The Spirits of Neptune in Aries

...a look back & beyond

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

— Voltaire

It was the evening of April 11th, 1861 when it all began. With the early Spring air heavy with humidity in Charleston Harbor, 85 Union soldiers waited in dreadful silence within the unfinished walls of Fort Sumter. Isolated atop the man-made island, surrounded by Confederates, and tragically unprepared for the onslaught in the spirit hours of that night, they refused to surrender, and the war began…

There are probably ten thousand angles to telling the story that began the American Civil War, but I’d like to focus on just a few: a planet, some spirits, and a writer. Let’s start with the spirits.

If you’ve ever been to Charleston—or Savannah—you are well aware of the ghost stories. There are many. I actually went to college in Wilmington, just north of these ports, and the same lingering souls permeate those estuaries as well. As an example, there are numerous accounts from the evening of April 11th of spectral soldiers walking the ramparts, whispering incoherently, and with many of them pointing at the sky. One account from a young and reluctant Union soldier named Ingersoll Lockwood, claims to have been told by one of the espers that they had to surrender, or else millions would die; he also mentioned something about an alignment in the sky with the newly discovered planet nobody could see. That planet was Neptune and had been discovered nearly two decades before in 1846.

What’s interesting about this account is that the planet Neptune was about to ingress into Aries on the 13th. This is when the siege ended and the Union surrendered without any loss of life. What’s also interesting to note is that there were many astrologers at the time—no different than now—who were predicting a terrible war was coming, and it could be avoided. No heed was given to astrologers then, just like now. Some things never change. How could it have been avoided? How could it now? What can Neptune in Aries teach us about this….?

In the mid to late 19th century, Spiritualism and seances were quite commonplace. Famously, Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady, held seances in the White House. I find it interesting because 165 years before then (the last time Neptune was in Aries; 1697–1710), they were living in the aftermath of the Salem Witch trials, and seances were absolutely not happening in the White House. And then we find ourselves here today: no seances in the White House, but there are probably more “witches and wizards” on your feed than there are Puritans or Quakers. I’m simply pointing at a spiral here—a hopeful evolutionary spiral around an openness to the other realms.

Neptune governs imagination. Imagination is how we access other realms. Without it, we are stuck in this one, which is temporary and composed of many tricks with the light and shadows. When we learn that there are worlds within worlds, something fundamentally changes in us, and our souls expand. This is part of the Neptune work. It’s not all of it, but it's an essential ingredient. Anyways, back to that Union soldier, Ingersoll. He went on to become a lawyer and a diplomat for Lincoln, but more importantly, he became obsessed with the spirit world. He also claimed that in all his travels in the spirit world, he was taught many things about the nature of the realms. These ideas culminated in his writing a series of books about a boy named Baron Trump and his wyrd adventures (see them HERE). In the books, Baron ventures through a portal in the Russian Arctic, inspired by a manuscript from the fictional scholar Don Fum, which posits the existence of a "World within a World." He discovers there are various races of beings living there, like the Transparent Folk whose hearts are visible through their skin which creates all sorts of interesting social dynamics between them; there are also the Rattlebrains found there, whose heads aren’t properly fashioned to their bodies, which also reflects their erratic mental behavior and chaos which surrounds them. Now, I share all of this because I find it quite strange that 165 years ago, a scared soldier has an encounter with a ghost which leads him to writing a book nobody seems to be able to wrap their minds around—then and now— yet also could hold secrets for our own time as we adjust to life with Neptune in Aries.

There are many people who comment on these books as proof of time travel—that Baron Trump is a time traveler. Not likely. There are others who say that time isn’t real, and Ingersoll was essentially pulling Ideas from the timeless. Maybe. And then there are those who just think this is all a simulation. More likely. But in this story, I think it’s astrological, thus relating to both time and the realms the planets govern. Remember, Ingersoll’s path begins on the eve of both the Civil War and Neptune moving into Aries. It was the beginning of his spiritual awakening, and then it culminates with him writing his Magnum Opus, The Last President—a book about a populist, underdog President who flips Washington upside down and changes the US forever. Again, these were written in the late 19th century! He was tapped into something not just prophetic but universal. We might as well call it Neptune.

I share all this today as both a warning and as a spark that just may light something up inside you. Neptune is a planet that correlates with the collective mind, creating groupthink, our assumptions about reality, and the unforeseen consequences such subscriptions can have on our lives. Neptune is trying to teach us how to suspend our disbelief just enough so that the Truth can still find its way in. Ingersoll Lockwood never forgot the messages from the spirits on the ramparts at Fort Sumter, which led him to write the most mysterious story of the 19th century. For us, where is it trying to take place? If you find yourself swept up in a movement, this is a sign to consider. Are you team Rattlebrain or part of the Transparent Folk? And most importantly, are you a proud witch or wizard or are you still in hiding? Neptune in Aries gives the world the courage to step forward, not back into hiding. It’s time. But without cool heads fully attached to our bodies, we will surely slip into something akin to the last times. We always have a choice.

The world is much stranger than we can even suppose. Let’s just pray for a peaceful transition, not the escalation we don’t fear enough.

onwards,

~adam

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