The Story Of Primal Astrology: How One Man Created an Entire Horoscope

Years ago, I was in some sort of kick-ons situation. A few friends sitting around a table, talking shit, playing cards discarded on the table, the room cloudy with smoke. A friend of mine, Harry, leaned forward and asked me what my primal zodiac sign was. I told him I was a rat. “1996 is the year of the rat, yeah?”. 

“No, no, no,” he smiled mischievously, “Primal zodiac sign,” then, seeing my confusion, “Look up primalastrology.com.” 

The website looked like something from 1998. You had to select your birth year, then find the 20-30 day period covering your birthday. Another friend went around our circle, finding each person’s year of birth, then date, then, finally, primal zodiac sign, as the group cooed and aahed and laughed at each reveal. Cheetah, vulture, brown bear, squid. Mine was a spider. But below the sign was an incredibly detailed essay describing traits of people born under the sign, then compatibility (love and friendship), then career and goals. The descriptions were all terrifyingly accurate. We were amazed. 

What was this website? The birth years started from 1900. My cooked mind found it hilarious that whoever the author of this strange page was, they’d kindly provided for the off-chance someone in their early 120s would want to know their primal zodiac sign. 

Astrology. You may love it, hate it, struggle to understand it… or perhaps you don’t even think about it at all. Even if you’re part of the latter camp, its enduring popularity has made it inescapable. It’s another route of divination to enforce order, rules and a neat framework to aid our attempts at understanding the apparent chaos of existence. Astrology categorises the complexity of human nature, pinning us to the movements of the celestial bodies.

Despite the contested scientific nature of astrology, it’s undeniable that neatly placing things into their correct boxes, labelling them, and storing them back in the mind is possibly the most human activity of all. We cannot just accept chaos. We seek divination, whether it be secular, esoteric or religious. Or, pseudoscience.

Whatever, though. Let people have a bit of fun. Let people use the sun and planets to make sense of the world around them. Why the hell not? Is it hurting anybody?

Astrology should be seen as a colourful layer over the banality of life. A tongue-in-cheek, facetious way to explain the actions of the freaks around us. Is he a narcissist, or just a Leo? Is she the most magnetic person I’ve ever met, or simply a typical Libra? 

And, over the years, primal astrology provided a fabulous layer of fun to any social situation. It was our party trick. Something to whip out when drinking with a bunch of strangers. Its esotericism made it a winking, enigmatic topic of conversation, and it spread from circle to circle. Just as Harry introduced it to us, I introduced it to acquaintances, new and old, wherever I went.

According to the “about” page, the website’s sole creator is a “Simon Poindexter”. 

But what was primal astrology for? How did Simon come up with it? Why would he spend so much time on such a seemingly random, idiosyncratic website? Who was accessing primal astrology? Where were they from?

I found him and asked.

First: “Simon Poindexter” is, of course, an alias, which he explained when I spoke with him over Zoom. In the 90s, he and a buddy were forming an electronic band that they wanted to call “The Poindexters”, after the “big nerd” character in Revenge of the Nerds.

“I was going to be Simon Poindexter. He was going to be Scotty Poindexter. Then we realised there was already a band called the Poindexters,” he said.

“And then when I started the website, I was like, maybe I shouldn't use my real name. Because I had this career, and I definitely knew people who would see the astrology thing and be like, who is this? What's this guy about? I just didn't want it to be judgy. So I put ‘Simon Poindexter’ in there and I thought, I'll change it later. And then years later, here we are.”

Simon is 45 years old, based in Portland, Oregon, with black-framed glasses and short, strawberry blonde hair.  He doesn’t strike as the kind of person who would be interested in astrology. He gives the immediate impression of a schoolteacher, or perhaps an IT guy. As it turns out, he has been both. 

“I was working for a Catholic school. So the premonition of disguising my true self paid off, because it was definitely a place where they would not have been welcoming about my heresy. I mostly do computer-type work. And that's kind of why I was on the website tip in the first place.”

