Pluto

Pluto is the last of the trans-Saturnian planets.  After considering both Source and Polarization as potential essential meanings for Pluto, I realized that Absolute Purity encompasses both concepts and touches everything Plutonian, albeit counterintuitively in many cases.  This is because the Absolute Purity that Pluto symbolizes is not the passive Purity of the Transcendent Absolute but an active yearning for and working towards that state of Absolute Purity.  The Plutonian force does not reside detached in the Absolute Transcend state; it is Immanent in the Manifest Creation, pervading to every level of consciousness within the Creation.  Thus, while its essence is Absolute Purity, it involves itself with impurity for the purpose of transforming the impure into the Pure. 

This transformative purpose infuses everything Plutonian.  As we shall discuss in more detail below, not everything with which Pluto is associated is obviously and immediately transformative.  This is because, in any transformative process, there must be something to transform—the base material which is in need of purification and transformation—and, therefore, Pluto must be associated with this step in the transformation process, as well.  That noted, Pluto is associated with all things that are deeply transformative.  One of the foremost and archetypal processes of transformation is alchemy.  While alchemy may be on the purer end of the scale of transformative processes, anything occult is inherently transformative, as well, though the direction of transformation may be tainted by ego.  Thus, Pluto is associated with all things occult.

The process of involvement with, or incarnation into, the relativity of the Creation is born of the soul’s deep yearning to return to her Source in the Absolute Oneness of Divine Love.  In this yearning, we can see Pluto’s primal connection to deep and intense emotion, for this soul-yearning is the deepest and most intense of all emotions.  It is so deep and intense that, almost in an act of mercy, for most people the Mind has sheltered the ego-consciousness from awareness of this yearning lest it be totally overwhelmed and crushed by the power of that emotion. 

Only after developing sufficient strength, through earnest spiritual discipline and work, is the personal consciousness allowed to experience that yearning.  That state has been described by mystics as the “pain of separation”—a state that is both intensely painful and intensely blissful, such that once experienced one would not seek to be deprived of it for anything short of Union with the Divine.  In this phenomenon, we see Pluto’s primal connection to the qualities of power and of extremes.  This yearning for the Source, though the consciousness may not even be aware of it, is the most powerful force operating within the Creation.  The dichotomy of extreme pain and extreme bliss that it produces when fully realized is a hallmark of Plutonian extreme polarization.

The Source, Itself, is a repository of all qualities Plutonian.  It is All Power.  It is Absolute and of the utmost intensity.  It is all Knowledge and, thus, the cradle of all insight.  It encompasses and resolves all opposites. It is also Absolute Purity.   

Union with this Source is no easy matter.  If it were, all souls would have shed their material coverings and become reabsorbed into the Source.  Indeed, Union with the Source is the most difficult of all things to achieve.  Because the Plutonian force is about this ultimate achievement, we find Pluto associated with great difficulties and the processes assigned to Pluto to be difficult to bear. 

Perhaps one of the most analogous experience on the material plane to this process of returning to the Source is the experience of birth (which is ruled by Pluto).  Here, too, we find the simultaneous experience of great pain and great joy.  Just as birth brings forth new life onto the Earth-plane, so the Plutonian process of consciousness transformation brings forth new spiritual life as the psyche births into higher planes of consciousness.  The adage “as above, so below” reminds us that experience on the material plane is but a reflection of higher planes of consciousness.  In a sense, the physical process of birth is symbolic (as a materially manifested sign) of the process of spiritual birthing into new and higher realities.

Death is another transition to a different (and we hope always higher) level of consciousness.  Death, with which Pluto is closely associated, can be viewed as another form of birth—a birth out of the material realm into the astral realm.  As with all polarities, birth and death are ultimately two sides of the same phenomenon.  Most souls (unless they have achieved Liberation) revolve in the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.  Thus, birth and death are a cyclical phenomenon and neither birth nor death can be separated from that cycle.  (Of course, for those who have been liberated from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, death becomes a portal for a return to the Source, which is the Plutonian goal).

While the Moon has association with cyclicity, so does Pluto.  Cycles that resonate with the Moon tend to be benign and rhythmic.  The cycles associated with Pluto, on the other hand, tend to be viewed as fated and inescapable, often harsh or difficult.  Although Pluto is conventionally seen as a higher octave of Mars, particularly since Pluto-ruled Scorpio was classically ruled by Mars, many would posit that there is much to recommend Pluto being the higher octave of the Moon.  Both have associations not only with cyclicity, but with emotions, the subconscious, birth, the womb and the Source.

