Brand, Epstein, Rasputin & Other Red Herrings (dispelling the myth of the bad seed).

I took away from researching and writing, the degree to which the world around him was as corrupt, or more corrupt than him. And that corrupt world made him a scapegoat […] Instead of looking at the difficulties facing the country, which were staggering and monumental […] it was easy to pin it all on one person and believe that “if we just somehow got rid of [him] and his nefarious influence, all our problems would be gone.

Douglas Smith, 2016 biography of Rasputin.

Mainstream news would have us believe that there are a few faulty individuals within our society who are sexual predators and abusers, and that they must be punished. As more of these individuals are exposed however, people are beginning to ask the question, is it just a few flawed individuals who exhibit dangerous or psychopathic behaviours or is it that deeply embedded within the foundations of society are structural apparatus that protects and upholds abuse.

To be clear from the outset, I am not condoning Russell Brand’s abusive behaviour towards the women he preyed upon. I’ve not been following the case closely and cannot talk with authority about the legal implication, or the truth of what happened between Brand and the women who have been named his victims by number.

This is a comment on the larger societal infrastructure that permits the continued abuse of women. Of course, it is not only women who are subjected to institutional violation but in this post that’s what I am mainly talking about– the women on the receiving end of abuse and the men who perpetrate it.

Beyond that I am pointing to something else, something deeper, less tangible and more hidden. Something that appears to be rising to the surface of our collective consciousness: The exposure of grids of power and channels of corruption that are largely hidden from sight and yet are insidiously present in our daily lives.

Russell Brand–like Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor–is just one man within a larger network. A noticeable cog in a well-oiled machine; noticeable because of his public persona. Behind every visible, made-up face for the camera lens there are many more unseen, nameless faceless entities that never risk exposure.

Men like Brand do not operate in isolation as aberrant figures in an otherwise morally sound world.

As more of these stories come out of the woodwork, it becomes clear that while there are predatory persons among us that should rightly be called to account, there exists a far deeper, more hidden substratum of enculturation that affects all of us to varying degrees… and to which we are even, for the most part unwitting, accomplices.

Beneath the veil of conscious awareness, the seeds of predatory, exploitative and abusive behaviours are sown and cultivated inside artificial environments that distort the natural order of life. These threads of corruption weave through the wider matrix to affect every structure from the tangible to the unseen.

We are so blinded to the inner workings of society and the deep state that we accept at face value what appears or is presented as normal.

Who or what fuels the engine of society. Is it society themselves, that is the individuals who make up the society, or is there a mothership from which everything unfolds, and if so, what is the nature of that mothership? Is it an essential organic principle or is it an inorganic incubator?

Sexualisation of children enculturated through media manipulation is one form of social conditioning that has until recently gone unnoticed and unchallenged. People are now beginning to question this and protect their children from the pervasive influence of hyper- sexualisation.

This morning I saw an Instagram post delivered by a young woman who spoke of the subtle manipulation and coercion to please men that saturated her childhood and young adulthood. This post is one of thousands that are becoming more visible on social media platforms– at least on my algorithm.

As the invisible apparatus of social hierarchy is exposed, we come to realise that what lies beneath is a highly sophisticated network of clandestine structures that enable extractive, exploitative, and abusive behaviours.

As previously hidden information begins to surface the danger is that the content is further weaponised by the same forces that sow the seeds of corruption in the first place, under the guise of taking a moral stance while at the same time inciting further division and polarity.

My social media feed is also full of aggressive feminist content against men and patriarchy more generally. Patriarchy is another social construct; what do we mean when we talk about patriarchy? Who or what is the patriarchy, and what lies beneath it? It’s a complex web; the artificial spider that weaves this web has a long-term plan and vision, born not from instinct but arising out of a penetrating awareness of human behaviour and the capacity to manipulate it.

Who are the ones that are thrown to the lions as the scapegoat individuals who are pulled out and disgraced in front of millions. Why them? Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, Russel Brand. If only we could eradicate them and those like them the world would be good and safe and moral and right. Right?

But we know that’s not true, it just sometimes makes us feel better to believe that somewhere in the nonsense is justice.

