The Role of the Least Aspected Planet in Astrocartography.
Planetary Symbolism in Astrocartography and Transcendental Astrology,
by Rob Couteau.
Pluto = 011
Mars = 110
Neptune = 301
Sun,
Saturn = 311
Jupiter = 312
Mercury,
Uranus = 321
Venus = 332
Moon = 421
Benito Mussolini
Italy’s “Fascist dictator” (Primary Pluto) from 1925 to 1943, Benito Mussolini was born in a Primary Location in Varnano del Costa, near Predappio, Italy, under the influence of Primary Pluto (which sets over southern Italy) and Tertiary Neptune (which sets over northern Italy). The son of a blacksmith, Alessandro Mussolini, and a schoolteacher, Rosa Maltoni, Benito was named after the Mexican “revolutionary” (Primary Pluto) Benito Juarez. His interest in “revolutionary politics” (Pluto) dates back to his early life and was probably influenced by his father’s socialist and antireligious beliefs. His childhood was characterized by an unusual amount of “bullying, aggression, and violence” (Secondary Mars), including a stabbing incident that led to his second expulsion from school. Numerous examples of his overt and “covert / use of violence and murder / to thwart the will of others” (Pluto / Mars / Pluto) are found in his rise and maintenance of political power in Italy.
In 1902, Mussolini traveled to Switzerland but was expelled in 1904 for disseminating “political / propaganda” (Primary Pluto / Tertiary Neptune). In 1909, he edited a socialist journal in Trent (then part of Austria) but was again expelled for acts of “political / agitation” (Primary Pluto / Secondary Mars). While in Trent, his exposure to German irrationalist philosophy buttressed his belief in “revolutionary violence as an essential catalyst to social change” (Pluto / Mars). His association there with the Italian newspaper editor Cesare Battisti strengthened his pronationalist leanings. As we can see in his astrocartography, Mussolini’s Pluto / Mars Transcendental Midpoint-Field frames most of central and eastern Austria.
Upon his return to Forli, Italy, he founded the newspaper La Lotta di Classe (The Class Struggle) in 1911. He also assumed the editorship of Avanti! in Milan (1912-1914), near his Primary Pluto line. In a “provocative” (Pluto-Mars) Avanti! editorial, he wrote that Italy was in need of a “blood bath” (Primary Mars / Secondary Mars). On November 14, 1914, he began publishing his own daily, Il Popolo d’Italia, in which he called for Italy’s entry into the “world war” (Pluto / Mars). He formed Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionaria (Combat Group), a “prowar / propaganda group” (Mars-Pluto / Neptune). As a result of his “rabble-rousing” style (Pluto / Mars) of public speaking, he was arrested in April 1915.
These formative experiences occurred within a Neptune / Pluto Transcendental Midpoint-Field extending from southern- to northern Italy and formed between the lines of Primary Pluto and Tertiary Neptune. Pluto is traditionally associated with “social upheaval and mass movements,” while Neptune rules “belief systems, ideals, illusion, deception, and propaganda.” Besides promoting his own “belief systems,” he hoped to “control the masses” (Primary Pluto) through a “fabrication of illusory hopes and dreams” (Secondary Neptune): specifically, through “propaganda” (Neptune). The expert use of political propaganda by Mussolini’s cohorts during WWII helped not only to control the masses within Italy but also to control and deceive the international press. It was so carefully organized that many historians today continue to unwittingly exaggerate the Fascist’s real ability to “make the trains run on time.” During the war, Mussolini was himself deceived into believing some of the inflated domestic evaluations of Italy’s military strength; many of these evaluations were the result of propaganda “blowback” that originated within the Fascists own ministries. While Neptune rules “illusion-generating propaganda,” the Pluto / Neptune Transcendental pairing yields classic keynotes such as: “social control / through deception and illusion,” “mass manipulation / through propaganda,” and the “domination of mass movements / through the spinning of unrealistic fantasies” (Primary Pluto / Secondary Neptune).
Mussolini was drafted during the First World War as a private. On February 23, 1917, he was “wounded” (Secondary Mars) by a hand grenade “explosion” (Primary Pluto) during a training exercise. After recovering, he again devoted himself to editing the “propagandistic” (Tertiary Neptune) Il Popolo d’Italia and to railing against the pacifist Italian Socialists. On March 23, 1919, he founded Fasci di Combattimento to counter the Bolshevik movement. By 1922, as a result of these efforts, 4,000,000 had joined his cause. On October 28, 1922, Mussolini’s “Fascist” (Pluto) Blackshirts marched on Rome, resulting in a veritable coup d’état. In his astrocartography, Rome is located near Mussolini’s Primary Pluto.
The focal points of Mussolini’s “imperialistic ambitions” (Pluto)–the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and northeast Africa–were located directly under his Pluto / Neptune Transcendental Midpoint-Field. Tertiary Neptune curves above Algeria, Sardinia, Corsica, and over the western Mediterranean; Primary Pluto sets precisely over the Libyan-Tunisian border and continues across the central Mediterranean; Secondary Mars sets over the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt. Obsessed with creating a new Roman Empire, Mussolini referred to the Mediterranean as mare nostrum: “our sea.” In Egypt and in North Africa, he supported anticolonial movements opposing the French and British. In the Balkans (situated between Primary Pluto and Secondary Mars), he backed the revisionist movements in Hungary and Bulgaria, and he supported the Croatian separatists in Yugoslavia. He later incorporated parts of Yugoslavia, and in April 1939 he occupied Albania.
