9/11 and Our Trauma-Bonded Society
With a new look at the Sept. 11, 2011 chart.
Note to Readers — This is today’s premium Planet Waves article. I am leaving it open to everyone (with gratitude to those who sponsored its existence) and am releasing the article early instead of during evening rush hour. There is also a video about the 9/11 chart forthcoming (check our YouTube channel later) and I will be handling the subject on Friday’s Planet Waves FM program, which will address violence as the quest for identity.
I would be most grateful if you would add your comments or feedback below. You are welcome to share this article with whomever you feel might appreciate it. — efc
Dear Friend and Reader:
Thursday, it’s been 24 years since we got the announcement that everything would now be different. In this article, I plan to review that deeply personal transformation and also take a new look at the astrology associated with it.
I propose that the wounds inflicted by the Sept. 11 incident have been left untended, and that neither as a society nor as individuals have we begun to process the grief it created. We just think we can move on, or that we have. Yet the suppressed grief of violent incident after incident is making people less stable, less trusting and leading to many mental, emotional and physical complications.
When we try to step ahead, it seems to be into experiences of collective doubt, sacrifice and loss that are not acknowledged for what they are. Sept. 11 started as something special, and immediately became the new normal.
What exactly was the Sept. 11 incident?
In hindsight, it was so large as to be inconceivable. At the time, it was shock and trauma on a collective scale, impacting every single person in society. Looking back, it was the most significant watershed moment in U.S. history so far — and potentially world history, based on what developed.
On that hint-of-autumn morning, American society seemed like it was thriving. While there’s never a day with no bad news, the shock of the Bush v. Gore 2000 election was mostly forgotten and New York City, the East Coast and the Midwest were on their way to work.
Then there were televised fireballs, and some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers started falling down. In the midst of this was an explosion at the military headquarters of the Western world. While it seemed obvious what happened at the World Trade Center — video images of an airplane striking the South Tower were everywhere — there are no images anywhere of airplane wreckage at the Pentagon.
Just as in The Little Prince, you have to imagine what the sheep inside the box looks like. People will argue — to no end — that the airplane is there somewhere because it must be. But I challenge you to find a single photo of the Pentagon with airplane wreckage.
Eyewitness Report from the Pentagon
I knew NPR’s Steve Inskeep from when we both covered New York State government in the early 1990s. He was NPR’s live reporter at the Pentagon through that week (the only reassuring thing I recall happening was the sound of his voice), then he was sent to Afghanistan to cover the resulting war.
When he finally called me back in the autumn of 2002, he told me that on the morning of Sept. 11 he was sent to cover an explosion inside the Pentagon, not an airplane crash outside; and that whatever happened didn’t look like a plane had crashed. He was approximately the third reporter to arrive at the scene (before the Pentagon’s wall collapsed outward).
We all just took for granted that it was a plane crash because that’s what we were told over and over.
And what most people did not know, and still don’t know, is that a 47-story building called World Trade Center 7, or the Salomon Brothers Building, fell down in its footprint at 5:21 pm on Sept. 11 without ever having been struck by an airplane. I cover that specifically in this article.
A federal government report claims that small office fires weakened the dozens of steel beams in WTC 7, and that as a result, the 610 foot tall structure collapsed on itself vertically at freefall speed in 5.4 (five point four) seconds.
The WTC 7 incident was kept so quiet that on Feb. 2, 2007, during a deposition for World Trade Center litigation, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein referred to Building 7 as “building what?” (It took me much longer than that to hear of its existence. When I did, I was astonished.)
What was not kept quiet was a concept of the culprit. Within hours, with office paper still flying in the breeze above lower Manhattan and New York Harbor, we were told that the perpetrator behind all of this was a guy in a cave named Osama bin Laden, a Saudi-born former CIA asset located in Afghanistan.
His picture was all over the news that night not as a suspect but as a presumed convict. Everyone knew that meant the U.S. was going to war.
Believing the Impossible
In the 24 years since the Sept. 11 incident, we have heard from many skyscraper designers who have said that from an engineering standpoint, the stories we were told about WTC 1, 2 and 7 cannot be true. The reason you feel safe standing on the top floor of such a building is that they’re extremely stable and don’t just fall down. Surrounded by major airports, WTC towers were specifically over-designed to withstand multiple jet strikes.
