1: Scorpio Season is here
2: That Charismatic Sex Appeal
3: Art for Pain’s Sake
4: The Music of the Devil
5: Murder Most Foul
6: The World According to Dostoevsky and Ballard
7: Scorpio Mavericks and Poets
1: Scorpio Season is Here
The Sun enters Scorpio on October 23rd and the door opens to Scorpio season. As the veil thins towards October 31st which is Samhain (Sow’in) or Halloween, all Hallows Eve, then followed by All Saints, or el Dia de los Muertos– All Souls, thoughts can turn gloomy and excitable. We can tend forget that the cycle will eventually return to the light. Then there’s a New Moon in Scorpio on November 1st with a Mars- Pluto opposition following soon after. All this seems ominous but Sahmain just marks the halfway point between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice on December 21st. Autumn brings a self-evident kind of decomposition with leaves fluttering from the trees forming a patterned carpet on the ground. It makes good compost.
The clocks go back on October 27th. The hours of light reduce to very few in the northern hemisphere when we might naturally turn more inwards to the world of dreams and deeper reflections. This is the realm of uncontrollable thought forms, projections and egregores so we might be in for some heavy turbulence and the need to keep your own power intact will be paramount.
To do full justice to the sign of Scorpio and what Scorpio season means is daunting. First, it is necessary wade into the deep end of the zodiac with its connection to emotional fusion with others, shared resources, money, diagnostic medical matters and other mysteries of the 8th House. They are often secreted away from view and to ferret them out takes some doing. Scorpios don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves, but by surveying all those born in late October and in Novemeber, that process can become less of a psychological quagmire. And by working through any emotional difficulties, there are therapeutic benefits to be gained that involves facing up to uncomortable truths in order to be a balm to the evenutal healing of old wounds. I’ve tried to cover the gamut here of famous Scorpios but inevitably these Scorpio people are selected to exemplify the sharpest of Scorpionic traits. A review of famous Scorpios is so valuable as it reveals that there is a so much to admire about Scorpios.
Famously they are much misunderstood and maligned for no reason: they have passion, skill, talent, style, can be super-focussed and show incredible fortitude, endurance, tenacity and will power. They can also be incisive ‘scientific’ thinkers, with unusual levels of insight, almost psychic at times, and as artists can wield a charisma that is hard to pin down. Scorpio is a fixed water sign that transitions between the signs of Libra the balance and Sagittarius the centaur philosopher and by the time it arrives in Sag, it is ready to make a leap into the light after all that darkness. Scorpio has its place like any other sign to be in the zodiac sequence. It’s the second water sign, after Cancer, the third being Pisces. But there’s something ‘hidden’ here which can be linked to interest in psychic studies and the occult. It’s as though after Libra someone suddenly switched the light off. They might be more secretive than most, but once they build trust slowly, they can begin to flourish in your favour. They can be the best and most supportive of friends to have in a crisis, but by the same token, they can be your wildest and fiercest enemy.
Anna Wintour (3/11/1949) is an example of survivablity – all from focus and hard work. She has reigned supreme as editor of US Vogue since 1988, hiding behind her mask of dark glasses and angular fringe. She will not be easy to get rid of or ever replace. There is fixity of purposes with Scorpio along with the glamour. It is almost as if they cast a spell that compels others to become satelite to their planet. She has anger issues and a caustic edge (Mars square Chiron) and earned a very Plutonian nick name as ‘Nuclear Wintour.’
There is an issue with this sign in which manner to manifest. If they they function well, there’s a srong ‘magnetic’ love, a loyalty and strength like no other sign. But there’s a choice to make as they know their own power too well. If they take the road to darkness too far and become overly sensitive, vengeful or jealous, then that is the slippery slope towards becoming master manipulators.
No single zodiac sign can lay claim to being this controlling, but that trait is associated with this sign. In the mythology, Hades/Pluto, the god of Hell, is alleged to have raped Prosperina/Persephone. But this established the cycle of the seasons and Persephone wanted to return to the underworld. So it can be about accepting that there are days of darkness and days of light in equal measure. Scorpio traditionally is ruled by Mars, which is spunky and forceful, but in modern astrology Scorpio is ruled by Pluto who is associated with explosive issues of control, sexual and emotional abuse – a tiny thing mushrooming into mega proportions- possibly even of rape. Mars might be the hothead, the impulsive one, but he’s not generally thought of as a rapist. He usually has some honour and fights for what is right. But Pluto in this sense can be seen as the darker shadow of Mars as it can become obsessed wth control.
