CHAPTER FOUR:
A Birth Chart for the United States of America - 7

The Tripod pattern is related to the trine, an aspect which divides the whole circumference of the chart into three sections, each of 120 degrees. It therefore carries the basic meaning of number 3. This number implies that the basic polarity of all life-manifestations is — transcended through understanding and through some kind of "vision," or by means of the activity of an abstracting or integrating higher mind. We have already seen that throughout most of the eighteenth century there was a "long trine" of Neptune and Pluto. This aspect provided a subconscious background for the movement of revolt against medieval and classical authoritarianism — a movement known as the Enlightenment — and also for the mystical inspiration of Swedenborg and of a few English poets, especially Blake.
      The Tripod character of the planetary pattern for July 4, 1776, fits in well with the character of an idealistic, and in a sense abstract, type of democracy based on supposedly "self-evident" rights. We also find a modified and less obvious three-fold pattern in the chart for March 4, 1789, when the Constitution went into effect. But when Neptune was discovered in 1846, the patterns of both the Declaration and the Constitution were basically changed. A new factor had entered the consciousness of mankind and implied the potential transformation of the collective mentality — of the American people.
      "Popular" democracy with President Jackson had already begun, and the great westward tide was accelerated when in February 1846 the Mormons left for what was to become Utah, and in June the Oregon Treaty added a vast territory to the States. The War with Mexico ended on February 2, 1848, completing the immense aggrandizement of the nation. On January 24, 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento, California. Later that year the Perfectionist Community of Oneida, a typically Neptunian form of communal living was started and the Associated Press, which represents the beginning of the spread of the communications media, was founded. The antislavery movement was growing rapidly and in Europe the Communist Manifesto was published (winter, 1848). Since 1844 a new religion, which became known as the Baba'i faith, had been gathering thousands of supporters who were soon to be terribly persecuted. This movement, which now has centers in major cities all over the world, was the first religion to present concrete plans for a global organization of mankind on an all-inclusive (Neptunian) foundation, and claimed to be based on direct divine Revelation.