Practical Astrology with S.J. Anderson

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This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Welcome to synchronicity. My guest this week is S.J. Anderson. I had a whole intro recorded and I was like, you know what I forgot to talk about is mushrooms got legalized or decriminalized. We should say there's a difference in Denver, Colorado. Way to go Denver. That's pretty cool. It was especially cool because in a very mushroom like fashion, this is only the trickster mushroom could do this. It looked like it had been defeated. The news that had come out initially was that no, people aren't ready for cognitive liberty and consciousness expanding substances that can go good or bad and who knows what can happen.

But nope, turn of events, reality bended. It is okay. Maybe people went back in time. That's what I think happened. I think people, a bunch of people, they're like, oh shit, this is teetering on the brink. We gotta do something. A bunch of people probably took mushrooms, time travel back, influence things, cosmic math, sacred geometry, shock rise, boom, done. And it happened. So that's pretty cool. So I just wanted to get that in there and I wanna re-record a whole intro 'cause why the fuck not? It's my show, I can do it. SJ, astrology, cool stuff. Does it warrant me screaming into a mic? Probably not, but it's pretty cool.

I'll tell you why I like astrology. I like it because as I'm realizing and learning more about it, I see that it sits comfortably in the middle of mysticism, occultism, kind of esotericism, and it is also the birth of astronomy. So it is clearly has a strong relationship to scientific materialism, right? And it's important not to let that get lost, right? I mean, astronomy is born out of astrology. A lot of people are like, well, astronomy's valid. Astrology is not, it's like leaching. Leaching is not useful. We learn that. It's like, maybe, maybe not. But a lot of smart people have been very interested in astrology and have found it to be not only an accurate predictor or kind of template for viewing reality, but just kind of a cool fucking thing.

Jung comes to mind. I don't understand almost nothing. I understand almost nothing that Jung writes about astrology is incredibly foreign to me specifically because I don't understand the core kind of principles of astrology, which leads me to a very nice segue that was unintentional, which is these books that SJ has recommended as kind of auxiliary pieces to this episode because during it, I'm like, listen, I've been interested in this a while. I've learned some great things that Julianna McCarthy's book, The Stars Within is amazing and it has been very helpful. But I also, there's technical things that I also just don't understand.

And when I see people talking about it and I was like, what the heck are they talking about? I don't get it. So SJ was kind enough to share what he thought were kind of a good intro way to getting into astrology. It's a clunky way of saying that. So there's gonna be three books. There's links to all this stuff. You can find them anywhere. But there's also a free resource that's a web link to patellomies, tetra biblose, tetra biblose, patellomy, P-T-O-L-E-M-Y is his name, but there's links to all this stuff. But I also am gonna give you the name of three books right now. So if this episode makes sense to you and you're like, you know what, I think I'm also like Noah and I'm interested in this.

And I don't really know where to get started or if I've tried before, I've kind of hit roadblocks or obstacles, not totally clicking. There are three books he recommended and here they are. I don't have the authors 'cause I'm ill-prepared. First book is The Secret Language of Astrology. Check that out. These are all on Amazon, bookstores, you can find them all. The second is The American Ephemeris. Ephemeris spelled E-P-H-E-M-E-R-I-S. An ephemeris, as I learned, is a collection of star positions. So it's like a map for the sky and you can find whatever is going on at any given point, which is pretty cool.

And then the third one is Parker's Astrology, specifically The New Edition, which is, there's a lot of different editions. So there's that. And then as I mentioned, there's the free resource. Patelemies, I know it's not Patelemies, that sounds so wrong. Patelemies, tetra biblose, tetra biblose. Gonna keep, I have no idea how it's said. (laughs) So yeah, there's resources, but yeah, if you're like me, this is something I'm interested in. It pops up a lot in my life, but I don't know how to use it as an effective tool. I loosely understand the modality of astrology. So I love speaking to people like SJ.

And next week, have another astrologer on. I didn't plan this. I mean, I guess I did 'cause I did it, but I didn't consciously plan out that I was gonna have a plan in astrologers, but it is a theme. So there's a lot of cool stuff we cover in this episode. How would I let you just listen to it? Let's do a quick little promo forsegmatic.com. That's, that, maybe I should send that to them really. Hey, I got your new theme song. I got your new hook. Forsegmatic.com/sink, mushroom coffee, mushroom tea, mushroom elixir, good stuff. Doesn't taste like mushrooms. That would be weird if it did. Mushrooms come with cool stuff.

They come from the ground. We were talking about mushrooms. Denver just legalized psychedelic mushrooms. So let's just make this a mushroom theme. Like forsegmatic.com/sink. I am acutely aware that every podcaster at this point has plugged this stuff. Maybe you're one of those people who is hurling it everywhere and you're like, "Oh God, I know the forsegmatic." But maybe you're also one of those people who hasn't tried it. And if you haven't tried it, why not use the discount code? You get 15% off. We're using the code sink. S-Y-N-C forsegmatic.com/sink. So do that. I am happy to have introduced the forsegmatic people to people who are actually selling their stuff for me.

We'll see how it goes. I am kind of as a teaser, trying to figure out the best way possible to work with companies and people who wanna get their name out there who I think are cool and kind of the best way to do that, not only with the podcast, but just kind of in a holistic fashion. I do that in my day job. I do it for other people. So I'm trying to figure out how to do it in the most authentic way. As you can guess, I'm not great at chilling stuff. I don't use regularly or often. If I do, listen, you want me to show you a song "Ice and Fire" by George RR Martin. I will sell a million of those.

But it's gotta be something I actually use and care about as you can tell. So that's coming. There's a cool, cool little thing that should be coming up that I think you guys would like. That's it. I've rambled on officially enough. S.J. Anderson, find him on Twitter. That's where he is. That's where I found him. Hell of a dude, really insightful. Also part of the "Take Psychedelics" when you're 15 years old club. Love those people. Hope you're having a great night. Great night. I was gonna say, hope you're having a great idea out there. And I will say that. That's what we'll go. Also have a great day.

