We are at a turning point in history, a juncture where many different possible futures open up for us. No longer is our future a more or less linear outcome of the past. Prediction now will only limit us. Even astrology will fail us if we look to the past to understand the future.
All of the political, social, technological, and economic structures on Earth are being completely transformed. A whole new order is emerging that will shape the next chapter of humanity. Economic projection is senseless now. Even our minds and worldviews are transforming.
This moment holds great responsibility. Our choices now determine our future, and we all have a role to play. There are many possibilities, and many different agendas. Different people and different powers are pushing for different outcomes.
Which policies will be enacted and whose interests will they serve? We might create a future that is more caring and community-minded, with better social services, and opportunities. There is also a possibility of creating a social dystopia where our every behaviour is tracked and nudged toward higher productivity and profit.
This blog may not be for everyone. This blog is an exploration of some of the worst possibilities on the table right now. We need to be aware of the direction not to go in order to not go there. We need to know that one road leads us over a cliff in order not to take it. But if you know yourself, and know you are prone to fear, or fixating on the worst possibilities, and know that you don’t right now have the capacity for facing that without losing your grounding, then you might choose to skip to the last section. We all have different dispositions, capacities, and roles to play.
It’s important that we don’t give all our energy to the vision we don’t want. Our attention and fear will only feed it and make it more likely. And at the same time, if we don’t understand the implications of some of the policies and plans that are being proposed, we might be hoodwinked. There are some people who do not have our best interests at heart. And they have great marketing teams. So we need to understand just what the different proposals and visions for the new era imply.
But let’s also keep in mind that the plans are just plans. This is the first breath of this new era. Nothing has been set in place just yet. The future is unknown. I actually don’t think the worst is likely at all. I believe wholeheartedly that humanity is at the brink of a beautiful transformation, that we will create a world that honours the inherent worth and equality of everyone, that sees the importance of community, that honours our interconnectivity and interdependence. But that won’t happen without our participation.
There are many competing agendas, and many of them are beautiful. There are people with heart in every sphere, in every discipline, and career. There are good people in positions of power. And each of us is more powerful than we may realize. Humanity is awakening. The bleakest timeline is losing power by the second. I truly believe we will overcome the corruption and power dynamics that have defined this last era of brutality, trauma, and enslavement.
But I think that some of us are meant to contribute by facing the worst possibilities and integrating the understanding of what some few people intend for us. As we process the reality of certain dystopic plans that are on the table, as we digest the fear that arises and energetically transform it by coming back to love and the certainty of a more beautiful future that we will create, we can deflate the power of the worst possibilities that comes from their secrecy. For some of us, it is our work to stare in the face of evil with love in our hearts. For some of us, it is our work to see with clarity the dystopic road that some people intend to lead us down so that we can, with resolution, walk another way. (This is probably especially true for people with strong Aries or Scorpio placements, or with prominent Mars or Pluto in their charts).
Did you ever watch Community? Remember the episode where Jeff doesn’t want to get the pizza so he rolls a die to see who will, thereby splitting the timeline into different possibilities. The darkest timeline continues to haunt them until they eventually overcome it in a later episode. Well, consider this blog the darkest timeline episode. It’s just one possibility. And to the extent that we are aware of it we have more power to pour our energy into other possibilities.
Speaking of community, that is one of the most significant themes for the year. One way or another, we’ll make it through together. Like the crows that fly home together every evening.
First, the astrological big-picture.
Saturn-Pluto & Saturn-Jupiter (2020)
While both the Saturn-Pluto and the Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions occurred in 2020, they define the new era. They continue to be the dominant astrological themes even in 2021. The astrology of 2021 might best be understood in the context of these alignments.
Saturn-Pluto conjunctions (2020) occur approximately every 30-40 years, and almost always coincide with some version of fascism, as well as the opportunity to evolve. Perhaps the last era defined by Saturn-Pluto was neoliberalism, tied to repressive military regimes in many parts of the world and a market logic that left out social concerns altogether. This period saw a drastic increase in wealth inequality.
We are at a point of revolution. Everything is changing. But the question is: who’s revolution will it be? Will this period see a deeper entrenchment of capitalism, an extreme version of neoliberalism that secures more power and control for those who already have it? Or will we take our power back?
Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions occur every 20 years and signal transitions in the structures of power. The last conjunction occurred in 2000, and the next year, when Saturn and Pluto were opposed, was 9/11 which paved the way for the Patriot Act and increased surveillance around the world. The shadow potential of this new era defined by Saturn, Pluto, and Jupiter is Technocracy. Power and control through technology and surveillance of a whole new order.
America’s Pluto Return
Some of these themes are likely to be especially potent in The United Sates since it’s undergoing it’s Pluto Return (Pluto is approaching the same degree it was at when the Declaration of Independence was signed). The Pluto return is already underway but will be especially prominent from February 2021-January 2024 (when Pluto first gets within 2 degrees, and last exists the 2-degree range). Exact conjunctions are: February 20th 2022, July 11th 2022, and December 28th 2022).
