Astrologers are forward-looking individuals, always trying to predict the future. Much of the reason, I believe, is due to astrology being considered fortune telling which creates in astrologers the need to predict future events.

Much of the world, really, is involved in trying to predict future events from past data. All of these folks do this on a daily basis: economists, bankers, meteorologists, pundits, sports anchors and marketing analysts. As I think about it, much of the world is involved in prediction.

When you plan your drive to work in the morning, you make predictions about time spent in traffic, traffic patterns, the estimated time the boss will arrive and time needed in bathroom prior to work.

I should start selling crystal balls.

Unlike these other disciplines, astrology is not taken seriously in the West so there is no money provided for students of astrology to share knowledge formally or engage in astrology as a serious discipline which would involve not just predicting future events, but a thorough analysis of past events.

I’m thinking about this because I found a used astrology book this week called “Astrocycles” by Vivian B. Martin. It’s a neat little paperback that explains astrological planetary cycles. It was published in 1990 and my edition released in 1993.

Ms. Martin has an entire chapter entitled “The Aquarian Conspiracy,” devoted to the Neptune/Uranus conjunction in Capricorn that reached its closest conjunction in 1993-1994.

In a section of this chapter entitled “Changing Realities Throughout Society,” one of her bullet points talks about drug use and says:

“Neptune, the planet of escapism and drugs, moving through the sign of government and business [Capricorn], runs deals in the highest reaches of society. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse estimates that substance abuse is costing the workplace more than $80 billion. Twenty percent of workers abuse drugs and alcohol. The war against drugs at the office and on the street continues. But nothing gets better until societal leaders address ethical and spiritual decay.”

Ms. Martin’s prediction is a little vague to me but seems to suggest that she believes drug use will increase. Her comment about “runs deals in the highest reaches of society” is interesting to me because of what has occurred since the early 1990s – the increased use of pharmaceuticals.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy

As there is no university of astrology where I can be funded to spend the next two months researching pharmaceutical use in the US from 1993 to present, I have to stick with finding what I can today through Google.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was created in 1988 as a result of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. In 1993, an executive order “assigned ONDCP responsibility within the executive branch of government for leading drug-control policy and developing an outcome-measurement system.”

At the time of the Neptune/Uranus conjunction in 1993, the ONDCP was moved to the executive branch.

Looks like Ms. Martin got it right, in the US at least.

Predicting the future involves imagining how energies might manifest in the future. While I think Ms. Martin got it right, I think her ideas are wider and broader than she wrote (but may have been thinking).

Have we already legalized drugs?

Throughout time, humans have used both “medicine” and “drugs” for health and pleasure. But what is the difference between a legal and non-legal drug?

Just that, I believe – its legal status.

Why is marijuana illegal (mostly) and Prozac legal? You might answer that it’s doctor intervention. The doctor does not prescribe drugs for pleasure and proscribes Prozac only when necessary.

I believe I could walk into a doctor’s office today and get Prozac if I wanted. Could I get any medication I wanted? That I don’t know. But I’m quite sure I could get a mood-enhancing drug simply by walking into a doctor’s office and saying I feel depressed.

The late Peter Tosh, composer of “Legalize It” might need some Prozac if he were alive now. It appears that mood-altering drugs have been legalized, but one must acquire them through the system.

The system is Capricorn.

Capricorn

In case you’re not an avid reader of this blog, I’ll review Capricorn for you.

Capricorn is a cardinal earth sign most associated with ambition, success and reputation. Capricorn is the ultimate “career” person who wants to be successful and respected in the public sphere.

As I often do during election season, I recently watched the movie “Election.” Tracy Flick, the nauseatingly ambitious student running for Student Council President, is the ultimate negative portrayal of a Capricorn, ruthlessly ambitious, using other people as a means to an end.

Capricorn is ruled by Saturn which rules structure. Life in this three-dimensional world is created by structure. From roads to the skeletal system, structure keeps us from blowing apart into bazillions of molecules and floating away or hitting each other at four-way stops.

Capricorns, then, love authority and structure. Authority starts with parents and moves onto school teachers until we finish with cops and lawyers. Isn’t it funny that cop and lawyer TV shows are created continuously and we never bore of them?

Societal structures ruled by Saturn include any institution from government to religion to “institutions” like marriage.

In the mid-1960s as Saturn opposed a Uranus/Pluto conjunction, a group of people rebelled against structure. They called structure “the system” and called themselves “hippies.” They wanted to “drop out” of the system. They dropped out using perception-altering drugs (like LSD).

