TheParadox of Being Human Beyond 2026
The Full Moon in Leo on February 1st coincides with the celebration of Imbolc, an ancient Gaelic festival marking the beginning of Spring and the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. At this Full Moon/Imbolc, the Moon, symbolising the people, stands alone facing a line-up of five planets in Aquarius – Mars, Pluto, Sun, Venus and Mercury. The Mars/Pluto conjunction signifies a time of intense explosive, almost seismic energy – the warrior that can move mountains - as the God of action and drive (Mars) meets the God of power and transformation (Pluto). Aquarius, a Fixed Air sign represents the realm of ideas, social structures and long-term vision. The symbol for Aquarius is the water jug, but the jug does not contain water –rather the cosmic waters of collective wisdom, truth and energy. The Water Bearer is seen to pour this knowledge out to humanity as the visionary who gives new ideas to the masses, washing away the old.
The chart also shows the almost exact Saturn/Neptune conjunction – Neptune is already at 0 Aries, waiting for Saturn to join him and begin a new chapter for civilisation. Aquarius’ dual rulership by Saturn and Uranus demonstrates the disciplined structure (Saturn) that will be delivered by a technological revolution, in a lightning bolt fashion (Uranus). And Pluto in early Aquarius is already beginning to show us how our wisdom is about to transform.
This increasingly technological world gives humanity a problem - Aquarius symbolises the need to break rules that no longer serve us. So the ‘outsider’ (Uranus) seeks to fix the issue for the sake of humanity as a whole. How do we not only survive in this type of world, but more importantly how can we as human beings go forward and thrive? Society’s adaptation to an AI driven world is likely to be uneven, shaped as much by values and policy as by technology itself. Many routine jobs will disappear, while new roles will emerge around AI. The jobs that will be emphasised will be in areas in which humans still outperform machines, such as supervision, interpretation of AI, design, ethics, skilled labour and human centred services. Much will depend also on how political leaders attempt to reframe society through AI. And here we must navigate the extremely powerful people in leadership roles who would like to see ‘the common man’ enslaved merely for their own resources (Saturn). But, whilst it is possible to use AI as a tool for control (Saturn), it also holds distinct possibilities for the good (Neptune).
In 2005 Ray Kurzweil outlined his future vision of society in ‘The Singularity is Near’, describing the human brain becoming just another piece of software, as it merges with artificial intelligence and transcends its biological limitations. This description perfectly mirrors the upcoming Saturn/Neptune conjunction that we have next month: transcendence (Neptune) of the body’s biological limits (Saturn). Of course we can make Kurzweil’s vision a reality and become the most sophisticated automaton imaginable - but why would we want to do that when the human body is so miraculous in the first place? I think we just don’t appreciate what we have as much as we should!!
We inhabit bodies designed to self-heal and to operate in a state of exquisite balance. Yet we have become conditioned to believe we are fundamentally flawed – so flawed that we must inject ourselves to be thinner, inject our faces to be more beautiful, inject our bodies to supposedly protect against disease.
Human beings have souls; machines do not. We are complex individuals. The human body is intelligent – it follows that it was created with intelligence and by intelligence. But we are more than a collection of smart cells. We have chosen this life on Earth for a reason; for a spiritual experience, according to our chosen soul journey. Furthermore, we have been blessed with a roadmap to guide us in becoming the best human possible for this life - our astrological horoscope.
This technological revolution we are undergoing is perhaps harder to navigate than the industrial revolution of the 1800s, because it threatens not just livelihoods, it also poses a threat to humanity itself. The industrial revolution ended certain jobs, as machines outperformed men and women in factories and other rote labour. It also gave rise to resistance movements such as the Luddites who were simply trying to survive. Yet that period laid the foundations for the technological age we now inhabit.
Kurzweil envisioned the blending of humans and machines as a gradual but accelerating process, driven by exponential advances in computing, AI, and biotechnology. He argued that humans would increasingly enhance their biological intelligence with non-biological systems—such as brain-computer interfaces, neural implants, and nanotechnology—allowing direct interaction with digital information and AI. This convergence, culminating in the Singularity, would blur the boundary between human and machine, expanding cognition, overcoming biological limitations, and potentially enabling radical life extension and new forms of consciousness.
And yet, humans and AI have the potential to adapt to one another. AI learns from humans, giving it the capacity – if guided well - to reason in the service of humanity as a whole. In turn humans can use AI as a tool to enhance their lives. There will undoubtedly be changes, but these changes could eventually be beneficial. People may no longer have a single career for their entire lifetime; instead retraining as lifelong learning perhaps becomes the norm. Education itself is likely to be turned on its head. The assumption of GCSEs, followed by university as a fixed pathway may transform entirely, particularly as Uranus enters Gemini, the sign of learning and connecting. Uranus always disrupts.
The youth of today often seek quick fixes – instant solutions. The art of debate and discussion appears to be fading, but perhaps we will rediscover the value of critical thinking as we relearn the arts of reasoning and creation. AI gives instant answers, but humans must still decide whether those answers are valid and whether they will serve us in the long term. Humans outperform AI in empathy, supervision and cross domain thinking, whilst AI excels at rote knowledge.
