Is astrology the liberating alternative belief system that we think it is?
16 August 2023
As astrology rockets in online popularity with ‘what’s your big 3’ becoming the cliché Gen Z conversational bit, it has seemingly been favoured by left-wing spheres as a tool for self-knowledge and figuring out or defining who you are outside the institutions of family, religion, education or career. Because of this, in modern western society astrology may appear as a rejection of capitalist attributions of self by acting as a symbolic tool for self-discovery on an energetic level that escapes the entrenched attitudes of institutions. The celestial bodies mapped out across a wheel formation appears non-hierarchal. The idea of the cosmos, of 12 zodiacal signs and 9 planets existing within feels transcendental.
Yet we must recognise that, a capitalist/colonialist worldview permeates western astrology. The art functions on the basis of weaving social ideas and expectations around the animate and inanimate bodies in the sky. It began as stories we told about the stars; a reality constructed out of starlight not unlike our material reality made from stardust. Mythology functions as a way to explain the world around us, and astrology works as a kind of active mythology as it is not just retrospective but also predictive. It is a thoughtform that is informed by and reflects cultural notions. Astrology uses the interweaving coalescing patterns of archetypal principles, pure forms, to produce ideas of how the world arises around us. But the ideas that may emanate from these principles can crystalise in different facets of manifestation. When it is developed through a certain lens, culture or geared towards a particular social hierarchy, is a favourable alignment considered only in terms of specific types of people or structures?
It is necessary to situate western astrology within its history in order to examine the legacy we are reckoning with today. In his chapter Babylonian Astrology Nick Campion [1] establishes that the practice is an ancient art at least 4000 years old, which was thought to have begun in Ancient Mesopotamia. They noted when celestial events would occur and how this coincided with the fortune of king and country, thus building a symbolic language. In fact, astrology was an inherent function of the state used as a tool for political management by making decisions for social policy based on prophecy and was even used to enact military agendas [1]. It also purported a hierarchy that placed the king as a subordinate to the Gods. If ideas of good or bad fortune were established on what is good for king or country, how has this shaped the way we perceive a good or bad outcome or placement? And how does this apply to an individual’s natal chart in the modern age?
The natal chart as we know it today came from a synthesis of the Egyptian calendar and Mesopotamian star maps around the beginning of the Roman empire. One of the theoretical underpinnings, the essential dignities system, has been carried through history and still in use today. The system is understood through ideas of citizenship and foreignness as it describes which planet is un/happy in which sign. The sign a planet rules is called its domicile. When a planet is placed here, it’s considered to be at home, ‘lord of his own estate’. [2] This led to the idea that a planet in the sign opposite of his home, was at the mercy of their host, like a person in foreign lands. This implies that in astrology, the outsider is considered to have significantly less power of agency reflecting western countries’ increasingly restrictive immigration system today.
The entrenched power structures of western history are also reflected through the interpretation of charts. The traditional sources we have for astrology are written by men and due to our patriarchal history the delineations are mostly written for a male native. In Vettius Valens’ Anthologies women figure as hinderers or helpers, including often appearing as an ambiguous bringer of “treachery” or “betrayal.” [3] Perhaps this is not an overly significant example of prejudice expressed onto the chart given the time period it was written in, yet this shows how the culture we exist in affects the meanings we make out of symbolic bodies. Who astrology is written by and for when making delineations is significant as we build a narrative to entwine around the events in our lives. Sexist attitudes pervade into modern astrology today. On websites you get often get delineations written in the context of dating for a type of man vs a type of women. For example, one popular website, Café astrology, writes that “If a man’s Venus is in Sagittarius, an energetic, happy aura in a woman is often most appealing. Generally these men are attracted to a clean, robust, athletic look, generally slim but not necessarily well-groomed. A tousled, casual appearance is just fine with these men.” [4] Perhaps the art of astrology is mostly about what men are fine with. Anyway, these interpretations end up expressing repressive ideas around social expectations of gender roles even if it’s just a different ‘flavour’ of a binary gender. There’s also this belief amongst some modern astrologers that you’ll repress and embody different planets of your chart more according to your gender, which speaks for their own ideas of how culture impacts planetary interpretation. The point is that astrology can be used to express limiting beliefs and, in this instance, it is caught up in gender biases.
It’s not just personal social attitudes that are projected onto the chart. In modern western astrology capitalist values can be reflected in the way in which we approach it too. Often, astrological concepts become defined within this lens. For example, the Midheaven line (MC) representing the highest point in the sky and second most significant direction of life after the individual, (the Ascendant line), signifies ambition and therefore often gets centred around career and public reputation. This way of thinking results in these latter topics becoming inherent signifiers of the MC, placing value on hierarchy. This is certainly not a wrong way to view the Midheaven. As it is the highest, it is also the most visible point in the sky. In today’s culture visibility is tied up in success. With the power of social media influencing, to be visible is to offer legitimacy, whether that’s what you do or who you are. But where does it leave those who don’t want their life ambition to be about the work-life success or reputation they earn?
Western astrology works because it works for capitalism. It is reinforced by the capitalist paradigm and in turn reinforces it. As Campion writes, “politics produces divination.” [1] I guess the question is, if we dismantle capitalism, will the way in which we practice astrology change? So, what would happen if we changed the way in which we practiced astrology first?
Whilst astrology has developed within and for these hierarchies, I’m not quite convinced that the mechanism itself is inherently capitalist. Rather that astrology expresses hierarchy because we project ours onto it. Astrology has persisted in various forms across so many cultures in so many times. Each culture has their own story around the stars that reflects their lived experience. In Ancient Mesopotamia it was believed that the planets were tools used by the Gods to enact their divine will rather than the actual God itself. There was a distinction between the movement of the planets and the forces behind it. In which case, the planetary movements are a tool possessed by Gods who are no longer considered our masters. Who possess the tool now? What kind of structures do we build our star stories on? It has been figured in so many ways, perhaps there is a way to figure it outside of this capitalist paradigm. Perhaps this figuring could help us imagine what a non-capitalist world would look like. Perhaps in turn this could figure our world.
Concluding thoughts:
Although capitalism is a forceful existence in our reality, it remains a constructed (even if well entrenched) paradigm. But as with the movement of the stars, capitalism is moveable too. At least it has to be. I recognise that using astrology as a tool to weave a world in which a sustainable, joyful life can take place is rather ambitious. In fact, I don’t propose I can dismantle capitalism through astrology at all, merely that this is a continuous state of question that this blog will hold space for. I want to recognise how little I know, and how much space that brings. Space is a container for calling in, transforming the present. In a way this blog is just my personal journey of reconciling with the legacy of the kind of astrology I practice. I hope that the posts I continue to write will map out an ever shifting, growing, deepening relationship with the discipline. So I'm just figuring this out. Figuring out how I can exist in a capitalist world through the lens of astrology. Figuring out a future that I feel like I can exist in.
List of references:
[1] Nick Campion, Babylonian Astrology in Astronomy across Cultures, pg. 515-521.
[2] William Lilly, Christian Astrology, pg. 101.
[3] Vettius Valens, Anthologies.
[4] Café Astrology, What A Man Finds Attractive In A Woman, https://cafeastrology.com/articles/idealwomanforaman.html
Note:
I wrote this piece whilst reading Post Colonial Astrology by Alice Sparkly Kat which helped ground my reservations with astrology. I strongly recommend reading their work for further deconstruction of the planets, how they work as tools of power and illuminate race relations.