israel and palestine: an archetypal analysis

Israel and PalestineAn Archetypal Exploration of the Mars-Saturn-Pluto Combination

Chad Harris

In Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, RichardTarnas explores correlations between outer planetary alignments andtheir corresponding archetypal manifestations in human experiencethroughout history.1 The analysis of these planetary alignments offers aunique perspective, serving to illuminate the archetypal principlesshaping a civilization’s most noble and most tragic chapters. Thequadrature alignments of the Saturn-Pluto cycle, for example, have aspecific relationship to the history of major conflicts in the twentiethcentury: World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, the first WorldTrade Center bombing in 1993, the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, andthe beginning of the War on Terror. More specifically, as Tarnas pointsout and as I will explore further in this paper, Saturn-Pluto alignmentsalso correlate with the major events of the Arab-Israeli conflict: the 1948Israel-Palestine War, the Suez Canal Crisis, the Six-Day War, theMunich Massacre, the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli invasion of Lebanonin 1982, and the 2008–2009 Gaza War.

Conspicuously, a third planet—Mars—was also in quadrature aspectalignment to Saturn or Pluto at the beginning of a number of theseconflicts: World War I, World War II, the 1948 War, the MunichMassacre, the Six-Day War, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and the2008–2009 Gaza War. As a faster moving inner planet, the archetypalprinciple associated with the planet Mars seems to precipitate or triggerimportant events corresponding to the longer-lasting Saturn-Pluto

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alignments. As we will see, when Mars moved into aspect to Saturn orPluto during these events, major developments occurred that reflect thethemes associated with all three corresponding planetary archetypes. Inthis paper, I will consider several prominent examples of thesecorrelations in the troubled history of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship.

The archetypal domain associated with Saturn reflects the principles ofcontrol, constraint, constriction, oppression, limitation, scarcity ofresources, defeat, mortality, and death. The Saturn principle is also associ-ated with self-protective strategies, security, and foundational structures, aswell as personal or collective boundaries. It is also closely associated with thesuperego and relates to moral judgment and to moral conscience. Thearchetype associated with Pluto correlates with the primordial id, the drivingforce of evolution, the death-rebirth mystery, the shadow, the unconscious,the underworld, and the instinctual will to survive. The Pluto archetype, inone of its most potent shadow forms of expression, is associated with blindstriving will, the unconscious desire for absolute power and domination,and at times the capacity to use unbelievable violence often leading to cata-strophic destruction on massive scales.

The Saturn-Pluto archetypal complex, reflecting a combination ofthemes associated with the two separate principles, has a particular tendencyto correlate with amplified levels of divisiveness and increased fears sur-rounding the security of borders, which often results in the intensified forti-fications of boundaries. Thus, not only physical boundaries, butpsychological divisions within the collective psyche tend to deepen andstrengthen during Saturn-Pluto hard-aspect alignment periods. At thesetimes, the powerful, instinctual, and often unconscious drives associatedwith Pluto tend to intensify the impulses toward separation and rigidityassociated with Saturn. Additionally, during these periods there is a strongtendency to project the shadow side of the Pluto archetype, often expressedas unconscious fears, a perception of evil within the other, and at times aneed to destroy or annihilate the threatening forces that are perceived to liejust outside the Saturnian boundaries that have been constructed.2

The archetype of Mars is associated with a strong inclination towardscourageous acts of will and decisive action, the impulse to be combative, anda tendency to defend against or to initiate offensive hostilities. Associatedwith the Greco-Roman god of war, the character of the Mars archetype isoften aggressive and potentially violent in nature. The Mars-Saturn relation-

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ship, in particular, has a tendency to express its dynamics through hard,enduring struggles against constricting and threatening forces with an addi-tional specific vector towards retaliatory and reactionary defensiveness. TheMars-Pluto combination, in its more problematic form, is typically associ-ated with murderous rage, unrelenting disputes, and compulsive patterns ofaggression and vindictive retaliation. As Mars also frequently aligned withboth Saturn and Pluto during these periods of conflict, its associated arche-type inflected and activated the Saturn-Pluto archetypal complex in wayscongruent with its essential qualities.