The fact remains that abuse continues in homes, schools, hospitals, GP surgeries, police stations, courts of law, universities, and the workplace. A multitude of daily transgressions from major to minor creating a symphony of unhealed trauma and quiet suffering that slowly cascades through the generations. It is easier to project suffering onto collective targets.

In February of this year, I wrote an article entitled Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor: The Myth of the Bad Seed where I explore the chart of the former Prince. Focusing on a handful of centaurs and asteroids that I have found useful when mining the depths of the psyche and ancestral and generational themes of abuse, I wrote,

Sexual abuse is the secret of our time that is coming to light. As “the lid comes off”, we discover that these distortions do not happen in isolation, it is not just one rotten apple that sours the barrel. Our collective experiences including and especially untold horror and trauma have impacted us in ways that we are only just beginning to understand.

Astrology is only one lens, a symbolic language through which we can circle around the unspeakable and the unthinkable. Like Perseus and his mirrored shield, we address the horror, not necessarily head on in hard facts and details, but indirectly, diffusely, even imaginatively so that we can get close enough to it without being petrified.

Russell Brand and Astrology~

The placement of Chiron in the natal chart directs us to information regarding personal wounding. At the time of Chiron’s return– when Chiron makes a full orbit back to the same point it was when we were born– we get to see our patterns of wounding more clearly. Often external events and encounters transpire at this time as the psychic structures of deeply held patterns of wounding are projected onto the external world. It is a sensitive time.

Chiron relates to the archetype of the scapegoat, and sacrifice; vulnerabilities that we carry due to personal and/or inherited wounding can gain traction at this time so that we see more clearly what we have been carrying and how we have been subconsciously projecting it.

Depending on how we handle this experience determines whether we heal (or at least learn to live with) our Chiron wounds or not. In healing the wounds of Chiron, the gift of our healing is that it has implications and influence beyond our personal sphere. This is where Chiron’s wounds become medicine, and the carrier of the wounds, the wounded healer, applies the balm gained from his or her personal journey to the collective wounds.

If we have been scapegoated in some way, the possibility for further or more serious scapegoating at the time of the Chiron return is possible. I say this not as a fact – astrological interpretations are not factual– but insight gained through personal experience and the experiences of some people I have worked with.

On the day of Russel Brand’s court hearing, 12 October 2026, Chiron was retrograde and had just dipped back into Aries at 29°.

Brand’s natal Chiron is at 26° Aries 45.

The first hit of his Chiron return was on April 18 of this year; the second hit will happen on December 4 when Chiron will still be retrograde and revisiting old ground. The last hit will be on February 6, 2027. His ordeal is far from over.

Brands natal Chiron is opposite Uranus at 28 ° Libra 48’. During her retrograde phase, Venus will cross this point on October 27 (today) possibly triggering an unexpected or radical turn of events for Brand. The period of Venus’ retrograde through Scorpio, ending a one-hundred-year cycle is the finale of a deep dive into the dark territories of the human psyche as they relate to among other things, but perhaps especially, human sexuality.

Chiron issues are often set in childhood, sometimes from early personal trauma or other sensitivities to trauma in our environments and relational fields.

Russell Brand has stated that he was sexually abused during his childhood. According to public biographical accounts and details shared in his autobiography he was sexually abused by a drama tutor when he was a teenager. His autobiography also describes instability in early life that included the separation of his parents, his mother’s illness, and being sent to live with relatives for a time.

Brand also talks about being exposed to adult environments and illegal substances at a young age which he believes shaped his compulsive behaviours and addictions.

I was curious to see where Dejanira sits in his natal chart; Dejanira is known as the victim asteroid on account of the mythology.

There’s not a whole load of research or writing about Dejanira and some of what does exist can be a little fatalistic. Here I present ideas and themes for exploration.

Russel Brand has a tight conjunction between his natal Sun and Dejanira. If a close Dejanira/Moon conjunction suggests a split or fracture in the psyche caused by victimisation, Dejanira conjunct the Sun could indicate someone whose essence and ego are consciously identified with the victim archetype. This could be expressed as identification with being a victim, or else victimising others.

Either way there is a sense of these dynamics having arisen out of some pre-existing condition, for example something in the ancestral field.