2: That Charismatic Sex Appeal
Scorpio are famously meant to have charismatic sex appeal. But clearly that is not true for all. Depends on the chart. But the Scorpio zodiac sign is associated with the genitals, the reproductive system, in medicinal astrology, so that is the physical focus for the entire sign. Whether Scorpio sun signs are obsessed with sex or not is another matter- in some cases it is possibly true. It could just be that their concentration on sex is extra intense and highly emotional and therefore not about the actual physical act of sex at all.
Or that they might weaponise sex in a relationship by withholding it, depending what else is in the chart. Remember that Oscar Wilde once said that “Everything in the world is about Sex except Sex. Sex is about Power.” Wilde, was a Libran, but he had Mercury in Scorpio. And who better than a Scorpio, someone ruled by Mars/Pluto, or with a stellium in the 8th House, or with a promiennent Pluto would understand this profound statement?
There may be an extra load of darkness within the Scoprio native and some of that is coming to light now since Pluto is at 29° of Capricorn still until November 19th. In the news is Sean Combs aka P. Diddy (4/11/1967) who has Pluto now on his natal Mars at 29° of Capricorn. A couple of years ago in my page on Eros, I pointed out that Sean Combs’s asteroid Eros was conjunct his Pluto making for some potential for emotional damage and abuse where sex might be at the core. Sex parties are all very well unless you happen to drug your guests, entrap and enforce them to ‘party’ against their will and then blackmail them for it. Some things are not easy to control. like which side of the law you are on. Most likely more light will be shed on the motives behind these ‘freak offs’ as the sun goes over his solar return point on November 4th.
There is troubling synastry with the charts of Combs and Justin Bieber (Pisces) that could suggest undue influence- Combs’ Neptune is conjunct Beiber’s North Node in Scorpio. It’s not just the age gap – Combs is 25 years older than Bieber who was only 14 when they met- but all the other astrological factors in the synastry: Combs’ Moon in Virgo conjunct Bieber’s Chiron; Combs’ North Node in Pisces conjunct Bieber’s Venus/Pallas- Venus is ultra sensitive in Pisces; Combs’ Jupiter/Venus in Libra conjunct Bieber’s Moon; Combs’ Sun in Scorpio conjunct Bieber’s Jupiter there; and Combs’ Jupiter/Venus in Libra in direct opposition to Bieber’s Eros in Aries- both ruled by Mars, and so on.
Perhaps now we can fully understand also why Bieber’s chart has Pluto on the Ascendant and Chiron, the most vulnerable point, on the Midheaven. He may have appeared fluffy and cheerful on the surface but the chart reveals a hugely sensitive and perhaps deeply troubled person. We might well ask: what did he have to do to achieve fame? People are saying he is a victim (Chiron on the MC) in all this subterfuge and chicanery. But this is so extremely difficult to talk about and naturally he would prefer it to remain private.
As with all signs it is what natives do with that power of influence that makes the difference, especially if they have that potential in their charts. It is how well they bring it to the light of consciousness. And perhaps a Scorpio sun sign – or those with a strong Pluto placement-are able to handle that darkness within better than other signs who deny their own shadow, or worse, have no clue it is actually there and so who fall headlong into the trap. There is much more to reveal about the Combs’ case and since not all the facts are fully established yet -he could even be exonerated- it would be unfair to speak, but most will be watching closely for signs of a hidden network of which P. Diddy is just the tip of the iceberg.
Scorpios can be the receivers of abuse as well, as in the case of Les McKeown (15/11/1955) the handsome lead singer of of the Bay City Rollers, boy band of the seventies. The sad fact is that he was actually raped by his manager Tam Paton (Leo) and that he attempted to keep that secret for most of his life. This trauma was so suppressed that he never found peace in his life after that event despite marrying and fathering a son. Several pointers exist in the synastry of Paton with McKeown that look troublesome to do with conjunctions of Neptune, Venus, Uranus and asteroid Eros, plus a Jupiter opposite Jupiter and the Moon square the Moon which must be the watchword of personal loathing etc. McKeown’s Chiron is a 0° of Aquarius- a significant marker degree for all the change that is coming our way in the 21st century.
