I am not going to delve heavily into astrology in this post. If you think astrology is just some ridiculous pseudo-science, that is fine. It could even be a healthy attitude to some extent. Nevertheless, according to plenty of New Agers, we are now just entering/having entered the Age of Aquarius, leaving behind the Age of Pisces. As I am concerned with the question of how to periodize world history, this is most interesting to me. Periodization, after all, cannot be done objectively: history is divided into periods based on what "makes sense", no more scientific than that. It is a question of the perception and interpretation of patterns.
Oh, by the way - astronomical ages are a bit more objective. As the Earth wobbles round its axis, the sky above us slowly drifts. It takes the Earth roughly 26,000 years to complete one wobbling movement, known as precession. Divided by twelve, this gives on average slightly more than 2,000 years per Zodiac sign. As the visible sky above changes, the Pole Star will not, for instance, be aligned with the North Pole in the future. Other things that change concern the sun: during the spring and autumn equinoxes, as during the summer and winter solstices, the sun will be in some other Zodiac signs than today. For some reason, astrologers have singled out the spring (vernal) equinox as being of special importance. The sign of the sun during the vernal equinox is supposed to mark the age we are presently in.
This video illustrates the movements of the Earth with regard to the celestial sphere in the long run. It shows that we have now just entered the Age of Aquarius - except we haven't.
Reality isn't as neat as described in the video. Some signs are larger than others, Pisces being one of them. An astronomer would tell you that the spring equinox still occurs in Pisces, and will continue to do so until roughly the year 2600 AD, depending on where exactly you posit the boundaries between the signs.
Why astrologers frequently ignore astronomy is puzzling to say the least. There is at least one astrologer who has a long-winding argument for why the Age of Aquarius really began as early as 1433, right in line with the dawn of the modern age. But other than that, well, in the musical Hair they sang some fifty years ago that the Age of Aquarius was dawning. Then various people picked up on this, including Yogi Bhajan who suggested that the transition from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius would be completed in 2012 (one can only suspect that he was well aware of the end date for the Maya calendar). Whatever the case may be, we proceed to ask: What are the supposed differences between the Age of Pisces and the Age of Aquarius? And why do I, skeptical as I might be, consider this periodization to be a most striking one?
You may read up on typical characterizations of the Pisces and Aquarius signs anwhere on the web. Pisces is dreamy, drifting, understanding, connected with deep devotion, intuition and self-sacrifice. It is Pisces who says: "I shall do as my Lord commands", the Lord in this case being a transcendent being of some sort. Pisces is prone to delirium, illusions and possession: for an extreme charicature, picture the protagonist of The Shadow over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft: A man arrives at a distant town where the inhabitants bear strange, fish-like features. Soon his very dreams are invaded by visions of the dark sea-monster Cthulhu, and in the end, well aware that he is losing his sanity, he only longs to be united with his master, to worship him beneath the waves in eternal bondage. Granted, this is much too dark and destructive for Pisces generally (and supposedly Lovecraft did have Piscean Neptune in the 8th house in his natal horoscope - the house of the occult). Nevertheless, it can hardly be denied that the world from roughly the time of Christ (who was also associated with fish) was, for a long time, dominated by transcendent religions focused on the worship of the One. Mahayana Buddhism also emerged around this time, and Christianity itself grew up in an environment of Late Antique mystery religions such as Mithraism, with which it shared certain features. Salvation religions had already begun to emerge, that much is true: but originally both Buddhism and Jainism, belonging to the martial Age or Aries, taught that the individual must save himself - no exterior deities were ultimately called for. It is only around the Age of Pisces that grace starts to become a factor. And now, supposedly, God is dead (or in any case forgotten) and we are in the Age of Aquarius.
The Aquarian is cut from a different cloth than the Piscean. Some recurring descriptions are (and I quote):
Now for the meaty part. It goes without saying that the last two hundred years or so have seemed a lot more Aquarian than Piscean in terms of the development of the world. Innovation has started to take on a stunning pace; the rights revolution has seen the emancipation of slaves, serfs, women, children, homosexuals and to some extent animals (although the majority of farm animals are probably worse off today than in the distant past). Electricity, atomic power, democracy, socialism, feminism and philanthropic capitalism: all these things are in the spirit of Aquarius. God is quickly fading from view, and the idea of submitting to a higher power seems evermore parochial and obscure. New Agers do not ask God for anything, they ask the Universe, as a friend and without submitting to it. Now, astrologers tend to say that Aquarians are driven by a quest for collective consciousness - that is, they are certainly spiritual, but their spirituality is of a different kind from Pisceans. But what does this mean? Why does this non-conformist individualist want to blend with others into some form of higher, collective consciousness?
Consider Socrates. Through his broad-minded, universalist logic he produces an "essence of truth" and then makes it visible to his adversary. The end result is that they both "see the truth" right before their eyes in exactly the same way. But this does not have to be a matter of scholastic debate, not at all: the methods may differ between Aquarians, but the quintessential Aquarian always strives for just this: to achieve a harmony of vision between people. That way, their minds become instances of a higher, universal mind.
There are of course other, more concrete examples of this. Marx posited that workers suffered from "false consciousness" so long as they did not realize their true, objective interests. Many feminist and other political groups frequently hold workshops to "raise consciousness". Yet the New Agers do not want to raise consciousness politically, but spiritually, through music, mantras, yoga and the like. In the tradition of above-mentioned Yogi Bhajan, here is a wonderful example of such a practice with music.
The Piscean morality is built around faith, devotion and submission. The Aquarian morality is built on Reason with a capital R. Pisces may be surprised that Aquarius can be moral without resorting to a higher power, but for Aquarius Reason constitues a kind of higher power, only you do not submit to it, you participate in it!
Now it only remains to be seen whether Aquarian man can keep serving humanity without trampling the natural world in the process; whether he can tame the machines he has created in the service of the greater good.
Oh, by the way - astronomical ages are a bit more objective. As the Earth wobbles round its axis, the sky above us slowly drifts. It takes the Earth roughly 26,000 years to complete one wobbling movement, known as precession. Divided by twelve, this gives on average slightly more than 2,000 years per Zodiac sign. As the visible sky above changes, the Pole Star will not, for instance, be aligned with the North Pole in the future. Other things that change concern the sun: during the spring and autumn equinoxes, as during the summer and winter solstices, the sun will be in some other Zodiac signs than today. For some reason, astrologers have singled out the spring (vernal) equinox as being of special importance. The sign of the sun during the vernal equinox is supposed to mark the age we are presently in.
This video illustrates the movements of the Earth with regard to the celestial sphere in the long run. It shows that we have now just entered the Age of Aquarius - except we haven't.
Reality isn't as neat as described in the video. Some signs are larger than others, Pisces being one of them. An astronomer would tell you that the spring equinox still occurs in Pisces, and will continue to do so until roughly the year 2600 AD, depending on where exactly you posit the boundaries between the signs.
The sun' s position during the spring equinox, years marked in red
Why astrologers frequently ignore astronomy is puzzling to say the least. There is at least one astrologer who has a long-winding argument for why the Age of Aquarius really began as early as 1433, right in line with the dawn of the modern age. But other than that, well, in the musical Hair they sang some fifty years ago that the Age of Aquarius was dawning. Then various people picked up on this, including Yogi Bhajan who suggested that the transition from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius would be completed in 2012 (one can only suspect that he was well aware of the end date for the Maya calendar). Whatever the case may be, we proceed to ask: What are the supposed differences between the Age of Pisces and the Age of Aquarius? And why do I, skeptical as I might be, consider this periodization to be a most striking one?
