Age of Aquarius - Common Cultural Associations

Common Cultural Associations

The expression Age of Aquarius in popular culture usually refers to the heyday of the hippie and New Age movements in the 1960s and 1970s. The New Age movement is more accurately a phenomenon and yet seen by many as the harbinger of this future changeover of values associated with the arrival or imminent arrival of the Aquarian age.

Although more rock than New Age in genre, the 1967 musical Hair, with its opening song "Aquarius" and the memorable line "This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius", brought the Aquarian age concept to the attention of audiences worldwide. However, the song further defines this dawning of the age within the first lines: "When the Moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars then peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars". Astrologist Neil Spencer denounced the lyrics as "astrological gibberish", noting that Jupiter aligns with Mars several times a year and the moon is in the 7th House for two hours every day. These lines are considered by many to be merely poetic licence, though some people take them literally. An example is the identification of Valentine's Day 2009 as the "perfect alignment to support our collective manifestation of love and peace and dawning of the Age of Aquarius".

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