Memories of Michael Lutin
Well, to begin this tribute to the unique Michael Lutin, let’s start with his book SunShines – The Astrology of Being Happy. And he mostly was happy. Reliably funny, anyway.
It’s extraordinary that my old astrology amigo Mr. Lutin should pass to spirit, just as his most famous prediction (about America) is also passing. We followed each other on Twitter until the end, from where this portrait comes.
The Pluto in Capricorn prediction in Vanity Fair, where his monthly horoscopes appeared, is part of his legacy.
That Vanity Fair Prediction
What a time to sign out. On the day that Donald Trump learns what his fate will be from the ‘hush money’ judge Merchan, Pluto goes out of Capricorn.
This is what Michael wrote in Vanity Fair, before Donald even came near power.
He published this in 2006 and I know even some hardline sceptics are still amazed today, at the full astrological prediction. This is an extract:
The Sixties Man Who Updated
Michael Lutin was a terrific product of the 1960’s in both Pop Art and astrology. In 1969, he was at Grand Central Station working on an Astroflash booth. It had debuted in Paris in 1967, with Andre Barbault at the helm, and a couple of years later, he could be found in a pink shirt and blue jacket, charging $50-$75 for a consultation as the new-fangled technology whirred behind him.
This photograph shows the short-lived Astroflash in Paris in 1968 – but as always, Monsieur Lutin was right on time. He updated effortlessly for the yuppie years in Manhattan too, replacing the pink shirt with a designer jacket and tie.
The IBM run Astroflash, programmed by Barbault, was doing what Lutin himself would be doing, a couple of decades later. Making hugely popular public predictions. In October 1969 it was merrily calling the results for the Mets over the Orioles in the World Series.
Not that Lutin, a Phi Beta Kappa alum of Trinity College, Hartford would lower himself to mere games. He was far more at home with, say, archeologists. In fact, his horoscope reading for New York’s Iris Love inspired her to pursue the head of Aphrodite – Venus, no less. The British Museum was not impressed.
Senator Michael Stewart Lutin, Class of 1961
Was all this in his chart? Lutin famously never gave it, but I can share that he had a signature in Sagittarius, as well as a whopping amount of Virgo. He never stopped teaching and he never stopped learning. That combination is also perfect for the media. Well, he started young.
Here he is as front page news in The Trinity Tripod of 1961 as Senator Michael Stewart Lutin, ‘blasting’ the Sophomore Dining Club. He had been elected only two months before. Start as you mean to go on.
Student and Teacher – Sagittarius Signature
We recently had Michael Lutin booked to talk about Pluto on a new podcast at The Sun Sign School last year and it never happened – to my eternal regret. He could be a hard man to pin down in his final years, following his heart attack and Covid-19.
I knew him in both New York and Australia. He was a short, charismatic bloke who also had a pretty short temper.
I remember being late to meet him for dinner at The Algonquin, with the astrologer Julian Venables – and I think steam was actually rising from his head, as he stood at the traffic lights, tapping his watch.
Generous and Open
Lutin was extremely generous with other astrologers and open to new ideas. There is a good tribute to him, here, by Matthew Currie.
Christopher Renstrom credits Michael with pointing him in the right direction, professionally but also personally.
Michael was always broad-minded about astrology discoveries and was as open to the modern (the Roman family tree of asteroids) as he was to the traditional.
He was one of those lecturers who remain a student; as interested in the very old, as he was in the very new. Julian Venables remembers Lutin enthusing about his book The Divine Order (his recent release on how the ancients used to see the world).
After I gave a lecture on asteroids in Sydney once, Michael Lutin sat quietly at the back, then over lunch, told me he could not take yet another new thing about astrology – but that he was extremely interested in this.
Mod Love and Michael Lutin
When a vacancy appeared at UAC in New Orleans, Michael threw it to me, even though at the time, the Roman family tree of asteroids was dismissed by mainstream astrology. That was typical of him.
Like most New York Sixties people he was also open to alternatives. I think some of this came from his passion for Pop Art. Not a lot of people know that he was the writer behind some rather groovy cartoons created with Michel Quarez. Mod Love is the best-known. Quarez himself passed in 2021.
