Book Review: Soul Sick Nation – An Astrologer’s View of America, by Jessica Murray

While each year shelves full of new astrological titles appear on the market – good books on political astrology really are thin on the ground. So… when I got wind of  Soul Sick Nation, a whole book centered on the horoscope of the USA, I was determined to read it even though its author was unknown to me. Well, let me give you my opinion at the outset.  It’s incredible. Ms. Murray does not only know her people, her country and her astrology, she is also a very deft  author. Ms. Murray’s use of language is pretty formidable – and to my mind, she applies this knowledge the very best when tackling the US – Pluto in Capricorn in the second house, and it’s opposition to Mercury in Cancer. The dynamic is explained thoroughly – and in the spirit of Pluto – no stone is left unturned. Though Ms. Murray is not afraid to let her criticism of the Bush regime speak through in the book – the Democrats do not come out of the foray unscathed either. That’s the wonderful thing about mundane astrology – it really is above the politics of any era – its concerns are with the deep strata of being called SOUL. 

Ms. Murray’s exploration of Neptune is sublime. Let me just give you a little taster here: “Neptune governs marvels and wonders, notions of heaven, Valhalla, never-never land. As a testament to its can-do entrepreneurship, American has fashioned several wonderlands out of bare sand: the faux-magic kingdoms of Hollywood, Las Vegas and Disneyland. These have been populated with an ever-shifting plethora of twinkling human and cartoon “stars”. The Neptune-Mars square bespeaks a frenetic appetite for the outsized and other-worldly, which helps us understand the prodigious amounts of energy Americans pump into fantasy”. Page 96/97.

Throughout the book Ms. Murray explores alternative scenario’s for offsetting the US’s karmic burden. She is a psychologist by profession and is really well equipped to do this. Her in depth analysis of the combi Pluto and Saturn interwoven with the unusual intensity of transits in 2010 and beyond – lead this reader to believe that the US really is maturing in spite of itself. This has to be good news for all of us.

Criticism of the book? Well to be honest…not a lot. Perhaps I would like to have known a little bit more about what Ms. Murray thinks of the US Moon in Aquarius – especially since it is the dispositor of the US Sun and is being triggered at present by the rare Jupiter, Chiron, Neptune conjunction. But I think I can probably live with that. All in all the book was a great read and it gave me some food for though on dealing with Saturn and Pluto transits in general.

I know I will be plugging “Soul Sick Nation” for a good many years to come.