Birth of Israel and the First Arab-Israeli War (1948)

Archetypal themes associated with Mars, Saturn, and Pluto have beenclearly evident in the Israel-Palestine relationship from its inception onMay 14, 1948, when the state of Israel declared its independence,initiating the first Arab-Israeli war (see figure 1).

This date, which is recognized as the national “birth moment” for thestate of Israel, occurred under the same Saturn-Pluto conjunction that wit-nessed the founding of the C.I.A. in America, the establishment of the IronCurtain, and the beginning of the Cold War.3 This same Saturn-Pluto con-junction is present in the birth chart for the nation of Israel: Saturn andPluto are at 16q and 12q Leo, respectively, and Mars is within a 12-degreeconjunction of Saturn at 28q Leo.4 As we will see, in terms of its archetypalsignificance, this triple conjunction reflects the armored defensive positionsand the seemingly intractable conflict that both the Israeli and Palestinianpeople have been caught up in since Israel declared its independence. May14, 1948, is also the de facto birth date of the plight of the modern Palestin-ian people, because, without a legitimate state of their own, the Palestinians,in bitter dispute with the nation of Israel, have been struggling to carve outand define a homeland for their people. The birth of Israel established in lawand in political geography a divisive separation between Israel and the Pales-tinians that has powerfully shaped all subsequent relations between them.



Figure 1 Birth of Israel Transits

Suez Canal Crisis (1956)

In July 1956, the Egyptian government nationalized the Suez CanalShipping Company and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping,blockading their access to the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean. OnOctober 29, 1956, Israel Defense Forces, with French and Britishmilitary support, invaded the Sinai Peninsula to restore Israeli access tothe Suez Canal. This was the first major Arab-Israeli conflict since the1948 war, and it occurred during the very next hard-aspect alignment, atight two-degree square, between Saturn in Sagittarius and Pluto inVirgo. In addition, as in 1948, Mars was also in major hard aspect toboth planets, squaring Saturn and opposing Pluto (see figure 2).

As before, the archetypal themes associated with this three-planet combi-nation were plainly in evidence, as observed in the mounting tension betweenopposing forces, the Israelis’ experience of an oppressive sense of a “no exit”

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situation resulting from the Suez blockade, and the aggressive, retaliatorymanner in which Israel dealt with the crisis.5 Often with the Saturn-Plutocombination, the Pluto archetype intensifies, deepens, and empowers theSaturnian constricting forces to create a “no-exit” situation in turn catalyzingthe violent, instinctual Plutonic will to survive. Israel captured the Gaza Stripand Sinai Peninsula for the first time, but later withdrew due to pressure fromthe United States and the United Nations. In the end, Israel won the conflictand their shipping access to the canal was restored.

Figure 2 Suez Canal Crisis Transits

Six-Day War (1967)

In May 1967, Egypt amassed 100,000 soldiers and nearly 1,000 tankson the Israeli border, which resulted in Israel launching a preemptiveattack against Egypt on June 5, 1967, beginning what is now called theSix-Day War. In this defining event, again we see Mars, Saturn, and Pluto

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in major hard aspect alignment. During the Six-Day War, Saturn was inopposition to Mars and also in a wide opposition with Pluto (see figure3).6 The Six-Day War resulted in an overwhelming victory for Israel,capturing the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the WestBank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. However, the landIsrael occupied has not been recognized by the United Nations to be therightful property of the state of Israel. Today, Israel is recognized toillegally occupy 42% of the West bank territory.7 The Israeli occupationof the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has been one of the biggest sourcesof Palestinian anger and frustration throughout the past forty-two years ofdisputes and is considered by many to be the single most important issuethat must be resolved for a lasting peace to prevail in the Middle East.

