Mirrors of the Past: Time and Historical Consciousness in Contemporary Western Astrology

Abstract

How do invocations of history inform speculative discourses in Western astrology? This article examines how events from the recorded past factor into predictive forecasts among professional astrologers for whom celestial patterns are indicative of shifting and evolving world-historical trends. Drawing on examples from prominent voices in the North American astrology community, across a range of commercial and social media platforms, I outline the parameters of what I call “astrological historicity,” a temporal orientation guided by archetypal principles closely associated with New Age metaphysics and psychodynamic theories of the self. I argue that while such sensibilities reinforce an ethos of therapeutic spirituality, they are not so narrowly individualistic as to preclude social and political considerations. Astrological historicity is at times a vehicle for culturally resonant expressions of historical consciousness, including critical awareness of historical legacies of racial and social injustice that directly link the past to the present and foreseeable future. Furthermore, while astrological accounts of history emulate aspects of modern historicism, including its orientation toward linear temporality and developmental themes, they rely on a nonlinear framework predicated on recurring cycles, correspondences, and synchronicities, bringing a complex heterotemporality to bear on world-historical circumstances. In seeking to understand the moral and political entailments of this area of occult knowledge production, this article aims to shed light on astrology’s cultural appeal not just as popular entertainment, spirituality, or therapy, but as an intellectual and cultural resource for many people searching for ways to express their frustration and disillusionment with reigning political-economic systems and authorities.

On 12 January 2020, as the first known COVID-19 fatality was reported by Chinese media, astrologers around the world were preoccupied with a celestial alignment between Saturn and Pluto, deep in the zodiacal sign of Capricorn. Though few specifically predicted that the rare conjunction would coincide with the spread of a deadly coronavirus, the timing and severity of the pandemic came to astrologers as no surprise. Among North American astrologers, for example, the meeting of Saturn, the planet of boundaries, restrictions, and structures, and Pluto, symbolizing death, power, and inexorable change (and still a planet in astrological terms), had been a topic of fevered speculation years before COVID became a household word. It was anticipated as nothing less than the centerpiece of an epochal transformation, a liminal phase between one world-historical era and another.

Astrologers, by their own admission, are no strangers to hyperbole. The earthly implications of planetary “transits” are often heralded as potentially “transformational,” “game-changing,” or “cataclysmic.” Still, the astro-chatter around 2020’s Saturn-Pluto conjunction was unusually animated. Even before the pandemic, while syndicated horoscope columns put an encouraging spin on the coming year for individuals, astrologers across a range of platforms—including podcasts, blogs, and social media—anticipated widespread social and economic upheavals. ¹ They said the conjunction would coincide with a tremendous “shock” to the proverbial system, bringing financial and political institutions to the brink of collapse, triggering waves of reactionary oppression, and stoking the fires of revolutionary ferment. In an essay for Astrology.com a week before the conjunction, astrologer Gray Crawford wrote: “When Saturn and Pluto meet, their proximity constellates a period of intensified tension, constraint, and division in collective events. While societal structures decay and breakdown, there’s room to begin building new forms and foundational elements in their place … Saturn and Pluto bring the gravity of graveyards and necessary confrontations with cultural and personal issues we can no longer deny or resist.” ²

Themes of death and decline, but also rebirth and renewal, pervaded such commentaries, revealing a penchant for curiously optimistic fatalism that characterizes much public astrology. The popular duo known as the AstroTwins—sisters Tali and Ophira Edut, the resident astrologers at ELLE Magazine—laid out the stakes even more explicitly in their yearly forecast: “Will 2020 mark the end of capitalism as we know it? Or will sustainable industries emerge to steward humanity into the 21st century? Hard to say—especially as Saturn and Pluto point out the mounting complexities. How can we get safe, affordable and convenient goods without damaging the planet? Under the Saturn-Pluto conjunction, something may have to ‘die’ for a new system to be invented.” ³

While astrologers based such projections on centuries-old techniques of horoscopic delineation, many invoked historic precedents as well. Before and after the conjunction, and the start of the pandemic, they cited events from the past that bore the same astrological signature and could be analyzed along similar thematic lines, such as the 1914 Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Cancer at the start of World War I, or the conjunction in Libra in the early 1980s, which was linked to the start of the Reagan era, renewed tensions in the Cold War, conflict in the Middle East, and the dawn of the AIDS crisis. Examples cited from the far more distant past included historic developments such as the Protestant Reformation, the expansion of the transatlantic slave trade, and the “dancing plague” of Strasbourg, all of which coincided with the last time Saturn and Pluto met in Capricorn in 1518. Even the Black Death of 1347–1351 made its way into some forecasts, fueling speculation that “a new disease pandemic” might be looming on the horizon. ⁴ As celebrity astrologer Chani Nicholas later explained in a Vanity Fair interview: “You can look back at history and be like, What happened last time this happened? Will something in that genre happen again? And you can piece things together that way. The last time Saturn and Pluto came together was in the midst of the AIDS epidemic. It also happened during the bubonic plague. Obviously there’ve been a lot of Saturn-Pluto conjunctions that weren’t associated with a global health crisis, but enough have that some astrologers were like: plague.” ⁵

Astrology is best known as a medium of futurity, but like all forms of anticipatory knowledge, it deals in broad temporal frames. In forecasting major planetary transits, astrologers often draw on historical examples to situate moments in time—past, present, and future—within larger temporal cycles and sequences, perpetually unfolding, of which planets and fixed stars are primary signifiers. By placing world events in “cosmic” context, based on patterns of geocentric motion, astrologers promote the belief that even the most seemingly diffuse and disconnected temporal phenomena are metaphysically connected. “History rhymes,” they often say, as if to suggest that the ebbs and flows of time are like structured cadences, harmonized in a transcendental unity of meaning and form. In so doing, astrologers invite readers and clients to embrace an alternative temporality, one in which linear and recursive readings of history are not at odds, and current events are cast as opportunities to review and, when necessary, redirect the course of human affairs.

This essay examines historicity and historical consciousness in the field of Western astrology, as represented by prominent North American practitioners. ⁶ Historicity figures in my analysis not as a measure of astrology’s historical accuracy or prescience, but to mark the presence of a cultural paradigm that influences how people perceive and process historical experience (Palmié and Stewart 2016). Historicities are fluid social constructions, “where versions of the past and future … assume present form in relation to events, political needs, available cultural forms and emotional dispositions” (Hirsch and Stewart 2005). The concept encompasses multiple registers of realizing the past (Lambek 2002) beyond the narrow albeit hegemonic purview of academic historicism (Trouillot 1995).

My analysis, informed by ethnographic research since 2017, draws on mass-mediated texts and public presentations by professional astrologers who have made evidentiary use of the recorded past in otherwise predictive commentaries on current events and world affairs. I argue that what I call astrological historicity is a discursive mode that subsumes and challenges conventional norms of historical understanding even while emulating aspects of Western historicism. Astrologers routinely echo a developmentalist view of human history, where textbook-variety milestones and world-historical figures stand as benchmarks of civilizational evolution. But their interpretive principles rely on a nonlinear framework predicated on a metaphysics of cycles, correspondences, and synchronicities. Astrological historicity thus subverts secular visions of historical discontinuity, collapses ontological distinctions between matter and consciousness, and establishes thematic resonances between personal and collective experiences of time, within a grand archetypal framework that astrologers view not only as a resource for spiritual edification but a path to greater knowledge of the world as a whole.

