Whereas Saturn-Pluto alignments pack a powerful, forceful dilemma of good versus evil, the manifestations of Saturn-Neptune alignments imperceptibly descend upon reality like a dark, estranging fog. Whereas Saturn-Pluto alignments involve the mass involvement of political power structures in either a tense standoff or destructive conflicts, Saturn-Neptune alignments create a disturbance in the interiors of the collective psyche, a malaise of disquietude and disenchantment.

Saturn-Pluto and Saturn-Neptune alignments have their religious side. Characteristics of these alignments can be seen in the critical, punitive side of the God in monotheistic religions. Saturn-Pluto combinations compel the manifestation of (and I’m employing these terms in a non-evaluative way) licentiousness, decadence, moral corruptibility, and the demonic. Thus, the reaction to and repression of these phenomena receive a power and force from the arrival and energy of the instinctual, the aggressive, and the wicked. This can be observed in the puritanical reaction of both Catholicism and Christianity to what for lack of a better descriptor might be packaged under the umbrella term of “original sin.” Thus, the guilt, shame, criticality, neurosis, and chastisement of the instinctual realm of Pluto comes from the overemphasis and overpowering of the Saturnine function. Here we see the fire and brimstone attacks of monotheistic religions—as powerful and vitriolic as they can be—coming from the super-heightened force placed upon the archetypal Saturn.

Saturn-Neptune alignments also manifest in the critical, chastising side of the monotheistic conception of God, but in an altogether different quality than the Saturn-Pluto complex. The Saturn-Neptune religious response is seen in the world-renouncing, cloistered ascetic—a sort of anemic, self-flagellating character that is aimed at purifying the body and worldly so as to arrive at a state of essence. Whereas the Saturn-Pluto judgmental reaction is involved with and informed by the bodily, the instinctual, and the desire-nature, the Saturn-Neptune reaction is engaged through dealing with the supersensible, the unseen, and the imaginal. Thus, in the Saturn-Neptune complex, we can see that one strategy to overcome the enormous divide between the heavenly and the worldly is a noble, valiant attempt aimed at trying to eliminate the worldly altogether—an attempt that is neither successful nor particularly healthy.