Delusion's Loose Thread
Epstein, MAGA, and the Beginning of the Beginning of the End
On America's birthday, while Texas flooded without adequate warning or care and masked, over-armed ICE agents swept through a Los Angeles park like storm troopers, something critical shifted in the sky. Neptune—the planet of spirit, dreams, lies, addiction, and delusions—quietly stationed retrograde. Hang on—I mention those two points together for a reason.
Not three days later, the Department of Justice released a quiet weekend memo that would upset one of MAGA's foundational adhering assumptions. Within 72 hours, we watched the delusional shell holding the right's "big tent" together begin (just begin) to tear wide open from the inside out.
The Great Unraveling
Here's what just happened: An entire political movement bulked itself up on a collective, intoxicating dream. From the outside looking in, many of us could see that much of that dream had been built on lies. And last Sunday, the liars just sort of admitted it by accident.
For years, Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, and a parade of grifters built massive followings promising to expose Jeffrey Epstein's "client list"—a mythical document that would reveal a cabal of pedophiles who all happened to be figures from the left of American politics. When these conspiracy merchants were handed the keys to the FBI, their followers expected the big reveal. Their boss, Pam Bondi—who, as Florida's AG, has a problematic history as Florida’s AG when it comes to persecuting bad guys -even said on Fox News that she had the list on her desk and it was juicy (I'm paraphrasing).
Instead, they got a two-page weekend memo stating there is no client list, no blackmail operation, no conspiracy. Case closed.
This wasn't just debunking a theory—this was shattering the foundational mythology that convinced millions of Americans to vote for authoritarianism in the name of saving children.
The circus around this delusion of a vast plot, of course, completely ignored the actual survivors—the hundreds of women who were children when Epstein and his collaborators violated them. While conspiracy theorists chased fantasies about secret lists, real women with real names were telling their real stories in real courtrooms, interviews, and publications, facing real legal consequences for speaking truth to power.
Gaslighting the Base
When a reporter asked Trump about the memo a few days into this, his response was volcanic: "Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this." He called it a "desecration."
His base did not take the dismissal well.
Within hours, the first real MAGA rift erupted. Elon Musk accused the administration of a coverup. Tucker Carlson attacked Trump directly—breaking the sacred rule of never criticizing dear leader. But it was manosphere podcaster Andrew Schultz who articulated what millions were feeling: "So we're stupid. We're the f-ing idiots, guys. Obviously the Trump administration is trying to cover it up."
This man thought he was being politically savvy and discovered in real time that he'd been politically naive. He had the grace to process that betrayal publicly, turning his anger not on messengers but on the authority figures who had lied to him in the first place. One of two things have happened, he and his friends intimated: Either they've been lying and hyping us this whole time, or they're participating in a coverup. And how, as my grandmother used to say.
The Cosmic Weather Behind the Breakdown
Here's where I bring the sky into the conversation. Assume, for just a moment, that it'll be helpful to add another variable to the information you're processing as this thing carries on through another news cycle. The correlations between planetary movements and earthbound events are too precise to ignore, too useful for understanding our moment to dismiss as coincidence.
Neptune governs spirit, fantasy, addiction, dreams, illusion, and misinformation. The same planetary energy that governs faith and spiritual transcendence also governs delusion and substance abuse. Anything that pulls us away from harsh reality—for better or worse.
When Neptune goes retrograde, illusions strip away and reality breaks through fantasy. The veil between worlds becomes thinner, and truth rises to the surface whether we're ready or not.
Neptune stationed retrograde on July 4th. Look what's unfolded since.
This is Neptune's first retrograde in the action-oriented skyland of Aries in 165 years. Since 2011, Neptune has been dissolving boundaries in the dreamy skyland of Pisces—creating our escape into phones, streaming, social media echo chambers, and conspiracy rabbit holes. But now Neptune has moved neighborhoods into fiery Aries, the sign of direct action and pioneering truth. Those of us in the know were like, "Phew. Maybe this delusional slant to everything will shift." And so it has begun. The thing started moving backwards on Independence Day!
When Neptune retrogrades in Aries, we get forced awake from collective dreams. And the awakening is rarely gentle.
The Historical Pattern That Reveals Everything
Neptune's retrogrades have a specific signature: they force those in power to reveal their own contradictions through the very vehicles they used to promote their lies. Let's look at a few examples where Saturn was, I swear, in retrograde as it is now:
1974 | Watergate: The "smoking gun tape" that ultimately unraveled Nixon's presidency was revealed. This was a tape made by the administration that was eventually released after much stalling and lying, in which the President and his chief of staff discussed using the CIA to interfere with the investigation of the Watergate Hotel incident.
1971 | Pentagon Papers: A documentary research project revealing the horrible truth about the Vietnam War—its corruption, and its abject failure—that had been commissioned by Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, is leaked to the press by a whistleblower.
1954 | McCarthyism's End: McCarthy's televised hearings of his House UnAmerican Activities Committee revealed him to be unhinged and cruel. When Joseph Welch, the Chief Council for the US Army, asked his famous question—"Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?"—he broke the spell that had allowed McCarthy to destroy so many lives with impunity. On TV.
Something in particular happened with all of these reveals. Did you notice it? Each of these stories includes a medium that the people in power used to conduct or document their treachery. For McCarthy, it was his very own television cameras that led to his downfall. For Nixon, it was the recordings he made of his own White House. For McNamara, it was an account "for history." And so it was.
