The Illusion of Control - Saturn in Aspect to Neptune
By Frank C. Clifford
One of the reasons Saturn is considered difficult astrologically is that it’s the antithesis of every other planet. Even where there may be themes in common (‘authority’ with the Sun, ‘control’ or ‘privacy’ with Pluto), Saturn’s function and nature are contrary – opposite – to the rest of the planets. It’s no wonder that the cold Greater Malefic was assigned rulership over Capricorn and Aquarius, the signs farthest away from ‘summertime’ Cancer and Leo, which are ruled by the luminaries.
The combination of Saturn and Neptune (particularly by conjunction,(1) square or opposition) is a challenging one, especially when personalised in the natal chart (e.g. on an angle or aspecting an inner planet).(2) If we have this pairing, we may discover that:
- The anchors, attachments and so-called constants in life are illusions – or we have deluded ourselves into thinking that certain ‘institutions’ in our life are permanent and secure.
- Authority figures are weak or fallible; those we have put on a pedestal are ‘just as human as we are’.
- We have much control in one major area, yet chaos in another.
- We’ve made some sacrifice in a key part of our lives in the name of duty. But at what cost to our dreams?
With Saturn, we face constraints and learn limits in order to come to terms with our short time on Earth. Neptune wants nothing to do with this reality! If Saturn’s gifts provide structure and boundaries, Neptune’s promise is an escape from the rigid, material constructs of the Spartan/Saturnian life.
Saturn is ‘The System’, the application of law and order, a society made up of authorities and hierarchies. Neptune represents the disenfranchised, the drop-out, the artist, the healer, helper and mystic, and is linked to the spiritual laws and rhythms of the universe.
Religion is a key theme with which Saturn–Neptune people must grapple. (At the time of writing this revision, Jordan Peterson’s most recent book is entitled We Who Wrestle With God, and the author has the exact square.) The Saturnian types are the scientists, the skeptics; they doubt, fear and control with a vise-like grip. They may deny anything that cannot be measured or proved – or seek certainty from an authority (such as a holy book or religious leader) or follow the age-old conventions of organised religion. The Neptunians, however, search for a glimpse of Nirvana and put their trust and faith in something beyond. They are concerned with spirituality and the paranormal. Saturn–Neptune could manifest as a wide array of possibilities: from being an authority on spiritual matters, to a scornful skeptic, to a gullible believer of every conspiracy theory. There can also be disillusionment with the ‘official word’ given by a religious authority. (Two of the highest profile televangelists – Jerry Falwell and Tammy Faye Bakker – died within weeks of each other in mid 2007, as Saturn opposed Neptune.)
Both planets are associated with levels of suffering and sacrifice, but at best, we’re reminded that ‘pain (Saturn) is inevitable, suffering (Neptune) is optional.’ Those of us with Saturn–Neptune can be committed (Saturn) to a cause (Neptune). This could range from helping people in need to learning and practising a musical instrument. And rather than escaping from responsibilities, feeling guilty for abandoning these or staying as a martyr in an unhappy job, we can position ourselves in work where we can assist those who have been failed by the system. An alternative may be to work within a system that desperately needs compassion. (It is interesting and ironic to note that the welfare/benefits system – an example of Saturn–Neptune in practice – is the most open to abuse or manipulation by individuals and the System.)
Allegedly …
Neptune ranges from the spiritual to the shady, from the enlightened to the fraudulent. Aspecting Saturn, it can run the gamut from political idealism to corruption in government-funded organisations. It’s interesting to see that Julian Assange was born at the opposition of Saturn and Neptune, and three era-defining statesmen – Tony Blair (UK), Silvio Berlusconi (Italy) and Justin Trudeau (Canada) – have prominent contacts between the pair and have political legacies tarnished by controversy.
One Saturn–Neptune manifestation is the conspiracy theory – where we suspect manipulation or corruption (Neptune) by authorities (Saturn) or we doubt (Saturn) or cast suspicion (Neptune) over institutions and the official story (Saturn). (The term ‘conspiracy theory’ dates back to an article in The American Historical Review published in July 1909, soon after Saturn squared Neptune.)
Two of the highest profile child abduction tragedies in recent decades (Azaria Chamberlain and Madeleine McCann) occurred during Saturn–Neptune aspects in the sky (the square in 1980 and opposition in 2007).
