Astrology and the Election

Things are about to get weird.

I know what you’re thinking: things are already weird, Michael. But it’s about to get even weirder with the election. The heavens are declaring it.

On November 8th, Election Day here in the “land of democracy” [sic], we will see some significant portents as regards the positions of the planets and their relationship to one another.

First of all, it’s the day of a full lunar eclipse which will be visible in North America and will be fully visible in Washington, DC (which is significant) from roughly 3:00 – 6:00 a.m. Lunar eclipses typically act as release valves that loose the tension brought by a solar eclipse that typically anticipates it by two weeks. In this case we will have a partial solar eclipse on October 25th that will be visible in most of Europe (including Ukraine and eastern Russia) and the Middle East. That’s fun. Things may get very tense in that area of the world next week (not that they aren’t already—but just wait).

So that’s one thing.

In addition to this, the Sun and Mercury will be in an exact conjunction (meaning: at the same spot in the sky). Among other things, Mercury rules communication and acts as a triggering mechanism in astrological movements. This by itself is not necessarily a big deal. Mercury is not all that far from the Sun (it is the closest planet after all) so such a conjunction is not all that uncommon, this being the fourth such conjunction this year. The kicker is Uranus, which will be in exact conjunction to the Moon during this eclipse. This means that Sun-Mercury will be in exact opposition to Moon-Uranus. Uranus, which rules electronics, technology, and innovation, is also a bit of a loose cannon: you never know what it’s going to do, but you know it will do something. This is a real “expect the unexpected” deal, and, so, prediction becomes a bit of a challenge. As an aside, last year when Uranus was conjunct my Moon while Saturn squared it, I expected my aged mother, who suffers from advanced vascular dementia, to die (the Moon, among other things, represents the archetypal mother). She didn’t die, though she did get very ill. What happened, however, was that my wife developed rapid-onset uterine cancer, which we suspect was due to shedding from a v@xxed relative. My wife is healthy and cancer-free now, praise God. But I digress.

But wait, there’s more!

Not only will also this action be taking place in the sky, but Saturn also wants to play. Saturn, known as the Greater Malefic to the medieval astrologers, is the cosmic badass, the archetypal father and ruler of authority, structure, stability, and stuff like that. It often represents the father in the horoscope. So, anyway, Saturn will be in square (a ninety-degree angle) to both Sun-Mercury and Moon-Uranus, a configuration known as a T-square. (Another aside: my birth chart is just crummy with these things. I don’t recommend trying this at home.)

Oh, but that’s not weird enough. In addition, the Sun-Mercury conjunction will also be in exact conjunction to the fixed star Zubenelgenubi, one of the scales of justice in the sign of Libra (though some astrologers think of as one malevolent motherscratcher).

The take-home: though Uranus acts as a bit of a wildcard here, I can imagine there will be weird stuff happening with voting machines or even power outages (Uranus triggered by the energy of the Moon and Mercury), though I think Saturn will act as a check to this getting too out of hand. Does this mean State power will intervene? Or does it mean that tradition will prevail? Those are important questions, because I think this is precisely what is at stake in this election. Whatever the case, I think it is very possible there will probably be some potentially violent (and without a doubt emotional) protests or other kinds of (almost) spontaneous eruptions (definitely the right word) on November 8th. You probably don’t need astrology to predict that. But, because of Saturn’s role, I would guess that a conservative victory is coming. I could be wrong, of course, but that seems to be what the stars are saying.

One more thing.

November 8th is an important day on the liturgical calendar of the Eastern churches: The Feast of St. Michael the Archangel and All the Bodiless Powers of Heaven. THIS. IS. BIG. Valentin Tomberg calls St. Michael “the Archistrategist,” and even identifies Tuesday as the day of the week under his rulership and, in keeping with Hermetic tradition, associates him as the representative of the Sun. This gives me tremendous hope. But don’t kid yourself: we really are in a battle between good and evil. And St. Michael, Commander of the Heavenly Hosts, is on the job.

But things are still gonna get weird, at least for a little while.

