Author: Charlie Obert

The Battle for Reality

Essay by Charlie Obert, October 2020

Back in November 2019 I released a video that I titled “The Grand Conjunction: 2020 and Beyond“, in which I talked about the triplicity shift going on in astrology, and its long term implications.  I want to revisit the main theme of that video here, and go a bit deeper.

Since this was a video about prediction for 2020 I want to quickly comment on what I missed – obviously, the covid pandemic. I greatly underestimated the combined effect of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, the three outermost and slowest moving planets in traditional astrology, all conjunct is a single sign, with the two malefics both strong and dignified, and Jupiter debilitated and as weak as it can get.

More importantly for my purposes here, I want to talk about what I got right, and develop the theme further. Even the pandemic itself fits within my larger theme. Continue reading “The Battle for Reality”

Astrology and Media Manipulation

The Purpose of this Essay

As astrologers we do interpretation by mapping the symbolic language of astrology onto the data and information about the world around us that we experience. Astrology does not exist in a vacuum; it does not come alive until we relate it to our world. That leads to a very important point that I am going to meditate on in this essay.

Our astrology on any topic is only as good
as the news data that we are mapping it to.

In today’s world this causes some problems. Like it or not, the state of the news media today is now such that much of the news we consume is badly distorted, contains a great deal of falsehood and fiction, and is usually slanted to support a political agenda.

If we follow only slanted and distorted sources of news
then our astrology becomes slanted and distorted.

We need to be aware of this process, and of the distortion in the news and media we consume. We also need to develop skills for viewing media with a critical discernment, and with awareness of the persuasion process going on that is being used on us to shape our opinion.

What I want to talk about in this essay is how the same skills that make us good astrologers also make us easily susceptible to programming by the media. Tarot readers, psychics, and practitioners of other forms of divination are similarly vulnerable if that is their only way of looking at the world.

In order to be good astrologers today we really need to be media-aware, media-savvy, have some understanding of how our minds work, and of how the media can easily exploit that if we are not aware of the process.

This also means that, along with our skills as astrologers in seeing patterns of meaning, we really need to develop balancing skills that allow us to stand back, to sort, to question, to sift and to compare news sources. Those skills don’t come naturally, and for most of us, those skills are not naturally a part of our astrology toolkit. We need to consciously develop them. That takes work, it takes exploration, it takes learning, and it takes practice. Continue reading “Astrology and Media Manipulation”

A Change in Meaning – Complexity in Astrology

by Charlie Obert

In modern astrology as compared to traditional there is a change in the number of planets – you go from the seven in traditional to nine (or ten if you still count Pluto) modern planets. In addition, many modern astrologers also include various asteroids, dwarf planets and other significant points.

This is not just a simple adding of a couple of points to a set. Changing the number of points changes how we perceive the whole set, how we work with it.

There is a general principle regarding that – the more items you add to a set, the less attention, meaning and complexity you can give to any member of the set. An increase in complexity in one way is balanced by a simplification in another way.

I want to use the rest of this essay unpacking this principle and examining its implications in our lives, especially in our astrology. Continue reading “A Change in Meaning – Complexity in Astrology”

On the Late, Great Planet Pluto

by Charlie Obert

I don’t think well on my feet. I do my best thinking sitting relaxed, with a cup of hot tea and some classical music on in the background – at the moment it is Beethoven string quartets. This gives me time to really think through subjects before I say or write anything.

I have some things to think out in this post.

Yesterday I made a post to my Facebook page about how I thought it was time to stop treating Pluto as a full fledged planet, and that position could no longer be easily justified in either traditional or modern terms.

I reproduce my post here.

At the risk of being the party pooper in the astrology community – I really don’t think continuing to make a big deal out of Pluto works today with either traditional or modern astrology.

In traditional terms it is not one of the classical planets, and traditional astrology works very well without it. I have quit including it in the charts I do. (For that matter, most of the time I now leave out Uranus and Neptune.) Most of the meanings assigned to Pluto were originally part of the more complex traditional signification of Saturn – I talk about that in my recent book on Saturn.

In modern terms it is no longer considered a planet – it is in 2006 that Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet. Any astrologer that speaks at all about being “scientific” is on shaky ground in science terms by hanging on to Pluto’s significance as a full planet. Still treating Pluto as a planet is being way behind the times scientifically.

The concepts normally attached to Pluto are pretty ominous, and very vague, and you can attach them to pretty much anything because of that vagueness. At any given point in time you can find SOMETHING going on you could assign to Pluto.