A Scorpio knows about painful entanglements instinctively and has animal senses awake during the day and night. But a Scorpio can show us how to transform that inner turmoil and acute vulnerability into something magnificent, a life’s work that is to be proud of and a sense of loyalty to those they love beyond the norm. It is for this reason people may want to be enamored by a Scorpio as they literally will defend you to the death.
While it can be a matter of taste, Scorpios can have ‘pulling’ power, and an extraordinary sex appeal. Think of the allure of Vivien Leigh (5/11/1913) and Richard Burton (10/11/1925). Then there’s the alluring French actor Alain Delon (8/11/1935) whose recent death for me triggered a retrospective viewing of his films, He was the first to play Patricia Highsmith’s serial killer Tom Ripley in ‘Plein Soleil’ aka ‘Purple Noon’ in 1960- an angel and demon rolled into one. Brad Davis (6/11/1949) another actor with a strong magnetic pull played the lead in Fassbinder’s Querelle (1982) but died young of AIDs. Of the female actors there is Julia Roberts (28/10/1967), Anne Hathaway (12/11/1982) and Tilda Swinton (5/11/1960) whose on screen appeal keeps people fascinated. Of the men there is Ryan Gosling (12/11/1980) and Ryan Reynolds (23/10/1976) who more often than not is asked to strip naked on camera, perhaps to give the films he stars in their real pulling power? Not all Scorpios have this ‘pull’ effect. It’s not that other signs don’t have sex appeal, but that the appeal here might operate under the radar, in a subliminal way, and people might not be able to consciously explain the attraction -that there’s something hidden and inexplicable about it.
3: Art for Pain’s Sake
Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (4/11/1946) took his sexual appetites to the ultimate level by cataloguing the fetish interests of the New York gay scene with his camera lens. He placed his black and white male lovers into his photographs which exposed their naked bodies in a stark, cold manner. He had Pluto conjunct Saturn in Leo which might explain the powerful effect of his images, how they tell a story not told before about a subculture that is usually hidden. This is especially true as that Saturn/Pluto is sextile to Neptune which rules photography in the sign of Art, in Libra. He brought a classical pure style to the subject matter such as the stamens of calia lilies and male members but he also catalogued some of the seamier BDSM fetish practices, leather, chains, knives, bondage and even torture practices. Some viewers and sponsors found this distasteful, fuelling more controversy over his exhibitions.
The debate as to whether his work is porn or art or somewhere in between still goes on, but certainly since Mapplethorpe, we are more accustomed to seeing naked male flesh and his influence on UK photographers such as Rotimi Fani Kayode (Taurus) was evident. His ex-room mate and good friend Patti Smith wrote that he “worked without apology… Robert sought to elevate aspects of male experience, to imbue homosexuality with mysticism. As Cocteau said of a Genet poem, “His obscenity is never obscene.”
With fashion designer Rick Owens (18/11/1961) there is sometimes a focus on genitalia. His 2015 Autumn-Winter catwalk shows had the male models fully clad in black with just their naked members visible through a peep hole. Needless to say this no underwear let-it-all-hang- out- trend did not really catch on. But is that a Scorpio obsession? Probably not, since everyone who looks is also part of the obsession. A voyeur is like vital food to an exhibitionist- the one can’t exist without the other. Yet it is interesting that the idea to focus on the penis came from a Scorpio designer whose middle name is Saturnino and who has been called ‘Lord of Darkness’.
Owens, incidentally is the favourite designer of that other Scorpio, the originator of Twitter and billionaire Jack Dorsey (19/11/1976). Dorsey has Mars conjunct the Sun at 28° and does things his own way. He is aloof and difficult to pin down, hiding behind a beard which makes him a dead ringer for Aleister Crowley in his mountaineering phase. He loves fasting, ice baths and saunas and making billions. He has now set up a rival to Twitter/X called Bluesky. Whatever he is up to is anyone’s guess as he seemingly evades detection of his motives- the more you look at him, the less you know.