Figure 3 Six-Day War Begins

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Munich Massacre (1972) and Yom Kippur War (1973)

The next Saturn-Pluto quadrature alignment coincides with two majordevelopments in the history of Israeli-Arab conflicts: the hostage crisis ofthe Munich Olympics and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. In the openingpenumbral Saturn-square-Pluto period when Saturn first moved to within12 degrees of an exact square to Pluto, the world turned its gaze to thefriendly spirit of competition offered by the Olympic Games only towitness the terrorist atrocity known as the “Munich Massacre.”8 OnSeptember 5, 1972, a radically violent terrorist group named BlackSeptember, with ties to Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization,or PLO, stormed the Israeli wrestling team’s quarters, killing two andtaking nine hostages in the initial raid at the Munich Olympic Games. Thedrama, recently portrayed in the movie Munich (2005), was the first majorterrorist attack to be broadcast on international television, searing this graveevent into the collective Israeli psyche while also conveying the gravity ofthe Israeli-Palestinian conflict to many people around the world. Over thecourse of two days, German authorities negotiated with the hostage takersto no avail—and ultimately a botched rescue attempt left all nine Israelihostages dead and created a residual feeling in the collective psyche of acertain “loss of innocence” or the “end of an era” that often corresponds tohistorically significant Saturn-Pluto events.9

The positions of the planets Mars, Saturn, and Pluto once againreflect the archetypal quality or characteristic nature of not only theinitial terrorist actions, but also the decisive and sustained Israeli responseto the terrorist attack that followed. At the time of the Munich Massacre,Mars, at 13q Virgo, was square to Saturn, at 19q Gemini, and Saturn wasforming an 11-degree square to Pluto at 01q Libra (see figure 4). In adirect response to the Black September attack, the Israeli governmentlaunched two Mossad operations—Wrath of God and Spring ofYouth—designed to track down and assassinate Palestinians involved inthe Munich Massacre. The majority of the assassinations ordered duringoperation Wrath of God took place over the next three years during thesame Saturn-square-Pluto alignment. However, the Wrath of Godoperation was to continue for two decades, reflecting the tendency for theSaturn-Pluto complex to manifest in unrelenting sustained efforts overlong periods of time without wavering in intention or focus.



Figure 4 Munich Massacre

The second major event of this Saturn-Pluto alignment period wasthe Yom Kippur War of 1973, which began on October 6, with Saturnin an exact square aspect to Pluto (see figure 5). In an effort to retake theSinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights territories captured by Israel inthe 1967 Six-Day War, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on theholiest of Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur, taking advantage of the Jewishpractice of refraining from the use of fire, electricity, communicationdevices, motorized vehicles, and many other technological utilities duringholy days. Unsurprisingly, the tactic was initially successful as theEgyptians and Syrians made several gains in the first few days of theconflict. For although Israel gave up only limited territory in the SinaiPeninsula (and actually made gains in the Golan Heights), they incurredheavy casualties relative to previous Arab Israeli conflicts.

This dispute also had problematic ramifications in a far widercontext. In addition to the military cost of the conflict, OPEC, theOrganization for Oil Exporting Countries, in retaliation for U.S. military

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aid to Israel, decided to cut oil production by five percent a month andconduct an oil embargo on the United States, leading directly to the1973–1974 energy crisis. The oil embargo and energy crisis reflectfurther characteristic qualities of the Saturn-Pluto combination in theSaturnian tendency towards restriction, constriction, deficit, and scarcitycombined with Pluto’s association with intensity, power struggles, andsources of energy, particularly those mined underground, like oil andcoal. The severe scarcity, constriction, and disruption of oil flow created acrisis of high gasoline prices in the United States, Europe, and around theworld, correlating also to the intense economic contraction of that time.

Figure 5 Yom Kippur War

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Israel-Lebanon War (1981)

Looking next at the Israel-Lebanon War of the early 1980s, Mars,Saturn, and Pluto were again in major alignment during very significantstages in the escalation of the conflict. On July 17, 1981, one week after acivil war broke out in Lebanon, Israel launched massive bombing raidson Beirut in an effort to oust Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian LiberationOrganization from the city. At the time, Mars was at 29q Gemini squareSaturn at 4q Libra, and trine Pluto at 21q Libra (see figure 6).