You may not know much about engineering, but you would probably eat dinner in a restaurant on the 110th floor and feel perfectly safe.
In retrospect of many similar incidents in succeeding decades, Sept. 11 was the first, original and most outrageous of them that we were forced to believe. Disasters have gone on and on, though the worst of them, the 2020 crisis, began a whole new phase: another variety of new normal build on the foundation of 9/11.
To consider alternative viewpoints to any part of the narrative of any of these issues is held as treason. Those who do not accept the story pounded into their minds are allegedly bad people, not merely ones thinking for themselves.
To even ponder or explore some other narrative does not feel dangerous in the sense of government intervention. It’s socially dangerous, which is far more of a threat to hold over people. Again and again, all the time, we’re pushed not to question, nor to question the meaning of what we see.
Independent Thinkers Don’t Take the Path of Comfort
Most people consider themselves independent thinkers, but go along with the game. Not doing so is usually uncomfortable, at least for a while and usually ongoing. It’s a constant state of adaptation to new sensory and intellectual input. If you take the path of comfort, it’s pretty certain you’re not so independent. If yo worry about offendng someone all or most of the time, that’s not so independent.
Instead of asking, “did this happen?” or “did it happen the way we’re being told?” people are induced to stretch their credulity and accept as forgone conclusion what might otherwise seem impossible. This extreme pressure is the result of both agenda and environment. There’s a whole economy of pressuring people into believing something outrageous or contradictory.
The dancing nurses during 2020 are a good example. We were expected to believe that hospital staff everywhere were exhausted, hospitals were overrun, protective gear was in short supply and that the world was in crisis.
And at the same time, around the world, videos of nurses in full PPE doing choreographed video routines in empty hospitals were going viral. This could only be possible under conditions of the disorientation and destabilization of both intellect and intuition — and that is the digital environment.
Return to the 9/11 Chart
Eyewitness accounts and seismographic readings indicate that something happened to World Trade Center 1 at 8:46:26 am on Sept. 11, 2001.
This produces an extremely unusual and unlikely astrological chart with Mercury, the winged god, exactly rising (aligned with the Eastern horizon), to the degree, in Libra.
Conjunct Mercury (to the degree) was an asteroid named for aerospace engineer Dr. Carl Sauer, a fact that made it into his obituary because it was reported on Planet Waves. This reads as: flying object (Mercury) on an engineered trajectory (Sauer) sends a message (Mercury). Mercury also represents whoever did this thing: the stealth enemy, ruler of the 12th place.
Mercury/Sauer forms an exact 120 degree (mutually cooperative trine) angle to Saturn in Gemini — itself an astrological image of twin (Gemini) structures (Saturn). Saturn is in the 9th place, which I previously took to be an international influence, which can also be read as a religious one. The 9th serves both concepts, including the nature of what is believed.
Saturn is the natural significator for the government in any chart where the topic comes up. In this chart, because it rules the 4th place, it can also be seen as representing the shadow government or what some now call the ‘deep state’.
Mutual Reception: The Government and the Terrorists
With Saturn in Gemini and Mercury in Libra, there is a condition called mutual reception. Saturn is exalted in Libra and Mercury rules Gemini. Thus, the two planets can be read as switching places. They are welcome in one another’s homes. They are also metaphorically locked into a relationship, a kind of energy cycle.
So the most outstanding feature in this chart is that the planet representing the secret enemy (said to be a terrorist organization) and the planet representing the government (the victims or good guys) switch places and switch roles. This interpretation relies only upon classical astrology — traditional planets and the ancient rules of the oldest astrological art form, known as horary.
Once you see it, there’s no way out of this interpretation; at minimum, the ‘terrorists’ and the government are shown to be in a direct, preexisting relationship (which is a historical fact in many ways; even the openly terrorist accused, Osama bin Laden, was an American asset in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation of that country). Once you review the evidence that the most basic physical, structural claims about the 9/11 incident do not hold up, you can see what the chart is referring to.
If airplanes did not take down those buildings (which fell neatly in their footprint), something else did. A guy in a cave could not accomplish that “something else.”
