Mundane Astrology and the Cycle of the Ages: Seeing the Value of a Two-Tiered Approach
by Ray Grasse
Among the various branches of astrology is a discipline referred to as “mundane,” after the Latin word “mundo,” for world. On the whole, mundane astrology is devoted less to individual horoscopes than to developments of a broader, socio-political nature—the fortunes of nations, weather patterns, disasters, political leaders, cultural trends, and so on.
As its tools, it focuses on such phenomena as planetary cycles and alignments, eclipses, and national horoscopes, and explores how these are related to historical developments. For instance, the turbulent changes of the 1960s can be related in large part to the powerhouse alignment of Uranus and Pluto during that decade, as well as a rare alignment of planets in the sign Aquarius early on in the decade.
But a somewhat broader approach to mundane interpretation hinges on a doctrine known as the “Great Ages,” which is concerned less with planetary cycles and configurations, or with “snapshot” horoscopes for singular moments in time, than with broader stages of history demarcated by the precession of the equinoxes. Each Great Age lasts roughly 2100 years, and this doctrine suggests that we’ve been under the influence of the Piscean Age for the last two millennia, and are about to enter into the Age of Aquarius. You might call this version of mundane astrology the “view from 30,000 feet,” since it offers a generally broader overview of what’s going on than what you get through the more “cycles and transits” or “snapshot” approaches.
Each of these offers something uniquely different, and each complements the other in important ways. Each can be practiced completely on its own, separate from the other; but there are times when both are necessary for a fuller grasp of the situation. For instance, say you want to know what life was like in the year 2500 B.C., using astrology. You could study the outer planet cycles, eclipses, and stelliums of that time until you’re blue in the face, but it’s only going to tell you so much about life during that millennium. That’s because those transitory planetary cycles won’t reveal much if anything about the broader context in which those patterns were unfolding.
By analogy, it would be a bit like hearing a select passage of conversation from Shakespeare’s King Lear without knowing the larger story, or without seeing the backdrop used as the stage setting, to give you some sense of time and place. In astrology, the Great Ages provides just such a backdrop for the shorter cycles and alignments that unfold from century to century, or millennium to millennium. As a result, a Uranus/Pluto conjunction taking place in the Age of Taurus will not be the same as the one which happened in the mid-1960s! The archetypal dynamics may be similar, but the socio-cultural “clothing” will be extremely different.
On the other hand, focusing solely on the Great Ages has its own limitations, like knowing the overall thrust of Shakespeare’s play (“Well, it’s about a king and his daughters…”) without grasping the nuances of individual scenes or conversations throughout the story. The various planetary alignments can be likened to specific sub-themes and sub-plots within the larger “play,” which serve to unpack those nuances within the greater story.
Let me give a few brief examples from real life of how these two approaches can serve to inform one another, and where focusing only on just one or the other can leave you with a limited perspective.
To begin with, consider the emergence of the United States as an independent nation. We can, of course, look to the chart for July 4th, 1776, and study its patterns, which will, of course, give us certain clues, some of them extremely important. But a far broader significance emerges when you take a step back to glimpse how it fits into the shifting of the Great Ages.
As I’ve written about before, 1 America can, in a wide number of ways, be seen as the virtual spearhead of the Aquarian Age, particularly with its emphasis on democracy and “We the people,” its preoccupation with technology and media, and its exploration of space, among other factors. There are many “precursors” of the coming era within history, but the United States is arguably one of the most significant of these, in political and technological terms. And that won’t be revealed by a single horoscope constructed for a single moment in time.
Much the same can be said about the U.S. Civil War. As one approach, one can erect a horoscope for April 12, 1861, when Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter, as signifying the start of the war itself. Or one can look at how Uranus was returning to where it was positioned during the signing of the Declaration of Independence, adding yet another level of meaning as the country struggled to realize those ideals encoded in its founding charters.
But one can look at the entire war as one of many significant transition points between the Piscean and Aquarian Ages, with slavery representing a vestigial holdover of the fading Piscean mythos, and “freedom” and individual liberty being more of an expression of Aquarian values. In fact, slavery was being abolished in various countries during the 1800s, which also included the abolition of serfdom in Russia, and that entire trend clearly reflected the fading influence of the Piscean Age. Yet it has come to be associated with America’s war between the South and North arguably more than any other.
Along a not dissimilar line, the Jan. 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol steps in Washington, D.C, represents a particularly complex blend of astrological influences at once. At the time of the uprising, for instance, there was a host of planetary factors taking place that included: Uranus stationing throughout that period (while conjuncting Mars and squaring planets in establishment Capricorn); the U.S. was on the brink of its first-time Pluto return in Capricorn, set to be exact one year later; then there was the lingering influence of the epic Pluto/Saturn/Jupiter conjunction in Capricorn from that previous year. Each and every one of these—plus several others, such as key nodal contacts and previous eclipse patterns—added its own unique nuance to the historic mix of energies that day.
But when we take our proverbial big step back and look at the deeper issues at play in this drama, we find there was much more going on in the national—indeed, global—psyche than might appear on the surface. It was more than about just Trump supporters showing their allegiance to him, or people wanting to “take their country back,” or similar concerns. Rather, it was really about a tectonic shifting of paradigmatic values between one Great Age and another. That becomes clearer when we realize how closely the insurrection was tied to issues of racism, White Supremacy, and the growing concern about the displacement of whites by minorities in the country. (Notice how few—if any—dark-skinned faces were in the crowd that day.)
