We should note that this period of the Uranus-Neptune opposition significantly overlapped the Uranus-Pluto opposition of 1896–1907, whose many revolutionary social, political, cultural, scientific, and technological events and trends we examined earlier. Whenever there were such overlaps in planetary alignments, I consistently found distinct parallel expressions and syntheses of the two archetypal complexes in the coinciding historical phenomena. In a case such as this, where both alignments were so long, where the overlap was so sustained, and where one planet (Uranus) was in both cycles, the distinctions could sometimes be subtle, but were still clearly visible when seen in the light of the larger historical pattern.
Those elements and themes that the two cycles shared—heightened creativity, rapid and radical change and disruption, emancipatory shifts from previously established structures, sudden awakenings of various kinds, artistic and scientific innovation—were all associated with the planet Uranus. But, to take science as an example, the Uranus-Pluto cycle consistently coincided with epochal scientific revolutions that were associated with a definite collective intensification of the drive for intellectual innovation, technological empowerment, and evolutionary transformation, notably including, in the 1896–1907 period, the birth of the nuclear age—the discovery of radioactivity in uranium, the isolation of radium and polonium, and Einstein’s formulation of the equivalence of mass and energy—as well as the development of the airplane, the automobile, and many other technological advances. By contrast, the Uranus-Neptune cycle tended to coincide with radical changes in the collective scientific imagination that had a more intangible metaphysical or epistemological dimension, dissolving previously established structures of belief concerning the nature of reality in a manner that often transcended the scientific field in which they began.
Thus the period in which the Uranus-Pluto and Uranus-Neptune oppositions overlapped at the beginning of the twentieth century coincided with the beginning of the great twin revolutions in modern physics, relativity theory and quantum physics. The two revolutions together constituted a larger paradigm shift that eventually informed and affected all the sciences and strongly shaped the cultural imagination of the twentieth century. As many cultural historians have pointed out, the parallels were many and profound between the artistic revolution brought forth by Cézanne, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Joyce, Proust, Stravinsky, and Schönberg and the scientific revolution embodied in the work of Einstein, Planck, Bohr, and others, and in the long run the two revolutions were mutually influential and synergistic. In addition, we see in both these shifts another set of characteristic Uranus-Neptune themes: the dissolution of established perspectives and structures of reality, often in a manner that is confusing and disorienting, that introduces a plurality of simultaneous or overlapping realities and perspectives, and that brings into question fundamental assumptions about subjectivity and objectivity, the relative and the absolute, time and space, substance and process.
Periods of Uranus-Neptune alignments often coincided with epochal shifts of cosmological vision, catalyzed either by new astronomical data or by major leaps of the scientific imagination that bring forth a radically new conceptual framework. The entire sequence of events involved in Einstein’s transformation of the modern cosmological vision took place in precise coincidence with the full duration of the long Uranus-Neptune opposition, and it is instructive to note the synchronistic unfolding of the relativity revolution and this planetary alignment. We can also discern here the characteristic Uranus-Neptune theme of the subversion of established reality structures associated with Saturn—absolute time, solid matter, gravity, and consensus reality. The revolution began when Uranus was in opposition to both Neptune and Pluto, during the time of the overlapping cycles, when in 1905 Einstein wrote and published the four papers that contained the special theory of relativity, the equivalence of mass and energy, the theory of Brownian motion, and the photon theory of light. In the next several years, as the Uranus-Pluto opposition ended and the Uranus-Neptune opposition approached exactitude (1906–10), the theory of relativity, largely ignored at first, gradually attracted the attention of Planck, Max Born, and other physicists who then gave lectures and published articles that described the theory and its implications. In 1907, Einstein produced a comprehensive paper on the theory of relativity, which included the general result that E = mc2. In a series of lectures and papers from 1907 to 1910, Einstein’s former mathematics teacher, Hermann Minkowski, introduced the concept of a single four-dimensional space-time continuum, reformulated the theory’s mathematics, and noted that in the light of relativity the Newtonian theory of gravity was now inadequate. In 1911, Paul Langevin gave the famous lecture that set out the “twins paradox,” in which, in sensational defiance of absolute time, a person traveling at a very high speed to a star and back will have experienced two years in the course of his voyage, while on Earth, where his twin remains, two centuries will have elapsed. In 1912 Planck’s assistant, Max von Laue, wrote the first textbook on relativity.