Michael’s latest book is Sophia in Exile. He can be reached at director@thecenterforsophiologicalstudies.com See also The Center for Sophiological Studies' available courses. Also check out the latest volume of Jesus the Imagination: Flesh & Spirit. Twitter: @Sophiologist_

Michaelmas and the Battle Against Evil

"The Vision and Inspiration" by Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel

“Michael is interpreted as meaning ‘Who is like God?’ and it is said that when something requiring wondrous powers is to be done, Michael is sent, so that from his name and by his action it is given to be understood that no one can do what God alone can do: for that reason many works of wondrous power are attributed to Michael. Thus, as Daniel testifies, in the time of the Antichrist Michael will rise up and stand forth as defender and protector of the elect. He it was who fought with the dragon and his angels and expelled them from heaven, winning a great victory. He fought with the devil over the body of Moses, because the devil wanted to keep the body hidden so that the Jewish people might adore Moses in the place of the true God. Michael receives the souls of the saints and leads them into the paradise of joy. In the past he was prince of the synagogue but has now been established by the Lord as prince of the Church. It is said that it was he who inflicted the plagues on the Egyptians, divided the Red Sea, led the people through the desert, and ushered them into the Promised Land. He is held to be Christ’s standard-bearer among the battalions of holy angels. At the Lord’s command he will kill the Antichrist with great power on Mount Olivet. At the sound of the voice of the archangel Michael the dead will rise, and it is he who will present the cross, the nails, the spear, and the crown of thorns at the Day of Judgment.” ~ from Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend [1]

Ever since my days as a Waldorf teacher, the festival of Michaelmas has held a special place in my heart as well as in my family’s celebration of the Christian Year. At the Waldorf school where I once taught, the children form the “body” of the dragon, partially hidden under various interpretations of “dragon skin” made from bed-sheets and, led by a student wearing the dragon’s “head” (some sort of headdress) process around the precincts of the schoolyard until they meet St. Michael (usually a community member in angelic swag) who then transforms the beast. I’m not sure if all Waldorf schools still do this, as they have become increasingly allergic to anything remotely Christian (and, I am sad to report, most Waldorf teachers these days only have a superficial familiarity with the work of Rudolf Steiner), but my family has carried on the tradition at Stella Matutina Farm, the place where we reside, for the last six years. A wonderful community of people join us, and our celebration gets bigger every year.

Our celebrations have a very medieval folk-Christian/pagan vibe to them, as not only do we have St. Michael and the Dragon but we also feast and make merry, often with mead or metheglin I have made—with the help of my bees!—on the menu. My younger children look forward to it for weeks.

Michaelmas at Stella Matutina Farm, 2019

But conviviality is not the only thing we celebrate at Michaelmas; we also celebrate the intersection of the Church year with cosmic realities.

Rudolf Steiner paints a beautiful imagination of this reality. For Steiner, the cosmos (the Creation, that is) speaks to us, but only if we have ears to listen and eyes to see. As he points out, Michaelmas—as well as the harvests that accompany it in the northern hemisphere—is anticipated in the Perseid meteor showers (Perseus another great fighter of monsters) that occur in late July and August. For Steiner, this symbolizes St. Michael’s victory over Satan and his angels as well as the introduction of meteoric iron into the atmosphere that can steel the resolve of perceptive individuals attentive to what happens on both heaven and earth. “If,” Steiner says,

“a man enters thus into the enjoyment of nature, the consciousness of nature, but then also awakens in himself an autumnal self-consciousness, then the picture of Michael with the dragon will stand majestically before him, revealing in picture-form the overcoming of nature-consciousness by self-consciousness when autumn draws near. This will come about if man can experience not only an inner spring and summer, but also a dying, death-bringing autumn and winter. Then it will be possible for the picture of Michael with the dragon to appear again as a powerful Imagination, summoning man to inner activity.” [2]

This Michaelic strength can be seen politically as well. St. Joan of Arc, to cite a famous example, was directed by St. Michael to save France from the corruption of the Burgundian machinations with England that oppressed French sovereignty. At her trial, her interrogators asked whether God hated the English. “She said that as to love or hate that God had for the English, or what He would do for their souls, she knows nothing; but she is well assured that they will be driven out of France, except those who die there; and that God will send the French victory over the English.” [3]

Joan was an illiterate peasant girl (only nineteen at her death), a “useless eater” as some would say. That she fearlessly confronted the amassed power of the medieval Catholic Church without so much as quaking is evidence of Michaelic iron in action, echoed recently by an army of construction workers in Australia.

Michael’s battle with the Dragon is always already happening. Again Steiner:

“Then men will come to understand these things, to reflect on them with understanding, and they will bring mind and feeling and will to meet the autumn in the course of the year. Then at the beginning of autumn, at the Michael Festival, the picture of Michael with the Dragon will confront man as a stark challenge, a strong spur to action, which must work on men in the midst of the events of our times. And then we shall understand how it points symbolically to something in which the whole destiny—perhaps indeed the tragedy—or our epoch is being played out.” [4]

As I’ve mentioned before, the Celtic churches had a deep reverence for St. Michael, and invoked his protection with startling regularity:

“I beseech you by the tenth order on the compact earth; I beseech praiseworthy Michael to help me against demons.