Figure 6 Israel-Lebanon War

After this incident there was a period of military restraint, but also ofincreased tensions, as Israel waited, looking for an act of provocation bythe Palestinians, one that would be internationally recognized to justifyan invasion of Lebanon.10 Two such acts presented themselves. First, onApril 3, 1982, Israeli diplomat Yacov Bar-Simantov was assassinated by

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the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction, and then soon after on June3, the Abu Nidal Organization attempted to assassinate Israeli diplomatShlomo Argov in London, leaving him paralyzed.11 Israeli defense forcesinvaded southern Lebanon three days later on June 6, still under theMars-Saturn-Pluto conjunction, when the three planets were at four,fifteen, and twenty-four degrees Libra respectively.

During September 16–18, Israeli defense forces, under the commandof defense minister Ariel Sharon, allowed Christian Phalangists into theSabra and Shatila refugee camps where they massacred at least 800Palestinian civilians. In addition to the tight Saturn-Pluto conjunction,Mars was in a tight conjunction with Uranus, which in this instancecorrelates with the unrestrained martial force discharged by the ChristianPhalangists, reflecting Mars’s association with war, aggression, and hostilityand Uranus’s association with sudden unrestrained liberation of the Marsprinciple. Ariel Sharon was later held indirectly responsible by an Israeliinvestigation and resigned as Israeli defense minister. As a direct result ofthe Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon, the Hezbollahpolitical and paramilitary organization formed to resist the Israelioccupation. To create a security buffer zone between Hezbollah militantsand the state of Israel, the Israel Defense Forces occupied SouthernLebanon for the next eighteen years until they withdrew on May 25, 2000.Again, we see the tendency of the Saturn-Pluto complex to manifest inincreased border security, armored fortifications, and sustained conflictswith consequences that tend to persist over long periods of time.

First Intifada (1987)

On December 8, 1987, with growing frustration due to the Israelioccupation and accelerated Israeli settlement of Gaza and the West Bank,the Palestinians began what is now called the First Intifada or the War ofStones. Intifada is literally defined as “shaking off” but is often translatedas uprising or rebellion. The beginning of this conflict is marked by tightSaturn-Uranus and Mars-Pluto conjunctions (see figure 7).

Mars-Pluto alignments often correlate with expressions of extreme rageand intensified violence, while Saturn-Uranus hard aspects are frequentlyassociated with rebellions, riots, and uprisings of disenfranchised people



(Uranus) pitted against oppressive, authoritarian establishment structures(Saturn). The socio-political organization Hamas, which translates as“Islamic Resistance Movement,” was created during the early phases of theFirst Intifada. For many years after its formation, Hamas refused to negoti-ate with Israel and publicly called for its destruction. (In 2008, however,Hamas changed its stance, stating that it would allow for a state of Israel toexist if the nation were to accept the borders defined prior to 1967.)

Figure 7 First Intifada

Beit Lid Massacre (1995)

In a marked escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Hamas beganto employ the use of suicide attacks just after 1:00 am on April 16, 1993,at Mehola Junction in Israel. Once more Saturn, Pluto, and Mars were inmajor alignment, with Saturn square Pluto and Mars in an exact trine to

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Pluto. Another significant suicide bombing occurred in 1995 under thesame Saturn square Pluto alignment on January 22, 1995. Again we findMars in major hard-aspect alignment with Saturn and Pluto (see figure 8).

Figure 8 Beit Lid Massacre

Known as the “Beit Lid massacre,” the suicide bombing killed eight Israelisoldiers and wounded fifty. On this date, transiting Saturn was squaring Plutoand opposing Mars forming a challenging T-square. The Israeli response tothis attack was a vow of separation by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin:

This path must lead to a separation, though not according to theborders prior to 1967. We want to reach a separation between usand them. We do not want a majority of the Jewish residents of thestate of Israel, 98% of whom live within the borders of sovereignIsrael, including a united Jerusalem, to be subject to terrorism.12

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With this sequence of suicide bombings, we see the clearly discernible Saturn-Pluto archetypal dynamics, most notably in the intensification offears surrounding the security of the Israeli people, and the tendency for psy-chological splitting of factions into “us and them” categories, with theemphasis towards rigid separation as a protective strategy for self-preserva-tion. Additionally, Israel embarked on another major security strategy withthe construction of a wall designed to separate Palestinian militants from thestate of Israel. This wall of separation found renewed support following theBeit Lid massacre. Continuing a diachronic sequence that coincides withSaturn-Pluto alignments, the impulse towards separation would strengthenunder the next Saturn-Pluto hard aspect alignment, the opposition of2000–2004, with the construction of the Israeli West Bank Barrier.