Neptune

Neptune is the god of the seas and in astrology rules spirituality, oneness, merging with others and drugs or altered states. In its negative form it refers to escapism.

Anyone who has had a beer knows that it’s easier to merge with the people around when you’re having a beer than when you are drinking, say, water, or not drinking at all.

Neptune is quite Dionysian. He rules ecstatic pleasure and transcendence of three-dimensional reality and if attempting these things at home one often is threatened by madness.

So there is a good reason to watch the drug use – it does make you feel good but when its effects wear off you return to three-dimensional reality with a hard thump.

The stronger the drug, the harder the thump.

Meditation may be the slow road to this state for that very reason. One can only meet the divine taking baby steps to build endurance of such powerful energy.

In other words, before you go off the deep end, you must learn to swim.

Neptune in Capricorn

What happened when Neptune transited Capricorn in the 1990s?

One of the effects, I believe, was that mood-altering and non-necessary drug use became socially sanctioned. It was socially sanctioned because of a reverence of business and idealization of making money for its own sake – if something creates jobs and makes money, it is good.

The National Center for Health Statistics published a report on prescription drug use in September 2010. Three of their key findings state:

• Over the last 10 years, the percentage of Americans who took at least one prescription drug in the past month increased from 44% to 48%. The use of two or more drugs increased from 25% to 31%. The use of five or more drugs increased from 6% to 11%.

• In 2007–2008, 1 out of every 5 children and 9 out of 10 older Americans reported using at least one prescription drug in the past month.

• The most commonly used types of drugs included: asthma medicines for children, central nervous system stimulants for adolescents, antidepressants for middle-aged adults, and cholesterol lowering drugs for older Americans.

According to the ONDCP, “Prescription drug abuse is the Nation’s fastest-growing drug problem, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classified prescription drug abuse as an epidemic.”

The word “control” in the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is clearly a double entendre. Drugs are certainly “controlled” better since its inception.

We’re all taking pharmaceuticals

With the increased use of pharmaceuticals by man, these drugs are now prevalent in our water supply (Neptune again). Whether we want to take these drugs or not, we are.

In addition to human drug use, our food is increasingly being drugged from livestock drugs to increase animal size and output to genetically modified food (probably more a Saturn than Neptune phenomenon) and use of chemical fertilizers.

Here’s an interesting article on pharmaceuticals in water and wildlife.

Not only are drugs legal now, we’re all taking them.

Alcohol

As prescription drugs have become the path to socially-sanctioned mind-altering states and as our food and water have become petri dishes of chemical mixtures, old-fashioned alcohol sits quietly on the shelves doing the business it has done for eons.

While there has been a lot of outrage about drunk driving, there has been very little outrage about “drunk” itself.

Neptune has just entered its own sign, the sign of Pisces. While Neptune is in Pisces, Pluto is (and will be) transiting Capricorn.

Maybe as Pluto tears down structures (currently banking and economic), we may see a change to the negative side of Neptune in Capricorn where business has been promoting drugs for material gain. Pluto in Capricorn may bring down the pharmaceutical business as it’s bringing other industries to collapse as well.

Neptune in Pisces may then return us to both alcoholic and spiritual states of bliss.

This astrologer predicts a Neptune in Pisces rise in alcohol sales, possibly due to a desire to return to “natural” mood-enhancing techniques and also because, simply, a bottle of beer is cheaper than a prescription and brings pleasurable sensation with it.

In order to pay for prescription drugs, one must have health insurance which means one must work at a large company that offers health insurance. As unemployment increases, there may be a return to the cheaper and ancient method of stress relief – alcohol.

I’m guessing, too, that there will be a parallel desire for natural Neptune in Pisces experiences which comes not from drugs or alcohol but from spiritual exercise and lifestyle.

As Ms. Martin said in her book, “. . . But nothing gets better until societal leaders address ethical and spiritual decay.”

Peter Tosh

This beautiful and poetic man with Neptune/Mercury/sun all in Libra said it first about marijuana – legalize it.

“Legalize it – don’t criticize it
Legalize it and I will advertise it”

What would Peter Tosh think?

Guess what, Peter, many drugs are legalized. Unfortunately, they are “legalized” in a roundabout way that means your people are still poor. And there is plenty of advertising.

Peter Tosh wanted us to “get up, stand up” for our rights. Maybe he would have continued this to “get up, stand up, for your economic rights.”

Why shouldn’t the local marijuana dealer be able to compete with the large pharmaceuticals the way local farmers’ markets are competing with large grocery stores?

Pluto in Capricorn and Neptune in Pisces may bring us these types of questions.