Orientalism and Vedic Astrology
The Big “O” in the Room: Orientalism and the New Tropical Vedic Astrology Movement
By Katharine Faris-Strohm, M.A.
Recently there has been a lot of online discussion about the 28th International Vedic Astrology Conference in Kolkata, India and specifically about a lecture given by Glenn Perry. In this lecture Perry stated that there was an “elephant in the room” concerning the viewpoint of Indian Vedic astrology being confused and misleading the masses. In his blog post about this lecture, Rick Levine states his opinion that Perry was not only misleading, but that his knowledge of Vedic was so lacking that he did not have an informed enough background to have a valid opinion. While I am not going to pick apart either person’s position (you can read the article yourself), I do want to talk about the fundamental dynamics of the situation. Yes, my friends, it’s time to talk about the Big “O” in the room: Orientalism, cultural appropriation as defined by Dr. Edward Said, essentially “racism towards Arabs and Asians”.
“A general patronizing Western attitude towards Middle Eastern, Asian and North African societies. In Said’s analysis, the West essentializes these societies as static and undeveloped—thereby fabricating a view of Oriental culture that can be studied, depicted, and reproduced. Implicit in this fabrication, writes Said, is the idea that Western society is developed, rational, flexible, and superior (Mamdani)”
Many scholars are now finally talking about the cultural appropriation of Hatha Yoga by the West, such as in this article by Ghandi and Wolff. I was not at the conference in India, but I was at the Sedona Vedic Astrology Conference, and I have to tell you, I’m not surprised by what happened in India. The question is, why is it happening, or why is it being ALLOWED to happen? If I were in charge of a conference I would never invite people in the first place who have a reputation for being antagonistic and disrespectful to the real Indian astrology, which uses the sidereal zodiac. Having tropical astrologers involved who are kind and respectful is fine, but the riff raff needs to stay at the door; I think we need a bouncer. I know that the astrology field tries to maintain a “spiritual” feel and is actually a rather new field that doesn’t have the performance chops that other fields have. Vedic astrology is becoming big, and a lot of astrologers are finding themselves having to develop their professional side in public; it’s no longer just an astrology family reunion at these conferences, there are new people coming to them and that means that you need to bring your A Game, go big or go home as they say. That is another issue, and perhaps we can wax philosophic on that one for another time, but for now let’s focus on what happened in Sedona.
The last time I was in Sedona was in 1994, as I was following the Grateful Dead tour. The town was still small and hadn’t exploded into the spiritual mecca we have today. I thought I was in a time loop at the conference, because the same thing that happened in 1994 (well, really the last ten years of the Dead), was happening now in Sedona at the conference. This is a phenomenon that I call the “freeloading hippy”. Yes, I was one of them at some point, and learned to not be, so I’m not judging, just observing. This is a phenomenon where people without tickets come to the Dead shows and flood the parking lot making it too crowded for the people who actually have tickets to enjoy themselves. There was a whole group of tropical astrologers at the Sedona conference who did not register for the conference, didn’t go to classes, yet stayed at the hotel and held their OWN classes on the premises!! Who does that?? I could not believe my eyes. Here I had paid a lot of money to be there and study, and I was made to feel like I was not included or invited. The insults did not stop there, though, as their sense of entitlement spread into every aspect of the conference. Who were these people?? They were mostly Western white people with a sense of self-righteous white privilege that said they could just come and take over someone else’s conference just as Britain took over India, and flaunt how they think Western astrology is superior to Vedic. Yes, there were Indians involved, but as I’ve often said, the worst orientalists are from the culture of origin themselves; if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, seems to be the sentiment. It was astounding, and that would never happen in other fields that I have been involved with and gone to conferences. Let’s take a look at these fields.
I have been a Middle Eastern dancer for over 25 years, and a dance scholar in ethnomusicology. I got my Master’s degree at Indiana University in 2012, and I produced and directed five dance concerts with artists from Egypt and the US. Being involved with Arabic culture so intimately has given me the insight into how Orientalism operates at a personal level, and in the larger genre of the Arabic arts. Never at a dance conference would this kind of behavior be allowed to happen. Dancers know better than to try to pull something like this, there would be a big fight! Especially in Detroit, as this is where I work.
