Pluto, the “Lord of the Underworld,” was discovered on February 18, 1930 and announced publicly on March 13 of that year. While the exact dates are of limited importance in our work, Pluto’s discovery itself was momentous. From the astrological perspective, it marks nothing less than the collective human discovery of the unconscious mind. In essence, with the discovery of Pluto, we are talking about the birth of psychology as part of the human conversation.

As ever, with massive astrological changes such as this one, it’s helpful to take a long-term perspective. Uranus was discovered in 1789 – and marked the (very Uranian) overthrow of the rule of kings along with the birth of scientific inquiry,  even when it violated religious dogma. That didn’t happen on a single day! Similarly, Neptune was discovered in 1848 and it  marked a massive change in the scope of human imagination and human spirituality – again, that’s something we can see clearly in retrospect, but not something that happened the very minute Neptune was found.

In exactly the same fashion, the human discovery of the true extent of our inner world – our Plutonian unconscious mind – unfolded over a generation or two. Still, the astrological signature of the event itself dates to the physical discovery of Pluto back almost a hundred years ago. 

When we were ready to see Pluto in ourselves, we were ready to see it in the sky too. That’s called synchronicity and it’s very probably the reason that astrology works.

“Synchronicity” – who gave us that word? The answer is of course Carl Gustav Jung, along with a young physicist named Wolfgang Pauli. To call Jung “the father of psychology” leaves out too many important names: Freud and Adler, for starters. But psychoanalysis and psychotherapy as we understand them today would not exist without Carl Jung. I believe it’s fair to say that all psychological astrologers currently practicing stand on his mighty shoulders.

THE RED BOOK

On November 12, 1913, Carl Jung made his first entry in a series of notebooks that later came to be called The Red Book. This was private work on his part – nothing he intended for anyone else to see. Some would interpret it as a descent into madness even though in reality Jung remained productive and functional throughout the adventure. During this “Red Book period” of his life which lasted from 1913 through 1917, he bravely and willingly surrendered to a gusher of imaginative, often unsettling imagery arising directly from his unconscious. It turned into wildly free-associative writing and bizarrely intriguing paintings. 

Google The Red Book if you’ve never seen any of it. Be forewarned however: the imagery, both verbal and visual, will bother you.

Once again, there is no evidence that Jung intended any of this material to ever be published. To call it “private journaling” gets you on the right track, but it’s a whole lot more psychedelic and laden with edgy danger than that. The material only actually came to public light when it was finally published in 2009, almost half a century after his death. 

To Jung, this “experiment” marked the beginning of his real work. In his own words, this was “the most important time of my life.” He went on to say that his entire technical opus “consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me.” Poignantly – and prophetically – he added, “To the superficial observer, it will appear like madness."

What was going on astrologically for Carl Jung when he surrendered to this frightening, transformative process? 

There is some controversy around Jung’s exact time of birth. He spoke of “the last rays of the setting sun lighting the room.” Here I am using the 7:24 pm chart from AstroDataBank, which I find plausible for many reasons, not the least of which is the way this timed early Aquarian Ascendant figures prominently in the timing of this strange and fertile period of Jung’s life. Arrayed around the basic chart, you’ll see his transits and progressions for November 12, 1913, which once again is the date of the first entry into the journals which became The Red Book. 

Carl Jung clearly shows an enormous astrological sensitivity to early Aquarius/early Leo, which embraces his 7:24 pm Ascendant and his Sun. During this extraordinary period of his life, this axis was under enormous stimulation. In the time between 1913 and 1917, Neptune passed from 28 degrees of Cancer to 7 degrees of Leo, thus opposing his Ascendant and conjuncting his Sun. Meanwhile, during 1912-13, transiting Uranus crossed his Ascendant and opposed his Sun. Before the work of The Red Book was complete, Uranus had also squared his Moon and opposed its own natal position. 

I would also spotlight a particular peak in the intensity of Uranian energy on October 13, 1913 when it made a station at 3 degrees 37’ of Leo. That put the planet simultaneously conjunct his Ascendant and opposite his Sun – and that was just one month before the volcanos began erupting from his unconscious mind.