Viewed that way, the insurrection on that day embodied a battle of viewpoints similar to what occurred during the U.S. Civil War, involving the birth pangs of that broader Aquarian vision of equality and “liberty for all.” Who is most deserving of freedom and civil rights in the American experience? Should that mainly be a privilege of white-skinned, largely Christian citizens? Or does it really belong to people of all colors and all faiths? The insurrectionists made no secret of their preference for the former option, while those on the other side of the ideological aisle work to keep hope alive for the latter option, and in so doing promote—whether consciously or unconsciously—the archetypal impulses of an incoming Great Age.
Yet another example would be the first manned landing on the Moon in 1969, when Neil Armstrong first stepped on the lunar surface. Strictly using the “planetary cycles” approach to this event, we can draw up a horoscope for that time and learn there was an alignment of the planets Uranus and Jupiter right when it took place (and which punctuated the broader Uranus/Pluto conjunction which colored that entire decade, and which became exact several years earlier). This is a combination of archetypal energies which characteristically accompanies cultural breakthroughs, often of a scientific or technological nature. For example, Charles Lindberg’s pioneering solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927 took place during an alignment between these same two planets, while the movie Citizen Kane was released under a conjunction in 1941, and so on.
But there is a broader way to see this event, set within a far longer time-frame‚ which gives it a less transitory significance. Here as well, by viewing it in the context of the shifting Great Ages, it’s possible to interpret this event as marking a significant transitional point in our movement into the Age of Aquarius. This was a major leap ahead in our technological and cultural imagination, revealing a clear demarcation between “old” and “new.” Not only was this the first time humans had set foot on a celestial body beyond our own, but it was also viewed on television by approximately a billion people at the same time, thus linking people via electronic media to a single event (taking place in outer space, no less). This was clearly an “Aquarian” development of the most blatant sort—and curiously enough, even Neil Armstrong seemed to regard the event this way. As I’ve noted before, this is what Neil Armstrong said in a speech before Congress in late 1969, shortly after returning from that historic mission:
“We came in peace for all mankind, whose nineteen hundred and sixty-nine years had constituted the majority of the age of Pisces—a twelfth of the Great Year that is measured by the thousand generations the precession of the earth’s axis requires to scribe a giant circle in the heavens. In the next twenty centuries, the age of Aquarius of the Great Year, the age for which our young people have such high hopes, humanity may begin to understand its most baffling mystery—where are we going?” 2
Then there is the contentious debate in modern times over abortion rights. What horoscope could we possibly use to analyze that development? The final court decision over Roe vs. Wade in 1973? Not very likely, considering it was just one event in a long and complicated history. But we could also look at it this way—in the context of the Great Ages. On the one hand, we have the pro-life, anti-abortion forces, ostensibly representing a very Piscean (and heavily Christian) concern for the rights of the helpless unborn, while on the other hand there are the pro-choice forces representing more secular principles of personal freedom and individual autonomy. As a result, what we’re really seeing in that cultural struggle isn’t simply a conflict between two different ideological factions but, yet again, the tectonic clashing of the Great Ages, between two fundamentally different paradigms.
It naturally begs the question: which side in the abortion debate will eventually “win” in the end, and become the standard? While some might take the Great Ages perspective to mean the pro-choice, Aquarian side of the debate will triumph, it’s not necessarily that simple. Another possibility is that we’ll see the diminishing influence of the pro-life movement, but not its disappearance. By analogy, consider the way Judaism was eventually eclipsed in its influence by Christianity, while not actually disappearing, since it’s still with us today. Likewise, it’s probable pro-life forces will continue to exert an impact on political discourse long into the future, even if they don’t remain the dominant voice in the debate.
Finally, let’s consider the tragic events of 9/11. In the minds of most astrologers, the precipitating trigger for the event was the powerful Pluto-Saturn opposition coming to a head during that time. This is a celestial combo archetypally associated with the death and dissolution of old structures, our collective struggle with “shadow” forces, and sometimes even the outbreak of wars. According to the official explanation of events that day, we were told it was an attack by 19 Islamic terrorists against our modern, secular, imperialistic society. But seen in light of the transition between Great Ages, it can also be viewed as representing the forces of the dying (and hyper-religious) Piscean Age, desperately resisting the values of a new one—a sort of glacial “pushback” of an earlier dispensation by an incoming, newer one. Seen in this way, the tragedy takes on a considerably different—and broader—significance than simply reflecting a transitory planetary aspect occurring in a single moment of time.
There are many other examples we could point to as illustrations—such as the birth of the atomic age, the UFO phenomenon, the rise of the Internet, the women’s liberation movement, the cultural revolutions of the 1960s, the history of aviation, the Scopes trial and the evolution debate, and so on—all of which can properly be viewed in both of these broader or narrower contexts. In the end, the “transits and cycles” approach and that of the “Great Ages” are complementary, each one fleshing out nuances often absent from the other when taken solely by itself. I hope this article has provided some insight into the values of this two-tiered celestial cross-pollination.
Notes:
1. See my book Signs of the Times: Unlocking the Symbolic Language of World Events (Hampton Roads, 2002), particularly chapter 2.
2. The full written transcript of Armstrong’s talk can be found here:
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/A11CongressJOD.html
About the author:
Ray Grasse has been associate editor of The Mountain Astrologer magazine for 20 years, and is author of several books, most recently StarGates: Essays on Astrology, Symbolism, and the Synchronistic Universe and The Sky Stretched Out Before Me. His website is www.raygrasse.com
Image sources:
World: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Spaceship: Image by SpaceX-Imagery fromPixabay
Apollo: Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
9/11: UpstateNYer, CC BY-SA 3.0
© Ray Grasse 2021