As Stanislas Graf has concluded, birth is generally a traumatic experience and we can easily assume that death is equally traumatic.  Pluto is closely associated with trauma.  The derivation of this association lies in Pluto’s essential meaning for it was the soul’s separation from Absolute Purity that constitutes the psyche’s Primal Trauma.  It is well understood that trauma tends to be repetitive and among evolutionary astrologers and others there is a recognition that trauma repeats over successive lifetimes.  It can be said that all trauma is symbolic of, a reflection of, an echo of and the repetition of the soul’s Primal Trauma.  It is to heal this Primal Trauma to which the Plutonian force is dedicated.

The Plutonian process for bringing about this ultimate healing, the reunion with the Source, is akin to a dialectic process.  It involves, at every level, a polarization of psychic content which has the effect of extracting or purging the negative polarity from the more positive polarity for the purpose of destroying or annihilating the negative psychic content.  The result is a transformation of consciousness and the raising of consciousness to a new and higher level.

This result is not always evident, since the soul has become deeply embedded in the material plane and deeply emmeshed in the twisted fabric of the Mind.  Most of the time, for most people, Plutonian transformation occurs at the micro-level, affecting small but positive changes in the psyche but producing no major break-throughs onto transcendent levels of consciousness.  At times, these transformations may even appear to be a step backwards but in these cases we should assume that the psyche is experiencing a lesson that is necessary in order to move more obviously forward at some future time or in some future life. 

The Plutonian process operates on a time scale that may not be perceptible or understandable to either the person undergoing the process or to those observing the process.  This is particularly true when the Shadow is being embodied, when the psyche is experiencing the negative extreme as the Plutonian force polarizes the psychic content.  For, it is not always the case that the psyche will remain attached to the positive pole and experience the negative polarity as an external object (although this may occur).  The psyche may equally be drawn to the negative content in order to fully experience it and, ultimately, to fully reject and expunge it. 

This process may not be completed during a single lifetime.  Therefore, we see intense negativity manifested within certain individuals and such negativity is part of, and has been associated by astrologers with, the Plutonian process. Such negative manifestations include: brutality, sadism, power-lust, sexual exploitation and violence, other forms of violence, callousness, psychopathic behavior, inhumanity, cruelty, persecution, and evil incarnate.  Negative manifestations may also take the form of the embodiment of the polar opposite of Truth (a facet of Absolute Purity), such as duplicity, lying, deceit with evil intent, secretiveness with evil intent, hidden motives with the intent to deceive, scheming to do harm, false accusation, and untrustworthiness or unfaithfulness.  These are all seen to be manifestations of the negative side of Pluto.

Many times, during the polarization process, the psyche will deny the existence of the negative pole within itself, a condition recognized by Jung as a suppression of the Shadow.  When this occurs, the subconscious will often project the negative polarity onto others.  Sometimes this is a “false” projection, causing a person to imagine non-existent threats and negative behaviors.  At other times, the subconscious, acting through the collective unconscious, manifests the projection by bringing the Shadow-suppressing entity into contact with someone who is embodying the Shadow.  In such cases, the Shadow-suppressing psyche will experience the negative polarity objectively—they may be brutalized or experience any of the other negative phenomena associated with Pluto at the hands of someone who is manifesting the negative Plutonian polarity.

There is a saying that “the Lord works in strange and mysterious ways.”  It may seem inconceivable or irrational that the experience of such intense negativity could lead to any good.  Indeed, the existential necessity of such negativity should never be used as a moral justification for this kind of behavior.  At the same time, realizing the unknowable but inescapable cosmic imperative for such behavior can elicit a degree of compassion for the evil-doer—perhaps another dimension to Jesus’ saying “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

This experience of the projection of the Shadow is also a manifestation of the uncompromisingness of the Plutonian force.  This quality derives from the “absoluteness” of the Plutonian goal.  The Plutonian force, acting within the psyche, will not allow anyone to escape the lesson it must teach or the purification that it must achieve.  If the psyche will not acknowledge its Shadow, will not cooperate with the work of purification through polarization, then the Plutonian force may result to extreme measures to get the work done.  It is from this quality of uncompromising imperative that we may also derive Pluto’s association with ruthlessness, intransigence, and unstoppable determination.