In the meantime, in 1907 as the Uranus-Neptune opposition first reached exact alignment, Einstein had the crucial idea that set in motion the general theory of relativity when he recognized that if a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight. (Here we see the characteristic Promethean “defiance of gravity,” but here expressed on the imaginative-cosmological level typical of Uranus-Neptune alignments, as compared with the Wright brothers’ slightly earlier more literal and technologically empowered defiance of gravity by the development of the airplane when the Uranus-Pluto opposition was in orb, or as compared with the space flights of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the 1960s.) Einstein worked for the next several years during the Uranus-Neptune alignment until he was able to present the fully developed general theory in 1915, followed by the publication of an “Authorized Version” of the theory in 1916, which radically transfigured Newtonian gravitational forces into aspects of the curvature of the four-dimensional space-time continuum. In 1917, still during the alignment, Einstein wrote the paper “Cosmological Considerations in General Relativity,” which introduced the now-confirmed cosmological constant and more generally opened up the field of cosmology, previously more a branch of metaphysics, to the new data and theories of physics and physical astronomy. In the same year, the first observational evidence that the universe was expanding was reported in a paper by the American astronomer Vesto Slipher.
Finally, in 1918, as the Uranus-Neptune alignment reached the 15° orb, Arthur Eddington, the leading exponent of Einstein’s ideas, wrote his authoritative and influential summary “Report on the Relativity Theory of Gravitation.” In 1919, with the ending of the war, Eddington organized the momentous eclipse expedition to test the theory’s prediction that the Sun bent starlight. In November of that year, just as Jupiter moved into alignment with the Uranus-Neptune opposition (then at 16°), the joint meeting of the Royal Society and Royal Astronomy Society took place at which the electrifying announcement was made that the measurements confirmed Einstein’s theory. As we discussed above, almost overnight and with increasing intensity during the entire Jupiter-Uranus alignment in 1920–21, both the fame of Einstein and the astounding cosmological revolution that challenged the very structure of reality for scientist and lay-person alike unfolded in countless news articles, editorials, celebratory headlines, and public discussions. This last phase of the relativity revolution took place in the period when Uranus and Neptune were in the last stages of the alignment, between 15° and 20° past exactitude. Much as we saw in numerous instances in other planetary cycles, the cumulative archetypal developments that took place in the course of the entire Uranus-Neptune opposition period of the early twentieth century can be seen as reaching a climax as the alignment approached the 20° orb. The frequently intensified or climactic quality of the events and experiences that occur near the end of a long alignment period is suggestive of a sunset, with the latter’s greater depth of light and fully saturated colors as the
arc of the day’s journey is completed. The movement of Jupiter into the alignment, should it occur at this stage, generally coincides with an additional quality of expansion, optimism, and success in the relevant events.
Regarding epochal shifts in psychological understanding and interior sensibility, this same period of overlapping major outer-planet alignments at the beginning of the twentieth century coincided with the cultural emergence of depth psychology in the work of Freud and Jung. The period in question spanned the publication of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams in 1899–1900 through the publication of Jung’s Symbols of Transformation in 1911–12, as well as the subsequent critical advances made by both men in the immediately ensuing years. Remarkably, it was during the period in which Uranus and Pluto were most closely in alignment (1896–1907) that Freud’s more instinctually and biologically oriented psychology received its most significant impetus, one appropriate to the Dionysian-Plutonic archetypal complex (again, eloquently embodied in Freud’s telling epigraph from Virgil for The Interpretation of Dreams, “If I cannot move the Gods above, then I will move the Infernal regions”). By contrast, Jung’s more transpersonal, mythic, symbolical, and spiritually oriented psychology, including his early studies in astrology and esoteric traditions, as well as his seminal insights into the coniunctio oppositorum (conjunction of opposites) and the transcendent function, received its most significant impetus when Uranus was in close alignment exclusively with Neptune (1908–18).
