Uranus in Gemini: On Broken Telephones and Mimetic fevers

This one is for the nerds

Have you played Broken Telephones before? 

One person whispers a phrase into the ear of another, who passes it forward, and so on through the chain of participants.  At the end, everyone laughs at the absurd incoherence of the result. 

The game reveals an uncomfortable truth: We hear what we think we hear. Distortions are inevitable.

Such is life. 

It’s funny when children play it. Poetic, even. But it’s something else entirely when, in the “real world”, adults participate in the cynical mechanism to manipulate entire nations into dividing, hating, and even killing their neighbors. “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats.” “Baby killers.” “They’re coming for our jobs.” “Terrorists” “Fascists” “Monsters” “Animals” . 

The broken telephone of the real world is propaganda.

It catches like a virus, making people feverishly delirious.

Every war has its propaganda machine, a broken telephone of its own.

This is the recipe for the division in our communities, and leads people to justify some of history’s most barbaric acts. 

Is there a way to prevent us from falling prey to propaganda in the age of social media, permanent news cycles and AI? 

MIMETIC FEVERS OF PROPAGANDA

Philosophically, this mechanism of propaganda  has been explored extensively by René Girard, in his work on Mimetics, which describes the viral nature of ideas,  and the ways in which desires and beliefs are shared and transmitted in community, caught like a virus. 

One contagion he particularly looked at was society’s reflex to appoint scapegoats. How we collectively need a “They” to blame for our society’s woes. And seeing the viral nature of ideas, if enough people believe in the myth of the scapegoat, they can be led to do horrible things. 

Astrologically speaking, Gemini, and its ruler Mercury , govern our communication patterns,  our psychological processes and also discernment, polarity, duality, flexibility - the idea of this and that. (AND being the operative word) .

Uranus, the planet which disrupts, liberates, and brings collective awakenings, is also the higher Octave of Mercury.  

When Uranus is in Gemini, we can expect a disruption of communication, ideas being chaotic, electrified  and unstable. We can also anticipate a real cleavage in society, a clear this OR that. Camps fighting through words and ideas. 

However, there is with Uranus in Gemini a path towards a greater understanding, a liberated way of thinking. 

Uranus, as the higher Octave of Mercury- represents “ A Higher Mind”.  A way to think beyond the divisive oppositions.

Of course, now in 2026, we know how our modern communications technologies accelerate this mechanism in the wildest way. And the current astrology, with the mini trine configuration of outer planets, the 3 higher octaves,  makes the case for the importance of reaching for  a higher mind,  one which would preserve our intellectual integrity in an age of broken telephones and mimetic fever.

BROKEN TELEPHONES: WARS ON THE AMERICAN MIND

The last three transits of Uranus through Gemini produced, like clockwork, the three most defining wars in American history: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II. Each of the wars was ignited by an explosion of propaganda and mimetic contagion so powerful it would reshape not only the nation but also ripple and echo through the globe.

I want to note here that these particular 3 wars are not the only wars the US has engaged in- far from that- but that they are 3 wars in which the United States would impact the whole world philosophically-  introducing ideas like “liberty and justice for all” - and would put the nation on the global map as a representative of these concepts.

Yes, the irony is thick and difficult to digest. To understand the US’s global influence, one must be prepared to sit with a ton of contradictions and nuance. 

The U.S was born with Uranus in Gemini- it makes for excellent PR, a genius way of expressing yourself, out of the box, irreverent, wild, shocking and free. Trump was born with Uranus in Gemini, as a war time baby with a propensity for shocking marketing himself.

The combination produces revolutions in how information is shared: the pamphlet in 1775, the partisan newspaper in 1861, radio and film in 1941, the internet and AI in 2025. With each transit,  a new communications technology offers a new possibility for mass manipulation, and each time, at a larger and larger scale. 

Written in 1775, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense is one of the most historically impactful pieces of political philosophy -probably second only to Marx’s Communist Manifesto. It was written in simple English to reach the common man, and it sold 500,000 copies in a nation of 2.5 million,  at a time of mass illiteracy. The book introduced the hope of representation, freedom, democracy at a time when kingdoms and empires worldwide still “owned” the people.  This pamphlet of 37 pages was passed from hand to hand and across oceans, eventually inspiring the French revolution, 12 years later. 

Another big propaganda fever at that time was Paul Revere’s engraving of the “Boston Massacre”, which shows British soldiers in formation firing on an innocent crowd. This actually never happened. It was a lie, a fantasy. The image was mass printed, copied and shared.  The broken telephone had spoken: this image made it clear who the enemy was. And if you were the  enemy, you were exiled, with your property seized. Which was, grossly, 20% of the population at the time. 

A few strategic propaganda tools, and just like that: the birth of a country, and of new ideals that would influence the collective mind forever. 

And just like clockwork, 84 years after the Revolution, Uranus returns to Gemini in 1859, and by 1861 America is at war with itself. 

In 1860, there were over 4,000 newspapers in America, most of them explicitly partisan. We see the birth of political satire cartoons depicting the other side as scary serpents and demons, dirty animals thirsty for blood, using dehumanizing catchphrases and absolutist slogans printed in bold for the whole country to once again get ready to take up arms and fight.

During the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, newspapers on both sides either exaggerated or underestimated the death toll to boost morale or seed public outrage. 

The New York City draft riots are another example of contagious paranoia, scapegoating, and mass hysteria. Reacting to an unfair draft  that  the rich could buy their way out of, New York immigrants’ anger is redirected toward the Black community. An oppressed class blames another. They rampage the city and attack Black establishments, including an orphanage. Many Black residents of Manhattan, feeling unsafe, move to Brooklyn and build their community away from the nervous center of the city. 

