Recorded history on Earth did not begin so long ago. Egyptian hieroglyphics appeared about 6000 years back and the first phonetic writing appeared shortly after. Theoretically this is a span of only 200 generations. In this period, at least until recently, people have huddled around fires both to keep warm and to cook food. Flames and glowing coals is what they had. Smoke continually darkened their living places and got in their eyes. They gathered around and told stories, watching the shifting shadows curiously. There was day and light, and there was night and dark. In this world of night and day, philosophies developed, and they were characterized by polarity, by good and evil, god and the devil. Reality was defined by opposites – light/dark, good/bad, true/false, matter/energy, body/mind, subject/object.
In our 24/7 neon wonderland, this reality is no longer existent; the philosophies or religions developed to map the realities of a previous age, fall short today. There is much talk about global warming, but the future is destined to be cool. Smokers today are nostalgics, who still need to see the dancing flame and ritually recreate the smoke that characterized a bygone age. Modern legislation forces them to gather around their miniature camp fires – outside buildings from Los Angeles to Stockholm. On a macro level dying industries mirror this micro pollution, burning huge quantities of oil and coal and belching smoke – and of course carbon dioxide – into the heavens.
Up until now, historically speaking, it has been supposed that matter must be burned to create energy, and huge quantities of matter burned to create huge quantities of energy. Industrialization has brought untold benefits but also created environmental imbalance, yet the factories and power stations of the last two centuries are a transitional phase – a dying breed, like smokers. Our children’s children will read about them in the history books and marvel.
Long-term history is mapped astrologically by precession, which is the term for the 25,870 year wobble of the Earth’s pole through each of the 12 signs of the Zodiac in what is called a Great Year. This leads to 12 Ages of 2,155 years the last of which is the Piscean Age which in the West has been associated with the Christian era. Christ and the Virgin Mary are seen to represent the Pisces/Virgo polarity. The transition from Pisces to the Aquarian Age is a slow process, which could possibly be seen to have started with the discovery and utilization of electricity at the end of the 19th century. It is electricity – an energy that no longer creates smoke – that has come to replace the burning flame. Light bulbs, electric fires, cookers are the early tools of the transformation to Aquarius. Electricity is the high-energy start to the digital low-energy future. Plastic is the next building block in that process.
This process has until now been extraordinary wasteful and polluting. Industrialization has brought a greed that has systematically stripped the Earth of its natural resources. Astrologically the industrial era is spanned by another major time cycle that is the conjunction cycle of Jupiter and Saturn. This cycle returns to the same position every 800 years and is divided into 4 sub-periods during which the conjunction falls in one of the four elements. The conjunction cycle in Earth started in 1842 and ends in the year 2020, when the conjunction falls in Aquarius (starting a 200-year cycle in Air). These years span the exploitation of the resources of Earth.
When the Air cycle begins, there will no longer be an exploitation of Earth – the new frontier will be air and electromagnetic radiation from all areas of the spectrum. This will put a stop to sources of pollution created by burning, not least because there will be very little coal and oil left to burn. New technology will make it uninteresting to burn coal; oil will be too valuable to burn and will be used to create plastic. In this transition phase there will be radical and dramatic developments that create the energy we need in news ways. Wherever there is a current technology that creates unnecessary heat, this will be eliminated. A case in point is the light bulb. This primitive object uses electricity to heat a metal filament to a white hot state in a vacuum. The bulb is fragile and 80% of the energy is lost as heat. New diode technology creates virtually no heat, and is long-lasting and robust. Many of the products we use today are energy intensive and inefficient – the digital future will bring economies of energy on a huge scale because of the harnessing of light.
It is difficult to comprehend the scale of these changes. Clocks that previously operated by the turning of wheels and the swinging of the pendulum have become digital today. Time is measured according to the 24-hour clock, but we still need to see a clock face with just 12 hours, and to divide the day into two, because we are still rooted in the past. Digital time and instant communication to all corners if the globe removes the division of night and day, and future philosophies will reflect this, not least by the rejection of polarity and extremes. Behavior that was considered either good or evil just a couple of centuries ago is no longer considered black or white. What was ascribed to demons has become the subject of psychological study. Nobody is so sure any longer what good and evil are, except perhaps George W Bush.
