Postcolonial Astrology: Reading the Planets through Capital, Power, and Labor

by Alice Sparkly Kat

Overview

Tapping into the political power of magic and astrology for social, community, and personal transformation.

In a cross-cultural approach to understanding astrology as a magical language, Alice Sparkly Kat unmasks the political power of astrology, showing how it can be channeled as a force for collective healing and liberation.

Too often, magic and astrology are divorced from their potency and cultural contexts: co-opted by neoliberalism, used as a force of oppression, or distilled beyond recognition into applications that belie their individual and collective power. By looking at the symbolic and etymological histories of the sun, moon, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter, we can trace and understand the politics of magic—and challenge our own practices, interrogate our truths, and reshape our institutions to build better frameworks for communities of care.

Fearless, radical, and fresh, Sparkly Kat's Postcolonial Astrology ushers in a new wave of astrology revival, refusing to apologize for its magickism and connecting its power to the spirituality and politics we need now. Intersectional, inclusive, and geared towards queer and POC communities, it uses our historical and collective constructs of the planets, sun, and moon to re-chart our subconscious history, redefine the body in the world, and assert our politics of the personal, in astrology and all things.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623175306
Publisher:	North Atlantic Books
Publication date:	05/18/2021
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	219,322
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Alice Sparkly Kat is a queer, PoC astrologer. They use astrology to re-chart a history of the subconscious, redefine the body in world, and reimagine history as collective memory. Their astrological work has inhabited MoMA, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, and Hauser and Wirth Gallery. They're friendly, located in Brooklyn, and available for readings in person or by phone at www.alicesparklykat.com. Follow them on Instagram or Twitter at @alicesparklykat for astrology content and weird memes.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

A Note on My Own Positionality and the Title 15

1 Etymology of the Sun 19

That Great Big Circle in the Sky 19

Elysium 23

Gold 25

Illumination (Capital/Crown/Center) 28

The Hyperreal 35

Aura 40

2 Etymology of the Moon 47

Coinage, Metallics, and Luminance 47

A Note about Gender 50

Moon Merchants 52

Cancer, Carnage, Cockaigne 56

The Global Market 62

The Interests of a People Possessed 66

3 Etymology of Saturn 73

Saturn and the Golden Age 73

A Note on Gender 77

The Mythological Golden Age and Utopianism 78

The Laborer Who Is Both Noble and Savage 85

Saturn as Revolutionary in Late Capitalism 94

4 Capital: Luminaries and Saturn

Melting Light with Carbon an Alchemy 103

Gold Is in the Details (Or, but what do you do about those with a lot of power?) 106

Necropolitics and Vital Life Force 107

What Do You Do about Those with a Lot of Power?, Cont'd. 110

Money Magic 113

Creativity Is a Destroyer 114

5 Etymology of Venus 123

Inanna's Ruin and Descent 123

Venus Victrix 127

Venus, the Highest and Lowest of All High Femmes Both Beautiful and Ugly 131

Stars, Hearts, Flowers, Pentacles, and Snakes 137

The Decadent Garden 144

The Mass Social Body 150

6 Etymology of Mars 157

The Losers of the Zodiac: Ares and Eris 157

Ruin 161

Public Enemy #1 167

Famine 175

Iron and Blood Sacrifice 178

Iron Curtain and Iron Bars 182

7 Power: Venus and Mars 189

Power 190

Love Stories/Roman-ce 191

Wounding 195

Innocence 198

8 Etymology of Mercury 205

Going Under 205

The Homeland of Hermeticism 208

A Cult/Occult 212

Homo oeconomicus and the Mimic Man 220

Hermes-Aphrodite 225

9 Etymology of Jupiter 235

Dios 235

Jupiter in Rome and Modernity: Married and Tyrannical 238

Brave New. World 243

War of the Worlds 250

Flag 257

Nimbus/Cloud 262

10 Labor: Mercury and Jupiter 269

On Representation 269

The Unimaginable World 277

The Imaginable World 282

Conclusion 289

Works Cited 303

Index 313

Editorial Reviews

"The author...helps readers understand [astrology] as a magical, political, and intersectional language with a rich history that extends beyond Western ideologies." 
—Publishers Weekly 


"[Alice Sparkly Kat's] analysis strikes that rare balance of being richly contextualized and accessibly written, making this 'history and toolkit' an essential addition to any queer astrology lover’s library."
—Logo, NewNowNext

“Alice Sparkly Kat asks us one of the most important questions that can be asked of any profession: Can we make astrology responsible for its impact thus far and into the future? It’s a necessary interrogation and the only way to truly show how much we love and care for this ancient art and much-needed practice.”
—Chani Nicholas, author of You Were Born For This

“As a student of astrology for over a decade, I am incredibly moved by the audaciousness, the humor, and the sublime realness of this book. It’s a book that strikes a challenge: How do we move forward dislodging ourselves from the cruel machinations of white supremacy and colonization? How do we claim ourselves for our bright, collective future? I saw myself in this book, and it was a bold, timely reckoning!”
—Faria Róisín, author of Like a Bird


"Many people do astrology, and some of them know from where the tradition emerged. But very few rigorously consider how and why the language of astrology has developed in relation to power. With a critical eye and expansive research, Alice Sparkly Kat examines the historical significance of astrology’s symbols to trace an alternative genealogy of modern Western astrology. This important work is crucial to a discipline as steeped in tradition as astrology is; without a deep consideration of history, how can we create space for new astrologies to root and take hold?" —Banu Guler, Founder & CEO of Co – Star
 

"Alice Sparkly Kat’s Postcolonial Astrology does something immensely paramount: its sweeping analyses rip off the togas worn by Western astrology’s planetary gods that Rome appropriated from the Greeks. Sparkly Kat shows how their loosely woven fabric drapes nothing but White privilege created at the expense of stolen land and the labor of people of color for millennia. In their book, there is no lapsing into trying to track astrology’s depths through the jungles of Jung’s putative collective unconscious. No awestruck adoration of Western astrology’s masquerade of itself as a path toward transcendence, a map for the evolution of consciousness, or a gateway for freedom from the tortures of our supposed ids, egos, or superegos. Instead, Sparkly Kat stays rooted in a body of critical theory and postmodern analysis to expose Western astrology, as an “anachronistic archive” and a myth-making machine more for racism and maintaining Whiteness at the expense of the poor and people of color. Yet, Sparkly Kat doesn’t commission the reader to discard all Western astrology’s borrowed and tattered notions. They instead direct us to look at the shredded heap of its motley meanings as just one important story that can indeed be told differently. We can learn to connect the dots of astrology’s fabled constellations of motley meanings, assembled with blood and burglary, in ways that create a canopy of heaven that includes all peoples of Earth and leaves us whole and restored." —Samuel F. Reynolds, MA, CAP ISAR, NCGR-III

From the Publisher

12/30/2021

In this third book, astrologer Sparkly Kat (Zodiac Signs: Cancer; A Sign-by-Sign Guide) writes that their aim is to "cut into the idea that Western cosmology is universal, interrogating the seven traditional planets in Western astrology through etymology." Here the author is focused not on personal brand-building but on building a revolution in modern astrological thought, exploring racism, anti-Blackness, gender violence, colonization, climate violence, and other forms of social violence. In 10 chapters, Sparkly Kat breaks down the astrological roles of the sun, moon, and ruler planets (Saturn, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter) with a dense deep dive into the histories of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the United States, among other nations, examined through a modern philosophical lens. They investigate concepts like fate, fortune, utopia, enlightenment, performative neoliberalism, identification of empires with the sun, nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, neoclassicism, orientations and projections of power, fetishes, land ownership, commerce, capital, labor, ethnic consumption, rape culture, silver mining, industrialized slavery, whiteness, social Darwinism, and Orientalist archetypes, to name a few. Sparkly Kat's motive is to make the field of astrology more socially responsible, and to understand how astrological meaning has been constructed within political economic history. VERDICT The audience for this book encompasses academics and anyone (particularly queer people and people of color) who's interested in recontextualizing their astrological belief systems.—Anita Mechler, Anita Mechler Consulting, New Orleans, LA

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