As ever, these are deep waters – too deep to fathom fully in a short essay. Let me just add quick references to two more pieces of the puzzle, both lunar in nature. As these psychic  floodgates opened, Jung’s progressed Moon was in his 8th house – a time that always calls for a lot of emotional honesty and courage as material wells up out of the unconscious mind. Between 1910 and 1913, he was also experiencing a progressed New Moon – a “new start” period that comes along two or three times in a lifetime, one in which we are invited to follow our hearts wherever they lead us.

WHAT ABOUT PLUTO?

As you can see in Jung’s chart, transiting Pluto was in 0 degrees of Cancer at the outset of his Red Book “experiment.” Pluto entering a new sign is a big deal for humanity in general – in fact, we are all experiencing that kind of event right now as Pluto gets solidly into Aquarius. Yet from a technical astrological perspective for Jung personally, Pluto’s entry into Cancer was a minor event. It was moving into a sextile to his natal Neptune, but otherwise Pluto was not really on his personal radar screen in nearly the same spectacular way that Neptune, Uranus, and the progressed Moon were. 

Still, as Pluto entered Cancer, something big was happening for the human race as a whole and Carl Gustav Jung was clearly part of it. Remember: this was 1913. We were still seventeen years from anyone knowing Pluto was out there. Humanity had not yet made the collective discovery of its own unconscious mind. But we were getting close. As we saw earlier, the actual cultural processes reflected in the discovery of a new planet don’t happen on a single day. I believe that Pluto entering Cancer signaled the beginning of the collective process.  

But what process exactly? Let’s start by thinking about what Cancer symbolizes. That’s naturally a big question, but we can begin by remembering that Cancer is ruled by the Moon. Like the Moon, it symbolizes the human heart. Feelings and intuitions. Any Cancerian stimulus calls our attention to the inner world. Like the other two Water signs, Cancer represents the interface between the conscious mind and everything in the deeper psychic realms – basically everything that makes us human. With Pluto being “the Lord of the Underworld,” its entry into Cancer marked the beginning of a collective process of “psychologizing” humanity – one that would only culminate with the actual astronomical discovery of Pluto – which happened with the planet pretty much dead-center in that sign. 

Previously of course all humans had feelings. Everyone had an inner life. What changed is that we began asking questions that no one had ever asked before: why do we have the feelings that we have? What causes them? What’s really going on with our attractions, our fears, and our interpretations of life? Those are Plutonian inquiries, and Carl Jung was one of the human beings who led the way into asking them. During his Red Book period, he willingly dived head first into those psychic depths. 

Pluto remained in Cancer until 1939. By then, psychological thinking and psychological language were everywhere – and Carl Jung’s name had entered household usage. 

As I mentioned a little while ago, Pluto wasn’t really in the spotlight for Carl Jung personally as he began his work on The Red Book. That might seem surprising since he was actually doing such a deep dive into some very edgy unconscious material. As ever in astrology, there is more than one way to say the same thing. Never forget the reality of that “Pluto-like” 8th house progressed Moon he was experiencing! That alone is enough to trigger the unsettling material that was rising into focus in his consciousness. 

Still, there is one more Plutonian piece of the puzzle – one that I found quite eye-popping as I prepared this material. 

JUNG’S SOLAR ARC PLUTO

Transits are not the only way planets move through a chart. There are also solar arcs, where each planet moves in synchronization with the progressed Sun – at a pace of about one degree per year, in other words.

By solar arc, Carl Jung’s Pluto entered Cancer on July 6, 1913. Meanwhile, collectively, the physical Pluto in the sky – transiting Pluto –  was doing exactly the same thing for everybody between September 1912 and May 1914. As you’ll recall, that sign ingress marked the beginning of the “psychologizing” of humanity, which would only reach critical mass upon Pluto’s actual discovery in 1930.

Jung’s personal, private solar arc Pluto enters Cancer. Four months later, he dives into his own unconscious mind.