The American Civil War created a separation within American culture that continues to feed the myth of the country today. The United States never really recovered from the oversimplification of “North” and “South,” “Left” and “Right” - and today is still completely stuck in the same loops, scapegoating each other into oblivion.

The clock moves forward another 84 years. 1941. World War II. The fever is now a full delirium. Uranus is in Gemini, and America is at war again. 

The Office of War Information is created to coordinate the entire marketing machine: Hollywood produced recruitment films, celebrity photoshoots, even, a Disney military training content. (fun!)  “Rosie the Riveter” creates a female archetype for a new industrial labor force. 

And FDR, the president himself,  broadcasts his Fireside Chats, reaching millions through the airwaves, bonding with his people through the hard times, lulling them at night and creating one of the most patriotic generations of Americans- The great generation, they called themselves.

In 1942, after the tragedy of Pearl Harbor, FDR signed an executive order sending 120,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps. In the papers, Japanese people are drawn as vermin and insects; the scapegoat is so thoroughly dehumanized that they become a concept, and a whole population can justify the unjustifiable.

And as we know, at that time in Germany the Nazis ran one of the most sophisticated propaganda operations in history, controlling all means of communication and successfully hypnotizing the German population into a murderous trance. It is with great sadness that in my own Jewish experience, I can confirm that some of the same tropes Goebbels created are still being shared  84 years later by a new feverish, hypnotized generation of propagandists.

BROKEN TELEPHONES OF OUR OWN

And well, here we are. Tick tock. Uranus is back in Gemini, and we have caught a new fever. 

 This one is superpowered by the internet and its accomplice, our own telephone. Our super phones, connecting us to an infinite- literally, and ever expanding!- source of data. The broken telephone is in our hands, the part of the body Gemini rules, at all times.

The news cycle is constant, misinformation spreads like wildfire, political concepts are diluted into catchphrases agreed upon as gospel, chanted out of context.

We have entered the age of the simulacra , where no idea is ever original, things are just copies of copies of copies. 

Podcasters, entertainers, and influencers ( masters of mimetics themselves)  have made opinion indistinguishable from information. Conspiracy theories creep at every corner, blurring reality from fiction.

Looking at this from the vantage point of March 2026, with our fresh war on the Islamic Republic of Iran is fascinating. Once again, nuance is required but completely unavailable in the public discourse. Information is flooding us, fire hose style. There is no room for learning, for listening, one must choose and parrot their side. In America, in 2026, you’re Pro-this, Anti-that. Shortcuts, mimetic fever, scapegoating. It’s all here, but even louder, faster. 

The Epstein Files have eroded any shred of remaining trust in the establishment. 

How can we maintain intellectual integrity in a world where every idea is the echo of another, caught like a virus, and made by design to divide us into clear camps- this or that- me or you? 

THE HIGHER OCTAVES & THE FIGHT FOR  INTELLECTUAL INTEGRITY 

This time, “our own” Uranus in Gemini is super powered  by a trine to Pluto and a sextile to Neptune, and together they form an environment of extraordinary mimetic volatility. One that could, as is predicted by many of our peers, change the landscape of human consciousness forever.  

Neptune in Aries dissolves the boundary between fantasy and reality at the level of self perception. Here, Truth is elusive, and subjective. Mimetics work through desire, too, we see what we want to see. The algorithm is ever confirming our bias, stroking our egos into self validation, righteousness and moral superiority, and AI Psychosis is a new cause of worry.

Neptune is the higher octave of Venus, thus representing A HIGHER LOVE, in Aries, the world point,  “the birth of a human”, the one, the individual, the civilian. At its most elevated expression, Neptune in Aries can bring compassion for each individual. Seeing the divine in the uniqueness of our expression.

Pluto in Aquarius is another US natal placement, with themes echoing the American values  of “PEOPLE/FREEDOM/POWER”.  Here Pluto reveals the underbelly of the collective psyche, exposing corruption, manipulation and injustices. Aquarius being fixed air, this is also where ideas become sacred and untouchable. Freedom, liberation, people’s power.

As the higher octave of Mars, Pluto represents A HIGHER POWER, one that could benefit the people and communities, which Aquarius represents. 

Together in their formation these three principles complement and support each other. The Higher Mind of Uranus, the Higher Love of Neptune, and the Higher Power of Pluto, could lift us to a higher octave of experience.

We can not look at Uranus in Gemini as  a transit only representing danger and war.

At its highest expression, it invites radical mental liberation, which can invites the capacity to hold complexity and nuance  instead of  duality, to think from multiple perspectives and to refuse to be seduced by the ease of the mental shortcut of the scapegoat. 

Hannah Arendt said that the fundamental activity of philosophical thinking is not agreement or disagreement ; it is  UNDERSTANDING.

Uranus in Gemini is the enlarged mentality that can think from the standpoint of others, that resists the traps of ideology, that preserves the capacity for discernment even at times when the collective fever is high.

As the higher octave of Mercury, Uranus in Gemini opens the door for a new way of thinking. Away from dogma and duality, away from calcification and hard lines. 

One that can see the mechanism and refuses to become seduced by the need to be “right” .  

History is a wave, and it does not have sides. 

Wars are made by the creation of a split, a polarity, and the collective belief that the other is to blame for all- which furthers the split and furthers the violence.  

If we are to do this differently this time around, we have to begin with the fierce protection of our intellectual integrity, by choosing to reach towards the higher octave. 

This might be some of the most important work we can do for the collective.

Become like the Higher Octave planets: challenging, disruptive, opening and enlightening.

If you're interested in learning more about working with the higher octaves,

check my workbook out !