In 1967, Michael gave us this fantastically Lutin narrative: “The Go-Go wonder of Paris – That’s space girl. Transistors never wear down, thev just go on and on – Even her heart is made of vinvl – It’s a marvy life – With nothing else to do but dance – Why not? – Love? – Forget it, baby – Not for her -” From She’s The Hippest Girl in the World/Mod Love (1967) by Michael Lutin and Michel Quarez (Creative Commons).
Planetarium in Media Astrology
Michael’s interpretation of transits was an inspiration to a generation of media astrologers. He elevated the sun sign column in America as Patric Walker had done in Britain. Neil Spencer told me, Lutin was his favourite sun sign astrologer by a country mile.
Writing in Planetarium, at Vanity Fair, Michael managed to take ‘Jupiter’s one-year transit through your solar Fifth House’ for Gemini and turn it into something people would quote to each other over breakfast.
Lutin would also read all the transits together and, like a detective, piece together the whole story. So Gemini would hear about her Fifth House, but also her financial issues, coming from those never-ending Capricorn transits.
All this and he could still be a close friend of Michel Gauquelin and juggle German Vogue as well. In fact, he was born with a strongly Sagittarian chart, and born into a classic Ninth House life – having lived in Paris when young.
He came to know Roy Lichenstein through working in a gallery there. “I really liked his work,” he once told John Townley, “because it distilled people into archetypes.”
He remembered Jim Morrison in Paris, living there at around the same time. Morrison was a philosophical Sagittarian who may well have rung bells with Lutin’s own Sagittarian side. To this day I can’t think of another astrologer who obtained his French from Harvard.
From Poverty to Vanity Fair
As he told John Townley in what might be the definitive Lutin interview, he lived “a very, very frugal life” and at one point had no electricity. Then fate intervened.
He was offered $10,000 to write about sun signs by a publisher. Thus the former Latin student, fluent in Spanish from the age of 14, found himself in the most dumbed-down part of astrology, tasking himself with the mission of elevating it. In fact, he took it so far that Vanity Fair made him their own. It also made him famous in London and New York alike.
Michael revived something that had not been really popular since the Forties – the role of the Sun Sign astrologer in predicting the news.
The Judith Regan Show
Lutin had his biggest moment at the 2000 U.S. election.
Appearing on the Judith Regan show, he said nobody would know the results until Wednesday morning, because Mercury was retrograde. “And I said the winner’s going to be the loser, and the loser’s going to be the winner,” he told New York magazine. “People thought I was this great genius, but that was the only time I’ve ever been right about an election.”
Modesty be damned, he was right about a lot more than that, when he called what would reveal itself as Trumpism.
Class Clown to Astrologer
Michael could be frightfully rude about American politicians (especially Hillary Clinton) and also very funny.
Deadpan was his speciality. Voted Class Clown at school, he had a way of straightening his face and fixing those big, dark eyes on you – while delivering perfectly timed one-liners. And he did jazz hands.
He could nail politics, though. He nailed Trump winning the 2024 election. And yet…
How Lutin Predicted Trump’s 2024 Win
Back in September, the brilliant psychic astrologer Madalyn Aslan, who was mentored by Michael Lutin, but also his old friend, had lunch with him in New York and remembers, “At this lunch we both agreed that Trump would get in, but not stay in. Mikey gave him two years.”
Australian Days
Lutin was a game-changer in astrology because he was a stoic hard worker. He had enough Virgo in his chart to put his head down and power through columns, books, academia, clients – the lot.
Sweating through an unbearably hot conference in Queensland, Australia, he changed my career by talking about sociology and astrology. I filled my notebook. Then I started writing on the inside cover of the notebook because I ran out of space. Everyone had their jaws on the floor.
Meanwhile Lutin was sweating in the small, packed classroom, all the while – but he finished on time.
Straight after that Lynda Hill hired a limousine to take them both to the beach, so he could escape the stuffy conference. (Michael was a converted fan of her Sabian Symbols book).
She tells the full story on her Substack tribute to him. The photographs below are hers and show him looking so very much at home, with Lynda’s cat, in Australia.
Funny Man, Serious Mission
Astrology can produce people who take themselves frightfully seriously. Not Lutin. The mission was serious – losing a friend to suicide made him keenly aware of the responsibility of writing a column.
However he could flip sides quickly, going from Tibetan Buddhism and depth psychology, to the silliest gags.
I remember him being on great form at a dinner party on the Lower East Side, given by the author Karen Moline, with no mention whatsoever of astrology in the conversation.