Second Intifada (2000)

This particular opposition period featured a series of events thatstrikingly resonate with Saturn-Pluto themes. Shortly after the failedMiddle East Peace Summit at Camp David in the summer of 2000, ArielSharon, campaigning for election as Israeli Prime Minister, visited theTemple Mount site in old Jerusalem. Known as Al-Haram As-Sharif (theNoble Sanctuary) to Muslims, the Temple Mount is considered by bothJews and Muslims to be one of the holiest religious sites in the Middle East.Due to Sharon’s tenure as Israeli Defense Minister and his supervision ofthe 1982 invasion of Lebanon (as well as his involvement in the Sabra andShatila massacres) the Palestinian people perceived his visit to TempleMount as a direct provocation to their resistance to Israeli occupation.

The next day, September 29, 2000, marked the beginning of theSecond Intifada when again Mars was square to both Saturn in Gemini andPluto in Sagittarius (see figure 9). In coincidence with this Saturn-Plutoopposition, the number of suicide bombings skyrocketed over the nextthree years. In retaliation for the Hamas official sanction of suicidebombings as a legitimate method of resistance to the Israeli occupation,Israel embarked on new public policies of government-sanctionedassassinations of Hamas leaders. The most significant of these was theassassination of Hamas founder, Ahmed Yassin, and his immediatesuccessor, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi. On two separate missions in 2004, Yassin


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and Rantissi were assassinated by Hellfire missiles from an Israeli helicoptergunship as the Saturn-Pluto opposition neared its completion.

Figure 9 Second Intifada

In addition to the new government-sanctioned policy of assassination,and in keeping with the historical trend of intensified security strategies andfortifications of boundaries so often constellated during Saturn-Pluto hard-aspect alignments, Israel erected another fortified boundary with the con-struction of the Israeli West Bank Barrier, starting in 2002. The barrier isdesigned essentially to surround and encapsulate the Palestinian West Bankto prevent Palestinian militants from crossing into Israel. The barrier has cre-ated incredible hardships for West Bank Palestinians, limiting their freedomof movement, restricting access to resources, and causing as much as a 40 per-cent decline in GDP. The overall psychological and existential effects of thebarrier have created a further sense of constriction, separation, isolation,oppression, loss of living space, and a deepening sense of an inescapable situa-tion for more than two million West Bank Palestinians.

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Israel-Hamas War (2008)

On December 27, 2008, in the most recent major conflict in the longhistory of hostilities with the Palestinians, the Israeli government declared waron Hamas in the Gaza Strip in an effort to stop the sustained rocket bom-bardment of the state of Israel. Remarkably, this declaration of war againoccurred in coincidence with a major hard-aspect alignment among Mars,Saturn, and Pluto—in this case a Mars-Pluto conjunction that was square toSaturn—with a reactivation and intensification of many of the themesexplored in this paper: intractable conflict, oppression and violent retaliation,overwhelming catastrophic force resulting in massive death and destruction,material hardship and armored fortification of boundaries (see figure 10).

Figure 10 Israel-Hamas War

One of the most significant recent examples of this impulse to fortifyboundaries is seen in Israel’s robust reinforcement of the Gaza Stripblockade. Since 2007, when Israel and Egypt enacted a blockade of Gaza in

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response to the election of Hamas to the Palestinian government, Israel hasfurther tightened control and implemented more restrictions concurrentwith the 2008–2009 Gaza War and the current 2008–2011 Saturn-square-Pluto period. These actions have created additional hardships, oppression,and scarcity of resources in Gaza, reflecting again the archetypal dynamicsand themes of the Saturn-Pluto complex. Once again we see the Saturn-Pluto combination correlating with a sense of a “no-exit” situation.13

