I decided not to look at Osama Bin Laden as we never had a confirmed date of birth for him. It was reported that he was born on 10th Mar 1950 but that was never substantiated. However we do have a starting point for Al Qaeda which was Osama’s creation and baby, and is an organisation that exists on in his own image. Al Qaeda was formed on 11th August 1988 after a meeting between the main principles including Bin Laden in Peshawar, Pakistan.
The chart is focused around the Uranus/Saturn and Neptune conjunction of the late 1980’s. Saturn and Uranus sit in faith based Sagittarius and mystical religious Neptune is widely conjunct in conservative Capricorn. This conjunction is opposite Venus in emotional Cancer. The Neptune Venus opposition which promotes the idea of a social ideal, this ideal is based around a revolutionary yet conservative and religious philosophy. The notion of the ideal is squared by a very aggressive Mars in assertive Aries on one side of the opposition and Pluto in transformational controlling Pluto sits powerfully in it’s own sign of Scorpio at the point of a wedge formation on the other side it. To achieve the ideal, Al Qaeda would use force (Mars) and resort to destruction (Pluto) to achieve it’s aims. Jupiter in Gemini encourages the organisation to export and communicate it’s religious philosophies wide and far and square to Mercury the organisation will have many plans on the go at any one time. Here is the idea of franchising out to more specialised groups around the world. The Sun, Moon and Mercury all sit in showy, proud, stubborn Leo. Al Qaeda likes to be in the spotlight, likes to make a show of any action it does. These three planets show a huge amount of arrogance, showing the pride before the fall if you will. As with Seve Ballesteros who I wrote about yesterday, this is a very fiery chart, however if you cut off the oxygen, the fire will soon extinguish. We find Mercury trine to Uranus so technology including the internet would be used to connect to it’s followers. Pluto squares to the Moon and this indicates extreme emotional intensity, even obsessional tendencies and the Moon is trine to aggressive Mars so Al Qaeda will confront any difficulties it has in a no nonsense forthright approach, using direct action.
Put all this together – an organisation hell-bent on a hard-line revolutionary religious ideal, one who wants to be seen and heard and will spread the word with emotional words and actions, and one which would resort to force, death and destruction if necessary.
Last week when the Americans acted to to kill Bin Laden, the Al Qaeda chart was under huge stress. All three corners of the natal t-square were being affected by difficult transits. Mars opposed by authoritarian Saturn putting a stop to the Al Qaeda military command. This was mirrored by the transiting North Node conjunct to natal Saturn, which indicates the loss of an authority figure. Natal Venus was being squared by transiting Uranus, so the financial arm of Al Qaeda was being cut off and most devastating of all natal Neptune was and still is being conjuncted by transiting Pluto affecting. This is the religious ideal and ethos I talked of earlier being either completely destroyed or entirely restructured in a new way, causing confusion, disarray and the end of the dream for many in the group. When Pluto moves round to square natal Mars at the point of the t-square next year, then one has to think that Al Qaeda military command will be crushed completely. Pluto is remorseless and will destroy all in it’s path. Just look how the financial institutions in the world were immediately affected by Pluto as it rolled into Capricorn in October 2008 – that transformation will carry on for the next 20-25 years!! One thing that is certain after Pluto has rolled through there will be a vacuum that will need to be filled. Maybe in time, Neptune in it’s own sign of Pisces will see the rise of a new spiritual leader to replace Bin Laden. One hopes too that this leader will have a gentler more moderate message. Neptune in Pisces is non combative and far more gentle than the Neptune in Capricorn era which gave rise to the financial clout and the hard line conservative views that Osama Bin Laden and his band of mercenaries had. One can only but hope…