It was more like chatting to one of those classic Woody Allen era New Yorkers. And yet if you asked him for insights, Michael would give them. I know of one author writing a biography of Gloria Swanson, who leaned on him, to help write a chapter using her horoscope.
Madalyn Aslan on Michael Lutin
Madalyn Aslan: “I do like this photo of me and Mikey, it was one of our lunches on the upper west side in Manhattan a few blocks from his apartment, Cafe du Soleil. My hair was just growing back after chemo (thus the purple hat) and Mikey couldn’t have been more supportive.”
“He treated me to lunch that day and we had a grand old time. I will always miss him. No one else like him. We were in a news segment together back in 2005 and thus really began our connection, so 19 years ago, although of course I’d heard of him forever and he helped me become an astrologer.”
“He asked me to speak many times at his gatherings / conferences, but regretfully I never did..”
Neil Spencer on Michael Lutin
Over in London, Neil Spencer remembers Michael Lutin here.
Ronnie Gale Dreyer Tribute
With thanks to Ronnie for permission to reproduce her Instagram tribute to Michael. Visit her here.
“Losing Michael Lutin, who I knew for over 30 years, is such a great loss for the astrology world, for our NYC NCGR Chapter and for all his family, friends, colleagues, students, clients. I am glad I got to see him a few months ago when he was recovering from a fall. He could be as acerbic as he was generous. There was nothing that could compare to Michael’s annual holiday party. Covid impacted him and took away the ability to host those parties, which was one of Michael’s joys. But my dearest memory was about 30 years ago when I barely knew Michael and the bookstore where I was going to hold my astrology class cancelled the rental space and I needed a space to teach 8 paid students. I phoned Michael who lived near me to ask if he knew a space. He told me I could use his apartment for two hours once a week for six weeks. He just went to a movie or out to dinner or saw a friend for those two hours. I never forgot that act of kindness. RIP dear Michael. Fly high.”
Here and Here Again
Karen Moline said she recently saw Michael at her dentist – of all places – and stopped to say hello. She said he seemed fine.
Tad Mann who shared space on NBC News with ‘Mikey’ as he fondly calls him, was taken aback by his friend’s passing too – he had organised to stay with Michael in New York only recently.
Isn’t it often the way? We’re here. And then we’re gone.
Tad Mann Remembers Mikey
Tad Mann recently recorded a great interview on reincarnation. Perhaps Michael Lutin may well be here, and here again. That can only be a good thing for astrology. If he ever wishes to return to it. Maybe next time he will also come back playing the piano (pictured, from Michael’s own website). You can still shop for the books, audio podcasts and the original unedited Vanity Fair prediction here.
Oh Mr. Lutin, you were a rare thing in this business. Funny and clever, wise and self-effacing. Inclusive. Waffle-free. Kind.
I’m so sorry we never did get that Pluto recording from you for The Sun Sign School next year. But your beat will go on.
I hope your readers, clients, colleagues and friends can add to the comments here, too. Namaste.
Main Image: Getty/Patrick McMullan.
54 Responses
I had a hilarious and stunningly accurate astrology reading from him, in his Fifth Ave office. For too long the lights in that ground floor office have been off though, as I pass by it daily, and now his brass building sign out front must come down one day. What an era of discovery reading his articles and posts. Thank you for this pool of memories, Jessica. Sorry you no longer have him in your orbit. Best, Cecelia
This is great. You reminded me of the brass plate on Fifth Avenue, too. Thanks so much. I really hope more people will leave their memories and tributes here. Thanks Cecelia.
Beautiful post. I’ll check out his work.
Thank you. I hope to add more to the feature from friends who knew Michael Lutin well.
Wow. A wonderful post and tribute, Jessica. I was actually just on his site a few days ago to see if there were any updates and I remember wondering to myself if he had died (I didn’t even have any idea how old he was). Perhaps I should stop wondering that about people.
I’m not entirely sure what it was that gave me more than just a passing interest in astrology, but I was completely bowled over by his 2006 Vanity Fair piece. I’d long had an account on Astrodienst, but I think it wasn’t until 2015 or 2016 when I first read it and then again shortly before we realized that Covid was going to keep up inside for longer than two weeks. His words about “patriot” becoming interchangeable with “treason” were just so incredibly prescient. Then again, I’m sure he’d just say it’s all right there in the astrology.