“I beseech the people of heaven with bright-armed Michael; I beseech you by the triad of wind, sun, and moon.” [5]

The “tenth order” mentioned above has another name: mankind.

It is my profound hope that the Feast of St. Michael will become more and more richly and enthusiastically observed in this post-Christian epoch. For his moment, as always, is now. Invoke his aid, and fear not.

Michael’s latest books are an edition of The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz and Transfiguration: Notes toward a Radical Catholic Reimagination of Everything. He can be reached at director@thecenterforsophiologicalstudies.com See also The Center for Sophiological Studies' available courses. Also check out the latest volume of Jesus the Imagination: The Divine Feminine. Watch for his Sophia in Exile, due momently from Angelico Press.

1. Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton, 1993), 2 volumes.

2. Rudolf Steiner, The Four Seasons and the Archangels (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1984), 15.

3. The Trial of Joan of Arc, trans. W. S. Scott (Associated Booksellers, 1956), 123.

4. Rudolf Steiner, The Four Seasons and the Archangels, 21.

5. From “The Litany of Creation” in Celtic Spirituality, ed. Davies and O’Loughlin (Paulist Press, 1999), 298.

The Vulnerable and the Powerful

There are lots of ways in which one could describe the cultural metamorphoses of the past year. “The Year of Plague,” for example, or “The Rise of the Archons” (much more accurate than “The Great reset”) would be good choices, though I also find delight in calling it “The Revenge of the Nerd in the Pastel Sweater.” But I think the most accurate description would be to call this “The Time of the Vulnerable and the Powerful.”

That might seem pretty simple and straightforward, but it’s not. Since the beginning of lockdowns and various mandates and restrictions, I have been more concerned about the threats to working people and the working poor than I have been about the threat or spread of illness. Not that I’m not unconcerned about illness. My eighty-four-year-old mother, a vulnerable though scrappy auburn-haired Irishwoman who suffers from dementia, lives with me and I was concerned early on that she might get ill. Thankfully, she hasn’t—not even a cold—but living on a farm, eating organic food, drinking clean water, and being around children with sketchy hand-washing habits all the time seems to have bolstered her immune system. When she was in a nursing home before she moved in with us six years ago, she was ill all the time and in the hospital almost quarterly—the caretakers thought she’d die within months under our “unprofessional care.” It’s more than possible that she would have died, of loneliness if not illness, had she still been in the hands of “the professionals” over the past year. But I have also seen friends and family members profoundly impacted, if not permanently damaged (time will tell), from the psychological ramifications of the past year’s events. This is to say nothing of the countless numbers of people who lost businesses (my favorite music store in a nearby town not the least among them) or livelihoods due to the issue of our times.

I know many people, dedicated people of all faiths among them, who know we have a mandate to protect the vulnerable and the powerless. Psalm 82 is explicit about this mandate, employing the imperative tense:

Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.

Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.

They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness:

all the foundations of the earth are out of course. (3-5)

All the foundations of the earth are out of course.

What bothers me, though, is how this desire to protect the vulnerable has resulted in the surrender of the wills and intellects of so many to the dictates of governments, NGOs, and other professional international bodies and authorities. The result is that many who profess a concern for the vulnerable now look as though their real allegiance is with the powerful. And don’t think the powerful haven’t noticed. We all know about the great transfer of wealth (bottom to top) that occurred over the past year. But people seem to be okay with that in order to have the illusion of safety. They might grouse, of course, do a little social media posturing, but nobody seems to care enough to act against, or at least to resist, the ever-increasing power and insatiable appetites of the archons.

So I guess my problem is that I don’t see how giving the powerful more power protects the vulnerable. Shouldn’t the vulnerable be the ones gaining more agency and power? They’re not. And now even those in the middle—not the most vulnerable (though still vulnerable) but lacking in any kind of power—are likewise under threat from the powerful.

For these and other reasons, I prefer a kind of Christian anarchism, similar, but not identical, to that of my Amish neighbors (I write about this in my book Transfiguration) that while it doesn’t completely destroy the concept of power at least dilutes it by distribution—a very communitarian/distributist ethos. We don’t have that. Still, as I have been arguing for a long time, we can inculcate such a sensibility at the micro-level. That is, not by trying to change “The System,” but by changing ourselves and our relationships to the worlds around us.