Yet, the psyche cannot always be in state of Plutonian crisis or it would not survive.  Thus, the subconscious allows the psyche to sublimate the Plutonian principle for much of our life experience.  Perhaps the most common path of sublimation is sex.  Sex is associated with Pluto through a number of vectors.  There is the connection with intense emotionality.  There is the complex relationship between sexuality and power.  Sex can feel empowering and can be accompanied by feelings of power.  Sex can also be used (or misused) as a tool of power and control, which are associated with Pluto. 

Sex can also be seen as a quintessential polarity—the archetypal division into male and female.  Sex is a mechanism through which this duality obtains or approaches unity.  In fact, the physical act of sex can be seen as symbolic of the primal merging of Duality into Unity and, thus, Return to the Source.  This would appear to be the genesis of tantric or sacred sex, the disciplined (and even ritualized) use of sex to obtain higher states of consciousness, ecstasy and experiences of unity on a non-physical level.  That said, for most humans, sexuality is a “safe” outlet for powerful psychic forces that would be difficult to control and even terrifying if confronted in their raw form. 

Sex is also Nature’s agency for the perpetuation of the cycle of life and death and rebirth.  Sex is the physical mechanism through which souls are incarnated again into a physical body and the natural outcome of sex is birth (whose connection to Pluto has been discussed above).  The sex instinct, as the instrument of the will of the species to survive, has been viewed as the most primal of psychic drives—a force of immense psychic power.  Freud and other psychoanalysts have even posited that the sex drive, located in the id, is the motivating force behind all human behavior.  On a cosmic scale, sex can be viewed as the manifest symbol of the Plutonian process of polarization and union that results in a transformed re-polarization.  We begin with the female-male polarity brought into physical unity, which produces a mother-child polarity through which the child develops to eventually become a unit of another male-female polarity.

This is a process that is structurally similar but different from the Plutonian process of polarization, purification and transformation for, while the latter carries a decidedly transcending intention and direction, the former seems to posses no such (obvious) trajectory.  The path is cyclical and repetitive, essentially self-reproductive of an on-going pattern.  We can, of course, introduce the idea of natural selection, which allows an evolutionary intention and brings us back to the idea of Plutonian purification (the negative traits are purged after being polarized and eliminated from the gene pool). 

Whether evolutionary or self-replicative, the reproductive cycle made possible by sexuality is driven by and perpetuates the primal Life Force.  Therefore, we identify that primal Life Force as Plutonian.  If we see this primal Life Force as the seedbed for all other primal forces and psychic imperatives, then we must identify all such forces as Plutonian in nature.  Implied in such primal force is immense Power. 

Freud recognized the potentially destructive nature of such Power on the ego, which would be unable to withstand being fully exposed to such a violent and uncontrollable force.  He posited the super-ego and the consciousness’ separation from the subconscious or unconscious as modulating this immense Power and protecting the ego from being ripped apart by it.  Thus, control of power is made necessary by uncontrolled Power and both are Plutonian in nature.

Control of power occurs both internally and externally and, with both, there is a juxtaposition with Saturnian energy.  Internally, control of power expresses as self-control.  The power of the id is held in check by the Saturnian boundaries and limits imposed by the super-ego.  The act of control, however, the control over emotions, the control over one’s actions particularly with respect to others, should be viewed as essentially Plutonian.  It is a sublimation of the raw and essential Plutonian force.

That sublimation is perhaps more evident in the external expression of Plutonian control.  Externally, control is manifested through the exertion of power.  The human psyche generally strives to have control in two spheres—control over our environment and control over others.  Essentially, all forms of control serve the dual need for harnessing and expressing power. 

By exerting control, the psyche is attempting to harness power, to bring it under control.  From one point of view, the external world is experienced by the psyche as a field of power.  The Western mind at least seems continually faced with an underlying choice between being overpowered by the external or bringing the external under control by exercising our own power. 

With respect to our environment, we try to bring our world under our control through a variety of mechanisms and by employing a variety of psychic functions (symbolized by the astrological planets).  We categorize and name (Mercury); we distinguish between the safe/pleasant and dangerous/unpleasant (Venus); we act to bend the world to our desires (Mars); we seek constructs to tame chaos into system (Jupiter); we create laws and organizations by which we try to manipulate the world around us and create safe spaces that we can control (Saturn).  Behind all this, however, is the drive to bring under our control that elemental Power that we see projected throughout our environment.

