Toward Ecosophy

Despite a flurry of other commitments, I've finished delineating the chart for next Monday's second inauguration of Donald Trump, and posted it as a free public post to my SubscribeStar and Patreon accounts:

SubscribeStar (scroll down a bit)

Patreon

Any of my readers who were expecting Trump's second term to usher in a golden age will be just as disappointed as those who eagerly await the total collapse of the country over the next four years. Trump returns to the White House in a time of tremendous challenges, and he will have to contend with the inertia of a fossilized system and considerable resistance from various sources. The chart suggests some improvement in the condition of working class Americans will take place, and certain other abuses will likely be rectified, but it's going to be a turbulent time domestically and abroad. As wags are saying, only in America can a convicted felon who's driven a garbage truck and flipped burgers at McDonalds hope to rise to the presidency; what remains to be seen is whether Trump can carry out enough of the vitally necessary changes in this nation's affairs to stave off the really ugly future the bad decisions of the last half century have piled up ahead of us.

In the meantime, the stars have given us a snapshot of conditions for the next four years. Hang on to your hats -- it promises to be a wild ride.

Update 20 January 2025:  Trump has now been inaugurated. He put his hand on the Bible at 12:02 PM Eastern time; it takes four minutes on average to shift house cusps one degree, so the chart delineated here will need no revision.

I'm very pleased to report that my first book on mundane astrology, The Astrology of Nations, is now available for preorder and will be released in January next year. Those of my readers who have been following along with my mundane astrology project on Patreon or SubscribeStar will have seen the techniques in this book in action; for those who haven't, this is old-fashioned predictive astrology using solar ingresses, eclipses, and outer planet conjunctions to get a glimpse of political and economic trends in advance.

Here's the publisher's blurb:

"Discover the art of casting and interpreting astrology charts for nations, politics, and economies with this complete guide to the history and practice of mundane astrology.

Mundane astrology is the art of making predictions about the political and economic condition of nations on the basis of planetary movements. Mundane charts are cast in the same way as natal charts, but their delineation—that is, the analysis of factors and their synthesis into a complete picture—follows different rules.

Suitable for astrology students of every level, this complete guide to mundane astrology takes readers from theory to practice through an exploration of foundational astrology principles, planetary meanings, interpretations in houses and aspects, historical case studies, and more. Readers will learn how to cast and interpret political charts themselves to gain insights on current, past, and future events.

The practices of mundane astrology span back through five thousand years of human history and insight. With The Astrology of Nations, discover more about this fascinating practice and how the stars will continue to influence nations and politics today and beyond."

Interested? You can preorder direct from the publisher here. And of course, if you're interested in my ongoing predictions you can get them via an inexpensive subscription to my SubscribeStar or Patreon sites.

Oh, and one other thing -- the publisher has some publicity copies to spare. If you're a podcaster and would like to have me on your show, let me know and I'll get you a copy.

A year ago, as some of my readers may remember, I posted an astrological experiment: a set of predictions for the next year of American history based on the return of the sun to its position in the Thema Mundi -- the traditional natal horoscope of the world, as recorded in the writings of Roman astrologer Julius Firmicius Maternus. The experiment went well enough that I'll be doing it again. I should have the new predictions up in a few days.

First, though, here's a summary of how the earlier one worked out. I've posted it as a public entry on SubscribeStar here and on Patreon here. Let me know what you think.

I've been one busy political astrologer for the last two months. Alongside the usual ingress charts for the spring equinox, predicting political and economic weather for the US and Great Britain. I've had a lunar eclipse, a solar eclipse, and no fewer than three outer planet conjunctions -- Mars conjunct Saturn, Jupiter conjunct Uranus, and Mars conjunct Neptune -- to work out and delineate. All of these have something to say about the political climate. That is to say, if you noticed that things seem unusually confusing in politics, economics, and society just now, there may just be an astrological reason for that.