I further argue that astrological historicity functions in many cases as a vehicle for culturally resonant expressions of historical consciousness. The astrology of history and world affairs, often presented under the rubric of “mundane astrology,” is not nearly as ubiquitous as personalized genres of natal astrology featured in syndicated horoscopes, astrology apps, and social media. But as astrology’s popularity has soared in recent years, consumers of astrological content are exposed to a wider range of topics and applications than ever before. ⁷ Professional and aspiring astrologers, in turn, are an increasingly diverse community, producing content that is ever more varied and exploratory, often in ways that reflect emergent social concerns and political sentiments. Even while modern astrologers continue to rely heavily on concepts derived from analytical psychology and New Age therapeutic spirituality, historical/mundane commentaries frequently convey elements of social critique, the implications of which extend beyond the confines of the self. Though hardly uniform in their politics, astrologers in the current media landscape are known to use their platforms to weigh in on social problems rooted in legacies of racial capitalism, economic and social inequality, environmental degradation, and the like; issues at the heart of so much reinvigorated social engagement, especially among people of color and LGBTQ+ communities, where astrology has gained considerable appeal.

It is not the purpose or within the scope of this essay to measure the direct impact of astrological content on attitudes and perceptions in the general population. Nor am I suggesting that the opinions described below are unprecedented or unique to Western astrology, or even uniformly shared by all practitioners. Astrological historicity is one aspect of a variegated complex of ideas that circulate in the expansive spiritual and occult milieus where astrological language is prominent. My aim is to elucidate a dimension of Western esotericism and occult spirituality that has been largely overlooked by scholars, and in the process to consider some of the ethical affordances (Keane 2016) that correspond with its latest articulations, at a time when established knowledge systems and predictive analytics are rapidly losing hegemonic ground. Since astrological speculations are often diagnostic and prescriptive as well as predictive, identifying how astrologers interpret the moral valences of historical time is an important step toward gauging the potential influences of alternative epistemic and temporal orientations in shaping future political and social imaginaries.

Delineating Astrological and Historical Consciousness

Reviled by critics as a superstitious pseudoscience, astrology has nonetheless remained an enduring staple of Western metaphysical religion and “occulture” (Albanese 2008; Partridge 2005; Horowitz 2023; Bobrick 2006). Based on centuries of horoscopic tradition, with roots as far back as ancient Mesopotamia, Western astrology today refers to a more or less codified system of symbols and techniques found across different subcultures, ritual communities, and popular media (Campion 2009). Although the practice is basically unregulated and highly individualized, it is supported by a veritable epistemic culture (Knorr Cetina 1999) of professional consultants and writers, networking sites and organizations, research journals, conferences, and certification programs. It is from this loose network of practitioners, publications, and platforms—the so-called “astrology community”—that much of the research for this essay has been drawn (see Elisha 2021).

While astrologers attribute the power and efficacy of their craft to the wisdom of ancient civilizations from which contemporary forms of divination, mysticism, and positional astronomy were derived, Western astrology is constituted by distinctly modern influences as well, including the New Age movement and analytical psychology. In the late nineteenth century, after centuries of relative obscurity, astrology regained prominence in Europe and North America as part of a wider revival of esoteric and occult knowledge spearheaded by learned theosophists, the intellectual pioneers of New Ageism. Among them was English astrologer Alan Leo (1860–1917), who championed the use of natal charts for character analysis and spiritual edification, as opposed to just event prediction. In the 1930s, as Sun-sign horoscopes became widespread in newspapers and tabloids, French-born astrologer Dane Rudhyar (1895–1985) expanded on the idea of astrology as an exploration of the self by taking the psychodynamic theories of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, himself an avid astrologer, and applying them systematically to the study of celestial symbols, now understood to represent distinct archetypal elements of the human psyche (Rudhyar 1991[1936]).

In the “humanistic” paradigm advanced by Rudhyar, the purpose of astrology would not be confined to oracular prediction. Rather, it would be oriented toward the Jungian ideal of individuation, the process of achieving self-realization and resolving psychic conflicts by bringing unconscious forces into consciousness. The psychological turn in Western astrology, which has dominated the field for more than a century, did much to realign the practice with “more legitimate forms of modern discourse about the mind” (Campion 2009: 251) and recast the work of astrological consulting in a therapeutic and spiritual vein. Not all astrologers use or endorse this approach. Some view it as too abstract and impractical, or prefer more “traditional” techniques, like those made popular by the recent revival of Hellenistic astrology (Brennan 2017). But Jung’s archetypal theory, itself a synthesis of classical philosophies, mythologies, and religious and esoteric teachings, remains pervasive in the astrology community, as well as New Age and spiritual communities more broadly.

Jung’s neoplatonic speculations on the transpersonal nature of the psyche have also shaped how astrologers characterize the cycles and sequences of human history. His theory of the collective unconscious, for example, resonates in metaphysical propositions about how “great historical moments might be manifestations of disturbances in the psychic links between all members of a society” (Campion 2016: 79). The same goes for his concept of synchronicity, in which temporal and psychic phenomena are meaningfully linked through correspondences that transcend linear-causal models of time and space. As I begin to show in the next section, Jungian theory and neoplatonic metaphysics play a key role in the construction of astrological historicity and the modes of historical consciousness reflected in it.

But first, a few words about historical consciousness are in order. Some readers of this essay will find astrology and historical consciousness to be an unlikely, even absurd pairing. Having been relegated to the status of “rejected knowledge” (Hanegraaff 2012), and with a tendency to frame ethical imperatives in psychospiritual rather than structural terms, Western astrology is not something one typically associates with what historians, educators, and critical theorists usually mean by historical consciousness (Clark and Peck 2018; Seixas 2004; Wilschut 2019). Though the concept has multiple connotations depending on one’s theoretical orientation (Nordgren 2019), it is most often associated with intellectual processes specific to and enabled by secular modernity (e.g., Arendt 2006; Gadamer 2013; Kölbl and Straub 2001; Koselleck 2004). If, as Chakrabarty (2000: 247) observes, Western historicism is predicated on the Eurocentric conviction that “once one knows the causal structures that operate in history, one may also gain a certain mastery of them,” then historical consciousness is its signature achievement. Echoing the Marxian ideal of consciousness as a mark of ideological maturity, conducive to practical-critical activity in the world (Lukács 1972), historical consciousness denotes a standard for assessing regimes of collective memory and historical inquiry based on how effectively they promote “narrative competence” about the past (Rüsen 2004) and whether they advance liberal democratic values in the process. Historical consciousness is further equated with a sense of discontinuity with the past: the belief that experiences from history cannot and should not be repeated in the future; that the past is alien and distant, rather than immanent or recursive (Wilschut 2019: 835).

There is another perspective however, as scholars like anthropologist Charles Stewart remind us by observing that “people may gain knowledge about the past via epistemologies that diverge greatly from the protocols of evidence and objective scrutiny enshrined in Western historical research and documentation” (2012: 7). Historical consciousness in this alternative, relativistic view is not limited to “objectified knowledge of the past,” nor is it bound to an understanding of the past as a foreign country, but may be mediated through cultural forms and poetics that foster “the continuous, creative bringing into being and crafting of the past in the present and of the present in respect to the past” (Lambek 2002: 17). Memorials, rituals, storytelling genres, historical reenactments, ecstatic visions, and dreams are just some of the channels by which cultural actors come not only to know their histories but to internalize moral principles and metanarratives that inform their encounters with the past (Basso 1996; Handler and Gable 1997; Mittermaier 2012; Stewart 2012).