The second sphere in which we strive to exercise power is to hold power over others.  This, too, is an attempt to bring our world under our control by objectifying others and seeing them as instruments through which we achieve our own ego-security.  We can also project Plutonian qualities onto others and, therefore, see them as embodying and acting on Plutonian motives.  This will usually occur when we do not understand the Plutonian force working within us or when we reject that force.  If we are rejecting the imperative that the Plutonian force is demanding of us, then we are likely to vilify that force and to see it as an enemy.  Indeed, it is the enemy of the ego for it ultimately seeks the ego’s destruction.  Similarly, if we do not understand the Plutonian force, we are likely to assign to it qualities that are based upon fear.  In both cases, the Plutonian force is symbolized by the darker, negative qualities associated with Pluto.

If we associate Pluto with its negative manifestations and we are projecting the Plutonian Shadow onto others, then we will tend to see others as (at least potentially) acting against our best interests.  We may see others as entities from which we need to be protected.  We may assign sinister motives to others.  Adopting the adage, “the best defense is a good offense,” we may seek to gain the upper hand over our “adversaries” by exercising power over them to bring them under our control and remove the assumed threat. 

Another motivation for seeking power is to feel empowered.  This is a displacement of the Plutonian urge to merge with the Source of All Power.  The Source (or the One) has many attributes and Power or omnipotence is one of them.  This attribute is a logical consequence of the radical monotheism that we may assign to the Source.  For, if the Source is All, then everything that is manifest arises from the Source.  (John 1:1 says this as “In the beginning was the Word…all things were made by the Word and without the Word was not anything made that was made.”)  The act of creation, or manifestation, implies the power to create.  Thus, everything that is manifest is through the Power of the Source.  When the soul merges into that Source, the intensity of that Power and Awe crushes and annihilates any last vestige of the ego.  The True Self then experiences that Power as its own.

The ego, however, does not wish to be crushed and annihilated, yet it wants to experience the intoxication of Power.  The ego, then, settles for whatever power it can experience in the material world, where its illusory identity is preserved.  It gravitates toward power because it yearns for, but can never have, the True Power that only comes with the ego’s annihilation. 

The Will to Power can be viewed as a universal human phenomenon, even among those who lack worldly power.  Power can be an addictive intoxicant.  As the saying goes, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  As power is accumulated, it tends to become an end in itself.  However, for most people, the accumulation of power is extremely limited (for otherwise there would be chaos and extreme disorder). 

It is often the case that a person is satisfied with the limited power they are allowed to exercise in accordance with their role in society.  This may be power over employees or subordinates or power over one’s young children.  Many times, this exercise of power is benign, particularly when it is controlled by the super-ego.

However, to the extent that a person may feel powerless, there often arises a need to exercise power in whatever way is available.  When the Will to Power becomes an unfulfilled need, it seems that it is easily expressed in its negative form as dominance.  We see this expressed in domestic violence, in overly dominating parental authority, in bullying, in scapegoating, in racist/sexist/xenophobic and other forms of otherist and bigoted behavior, and (too often) in policing and related occupations.  In fact, a major cause of societal dysfunction is the propensity of those who feel deprived of power to seek positions where they may freely exercise power under conditions that provide limited consequence for the abuse of power.  It is the connection between policing and power that connects the police with Pluto.

Another manifestation of the urge for power and control is obsession.  Obsession can be viewed as an intense desire or need for control that is abnormally focused on a specific object.  One theory to explain this is that the object becomes a talisman for the inner need to be in power and in control.  It becomes the psyche’s mechanism for symbolically or magically gaining control over the undisciplined Plutonian power, or id.  Through the obsession, the psyche fulfills its need to be in control and to protect itself from the seemingly destructive force of elemental Plutonian power.

Obsession can also be viewed as a displacement of the Plutonian drive toward Absolute Purity.  Absolute Purity is supremely attractive.  If it were unencumbered, the psyche would gravitate to union with Absolute Purity as a needle points to a magnet once a weight is lifted off of the needle.  Thus, the natural tendency of the psyche is to focus all of its attention on Absolute Purity. 

