Hope or Hype?

or, why is everyone talking about some old french dude's basket?

Hi bb,

If you’re tuned into astrology content online this week (or for the last several weeks), you might have heard something about “The Basket” or “Barbault’s Basket.” And I’m sure, even after watching several TikToks or Reels on the matter, or texting an astrologer friend, a lot of you are still asking, “what the hell is this basket about?”

”The Basket” — a term coined by astrologer SJ Anderson — refers to a rare alignment happening right now in the sky. An alignment that when observed in astrological diagram, looks an awful like a basket. Or a bowl. Much of the attention on this alignment can be traced back to the French astrologer André Barbault (1921-2019).

The “basket” formation on July 19, 2026: Pluto at 4º Aquarius, Neptune at 4º Aries, Uranus at 4º Gemini, and Jupiter at 4º Leo, all forming a perfect sequence of sextiles, and supporting a whole weather system of planetary cycles.

André Barbault focused his work on planetary cycles and mapping societal ebbs and flows through world history, and predicted both the fall of the Soviet Union and the 2020 pandemic with startling accuracy. He passed away about six months before seeing his pandemic prediction come true.

In Barbault’s book Planetary Cycles, he wrote a few sentences about this “basket “ alignment that is currently happening in the sky. This brief excerpt from Planetary Cycles has been translated, copy-pasted, misread, half read, not read, and made into a viral phenomenon through a chaotic game of telephone. As noted by Austin Coppock on a recent episode of The Astrology Podcast — Barbault, who usually took a more discerning approach to interpreting these cycles, noting all sides, (as a Libra always does), wrote in uncharacteristically bright, optimistic language about the 2026 alignment. He called it a “golden age for humanity.” Anyone living and breathing in 2026 can tell you that’s not necessarily the case, and yet, this prediction has taken to online discourse like wildfire. There’s a lot of hype. But is there actually hope?

I think part of the motivation behind the hype is the genuine distress we are experiencing as a collective, and the desire for any form of hope, even if its nothing more than a palimpsest from a problematic old French guy.¹ I think another more insidious motivation around this transit’s hype is the late stage capitalist need to pump out something new, viral and exciting to consume week after week after week. I think somewhere outside of these motivations, we can find the actual message.

You’re probably still asking: so what is the basket?

This alignment is not a singular aspect, but is the a critical point of nine different planetary cycles:

- Saturn-Neptune
- Neptune-Pluto
- Uranus-Neptune
- Uranus-Pluto
- Saturn-Uranus
- Jupiter-Pluto
- Jupiter-Neptune
- Jupiter-Uranus
- Jupiter-Saturn

Steph Koyfman (aka Lady Cazimi) wrote an incredible essay on the convergence of all the cycles involved in this basket moment, and has generously made it free on her website this week if you want a more in depth look at the history. She also summed it up well on this Instagram reel:

I also talked a bit about this basket moment on my July Forecast Livestream (currently available for paid subscribers), informed by tidbits I’ve picked up from astrologers like SJ, Steph, and others over the last few years. But tbh, for much of this year, I’ve been suffering from extreme forecasting burnout, and have had little interest in doing any of my own historical research, or going back to the primary sources, which are mostly in French and hard to access anyway.

But on Sunday night, as the basket reached near perfect formation, after making a joke to my astrologer group chat about how what Barbault really predicted is that “2026 will be an amazing year for André Barbault,” I was struck with the inspiration to go digging into the texts on my own.

I landed on Barbault’s web 1.0 site featuring much of his archive, including essays published in his astrology magazine Astrologue, and on the site itself back in the 00’s. There, I found an essay from 2012 titled "Hommage À Uranie” or “An Homage to Urania.” Urania is the goddess of astrology, and the essay is an ode to the art of predictive astrology. Using my high school French and (mostly) Google translate, I created a (roughly and mostly bot!!!) translated copy for everyone here to read for yourselves. (Also, lmk if you’re a native/fluent French speaker and would be down to collaborate on a proper translation). I have not heard or read any other astrologers referencing this essay. In it, Barbault goes into much more depth about his predictions for 2026.

