Author’s note: This article refers to 27 degrees Pisces (27-28 Pisces), not the 27th degree of Pisces (26-27 Pisces). Read about the zodiac and numerical components and a case study of 27 Pisces in Part 1.
Unpacking the symbology of this degree, here are the major themes:
MISADVENTURE AT SEA
The Pisces-Scorpio influence is predictably present in charts of maritime disaster and their unfortunate victims. The influence not only correspond to real-life shipwrecks, but also correlated to cruel fate and difficult personality of fictional characters created and brought to life by the artists under the degree’s influence. The Capricorn-Aquarius duad manifested as the failure of leadership or physical structure.
“Under pouring rain, a man who is drowning in a lake calls for help. From the bank, another man tries to help.”
… But the most serious threats also come from the sea, and all precautions must be taken in order to face them, for instance by subscribing a comprehensive professional and family insurance policy.
Janduz interpretation, rewritten by Astrotheme
Titan submersible implosion, Jun 18, 2023 (Neptune). The experimental submersible Titan imploded during its expedition to the Titanic wreckage, killing all five passengers on board. The submersible suffered a “catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,” according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Warnings and concerns about the Titan’s design and safety from industry experts were repeatedly dismissed by the CEO Stockton Rush, who was also onboard the fatal excursion. In a 2021 interview, Rush said I think it was General MacArthur who said, ‘You’re remembered for the rules you break.’ And I’ve broken some rules to make [Titan]. I think I’ve broken them with logic and good engineering behind me. The carbon fiber and titanium, there’s a rule you don’t do that. Well, I did.”
Titanic maiden voyage (Venus). Not surprisingly, the world’s most famous shipwreck also involved 27 degree Pisces. In mundane astrology, Venus represents lives and property. More than half of the Titanic’s passengers perished at sea when it sank on its maiden voyage. Her cargo spilled into the ocean. The wreck proved to be too fragile to be raised.
Jack London (Mars). The stormy and oppressive Pisces-Scorpio energy comes to life in Jack London’s Sea-Wolf. Van Weyden, a wealthy literary critic, is adrift at sea after a shipwreck. He is rescued and held captive by Wolf Larsen, the handsome and brilliant captain who enjoys entertaining philosophical debates yet has no regard for life. Wolf is bitterly jealous of those who can enjoy the brighter side of life, for he only derives pleasure from brutality and extreme danger to which he subjects himself and his crew.
After Van Weyden escaped with his companion to a deserted island, Wolf was abandoned by his crew and set adrift at sea by his brother. When his ship wrecked on Van Weyden’s island, he was blind, his life hanging by a thread. Despite this, he attempted to murder Van Weyden, his caretaker, before dying in a raging storm. Van Weyden and his companion are rescued and share their first sweet kiss.
Spencer Tracy (Mars). Another story of an aristocrat/intellectual held captive at sea is Kipling’s Captain Courageous. In the film adaptation, Spencer Tracy played the fisherman Manuel, who fell into the sea while racing a rival and became entangled in the rigging. Unable to free himself, Manuel asked the captain to cut him free before sinking into the sea. Tracy garnered an Academy Award for this dramatic role, and again for his performance in Boys Town (see below).
Herman Melville (Pluto). Speaking of literary captains, who can forget the maniacal Captain Ahab in Moby Dick? Hellbent on revenge, Captain Aha hijacked the whaling operation and forced the crew to join his to mission to kill Moby Dick, who sinks the ship and drags Ahab away with the fishing line around his neck.
Power Struggles, Secrets and Scandals related to oppression and corruption (sexual, racial, financial, political)
Cast into an abyss. Dumped out of status and specialness and made to be hyper-receptive to whatever is moving here—an abandoned center, karmically sacrificed to learn both humility and the lessons of the street. … A regressive loop with powerful emanations.
