The Blatant Astro-Coding of Back to the Future

    

 

   Back to the Future is a classic 80's blockbuster sci-fi comedy that is relentlessly Astro-coded since the entire film is consistently timed and dated.  Saturn, Kronos, Lord of Time rules this film.  Let's get into it!
   To start; the film takes place in a fictional town with the silly name Hill Valley, though it is explicitly in California.  In looking for where to cast these charts from, I settled on Industry California, which is the place where the Twin Pines Mall scenes were filmed; and I'd argue is the most important, pivotal scene in the franchise.  The charts certainly worked out well form this vantage point.  

   The films starts with a slow crawl amongst the endless clocks all aligned within the Doc's house.  You know I love a director that has clocks in their film!  Except this is a swerve; because the Doc informs us that it is all a part of ingenious experiment to synchronize a bunch of clocks 25 minutes behind the actual time.  What is amazing about this is that Marty, seeing the clocks, believes that he  has time to relax and enjoy the experimental powerful amplifier the doc has been working on.  Taking time to enjoy his guitar playing is a Venusian experience.  In reality however, at exactly 8 AM that day in Industry, the planetary hour shifted from Venus hour to Mercury hour.  When the Doc informs him of his ludicrous grift against Tick Tock time, Marty realizes that he must now rush to get to school. Mercury is the messenger God bustling about between various places and activities.  The very nature of having feet on a board on wheels holding onto the bumper of a vehicle which is also on wheels as a form of locomotion is extremely Mercury coded top to bottom. 

   In the chart for the beginning of the film, Mercury is about to rise, and Scorpio is upon the ascendant, denoting the astrological identity of the film.  This will become important as we move along.  The midheaven is the authority figure, here in Leo, ruled by the Sun, which is applying to conjunct Pluto, Marty does indeed get caught coming in late!

The Film Begins

     When Marty arrives home, it is dark outside, meaning it is now likely Mars hour, the first hour after the Sun sets on Friday, considering they are still about to eat dinner. Now Scorpio is on the descendant, and Pluto is setting. The failure of Marty's weak father is on display as he is bullied by Biff, a power struggle which was never resolved.  Mars hour is significant as Mars can signify accidents while in the 6th house especially.  Mars is opposed the Moon, the bully is in his home, ruining his plans and picking on his father.  The nodes on the angles are important as well.  Marty is looking to project his energy out towards his girlfriend and the weekend they have planned, while Ketu on the descendant shows this ability being restricted and rapidly vanishing; eclipsed if you will.

Marty Arrives Home

 

  Now Marty has a date with the Doc.  It's cool, it's just an eccentric old weirdo asking a teenager to sneak out of his house in the middle of the night to meet up with him in an abandoned parking lot, I'm sure it's all on the level!  It's Saturn hour, and the Sun is EXACTLY on the IC as Doc wakes up Marty at 12:28 AM, while Jupiter is on the descendant.  This is a paran alignment between the two which is a very powerful connection within a chart.  Jupiter, in the forward thinking sign of Aquarius, is about to give an opportunity to the Sun, the individual, to alter their home life, the fourth house. The Ic having just moved into Scorpio, a sign which is supremely important to the astrology of this film as we will continue to see.

 

Marty is late for his date!

  Marty arrives at Twin Pines Mall at 1:15 AM:  Jupiter hour.  I'll avoid sharing the charts shifting by the minute because digging into the degree resonances of the angles as it is immaculately demonstrated in this scene is beyond the scope of what I want to do here; though I'm sure for the others who want to dig into it, (likely me a day later), there will be some fascinating information to glean. 
   At any rate; here the Saturn coding goes into overdrive.  Saturn, lord of time, has a 29.445 year orbit of the Sun from a heliocentric perspective.  It wiggles and waggles from our view here on Earth, but the fact that the Doc wants to go back 30 years, and then forward 30 years is rather on the nose.  Furthermore: we depart after midnight on a Friday, meaning Saturnday has begun, and arrive in the past on yet another Saturnday.  The final nail in that reaper's coffin is that the Pine tree is given to the nature of Saturn as per Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy.  This is resolutely Saturn coded as a film about time travel, not to mention that Saturn is angular again in this chart, as it has been in the last three times highlighted in the film thus far.