I have been involved with the Star Knowledge Conferences directed by Chief Golden Light Eagle since 2015, and taught and performed at two of them. I see how cultural appropriation operates within the Native American community, and the outspoken backlash of native peoples against whites who try to use their culture for monetary gain. Where is the East Indian backlash?? Never would Chief allow someone to get up on stage and say that the “Indians got it all wrong”, on whatever aspect of their culture. He would stop them in their tracks and correct them on the spot, and actually, you can see this in action in this video at the 11:11:11 Conference at Cahokia Mounds when the crowd was talking too much and disrespecting Grandma Aggie and he had to scold them.
My husband is a physicist, and has gotten me involved in the alternative physics field of the “Electric Universe Theory” with the Thunderbolts Project group, and I can tell you, they would not allow anyone from mainstream science to come to their conference and to behave how these tropical astrologers are behaving. I don’t think anyone would dare do that, they also know better. I also know that disinfo agents are put into burgeoning fields of truth to confuse people. I just have to wonder, who is paying these people??
How do you know what you know? What is the history of how we know what we know? What lens are you looking through? These are the questions that epistemology attempts to answer. Epistemology is a branch of philosophy which is “the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity” (Webster). It seems the lens these tropical astrologers are looking through is muddied by their attachment to their Western tropical signs. Yes, it can happen. Actually, my personal experience is that sidereal is much more accurate than tropical, as I have seen this in the 38 years that I’ve studied astrology. We try to become our signs, and I actually wrote a short article about that. When I switched from tropical to sidereal, I was pissed off. I felt I had been lied to all these years by Western astrology. I think I still feel that contempt, but I do like some of the techniques of Western, such as using the outer planets, just not the zodiac. I stopped doing Western astrology because it stopped working for me. Nowhere in my tropical chart does it indicate my Gemini tendencies, and in sidereal I am a Sun in Gemini! I felt liberated. Yes, I AM a Gemini Sun, Cancer rising, Moon in Virgo! I am NOT a Cancer Sun, Leo rising, Moon in Libra. It’s so clear. I wanted to tell the world, hey, YOU’RE BEING LIED TO!!! I see now that this is the defense that the Western astrologers are actually taken, that Vedic sidereal is lying to us!! NONSENSE!!! But this is how disinfo agents work, they confuse us. Nevermind that the aspects in both zodiacs are the same, it’s just the sign that is different. We are all attached to our signs.
The fact that the zodiacs are LENS of how we look at the sky reminds us that this debate in astrology is just an epistemological difference. It helps to remember that we are ONE solar system traveling at the speed of 585,000 mph around the Galactic Center, and this is our perspective from Earth going 1,000 mph rotating around our Sun. If we lived on Mars, we would have a different zodiac! These videos by DJ Sadhu portray beautifully that our solar system is a vortex, and that we are traveling in a Sine wave pattern around the perimeter of our galaxy, another vortex. No wonder God stuck us way out here in the back 40 of the galaxy, look how we fight!
The field of cymatics is not dissimilar to astrology. I always liken the two zodiacs to frequencies. Tropical is 440 hz, and Sidereal is 432 hz. We all know that Western music tunes their “A” note to the 440 hz, but that 432 hz is the accurate pitch when viewed under a cymascope. Since we don’t use 432, our bodies are listening to static. You know when you “almost” get a radio station tuned in, you can hear it! Yes, you can hear it, but that little bit of static keeps you distracted and not absorbing the sound fully. That is the tropical zodiac. When you hit the radio station dead on the money that is the sidereal zodiac, and that is 432 hz.
As a musician I can’t stand the sound of static, it really irritates me. I realize that not everyone is as sensitive to sound as I am, and perhaps I’m just tuned into higher dimensions, and it’s not a judgement. I’m just tired of Vedic astrology getting bullied by Western astrology, enough is enough. How dare they treat Saraswati, the Indian goddess of the arts, music and literature, with such disrespect!! Like in the video Chief said, “When the Elders speak, YOU LISTEN!!!”
You can use whatever zodiac you like, but disrespecting the culture of origin of Vedic astrology is not acceptable behavior at all. I believe that everybody should come together and we should be peaceful and kind to each other, but unfortunately the approach of the tropical movement is not kind or peaceful. I find them to be party crashers who only care about promoting their own agenda. I personally don’t think that we should coddle up to bad behavior because that condones it. Do what you like, but do not disrespect the Traditions, or the elders, and especially the ancestors. After all, to me if you are a practicing astrologer you should be trying to help your clients first and foremost. This is the utmost priority, and you need to use whatever tools you need in order to achieve that goal.
Sources Cited
Mamdani, Mahmood. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terrorism, New York: Pantheon, 2004; ISBN 0-375-42285-4; p. 32.
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