Ellias Lonsdale, Inside Degrees
When manifested as power struggles between the oppressor (Scorpio) and the oppressed (Pisces), 27 Pisces energy typically manifests as dereliction, corruption, or abuse of power (Capricorn-Aquarius). A tug-of-war or seesaw action (2 Libra) involving laws and contracts is usually at play. During the current Neptune transit (May 10, 2023 through August 22, 2023), there are ongoing major developments involving corruptions of power, secret surveillance programs, race/class/gender struggles, and border insecurity related to illegal drug and human trafficking. Here is a partial list:
Panic of 1819 and The Missouri Compromise (Pluto). Chartered in 1816, the Second Bank of the United States was charged with stabilizing the U.S. banking system during the frontier land boom and unregulated banking. Its branches, beholden to political and financial interests, not only failed to enforce regulations, but further fueled land speculation by expanding the money supply. As demand for U.S. exports fell, prices plummeted, triggering a wave of defaults by farmers and investors. The result was widespread bank failures and economic depression. The corruption of the banks and the government was on full display during the first nationwide financial crisis.
At the same time, the U.S. Congress was engaged in a bitter and protracted debate over the future of slavery, with both sides threatened to dissolve the Union. Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, known as the “Great Compromiser,” played legislative trickery to sneak through the pro-slavery bill that prohibited slavery north of Missouri’s southern border while admitting Missouri as a slave state.
Harassed and embittered, Missouri violated the US constitution and prohibited free blacks from entering the state. Once again, Henry Clay came to the rescue. By adding a non-binding provision to circumvent the controversial section, Missouri was admitted to the Union. This crisis had exhausted the antislavery movement, re-legitimized slavery, reversed the momentum of emancipation, and added insult to injury for black people across the country. The acrimony would eventually lead to the Civil War.
(For a detailed account of these two crises, see my article here.)
Vanessa Williams (Sun). First African-American Miss America. She was forced to relinquish her Miss America title when Penthouse magazine acquired and published unauthorized nude photographs of her. Williams overcame the public shaming and went on to became a successful singer and actress.
Fabrice Morvan (Saturn). Member of the duo Milli Vanilli, Grammy Award for Best New Artist of 1990. Milli Vanilli endured worldwide public humiliation from the lip-synching scandal when their producer, who hired studio musicians to sing on their hit album, ousted them for demanding to sing on the new album. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Morvan said:
“Our producer tricked us. We signed contracts as singers but were never allowed to contribute. It was a nightmare. We were living a lie. The psychological pressure was very hard. It was like we were trapped in some golden prison.”
May 31, 2023 (Neptune). A former staffer of Taiwan’s ruling party posted her experience of workplace sexual harassment on Facebook. Her essay, echoing a popular Netflix political drama “Wave Makers”, encouraged other victims to “not just let this go,” which led to an explosion of more than 200 allegations of sexual misconducts by public figures and celebrities. Many of them have resigned in disgrace or had their titles stripped. The president and the leader of the ruling party issued multiple apologies. Under tremendous pressure and expectations, legal amendments were quickly introduced to combat sexism and seniority in the society.
June 7, 2023 (Neptune). An attorney for the U.S. Virgin Islands in its federal lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase released the bank’s internal emails, showing that the bank paid for Jeffrey Epstein’s consultation and referral service, and continued the client relationship after his conviction. On July 24, 2023 (Neptune), the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands filed new documents alleging that JPMorgan Chase facilitated Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation and helped him evade Suspicious Activity Reports during 2006 and 2019.
US Supreme Court strikes down President Biden’s student loan debt forgiveness program. (June 30, 2023. Neptune). On the same day, the Department of Education announces new rules to lower monthly payments and cut the loan forgiveness period in half. On July 25, 2023, White House announces that the Biden administration has cancelled additional $130 million in debt for 7,400 students, bringing the total approved student debt relief under his administration to $14.6 billion for 1.1 million borrowers.
US Supreme Court rejects affirmative action program at colleges, declaring that race cannot be factored in admission process. (June 29, 2023, Neptune). President Biden strongly disagrees with the ruling and urges schools to continue their commitment to racial diversity. A new standard is in the works at the Department of Education to counter hardship or discrimination in college admissions. Several top-ranked schools have ended legacy admissions in response.
Missouri vs Biden (July 4, 2023. Neptune). Citing the Free Speech Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana ordered to temporarily block federal agencies and specific individual government officials from influencing and interfering social-media companies, with a few exceptions. On July 14, 2023, a federal appeals court temporarily blocked the order until further notice.
