Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Age of Aquarius?

I had a poster ask about the Age of Aquarius, what is it? and what is its significance?

Ok, as always I like to start these discussions with my favorite hippy-dippy Youtube video

Alight! The solar year is 365 days and some hours, and is the time it takes for the Sun to move through all 12 signs/constellations of the Zodiac. The astrological great year is approximately 25,800 years and is the amount of time it takes for the Sun at the Spring Equinox to pass through all 12 constellations. This takes place because of the precession of the equinoxes. Each Sign's age is around 2,150 years.

The cycle goes against the order of the signs so the Age of Aquarius follows the earlier Age of Pisces. This is an example of mundane or geopolitical astrology on a truly vast scale!

Ok, so there's no doubt that the Age of Aquarius exists insofar as the Sun has or will eventually be in the constellation Aquarius at the time of the Spring Equinox, but what does this mean?

First problem is that unlike the boundaries of a sign, which are designed to be very, very precise, the boundaries of a constellation are very imprecise. When you are dealing with thousands of years, a few minutes of longitude make a big difference. Thus no one agrees about whether the Age of Aquarius has already started or when it will start, estimates varying over several thousand years.

Next, since the Aqe of Pisces, Aquarius, etc., each last over 2,150 years, there is an incredible amount of history, culture, etc., taking place, too much to accurate characterize with one sign. Think about Sun signs, with 6 billion people on the planet, each Sun sign has 500 million people each, scattered over the entire globe in many countries, cultures and ages. How accurately does their Sun sign reflect them? Not much, so how accurate can the Zodiacal Ages be?

So given that we have no idea when the Ages start or stop and the vast over generalization that the signs represent when characterizing 1,000s of years of history and culture, while they are very interesting for personal meditation and individual philosophical inspiration, they are of little practical use to astrologers for predictive purposes.

2 comments:

Beneath the Firmament said...

There is that, but also I think Hippies tend to make Aquarius sound like some kind of utopian age.

They seem to forget the affinity that Saturn has with this sign.

Christopher Warnock, Esq said...

Another good point!

Saturn in Aquarius can show immense secret networks of command and control, the hidden puppet masters.

Of course, Pisces can show great emotional outpourings of both love and hate, etc., etc.

All signs contain good and evil, just as all times.