These two perspectives on historical consciousness—cultural ideal on the one hand, cultural variable on the other (Nordgren 2019)—stand in contrast insofar as the former privileges Western historicism while the latter decenters it. But in another sense they are not entirely distinct. When people are credited with historical consciousness, whatever the context, it is usually because they are perceived as actively engaged in more or less deliberate efforts to apprehend (as in capture) what Hannah Arendt called the “invisible processes” that are thought to give meaning to history in the first place (2006: 63). The concept rarely denotes passive awareness of the past, but points to all kinds of performative, pedagogical, prophetic, and tactical interventions by which cultural actors set a course for the future by laying claim to the past. To be conscious of the forces of history is to have a stake in the making of history. Whether it takes the form of choreographed retellings that distort and subvert authorized accounts of the past in the name of religious ideology (Bielo 2018) or localized counternarratives that reframe periods of communal change and crisis as occasions of mythohistorical or metahuman agency (Bacigalupo 2013; Bernstein 2012; Mittermaier 2012), making “history” is a political act.

Horoscopes and astrological forecasts are seldom overtly political. But they are cultural artifacts that shape people’s perceptions of historical and quotidian time (Birth 2012), and they exist alongside other systems of time-reckoning and historicization, as well as currents of public knowledge and opinion. Within this mélange of cognitive and cultural influences, astrological historicity reinforces modes of historical consciousness that emulate the epistemic virtues of historicism as well as those of a more heterodox variety, without necessarily reproducing false consciousness. Such clarifications are required because much as Western astrology is often associated with hackneyed personality stereotypes and platitudes about living one’s best life, this is not the full extent of what professional astrologers put out into the world, nor is it all that consumers of astrological content are taking away from it. As we will see, there are many astrologers who apply their craft not only toward predicting but also assessing world-historical circumstances, and even those who engage in forms of critique that speak to contemporary social concerns and political controversies. Astrologer and entrepreneur Chani Nicholas, for example, famously built her brand on combining ethics of self-care with progressive stances on economic and racial justice, gender equality, and LGBTQ+ advocacy. ⁸ Although she is in many ways a conventional lifestyle astrologer, capitalizing on corporate tie-ins with the likes of Netflix, Spotify, and KonMari, her activist orientation reflects a turn toward critical social ethics in the wider astrology community, especially among people in minoritized and marginalized groups (Lee 2022).

The astrologers referenced in this essay are not all as famous as Chani Nicholas, or as explicit in their political messaging. Some are social media influencers with wide-reaching platforms. Others, like Richard Tarnas, whose work I discuss in depth in the next section, are well-known mainly within the astrology community as esteemed authors, lecturers, and teachers. In all they represent an emerging brand of public intellectual in the eyes of their subscribers, clients, and peers. Their appeal is based on more than just the accuracy of their predictions, or the extent to which they cater to consumer self-indulgence or the desire to mitigate uncertainty and fear of the unknown. What these astrologers offer apart from their oracular skills is the ability to synthesize disparate historical events, themes, and timescales into coherent transhistorical narratives that resonate, for better or worse, in the lives of individuals with profound immediacy. Though undoubtedly constrained by tendencies to generalize, spiritualize, and psychologize temporal processes that historians and social scientists approach more critically, Western astrologers represent a particular model of temporal awareness—a strategic cognitive response, we might even say, to the structural disorientations of late capitalism (Jameson 1991)—that many view as uniquely empowering in deeply unsettling times.

Cosmos and Psyche

In Western astrology today, few luminaries have garnered as much esteem as Richard Tarnas, whose book Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View exemplifies the approach to historical/mundane astrology that I focus on in this essay and is among the most widely cited texts among contemporary practitioners. Published in 2006, the book lays out a philosophical basis for reading the cosmos as a symbol system and applies it to the study of historical events and planetary correlations through the ages. At the heart of Cosmos and Psyche is a model of the universe as fundamentally “informed by creative intelligence and pervaded by patterns of meaning and order that extend through every level, and that are expressed through constant correspondence between astronomical events and human events” (2006: 77). These patterns are constituted by archetypes: autonomous, abstract principles permeating matter and consciousness, of which the planets are the most powerful indications. As the planets orbit through space, their motions and positions symbolize the perpetually fluctuating conditions of life on Earth. ⁹

With academic training in cultural history and transpersonal psychology, Tarnas epitomizes the figure of the metaphysical scholar-practitioner. His institutional affiliations since the 1970s include centers of holistic study such as the Esalen Institute and the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he founded the graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. His first book, The Passion of the Western Mind (1991), was an ambitious work of intellectual history that marked his early interest in the world-making potential of human consciousness. With Cosmos and Psyche, Tarnas expanded his critique of secular epistemologies that portray the universe as a “soulless void” and championed the power of astrological symbols to reveal previously unrecognized paradigmatic structures in human history.

Tarnas invokes a wide-reaching intellectual lineage, from Plato to Schopenhauer and beyond, but he gives special consideration to Carl Jung’s archetypal psychology and the concept of synchronicity, a term coined by Jung to describe the non-arbitrary nature of meaningful coincidences, such as when a prescient dream comes true in waking life (Jung 2010). Much as Jung argued for the intrinsic therapeutic value of everyday synchronicities, as they reveal hidden connections between our interior lives and exterior realities, Tarnas proposes that studying correlations between celestial patterns and earthly affairs is a way to “open the psyche to a larger vision” (2006: 54) and reconnect with “the spiritual dimension of existence” (ibid.: 63). By understanding “dynamic archetypal forces” (ibid.: 204) that govern temporal circumstances, humanity in effect becomes both more self-aware and attuned to the consciousness of the cosmos.

Wary of astrologers who sacrifice nuance and context for the sake of overly ambitious, literalist predictions that he finds “problematic and often inept” (ibid.: 462), Tarnas argues for an interpretive style that is “not concretely predictive but, rather, archetypally predictive” (ibid.: 67, original emphasis). His approach calls for closer attention to thematic resonances echoing across time and space. He argues that by tuning in to the “archetypal chordal structures of life” (ibid.: 129), astrologers are better equipped to recognize the essential connections between seemingly disparate phenomena—say, a political revolution in one place and an earthquake in another, or a religious revival in one century and a pandemic in another. Tarnas acknowledges that such a framework can appear fatalistic, as though the timing and direction of historical change are invariably beyond human control. He proposes that astrologers can mitigate this tendency by showing people how to maximize their capacity for co-creative agency in the world through “historical self-awareness and conscious archetypal participation” (ibid.: 203).

Large portions of Cosmos and Psyche are devoted to demonstrating astrology’s empirical validity through an extensive inventory of “archetypally connected events” in recorded history that coincided with major transits involving the “outer planets”—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto—whose long orbital periods make them especially important for charting world-historical correlations. Pluto, being the slowest and farthest of the planets from an earthbound perspective, is particularly associated with large-scale, generational, and epochal transformations (as well as symbolizing the unconscious). When one of these planets enters a new zodiac sign or forms a significant angular relationship (or aspect) with another planet, such as a conjunction (0º), opposition (180º), or square (90º), these are called “world transits” because they have major implications that are experienced globally. The specific details of how they manifest in different contexts depend on a host of additional factors that astrologers determine by casting horoscopes for specific locations (such as cities and countries), institutions, and individuals.