At the same time, all of humanity is embarking on the same process. 

I am tempted to oversimplify a little here and add “with Carl Jung leading the way.” He was certainly a huge part of the collective discovery of the unconscious and we certainly could not have done it without him. 

Let me add that my earlier comments about transiting Pluto not playing a major role in Jung’s chart as he began the work that led to The Red Book  require some modification. It’s true that Pluto wasn’t making any pressingly important aspects for him personally at that time, but its entry by solar arc into a new sign is always a big deal for anyone – and in this case one that is significantly reinforced by transiting Pluto doing exactly the same thing at the same time for everybody else in the world. Jung’s personal life mirrored something that was happening in the collective. They potentiated each other in the same way that a match can bring out the true essence of a firecracker. 

Perspective: Carl Jung was far from the only human being to experience solar arc Pluto entering Cancer around that time. For one example, anyone born within a year or so of him would be experiencing it around the same time too. And there are others who would reflect the same ingress, all depending on the initial geometry of their natal charts. Suffice to say that this cohort was a small minority of the human population and that collectively they were the vanguard of the psychological revolution. 

THE PUBLICATION OF THE RED BOOK

The Red Book – more formally known as The Liber Novus – was finally published on October 7, 2009. Again, to learn more about it, Wikipedia is a good start. Here are some words from an article you’ll find there: “During Jung's life, several people saw his Red Book — it was often present in his office — but only a very few individuals who were personally trusted by him had the opportunity to read it. After Jung's death in 1961, his heirs held the book as a private legacy, and refused access to it by scholars or other interested parties.”

Ethically, should we as the general public even be able to see something so deeply intimate? Jung was after all a proud Leo man who valued his academic reputation as a scientist. He did not choose personally to publish this material. As I turn the pages of my own copy of The Red Book, I am torn between appreciative fascination and the voyeuristic feeling of being some kind of Peeping Tom. In any case, the Red Book is now out there.

Get ready for some astrological goosebumps: interestingly and tellingly, upon the initial publication of The Red Book in 2009, Pluto’s position was 0 degrees 50’ of Capricorn – directly opposite the position it occupied when Jung began his personal descent into the unconscious. 

As we astrologers say, you can’t make this stuff up. Pluto takes almost two and a half centuries to circle the Sun. On the very day that, rightly or wrongly, The Red Book became public, where was Pluto? It was exactly – not just to the degree, but to the minute – opposite the position it occupied when the whole secret, private process started.   

It’s completely mind-boggling.

ONE PERSONAL NOTE

In mid-December, I was honored to be invited to offer a seminar for the C. G. Jung Institute in Chicago. A video of the public part of that program will be made available through the Institute. Their website is https://jungchicago.org 

Jung himself had an avid interest in astrology, but my sense of it is that Jungian analysts have tended to keep a cautious distance from that dimension of his work. My invitation to speak to the Institute felt like one more step in astrology’s return to intellectual respectability. I’d be the first to say that we astrologers have dug the hole that we are now climbing out of – but at least we are finally emerging from it.  

I want to thank Daniel Ross and Barbara Wahler of the C.G. Jung Institute for welcoming me as a peer there. It felt really good to be treated as a respected colleague by such a group of deep souls with stratospheric IQs. A particular thank you goes to Boris Matthews – a Jungian analyst himself and a student in the Forrest Center for Evolutionary Astrology. He’s the one who really made it all happen. Finally, my gratitude to analyst-in-training, Whitney Logan. After the public program on Friday afternoon, we spent two deep days working with the chart of a client of hers. Only analysts and other analysts-in-training were present during that part of the weekend. It was a profound experience for me. All I knew about Whitney’s client was her first name, plus the date, time, and place of her birth. Almost incidentally, “astrology proved itself” yet again – but the real excitement for me lay in the perceived synergy between the “seeing” work of the evolutionary astrologer and the “healing” work of authentic, deep Jungian analysis.

To me, it’s a marriage waiting to happen. 

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