This tendency to focus can be seen as a basic Plutonian quality.  Although its pure intention is toward Absolute Purity, the psyche is generally held back from this intention by its attachments in the material world.  It can also be said that the psyche is not ready to fully direct its attention to the Absolute Purity or is not yet pure enough to withstand having its attention fully engaged with Absolute Purity.  Thus, focus is directed elsewhere in our ordinary daily existence.

To focus, however, is a Plutonian activity.  With focus comes intensity and, so, Pluto is also associated with intensity or being intense.  This intensity or focus can be applied to a variety of situations.  Whatever our attention is directed toward with Plutonian focus becomes intense or causes us to express our intensity. 

Intensity is also generated due to the power of the Source within us.  Since few of us have direct contact with the Source, that power is modulated.  However, its intensity tends to be expressed emotionally, since emotion is the closest human phenomenon that is activated by the Power of the Source.  Thus, we have a connection to Pluto’s association with intense emotions of all kinds.

One of those intense emotions is jealousy.  While jealousy tends to have a negative effect when manifested in the world of material relationships, this emotion also has a strong association with Absolute Purity.  We are reminded of the phrase in the Old Testament, “I am a jealous God.”  This type of jealousy derives from the demand of Absolute Purity for uncompromising attention.  It is borne of the need for absolute focus on the Source. 

A core construct that pervades my analyses is the idea of successive Emanation, that each level of consciousness, or level of reality, is a reflection of the one above it.  Through this mechanism, everything can be traced back to the central Essence and that central Essence finds expression at successive levels of reality.  Thus, all truth at this level of reality is a reflection of Absolute Purity, which is also Absolute Truth.  Since Absolute Purity is the core essential meaning for Pluto, Truth (which is a manifestation of Purity) and everything associated with truth is Plutonian.  This includes humanity’s urge to seek truth, imperatives to be truthful, unvarnished truth and its impacts, and the uncovering of the truth (closely aligned also with Neptunian unveiling and Uranian revelation). 

Because Pluto is associated with polarity, that planet’s association with truth also entails its association with truth’s opposite—falsehood.   We can distinguish Plutonian falsehood from its Neptunian counterpart by conceiving that Plutonian falsehood is blatant rather than illusory.  Its intent is to gain advantage or to lead in evil direction, rather than simple deception.  Its connection with secrecy is in order for the truth not to be discovered so that falsehood can prevail. 

However, secrecy is not always sinister.  Secrecy may be employed to protect the truth.  The secrecy of privacy, or aloneness, is also an aid to contacting the Truth within.  For, Absolute Purity or Truth lies nowhere outside, but deep within the psyche.  In fact, we can conceive that Absolute Purity lies at the very center of the psyche.  Similar to Neptunian withdrawal, the Plutonian energy in seeking union with the Source seeks aloneness and secret privacy.  This quality then manifests in ordinary life as secrets and secrecy, introversion, and a desire for solitude.  Because such qualities are ultimately associated with contact with the Source, those practices can also lead to transformative regeneration—another Plutonian quality.

Regeneration also has associations with the cycle of death and rebirth.  We see in the cycle of Nature, the phenomenon that life springs from death.  Dead matter decomposes (a Plutonian phenomenon) and feeds the renewal of life.  Through the revolution of the seasons, life (spring and summer) inexorably follows decay and death (fall and winter).  In Greek mythology, Pluto/Hades is connected with renewal and rebirth through the story of Persephone and Demeter.  This cycle of renewal also resonates with the basic Plutonian process of evolution and transformation discussed above and in more detail, below.

Hades is known primarily as the god of the underworld.  The god, Pluto’s, rulership of the underworld is symbolic of a more essential connection of Pluto to the underworld.  We, of course, have the connection of Pluto’s association with death, discussed above, and death’s historic and cultural association with the underworld and, thus, with all things chthonic.  The deeper connection is found when we, once again, consider the profound resistance to the Plutonian imperative that the ego feels.  A common response to the Plutonian imperative is to suppress this force.  This means banishing it out of consciousness and into the subconscious.

