Ages and Aquarius

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 2160 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 the stars of many constellations overlap. For example, by 2700 the vernal point will have moved into Aquarius, but due to overlap the vernal point will also point to Pisces. 

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. 

Many astrologers believe that the world is transitioning from the Pisces and Aquarian Ages, which is claimed to explain that developments in the world today can be aligned to Pisces (i.e. continuing strong religious influences especially from Christianity) and Aquarius (traditional archetypes associated with Aquarius include electricity, computers, and democracy). A few astrologers consider the last c. 10 degrees of a given age (c. 720 years) as the time period during which the new age starts to make visible its influences, also called "orb of influence". 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. 

Albert Amao Ph.D. states that the transition period between any two ages is based on one degrees either side of the point of intersection of two adjoining zodiacal constellations. As one degree is approximately 72 years, Amao has a transition period between ages of 144 years. 

Other opinions on the astrological ages

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 that an age is also influenced by the sign opposite to the one 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 (March 21), it will cross the opposite sign in the spring Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere (September 21). For instance, the Age of Pisces is complemented by its opposite astrological sign of Virgo (the Virgin); 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. Ray Grasse also claims that each sign of the zodiac is involving with the opposite sign. 

First point of Aries alignment - the fiducial point

Approximately every 26,000 years the zodiacal constellations, the associated sidereal zodiac, and the tropical zodiac used by western astrologers basically align. Technically this is when the tropical and sidereal "first point in Aries" (Aries 0°) coincided. This alignment is often called the fiducial point and, if the fiducial point could be found, fairly exact timeframes of all the astrological ages could be accurately determined if the method used to determine the astrological ages is based on the equal-sized 30 degrees per age and do not correspond to the exact constellation configuration in the sky. The 12 zodiac houses are just generic way-points - references for man to see the otherwise unviewable: they are not the actual essence of the Age. 

As an example of a mystic contemporary approach to precession, in Max Heindel's astrology writings, it is described, that the last time the starting-point of the sidereal zodiac agreed with the tropical zodiac occurred in AD 498. A year after these points were in exact agreement, the Sun crossed the equator about fifty seconds of space into the constellation Pisces. The year following it was one minute and forty seconds into Pisces, and so it has been creeping backwards ever since, until at the present time the Sun crosses the equator in about nine degrees in the constellation Pisces. Based on this approach, it will thus be about 600 years before it actually crosses the celestial equator in the constellation Aquarius. However this is only one of many approaches and so this must remain speculation at this point of time. 

Transition into the Aquarian Age

Pisces has been called the "dying god," where its sign opposite in the night sky is Virgo, or, the Virgin Mary. When Jesus was asked by his disciples where the next Passover would be, he replied to them: 

Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water ... follow him into the house where he entereth in.
—?Jesus, Luke 22:10

This coincides with the changing of the ages, into the Age of Aquarius, as the personification of the constellation of Aquarius is a man carrying pitchers of water. 

Aquarius also has a double rulership: Saturn is the traditional ruler and Uranus is the modern ruler. Saturn presides over structure and form and the status quo. Because Saturn tends to be rather rigid it is often associated with the rigidity of religious doctrine.