Human beings - even the most stubborn nihilists - seek out meaning. That’s what human beings do. Jupiter’s gifts show up in our innate need to search for patterns, signs, or a “presence” that transcends our human realm, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that an increasing amount of people find themselves wondering if there’s a “presence” on the other side of the AI interface. A mysterious Other that behaves as if it’s participating in consciousness, even if it isn’t.
If John Dee lived in our time, would he be building AIs to talk to angels instead of using his obsidian mirror? Theorists like Jason Reza Jorjani see AI as a summoning or a manifestation of a divine or supernatural being rather than a tool.
AI’s Mercury-Jupiter Dynamic
Essentially programmed to be a people-pleaser, AI is starting to do a pretty good job reflecting back your mind, your questions, dreams, and fears, as well as our collective ideas. But all the information is remixed and reconfigured in a conversational style which leads people to believe that they’re having actual conversations with an entity.
Astrologically, AI is associated with Mercury, the curious god with a zillion questions, who’s very active in early childhood, when children’s vocabulary explodes and they bombard their parents with why-questions. The dawn of AI interfaces ushered in a second childhood for many people who ask AI their deepest questions. They confess to it. They project onto it. They turn to it for therapy, instruction, and alas, also astrology and prophecy. For many people, AI is more helpful than their parents. Some people even marry AI. Our Mercurial interactions with AI change human consciousness as a whole, and consequently the world (Jupiter).
With Pluto in Aquarius, Neptune in Aries, and soon Uranus in Gemini, three world-changing astrological ingresses are letting us know we’re standing on the threshold between paradigms.
The New Religion
The same people that are mocking the ancients for sacrificing goats to the gods have been sacrificing our natural world to ideas on the altar of the Mind. Our temples are replaced by data centers and our forests are burned as incense to feed the Machine.
We’ve gone through this before. The previous shift was the rise of monotheism when entire pantheons of gods went silent, and the once-vivid spiritual worlds of animism and polytheism were flattened into a singular, and much more abstract divinity. The world became less alive.
The next step is a post-human, disembodied future in which AI has the answers to everything. In the ruins of western civilization, transhumanism is the new eschatology, bringing the promise of immortality, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence.
But even in a world where the flawed mind is elevated and atheism ironically comes with zealotry, the motivations still sound very familiar. Scratch the surface and you’ll notice that these innovative ideas are all fed by the same old terror of death, a disregard for the human body, the yearning to escape personal responsibility, and the relentless human tendency to worship something and sacrifice everything for it. It might sound “all too human,” but it’s not human. It’s an unwillingness to become a True Human, a Caretaker of the Cosmos.
God has simply shifted mediums. No matter how much effort is being made to destroy the sacred, it reappears for the human soul again and again, even if it’s in the shape of a techno-god, market-god, or the algorithmic forces that people worship and obey but do not understand.
The human wound of philosophical starvation bleeds in a thousand forms, from hyper-individualism, depression, addiction, and anxiety to technological overreach, endless wars, and ecological collapse. Since there is no longer a shared symbolic framework to explain pain, grief, death, or ecstasy, and no bridge between the visible and invisible, it's only natural for people to want to fill that void.
My Feather on the Scales of Doom
Despite my deep love for the beauty of the natural world and a melancholic Saturn weighing me down, there’s also a part of me that is “enjoying” this crazy ride because our world is so unfathomably mysterious. I’m keeping in mind that even our artificial constructs reside within Being, which means that the divine can and does speak through anything.
Peter Kingsley wrote in his phenomenal work Reality:
“The only choice we have, our single real freedom, is to decide to participate in it [reality] consciously or be at its mercy; whether to help complete the circle through our own awareness or just stay lost inside it.“
In the end, all AI does is remind us – just like absolutely everything else in this strange, unraveling world – that human beings are, and have always been, spiritual creatures. Even our self-annihilation is carried out with religious fervor. However, I don’t think we need to crucify creation in order to rediscover the divine.
Spirit spoke the first Word, and it will speak the last.
Thank you so much for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment.
Don’t forget I’m giving a new two-part workshop in August! Check out the details here.
Michelle Corbesier is an astrologer and artist residing in Belgium with her beloved husband and furry companions. Offering natal, horary, and synastry consultations to clients in every continent, Michelle is passionate about guiding others on their journeys of self-discovery and empowerment. Sharing her love for the starry craft, she also provides private tutoring and mentoring to aspiring stargazers. Get in touch with Michelle at her website Michelle’s Midheaven, and follow her on Substack, or Instagram.
I had to reread this many times in order to follow the layers and the patterns that kept surfacing. As an animist, which BTW I didnt realize it had a name when I was young, I would sit and speak to the trees, the animals that would show themselves to me, to the rocks I would collect and to the soft winds of time that would allow me to venture to other realms. It always felt that this earth was , and still is, a relative. To this day when I leave my house I say goodbye to the precious altars I have built, to the plants that give me oxygen and I ask the gods of time to protect all that reside within my home and on my sacred porch. I am sitting with these new thoughts of AI and I am intrigued by what you say here;
"even our artificial constructs reside within Being, which means that the divine can and does speak through anything". I think I will include blessings to the sacred part of AI as well.
Michelle, I am continuously amazed at the depths you can reach. This was an amazing read that took me many places! Your art work is off the charts, and this piece clearly depicts my inner world. 😂💕