Transcription
There's a very well-known theory of cyclical history that you might have heard of through the phrase, "the fourth turning." It states that American history has four seasons or turnings: from a high to an awakening, to an unraveling, and onwards to a great crisis. According to the model, America is in a crisis season now. In other words, the fourth turning is here, which is the title of a recent book by Neil Howe, one of the two historians who came up with the theory.
But guess what? The fourth turning theory is really just astrology. And knowing that means we can figure out when the crisis is likely to culminate and end. In this episode, I'm joined by astrologer, writer, and podcaster Adam Summer. And together, we're going to explore the fourth turning concept, explain its correlations to astrology, and consider what it tells us about the American crisis.
"Winter is necessary, and we're in it. We've been in it since 2008, and we're nearing the end, and that's kind of like the final act. Having grown up during the unraveling and now the crisis, like, I invite it. Like, I would love to live in a world that does feel a little bit more cohesive and sane."
This is World Astrology Report. I'm your host, Dan Weights, and welcome to another journey into the past to understand the present and the future.
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The fourth turning was published by two historians, Neil Howe and the now deceased William Strauss, back in 1997, and it's been updated recently with a new book by Neil Howe entitled, "The Fourth Turning Is Here." In the original book, Strauss and Howe lay out a theory of cyclical history generally referred to as Strauss-Howe generational theory. Yeah. Yeah. So the overall thesis that Strauss and Howe have is based off of demographics and this idea of the saculum, which just means long life. And essentially, it holds that history, particularly Anglo-American history, follows a cycle of around 80 to 90 years. It's essentially the length of a long human life.
As an idea, it seems to have gotten popularized in certain circles, right? So, I, back in 2020, first became aware of it through Bitcoiners. Like, there's a lot of Bitcoiners that, you know, understand where we're at in history via this model. So that's where I became aware of it. And then, you know, like I mentioned before, like Howe is friends with Tony Robbins, and so Tony Robbins is a big proponent of the book and this theory. And so there's like that world, but then there's people like Steve Bannon, you know, and so there's a lot of people on the right, especially the alt-right, that, you know, their whole model as well is around this, you know. And like the whole saying, which maybe you've heard, I think it's a wonderful way of understanding in synopsis these cycles, is that "hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times."
But it also doesn't need to be politicized. You know, these are just really interesting ideas, just like astrology, right? Like, it's just objectively looking at cycles and demographics and also like, if you are interested in Anglo-American history, there's a lot in that book that you can learn that you didn't know.
They describe these seculums as consisting of four phases or turnings, each lasting about 20 to 25 years. There's the first turning, which they also call the high. The second turning, which they call the awakening. The third turning, called the unraveling, and the fourth turning, the crisis period. The crisis, which has in past seculums seen America at war, then leads to a rebirth for society, which brings a new high, and the cycle begins anew and it repeats throughout time. You know, the book focuses on the Anglo-American story going back six of these and gives wonderful examples throughout the book. And so here we are at the very end of, I think they call it the American High, or post-World War II American High seculum. We're in the 11th hour.
The current seculum began in the aftermath of World War II, and it's culminating with its crisis now. The last one began in the aftermath of the Civil War and culminated with the end of the Second World War. The one before that began in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War and ended with the Civil War. Strauss and Howe even see these seculums extending back before American independence and into English history. For example, the cycle before the one that ended with the Revolutionary War ended with England's Glorious Revolution, while the cycle before that ended with the Spanish Armada crisis, and one before that finished with the War of the Roses.
Let's have a look at the current seculum, which began in the aftermath of World War II. Well, the last fourth turning, which is good context because we're in it. They started with the Great Depression and, you know, the stock market crash in '29. So that's the beginning of the last fourth turning, and then it ends in '46. And so from '46 until Kennedy's assassination is the first turning. And so they call that the high, where institutions are strong, individualism is low. There's kind of like, not like we see today with the extreme divide between parties. There's kind of just this civic momentum that people have in that first one. So it, it stops with Kennedy. And then from '63 to '80, '81 is the second turning, and they call that the awakening or the conscious revolution. And then from the early '80s, that brings you to 2008, the great financial crisis, and that one's called the unraveling, and we grew up during this one. And then from 2008 until present, like, we're still in it. We're in the fourth turning, which is called the crisis.
