Age of Aquarius

The Age of Aquarius is a supposed two-thousand-year-long era of enlightenment, joy, accomplishment, intellect, brotherly peace, and closeness to God, heralded by the entry of the sun into the zodiac sign of Aquarius.

Astrologers disagree on the exact start of the Age of Aquarius. Dates range from 1904 to 2160; the latter was arrived at in calculations made by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The disparities in dates are due to the backward drift of the vernal equinox through the zodiac. The vernal equinox takes 25,920 years to make a complete cycle through the zodiac, but a gradual slipping creates a retrograde of one zodiac sign approximately every 2,160 years. Some astrologers take this slippage into account, others do not. American medium Edgar Cayce, called by some “the Prophet of the New Age,” said the Age of Aquarius and its preceding age, the Age of Pisces, overlap and that the transition could not be fully understood until the beginning of the twenty-first century. The Age of Pisces is supposed to be characterized by disillusionment and scepticism.

The transition to Aquarius allegedly will bring ferment and change in social behaviour and institutions. Aquarius is ruled by two planets: Saturn, symbol of time, endurance, tests, and tasks; and Uranus, symbol of the new, revolutionary, strange, and bizarre. The 2160 starting date for the Age of Aquarius approximately coincides with various predictions of cataclysms, war, and a shift of the North Pole in the closing years of the twentieth century, followed by a two-thousand-year era of peace, tranquillity, and brotherhood.

The term “Age of Aquarius” was popular during the 1960s, which saw a great deal of societal change and upheaval and interest in spiritual exploration. The Great Conjunction of the sun, moon, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn in Aquarius on February 5, 1962, was said by astrologers to be a significant influence on quickening the transition to the new era.

The term “Age of Aquarius” has been supplanted by “New Age.”

SEE ALSO:

  • Harmonic Convergence
  • New Age
  • Nostradamus;
  • Book of Revelation

      • Sources and further reading:

    • “Astrology and the New Cult of the Occult.” Time (March 21, 1969): 4756;
    • Mary Ellen Carter. Edgar Cayce on Prophecy. New York: Warner, 1968;
    • Grace Cooke. The Illumined Ones. New Lands, England: White Eagle Publishing Trust, 1966;
    • Jean-Charles de Fombrune. Nostradamus: Countdown to Apocalypse. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980;
    • Doreen Valiente. Witchcraft for Tomorrow. Custer, WA: Phoenix Publishing, 1978.

    SOURCE:

    Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience – Written by Rosemary Ellen Guiley Copyright © 1991 by Rosemary Ellen Guiley.

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