Figure 11 Free Gaza Flotilla Raid

The most recent clash over Gaza between Israel and Palestinian support-ers occurred forty miles off the coast of Gaza in international waters. In anattempt to bring public attention to the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the FreeGaza Movement coordinated a flotilla of six ships carrying 10,000 tons ofhumanitarian aid supplies to the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza. Inan effort to enforce the blockade, on May 31, 2010, commandos from theelite Israeli Shayetet 13 Navy division boarded the vessels in the pre-dawnhours to divert the aid ships to an alternate port. As the navy commandos

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descended from helicopter gunships to board the main vessel by force, theywere resisted by some of the Palestinian supporters using metal and woodenclubs. In the ensuing chaotic mêlée the Israeli soldiers killed nine of theactivists before taking command of the ship (see figure 11).14

* * * *

In summary, there appears to be a striking correspondence between sig-nificant events in the history of Arab-Israeli conflicts and major alignmentsinvolving Mars, Saturn, and Pluto. This diachronic sequence of major cor-relations with the Saturn-Pluto cycle is summarized in table 1. As this tableillustrates, each of the quadrature alignments of the Saturn-Pluto cycle start-ing with the conjunction of 1948 coincide with major outbreaks of tensionand conflict between Israel and Arab groups in the Middle East.15

The archetypal themes typically associated with the Saturn-Pluto complexare clearly evident in all the crises and conflicts explored here. This remarkablediachronic pattern of correlations implies that despite the seemingly irreconcil-able differences between the two sides, they are united in one fundamentalrespect: both participate in and are informed by the same archetypal dynamicsunderlying these historical tensions and crises, dynamics meaningfullyreflected in the alignments formed between the planets Saturn and Pluto. Theconflicts and bitter disputes seem to have been unconsciously triggered inresponse to the archetypal dynamics prominent at specific astronomically pre-dictable times over the last sixty years. The Saturn-Pluto complex need notmanifest destructively and negatively, however. A distinctly positive and noblemanifestation of the Saturn-Pluto complex is the moral confrontation withthe shadow, when Saturnian moral discernment, judgment, and self-controlare used to confront and integrate the repressed shadow dimensions of thepsyche associated with Pluto. With this positive expression of the archetypaldynamics underlying the Israel-Palestine conflict in mind, I believe it is con-ceivably possible for both sides to recognize the shadow within themselvesrather than the typical tendency to project it on to the other. If the two sidescan recognize their common archetypal ground, perhaps such a recognitioncould serve as a basis for greater mutual understanding on which to advancethe peace process. Salaam, Shalom. Shalom, Salaam.


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Table 1 Israeli-Palestinian Conflict—Major Saturn-Pluto Cycle Correlations

Alignment Alignment Dates Major EventsRelevant World Events

Conjunction Jun 1946 – Sep 1948 • Creation of Israel (‘48)• First Arab-Israeli war

• Rise of Iron Curtain• Start of Cold War• CIA formed

Square Dec1954 – Oct 1957 Suez Canal Crisis (‘56) U.S.S.R reoccupies Hungary, crushes Polish dissent

Opposition Mar 1964 – Jan 1968 Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt (‘67)

Vietnam War escalates with active U.S. military involvement (1965)

Square May 1973 – May 1975 Munich Massacre (‘72)*

Yom Kippur War (‘73)

*The Munich Massacre took place in the opening penumbral period when Saturn firstmoved to within 12 degrees of an exact square to Pluto.

OPEC oil embargo and energy crisis

Conjunction Dec 1980 – Oct 1984 • Israel-Lebanon War (‘81)• Sabra and Shatila

massacres

Height of Cold War

Square Mar 1992 – Jan 1995 • Hamas begins suicide bombings

• Beit Lid massacre

• First World Trade Center bombing

• Rwanda genocide

Opposition Jun 2000 – Apr 2004 • West Bank Barrier constructed

• Israeli policy of assassinations

• Second Intifada begins

• 9/11 terrorist attacks• War on Terror

begins• U.S.-led invasion of

Iraq

Square Nov 2008 – Aug 2011 • Israel declares war on Hamas (2008)

• Israel intercepts Gaza aid flotilla killing nine activists prompting international condemnation (2010)

Widespread economic hardship and austerity measures follow global financial crisis.