When Matthew d’Ancona wrote more recently about the prevalence of conspiracy theories in modern society, he offered astrologers a revealing glimpse into the Saturn–Neptune dilemma:
Deference is long dead, and unmourned. But trust – a bare minimum of which is necessary for representative democracy to function – is also moribund. The more transparent our governments become, the less we like what we see, the more disappointed we are, and (paradoxically) the more we grow convinced that we are being denied the truth … Doubt is the life-blood of post-Enlightenment democracy … Ultimately, conspiracy theorists are the last resort of the couch potato, the perfect excuse for disengagement.(3)
Kennedy assassination
Kennedy's natal chart
The most famous conspiracy theory is, of course, the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963 at 12:30 p.m. in Dallas, when Saturn was on the Ascendant and square Neptune. Kennedy’s natal chart has the pair at the Midheaven (MC), and this elevated combination is descriptive of many aspects of his life: the glamorous mythology of the martyred president and the unfulfilled promise of Camelot; the anti-Catholic prejudice when he sought political office; his battle with corrupt institutions run by J. Edgar Hoover as well as the Mob; his innate skill in using the medium of TV to enhance his public image; and even the osteoporosis in his lower back (Saturn–Neptune = weak, fragile bones), which required much medication. Saturn–Neptune angular in his chart (and on the day of his murder) also suggests America’s disillusionment with the system following his assassination.
Kennedy was depicted as a family man of principle and vision who inspired hope, but since his death he’s been branded a serial adulterer and sex addict. Allegedly. That Saturn–Neptune word ‘allegedly’ (suggesting a lack of hard evidence/proof) is the safest bet when Saturn speaks to nebulous Neptune in these scandal-hungry (Neptune) but politically correct (Saturn) times.(4)
Weakening Institutions
One major institution that has been weakened in the past few decades is the House of Windsor, which is inextricably tied to the Saturn–Neptune cycle. Following anti-German sentiment in Britain during World War I, King George V declared that the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha would become the House of Windsor on 17 July 1917, some two weeks before the Saturn–Neptune conjunction at 4° Leo, suggesting a new era of deference to sovereignty. (Interestingly, fascism – the oppressive, authoritarian ideology – was on the rise in Europe at this time.)
Elizabeth II, natal chart
Queen Elizabeth II was born with the Saturn–Neptune square in fixed signs, became heiress presumptive following the 1936 abdication crisis at the Saturn–Neptune opposition, and was crowned in 1953 at the conjunction in Libra. (Her mother, known as the ‘Queen Mum’ to Brits, was born at the opposition in 1900, and Queen Victoria had been born at the square in 1819.) The 1989 conjunction in Capricorn saw the monarchy enter a new phase where the breakdown of the Queen’s children’s marriages saw respect crumble and the Windsor skeleton barely remain intact. This was at a time when an underwater (Neptune) tunnel linking England to France was under construction (Saturn) and the Berlin Wall came down (Saturn–Neptune: literally a dissolving wall).
Since then, when these two planets have been in aspect, there has usually been change in the powers of the Sovereign and legislative independence (devolution) of countries in the United Kingdom or Commonwealth. In late November 2015, June 2016 and September 2016, there was a series of three closing squares, which (at the time of writing) I felt would mark another chapter of weakening the former British Empire. In June 2016, days after an exact square, the Brexit vote took the UK out of the European Union. A week later, Prince Harry met Meghan Markle for the first time.
Fittingly for Saturn square Neptune, Elizabeth’s life was a combination of duty and sacrifice, yet traditional royal ways and protocols were challenged, undermined or made redundant by scandal and changing times. Adding further evidence of this pair’s theme in her life, when Neptune was discovered in 1846 (while conjunct Saturn), it was at 25° Aquarius, tying into the monarch’s Saturn–MC in Scorpio square Neptune in Leo.
At the time of the Queen’s passing (8 September 2022), solar arc Neptune (natally in the 8th and part of her T-square) was conjunct her T-square apex Saturn, suggesting a release of lifelong duty that she’d promised to the Commonwealth on her twenty-first birthday in 1947.
Dependencies and Organised Chaos
Dependency is what Saturn fears most, yet at worst Neptune is linked to codependency and parasitic symbiosis. So often, clients come to astrologers when they are feeling lost, downcast, despondent or fearful of the future. The essence of Saturn–Neptune reminds us, as consultants, that we must offer assistance to our clients without encouraging them to become addicted to us or to what astrology ‘promises’ or ‘foretells’. Saturn–Neptune is linked to a fear of what we cannot control, and there can be a fine line between a client seeking assistance and using astrology and upcoming transits as a crutch.
