Astrological Similarities of the Spanish Flu and Covid-19

In order to gain a better understanding of a world event like the current pandemic, astrologers frequently look to the past to see how planets have aligned with each other during similar events. Even though astrology has many other methods to track events throughout history, the classic conjunctions are a good starting point. We don’t have to look back any further than the Spanish Flu of 1918. This world event had a significant planetary combination of Saturn (one orbit every 29 years) and Neptune (it takes approximately 165 years to complete its orbit of the sun).  Both of these planets occupied the same position in the night’s sky relative to a viewer on earth to within a mere 3 degrees of each other during the first reported case of the Spanish Flu in March of 1918. In contrast, the first reported case of COVID-19 was on December 31, 2019 and Saturn was just slightly over one degree away from the slowest moving planet in the zodiac, Pluto (one orbit every 248 years). Note: Pluto is still considered a planet in astrology.

So how are these two pandemics related astrologically when COVID-19 was discovered during a Saturn-Pluto conjunction and the Spanish Flu started with a Saturn-Neptune conjunction? To look at the meaning behind two seemingly similar events historically, you also have to look at what each planet signifies in astrology as well as other events and their circumstances under the same conjunction. Saturn rules restrictions and adversity while Pluto is associated with transformation, destruction, death, and rebirth. Neptune is ideals, illusions, and uncertainty. Just like WWI, which started July 28, 1914 with a Saturn and Pluto conjunction approximately 3 degrees from each other, we were able to organize worldwide in 2020 to combat a common enemy. We would fight Covid-19, not with guns and tanks, but with new vaccine technologies like the mRNA vaccine. In comparison, there was a cloud of uncertainty and misinformation surrounding the Spanish Flu with next to no treatments for secondary infections and no vaccines. In 1918, the World Health Organization did not exist. The United Nations formed in 1945 and shortly afterwards, the WHO was born. In other words, the world was in a much better position in 2020 to wage war against Covid-19 but as mentioned, a drastically different situation in 1918. To further add to the Neptunian cloud of confusion, estimations of deaths from the Spanish Flu ranged between 17 million and 100 million worldwide. This estimate is in stark contrast to how we are able to have updated and timely data on the infected and death rates country by country on a daily basis.

I was planning on writing this article once the current pandemic officially becomes an endemic but astrologically speaking, I believe that the worst is behind us and we can now do a comparison between Covid-19 and the Spanish Flu. I am basing my endemic forecast on how the Spanish Flu, WWI and WWII ended. Jupiter (12 years to orbit the sun) was in an exact conjunction with Neptune in April of 1920 when the Spanish Flu was declared to be over. Following WWI, the Paris Peace Conference was held on Jan 18 1919 when Jupiter (beneficial, expansive, good fortune) was within 3 degrees of a conjunction with Pluto. Finally, Jupiter was conjunct Neptune within approximately 3 degrees Sept 1, 1945 when WWII ended. The good news about Covid-19 is that Jupiter will be conjunct Neptune March 27, 2022.