The rare conjunction of Mercury and Venus—the planet which rules the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Taurus—has brought some surprising effects. The first set of London underground terrorist attacks (see horoscope) on July 7 commenced at 8:51 AM, which put the Mercury-Venus conjunction in the 12th house.

 

     The masterful Charles Carter, in his classic of mundane astrology, Political Astrology, says that the 12^th house defines “secret enemies of the State.”

 

     Mercury indicates “all means of communication” and “change” (Carter italicized this word for mundane Mercury). It is well known now that terrorists use attacks as means of communication—propaganda, recruitment tools, swaying national opinion. This one was a 7/7 shot across the bow of the G8 nations, England in particular.

 

     Venus, says Carter, “in actual time of war…is a planet of victory.” In Tony Blair’s (see horoscope) speech on the day of the attacks, Churchill-like references to victory were abundant. The Mercury-Venus conjunction exactly opposes Blair’s natal 10^th house Aquarius Moon.

 

    The United Kingdom chart (see horoscope) for January 1, 1801—the date of union with Ireland—is said by British astrologer Nicolas Campion to be the most useful for UK event astrology. In this horoscope, Mars (at 11° Taurus) exactly squares the 7/7 Mercury-Venus conjunction. Looking ahead, it is worth noting that transiting Pluto will conjunct the UK Uranus in early to mid-2006—a potentially explosive time (the equivalent transit for the U.S. was during the time of the Spanish-American War).

 

     For the July 7 and 21 London bombings: Neptune in Aquarius squared the UK Neptune in the 1801 horoscope. Neptune erodes from within, so unlike the 1944 missile bombardment of London—which was from an outside enemy, Germany—these bombings are from an enemy within.