Notes

1. Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View (New York:Viking, 2006).

2. As Richard Tarnas explicates: “Highly characteristic of Saturn-Pluto periods in psycho-analytic terms was an intensified dialectic on the collective level between the repression of the id and the ‘return of the repressed,’ often in covert form. The periods of such alignments seemed to coincide with an emphatically increased tendency towards psy-chological ‘splitting’—for example, tending to view oneself as entirely identified with the good and the other entirely with evil. Closely associated with this mechanism of defense was an equally powerful tendency towards ‘othering’: the intense objectifica-tion of other subjects. This objectification, when combined with the projection or experience of evil and shadow qualities, tended to impel such emotions as violent sus-picion, terror, hatred, revenge, fanaticism, and murderous cruelty. . . . The psychody-namics underlying this interplay were insightfully articulated by Freud in his understanding of the superego’s complex relationship with the id. The superego, as the internal principle of conscience, moral judgment, and instinctual constraint, carries in itself the fear of punitive retribution from the introjected parental authority. Freud rec-ognized that the superego was not only repressive and punitive against the instinctual drives of the id, but was also energetically informed and impelled by the id—uncon-sciously from below, as it were, even when it perceived the nefarious threat to be from the outside. The psychological consequence could sometimes take the form of obses-sive-compulsive and cruel, sadistic tendencies, either internally against the self or exter-nally against others, often both.” Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche, 236.

3. Just as a personal natal chart is recognized to reflect the psychological characteristics and predispositions of that individual, so too a national birth chart appears to reflect the archetypal dynamics evident in the historical events, lives, and collective psyche of the people of that entire nation.

4. In addition to the 1948 Saturn-Pluto alignment, Saturn and Pluto were also in hard aspect in 586 BCE coinciding with the destruction of the first Jewish Temple and the Jewish exodus from Babylon, and again in the 1939–1941 period at the beginning of World War II and the Holocaust leading directly to the creation of the nation of Israel. This sequence of events reflects the characteristic Saturn-Pluto themes of persecution, oppression, and victimization, which in this particular case manifest as a collective sense that the Jewish people are inescapably locked in a life-and-death struggle with immense threatening forces perpetually surrounding them on all sides. This theme is again repeated during the 1948 war, with Israel being attacked by Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, essentially from all sides.

5. The “no exit” scenario, first articulated by Jean-Paul Sartre as a characteristic experi-ence of the modern sense of existential angst, has been related to a specific stage of the dynamics of the birth experience by Stanislav Grof, which he calls the second perinatal matrix (BPM II). This, Grof explains, is “the stage when the uterine con-tractions periodically compress the baby, but the cervix is still closed and there does not seem to be a way out (hence ‘no exit’). Prominent features of this matrix include the preoccupation with aging and death, difficult ordeals and hard labor, depression, oppression, constriction, deficit, scarcity, and starvation. This matrix also brings feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, loneliness, and guilt. It is associated with skepti-cism and a profoundly pessimistic view of existence, a shattering crisis of meaning, the inability to enjoy anything, and loss of any connection with the divine dimen-sion of reality. In astrology, all these qualities have long been regarded as attributes of


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the more challenging side of the Saturn archetype.” Stanislav Grof, “Holotropic Research and Archetypal Astrology,” in Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology 1, no 1 (Summer 2009: 58.

6. This Saturn-Pluto alignment began in March 1964, when the two planets first came into a 15-degree opposition. It lasted through January 1968 when the two planets finally moved out of the 15-degree range. The corresponding Saturn-Pluto arche-typal complex was active throughout this period.

7. Eyal Hareuveni, “By Hook and by Crook: Israeli Settlement Policy in the West Bank” (Report: 2010), B’Tselem—The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, http://www.btselem.org/Download/201007_By_Hook_and_by_Crook_Eng.pdf.