In addition, newly released evidence and corroborated whistleblower accounts implicated Hunter Biden, and by extension President Biden, in influence peddling and foreign bribery schemes, as well as interfering with the IRS (Scorpio) investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax crimes (Pisces).
Mass Atrocities
World War I (Eris). Anti-Serb sentiment and persecution in the Austro-Hungarian Empire had steadily increased in the decades leading up to World War I. The volunteer militia Schutzkorps was tasked with suppressing Serbian uprisings. The governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Oskar Potiorek, (Sedna in 27 Pisces, also in charge of the royal couple’s travel during the fateful visit) was particularly hostile, leading oppressive anti-Serb measures and inciting racial hatred.
After the Habsburg monarchy’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908, Serbian nationalists worked in secret to unite all Serbs and liberate Serbs under the Austro-Hungarian occupation. The Black Hand, a Serbian military-intelligence secret society, organized the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife.
After the assassination, riots broke out in Sarajevo and throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia; military and civilians both took part in the destruction of Serbian properties. Using the assassination as a pretext, and with Germany’s “blank cheque” support, Austria delivered an ultimatum to Serbia that was impossible to accept. When Serbia returned with partial agreement, Austria declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914. Allies of Serbia (Russia, France, Belgium, Britain) and Austria-Hungary (Germany) mobilized in turn thus began the WWI.
After the declaration of war, the Austria-Hungarian authority carried out ethnic cleansing through massacres, mass executions, kidnappings, looting and destruction of property. World War I lasted until November 11, 1918. The death toll is estimated at between 15 and 19 million.
Adolf Eichmann (Sun). Nazi war criminal. During World War II, Eichmann first oversaw the deportation of Jews. Later, he facilitated the confiscation of Jewish property and arranged for the transportation of Jews to concentration camps. He was captured in 1960, trailed in public and sentenced to death. Days before his execution, Eichmann plead for clemency, arguing that “[there] is a need to draw a line between the leaders responsible and the people like me forced to serve as mere instruments in the hands of the leaders”. Since he was only following orders, he concluded, “I was not a responsible leader, and as such do not feel myself guilty”.
Jiang Qing (Sun). Actress and First Lady of the People’s Republic of China. During the Cultural Revolution, Jiang presided over the systematic destruction of China’s cultural and religious heritage and led a violent student rebellion that escalated into atrocious political persecution and nationwide massacres. She also unleashed political smear campaigns against her opponents and ordered the torture and murder of the children of Zhou Enlai, whom she considered her chief rival.
Jiang showed no remorse during her televised trial. She discredited the special court and argued that she obeyed the party’s orders and committed no crime. She defended Mao and the Cultural Revolution to the end, and was proud to die for her cause.
UNPARALLELED ARTISTIC PURSUITS
When it comes to artists under the influence of 27 Pisces, it’s nearly impossible to separate their lives from their art. These towering figures push the boundaries of social tolerance and individual sanity, never satisfied, perfectly content with their obsession and endless pursuits.
“For myself, I quite often worry that my life hasn’t been calm enough, all these disappointments, annoyances, changes mean that I don’t develop naturally and in full in my artistic career. … I can’t precisely describe what the thing I have is like, there are terrible fits of anxiety sometimes – without any apparent cause – or then again a feeling of emptiness and fatigue in the mind.”
Vincent van Gogh “764 (768, W11): To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, between about Sunday, 28 April and Thursday, 2 May 1889.”
Vincent van Gogh (Sedna and Mars/Venus midpoint). Dutch painter and one of the most famous artist in the world. Due to his volatile personality, van Gogh suffered a long series of rejections and lived in loneliness and poverty for most of his life. He neglected his health for the sake of his art, painting feverishly against his anguish and deteriorating mental health.
After his artistic breakthrough, Van Gogh’s paintings burst with vibrant color and restless energy. Some pieces capture the spiraling, mystical force that connects and responds to all the objects in the painting. He struggled to remain productive and optimistic, eager to improve his art and repay his brother, while dreading the eventual loss of his mental faculties. Having sold only one painting in his entire life, he saw himself as a failure and a burden. Despite eventual recognition, the sense of futility won out. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In his last moments, he said to his brother: “The sadness will last forever.”