Mapplethorpe was among the few who are also ‘double’ Scorpio lending that extra umpf of Scorpionic charm. These are the ones born early morning when the sun is rising on the Ascendant. Some others include Sai Baba (23/11/ 1923), Hilary Clinton (26/10/1947), Neil Young (12/11/1945), Chloe Sevigny (18/11/1974) and pop star Adam Ant (3/11/1954) who even wrote a song about it called ‘Scorpio Rising’. Both Sun and Ascendant in the sign of Scorpio would mean some of the Scorpionic traits would be visible in the way they look, most likely in the face or in their general physical presence having a visceral effect on others.
Pablo Picsasso (25/10/1881) famously had very intense eyes and his gaze could be unsettling. Although he was not a double Scorpio, his Sun at 2° of Scorpio is on the IC (4th House cusp) and opposite Saturn. Anyone with Jupiter conjunct Pluto would also tend to have an expanded intensity and since the eyes are ‘windows to the soul’ that would be revealed in the gaze.
Scorpio is the sign associated with transformation and that includes all elements of that physical, emotional and psychological- this is inner work and mostly hidden, but occasionally it happens in the full glare of world publicity. Again no one sign has the monopoly on self transformation, it can be a reality for anyone with a prominent Pluto in their charts, but there are a couple of well-known figureheads who happen to be Scorpio sun signs.
One is the ultimate drag queen and glamazon Ru Paul (17/11/1960). The Drag Race TV show became much more successful than anyone could have predicted making Ru Paul a household name and almost an industry. That could not have been achieved without huge levels of hard work and focussed drive. He has Saturn opposite Mars and a triple conjunction of the Moon, Neptune and Mercury in Scorpio which points to a shifting sense of inner identity and glamorous presentation.
And then it is hard to ignore one of the most well-known male-to-female transexuals Caitlyn Jenner (28/10/1949). Starting life as William Bruce Jenner, nicknamed ‘Bruiser’ marrying three times and fathering several children (Kris Jenner, his last wife, is also a Scorpio) and then becoming a successful gold-medal winning athlete, then becoming Caitlin Jenner, she has lead the way for trans rights due to her level of fame, (Mars and Pluto in the 10th House) but she is often controversial and outspoken. It is hard for Scorpios to reveal their secrets so this has been a major and very public transformation of great interest to the collective (Pluto trine to Venus but sextile to Neptune and square to Saturn) at great cost to her personal life. She claims in spite of it all she is still a very private person.
How did such a transformation become so fully realised? They say the Moon represents many shifting moods- first you see it then you don’t- so it is fascinating to me that Eros and Psyche are conjunct the Moon in the very first degrees of Aquarius in Jenner’s chart so they are ruled by Uranus. But also there’s Neptune conjunct Mercury and the South Node in Libra making the story of shifting inner identity confusing. She says it is ‘about your soul’.
4: The Music of the Devil
The darkness cannot be denied even if we look at classical musicians who happen to be born in Scorpio season. Carl Maria von Weber (18/11/1876) composed one of the most chilling supernatural scenes in the whole of opera in the Wolf’s Glen from Der Freischutz (1821). It culminates in frequently whispered invocations to ‘Samiel’ which takes place in a dark forest with wild boars, mysterious appartitions and then a visitation from the devil himself. If staged well, this scene can have the most dramatic and thrilling effect and Wagner absorbed its influence into his own opera staging style.
Wild and sometimes unfounded rumours about his womanising and playing surrounded virtuoso Italian violnist Niccolo Paganini (27/10/1782). He was tall, pale and had hollow cheeks, described as having “flaming eyes”with “thin lips that held a sardonic smile.” Dressed only in black, he played fast and furious with a technical precision and verve. He worked without sheet music so he was able to dance wildly around the stage as he played from memory. While Sun square Pluto might explain this crazed feel to his performances, he also had Jupiter/Saturn/Vesta in late Sagittarius on the Galactic centre opposite Uranus/Moon in early Cancer square to South Node/Neptune, Mars/Psyche/Venus in Libra so that packs a monumental power to dazzle and impress people across Europe with his prowess.