We can discuss two dimensions to this banishment.  One is with respect to scope.  Not only is the Plutonian force itself suppressed but, lest the consciousness be reminded of that force and the ultimate destruction of the ego that it seeks, anything that can be associated with the Plutonian force also becomes a candidate for banishment and suppression.  This, I believe, is at the root of the suppression of sexuality, which occurs in various forms in a large number of cultures and across historical periods.  Other Plutonian associations that have been suppressed culturally include death, bodily fluids and excrements, and even birth (banished to the hospital and anesthesia during the mid-20^th century).  We can generalize this to Pluto’s rulership of all taboos, both formal and informal.

At the same time, we can recognize the societal necessity for taboo as essentially Plutonian.  From a sociological perspective, taboos are put in place by societies in order to control human impulses which, if left unchecked, would result in disorder and dysfunction.  Sexual taboos, for instance, are designed to prevent overpopulation resulting from unbridled sex.  Taboos associated with defecation or with other considerations of bodily purification have a sanitary purpose, as do certain taboos surrounding death and dead bodies.  These taboos are a social expression of the Plutonian will to control that is the counterpart to the need to confront the powerful Plutonian forces arising from the subconscious and the id.

A second dimension to the banishment of the Plutonian force to the subconscious is what goes on within the subconscious as a result of this banishment.  (Banishment and ostracization itself can be viewed as Plutonian, as well as their cousin, scapegoating.)  Banishment to the subconscious, while removing the Plutonian force from our consciousness, does not end the actions of that force.  Rather, the Plutonian force continues to be active in the subconscious.  Ironically, in the subconscious, this force is even less controllable for there are no taboos, no super-ego controls operating within the subconscious.  Thus, within the subconscious, its power can grow.

However, within the subconscious this power is allowed to grow irrationally, for it lies beyond the power of the rational consciousness.  One manifestation of this irrationality is that the Plutonian power is undirected by rational consciousness and, thus, is liable to pursue goals that are self-referenced rather than evolutionary or rationally purposeful.  Results may include: the development of intense, elemental emotions such as lust, anger and greed which grow unchecked; destructive and/or self-destructive impulses and complexes; intense obsessions and fixations and other mind games that can break into and take over the conscious psyche.  All of these phenomenon are Plutonian in nature.

Since the banished Plutonian force is not being controlled by the conscious mind, it may build within the subconscious until its power becomes too strong to contain.  Then, the subconsciously transformed Plutonian force can break through or erupt into the conscious sphere, presenting as outbursts of anger or other uncontrollable emotion.  This eruption from below is synchronistically symbolized by volcanic eruption and, thus, Pluto rules volcanoes and geysers.

As the Plutonian force develops within the subconscious, this force is apt to differentiate and fragment into subforces that take on particular psychological roles.  Particularly when these forces are developing and manifesting in negative ways (as viewed from the conscious mind), they can take on an archetypal dimension and appear to the conscious mind as demons and other mythological subterranean creatures.  These devils, goblins, gremlins, trolls and monsters are very frequently consigned to the underworld in folklore and myth, living underground or within mountains and in caves.  All of these creatures can be viewed as inhabiting the distorted Plutonian world of the subconscious. 

Pluto’s association with the subconscious and the underworld brings forth another round of Plutonian associations.  In symbolic terms, the spatial elements of the earth plane can be viewed as levels of consciousness.  The Earth’s surface is symbolic of our conscious existence.  The sky is symbolic of the mental and/or spiritual realms.  Under the ground is symbolic of our subconscious. 

If the Plutonian force is frequently banished into the subconscious, then symbolically what we find under the ground should be viewed as Plutonian.  Like the elements living within our subconscious mind, what is underground is hidden (a Plutonian quality) until it erupts or is extracted.  Extracting content from the subconscious in order to bring it into the light of our conscious mind and process that content, thus transforming it, is a Plutonian process.  Correspondingly, extracting elements from under the ground and bringing them to the Earth’s surface is also a Plutonian process.  Thus, Pluto rules mining and drilling.

Pluto also rules what is extracted from underground (the symbolic subconscious).  These include precious metals; coal, oil and gas; and gems.  These are all sources of wealth and wealth brings power not only in our own society but almost universally over time and space.  We loop back, consequently, to Pluto’s association with power and we can couple that with great wealth.  Pluto is, therefore, associated with riches.

In fact, the word describing the rule (exercise of power) by the wealthy is Plutocracy.  While Jupiter is rightly associated with affluence (the production of well-being resulting from wealth and prosperity). Pluto should be associated with great wealth or wealth intensified.  Pluto, therefore, rules the concentration of wealth and oligarchs and oligarchy.  In economics, Pluto would also rule oligopoly and monopoly, and massive multi-national corporations which wield great power outside of the normal (Saturnian) structures of governance. 

