Rasputin, USAID, and the Neptune Opposition

The gift of recognizing truth

Layer by layer, the curtains are being drawn back on Oz. The ghost in the machine is slowly being revealed. It’s like being in a darkroom, watching an old-school black-and-white photo being developed.

Ariel and I know what the image is. We see it slowly being revealed. In the same way that words emerge, clue by clue, in a crossword puzzle. Does anyone else see what’s emerging? And if not, is the inability to see it a “can not”, or a “will not” choice?

This defines a Neptune period. And especially so, the opposition.

Living as we do in the PNW - in a mountainous area, no social media exposure, and for the most part (intentionally) isolated from society - allows for a unique perspective on the on-going Kabuki theater that is, well… everything that IS culture. And for sure politics. It’s an advantage of objectivity that not many others have.

Now a Neptune opposition is an intense energy in and of itself. An every 165 year or so occurrence. Add to that the fact that transit Neptune is currently frolicing on his “home turf” of Pisces and we have the incredibly intense polarity swings of “hide” and “reveal” that are playing out. Both internally within our own psyches, and externally as expressed in the collective. I won’t belabor that point here because we’ve already done so in this piece. But here are the high points:

A Neptune opposition marks a period of deep confusion, disillusionment, and the dissolving and questioning of prior certainties. It’s unsettling as hell. And Neptune doesn’t confront directly like Mars or Saturn; he seeps in like water through the cracks, fogs the mirror, and causes the collective (and by extension, you) to question what’s real, what’s sane, what’s projection, and what’s out-and-out lies. And while this unknowing creates a crisis of faith (along with a serious questioning of sanity), it can also set the stage for breakthroughs in spiritual insight, depending on how grounded the person or system is.

Big caveat, that “grounded” part. Because, I don’t know about you, but when I do venture out into society at large, “grounded” sure as hell isn’t what first comes to mind.

And it’s precisely this lack of grounding that, in the midst of the unsettling and delusional fog, sets the stage for the rise of the false prophet. It’s as if the collective’s internal compass has entered a powerful magnetic storm. True north is next to impossible to find and, out of desperation, the collective (including those in power) begin grasping for straws. This is not unlike the environment that allowed for the rise of Grigori Rasputin during the final years of Czarist Russia.

If you’re unfamiliar, Rasputin (1869–1916) was a Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man who gained significant influence in the Russian autocracy of the time, having manipulated the favor of Tsarina Alexandra, the wife of Czar Nicholas II. He was believed to possess magical healing powers, which endeared him to the royal family because of his apparent ability to ease the suffering of their hemophiliac son, Alexei.

Though never officially part of the government, Rasputin became a controversial and polarizing figure due to his growing sway over court politics, spiritual influence, and rumored debauchery. Many in Russia saw him as a symbol of the empire’s escalating corruption and decadence, and he was eventually assassinated in 1916 by nobles hoping (or so the story goes) to “save the monarchy”. A mere two years later, the monarchy fell in the Russian Revolution.

Hmmmm… sound familiar? History might not repeat verbatum, but it always rhymes. And it’s foretold in astrological cycles. If you know how to interpret them.

This is where Ariel and I having a detailed understanding of human psychology - in addition to expertise in true astrology - changes the game. And having mostly extracted ourselves from the game, it makes observing said game then an interesting exercise in complex pattern recognition (astrology), and objective behavioral psychology.

That is to say - and to swing back around full circle to the USAID controversy - we see clearly that the hard-line compulsion the collective feels on either side of this story is a manufactured compulsion. A made-for-control division. Unless you are exceedingly and incredibly aware, you are an unwitting soldier in an ideological war (Uranus in Taurus).

Let’s first define what we’re talking about here.

Manufactured consent: the process by which mass media and political institutions shape public opinion to align with elite interests, often giving the illusion of democratic agreement while actually controlling the narrative. The term was popularized by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman in their critique of media propaganda. And long before that, Edward Bernays had perfected the mechanism.

Now, the fact of the matter is that manufactured consent is easy to pull off under normal circumstances. It was easy as far back as WWI and, with the advent of social media and ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive eavesdropping, even easier now. Add to this the psychological truism that those who refuse to believe they are susceptible to manipulation are in fact the easiest to manipulate, and you have the perfect Neptune opposition (in Pisces, no less) storm of abject confusion and a collective psychology that’s lost-at-sea and looking for any lifeline possible. That is, a collective psychology absolutely primed for manipulation. And, unable - or, because of fear, unwilling - to see behind the veil.

Which sets the stage for Neptune.

Because when Neptune is in the power position he’s currently in, the truth will be exceedingly hard to find. The ease and opportunity of mass psychological manipulation, however, is greatly enhanced. And therein lay the issue. A Neptune transit to itself is like a nested, Russian doll of Rasputin-style, psychological fuckery.

How long has this energy been present? And how long will it last?

In general, I use a much narrower orb (zone of influence) than most astrologers because (and especially so with the outer planets), keeping a wide orb allows for catch-all, just-so story astrology. It’s sloppy and not useful for anything real-world. That said, if we consider an effective opposition orb of +/- 7 degrees, this Neptune opposition has been in play since early 2020. And I would argue it was one of the catalysts for kicking off the COVID hysteria, leading to the “woke” mania and the incredible (manufactured consent) division within the country since. And if you trace this cycle back to when Neptune was last in this same position, we’d find ourselves back in the Civil War era.

Now, if you’re keeping score, it was also during the Civil War era that we had Uranus in Taurus. With, of course, the aforementioned Neptune opposition. And the last time we had Uranus in Taurus (an 84 year cycle) was during WWII, which happened to correspond to a Neptune return. A subject covered in depth, here.

This Neptunian orb of influence will last well into 2027, at which point it will ease up. That much is known and can easily be calculated. What’s not known is what will be left in the wake of his influence?

A divide big enough to kick-off a Civil War you say? Yep, same energy at play from the Neptune and Uranus perspective. There’s that “history rhyming” thing again…

If you study Jungian psychology long enough, you come to understand that there are no coincidences in life; only synchronicities. Nature, astrology and the human psyche - they all operate in repeating cycles upon cycles upon cycles. You can no more separate one from the other than you can sound from silence. You only know the other from the former’s being. And so it goes.

Although we can’t just isolate the motion of one planet (Neptune, in this instance) and attribute his position alone to happenings in the real world, we can certainly get the gist of the matter. The frame and direction, let’s say. But the picture is too vague at this point, the exactitudes are blurred. We have to include the other planets to bring that scene into focus. All of them have a say.

And when I take a poll of those planetary voices and energies, I understand that we - individually and as a collective - are ultimately being asked to identify truth amidst the delusion. Like dowsing for water in an arid land. It’s not easy (few things in “earth school” are), but that’s the ask.

And the only way you can know truth is to first be deceived in the fog of deception. This Neptunian energy is essential. So there IS a point to it all. Because a thing can only be known in contrast to its polarity. That is, there is no light without the contrast of dark. No hot without cold.

The question - the question that pervades every planetary transit, large and small - is what will you make of that energy? The only antidote to this situation is a commitment to truth. It’s also an opportunity for your greatest lesson. An opportunity to gain a super power, in fact.

Because it’s not until you totally extract yourself from the Neptunian fog of deception, the engine of manufactured consent and the victim triangle it operates by, you cannot ever hope to be a free and sovereign soul.

Thank you, Neptune, for the opportunity and the lesson.

Keith