Mundane Astrology: An Introduction to the Astrology of Nations and Groups

Mundane Astrology was the first book of its kind – a comprehensive critical survey of mundane astrology past and present. It tackles the problems of formulating a practical and systematic approach to the much-neglected area of astrology, relating it to the concept of cycles, the Collective Unconscious, and mass psychology. Now revised and updated, this second edition continues to be the definitive work on the subject and among the many questions it explores are:

* Do countries have a life of their own?
* What governs the world’s economy?
* Is it possible to predict international conflict?
* Can astrology encourage international understanding?

This is not a book for a complete novice to Astrology, it assumes a basic understanding of astrological concepts and principles – which can easily be found in countless guides and manuals. The book starts with a remarkably thorough insight into the origins of Astrology and its subsequent development to the present day, charting the major breakthroughs that helped the discipline to establish itself as the premier intellectual pursuit of ancient and more recent times.

Although practitioners do not need any justification of Astrology, the authors do go into considerable detail on psychology which helps the reader to understand the concepts and techniques of interpreting mundane charts in a much more objective manner than would otherwise be the case.

If this were all that the book explains that would be enough for it to be valuable, however, the authors then proceed not only to demonstrate chart-reading techniques but also to explain other extremely valuable charting techniques not requiring horoscopes! All the while cross-referencing with examples and published works.

Where this book excels is that the authors present astrology in a practical, no-nonsense logical way and are honest enough to admit that they do get things wrong from time to time. For sheer volume of extremely valuable information, this book has it all – An Essential text for any serious Astrologer.

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Part 1 – The Background

Chapter 1 – The Development of Mundane Astrology from the Babylonians to the Arabs is a very well documented essay about the early history of astrology starting from Mesopotamia through Greece, Egypt, Persia, Italy, until the Arabic world. The specific context of each period and area in which astrology developed is described in detail using plenty of historical, social, political, and philosophical arguments. 

Chapter 2 – The History of Mundane Astrology in Europe presents the evolution of astrology, mainly in the medieval era, marked by different periods of ups and downs like the regression from the 5-8 centuries AD caused by the rise of Christianity, the flourishing period from the 16-19 centuries which started in the 8th century in France, in the reign of Charlemagne, or the restrictive period from the 16-19 centuries AD started with the Church Reformation initiated by Luther which created a more and more difficult climate for astrology. The overall conclusion is that astrology played an important role being used by the most important people in almost every period.  

Chapter 3 – Mundane Astrology and the Collective, Michael Baigent uses the Jungian terms collective unconscious and archetype (pattern of emotional and mental behavior) to explain the psychology of masses and to give some advice about how a mundane chart can work. His conclusions, after this impressive chapter, are:

1. The mass can act as an individual.
2. The mass is more fated than an individual.
3. Natal and mundane astrology bear the same relationship to each other as do the individual and the mass – they are at the opposite ends of the same spectrum.
4. A state is an expression of the mass, usually centered on leadership.
5. The birth time of a state is that point when the new leadership takes power.”

Chapter 4 – The National Horoscope: Mundane Astrology and Political Theory, Nicholas Campion presents different theories to determine the appropriate time when a state is created, and the natal chart can be erected.

​Part 2 – The Material

Chapter 5 – The Great Year, the author shows how different cultures computed the Great Year, which is the Year of the Universe. The first was the Assyrian Great Year of 12.960.000 years, then the Platonic Great Year of 36.000 years, the Arabic Great Year of 360.000 years, the Indian, European, and Precessional year. Different cultures, different techniques. ​

Chapter 6 – Cycles in Practice

In the first part of the chapter The Concept of Cycles the author explains why cycles hold such an important place in philosophy and astrology. Starting with Plato and finishing with John Addey, the parent of harmonics in astrology, cycles were fundamental to understanding life and time, or, better expressed, the space-time relation. In astrology a conjunction aspect is the beginning of a cycle, a trine is a phase of harmony in the cycle, an opposition represents the fruit which was promised at the beginning. In life, the breath is a cycle, night and day are cycles, a year is a cycle, everything is formed by cycles.