Now, there's a clue in the name of Strauss-Howe generational theory as to how this cycle is supposed to work. In each of the turnings, a different generation is born, which Strauss and Howe have also given names to. Because these different generations have grown up at different parts of the cycle and in different conditions, they're said to have different temperaments and to play different roles in the seculum in general, and in the fourth turning in particular. In each of the different turnings, the high, the awakening, the unraveling, and the crisis, a generation is born. And so, as a quick example, in the current cycle that we're in, that started in 1946, roughly when the war ended, the generation born, the Baby Boomers, are considered the Prophet generation. And so, they give these archetypes to each of them. And then they're followed by Gen X, the Nomads; Millennials, the Heroes; and then finally, you have Gen Z, the Artists.
Now, here's where this gets really interesting, because when Adam read "The Fourth Turning," he realized that Strauss's theory reflected one of the best-known cycles in astrology. The Uranus cycle is 84 years long, roughly speaking, the same length as the seculum of Strauss and Howe. Like, reading the book and kind of doing a deep dive with the Uranus overlap with it. Like, I just, with some of these things, I wonder, like, how aware they actually were of this planetary cycle. Like, it's just, it's too strangely similar. Kind of the final phase of each turning is when Uranus is in mutable signs, and then when it hits cardinal, it seems to very well correlate to the next turning beginning.
What's more, the idea of four phases of the cycle is very much in accord with how astrologers think about planetary cycles. Consider the lunation cycle, which moves from new moon to first quarter moon to full moon to last quarter moon and back to new moon once again. Astrologers commonly regard the Uranus cycle as one that marks major phases of individuation in a human life. From birth, we move to the waxing square around age 21, and then to the Uranus opposition around the age of 42, the classic midlife crisis transit. From there, we go to the waning square at around the age of 63 to the Uranus return around aged 84. And this is basically Strauss-Howe generational theory, except it's applied to a human life rather than the history of the US. But any astrological technique that you can apply to a person, you can apply to a country. It's interesting that they give 22 years per generation, whereas if you divide up a Uranus cycle, it's 21. Roughly speaking, each turning ends with Uranus leaving one of the mutable signs and entering a cardinal sign.
But to be clear, the correlations between Uranus's movements through the signs and the dates given by Strauss and Howe aren't exact. There's like a 50 to 60% hit rate with that idea of like all of the mutable signs in the cardinal, but there is overlap. The one that's like a 100% hit rate is Uranus and Gemini at the peak. You know what I mean? So, it just depends. And it's kind of like talking about demographics anyways. It's like, am I a millennial millennial, or am I Gen X? You know, because I'm on a cusp. And so it's, it's, it's just kind of a helpful marker.
Another interesting aspect of Strauss-Howe's theory is how they see cooperation and tension between the different generations. I think the most obvious one, which they stress a lot in the book, is the dynamic between the Prophet, i.e., the Boomers, and the Millennials, i.e., the Heroes. And if you think about that in the context of synastry, a lot of that is then the opposition, you know, between Uranus in those charts. But still, there's this tension between the Boomers and the Millennials. And we've grown up with that. I mean, like the rap that Millennials have gotten from that generation has kind of worn off a bit, cuz like we're now all adults now. But then also now there's sayings like, "Okay, Boomer." You know, like I saw it on a bumper sticker just the other day. I loved it. Like I saw it on a bumper sticker. "Okay, Boomer."
And the Boomers are always, or the Prophet generation is always in power or the eldest generation when the fourth turning hits. And so Prophet does kind of assume wise, and there is an element of wisdom that exists within the generation. But there's also this quality of narcissism and idealism that exists within that generation. And they cannot let go of the ideas that they have or ideals. And that's kind of also what creates the ultimate crisis. And so you can see like Xi is a Boomer, Trump's a Boomer, Bibi is a Boomer, Putin's a Boomer, you know, like, and it, it's like this every single time. And then you got these fresh new voices coming up. And so we are focusing on the American element here, where you have like AOC versus JD Vance or the Vet Rama Swami, or any of these younger voices that are like becoming, you know, huge political pundits. They're all Millennials, and they have their own kind of version of what this could look like. Like they're not RINOs, they're not always blue Democrats. You know, there's nuance to the thinking of this generation. And again, they're the ones that are going to rebuild this thing. And so, it's another reason to be slightly optimistic.