John Coltrane (Uranus). Jazz saxophonist, composer, and canonized saint by American Orthodox Church.
… there’s often a suggestion that Coltrane’s practice was obsession, that it was not a simple matter of working to improve, that there was an emotional desperation and drive in it that was somehow beyond the norm.
Lewis Porter, John Coltrane
Ever direct and intense, Coltrane’s playing became more emotionally overwhelming as he evolved musically. His signature “sheet of sound” is a barrage of rapid, fervent, trance-inducing sonic storms.
Coltrane’s masterpiece “A Love Supreme” was an offering to God and marked the watershed in his style and aesthetic. His later works abandoned steady tempos, chord progressions, and key centers and embraced ethnic music from around the world. Some of his music devotional bordered on chaos.
Throughout his career, he was uncertain of his artistic direction and never found what he was searching for. Two years before his passing, he told Melody Maker magazine:
“Everybody wants to hear what I’ve done. Nobody wants to hear what I’m doing… I’ve had a strange career. I haven’t yet quite found out how I want to play music. Most of what’s happened these past few years has been questions. Someday we’ll find the answers.”
OCCULT AND RELIGIOUS POWERS AND SALVATION
Boys Town (Eris). Founded in 1917 by Father Edward J. Flanagan (played by Spencer Tracy in his second Oscar-winning role), Boys Town started as a home for homeless boys and in time grew over time into a model institution for at-risk boys.
After years of service in impoverished dioceses, Father Flanagan concluded that the solution to destitution and criminality began with helping at-risk youth. A firm believer in “there is no such thing as a bad boy,” he endeavored to end to the abusive treatment in juvenile detention centers.
Boys Town accepted and cared for the most vulnerable and helpless –regardless of race, religion, or criminal record –and provided a caring environment to meet their developmental needs. Today, Boys Town continues to provide youth care and health services, educational and parental training, and advocacy for juvenile justice reform.
Sydney Portier (Uranus). First black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. In his award-winning film Lilly of the Field, Portier played a roaming GI (Smith) who offers to repair a fence for a group of nuns, only to find out that the impoverished nuns have no money to pay for his labor. Mysteriously, Smith can’t help but continue to oblige the Mother Superior’s requests, eventually volunteered to build the chapel by himself. The townspeople, at first incredulous, are compelled to contribute labor and materials. Under Smith’s supervision, the chapel is completed. The Mother Superior thanks God for fulfilling her vision. Smith, unrewarded, drives off into the dark night.
Manly P. Hall (Sun). One of the greatest occult philosophers of the 20th century, Hall’s encyclopedic masterpiece, The Secret Teaching of All Ages, was published around the age of 27 and continues to influence and inspire the seekers of esoterica.
Details on Hall’s personal life are sparse. Abandoned by both parents, Hall was raised by his grandmother. “As a result of a confused and insecure childhood, it was necessary for me to formulate a personal philosophy with which to handle immediate situations.” His lifelong study of ancient mystery traditions resulted in an enormous body of work: nearly 7,000 lectures (some sources cite 8,000), more than 200 books, hundreds of essays, and a massive library on occult science.
Contrary to his own teachings on self-discipline and health, Hall had an insatiable appetite for sweets. He encouraged the idolatry of his admirers and at times used their affection for his own benefit. Hall and his wife might have misplaced their trust on Hall’s healer/personal assistance, who gained access to Hall’s bank accounts, and was granted power of attorney a few days before Hall’s suspicious death.
Arthur Conan Doyle (Neptune). British author and physician. Doyle was dissatisfied with the detective stories of his day, in which the cases were solved “either by some lucky chance, or a fluke, … Nobody ever gives an explanation how.” He sought to apply his scientific training to the writing of detective stories and created Sherlock Holmes, the most famous literary detective.
Less well known is Doyle’s dedication to the science and philosophy of spiritualism. Doyle considered psychic knowledge of great importance to humanity. He read voraciously on the subject, experimented and met with psychics and investigators from all over the world.
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