Years ago, I read a well-researched book titled Cradles of Eminence (there’s a PDF online) that covered the childhoods of gifted individuals. This team of researchers turned to biographies and autobiographies to try to explain the “difference between the bright child in the classroom who becomes a competent, unimaginative adult and the academically unsuccessful child who, as an adult, makes their impact felt on a whole generation.” What they found was a group of “exciting, experimental, and creative men and woman who in their childhood experienced trauma, deprivation, frustrations, and conflicts of a kind commonly thought to predispose one to delinquency or mental illness.”
Charles Dickens was such a child.
The Man Who Invented Christmas
The other night I watched a wonderful 2017 movie titled The Man Who Invented Christmas on Prime Video. This is the story of how Charles Dickens was transformed by the imaginative and ghostly undertaking of writing A Christmas Carol. This film is about the struggles Dickens went through when writing A Christmas Carol and is filled with flashbacks from his traumatic childhood.
As I watched the film, I soon realized A Christmas Carol wasn’t simply about Scrooge; it was also about how the ghosts from Dickens’ traumatic childhood were awakened when he witnessed the mistreatment of underclass children on the dark streets he walked at night, and how this inspired him to write this now famous ghostly but inspiring Christmas tale.
The film was adapted from the book, How Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits By Les Standiford.
New York Times Book Review
In The New York Times Book review, the last sentence in the paragraph below grabbed my attention.
“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want,” the Ghost tells the quaking Scrooge. “No perversion of humanity … has monsters half so horrible and dread.” Dickens intended to make the sufferings of the most vulnerable of the underclass so pungently real to his readers that they could not continue to ignore their need, not so much for charity as for the means to save themselves: education. At least, this was his conscious purpose. The deeper truth is that even genius of the magnitude of Dickens can’t free an artist from his demons; it can only offer him an arena for engaging them. ~ Kathryn Harrison
Charles Dickens Birth Chart
As is usually the case after seeing this type of film, I wonder what Charles Dickens’ birth chart said.
Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, Great Britain, on February 7, 1812, at 19:50 LMT (Rodden rating: A)
The Defining Moment of Dickens’ Life
Briefly, when Dickens was 12 (his first Jupiter return), his father had a series of “financial embarrassments” that compelled his family to move into a “mean, small tenement” in London. Then his father was sent to prison for unpaid debts, and young Charles was separated from his family and sent to work for 10 hours a day, six days a week, in a shoe blacking factory to support his family. These sad happenings disrupted his education, and he was bullied, teased, and humbled by the other children who worked in the rat-ridden factory. When all this happened, he became angry at his father (Mars in Aries Square Saturn in Capricorn.) And the poverty, abandonment, grief, fear, and humiliation so overwhelmed the boy that the trauma of these experiences haunted him throughout his life.
Rethinking Jupiter Returns
To have such a misfortune happen during the year of Young Dickens’ first Jupiter return seems counter to what’s often expected during the years of “the Greater Beneific’s” return to his place of birth, i.e., LUCK. But in retrospect, this was the defining moment that set the storyline for A Christmas Carol and most of the work that gave Charles Dicken’s life meaning… helping the poor underclass by bringing their trials and tribulations to the attention of the public.
Bad Luck or Good Luck
Remember, as in the Zen story below, what might have seemed like the worst streak of bad luck at the time could, when looking back, now seem like a gift in disguise.
“One day, the horse of an old farmer ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed. “Maybe,” replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “Maybe,” answered the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe,” said the farmer.
~ Chinese Zen story
Astrology and Early Life Experiences
The Lunar South Node often reveals past life and early life experiences. Dickens’ SN is in Pisces. Venus and Pluto are conjunct in Pisces and also widely conjunct his SN. This says something about the poverty and mistreatment he experienced as a child. Pluto in Pisces intensifies compassion for all suffering but also indicates Dickens’ vulnerability. Venus conjunct Pluto dramatically increased his need for love, affection, and money. Still, more than anything, there’s a self-sacrificing and martyrdom quality revealed in his Pisces SN.
Pisces SN/Virgo NN individuals grow tremendously when they experience self-forgiveness instead of self-critique. They grow when they allow themselves to realize that self-forgiveness and forgiving others is possible and necessary. Dickens’ Nodal axis echos Scrooge’s transformation in A Christmas Carol.
Dickens’ Egalitarian Aquarius Sun
Dickens’ sixth house egalitarian Aquarius Sun is supported (Sextile) by a truth-telling and compassionate Sagittarian Moon/Neptune conjunction on his Descendant.
One of Dickens’ greatest egalitarian accomplishments was to bring the problem of poverty to the attention of his readers by incorporating the struggles of many poor people into most of his novels. In doing this, he revealed them not to be the dregs of society but living, breathing human beings who bravely withstood the forces arrayed against them.
Social Reformer and Advocate for the Poor
Dickes campaigned vigorously for children’s rights, for education, and for other social reforms. He advocated for and supported the Ragged Schools that would educate children living in poverty. He also advocated for housing reform and was instrumental in the development of homeless shelters for women.
The Sledge-Hammer
In early 1843, responding to a government report on the abuse of child workers in mines and factories, Dickens declared he’d strike a “sledge-hammer blow . . . on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child.”
A Christmas Carol was written in six weeks and was first published on December 19, 1843. The first edition sold out by Christmas Eve. A Christmas Carol has never been out of print. Could the sledge-hammer Dickens threatened to hit a blow with be the publication of his monumental book A Christmas Carol?
Sledge-Hammer Progressions and Transits
A Christmas Carol was first published on December 19, 1843. Below are the most notable progression and transits for that date.
- Progressed Sun in Pisces Conjunct his Pluto/ Venus and Descendant; Sextile his Mercury in Capricorn
- Transiting Saturn in Capricorn was Conjunct his Mercury
- Transiting Jupiter in Aquarius was trine his 10th house Jupiter in Gemini; Square his Uranus in Scorpio; Conjunct his Chiron in Gemini.
- Transiting Neptune in Aquarius was Conjunct his Sun in Aquarius;
- Transiting Pluto in Aries was Square his Mercury.
I hope you will take the time to watch this film… it may be a dramatization, but after doing some research of my own on Charles Dickens and studying his birth chart, I believe it’s more accurate than not. Still, I wonder, after reading much about his later life; Did writing A Christmas Carol free Charles Dickens from the ghosts of his past as the film implied. I hope so!