Virtual Reality and Astrology, with Kent Bye

In episode 333 Kent Bye of the Voices of VR Podcast joins me in the studio to talk about virtual reality and its relevance to astrology, as well as the ways in which astrologers will use and incorporate virtual worlds in the future. During the course of the episode we talk about the history of technology, and how important turning points have historically lined up with major outer planet alignments in the past. We also spend a bit of time talking about the future, and about some upcoming outer planet trends, and expectations about astrology and virtual reality that are coming up. Kent wrote an article on astrology and virtual reality in 2017 for the Archai journal titled The Archetypal Cycles of Virtual Reality. This episode was partially motivated by some of the recent discussion about the Metaverse over the past year, as well as Facebook’s announcement that it was changing its name to Meta in October when Jupiter and Saturn stationed direct in Aquarius. Kent flew out to Denver for a couple of days to record this conversation, as well as another on artificial intelligence that will be released as an episode of The Astrology Podcast next month, and this episode ended up being a sweeping 5-hour discussion where we covered a lot of areas related to astrology and technology. There are timestamps below so you can see all the different topics we covered. Kent’s virtual reality podcast: VoicesOfVR.com This episode is available in both audio and video versions below. Timestamps Timestamps for when we talked about different topics in this episode: 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:10 Kent’s background in astrology 00:11:25 Uranus-Pluto conjunction of 1960’s and technology 00:16:30 First Virtual Reality prototype in 1968 00:18:12 Three waves of Virtual Reality 00:28:20 A century of technology diffusion 00:30:35 Outer planet transits 1880-2073 00:40:20 Embodied experience of Virtual Reality 00:44:30 The classical four elements and VR 00:47:48 Chris’ VR experience 00:51:40 Philosophical implications of VR 00:56:40 Importance of firsthand experience in astrology and VR 01:03:36 The difference between in-person and Zoom conversations 01:07:08 Philosophy of time: kairos vs. chronos 01:10:32 VR and serendipitous interactions 01:13:00 How divination works 01:16:06 AR: Augmented Reality 01:22:00 Turning point in 2012 01:27:24 History of Oculus 01:36:55 Voices of VR Podcast 01:42:52 Kent’s natal chart 01:55:10 Kent’s zodiacal releasing website 02:00:00 Oculus headset experience and Meta/Facebook 02:14:35 Outer planet transits 1951-2051 02:34:10 Jupiter-Neptune and AR 02:41:30 How astrologers can use VR in the future 03:12:50 Social aspect of VR 03:20:04 VR through the houses – 1st house 03:26:14 Second house 03:30:12 Third house 03:33:24 Fourth house 03:34:55 Fifth house 03:41:05 Sixth house 03:45:48 Seventh house 03:50:10 Eighth house 03:52:33 Ninth house 04:06:04 Tenth house 04:10:42 Eleventh house 04:13:00 Twelfth house 04:17:44 Headset Kent recommends 04:19:50 Convergence of astrology and VR 04:20:50 Wonder Bright 04:25:43 Future outer planet transits 04:44:16 How to choose VR experiences 04:46:30 Psychedelics, astrology, and VR 04:47:40 Kent’s work, Patreon, and podcast 04:52:00 Closing remarks and sponsors Watch the Video Version of This Episode Watch the video version of this episode on astrology and virtual reality: