Karma (Astrological)
KAR-muh
Definition
In modern Western astrology, karma is the idea that your present circumstances carry forward from earlier causes, and that the birth chart maps developmental patterns you are invited to work with consciously. The word is borrowed from Sanskrit (karman, "action"), but it is reinterpreted here through depth psychology and an evolutionary framing — it is not simply Vedic doctrine carried over.
In Tradition
In Western Modern depth-psychological and evolutionary schools — Stephen Arroyo, Liz Greene, Steven Forrest, Jeffrey Wolf Green — karma works as a secular, evolutionary metaphor for inherited psychological patterns the chart describes. Difficult aspects become growth opportunities, and the lunar nodes, Saturn, and Pluto carry the heaviest karmic weight in this idiom. The framing is interpretive rather than predictive, and astrologers tend to hold it lightly.
In Practice
Reading a chart through this lens, astrologers treat the South Node as the line of habituated competence — what already comes easily — and the North Node as the developmental edge. Saturn marks the place of tested discipline, and Pluto-aspected configurations mark zones of compulsive pattern asking for conscious change. The stance reframes hardship as an arena for deliberate work rather than cosmic punishment, and it encourages you to read the chart as a description of present opportunity, not a fixed fate.
Historical Origin
Karma enters modern Western astrology through the early-twentieth-century Theosophical channel (Alan Leo, Alice Bailey) and is consolidated by Dane Rudhyar (*The Astrology of Personality*, 1936), Stephen Arroyo (*Astrology, Karma, and Transformation*), Liz Greene, Steven Forrest (*The Book of Pluto*), and Jeffrey Wolf Green. This astrological adaptation is post-1930s and distinct from classical Vedic doctrine.
Etymology
Origin: Sanskrit. Meaning: From karman, "action" or "deed" — the principle that every action creates consequences.
Further Reading
- Stephen Arroyo, Astrology, Karma & Transformation
- Liz Greene, The Astrology of Fate
- Steven Forrest, The Book of Pluto