ALWAYS THE SUN
Misguided solar worship in New Age astrology
New Age astrology has a way of regarding the Sun as the only arbiter of someone’s personality in their birth chart, while simultaneously neglecting the various other factors that come into play in the formation of an individual’s character and life path as interpretable through a birth chart. The Sun’s role is indeed central, as Western astrology itself is a solar-based system, but we have a major problem here: New Age astrology’s view of the zodiac signs leaves a lot to be desired, so therefore, giving the Sun an all-encompassing importance while continually misrepresenting the signs it is placed in, will result in a distorted reflection that doesn’t do the person justice whose birth chart is being (mis-)interpreted in this way.
In my opinion, the shallow zodiac clichés, repeated ad nauseam by countless authors and clueless “experts” over decades, have massively contributed to the prevailing public opinion that astrology is bunk. Not to mention the so-called scientific viewpoint (more on that in my next article). Seen from their uninformed perspective, I can’t really fault people for their attitude, because the Sun sign-obsessed entertainment astrology is indeed very lacking. See the video below for a more detailed explanation.
I believe that the fixation of New Age astrology on the Sun as the be-all and end-all in a birth chart is one of the most evident signs that this philosophy is specifically geared towards those who don’t resonate with the Abrahamic religions, who seek the “light“ in other esoteric or mystical traditions (never their own ancestral ones, but that is a different can of worms), but are still comfortably nested within the paradigm of the One God™, albeit presented in somewhat different guises. Sun worship is well-known in the polytheistic, pagan world, and to place especially high importance on the Sun is only logical given its role as life-bringer on this planet. However, the New Age’s omission or neglect of the Sun’s relationship in a birth chart with the Moon (female archetype) as well as the planets (the other “gods” beside the Sun) gives off a distinctly Abrahamic whiff. (Strangely enough, the Sun and Moon as the ultimate male and female archetypes don’t get enough attention in the New Age version of relationship astrology, whose proponents incessantly, and falsely, harp on about Mars and Venus being the most important. It almost seems as if anything but the actually relevant is highlighted through the New Age lens). In my view, the New Age has a built-in Abrahamic inclination towards monotheism which it has inserted into astrology in the form of the Sun as the declared ruler of the chart aka the personality (by the way, the veritable and astrologically correct ruler of a birth chart is the ruler of the sign on the 1st house cusp, which is the Sun only when this sign happens to be Leo). For this reason, and for numerous others aside from astrology, I am convinced that the New Age is ultimately Abrahamic in nature.
Aside from a solar fixation, there is a very odd dichotomy with Freudian undertones permeating New Age astrology: Both the Sun and Saturn represent the father archetype in a birth chart. Saturn is the archetype of the stern, old man who has no time for emotional fluff, laziness or excuses. He is the embodiment of tradition, longevity, hard work (and the rewards from it), and authority. New Agers tend to downplay or disregard the father archetype of the Sun by only focusing on it as the character of a person while generally disliking Saturn – a spiritually and emotionally imbalanced approach, to say the least.
Astrology is an ancient pagan science – its practice being originally reserved for the select initiated – into which the New Age has inserted an Abrahamic-style veneration of the Sun, with daddy issues thrown in for good measure. My contention with New Age astrology is not that it is fundamentally wrong, but severely distorted, and this distorted version is in the hands of way too many who have no real concept of it. The shallow, popular idea of astrology was formed by the relatively recent mainstream appearance of “esoteric” concepts since the late 1800s with the advent of the New Age doctrine (and heavily marketed since the 1960s). The New Age betrays its subversive character by discounting the ancient teachings in favor of its own doctrine, disregarding the knowledge of the secretive class of scholars who used to practice astrology in earnest for the widely popularized hausfrau version – nowadays, it’s fodder for silly memes or TikTok videos made by dabblers who haven’t the faintest idea what they are talking about because they have never actually studied it.
Making a disproportionately glorified, monotheistic ruler out of the Sun is not in line with the way astrology works. The Sun is only one part of a highly intricate and complex interaction within a birth chart, and one instrument alone cannot play a symphony.
© Olivia Solner
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