Awakening Frankenstein

Boris Karloff in the 1931 film Frankenstein.

In the summer I wrote a post about Dracula with some suggestions about which planets we could associate with the fanged one. I ended that piece by suggesting that Frankenstein might be associated with the planet Uranus.

|'ve  come back to Frankenstein now because I'm giving a talk on him later this month at Aquarias Severn and by a "coincidence", Frankenstein is back in the news. The National Theatre in London is putting on a new production and here in Oxford, the Bodleian Library has an exhibition based around Mary Shelley's original manuscript.

Now why would Frankenstein be associated with Uranus? Here are some reasons.

1. Uranus is also called the Awakener by some and Richard Tarnas argues in his excellent book that the planet has far more in common with the story of Prometheus than with Ouranos. He convinces me. Mary Shelley's book was called Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus. The book is all about the awakening of a monster.


2. Uranus rules electricity and Frankenstein's monster is brought to life by a bolt of lightening.

3. Uranus rules science or more exactly breaking scientific boundaries. Dr Frankestein is a scientist and he creates his monster as an experiment.

4. I have found that Uranus is often active during "unnatural" births – such as Caesareans. (I don't mean to imply there's anything wrong with c-sections: I've had two myself. It's just not the usual channel.)

Mary Shelley's chart. Click to enlarge.

So there are two key charts to look at to check if Uranus is active: Mary Shelley's (she wrote the book) and Boris Karloff's, because it is still his image that most of us think of as soon as anyone mentions the word Frankenstein.

Shelley has a Uranus-Sun-Mars conjunct in the writer's sign, Virgo.

Karloff has Uranus at the top of his chart  conjunct the Venus, in her own sign Libra, associated dressing up. (His birth time is quite uncertain, so take it with a pinch of salt.) His transformation from ordinary looking actor to hideous monster involved a huge amount of make up and prosthetics.

Boris Karloff's chart. Click to enlarge.

Shelley's chart, in particular, is full of fascinating stuff, but I'll leave it for you to ponder. For starterss, take a look at the position of Pluto, planet of death, right on the career angle. She made a career out of a book about the undead and from editing and publishing the work of her dead husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley.