Mercury in Aquarius is quite powerful. It’s a Mercury that enjoys triplicity and, oh, does Mercury love triplicity.

It is also a Saturn ruled Mercury. It is the only Mercury placement that has triplicity which is ruled by a malefic. Mercury in Libra loves relating different concepts to other like concepts and finishing a friend’s sentence for them because they are just so familiar. Mercury in Gemini loves learning new languages and exercising well earned expertise. But Mercury in Aquarius? Mercury in Aquarius doesn’t care about being relatable or about getting things done.

I think that it’s no coincidence that there are so many scientists with Mercury in Aquarius. To be a true scientist, you are not simply an information gatherer. You put pieces of one thing together so that they can provoke epiphanies in another direction and in a separate field.

Mercury in Aquarius is a contrarian Mercury. It feels as though, to study one thing, it must study its opposite simultaneously. It is the type of Mercury that studies legal ethics but also blues music and finds a way to bring the two things together. It is not satisfied with mere information. Information comes easily to Mercury in Aquarius and it is bored, already, with information. “Yes, I know this,” Mercury in Aquarius might say impatiently. “But how can it be applied and, when it is applied, what are the consequences of its application?”

Because Mercury in Aquarius is Saturn ruled, there is a coldness to its attitude. This is not a sentimental Mercury. This is a Mercury that deconstructs and then declares the thing that it deconstructs as outdated or meaningless. Mercury in Aquarius refuses to entertain. It demands a certain conciseness and brevity. Ice T has Mercury in Aquarius. His Twitter is littered with his “ice cold facts”—a series of different slogans that convey brief pieces of life advice for those who are sure of and tough in themselves.

Mercury in Aquarius has high intellectual expectations. They don’t let you get away with a subdued imagination.

A lot of Mercury in Aquariuses are interested in filmmaking. I’ve noticed this over the years, along with Venus in Leo and certain Capricorn placements. I think that Mercury in Aquarius is a very good watcher of things. They are willing to entertain the trajectories of certain characters and certain histories but they do not become immersed into a singular storyline. Again, Mercury in Aquarius is curious about variety but for variety’s sake but because they know that meaning is created through the synthesis of disparate opposites.

The other reason why I think so many Mercury in Aquariuses are interested in working on film projects is because they are drawn to creative expressions that take more than one or two people to make. There is a social intelligence to Mercury in Aquarius. They know how to reside while knowing very different viewpoints, how to immediately understand the different sides of a conflict without becoming overly impressed with one narrative, and how to synthesize the viewpoints into something new without betraying either one (or maybe by half betraying both). Mercury in Aquarius knows that the expression of a thing, when it is done in a group, will always change the thing in and of itself and this is what they are after—social change.

Mercury in Aquarius is not capable of studying a thing without changing the field of its study and it will suffer, becoming rebellious, if it is expected to. It lives to question. That is part of its creative expression. It is attached to doubt because doubt is what moves it to think beyond the thoughts that it was already thinking.

Mercury in Aquarius is sometimes called the mad scientist Mercury. It does its thing without regard for rules and it allows curiosity to overtake discipline. But the mad scientist isn’t really mad. The mad scientist has goals that have not yet become visibly important.

Being interdisciplinary, Mercury in Aquarius will always create new fields of study. It will never be able to choose one path forward. It is not interested in having options. This is a Mercury that explores the limits of what it is here to do until it runs into repression and, in running into repression, breaks the wall of assumption that held the repression in place. Mercury in Aquarius never does things that it is already allowed to do. That’s not where it does its best work.

Someone with Mercury in Aquarius finds their own way through life. Sure, you might say that about anyone but Mercury in Aquarius is a Mercury that finds a kind of excited joy in doing something out of left field. It purposefully and intentionally challenges itself. In doing this, it has the power to create things that we never thought could be real.