Just as fire and heat seem to be essential elements in our life, but will be limited to just special functions in the future, everywhere you see a wheel today – whether it be in a clock or on a car – it will disappear in the future. The wheel is simply and extension of the foot and as such is a manifestation of the Age of Pisces. How the disappearance of the wheel will affect future transportation is a matter for conjecture, but it will result in the disappearance of roads, though not paths, tarmac though not grass, jet turbines though not electromagnetic levitation, hard disks though not memory cards. Where there once was a wheel there will be an instantaneous process.
The Age of Aquarius is digital and cool, light-ruled and enlightened. Energy consumption will be minimal because things will be designed that way. The sun and air – or the principles behind the sun (fusion) and air – will provide energy,. The air will be completely irradiated with digital signals and the earth connected through optic cables. Language, beliefs and borders will not constitute a separation between peoples. Whereas the mutable cross of Pisces, Virgo, Gemini and Sagittarius – sacrifice, service, polarity and belief – characterized the Piscean Age, the fixed cross will characterize the Aquarian Age. Aquarius – humanity, Leo – mass entertainment, Taurus – enjoyment, Scorpio – sex. Of course it is there already. We can see it in globalism, international games and sports, the supermarket, the open sexuality. A few centuries ago the Christian church would have called this the work of the devil. But these days the devil is simply an interesting marketing ploy.
Whereas sacrifice and pain were elevated virtues in the Piscean era, enlightenment, individualism and enjoyment will be the virtues of the Aquarian era. Outwardly it is an appealing age to live in. The difficulties, which may not be so apparent to the denizens of the era, will be in the totalitarian nature of the age. With the interconnectedness of us all, it will be possible to have visual and auditory contact with anyone anywhere. Whilst there are benefits in terms of security and togetherness, the relentless presence of collective consciousness could prove to be a strain. Where in the Christian era self-centeredness was a sin, in the Aquarius era being an outsider, or being anti-social will be… not a sin… but disapproved of. Whereas religious isolation was considered sublime in the Piscean Age, solidarity and connectedness will be the Aquarian virtue.
There are several good astrological indicators for the dawning of Aquarius, and one of them is the conjunction of the 7 personal planets in Aquarius at the solar eclipse of February 5th 1962.
Horoscope: 5.02.1962 0.10 GMT New York AS 8.47 VI
Many will remember the sheer euphoria of the sixties, and the revolutionary trends that swept the music and political scene at the time. This euphoria is well represented by the wonderful conjunction of the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter. However it is worth noticing that there is also a Mars/Saturn conjunction. The sixties were also a cruel time, what with the Cultural Revolution in China, the Vietnam war, and the general political reaction of the old generation to the new. This element of authoritarianism and euphoria will probably characterize the Aquarian Age. Drawn for New York this puts – rather unnervingly – Pluto on the Ascendant.
Another significant chart is the coming great mutation Jupiter/Saturn conjunction in Air which falls in Aquarius.
Horoscope: 21.12.2020 18.18 GMT New York AS 7.01 TA
This horoscope could be considered the final push from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age. For the next 200 years Saturn/Jupiter conjunctions take place in Gemini, Libra and Aquarius and it will be in the field of air signs that human ingenuity will unfold in a practical way. This is the first conjunction in Aquarius since 1404 which is what makes this conjunction a Great Mutation. The chart will have an outreach of 200 years, and the countries and people that are to have greatest historical effect in this period are those whose horoscopes align with the power centers in this chart.
Of most concern in the chart is the elevated Pluto in Capricorn exactly squaring Mars in Aries. As in the previous chart this indicates authoritarian power, here shown as invasive and dictatorial. If you have traveled to America after 2001, your thumbprint and iris signature is stored in the Homeland Security database. By 2050 the genetic profile of everyone in the world will probably be stored from birth. For all the best reasons of course. Even today in London, your movements can be tracked by cameras from the moment you leave your house to the time you exit the night club you just visited. If you want to be an honest small-time crook, life is going to be very difficult. Our lives will be digitally mapped from the cradle to the grave. And we will be brought up to think it’s a good thing.
Whilst we are summoned to our screens in this brave new world, there will be some who read with longing about those earlier citizens who assembled around the camp fire and tried to avoid the smoke. But no one will miss the religious persecution, disease, poverty and starvation that caused so much suffering in the Age of Pisces.
Adrian Ross Duncan 19th June 2007