Astrological Writing
by Brian Francis Culkin
TWO ESSAYS ON ASTROLOGY
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In his first astrology book, Brian Francis Culkin presents two compelling essays that connect the timeless archetypal structure of astrology with the cultural flux of the 21st century as we stand at the threshold of the Aquarian Age.
In the first essay, “(Astrological) Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious,” Culkin explores the structural significance of the sign of Sagittarius in relation to the zodiacal plane, and why the realm of comedy falls under Sagittarius's rulership. Drawing on Shakespeare's comedy As You Like It, comedians such as Richard Pryor and Bill Hicks, and a critical analysis of contemporary culture's growing hostility toward the Sagittarian gesture of humour, this essay makes a powerful case for the centrality of both Sagittarius and comedy to the evolution of human consciousness.
The second essay, “Saturn, Uranus, and Marx,” delves into the timeless dialectical interplay between Saturn and Uranus and how critiques of both capitalism and communism can ultimately be seen as critiques of the excesses of Saturn and Uranus - depending on the critic's perspective. This essay also examines the birth chart of Karl Marx, the foremost critical theorist of global capitalism, who had Saturn and Uranus in hard aspect in his own natal chart. Culkin argues that overcoming capitalism does not require the imposition of a communist state, but rather a collective recognition and integration of these planetary archetypes into the socio-political structure of Planet Earth.
Brian Francis Culkin is a Peruvian-based American writer, cultural theorist, playwright, film director, and humanistic astrologer.
STUDIES IN SYMBOLIC ASTROLOGY
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On an unknown date in 1925, the American astrologer Marc Edmund Jones and the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler conducted what could appropriately be called a "psychic experiment" while seated in a nondescript car in San Diego's Balboa Park. Their goal that day was to somehow transcend the traditional twelve-fold thirty-degree division of the zodiacal plane and generate a description for each degree of the zodiac.
The outcome of their unique collaboration became known as the Sabian Symbols, arguably the most significant astrological breakthrough of the 20th century.
Reading the Sabian Symbols explores the profound underlying meaning of each zodiacal degree and its distinctive symbolic properties. By developing a fundamental theory of the degree-unit and examining the natal charts of various historical figures in which certain Sabian Symbols are analyzed in relation to biographical events, this work offers a unique contemporary perspective of astrological theory and practice.