Technology

Planetary cycles knit cultural artefacts

My writings combine two points of view: 

1. the use of planetary cycles as a meaningful framework to look at history as a cyclic process. This approach is as ancient as Mundane astrology. Its contemporary forms have been a great source of learning and inspiration, most notably the Archetypal Cosmology of Richard Tarnas in his seminal book Cosmos and Psyche. 

2. a focus on cultural artefacts as the subjects of history and of historical research. In other words, it's to apply the approach of an archeologist to recent or contemporary objects such as a bicycle or a telephone, but also to much more complex artefacts such as a trading network or a world-system. Fernand Braudel's visionary work on the Mediterranean and Patrick Boucheron's program Making history have inspired me to take this point of view. 

By combining both points of view, we put ourselves in a position from where we can see that every cultural artefact created by the human species has been woven, or is being woven, between heaven and earth. In other words, all cultural artefacts are the result of a creative process fed by a cultural soil and by cosmic movement. In summary, a cultural artefact is not only cultural, it also is cosmical and can therefore be seen as "cosmo-cultural": it is the cultural materialisation of cosmic motion, and the cosmic manifestation of cultural movements and trends. I've taken that perspective to explore the history of maritime empires and the history of computers. 

Gutenberg's moveable type printing press

There is a strong analogy between the Digital Revolution started in the second half of the 20th century and the Printing Revolution that started in Europe in the 15th century. Is that analogy visible in the astrology of those two phenomenon?

Johannes Gutenberg was born circa 1400, 2 years after the Saturn-Uranus conjunction of 1398, when Saturn was still within 10 degrees of Uranus, and Jupiter was reaching its waning square to Saturn and Uranus. Gutenberg started using moveable type in 1439, and by 1450 his printing press was in operation. The timeframe for his invention fits with the 1443-44 Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus conjunction. The chart below shows the remarkable transits on Gutenberg's approximate birth chart during September 1443:

• the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction is making an exact opposition to Gutenberg's natal Uranus;

• Saturn is making an opposition to Gutenberg's natal Saturn.

It's also worth noting that: 

• the 1443-44 Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus stellium occurred in sidereal Gemini, a sign ruled by planet Mercury, traditionally associated with all forms of communication, including writing and books. 

• the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of July 1444 was exactly conjunct Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, described as "the impetuous and blazing Great World Teacher, knowledge-holder of ancient hermetic wisdom" (Nick Anthony Fiorenza, An Introduction to Astronomical Astrology, page 32). This astronomical event is extremely rare, and may occur approximately every 800 years. 

Similarly, the era of the typewriter started with the Uranus-Neptune opening squares of 1868-70, reached a standardised design at the time of the opposition of 1906-10, and ended with the conjunction of 1993. It became a symbol of the office work of the 20th century. The “computer age” started with the closing squares of 1954-56, and the “internet age”, an era of personal digital devices interconnected through global networks, started with the conjunction of 1993.

The history of the bicycle

Remarkably, the "bike booms" that marked periods of fast growth in the history of the bicycle precisely correlate with remarkable patterns between Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune:

•  Baron Karl von Drais' first ride of his newly invented draisienne took place in the summer of 1817, a few months before the Jupiter-Uranus-Neptune stellium of Nov-Dec 1817, and a year before the first Saturn-Uranus square of 1818-20. Two years later, the draisienne, vélocipède or "dandy horse" craze of the summer of 1819 coincided with the Saturn-Uranus square of 1818-20 and the Uranus-Neptune conjunction of 1820. 

• The first bicycle craze started in 1867, during a Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus Grand Trine. By 1868 the first mass-production of bicycles had started in Europe and the United States. 

• In 1885 John Kemp Starley released the first commercially successful safety bicycle in England, and a year later they were being produced in the United States. This coincided with the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction of August 1886, during the Saturn-Uranus waning square of 1885-86. The year 1885 was also the birth year of the motorcycle and the motor car. 

• "In the year 1896, there was simultaneously an increase in bicycle popularity and a severe economic depression." (Wikipedia) This coincided with Jupiter making a square, in 1896, to the Saturn-Uranus conjunction that would become exact in 1897. 

• The U.S. bike boom of 1965–1975 started with the Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus T-square of 1965 and ended with the next T-square of 1976. "At the height of the boom, in 1972, 1973, and 1974, more bicycles than automobiles were sold in the U.S" (Wikipedia). This height coincided with the Grand Trine formed by Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus in 1973-74. 

• In the 2010s, the rise of bicycle-sharing systems, and the increased popularity of electric bicycles may be correlated to the 2010 Jupiter-Uranus opposition to Saturn, and the Grand Trine of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus in 2015.

• In 2020-22, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a dramatic increase in bicycle usage and a boom in bike sales around the world, already referred to as a "cycling explosion". It coincided with the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of December 2020 and the Saturn-Uranus square of 2021-22.