The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 522, titled:
Saturn-Neptune Conjunctions and Secret Groups
With Chris Brennan
Episode originally released on February 5, 2026
Original episode URL:
https://theastrologypodcast.com/2026/02/05/saturn-neptune-conjunctions-and-secret-groups/
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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com
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Transcribed by Teresa “Peri” Lardo
Transcription released February 13th, 2026
Copyright © 2026 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: This month a rare conjunction of Saturn and Neptune is happening in the sky, and already we’re seeing a repetition of historical events from past conjunctions where there’s an exposure of secretive groups and organizations taking place. So I wanna talk in this video about how history is repeating itself with this cycle with some of the recent releases that have come out as part of the Epstein files.
So just a few days ago – I’m recording this on February 5th, 2026 – and on January 30th, the DOJ released millions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein and the investigations related to him over the course of the past couple of decades. And one of the things that the release of the files has done is it exposed a lot of hidden power networks, and showed a lot of things about people working behind the scenes and conspiring in order to influence world events. And while the dust is still settling as people are sorting through literally millions of files and still coming to terms with some of the things in the files and like, what’s true versus what’s not true, that at least the outlines of seeing some of the different major powerful people talking and working together and sort of conspiring behind the scenes on different things over the course of the past two decades has been really eye-opening for me personally as well as I think for a lot of other people.
So in the documents, there was also even the mention of at least one secretive group which perked up my eyes in particular, because it was in reference to a group called the Zodiac Club which evidently is some sort of club that goes back to the 1800s that I had to look up where it’s a secretive group where there’s only 12 members, with each one representing one of the 12 zodiac signs. And as I looked this up, it turns out that one of the famous members of the group at one point was JP Morgan, who astrologers know because he’s associated with that famous quote that may or may not have happened where supposedly he said that “millionaires don’t use astrology; billionaires do.” And I’ve always been uncertain of that quote, because we don’t actually have a good source for it, and it’s not clear if it’s true. And I was actually researching it and it turns out that the first time it may have been used was in 1989 by the astrologer Sydney Omarr, which I find fascinating because that was, of course, the last time there was a Saturn-Neptune conjunction was in 1989. And it’s not clear if this ended up being like, a real quote or if it was a fake quote that’s just commonly attributed to him. But one of the things I was reflecting on in seeing that he was part of this group is that, you know, if he was part of the group, and apparently he was so into it, he was assigned to the sign of Libra, and in his library he had some sort of painting involving Libra to represent that sign and maybe acknowledgement of being part of this group. It kind of raised the question for me all over again of like, maybe that was a real quote, even though it’s often treated by historians as if it’s fake because we have no source for it.
So it’s not clear if this Zodiac Group is like, an actual legit secretive society or if it’s just some sort of weird dinner club for elites, basically. But therein lies some of the ambiguity with the Saturn-Neptune conjunction is – and what’s weird about the release of the files – is that it’s simultaneously confirming that a bunch of things that were previously thought to be conspiracy theories are true, but then at the same time, it’s also showing that some conspiracy theories that people believed were true were actually being used to manipulate and mislead people. And indeed, it’s also creating a great deal of confusion at this time about what’s real versus what’s false, and there’s some elements of the truth that are clearly being suppressed, whereas there are some things that are probably not true that are being amplified. So it’s creating this whole epistemic crisis that we talked about on the last forecast episode, which is this profound period of questioning our ability to determine the truth and validate knowledge.
But the thing that I wanted to focus on here for my purposes is the secretive groups and conspiracies part of this, because that’s been really eye-opening for me as I’ve been looking through some of the headlines and some of the different files and different things like that. Because this was actually a theme that came up a year ago when my friend Nick Dagan Best and I did a whole episode on Saturn-Neptune conjunctions in history going through each of them over the past 2,000 years and talking about some of the common themes that we saw emerge during the course of these conjunctions.
So the conjunctions happen every 36 years about, and we looked through 2,000 years of history, and in that research we actually found a bunch of instances involving secretive groups. And the sort of summary of that research, which I’m gonna spend the rest of this video kind of reiterating and summarizing here, is basically that the Saturn-Neptune conjunctions often coincide with themes involving conspiracies, secret organizations, covert operations, and also sometimes the exposure or suppression of secretive groups. So that was like, conclusions that we had found a year ago, and so the fact that this has become a centerpoint of this Saturn-Neptune conjunction in our time is fascinating, especially because it was really last summer around the July timeframe when Saturn and Neptune first came within a degree – but the conjunction did not go exact – that the Epstein case first exploded in terms of the public consciousness most recently. And now that the Saturn-Neptune conjunction is going exact this month in February, it’s actually coming back into the consciousness in full force, and things are actually being revealed. So I wanna go through some of those past instances where these themes have come up in order to give us some perspective on what’s happening now by looking back into history.
