School Shooters and Other Mass Murderers

 

The following involves a discussion of the astrology of a sub-group of mass murderers, particularly that of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the school shooters in Littleton, Colorado.

 

We live in ironic times.  If your family member, friend, or neighbor becomes psychotic, society at least recognizes that he needs help.  If some one, however, is neurotic--that is, dysfunctional in some important area of life and cannot meet his own human needs--too bad.  Either he himself suppresses all knowledge of his problem and acts it out, or he goes through hell trying to act like what he thinks every one else is like, or he spends enormous amounts of money trying to get fixed--if he is lucky.  We are all "free" to dysfunction or under-function from cradle to grave.  Psychosis can, but does not necessarily, attract social sympathy.   Neuroses, however, makes society functionally blind.  We'd rather not look.  Out of sight, out of mind.   Unlike psychosis, neurosis silently worms its way into our social norms.  Psychosis is blatant;  neurosis is pervasive, extensive, multi-faceted, degreed, and to those who do not want to know, subtle.  Neurosis, not psychosis, is mankind's major mental ailment.  Neurosis is mankind's very costly major mental ailment.   The emotional, economic, social, and moral devastation caused by us neurotics make everything done by psychotics look like the work of schoolgirls. 

 

Also in our time packaging is often more important than content.  Fame is sought; character is not.  Image is extremely powerful.  The huge success of advertising--which defines even our presidential campaigns--confirms this. 

 

In the astrology I work with each individual's chart tells a lot about him--not his soul, because the soul does not have parameters measurable by astrology.  But it tells a great deal about his personality, about his neuroses and, if he has them, psychoses.  We all have personalities. 

 

In astrology an individual seldom does anything without "having the consciousness" representing it.  He may not be aware he has that consciousness--that is, the material is in his unconscious--but his astrology will show it.  He gets married when he has the consciousness of marriage.  He changes careers when he has the consciousness of career change. She has children when she has the consciousness of childbearing.  And so on and on, up to and including dying.  The planets are not only descriptive, they are considerably prescriptive.  The planetary conditions that define discrete forms of consciousness are called signatures.  It is possible for an individual to have a signature for some action which he does not do, i.e., he may refrain.  On the other hand, he will hardly do something for which he has no signature at all.

 

So, some one can have many elements of the complex signature for murder, and not murder any one.  At the same time, he will not murder unless he has the necessary parts of the signature for murder.   

 

By combining the above statements about the importance of image and varieties of consciousness defined by signatures, we open the way to our current topic--school shootings. 

 

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were the two young men who killed 13 and wounded another 23 defenseless students on April 20, 1999 at Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado.

 

Below I discuss the astrology they had, and had to have, in order to do such a thing.

 

An important part of the signature for murderers involves forefront mars (aggression) influencing their 7th house (others). Without this influence their aggression would be directed elsewhere.  Certainly not toward others.  Mars influence on the 7^th house sets the path their aggression takes--that is, on others, on the You part of I-You.  Aggression can go elsewhere.  For instance, mars influence to the 3^rd house directs aggression at siblings, neighbors, or other highway drivers--all of these being 3^rd house matters.  To a 5^th house, mars' aggression goes toward sexual partners or children--both being 5^th house matters.  In the 10^th house it goes into careers.

 

Mars' influence to the 7th house does not create the act of murder.  There are many socially acceptable (and even useful) ways aggression toward others can be expressed.  Mars' influence there enables the aggressive energy (mars) of one individual to be directed toward another (7^th).

 

What else?  

 

For what happened at Columbine High, the perpetrators must have had conditions in their first house (early life) connected to their fourth house (end of life) suggesting their early demise (1^st/4^th signature).  Once again, these conditions do not mandate an early demise, but are there when it does happen.

 

But, to do as Harris and Klebold did, they had to have 10th house (career, reputation) signatures symbolizing a very public death--their instant fame.  One famous example of that was President John F. Kennedy, with the ruler of his 4^th (end of life) house in his 10^th (career, mid-life).  Without this signature, we wouldn't have heard about their death.  Harris and Klebold courted fame in death.

 

All the above astrological signatures existed in the charts of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. 

 

Because their action was so unusual--to find it so easy to choose death even before adulthood is not usual--other influences had to exist.