Marty Travels back in Time

   Some interesting elements about the chart from which Marty travels back in time: Scorpio is upon the IC, which is viewed as our heritage and ancestry, as well as the Mother.  In Scorpio, the themes of Marty's Mother come into view.  She claims in the beginning of the film that she never "parked" with boys, nor chased them, which are both false claims, as we will see, about her sexuality, and her attempts to hide this from her son.  These are all themes resonant with the sign of Scorpio.  The Scorpio coding is further accentuated by the fact that the Delorean must reach 88 miles per hour to leave the current time stream; Scorpio is the 8th sign of the Zodiac. The lord of time here, Saturn, is within its own bounds and angular, but not for long.

Marty IS back in Time.

  Once Marty actually takes the trip back, Saturn is no longer within its own bounds, but is still within Scorpio, yet earlier in the sign that from whence he departed despite going back in time further than a full heliocentric Saturn cycle. Life on Earth is weird.  Saturn had the power to manipulate time in 1985, being in the same sign as Pluto, (plutonium being the power source for the Dolerean), but now, with Pluto being in a sign based square to Saturn in 1955, we discover that Marty does not have the energy to return!  The time to which the Doc had set the clock to was the day he first conceived of a Time Travel Machine, November 5, 1955.  That's a lot of fives!  The Fifth house is the house of creative works, your baby if you will.  

   What strikes me the most about this chart is that Scorpio, Sun and Saturn, which was on the IC in 1985, the past, is now on the rising sign. The present.  As we'll see, despite Marty being a profoundly Gemini character (also the Sun sign of Michael J. Fox), he is coded as Mars within this film.  Marty = Mars.  Mars is often collated to young men in general, and he goes back in time to teach his father how to be Martial and stand up for himself; as well as his Mother.  If Marty is Mars, as the planetary hours seem to imply, when Marty travels back into the past, Mars is in the final degree of Virgo, where it has triplicity dignity.  When he arrives in the past, Mars is in its exile in Libra; trapped in a time where he does not belong.  He no longer has the power to time travel, as he has run out of Plutonium.  His first interaction with people from 1955 features a child claiming he is an alien by pointing out his comic book about Zombies from Pluto.

 

Marty makes his way to Centerville Hill Valley

   At 8:30 AM Saturn Day, Marty winds up in downtown Hill Valley.  It is Mars hour.  I've been working with the concept for some time that within a fictional work that is timed in some way, the planetary hour describes the protagonist.  In this chart; Mars is high in the sky, but in detriment; literally in exile.  Marty is out of his element, and stumbling around town having a difficult time accepting the reality of his predicament, until he gets hit by his grandfather's car while trying to save his father.  Note that the Moon, or Mom, is powerful in Cancer, we are about to meet her soon, in her full glory.  As Marty awakes in her bed he is even sputtering, "but mo(m)... you're ho(t)......".  The Moon is moving to conjunct Uranus... indeed!

   The next clock we see is set to 8:30 PM, at dinner time as Marty tries to integrate the oedipal experience he just endured, during Jupiter hour, Cancer rising.

Loving Dinner with the Family

     Now Jupiter is exactly conjunct Pluto here, and exalted by the rising sign of Cancer.  Hidden truths about Marty's family lineage are being revealed from their time in the underworld.  Check out the Moon (mom) conjunct the shocking energy of Uranus!

  We have a time for Marty breaking into his dad's house to scare him into asking out his mom at 1:23 AM.  It seems to be Tuesday night, but who knows.  Moon hour of Mercury night, investigate at your own discretion!

Marty Wakes up Dad to an Alien Hallucination (maybe!)

 

    Next up: we follow Marty and his parents to the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance which they go out of their way to encode with Neptune. 
 

Neptune is romantic AF if you dig into the classics!

   Did they really need to give the dolphins tridents?  Apparently so: because as they reach the dance, (chart cast for the beginning of their Big Plan: 8:55 PM, Moon hour of Saturn day night), Neptune is in the fourth house of family lineage.  This entire cockamamie plan is based around ensuring the magic moment where George Mcfly kisses Lorraine, and secures their family, happens once again in this timeline.  Neptune can be romance, as well as mythological legends, the hero myths we cling to.  The Enchantment Under the Sea Dance is the hero myth that Marty's Mother has been telling relentlessly as the thread which maintains her marriage which has deteriorated into a rather Neptunian existence of alcoholism and disillusionment.  
    The plan itself is rather foolish, placing his own mother into harm's way by assaulting her himself so that he may be be punched out by is father.  An interesting reversal of the Oedipal mythos to be sure. 

The Very Silly Plan

  Note that the Moon is in fall in Scorpio, and this dream: Neptune; is in a tight sextile to that Pluto Jupiter conjunction.   Interesting that the Moon is moving to conjunct Mercury, this being Mercury night of Saturn Day, in the parked car, and yet when she kisses Marty; who I've claimed is Mars coded despite playing the role with prominent Gemini traits; says that something is wrong, that it feels like she is kissing her own brother.  Mercury rules the third house of siblings, and Mars is in detriment in the third house as well.  For once; the detriment works out well for Mars, as the Uranus rising energy of the plan winds up manifesting as the shocking twist where George actually knocks out Biff, and changes his entire family's life for the better.  The fourth house of family is loaded in this chart.  The Mother being in danger does indeed become the legend that founds the family.  It's worth noting that Marty and his siblings slowly disappearing from a family photo is also a very literal Neptunian coding within these scenes.  Within the fifth house of romance and children we have Saturn and Venus; thank goodness Saturn won that battle!

LIGHTNING STRIKES!

  At 10:04 PM we have the fated lightning strike, in Mercury hour of Mars night of Saturn day.  All the most important players in our narrative are activated at this most pivotal moment.  Uranus has finally risen above the horizon.  Note that Uranus is angular, opposing Chiron, the core wound.  The Neptunian dream has been achieved and is moving closer towards the IC.
   Due to the lack of Plutonium, Marty needs the God of Lightning to come into play.   Jupiter has moved past Pluto, and is on Regulus, now the star of the show.  Both are rising to the horizon where the technological genius of Uranus has already crossed the horizon.  Of course it is fitting for Mars hour to be the climax of a film, and we'll need some hijinx with a branch breaking off and Doc hanging off the clock, and all the rest of your typical edge of the seat tension building Hollywood silliness.  With Mars being in detriment, accidents are expected, and Saturn here, lord of time, is in a difficult overcoming square to the Pluto-Jupiter plan.

   Of course; Marty winds up in the time at which he first departed and relives the Doc's shooting.  Remember how the scene at Twin Pines Mall took place during Jupiter hour?  Well, here Jupiter is in the sixth house of injury, showing its beneficence through the Saturn ruled sign of Aquarius, sextiling the Moon which can be related to bodily health, which is in the eighth house of death.  As it turns out; the Doc is wearing body armour!  The restrictions of Saturn's rulership upon the momentum of the bullets.  Jupiter is Trining Chiron, the wound in the tenth.  The Doc lives!

Back to the Future Again!

     Marty retires home, bewildered, to awaken at 10:28 AM on Saturnday thinking it was all a dream!

 

Sweet, sweet Resolution!

 

 As Marty wonders into the kitchen to discover a whole new life with the core wounds of his family cured, what are the chances that the chart would have Uranus rising, opposed Chiron, just as it was at the beginning of the big night at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance where Marty's plan paid off and healed the core family wound.  Neptune has just moved into Capricorn in the first house where it is grounded in the Earth element, cardinal, implying a new beginning.  The family dream has now been made a reality.  Mars; representing Marty, is on the Midheaven, as he walks around his new world, during Sun hour.  All is glorious as he gazes upon his new chariot he dreamed of in the garage, Jupiter is in his second house of possessions, and he has permission to take his girlfriend out to the cottage on his romantic sojourn.  
    Suddenly Doc comes squealing into the driveway, racing out to deliver the terrible news about the next adventure.  "Marty, oh no!  It's your kids!  Rahu is in the fifth house of children! " Nothing one more Saturn cycle can't fix.
      I recently appeared on Synctank to present this material.  It's an extremely fun and chaotic show, so we don't get to the Back To the Future astro-synchs until the end of the episode, and it's a bit of a spotty presentation as the titles for the charts weren't visible to me, but the rest of the episode is a good time and goes to all sorts of other interesting places.  I hope it won't be my last visit there.