It's also my son's birthday. Boom, he's three. Didn't. Alive. Somewhat good at it. All right. Without further ado, here is S.J. Anderson. (upbeat music) Thanks for coming on. How you're welcome now, thank you. So, I will lead with saying my only knowledge of you has come through Twitter. Which is my preferred kind of method for vetting people and just kind of seeing what they put out there. I feel like maybe some people feel differently, but I feel it gives a relatively accurate picture of who the person is and what's really blown me away kind of about what you post about astrology is some of the more kind of the specificity involved in some of the things you talk about relating to houses and kind of cultural events and world leaders and things like that.

But then just seeing you interact with people who are asking you questions or pointing something out. Like you seem like a pretty cool dude. On top of that, I know just from following you that you're an expat living in Georgia. So, I know there's some interesting shit going on with you, man. So, I'm just curious to find out, like how did you get interested in astrology? How did you make your way to Georgia from Texas? Like what's going on with you, man? (laughing) Yeah, absolutely, man. No, yeah, my story, wow, it's a long story. I never thought I would be an expat even two years ago. So, that was kind of a radical shift in my life that happened, I'd say 2017.

But we can go back, let's just trace it back. I can give you a little bit of background about who I am, maybe how I came to be this astrologer. The astrology thing too was something I never thought I would even get into. And it was a really strange way that it came about. I was a student of tarot, obviously, or not obviously, but I was a student of tarot. And even before that, I wanted to say obviously because I was thinking about it even before that. Getting into just esoteric occult topics. From a young age, I got involved in psychedelics, as a young man, I'm 38, so this is late 90s, as all that was Christian doing.

And I had some really heavy duty LSD experiences that just kind of cracked me open. Nice. And even before that, I remember being on the, let's see, a Ouija board. And that thing went wild, man. As soon as I put my hands on it, I was doing it alone. Like this was like 12 and 13 a few times. And that was nuts, you know? And so I guess what I'm saying is I've had these experiences that tricked me into or lifted me into the idea that there's things that aren't obvious in terms of our material reality that are operative in how life works, you know what I'm saying. So you're the perfect guest, literally, for this show.

That's if this show had an ethos in a living breathing heart, you've just kind of given a synopsis of the type of people who I like to speak to. So, next. Okay, well, wonderful. Yeah, I'm glad we can, you know, hopefully line up even on some other things. Because astrology is, it is a craft, the planets exist, but it's held within a larger context of the human experience. So all these other parts of our humanity apply when looking at astrology, you know, it's not some kind of separated thing. Totally. So just to quickly trace it, you know, so I got into that tarot spirituality. I did some of the pasta and the retreats.

And, you know, spirituality, yoga, all these things just became a important part of my mental health, really. I'm maintaining some equilibrium. But I met a, I went to this kind of retreat with another group. You may have heard of the sync book. I know your podcast is called Syncrenicity. I haven't heard that. Okay, this is a blog that started in maybe '08, '09, and it's still going on, but it sort of had a moment where it was really popular. They published two books called, let me see what the title, the sync book, the sync book, Volume 1 and Volume 2. Yeah. And so anyhow, this group of people, I went into a festival in Boise.

We all kind of stayed at a cabin. And on that cabin, and I was reading tarot, and I was like, yeah, I'm really into this. I know a lot about tarot. And there was an astrologer there. And at that time, I was just a tarotologist, if you could say that, who had knowledge of maybe the planetary symbolism on the cards. Right. And I was somewhat versed in that symbolism. But I started talking, and this astrologist looked at me, and within a few sentences, just basically exposed my knowledge of astrology and triggered in me the knowledge that I needed to know so much more. And so basically from that moment on, I became a serious student.

And you learned very quickly that all of the occult traditions that we're dealing with here that we're sort of navigating in, they all have their roots in the astrological tradition. Yeah. This is something that came up with the previous guest who's a Vedic astrologer. And she was basically alluding and explicitly saying it as well. But she's like every major philosophical, contemplative science, religion. If you look at it, they were looking up in the sky and using this as a tool to help them understand not only the physical universe, but their internal worlds too. And it's certainly, this is something I had planned to speak to you about, but it certainly seems now that there seems to be a resurgence in curiosity at the very least related to what's going on with astrology.

I know how this manifests in my life. I'm not a predictive, or I don't look for astrology to be prognostic, like prognosticating what's gonna happen. But what typically happens in my life, some crazy shit will have happened. Or it just feels like some weird shift has happened. I'll look back retrospectively, and sure enough, here are the signs that say this, this, and this were going on. And I find it to be overwhelmingly compelling when this happens over and over again. I mean, what is it about astrology specifically? Do you think that kind of, really, like you said, it triggered something in you that made you more curious about it?

I think this is a common thing that happens with people. What do you think that is? Well, I think it's, if you have stripping it down to its most fundamental nature, I mean, you walk outside any night, and you look up, and there they are. I mean, and it's as simple as that. And they move, they move predictably, and I'm talking about the sun, the moon, and then what they call the wandering stars, which are the five things that look like stars. But if you observe them over any amount of time, they're moving around in the sky. And so to me, it's so fundamental to our humanness because it's the one thing that's constant.

It's visually available almost any night, like I said. And so that, to me, is what gives it this really kind of innate power. And so, but from there, yeah, I think that we have a whole tradition, a written tradition of students of the stars, and any of the earliest books claim that the knowledge is given to them by other priests or other figures of spiritual significance. So there is this mystery to its origins as well. But basically, it's as old as human beings. You know, they say like the oldest profession, and we know that saying, but this might be the second or third oldest profession.

Yeah, yeah. - It's the astrologer.

It's totally true. And not to take you off on tangents, although I am prone to doing that. But yeah, I mean, I think it's just, it just, when you mention that it's something that's deeply rooted, not just in kind of our psyches, but just like the actual historical context of thought. I think it's just, it's a really poignant thing to remember. It makes a lot of sense, man. They're right above us all of the time on a clear night. There wasn't all these buildings around either, too. So who are easier to see? Yeah, man, continue with your story. I'm loving this.

Yeah, that's fine. That's great. So just to say it's, there's a materialism. So the other thing you might've seen on Twitter, this is a thing that comes up every so often. There's this kind of war between materialists. And I mean, we can call, I don't want to be pejorative to this worldview, but, you know, we can call them maybe scientists, size-entismists.

Yeah, scientific materialism. I usually see, yeah, totally, totally.

Yeah, so that's a component of the astrology that is actually grounded in pure scientific materialism is this visual component of observation. So it's just worth noting, it's a scientific materialism and it's a psyche and it's this kind of historical text-based lineage. So it's important because I think there is some friendship and maybe some common ground, hopefully we can get to and then we have gotten to between those two worldviews. I mean, there is some crossover and it's worth mentioning that, but I can continue back again now, just if you want. I just wanted to stay there and just make that kind of really just felt important to me.

No, of course, of course. That's how we do it here.

It's sweet, sweet. But yeah, so I met, and I know her still, she's in the astrology scene. The other thing about the astrology community is there are some institutions that exist. There's professional organizations, there's conferences. And so there are like astrologers that are part of this scene, let's say. And this astrologer that I met, yeah, she's a well-respected woman. I mean, I could say her name, Dr. Jen Zart, she does some good work translating German astrologers from the Weimar period that's kind of in her main focus. But you find out, so I found it very quickly, like, I don't really know what I'm talking about.

And so they had triggered up this whole thing. I studied intensely and it just has never stopped. The one thing I want to say though is that it's, I look back, you can then look back at your life. And so I was able to examine certain events, big events for me when I had no knowledge of astrology and then punch up the chart, just kind of like what you were saying. And it was so accurate. I mean, it wasn't, these aren't like loose interpretations. It could be this or could be that. I mean, there were pinpoint accuracy with the transits and the events that happened before I had any knowledge of astrology.

Right, right, right.

It made me say, okay, what is this? What's really happening here? And so at a minimum, I have a faith in it because of that. And, you know, there's a whole other conversation of why is it doing, why is it working, how it's working? And that I don't have 100% answers to, I don't think I ever will. But those are interesting things to explore too. You know, ideas about what it is actually. What's the mechanism?

Totally, totally. No, and I mean, I think that's also like, you know, trying to, that's entering chapel perilous in Cosmic Control Center and Robert Anton Wilson language in terms of like, we can get close approximations of what's going on, but the why behind it. I don't think we're gonna answer that in this earthly existence completely. I think that's part of the fun of it too, obviously, is that we get to speculate and theorize. But also like, again, man, like just referencing what we were saying, like, I think a lot of people who grew up, I mean, I'm roughly your age, I'm gonna be 36 in July.

You know, people who grew up on our age grew up in a world that didn't question scientific materialism. You know, spirituality was almost falling out of favor in a lot of ways and we were just completely reliant on the advances of science to tell us what was going on. I think there's a reluctance on a lot of people, internally, that astrology is something gonna be like, you know, it's woo, it's a little, you can't, it's like kind of, you know, psychics, they're gonna do cold reads or there's some things and it's vaguely like what you are and how can you tell just for my birthday what's going on.

So people are very wary of the self-fulfilling prophecy aspect of it, but I think the most powerful things that instill exactly what you said, the perfect word, faith in this stuff, is when you retroactively recognize things that happen, that you couldn't have consciously made happen for yourself, right? You weren't planning, you weren't knowing that your first house was in this and then that was gonna have an influence there, but when you look back and see it, that creates kind of this, I'm trying to find a word for it, but it does create this solidity to your belief and kind of opening up your intuition and allowing this stuff to kind of work its magic, so to speak, because you don't get shaken off the course, like, well, what if this isn't real?

Like, what if this isn't really something that's worth my time and it sounds like you had enough of those experience where you're, like, locked and loaded, you're totally getting this stuff. So, I mean, you said this was around 2017, is that right?

Yeah, this was back in about 2016 is when I met Dr. Zart, March 2016, and I had been a student of Terra for probably the previous five years or more, so. But yeah, the met Dr. Zart, March, on my birthday in 2016, which is-- - When's your breath in?

March 24th, and it was an Easter weekend and we had this kind of ritualistic, we walked through a maze, it was very beautiful. But astrologically, and I don't wanna get too technical, but basically that was a shift. Any time you have a birthday, it's a shift in terms of your chart and things become highlighted that maybe weren't, and so my chart did shift that year into what we would call a Mercury-ruled period, and it fit perfectly because I became a student of astrology and Mercury is the planet that rules astrology. So, and it was this kind of celebration really looking back of such a beautiful time.

But the other thing I wanted to just say here quickly is like even astrologers in like Claudius, Ptolemy, I think that's the correct pronunciation. He's sort of the most famous ancient astrologer. His book survived from the time it was written in a continuous chain of translation, and we had the Greek and there was great translations all the way through to the current time. But even he acknowledges in his, went like the introduction that look, astrology's not perfect, I mean, we get it wrong, but it works well enough that to not take it into account would be foolhardy.

Right, right.

So it, yeah.

But wouldn't you say for the vast majority of people, they're not looking at astrology as some valid tool for human experience. I mean, I think as much as I find more and more people being attuned to it, it's certainly not something, at least publicly, that people are saying, "Oh yeah, this is what I let dictate my life. "I see kind of a resurgence of it, "but it's not something that's just relied on as a tool," which is weird because, right, I mean, we know that our modern astronomy also was born out of it as well. So, I mean, you, obviously, you were studying at cult stuff and esoteric things.

You know, this is still a relatively small percentage of human consciousness looking at these things. I mean, a cult, you know, means hidden. So, what do you think, I mean, what are your observations? I'm asking you to speculate here about what's going on right now in our time and points in history. Like, it certainly seems like we're, shit is getting weird, right? What does astrology help us in any way to give us some perspective on what the fuck is going on?

Big time, and especially with, I mean, so right now, the big thing in astrology, and if you're following astrologers on Twitter, you'll see more discussion of this as we enter into this space, but December 21st, 2020, on the winter, what equinox, or no, solstice, sorry, the winter solstice, there will be a Jupiter Saturn conjunction right in the first degree of Aquarius. And the Jupiter and Saturn can join once roughly every 20 years. The thing about the pattern is that they can join in the signs of the same element for periods of about 200 years. So that is to say there will be a conjunction in Aquarius in 2021, and in about 20 years, there'll be another conjunction, I believe it will go to Gemini, but I can get it all up.

But basically it stays in air signs for 200 years. And then it shifts triplicity. It's called the triplicity shift, the great conjunction bringing in the triplicity shift. That's kind of my bastardization of the actual noun, but there's a name for it. And so we're shifting now, we've had an 80 of 40 year period of a transition because in 1980 was the first conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn and air signs. It happened in Libra in '80 and actually it made three passes because of the retrogradation of the planets, but there were three passes in '80 and '81 of this conjunction. Then the conjunction in the year 2000, I think it was 2001, happened in Taurus.

And now we're gonna go to air signs fully. So there won't be another conjunction in earth signs. And this is kind of a complex thing. Stop me if you want me to check it out.

No, no, I'm loving, I trust me. My questions are ready to go, but I'm loving this, man.

So that sometimes the transition happens only. There's no like movement back into the previous triplicity, but in 1980, 2000, and 2020 we went back to the air sign, the conjunction happened in the air sign, and now we're gonna be in earth signs and now we'll be in air signs permanently. So that's a long way of saying, beginning in about 1980 until 2020, we've been in this transition into a new age. And I'm someone who, I use that term kind of deliberately, it has connotations, but I mean, we literally are in a new age and you can just look at the technological development starting in 1980 to now, just with the computer.

This is our lives you're talking about, you and me, like this is our lives.

Absolutely, I was born with that conjunction in my natal. So I have that in my first house, the Saturn Jupiter conjunction. But yeah, it's our lives. I mean, we were born in the early '80s and we've seen now I can open up my smartphone and have the library at Alexandria and have a, you know, a media network that reaches the whole of the world.

So fucking nuts.

It's so nuts.

Yeah, continue, continue, need.

So just that's, to me, if we're at, the question is, what does astrology say about what's happening in our time?

And that's, I think, some of the, at least medium-term context. And I say medium-term like several hundred years.

Right, right.

Because there is some context that's thousands of years as well that we can go into, that that's some of my current research is focused on. But just in terms of the medium-term, several hundred-year cycles, we're on the cusp and in transition and that's the big thing to watch.

And you said December 2020, the 21st and 2020?

December 21st, 2020, in New York time, that will be, I think, the perfection of the conjunction.

It's very interesting. I've been saying for the past couple of years that I felt like we're moving through the end stages of the pretty big transition and I feel like 2020. And I'm like, I'm plucking these numbers and dates like out of thin air. There's literally no analysis. I'm not using planets for references, but when I have conversations and we're speculating with friends or on podcasts, like that's what I keep referencing. So it's really interesting to me that that kind of lines up for like a transitory period. I mean, what other insights, you said we're moving into like air signs. What, when you use a term like air signs, what does that mean to you?

Okay, so it has a like a contextual sort of technical definition amongst ancient astrologers and into this day and air signs are signs that are ruled by, well, that's probably not the best place to start, but they're the air element. In the ancient philosophy, so you're talking Aristotle and others, they talked about the elements, the four elements that make up reality and that's air, water, earth and fire. And so the philosophers sort of broke down the component parts of everything into those four elements. And then they have the fifth element, ether or spirit. And so I'm not sure if the astrologer's invented it or if the philosophers, but because we don't have records to go back that far, but at a certain point, the zodiac is divided into 12, idealized 30 degree portions.

So the ecliptic, that's where the line that the sun moves in the sky. We divide that into these idealized 30 degree segments and through a system of symmetry and correspondences the astrologers were to divide, 12 divides into four elegantly, you get three. So you have three signs that are assigned to each element. And so that's just, when I say what are air signs to me, I go into the sort of the mathematics of the zodiac because it's necessary to, that's how I sort of always interpret this stuff, but we can then go to, so I'll just say there, the astrologer's assigned three planets to the air signs and they're what's called triplicity rulers.

And that's Saturn, Mercury, and Jupiter is a supporting world. Basically it's Saturn and Mercury. And so for me, if I wanted to start delineating air, the quality of air as it relates to astrology, I would wanna go into merc, mercurial things and, you know, Saturnine things. Mercury obviously is the planet of technology, writing, advancements through kind of tricksterism. And we see that with the technology, the computers, right? Very mercurial. So that's where I would start dipping my toes into a discussion of that, is that we're talking about technology and we're talking about air, sometimes literally.

I know some astrologers are talking about the age of the Jetsons that will be upon us, you know? Flag cars. - We finally get our flying cars, right? And our teams, yeah. (laughs)

Amazing. I find this stuff so incredibly interesting because what it does for me, at least hearing you explain it, is it builds a bridge between kind of the modern application of what I see astrology being used for and kind of this deep rooted, you know, tradition that really is like a valid lineage that it's been passed down, not just in one culture, but throughout many cultures. And the way it just lines up, I think, is it's a beautiful reminder that there is, just like you said when you were taking psychedelics and cracking your mind open, like, you know, there's shit going on here that we can't perceive with our five senses all of the time.

There's stuff that we're not privy to. There's stuff that we're being taught that is only a very small section of reality. So to open our minds to these other things and find something that kind of allows us to use, you know, the tool of astrology, I think is just like the coolest fucking thing. I mean, and I guess that's partially why I'm using my own anecdotal experience here, but why more and more people seem to be gravitating? At least in my peer group, right? I mean, I know a lot of people, maybe 30, 40 years ago, are gonna be gravitating a lot to Eastern religions and we still certainly see this lineage with mindfulness in the West becoming more and more prominent, but it seems like the guru age is crumbling a little bit under, you know, a lot of other culture and social pressures.

And it seems like something that really does rely on math and interpretations of our own internal state of being and what's going on externally, what astrology is becoming like a more popular tool. Is this what you're seeing related to?

Absolutely, big time. I mean, there's a couple of things there. Like one, I was just, there was a paper written, it was like a conference at Ford. I'm, I can send it to you about the post-Soviet world and occultism in the post-Soviet world and in that paper. And this is not, this paper didn't have this unique idea, but I just happen to be reading it like about a month ago. And in it, it was describing the economic instability resulting in an increase in the study of occultism or things that are these unseen realms. I just think that that is something that's a big part of the increase in interest in the occult because we had a crash in 2008, society since the '70s.

So we can, let's just say 1980. So we can keep this 40 year run of our lives going.

Yeah.

You know, you can just look at the numbers, the money that's available for most people in our system has diminished. Things have, and so that's a whole conversation we can just kind of label it maybe economic falling back economically, let's say. And of course we've seen gyrations in our lives where you really have the 2008 crash and that kind of fleshed everybody out in a lot of ways. Now there are some jobs, but maybe you can't buy a house or have health care, have an education. I think America is particularly pernicious in this.

Yeah, you think?

Yeah. Really?

So without going, we could go into that and but let's just say, economic turmoil. And I think that out of that, you have seen a rebirth and interest in this stuff. And I think that's a part of the story. The other part of it that's I think highly relevant is that you're seeing sort of a corporate, I don't want to say takeover, but they're kind of getting into this area and sort of corporatizing this stuff for profiteering. I mean, they'll take whatever popular and use it to sell their wares. And so Amazon, just the thing where they hired an astrologer who's really not an astrologer to assign products based on your Zodiac sign.

So I guess what I'm saying by mentioning that is that there is an increased interest, but I think we have to be maybe discerning to see just to see how much of that interest is what is behind the organic or the depth and quality of the interest is important to keep something to keep in mind.

Well, you've honed in on, I think, which is an issue for anyone who is interested in doing genuinely cool things with cool stuff. And that is vague on purpose 'cause it encompasses literally everything. I got my professional career started working with a lot of nonprofits in the spiritual world, very well-known famous people and were built long-time careers of genuinely being known as good people who are trying to help other people. And just to see how quickly that got hooked in to kind of the hooks of capitalism and that little nexus point between capitalism and spirituality, it literally, I mean, nowadays we have corporations mining data just to see if they can push a vertical.

Is astrology worth a vertical? Can we start monetizing this in any way? And it really begins to cloud the waters in terms, because then as you know, like you're mentioning people like Aristotle, you're mentioning people with names I can't pronounce, I don't know who they are, like you study this shit. That to me, like people are very quickly to eschew and say it's not important lineage and all this stuff, but I think it's particularly important because it's a very good way often of finding out like what's the roots of this? Is this bullshit? Who started this? When did this start? What's the motivation?

Is there money behind this? Is there funding? And yeah, that no true art or science is immune from that in this day and age. It's, I hope and work towards with many of my peers as much as possible towards the future where we don't have to worry about that, where we don't have to be wary of corporate influences kind of taking something and making it soulless for lack of a better term or spreading misinformation, which is almost as bad. So yeah, man, I know exactly what you're talking about. Of course astrology wouldn't be immune from it. And I think that's a really good point to like pay attention, like how much of this is real?

Like are we getting fed, you know, corporate Walmart versions of astrology or you know, should we dig a little deeper and try to find kind of the hitting meeting of this stuff? And just to be clear, I imagine this is why you do it. Like we study and are interested in these things because they're fulfilling on a very deep level. Trying to contextualize and understand life and our relationship and place to it, you know, is one of the most important things anyone is doing during their life, right? And we can speculate why people are here and all of that stuff, but, you know, truthfully, like that is like what better way to do that by examining your relationship to the stars and your specific relationship into coming into this incarnation.

So yeah, man, I know I range there, but essentially I'm saying I get that there's this bullshitty kind of, you know, I don't wanna say dark, it's not dark, but it's just like kind of this robotic capitalist machine that funnels and drives up interest, you know, purely with money sometimes, no organic interest, so I'm glad you brought that up.

Yeah, and I think it's actually something that we can take, really what's important to me about it is that it puts the burden on the individual seeker, let's call them, I wanted to say a consumer, but that's that's, I don't think does it justice the seeker to use discernment to kind of parse between what's available and through their own intuition and their own other support of spiritual practices, you know, find things that like you're saying resonate and I definitely have trust in the human capacity to become inspired, seek and find good quality answers. So I don't think that is gonna be taken away and that's positive about all of this.

It just means different questions might have to be asked in that seeking process. And this is something that's, you know, ancient, I mean, I think in every part of life you have deceivers and charlatans in every age and, you know, our current digitized form of that, maybe, you know, it's just maybe a new container for it. But so I guess I'm happy that hopefully people will become savvy as an opportunity for an invitation maybe to go deeper.

Yes, yes, that's a really, I mean, I love your eternal optimism, I very much agree with it. Dude, I also realized as we're going off on all this stuff, I think how did you become an expat again?

Yeah, so I'm a Texan, I mean, I'm an Austinite. I, you know, I really identify with that Texas identity. I worked a job for a number like that eight, nine years. I was working for a real estate flipper, basically. You've had some businesses here in Austin and I never thought I would leave. I mean, I was just here in Austin. I have a lot of friends and family. I'm actually here visiting right now.

Oh, cool.

Yeah, it's--

Hence you saying here in Austin.

Yeah, I'll be leaving at the end like in two weeks. I'll be going back abroad, but so I left my job and I wanted to quit that job. It felt like the right moment. And I, it was one of those things that wasn't really planned. I just started, I was gonna go to Alaska. There's a kind of a long story, but I just was saying, yes, to sort of the next right thing that was unfolding. And, you know, I ended up in Thailand for about five months. And I've just kind of been bouncing around to places that seem cheap and, you know, maybe interesting and I met people and had, you know, reasons to stay in places through relationships and things.

And yeah, I mean, it's been just a big journey for sure. So I, but once I left, I realized how much more comfortable I feel outside of America, just psychically. I mean, there's a certain relief from just the cultural conditioning being so thick. Let's say, just, I mean, you can't avoid it because it's just in the language. It's in the street signs. It's in the, everybody had the same education. What is it, morphogenic field? Is this the term that-- - Yes, yes.

The shell drink. - The shell drink, yes.

The shell drink, the shell drink. It's like this collective field that's just so thick and heavy. And when I leave and go into another culture's morphogenic field, it's, I don't have the same relationship to it. And so there's a spaciousness that I found exists just for me that I really enjoy, you know? And I try to be respectful to, as part of that, you don't want to just, you know, trounce around in other people's energy without just being respectful and acknowledging that reality that I'm not from a place entering into these, this whole different collective understanding. So I just don't want to sound rude about that.

But I mean, it's more about my freeing myself from my own cultural and familial conditioning.

No, I think there's nothing, nothing, but you just have to admire that, though. And there's nothing bad with that at all. And I think you're taking a very Jungian perspective in terms of not just going in and saying here I am, now what's this like related to me, but being respectful of the places you are, the psychic influences. But I'm sure you also recognize that, you know, again, like when did you take psychedelics for the first time, what age were you?

I was either 15 or 16.

I think I was 15, yeah.

Yeah, me too, all right. And I was taking a heavy, decent amount of acid. So I very much get kind of what that does, like just so we can acknowledge, I've met more of us in the past couple of years, people who really like really went for it in the early years, not necessarily just out of like recreational, but there was some deeper thing that changed us. And I think it partially has to do with like physiologically, our brains are still developing, but psychically we're putting together a sense of self in a very tangible way and a persona and building these and trying to test them out and put them into the world.

And when you take psychedelics at that age, that can get stripped away in an instant. So you're like, "Oh shit, this is the actual state of things." And I think one of the byproducts of that that I've noticed in people take a psychedelics at that young age and it kind of does this thing to them, is it makes them very sensitive to the psychic conditions around them. And that can mean in their immediate surroundings, if they walk into a room at a party with another person, but also exactly what you're talking about, just geographically where you are. So your ability to like leave the country and then say, like, "Oh my gosh, like I can notice viscerally how this feels different."

And that's huge man, that's like a superpower because I don't think a lot of people recognize how much of an influence, the consciousness and what people are thinking about just around you physically does to your mind. Like it is, that must be like a very interesting thing when you're going to all these different platuses, like noticing subtle changes in that.

Oh, absolutely and it's in certain areas. So I spent a lot of time in the two former Soviet republics in the last year. And I mean, you can go into that field and it's very much different in some very tangible ways like the communal vibe. I think that they were, I mean, it was enforced on them, but you feel that. I mean, everything runs like a clock, particularly in Belarus where I was. I mean, it's third cleanest city in the world. I mean, it's very much a community oriented drive for how they're functioning. And I'm not saying it's perfect by any means, but I mean, I just felt such a difference from, like where I'm from, where there's potholes everywhere and homeless people everywhere.

It's like that priority. You could tell there had been generations of a kind of a communal ethic. You know what I mean? - Right.

That's just one example. But the language is important too. And so you, it's Cyrillic, it's Russian, you have, and I don't know well enough and haven't studied enough to know what that would do. But I think that you, just how things are pronounced, there's a harshness, the stress, how they stress words is a little bit different. And so it's just like the music of the language changes the space.

Oh man, that's really fucking interesting. I am not a traveler. My sister is the traveler and the family and other relatives. I am a homebody. I like to stay, I've been to Jamaica like four times in like Mexico and Canada. That's the extent of my travels. Love Jamaica, love it. But I can imagine, and I know what it's like when I do go to a different location, even if it's just a different state or some other place, like what that does and that kind of feeling that it provides. And I think that's something that, I mean, people talk about this all the time, like travel is the easiest thing to like cure someone of racism because it gets harder and harder to justify just your own perspective when you go to different places and realize that like, people live in completely different ways.

Like it's not just the way you and your family or the people around you or your state or your country view things anymore. And I think that's like, it's a very good antidote for getting like this rigidity of mind that it has to be this way. And like, I guess like when you've left since you've left the United States, you could probably see it even more acutely than thus here. Like, shit is not great. It is really not great. And it's like, yes, I am very happy that I was born in a place where I can express myself in pretty much unlimited ways, but let's be clear. I also have a huge advantage. I'm a white dude.

I'm a straight white dude. You know what I mean? There are people in this very country who can't do that shit too. So yeah, man, I get it, man. It's very cool. So like, do you plan when you leave in two weeks? Like, what's your plan? Like, what are you gonna do?

Yeah, I'll be in China. So I'm going to China for a year. I'm gonna be teaching with just a company. They're teaching English. It's kind of something I've done on the side to just basically sustain myself. So I'll be in China for a year. And that'll be a whole interesting trip as well because of just the narrative we get here about China. So I'm really excited to just see what it's like on the ground over there. And I imagine it's not as bad as we're told and not to minimize it. But I'm sure there's some really cool stuff going on there. So that's where I'll be, yeah, in the second, the last week of May is when I'll be arriving there.

Cool, man. That's gonna be really interesting. And so like, when you're living your life, when you're going around, how do you apply the concepts of astrologer or anything else you've learned up to date? Like, how does this look for you in like a practical way? Like, how are you waking up and using this stuff?

That's a great question. And it relates to what we talked about before or what I wanted to mention on one of the previous questions was that there is a strand of astrology that really it's about spiritual practice. And what I mean by that is like daily ritual or what do we do when we want to connect with the divine.

Yes.

And that's what may be one definition of spiritual practice connection with the divine or connection with these unseen realms we've been talking about. And there's a whole history of religious, you might call it religious tradition, I think in the Hellenistic world, you had different cults for different gods and they had prayers and rituals, but it was very much informed by the planets. You would often invoke these planetary archetypes as a part of your rituals or they would. And that tradition continued all the way through the middle ages and into the Renaissance and into the, not as much, I mean, from what I can tell that sort of that sort of magical spiritual tradition sort of died out in a way, but then there was a revitalization around the late 19th century with the golden dawn.

Yes, yes.

And I'm sure you're familiar with that. And so for me, yeah, I mean, you can just incorporate it into your daily spiritual practice. I mean, I like to, I advocate meditation, I meditate not, you know, ideally every day, but sometimes it's maybe four days a week, something like this. But, you know, daily prayer, I do that. And so there is this idea of deference to this mystery. And when you throw astrology over that, you can kind of tailor maybe your prayers to certain planets because every day, every hour actually, there's changes of what planet would rule that hour. And we call that the planetary hours.

You have every day and other planet rules that day. And so, you know, you can kind of change maybe your rituals to, you know, say Mars, you know, say a little offering to Mars or read a poem that's ancient, that kind of praises Mars. Each individual in their chart has certain planets that in a given time take more prominence through certain astrological techniques. So we call that, you know, you have a time lord. I have a cool name, but you know, so you work with your time lords maybe on the day that they're prominent using planetary hours, but basically there's a bunch of techniques that where you can kind of tailor prayers might be the best way to say it, or supplication.

And so that's how I work with it. You know, the other way, the other thing I really like is electional astrology that's brought a term of one of the four branches, four main branches that commentators have organized astrology into and that's just finding auspicious times. You know, you can look based on the planets in your location where maybe the planets are aligned in a way that might be more beneficial for certain types of action.

Yes.

And so like if I'm gonna send a submission to a journal or something, maybe I would time that so that the planets are supportive.

See, I love this stuff because I would describe myself as basically in the dark groping for, you know, any type of real strategy to make things happen in an auspicious manner, but despite my best efforts to trip myself up, it seems like I'm doing a decent job of it. I recognize the and bow to the grace of synchronicity and things that I can't understand, but I love that there are people like you out there who recognize these things are going on and are doing this and that I can just kind of like stumble upon you and like that beacon that you're doing is, that your signal you're sending out, like it makes sense and people are picking it up.

And that to me, like it's very anecdotal, right? There's no empiricism we can apply to what we're talking about, but I've seen it work time and time again and I know people who, you call it a electional, is that what it's called? The electoral astrology?

Yeah, electional.

Yeah, I mean, again, I have a Vedic astrologer who puts together these calendars and I can't very rarely do I use them in advance, but I'll look back and be like, that day was nuts, especially when cryptocurrency was booming and I've been a little Bitcoin boy since 2013. So 2017 was fucking nuts, but man, these calendars would sync up in such a crazy way that I'm like, this is too weird. Like people wouldn't believe me. Luckily I had a community of people, I could pass this along. So I'm like, just so you know, I'm not insane. This is what's been happening and this is what these days for this auspicious thing was gonna happen.

It's just nuts to me that this stuff is out there and there are these templates also for ritual, which you're describing, which I think is very cool because I think people, especially our age or in our group who saw the shift from like pre-internet to internet, we're looking for some type of stability and I think a lot of people want some type of ritualistic experience in their life, but maybe don't wanna go with the traditional ones through religious doctrines or the dogma that's attached to it. But here we can have these kind of changing on the hourly, you know, archetypes related to planets and energies, like that's amazing.

And I don't really, you know, I know even just me personally that's something that piques my interest just because, you know, who are you gonna pick to? Oh, you know, you may use some randomness to it. Oh, well, I'm into Persephone today, but this ability to be in tune with these energies of these planets, I think is like, that's fucking cool. (laughs) Yeah. It really is, man. So what, speaking of like, electional astrology, like, what do you think are the biggest misconceptions people have about astrology as a tool or kind of like a mode of understanding what's going on? Because I know for as much, many people are listening to this are gonna be like, yeah, I'm totally on board.

I love astrology. Why would you even question it? I have a lot of friends, a lot of people were like, now, what are you talking about? This is goofy. How can they tell me anything that's going on? There's no relationship. So what do you think people kind of get wrong when they think about astrology and kind of, you know, write it off? I think so. I mean, amongst the people that are interested and say, this is cool, I do think that it's not as much as what they're getting wrong, but it's just what they're not considering. Because like, we grew up, and we can talk about the people that dislike it as well, but like when we grew up, I mean, I remember my local town here in Austin, we had a weekly newspaper that has the Sunshine Horse scope in the back, and that was how most people, I think, were engaging with it.

Oh, did you read your horoscope? And you pull it out every Thursday, and you'd read a paragraph. And so people, I think, even many of the people that are like, yeah, astrology is cool, and it works, are coming at it from that perspective, of just that it's describing your personality, or describing maybe something that you might be dealing with, or just a one or two paragraph summary of something that's going to happen or is happening. And it's kind of a playful thing, where people tongue-in-cheek maybe, and just more of an entertainment. And it's technically based on your sunshine, but not even really your sunshine, it's based on these dates that those horoscopes would list, like April 21st through.

And that, those can be wrong, because the sun, actually, if you're close to the beginning of those periods that they list, your sun actually might be in a different sign. So what I'm saying is that I think that's the first thing, is that people, I would encourage people if they're, yeah, astrology works, and I like it, and it's interesting, well, maybe get a book, or find out, go a little bit deeper, and I think that it will start opening up in even more beneficial ways. And so that's the one point. And even on Twitter and social media, and the explosion of astrology, a lot of it's meme-based, and there's these kind of astrology memes, and they're funny, and I'm not against them, but I do think that we have to put them in the context that they're in, which is this is just one entertaining part of it.

And there's this whole other thing going on.

Well, I was gonna say specifically, this was, you were answering my question that I hadn't asked yet. Let's say there's someone listening to this, me, or someone else, who's like, you know, I have gotten the signals. I see astrology all over my life. I'm not actively seeking it out, but it's finding me. What are legitimately the next steps one should take? Is there a book? Is there a website? Is there like, how would you, for the layman who is picking up the call, answering the phone, what do they do?

Yeah, that's cool. I would say, yeah, textual, I mean, there's websites you could go to, there's a couple of books, there's an article I've been sharing. It's like the five astrology books that would be recommended. I like three of them. I can recommend those. I can send it to you after.

Yeah, definitely.

But yeah, I would say there's some good beginner books that just kind of break down the basics. And some of those books even sort of summarize or break down some of the more ancient techniques. And just as a side, I wanted to say this earlier, the 20th century solar revival in Greco-Roman manuscripts and the collation of those manuscripts. And so you had critical editions published and that's just where you compare every existing manuscript and then you make one manuscript that pulls from all of them and then you can publish a critical edition. And so there were these critical editions published of all kinds of Greek manuscripts, but particularly astrology manuscripts that had not been available.

And so by the end of the 20th century, translation projects finally got ahold of those critical editions and then began translating. Astrologers who knew those languages or learned those languages to translate started publishing an English translation of these ancient texts. And so it's really changed everything about astrology or it's been a big influence. Maybe not changed everything, but there's been some big shifts as a result of their information.

How could they not be, right? I mean, it's like crazy. That's like the internet for astrology all of a sudden. That's crazy, that's awesome.

Yeah, and you know, Naakamadi, you have that too in what, 1947 or whatever. It's a similar thing where you get these texts and it sort of turns on its head or adds to the existing body of knowledge. So some of the books I would recommend too also would summarize some of those new techniques. So I could send you a list when I get off. I'll send you like maybe a three book list of what I would recommend.

Yeah, I'll put them up on the episode page and talk about them in the intro just 'cause like I know, just in casual conversations with people who I wouldn't think would be interested in astrology at all. Like I'm the type of person, if I get into something, I won't shut the fuck up about it. So if I'm reading Game of Thrones, you're gonna hear about it. If I'm getting into astrology, but I'm constantly surprised that people are like, "Yeah, you know, like my grandmother was really into it." Or like, I had a family member who was really doing that and I always thought there was something to it. Like this people I wouldn't think would be into it.

And just for my own benefit, like I'd like to know a little bit more just because like I get it intuitively. Like I know there's something going on here that's valid and it's speaking to me. So I love that you're gonna provide some resources, man. That's, I appreciate it.

Well, yeah, I'm really happy to do it. And I can send you some websites. I mean, there's some podcasts, there's some astrologers that are maybe prominent in the education field that, you know, I can recommend them. The thing about I just would warn people is that it can get pretty complex pretty quickly and pretty kind of consuming pretty quickly. So, you know, be prepared for that. And, you know, everybody's on their own journey. So I'm happy if people get taken with it. But it also, you know, it's, it's there's just a lot to it. Let me put it that way. So it takes time.

I think of it like this. Like I think of the mystery schools back in the day, right? Kind of for the time period, we're talking about with Western astrology and a lot of those great Greek thinkers.

This was a process of initiation that people went through many years. And a lot of people believe culminated with the psychedelic experience. But you had people mentoring you. You had a lineage of people guiding you through that. I'm not saying that's completely gone now. But when you find people who are authentically pursuing this, you in this case, I think it's important that we recognize that and use those people to help us discern at least initially what's gonna be not worth our time. Like in my day job, a lot of what I do is digital marketing. Most of what I'm doing isn't giving people specific strategies.

It's just eliminating all the bullshit that they shouldn't pay attention to first, giving them some solid ideas about how to approach this that ends up helping them the most. And it's the same way with anything. Like if you can help people understand that there is more to this or what to be prepared for, or some obstacles, or hurdles, or this perspective, like that ultimately is invaluable, right? That's the stuff that your favorite astrology guru who's making a crap with money doesn't wanna tell you because it's not the quick fix. Like, hey, go to this astrologer and you're gonna know everything about your life and it's gonna be perfect all the time.

That's just not how shit works. So yeah, man, I really appreciate you just kind of sharing your wisdom on this. I'm gonna wrap it up by end with three questions and then a longer one. But I would love to have you back on sometime, man, just because I know there's, I know this for a fact, as you do, there's a lot of different veins we could go down specifically and do like hours on alone. But I've just really enjoyed getting to know you and kind of learn more about you, man. It's, you know, it's Twitter and this is how it works. So I love it.

Wonderful, yeah, and I'd come back on any time. And yeah, we just kind of hit the kind of thinnest of surfaces.

I know, I know, that's how we do it. I mean, like, you know, I keep these kind of artificially to one hour, but it also gives me an excuse to keep revisiting like guests I really appreciate and like. So I definitely am gonna have you back on soon, man. And I know people are gonna be interested. Before I even get to the questions, if people wanna connect with you or undertune into what you're doing, what's the best way they can do that?

It is my Twitter. That's where I, it's my public effectively my blog and just everything. So anything I'm sharing publicly will be published on Twitter. My handle is SJ Anderson 1444.

Yeah, and I'll be retweeting you. So don't worry about that. Okay, last questions. What's your favorite color?

It's, you know, the most consistently, the color that I most consistently liked through my whole life has been purple, a deep purple.

I love it, I love it. What's your favorite number?

I would say I like primes and Fibonacci numbers. So let's go with, we could say three.

Very good, very, very, very good answer. Very good answer. What is your favorite animal?

Favorite animal? I'm partial to birds. I don't, I would never have one as a pet, but I really like hearing them when I walk and kind of whistling back to them and pigeons in particular, they're kind of they edge of friendliness. They don't jump too much when you approach them, but they're also not kind of in your face like a cat might be.

Yeah. (laughing)

I like that.

I'll go with pigeon.

I think this is like a 180 something episode or so. Might be the first pigeon answer I've had so far. I love it. (laughing) Last question, what's a practical tip that's helped you in your life that you could share with people listening? This could be anything.

Great question. Yeah. I would say just, you know, if you're in suffering, like it's okay. And I would just say go into the space of suffering with a gratitude for it because I think when we resist it, that's when all the negative choices we make happen, we don't want to feel it. And when we just kind of understand that the suffering is part of the actual necessary next step to the next period of non-suffering, it takes the pressure off. So just relax into your suffering.

Geez, man. I mean, I think like people should be taking more psychedelics when they're 15. I think that's the conclusion of this episode. (laughing) That's basically what we can draw from it. SJ, this has been a really, really fun time. I, you know, like I said, I just followed you on Twitter, never heard your voice, didn't know what you're gonna be like. You're a very, very awesome guy, man. I'm looking forward to doing this again.

Okay, thank you, Noah. It's been a real pleasure and I'm grateful to you for having me on and, yeah, have a wonderful next few weeks or months till we meet again.

Yeah, man. Peace. Peace out. (upbeat music) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (upbeat music) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (upbeat music)

Thanks for listening past the music. Hope you enjoyed that episode. I did, had a good time talking with SJ. If you like the show, rate and review it. Give it whatever review you want. I've been saying that people have been rating it. Slowly. No, that's not true. Uh, subscribe. Yada yada. Spotify. Yada yada. iTunes. Yada yada. Other places. I don't know what about. That's it. That's all I got. I'll see you next week. Yeah, that sounds good. I'll see you next week. (upbeat music) Lincoln Tech provides career training that keeps America working. At Lincoln's Malloy campus, you don't just sit in the classroom.

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