Cho Seung-Hui: A Capricorn Run-A-Muck in a
Run-a-Muck Gun Culture
April 20, 2007
Capricorn is a sign that likes to be in control but when its inner control breaks down Capricorn really loses it. In a society with better gun control, Capricorn Cho Seung-Hui might have not have had the opportunity to run-a-muck and commit the worst massacre in U.S. history. Korean culture and the violent U.S. society Cho was living in also had an important part to play in this terrible tragedy along with Cho’s astrological/psychological/spiritual dynamics that led to the Virginia massacre.
Cho’s Capricorn Sun was an important factor because it was being badly aspected by the transiting Aries Sun on that day. Aries is an aggressive impulsive sign. The Capricorn, obviously, planned his rampage out but had the impetus of red-hot Aries energy of the Sun and Moon to initiate it. First, the degree symbol for his Sun sign is apropos: On the edge of a forest a man walks alone, towards a field in the middle of which stands his home, small, solid, and ornamented with a vine. According to the Zodiac Image Handbook, Cardinal Signs, “this is self-willed seclusion, a feature of Capricorn. They can become intolerant, unable to adapt their way of thinking; they may cease to educate themselves, their imaginary authority a mask for inadequacy. They need to guard against this arrogance, any gruffness of manner, and a feeling of melancholy when alone…” Cho was a loner and this quality was instrumental in bringing about his downfall. Cho’s great aunt in Korea said he was always quiet, never said anything even as a young child. Fellow high school students are saying that Cho was quiet there too. He was picked on because of it. If he’d been able to talk about his violent feelings with someone, he may have been able to discharge his pent up hostility without killing 32 innocent people. The Wikipedia article on Cho ways he was given a diagnosis of autism after he came to this country. That would, of course, explain his isolation but he didn't appear to be in any special classes in high school or elementary school.
Alan Oken in his Soul Centered Astrology says the following about an undeveloped Capricorn: There's a total attachment to the physical plane. The effects of one’s biological heritage and current familial circumstances create adherence to deep psychological patterns which allow little freedom of individual choice…The apprehensions of lack and loss, of not getting what one wants or losing what one has attained, are paramount in the mind of such an individual. Life seems like a constant uphill battle. This mountain goat is dragging behind it all of the excess karmic baggage from many other lifetimes. Oken speaks of this Capricorn as having emotional habit patterns which are based on fear.
Cho felt put upon and was highly resentful of the things that other people had, particularly the rich. The position of the asteroid Chiron indicates a wound that doesn’t heal. With Chiron in Taurus in his birth chart, Cho’s wound was in the sign of money and possessions. It has also been revealed that Cho’s parents were poor when they lived in Seoul Korea and it was one of the reasons they moved to the United States. Cho’s Chiron was conjunct the transiting Ascendant (the sign rising on the eastern horizon at the time of birth or an event) for the beginning of the massacre which indicates that his Capricorn focus on the physical plane and his desire for material possessions and resentment of the rich was a factor in this tragedy.
With the “total attachment to the physical plane” Cho was like many other young people today that have no link to the spiritual level. In this materialistic society nothing is offered to them other than a bastard Christianity that does not follow Christ.
Overwhelmed by the Dragon
April the 16th was a bad day for someone like Cho because the symbol for the Aries Sun degree that day was: A man, who has just stumbled over a stone is in danger of falling with outstretched arms near a dragon, who seems to mesmerize him. According to Helene and Willem Koppejan in the Zodiac Image Handbook, “This is called the degree of ‘menacing decadence.’ The man does not seem to fit in with the laws and customs of his environment. Such people alienate themselves from their families by offending old routines and established ideas. Without much respect for tradition, they assume a more modern life-style and develop other interests.” Breaking with tradition would be difficult for a young Korean man.
According to a blog I read today titled, “Cho Seung-Hui could be a product of the Korean Dilemma”, expectations of Korean parents “constrict and squeeze happiness out of them (their children)… Respect for the elders injects fear of pursuing ones own ideas over the view of the parents and grandparents. The children of these hard working, aggressively directed parents are simply not allowed to have the rebellious teenage period that Americans understand to be a rite of passage and they are definitely not given the freedom to choose their careers based upon they own desires, or even talents.”
Cho was probably trying to separate himself from his parents, who ran a dry cleaning business, when he changed his major to English from business. He’d been in the middle of a Uranian cycle with Uranus making a square to his natal Uranus. This is generally experienced at his age as a need to be independent from parents and family members.
Further explication of the Aries degree symbol on April 16th by Helene and Willem Koppejan in the Zodiac Image Handbook reveals, “They may also be hypnotized by some idea, which could cause their downfall. The man (in the symbol) is about to fall. The dragon can either be a symbol of evil or the guardian of a threshold. They may have poison in themselves, which can result in hypnotic fantasies and delusive dreams or in a dangerous fanaticism, which arises from a kind of self-hypnosis. On a higher level, however, we have the archetype of Michael or St. George fighting the dragon. Then it implies an otherworldly power and tremendous concentration to overcome evil and turn it into good. People with this degree have to transmute the negative forces in the earth and overcome the powers of death, so that the gates of heaven will open.”
In other words Monday was the day of the dragon and instead of fighting the beast, Cho was swallowed by it. He was mesmerized by the power of the Dark Side, which unfortunately he mistook for the Light Side. An article on the UK’s Daily Mail website, “Campus gunman’s death video was direct copy of award-winning Korean revenge film”, shows photos from the Korean movie, Old Boy that clearly resemble several of the photos Cho took of himself which were included in the packet he sent to NBC. I’m sure he saw the movie and tried to pattern himself after the hero who one film critic describes as “taking out a score of goons with a claw hammer.”