One of the recent world transits that Tarnas discusses at some length is the Uranus-Pluto conjunction that lasted from 1960–1972, which he describes as a time when strong “Promethean” impulses linked to Uranus (rebellion, innovation) were intensified by the empowering and disruptive energy of Pluto. Although he historicizes the momentous upheavals of the era, such as the civil rights movement, the hippie counterculture, second-wave feminism, and African decolonization, Tarnas’ main aim is to demonstrate “diachronic” parallels from previous eras when Uranus and Pluto energies were mutually activated, such as the conjunction of 1846–1856, which saw the revolutions of 1848, antebellum abolitionism, and the aftermath of the Second Great Awakening, and the Uranus-Pluto oppositions of 1787–1798 and 1896–1907, which he links to innovative leaps in technology, industry, and commerce, as well as revolutionary fervor. Tarnas contrasts this with the oppressive, reactionary, and authoritarian tone of events ascribed to Saturn-Pluto cycles, such as the leadup to World War I, the rise of Nazism, the AIDS crisis, the spread of religious fundamentalism, and the September 11 attacks (which occurred a month after an exact Saturn-Pluto opposition). Whereas Uranus-Pluto transits correspond with radical, emancipatory shifts, Saturn-Pluto transits are times of “profound historical gravity, crisis, and contraction” (ibid.: 212), dominated by reactionary and repressive forces, harsh social realities, and systemic challenges.

Tarnas further notes that any given historical era coincides with not just one but several planetary cycles occurring simultaneously. During the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, for example, overlapping Uranus-Pluto and Saturn-Pluto transits manifested in an “extreme intensification of both widespread revolutionary upheaval and violent authoritarian repression in a tightly bound dialectic” (ibid.: 221). Looking to recent history, Tarnas describes in far more approving terms the effects of similar interactions involving Saturn, Pluto, and Uranus in 2003, which coincided with the global antiwar movement in response to the War on Terror. He characterizes popular opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq as a demonstration of “principled democratic resistance” and “indicative of a longer-term moral evolution within the collective psyche: the gradual forging of a collective conscience against the perceived moral shadow of a powerful governing authority” (ibid.: 287).

Considering the Jungian influence, it is no surprise that Tarnas characterizes the archetypal assemblages of distinct historical eras as “complexes,” equivalent to those of the individual psyche but on a mass scale, and just as integral to historical and cultural phenomena as to the functioning of the human mind. History, conceived in these terms, is a preordained yet infinitely variable sequence of coexisting and conflicting archetypal energies interacting over time, affecting life on Earth in ways that can be productive or detrimental to civilizational progress. The lessons of history, such as they are, amount to “a kind of collective individuation process in the global psyche” (ibid.: 287), as populations experience the consequences of historically sedimented patterns emerging through continuous cycles of growth and decline, innovation and regression, prosperity and austerity, and so forth. For Tarnas and other astrologers, exposing underlying societal complexes is made possible through horoscopic methods that are as accurate for collective entities as for individuals. This is because institutions, nation-states, cities, and corporations, like individuals, are defined by the “natal conditions” of the planets from when they were “born” (i.e., established, incorporated).

The framework advocated by Richard Tarnas draws on many philosophical and esoteric predecessors, and it is much-indebted to mundane techniques and delineations developed centuries ago by Babylonian, Hellenistic, Indian, and notably Persian astrologers, among others (Dykes 2014). But the central contribution of Cosmos and Psyche is its programmatic blend of archetypal cosmology and modern analytical psychology specifically for purposes of both historical and anticipatory knowledge. Not all Western astrologers share Tarnas’ approach, and many who specialize in mundane astrology prefer methods that rely on casting natal charts and event charts centered on specific people, places, and moments in time, as well as lunar phases, rather than foregrounding outer-planet transits. Yet the book has shaped the tenor and substance of contemporary astrological renderings of world affairs more than any comparable modern text, insofar as exponents of astrological historicity routinely emphasize “fundamental principles governing the ever-shifting qualitative aspects of time” (Tarnas 2006: 103). They also tend to convey the same sense that qualitative shifts occur within longer trajectories oriented toward collective self-awareness and the evolution of moral consciousness, or what Dane Rudhyar called the “transfiguration of human values” (1970: 31).

The use of archetypal theories to characterize wide segments of history is not unique to astrology or the Western metaphysical tradition (see Strauss and Howe 1997, for example). But astrological historicity distinctly locates the archetypes in concrete astronomical bodies and quantifiable synodic cycles. This means that the qualities attributed to different historical eras, contemporaneously or in hindsight, are viewed not as social or intellectual constructs but as objective phenomena grounded in the natural order of the universe. The metaphors historians commonly used to describe chapters in human history—in talk of great awakenings, depressions, dark ages, eras of enlightenment and revolution (political, industrial, scientific, etc.)—are, for astrologers, more than mere figures of speech: they are literal representations of archetypal energies manifesting in time. In short, to think like an astrologer is to see the world through polyvalent moral narratives that are already intrinsic and woven into the fabric of the cosmos.

Planetary Transits and Transitory Moments

When interpreting planetary transits (including eclipses) for general audiences, astrologers cite multiple sources of information, everything from ancient mythological symbolism to modern scientific data about the planets in question, as well as insights derived from private consultations and chart readings. Many astrologers will also identify circumstantial and thematic parallels from past transits, highlighting historical events from the monumental to the obscure, in efforts to anticipate how current and future correlations will manifest globally and in the lives of individuals. ¹⁰ In addition to finding archetypal resonances between the past and future, construing collective and personal phenomena as interlinked is fundamental to the tone and substance of modern astrological historicity. But this entails more than just a propensity for individualism, if that is understood as a privileging of the autonomous self in lieu of structural and processual considerations. Instead, we are dealing with a metaphysical view of the self as ontologically coextensive with everything in the universe, including temporal shifts affecting the quality of life on Earth (what astrologers like to call “the astrological weather”). It is true that in addressing existential issues that celestial events “bring into consciousness,” astrologers prioritize affirmational values like self-acceptance, self-reliance, and introspection. But many do so with an eye to wider social-historical implications, which they may couch in optimistic or alarmist terms but always with a sense that the outcomes, however fateful in the moment, should be seen as opportunities for growth and transformation.

I observed a case in point during a June 2020 livestream interview with YouTube astrologer and author Nadiya Shah, hosted by the networking site Astrology Hub. The webinar took place a few months into the spread of Covid-19, with lockdowns still in place in much of the United States, and was billed as a chance for viewers to better understand “the larger historical astrological context” and learn how to “make the most of the energy and transformative power of 2020.” As indicated at the top of this essay, astrologers were well-prepped for a challenging year because of the momentous Saturn-Pluto conjunction (though few were prepared for just how challenging it was, or how much in demand their services would be, especially during the first wave). Early speculations about difficult yet unavoidable societal transformations, involving both the collapse and renovation of political and economic structures, were emphasized alongside themes of isolation, restriction, and mortality, as well as liberation and self-reliance. Nadiya Shah evoked several of these in the livestream, but her discussion centered on what might seem an unlikely point of reference: the Protestant Reformation.

Shah was not the first astrologer to draw this comparison. Several Saturn-Pluto forecasts pinpointed the fact that the last time these planets aligned in Capricorn was in 1518, only a year after Martin Luther published his Ninety-Five Theses condemning corruption in the Catholic Church and sparking a religious movement that, according to the AstroTwins, epitomized “the kind of transformation that can emerge when Plutonian secrets are revealed and a new Saturnian system is presented.” ¹¹ Now, with the pandemic well underway, Shah elaborated on perceived parallels between the Reformation and what was happening in the world in 2020, on the grounds that both were “transitory moments” in human history, especially in terms of people’s attitudes toward intermediary structures and authorities.

[The Protestant Reformation] was a time when we were, as humanity, starting to realize that we wanted to move away from intermediaries. We wanted to move away from this understanding that you needed somebody to help you to understand the Word of God and move towards an understanding that you can interpret the Word of God for yourself. Up until this point in history, this was blasphemous, it was not something that people even conceived of. And then here we were, as humanity, saying “No, I am worthy, and I am able to decide for myself what my relationship with the divine is going to be.” And that represented a huge shift in consciousness. It was us essentially redefining who we are.

Shah added that 2020 was going to end with another significant celestial event, a conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter (known as “the Great Conjunction”), which also occurred in 1444, not long after the invention of the printing press, the technological innovation that made the Reformation possible. ¹² Suggesting that there were correlations between that event and the upcoming conjunction in the sign of Aquarius, Shah concluded that “we are now taking another leap,” another massive shift in consciousness that will entail “entering a whole new understanding of what it means to access information.” Turning to the challenges and opportunities of the present moment, she continued:

I know that 2020 can feel really difficult, but in its own way it is helping us to get to that core of ourselves.… A huge percentage of the world was told to stop and be still … and it is in that space of stillness that we have had to come in contact with some truth that is within us.… We are seeing collectively people reveal their traumas, in their own way. What it is within them that needs to be healed.… We are seeing a lot of people now becoming aware of the truth of how they really feel about their lives. I think that this is ultimately part of the wisdom of this time.

Shah further explained that with Saturn, Jupiter, and especially Pluto transiting through Aquarius in the coming years, the world is fully entering “the Aquarian Age,” characterized by “an energy of inner authority [and] this idea that there is some wisdom in you that you can trust and you can allow it to lead you in a direction of knowing what is right for you.” During this next “leap” in human history, full of “powerful lessons” and “periods of upheaval” that will makes us feel like we are “packing several lifetimes into one,” people will learn to think more altruistically: “We are being encouraged to think big picture, we’re being encouraged to think of the longer-term consequences of our legacy, and to think of others as well.… Right now, for example, a lot of people are looking at structures of inequality. What maintains them and why, and who benefits?” At the same time, Shah advised that the best way to “utilize this time” was for individuals to adopt a degree of “healthy detachment,” by which she meant to “surrender to the journey and surrender to the process,” trusting that the spiritual lessons of time are bound to be learned. “Sometimes we need the chaos and uncertainty of the world around us to remind us that there is a place of peace and truth within us.”

In referencing the notion of an Aquarian Age, Shah echoed a style of millenarian optimism that often finds its way into forecasts of this kind, though not always explicitly as such. Belief in a forthcoming “Age of Aquarius” is not universally shared or agreed upon among professional astrologers, despite the well-known cultural trope. ¹³ Still, egalitarian and progressivist themes that have come to be associated with Aquarianism often carry over into astrological speculations about the human future, especially when the sign of Aquarius is directly involved. In cases like the one just described, this assumes the form of an esoteric and, not incidentally, Jungian message of “inner revolution” on the path to universal individuation (Campion 2016: 82).

In other examples, New Age sensibilities merge with more politicized visions of social change. “When Pluto enters Aquarius,” Chani Nicholas wrote in a blog post marking the event, “it brings its transformative themes into the realm of information technology, data, science, and systems of power.” She noted that the last time Pluto changed signs was during the market collapse of 2008, exposing the need for financial reforms, even though “nothing really changed.” Fifteen years later, Pluto would now be supercharged with the spirit of collectivism and ready to “force the issue.” To support her narrative, Nicholas listed key events from Pluto’s last transit through Aquarius in the late eighteenth century, including the American and French Revolutions, the start of the Industrial Revolution, the discovery of Uranus (“upending our view of the known solar system”), and the 1792 publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. “By the end of Pluto’s time here in 2044,” Nicholas opined, “We can expect our social norms and ideologies to be radically transformed. Whether we’re focused on the ongoing climate crisis, the rise of extreme political ideologies, or the epidemic of gun violence, Pluto in Aquarius demands our full cooperation in turning major issues around.” While urging readers to gather their social networks and “face these seismic shifts as a unified front,” she encouraged them to take time for self-care and contemplation: “Even in revolutionary times, you can commit to staying grounded. Present. Heart-centered. As waves of rebellion and idealistic fervor sweep the collective, it’s more important than ever to check in with your body, your instincts, and your inner wise one.” ¹⁴

Not all astrological forecasts are as prescriptive or steeped in the language of psychospiritual growth and wellness. Astrologers represent diverse styles and techniques depending on their training and other idiosyncrasies. What is consistent across Western astrological discourses is a conception of time—more precisely, the human experience of time—as preordained and recursive, yet in other respects linear and indeterminate. Temporality, like the planets, moves in cycles, punctuated by paradigm shifts that reflect a “rhythmic” (we could say dialectical) order of continuity and change, with just enough room for uncertainty to allow for “participatory” agency on the part of sentient beings.

From the perspective of academic historiography, such historicization undoubtedly reads as simplistic, deductive, and reductive, insofar as correlations between past and future are foregone conclusions, and what astrologers marshal as “evidence” is selected based on a preconceived framework of celestial and archetypal patterns. But the value in analyzing astrological historicity is not about its purported historical accuracy or lack thereof. Across diverse realms of knowledge production and exploration in Western societies, no less than elsewhere, historical consciousness is a “nonhomogeneous social field” (Palmié and Stewart 2016: 210), which includes variants that subvert putatively authoritative norms even as they reproduce them in other ways. In North America, influential astrologers have gained considerable legitimacy not just as personal and spiritual advisors but as media practitioners and pundits. By attending to how these individuals enact the broad brushstrokes of historical representation, I am above all interested in how they characterize the present. Perceptions of the past and predictions for the future are bridges spanning the rivers of time, but they are constructed on the bedrock of immanence. As much as the information derived from horoscopic calculations is seen as precise and authoritative, it is also fuel for comparative and speculative imaginings (and idealizations) that cannot help but draw on concrete conditions, contradictions, anxieties, and aspirations of the contemporary moment.

Although much of what astrologers produce for public consumption centers on the individual, amplifying neoliberal ethics of personal responsibility and autonomy, astrological messaging comes in many forms, including genres that take the same archetypal themes and psychodynamic principles that pertain to the evolution of mature, self-aware individuals and apply them to matters of collective social and political concern. As I show in the next section, this is nowhere more evident than in astrological deliberations on the fates of nations. The belief that using birth charts to identify psychic complexes and synchronistic patterns over the course of a human life cycle fosters individuation and relief from trauma extends to the study of complex sociopolitical entities, like the United States, whose histories, according to astrologers, are no less determined by their “natal conditions” and whose prospects for transformation are no less contingent on conscious participation on the part of enlightened citizens.

The Return of Pluto (or Facing America’s Shadow)

The addition of Pluto to the roster of planets in our solar system in 1930 proved advantageous to modern astrology in various respects. Named for the mythical Roman god of the Underworld, Pluto opened a whole new symbolic terrain for astrologers to mine for meaning, especially as it quickly came to be associated with another recent discovery: the unconscious. Moreover, with an orbital period of about 248 years, Pluto represented a new planetary timescale for astrologers to use when referring to temporal intervals and cycles that far exceed a human life span. Pluto thus became a vital tool in delineating long-term historical and epochal trajectories involving sites of relative permanence, such as institutions, cities, nation-states, and empires. Small wonder that astrologers remain steadfast in their technical classification of Pluto as a planet despite its demotion to the status of “dwarf planet” by the International Astronomical Union in 2006.

