Austin Coppock | Astrology & The Elite

00:05 Puppet masters almost surely have clearly made me something heavy. And until you've thoroughly tested every last course, just did you know the less you really do? That's true Dr. Seuss! Without THC could they lie and do us just a- Without THC the higher side checks show a wooden company

00:44 Alright, Hiresight Chatters. Most people who have gone deeper than their weekly horoscope have probably realized the eerie accuracy of a quality astrological reading or if you haven't done much personal investigation, a look through history will show that from the Egyptians to Nazi Germany powerful leaders and monarchs have often kept their chief astrologers nearby and held their advice in high regard Chalk it up to superstition if you choose, but I am not one to ignore the actions and belief systems of the elite because it's no surprise to see their energy going into an aspect of reality where we've been told to pay no nevermind. Well for me, the mechanisms behind astrology are still unclear but it seems that gears in the great cosmos operate like a grandfather clock of probability and who out there couldn't use the extra oomph? That is why today were talking to Austin Kopik, a popular writer, teacher

01:33 and Reader of the Stars based in Los Angeles, a fellow California transplant from a miserable Midwest town and a real powerhouse in the astrological community. Recommended as the go-to guy from our favorite wizard Gordon White! A true honor and pleasure. Austin my man welcome to The Higher Side Well, thanks for having me. That was a hell of an intro by the way! Thanks man thanks I am psyched I appreciate you taking the time i've been digesting a lot of your work this week which sometimes strains my simple stoner mind but you definitely know your stuff And I'm sure you're a bit sick of the so Austin how'd you get into astrology question? But as a longtime video game addict having a Final Fantasy game as your entry point is something. I gotta ask you about I hear You say astrology kind of wore you down How did you get from thinking that this was all garbage to making serious career out of it Oh, what a long strange trip its been So

02:31 I was raised in the rust belt like yourself and my folks are very reasonable people. There's a lot of academics on my dad side, and kind of grew up with the rationalist materialist perspective Being my my I don't know mental spiritual womb. Mm-hmm And so, you know if you're coming from that perspective Astrology is not just an absurdity it's almost an atrocity right? Yes and it's not like what was in the newspaper made a terribly compelling case for itself

03:07 And so it wasn't until I went away and was in college, and I double majored in philosophy and psychology. And I was really interested in personality typing systems. I was doing that thing that...I don't know if they think its a developmental stage thing where person tries to learn more about who they are by comparing and contrasting themselves with other common human types right? And so I was like, you know looking into Jung and the Myers-Briggs and all that. And astrology kind of kept popping its head up just as an idea of a system of 12 human types along with the zodiac but i wasn't very interested in it until I played way too much Final Fantasy Tactics. Right on!

03:58 I guess it's a classic, now classic tactical turn-based RPG. And the thing where that connects with astrology is that they actually modeled one relatively sophisticated piece of astrology in a technically accurate way in the combat system in the game. All your little characters—dragons and wizards and knights and all that—everybody has a zodiac sign depending upon the interaction between the signs of two characters interacting, like Knight tries to fight Dragon. One's a Cancer and one is Pisces according to the game it would modify the probability of a successful action or an unsuccessful action based on the interaction between the signs. And that relationship between the signs is a key piece of astrology we call that aspect doctrine

04:54 just geometry and the number of the way that the circle is divided. And so I installed this in my brain because i wanted to beat the game on hard, and what I started seeing was that some of those patterns Actually all of those patterns can model that pretty well describe the interactions of the people i was seeing my workplace at least new there sun signs when you which tropical sign the sun was in when they were born and not convince me to learn just a little bit more. And what i learned a little bit more,

05:31 I saw that the way that astrology model to human being their life in there psyche was. Take a few not too many core some of you atomic components the planets themselves, represent and the various fears about persons like inside and everyone had the same fears but they were distributed around the circle circle of the sky of the zodiac In a different way and that the twelve signs were division of that circle right answer. What I realized was that it had a very finite, small number of components. But because it was using geometry to locate them on basically a circular spectrum and describe the interactions you had millions and millions of different types that were described with

06:27 a very small number of pieces. And I thought to myself that even though astrology was obviously garbage, this was just a genius way to design the human typing system." You know it's sort of taking out of the binary and linear you know turning that line into a circle. And assuming that all these pieces that we'll have can interact in thousands of different ways so sick this blows young out of the water. And so, give me the license to learn a little bit more well this is just you know terribly intellectually sophisticated and so am i. Of course

07:08 And so then i started practicing interpreting people's lives or psyche according to the rules of the art as understood them at the time and you know who is increasingly creepily accurate. But i wasn't convinced like i didn't take, All of astrology is claims to be validated by the fact that i was more right than i could have guessed you know what is your window and get lucky and sometimes there are patterns of love we have this. category, this intuition is sort of this dumping ground for explaining how we did or knew something that we weren't previously trained in or weren't informed about. And I was like oh well I guess I'm kind of intuitive that must be it certainly couldn't be that astrology is fundamentally valid and it was actually after a few years of predicting

