American karma — Mars in the kingdom of Neptune

Each successive Jupiter–Pluto conjunction challenges world economies and makes us think: what is money? Should money be gold, “fiat” paper bills or brand new cryptocurrencies? This dilemma is perfectly expressed by Jupiter’s investment expansiveness that is opposed by the counteracting force of Pluto’s wealth accumulation.

Times of crisis nearly always produce economic hardship due to the magic disappearance of money for common folk like us: our jobs get lost, our pockets get emptied, possessions and savings devalued.

This mysteriously unstable nature of money has puzzled many people. Economists, politicians, bankers, investors and ordinary curious blog writers like myself have all pondered upon what makes money work and what makes money fail?

In this article we are going to look at the notion of money from an astrological standpoint, specifically focusing on the great Jupiter–Pluto polarising force that, apart from numerous other things, is responsible for wealth creation, attraction and redistribution.

We shall see how the first two major economic breakdowns of the 21st century:

  • the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2008; and
  • the Great Shutdown (the coronavirus recession) of 2020–2021–…

both unsurprisingly coincided with Jupiter–Pluto conjunctions and induced major stress testing of economic resilience on all countries and their citizens.

Before taking a deeper look into the astrologic nature of economic crises, let’s focus on the topic of the nature of money.

Money is Gold

History of humanity runs deep, its written records stretch up to 6,000 years back in time. We do know that gold and its value were already mentioned in records from about 5,000 years ago.

Throughout the history gold was used as a measurement and a regulator for value of goods due to its scarcity and unique physical properties. Gold has always been seen as metal of the Sun and the ancients often treated gold as a sacred substance.

According to the esoteric knowledge, development of the world trade and exchange is governed by the Sun principle of illumination and reaching out from the core to the furthest periphery. Thus money is the principle of the Sun physically embodied on Earth by the metal of gold.

As it happens with all powerful substances perceived from the position of greed and power, the influence of gold’s potential corrupts its bearer. So far all known empires that were built on the premises of accumulation and domination ultimately failed due to ensuing overreach and corruption.

Money is Promise

Industrial economies and the economic model of capitalism are relatively new systems that have their own share of successes and breakdowns. Capitalist economic system heavily depends on availability of money, aka the capital.

To remain successful capitalism needs endless expansion, which exposes its core problem: a “sustainable expansion” is easier said than done. Money and free markets are like blood and veins for ever expanding capitalist markets. This alone means that gold isn’t a reliable money material since gold resources are limited and scarce.

Richar Nixon, President of the USA, 1969-1974
In 1971 a series of economic reforms known as the “Nixon shock” decoupled the US dollar from gold and made it into what is known as a “fiat” currency, an abstract promise to deliver some value provided markets agree with that valuation.

A simplified version of why did this happen is as follows. After WW2 America committed to peg its dollar value to gold. Initially it was beneficial for other trading countries as they imported a lot of goods from the US. Yet over time other countries began producing their own goods and American exports shrank. Add to that Vietnam war, inflation and public debt. As the result, America “cancelled” out of its promises.

Thus the modern notion of money lost its underlying “value” and ultimately became a “promise” to deliver goods or services. Since money became an instrument of borrowing from the future, an unmanageble Everest-sized mountain of debt has emerged that nobody seems to know how to deal with.

How Jupiter and Pluto cycles influence economy of growth

Now turning our gaze to the classical Greek mythology. Jupiter is the Roman version of Zeus, the alpha-god who became the victorious King of the gods after defeating the Titans with essential help from his brothers, Poseidon (Neptune) and Pluto.

Consequently the celestial world has been divided into three spheres of influence: Zeus became the ruler of the sky, Neptune’s domain are the oceanic expanse and Pluto received the underworlds, a domain referred as Hades, full of immense treasures. The three brothers symbolise three foundational types of power and influence.

While Jupiter naturally rules over forces of expansion and accepts no limits, Pluto acts as a force of accumulation that stores immense riches in its underground domain. It is easier to think of Jupiter as the orchestrator while Pluto is the aggregator. In ancient Greek the name Plouton stands for “giver of wealth”.

The post World War 2 economic miracle was shaped by American affinity with Jupiterian values of optimistic expansion. Yet long-term pursue of the model of unlimited growth is hardly a viable strategy here on Earth with its inherently limited resource pool.

As soon as further expansion becomes unsustainable, Pluto takes stage as a counteracting principle. Pluto is the ultimate hoarder, the black hole that enriches itself by sucking in wealth and possessions. It is a natural and universal principle that acts by removing old systems so that new sprouts can bring the balance back in a new form that isn’t corrupted by past mistakes.

Jupiter–Pluto cosmic couple is perfectly designed for keeping expansion viable through necessary introduction of periodic collapses. Nothing personal here!

The Great Financial Crisis of 2007-2008

The first tangible shock that impacted the Everest-sized debt pile was the Great Financial Crisis that unfolded during 2007–2008. The crisis was a consequence of unchecked and irresponsible expansion of financial markets into the real estate domain.

It could well be the first direct consequence of money becoming “abstract” ie. detached from real world values as a direct result of decoupling from the gold standard. The lack of limiting influence of gold stimulated blindness and greed of financial institutions that began to see money as purely numbers game with sole purpose is to generate more money.

Corresponding Jupiter–Pluto conjunction developed itself through the second half of 2007 and was relatively short-lived in astrological terms, yet its effects were profound and did hurt a lot of people.

Astrological chart of Jupiter-Pluto conjunction of 2007 that coincided with the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-2008
The timeline of 2007-2008 Jupiter–Pluto conjunction:

  • Began 18 Oct, 2007
  • Exact 11 Dec, 2007
  • Finished 1 Feb, 2008

If one thinks that the 2008 GFC was a hard one, just wait for the unfoldment of events triggered by the 2020 Jupiter–Pluto conjunction.

The Even Greater Financial Crisis of 2020s

By comparing astrological charts of 2007 and 2020, it becomes very clear that the GFC of 2008 was a mere “preview” of things to follow during the years of 2020 and further.

First of all, Jupiter–Pluto conjunction of 2020 is “well seasoned” by overlapping Saturn–Pluto conjunction, a very rare event especially given the current strength of Pluto that is at extremely close approach to the ecliptic plane with a latitude slightly under 1º. That happens only twice during 248 years of Pluto’s full orbital period.

The second strengthening factor is that it’s a “triple” Jupiter–Pluto conjunction due to both planets turning retrograde and direct thus producing not one but three moments of exact conjunction — stretched in time through a longer period of just under 11 months.

Just having these two astrological alignments is enough to make any astrologer tinkling with excitement of “Holy cow, something BIG is going to happen”.

Astrological chart of Jupiter-Pluto conjunction of 2020 during coronavirus
The timeline of 2020–2021 Jupiter–Pluto conjunction:

  • Began 1 Feb, 2020
  • First exact 5 Apr, 2020
  • Second exact 30 Jun, 2020
  • Third exact 13 Nov, 2020
  • Finishes 7 Jan, 2021

The severity of 2020 crisis is further amplified by “timely” arrival of coronavirus that came about at the right moment to test our over-leveraged and over-complicated economy. One may notice that the crisis unfolds itself in a well orchestrated manner, all according to the stars and planetary placements and there’s a little reason to believe that things will get back to normal soon enough.

We should expect a rebalancing action of Pluto that will take away certain amounts of wealth. It’s not going to be fair or nice as crises tend to present opportunities in an asymmetric manner: those with strong Pluto energies are likely to gain, while many others will inadvertently lose much of their possessions.

Pluto is synonymous with accumulation of riches. And we’re already witnessing how wealth attracts even more wealth. Just look at the example of Jeff Bezos and the likes. Companies that have built crisis-proof revenue streams and ground their success in future-proof technology, data, etc. — will benefit greatly. Many weaker “wishful” business models are likely to cease operating under pressure of reduced demand.

What’s next: money is Unobtanium

The third decade of the 21st century will witness a major disruption of supply lines and significant redistribution of capital. A number of things will need to be reinvented and those who can intuitively see into the future are likely to benefit the most.

One of the most significant innovations could well be a dramatic change in what money is and what money represent. Aligning money to gold worked as long as the world had just a handful of mostly self-sufficient states. Industrialisation, globalisation and capitalism demanded a shift from gold standard towards “promise” as a value. Now this breaks down as well — we have just learned that we’re not good at keeping our promises but really good at piling up mountains of debt.

The next kind of money will be based on information and technology. Personally I don’t believe that the current cryptocurrency market is the final answer. It’s the first step towards measurable and secure monetary system.

What’s missing is a great challenge to the governments that shakes them out of their preferred “business as usual” ponzi-style model of endlessly projecting debt onto future generations while retirement-age politicians and government officials continue living like it’s 100 years back in time.

Cryptocurrencies will come with a number of requirements that we all will have to get used to. The most obvious is that all money will become traceable. We won’t be able to store cash in a pot for a rainy day. We will get over that.

Both industries and societies will have to adapt to a certain scarcity that new monetary system will impose. The need for scarcity will be the lesson from tumultuous first decades of the 21st century. Systems that will embrace the necessity of financial scarcity will perform better in long term, just like a lean and slightly hungry runner always outruns a well-fed, smoking and drinking couch occupier.

There’s a healthy attitude in treating money as unobtanium and achieving more with less. In other words the “real stuff” economy should run financial markets, not vice versa.