In recent years, astrologers in the United States have been paying special attention to a significant astrological milestone involving Pluto. For the first time in American history, Pluto “returned” to the exact zodiacal degree where it was positioned during the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Astrologers have been known to squabble over the details, but the most widely used origin chart for the U.S.—an inceptional horoscope that serves as a baseline for assessing future circumstances—is the so-called “Sibly chart,” cast in 1787 by English astrologer Ebenezer Sibly, which established 4 July 1776 (at 5: 10 p.m. in Philadelphia) as the country’s nativity, and 27º Capricorn as its “natal” Pluto. ¹⁵ Due to the effects of retrograde motion (an optical phenomenon in which planets appear to move backwards from Earth’s perspective), the return of Pluto to this exact point took place multiple times between 2022 and 2024. But the ramifications of this momentous transit are said to have been manifesting over the course of several years and will continue for years to come.

Individual predictions for the U.S. Pluto return were varied and evolved with time as national and geopolitical crises unfolded and shifted the circumstances through which the transit was interpreted. However, the dominant themes remained relatively constant despite changes in the headlines. Dualities of the Pluto archetype—destruction and renewal, trauma and redemption, secrets and revelations—consistently loomed large, as astrologers painted a picture of a country headed for a painful and tumultuous “coming of age” period; a collective “dark night of the soul.” Americans would be forced to come to terms with the nation’s “shadow,” another Jungian concept that refers to root conflicts and repressed or misrecognized areas of consciousness that must be brought to light into order for their deleterious effects to be remedied. As with Saturn-Pluto, forecasters expected prolonged political, social, and economic turbulence, while noting that the Pluto return would, in the words of Vanity Fair columnist Michael Lutin, “demand a redefinition of the United States and create the ultimate identity crisis. We will have to put ourselves on the line, as we did in the 1770s.” ¹⁶

As in previous examples, astrologers cited historical precedents to instantiate the archetypal storyline, in this case one of national reckoning and possible renewal. Writing in 2019 for the magazine The Mountain Astrologer, Ray Grasse described how Pluto returns during the Roman and British empires were pivotal moments of instability and change, which either proved vital to their survival—for example, the transition to the Elizabethan Era coincided with England’s third Pluto return—or set things in motion for their eventual collapse. Grasse concluded that such transits “often involve contending with some unresolved darkness or transgression from the past, and if one truly confronts and resolves those issues, the effect can indeed be transformative; if not, though, those unresolved issues can consume and destroy from within” (2019).

For the U.S. Pluto return, these “unresolved issues” have been linked to the very concerns dominating national news and social movements, such as systemic racism, income inequality, and general distrust of the established political-economic order. Though not unique to the contemporary moment, public sentiment around these themes has intensified since the start of the pandemic, and the accelerated rise of rightwing populism before that, which in the eyes of astrologers is all part of how Pluto “brings” longstanding problems to the light of public consciousness, even to the point of social unrest. Samuel F. Reynolds, a preeminent Black astrologer, whose many contributions to the profession include recently co-founding the International Coalition of Astrology Educators, has been among the more recognized voices weighing in on the U.S. Pluto return. In an essay from 2020, Reynolds outlined what he sees as clear historical-astrological parallels between the 1770s and today.

At the brink of the American Revolution, transformative Pluto’s journey through Capricorn tracked well with the phrase “No taxation without representation.” People wanted to matter, and they had every reason to feel like they didn’t.… Americans [today] are asking more questions about the economic disparities they’re experiencing. It might not be King George who’s getting rich on the backs of economically burdened Americans this time. But with a shrinking middle class, more wealth is consolidated in the hands of a few. Ironically, a greater number of Americans are using “plutocracy,” a word associated with the god Pluto, to describe our government rather than democracy. ¹⁷

Reynolds identifies the resurgence of Black Lives Matter “at the brink of Pluto’s return” as a reiteration of America’s revolutionary spirit. He elaborates on the theme by listing correlative threads related to the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Floyd’s death, he explains, occurred while Jupiter, “a planet indicating freedom and growth,” was transiting the U.S. natal Pluto. It also coincided with Uranus, the planet of “revolution and change,” transiting 8º Taurus, the zodiacal degree where Uranus was when Crispus Attucks was killed during the Boston Massacre in 1770. Reynolds thus portrays the killing of two Black men, 250 years apart, as watershed moments in two archetypally connected periods of revolutionary fervor. As for where the rage and rebellion of the present might be headed, he concludes: “Americans are merely finishing what our founding fathers started as a dream centuries ago. Whether we’ll be thorough, so the United States of America becomes the place it was envisioned to be, is up to us.”

In discussions like this, readings of the past inform representations of the present and future by providing historical frames of reference and comparison. They also create a discursive space for diagnostic commentaries and ethical prescriptions, which tend to consist of general calls for enhanced personal awareness and civic engagement, though the precise language will vary depending on an astrologer’s theoretical (and political) orientation. Steven Forrest is a veteran proponent of “evolutionary astrology,” a school of interpretation in which the birth chart represents a map of the soul’s evolution through cycles of reincarnation. In a 2021 public webinar on the U.S. Pluto return hosted by Astrology University, an online certification program, Forrest explained that whereas natal chart readings for individuals provide insight into their past lives, it is collective history that serves as the core principle when it comes to understanding complex sociopolitical entities. He described how for nations like the United States, no less than for individuals, “wounds of the psyche surface in Plutonian times,” wounds that cannot heal unless we examine them carefully by looking to “the mirror of the past.”

Pointing to notable placements in the U.S. origin chart—including Pluto in the second house, the Moon’s south node in Aquarius, and a trine (60º aspect) between Uranus and Saturn in the sixth and tenth houses, respectively—Forrest concluded that longstanding issues of wealth and insecurity are rooted in the exilic consciousness of the founding aristocracy: “The fears of the early settlers continue to haunt us.” He explained that the need to recognize the fraught symbiosis or “forced harmony” between rich elites and oppressed but aspiring laborers remains key to understanding the nation’s moral character and the “karmic wounds” of its history, including slavery and native genocide. Forrest drew links between other Pluto-related transits and pivotal moments in the history of U.S. class dynamics, such as the California Gold Rush, the New Deal, the Reagan-era tax cuts, and recent escalations in extreme rightwing populism. While some developments, like the passage of the 1935 Social Security Act, benefited the population in general, others reflect “dark agreements” between the conservative ruling class and the white working class, who are so “driven by fear, desperation, and insecurity” that invariably “some deeper underclass becomes the designated target,” resulting in stark inequalities and atrocities.

“Will the United States face the realities of its own shadow,” Forrest asked, “or will it act out those dark realities, projecting them onto the canvas of the world?” His prescription for collective “soul-healing” is for the country to undergo its own psychotherapeutic introspection process as a society. He did not elaborate on what this might entail, except to hit home the point that astrology offers the tools necessary for understanding how to put inward self-reflection into action. “The planets only hold the mirror of truth before us. But how we work with the plastic realities of our future, the malleable realities of our future, over the next two to three years, will determine the future of the USA.”

Discerning readers may object that such commentaries are little more than “gestural subversions” (Jain 2020), performing a mode of anti-capitalist critique while in fact containing dissent by remaining within the parameters of a neoliberal-capitalist ethic centered on individual subjectivity as the true locus of world-historical agency. Indeed, Western astrologers are rarely known to propose concrete strategic interventions of the kind typically thought to accompany radical reimaginings of existing social arrangements (Wilder 2022). That said, the use of astrology as a vehicle for systemic critique and social justice advocacy is not uncommon, especially given the role of social media in amplifying the kinds of counter-hegemonic values and poetics that “awaken unrealized possibilities sedimented within existing forms” (ibid.: 31). Even the Western astrological tradition itself has come under criticism and reformist calls from within, as queer and BIPOC astrologers have sought to recapture astrology’s potential for subaltern empowerment and draw attention to how white colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist power relations have shaped the field’s history, symbolism, and epistemology (see Sparkly Kat 2021). Astrologers with explicit commitments to progressive and liberationist ideals, beyond vague appeals to human potential, are increasingly vocal in today’s digital mediascape. The U.S. Pluto return has been one area of discussion where such ideals have come into relief.