I definitely credit his work to encouraging me to take a deeper look into my own astrology, and in turn doing so encouraged me to reach out to astrological and Tarot-based communities. And this one has quickly become my favorite and the one I trust the most.
Thank you, Jessica. I am sorry for your loss and for ours, too.
Goodness. Well, you were right. Michael Lutin had not updated his website in a long time, and now he’s gone. His Vanity Fair feature was inspired. He also wrote it far enough in advance that it was a decent warning to his readers, many of whom were wealthy and may have been Republicans. I agree – ‘patriot’ being interchangeable with ‘treason’ was a masterstroke of interpretation. Thank you for this.
Thank you for sharing Jessica. I use to read his astrology and surprised by his passing. Very kind post!
Thank you. Michael was not a young man any more, but it has still left his friends feeling the blow. It’s so odd to think he won’t be here any more.
Very sad to hear. I remember having my personal chart read by him on several occasions (2007, 2015, 2019).Sitting in his canary yellow office on Park Ave, the place always seemed like an artists cave and his mind was so sharp and so insightful. a real loss. I hope he is with his friend Michael and happy in heaven speaking french.
Thank you. And yes, very likely speaking French on the other side, too.
I read his “Where is the Moon?” website years ago. Very understated site and very different to other astrologers.
Thank you. Michael Lutin set the bar high for media astrology, as did Patric Walker.
Always sad to hear of wonderful astrologers leaving the earth realm — Howard Sasportas, Jeff Jawer in recent decades. Lots of living astrologers to be lauded – my favourites are Rick Levine, Erin Sullivan, Rick Tarnas and the younger guys Chris Brennan and Austin Coppck on the excellent Astrology Podcast – all committed, knowledgeable, intelligent and worth tuning in to.
Howard Sasportas was a huge loss. Thank you.
I am sorry for your loss (and everyone’s). I regret that I didn’t look more into his work as I lived in New York most of my life. I will check out some of his books. Do you have a favorite?
Thank you so much. My favourite book by Michael Lutin is Saturn Signs.
Thank you for this, Jessica. I think that time in Australia was when Michael was bitten by the white tailed spider. He said his face swelled and he “looked like Margaret Rutherford.” I studied with him steadily from 1997- 2004 and we were on the NCGR board together for 4 years while he was president. He introduced me to many people in the community. Michael was a dear friend, but complicated. He was always decoding the unconscious communications between himself and others. No – don’t be late! And don’t leave early, either. Michael was a gem of a mentor. These last few days have been hard.
Oh, that’s so funny and typical of him. Murder at the Gallop. I am very sorry for your loss as you knew him very well. How lucky you are to have studied with him, though.
Saturn Signs, I will definitely be looking for this, Thankyou. I remember at least 10 + years ago now he was approaching strangers in the streets with A microphone and would record and post them (and I don’t recall where I saw this now)
They were couples.. he would ask them their Sun signs and tell them about their relationships and he was so on point people were gagged.. and entertained, we were always so entertained by him.
He was kind, generous, entertaining, and dang hilarious!! I would have loved to have met him in person. I am a herbalist who lives in the deep dark woods in Canada, a far cry from 5th Ave., New York ..
I followed his work closely from afar.
He got me through the bizarre Covid times and other other dark times in my life too. I always felt such deep kindness and humility in his work.
To have positively affected people that you’ve never even met, now, there’s a life well lived. Deep Bow to you Michael Lutin, Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou.
I wondered today how Michael Lutin was doing, and this this appeared! Thank you for your post (or, tribute)! I had 2 sessions with him and followed his work, yet I noticed he was becoming less active.
It is truly a loss for the astrology community, and hope he is in peace.
Thank you for your touching tribute. I followed Michael’s columns and website for YEARS! A wonderful astrologer and writer who shared his insights with humor, deft and certainty. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him.
Michael and Jonathon Cainer introduced me to astrology in the mid 90’s. I first found Michael around the late 90’s as a 17 year old exploring the internet. I remember messaging him in early 2000 about one of his forecasts, and he replied to me! He exuded warmth and I had never felt so seen. I will forever be grateful for their work in helping this little Aquarian misfit try to understand herself. They are both very much missed.
His 2006 piece on Pluto in Capricorn coudn’t be more prophetic!
