100 years since the unique Great Cancer Conjunction

Although I’m one full week late to put it down, this month is 100 years since the “Great Cancer Conjunction” which featured seven planets in Cancer – all except Mars in Gemini, Saturn in Pisces and Uranus in Aquarius. The state of six planets (not necessarily the Moon) in ♋ occurred from 11 to 19 July, when Neptune left ♋, apart form a brief retrograde from 20 March to 1 May 1916, until 4 July 2065.

United States chart for 1915 “Great Cancer Conjunction” at midpoint of seven planets in ♋

It is a unique conjunction for the following reasons:

1. it is the only case between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries of seven planets in a single water sign
2. the conjunction includes both Neptune and dwarf planet Pluto in the sign of the conjunction
3. it is the last occurrence of simultaneous empty fire and empty earth until 26 February 2053

This empty fire and empty earth combination, as it will, allows the naturally conflicting air and water signs to conflict much more strongly than otherwise, especially with the quincunxed planets in Aquarius that at times formed the rare phenomenon of inconjunct stellia during 1914 when Jupiter was in Aquarius.

The traditional ideal of mercy and equality before natural law of the feeling-oriented water signs has consistently conflicted with the ideals of justice and radical equality of result inherent in the psychological type of the air signs. Throughout the Enriched World, this conflict is symbolic of the class conflict played out over the past century and a half – the air signs feel the water signs are unfair, the water signs feel the air signs are uncaring and concerned with only worldly gain.

In the United States chart shown above, Aquarius rising with Uranus and the North Node, and Midheaven in Scorpio, symbolises the “culture wars” at its clearest. Eastern Canada also had ♒ rising, and produced an even deeper philosophical conflict brought to breaking point by the “Green Revolution”and changes in employment suggested by an even fuller sixth house than in the US chart:

Australia, with the conjunction on the Midheaven, becomes the globe’s effective power (contrast with the 1899 Sagittarius conjunction) as its minerals gain a control over not only economy, but also the very climate and ecology of the planet as huge amounts of fossil energy are used to break extremely tight bonds between oxygen and Australia’s superabundant lithophile metals:

Western Australia, with ♌ rising, is much more notable still in its status as a rising power. Vastly too old and infertile for civilised settlement before the discovery of chalcophile fertilisers and lithophile smelting, its extreme flatness and unlimited land supply has turned it, along with its vast resources of unexploited aluminum and titanium ores, into the world’s future superpower. (So much so that I always take charts for future astrological events from Perth). ♌ rising is symbolic of power and autonomy, which Western Australia with its large comparative advantage in agriculture and minerals most definitely has. The Sun in the eleventh house is symbolic of Western Australia as the critical link in the new economy after titanium and zirconium metallurgy was developed in the 1920s.

The Arab Gulf States, with the conjunction on the Ascendant, are rising from poor and completely isolated to become major powers due to their natural resources. With Mercury on the Ascendant, their rulers use this power to spread ideologies that are extremely antiquated (♋) from the perspective of the Enriched World’s native urban populace.

East Asia, with the conjunction in the tenth house, becomes the “mother of business” as it provides (more and more advanced) consumer goods for the rest of the world. ♍ rising in this chart for South Korea symbolises the role of perfection and efficiency in this quest to produce goods for the world, and eastern China would have had ♍ rising over its whole area:

Europe had Gemini rising for the most part with Uranus on the Midheaven (in high latitudes like Scandinavia Cancer would have been rising but Aquarius still on the Midheaven), and this Uranus conjunct Midheaven symbolises the degree of social experimentation governments have found necessary to deal with mass class struggle resulting (in part) from record levels of income inequality during World War I:

Africa, with Taurus rising for the most part, becomes devoted to agriculture as its largely illiterate and poor population and abundant flat land specialised in the least skilled field available. It consequently failed to advance in less practical fields, especially with the conjunction in the second house of Taurus itself.