Focus

The eight planets of the solar system moving around their orbits create a highly complex dynamic phenomenon that challenges human understanding. Such complexity can be reduced by narrowing our focus to fewer planets and specific synodic cycles between those planets. This approach provides many valuable insights about the cyclic patterns of history. 

Focusing on the four giant planets

The giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune stand out as the four most massive planets. They make up 99% of the mass known to orbit the Sun. Furthermore, their orbital periods range from 12 years to 165 years, an order of magnitude which is relevant to study long historical periods ranging from a few decades to several centuries. 

Focusing on the three slowest synodic cycles

The synodic cycles of the giant planets have a common periodicity of 179 to 180 years. Such a timeframe includes: 

• 1 Uranus-Neptune cycle

• 4 Saturn-Uranus cycles

• 5 Saturn-Neptune cycles

• 9 Jupiter-Saturn cycles

• 13 Jupiter-Uranus cycles

• 14 Jupiter-Neptune cycles

My interest for long-term historical threads led me to focus on the slowest of those cycles:

• The 172-years Uranus-Neptune cycle sets the rythm of long-term history across centuries. Uranus and Neptune are an infinite source of imagination, dreams, ideas and theories that create the future. The major aspects between Uranus and Neptune coincide with new cultural trends, artistic and religious movements and scientific paradigms. Richard Tarnas magnificently covers this cycle in the part "Awakenings of Spirit and Soul" of his book Cosmos and Psyche. 

• the 45-years Saturn-Uranus cycle is about change, renewal, innovation and disruption. It brings forth the archetypal theme of “the New versus the Old” and often coincides with the disruption of established markets and industries by innovative products, or with deeper disruptions of whole economies due globalisation or financial crisis. The most recent example is the impressive disruption of work and social activities related to the lockdowns caused by the covid-19 pandemic, during the Saturn-Uranus squares of 2021-22.

• The 36-years Saturn-Neptune cycle is about making dreams real. It corresponds to seminal theories, visionary inventions, technology breakthroughs, and radically new approaches. In other words, it marks imaginative leaps that redefine what's possible and shift the boundary between fantasy and reality. 

My research suggests that these three cycles between Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are indeed relevant to draw correlations with historical, cultural and social developments at the scale of a century. Three metaphors are suggested to visualise their meaning. 

The observations indicate that the three cycles that Jupiter forms with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are better understood when put in the wider context of the three longer cycles described above. Jupiter appears to highlight or catalize the historical threads related to these cycles. Specific years that stand out as "historical" often coincide with clearly distinguishable aspect figures between three or four giant planets, such as T-squares, oppositions or squares. As an example, see our description of the zeitgeist of the year 1976.