But while he was a prodigy and a genius, audiences believed that it could not be natural. They believed that he must have some inexplicable magical powers. No one could play that well without the help of the devil they said. Rumours surrounded his mother who it was claimed had sold her son’s soul to the devil to enable him to be become the best in the world- a kind of trade off. They pointed at his long fingers which allowed his hand span to cover three octaves on the violin. Some even claimed he had murdered a woman and imprisoned her in the strings. People said they could even see his devil’s horns as he played. He suffered from syphilis and tuber-culosis. But he refused last rites from the priest which just added to the legend of this pact with the devil.
5: Murder Most Foul
It seems odd to me that people can be so repelled by horror and supernatual films that they simply cannot watch them. It can be hard not to jump at the scary parts, but better not to brush aside the dark side of life. If uncomfortable truths exist, then surely we mature more from facing up to then more than by avoiding them? To shine a light on harsh or strange realtities makes them gradually less strange. This is the domain of the Scorpio: psychiatry, neurosis, obsessions, psychosis, schizophrenia, sociopathy and malignant personality disorders– all of which are far more common than is ever publicly admitted and these conditions are not confined to serial killers. They exist within everyday people you may be working with. Robert D. Hare’s book Without Conscience (1999) explains that psycopathy at its core is essentially a lack of empathy. When someone has no conscience, the effect of evil deeds perpetrated on others has no effect whatsoever on the doer. They have no remorse. But people who do have a conscience, who have empathy intact,don’t always recognise that fact in others- until it is too late.
If I mention the names of cult leader Charles Manson (12/11/1934), actor/singer Bobby Beausoleil (6/11/1947), DJ at the BBC, and Jimmy Saville (31/10/1926) we might shrink back in horror. But consider that some Scorpios manage to conceal their actions as Saville did ‘in plain sight’. That means that some who are alive today might be so clever at doing this, and we haven’t noticed yet. Manson was not the one accused of the Cielo Drive murders of Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring and her friends that fateful night the 9th August of 1969, but he was supposed to have orchestrated the attack. Commentators have said that this one catastrophic event single-handedly ended the utopian dream of the hippy movement in the sixties. The degree of Manson’s sun was on what is known both as the ‘accursed’ or ‘devil’s degree’ -19° of Scorpio.
Manson was a cult figure surrounded by waif girls and people gone astray, but one of his acolytes was Bobby Beausoleil who also wanted to be a musician, but who did actually brutally murder Gary Hinman, a Buddhist friend of the Manson family. He cut off his ear. Beausoleil was apparently under orders from Manson in the search for some money Hinman was supposed to have hidden away. Beausoleil’s chart has a triple conjunction of Saturn, Mars and Pluto in Leo and his sun conjunct Chiron all making for a troubled life story.
How Manson could wield so much hypnotic power over Beausoleil and the Cielo driver murderers is difficult to answer and journalists have spent decades attempting to do explain the magnetic power of Manson who died in prison on November 19th, 2017. Even in death there was drama – a fight ensued over the body. Tom O’Neill’s 2019 book Chaos for example, dug deep into the conflicting evidence in order to uncover the links to the CIA, the MK Ultra programme, and his claim that there was a one-sided framing of the case by Bugliosi the lawyer to make it seem closed. Clear answers are scarce, and there are still many more questions lingering about what really happened.
Also to deal with all that Jimmy Saville got up to is beyond the scope of this article, deserving a separate investigation, but it is as dark as it gets, even involving hints of necrophilia. But he was a Halloween baby, born on October 31st with his Pluto conjunct his North Node.
These characters may be extreme and the exceptions among Scorpios. only very few develop in this dysfunctional way. It must be said that psychopathy and personality disorder appears in all signs. But perhaps we think about it more in Scorpio season and are able to face the difficulties with a mature eye and can understand it better?
6: The World According to Dostoevsky and Ballard
Among writers born in Scorpio season we would expect to find crime writers with characters skilled at forensics and police investigations. They are masters of dark, intriguing and morbidly alluring subject matter and as it happens near-future dystopias.