The frightening thing about our present materialistic society is the glamour it creates around evil and the dark side. Instead of offering our young people a constructive means of siding with the forces of light, our capitalistic society makes evil look acceptable and often disguises it as a good in order to make money for the corporations that enthrall our people with Evil’s dark and glitzy allure.
Hostile to Authority, Possible Sexual Abuse
Cho was a vulnerable loner who was extremely hostile to authority as shown by the two plays he wrote which disturbed his fellow students who read them. The Sun in Capricorn in a birth chart generally indicates a difficult relationship with his father, the first authority figure. In both of his plays he displays extreme hostility to a male authority figure. In “Richard McBeef,” it’s the protagonist’s stepfather who is the focus of his wrath. In “Mr. Brownstone”, a teacher is the abuser. In both plays he writes that the protagonist is sexually abused by these men. It is possible that Cho was the victim of sexual abuse and as a Capricorn who needs to feel in control, this would be intolerable.
Sexual problems are indicated by Cho’s Saturn in Scorpio, Saturn representing losses and lessons, Scorpio: sex and death. Further, he was in the middle of a dangerous Saturn cycle (his Saturn in Scorpio besieged by transiting Saturn in Leo (ego, demand for attention) and Chiron in Aquarius along with fantasy oriented Neptune). He was like the fantasy hero in Old Boy, getting even for all the wrongs that had been perpetuated against him.
Other indicators of sexual problems were a Mars/Pluto conjunction in Scorpio in the natal chart squaring his Sun. Sexual abuse could have been inherited through the mother’s line (Pluto). It’s possible that the abuser told Cho never to say anything and the pattern was set for Cho’s isolated life. As a creepy addendum, at the time of his first murder, the transiting MC, which is the public point of the horoscope, was square the Mars/Pluto conjunction. He got public recognition for his obsession with death and violence.
Overly Sensitive, Despite Coldness of Capricorn
Cho was born with his Moon in Cancer, a very emotional sign for someone that was born with the non-emotional Sun in Capricorn. He was a young person with little affect, say those who were acquainted with him and yet under the surface he was extremely sensitive and self-centered. The Moon in Cancer says something about the mother and how Cho might long for a mother that would take care of him, protect him. Perhaps this need went unfulfilled because both parents were absorbed in working in the dry cleaning business and didn’t have enough time for Cho.
The following is what Grant Levi says about this Sun Moon combination in his book, Heaven Knows What:
You are intuitive and introspective, perhaps a little too introspective for your own good…Even if you are personally unhappy; you have a way of concealing it to keep up appearances. You are rather secretive and can carry plans around with you for a long time, working at them in your own way for weeks without taking anyone into your confidence. You have a good deal of pride and a protective shell into which you crawl when your feelings get hurt. No one is ever likely to accuse you of wearing your heart on your sleeve.
Although Cho’s psychological/astrological dynamics would be enough to indicate severe mental disturbance and possible psychosis, there is the possibility that a spiritual element was involved.
The secular world doesn’t want to admit that preternatural evil exists, that it can obsess and control, that it can overwhelm but this might be the clearest example of preternatural evil that we’ve seen since the Columbine Massacre.
Dark forces might be indicated by transiting Pluto conjunct (in the same place as) Jupiter and Neptune. Pluto, had been sitting on this birth chart aspect for quite some time. Pluto Jupiter is obsessional and Neptune is delusional. All of it is in Sagittarius, an indication that his lack of positive spirituality played a part in his black philosophical outlook. Hitler had the Pluto Neptune conjunction in the 8th House of death in his birth chart. This energy configuration can be read as the Dark Forces (Pluto) mixed with the spiritual forces (Neptune), which in Hitler’s case, affected millions (Pluto—large groups). Or the glamour (Neptune) of the Dark Side (Pluto) overwhelmed the German people. Although Cho didn’t have this Pluto/Neptune aspect in his natal chart, the transiting aspect had a strong effect. I think this aspect is the key to allowing something demonic to take over.
From what we’ve learned so far about him, Cho had been extremely miserable for much of his life, consumed with hate, overwhelmed by the dragon and possessed by it. He was driven mad by his thoughts. With Mercury (thinking) in Capricorn making a sextile to the Mars/Pluto conjunction, violent, murderous thoughts easily (sextile) surfaced from his subconscious or were inserted by Dark Forces. Like other psychotics and individuals he allowed those thoughts to control him. It’s a good chance that Cho’s sexual energy was all bottled up due to the Saturn (Repression) in Scorpio. As Psychotherapist Wilhelm Reich noted years ago, repressed sexual energy will eventually find an outlet and it’s rarely pretty.
He was able to express some of his pent up hostility in his plays, but in the end the only release he thought he had was his future rampage and then his suicide.
Although there were positive aspects that Cho could have used to alter this tragic destructive path, he couldn’t see them. Jupiter was making a conjunction to his Venus, giving him the chance to develop and expand a relationship. In fact, he would have soon experienced his Jupiter return. With his Saturn square behind him, he could have used the Jupiter energy to travel, to improve his writing skills. Instead, his murderous thoughts expanded into destructive action.
Unfortunately for Cho and his 32 victims it was an easy route to purchase a gun in Virginia. Apparently, there was no record search for Cho’s mental health history, which should have stopped him from ever buying a firearm. It was unfortunate for Cho and his 32 victims that he was living in such a violent culture. Pluto in the U.S. chart is conjunct Cho’s Sun and as I explained earlier, his Sun and the U.S. Pluto opposing Mercury (thinking) was being stimulated by the Aries degree symbol of the dragon that day. Despite his inability to connect with the Light, had he been born in a culture that offered him a choice of a genuine spiritual path instead of a phony one he could have used his Jupiter Neptune conjunction to find the spiritual insight he so desperately needed.
|
