Dawkins has long been a vocal opponent of astrology. Though it’s not an issue in his latest bestseller he does mention astrology making little distinction between it and religion dismissing it as a system of fatalism and superstition that shouldn’t, unlike the basics of religious history, even be taught. Dawkins is also to engage a TV programme in UK critical of the science he believes is no science. Ironically, however, astrology which isn’t a simple fatalism, does describe Dawkins, his situation and attitudes rather well - or as well as one could hope when lacking exact birth time.
Given an exact birth time the ninth house (religion and philosophy) of atheists is an often interesting and revealing zone and, as Howard Sasportas has written, restrictive Saturn is often found there or the strong hand of Pluto. However, even without being able to know if this applies there are still things to see for Dawkins.
I have stressed Dawkins represents a degree of deception whether about science or God and though it’s not the main feature of his natal pattern interestingly supportive of my Pied Piper image we find his communicating, writing linked Mercury in close favourable aspect to the Lie asteroid. It’s the sort of aspect one finds in the phenomenon that is Dan Brown which arguably The God Delusion and Dawkins represents at another level. In fact, looked at through the lens of mundane (i.e. social and political) rather than personal astrology, the current neo-atheism that Dawkins vocally represents corresponds to two major slow and repeated transits affecting us in '07
1) the slow back and forth of Pluto across the Galactic Centre which was and is still guaranteed to present major trends in religion and the God image - in this case against both
2) 2007’s oppositions of Saturn to Neptune which are classic for both doubt and delusion. However, to pursue the personal….
THE DELUSION PATTERN
In a Net discussion I was recently involved in about Dawkins’ data one of the technical points that came up was whether this scientist’s natal sun should be called unaspected or subject to a very wide opposition to Neptune. Personally I suspect the latter because there is in him some of the “mysticism”, not to say confusion, that can accompany just such an opposition. Still, the more vital point is that, whether aspected or not, Dawkins’ natal sun suffers a weakness which, because the sun is so central to the will, to life direction, to father issues and the God archetype in those Jungian terms that Dawkins would totally reject,some species of Father/God problem is implied.
Frequently with atheists one finds Shelley or Nietzsche style father problems with the offspring opposed to a parent’s strength or else weakness and absence. In the latter case the atheism is almost a punishment or challenge to the parent’s weakness. It's a case of: “notice me or I curse and dismiss you and if you punish me at least you’ll have noticed me”. Anyway, from his birth chart we could suppose Dawkins father was either too domineering or just mild, insufficiently present and authority giving for what the basically very strong Aries personality type would deeply want. It’s more likely this latter.
While the family truths may never be revealed the known character of Dawkins is unavoidable. Similarly to Pope Benedict with whom I was immediately ready to compare Dawkins’ contradictory character, Dawkins is an Aries with the aggression of Aries modified by a softer, more poetic, musical, sentimental Neptunian and Piscean input that retreats from its own aggression. He wants to be kind and fair – somewhat. Nevertheless, fighting, blunderbuss Aries is his sign and it’s notable just how much this fiery sign, when not beating drums for God like founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, is opposing him like America’s campaigning atheist, Marilyn O’Hare, Dawkins’ current British ideological companion in arms, Chris Hitchens,(god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything ) or again French romantic anti-God poets, Baudelaire and de Vigny, the letter wanting, though not managing, to burn down a church (fire sign theme).
Though his sun is fiery and encourages a crusader spirit Dawkins’ materialism is favoured by Jupiter (philosophy and religion) in earthy Taurus conjunct Saturn (doubt, skepticism, devil) in the same sign. Materialistic thinkers like Hume or Marx are regularly found to be strong in earth signs in this way.
The “come out” and deliberate conscious raising of The God Delusion has connections with a Mars in easy trine formation to Uranus and then in trine to Neptune (i.e. it makes what's called grand trine). The Mars/Uranus is an aspect that in some charts would contribute to make a good, in-your-face, gay pride sort of gay. The fighting Mars is in fact particularly strong being “exalted” in cardinal (i.e. action generating) Capricorn and in the last degree of same, a degree in Capricorn associated with political campaigns and campaigners. Last degrees are what are called “anaretic” meaning they can never quite have enough of anything so there is a danger here of the fanatical. Capricorn, given its Saturnian vibration, is conservative if it has religion and very skeptical and cynical if it doesn’t; or it may even take a satanistic line, the goat of Capricorn becoming a sort of Goat of Mendes. While this option would seem to be at its most extreme in the case of Capricorn rock star Marilyn Manson, the trace of Capricorn Mars in Dawkins is found in the concept of his book The Devil’s Chaplain as a form of self image.
While we don’t find the super obvious symbolism of a Nietzsche whose “Death of God” philosophy was tied in with both the early death of his father and a natal Sun opposite Pluto, Dawkins' all-important attitude to God does have its signature. His ideological position has something to do with the opposition of Pluto, the God planet (or God in the Old Testament imagery Dawkins takes such exception to) in opposition to asteroid, Bhagwat, this God asteroid (its Hindu name the highest name of a personal god) conjunct Chiron, the wounded healer planetoid with its implication for the wound. This signature is in notable contrast to the exact Pluto/Bhagwat conjunction which I maintain is found in the data for Christ. Whatever, some kind of obscure wound appears to attach to the whole God idea for Dawkins and he certainly objects to the notion of any personal or creator God though “theistically”, and like Shelley, he could allow for something like a pantheism or "spirit of nature".He maintains that quite a few "atheists" in fact share that position.
Though the chart is basically a fairly easy, fortunate one – necessarily so for Dawkins to have got so far and been feted for much of his life and also to have avoided the anguish that often sends people to religion – there is a strong illusion/delusion factor. One notes an opposition of Neptune to Venus which could engage a degree of deception in the areas whether of women (and there have been divorces) or spirituality and ultimate truths and this is backed up by a wide opposition of Sun, the core being, to Neptune. Perhaps too an opposition of moon, (the emotions) to Neptune depending upon the unknown birth time.
Even without the greater information and authority of a timed birth chart the skies of Dawkins’s birth which he believes convey no messages, have in fact caught him like a camera.
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