In a concise matter, aptly captured the essence what we’ve been through, what’s going to to show up in the horizon, and what the outcome could be.
More of him is needed. The depth of his knowledge in this piece reveals how a well-applied atrology could inform socio-political analysis.
Devastating news. He was one of a kind. I did not know him personally, but I was unbelievably lucky to have attended some of his seminars. I was deeply struck by how he said he came to astrology. That having been a caregiver—he came to it through compassion. His words, whenever he did occasionally publish them, were like a balm on a chilly night, and there was humor.
He will be greatly missed, and it is a tremendous loss to the astrological community. His work will stand the test of time, and continues through those fortunate enough to have been his students. Like shards of light, left to inspire the “unseen and unborn” as Ruksayer would say. Deepest condolences Jessica.
Yes. Coming to astrology via the influence of Robert Langs made Michael Lutin so much more than another astrologer or horoscope columnist. Readers found Michael’s writing and consultations therapeutic, because he had landed in the land of the zodiac through therapy itself. His words were a balm, as you say. Thank you for adding to this tribute to him.
I met Michael in 2008 having been introduced to his Planetarium column in Vanity Fair, by my friend Anna Raeburn, a famous UK radio broadcaster. What an extraordinary man he was. We had a mutual interest in theatre, and had dinner whenever we could, which wasn’t often given we lived in different continents. A mind as sharp as a tack, with a deep interest in theatre and movies, he was fascinating, warm and kind, but with a tendency to become defensive in friendships; he was just a wonderful, complicated person. And he made me laugh, all the time. Michael was a one off, a real brain and his insights were mystifyingly accurate. I’m saying 5 hail Mary’s for you Mikey, and god knows, you’ll need them. Much love to his family and friends, I know I will miss him terribly.
Thank you so much. I hope Michael can see this, or will do so, when he’s good and ready. Five Hail Mary prayers sounds like a good start. I think I know who you are actually (I can see the emails the readers cannot) in which case, funnily enough, I was born in Brixton too. Lutin was just as you say. Wonderful and complicated. I am very sorry for your loss. Hope he’ll find a way of letting you know he’s still nearby.
I’m so sorry to read this – I loved his website, such a great mix of profound and irreverent. I stumbled into it all right bang in the middle of my soul-grinder of a 12th house Saturn return, when I suddenly got very into astrology and between him and Stephen Forrest I found a lot of peace and sense. Also loved the graphics!
Thank you so much. And Lutin’s graphics at the time were so Pop Art, weren’t they? Just a little bit Brett Whiteley.
Thank you for a lovely, full collection of memories (as much as Mikey might have let you have)… I just found out about his death from John Marchesella’s FB page-and I’m shocked! I knew he wasn’t too well, but… Mikey!
I first consulted him in 1981, when I was trying to make it in New York, in his funky loft on 8th (or was it 6th) Avenue. We were both a bit in the same boat, scratching around for a way to make it. The notes he sent by mail from time to time, were confusing, exciting, mysterious and funny. I last consulted him in Paris, when, like you, Jessica, I was late for a consult at his posh hotel near the Sorbonne (I decided to walk instead of taking a taxi!) and he was quite brusque with me, but still concerned and insightful.
Serendipitous that we should have, at a zenith point in my life in New York, lived in the same building on 5th Avenue for a few years, and I visited him on the ground, Avenue side-he was the same lovely, funny self in his home, which was as funky as ever.
I loved his books and consulting his webpage and of course the Vanity Fair Planetarium-I couldn’t get over that they “let him go”. He was so accurate and precise. And his Pluto in Capricorn article frightened the life out of me when I read it-but, voilà, he was again, precise and to the point! Here we are, in the last days of Pluto of Capricorn and how sad he’s leaving on the darkest moments of the transit. But he did say, things will change as Pluto moves into Aquarius…
Oh, Mikey! Such sad news, be happy in the cosmos, you’ve brightened up my days as you set me on other paths of self inquiry (dream work, Jungian psychology etc) back in the day, and been such a bright star in my peripatetic life. Thank you. XO
It’s a pleasure. I left Facebook many years ago, so haven’t seen John Marchesella’s page. His passing was a shock to his friends, as you say, even though we knew he’d been through both a heart attack and Covid-19. It sounds as if he changed your path, which I think he did for many people. You were sent in the direction of dream work and Jung; others I know had their entire marriages altered. Thank you for confirming he had a short fuse about punctuality. (Our being late to meet him in New York wasn’t our fault either!) He was fabulous, wasn’t he? Wise and sane and so precise with his work, as you say. When he wrote, in 2007 (after the end of his Vanity Fair tenure) “I can’t personally answer the thousands of people wondering what happened to the VF Planetarium, so all I can say is, maybe you should ask them,” he was ducking a question a lot of his clients, friends and readers have pondered since. When you read the unedited version of his original piece for them, ‘The Capricorn Conspiracy’ (January 2007) it’s naming some famous names, whom Graydon Carter courted at his parties. So that’s interesting…You are right, Michael did say, things change as Pluto goes into Aquarius. We wish he was here to see it, non?