Late last month I posted one of those delineations as a public entry on my Patreon and SubscribeStar journals, and linked to it here on Dreamwidth. The other posts are for paying subscribers -- I have to cover my rent somehow, you know! -- but the subscription fees aren't exorbitant -- US$5 a month gets you the ingress charts, and US$10 a month gets you everything I post. You can find the two venues here:

JMG's SubscribeStar page

JMG's Patreon page

Now I just have to catch my breath before it's time to start the next flurry of charts!

Oh, one other thing. I'm currently in negotiations with an astrology publisher to bring out a practical manual of political and economic astrology, explaining exactly how to use the traditional techniques of mundane astrology to gauge upcoming events. The manuscript's already finished, so I hope to have a publication date lined up fairly soon. I'll keep everyone informed as details come in.

I'm sure most of my readers know at this point that I also do mundane astrology -- the branch of astrology that predicts the fate of nations and political figures -- and post the results to my SubscribeStar and Patreon accounts. (No, those aren't free, but they're cheap, and I do have bills to pay, you know.) A lot of that consists of ingress and eclipse charts, the bread and butter of a traditional mundane astrologer's work, but every so often I like to try something experimental -- and those tolerably often end up being free posts that anyone can read.

I've just posted another of those.  It's a bit of a complicated story.

The Roman astrologer Julius Firmicius Maternus included in his writings, among many other things, what was then called the Thema Mundi -- quite literally the birth chart of the world. According to his sources, a pair of otherwise forgotten astrologers named Aesculapius and Anubius, the world began with the Sun at 15° Leo, the Moon and ascendant at 15° Cancer, Mercury at 15° Virgo, Venus at 15° Libra, Mars at 15° Scorpio, Jupiter at 15° Sagittarius, and Saturn at 15° Capricorn. That's an interesting chart with implications that probably need to be teased out in a later post, but it ties in oddly with another project of mine -- exploring the use of solar returns in mundane astrology.

Solar returns are much used in the predictive end of natal astrology. The idea is that you cast a chart for the moment at which the Sun returns to the position it was in when you were born, and read that as a guide to the year ahead. Solar returns work quite well in natal practice, so it occurred to me that it was worth checking out whether they could be used to make annual predictions for nations that have known dates and times of foundation -- for example, the United States.

But the Thema Mundi raises a dizzying proposition: it should be possible, using it, to cast solar returns for the entire world.

So that's what I did. I used standard mundane methods, and cast it for Washington DC, since (a) we don't happen to know the location at which the earth first started coming into being (if there was one), and (b) the mundane methods I know focus on the fate of individual nations, and seeing what the next year of world history has to offer for the United States is an intriguing prospect. Will it provide accurate predictions?  I have no idea; if anyone else has tried anything like this, I haven't seen an account of it.

My predictions are therefore experimental and tentative. If the Thema Mundi is an accurate basis for mundane solar returns, and if standard mundane technique interprets such returns accurately, here's what we can expect.  You can check it out on SubscribeStar here and on Patreon here. After that, we'll just have to see what happens...

As I think all but my most recent readers know by this point, I'm an astrologer (among other things), and the specific branch of astrology I practice is mundane astrology -- the branch that predicts the future of nations rather than individuals. Most of what I do focuses on the traditional tools of ingress and eclipse charts, but I'm also interested in foundation charts, and the foundation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan yesterday in the wake of the humiliating collapse of the US puppet government there offers a fine opportunity to test the traditional lore. 

That test will be especially interesting because the foundation time of Afghanistan's new government was very obviously elected -- that is, they sat down with a good astrologer and chose the date and time so that it would give them the best available foundation chart. The guy earned his fee, and close study of how he did it is one way to learn some tricks about timing your own actions by the stars. 

Since this is a topic of immediate interest to a lot of people, and since I have a habit of putting up the occasional open post on my astrology accounts, I've made this one visible to the general public. You can read it on either of my two platforms: 

SubscribeStar 

Patreon

A heads up to let readers know that the first installment of my mundane astrology course has just been posted on my SubscribeStar and Patreon pages. This lesson is a public post, so you can read it even if you're not a subscriber; the lessons to come won't be. (I've explained the details in a previous journal post here.)  Future installments will appear at a rate of approximately one a month until the whole book is finished a couple of years from now. Here are the links: 

SubscribeStar (scroll down a bit)

Patreon

Enjoy!

I posted the Capricorn ingress chart for the US to my SubscribeStar account earlier today, and apparently something went haywire -- it was allowing $5 a month subscribers to see it, but not $10 a month subscribers!  A good many of my readers dropped me messages about it, not surprisingly. I think I have it fixed, but if you have any further problems please let me know soonest. Ah, the joys of technology. :-(

As far as I know, the Patreon post is working -- if it's not, will someone please let me know?  Assuming that that's out of the way, I should have the Capricorn ingress chart for Britain up next week, and the others to follow. Then it's back to the Grand Mutation charts!

A couple of updates that may be of interest to my readers: 

To begin with, my mundane astrology project is proving to be well worth the time and effort I'm putting into it -- many thanks to everyone who's subscribed to it!  (If you're not familiar with this, by all means check it out on my SubscribeStar or Patreon pages.)

I've decided, after quite a bit of reflection, to move my eclipse charts from now on to the $10-a-month subscription tier. Partly that's because they're taking more time than I'd expected, and partly because I need something to offer my higher-tier subscribers once I finish the current series of posts on the December 21 Grand Mutation. 

The Grand Mutation charts for the US and Britain have already been posted, and I'm working on the delineation of the next 199 years of India's history, with charts for Japan and Australia still to come. After that, I plan on delineating the next Great Conjunction, which will take place in 2040, and then the next Grand Mutation, which won't be until 2219 and will mark the next major turning point in world history. 

In the meantime, I've already posted a delineation for the penumbral lunar eclipse coming up on November 30, and am working on the chart for the December 14 solar eclipse, which will take place the day the Electoral College is scheduled to meet here in the US, and is in the 10th house of politics as seen from Washington DC. (Oog.)  Charts for the Capricorn ingress for the five nations I currently track will be following promptly, and then it's on to the next set of eclipses and ingresses!

***Update to the update:  my predictions for the December 14th solar eclipse are up on both sites. Next up are the Capricorn ingress charts, and I also plan on delineating the inauguration chart for whoever ends up as US president on January 20th, and doing that as a public post. The inauguration -- well, let's just say it's a very, very interesting chart.***

In other news, I've set up an online shop for most of my books with Bookshop.org, an online firm that works with independent booksellers online and off.  The pages on my blog with links to my books -- which I've never really had time to maintain properly -- have been replaced by a connection to my Bookshop page. Full disclosure:  I get a cut from Bookshop.org for sales through my store, which more than makes up for the considerable discounts Bookshop is able to offer.  (It's associated with Ingram, the largest distributor of independent publishers in the market, which is why they can rival the discounts at that big online retailer.) By all means check it out, and let me know if you have any problems with it; currently it's only active in the US, but that should change early next year. 

Despite the crazed gibbering currently coming out of the US political system and a good many of its equivalents elsewhere, in other words, life goes on -- and all things considered, if any of you are thinking of devoting more time to your spiritual lives, a case could be made that this is a very good time for that...

It's been a while since I've posted anything here about my mundane astrology project, but the project itself is ongoing. In March I posted Aries ingress charts for the US, Britain, India, Japan, and Australia; since then I've posted a couple of essays on Grand Mutations in the past, with an eye toward the upcoming Grand Mutation in December, begun posting Cancer ingress predictions (that for the US is up already); and just now posted predictions for the penumbral lunar eclipse on June 5-6, 2020, which promises turmoil across large parts of the Middle East -- in Riyadh, Tehran, and a number of other capitals in the region, the Moon is eclipsed in the 10th house while square Mars and Neptune conjunct in the 1st. It promises to be a troubled few months. 

Over the next month or so I plan on posting Cancer ingress charts for the other four nations I'm currently tracking, plus forecasts for the upcoming annular solar eclipse of June 21, 2020 -- yes, that happens the day after the summer solstice, and promises to be a wowser. 

An enthusiastic thank you to everyone who's subscribed to the astrological project on Patreon or SubscribeStar, and made it possible for me to put serious time into this project. Interested in joining the fun?  My Patreon page is here and my SubscribeStar page is here.