Astrology, Prediction and Comment

On Sunday March 22 2020, at 3.58 am, Saturn moves into Aquarius.  It stays in this sign until July 1, and then goes back into Capricorn.  It returns to Aquarius on December 17.  In many ways this March 22 sign change is a preview of the future.  We won’t get the full Saturn in Aquarius experience until December.  We should also bear in mind that at the end of December there is a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, in the first degree of Aquarius.  From then on, the world gets the full Aquarius treatment.

So what does it mean when Saturn goes into Aquarius?  It is something that happens every 29 years.  When you look back at previous ingresses, you don’t see an exact repetition of history.  Instead, you see different but perhaps rhyming themes.

On February 6 1991 Saturn went into Aquarius.  It was during the First Gulf War, and on the following day US troops began the ground war.  A week later the Americans fired two laser-guided bombs at a bunker in Baghdad, killing hundreds of people.  In a way this was a Saturn in Aquarius event.  The bombs were considered to be “smart”, and we have the image of technology being used to destroy people.  To deconstruct the imagery, Saturn is a malefic planet, which functions well in Aquarius.  And Aquarius is a sign connected with inventiveness and technology.

Flip back 29 years, and Saturn entered Aquarius on January 3 1962.  In the early 1960s we saw a more positive aspect of Aquarius.  It was a time when people wanted to be free, at least in the West.  Though it wasn’t until Saturn moved into Pisces that the sixties moved into top gear.  Yet the essence of Saturn in Aquarius was captured by British politician Harold Wilson, in a speech he made on October 1 1963:

“In all our plans for the future, we are re-defining and we are re-stating our Socialism in terms of the scientific revolution. But that revolution cannot become a reality unless we are prepared to make far-reaching changes in economic and social attitudes which permeate our whole system of society. The Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive practices or for outdated methods on either side of industry”.

This absolutely describes the positive side of Saturn in Aquarius.  You’ve got a revolution, which seeks to change society in a positive way.  It is a revolution that is based on science and technology.

Go back another 29 years, and in 1932 Saturn entered Aquarius – on February 24 and November 20.  The final entry was critical.  It brought to power two politicians, whose governments embodied the Aquarian principle. By November 20 1932 both politicians had won elections, but there was a delay before they came to power.  Adolf Hitler’s National Socalist Party was the largest party after the November 6 1932 German elections, and Franklin Roosevelt won the November 8 presidential election.  Hitler camer to power on January 30 1933, Roosevelt on March 4 1933.  FDR had his Sun in Aquarius, by the way.

There were definite similarities between Hitler and FDR’s first years in government.  They came to power on the back of the great depression, and they believed that the state could play a commanding role in the workings of society.  People and businesses were not as free as they had been, and grand plans were created for reforming society.

Which brings us forward to 2020.  The world is facing a crisis, and Saturn is about to move into Aquarius.  In the West, everyone is now relying on the government to sort things out – as was the case in Germany and the United States in 1933.  With Saturn moving into Aquarius, people are not going to be as free as they were, and as the world seeks to contain the coronavirus, further restraints will be put in place.  But is is not just about the virus.   With Saturn moving into Aquarius we will see technology having an increasing impact on our lives, and artificial intelligence will start taking centre stage.

As far as the coronavirus is concerned, Saturn’s movement from Capricorn to Aquarius is about a change from the acute to the chronic phase.  This is because Capricorn is a Cardinal sign, Aquarius a Fixed one.  There will be less emphasis on taking immediate action to stop an exponential threat, more emphasis on dealing with a disease which has taken root in the general population.  Everyone is at risk of getting the disease, and the focus will be on finding effective treatment, especially for the elderly.

Then there is Russia.  Russia is supposed to be an economic disaster, that hasn’t got the resources to support its expansionist aims.  Well, in the traditional Ptolemaic scheme Russia is covered by the sign Aquarius, and Saturn moving into Aquarius is going to show the world that the Bear is far from dead.  Russia is on the up, and over the next few years we’ll see its economic and political influence growing.  Especially in Eastern Europe, which may be the part of the world worst hit by the fallout from the unfolding economic crisis.

However, when looking at Saturn’s movement into Aquarius, remember that it is just a taster, because Saturn goes back into Capricorn in July.  The real deal doesn’t start until  December.

I have had a long standing view that astrology is in decline.  From my perspective, it peaked in the the mid 1980s, and went downhill ever since.  To illustrate this, in the 1980s you could go into a bookshop, and see shelves that were packed with astrology books, by mainstream publishers.  And subject matter was often technical – harmonics, midpoints, rectification.

This growth in astrology was driven by early baby-boomers.  When I was teaching astrology in the early 1990s, it was amazing how many of my students were born in 1946.  Their guru was also born in this year, and she was Liz Greene, who stormed into prominience in the late 1970s with her book Saturn: A new look at an old devil.  Being born in 1962, and a late baby-boomer, I wasn’t quite on the same wave length as my students, and I wasn’t a big fan of Liz Greene’s work.  Still, I did have the honour of shaking her hand.  It was in 1987, when she gave me my diploma at the Faculty of Astrological Studies’ Autumn conference.

The late 1980s was also interesting because it was peak psychology.  Those born in 1946 loved their Jungian astrology, and they were often in therapy themselves.  And of course Liz Greene, who herself is a Jungian analyst, ruled the roost.  However there were problems.  I went through the Faculty of Astrological Studies’ diploma course, and I remember seeing a client with an Indian background.  I waxed lyrical about his personality, and at the end of our reading, he asked me whether I could recommend a good astrologer.  The astrology of the 1980s had almost forgotten about prediction.  Though I should say, in defence of Liz Greene, that she did predict the collapse of Communism, on the basis of the outer planet aspects current in the late 1980s.

As we moved into the early 1990s, things started to change.  The consensus around psychological astrology was starting to break.  The person largely responsible for this break-up was an old woman called Olivia Barclay.  In terms of influence, she was probably one of the Twentieth Century’s most important astrologers.  She was a traditionalist, who publicized William Lilly’s Christian Astrology, that first came out in the 1640s.  Olivia, in spite of living in the UK, was probably more popular in the US, and she played a big role in the rediscovery of traditional astrology.

However, Olivia did have a negative influence.  She helped end the collegial spirit in astrology, the idea we are all working on the same wonderful project.  There was an increasing split between psychological and traditional astrology, and I believe that this fragmentation intensified over the following decades.  In terms of my own role in, I did Olivia’s correspondence course in horary astrology.  To begin with the course was one long argument.  I remember one comment she put on my homework: “You are only interested in arguments.  I am interested in the truth”.  She was a Sagittarian, by the way, and I am a Gemini.  But by the time I completed the course I was completely indoctrinated.  The psychological approach I had learned at the Faculty of Astrological Studies had been flushed out, and I was better able to deal with clients who wanted concrete predictions.  I also took any opportunity to attack psychological astrology, and for a year or two I took on the role of Olivia’s attack dog.  Mars rising in Taurus, I suppose.

The early 1990s was also important because there was a recession, certainly in the UK.  The First Gulf War was followed by a crash in property prices, and people had less money.  At the time I had my own astrology school.  I thought, after six months, that it was going well, with full classes.  Then suddenly, it fell off a cliff.  At the same time the astrological publishing industry collapsed.  It became virtually impossible to get books on astrology published, unless you did it yourself.  Actually, and amazingly, I did manage to get two books published by an imprint of Penguin in the mid-1990s.  This was because my co-author, Barbara Dunn, was astrologer for Cosmopolitan.

However, there was one area of astrology that did very well in the 1990s.  And that was premium rate horoscope phone lines.  If you were a newspaper or magazine astrologer, you recorded premium rate lines, which made a huge amount of money.  This meant that the only astrologers making a decent living were the ones who were doing columns.  And getting a column was like winning the lottery.  It didn’t help, in the UK, that a few famous names had the whole thing sewn up – for example Patric Walker and Jonathan Cainer.

Through the 1990s and 2000s there was a broad decline in astrology, though we did see Olivia Barclay’s vision starting to be realized.  Although I don’t know the full details, it was probably important that veteran astrologer Robert Hand and ARHAT took a big leadership in the rediscovery of traditional techniques.  I should also say that I am looking at things from a British perspective.  The US is a much larger territory, and it is easier in America for niche interests to survive and prosper.

Fast forward to 2020, and there is a evidence of a massive revival in astrology.  Recently the press has been full of articles about millennials getting into astrology, perhaps because it provides meaning in an uncertain world.  Furthermore, there has been an explosion in knowledge about traditional Greek techniques, that is often spear-headed by younger astrologers, such as Chris Brennan.  Olivia Barclay didn’t know about many of these techniques, but I do believe that modern traditional astrologers owe her a big debt, for starting the ball rolling.

You would have thought, as the world goes into crisis, that astrology is going to take off in a big way.  However, we shouldn’t forget the recession of the early 1990s.  It caused a huge amount of damage to astrology, as I have just described.  What about the 1929 recession?  That’s interesting.  In 1930 a British astrologer, R.H. Naylor, had a column in The Sunday Express.  In October 1930 he wrote “A British aircraft will be in danger”.  In fact, the paper with his prediction hit the stands on Sunday October 5.  That same day a British airship, the R101, exploded in flames in Beauvais, France.  Short-term, his career was made, and he got himself a regular sun sign column.  Maybe his star sign forecasts helped the British people make sense of the economic downturn, and how it affected their lives.

However, one could argue that sun sign astrology is not real astrology. At best it is a few wise words, which are appropriate to any situation, at worst it’s fluff. And when the real crisis came, in the form of the Second World War, Naylor lost his column.  War is a serious business, and astrology is an irrelevance.  However in Nazi Germany there were people who took astrology seriously, including top Nazi Rudolf Hess.  In 1941, on a whim, he got in a plane and flew to Scotland.  He thought he might be able to broker some kind of peace between Britain and Germany.  The Nazi regime thought that astrology might have influenced his decision, and as a result astrology was banned.

The present crisis is still to play out.  It will definitely cause a reset in the  astrology world.  The idea that astrology will become some millennial lifestyle accessory will bite the dust – because it is not a time for triviality.  And in the short-term, it will probably become more difficult to make money out of astrology, unless you’re an established player.  Also, with Saturn moving into Aquarius, and a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in December 2020, styles and tastes are going to change.  The kind of astrology that is popular now may not be popular in a few years time.

I appreciate this article is full of generalizations.  Feel free to comment, correct and disagree.

The Spring Equinox on Friday March 20 2020 is at 3.50 am GMT.  It is the moment when, from the Earth’s perspective, the Sun crosses the celestial equator, moving from South to North.  The hours of day and night are equal, and in the Northern Hemisphere it is the beginning of Spring.  From an occult perspective, the Spring Equinox is important.  It is a moment in time when a gateway opens, between the Earth down here and the Cosmos that’s all around us.

Now I do understand that people who are into spirituality and the occult like to celebrate the Equinox.  They might have a party on March 20, or perhaps some kind of ritual.  However, if you really want to engage with the power of the Universe, that’s not good enough.  You have to be there at the moment.  Which is 3.50 am London time – not five minutes earlier, or five minutes later.  That is the climax of the ritual, when whatever energy you are trying to invoke will manifest itself.  Mark that moment how you please, provided it’s safe, legal and ethical.

This means that if you’re in London you either don’t go to bed, or you get up early.  A good ritual has to be prepared, and you have to be awake.  I mean really awake.  Though to an extent that depends on what kind of ritual you are planning.  If you’re doing something new-agey, with music and flowers and perhaps affirmations, then you can probably do what you like.  If, on the other hand, you’re doing something scary, Aleister Crowley style, then you must be prepared to battle the Equinox demons, as they try to rush the magic circle.

If you’re not in the UK, then it is not so bad.  The Equinox is at 11.50 pm on March 19 in New York, 6.50 am on March 20 in Moscow.

So what kind of energies are going to pass through the gateway?  To work this out, we look at the astrological chart of the exact moment.  This is what it looks like set for London:

When you look at this kind of chart, you need to distinguish between the planets and the angles.  The planets will be in the same place worldwide , but the angles are going to be restricted to certain locations.  In this chart, we see an exact conjunction between Mars and Jupiter, at 23 degrees Capricorn.  Everyone in the world will experience this.  Yet we also see Mars and Jupiter, and Pluto, conjunct the Ascendant.  This is specific to the location.  We can see this in terms of a map:

The Mars-Jupiter-Pluto conjunction crosses South East England, including London.  This would suggest that over the next three months, between now and the Summer Solistice, the UK, its government and its Prime Minister are going to be under enormous pressure.

But wherever you live, you are not going to escape the energies that pour through the open cosmic gateway at 3.50 a.m. GMT on March 20.  One particular energy that will come tumbling out of this gateway will be the Mars-Jupiter conjunction.  It will be nasty, almost demonic, and violence levels are likely to be elevated.  Aside from the UK, other areas that might be specially affected are Norway, California and Eastern Iran.

This means that you might want to think twice before conducting serious ritual magic at the time of the Equinox.  You could be bringing into your sphere more than you can handle, and all the banishing rituals in the world might not fend off what you have brought down.  Particularly if you’re an early rising magician in London.

This week, that started on March 16 2020, we get just over 32 hours of total negativity.  This means there are no traditional planets in the positive signs of Fire and Air.  In fact, the discovered planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, are are also in negative signs.

In case you don’t know, in astrology the Fire signs of Aries, Leo and Sagittiarus are treated as positive, as are the Air signs of Gemini, Libra and Aquarius.  The six Earth and Water signs are negative.

We can see this as a gigantic binary combination lock, one dial for each of the ten planets, where 1 is positive, and 0 is negative.

On the morning of  Monday March 16 the dial looks like this:

Sun in Pisces, Negative

Moon in Sagittarius, Positive

Mercury in Aquarius, Positive

Venus in Taurus, Negative

Mars in Capricorn, Negative

Jupiter in Capricorn, Negative

Saturn in Capricorn, Negative

Uranus in Taurus, Negative

Neptune in Pisces, Negative

Pluto in Capricorn, Negative

This means that the cogs of interest are Mercury, the Sun and the Moon.

In terms of the Sun and Mercury, the broad window of negativity is between Monday March 16 at 7.42 am GMT, when Mercury moved into Pisces, and Friday March 20 at 3.50 am GMT, when the Sun moves into Aries.

We then have to consider the Moon.  It went into Capricorn on Monday March 16 at 4.25 pm GMT, and leaves Capricorn on Wednesday 19 at 1.16 am.  So that’s your window.  New York time, that is between 12.26 pm on Monday and 9.16 pm on Tuesday.  By the time it moves into another negative sign, the Sun will be in Aries, and the moment will be gone.

What does it mean?  It is a time of total negativity, total Yin.  It is a time to absorb the universe, to let the universe imprint its message on you.  Don’t feel that you have to create, or be positive.  Instead you need to observe, and listen to your thoughts and dreams.  And don’t miss it – Saturn is about to move into Aquarius, a positive sign, and you’ll have to wait for years, even decades, for another moment of such negativity.

While I have got your attention, I am considering offering a free online astrology course.  Now might be a good time to offer a free course – coronavirus means that people have more free time, but also less money.  I have been practicing astrology since 1987, and am familiar with most areas of astrology.  If you are interested, and you are prepared to commit to something like a five-week course, please email me at consultarchie at gmail.com, or comment on this post.  Tell me what kind of things you want to learn about.  For example, do you want a beginners’ course?