The astrology of the Newtown shooter

On December 14th  a 20 year old man went on a killing spree, murdering his mother and perhaps as many as 28 others, including 20 children at the elementary school where his mother taught.  Adam Lanza, the shooter, was described as intelligent but socially awkward, a kid who didn’t fit in.

John Townley has posted the charts of Adam Lanza along with a brief analysis of the event.  One thing I noticed right away about Lanza’s chart was the exact conjunction of Uranus and Neptune.  The Uranus/Neptune conjunction in the early 1990s was a hugely significant planetary event that opened up portals of consciousness and inspired radical (Uranus) spirituality (Neptune) that often veered into delusion (also Neptune).  The New Age movement, for example, exploded during this period.  Uranus and Neptune were both in Capricorn, the sign of structures and solid foundations – under the Uranus/Neptune conjunction we saw the radical transformation (Uranus) and dissolving (Neptune) of personal structures that underpin our lives such as marriages, relationships, businesses.

In terrible crimes such as these I often attempt to find answers in the birthchart of the person perpetrating the crime, NOT to offer excuses but in an attempt to see what kind of emotional challenge was left unresolved to result in such a heinous event.

The children that were born during this period (1991-1994) often are exceptionally gifted and talented (such as Justin Bieber who was born in 1994).   It is during this period that the whole concept of “Indigo Children”  entered the mainstream.  But this period also began the astonishing rise of autism spectrum disorders which I have often attributed to Uranian influences.  But autism does not create murderers, and to classify this young man as being simply on the autism spectrum ignores the greater truths as shown in the birthchart.

Lanza’s chart shows an Aries Venus in an exact square to both Uranus and Neptune.  Venus represents our ability to attach to others and how we feel about our own potential to be loved and desired.  Certainly there are plenty of people with this placement in their charts who are NOT social misfits, but it’s not uncommon to find Venus/Uranus people who are unable to form attachments, and Venus/Neptune people who feel lost in social situations.

The natal chart shows the Taurus Sun squared by Chiron, an often painful condition in which one’s sense of self (Sun) is threatened by emotional sensitivity and a quality of woundedness that often isn’t resolved until one’s later years.  Difficult aspects to the Sun often suggest abandonment by the father, and I suspect that when Lanza’s father left the family it was extremely painful for him.

Transiting Pluto has been within a degree of his natal Capricorn Moon for the past several months, with Uranus challenging his Moon by square aspect.  This Uranus/Pluto combination on a sensitive point like the Moon must have created a powerful pressure for resolution that had no apparent outlet for him.  If he was unable to connect with others, or to find some way to find comfort, this would have been an extremely painful five months of planetary hell.  And with Mars in Pisces, where anger and rage is often sublimated and submerged, he would have likely felt powerless and out of options.

At the time of these murders the New Moon in Sagittarius was sitting right on the Vertex in the chart.  The Vertex is a point that represents events over which we have no control; turning points in our life.  Lanza must have felt that in this act he was having a powerful meeting with his destiny and his fate.

Obviously, there are thousands of people with this same birthchart who are not committing mass murders.  Every one of us has a choice, and many of us have experiences of misery in this life that require us to adapt and grow and learn and heal.  I say this from personal experience, as many of you know.  I tend to see these situations as emblematic of the breakdown of the fabric of our society, in which loneliness and desperation create isolated and lonely individuals who feel so disconnected from the rest of the world that murder is a release without remorse, empathy and compassion.

This unspeakable event occurred just as Uranus stationed direct.  It was an event of shock and awe to such an extreme, but this is how Uranus works.  It shocks us out of our complacency and forces us to open our eyes.  Our culture is crumbling and our world is in desperate need of new values and a greater sense of community and mutual support.

It’s easy to blame events like this on the availability of guns, but gun control is only a small piece of the problem.  The desperation of our young people is the canary in the coal mine.  When will we begin paying attention?

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