The Pluto return signifies a period of turmoil. A period in which corruption, scandals, and secrets are exposed. It’s about facing the shadow that had been there all along but had been under the surface. It’s a period of destabilization, chaos, destruction, and complete transformation. It is death and rebirth. There may be a tendency toward projection—seeking the enemy outside, rather than grappling with internal issues. There will likely be great difficult and suffering (we already see it), and also transformation and evolution.
Gemini-Sagittarius Eclipse cycle (2021)
With the Eclipse cycles in Sagittarius and Gemini until the end of 2021, we grapple with what is true. Worldview, ideology, belief, paradigm, dogmatism, mind-control, and conspiracy are some of the themes. The south node in Sagittarius calls on us to examine our assumptions, question our worldview, and finally, to let go of what we thought we knew.
None of us have privileged access to the truth. Worldview evolves. We may forget that our thinking is a way of framing, a way of organizing information, a network of narratives that enabled us to navigate the world. We become accustomed to the world in which we live and we take it as reality.
But reality is infinite. How could it possibly be grasped in entirety with our finite minds? We do well enough, perhaps, with our stories, our narratives, our sciences. But they can’t ever be complete or final. When the landscape changes, when we receive more information, when we are prepared to grasp greater complexity, there comes a time to update our picture of things.
One of the biggest issues facing us right now is the polarization of ideology. I think we have to transcend right vs left thinking. For example, there is a dominant narrative on the left that Trump supporters are stupid. With all due respect, that mentality makes the situation worse. From the perspective of the right, you sound like elitist snobs. I think a more helpful way to look at it is: what caused the vacuum that made way for Trump supporters to begin with? What is the more intelligent movement underlying the more obvious and seemingly stupid melodrama on the surface?
Uranus-Saturn Squares (2021 and 2022)
We will see a series of three square aspects between Saturn and Uranus during 2021 (Feb 17th, June 14th, Dec 23rd), and the planets will be close to square through 2022. This represents a clash between a revolutionary and a conservative impulse, between the impulse to control, and the fight for freedom, between solidifying structures and breaking them, between the new and the old, between those who have traditionally held power, and the inherent power of the people. There is likely to be financial instabilities, social unrest, and turbulent weather. The financial system (Taurus) will likely be completely overhauled (Uranus), through blockchain technology (probably), affecting markets and banking and how we even think of money.
Square aspects invite us to integrate two energies that seem to be at odds. The inclination is usually to identify with one energy and to project the other outside of us. When we do this, we become bandied about by what we’ve disowned, at the whim of forces outside of us. To regain power, we need to understand how to channel and integrate both energies within us.
It is time to innovate the structures of our societies and our lives. But we need structure. We won’t build a new world by tearing everything down, but by understanding how the structures of the past live within us, in the deepest recesses of our minds and hearts, in our language, our assumptions, and our behaviours. By bringing consciousness to the structures that exist, we transform them and use them as tools, rather than ripping everything apart.
It’s only through a respect for our histories, and acknowledgement of the harms and traumas as well as the gifts and achievements of the past that we may move forward. Change is only possible when we are aware of what is. The past and the future exist here in the present. The future is determined by how we hold ourselves now.
Saturn-Uranus suggests the elaboration of networks. But what form will this take? Will it be a web of control? Or will it be a recognition for the inherent interconnectivity between all life everywhere which implies taking responsibility for our role in the network. Will technology manipulate us, or will we use it as a tool? Will our new world be one of the tyranny of community? Control through social pressure and conformity and the erasure of autonomy? Or will it be one of equality, humanity, people power, and diversity? True community honours individuality and recognizes that we are only resilient to the extent that we are diverse.
Another theme that is likely to correlate to this aspect, as well as Uranus in Taurus more generally (until 2026) is technological interventions into nature, the blurring of boundaries between technology and nature. Let’s just remember that we get to choose how we use technology. There is nothing inevitable about the evolution of technology. We don’t have to become cyborgs, resistance is not futile. Remember your individual autonomy and approach community with your selfhood intact.
Toxicity and contamination may become more of a focus as we recognize more and more the extent to which our health is already impacted by toxins in our food and water, and the impact of EMF radiation. We will be attending more and more to cleaning up the Earth and the Air and detoxing our bodies. Some ways to begin working with this: eating simple and fresh foods, fasting, sweating (saunas, exercise, steam rooms), acupuncture, yoga (or other modalities that cleans the subtle body), taking breaks from screens and the internet (getting away from wireless networks if possible), bringing more attention to your information diet (what media, energy, conversation are you ingesting), etc. I think we will see more community-based efforts to clean up our environment.
Saturn-Uranus will be highly activated in late January and February 2021 as Mercury, the Sun, and then Venus join Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius, and square Mars and Uranus in Taurus. I think this is the period when many of the themes I discuss in this blog will become more apparent. Aquarian themes in general will be highly emphasized in this period: technology, community, network, disclosures, activism.
Mars Activations
These themes will be brought to the surface especially when Mars makes hard aspects to the above planets or points (conjunction, square, opposition). Mars entered Taurus on January 6th, approaching a conjunction to Uranus and square to Saturn (so activating the Uranus-Saturn square); the same day Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. (The Moon was also square Pluto and approaching an opposition Mars and Uranus, forming a T-Square on that day. Pluto transits are especially relevant for the Unites States in the coming years since Pluto is conjunct Pluto in the American chart).