Those with this aspect might look for a covert way of undoing all their hard work, in an attempt to loosen the tightly coiled springs in their lives. This could be through any Neptunian form of addiction or self-sabotage. Then, they continue to run a tight ship that has a gaping, self-inflicted hole in the hull.
The Saturn–Neptune person may have one area of life where they are in control as the voice of reason or the sanity in the family (or workplace) that keeps it all together. Yet, there is also an equally important area in the shadows that could threaten that façade, where there is chaos, addiction, ‘leaking’ or few boundaries. Of the two planets, Neptune is the one we usually keep behind closed doors. For instance, these people may be upstanding citizens and professionals (Saturn) but scandal-addicted, fantasy-driven or self-defeating in their personal lives (Neptune).
At some point, Saturnian ‘reality bites’, and there’s an understanding of one’s dependencies, illusions and delusions. Saturn–Neptune people often go through a period of ‘sobering up’ (an apt phrase for this combination).
Former First Lady Betty Ford was born with the conjunction straddling the 12th house, and she juggled the societal role of a politician’s wife for years, while secretly drinking and popping pills. After 14 years of addiction, an intervention on 1 April 1978 led her to rehab and a positive new start. In her relocated chart, her Saturn–Neptune conjunction rises near Rancho Mirage, California, where she founded the Betty Ford Center on 4 October 1982 (as solar arc MC conjoined her natal Neptune, and Saturn and Neptune were sextile each other in the sky).
Betty Ford, relocated chart
Ford's solar arc chart, 1982
There’s Something about Mary
Award-winning actress Mary Tyler Moore was at the helm of two of the most beloved TV comedies in American history, The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. For the latter, she set up MTM Enterprises with then-husband Grant Tinker. She was actress, producer, figurehead – holding the fort, sober on the job all day and then falling into drunkenness after hours. We might suspect that Saturn in the sign of Pisces would have further undermined Mary’s ability to keep control and avoid emotional ‘leakage’.
Moore was unflinchingly honest about her life experiences (her stay at the Betty Ford Center to treat her alcoholism, her sexual abuse as a child, her son’s accidental death). And she always personified Saturn–Neptune in her roles: she was the ‘normal’ one trying to do her best to maintain dignity and correctness (Saturn rising) amid the chaos, irrationality and wild emotions of co-workers or spouses (Neptune on the Descendant).
In the film Ordinary People, she gave a powerful Saturn–Neptune performance as a woman victimized by her own emotional rigidity, who flees the family nest to avoid dealing with the emotional turmoil of one son’s death and another’s suicide attempt. Moore wrote:
Beth Jarrett’s ready smile and cheerful demeanor hid the contempt she felt for weakness, self-doubt, and disorder, all of which lurked inside of her … There was very little room for spontaneity in Beth’s life … There simply wasn’t the energy left to comprehend the unplanned-for, sometimes unattractive, needs of the people she loved.(5)
In Whose Life Is It, Anyway? Moore played a sculptor (Saturn) paralysed (Saturn) from the neck down. Determined to be allowed to die, the character debates the act of euthanasia (Neptune) and to what extent government (Saturn) should be allowed to interfere in the life of a private citizen.(6)
A visual example of Saturn–Neptune that I’ve used in lectures is the famous funeral scene of ‘Chuckles Bites the Dust’ from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The episode first aired on 25 October 1975 and is still regarded as one of the funniest episodes of comedy every seen on TV. For the actress, the performance shows her at her early best, and demonstrates her natal Saturn–Neptune opposition across her Ascendant–Descendant axis.
In the episode, the TV news team receive word that Chuckles the Clown, while dressed as a peanut, has been crushed to death by an elephant. Bad-taste jokes from her co-workers follow, but Mary is outraged by their lack of reverence and scolds them. During the funeral, as Mary sits with appropriate solemnity (Saturn) in the hush of the moment, she starts to lose it (Neptune). To the horror of everyone around her, her giggling builds until it disrupts the service. Singled out by the minister and asked to stand, a mortified Mary pulls herself together but, when told that Chuckles would have loved her laugher, she collapses into uncontrollable sobbing. In those few minutes of TV, Moore’s comic genius runs the gamut from Saturn to Neptune.