There are so many astrologers who are leaving their thoughts. But I was a client. A client since 1986. At the time, I was 25 years old and starting my career. I used to read his column in Vanity Fair and had a VF subscription. Somehow I found out his email address (or his phone number), and said that I was a huge fan and did he do readings. He did his first reading for me in his apartment on the UWS. In the 90s, I didn’t see him. But starting in 2003, I reached out to him again, and we met at least 2X a year at his Fifth Avenue office. He guided me through so many things: my decision to go to graduate school (after law school), my relationship with my now husband (a very critical period), the death anxiety and separation feelings I went through when my mom had a long march to her death, issues about beauty and attraction, my wedding and making a new home. I visited him a year ago, and he was so happy. I was happy and had lost the weight I swore I never could. He could read me in ways I never had experienced, and I know noone else will. Ten years ago, I went to an astrology lecture at his Fifth Ave office with people like you in attendance. I was a civilian, and I knew he knew that while I was interested, the people in that room were the real deal. The arc from mid-20s to approaching mid-60s is so intense, but Michael got it. When he had his heart attack, I dropped off a care package to his home doorman. He was touched. Interestingly, although I sensed his health was on the decline, in the last 2 years, he would call me and say it was time for me to come in. As if he knew it. He will always hold this precious and quiet place in my heart.
How lucky you were to have Michael Lutin read for you twice a year. I’m very happy to hear that you saw him a year ago and all was well. And even more comforted to know you could give him a care package after his heart attack. I daresay you are another who will hear from him when the time is right. Thank you so much. His beat definitely goes on.
A short fuse on punctuality? I am an August Virgo am always late, and he used to get so mad. Half the time, I would take a full day off from work just to see him because I had to be sure I could get in from the suburbs.
What a fantastic testimony to a Michael Lutin reading. Taking a day off work to travel to see him!
Michael Lutin was truly one of a kind. He was the reason I bought Vanity Fair magazine. I was livid when they stopped printing his monthly zodiac readings. I read his daily/weekly/monthly readings from his website and he was spot on EVERY SINGLE TIME. No surprise to the astrology community that he crossed over on a mystical day…the 11th day of the 11th month.
I will miss his humor and support. I will miss his planetary interpretations delivered with honesty and wit. I will miss his contagious laughter at the absurdity of life.
Thank you Michael Lutin for sharing your gift with the world. It was a better place while you were with us. I will cherish the memories. Rest easy dear friend.
Thank you. Michael was spot-on. I’d missed the fact he passed on 11-11. Thank you for raising that. This is a lovely tribute to him. He set the bar high for prediction and although he viewed it with irony (writing ‘Born to predict’ on his forehead) he was damn good at it. In an age of waffling twerps talking about energies, or faffing on about technical terms and saying – bugger all – I really miss him.
Jessica, thank you for such a lovely, heartfelt tribute to Michael Lutin. As soon as I saw his picture here, my heart sank as I realised the likely cause after him not having posted for some time. I am so sad that he is gone. I didn’t know him personally but read his column from here in England. I loved his humour, depth and brevity; it was always a joy to read his horoscopes. And I loved his book on Jupiter, too. May he ride high on Sagittarius’ arrow
He had many English fans and was essentially European. That’s a lovely thing to read today. I just had a message from Michael’s nephew thanking me for this tribute and it would be great if more fans and readers, like you, could also leave their thoughts.
I just read about Michael’s passing today. What a loss to the astrology family. I have reread his Vanity Fair article many times and it’s predictions have been accurate since it’s printing in 2008. I printed the last few paragraphs and keep them pinned on my bulletin board–they give me hope.