If you're familiar with astrology, and in particular the kind of thing astrologers have observed about the Uranus cycle, you'll have heard that whenever Uranus has been in Gemini, the US has gone to war. It's essentially the same idea as the fourth turning, because roughly speaking, the wars we already mentioned all coincided with Uranus passing through Gemini. The Uranus coming back to Gemini has so accurately predicted these massive pivots in not just American, but again, like British history. And so the reason why I'm optimistic about it, because the world did kind of improve afterwards, you know, like there were advances that I think most people would agree were positive.
Another point I think it's important to make about Strauss-Howe generational theory is that, in comparison with astrology, it's very simple. It posits a single cycle applying to American history. Astrology, on the other hand, posits all sorts of cycles that are operating one on top of the other. This is why doing astrology is difficult, and why it's easy for astrologers to get their predictions about world events wrong. But I think this actually speaks in favor of astrology, because the world and its history is complex, and astrology reflects that.
But Strauss and Howe aren't the only ones to have identified cycles of history. In fact, there have been many historians and economists who've posited versions of cyclical history, including Oswald Spengler, Nikolai Kondratiev, and Peter Turchin. And they've posited various different cycle lengths, like 50 years, 250 years, and a thousand years. But guess what? Most of these cycles are fundamentally astrological.
Now, if you find this topic interesting, then you might like to know that I'm giving a long-form livestream talk on this subject very soon. The stream will be called "Cyclical History: Is It All Just Astrology?" and it'll take place on Saturday, September the 27th at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time.
Let's now think about the fourth turning in particular. What can we expect as the crisis continues?
"Winter is necessary, and we're in it. We've been in it since 2008, and we're nearing the end, and it's kind of like the final act. And so for me, it's like, finally, let's get it over with. And I'm very optimistic about it. I just want to say that, like, I'm not like doom and gloom, because it's like, oh, finally, like, we're here, like we're going to be able to see what it's like with a reinvention of how things are done."
One of the strange things about this time is that America is facing internal pressure at a time when the threat of geopolitical conflict is also rising. So it feels like any crisis that's coming could be a kind of everything all at once kind of situation. But there may be a clue in recent history. According to Strauss and Howe, during the unraveling period, there's generally a precursor event that foreshadows the crisis to come. In the last seculum, the precursor event was World War I, which foreshadowed the Second World War. In our current seculum, there was a precursor event too: 9/11. That event played a major role in the unraveling phase of the current cycle. It led to the wars in the Middle East that served to damage America's reputation and plunge that region into endless turmoil.
Now, Strauss and Howe state that the fourth turning of our current cycle began in 2008 with the subprime mortgage crisis. That came a little before Uranus moved from the mutable sign of Pisces into cardinal Aries in May of 2010. And I think it's fair to say that it has felt like we've been living through one long crisis since that time. Some people argue that the economy has never truly recovered from the crash of 2008. And both politics and geopolitics have been becoming more and more fractious and contentious. Of course, domestically in the US, the country has become more and more divided over the course of this period. The killing of Charlie Kirk this month looks likely to stoke those tensions even more. Of course, things are also getting hot from a geopolitical perspective. We're seeing a group of rising countries led by China and Russia challenging the US-led world order. So, a geopolitical crisis is also very much on the cards. Indeed, we're arguably already deep into it.
But does the crisis have to include more war? History does rhyme, and all the previous ones absolutely did end that way. And so, it's tough to kind of bet against a cycle. And it's also something that you could almost argue we're in. And like, whatever we call it in retrospect, you know, the Ukraine-Russia conflict, everything going on in Israel post-October 7th, we could call it something, you know, at the end of it, like say it doesn't escalate and we do find something like peace throughout the rest of the fourth turning. I think it still could be defined as a really interesting global conflict.
Astrologically, the Sibly chart of the United States has both Mars and Uranus in Gemini as the seventh whole sign house of the chart. The seventh house relates to the other, and for a country, this can mean both allies and enemies. With Mars, the war planet, in that sign, it's no wonder that Uranus in Gemini has historically brought war for the US. That kind of relates to the way I've usually thought about the Uranus in Gemini and its association with the fourth turning is that there's two prevailing ideologies that seem to really go at, you know, at head with one another during it. Like with the last one, it was communism and fascism, right? And before that, it was the Civil War, you know, the North and the South. Before that, it was the colonies versus the Crown, you know, like each one of them, there's like these two ideologies that rise up, and like that's where the clash lies. And it does seem inevitable, you know, like because again, it's an American prophecy. It's the subtitle of the book. And so like the, like just being here at the moment and like feeling it and seeing it, it's like there's no real peaceful way to resolve this. And I don't know how it gets resolved, but it feels like, you know, within the next cycle, again, we're talking 84 years here, like the US and all of the boundaries and and whatnot. Like, I don't think it's going to look the same. And I'm not talking about Canada being included and stuff. I'm talking more like the entire West Coast becoming its own thing, or like just the coast, you know, and then like the center of of the US will be its own, you know, like that to me seems very likely, you know, and so I don't know if that means another civil war or even what that could look like either, but like it just is what it feels like, especially within the context of the turnings.
It's also worth thinking a bit about why the culminations of the fourth turnings come when Uranus is in Gemini and what that means for the character of the period. Gemini is the sign of Mercury, the messenger. You have communications, you have youth movements that are pretty interesting because of this kind of dawning of a need for more like cohesive civic identity and stuff like that. And then you have transportation. And I suppose like the first and third can kind of be overlapped within tech. It's kind of obvious this one, you know, with AI and drones and self-driving vehicles and everything that's kind of coming at us that is going to tremendously impact the way that our world functions and just, just not even the next seculum, but like within the next 5 to 10 years. And so the end of this one too.
And when you go back and you just look at the previous fourth turnings, like there's a really interesting theme around those topics with with each of them, you know. And so from like '29 to '46, you and I talked about in our conversation, like the transistor. And so like radio and media changing, and sonar, and all these different things, the atomic energy piece, like all of that began to sculpt the way that the world was, but also warfare. They focus on that a good bit as well, just like how it's all conducted. You go back to the shortened fourth turning, which is the Civil War period in the 1860s, and you have the telegraph and railroads. And so like those two things drastically changed how warfare was conducted, but also just the world in general. Jump back to the 18th century, um, the American Revolution, and that one is like mass producing of pamphlets and being able to distribute them, and also like the US postal service as well was like beginning to unfurl itself. And so it's just these interesting Gemini upgrades. And I think the simplest way of just thinking about Uranus and Gemini is like Uranus being the upgrade to the software. And well, what are we upgrading? It's like communications and the way in which all of this is being exchanged. And when people become educated about what's really going on, or at least what they think is going on, there's this revolutionary energy that kind of ignites. And that's why all the fourth turnings are a crisis, you know, because the old institution was has already been unraveling since the '80s, but now it has to be rebuilt.
Each of the previous four turnings has also seen a big reset for the US monetary system, which is something I discussed in this video. And I think a really interesting element of this particular cycle that we're in is how Bretton Woods occurred afterwards, which made the dollar the global reserve currency. And so there is an overlap actually with the lifespan of currencies and the debt cycle, according to Ray Dalio, with this whole model. And both of them, you know, are not astro-based, but, you know, I think Ray Dalio is kind of a genius as far as his analysis of macro themes and stuff. And there's a great overlap there.
Something you might be wondering is, does this cycle just apply to American history? Well, Strauss and Howe argue that each country runs its own cycle that isn't necessarily in sync with the American one. However, over time, the cycles seem to be converging in this globalized world. And so, I think my point is, because of Bretton Woods and the global reserve currency, that it does kind of interweb with the whole world, and we're kind of like experiencing fate together in a lot of ways.
So, that's a little on the possibilities for this fourth turning. Now, let's consider when it might end. In "The Fourth Turning Is Here," Howe states clearly that he doesn't know exactly when the current crisis will end. But he does take an educated guess. He says that, quote, "A new turning typically arrives four years after each generation begins to enter a new phase of life. This would point to the Millennial crisis ending in 2032." And he says, quote, "The early 2030s appear to be the most likely years for the resolution of the Millennial crisis and the opening of the first turning of the next seculum." Working backward from there, the most likely year for the climax would perhaps be around 2030.
