Venus is the planet of love, style, self-worth, aesthetics and values. Scorpio is he sign of Shaman and the Spy, the Sorceress and the Spell-Caster, the Succubus and the Super-Villainess, the Special Agent and the Super Sleuth, the Vampire and the Vampire Slayer, the Samurai and the Assassin, the Hitwoman and the Detective, the Investment Banker and the Contract Killer, the Criminal Deviant and the Depth Psychologist, the Covert Op and the Deep Cover Cop, the Countess-in-Chief of Mind Bending and Executrix-in-Charge of Occult Mysteries, the Professor Emeritus of Freak Nasty and Department Chair of Gettin’ Down and Dirty. This is the sign most associated with depth and darkness, sex and suspicion, intrigue and intensity, shadows and underworlds, covert operations and subterranean dealings. People with Venus (love) in Scorpio (sex, death, scary/scary) are often fascinated by horror stories, particularly ones with heavy duty psychological components to them. Agatha Chrisite is a Virgo with her Venus in Scorpio. (Chart) She’s best known for writing books with Venus in Scorpio themes such as The Secret of Chimneys, Appointment with Death, and Love from a Stranger. One of her more famous short stories, Witness for the Prosecution, features a labyrinth plot involving murder, money, and manipulation. In 1957 it was made into a major motion picture, one remembered most vividly for its series of stunning climaxes:

This is the Venus sign most likely to feel comfortable operating under a cover identity. Christie, for instance, wrote under the pen name “Mary Westmacott”.

Astrologer Raven Kaldera associates Venus in Scorpio with the myth of Inanna, a Sumerian goddess who must “go down to the bottom of the pit and back up again, over and over, until it is a familiar place and has no power over her”. (Source) When Inanna finally emerges from her trip to the underworld she is accompanied by “an entourage of chittering underworld demons”. Repeated trips to the underworld affords Venus in Scorpio the chance for “rebirth at a higher level of honesty . . . all who venture near had best hang on for the ride” Kaldera tells us. (Source) To illustrate: using the character’s first appearance as his date of birth, Robert Vaughn’s portrayal of “Hunt Stockwell” in the 1980s television series “The A-Team” is a Libra with his Venus in Scorpio. (Chart) From his fashion sense (dark sunglasses, black suit) to his modus operandi (in the shadows), the Stockwell character was a textbook Venus in Scorpio. As far as television shows go, “The A-Team” was standard Reagan era pablum but Vaughn’s portrayal of the Scorpionic Stockwell did bring an intensely serpentine authenticity to the series. Whenever he appeared on the screen it was as though a totally different, far spookier, far more honest show had momentarily come on in place of what was otherwise a pretty juvenile offering:

Venus is style, Scorpio is shadows.

Stockwell, the audience is told, is the head of something called “Enhanced Intelligence Assets” (EIA), a highly classified outfit the show’s writers seem to have modeled loosely after the “Intelligence Support Activity” (ISA), a real life organization whose astrology has been discussed on this site here. Stockwell makes contact with members of the “A-Team” while they’re in prison, on the eve of their scheduled execution for a crime they did not commit. He provides intelligence that enables them to fake their own executions, escape prison, and then disappear to one of his safe-houses in the demon infested underworld of Langley, Virginia (home of the CIA). Once the A-Team is ensconced in his web, he blackmails them into going on a series of high-risk (ie “suicide”) missions, reminding them that as convicted murderers and escaped fugitives they are now totally, thoroughly, 100% expendable. “If you fail, we won’t even ask for your bodies back” he cooly informs them.

At one point, one of our heroes awakens from his faked execution to see Stockwell standing over him. He quips that this must mean his execution was successful and that he’s now in hell. He’s dealing with a Venus in Scorpio native so, in a manner of speaking, he’s actually correct.

Dirk Benedict, Robert Vaughn in “The A-Team”

Should, however, they “hang on for the ride” through Stockwell’s Plutonic underworld of off-the-books, plausibly deniable foreign policy interventions, he’s promised to acquire for them full presidential pardons. In other words, Vaughn’s Venus in Scorpio alter-ego is going to take the A-Team to “the bottom of the pit and back up again” in exchange for the possibility of “rebirth” as free men and the opportunity to come out from the shadows in which they’ve been hiding since the end of the Vietnam War.

“All I need”, he tells their leader, “is your commitment“.

The A-Team series was intended as light-hearted action fare but the Stockwell character as portrayed by Mr. Vaughn was as Pluto inspired a character as they come. Our team of alleged do-gooders are never quite sure they can trust him or his entourage of silent, black-suited demons but in the end he does keep his promise to them. Venus in Scorpio may lean toward the manipulative but it’s usually good for its word.

