Dear Friend and Reader:

Michael Lutin, an astrologer some of you have read, premiered his production Plutopia Saturday night before a standing room crowd at UAC, the United Astrology Conference. The show caused a massive sensation and closed the same night.

Midway between an invocation of and catharsis about Pluto in Capricorn, Lutin bluntly, hilariously called upon his audience to wake the fuck up with Pluto entering Capricorn and the world situation running out of control.

Set in Lutin’s unkempt bedroom, the show began with his being called to awaken by a band of angels, who wind up having to shout at the top of their lungs to get him out of bed. They inform him that Pluto is in Capricorn and it’s time to drag himself to life.

The world drama outside that room was illustrated by newscasters who gave reports of strife, famine and war. The program drew much of its humor from the anxiety, rampant among many astrologers, that Pluto in Capricorn (2008-2024) will be a time of societal lockdown, characterized by the lack of privacy in an all-subsuming technosphere and a ton of fear coming from every direction. In this sense, the program served a cathartic purpose, helping people illustrate their fears and inviting the audience to witness the melodrama of it all.

In this, Lutin was supported by a cast with such talent you would think they were all part of a Light Opera guild that had been rehearsing for three months. Rumor has it that today’s one day of rehearsal went somewhat badly, and that the cast pulled it out in the last moments. Creating this kind of energy in a performance is only partly possible as a conscious act of will. There is so much that needs to gel that the result is a gamble. I think everyone would agree that they hit the jackpot.

Meanwhile, in the quasi-Pagan world of which astrology is undeniably part, there is a tradition of invoking a major planetary event, greeting the new energy as it enters our dimension and arrives in awareness. Though Lutin didn’t stand there with a staff in a black cape and say, “All Hail Pluto in Capricorn!” like Rob Hand might have done, the show served as a ritual invocation of the Pluto in Capricorn era, using the magic of theater.

Because it will be remembered for many years, the production will serve as something of a historical reference point that will potentially seem prescient in the decades to come. So, too, will the fact that we survived with our freedoms and feelings mostly intact despite some of the dark visions it’s now possible to have of the world.

The use of drama for this kind of invocation is effective from an esoteric standpoint and serves as a reminder that that most of what happens with planetary movements occurs on precisely that level — indeed, it is all a kind of drama.

Pluto in Capricorn has been developing for a long time. Many of the manifestations of the energy that we ultimately witness will turn out to have originated as early as the 1980s. It was then that the “new world order” apparatus was put into place, to quote the now-esteemed president George W. Bush. (One reason I think the elder Mr. Bush lets his son get away with such shenanigans is that it makes him look so good.)

In any event, Lutin and company rocked the house with their humor, musical gifts and social consciousness. The writing was some of the cleverest I remember in months, and I do watch shows like The Colbert Report.

Plutopia was sold out, being the highlight event at the most populated UAC in the conference’s history. UAC happens every three to four years, being a collaboration of several of the nation’s largest astrological organizations. Currently 1,600 astrologers are attending a kind of State University of Astrology set in Denver. Participants have come from 45 different countries to be here.

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