So brilliant. My sentiments entirely. Michael Lutin was a very, very wise astrologer. He was also a New Yorker and he lived in Donald’s city. From the original, unedited, Vanity Fair essay: “Just as England had to face its decline when the fledgling USA took over, now it may be our turn. The Pluto return of 2025 will demand a redefinition of the United States, It is the ultimate identity crisis as we have to put ourselves on the line, once again, as we did two hundred and fifty years ago, for what we believe to be the most ballsy experiment ever undertaken by a bunch of lunatics living together. The authorities we have chosen to guide us have to be challenged. They aren’t going to like that and they are going to g et scary. They must be confronted and eventually overthrown as a new United States crawls out of the womb of the old. This is going to happen, so get into it. The Constitution will have to be reworked, reworded and rewritten, to include omen if for no other reason.” Yes.
Thank you
Thank you for sharing this Jessica. I’m now getting to understand why he was such a special and respected astrologer. So grateful to hear all about his personality, perspectives and position on astrology. Fascinating.
The YouTube video shared by Kepler College called ‘Leaders in Astrology’ video is great.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=8sgzO5uqcf0&feature=shared
Kind regards
Julie
Bonjour, vous connaissez sa date de naissance, malgré sa réticence à la communiquer, merci
Hello, you know his date of birth, despite his reluctance to communicate it, thank you
Thank you so much. What a great tribute. I was just Googling him last month because I wanted a reading. His name was mentioned in a very unlikely place…now I wish I could remember the chain of events, but it was definitely a “wow”…my condolences for your loss and thank you for bringing his spirit to us in this post.
I am sure Michael Lutin would have given you an amazing reading. Thank you, for your thank you. It’s important he is remembered by fans and friends and it is so good for his family to be able to see what you’re contributing.
Hi Jessica,
I just wanted to take a moment to both offer my condolences and to thank you for letting us know of Michael Lutin’s passing. I did not know him personally, but I periodically visited his website. I thoroughly enjoyed his humor and insights, and whenever I needed a little Shakubuku (a la Minnie Driver in Grosse Point Blank .. lol), I often found myself gravitating towards his website. As with other readers of yours, for some reason I happen to check in on his website a few days before Michael’s passing and noticed it hadn’t been updated in awhile. I wondered if the reason was because he was ill again , as had happened in the past. I then saw your beautiful tribute, and it all made sense. Thank you for sharing. It also made me go back and re-read ( being retro time wasn’t lost on me ) some of his writings, and a whole another layer of understanding came to light because of what I have learned from you and your writings ( I am still quite the novice, but nonetheless) , and so I just wanted to say thank you .
All the best,
Donna
Thanks so much Donna. How amazing that you and so many other of Michael Lutin’s readers felt the impulse to read his website before he passed. I am glad you are able to go back and re-read his work. He was prolific (the Virgo signature in his chart) and he was also passionate about what he did, which stands the test of time, I think. This will be another part of the comments section which I hope his family can find and read for years into the future.
Jessica, do you have any idea if Michael every published his “Pluto Monologues” written in the 1980s?
No, unfortunately it was never published.
I just got my copy of SunShines. Am really enjoying reading it with my family. You must miss your friend, and I am missing the contributions Michael was not able to share on our upcoming Pluto transit.
Thank you so much. Yes, Michael Lutin will be hugely missed as we go through Pluto in Aquarius. That natural inclination to see what Michael is saying, has to stop. And yet he has left us his amazing books, including the one you are reading now.
Thank you Jessica for this wonderful post. Michael was my Uncle (my late mom’s brother ) to hear such beautiful tributes from friends, fellow astrologists, clients and from people that followed him, just reiterates how wonderful he was. We used to call him Uncle Wonderful, he was truly a wonderful person. I was up there the whole summer 2 years ago when he was ill and I will always be so grateful for that time we got to spend together. Again thank you for your words, memories and friendship with/for my Uncle Michael (Mickey)
Thank you so much for writing. Michael was your Uncle Wonderful, indeed. I love that you called him Mickey. I am sure his fans will keep adding to this post for some time and I hope you can come back here often to see the tributes. I am so sorry for your loss, but you had a last summer with him – precious. I will let Madalyn Aslan and Lynda Hill know you’ve left a message here.