One Russian author is considered by many, including myself, as one of the finest of all authors and that’s Fyodor Dostoevsky (30/10/1821). There is something about his abilitiy to create ‘psychologically’ real scenarios and transport the reader into the lived experience. Some of the scenes from his novels like ‘Crime and Punishment’ (1866) have an almost hallucinatory clarity probing into complex human motivations. Such scenes leave an indelible impact perhaps drawn from his unfortunate but soul-destroying experience in front of a firing squad in 1849. He was reprieved at the very last minute but then sent to a labour camp which had to be endured. On returning to social life he also suffered with numerous debts. His Pluto in the late degrees of Pisces is conjunct Chiron across signs to Aries, but that Pluto is trine to Mercury. He puts that intense engagement into his writing so readers can understand this complex world on a visceral level through his words. The Brothers Karamazov (1879) is widely regarded as one of the best novels ever written by anyone and operates almost on the level of a parable.
With Robert Louis Stevenson (13/11/1850) he was the first to introduce the idea of the split personality triggered by experimentation with drugs. Stevenson suffered a lot with ill health. In the novella ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde’ (1886) the idea first occurred that ‘it’s a fine line between sanity and madness’ and that the ‘devil lurks inside every one of us’. This perhaps was the very first instance of naming the shadow before Jung’s work on this concept. Dr. Jekyll is quite likley a Scorpio. He is seeking power by finding just the right dose of his lethal injection to control the wild behaviours involving abuse and murder. But without success. But the psychological depth of this idea had a major influence on the following decade of psychology with the work of Freud and Jung.
Then there is the creator of Count Dracula himself from Dublin, Bram Stoker (8/11/1847). What fevered imagination could produce such a powerful and influential character? Stoker appeared straight-laced on the surface and was a theatre manager at the Lyceum in London, but his emotions fulminated within him and he could be obsessive. The vampire as a creature had its many predecessors who were often women. But it was Stoker who delivered to us the arch Count Dracula version: suave, educated, charming, enigmatic and very persuasive with both women and men. Stoker’s Dracula has remained the classic archetype of the vampire-villain, so often copied that everyone wants to be Dracula on Halloween. It’s Dracula’s party night. In flms, every director had to show the sensational scene where Dracula appears through the window silently. Then with his hypnotic stare, he overpowers the poor victim lying in bed. But the key moment is when the fangs pierce the skin and we see the blood trickle from the freshly penetrated neck. Viewers adore this moment due to its sexual overtones. Dracula’s story spawned a never-ending series of films and TV series retelling it in various ways where blood sucking goes rampant at night and lying in a coffin all day almost becomes normalised. While the notion of such a vampire is seductive, it could somehow also glamorise the power that sexual predators have over their victims. But we seem to be okay with that if it’s Christopher Lee or Gary Oldman.
But also there was also the oddball science fction writer Kurt Vonnegut (11/11/1922) whose work is evidence of Mercury operating in Scorpio adding to the sardonic nature of the writing. He is best known for ‘SlaughterHouse Five’ (1969) an anti-war novel, it is said he is ‘misunderstood’ as he used dark comedy and satire in the science fiction genre.
And then we come to a writer who I think is sometimes overlooked, J.G. Ballard (15/11/1930). Ballard earned his own adjective ‘Ballardian’ This term is not quite so easily understood as ‘Kafkaesque’ and ‘Orwellian’, but for those who have read Ballard, it’s a particular kind of car-exploding urban dystopia.
The definition of ‘Ballardian’ is “Resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in the works of J.G. Ballard especially bleak artificial landscapes, the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments and dsytopian modernity.”
Born with a conjunction of the Sun and Mercury in Scorpio, and a powerful conjunction of Pluto and Jupiter in Cancer, he is one of the most clinically incisive dystopian visionaries in the world of books. His experience in a Japanese concentration camp as a young boy certainly formulated his dark vision the world. His first four novels were called ‘the Four Elements Quartet’.
Ballard takes a surgeon’s eye to the psychopathology of modern life and dissects it with a cold, clear relish that has the power to disturb readers but brings out their morbid fascination and keeps them turning pages. Perhaps that Mars in Leo quincunx Saturn in Capricorn gave him this edge which turned prophetic? His novel ‘Crash’ (1973) was so controversial one publsher said that the author ‘was beyond psychiatric help’ as are many of the characters in his books. But it is written in a lyrical, poetic manner that is incongruent with its subject matter. It conflated automobile parts wth human body parts and sexual ecstasy is loosely equated with a car crash– the shattered splinters of metal and glass as a ‘high.’ His Pluto was conjunct asteroid Eros so that’s a powerful placement to have! We can see that this might be considered dark or over the edge for most people. He was a purveyor of urban catastrophes that are often unsettling for reasons difficult to pin down. Just a sense of unease that creeps in to the writing.