You may read up on typical characterizations of the Pisces and Aquarius signs anwhere on the web. Pisces is dreamy, drifting, understanding, connected with deep devotion, intuition and self-sacrifice. It is Pisces who says: "I shall do as my Lord commands", the Lord in this case being a transcendent being of some sort. Pisces is prone to delirium, illusions and possession: for an extreme charicature, picture the protagonist of The Shadow over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft: A man arrives at a distant town where the inhabitants bear strange, fish-like features. Soon his very dreams are invaded by visions of the dark sea-monster Cthulhu, and in the end, well aware that he is losing his sanity, he only longs to be united with his master, to worship him beneath the waves in eternal bondage. Granted, this is much too dark and destructive for Pisces generally (and supposedly Lovecraft did have Piscean Neptune in the 8th house in his natal horoscope - the house of the occult). Nevertheless, it can hardly be denied that the world from roughly the time of Christ (who was also associated with fish) was, for a long time, dominated by transcendent religions focused on the worship of the One. Mahayana Buddhism also emerged around this time, and Christianity itself grew up in an environment of Late Antique mystery religions such as Mithraism, with which it shared certain features. Salvation religions had already begun to emerge, that much is true: but originally both Buddhism and Jainism, belonging to the martial Age or Aries, taught that the individual must save himself - no exterior deities were ultimately called for. It is only around the Age of Pisces that grace starts to become a factor. And now, supposedly, God is dead (or in any case forgotten) and we are in the Age of Aquarius.
The Aquarian is cut from a different cloth than the Piscean. Some recurring descriptions are (and I quote):
Aquarius in balance: Unique, objective, charismatic, inventive, fair, cosmopolitan, friendly, broadminded, interesting, unusual, creative, ingenious, idealistic, humanitarian, pioneering, socially conscious, activist, modern, awake, ecumenical, unbiased, visionary, open-minded, calm, patient, steady, gregarious, intuitive, alert, loyal, innovative, liberal, tolerant, communal, experimental, revolutionary, remarkable, rational, galvanizing.
Aquarius out of balance: Dissociated, non-conforming, rebellious, anarchistic, anti, alienated, bizarre, unstable, belligerent, psychopathic, cruel, cold, sociopathic, aloof, impersonal, unsympathetic, fanatical, inflexible, immovable, cynical, disbelieving, skeptical, disparaging, erratic, overtalkative, anxious, ungrounded, inefficient, vacillating, noncommittal, impractical, spacy, unfocused, avoiding, peace-at-any-price, bewildered.Abraham Lincoln is a famous example of an Aquarian. Another person who captures some of the Aquarian spirit at its best is Socrates the way he is described in Plato's dialogues. Also, Karl Marx is said among astrologers to have been born during a Solar eclipse with his ascendant in Aquarius (with Sun and Moon in materialistic Taurus).
Now for the meaty part. It goes without saying that the last two hundred years or so have seemed a lot more Aquarian than Piscean in terms of the development of the world. Innovation has started to take on a stunning pace; the rights revolution has seen the emancipation of slaves, serfs, women, children, homosexuals and to some extent animals (although the majority of farm animals are probably worse off today than in the distant past). Electricity, atomic power, democracy, socialism, feminism and philanthropic capitalism: all these things are in the spirit of Aquarius. God is quickly fading from view, and the idea of submitting to a higher power seems evermore parochial and obscure. New Agers do not ask God for anything, they ask the Universe, as a friend and without submitting to it. Now, astrologers tend to say that Aquarians are driven by a quest for collective consciousness - that is, they are certainly spiritual, but their spirituality is of a different kind from Pisceans. But what does this mean? Why does this non-conformist individualist want to blend with others into some form of higher, collective consciousness?
Consider Socrates. Through his broad-minded, universalist logic he produces an "essence of truth" and then makes it visible to his adversary. The end result is that they both "see the truth" right before their eyes in exactly the same way. But this does not have to be a matter of scholastic debate, not at all: the methods may differ between Aquarians, but the quintessential Aquarian always strives for just this: to achieve a harmony of vision between people. That way, their minds become instances of a higher, universal mind.
There are of course other, more concrete examples of this. Marx posited that workers suffered from "false consciousness" so long as they did not realize their true, objective interests. Many feminist and other political groups frequently hold workshops to "raise consciousness". Yet the New Agers do not want to raise consciousness politically, but spiritually, through music, mantras, yoga and the like. In the tradition of above-mentioned Yogi Bhajan, here is a wonderful example of such a practice with music.
The Piscean morality is built around faith, devotion and submission. The Aquarian morality is built on Reason with a capital R. Pisces may be surprised that Aquarius can be moral without resorting to a higher power, but for Aquarius Reason constitues a kind of higher power, only you do not submit to it, you participate in it!
Now it only remains to be seen whether Aquarian man can keep serving humanity without trampling the natural world in the process; whether he can tame the machines he has created in the service of the greater good.
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