08:11 Kind of terrible things that happened in people's lives very accurately i would just think it would not do on asked now or even within the last fifteen years but there were there were a couple deaths. I was like, oh did this person die? You know did this kind of situation. I don't want to describe it exactly because that's cheap but basically you know it did this person die under these conditions in this time frame and then with the time frame being within the last month and then it happened two weeks after that. Oh shit! Yeah and that freaked me out you know It made me take astrology seriously

08:51 It also made me take talking to people about astrology more seriously. And it maybe took a year or two to come to terms with that, and like oh this is a real thing! This can describe real events in people's life. This isn't just an incredibly sophisticated Rorschach test. And so that made me, one take it seriously and then two want to learn the real rules. I'd exhausted the kind of hippie used bookstore where i lived at the time and perhaps you've talked with Gordon about this when we're dealing with esoterica there's this layer

09:35 Of post 60s material that's very difficult to chew through and that tends to obscure much of the older more interesting and generally more potent material. And so i chewed through that sort of post 60s stuff, and you know kind of went in search of deeper weirder stronger Yes for a stronger vintage older vintage as it were and I just kind of got increasingly into it. I also I Guess we have two hours, and I can tell the long version of this story

10:12 And so at that point in my life, I just graduated from college and I remember during my last two months in school. I was working on a double major and I had to do two senior thesis projects. I remember sitting down and just wanting to write about astrology. It was like, I think I don't care about this anymore which is a really unfortunate time You don't come across that perspective. Oh yeah, this is actually in 2001 so there's some interesting things happening in the world at that point to of course you know and so it wasn't just a number of illusions and buildings that kind of fell down in smoking ruin was actually my personal ontology or my personal metaphysics was in the process of having the tower card played on it

11:09 You know, you can't just go oh I guess astrology is correct and then go about your business if you're at all philosophically minded or seriously minded. It has implications about reality right? Right exactly! That's the tip of an iceberg. Mm-hmm that's the thing for me as i've recognized That it has some accuracy, but the big question for me and even I guess astrologers don't agree from what I understand is how this system works or why it works. What are your thoughts? How can the movement of celestial bodies through their established patterns have any effect on the thoughts and feelings and experiences of people on little old Earth? Yeah no its a great question and people have been arguing about it for a very very long time

12:00 One of the issues is we don't have a statement by the guy or gal who invented astrology and said, okay here's how this works. Here's how you do it. This is why it works now have fun Although there are precedents to systematize astrology that go back as far as the human experience and as far as our archaeology goes, this type of what we call horoscopic astrology which Depends upon rather precise mathematics and rules of interactions between the planets and all that dates to the first century ish bc we have our first charts in the eastern mediterranean from that period sort of you know early roman empire. Weaning greek helenistic power and

12:53 Our earliest texts all refer back to texts that are two or three generations previous. The art of astrology is actually attributed in these oldest texts, and you'll like this, to one Hermes right so we have a divine origin oh Hermes taught us right? That's something you get with all the...you have the trouble received knowledge rather than invented knowledge. Another alternate sort of mythic founder are these or founders is the pro wrestling tag team of Nechepso and Patasiris, who were an Egyptian pharaoh and his priest that he worked with. Now we're not actually sure these guys existed. Historians have had a really hard time locating who they might actually be but it's that if we take them just sort of as

13:49 Standing in for an idea right you have the ruler and astrologer. And that's certainly a pairing that has occurred many many many times throughout history john dee and elizabeth being one really obvious one. When so anyway oh when then you have another description of the knowledge to do which is new this rain which is The jackal headed god in the Egyptian system who is like mercury and a psycho pump role or guide of souls into the underworld world so. Anyway, we don't have the inception pedestrians. Don't just lay it down and Hermes doesn't give us an explanation that satisfies The intellectual conditions of the early 21st century Now there are a couple different ways to look at it And I think that part of the reason that this question is difficult Is that the answer has to be layered?

14:48 There's not one simple mechanism which explains everything. So the first layer of why astrology works is material The extent of astrology absolutely can't be explained by material factors only, but we shouldn't get rid of the ones that do matter. Does the sun affect us? Yes! We're being blasted by it every day and then we have the moon in the tides right rights we can say that the sun on the moon have a tremendous effect on life on Earth and in fact, life on Earth wouldn't exist without them. Right? But that goes nowhere to explaining why Neptune who's so distant from us might have anything to do with how my day went. Exactly! We should say yes the Sun is doing something right it just not doing everything there's another set of explanations which you see

15:48 Describe in hindu terms and in cobbler stick terms and then put on a term which is that the planets represent sort of. They represent higher metaphysical order and reflect what's going on in a higher metaphysically right ontologically higher more positive level, and then innocence there their symptoms of something greater And that's something you actually see in both astrology and proto-astrology as the planets is giving signs as to the will of the gods. Not being the gods themselves, that explicit identification is actually pretty rare In the Greek texts for example they don't look up at Jupiter and say that Zeus

16:34 They say that's Zeus' planet, right? And its movements and qualities reflect his nature. Gotcha! And so you have the planets sort of testifying to a powerful but concealed causative factor. Then there is the 20th century grab bag, sort of the 20th century system error category which is synchronicity Right because it's just saying that those patterns are there and meaningful. And even though they're random they mean something but it is synchronicity in many senses defined by a lack of explanation or a lack of mechanism right, doesn't mean we don't need that category but it doesn't do us tremendous service explaining things it just it's a way of recognizing that there's a pattern that's meaningful to me

17:31 Basically we don't have an explanation for and so what i've been thinking a lot recently in this is in part. Inspired by some of my conversations with gordon, when does the size into some other stuff is that is the animus explanation right and so What's funny that i'm coming to this now in my late thirties now but remember having an argument with a friend of mine and college when i was nineteen about astrology and i thought it was stupid. And he was like so do you think that the earth might be alive as a whole in some way,

18:13 And I was like, yeah okay. Gaia hypothesis? Yeah you know that's not unreasonable He said so you don't think any of the other planets are alive You just think Earth is alive and i was like well that is kind of a logical extension So basically if human beings are not the only matter which hosts mind But if there are, in a sense much larger organisms and we're using that loosely such as planets and stars. And they have a means of perception and will then what we have are basically vast currents of mind which are hitting the earth from all these directions. And then so people you know it's like well why would the planets pay attention to us? What else is there to watch in this solar system

19:06 Like where are there other like frantic monkeys doing hilarious things all the time? Right. It's pretty barren out there Yeah, and to take it further and again gonna bring Gordon into this he was our matchmaker You know why would a star you know a billion light-years away care about what's happening on Earth because astrology Certainly involves the planets I would say primarily involves the members of our solar system which I sometimes think of the planets are almost like the organs of the body of our solar system

19:44 That's actually something which is taken seriously in the astrology of anatomy that there is this correspondence. Maybe we can make a good argument for that, but what about why would let's say the foot of Orion, Rigel, why would Rigel wear? One, I think we can assume that the attention span of a being made of plasma that lived for billions of years is slightly wider than our own. But i would also make the argument that were probably not the only show in town but you know as we look for evidence

20:26 Sophisticated intelligent life on our scale not a stellar scale in the universe we see that it's probably pretty rare. And so you know even if there are fifteen different civilizations that can see, or is aware of, we're probably still really interesting on a cosmic scale what's happening here. I don't mean that... That doesn't necessarily mean that we're great. It just means this is where the show is and so at least lately in my thinking I've gravitated strongly towards an animist foundation for astrology and I think there was actually a lot of earlier thinking that implies that

21:11 And there are some threads of the platonic explanation for astrology. Or neoplatonist models where they say, yeah so the planets are alive. They're creatures and there's actually this sort of under layer of animus language in our earliest astrological texts then they get philosophized and rationalized where it has the cleanliness of mathematics but also some of the sterility you know? And part of the way we have to treat astrology As well as a number of other things, esoteric things is that

21:52 We're basically a cargo called you know we're finding books that tell us how to do stuff. You here's how you build this machine and so you couldn't even give someone instructions for how to build functional radio without them understanding any of the principles involved in its operation and so, that's just sort of the position where and maybe you know again when you look at the oldest the oldest text where it's, you know, the position that has received knowledge from Hermes Thrice Great. Perhaps it's always been that way and that's part of the difficulty when getting a technological upgrade from a spirit source right? When the watchers come down and show you how to forge iron and create makeup right? You don't necessarily understand how, you just do it. Fair enough man!

22:46 That's a great explanation. I think it does help to clarify quite a bit, even though it is still a mystery at heart for people like you who do it all the time but when it comes to magic and astrology, I'm interested largely because the people in the past and secret societies and many branches of the elite have put value on it Now, I don't think it's a coincidence that it is pretty absent from the larger monoculture. But what can you tell us about the history of astrology and its use by the various upper echelons? It's an interesting question because immediately what I start thinking about is how astrology at various points this being one of them

23:29 Has been very counter cultural or would you look at some of the secret societies of the recent european past. Who is basically that height of aristocratic counter culture was bad it was forbidden but then you also have again like, One of our oldest models in the oldest text is like yeah a priest and the king yes are the model for the astrologer and so some of the probably the earliest instances we have of astrology that's relatively well recorded is Mesopotamian and

24:05 And some of the earliest sheets lists of omen lore right when mars rises is as the sun sets and it's maximum brightness it means this for the king. That early slayer astrology is what's going to happen to the king or what's going to happen to the kingdom that the king might be able to do something about and so you have literally The oldest layers that we have record of our for whoever was most elite in society and so there is a very old tradition of fat it was also sad. Augustus cesar augustus was identified by an astrologer before he came to power as being

24:53 A ruler of such power that the Romans had never seen before. Wow! The story... There are actually a couple good Roman stories, um the story was that Octavius would be later dubbed Augustus right? Augustus means you're awesome. Octavius was his name That's a good question and his friend grip went to see this astrologer. And it goes in the astrology center talk and comes out, and it says alright well what did he say as well have a ton of power me really successful general that's pretty amazing

25:34 And then Augustus goes in and the astrologer just kneels to him, kneels before him instantly. And says you know you'll have such power as the Romans have never seen. Damn! So that's apocryphal That's not up on YouTube we don't have video evidence of that but then Roman emperors and their astrologers have a close but often conflicted relationship The Roman emperors were pretty big on abusing their astrologers, at least the bad ones were. And also testing them in very interesting ways. I believe it was Tiberius...the first thing that he would ask an astrologer when he was interviewing for the position because of course you have that position Was uh so how long are you going to live? and if the astrologer said i'm in great danger right now um

26:31 Generally they got to the next round of the inner right there's another good story. I think gosh, i think this is type areas as i haven't looked at this in a little bit we're an astrologer comes and and again the question isn't that how are you going today? And the astrologer says i will be torn apart by wild dogs And by the way, if you look at some of the earlier interpretive models like that's a literal thing you see in Greco-Roman astrology because that is the thing that happens. You know? You're out traveling and you're alone after dark and there's a pack of dogs! And... ...you don't necessarily win. But anyways it says I'll be torn apart by wild dogs. The emperor says no you won't

27:16 And has an executed right then and then they prepare a prior to burn the body but there is a wind that comes on and blows the body off the fire. And just then a pack of dogs gets into your yard and just savages the bar you know dogs will grab a piece pull in run off with their prize so again you have This as an astrologer you have this really troubled complicated relationship to power Because you're useful to power right and they kind of want you but they kind of want to abuse you I Get that. And so, you know a lot of astrologers You know, I think there's many sort of opinions or relationships to power as there are astrologers

28:11 But yeah, you can just go through the history of empire and even much smaller kingdoms. And there's almost always a diviner in anywhere that the horrifyingly sophisticated and precise version of astrology spread, you have rulers cherishing and abusing astrologers Other really obvious key points or good instances are John Dee and Queen Elizabeth. I imagine that's familiar to a lot of your listeners? Right. John Dee was her astrologer way before she was queen,

28:52 He actually got in trouble for looking at her, I guess it was her half-sister's chart. Mary Queen of Scots and saying like you know listen Elizabeth she is not going to be in power very long you bide your time. You know her times gonna be up in 16 months he was discovered for doing that imprisoned. He was right by the way But you know there's again, there's a long and complicated relationship. I think what this...I guess the other part of this that you spoke to earlier is the fact that even in these societies where for example Elizabethan England where the monarch thought it was very useful to consult an astrologer even if he weren't always nice to him or her

29:38 It wasn't generally acceptable for the populace to do so. Some of this is the people's fault because people don't like, and this is a human thing I'm one of the people too People don't like to be told that they have less choices than they wish they did To certain degree astrology implies a conspiracy of fate and fortune Is not to say that astrology the practicing or thinking about astrology necessitates an entirely deterministic world view but it does suggest that there's a structure there is a deep structure to life which you can't see and which is

30:24 composed of more than just material elements, right? That there is such a thing as fate or at least some things in life are fated. And perhaps not everyone is equally fated that would actually be my experience and so that's unsettling you know the when the fates are described mythologically they're very rarely if ever Friendly inviting and reassuring figures, right? So you know until there's a human tendency to be like no I'd rather that not be true However to be fair with the acknowledgement of fate also comes the acknowledgment of destiny Right that one perhaps one is born with purpose through

31:07 That's a positive aspect. Well yeah and you can't have one without the other right there is either a deep structure to human life and there are elements of narrative built into it on a level most people can see, that's fate or destiny or they aren't right? The aren't version is You know, is French exist-, you know, is mid-20th century existentialism? Oh I could do anything but nothing has meaning. Laissez. So anyway yeah you have this kind of weird relationship between the populace and astrology and in some cases such as Nazi Germany they did this thing where the upper echelons have astrology and then it's banned It literally just banned for everyone else Exactly

31:57 And so, you know there's the question now why is astrology held in such low regard? To what degree is that a result of intentional engineering on the part of cultural forces that are coordinated on purpose and to what degree is it just where the zeitgeist is relative to astrology. Right I'm sure its a little bit both but like you said earlier been a counterculture kind of thing But you can't disregard that element that the elite have sort of quarantined it. Yeah, well and the thing is so when you look at the history of astrology It's like a sine wave with the you know Whatever the mainstream culture of whatever mainstream culture is astrology Is this sine wave that kind of intersects with it and goes below and goes high? You know up and down enough yeah, and

32:51 You know, where we've been since the 60s is it's been kind of this cool countercultural thing. Or maybe not cool but it's been part of the spiritual counterculture in the anglophone West and so It's starting to get popular again a little bit by bit Lot of astrologers I know are just you know, they're over the moon about it They're like oh we can help the world if everybody knew about this We you know, we'd have a deeper and more aware population But when you look at what happens when astrology becomes relatively accepted and popular is it becomes a tool for propaganda? And you and your you get stuck in that position where you're answering the Emperor's question of when you're gonna die. Mm-hmm

33:40 And so as soon as power recognizes astrology, then everybody who's playing that game wants their Hedosiris. They want their diviner at their side because everyone else has one and that's not necessarily good for astrology It might be useful for those in power I mean, I assume some of your listeners probably most people are aware that Ronald Reagan had an astrologer. I'd heard that! That was on my list of things to ask you about in terms of any post-World War II involvement because it's pretty sparse so you don't hear too much. Yeah. But i did hear that Yeah, there's a particular chain. There's a pattern to the chain of American presidential assassinations that Ronald Reagan actually breaks you know there was an attempted assassination against him and this is where I think it gets interesting with astrology because if you understand the structure of what wants to happen To a person during a given period it clarifies

34:44 What choice if it can be avoided at all you know? You can get that five or ten percent chance rather than just rolling the dice and so a number of people speculated that was actually Due to having astrology that he was able to kind of opt out of a particular pattern I mean, he did get shot damn. Yeah, but I love that Yeah, when that's part of how astrology works. You know there are very few things that are 100% you got nothing There's nothing you can do but if you know that you know during a given month or year There will be problems to attend to in a particular area and they will tend to arrive within a pretty specific window. A lot of times you can prepare or minimize difficulties in that area, also on the positive side if there's a particularly good window of time you can maximize

35:42 The way you take advantage of that right and also stop pushing your luck once the good period ends, right? And I had a number of astrologers have done that quite literally with with gambling You know like okay. I've got this window, you know, it's the moon is conjoining Jupiter It's the hour of Jupiter. I'm gonna play roulette for just that hour and then stop That's kind of funny. Like I recently, I had heard some random old Vincent Price audio recordings and he talked about astrology and a lot of esoteric stuff but he told a little anecdote that Hitler used to use his astrologer to find the right windows to make his campaigns as attacks and eventually Churchill got wind that he was using an astrologer so he got his own astrologer just

36:31 Learn the game plan just to kind of get insight into when Hitler's windows would be and thus kind of negating The usefulness of hitler's astrology which kind of gets that point of if you have it You really don't want a whole lot of other people to have it because if everybody is kind of reading the same stuff It affects the way everybody's gonna act around, you know these particular events Absolutely, absolutely. And there's a really great example of that and that's the English Civil War My my friend and colleague Alexander Cummins dr. Al as it were who's been on Gordon show wrote a book a couple years ago called the starry rubric and It's basically his study of the way that astrology was mobilized during the English Civil War and Basically both sides recruit astrologers to write publicly That you know, the heavens ordained that their side is correct

37:30 And so astrologers, and this happened in World War II as well. When astrology is embraced by power it becomes part of the propaganda apparatus. That's part of why I'm a little like let's not get too popular! When we're embraced too much, we become tools. That's a really fun book by the way, The Starry Rubric because you see these incendiary rants and you see people who are otherwise excellent astrologers with a great track record of prediction being pushed by political necessity to you know, to write things that are not what the heavens declare their what their patron declared. That's cool! I'll definitely check that out another thing kind of in this vein that i planned ask about was the astrological conditions of 9-11 or a ground zero during events at nine eleven and I'm not sure exactly the best way to read it but I know they have looked at we're talking about a little bit before tell us about

38:33 what you found there and the usefulness of astrology in a situation like that. Yeah, so I'm going to try to spare you and your listeners as much technical language as possible but i can't get around all of it so bear with me So 9-11 was signified very oh by the way an astrologer Robert Zoller Predicted nine eleven in writing several times about a year year and a half before it happened Wow He said unprecedented terrorist attack northeastern United States 9 11 2001 And of course he got a bunch of dudes in sunglasses and suits showing up at his house shortly after habit, of course now

39:21 Although, if you look at a chart you'll generally see a dizzying number of data points. Usually what actually triggers or signifies a particular event either for all of us, for the macrocosm or an individual is usually just one or two factors right? We've got to sort these things out and prioritize them The main thing that was happening during 9-11 was this opposition of Saturn and Pluto relative to the Earth. And so when planets are opposed, from our point of view it means when one would rise in the East, the other would set in the West right? Now

40:05 Saturn and Pluto's cycle is actually one of the few cycles that's not regular in length because Pluto has a really elliptical orbit. And so what that means is from our perspective, when Pluto was in one part of his cycle he will take nine years to cover 30 degrees of the zodiac or that wedge of sky and another part of this cycle it'll take almost thirty years to do exactly the same thirty degrees Everybody else basically moves in a circle. Every 12 years, Jupiter's gonna be in the same position. Every 29 1⁄2, Saturn is gonna be in another position but when you look at any planet relative to Pluto, you get this cycle that expands and contracts and so this Saturn-Pluto cycle right? And we can see that this is a lot like... This is a synodic cycle

41:02 A synodic cycle is any two-planet cycle relative to each other. And so everybody's familiar with one synodic cycle, and it's the one between the sun and moon relative to the earth. That's what creates the fullness and emptiness of the moon that's why the moon waxes in wings we can see that rip really large But every other you can take any other pair of planets and they'll basically have their own waxing full moon waning new moon phase does that make sense? Okay, so And each of these pairs has a topic. It has types of things, it's basically you figure out the length of the cycle and its rhythm and then you figure out what moves with it. And it's power. Power moves with the Saturn-Pluto Cycle

41:56 And so whenever we're looking at a cycle like that, if we're just starting out with what's most interesting. Like what are going to be the most dramatic points? We want basically the full moon is the most dramatic and then the new moon when the moon entirely disappears from the sky is the other dramatic point right? So if we look at these two Saturn Pluto being power power like not in a philosophical sense, but in like down and dirty political military industrial complex sense That's how to put no opposition was basically the full moon part of that cycle this time. It was a 38 year cycle and 9-11 happened within about three weeks of the perfect full moon in A cycle that long Wow

