In this episode I explore the astrology behind the deadly Hantavirus outbreak that is currently dominating global news headlines, specifically focusing on how it began around the recent Mars-Saturn conjunction, and demonstrating why ancient astrologers associated these alignments with plagues and pestilences. This is an alignment that we were nervous about and actually predicted in our year-ahead forecast for 2026, partially because it reminded me of the Mars-Saturn conjunction that took place in March and April of 2020. During that time, the world experienced the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns just as Mars and Saturn came together in Capricorn and Aquarius. I review clips from our previous forecasts to show how we anticipated this, and break down exactly why these specific malefic conjunctions describe very difficult periods of time historically. To show how these alignments work in practice, I go through a detailed timeline of the current Hantavirus outbreak that began on a cruise ship over the past month, showing how perfectly the crisis mapped onto the exact Mars-Saturn-Neptune conjunction. I also walk through several other historical case studies from the past decade to demonstrate this recurring pattern. We look at how previous Mars-Saturn conjunctions coincided with major inflection points for the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the 2022 Monkeypox outbreak, and the naming of the AIDS pandemic back in 1982. Part of my goal here was not simply to highlight a successful prediction and show how well the outbreak ended up coinciding with the alignment, but also to demonstrate why I made the prediction based on other similar alignments I had seen in the past. A couple of interesting additional things I found in this episode are that the Hantavirus first became recognized during a major outbreak in the Korean War in the early 1950s, which coincided closely with a Saturn-Neptune conjunction. Later, the Hantavirus was officially named and categorized under two Mars-Saturn conjunctions in 1980 and 1982. Now, we are seeing a recurrence of both of those planetary alignments, with the Mars-Saturn-Neptune conjunction that started in April, right as a new major outbreak of the virus is happening in the world. Finally, I touch on the underlying philosophy of mundane astrology: the idea that the planets are not necessarily causing events to happen, but rather they act as a timing mechanism that mirrors what is happening on Earth. Because repetition is the key to prediction in astrology, studying the alignments surrounding these current and past outbreaks can provide us with a framework for forecasting the future, and my hope is that this will provide a useful foundation for later studies. This is episode 535 of The Astrology Podcast. Timestamps 00:00:00 Introduction00:01:34 Our Predictions About This00:05:33 Current Hantavirus Mars-Saturn Timeline00:18:11 Covid Pandemic Timeline Comparison00:33:56 Outer Planet vs Inner Planet Cycles00:35:48 2014 Ebola Outbreak00:46:49 2022 Monkeypox Outbreak00:50:27 Naming of AIDS in 1982 on Mars-Saturn00:58:48 Ancient Views on Mars-Saturn Conjunctions01:01:04 1348 Report on the Plague Pandemic01:02:49 Signs vs Causes01:05:07 Repetitions are the Key to Prediction01:07:43 André Barbault's Prediction About the Covid Pandemic01:13:09 Hantavirus and Earlier Planetary Alignments01:24:27 Future Transits Timeline01:29:53 Final Thoughts and Remarks Watch the Video Version of This Episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1C2fEYf51o - Transcript A full transcript of this episode is available: Episode 535 transcript Listen to the Audio Version of This Episode Listen to the audio version of this episode or download it as an MP3: