John Perkins ~ Economic Hitman Turned... Shaman (!)

I haven't read any of John Perkins' books, in fact I'd never heard of him, or them, 'til I noticed mention of his name and a book of his in a comment thread this week.

A nutshell description of John Perkins from Goodreads:

John Perkins is an activist and author. As a former chief economist at Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, Perkins says that he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinational corporations cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.

However, after several years struggling internally over the role he was playing in crippling foreign economies, he quit his consulting job. In the 1980s Perkins founded and directed a successful independent energy company, which he subsequently sold. Since then he has been heavily involved with non-profit organizations in Ecuador and around the world. He continues this work today, in addition to his writing. One of his organizations, Dream Change, is dedicated to shifting consciousness and promoting sustainable lifestyles for the individual and global community.

From a book review

A Game as Old as Empire – The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption edited by Steven Hiatt~ is a follow up to Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, written by John Perkins, a former banker who destroyed the economies of many debt-ridden third world nations by converting the debt into profits for the corporate and political elite. Critics lambasted Perkins’ sole account of his actions, demanding proof that such dirty machinations actually took place. Empire is a chilling account of the abusive fraud perpetrated in the cryptic world of international finance, and the thin tightropes of legality bankers balance themselves upon.

Of his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man John Perkins has said,"This book was written so that we may take heed and remold our story. I am certain that when enough of us become aware of how we are being exploited by the economic engine that creates an insatiable appetite for the world's resources, and results in systems that foster slavery, we will no longer tolerate it. We will reassess our role in a world where a few swim in riches and the majority drown in poverty, pollution, and violence . We will commit ourselves to navigating a course toward compassion, democracy, and social justice for all."

From a New York Times piece in 2006:

Mr. Perkins's core message is that American corporations and government agencies employ two types of operatives: "economic hit men," who bribe emerging economies, and "jackals," who may be used to overthrow or even murder heads of state in Latin America and the Middle East to serve the greater cause of American empire. During an earlier time, that message might have been mere fodder for conspiracy theorists and fringe publishers. But now, for all of Mr. Perkins's talk of fiery plane crashes and corporate intrigue, his book seems to have tapped into a larger vein of discontent and mistrust that Americans feel toward the ties that bind together corporations, large lending institutions and the government — a nexus that Mr. Perkins and others call the "corporatocracy."

At a bookstore, in 2006, the author talked about "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"...from a report HERE:

Leaning low into the microphone, Mr. Perkins affects a deep conspiratorial whisper as he sets the scene for the imagined encounter between the new president and the representative of the multinational corporate interests Mr. Morales had vilified during his campaign.

"Congratulations Mr. President," Mr. Perkins says, assuming the role of the businessman, or economic hit man, as he likes to call his previous profession. "I just want you to know that in this hand I have a couple of hundred million dollars for you and your family if you play the game our way." With the practiced timing of an expert storyteller, Mr. Perkins pauses. "And in this hand I have a gun with a bullet in case you decide to keep your campaign promises."

As the rapt crowd clucks and murmurs as if let in on an unspeakable confidence, Mr. Perkins cautions that he is speaking metaphorically. But for an audience already punch drunk on Mr. Perkins's very own tales of corporate skullduggery, his allegory — overripe though it may be — carries not only a ring of truth but also clues to a long history of unexplained endings

"And what about those crashes of J.F.K. Jr. and Paul Wellstone?" a woman in the audience asks. "They were awfully suspicious."

Yes, Mr. Perkins says with a nod, and reels off the deaths of others in airplane crashes: Gen. Omar Torrijos, the former president of Panama, in 1981; Jaime Roldos Aguilera, the president of Ecuador, also in 1981; and even Senator John G. Tower, the Republican from Texas, who perished with 22 others on a commercial flight in 1991. "We have had a lot of plane crashes," Mr. Perkins says ominously.

Ve--ery intrer-esting......

I immediately wanted to see John Perkins' natal chart for insight as to whether he's just another, though rather more qualified, conspiracy theorist or is he a "reliable witness"?

First, I should mention that Mr Perkins has also written several books on topics as far away from hitmen as could be imagined - for example, published between 1994 and 1999:

Psychonavigation: Techniques for Travel Beyond Time;
Shapeshifting: Shamanic Techniques for Global and Personal Transformation;
The World Is As You Dream It: Teachings from the Amazon and Andes.

Also, on John Perkins' own website HERE is a note about his current 7-session, over-the-phone teaching course “The Path of the Dreamshifter: A Shamanic Journey to Awaken Your Highest Creative Powers & Birth Your Soul’s Vision into Reality!”

There has to be an interesting natal chart attached to this apparently contradictory personality!

Natal chart of John Perkins - set for 12 noon as no time of birth is known. I'm looking only for parts of his chart which might account for the apparent contradictions in his nature and not attempting a full interpretation.

He was born on 28 January 1945. His birthday is the day after my own, the year is a little different, however. He has the Grand Trine involving Neptune and Uranus quite a few of his generation have, in his case it's an Air Grand Trine involving his Aquarius Sun (my own is with Mercury and is in Earth).

His Aquarius (sign of the rebel and the unexpected) Sun (self) is opposed by a Leo Moon (whatever his time of birth). Moon (inner self) would be somewhere between 6 and 19 degrees of Leo (sign of leader and lover of the spotlight), and so would qualify as being conjunct Pluto (intensity, passion, obsession, darkness) at 9 Leo unless his birth were in the last hour of so of 28 January.

His Sun/Moon opposition explains something of his nature's contrasting sides then. Cool intellectually based Aquarius Sun is opposed by a warmer Leo side which can manifest also as intense and passionate - even obsessive at times.

The Grand trine, already mentioned, links his Sun to Uranus and Neptune in an harmonious intellectually-driven circuit, reflecting his core self in harmony with both Uranus the rebel and Neptune the dreamer and the....maybe even the shaman?

I'm looking for something, apart from Moon/Pluto, likely to have drawn John Perkins, initially, into that dark world he describes in books about his time as a kind of dark "hitman" for the corporations and bankers. Capricorn? Yes, his natal Mercury conjunct Mars are there. Saturn, Capricorn's ruler could well be more prominent than it appears in a 12 noon chart. I'd surmise that it might fall near the midheaven or even more likely close to the ascendant (giving Cancer rising, which would match the intuitive and sensitive side apparent from his more metaphysical interests.) That's pure speculation though.