42:47 Yeah, and so what's additionally interesting you know you take a cycle like this right? So that this just if we Reduce the chart down to this it would just look like Saturn on one side Pluto exactly opposite right now Then what we do is We take The chart of an entity Like myself or yourself Or the United States And then we say how does it hit This entities chart Right your individual chart Is sort of It's the way that you receive whatever is happening in the sky right and what interesting is it the most commonly used chart united states called the sibling chart after english astrologer published at. Basically the signing of the declaration independence,

43:34 That being when the United States entity comes into being. Okay, it makes sense It's harder you know and it's nice that we actually have a document It's harder to do that so if you know if you're looking at let's say Modern-day Iran right? That's where the Persian Empire was that's where lots of there wasn't it didn't just come into being Right the United States is a little easier to time and to get a chart all right So Probably the one of the most important things in any chart is where the horizon falls You ever heard people talk about their rising sign? Absolutely, right So it's literally what sign is rising on the eastern horizon right where the Sun rises where everything rises And then we have opposite to that. We have the setting point Right and so that's represented In a chart as a horizontal line That hits

44:29 You know a single degree on one side and the single degree on the other side. So those are really sensitive points, you know it's though if you just think about the symbolism of where things emerge into being right with where the sun rises in sets every day it's huge yeah symbolism that predates like technical astrology by god knows how many thousand years What is charging corporate and so that's really sensitive if for example we're looking at saturn moving through the chart. Hit the degree of your rising you'd be like oh i remember that was some shit so anyways it's easy to these are really sensitive points in there always opposed

45:11 Because the eastern and western horizon are really always opposed right so the sad this Saturn Pluto opposition was bang on The United States rising and setting points And so we have you know it's this full moon of power moves, and it's just right there on the US chart Wow Right so in group. You know we would do we could say Generally we're like oh that's gonna be huge there's going to be something which really shakes up the power dynamics and. We have to use a lot of other techniques to figure out what it was but, to a certain degree it's not so much what it was but what did right what with the world reaction to it was so

45:53 Taking the cycle i want to go back to these full new moon points just so you and your listeners can see that it's a it's not just this one thing that happened once rain. This is conjunction this conjunction or opposition pairing of planets speaks to power right so, The new moon, of which that was the full moon happened in basically 1980-81. We have the beginning of the Reagan era for the United States in which a lot of precedents are set and if we look at... Is that important as far as the history of power in the 20th century goes? Absolutely!

46:36 And then if we go back to the new moon before that we have the late forties and it's when. Well, it's when a lot of things happen. It's the aftermath of World War II where you know God probably 30 countries are created and so there all these countries especially in the Middle East that have that Saturn and Pluto new moon That's Saturn and Pluto conjunction in their natal chart right there They're created out of these power moves These like dragging knives and and pens across a map Wow Anyway, this is how we you know This is part of how astrologers cut up history and this is a particular. This particular pairing is really Useful for looking at scary power moves in these moves all have big consequences So when's the next one happening? Right so if we had our full moon or

47:31 Our full moon in 2001 right then our next new moon and the new so just to use that analogy And you explain this cycle when the planets are opposed from our point of view That's like a full moon, and it's really big. You know that's where big moves happen Okay, the new moon part which is like 81? Like 48 Those are when that's sort of the seed part of the cycle rather than the flowering of the cycle It's when I you know, it's been a new order is designed and implemented but it's more seeds being planted whereas the full moon or 2001 is more like the That seed bearing fruit as it were. Gotcha And so our new moon or seed point is 2020

48:21 And so we're coming up on that. Because if you look at the world right now and if you imagine yourself as being possessed of great and terrible power, there are a lot of things that are out of control. Some of them maybe you helped set in motion some of them maybe had consequences or went in a direction you were too happy about but that's sort of the new plan stage. Right on! And so we're in a sense, we're in the very end of a cycle of power that began in 81 and that bore fruit in 2001. We are just at the very last stages of them. Wow! So basically Hillary or Trump is only going to get one term? Absolutely.

49:14 Yeah, and there are a number of politicians who have that Saturn conjunct Pluto. That new moon part of the power cycle unsurprisingly in their charts Have you been able to get much insight into the current election based on this? I mean, saying it ends in 2020. That's really interesting and considering like blocks of power dynamics, it would make sense for Hillary to win for the next four years and then be the capstone on this big sliver of a power center that had control for quite some time. Yeah, I believe that is what will happen. Wow! There was actually, we were talking before you started recording and I just got back from a conference.

49:58 And there was a presidential panel on the conference, which has been done at conferences before. I was a little unhappy about this one because I said on a different podcast several months ago it's going to be really obvious that Hillary is going to win and it's not a good demonstration of astrology. It's a coin flip where the Vegas odds are 85% in 1 person's favor. This is not how we show the validity of our art right? Although I feel like I scored points with my meta prediction. But anyway, what came up was really interesting. The conference organizers courted a lot of press around this presidential panel and so usually astrologers have the sort of luxury of talking shop with each other even at big conferences where it's not preaching to the choir but it's... People who know? Yeah, it's talking with a level intimacy and familiarity

51:01 But with this particular instance, because there was more press we got a lot of scrutiny and it brought up I think for a lot of astrologers for the first time what it means to do astrology when power cares. And when the mainstream culture cares about what you're doing and so it brings up that whole set of conundrums that we talked about earlier right? One of my go-to ancient sources is a book of astrology called The Mathesis. which is written by a Roman lawyer named Firmicus Maternus. He wrote it at the behest of whatever the prefect of his province is, this guy named Mavortius. It begins, My dear Mavortius... because Mavortius has asked him to explain how astrology works and so Firmicus is going on and on there's a lot of technical material obviously but then he gets to this one section where he says So, the astrology of the emperor

52:01 He says basically don't do it. Don't do it, don't talk about the Emperor. Don't talk about power. It's just like don't do it though and he's like oh because the emperor is divine wink-wink and beyond the you know beyond the bounds of fate wink-wink don't talk about him So what I like about Firmicus is that he was a Roman lawyer. He had a position to preserve, you know? He wasn't a street soothsayer and so You can see that political pressure on what he's saying about astrology even in what was not a widely circulated text And so there again there's this issue is how do we relate to power when power starts caring yeah because

52:46 I wouldn't say that astrologers have been the secret collaborators with the decimates of history. They have sometimes, but I would say it's rather power is much more attracted to astrology than vice versa. The astrologers have a very ambivalent relationship historically to being paired with material power That makes sense. And there is a quote that I've heard from Gordon when it comes to astrology and power, in that millionaires don't believe in astrology billionaires do which I really like because it speaks to one level being pretty oblivious to it but on a higher level maybe the real capstone cabal behind the curtain maybe they've preserved the tradition a little better and kept it close to the chest Yeah well and that's actually a JP Morgan quote Oh well shit

53:32 Which I think speaks to the point that you were trying to make. Yeah, it's like... You don't have to believe it! That's fine. It actually benefits me that you don't because when…it's like a technology There's a parallel to that World War II situation where, you know if both Hitler and Churchill have astrologers then they're just even. But if only one has an astrologer then they have an edge. Oh! You know while we're talking about astrologer in power I just remembered another one of my favorite anecdotes. Let's do it This is from the Italian Renaissance

54:10 response. Anything fun and artsy and science-y worked through patronage during this era, so astrologers worked through patronage. There is a situation where there's one sort of merchant lord who had a number of astrologers and the astrologers just hated him. And you know he abused them repeatedly etc etc, and so eventually they saw opportunity where she was going to take his family forces into battle Against the contending faction and so that this trilogy of warfare is a thing right where you pick the right time for battle so that your side will win answer these trojans. Pick the time that would be as disastrous as possible and they got their hated lord killed

55:03 Right on. You're like, oh yes! Most auspicious definitely go and make sure you hit the exact minute right? Be very careful watch the clock and sound the horn I love it Austin hell of a time you definitely know your craft well big thanks to Gordon for getting us together and for you for being here before we go would you remind people about your website and classes and how to better align pun intended with what you're doing Sure. So my website is MyName.com, it's Austin Kopik and so that's A-U-S-T-I-N C-O-P-P-O-C-K dot com

55:43 Believe I just found out that I'm banned in Canada for being an occult site. That's kind of fun badge of honor. Yeah Only get banned from somewhere, I'm still working on it though Yeah when I learned that my can a Canadian friend of mine immediately high-fived me but that's my website So I write I write a weekly column where? I attempt to describe what the patterns are this week and how you might relate to them better and I wrote a book, 36 Faces. And I teach classes primarily online and then I have sort of a year-long learn astrology program that's cut up into month long units and although some people do it all year with me, I also allow people to enroll on a modular level because astrology is hard

56:34 And so learning a chunk at a time when you have time is the way that most people do it and so people can just You know go in for let's do the signs, you know That's a month or let's do the planets and that's a month. Um, then I teach a variety of other sort of odds-and-ends I taught a planetary magic class and I do have the recordings of some of my classes edited and available for purchase on And I do talks sometimes. I haven't been talking too much publicly lately other than on podcasts, but you know there are some local astrology groups in a lot of pretty much any major or minor city in the United States and so sometimes I travel and won't give a talk

57:18 Right on man. Yeah, you're doing quite a bit and you're right it is hard It's it really difficult language to learn I mean there's a lot of depth there and every time I do an astrology show I try To do a couple a year talk to an astrologer. I get really jazzed up about it And I'm like oh I'm gonna I'm gonna learn this shit I'm gonna start mapping my life like this and then as soon as I'm on my own and I have to like get into the You know deep waters It's rough. I give up well just one thing about learning astrology for you and for any of your listeners who are interested You've really got to take it one piece at a time And the pieces are really not that hard or not that complicated by themselves It's the putting them together That's crazy, but just start with learning what the planets mean in astrology cool

58:06 Once you're solid on the planets, move on to the signs. Right? And it's one piece at a time and so for example let's say if we just know what the planets mean Right that's like depending on what you call planet and what's not a plan let's say thats ten different terms or symbols. You can learn 10 things and signs well it's only 12 things right but then your next step is you have to understand every planet in every sign so now the next step you got a hundred twenty things Right got 10 times 12 and that's why it gets crazy when you're learning if you try to jump into the 120 before you have ten and you have twelve.

58:51 And so, you know and if you haven't if you don't have those fundamental terms clear then you can't multiply them right but If you just just you know Just learn the planets. Just learn the signs and then move on to the next step All right That seems like a pretty good approach until of course we all ship off to the Mars colony And then we have to learn all this stuff from a different perspective I am so interested to see what that's gonna be astrological level, because then people are going to have Earth in their chart. Yeah! Man that's gonna be trippy I wonder what kind of influence Earth will have on a Mars chart? yeah i think it'll probably be calming and grounding It is pretty mellow planet as far as they go you know when you compare what's going on an earth with the composition and weather anywhere else we live in mildville

59:46 That's true. All right, well I could do it all day you know the rabbit hole goes deep but thanks again for being here i really did love it and take care of yourself out there yeah you too this was really fun take your easy greg all right peace man bye Sweet Christmas friends Austin Coppock for the win. I love it The man knows his craft It's funny because I've had my chart read twice on the air before both times. I found it very accurate I've dug in even deeper seen more detailed information I'm a believer for sure kind of hard for me to say that about things I don't really understand the mechanisms behind but it still works and

1:00:27 I guess you don't really need to know the details of what makes your smartphone work or your car drive to use it and see it as a useful tool, right? And of course there will be naysayers that throw out the same old criticism that well It's just a bunch of vague statements that you self-identify with. Yeah maybe if you only scratch the surface Maybe if you only get your knowledge of astrology from The Huffington Post or the grocery store checkout line It really annoys me when I hear people citing textbook debunking lines as if it's something they came up with themselves. There is always an official answer, the establishment doesn't just say oh we don't know about that there always is a way to discredit it

1:01:10 Roswell was a weather balloon. The Norway spiral was a failed rocket test and it's funny how quickly some people will look at a mystery of you like oh my god what is this? What's going on and then as soon as that official answer comes out they're just sharing the links all over the internet, and they're positive that is what it is kind of side note but those kinda statements get made about astrology too I think its bullshit I think your playing right into their hands if you do that kind of stuff and kinda being a propaganda propagator for the elite. And most of ya aren't even getting paid, so...

1:01:46 But something my main man Gordon brought to my attention just after I recorded this show is the story that NASA changed the Zodiac. And maybe changed isn't the right word because they can't really change anything but if you Google it, you'll see a bunch of articles oh they did change it no they didn't change it It's just cause confusion of course but they say that they retraced the steps of Babylonia's math and added a new constellation to the zodiac called Ophiuchus, the snake bearer of all things. And I do remember hearing about Ophiuchus a couple years ago. I thought then it was just a psychological trick to make astrology seem worthless and it seems to have been recycled this time from our friends at NASA you got to give it that official stamp right? I guess it didn't work the first time so now you can reinforce the same discreditation with a more established source but from what I just read five minutes ago NASA is

1:02:42 really just obscuring the difference between constellations and zodiac signs. There is a slight distinction, and here's something from the good folks at astrologyclub.com ancient and medieval astrologers considered that there were 48 constellations of these 12 were considered zodiacal constellations The other 36 were considered extrazodiacal constellations The twelve zodiacal constellations those through which the Sun appears to pass during the course of a year and their names Aries through Pisces are familiar to anyone interested in his or her sun-or star sign. Ophiuchus is one of 36 extra zodiacal constellations not one of those which the Sun is considered to appear to pass there also seems to be helluva big difference between Western astrology and classic Vedic stuff so they knew about Ophiuchus

1:03:34 They recognized a fucus, it's just not...a zodiac sign. But of course the story is just how dumb the ancients were and how lame astrology is Just a couple of internet headlines you'll see when you google this story NASA changed all the astrological signs now I'm a crab Chaos Reigns as addition of a fucus Cast doubt over accuracy of all horoscopes Zodiac signs changed by NASA Has your whole life been a lie? So, when you see some esoteric art like astrology being attacked in this way you can be pretty sure it's worth paying attention to. But what do I know? In the Plus Show this week if you'd be so kind as to sign up we talked about Saturn quite a bit and the way it is used in the conspiracy world –the idea that Archons reside out there–what role it might play… We got into the three gifts of Hermes –astrology magic and alchemy… Talked about the Alchemical Resurgence

1:04:29 You know I'm into that right now. And of course we talked about how to communicate with entities and strengthen our ability to do so Remember you can still get a free week of THC plus by going at the higher side chats calm and filling out the form At the bottom of the page, and once you're on the ride. I hope you'll stay Because in the immortal words of real big fish We got a good thing going here, and I don't want to see it end And that's it for me. I think i mentioned this last week but, I had a string of cancellations and reschedules so I still have one more show to get out this month and I'm trying but It's also the annual holiday celebration of our Dark Lord and you got to respect that too But stay tuned! I'll see ya then Your move Ophiuchus... your fucking move Sweet dreams to the Ali

1:05:25 I'm out on THC Uncovering secrets and conspiracies Everybody's looking for something Some of them want to use you Some of them want to get used by you Some of them want to abuse you Some of them want to be abused Sweet things on DHC Who the hell could disagree? We know the rabbit hole goes deep Everybody's digging for something Some of them want to use you