 

Both had to have on-going consciousness of death, tending to make it familiar, comfortable, and acceptable.  Ongoing consciousness of death can be represented a number of ways astrologically.  One way is to have planets in Scorpio on or ruling an Angle (Midheaven or Ascendant).   The sign Scorpio represents the transformations that come with ego dissolution, including the ongoing mini-deaths of marriage and other close partnership, martyrdom, and physical death.   Scorpio calls for the merging of individual identities for a greater, but different, good.  But it is not always the greater good.  Harris' and Klebold's whole generation has Uranus (sudden, unforeseen) and Neptune (fascination) in Scorpio.  That answers the question of why they have been cast so often into the "death" environments of school shootings--they all have the consciousness for it.  Most of them, however, do not have these planets on Angles, so they are not obsessed with death.  Dylan Klebold had neptune in Scorpio on his Midheaven.  Eric Harris had uranus in Scorpio on his Ascendant--that is, on Angles, therefore forefront.  "Transformation thinking," was very familiar to them.   Transformation thinking augmented by rage lead them to fantasize in terms of the most radical of all transformations, death.

 

Even now many of their peers have uranus and/or neptune in Scorpio on Angles.  Most of them, however, do not have the 4th (early death) and 10th house (fame at death) influences Klebold and Harris had.    So they have a strong consciousness of death, but they are not killing each other.

 

Can you see it?  This process is a form of differential diagnosis.  Fewer and fewer people are likely to be school shooters as the number of signatures needed to describe their actions increase.  The signature that describes Harris' and Klebold's end was complex.  It took many twists--this turn, not that turn, this way blocked, that open--on consciousness to limit it to that final act.  I can not state that the sum of their signatures mandated their actions.  I can only state that their combined signatures made their acts possible.

 

So, another answer...  Why, when many of our teenagers ingest large quantities of TV and video violence every day, do only some of them become violent?   Only a small number of them have the full template (that is, combined astrological signatures) suggesting fame, violence, murder, and early death.   Most of their peers have their consciousness directed elsewhere for at least some of those signatures..

 

What else?

 

Unless they were sociopaths (not true of Harris and Klebold), they had to have some kind of internal pain which converted their Scorpio consciousness from "life transformations" to the ultimate transformation, death.   Un-requitable love is painful.  So, it turns out, is un-requitable pain.  We know from rape victims that anger that cannot be redressed spins and careens within, causing serious physical and psychological problems.  Over time anger that cannot be acceptably resolved begins to look visible for expression, for an outward sign of its invisible hell, particularly with men.  (Women tend to aim it inward, at themselves.)

 

Of the two, I believe Klebold the more normal, that is, within a prevailing norm. Of the two, I also believe Klebold the follower.   With his neptune in Scorpio, Klebold had more fascination with death than Harris.

 

But Eric Harris--more neurotic, more troubled--had the massive pain and anger.  Harris had sun conjunct mars in Pisces.  Because he had mars (aggression) and Pisces (confusion) forefront, Harris' world included his inappropriate behavior toward others and theirs toward him.  Mars/neptune (or mars in Pisces), unlike Angular venus/jupiter (e.g., Paul Newman) or Angular moon/venus (President Kennedy, Princess Diana), is not charismatic. Mars/neptune/Pisces drives people away.  It makes people comment, "he's weird."  Because he is weird, he is, in fact, treated weirdly.  So the very ground on which he stands becomes marshy, unreliable.  Harris was rejected again and again, not just socially, but at home.  Not just yesterday, but most of his yesterdays.

 

Harris' world also included a strong interest in control and personal privacy.  He would have wanted to hide his pain.  He would have tried to control its expression.

 

One picture I saw of Harris illustrated his condition.  With his body he was demonstrating belligerence, swagger, fearlessness.  But his eyes showed some one who was very frightened.  It was the photo of some one making a desperate attempt to appear tough.

 

Imagine the conflict generated by those two, differing, conditions--being very frightened, and trying to keep every bit of it hidden. His response must have been increasingly to shut down, allowing little of his real feelings out, but then, less pain in. 

 

Shutting down is not a long-term, viable option.  Psychic energy has to go somewhere: if it cannot be used in agreeable aims or in exchange with others, it is too constrained.  It is definitely too limited for most teenagers, who define themselves so much through interaction with others.  Feelings are high on the scale of normal teenage manifestations.

 

There was one more major emphasis with Harris that played into his becoming a mass murderer. He had an unusual sexuality that was in utter conflict with his need for control.  Prior to adolescence it did not present so much of a social problem. Post-adolescence, however, it became a thorn in his flesh.  His sun conjunct mars in Pisces mentioned above influenced his 5^th house (sexuality).  Eric Harris had a pronounced, receptive, submissive type of sexuality.  (Did that mean he was gay?  Not necessarily.  There is usually a difference between gay and self-rejecting)  His sexuality--it would be better to say his character, including his sexuality--had self-abnegation, humiliation, passivity built into it.  That, his submissiveness and confusion, ultimately made him interested in promoting his last image:  Eric Harris the cold, insensitive, macho male--the opposite of the way he actually was. That image was his Yang response to his too-Yin susceptibility.  It was also his ultimate rejection of his own, extremely painful, reality. 