From an astrological point of view, it's fascinating that he singled out the year 2032. That's when Uranus will begin to transition out of Gemini and into Cancer. It's also the year of the next big planetary conjunction when Uranus will conjoin Saturn in late Gemini. And it's also the year of the last exact sexile between Pluto and Neptune, when the century-long sexile between those planets will finally begin to fade away. Some kind of process is ending around that time. And the last time that happened, we saw the Protestant Reformation and the publication of Copernicus' theory.
Having grown up during the unraveling and now the crisis, like, I invite it. Like, I would love to live in a world that does feel a little bit more cohesive and sane, be interesting, you know, before I die. And based on their model, that's very possible. All sorts of people in the astrological and spiritual space have been pointing to a crisis lasting from around now until around 2032. So here we have Howe agreeing with the woo people on a rough timeline for the crisis. Like, the seed to the saculum is basically Uranus moving into Cancer. Like, it's that transition period. None of this stuff is exact. It's not like a specific day, but like, it's a transition into it. And it makes a lot of sense, you know, like I was saying before, how Ray Dalio's model of the debt cycle correlates very strongly to this, and and that too. Like, there's no way it can go on another seven years without some sort of full reset or something that has to happen, because like, once nations start to get over 100% debt to GDP, it's just unsustainable. They can't service the debt. Everything inflates, and then ultimately, it gets to that point where, like what happened last time, you had hyperinflation in places like Germany and really all over the place. And that's happening again. Argentina, Lebanon, um, Turkey, right? Like, it's cropping up, and it's just that the dollar is the least dirty shirt in the hamper, you know? But like, it will occur. For me, it's one of like the more foundational ideas of why this cannot continue that much longer, you know? Like, there has to be a hard reset, or as I say, the great reset. And God only knows what that looks like.
I think it's possible that for the US, it could continue into the middle of the 2030s. There's been a lot of talk about the Pluto return of the US, which came in 2022. But that was actually just the Pluto return of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The US Constitution didn't come into force until 1788, 12 years later, which would mean that the US might finally end its current crisis in perhaps 2035 or 2036. I'm really just making educated conjectures here.
But perhaps we are already seeing some suggestions of light at the end of the tunnel, because if you take an optimistic view, we're already starting to see developments that point to an end to the long unraveling underway since the early '80s. A really interesting point is like when you're kind of in the midst of the fourth turning, the younger generations like have this incredible yearning for cohesion and like something that actually makes sense in an institutional manner. And so you see that like a lot of the younger generations getting really involved in politics, like they have their version of how they want to see the world to be. And like these are the minds, basically, the Millennials and younger, that will rebuild the whole thing. And so like you begin to see that within the fourth turning, and it kind of brings the hope to the turning. You know what I mean? Like it doesn't just like crisis, and then there's hope. It's like, no, no, no, there's like stirrings that that happen going into the end of it. And I think we're very much seeing that. Because also like, if you just think about 2008 into present, we've already had two pretty massive crises, you know, like with the GFC and then COVID. It's like, sure, likely there will be another one, but like the worst of it likely is over, according to them. Like the way that they talk about it, like we're kind of like in this like final phase where, you know, it peaks, maybe a black swan event occurs, singularity, amen, you know, like, whatever it is, like, but it does signify we are now in the new seculum, which is reason to be hopeful. That's kind of my thinking. It's a bit optimistic around it. Because also with, you know, just, just all of this insane tech, you know, what does it mean as far as like drone warfare and cybersecurity and hacks and stuff like this? Like, it's that too is going to be leveling up, and it will just look differently.
That's almost it for this video. Thanks so much to Adam for joining me on the channel this time. Do see him and his amazing work out. Yeah, I got a podcast. It's called Constellating Cosmos. Um, hopefully by the time you see this, you'll be able to listen to Dan and I's conversation over there. And then I write on Substack, and it's called The Dragon Hole. And so I try to write it over there as much as possible. I teach, I give readings, and uh, that'll get you started.
Thanks for watching and see you again very soon.