When Pluto transits the 8th house your need for transformation and power influences how you use your power and shared resources. Pluto destroys and regenerates old structures and represents your need to be empowered and reborn in this area.
When Pluto transits the 8th house it brings intensity and evolution to your finances and shared resources, sexual expression, your relationship to power, the mysteries of life and death and the deep forces of the unconscious. This is a complex and profound house and how the transit manifests will depend on your age and the wider context of your life.
You may experience changes to your marital or financial status and there could be extreme gains or losses in relation to shared wealth, inheritance, taxes, investments, loans, and government grants, as well as power struggles over money or shared resources, and difficulties with a business, including bankruptcy.
Problems with debt and money could bring up emotional issues related to fears about intimacy, responsibility and the conflict between being self-sufficient or dependent on others for support. By exploring these issues you can learn more about yourself and what you need in order to feel emotionally secure.
Other unresolved emotional issues could rise to the surface, including hidden fears and traumas from childhood, and compulsive feelings of jealousy, rage, grief and powerlessness. You may need support to process some of the more extreme feelings that come up but by purging and releasing them you can find a way to heal the past and become stronger.
Your sexuality and sexual expression may be intensified and you could have powerful experiences that transform your relationships. But there could also be a loss of desire or impotency that forces you to explore this part of your life in new ways. You may also need to deal with power struggles and issues of control or manipulation in relationships.
You may feel more open to hidden undercurrents and emotional atmospheres and could have more psychic and intuitive insights. It would be a good time to explore the mysteries of life and/or your own psyche and you could develop a more profound level of understanding of yourself and others.
This may include exploring intense experiences around death or loss. This doesn’t mean that you’ll die – it depends on your age and other factors in the chart – but you may go through a death/rebirth process that brings you face to face with the ultimate questions of life.
At worst this transit can take you to a very dark place, a kind of purgatory or dark night of the soul. If you find yourself there, remember that Pluto destroys before bringing you back to life and opens the possibility of embracing life more fully and becoming more authentically alive and present. It may be darkest before the dawn but the dawn always comes.
Possibilities with Pluto transiting the 8th house:
- Increase in wealth or financial gain
- Exploring your sexuality in more depth
- Exploring your psychological inheritance
- Healing feelings of powerlessness
- Releasing emotional karma and complexes
- Studying occult or esoteric subjects
Watch out for:
- Decrease in wealth or financial loss
- Difficulties with taxes, loans, debt or welfare
- Power struggles over shared resources
- Self-destructive obsessions and compulsions
- Dark night of the soul
- An encounter with death
My Notes:
I was born with Pluto in the 8th house and it stayed there until 1986 when I was 15. Obviously, this is too young for me to remember anything significant during most of that time. It coincided with the whole of my childhood and the start of adolescence when my experience was influenced by my parents and what they were going through. It certainly laid a solid foundation of emotional complexes for me to unpack later!
More on Pluto in 8th house here. If you’ve had this transit, please share your experience in the comments below…
More Pluto Transits: 1st house / 2nd house / 3rd house / 4th house / 5th house / 6th house / 7th house / 8th house / 9th house / 10th house / 11th house / 12th house / natal planets
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Jessica Davidson 
When Pluto transited my 8th house, I got myself into a challenging, horrifying marriage. I was forced to encounter, relive and examine my previously subconscious victimhood and trauma, and got pushed hard to discover, own and act on my power, to live or die. It was not fun, but I never will have to do that again, thank God.
Transit Pluto in my 8th formed a grand cross with my natal t-square. Pluto was squaring its natal position, too. Natal Mars, Saturn, Mercury, Moon, Jupiter, and Uranus are tightly wound in that t-square too, as well as natal Pluto.
On the very day that transit Uranus was exactly opposite its natal position, I was propelled and sprung suddenly and forcefully out of the situation, then I spent years dealing with the aftermath. But what a huge relief it was to have Uranus’ help, even though my body literally and physically shook for a few weeks after.
When I studied astrology and finally understood the intense significance of that Pluto transit, I realized that if it hadn’t been the marriage, the challenge would have been in another area or situation. I finally forgave myself for getting into the marriage, as there was no avoiding the Pluto transit. I made it out alive and underwent the transformation, then found and underwent the trauma recovery work, so that was success. I now tell myself that I did very well and cannot be messed with again.
Oh gosh, I don’t want to scare those who haven’t undergone Pluto transiting through the 8th. But not everyone has the natal aspects that I have to produce the drama that I underwent.
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That’s a really good point – thanks for sharing your experience, RG, and the importance of taking the whole chart into account when looking at transits.
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