.
The older brother took the stand in his trial and said that he once drove away but then turned around and came back.
Physical freedom from the cult was possible. Emotional freedom was much more difficult.
The Siders Family
The newest cult-like family to emerge in Ohio is the Siders Family in Vinton County. Unlike the Wagners, this is not a crime family (unless that is revealed later).
This family consists of a husband and wife, the husband’s parents, and 16 children. Reading a story, the wife (Elizabeth) had three sets of twins, one that died. If I’m doing the math correct, that still leaves 15 separate pregnancies.
Their crime, why they are in the news, is child endangerment. Supposedly the children all lived in one room; not sure how accurate that is; maybe they were just hiding.
The horoscope contains ten planets in 12 houses amongst 12 signs. That’s a lot of detail. Looking at the charts (birth times unknown) of the four adults and all their points of interaction would involve quite a bit of time, and blog.
Blogs come about when a theme emerges – in this case the sign of Cancer. As the situations suggests, it’s Cancer in extreme.
Belonging
Cancer is a cardinal water sign ruled by the moon and associated with mothering. From a larger perspective, it’s about belonging. The first “belonging” we have – although not for all of us – involves mother and family. When that doesn’t occur, life may be emotionally difficult.
Mothers traditionally feed infants through the breasts, through their bodies. That kind of closeness doesn’t occur much after mothering ends. Some continually seek it.
Belonging in Cancer is emotional (water sign). It’s family dinners, kisses and hugs, sharing of food, feeding others, watering the plants, and buying your spoiled-brat feline a $75 scratching post (which he had better start using soon).
In contrast is Aquarius (air sign) where belonging involves shared ideas and ideals. Reading about Civil Rights activist and late Congressman John Lewis, he found belonging with others in a shared ideal to end segregation. He was also close to his family. Both Cancer and Aquarius belonging were part of his life.
Good belonging is sharing dinner and family (or family-like group) times and then allowing everyone to go next where they need to go.
Bad belonging is when dinner is over and you find it’s difficult to leave. Cancer, ruled by the moon and carrying qualities of females, may often use guilt as a tool to keep people together. Guilt and family go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Ariel Castro of Cleveland, Ohio with sun in Cancer kidnapped and held three young women in the early 2000s until one escaped in 2013. Upon demolition of the house he claimed they had all been happy there.
Tenacity is a quality of the sign of Cancer and when combined with possessiveness may stifle rather than nurture growth.
But that’s in extreme. Most Cancer-ruled folks are taking care of things for us and making us feel “at home” or comforted.
The Siders
Where is Cancer in the horoscopes of the four adults?
Elizabeth (wife) has moon in Cancer and Saturn, the sign of restriction, in Aquarius. Clearly Elizabeth enjoyed the emotional comfort of a large family but was restricted in idealistic social life with those not related. In other words, she had no friends.
Gary (husband) has Jupiter and Chiron in Cancer which is abundant family but also wounds from family. He also has Pluto conjunct Venus in Scorpio which is controlling and intense in love. Possibly Elizabeth even going to the store created feelings of abandonment. With his Mars conjunct sun in Libra, he may have also been violent but feeling like he was fair (Libra) in some way.
Gary Sr (father/father-in-law) in pictures appears off and with Aries sun, may have had a head injury as Aries rules the head. His moon/Uranus in Cancer suggests his mother tried to be nurturing but may have had emotional instability. Mothering for him would be a need, or at least a need for consistent mothering rather than on-and-off nurturing. This inconsistent mothering appears to have affected his ability to have relationships.
Christina (mother/mother-in-law) stands out as being a bit different, possibly the woman-behind-the-curtain in this entire situation. Cancer is there – Venus. But that makes family feeling a pleasure, not a requirement. Moon, however, could be in Cancer but is close to Leo. Tricky here. She does have Uranus conjunct sun in Leo which is the need for attention. Add moon in Leo or close to Leo and this may be the seed sprouting the family possessiveness. She may be the one appearing most in her “right mind” but may have orchestrated the situation so she would never have to relinquish motherhood – the time when children leave to be on their own. In this way, she may be similar to Angela Wagner in wanting control of the daughters-in-law and all the grandchildren.
Elizabeth
Of the four adults, Elizabeth has the “gentlest” horoscope, none of the tension seen in the other charts with fixed Taurus also showing up a bit to square Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius placements.
Sun/Jupiter/Venus in Virgo and Mars in Gemini – both mutable signs – for Elizabeth allowed her to both disassociate from the situation and tolerate it as a helper. She may have complained at times, or even often, but doesn’t carry the fixed and cardinal energies that outright fight.
Moon in Cancer likes the comfort and any resistance would most likely present as illnesses including of the stomach and nerves such as anxiety. Possibly she was given medications to keep her natural compliance in check. But she clearly is fertile; it still seems the math is high, so I do wonder if any of the children were having children.
Virgo is traditionally the sign of service. Service is often associated with cooking and cleaning but sometimes our “service” is emotional. Like the children, Elizabeth marrying at a young age may have inadvertently entered a cult and been recruited to mothering and serving everyone in that small house.


