Laura Michetti

Saturn and the Evolving Godhead

Abstract

The planet Saturn has been revered and feared throughout the centuries. From his early origins as the baby eating, sickle wielding Kronos to later associations with the noble austerity of Melancholy, Saturn's metamorphosis has played a key role in the evolution of the godhead. In ancient cultures the planet Saturn was thought to be the last of the wandering stars, a guardian marking the boundary between the temporal realm of planets and people and the eternal realm of stars and light. The story of the rise and fall of Saturn, as a god, a planet, an archetype, reveals much about the ways in which humans worship the divine. Whether with conscious intent or on account of deep neurogenetic proclivities, humans yearn for both transcendence and structure, both spirit and matter, and as a result, the reign of Saturn still holds strong.

Biography

Laura Michetti is a writer, teacher, cultural historian, storyteller, and PhD student at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California. Her research focuses on the history of astrology and western esotericism with special attention paid to the consequences of a historical narrative that both neglects and denies the important influence both have had on western culture. Her dissertation Saturn and the Birth and Death of God (working title) aims to uncover the historical origins of modern astrological practices and to understand the ways in which the stories embedded in the astrological traditions of certain cultures reveal their psychic tendencies and collective impulses.