He begins the essay with this epigraph, a quote by a 17th century French moralist:

“It takes greater virtue to bear good fortune than bad.”
- François de la Rochefoucauld

…ok, I’m listening.

Here are some of the essay’s key points:

• Barbault sees 2026 as a turning point in a cycle that was initiated in 1982, built upon in 1988-1993, and further constructed in 1997, which he notes as being primarily about the Internet and globalization.

• Barbault does see 2026’s alignment as a shift toward global well-being, but also notes that it unfortunately is born out of the wreckage of two major crisis points and societal rock bottoms: 2010 and 2020-21. Note: he was writing this essay in 2012; so he knew about the financial crisis of the late 00’s but not about COVID-19.

• He also states that he sees the “peak” of this period to be in 2029, not in 2026 itself. 2029 is when Saturn is more than 30º away from Neptune, ending their long conjunction; in Barbault’s cyclic index, planetary conjunctions speak to low points in society, and 2026 having Saturn-Neptune conjunct is a rock bottom/new beginning, or death/rebirth in itself.

• He understands the 2026 alignment to be “like the IC” (the most private point in the chart), and thinks that the shifts will be more internal than external.

• He writes specifically about the alignment initiating a boom period for “invention and creativity,” naming specifically that it could be a time of connecting the human brain to an electronic brain on a “vast scope” (sounds like he’s talking about AI…)

• He also sees this period as “…the rise of a triumphant neo-socialism—a political landscape that prioritizes the human element over the crushing weight of money.” (thinking of Zohran Mamdani here in NYC, and all of the Democratic Socialists who just won primaries…)

• There’s also a lot of, privileged, white, Euro-centric talk of combining rationality with spirituality, and a “renewed universal culture” — which begs the question, what culture and who’s culture?

• Barbault concludes the essay, which is ultimately a love letter to predictive astrology, with a hope that world astrology will gain more respect in 2026 (which is hilarious thinking about the virality of “The Basket” alignment itself)

I was very excited to find this essay with more details about what Barbault saw happening in 2026. I was relieved that though he does speak in flowery, sometimes utopian language throughout², he is careful to reiterate that this so-called “golden age” is born out of the wreckage of the last century plus, citing capitalism as one of the main culprits of collective despair. Context is important.

What I took from Barbault’s tribute to Urania, goddess of astrology, is that 2026 isn’t special because someone or something is coming to save us. The basket is less about reaching some kind nirvana, and more of an assurance that the struggles of this time are a seed for a rise in collective spirit that could bring sweeping change.

Yes, looking around, it seems like we might be entering a period that looks less like a queer fully automated luxury communist utopia and more like the worst possible movie version of Brave New World. And though I’m a Pisces who errs on the side of hope and optimism, I’m not going to tell you that if you close your eyes and wish real hard, everything that’s wrong in the world right now will be ok.

But I do think the key to this time is about what we’re putting in the basket. It’s not Barbault’s basket, it’s our basket. No one, not even an old French man of questionable morals, is coming to save us. We have the tools. We have the genius. So how are we tapping into that genius? And what are we building? As my friend Ellpetha says, you change the world through how you live your life. And I think the real living needs to be done locally and in community.

What are you putting in your basket?
What are you paying attention to?
Where are you bringing the basket?
Who are you sharing it with?

All things to think about.

Happy “Barbault’s Basket” to all.

xoxo

Jaime

PS:

• My books are open on Thursdays for the summer! I’d love to sit and talk about how this astrology is entering your life.

1. It’s important to put Barbault’s predictions into the context of who he was, which Samira Bechara is outlining in a series of essays on Critical Astrology

2. including an incredible passage comparing Neptune to cotton candy which I learned is called beard-a-papa en français