This is the nature of decoding fraud. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Part of what you cannot unsee is how thin the cover story was. Four jet airplanes hijacked simultaneously by guys armed only with box cutters? All on the same day for the first time ever? All wildly “successful”? To uphold the old story as an act of denial consumes energy and emotional bandwidth. Yet that’s part of what’s involved in suppressing the grief.
Forging a Trauma Bond with Existence: A Betrayal Bond
Something like the World Trade Center falling down represents a fundamental shift in how one experiences existence. Once you add some sense or perception of how thin the lie is, it becomes even more repugnant and therefore more worthy of denying. The trauma is the shock and awe of the event, but mostly, it’s the betrayal of trust.
A trauma bond is the essence of an abusive relationship — a mix of torture and reward. The torture is the pain of these events and the twisting of the mind; the reward is some form of social acceptance if you comply.
Antonieta Contreras wrote that the term “trauma bond” was coined by Patrick Carnes in his 1997 book The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships. He used the idea to describe how the “misuse of fear, excitement, and sexual feelings” to trap or entangle another person. It is fair to say that we are experiencing a betrayal bond.
Melanie Reinhart describes the mutual reception condition as a hostage situation. The two planets are not only substituting for one another, or trading places. They are held captive by one another. This is not true in all mutual receptions, though over time, this condition has emerged as descriptive in the 9/11 scenario.
Yet what is the nature of this hostage situation? Well, the people of New York City and the United States and in many ways, the whole world, were taken captive. This was spiritual and literal: from the arising of the national security state to their souls being seized by what has become a culture of nonstop fear, distress and disruption.
Closer to home, what, exactly is trustworthy? Sept. 11 shattered people’s trust in society itself. Nobody had ever experienced such a thing; the United States had never been “invaded” by a (claimed) foreign power. The almighty U.S. military can’t even protect the Pentagon from attack? How can they protect anything?
The Constant Trapped and Entangled State
And this happens over and over, from crisis to crisis. In my view, the “new style” of domestic crisis and chaos begins with the Sept. 11 incident. The American people made all the sacrifices and got nothing in return except an endless stream of disasters, emergencies, crises and never-ending alarm.
We are no longer citizens or taxpayers or members of a society. We are people subjected to ongoing, seeming perpetual abuse. This condition changes our relationships with one another. To say that a prison mentality is taking over society would be an understatement.
The question is what to do about it. This is always the question in a trauma bond, and the truth is that in most of those, we are cooperating. Many people and relationships are broken in the process. When the bond involves a society, it’s all about who you socialize with and what you’re free to say and think. And yet most people seem increasingly stunned and passive.
To confront these issues requires admitting to much larger problems (which is overwhelming). Therefore, it’s necessary to start with the basics. The question is not so much about saving the world as it is about what kind of life you want — mostly defined by how you manage your spiritual affairs. Then comes the potential for helping those close to you and your community.
This Is Bigger Than Any of Us
Our whole society is facing a crisis that is larger than any of us. We will not be able to face it alone. Yet part of the crisis involves personal isolation and the dissolution of the trust that individuals have for one another.
In the spirit of Pluto in Aquarius, remember that a group is a meeting of individuals who can think for themselves. That has to be the starting point. A level of actual commitment is involved, and sincerity.
Most of us can do this; the question is one of willingness and courage. And those things you can have too. And then there’s the thing you have to give up: helplessness.
Your faithful astrolover,
This writing has moved me deeply. I generally dread 9/11 anniversary pieces, and I felt no different about this one when I saw the first photo. But what an important moment we are in, here, from a hilltop view over the landscape of almost 25 years and we can see now that certain features have the same seismic origin. I am grieving, especially now, from this place, where the damage is so apparent. My heart is broken and I'm willing to cry where I haven't before.
I checked the newspaper depicted above — WTC 7 gets ONE sentence in the lead article after the jump (on page A-14) which says "another WTC building fell down in the afternoon" with no other reference, quotes or explanation. Just like that — a 47 floor steel tower with many floors occupied by federal regulators, the Secret Service, the FBI and the command center — falls down — in its footprint — not having been struck by an airplane — and it gets ONE sentence. That is a coverup — and it astonishes me how these people can think they are journalists and live with themselves...how their conscience is not in agony. I guess as far as they're concerned it's all for a good cause.