We will now return to a discussion of Pluto’s primary purpose and the psychic means employed to achieve that purpose.  As discussed above, that mechanism involves a polarization of psychic content so that a psychic spectrum is separated into its positive and negative poles.  This allows the negative content to be identified and then purged or destroyed.  The psyche is, thus, purified of a certain degree of negativity and this purification is generally accompanied by a transformation of the psyche so that it enters a new level of consciousness.  This represents the psyche’s drive toward Absolute Purity.  Also as noted above, this process occurs over a broad continuum of scales from an almost imperceptible micro-level to processes that affect major life changes (or even cosmic changes). 

The very structure of this dynamic yields a variety of astrological associations with the planet, Pluto.  One is the association of Pluto with all forms of polarity and polarization.  Of course, Duality pervades the manifest world and practically all of the astrological planets share in exemplifying some form of duality.  The Moon and Venus are probably the planets (other than Pluto) most closely associated with Duality.  We also have the inherent Jupiter-Saturn duality. 

We may distinguish Pluto’s association with Duality by calling it an “active” Duality or Duality in search of resolution.  Although Duality always implies a relationship and, therefore, a dynamic, this dynamic can be conceptualized as relatively static or passive with respect to the other astrological planets.  For the Moon, Venus, etc., Duality exists in a kind of equilibrium or co-existence.  With the Plutonian force, however, the tension between the polar opposites is brought to a heightened state.  The purpose of this heightened state is to affect some sort of resolution of the Duality.

That resolution can seem to take at least two forms.  The first is a resolution of the problem of Duality through the selection of one of its poles (presumably, but not always, its positive pole).  This is the classic Plutonian dynamic described above.  This, however, must be viewed as only a temporary resolution.  It is temporary in two respects.  First, while negative psychic content may have been purged or destroyed, the idea of the negative polarity has not and it continues to exist in the abstract.  If the psyche were to descend to a lower level of consciousness, that negative polarity can reconstitute within the psyche.  (With respect to selection of the more negative pole, this seeming step backward should be viewed as the psyche’s need to further digest and process the negative content before eventually rejecting and rising above it.)

Secondly, it is temporary because the process of purification is not complete until union with Absolute Purity, the Source, is achieved.  Thus, while a certain amount or level of negative content has been purged or destroyed, the psyche still retains content that is negative relative to more positive content existing within the psyche.  Therefore, the process of polarization must begin again and repeat itself unendingly until the Final Goal is attained.  We see again, a manifestation of Blake’s myth of Los and Urizen or of the Hegelian concept of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis in the astrological symbolic realm. 

This resolution of the problem of Duality also resonates to the archetype of the battle between Good and Evil.  In fact, all dualistic myths and representations are Plutonian in nature.  This includes the duality of Heaven and Hell, which is another connection to Pluto’s association with death and with eschatology.  With regard to the battling of opposites, while Mars generally is associated with war and with battles, I would propose that war and battles of epic proportion, in which Good and Evil are mythically or symbolically arrayed, are Plutonian (e.g. the second World War). 

A second type of resolution incorporates the Neptunian process of Dissolution into the Plutonian process of Polarization.  Here, the opposites are recognized as being such only at a certain level of consciousness.  At a higher level of consciousness, they are seen to be but two manifestations of the same process or phenomenon.  When viewed from a higher perspective, the Duality is resolved into a unity.  This is symbolized by the Tao icon in which the black dot is contained within the white field and vice versa, both fields comprising the unity of the Tao.  It is as if, once the consciousness is raised sufficiently, the apparent duality dissolves away and is transcended.  This type of resolution, too, is a process, for until Absolute Purity is reached, each entity automatically brings forth its opposite, which must then be resolved at a still higher level of consciousness.

A hybrid or third type of resolution can also be viewed as Plutonian.  This is the case where both poles are destroyed creating a transformative state or event.  This occurs during a fission-based nuclear explosion.  There, the atom is essentially polarized causing both poles to be “destroyed” through their transformation into energy.  Thus, nuclear power in all its forms is ruled by Pluto. 