Mars square Saturn is exact January 13th, Uranus stations direct on the 14th (amplifying Uranian themes), the Sun conjuncts Pluto on the 14th as well (bringing issues of power, corruption, violence, destruction, transformation to the surface). And then Mars conjunct Uranus is exact on January 20th. So, these next few days are ones to pay attention to. Let’s see how these themes play out. And let’s do the powerful work of finding our own grounding and centre, of holding the energy of love and our vision for the future, while the world undergoes its turbulences.
Mars opposes Pluto in early June; opposes Saturn and squares Uranus in late June/early July (forming a T-Square); squares Pluto in late Octobers; opposes Uranus and squares Saturn in mid-November. There are plenty of other important alignments, of course. But these are the ones that are likely to amplify or aggravate the Pluto (corruption, destruction, transformation), and Saturn-Uranus (above) themes.
There are many beautiful moments this year as well, and I’m sorry for focusing on the difficult stuff right now. The extremely oversimplified way of putting it is that the rest of the year will be relatively easier, in terms of the collective energy (individually, it will be different, of course).
Empire is Not a Theory
Historically, times of crisis have served as opportunities for the powerful to garner more power. Naiomi Klein documented this in The Shock Doctrine. There is no reason to think they won’t attempt to do so this time around as well.
But this time the stakes are higher. This time, the crisis is global. This time the fate of all of humanity and Earth itself and even our very souls are on the line. If we don’t participate, we leave it up to others to decide our fate.
We all know that a tiny fraction of the world’s population owns the vast majority of wealth and power. But our brains just can’t grapple with numbers like billions and trillions. So even if we know this fact, most of us don’t fully appreciate its magnitude. Please look at this graphic; it makes the discrepancy between the super rich and the rest of us more clear than words and numbers can.
It’s important to appreciate the vast discrepancy between the super rich and the ordinary rich. We think millionaires are rich. But even millionaires have merely a tiny fraction of what the world’s richest few thousand have. Jeff Bezoz is a good example because he’s a public figure. But that’s also why he’s not a good example. Most of the super rich are people we’ve never heard of.
Is there necessarily a connection between wealth and Empire? Some people might say that our current systems work in their favour by accident. That wealth inequality is incidental to our systems and structures. Some people might say it’s a conspiracy theory to suggest that the super rich manipulate political and economic systems in their favour.
But is it really so hard to imagine that the wealthy would seek to maintain and increase their wealth? Most people are self-interested, at least to some extent. Maybe the wealthy don’t see their influence as Empire. Maybe they think they deserve to have so much more than everyone else and that it’s their right to exert their power in the world. Very likely, they see themselves as doing good. But whether or not they see it as Empire, that’s what it is. How else can we possibly describe a system in which a very small number of people own nearly everything?
Let’s agree that most conspiracy theories are false, especially those that receive the most air time. But it wouldn’t be logical to conclude from that there exist no conspiracies whatsoever. There are many theories that aren’t true. But conspiracy itself is not a theory. It’s history.
I’m not going to attempt to review the history, as I am far from a historian. But if you don’t know what I mean, please listen to this lecture by the political scientist Michael Parentti who very coherently covers the history of conspiracy and addresses this question of to what extent the super rich manipulate global political and economic structures in their favour.
Philanthropy isn’t reason to believe that the wealthy are benevolent. Once we grasp the enormity of the disparity between the super rich and the rest of us (again, check out the graphic), it becomes clear that their philanthropy is equivalent to you or I giving away some loose change. It’s a drop in the bucket for them. The problem isn’t a lack of philanthropy; it’s a structure in which some people are allowed to have such inordinate wealth in the first place.
Besides, philanthropy is just another way of exerting power. Why should billionaires get to decide which projects are funded? Why should they have the power to influence who has enough to live comfortably, and who not? Why should they get to dictate what organizations will thrive, and which ones will struggle? Why should they determine what research is funded, what science is conducted, what questions are asked? Why should their ideology and values be more important than anyone else’s?
I think it’s important to underline the difference between the vast majority of people, and the very small percentage (.001) who have exceedingly more wealth than we do. There is a very real difference between us and them. That kind of wealth means you have different experiences, different connections, different opportunities, and different worldviews. They see themselves as different from us. So why shouldn’t we?
Some people might be wary of me othering them, of my calling them “them” at all. Maybe on the final analysis, from the highest spiritual perspective, we want to remove any divisions at all, and understand all humanity as one. Fine. But in the name of better understanding reality in a practical sense, some distinctions are required.
I want to suggest that some of us could benefit from shifting the line that we might draw between “us” and “them”. I want to suggest we recategorize who “they” are. We are so fixated on our differences--which are real, and important--but I think we can lose sight of the bigger difference, between us and them.
I’m convinced that we won’t be free unless we can learn to see beyond our differences and work together for our common interests. It only serves the elite when we focus on the differences between us rather than the more important difference: between us and them.