It is entirely possible for a native with Dejanira conjunct the Sun to attract other victims or people who are deeply wounded. Because the Sun represents the outward life force and what one projects into the world, fusing it with the Dejanira archetype changes how this energy interacts with others.

This can play out through a few specific dynamics among which are the “Saviour” or Rescuer Complex, trauma bonding and co-victimization.

As with the archetype of the scapegoat, the victim is affected by other people’s shadow, or an entire culture’s shadow.

The idea of Brand being “branded” a scapegoat is a belief that some people hold; one of the main suspected reasons for this is his public and vocal questioning of various issues, particularly regarding the handling of c-19 narratives. I propose that while that sounds like a viable reason, Brand is also being used as a decoy and red herring alerting the public from the true source of the bad smell.

Something else caught my attention in Russel Brand’s chart; his natal Venus is conjunct asteroid Kaali, a placement that can point to sex addiction. In the case of Brand this is no secret– he has openly talked about his issues with sex and drug addiction.

Russell and Rasputin~

It was revealed that Katy Perry, Russel Brand’s ex-wife, referred to him as “Rasputin”, years before sexual allegations were made against him. Piers Morgan claimed that during an interview with Katy Perry in 2013, Perry allegedly said,

“You Brits are all the same, so damn confident. Trouble is, I find that irresistible. I love Brits … well, not all of them. Not Rasputin, obviously”.

Perry said that she was not ready to tell the truth about her marriage with Brand because she was not ready to tell the truth to herself.

I looked at the chart of Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, the Russian mystic who held close ties with Nicholas II, last emperor of Russia and his family. If the stories are to be believed, Rasputin was the lover of the Empress consort, Alexandra Feodorovn, as well as bedding many aristocratic women who apparently saw him–as he saw himself– as the second coming– the Saviour Complex.

If the accounts of licentiousness and debauchery are true “Russia’s greatest Love machine” would probably in today’s psychological parlance be diagnosed with sexual addiction.

Rasputin was apparently a member of a strange religious cult called the “Khlystys” who engaged in purification rites, asphyxiation, and orgies. It is said that his charisma was off the chart.

Whatever the truth about Rasputin, he was undoubtedly used as a political and social scapegoat during World War I by both the Russian aristocracy and dissident factions. Scapegoating a mad monk was easier than addressing the systemic failures of the Romanov monarchy. Scapegoating Russell Brand is easier than facing the truth of the rotten core at the centre of our society where sexual abuse, sexual programming, and organised sexual predation is sanctioned.

Scapegoating Rasputin allowed both elites and the public to externalise deep-seated national crises onto a single corrupt outsider rather than the structural weaknesses of the Tsarist government. Scapegoating Brand allows us to look away from the sexual transgressions that are normalised in our private and public worlds.

Curiously Rasputin also has a Venus Kaali conjunction by a 2 ° orb in Capricorn, (Brand’s is in Cancer). Rasputin’s death chart also shows a Venus Kaali conjunction by a 3 ° orb, and although he never actually made it to his Chiron return, he died (was murdered) not far off it at the age of 47, one month before his 48^th birthday.

In his 2016 biography of Rasputin, Douglas Smith suggests that while many of the representations of Rasputin were accurate much of it was fabricated:

I took away from researching and writing, the degree to which the world around him was as corrupt, or more corrupt than him. And that corrupt world made him a scapegoat for Russia’s problems. Instead of looking at the difficulties facing the country, which were staggering and monumental, especially as the war progressed, it was easy to pin it all on one person and believe that “if we just somehow got rid of Rasputin and his nefarious influence, all our problems would be gone.

And I do see that he was not the maligned influence that he has been so long considered. He was made an easy scapegoat for insurmountable problems in Russia.

Both Brand and Rasputin in many ways were easy targets thrown to the lions because of their overt sexual behaviour, addictions and vulnerabilities– bearing in mind neither man belonged to the ruling or elite class. The elite remain safely ensconced behind the veil.

Were they innocent? Probably not but to single out just a few from an enmeshed web of cultural shadow is at least short sighted and most probably engineered.

Sex, shame, humiliation, and bribery are powerful currency in certain circles.