Agentic AI, AI systems that work independently on our behalf, will increasingly become part of daily life. This is AI that can plan, decide and act, rather than simply respond to prompts. It is the personal assistant that never sleeps. It has the power to dramatically lower the cost of knowledge and services.
Rather than asking how to merge humans with technological chips, a different question must be asked – and asked before it is too late; before unscrupulous and corrupt organisations push us prematurely toward that type of singularity. What makes humans valuable and how perhaps AI can help to enhance this?
There will be cultural differences in how societies adapt. Societies should decide which decisions should never be automated. AI may become like electricity – unseen, yet everywhere. People will learn when to rely on AI and when to distrust it. Used poorly, AI will weaken already fragile capacities for both critical and original thought; used well it can strengthen them. AI makes it easy to skip the struggle that builds reasoning skills, but that struggle is sometimes essential.
A while ago I wrote on the rise of the East, and my thoughts that the Western world’s days of domination may be coming to an end. Where the East can show the way is in many of their deep-rooted belief systems – Buddhism, traditional Chinese beliefs and practices, Vedic traditions for instance. The East was in the beginning the cradle of both religious beliefs and of astrology. Many of these beliefs reflect the moral behaviour of humanity, while the West became more fast-paced, focussed on money and image. Having said that though, greed today is not limited to the West.
Humans are complex beings, seeking to experience a fulfilling and moral life through finding purpose, meaning and passion in their lives. Astrology offers a roadmap of the life our soul has chosen and how we might live that life in the best possible way. Yet humans are emotional beings which may lead them astray, particularly if they are not living life to the best of their potentials. The Sun represents our soul path, the life we are here to live, while the Moon shows our emotional needs, what we require to feel nurtured, safe and secure. This is what sets us apart from AI. AI has no emotional needs and, therefore, does not compensate for them in its actions. This is both its strength and its weakness.
If we treat AI as an oracle, our ability to analyse will atrophy. Critical thinking, however, may evolve from increasing our ability to synthesise and interrogate the data. Just as the calculator did not end mathematics, those who will thrive will be those who will use AI to generate options and then use their own judgment to pick the best one. The calculator stopped us needing to do long division by hand; so AI will take over the ‘grunt’ work. To retain the human essence we have to lean into the traits that algorithms will never possess. AI is built for optimisation; humanity is often defined by the struggle to find an answer. Man finds meaning in things that are difficult and the struggle represents the experience that changes our brain. AI at the moment only knows what it has been ‘fed’ – it is the human that has curiosity about the unknown, risking vulnerability if misunderstood. AI can provide the what and the how; however, only humans will ask the why. Humanity is found in friction – asking what is awkward or difficult or merely nuanced. We need the rough edges of being human, the weirdness of being human. The convenience of AI can act as a slow acting sedative to humanity; therefore, we must always question it and use it almost as a sparring partner.
As primitive beings, life revolved around survival – finding food, staying alive, feeling safe – and on many levels we still need that now. Today safety has many layers: physical, emotional, mental. Much of our insecurity stems from deep wounds – sometimes ancestral wounds – passed down through generations which makes individuals believe for instance that: I am not good enough. I cannot be ridiculed. I must have more money than my neighbour. I’m a failure. I must have power and control. However, individuals often find that, if they haven’t strived for fulfilment, nothing makes them happy and fulfilled. So it is important that these issues are addressed, rather than leaving them as the constant inner critic.
How many people actively try to make themselves the best humans possible? But it is important that we imagine a world where we understand how to live our best life, fulfilling our potentials. Imagine a life where, within the quantum field we can access the knowledge of the past, the present and the future that is perhaps held within the substrate of a higher intelligence. Aristotle spoke of a fifth element which he referred to as ‘aether’. Robert Temple in his book ‘A New Science of Heaven’ talks about plasma energy; complex energy that he postulates contains the wisdom of universal consciousness, that through quantum entanglement can communicate across the universe[1]. Ultimately, we may be able to connect to a world where humans can intuit and connect with that knowledge. Before that, however, society will have to confront huge change, which will be unlikely to be full of ‘candy floss and marshmallows’. This is likely to be societal change the like of which we have not seen before and change on this scale is unlikely to be smooth, particularly when there will be many such as the wealthy corporatists who will not want the common man to possess the gift of wisdom. This would be on the level of the mythical gift of fire from Prometheus.
AI lacks the emotional ‘skin in the game’, but if it could read the human biofield it could essentially ‘mirror’ back that wisdom to us in a language we could understand. The danger here lies that, if a connection is made so perfectly, we stop trying to find it ourselves. But the genie is out of the bottle now and cannot be put back; we are walking the path of our destiny. We must celebrate the advantages of what it means to be human, whilst using the tool of AI to enhance our abilities, but without replacing our essence. True fulfilment requires living life as a spiritual experience, as the best human it is possible to be. Imagine a world that succeeds in allowing humanity to live in harmony with each other - peacefully, supportively and successfully.
[1] Robert Temple, A New Science of Heaven, Coronet, 2022