​”Cycles are described as the means by which the enfolded, infinite and eternal potentiality of all ideas is unfolded in the dimension of Time. […] Indeed, if time were not in some way related to eternity, and both to the idea of cycles, the very act of attempting to make astrological forecasts would be illusory. […] Correctly read, the chart for the beginning of any cycle contains within it all that will subsequently unfold in time.”​

In the second part of the chapter The Planetary Cycles and their Interpretation one can find the interpretations for the major astrological cycles). 

Chapter 7 The Planets. The authors present the signification of planets, in mundane astrology.

Chapter 8 – The Houses and Signs. The authors present the signification of planets, houses, and signs in mundane astrology.

​Part 3 – The Techniques

In Chapter 9 – Ingresses, Lunations, Eclipses, Charles Harvey states very clear that ingresses and lunations give weak results in mundane astrology. He quotes Charles Carter and Andre Barbault, two of the most important mundane astrologers, which have the same opinion. On the other side, eclipses and the natal charts are techniques that are much more reliable for predictions and seem to give better results. ​

Chapter 10 – Where on Earth: Astrocartography

In this chapter Charles Harvey presents some techniques used in mundane astrology to find the place where the events will happen. The first one, Astrocartography (ACG), shows the places where a planet is on angles (ASC, MC, DESC, IC) and is pretty easy to use with a computer software. ​

The second method of Chapter 11 proposed by the author is to find the earth areas which correspond to every zodiacal sign. The principle “as above, as below” implies that every zodiacal degree should have a precise geographically pair on earth, so a planet at 10 degrees in Libra, for example, will be felt in the corresponding place. The main systems of this kind, produced by astrologers in time, are the Ptolemaic Allocations, de Boulainviller’s World Zodiac, Sepharial’s Geodetic Equivalents, the Hamburg School Friedrich/Grimm method, Johndro’s locality angles, the Great Pyramid Base Line of Williams, Hans Andersen, Ritter’s Cosmogeography, the Time System of Wise, Hitschler’s method. 

​The third method in Chapter 12 is to use the charts of towns, but there is one big problem: for the most of cities we don’t know the time of creation, the natal chart. The solution, a compromise used by astrologers, is to study many important events from the town’s history and to identify some important degrees in the zodiac which give results. The conclusion of this chapter is that it is difficult to find the place where a specific event will happen. ​

Chapter 13 – Other Techniques

“Charles Carter considered that the chart of national leaders, together with the chart of the nation itself, where the times of these are accurately known, constitute by far the most reliable basis for mundane forecasting. They certainly represent the whole “inner” aspect of forecasting and must therefore constitute one half of the process of preparing a forecast.”

This is the idea accepted by the author who presents some examples for the charts of national leaders and their countries: Hitler and Germany, Kennedy and U.S.A., Margaret Thatcher, and the U.K. Then, are presented other techniques, not so often used, like declination cycles, degree areas, degree symbols, fixed stars, the galactic center, the supper galactic center, the solar apex, heliocentric astrology, asteroids, new year charts, horoscopes of centuries, etc.

Chapter 14 – The Astrology of War and Peace: a Study of the Second World War

In Part 1 – Collective Pressure, Michael Baigent presents the transits of the outer planets Uranus and Pluto as significators of the events which occurred in Poland and Germany, mostly between 1920-1932.  

In Part 2 – The Cyclical Background, Charles Harvey analyzes the connections between the charts of Hitler, the Third Reich, and the German Empire to show how the aspirations of the German Empire found a way to manifest through Hitler. Then follows a complex analysis of World War II where the author uses midpoints, planetary cycles, the Aries ingresses of 1939 – 1945, and the multiple conjunctions between Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus.

In Part 3 – Astrological Timing, Nicholas Campion presents the relation between different charts of the World War II, this time emphasizing the position of angles.  

Chapter 15 – The Astrology of Nations

In this chapter the authors make short analyzes for the national charts of The European Community.