None of this is to dismiss structural oppression and the really important structural analyses that help us understand how power operates. The differences between us do matter. Our positionality does matter. Identity politics has a place. I just think we can so easily lose sight of the biggest difference in our focus on the smaller ones.
None of this is to dismiss the ways that people participate in oppression. But I think we participate in oppression to the extent that we embody Empire. Because Empire works in and through us. Empire masterfully employs ideology so that we don’t even realize we are complicit with it. So what if we collectively turned our attention to Empire, rather than fighting amongst ourselves which only serves to further entrench the system?
Image by Esteban Arboleda Bermudez
Conspiracy Pitfalls and Ideology All Around
If we are courageous enough to consider alternatives to the mainstream narrative, we are in uncharted territory and it’s easy to get lost. Awareness of Empire can lead to paranoia. It can lead to jumping to conclusions. It can lead to connecting dots where there are no connections. There is a lot of wacky thinking in conspiracy theory land.
There’s a very prevalent pattern of thought (especially among Liberals and some on the Left) that sees the absurdity of much conspiracy theory culture and so concludes that any mention of conspiracy must also be absurd. But it’s just as illogical to conclude that no conspiracies exist as it is to think that every wild theory is true.
So much of our thinking is based on culture and affiliation and identity politics rather than on research or study or analysis or critical thinking. Some ideas seem associated with politics that differ from ours so we write them off. It saves us the trouble of seriously looking into things.
We are social beings. Our belonging to a group is necessary to our survival. Our belonging depends on our beliefs, attitudes, worldview. It’s usually unconscious. If our friends and acquaintances tend to think a certain way, we are likely to think that way too.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to belong. But if it prevents us from having conversations with people who are differ from us, or from considering new ideas, or from challenging our own biases and assumptions, we’ll get into serious trouble. I think this is a really serious issue right now, one that literally threatens our survival. We habitually refuse to even engage with certain lines of thought because we’ve associated them with “the other”.
I say all of this because some of the ideas I discuss might at first sound like conspiracy theory and I’m hoping you won’t turn away because of that. Because actually very little of what I discuss is theoretical. I’ve taken pains to provide evidence, and to not jump to any conclusions. Change is happening so quickly that so much of what we are living through sounds like science fiction, which makes it easy to dismiss. But so much science fiction isn’t fiction anymore.
Plans for the future are well underway under the banners of The Great Reset and The Fourth Industrial Revolution. We don’t know how these plans will take shape. There are many competing agendas. One of the pitfalls of conspiracy thinking is the fixation on one agenda, the darkest one, and the blind certainty in its truth. There are good people in all realms, even banking and politics and the military and business. But we should still be wary of the influence of Empire. Who will be served by these new structures being planned? Let’s avoid conspiracy theory thinking but also avoid the naivety that would turn a blind eye to the interests of the powerful.
The Expansion of Markets: The Commodification of Nature, Increased Data Mining, and Human Capital
Capitalism is the current form of Empire. The problem is that capitalism requires growth and profit. The problem is the pressure for increased commodification at any cost. We know well that the climate crisis is spurred by the insane growth requirement built into our current economic model. The logical conclusion of the current structures is total destruction of life on Earth.
Many seem to have a hard time imagining beyond capitalism. We keep trying to fix the system from within it, when the system itself is the problem. We seem to think communism or socialism are the only alternatives. But we can’t go back to the past to create the future. (Also please respect that communism was deeply traumatic for many people, so insisting on it is just plain disrespectful. You don’t get around the pain that people feel by arguing that communism could be different.) We don’t need to know what the future system will be called. We just need to open up our imaginations. We don’t need to see the future with specificity. We just need to believe in the possibility of transformation.
There is pressure to maintain capitalism by those who benefit from it. Given the requirement for growth, and given that many markets are saturated, there is a push to develop new markets. These include human capital, nature itself, and the expansion of data collection. Nothing about this is theoretical. It’s in the works.
Zukerberg is funding the expansion of internet access in Africa, which equals an expansion of human data for profit. Of course, it’s billed as good for the people, but with enormous profits to be gained we should be wary. Let’s sort out economic oppression and the lack of clean drinking water first please.
Nature itself is increasingly being commodified. There is currently a battle for the ownership of our DNA (which is called “dual-use”, a euphemism which means that DNA technologies are used for both medicine and bioweapons.) And as of a few weeks ago, water is now being traded as a commodity for the first time. Now water itself is officially owned.
How far will this go?
Vaccine bonds represent a hot new market as well. Apparently the COVID vaccines will be required regularly meaning there is inordinate profit to be made. (Vaccines should definitely be publicly funded. The bias that enters into the creation and rollout of vaccines due to corporate interest is alarming. Science too has been co-opted by Empire. I “believe” in science and I think most scientists are good people doing honest work. But the funding structure has compromised science immensely through no fault of scientists--in the pressure to publish, the pressure to find positive results, in skewing what questions are asked and what research is funded.)
But one of the most significant and difficult to understand new emerging markets is that of human capital.
Human Capital Bonds
Human capital used to be called labour. But, like everything else, it’s been rebranded. It basically means the talent, skills, and knowledge that workers possess that increase profits for their employers and investors. It has been around in some form for as long as capitalism has. But the concept is being revolutionized right now as a way to fund the transition to a new economy.
It’s becoming a way to capitalize on, rather than pay for social services. Human capital used to be seen as something a company would invest in, through, say, paying for their employees to undergo further training or education. But now Human Capital Bonds are being created as a way to pay for public services. Several such programs have been in experimental phases for over a decade.
That might sound good. We need a way to pay for public services. But the problem is that it’s a financial structure that essentially offsets the cost of public services onto the poorest people, while the richest people actually profit from it. It’s an alternative to social services being funded through taxation. Taxation is a means of redressing the injustice of wealth inequality. It’s a gentle way of redistributing wealth. Human Capital Bonds, on the other hand, will exaggerate wealth inequality.
The idea is this: bonds are created that fund public services as well as NGOs. The outcome of those public services and organizations are tracked. Outcome here means specifically the extent to which the people who receive those public services eventually contribute to the economy. Public service programs must borrow money for their programs, and only later receive payment to pay back their loans if their programs produce profits: “service providers get paid only if, and not until, outcomes are substantiated” (Rothshchild, 2020).
This means programs that don’t lead to profits won’t receive funding. Will libraries or Indigenous led organizations, or arts organizations receive funding under such a model? Will education for the sake of education receive funding? To an even greater extent than is already true, education, by necessity (in order to secure funding), will become about producing productive workers rather than critically thinking, intelligent people capable of understanding the system that exploits them.
Education will be evaluated according to the extent that it produces profitable workers. Programs are funded only if they can be shown to produce profits for investors. Any programs that aren’t tied to profit won’t receive funding. This (further) incentivizes education that produces compliant and productive workers rather than intelligent and self-actualized humans. It incentivizes education that doesn't truly educate, for intelligent, critical thinking people aren’t as compliant, and they are more likely to see the injustice and exploitation of the system that capitalizes on their labour. This wouldn’t have to be spelled out or explicit, it would just be a consequence of tying education funding to profit.
The same logic would apply to public housing, addiction services, counselling programs, healthcare, and so on. All that matters in this model is profit (where, of course, most of those profits are for the investors). I think this quote from Rothschild’s description of these bonds is telling: “Is the model workable from all points of view—service providers, government, and investors?” All points of view doesn’t include the point of view of the people for whom these services are purportedly for. In other words, social services would no longer be for the people who undergo them at all--their perspective is entirely left out.
It also may create incentives for unemployment and addiction and incarceration and other social issues since some people stand to profit from them even more than they already do (in the same way that the corporatization of healthcare incentivizes illness).
With smart technology and AI and automation it becomes possible to track behaviours and outcomes like never before. This opens the possibility to track in more tangible ways just how much human capital someone has. The infrastructure of surveillance and tracking could be employed to correlate micro behaviours to the likelihood of long term contribution to the market.
With education going more and more online, it becomes possible to collect enormous data and to easily incentivize certain behaviours through gamification. If profit is the measure by which game algorithms are optimized (which it necessarily would be under this model), that means that children could be trained from a very young age to behave in ways that will increase profits down the road. Education would become solely about training conformity to the system and becomes completely detached from knowledge, critical thinking, intelligence, or self-actualization.
Profit isn’t really profit. The word itself has come to mean something else, like so many of our words. Profit means that the rich will make money. Profit means that the wealth gap will increase. Profit means the continued exploitation of Earth and people. Profit means the destruction of our communities. None of us--not even the super rich--truly profit from profit.
You might listen to this conversation between Charles Einsenstein and Indigenous rights activist Galina Angarova. She tells a story about growing up on the land with her clan in Siberia. And how they were considered poor by all economic measures, but how they were truly rich. They produced most of their own food and lived with the land. With economic development, as her community became wealthier by economic standards, they lost their true wealth. Their community was destroyed. Many of their traditions were lost. Fewer people speak their language. Elders from her community have turned to alcohol.
We can’t extract ourselves from colonialism, from the climate crisis, from economic injustices, unless we extract ourselves from the mindset that measures everything according to profit. We are hooked into this system because we have needed money to survive in this world, so it seems like our only choice is to play the game. But it is killing us. So our survival now depends on overhauling the system completely.
Universal Basic Income and Social Support
I’m all for Universal Basic Income, but we have to be wary of how it could be used to transition to an automated society where workers become redundant. This would increase profits for the wealthy because they wouldn’t have to pay employees, they would only have to pay the pittance of UBI, which they are inclined to do in order to avoid civil unrest. They would then be able to further capitalize on mass unemployment through human capital bonds that coerce people into training and educational tracks that will reap greater profits for the wealthy. (Especially programming so that they can work to further automize jobs thereby making more and more jobs redundant).
The question is whose interests are we serving? There are some jobs that we would benefit from automating--jobs that aren’t satisfying to the people who perform them. But there are many jobs that might benefit the super rich to automate, but not the people. Like teaching, for instance. I believe we benefit from human teachers, but the market logic may not see it that way.