Despite looking like it had been resurrected from the depths of the Wayback Machine, all HTML blue and yellow, Primal Astrology dot com launched in 2012. Preceding its launch were three draining years of work.

“I had just graduated from grad school, but the economy was pretty bad, so I was having trouble finding the type of work that I wanted. I had extra time, and I knew I wanted to build a website, or websites,” he told VICE.

“I was trying to think of a website project to do. And I've always had an interest in astrology, but it didn't seem like that was a career move or anything. One day, I just had this idea: These two things [Eastern Zodiac and Western Zodiac] exist, and they don't contradict each other. So why not just put them together? 

“That's when it all came together. And I thought, well, as long as I've got extra time, right now, I'm just going to go all in on this. I thought it would happen faster. I think if I hadn't already been wanting to do a website, I probably wouldn't have finished the project, I probably would have just been like, oh, that's a cool idea. And then walked away.”

But, he didn’t walk away. Primal astrology is Simon’s own invention. A labour of love, inspiration, and dedication.

The Primal Zodiac is a fusion of Eastern and Western astrology. As is written on the website’s “about” tab, “Each individual's animal spirit uses a combination of conscious (Western Astrology) and subconscious (Eastern Astrology) instinctive traits (powered respectively by the sun and the moon) to reveal inherent ways that we each approach life. Notice that everyone you know approaches life differently. Because of this we each can have very similar experiences that we interpret and react to in very different ways. This is not random or by accident.”

For Simon, the Western, or Tropical Zodiac, wasn’t accurate enough to be useful on its own. But in conjunction with the Eastern, or Lunar Zodiac, another layer of complexity was added. Figuring out how that all played out was an immense amount of work.

“First off, you take your twelve [Eastern] signs here, and you have twelve [Western] signs here. And the math is, you have 144 different personality types, which is really still overwhelming to me. If I do something with that, I have to do it 144 times,” he told VICE.

“I was trying to come up with a way to do reports differently, where I could just take your birthday, because not everyone knows the birth time. I calculated it out, if I do these planetary positions or something, it came to like 1.2 billion different possibilities. 

“I was like, there's no way, there's no way ever to create that. And even if I did, it would be so massive, like, what would you even do with it?”

Simon settled on the 144 character types structure. 144 animals, 144 profiles, 144 life paths.

“In the beginning, it was really just okay, if there's 144 things, that means I have to write one profile, and then just do it 143 more times. I had the structure, and it was just a matter of persistence at that point. You know, just don't stop,” he said.

Simon wrote the animal bios by combining the work of generations of astrologers before him, Eastern and Western. Sometimes he’d know what animal reflected the traits he was writing immediately, other times he thought he’d nailed it, only to write a separate bio, realise that one was more relevant to the animal, and have to reevaluate the first one.

“It was very exhausting, because you really have to think about who this person is,” Simon said, “With all these personality traits, in a realistic manner. Not just a bunch of personality traits jumbled together, but what does that really look like as a human being? And then to match the animal that fits that. It's a lot. It was a long process.”

In my experience, primal astrology has had a 90% accuracy rate. For the people in my life, whom I know and love, nine times out of ten, it’s been accurate to the point of amazement. 

Even when someone’s animal appears a rude indictment on their personality (see: vulture), upon reading the bio, one is reminded there isn’t such a thing as a “good” or a “bad” animal. Most often, the personality traits and habits listed as pertaining to that character are not in any way unkind, and in fact ring true.

The animals chosen are curiously specific. “Sun Bear”, “Weaver Finch”, “Unicorn”. All as esoteric in their habits and personalities as the people to whom they align.

“At first, I made a big list of animals that I would occasionally kind of go through, and I did a lot of research on animal behaviour,” Simon told VICE.

“The animal thing was interesting, because not only did I want to get the personality right, there's a certain responsibility. If you're going to do this, you have to honour the system. I didn't invent astrology. There's thousands of other people's work that I'm slapping together. So, I wanted to make sure it was as authentic as it could be.”