Neptune retrograde doesn't just reveal truth from the outside. It forces those in power to reveal their own contradictions through the very vehicles they used or planned to use to promote their "truth." This is, of course, what's happened in the last week. An administration fully wired for prime time, staffed by the president's idea of "central casting," selected carefully from a bevy of Fox News anchors and guests, deeply committed to leveraging Fox and the internet for well-crafted storytelling, found themselves revealed and hounded by the very vehicles that had brought them to power. They hyped themselves and the conspiracy up, they told everybody that they'd reveal the truth, continued to commit to a reveal once they were in office, and then one fine day in July, they turned into the wave of attention they had helped to create and said, "Meh. Nothin' to see here."
Well, that went down like a lead balloon, didn't it? Suddenly there's a loose thread in the story. I'm not saying the thing will unravel today, but that thread is loose and the undoing of the collective delusion has begun.
The Real Truth Tellers
While conspiracy theorists chased fantasies, women like Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Sarah Ransom, and Maria Farmer were doing the actual work of exposing the truth. These survivors testified in courts, faced legal consequences, published their narratives, named powerful names—all without needing secret lists or political saviors. Journalist Julie Brown amplified their voices when the rest of the media was busy chasing shiny objects. These women didn't need conspiracy theories to prove Epstein was a trafficker—they lived it. They didn't need dramatic revelations about hidden documents—they provided documented evidence.
And while everyone obsesses over Epstein's mythical client list, let's remember: more than 40 women have also accused the current president of sexual harm. Those accusations aren't conspiracy theories. They're wildly similar accounts of a single predator. Whatever his reasons are for shutting this thing down now, it's important to keep that larger truth and the myriad hypocrisies in this story in mind.
A Cosmic Detail That Changes Everything
One last astrological detail, if you don't mind. During this entire period, asteroid Nessus—associated with revelations of sexual abuse and cycles of harm—sat directly on the North Node, a mathematical point in the sky that tends to point towards our collective evolution. Don't you find that fascinating? Objects in the sky associated with the development of the collective and revelations of harm were on top of each other during this episode? C'mon now.
While the right spiraled about lying hype and the left enjoyed the spectacle of infighting, we all missed the point: the harm and the truth telling and the future itself.
The cosmic timing is profound. Neptune retrograde strips away conspiracy illusions exactly as Nessus joins the North Node and points toward our transformative assignment: centering survivors and building systems that actually prevent harm.
What This Moment Demands
We're witnessing a collective delusion beginning to die in real time. When key supporters call themselves idiots for believing lies, when conspiracy promoters turn on their own administration, when FBI leaders consider resigning over cognitive dissonance—that's not political strength. That's the beginning of a beginning of a reckoning with the truth.
Take action: Find one organization doing direct legal aid for trafficking survivors or offering some kind of support for survivors and help in some way. Shift your attention from fantasy to reality, from the perpetrators to those left in their wake.
Practice: Notice when you're drawn (or not drawn) to theories and the way your position makes you feel special. Notice your sense of superiority and that of people on the other side of this veil. How is it that we both feel the same sense of pride and derision and belonging on our own side of that divide? What does that tell us about Neptune and his ability to keep us away from each other's pain and human need with these collective delusions or dreams? What have you been swept up in, and how do we find our way back to caring for each of our neighbors and maybe centering compassion for their struggle and whatever it was they were trying to escape?
Have you ever heard of the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Tonglen? It's a practice where we center another person's suffering—especially a person who's making us grumpy, annoying us, upsetting us, angering us. We practice Tonglen to find some curiosity about why this person is acting the way they are. We imagine what's hurting them. We imagine what part of the "great reservoir of human grief" they might be experiencing and we inhale it off of them. We provide the noble service of being a filter to release this person from just an ounce of their suffering. And then we breathe into them some of our own joy, some of our own peace, some of the love we experience in our lives. We inhale their pain and we exhale some relief. And the idea is that this practice breeds compassion. What I find myself doing this week is seeking compassion for my loved ones and neighbors who got swept up in this mass delusion and trying to offer them an energetic bridge to come back to consciousness. Try it?
The Breakdown Is the Breakthrough
The breakdown of conspiracy delusions isn't loss—it's liberation. When our countrymen stop chasing fantasy saviors, the collective becomes more available for healing, justice, and actual transformation. How do we meet them where they are and welcome them home? How do we join with them to protect and heal the survivors?
We're being called to declare independence from online battles over fantasy thinking. We're being invited to align with the real truth tellers who have been speaking all along.
Truth doesn't need conspiracy theories to be powerful. Survivors don't need secret lists to be believed. We don't need political saviors to create change.
What if we all, together, were simply anti-sexual harm, regardless of the perpetrator's political identity?
Audre Lorde invites our voices and our collective healing this way, in an excerpt from her mighty poem "A Litany for Survival":
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
The real work is human work. It starts with choosing truth over tribalism, compassion over contempt, healing over harm. It starts with honoring the truth and circling our neighbors with care.
Until next time, be well, be conscious, and be kind.
If you'd like to understand how these patterns are affecting you personally, I offer readings and coaching that help you navigate your unique relationship with this transformational moment. Please share this with people you love who might need a new perspective on what our country is enduring. For more talk of planets, politics, poetry, and the psyche, try the Direct Station Podcast, “POLITICS IN RETROGRADE” on apple and Spotify. Reach me at kate@directstation.net