Vampire Squid - Pluto vs Neptune?

I was taking a shower this morning with my five year old and she started to play a game about a "vampire squid" which was attacking us around the curtain. (Yes, apparently there is such a thing.) That's a pretty scary monster, right. Well, it also seemed rather a good image for the dark side of Neptune - a bloodsucking creature from the deep.

 So I wondered if I could assign a horror movie monster to each of the outer planets - in their nastier incarnations. Now if Neptune is Dracula, then surely Uranus needs to be Frankenstein and who is Pluto? Darth Vader, but I think he's vampirey too - rising from the dead after all. And surely Pluto's the planet of sex and death - exactly what Dracula's all about. The vampire represents a numinous frightening, hungry sexuality. (The Hunger - Bowie and Deneuve as vampy vampires.) These are surely creatures emerging from the soup of the collective unconscious ready to shake us - just a little - in our complacent little lives.


Well, thinking along these lines I wondered if the charts of famous Draculas might provide a clue: Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, say. How would they match up with Bram Stoker, the author of the original Dracula? And Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Interview with a Vampire? And Then of course there's the whole Twilight thing - where  do I even start there… Is there a Neptune connection? Or is Pluto going to win out. And how can I possibly find all those charts. Furthermore, if there is a Neptune connection it might just be the cinema because Neptune is the planet of the silver screen.



Right, I'm just going to focus on Stoker because it all started with him, Lugosi because he's the grandaddy of screen dracs (see scary pic left). A lot of actors who have portrayed vampires on screen have played plenty with which they are more closely identified, so that cuts out Gary Oldman (brilliant in Bram Stoker's Dracula), Tom, Brad et al. Astrology really works in this way if you look at charts of people who strongly represent a particular aspect of the human experience. But Chrisopher Lee was really only famous for the Hammer Horror Draculas until he was in The Lord of the Rings. So he's in.

So I've had a little dig around and found Lugosi, Stoker and Lee on Astro-Databank - therefore reliable. I've drawn them up in my own program this time though, so I can twiddle with them.

Right - well - I'm getting a Pluto/Neptune/Sun vibe already, but hey, wait a minute, Saturn is edging in on the show. Let's break it down. Bram was born on a New Moon in Scorpio (the dark of the Moon in Scorpio sign of creepy stuff par excellence - how appropriate). That Sun/Moon conjunction is exactly opposite Lugosi's movie making Neptune/Saturn conjunction in Taurus - also conjunct Scorpio's own planet Pluto, god of the underworld. We have contact!

Stoker has that same Neptune/Saturn conjunction across Pisces/Aquarius. What a shame there's no birth time!  What does that particular combination suggest? The ability to make our secret dreams (Neptune), or in this case nightmares, real (Saturn).

Lugosi and Stoker also have uncomfortable Sun/Pluto quincunxes. Although the quincunx isn't a traditional angle, it does suggest the two planets are doing something together. It's like I can's see you, but I can feel you. I have these dark urges, I know about them, but can I control them? I guess they both channelled this darkness into art.

There's a nodal connection too. The north node suggests a person's destiny right. Stoker's New Moon is sandwiched between Lugosi's Mars (action) and north node (destiny) both in Scorpio.

So what about Christopher Lee? Well, he seems to be a much lighter-hearted individual with an actor's sun in Gemini. Also born at the dark of the Moon however, and with Saturn rising. That's interesting. Lee always depicts older, wiser men and Saturn's the planet of old age. In the case of Dracula, really really old. Aha, there's Pluto on the MC conjunct Venus. How many young women did he ravage at Hammer in the 60s? The MC tells us what we're known for, doesn't it? So it's just right that he's got the Dark Lord (of sexiness and death) and Venus (goddess of fun sexiness) up there.

But does he connect with Stoker and what about the vampire squid? Well, Stoker's Neptune trines - exactly - Lee's messenger Mercury on the MC, so trining the MC itself. Stoker's imagination (Neptune) made Lee famous (MC). Although, Lee's Neptune in the actor's sign of Leo sextiles his Moon and his Jupiter in Libra (exactly conjunct Stoker's North Node), I'm not sure he's really showing us a Vampire Squid.

You could try reading these three charts as the progression of a character - Dracula. Bram Stoker made him manifest in a novel with a very big audience. Mercury, the writer's planet, squares his Saturn in Pisces tightly and Neptune widely. Then Lugosi brought the monster to an even wider public with that same Neptune/Saturn conjunction joined by Pluto. Lee takes the whole thing more lightly and frankly turns Dracula into something of a belly laugh or at least a nervous titter. They must have chortled their way through making those Hammer movies. How could Lee do otherwise with the Joker (Mercury) right on his MC like that.

I'd say that Pluto and Scorpio win here, which means I'm still looking for a movie monster for Neptune - "The Fog" maybe - or "Creature from the Black Lagoon".

Then there's Frankenstein and his Uranus connection, we'd have to look at Mary Shelley (creature creator), Boris Karloff and … um Gene Wilder? I think that's for another post …