High Rise (2015) the Ben Wheatley film captures the bleakness of the 1975 novel and this tower block refers to the punishments meted out in Dante’s Inferno. Dogs tend not to do well in Ballard’s world- when their dead carcass is not thrown in the swimming pool, they are casually eaten as in the opening line. The Ben Wheatley film had a strange effect on me as I live in a very similar high rise block- too many parallels for my liking. So his work he said is ‘the future of the next five minutes.‘ but that future ‘has already collapsed into barbarism’. That might be something we should take note of?
In his last novel ‘Kingdom Come’(2006) before Ballard’s death, there is a mad psychiatrist called Dr. Maxted who names the malaise ‘elective insanity’ a.k.a. ‘willed madness’ where people in monolithic mall communities are about to let their primal instincts take over, just for kicks. He states it starkly “the future is going to be a struggle between vast systems of competing psychopathologies, all of them willed and deliberate, part of a desperate attempt to escape from a rational world and the boredom of consumerism.”
And he also says that ‘masochsim is the mood music’ of this dystopian landscape which comes with plenty of violence and shattering glass. We need only to look around in 2024 to realise how unfortunately realised this mood of unease and mistrust in public life has become. So I class Ballard as a prophetic writer who had his finger very precisely on the pulse of the psychological malaise deep at the heart of modern society.
7: Scorpio Mavericks and Poets
It should be evident by now that Scorpio is a sign that has penetrating insight and they may make good pyschologists, forensic scientists, criminal investigators and surgeons. Mars, the ancient ruler of Scorpio, is the knife cutting into the skin.
One of the great mavericks of history, a self-taught Renaissance man was Paracelsus (10/11/1493). His name is shortened from Philipus Aureolis Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. His contribution to medicine was groundbreaking and not fully understood at the time. He researched deeply and observed what he saw and became known for it- Mercury conjunct Pluto in Scorpio in the 10th house of reputation. He was even known as the ‘Martin Luther of Medicine’. He was not only a scientist, but also a scholar, doctor, astrologer, magician, healer and alchemist and he loved shaking things up- he has a few planets in Sagittarius so could be a firebrand as well.
Paracelsus made many enemies as he didn’t care what people thought of him. Though born a Catholic, he was was ultra anti Catholic and took every opportunity to challenge the power of Rome. He debunked the practice of blood letting as a cure and the notion of the Four Humours (Blood, Phelgm, Yellow Bile and Black Bile) as established by Galen, whose book he burned, preferring to say that the body was controlled by chemicals- Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, hinting at today’s understanding of hormones and neuropeptides. He did retain the traditional notion of the four elements -Fire, Air, Water and Earth- however.
He stated that the mind can influence the body as in the Placebo effect, so was way ahead of his time on this one too, suggesting he understood psycho-somatics long before that term was ever coined. He was also a toxicologist and knew that there’s no real difference between a poison and a medicine; that it’s all about the dosage- anything can be toxic, even water. This makes him the quintessential Scorpio. His legacy today is in varying fields as he seemed to be able to contain these contradictions under the same umbrella.
The other ‘Scorpio ‘scientific’ astrologer attempted to do the impossible and impose one paradigm on to another to see if they would fit- that was Michel Gauquelin. He used the quantatiive approach of statistics to understand and even justify astrology which can be subtly symbolic and intuitive and therefore elusive and resistant to being pinned down. French astrologer Michel Gauquelin (13/11/1928) working with his wife Francoise, found that the positions of the planets, specifically on the angles of their charts, reflected the traits of the indiviual and often pointed to their chosen life’s work. He was a great tennis player too and a prodigious researcher (Mercury in Scorpio, Sun trine to Pluto ) who analysed a huge number of charts for their statistical correlations. What is little known is that he started out as a genuine sceptic, and he wanted to prove the fools who believed in astrology wrong, but the effect of his results was the opposite. Although it was not always clear cut, it tended to show there was actually a correlation between people’s charts and their careers, especially Mars for Athletes, Saturn for Scientists, Venus for artists, and the Moon and Jupiter for politicians and actors. However, the evidence for Venus was less convincing than the evidence for the ‘Mars Effect’.