Queer astrologer Jessica Lanyadoo, for example, portrayed the Pluto return as a time when the “great American experiment” would be called into question. In the 2022 forecast episode of her show Ghost of a Podcast, she described the transit as a process of confronting the nation’s “shadow side”—as Pluto “governs the shadow” and “demands” we take responsibility for it—by acknowledging collective trauma and abuses of power in America’s past. “There’s no path forward in the United States without some form of reparations to Indigenous peoples and Black Americans.… The horrors of slavery and the continued systemic racism that is inherent to our society, the horrors of abuse and oppression that Indigenous people have faced here, cannot be ignored.” ¹⁸ Lanyadoo noted that efforts to come to terms with lamentable aspects of history will inevitably bring escalations in political conflict, legislative oppression, and violence. But the aim of realizing Pluto’s potential for healing and reconstruction, rather than destruction, and making sure that the direction of social change is “more ethical than capitalistic” (as “Capricorn can go either way”), requires “empathy and stamina,” and “won’t come without effort, without masses of people rising up with each other, for each other.” Lanyadoo regularly encourages her listeners to be “activists,” in whatever form works for them.

Like other astrologers in this vein, Lanyadoo’s interpretive style is one of cautious optimism, stressing the value of altruism and civic engagement rather than fatalistic resignation.

One of the most consistent questions as an astrologer I get asked is, “When will this be over?” It’s such a waste of your energy.… The better use of your energy is to ask the question, what role can I play? How can I lift my voice and use it? How can I extract or bring meaning to this situation? How can I be a part of the solutions we all need? And, most of all, how can I protect my humanity and act from that place so that I can behave in ways, from voting to spending money to showing up in protest whenever needed or in whatever way that shows up for you—how can you act in ways that reflect your humanity and your capacity to see and prioritize the humanity and dignity of others, especially in the face of cruelty and oppression? ¹⁹

If astrological portrayals of history are meant to convey a sense of overarching meaning and purpose in world events, they proceed from the idea that an astrologer’s job is to offer hope and encouragement even while illuminating patterns that transcend human intervention. They do this by suggesting that although seasons of change are preordained, their outcomes are not wholly predetermined. We have also seen how speculations regarding the U.S. Pluto return and other planetary transits give voice to culturally resonant grievances by addressing the failure of the established order to secure a future worth looking forward to. Astrologers thereby validate widespread feelings of anger, disillusion, and powerlessness, while telling people that as bad as things get, time is on their side, and that by connecting the cosmic dots between the past and present they can learn to recognize when and how to create a more humane, just, and equitable society for the future.

It is hard to say with absolute confidence what practical influence astrology of this kind has, if any, on everyday political and social ethics. In the eyes of incredulous critics, the emancipatory aspirations of left-leaning astrologers today are merely performative and foster identity-based consumer participation more akin to fandom than revolutionary politics (see Staiano-Daniel 2023). What is abundantly clear, however, is that even while astrologers are embedded in the trappings of consumerism and wellness culture, many are deeply attuned to major currents of public sentiment, including growing distrust in conventional authorities and knowledge systems, and a looming sense that despite triumphalist narratives of Western progress and freedom, such ideals remain elusive in a society that has yet to realize its full potential. This in itself is not a novel position—neoliberal and conservative Christian ideologies are well-known for fomenting anticipation and anxiety around the temporality of the “not yet” (Guyer 2007; Ramey 2016)—but astrological historicity, unbound by sedimented institutional doctrines, is somewhat distinctive for the relative freedom it affords practitioners to pursue alternative paths of historical inquiry. This, as we all know, can be a recipe for disaster. Insights derived from oracular techniques and symbols are not accountable to academic standards of historical understanding, nor are they immune to the influence of misinformation, ignorance, and conspiracy theories. But we should not assume this to be the case simply because those insights rest on metaphysical premises and occult sensibilities. In the conclusion that follows, I reflect further on what it means to account for the cultural appeal of modern astrology from the standpoint of historical and structural consciousness, despite compelling critiques that suggest otherwise.

Conclusion

In his long essay “The Stars Down to Earth” (2001), written in the 1950s, critical theorist Theodor Adorno offered a particularly extensive, if circumscribed critique of astrology. Adorno abhorred horoscope columns, which he felt epitomize the worst aspects of the modern culture industry and its effects on mass society. He dismissed astrology as an anachronism that perpetuates delusional, fetishistic impulses and derives authority from a “façade of pseudo-rationality” (ibid.: 53) or “fictitious reasonableness” (ibid.: 68), seemingly exempt from critical engagement. He argued that horoscopes lead people to misrecognize structural forces and unconscious motivations as fate and make people believe that social processes at the root of their suffering will “somehow take care of them” (ibid.: 77). Consequently, he maintained that astrology promotes authoritarian thought-patterns conducive to the rise of fascism, including irrationality, compliance, and willful dependence on external omniscience. ²⁰

Adorno’s take on the societal implications of popular horoscopes, echoing longstanding critiques with a Marxist-psychoanalytical twist, is as compelling as it is grumpy, and should be taken seriously for what it says about the role of consumer culture in propagating false empowerment, especially in mid-century America. The limitations of his approach, however, should give us pause. His analysis was based almost entirely on three months’ worth of content from a single horoscope column in the Los Angeles Times, which even for that time is far too narrow an empirical scope for such a broad indictment. As I have said, the styles and applications of astrological practice are many and varied. While there are notable consistencies befitting any symbol system that thrives on continuity, Western astrology as a cultural field (in the Bourdieuan sense) is multifaceted and internally differentiated. Adorno partly acknowledges as such by recognizing tonal differences between “esoteric” astrology magazines on the one hand, and horoscope columns for general audiences on the other (a somewhat less salient distinction today, given the proliferation of esoteric knowledge in mainstream venues). But this does not detract from the essentialism of his argument, which, as Campion (2009: 269) notes, inherits much of its moral indignation from Christian anti-astrology polemics of the past. At the conclusion of the essay, Adorno writes:

The psychological syndrome … expressed by astrology and propagandized by its advice is only as means to an end, the promotion of a social ideology. It offers the advantage of veiling all deeper-lying causes of distress and thus promoting acceptance of the given.… Moreover, by strengthening the sense of fatality, dependence and obedience, it paralyzes the will to change objective conditions in any respect and relegates all worries to a private plane promising a cure-all by the very same compliance which prevents a change of conditions. It can easily be seen how well this suits the over-all purpose of the prevailing ideology of today’s cultural industry; to reproduce the status quo within the mind of the people (2001: 164).

I cite this passage in full not to endorse Adorno’s inflated speculations about astrology’s detrimental influence on the minds of the masses, but to take one central aspect of his argument under consideration: the question of whether it can be said that modern astrologers, for all their talk of emancipatory and dialectical transformations, unwittingly “reproduce the status quo,” in effect promoting false consciousness in the name of higher consciousness.

Scholars of alternative and emergent spiritualities have addressed similar questions in the context of neoliberalism (e.g., Crockford 2021; Guest 2022; Jain 2020; Kucinskas 2018). Given strong constitutive resonances (Mazzarella 2017) between present-day corporate, commercial, and spiritual formations, these studies probe the extent to which spiritual industries displace or obscure historical-materialist perspectives in favor of values aligned with consumer capitalism and market ideology. Ethics of neoliberal selfhood, including the responsibility of every individual to “manifest” their own prosperity, health, and wellbeing, despite conditions of labor alienation and economic precarity, carry wider political and economic implications, such as the reduction of political imagination to a solipsistic, fatalistic worldview where meaningful social change is contingent on people learning to self-heal and “accept” things as they are (Crockford 2021: 29). This does not invariably mean (as harsher critics might insist) that spiritual practitioners and consumers are, by definition, victims of false consciousness, deceived by seductive idioms of empowerment that merely reinforce the established order they claim to disrupt. But it does suggest, as religion scholar Andrea Jain has argued, that ostensibly counter-hegemonic and revolutionary discourses emanating from spiritual networks “largely function as superficial points of resistance already contained within the totalizing framework of neoliberal rationality” (Jain 2020: 30).

Western astrologers’ predictions and renderings of history are not immune from such critiques. Consumers of astrological content are frequently encouraged to “trust the process of change,” to take comfort in the belief that everything happens for a reason, and to view temporal phenomena, no matter how tragic, random, or unfair, as opportunities for individuals and communities alike to grow and evolve. Narratives of social upheaval, liberation, conflict, innovation, reckoning, and so forth are generally constructed within a framework of therapeutic spirituality, foregrounding notions of introspection, self-care, and individuation and thus remaining conceptually bound to a person-centered paradigm even when applied to the collective. Astrologers’ accounts of when and how change occurs in the world are therefore overdetermined by interiorized (and thus partially vague or mystified) visions of what constitutes change in the first place. These effects are compounded by the deductive nature of much astrological historicity, which for all its efforts at historicization ultimately hinges on decontextualized reasoning that, as Marshall Sahlins would say, privileges system over event (1995).

At the same time, the impact of any metaphysical or occult practice cannot be assessed, let alone predicted, on the assumption that its implications for individuals and society are unambiguously uniform. Astrology is an extremely versatile symbolic language, adaptable to diverse ideological affinities, political moods, convictions, and positionalities. ²¹ Despite claims of total objectivity—which even astrologers approach with suspicion—astrological content produced for public consumption tends to reveal more about the sensibilities of astrologers themselves than the medium they employ. This is not to say that the techniques involved do not matter, or that they can be reduced to mere projection or confirmation bias. The point is that contemporary Western astrology, at once more commoditized and democratized than ever before, is intrinsically neither radical nor reactionary, neither liberal nor conservative. What astrology offers practitioners and consumers alike is a divinatory logic from which to validate and amplify sentiments already resounding through the social networks and media worlds in which it circulates. In our current cultural climate, this includes deeply personalistic, fatalistic, and even paranoid tendencies, but it also includes tremendous amounts of intellectual seriousness and some of the most radically anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, and anti-imperialist discourses to take center stage in recent generations.

This is what I mean when I propose that astrological historicity is a vehicle for culturally resonant expressions of historical consciousness. It is not a question of whether the history or political ethics involved are necessarily correct or valid from a normative external viewpoint. Historical consciousness is not exclusive to any one mode of analysis, political doctrine, or social movement. Rather it is “always filled with a variety of voices in which the echo of the past is heard. Only in the multifariousness of such voices does it exist” (Gadamer 2013: 285; cited in Clark and Peck 2018). Plural registers of historical consciousness reflect the reality that “people respond to the histories that move them” (Stewart 2012: 8). While this includes vernacular readings of history that deviate significantly, even controversially, from an authoritative standard, “alternative historicities” (ibid.) as such are not categorically antithetical to historical understanding as an abstract virtue. Instead of treating alternative historicities within Western cultures as if their moral functions are always diametrically opposed to those of more widely legitimated narratives (which of course perpetrate their own epistemic violence), we achieve greater analytical strides by understanding historical consciousness as constituted by multiple, intersecting discourses, each with their own internal tensions and deviations (Nordgren 2019).

In the case of astrological historicity, the framing of history through celestial metaphors and metaphysical cosmologies serves a notable function in that it represents current events as neither unprecedented nor random, no matter how unique and extraordinary they seem. While it is reasonable to suggest that there are consumers of astrological content who react by deferring political will to the power of unseen forces, thus effecting the authoritarian mentality that Adorno warned against, close readings of real astrological texts and commentaries point to a more expansive range of ethical possibilities. These include critical positions that seek to bring enduring legacies of violence and oppression to light so that they might be confronted and redressed. As astrologer Rick Levine explains: “The future does not begin each moment independent from the past. Just as an individual carries the karma of their past actions, their genetics, and their past lives, humanity bears the weights of its own history. Accordingly, we must look back in order to look ahead” (2021).

To be sure, “looking back” is not the reason most people consult astrologers or consume astrological content. They want to know what the future holds in store for them: Will I find success in my career? Happiness in a new romance? Is now or later the right time to buy a home/quit my job/confront my parents? Moreover, astrology enthusiasts in many cases simply enjoy working with esoteric texts and symbols for the novelty of it, especially when such explorations can be applied to everything from celebrity gossip to matters of sexuality, spirituality, and self-image. Either way, getting people to think about history and politics is not what modern everyday astrology has traditionally been known for. But as we have seen, there is more to Western astrology today than what is revealed in horoscope columns and whimsical Internet memes. And while the emotional benefits and entertainment value of astrology are vital to its ubiquity, the cultural relevance of this and other occult fields is about more than the public’s appetite for magical thinking.

“The essential message of astrology,” according to astrologer Leisa Schaim, “is that time is never neutral.” ²² The interpretive style described throughout this essay reflects a greater aspect of what many professional astrologers believe they are doing when they address the public, and each other, with forecasts and speculations. They are inviting people to become more intuitively sensitized to what they see as qualitative fluctuations in time that transcend the lived present and encompass more than the embodied self, based on the belief that these fluctuations instantiate a transcendent moral consciousness. By the same token, astrologers guide consumers through an understanding of what they already know to be true: that received narratives of progress and prosperity are less reliable than they appear. Even while portraying historical time in developmental and evolutionary terms, there is simultaneously an implicit rejection of modernity’s promise that humanity is only destined to move forward, and the past is forever left behind. Even as astrologers are paid to be bearers of good news, they view themselves as purveyors of more complicated truths, including the idea that there are times—and many believe we are currently in one of those times—when things are bound to get a lot worse before they get better.

Again, this is not to say that astrology, like any knowledge field or cultural industry, does not reproduce dominant ideologies or betray a tendency to rest naively on proclamations of their imminent demise. But in an age of digital rebellions and counter-discourses that seek to dismantle structures of racial and corporate capitalism, we should pay close attention to the idioms in which such impulses are nurtured and reinforced, even those idioms that are otherwise dismissed as erroneous or misguided. If expressions of astrological historicity are not devoid of intellectual curiosity, as is most certainly the case, they also are not nearly as disengaged from social and political realities, or inclined toward disengagement, as critics have suggested. The impetus to understand when and how avenues of occult exploration and spirituality might generate (or impede) effective forms of public knowledge and collective action requires a commitment by scholars to become better acquainted with the actual spaces and cultural domains where they are likely to be enacted. These are not always obvious or straightforward, but finding them requires that we let go of the need to prove what is wrong with astrology and focus instead on what it is that practitioners are using astrological knowledge for, and why it is that dedicated enthusiasts come to view it as a life-changing resource. The more scholars engage with different genres, styles, and applications of astrological content, the better equipped we will be to make sense of its enduring appeal. This includes ascertaining the role that astrological concepts might have in shaping how present and future generations decipher the meaning of history, and how they will seek to determine for themselves—to paraphrase Adorno’s compatriot, Walter Benjamin—when it is time to ride the locomotive of history and when it is time to pull the emergency brake.