Power is a tool of Satan (it was what he used to tempt the Master), though people, as they mobilize and think in groups, tend to like the idea of a strong authority. It gives them a feeling of security (how often that word comes up as of late!) The ancient Israelites, looking around the cultures of the Levant, saw that their neighbors had strong kings, and, in their mimetic desire, the Israelites wanted one, too. After their begging and pleading (or, better, whining) Yahweh gave them enough rope to hang themselves, but not without a warning:

“These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.” (1 Samuel 8:11-18)

They hung themselves, and we are pretty much following suit. This is also why I think those Catholic traddies out there styling themselves “monarchists” (particularly those in the New World) are completely full of you-know-what and cling to their bogus idea of “Christendom” out of an impoverished notion of what it means to be a Christian. Jesus didn’t come as a king. His kingdom is not of this world (and by “this world,” please don’t make the mistake of thinking he meant the created world—he was talking about the realm of Satan and those in league with him to gain control over the vulnerable and everything else. I’m sure you can find fitting examples in your social media feed). People have often asked me over this past strange year what we should do. In fact, I hear from people on this topic almost daily. To quote J.C. Crawford’s legendary introduction to the MC5 on their classic album Kick out the Jams (I am from Detroit, after all), “The time has come for each and every one of you to decide, whether you are gonna be the problem, or whether you are gonna be the solution.” You must choose, brothers and sisters, you must choose.

But I don’t think this is a political problem at all (politics, actually is the problem). As my beloved Simone Weil observed, “It is not religion but revolution that is the opium of the people.” Ours is a spiritual problem, and a pressing one at that. This kind can only be cast out by prayer.

It is in this register that I believe the invocation of St. Michael the Archangel, called by Valentin Tomberg “the Archistrategist,” is more than appropriate at our moment. The Celtic tradition relied upon the intercession of the archangel, as in these lines from the Welsh “Litany of Creation”:

I beseech you by the tenth order on the compact earth. I beseech praiseworthy Michael to help me against demons.

Together with Michael, I beseech you by land and by sea unceasingly; I beseech you respectfully by every quality of God the Father.

I beseech you, O Lord, by the suffering of your body, white with fasting; I beseech you by the contemplative life, I beseech you by the active life.

I beseech the people of heaven, with Michael, for my soul; I beseech the saints of the world to help me on earth.

I beseech the people of heaven with bright-armed Michael; I beseech you by the triad of wind, sun, and moon.

Note the yoking of the contemplative and active lives.

Another useful prayer is the Byzantine Akathist to Michael the Archangel. We prayed this prior to one Michaelmas festival in our barn a couple years ago. It is intense. Here’s a passage:

“Standing before the Throne of God, O Archangel Michael, you are entirely in the heights and yet you are not far from men and women below on the earth. You ever fight against the enemies of mankind’s salvation. It is fitting, for all who wish to reach the long-desired homeland of Heaven, to call on you with one accord:

“Hail, leader of the thrice-holy hymn of the angels.

Hail, ever-ready advocate and guardian of those on earth.

Hail, mighty defender of those who speak truth and live by mercy.

Hail, for in a strange manner, you struck down Pharaoh with his faithless Egyptians in their ponderous pride.

Hail, for you gloriously led the Jews in their wandering through the wilderness.

Hail, for you quenched the flame of the fiery furnace of Babylon for the three youths.

Hail, Michael, Supreme Commander with all the hosts of Heaven.”

There are other prayers, of course. Besides Psalm 82, there are also St. Patrick’s Breastplate and, obviously, the secret weapon of the rosary—and many others. If you want to align yourself with power, this is the place to look, not to archons growing fat and rich on your fear.

Fear, to speak plainly, is a luxury of the faithless and if unchecked it only spreads like a cancer. As you can no doubt see, it has metastasized all over the planet. But this is not a luxury the Christian can afford. We cannot avoid that messengers of Satan will torment us, with fear as much as disease; it is part of the human condition this side of the Parousia. Saint Paul found this out through experience, not theory:

“...I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

We are all vulnerable, praise God. So take up your armor of light.

Michael’s latest books are an edition of The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz and Transfiguration: Notes toward a Radical Catholic Reimagination of Everything. He can be reached at director@thecenterforsophiologicalstudies.com See also The Center for Sophiological Studies' available courses. Also check out the latest volume of Jesus the Imagination: The Garden.