The Uranus-Neptune cycle’s correlation with the emergence of new philosophies that dissolved established assumptions and structures of belief, and in which a spiritual, idealist, or psychological dimension was central, was clearly visible in the work of many philosophers and psychologists during this 1899–1918 alignment. These included William James in the United States (The Varieties of Religious Experience, A Pluralistic Mystic), Henri Bergson in France (intuitionist metaphysics, creative evolution), Alfred North Whitehead in England (philosophy of mathematics in the Platonic-Pythagorean tradition, philosophy of science that formulated alternatives to materialism), Edmund Husserl in Germany (phenomenology), Benedetto Croce in Italy (idealistic aesthetics), Josiah Royce in the United States (ethical idealism, the “beloved community” of all humanity as the object of ultimate loyalty and source of ethical values), Richard Bucke in Canada (Cosmic Consciousness), and Frederic Myers in England (Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death), whose concept of the subliminal Self would in turn influence William James.
In the area of esoteric philosophy and mystical spirituality, Rudolf Steiner began to publicly present his esoteric work in a stream of lectures and books at this time: Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age, Christianity as Mystical Fact, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, Theosophy, An Outline of Esoteric Science. In 1913 Steiner founded the new form of theosophy that he called anthroposophy—“a path of knowledge leading the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe”—which emphasized the evolution of consciousness, the cosmic significance of the human being, moral and spiritual freedom, the conjoining of Christian esotericism with Hindu and Buddhist mystical streams, and the necessity of forging a “spiritual science” for the modern era:
There slumber in every human being faculties by means of which one can acquire for oneself a knowledge of higher worlds. Mystics, Gnostics, Theosophists—all speak of a world of soul and spirit which for them is just as real as the world we see with our physical eyes and touch with our physical hands.
During these same years in coincidence with this alignment, the work of artists such as Mondrian and Kandinsky was deeply influenced by their encounter with Theosophy. Art itself during this alignment was infused with a new sense of spiritual significance, whether in painting, in literature (Rilke, Joyce, Proust), or dance (Isadora Duncan: “Art which is not religious is not art, is mere merchandise”).
It was also during this period that Martin Buber’s influential turn to Hasidism took place. Sri Aurobindo’s seminal reformation of Indian mystical thought began at this time as well, and the Indian philosopher and poet Rabindranath Tagore brought forth Gitanjali, his most celebrated work of mystical poetry. In each of these cultural streams—American pragmatism, European esotericism and idealism, Jewish spirituality, Indian mysticism—there emerged during this Uranus-Neptune alignment of 1899–1918 a creative, spiritually informed philosophical impulse that became deeply influential for the intellectual, artistic, and religious development of the twentieth century.
We see the theme of spiritually inspired political activism during this same alignment in Gandhi’s development of satyagraha that began in 1906. Both Gandhi’s philosophy of political resistance and Tolstoy’s spiritually informed engagement with the political realm from the turn of the century, to which I drew attention in the context of the Uranus-Pluto cycle, are characteristic examples of the combined archetypal influences of these two cycles, which were then overlapping. The famous correspondence between Tolstoy and Gandhi on religion and nonviolent resistance to evil took place during the Uranus-Neptune alignment in the years 1909–10, just before Tolstoy’s death. Focusing on just the Uranus-Neptune cycle, we can readily discern in the philosophy and strategy of nonviolent resistance the precise combination of the two archetypal principles associated with these two planets: with Uranus, freedom, rebellion, defiance of legal and political structures, resistance to oppression, creative and unpredictably nonconformist activity; with Neptune, social and spiritual idealism, the act of surrender in the service of a higher reality, universal compassion. Both Tolstoy and Thoreau, the two key nineteenth-century figures in the development of nonviolent resistance, were born during the preceding Uranus-Neptune conjunction of the 1814–29 period, and Gandhi was born during the intervening Uranus-Neptune square in 1869, midway to the opposition of the early twentieth century. All three figures stated that they were inspired by the ethical idealism expressed in the teachings and actions of Jesus, who flourished during the Uranus-Neptune alignment of 16–32.