 

Did his pain, his astrology give him (them) the right--the justification--to commit murder?  Not at all.  But Harris' and Klebold's astrology makes the murders they did commit more understandable.  Understanding will not restore the lives they so cruelly took   But understanding can give us a one-up position on the prevention of future "Eric Harrises." 

 

One specific astrological signature, then, has played a strong role in creating the Harris-like monsters that spew out the misplaced aggression of mass murder: 

 

Eric Harris had that prominent, lighted mars in Pisces. 

 

So did the Unabomber, who terrified the nation with his placed or mailed bombs from 1978 to 1995.  (An astrological analysis of this individual exists at http://www.angelfire.com/sd/binah/unabomber.html.)

 

So did Charles Joseph Whitman Jr., sharpshooter and Eagle Scout, who climbed the tower at the University of Texas, Austin, on August 1, 1966 with an arsenal of weapons and started randomly shooting at men, women, children, and even pregnant women.

(An astrological analysis of this individual exists at http://www.angelfire.com/sd/binah/whitman.html.)

 

So did James Huberty, who killed 21 people and wounded 18 at a California McDonald's restaurant in 1984.  His mars in Pisces was not forefront when he committed murder, but it was doubly lighted.  That means it was active in his consciousness then.  It had been active on and off throughout his life.

 

So did Timothy McVeigh, who killed all those people in the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building.  He was born with two (both harmonic) mars in Pisces in his 7^th house of his 7^th chart.   One of them was conjunct pluto in Pisces (in his 7^th house) and in the same set with an Ascendant/moon, that is, this signature was forefront. 

 

McVeigh's other mars in Pisces was conjunct progressed moon and progressed pluto in Pisces (in his 7^th, with Angular influence) on the date of  the Waco, Texas massacre occurring on April 19, 1993.  At that time men, women, and children died--either from government gunfire or through the compound fire.  McVeigh's (then second) active mars in Pisces was the astrological source for his identification with those victims.  He felt their powerlessness because he was experiencing it himself. 

 

Two years later to the day McVeigh committed his own mass murder.  He denied his powerlessness by converting it into a singular act of "power."  He let all of us know a powerless nobody can become a powerful somebody.  He sought celebrity and he found it.  

 

At that time McVeigh also had a progressed conjunction of North Node/venus/saturn/pluto all in Pisces in his 7^th house (similar to a signature President Richard Nixon had just before he resigned office).  Saturn represents lack, deficiency, want.  Pluto increases the intensity of that sensation.  7^th house is the astrological house in which we connect to others.  At that time McVeigh was feeling totally alone, exactly the right condition for the festering of old sores like Waco.  He could not make his mark in relationships, so he made it in social awareness. 

 

I do not know about the rest of these killers, but both Huberty and McVeigh had tried counseling.  They failed to get the help they needed. 

 

I am sorry, but I do not have birth data on the many other school shooters we have had in America.  So I cannot include information on their charts.  I do not know if they had mars in Pisces.  I would particularly like to see the birth chart of the young man involved in the Virginia Tech murders, but it may never be available.

 

Every mass murderer does not have mars in Pisces.  Thomas Watt, the man who slaughtered all those elementary school children in Dunblane, Scotland was a little different.  He had a prominent, lighted mars/neptune.  That is not mars in Pisces, but is as close to it as a different signature can get because neptune rules Pisces.

 

The reverse (or is it the converse or obverse?) is also true.  Every male with a prominent mars in Pisces does not commit murder. 

 

But every one, male of female, with mars in Pisces is in for some difficult life-long experiences.  In astrology mars stands for action, aggression, directing.  It symbolizes our initiative.  Our initiative is absolutely essential in defining our identity.  In order to "have" a healthy ego one must be capable of acting in one's own best interest.  In his book on the correlation of the measure formula with the twelve astrological signs, author and Bell helicopter engineer Arthur M. Young assigned different measure formula to each of the astrological signs.  For Pisces he used the formula for "moment of inertia."  That assignment was perfect.  Mars in Pisces describes the individual's initiative (mars) entangled in hesitation, flip-flopping in indecision, drowning in lack of self-confidence, and spinning on second guessing (all Pisces).  In terms of normal functioning mars in Pisces leads to lost opportunities, really bad timing, and mistrust from others.  Because it is so painful, it also allows very little learning.   Compounded over the years its experiences create the colossal rage and the enormous need to appear  powerful that is characteristic of mass murderers.