The difference between a dystopia built on mass data collection and coercive access to resources and a community-oriented society with supportive social services is actually quite subtle, in some ways. It’s hard to wade through these ideas, because we have to understand the overall structure in order to see how it would play out and whose interests would be served. I believe we are moving toward a global society with immense social benefits. But the way those are structured is everything.
Technocracy, Surveillance, and Biopower
There is a lot of evidence out there about the ways in which social media is intentionally used to manipulate us. This is not something we can resolve through awareness or intentionality. There is no way to “use social media in a non toxic way”. It manipulates us through an expert understanding of psychology, through micro discrepancies that we can’t possibly be aware of. There is nothing theoretical about this.
The use of technology to direct behaviour is called “nudging” and is an intentional tactic to control the behaviour of populations. It’s generally seen as a useful and beneficial way to achieve desired outcomes and achieve compliance. This means of control is a sort of blueprint for a much more extensive network of control that is explicitly being planned if we don’t demand otherwise.
There is nothing inherently wrong with AI, but if its algorithms are aligned to capitalism, set to maximize profit, as they currently are, then humanity will be manipulated at any cost. Our addictions and fears and vanities are already used against us in order to benefit a few while destroying civil society and the Earth. This will be amplified by orders of magnitude with the rollout of The Internet of Things.
The infrastructure to enable a drastic increase in interconnectivity and data collection is well underway. All of it is undergirded by 5G. 5G doesn’t cause COVID. But its health effects have not been studied. So we have to at least acknowledge that we are all unconsenting participants in a grand experiment. It’s not alarmist to question the health effects of wireless. The most extensive study conducted by the US National Toxicology program found “clear evidence of an association with tumours in the hearts of male rats” from exposure to the normal levels of radio frequency radiation emitted by cell phones using 2G and 3G.
Perhaps more concerning though is the vision for what 5G would enable: “The Internet of Things”, “The Internet of Bodies”, “The Internet of Humans”. This is a vision and plan for a world in which all our things and movements and behaviours and choices would be hooked into the network, and data could be sourced from nearly every realm of life. (If facebook is making a few people filthy rich from mining our data, just imagine.)
I think we need to understand the internet and social media as public services. We rely on them like we rely on roads. They should be public commodities, in service of people, not profit. They rely on our data, after all. It is so clearly wrong to mine our data, in other words, our attention, for profit while simultaneously playing off our weaknesses, setting us against one another, and manipulating us. Perhaps part of the issue is that the notion that our attention itself--our very consciousness--has become a commodity is so new and hard for us to grapple with.
COVID tracking is useful, but it also facilitates increased surveillance. A new digital passport app has been developed that tracks health records, meaning only people who have received vaccines will be allowed to travel. While there is a need to track health in some fashion, given the unequal access to vaccines, this suggests a near future in which only some people will be allowed to travel.
While certainly not inevitable, there is a possibility that such technology could later be employed to implement a system similar to China’s social credit system. With the rollout of the Internet of Things, nearly all our behaviours can be tracked, and in the wrong hands, that data could be used to facilitate unequal access to banking or education or job opportunities or any other number of essential services.
In China, factors that can negatively affect one’s social rating include playing loud music, eating on public transit, failing to show up for a reservation. A low rating means denial of air and rail travel. A high rating means shorter hospital wait times, better employment opportunities, etc.
Such a system is a reality in China. Digital passports provide the infrastructure that could make it, or similar systems, a reality everywhere if we aren’t careful. There’s an ideology that says it would never happen in the so-called West. But proposals for the micromanagement of behaviour through blockchain technology that track identity and data already exist.
A feasibility project in which blockchain is proposed as a way of tracking and manipulating behaviour including manipulating eating habits by providing more food stamps to people who purchase healthier foods (as measured by tracking spending habits and tying that to access to social benefits). This legitimizes extensive surveillance and behaviour tracking as well as the manipulation behaviour on such a personal and intimate level such as the food we eat.
Because blockchain can be encrypted, privacy is not considered to be a concern. And yet the proposal is that our data could be used to literally manipulate our behaviour to certain ends, in a similar, but much more extreme way, that social media directly impacts our behaviour. Privacy might mean that our identity can’t be stolen by a third party. Privacy might mean that it’s not possible to alter one’s data. But it certainly doesn’t mean that our data and information can’t be used for corporate and state interest.
Taking Our Power Back
The really wild thing about Empire, and capitalism, and the structures of power and control is that none of it is real except to the extent that we say it is. All of it amounts to complex social contracts, to agreements that we make together in order to organize humanity. It is only real because we agree to it. It only works because of our cooperation.
We’ve been under a spell and we break it by seeing it for what it is. The ruse has been maintained through coercion and force, yes, but even more so, on a deeper level, through what we take to be unquestionably true. Even our world is manipulated by Empire. Our psychology has been used against us. We’ve bought into this system that controls us.
We literally have all the power. It’s up to us to decide whether or not we agree. For this reason, our awareness of these structures is the single most important factor in our ability to take our power back. One of the problems with conspiracy theory thinking is that it tends to fixate on the darkest possibilities and empowers those possibilities by that act. We need to be aware of shadow potentials without making them true by giving them all our energy. Our fear of them only makes them more likely.