All right. So the first section that I wanted to focus on that’s really the most pertinent one that I think is the most connected in some ways with what’s happening now is the research we did last year highlighted recurring themes of secret orders either being destroyed, banned, or acting as the catalyst for major world events and major events in history. So the first one going back to the year 1307 was the year when the Knights Templar were disbanded and destroyed when King Philip IV of France orchestrated the arrest and the suppression of the Knights Templar, which was this wealthy and powerful and somewhat mysteriously military order, and this all happened on Friday the 13th. So the Knights Templar were accused of heresy and blasphemy, which led to the dissolution of their order and the murder of a bunch of their members. And so I’m not an expert in the Knights Templar and some of the things surrounding it, but I know it’s been like, major food for speculation in terms of different theories surrounding that group and why it was disbanded and suppressed and different things like that. And it’s fascinating that that occurred on a Saturn-Neptune conjunction. And one of my reflections was, yeah, just about that and how that ties in with other instances of secret groups and organizations being exposed, or in this instance attempting to actually suppress them.
Another one that happened that was like, a major recurring theme is starting in the year 1738, the pope at the time banned freemasonry and issued the first papal bull banning Catholics from joining freemasonry under this Saturn-Neptune conjunction in 1738, citing their secrecy and their rituals. So that was one of the first times that I saw this coming up as a theme, but there were other instances where, for example, in 1917, there was a Saturn-Neptune conjunction recurrence, and the Catholic church published the Code of Canon Law, which explicitly reaffirmed their ban on freemasonry. And then weirdly, just a few years ago when Saturn and Neptune moved both into Pisces and first became conjunct again by sign and started building up to the degree-based conjunction that we’re experiencing finally now in 2026, the Vatican and the pope at the time reaffirmed this ban on freemasonry again in the year 2023. So again, there’s some sort of like, recurring theme there of like, the Church attempting to suppress secret groups and organizations basically.
In a different era, in the 1773 timeframe leading up to the American Revolution and a Saturn-Neptune conjunction that was taking place at that time, there was some really interesting stuff happening with the Sons of Liberty, which is a group that was kind of like a secretive grassroots organization. And one of the things that they’re perhaps most known for is they disguised themself as Mohawk Native Americans to carry out the Boston Tea Party under the cover of night. So it’s like, there was this secretive group that was doing events that were like, things that had a huge impact on history, and in that instance on the American Revolution itself or the things that eventually led directly into the American Revolution.
Another one that we found that we talked about in the episode a year ago was in 1881, there was a secret group called the People’s Will that assassinated Tsar Alexander II of Russia. And this group was kind of like a secret revolutionary society with independent cells led by an executive committee, which was actually led by a woman named Vera Figner. So that was another instance of like, sometimes these secretive groups actually taking actions and carrying out covert operations that involved or changed the course of history by sometimes targeting people in high positions of power.
So those are some of the ones I wanted to highlight the most in terms of secret societies and groups coming up during the course of this conjunction in the past. But there were also a few other themes that we found during that research as well.
So one of them that’s also relevant here that we’re seeing a repetition of is things involving secret pacts and diplomatic conspiracies. So we found a really strong lineage of secret agreements that fundamentally altered geopolitical structures in the episode last year, and oftentimes this led to the rise or sometimes the fall of different empires.
So for example, the most notable one that I found was the conjunction that was occurring – Saturn-Neptune conjunction – around the year 59 BCE with the creation of the first triumvirate in Rome. So this was a secret pact that was formed between Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus to bypass the Roman Senate and to control Rome. And this conspiracy eventually led to the fall of the Republic and essentially to the rise of the Roman Empire as it moved from the Republic period into the period of actually having emperors in control of everything.
There were a number of other ones. In 1560, the Amboise conspiracy was a failed plot by the Huguenots to seize power and abduct the young King Francis II, leading to the French Wars of Religion. And that was one that Nick talked about extensively.
We also talked about in 1882, the Triple Alliance where there was a secret defensive alliance that was formed between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, and this secret pact ended up setting the stage for the main alliances that would trigger World War I exactly one Saturn-Neptune cycle later, essentially.
Elsewhere we came across in 1882 – the same conjunction – Standard Oil and Trust was found, where there was this secret founding of Standard Oil and Trust by John D. Rockefeller, which created a monopoly that was hidden behind a trust legal structure in order to circumvent different laws. So it’s like, powerful rich people creating these secretive structures in order to benefit themselves financially basically, which I think we can see we’re having repetitions of today.