Consciousness is key
Saturn and Neptune are associated with two different levels of consciousness, and when we’re unconscious (at either level), we find ourselves at the mercy of conditions around us. Without scrupulous Saturn, Neptune can descend into chaos or addiction, or can abandon ethics. Saturn gives structure to Neptune’s dreams or offers a realistic bottom line or time frame. Whereas rigid Saturn needs the artistic inspiration and compassion reflected by soft, supple Neptune to transcend limitations – in effect, to achieve the seemingly impossible.
When the pairing is found in the birth chart, there is often much juggling of spiritual pursuits and earthly, ambition-led desires. Even in the most profound moments of feeling connected with something higher than ourselves, we must also deal with the mundane life, the physical and the daily tasks. This brings to mind that most Saturn–Neptune of Zen quotes, ‘After enlightenment, the laundry.’
With Saturn–Neptune, it’s important to build a spiritual practice or to include some service into the structure of our life, and to navigate our journey with awareness and empathy. We Saturn–Neptune people can consider creating a long-term vision to manifest our dreams – but we must allow room for change, loss and que será, será. Rather than being gripped by the fear of ‘losing it’, we can loosen up and learn non-attachment; we can surrender and forgive, and accept that, in most situations, control is an illusion anyway.
It’s a creative combination, where imagination and mystery can be manifested (Agatha Christie has the square, with Pluto implicated, too), or where we can soften previously hard-line attitudes in societies (Saturn–Neptune activists Peter Tatchell, Christine Jorgensen and the 14th Dalai Lama fought bravely for – respectively – gay liberation, transgender acceptance and the non-violent liberation of Tibet).
It’s often said that the most beautiful things in the world can’t be touched, measured or seen (Saturn) – they can only be felt with the heart (Neptune). Or as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (with Saturn opposite Neptune) wrote in The Little Prince, ‘What is essential is invisible to the eye.’ At its very best, those of us with Saturn–Neptune can manifest (through art, film or divine inspiration) some form of Neptunian magic and share it with the world around us.
Notes and References:
- This article was adapted and revised from an earlier version published in The Mountain Astrologer, Oct./Nov. 2014.
- For more on the political, scientific and social links between Saturn and Neptune, please see the work of André Barbault and Michael Harding’s Hymns to the Ancient Gods (Arkana, 1992).
- All quotes not cited above are from http://en.thinkexist.com/
(1) The Saturn–Neptune cycle is 35.9 years, and each conjunction occurs approximately 80° further on in the zodiac (1917: 4° Leo; 1952–53: 21°–22° Libra; 1989: 10°–11° Capricorn; 2026: 0° Aries).
(2) The reader is referred to Donna Cunningham’s excellent article, ‘Hard Aspects between Saturn and Neptune’, in The Mountain Astrologer, Aug./Sept. 2006.
(3) Matthew d’Ancona, ‘Our attitude to politics changed on November 22, 1963 – the day Kennedy died’ in London Evening Standard, 13 November 2013, p. 14. http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/matthew-dancona-our-attitude-to-politics-changed-on-november-22-1963--the-day-kennedy-died-8936796.html (accessed in 2014 and in May 2025)
(4) Another Saturn–Neptune theme (rather than aspect) can be found in the birth chart of Richard Nixon. He has the Sun in Capricorn (Saturn’s sign) opposite Neptune. Watergate is pure Saturn–Neptune: cover-ups and corruption in government. See Richard Swatton’s comprehensive piece on Watergate in From Symbol to Substance (Flare, 2012).
(5) Both quotes are from Moore’s autobiography After All (Putnam, 1995).
(6) A real-life, high-profile quadriplegic was Superman actor Christopher Reeve, born on 25 September 1952, with Saturn conjunct Neptune.
Chart Data & Sources
Chart Data and Sources can be found at astrodatabank.com or other internet sources, and are rated B or above. With examples that are not so rated, the date of birth is not in question.
Images
Author:
Frank C. Clifford Frank has built an eclectic, 35-year career as the writer of a dozen books, a consultant astrologer and palmist, a publisher/editor, a researcher of birth data, and the Principal of the London School of Astrology. The LSA also has branches in China and Japan. Frank has written for The Mountain Astrologer since 2008, and in 2025 relaunched TMA as an online multi-media magazine with occasional printed special editions. In 2012, he was the youngest recipient of a lifetime honour for his contribution to astrology, and a writing award from ISAR and a Regulus nomination followed. www.londonschoolofastrology.com
Published in: The Mountain Astrologer, June 2025
© 2014, 2025 - Frank C. Clifford