Venus in Scorpio is at home in the underworld

The Stockwell character was, of course, fictional but the shadowy “network” he ran was actually anything but unrealistic. Consider, for instance, the insurance company American International Group (AIG), which has Venus in Scorpio in its incorporation chart. (Chart) The public thinks of AIG as simply the large insurance company that was somehow involved in the 2008 financial crisis. The reality is that there is much more to what goes on behind the closed doors of that company than most people realize. For starters, it’s been heavily involved in covert operations since World War II, many of which are not all together different than those run by the fictional Mr. Stockwell. A year 2000 Los Angeles Times article entitled “The Secret Agent (Insurance) Man” explains:

Newly declassified U.S. intelligence files tell the remarkable story of the ultra-secret Insurance Intelligence Unit, a component of the Office of Strategic Services, a forerunner of the CIA, and its elite counterintelligence branch X-2.

. . . the unit mined standard insurance records for blueprints of bomb plants, timetables of tide changes and thousands of other details about targets . . . “They used insurance information as a weapon of war,” said Greg Bradsher, a historian and National Archives expert on the declassified records.

The men behind the insurance unit were OSS head William “Wild Bill” Donovan and California-born insurance magnate Cornelius V. Starr. Starr had started out selling insurance to Chinese in Shanghai in 1919 and, over the next 50 years, would build what is now American International Group . . . (Source)

Venus in Scorpio can be the placement of “the femme fatale who uses her sex appeal to gain power over people” according to astrologers Frances Sakoian and Louis Acker. (Source) AIG is a multinational corporation, not a “femme fatale”, but the information contained in their insurance files could certainly be leveraged to gain power over people since people only insure that which is important to them.

Astrologers Steven and Jodie Forest say Venus in Scorpio is associated with “trust that was damaged by intimate lies and deceptions experienced in a prior life”. (Source) Venus in Scorpio responds to these past life betrayals by demanding radical honesty in this life they tell us. This is where Venus in Scorpio gets its reputation for emotional catharsis from. Just how cathartic? This issue of Wonder Woman has both Mars and Venus in Scorpio in the chart of its release date. (Chart) It offers a vivid, if somewhat understated, approximation of the volcanic emotional catharsis that intimate betrayal will evoke from Venus in Scorpio. Obviously the Cheetah Woman has been to hell and back:

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The image hints at another trait of this placement. The artists obviously drew the “Cheetah Woman” with the intent to make her appear sexually compelling but also frightening. Venus describes what makes us feel attractive but also our insecurities. A person with Venus in Scorpio might walk into a room and feel like they’re the most magnetic person there, which they very well may be. The next day they’ll walk into a different room and fear that they’re the most repulsive (frightening) person, which of course they’re not. This duality is to be expected when the planet of self-worth (Venus) is in the sign of extremes (Scorpio).

Venus in Virgo and Venus in Scorpio are the two Venus placements most likely to be attracted to healing work, with Venus in Virgo specializing in the application of herbal medicine and Venus in Scorpio specializing in the purging of poisons. The only problem is that if a person, relationship, or situation is anything less than totally committed to clearing themselves of poisons, they may not be able to withstand the purging associated with this placement. As one astrologer put it, Venus in Scorpio “will reformulate things from the guts out. But your relationship has to be strong enough to withstand that process first. If it isn’t, it will die . . .” (Source) To illustrate: the 1950s B-Movie The Astounding She-Monster! has both Venus and North Node in Scorpio in the chart of its premier. It’s about a female space alien whose radioactive touch kills whoever she comes in contact with. Since very few people in the intensely repressive, anti-female America of the 1950s were committed to the “higher levels of honesty” associated with Venus in Scorpio it actually makes perfect sense that interacting with her was depicted as having such deadly effects. The film may be the most B of all B-Movies but in this regard it’s actually far more honest than most higher shelf fare:

This is Venus in the sign of its detriment so if you’re looking for a stereotypical happy ending you’ll have to look elsewhere.

In the end the Astounding She-Monster is killed by those who fear her.

Hopefully, somebody back on her home world at least bothered to ask for her body back. After all, if her tribe is advanced enough to develop interplanetary travel without having first destroyed themselves maybe they’re also advanced enough to “hang on for the ride” associated with the planet of love in the sign of the scorpion.

If you enjoyed this article you might also enjoy:

Scorpio Sun, Gemini Moon: The Coffin Makers and the Code Breakers (The NSA)

Virgo Sun, Scorpio Moon: The Praying Mantis and the Mission Impossible (The CIA)

Cancer Sun, Scorpio Moon: Call Me Snake (The U.S. Secret Service)

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