1916, there was also the Sykes-Picot agreement, which is a secret pact between Britain and France to carve up the Ottoman Empire’s Arab territories, which essentially laid the foundation for the modern Middle East borders, including some of the different disputed ones still to this day.
In 1917, that conjunction also coincided with the Zimmermann Telegram, which was a secret communication from Germany to Mexico that proposed an alliance against the US. And when this secret telegram was exposed in 1917 by being decoded by the British, it actually forced the US to enter World War I, or at least was one of the factors that galvanized the public and the American government into finally joining the war a few years after it started.
So those are some of the major themes involving like, secret pacts and conspiracies that also seem relevant and adjacent to some of the things that we’re seeing today where we’re seeing the exposure of some of these things, but no doubt there’s also a number of different ones happening behind the scenes right now that the public simply doesn’t know about and either will never know about, or perhaps we’ll learn about in history books at some point in the future.
Another major theme that we’ve repeated a lot on the forecast, but it’s worth reiterating here, is some of the themes involving covert operations, intelligence, and hidden forces where in modern times, we noted a shift from secret societies in the earlier eras to intelligence agencies and covert operations in the modern era. So for example, in 1917, there was a conspiracy by a German general to secretly transport Lenin from Switzerland back to Russia in a sealed train in order to destabilize the Russian government which succeeded in basically sparking the Bolshevik Revolution.
Or in 1953, Project MKUltra, where the CIA began a secret program involving human experimentation, mind control, and LSD on unwilling subjects. And part of this at the time we talked about in the full episode was partially sparked by some of the paranoia that was happening involving the Red Scare and the CIA thinking about or having worries about different Soviet capabilities at the time under that conjunction in the early 1950s.
In 1953, we also had the Iranian coup where there was a covert operation orchestrated by the CIA and MI6 to overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh and to reinstate the Shah. So we’ve talked about the Iranian coup happening in 1953 extensively, especially on the last forecast episode, and how that’s again coming up again today with some of the things that are happening with Iran.
Then also in 1989, the invasion of Panama where the US invaded Panama to oust Manuel Noriega, who was a former CIA asset who had gone rogue.
So again, a lot of covert operation, intelligence, and other things like that happening under these conjunctions as another manifestation of it that we’re clearly seeing today, both in geopolitical events as well as in some of the things that have sort of been exposed by some of the files recently.
And then finally, another area that we’ve talked about and kind of warned about but still bears repeating is sometimes Saturn-Neptune conjunctions coincide with periods of like, paranoia, witch hunts, and fears about the enemy within. So a major, major psychological theme is paranoia about hidden enemies and subversive groups, basically, some of which is sometimes partially valid, but other times people can kind of like, freak out and take it way too far.
So for example, one of the earliest ones I found was the Saturn-Neptune conjunction around 91 BCE, where there was a witchcraft scandal in the Han dynasty in China, where a paranoid emperor was manipulated into believing in a witchcraft conspiracy which led to mass executions and a whole succession crisis. Or in 1486, jumping forward super far, the publication of a book called “The Hammer of Witches,” or Malleus Maleficarum, was this manual on how to identify and interrogate witches, and this codified a system for hunting a “hidden enemy” of witches and fueled centuries of propaganda as well as eventual witch hunts and persecutions and other things like that.
Jumping forward, in 1917, there was the first Red Scare in America where following the Russian Revolution that coincided with the Saturn-Neptune conjunction then, the US experienced intense paranoia regarding secret communist infiltrators and anarchists, leading to the Palmer Raids and the deportation of suspected radicals.
Or similarly in the 1950s, that conjunction in Libra – Saturn-Neptune conjunction which was also the conjunction that Epstein was born under – coincided with the era of McCarthyism. So this was like, the peak of the Red Scare in the early 1950s, and there was a hunt for secret Communists within the US government and Hollywood. But it also became a sort of witch hunt where they were just accusing lots of different people of having connections that may not have, while at the same time, there were actually some spies that had infiltrated the government. But then a lot of people got accused of being spies who were not or may not necessarily have been. So there’s this ambiguity with the Saturn-Neptune conjunction sometimes of like, sometimes there being true conspiracies going on, but then also sometimes taking it too far or seeing things that aren’t happening. And that’s always part of the tension.
And more recently under the last conjunction in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we had the Satanic Panic, which was a moral panic that was fueled by claims of widespread secret Satanic cults abusing children. And during the height of this panic, it sort of extended to all sorts of other things where in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, both even like, astrology or board games like Dungeons and Dragons were explicitly targeted as supposedly being gateways to the occult and were subject to censorship campaigns because they had been deemed to be Satanic.