Empire works in and through us. It is not something we are just subject to from the outside. We are not merely victims. It is something we participate in. Through the world’s best marketing, through deep ideology, we are the agents of Empire. How else could a handful of people exert so much power? If it is in us, we go a long way toward overcoming Empire by overcoming it within ourselves. There is much work we can do on an inner level.
The structures are faltering. Those with power will seek to solidify their control but my sense is that they are scrambling. We are waking up. People in every realm are waking up. Empire can’t hide anymore. Just look at the solidarity and community and creativity and mutual-aid and spirit that we witnessed in this past year. They can’t match our power and heart.
There’s been an energetic shift, and control, manipulation, and lack of integrity don’t work anymore. Maybe you’ve noticed in your own life that when you start to go into a pattern of trying to control things, it just doesn’t work. I think that these dark agendas will have a very hard time finding a foothold. I think we will see more and more revelations and disclosures of conspiracy, corruption, and hidden information that can’t stay hidden anymore. It will look like things are getting worse, but the thing is, the dark agendas have always been operating, they were just able to stay hidden. So when we hear about them it’s actually a sign that things are getting better.
They may have plans in the works to crystallize their power structures, but they haven’t done so yet. Empire is real, but the new structures that will define this next era are merely being planned, they aren’t yet a reality. Everything is chaotic. In chaos there is much freedom, much flexibility. Now is our moment to disrupt the course of time, to choose our future.
Simply being aware of Empire is enormously empowering. The more we know, the less controllable we are. Our ignorance is most significant weapon against us. As more and more of us awaken to the extraordinary injustice of the oppressive political, economic, and social systems which by and large operate to benefit the super rich (and to a lesser extent, the regular rich which keep them complicit), their power over us lessens. As we become aware of the ways in which they control and manipulate us, it becomes possible to not comply.
I don’t believe that purely political solutions will work. I don’t think the problem is ultimately a political one. The politics of it is important, but there are deeper structures underlying the politics, that make them possible.
My own path has been, and still is, a movement from scientistic materialism to spirituality. The secular, scientific framework is so convincing, it has such a hold. I still have to remind myself that magic is real. I still “believe” in science, but science isn’t ideological. Science is open-minded and experimental and ever-evolving. Science is nothing but method and practice and experimentation. There is no such thing as scientific fact. The scientistic worldview that claims itself as scientific is anything but. It is dogma. And a deadly one.
The way I see it is that spirituality is precisely our path to reclaiming our power and freedom. Spirituality is a fraught word, and I don’t like it, but it’s a useful word so I use it. The problem with it is that it implies spirituality is a belief system that is an alternative. An alternative to what? What is not spiritual? As far as I can see, the only non-spiritual belief system out there is materialism, the dominant framework in the so-called West, the framework underlying capitalism and colonialism.
Spirituality is a word that gains its meaning from a perspective that sees it as nonsense, from the perspective underlying Empire. So we undermine ourselves when we call ourselves spiritual. From any perspective other than materialism, spirituality is just reality, and then the word spirituality is not necessary.
And I do not mean to impose my own spirituality onto anyone else. There are many many spiritual perspectives. Reality is diverse, belief is diverse, and many different perspectives are needed. That said, Empire can and does infiltrate spirituality as it has done through religious institutions like Christianity, and in the ways that it hides out so often under the banner of the New Age. True spirituality is inherently not Empire.
The word materialism is also fraught and means many different things. There are lots of philosophers now who call themselves materialists and see matter as alive and conscious. In this version of materialism, all is interconnected, and consciousness is material too. What we call energy or nonphysical is just a more subtle level of material reality. This is a materialism I can get behind. But the more ordinary way of using the word is to refer to a worldview in which matter is lifeless and there for our taking, spirituality is nonsense, and even our very consciousness is insignificant.
This sort of materialism presents itself as reasonable, level-headed, and obvious. It is a metaphysics that doesn’t see itself as metaphysical. It is the basis for extractive capitalism: capitalism is only possible in a framework that sees matter and Earth and humans as commodities, as there for our taking and manipulation and control and profit, as not deserving of respect and care. This sort of materialism sees power as power over.
We reclaim our power when we understand ourselves as spiritual beings who belong in this Cosmos. We reclaim our power when we understand ourselves as intimately and integrally interconnected to each other and all life everywhere. We empower Earth when we see Earth too as a being deserving of our respect and care. We empower ourselves when we understand that we are Earth. We reclaim our power when we see that all of “nature” is interconnected, and we are embedded within it, an integral part of it, not separate from it, not outside of it. We reclaim our power when we open to the possibility that prayer and intention and consciousness itself have actual impact on the world.
From this perspective, we understand that our fear makes us controllable. When we think they have power over us, they do. When we see that we, together, actually are powerful, then we become capable of using that power. When we see that shame has been used to control us, we can overcome it. When we see the extent of manipulation, control, and ideology we can free ourselves from it.
We do have to speak up, and take action, and work together to build anew. But when those actions are inspired by and supported by a deep knowingness of our worth as divine souls, rather than fear, they are transformative. Fear is understandable. But we are more powerful to the extent that we act from love and compassion and a deep reverence for Life and Earth.
