Slothrop’s Destiny was more or less already determined in infancy. His
family was not prospering and his father (Schwarzvater) made a deal for his
education with the NRC in the Spring of 1920 [84]. At this time the Sun, moving
direct,
formed an exact conjunction with
retrograding
Mercury – both still in the Twelfth House. The Sun represents the
government, authorities in general, the father, and the vitality of the native.
Mercury is also the planet of speech, education,
research councils,
and the transformation of an infant to a toddler. Tyrone was conditioned,
observed, never really deconditioned
beyond the zero
and kept under surveillance for the rest of his life. Astrologically, a
twelfth-house double Virgo with ruling Mercury retrograde in Virgo to boot, is
the most ideal candidate for such an experiment – Thomas Pynchon most
certainly must have known this!!
The Sun, Virgo Ascendant, and
ruling
retrograde-Mercury (the final
dispositor
as well, i.e., all planets refer back to Mercury) are the key significators of
Tyrone’s nativity. We can now examine the holistic figure of the chart and
the positions of the other planets. The chart diagram itself is amazing,
unusual and tells us much about extraordinary times, freedom, the rocket, and
the relation between this World and
Other Worlds.
The figure illustrated is known as the
Bucket
– all planets except one symmetrically clustered in one segment of the
Zodiac and polarized by that “singleton” in the opposite sector. The
singleton is also known as “the handle of the bucket,” a focal
determinator indicating special talents, whims, and “gifts” according
to the nature of the planet. In Slothrop’s chart we are dealing with
Uranus in the Sixth House, retrograde in its own sign of Aquarius – a most
prominent factor indeed!
Uranus is the planet of innovation, originality, technical advancements
(rockets, computers), revolutions, freedom, chaos, extraordinary times,
eccentric persons and, yes, also of paranoia, “genius and madness.”
It stands at the first gate to the outer world: self-liberation, the
breakthrough. Its physical state, element, is electricity and its symbol is
vertical lightning (in the USA, GB, and most English speaking countries the
anachronistic
TV
symbol is mistakenly still being used – when are you Anglos going to wake
up and adopt the true cyber-rocket symbol for Uranus?!). Uranus also relates to
friends, friendships, especially strangers suddenly popping into one’s
life and indicates those areas of interests common to and shared by a
seven-year generation – in Slothrop’s generation, 1912-1920,
technology! For most individuals Uranus seldom plays a crucial, key, or
predominant role in their lifetime. In Slothrop’s life it sure did, even
though he didn’t know what his freedom was, much less what it was worth to
him [390].
A singleton in the western hemisphere in the Sixth House, the house of Virgo,
polarized Uranus stands dignified in its own sign of Aquarius, the elated
co-ruler and focal determinator of the whole chart. Aside from Mercury, and
placed in Mercury’s house, Uranus is the only other retrograde planet. It
looks more like the rocket falling down on Slothrop, or is it a rainbow? The
Sixth House, governed by Virgo & Mercury, is the house of health, labor
(there’s those 3 of pentacles again, reversed due to retrograde Uranus),
cousins, aunts & uncles (lingering Lyle), and service – whatever
“service"” should imply to Tyrone . . . a rocket service? Maybe he
just would have been better off locked up
somewhere
[390].
Uranus is furthermore the dispositor of Slothrop’s Sixth House and in
matters of health Uranus rules accidents, nervous stress symptoms, high-tech
medical experiments, and areas of mental health, most specifically paranoia.
The foremost health binary of Uranus is the cutting edge between genius and
madness. Sorry, no genius or madness in Slothrop's case, just some insanity
(and ignorance) in the family [268, 553]. Uranus being isolated, retrograde,
and defused indicates mediocrity and pretext. What we know about the
conditioning experiments on Infant Tyrone causing his ultra-paradoxical
reaction (response before stimuli), his initiation into the five Proverbs of
Paranoia, and his ultimate scattering point more victimization than innovation,
Slothrop being a victim of his own destiny.
In his chart Uranus has no positive aspects for channels of escape, methods of
voicing any cultural prophecy, or revolutionary ideals. If you want genius,
look somewhere else. If you want compulsion, well there are many more levels
involved in this combination, starting with those
ten thousand Slothrops
… Slothrop’s Uranus, a
singleton without singularity
! – virtual paper fabulating about living forever in a purified
Electroworld [699]!
