Alice Sparkly Kat - Postcolonial Astrology: Reading the Planets through Capital, Power, and Labor

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 astrologys 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 Kats Postcolonial Astrology does something immensely paramount: its sweeping analyses rip off the togas worn by Western astrologys 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 astrologys depths through the jungles of Jungs putative collective unconscious. No awestruck adoration of Western astrologys 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 doesnt commission the reader to discard all Western astrologys 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 astrologys 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

Copyright 2021 by Alice Sparkly Kat. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by
North Atlantic Books
Berkeley, California

Cover art gettyimages.com/CSA Images
Cover design by Jess Morphew
Book design by Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Postcolonial Astrology: Reading the Planets through Capital, Power, and Labor is sponsored and published by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences (dba North Atlantic Books), an educational nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are distributed to the US trade and internationally by Penguin Random House Publishers Services. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kat, Alice Sparkly, 1992- author.
Title: Postcolonial astrology : reading the planets through capital, power,
and labor / Alice Sparkly Kat.
Description: Berkeley, California : North Atlantic Books, [2021] | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Summary: 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 Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020042293 (print) | LCCN 2020042294 (ebook) | ISBN
9781623175306 (paperback) | ISBN 9781623175313 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Astrology.
Classification: LCC Bc17f008.1 .K38 2021 (print) | LCC Bc17f008.1 (ebook) |
DDC 133.5dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042293
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042294

This book includes recycled material and material from well-managed forests. North Atlantic Books is committed to the protection of our environment. We print on recycled paper whenever possible and partner with printers who strive to use environmentally responsible practices.

Thanks everyone who talked with me and held me together when I was writing this book. Thanks to my roommates for being with me during the pandemic while a lot of this writing was happening. Thanks Ziyi Li, Ebony Martin, NB Zhong, Charmaine Bee, Yarrow, Ricky Zoker, Christian Cisneros, Emily Wang, Meng, Maya Tanaka, Maya Yu Zhang, Jerie Choi Ortiz, Ayqa, Tingying, Som, Coco Layne, Nandi Loaf, Yao, Mikala, D, Manual, Anthony Hawkins, Adder, Sakile, and more for showing me what transforming community and love look like every day. Thanks to all the amazing astrologers who laugh and scream about astrology with me, including but not limited to Sam Reynolds, Charm Torres, Oscar Moises Diaz, Shakirah Tabourn, Demetrius Bagley, Bear Ryver, Giselle Castano, Naike Swai, Naimonu James, Alejandra Alexander, Lizhen, Banu Guler, and more. Thanks everyone at Asian American Writers Workshop for giving me a chance to create community through CreateNow, and thank you for the teens and seniors who play with me, including Auntie Li, Auntie Zhao, Auntie Huang, Auntie Qing, and more. Thanks Yellow Jackets Collective organizers Mich, Grace, Parissah, and Esther, and BUFU organizers Kat, Jazz, Tsige, and Sonia, for bringing people together so that people like me dont feel alone. Thanks to everyone who has ever gotten a reading from me. Thanks Eugene Li and Porgy for letting me pet them. Thank you to ARMY for being a collective closet global rhizome network of sapphic desire and healing, and thank you Min Yoongi for being my emotional support K-pop boy. Thanks my therapist Joan Choi. Thanks my mom and dad, laoye, laolao, nainai, yeye, dayi, jiujiu, gugu, Lan Tianyi, Yang Xin, Zheng Zhi, and Cai Luhua. Thank you to North Atlantic Books and especially to Gillian Hamel. Love yall.

A strology is often compared to race. Both are exercises in imagination, pattern making, and the making of types. Both astrology and race are types of magical thinking and are not rational. Both astrology and race are social constructs and are rooted in the circulations of culture.

As Tabitha Prado-Richardson writes in their essay Who Needs Astrology?, titled after the Stuart Hall essay Who Needs Identity?, Sun sign astrology is an essentialism, certainly, but as of yet, astrology has not manifested power structures along the lines of its signs.... Skeptics such as Benjamin Radford have compared astrology to racism due to this stereotypical, deterministic thinking, but these critics are usually unwilling to go beyond the realm of thought, and define racism as a purely interpersonal phenomenon, rather than composite matrices of domination that limit access and freedom. If astrology can be compared to other sociopolitical markings of identity such as race, then astrology must also be a political project bound to cultural meanings, formed by the interplay between political and historical context.

Identities, which can include astrological signs along with race and gender, are an orientation. We use intersecting orientations to look outward from within or to look inward from without. Astrology, because it is an ideology that creates identity, can be just as hierarchical, nave, superficial, authentic, scientific, and spiritual as race.