“People will write to me and be like, ‘can you change this? I don't like being a seahorse’, or something. I literally can't, at this point. People have tattoos of these things on them.”

Over the years, Simon hasn’t done any advertising. Primal astrology has spread and survived through word of mouth, developing, as occurs with many niche artefacts of the deep internet, a cult following. Occasionally, he said, his wife would alert him that some celebrity had mentioned it and page views would skyrocket. Or it would be mentioned in a podcast. Then there was the Reddit thread his wife had found, where people had been posting their primal zodiac tattoos. 

In its first full month, May 2012, the site had 256 total visits. One year later, in May 2013, the site received 55,658 visits. According to Simon, these days it holds at around 150,000 visits per month.

“I used to kind of be embarrassed about it,” Simon said. “Like, I didn't tell people. Part of it was keeping it kind of a secret. I finally quit that Catholic school. I finally told my old coworkers, and they were all just like, ‘that makes no sense’. They were all just confused. Everyone was nice about it, and some people thought it was cool, but they just couldn’t imagine that it would be something I would do.”

“I think back and mostly remember how miserable I was doing it. I think that’s the part of me that wonders why I did it in the first place. I had an incredible amount of self doubt, anxiety, frustration, and even embarrassment when people would ask me what I was doing with my life.  All of my peers are becoming directors at their companies and I’m in my basement writing astrology profiles?  It felt like something I was supposed to be embarrassed about and keep secret, so I did. Nobody knew what I was doing until it was done, and even then I didn't tell most people. I didn't think they would understand. Nobody else knew why I did it either and I didn’t have a good response. 

“Try telling someone you spent three years working on something ‘mystical’ because you felt a calling to do it and those people will look at you like you’re crazy.”  

The question still stands, how a computer programmer had found himself inventing an entirely new horoscope.

“I’ve always had a deep passion for the mysteries of life, and astrology, for me, was an easily accessible entry point,” Simon told VICE. “I have very good friends who are very intelligent people who I can tell absolutely hate that I am involved in astrology.  They see it as spreading disinformation because their take on the nature of the universe is different from mine. When you don’t believe that there’s anything more beyond existence than what you can see, subjects like astrology go from being fun and lighthearted to being highly threatening.  Nobody wants to have their worldview questioned, let alone shaken.”  

“But, over the years, the feedback I've gotten has been overwhelmingly positive, and people really seem to see themselves in those descriptions, at least to an extent.”

Primal astrology. The enigmatic site, created on a whim, worked at tirelessly, for apparent reason other than to do something. Why? Why not? Why not make something seemingly benign, something strange, to be scribbled on the internet and furtively passed around the world? An if-you-know-you-know classroom note. 

“The big question is, why did I do this?” Simon told VICE. “I could say that it was because the idea came to me and it seemed in line with my interests (astrology and computer programming), or because I needed to come up with something of my own while my career was going nowhere.  Both are true. But, as corny as it sounds, I really think this was something that life wanted me to do. I don’t think you have to go deeper than that, like it doesn't have to be ‘god’ or ‘the universe’ or even ‘creativity’. I think that existence could do just fine without us, but it keeps us around to create new experiences for itself.  We get to be co-creators of our lives in that sense.”

I asked Simon how he felt about what I saw to be his magnum opus. 

“My number one thing is, always, anything I do, I want it to be timeless,” Simon said. “I want everything I do, if I'm putting that much work into it, to be relevant 20 years from now.”

“There wasn’t really any particular reason to do the project, and many reasons not to invest all the time and energy, yet I felt like it was just something I was supposed to do. I think people see computer programmer types like myself as atheistic, robotic, and mathematical, and that’s sometimes true, but I think a lot of us are people who love to dig into big, complex problems and find a way to make them accessible.”

“I do think there's more to be done. But I think primal astrology will always kind of be big. Like you said, the ‘magnum opus’, it'll be the big thing. And I kind of hope it sticks around.”

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