8. I follow here the guidelines for orbital ranges established by Tarnas, who states that “The orb for the years given in these chapters for conjunctions and oppositions of outer-planet world transits is approximately 15q, with a penumbral range up to 20q, while the orb for the intervening squares is somewhat smaller, approximately 10q, with a proportionately smaller penumbra.” Cosmos and Psyche, 212.

9. As Tarnas puts it: “The successive quadrature alignments of the Saturn-Pluto cycle coincided with especially challenging historical periods marked by a pervasive qual-ity of intense contraction: eras of international crisis and conflict, empowerment of reactionary forces and totalitarian impulses, organized violence and oppression, all sometimes marked by lasting effects. An atmosphere of gravity and tension seemed to accompany these three-to-four year periods, as did a widespread sense of epochal closure: ‘the end of an era,’ ‘the end of innocence,’ the destruction of an earlier mode of life that in retrospect may seem to have been marked by widespread indulgence, decadence, naïveté, denial, and inflation.” Cosmos and Psyche, 209.

10. U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig filed a report with U.S. President Ronald Reagan on Saturday, January 30, 1982, that revealed Secretary Haig’s fear that Israel might, at the slightest provocation, start a war against Lebanon. See The Reagan Diaries, ed. Douglas Brinkley (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), 66.

11. On June 3, 1982, an anti-Arafat splinter group, which was not a part of the PLO and was headed by Abu Nidal, paralyzed Israeli diplomat Shlomo Argov in an assassination attempt in London, providing Israel with the “provocation” it needed to justify an attack. See Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 506.

12. The Israel West Bank Barrier,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_West_Bank_barrier.

13. As is well known, the nation of Israel has all too often been the victim of persecution and violent oppressive forces. Now, however, due to the blockade of Gaza, the West Bank Barrier, and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank many have come to perceive Israel on the side of the perpetrator in the victim/perpetrator dialectic creating a sense of a “no-exit” situation for the Palestinians living in those territories. What is recog-nized here is the tendency for the Israelis and the Palestinians to embody or identify with either side of the dialectic at times, or even to oscillate repeatedly between the two modes of experience. While both claim victimization, both are also perpetrators of vio-lence and oppressive tactics, justifying, in turn, the other’s claims of persecution. This pattern is a vicious cycle reflected in the archetypal dynamics of the Saturn-Pluto com-plex and conspicuously active during the hard-aspect alignment periods.



14. As of the date of this writing (June 10, 2010), there are conflicting accounts of the actual events and the United Nations Security Council has condemned the civilian deaths and called for an impartial investigation.

15. Beyond the scope of this article, but worthy of consideration, are the two periods where Saturn returned to within ten degrees of the position it occupied at Israel’s national birth moment. The Saturn return, as it is called, occurred in 1976 through 1978 and again in 2005 through 2007. The two most prominent correlative events are the election of the conservative revisionist Likud party to the Israeli Knesset in 1977, and the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War. Strikingly, in both instances Saturn was at 11q Leo within two degrees of conjunction with Israel’s natal Pluto position at 12q Leo and within five degrees of Saturn’s natal position at 16q Leo. The election of the right-wing conservative Likud party led directly to the massive expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem over the next 30 years. The 2006 Lebanon War reflected the same Saturn-Pluto themes explored in this essay: border violations, conservative-reactionary responses, and the use of massive military force resulting in death and destruction.

Bibliography

Doniger, Wendy. Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Gilbert, Martin. Israel: A History. New York: Harper Collins, 2008.Grof, Stanislav. “Holotropic Research and Archetypal Astrology.” Archai:

The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology 1, no 1 (Summer 2009): 50–66.Hareuveni, Eyal. “By Hook and by Crook: Israeli Settlement Policy in the

West Bank” (Report: 2010). B’Tselem—The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. http://www.btselem.org/Download/201007_By_Hook_and_by_Crook_Eng.pdf.

“The Israeli West Bank Barrier.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_West_Bank_barrier (accessed 05/24/2010).

Reagan, Ronald. The Reagan Diaries. Edited by Douglas Brinkley. New York: Harper Collins, 2007.

Tarnas, Richard. Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View. New York: Viking, 2006.

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