Astrological age

An astrological age is a time period which, according to astrology, parallels major changes in the development of human society, culture, history, and politics. There are twelve astrological ages corresponding to the twelve zodiacal signs in western astrology. One cycle of the twelve astrological ages is called a Great Year, comprising 25,772 solar years, at the end of which another cycle begins.
Some astrologers believe that during a given age, some events are directly caused or indirectly influenced by the astrological sign associated with that age, while other astrologers believe that astrological ages do not influence events in any way.
Astrologers do not agree upon exact dates for the beginning or ending of the ages, with given dates varying by hundreds of years.

Overview

There are three broad perspectives on the astrological ages:

Archeoastronomers do not necessarily believe in astrology as a science, but rather study the cultural traditions of societies that did refer extensively to astrology.
Astrologers have been interested in relating world history to the astrological ages since the late 19th century; however, most astrologers study horoscopes, not astrological ages.
The pop-culture concept of the Age of Aquarius referring to major societal changes of the 1960s, popularized in the 1967 musical Hair.

The following table of astrological ages was compiled by Neil Mann, giving commonly cited durations for each era, as well as developments in human history typically believed to have been influenced by the vernal equinox sign of their age. He notes that the claims of zodiac influences on human history are biased, relying on widely varying dates for events and selective cherry picking of evidence.

Age	Start date	End date	Typical astrological associations
Age of Libra	15150 BCE	13000 BCE	Lascaux cave paintings, Settlement of the Americas
Age of Virgo	13000 BCE	10750 BCE	End of the Last Glacial Maximum, beginning of Pre-Pottery Neolithic
Age of Leo	10750 BCE	8600 BCE	Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and beginning of B
Age of Cancer	8600 BCE	6450 BCE	Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, beginning of urbanization
Age of Gemini	6450 BCE	4300 BCE	Pre-Pottery Neolithic C, Late Neolithic, beginning of the Chalcolithic
Age of Taurus	4300 BCE	2150 BCE	Invention of writing, the Bronze Age and the rise of its associated civilizations, such as Sumer, Ancient Egypt, and the Indus Valley civilization, near-Eastern bull cults
Age of Aries	2150 BCE	1 CE	The Akkadian Empire, the Vedic period in India, onset of the Iron Age, Ancient Greece, Phoenician Empire, Ancient Israel, classical antiquity and the Axial Age, rise of Buddhism
Age of Pisces	1 CE	2150 CE	Rise of the Roman Empire, Christianity
Age of Aquarius	2150 CE	4300	Predicted to feature humanitarianism and innovations in communication and travel

Contentious aspects

Definitive details on the astrological ages are lacking or disputed. The 20th-century British astrologer Charles Carter stated that "It is probable that there is no branch of Astrology upon which more nonsense has been poured forth than the doctrine of the precession of the equinoxes."
Neil Spencer in his 2000 book True as the Stars Above expressed a similar opinion about the astrological ages. Spencer characterizes the concept as being "fuzzy", "speculative", and the least-defined area of astrological lore. Derek and Julia Parker state that it is impossible to state the exact date for the start of any astrological age and acknowledge that many astrologers believe the Age of Aquarius has arrived while many say the world is at the end of the Age of Pisces.
Ray Grasse states in Signs of the Times that "there is considerable dispute over the exact starting and ending times for the different Great Ages." Paul Wright in The Great Ages and Other Astrological Cycles says that much of the uncertainty related to the astrological ages is because many astrologers have a poor understanding of the meaning of the astrological symbolism and "even poorer historical knowledge".

Consensus approach

Though so many issues are contentious or disputed, there are two aspects of the astrological ages that have virtually unanimous consensus—firstly, the theorized link of the astrological ages to the axial precession of the Earth and commonly referred to as precession of the equinoxes; secondly, that, due to the nature of the precession of the equinoxes, the progression of the ages proceeds in reverse direction through the zodiacal signs.

Ages of equal or variable lengths

Astrologers use many ways to divide the Great Year into twelve astrological ages. There are two popular methods. One method is to divide the Great Year into twelve astrological ages of approximately equal lengths of around 2156 years per age based on the vernal equinox moving through the sidereal zodiac. Another method is to significantly vary the duration of each astrological age based on the passage of the vernal equinox measured against the actual zodiacal constellations. Each of those twelve sections of the Great Year can be called either an astrological age, Precessional Age, or a Great Month.
The method based on the zodiacal constellations has a flaw in that from the reckoning of classical-era astronomer/astrologers like Claudius Ptolemy, many constellations overlap, a problem only eliminated in the past 200 years by the adoption of official constellation boundaries. For example, by 2700 CE the vernal point will have moved into Aquarius, but from a classical-era point of view, the vernal point will also point to Pisces due to the pre-boundary overlap.

Age transitions

Many astrologers consider the entrance into a new astrological age a gradual transition called a "cusp". For example, Ray Grasse states that an astrological age does not begin at an exact day or year. Paul Wright states that a transition effect does occur at the border of the astrological ages. Consequently, the beginning of any age cannot be defined to a single year or a decade but blend its influences with the previous age for a period of time until the new age can stand in its own right. In Nicholas Campion's The Book of World Horoscopes there are six pages listing researchers and their proposed dates for the start of the Age of Aquarius indicating that many researchers believe that each age commences at an exact date.

Other opinions

Ages exactly 2,000 years each

Many astrologers find ages too erratic based on either the vernal point moving through the randomly sized zodiacal constellations or sidereal zodiac and, instead, round all astrological ages to exactly 2000 years each. In this approach the ages are usually neatly aligned so that the Aries age is found from 2000 BC to AD 1, Pisces age AD 1 to AD 2000, the Aquarian Age AD 2000 – AD 4000, and so on. This approach is inconsistent with the precession of the equinoxes. Based on precession of the equinoxes, there is a one-degree shift approximately every 72 years, so a 30-degree movement requires 2160 years to complete.

Ages involving the opposite sign

An established school of thought is that an age is also influenced by the sign opposite to that of the astrological age. Referring back to the precession of the Equinoxes, as the Sun crosses one constellation in the Northern Hemisphere's spring Equinox, it will cross the opposite sign in the spring Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere. For instance, the Age of Pisces is complemented by its opposite astrological sign of Virgo ; so a few refer to the Piscean age as the 'Age of Pisces-Virgo'. Adopting this approach, the Age of Aquarius would become the Age of Aquarius-Leo. In his writings Ray Grasse also espouses the link between each sign of the zodiac and its opposite sign.

History

Hipparchus and the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes

is often credited with the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes, a fundamental astronomical phenomenon that plays a crucial role in the concept of astrological ages. Precession refers to the gradual shift in the orientation of Earth's axis of rotation, which causes the positions of the equinoxes to move slowly westward along the ecliptic, completing a full cycle approximately every 26,000 years.
Hipparchus made this discovery while comparing his observations of the positions of stars with records from earlier astronomers, particularly those from Babylon. He noticed that the positions of certain fixed stars had shifted relative to the equinoxes over time, an observation that could not be explained by the prevailing astronomical models of his time. In his work, Hipparchus noted that the position of the vernal equinox had shifted by about 2° relative to the stars over the course of a century, which implied a slow, continuous motion of the celestial sphere.
This discovery was groundbreaking because it revealed that the celestial sphere was not as fixed as previously thought. Hipparchus' calculation of the precession rate was remarkably close to the modern value, estimating it at roughly 1° per century, which is only slightly different from the current measurement of approximately 1° every 72 years.
Hipparchus' findings were later documented by the Alexandrian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in his seminal work, the Almagest, where he further refined and expanded upon Hipparchus' observations. Ptolemy's Almagest became the standard reference for astronomers for many centuries and solidified the concept of precession in the astronomical canon.
The recognition of precession had profound implications for astrology, particularly in the development of the concept of astrological ages. As the equinoxes precess through the zodiac, they mark the beginning and end of these ages, each lasting roughly 2,160 years, based on the 12 zodiacal constellations. The shift from one age to another is thought to bring about significant cultural and spiritual changes, a belief that has influenced astrological thought since antiquity.