So again, there were some things that were going on that were happening, but then also sometimes people were freaking out and going into moral crusades in order to try to like, stamp out other things that were not happening or that were sort of like an overreach. And in some ways, this culminated or was relevant at the time that in 1988 in the late ‘80s, you had the astrology scandal with the Reagans where the revelation in 1988 that the First Lady had consulted with an astrologer named Joan Quigley for the President’s schedule caused this massive uproar. And it wasn’t just a political scandal; it was viewed by the religious right as a spiritual crisis and fueled some of the narratives that “the occult” had infiltrated the highest levels of government. So we can see some of those things swirling around there as well in terms of like, astrology and the occult and people’s fears about different things that are sometimes religiously motivated.
And finally, the last thing is there were sometimes people working behind the scenes and carrying out nefarious activities. So one of them that I wrote down, for example, in the research last year was in the year 54 CE, Agrippina the Younger was working behind the scenes and possibly may have been involved in poisoning the Emperor Claudius in order to install her son Nero as emperor. And I thought this was interesting, because just yesterday I saw a new news report that the Department of Homeland Security put out a warning about domestic poisonings where they were warning law enforcement of an increasing trend where domestic partners are using chemical and biological toxins in order to like, harm or kill or poison their partners. And this is interesting to me, because one of the recurring themes in the Saturn-Neptune episode that we also picked up on under the 1917 and 1989 conjunctions were sometimes themes involving chemical warfare or biological weapons in war. But sometimes that can also extend to things like poisoning, for example.
And then finally, the last thing I wanted to mention is in 1989 under that conjunction when the Berlin Wall fell, there was a lot of the people started to storm the secret police headquarters – the Stasi headquarters – in East Germany where citizens physically seized a bunch of the secret police files that had been kept on them and then exposed them, basically, or used them in order to expose the secret surveillance state that had been taking place up to that time. And I’m seeing a little bit of like, an echo or some repetitions of that under this conjunction as well.
So you know, in conclusion to sort of round this out, clearly the Epstein case has become one of the central events that this current conjunction will become known for in retrospect in the history books and either look back on to some extent favorably about the exposing of certain things that were happening behind the scenes, but also unfavorably in some ways to whatever extent it also amplifies some false narratives as well, whatever those are, whatever those turn out to be.
So as I said, the case really exploded last summer when the Saturn-Neptune conjunction first came within a degree in the June, July, August timeframe before the conjunction retrograded apart. But now that it’s come back together again, it’s kind of crazy to see all of this information really starting to come out, although only a portion of the files – which are heavily redacted – have been released recently, so there’s still a lot that hasn’t been released. So I actually expect more – there’s probably gonna be more related to this that will come out in February and March, both as the Saturn-Neptune conjunction culminates but also as we head into eclipse season over the next few weeks where we’re gonna get that eclipse in Aquarius and then especially the eclipse that’s gonna take place in Virgo in early March.
So you know, it’s clear that part of the archetype of this conjunction is revelations about secretive groups and conspiracies, and so we’re gonna have to be somewhat careful as astrologers, because on the one hand, we can see some of those things being revealed that had previously been hidden due to their secretive nature. But then on the other hand, there’s a tendency for – as we’ve seen under Saturn-Neptune alignments – for like, fake narratives to be amplified as a distraction as well. So it may not be until after this conjunction is over, like, a few years from now that a full assessment of everything can be done somewhat objectively once we get out of the conjunction and can kind of stand outside of it. Although obviously a lot of people are doing a lot of really important work trying to sort through the files and to understand what they contain at this point, which is really important work to do. But in the meantime as astrologers, I think we have to just keep paying attention to this combination and experiencing how it’s actually playing out in real time and documenting things, because then hopefully that’s something we can pass down to future generations of astrologers as we’re better able to articulate what these conjunctions are all about even though the core of it is something that’s nebulous and somewhat hard to grasp.
So yeah, if you notice anything about the current conjunction or past conjunctions, then let me know in the comments below this video on YouTube, and then we can kind of like, pool our research and our resources as we’re continuing to grasp at and try to understand the different facets of this specific astrological alignment.
So there’s still a lot more astrology that’s about to hit this month, basically. It’s gonna be a long month with a lot of stuff happening. You know, I’m already growing out my beard just to try to follow everything. And it’s gonna be a really interesting month. So I wanted to give this quick update just to let everybody know what my thoughts are on the current conjunction and some of the things that are happening, and I’ll be back again at different points this month to follow up on what is surely gonna be a really momentous month in world history.
So strap in. Good luck. And I’ll see you again next time.
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