The Planets Sing Loudly from the Trash Stratum Within the Imaginal Realm: The Variable Man

   It is a deep passion of mine to dive into the astrology of fictional characters and plotlines.   While occasionally, authors do consciously use astrology in their craft, it is my assertion that real world astrology is functioning in the imaginal realm in perhaps even more powerfully literal ways than it manifests here on Earth in physical reality.  For an example of a deep dive into fictional astrology, check out my video about the astrology of the first three seasons of the X-files. 

I do make the case here that Chris Carter was utilizing the astrology consciously, however, I'd like to dive back into Dick to demonstrate the most powerful case I've found so far of literal astrology happening in a story that is most likely not an intentional artistic choice.  The maesty of this chart is astounding.  I just finished reading the amazing early novella, the Variable Man by Philip K. Dick called the Variable Man, which I'll try to explain succinctly, despite the fact I just hallucinated this entire novella in full blast big budget Hollywood action Sci Fi film form. I love when a story starts playing out cinematically in my mind like that.  Most don't.  Someone hire me as a director... seriously.  Don't use the video above as part of my resume though please, thank you.

   As we enter the year 2136, humanity feels claustrophobic and trapped in the Sol system, desperate to explore the stars, but confined by the pesky ancient empire of the Proxima Centauri people, (the closest star to Earth), which has already colonized everything humanity is capable of reaching.  It's a nifty point of interest that they never bothered to try and colonize Earth, a fact that no one in the story lingers upon, though I wish they would.  An inventor has created a prototype for a Faster than Light Speed drive, but due to sci fi pontifications upon the Einsteinian laws of physics, the craft enters another dimension as it collapses into an infinitely small, infinitely dense object. When it slows down and re-materializes, it blows up whatever is near it, being far too massive in far too localized a space.  So instead of just being happy with being Earth-bound, the humans, as they are wont to do, wage war against an alien empire that wants nothing to do with it, and does not threaten the Earth. Typical. The FTL drive is then, of course, refurbished into a giant Proxima Centauri destroying bomb.

     So now things get weird. The humans have a time device for scanning the past for data collection, but are ordered to shut it off promptly to focus all resources upon the imminent war effort. Shutting off the machine abruptly malfunctions it, and a handy man from the past gets plopped into the year 2136. This man has a supernatural ability from humanity's past to see what is broken and fix it. Something about his hands and how he feels his way through the faults into the future function.  Skipping a ton of wild plot machinations, basically the military wants him dead, but the engineer working on the FTL bomb realizes that this Variable Man from the past is the right craftsman capable to fine tune his bomb to  land precisely on Proxima Centauri, as no one has the finessed hands to be able to make that wiring work.

   Now, what caught my attention in the midst of this amazing story, is that it is dated and timed for no goddamn practical reason, other than to make me lose my mind.  It seems highly unlikely that PKD, writing this story in 1953 before astrology computer programs were available, was looking up an ephemeris 200 years in the future to time his little story. And yet....

   

    The Moon, at 8 PM, on May 15th, 2136, from the Ural Mountain range in Russia, (chart set for Yekaterinburg Russia, just to find a place to place the chart) which is where most of this story takes place, is specified as the time that Earth finally launches their attack. Well of course, the Moon is upon Proxima Centauri, on the ascendant no less just to really emphasize it, rising on the Earth's horizon. The Moon, the translator of light, is used to harness the power of the stars in magical systems.  Here it represents the old empire of Proxima Centauri, which is described as decrepit and dying by the Earth people.  The Moon is in its fall in Scorpio, opposed to the Sun, our Sun, representing the Earth in this chart, in Taurus, the Earthiest of Earth signs, squared by Mars, the planet of war, in between these two factions. Now what are the chances? 

In 2136, Pluto, planet of power struggles and paranoia, is with the wounded Chiron in Gemini, the sign of maximum yang freedom, showing the humans' frustrations to their freedom, opposed by Neptune, the planet of dreams, in Sagittarius, the sign of foreign exploration. Neptune is also implying these frustrations are mostly illusory, just fix your own damn planet people! New York is a pile of slag in this story!

   Now, for the final twist: the Variable Man fixes the FTL bomb alright, not only does it land exactly where it means to in the heart of Proxima Centauri, it doesn't blow up.  He intuitively sees the error in the FTL wiring, and fixes it so that the bomb is now a harmless, and fully efficient FTL space ship. The war is called off after some unfortunate exchanges, and humanity is now able to shift gears into exploring the universe peacefully.  Humans... peacefully... sure.  That day however, Mercury moved from the sign of Aries into Taurus, showing the thought process moving from war into a more peaceful Venusian domain.  In this chart, Uranus, the planet of the eccentric brilliance of new ideas and technology, is trining the Sun from Virgo, the sign of meticulously fixing things on a granular level. The trine shows a helpful path out of that destructive Martial T-square between the Humans and the Centaurs

  So that was way more wild than my article about the astrology influencing other early PKD short stories. 

 This now comprises my absolute favourite example of astrology working even within the imaginal realm, which is as real as our physical reality.  I think Dick proved that throughout his prophetic visions and dreams put to print for all us silly little mortals down here, stumbling around in the Trash Stratum.

Note: Proxima Centauri would actually be 2 degrees away from the Moon via precession on this date in the 22nd century, but still well within orb to consider it an influence upon the Moon.  Even more curious to me is that the Moon is exactly where it would have been when PKD wrote the story.