Still another version of this process is rising from the ashes of destruction.  This is the classic Phoenix myth and the phoenix is the most elevated of the glyphs associated with Pluto-ruled Scorpio. The rising-from-the-ashes trope also resonates with Pluto’s association with regeneration (discussed above).  Still another quality associated with this process is that of “overcoming” in the sense of rising above an inferior state.  Thus, Pluto can be associated with all forms of transformation into a more powerful, more pure, and more whole entity.  One symbolic representation of this process is the superman idea—both as expressed by Nietzsche and in the DC character.

Returning to the more “traditional” model of Plutonian dynamic, the next phase of that dynamic entails the purging or destruction of the negative polarity.  Thus, we have Pluto associated with all forms of destruction, as well as with purging and expurgation.  Through the latter comes Pluto’s association with excrement and, because of the societal associations with excrement, with all things sordid and unclean. 

Through Pluto’s association with destruction, we return to this planet’s association with trauma.  Destruction is traumatic when we are attached to whatever is being destroyed.  The reality of human experience is that the ego will hold on to an attachment—particularly to something with which it has identified—as long as possible which very often means that the ego is still very much attached to that entity of phenomenon which is being destroyed through the Plutonian process.  This brings to mind that the Plutonian process is most often not one that is voluntarily undergone or consciously sought.  Yet it is integral to the human psyche and, therefore, occurs at one level of manifestation or another, regardless of whether it is sought or it is welcomed.  The ego’s resistance to the Plutonian imperative is the primary factor in that planet’s generally being considered to be a malefic.

Destruction generally is accompanied by violence and this is another association that Pluto has.  Violence is another cause of trauma.  Violence can also accompany other phenomena with which Pluto is associated, particularly sexuality and power.  When this occurs, the traumatic effects of violence may be amplified further.

Destruction can also be seen as forced detachment.  As noted above, trauma may occur when we are attached to what is destroyed.  Then, what we were attached to no longer exists.  If we remain attached to that non-existent object, we will be plunged into grief, sorrow and suffering.  At a minimum, we will generally find the experience of being forcibly detached to be difficult. 

Yet, such detachment is part of the essential Plutonian goal.  In order to approach Absolute Purity, all falsehood and impurity must be jettisoned.  This means that we must be detached from all of the illusions to which we are attached.  The Uranian and Neptunian forces will attempt to detach us from those illusions—which ultimately constitute everything in our material world.  Uranus will attempt this through change, through separation or through revelation of their illusoriness.  Neptune will attempt this by dissolving our attachments and allowing us to rise above them.  If neither of those approaches is sufficient, then the Plutonian force must destroy the objects to which we are attached.

Again, we come to death, the ultimate detachment.  Destruction can be conceptualized as the death of material forms.  We may undergo detachment through other means, as well.  The Plutonian force will act to detach us from whatever has become negative, whatever has become outmoded and no longer needed, whatever is holding us back from progress toward Absolute Purity.

To paraphrase a 19^th century Indian mystic (by substituting “Absolute Purity” for “Sat Guru”), "The disciple should cease to look to anything else except the Absolute Purity  and should put their reliance entirely in Absolute Purity.  If the disciple fails to do this, Absolute Purity will Itself take hold of him; but this would be rather hard on the disciple."  This pretty much sums up the Plutonian imperative.  The psyche may either cooperate with this imperative or resist it.  It the psyche cooperates and engages in the spiritual work, the path may be long and difficult but the result will be fulfilling.  The result will be a gradual achievement of Wholeness and Reintegration into Absolute Purity.  This is a goal that may not be accomplished in one lifetime but it is the Goal for which humanity was created.

If, on the other hand, the psyche resists the Plutonian imperative, the result will be that this process will be experienced at its negative polarity.  The psyche will be forcibly detached from those attachments that no longer serve a useful or positive purpose.  There may be experience of violence and destruction.  A person may experience the abuse of power or be consumed by a lust for power.  Dysfunctional sexuality or obsession may be experienced.  Or, this may be a lifetime in which the Plutonian imperative is not manifesting strongly.  It may be a lifetime of relative rest and recovery.  One may experience the Plutonian force as a benign distraction, a seeming normal part of ordinary life.

Nevertheless, no matter what stage a soul may be at in this lifetime, the Plutonian imperative remains active to some extent within the psyche.  For Pluto represents the deepest and highest purpose of human life, reunion with Absolute Purity.

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