In a world in which everything, literally every thing, is seen as divine, Empire is not possible.
A spiritual Aquarian age is one in which our interconnectivity is not merely technological--but one in which we acknowledge and honour our inherent interconnectivity, our spiritual interconnectivity, our interdependence and interbeingness. A spiritual Aquarian age recognizes all life as equal. It sees all beings as equally important and worthy nodes in a vast network spanning the Cosmos itself. From such a perspective, the notion of the super rich is patently absurd. No one deserves such enormous wealth. No one deserves such enormous power over others. No one is better than anyone else.
A radical new approach to Earth (Uranus in Taurus) is not one that attempts to resolve the climate crisis through carbon offsets and numerically complex trading schemes, but one which deeply honours Earth and its people. From a “spiritual” worldview, a different relationship with Earth naturally arises. A radical new approach is humility and honour and respect. A radical new approach is one that honours Indigenous people and Indigenous ways of knowing, that has the humility to admit, we were wrong and we have caused great harm. That has the humility to see that Indigenous people have much knowledge to share. They already know how to collaborate with rather than exploit Earth.
Our way of thinking matters. Our intention, and attention, and the energy we carry matters. I believe we regain so much power at this time in history by refusing to succumb to fear. By helping one another, by working together, by opening up to possibility. So much is possible, so many futures are possible, but only if we believe them to be. If we assume something is impossible, we make it so by that assumption. If we assume much is possible, we open up possibilities.
When we succumb to the lie that we have no power, we are prone to fear and manipulation. When we can face hard truths and yet carry love in our hearts, we are powerful beyond measure. To stay in an energy of blame and hatred and victimhood only empowers them more. It is to operate within their systems of control, where we are at their whim.
Our energetics are key right now. Our subtle relation to what is going on in the world means everything. Complicity with Empire is to empower it, and we may be complicit in the most subtle ways, through exerting control over others, by policing each other, by infighting, through giving our power away, through compromising our boundaries or our values or our integrity.
I’ve been learning how to connect with my Higher Self (I’ll share more about this in the future), which has been the single most powerful step on my own spiritual journey. I don’t like using the language of war, and yet, when I connected with Self, it insisted, this is a war that we are in. It insisted I see it that way, that there was no other way to impart the urgency of the situation. It explained that this war is unlike wars we are accustomed to because we win it through love. We win this war through resisting violence, control, manipulation, fear, and through learning to love completely.
Self explained to me that we must be wide awake to the reality of Empire and the extent to which some people in the world are capable of harm. We have to see that some people really have the capacity for evil. And yet we have to also understand that those very people are so deeply wounded and deeply lost and in pain and suffering and that that is not to excuse them or to allow them power. But that ultimately they are deserving of love too.
And that is how we overcome Empire. For Empire cannot withstand True Love.
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Thank You
Thank you so much for reading. It’s such an honour that you would spend your time and energy reading this thing I wrote. I’m grateful for the community we build and the work that we do together by sharing these ideas and thinking through these things, and by creating our futures in the ways we do.
I really wanted to keep this whole post free. There are several ways you can support this work if you feel called to do so. Likes and comments help. Sharing this work with others who you think may appreciate it is hugely helpful. I rely on word of mouth in the work I do. My bread and butter comes from readings, and most people who I work with first connect with me through my writing. If you want to offer a donation, you can join Patreon, or offer a one-time donation here.
Community Event
Saturday January 16th 9am-1pm PST
As a way of working with some of the themes I discuss in the blog, and holding space for one another, I'm hosting a workshop/community event.
We will work with this current astrological energy on a collective as well personal level.
The first part of the workshop will involve meditation, visualization, and connecting directly with planetary energies.
After a break, the second half will involve working with this energy in the context of our natal charts. I will offer different exercises based on your level of experience with astrology. The only requirement is that you know your rising sign, which you can find here. Please bring a copy of your chart if you have one.
We will focus on the big-picture astrology that is especially prominent right now: Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius square Uranus in Taurus, and time-permitting, the general themes of the Sagittarius-Gemini eclipse cycle.
And we can talk about any of this stuff I’ve discussed in the blog.
There will be time for sharing and q&a.
Cost and Registration
The full cost of the workshop is $30. A sliding scale is available for those who need, starting at $12. (Patrons at $20 and up will receive free access and all current Patrons will receive a discount--you'll hear from me soon.)
To register, sign up here, and send an etransfer to andi@mysticsandwich.com. If you wish to use the sliding scale, please send the amount you deem appropriate.
I can’t wait to see you all and work together with this potent astrology.
Medicine
As Galina Angarova observes in the podcast I mentioned above, there is so much free medicine all around us. Now, please, go find some. Put down your screen, listen to some music, go for a walk, breathe, connect with a loved one. Listen to your body. Listen to your soul. This is how we take our power back.
I made a little music medicine playlist for you. :)
Or, if you don’t have spotify (meaning you’ll get ads—ew), here some of the tracks on youtube:
God is Alive, Magick is Afoot, Buffy Sainte-Marie
I Owe You Nothing, Seinabo Sey
The Other Lover, Little Drago and Moses Sumney