Tag Archives: New Age

Linda Goodman and Neptune

Linda Goodman brought joy and understanding to millions through her books, though she had a tumultuous personal life.  Her New Age focus on love and light camouflaged her sometimes abrasive personality and her unusual responses to the traumatic events she experienced.

Goodman’s Aries assertiveness and writing talent led to her breakout book Sun Signs in 1968 when she was 43.  The Sun conjunct her Ascendant showcased her creative work, and its close trine to Neptune in Leo in her 5th house facilitated self-expression.  She had intuitive gifts and reflected the zeitgeist, which helped her earn massive amounts of money.  But she could never limit her spending or control her behavior in relationships for very long.

Linda’s rising Sun is the strongest point in an often challenging horoscope.  In Aries, it’s traditionally considered exalted, giving it even greater strength.  She was a self-starter who felt incomplete when not immersed in a major project or personal crusade.  Despite the painful experiences in her life, she maintained great vitality and exuberance. 

It’s no surprise that with such a strong Sun, Linda’s most popular works were literally all about Sun signs.  Yet unlike planets in their dignity (their ruling signs), exaltations can potentially overpower or unbalance the rest of the chart.

Goodman capitalized on the talents promised in her chart, but sadly also  fell victim to its liabilities.  In her books, she openly admitted problems with both anger and impetuosity, two of Aries’ negative characteristics.  She rationalized these, saying that Aries anger is short-lived, and that her impulsive actions would come to the best in the end.

After the deaths of three children and the break-ups of three marriages, we can understand why Goodman wanted to see the world with a rosy glow.  The lovely flowing trine from Neptune gave her notable name recognition, but this “easy” aspect also allowed her to ignore the truth at times.  She decided that her much younger boyfriend (now married) would return after their break-up, and that her daughter hadn’t in fact committed suicide but was kidnapped.  It was easier to hope for the miraculous then to face the realities of her losses.

Neptune probably also led to some of the problems Linda experienced with the press.  She strove to present herself as a guru of sorts, but due to her celebrity status and conspiratorial ideas, some prominent publications cast her as an unstable eccentric.  She could attract attention, but particularly as she got older, she lived more in a world of her own creation.

Linda was known as an astrologer, but embraced many metaphysical topics popular in the 1970s and ‘80s:  vegetarianism, numerology, reincarnation, the afterlife and self-actualization.  Her emphasis on free will was so great that she ultimately believed that spiritual development could overcome our horoscopes completely; they’d have no effect whatsoever.

Goodman remained an inspiration to a vast sea of readers, and Aries-like, believed that her role in life was to introduce people to various occult and metaphysical topics.  She was enormously successful in that pursuit.

Linda Goodman had craved both fame and fortune, and gloried in her ability to manifest both.  But in keeping with Neptune’s strength in her horoscope, neither lasted.  Instead, it was her ability to inspire decades of readers that remained.

Read more about my biography of Linda:  Dazzled by the Light.

Buy on Amazon.com.

Linda Goodman on the Aquarian Age

Linda Goodman was a true believer in the Age of Aquarius, perhaps because it was so obviously connected with the astrological signs.  As Pluto is still near the 0 degree Aquarius point of the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of December 2020, Goodman’s observations on the New Age may have some resonance today.

Although an accomplished astrologer herself, Linda rarely wrote about astrology beyond Sun signs.  She was a product of the 1960s and ‘70s and used the modern rulership of Uranus over Aquarius, sharing some cogent thoughts on the polarity of Aquarius and Leo, the latter symbolizing the youth culture and sexual revolution.  An Aries with Mercury in Taurus, she was impatient with the technical arguments about when (or if) the Aquarian Age had begun.  She also disliked scientists and expressed her feelings strongly.

The piece that follows was published in her book Gooberz in 1989, though it was most likely written earlier.  Goodman references a  John Lennon song from 1969, campus protests in 1970, and uses slang that was outdated by the ‘80s.  I have edited the piece and regularized punctuation for clarity.

Challenge

Do not listen to those smug prophets and Cassandras who argue endlessly and monotonously that the Aquarian Age is technically not yet upon us, and who babble and quarrel among themselves about the stern astronomical Precession of the Equinoxes, ignoring the Procession of Children with lighted candles chanting Peace.  All we ask, is give Peace a chance.

We are well within the orb of those unpredictable Uranus vibrations, sounding the chords of humanitarianism and individualism, and yes, the flat notes of insanity too.  Once again, under the ancient Law of Polarity, feeling the reflected influence of the sign opposite Aquarius: Leo, the Lion of Love, of Idealism and Youth.

Aquarius, the Water Bearer: Seeker of Truth, the unpredictable advocate of Change, whatever the cost (through violent revolution, if necessary) as a means to justify the end – of prejudice.

The eccentric, half genius, half mad Uranus vibrations of Aquarius, blending a compulsion for Progress with the hot rays of Leo’s ruling Sun, reflecting back the Lion’s firm hold over Youth and Love.  “We will have Change!  We will have Brotherhood!” rings out the clarion call of the individual’s right to do his or her own thing, and “let’s make love, not war!”  “Let’s worship Youth!” roars the fierce, hot-blooded Lion as he rolls in sensuous ecstasy with his mate.

Is it any wonder, then, that we’re having a sexual revolution, that we shake under the Uranus-Aquarian thunder of individuality of hair styles, clothes, politics and religious convictions, with riots on campus introducing the Seventies, taking their toll?

Didn’t you see it all coming, Mister Gallup and Mister Poll?  Didn’t you feel Kent State coming?  Or do you scoff at the stars and ignore the planets too, as blind astronomers and other scientists are wont to do?’  Einstein might have made it all more clear than any similar peer who knocks and raps astrology if it’s fashionable to do so.  Or than the shrinks and sociologists, stubborn astronomers, and the frightened astrologers themselves, who wrangle with one another, in unceasing competition refereed by prejudiced, pre-judgmental, know-it-all science wearing the dark glasses of dogma.

I see them squatting in their Kindergarten of Knowledge, the professors and the shrinks, the scientists and astronomers, the sociologists and poll takers, and an occasional politician, playing with Truth as children play with colored blocks lettered A B C for Apathy – Blindness – and Cop-out.

Then, when their blocks topple over, they rage in childish petulance and bang each other over the head with the offending chunks of wooden facts.

Do not bang me over the head with you’re A B C blocks colored with half-truths, you disciples of Thomas, the Doubter.  You will not break the Ram’s tough horns!

The Aquarian Age is here!  And its pulsating, powerful, unpredictable orb, mixing with the Sun rays of the roaring Lion, is ominous, if not heeded.  Locking the New Age in your scientific closets with boring, tiresome technicalities will not make it disappear.  Yes, the vibration of Aquarius is here, and much too close for comfort.

It burns my soul and sears my mind with unanswered questions.

Linda Goodman’s horoscope is on Astrodatabank.

From Gooberz, p. 184 to 185

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