The continued testing only dug him in deeper into his research, and he was able to make the studies repeatable and obtained similar same results in Belgium Germany and Italy. But he was heavily critiqued from all sides both non-astrologers and astrologers who didn’t like the findings as they conflicted with ‘tradition’ and deeper archetypal symbolism is always resistant to quantitative statistical methods. He was accused of bias and felt under attack from all sides (Chiron conjunct Jupiter in Taurus so troubled self esteem, opposite his Juno/Mercury). After the divorce from Francoise, it was very unfortunate that he took his own life in 1991.
Sylvia Plath (27/10/1932) is another character, a kind of maverick. Whatever you may think of her status as a woman in the shadow of her husband Ted Hughes, her poems are sharp and sardonic, and memorably worded as would be expected from a Scorpio with a stellium in Virgo. She is among the ‘great’ poets of the 20th century without a doubt. She did have Pluto in Cancer opposite Saturn in Capricorn and a complex mix of planets in Virgo involving Neptune (she put her head in a gas stove) the South Node, Jupiter, asteroid Eros and Venus making her role as a woman and her sexuality a clear focus for her work. There is also the Juno factor..Her Juno was conjunct the Moon in Libra which can oscillate wildly there. Remember that Juno represents equality in relationships and marriage contracts, but Juno was in fact not just wife, but also ‘sister’ to Jupiter, so this points to a more karmic entanglement where relationship issues burrow deep into the psyche. Her reasoning was not always clear, perhaps to the detriment of a full and fair evaluation of her life and talent. She decided to take her life which further obscured her intentions by a slew of other issues. The blame game goes on, but I think her work is strong enough to survive all the controversy over who did what to whom.
Understanding the symbols helps enormously to understand the sign. A scorpion is an odd little creature scuttling about under rocks, but it is much less scary than it looks. Its venom is rarely enough to kill a human, but it is something about the way it looks so ready to attack with their pointed pincer that frightens people. In the astronomical positioning the Scorpio contstellation it is the opposite of Orion the giant as in the myth, Gaia asked a lone scorpion to help her defeat Orion who was a giant on the rampage. The scorpion achieved this by sheer focus and dodging all attacks. But the associations don’t stop with little creatures on the earth, they elevate to the eagle, also an alchemical symbol, and then to the phoenix rising from the ashes which makes sense when you think the crossover point of Scorpio and Sagittarius subsumes the so-called ’13th sign’ Ophiucus (the serpent bearer)- again pointing to a deeper wisdom around medical issues of the body and knowledge of healing modalities- and only then it heralds the much brighter, lighter more forward-thinking sign of Sagittarius.
It has been quite a ride into the depths of Scorpio themes and I have left out many artists and exemplars such as film director Martin Scorcese (17/11/1942) whose film production ‘The Grifters’ (1991) makes the very Scorpionic ‘Noir’ crime genre even more darkly comical than usual. Also no space to include singers such as Bjōrk (21/11/1965) Plus there is qabbalist and magician Israel Regardie (17/11/1907)who wrote several books on the Occult. But an honorable mention goes to singer and guitarist Jeff Buckley (17/11/1966) a fire horse of 1966, who literally one day walked into a river and died by drowning. There were suspicions of suicide, but Buckley’s death was confirmed as an ‘accident’ to a friend in London who had consulted a psychic.
It’s is good to end with the feisty but memorable words of or the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (27/10/1914) who had a Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Cancer and a serious alcholol problem. But he too was a Scorpio sun sign and he gave us the line ‘And death shall have no dominion’ – the Death Tarot card is the one associated with Scorpio- but also these words offer a suggestion of Martial energy being the potent magic to counter the darkening days, of ageing. It’s the feeling that just being alive makes you feel angry and vulnerable so you want to strike out with poisonous venom at your enemies.
But the phoenix rising from the ashes would suggest that a rebirth brings about higher potential to behave in ways that ultimately transcend all the difficulties.
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
© Kieron Devlin, Proteus Astrology, October, 21st, 2024, All Rights Reserved.
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