The sequence and overlap of these two major cycles, Uranus-Neptune and Uranus-Pluto, at the beginning of the twentieth century can be seen to have coincided with a more distinctly differentiated shift in the concerns and activities of significant cultural figures at this time. Just as the changing emphasis from Freud to Jung in early depth psychology closely coincided with the shift from the Uranus-Pluto opposition to the Uranus-Neptune opposition, so did a parallel shift in the lives and work of many of their contemporaries among the figures cited above. Each such shift reflected in its own way the characteristic motifs of the two archetypal complexes. For example, Sri Aurobindo was an active leader in the nationalist revolutionary political movement against British imperialism in India during the Uranus-Pluto opposition of 1896–1907. Arrested in 1908, he then underwent a series of transformative mystical experiences while in prison in 1908–09, in coincidence with the Uranus-Neptune opposition. During the remainder of that alignment, which continued for the next decade, Aurobindo established the Pondicherry Ashram in 1910 and there began his major works of mystical philosophy, The Life Divine and The Synthesis of Yoga, which were published serially from 1914.
Similarly, Martin Buber was active with Theodor Herzl in the Zionist political movement in Vienna in the Uranus-Pluto period, eventually becoming the editor of the official Zionist organ Die Welt in 1901. The Uranus-Neptune period exactly coincided with Buber’s subsequent intensive study of Hasidism, which began in late 1903 and was followed by the publication of his first Hasidic books in 1906–09, his influential lectures on Judaism in Prague in 1909–11, and his beginning the composition of his masterwork, I and Thou, in 1916.
Finally, as regards new art forms and new media of expression for the cultural imagination, in the same period that saw the many revolutionary artistic developments and figures already mentioned (Picasso, Stravinsky, Joyce, et al.), this same alignment of 1899–1918 was also the period that saw the emergence of motion pictures
as a creative art form and a broad cultural influence. Motion pictures required technological advances for the production, projection, and dissemination (Uranus) of their maya-like images (Neptune). Their cultural influence from that period onwards was on the one hand emancipatory, innovative, and disruptive of established modes of expression and social relations (Uranus) and on the other hand stimulating of the imagination, hypnotic, often escapist, and dissolving of conventional structures of identity and reality (Neptune).
The remarkable coalescing of all these events and trends—in the arts, sciences, philosophy, psychology, politics, and spirituality—during the period of this 1899–1918 alignment precipitated a complex transformation of cultural experience on many fronts, and brought the seeds of significant future changes in the collective psyche that are still unfolding.
Spiritual Epiphanies and the Emergence of New Religions
As with the other outer-planet cycles already surveyed, both synchronic and diachronic patterns of striking clarity branched out from each of the periods cited in close coincidence with the succession of major cyclical alignments of Uranus and Neptune. For example, with respect to spiritual awakenings and the emergence of new religions since the birth of Christianity, Uranus and Neptune were again in alignment from 617 to 630, the exact period of the founding of Islam by Muhammad. Uranus and Neptune were 1° from exact conjunction in the year 622 at the time of the Hegira, the emigration to Medina, the “city of the Prophet,” that marked the first year of the Muslim era. By 629, Muhammad was recognized as a prophet by Mecca, and by 630 Islam was dominant throughout Arabia.
In the Western context, the succession of major spiritual renewals that periodically pulsed through medieval and early modern Europe as well as colonial America coincided with the sequence of Uranus-Neptune conjunctions and oppositions over the centuries with extraordinary consistency. Often these religious movements were catalyzed by a powerful mystical awakening experienced by an individual who subsequently led or influenced the spiritual renewal. For example, the first Uranus-Neptune conjunction of the past millennium, which took place in 1130–43, coincided with the mystical vision that transformed the life of Hildegard von Bingen in 1141 and initiated her nearly forty years of spiritual leadership, artistic creativity, and influential writing on medicine, natural history, and theology:
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