I find that leaving Pluto out eliminates a kind of ominous background noise, like clearing away a cloud of smoke.

I am just starting to see occasional posts referring to the eight (rather than nine) planets, so maybe we’re starting to get caught up.

– Charlie Obert
Facebook, February 6, 2020

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The post drew quite a flurry of responses, most of them negative, mostly trying to “prove” to me that Pluto is a planet.

My reaction to pretty much all of the pro-Pluto posts was something like this: Continue reading “On the Late, Great Planet Pluto”

Astrology, Prediction and General Knowledge

by Charlie Obert

It is all too easy to fall into the trap of believing that being an astrologer automatically gives you the knowledge to be able to make pronouncements on any subject area. The result of this attitude is obvious in the large amount of astrology writing I see online that is little better than gossip and bias dressed up with astrology keywords.

There are two assertions I am making here that are the subject of this essay.

First – your ability to make meaningful astrology predictions in any area is only as valid as the depth and quality of your knowledge in that specific area.

Being an astrologer does not instantly make you an expert in politics or judicial law, just as being a famous entertainer does not make you an expert in constitutional law or the electoral college. Our astrology knowledge does not exist in a vacuum by itself; it is always based on our general knowledge. Whatever we stock our minds with in general is what is going to come out when we start talking astrology.

Second – Before you make an astrology statement, it is worth asking yourself, is this any different from what I would say without the astrology? If there is no difference, then omit the astrology. You would just be using the astrology as window dressing to justify your opinions.

I want to explore these assertions in a couple of different subject areas.

Continue reading “Astrology, Prediction and General Knowledge”

Pluto and Overhype

by Charlie Obert.

One of the sand traps of astrology interpretation is the tendency to overhype, to blow things up out of proportion. This tendency to exaggerate seems to come into play with special force whenever Pluto is involved. We’re seeing that happen now with the approach of the Dreaded Saturn Pluto Conjunction this coming January 2020.

Here are just a couple of the phrases I am seeing today in my Facebook feed referring to this amazing once-in-a-lifetime event.

“One of the most extraordinary transits in our history.”

“Epic.”

“Sitting on an atomic bomb.”

“A disaster waiting to happen.”

and so on.

Listening to language like this we should be looking at the most important and earth-shaking astrological event since the great Cardinal Grand Cross of 2014. Continue reading “Pluto and Overhype”

Bias, in Astrology and Elsewhere

– by Charlie Obert

Confirmation bias – “This is the human tendency to see all evidence as supporting your beliefs, even if the evidence is nothing more than coincidence. This is another common phenomenon that we believe only happens to other people.”

“Confirmation bias isn’t an occasional bug in our human operating system. It is the operating system.”
– Scott Adams, Win Bigly.

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Here in the United States we are in the middle of another election season – actually, these days it seems we are always in an election season. If you follow astrology you are likely starting to see predictions as to what will happen in the 2020 presidential election.

I have noticed something interesting – with very, very few exceptions the predictions being made align with the person’s political preference. They predict the outcome they want to see.

That is what I want to talk about here – the overwhelmingly strong human tendency to interpret all data to match your opinions and preferences. Continue reading “Bias, in Astrology and Elsewhere”

Plato and Reincarnation

Plato: The Evolutionary Journey of the Soul

by Charlie Obert, June 2019.

Does the human soul have a purpose for being here on earth? Is our life here part of a larger experience that transcends a single human lifetime?

I come at the subject as a traditional astrologer who is rooted in the Platonic and Pythagorean tradition of philosophy.

The purpose of this post is to examine reincarnation and the immortal soul in a platonist model – exploring the soul’s purpose in life – and how we could address it in traditional astrology.

Evolutionary Astrology

Evolutionary astrology is very popular today. It expresses a prominent dimension of modern astrology that works with reincarnation and multiple lives, and with the soul’s purpose for this life within that context. This is a typically modern approach that heavily emphasizes the outer planets in talking about past lives. Like much modern astrology, evolutionary astrology typically looks to India for a metaphysical underpinning for their work.

That hunger for a sense of meaning and for a sense of soul purpose is a large part of what draws people to astrology.

Can we address the subject matter of evolutionary astrology – the soul’s purpose in this lifetime viewed in the context of a series of lives for the immortal human soul – using the context and tools of traditional western astrology? Yes, I think so. Continue reading “Plato and Reincarnation”