The astrology of Julian Assange: we have a birth date!

Updated 12/2/10  with more chart details. As you may know, on Tuesday the Wikileaks website released hundreds of cablegrams from diplomats in a variety of countries around the world.  The feedback against Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, has of course been profound.  In fact, Interpol has just issued a “wanted notice” for Assange for an investigation into his “sex crimes.”  This makes a date of birth available for Assange, something we have been craving since he burst onto the scene.

Assange told Forbes that his next target is Big Business.  In any case, Assange isvirtually single-handedly acting out the planetary drama of Pluto (destruction and revelation of secrets) in Capricorn (governments and Big Business) about to be set off by a square from Uranus (radical revolutionary behavior) in Aries (individual rights).  In fact, right now Uranus is at a virtual standstill and is acting most powerfully, which has stimulated the revolutionary fervor of the Wikileaks action.

Julian Assange (born July 3, 1971 according to the Interpol documents, time unknown, Townsville Australia) has the Sun in Cancer, with a nearly exact square from the Sun to Uranus which explains his radical tendencies.  People with the Sun in Cancer or with Cancer strong in their charts are extremely sensitive to the needs of others, and as a rule feel the pain in the world far more than the average person.

You can read a quasi-biography of him here in my earlier post; very little is known about his early life but he was used as a model for a work of fiction which reveals some clues.

Chiron is also square to Assange’s Sun, and opposite Uranus – a challenging T-square that necessitates the balancing of a wounded sense of Self (Chiron/Sun) with a tendency towards radical actions (Uranus/Sun).  Mars is in Aquarius, the sign of social justice, and it is locked in a challenging square to Jupiter which suggests an aggrandized drive to instill fairness and equality, whatever the cost.  The troublemaking planet Eris is also locked into this T-square, and while I am not yet using Eris in charts that much she certainly seems to be an important player here.  Briefly, Eris is the new planet that was reclassified along with Pluto and Ceres, and in mythology she was the sister of Aries, god of war, and as goddess of strife and discord, the instigator of the Trojan War.  I like to think of her as describing small events that lead to major cycles of transformation. (Read more about Eris here.)

This chart for Assange also has a Plutonian component with a Scorpio Moon (Scorpio is ruled by Pluto) and with Pluto is in a challenging square to Venus, challenging his relationships and creating difficulty for him in making alliances.  A Plutonian chart tends to live more powerfully and with a greater tendency towards drama and intensity than another chart would.

That Venus is interesting, being in the dual sign of Gemini which makes the square to Pluto that much more problematic.  In this planetary system (Venus/Pluto), Pluto demands that relationships be intense and drive us deep beneath the surface, yet Gemini fears the entrapment of this kind of depth, preferring to be more available to a wide variety of experiences.  Assange has some classic characteristics of the commitment-phobe with a hunger for radically new and diverse experiences (Uranus/Gemini) and the dark and brooding intensity and demand for passion that Pluto and Scorpio engender.

Transiting Saturn has been setting off the T-square system in his chart involving his Sun, Uranus and Chiron over the past couple of months, coinciding with the threat of prosecution over two alleged rapes.  (These charges are widely considered to be trumped-up as a means to get some kind of control over Assange: see this article for one viewpoint.)  A transit of Uranus in opposition to Pluto in his chart is also stirring up the collective rage but also his own passion and transformative force.  And as Chiron points out in the comments, his progressed Mars is conjunct his natal North Node this year, driving him closer to his ultimate destiny.

Wikileaks has been around for a few years but burst into the scene when Jupiter and Uranus entered the individualistic sign of Aries.  For some Assange is a hero, because he is exposing the hypocrisy of governments and business.  For some he is a terrorist, because he operates outside of the boundaries of society and law.  No matter what you think of him, there’s no doubt that he is becoming a major player, and emblematic of the upcoming Uranus/Pluto square over the next few years.

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