Vale Michael Lutin

Through the lovely Jessica Adams, I just learned that Michael Lutin has passed away. I’m still getting my head around it – the field of astrology won’t feel quite the same without him. Jessica wrote a piece on her website that I’ve just read and she reminded me that I took Michael in a limo that I hired to the beach during the Federation of Australian Astrologers conference in Brisbane several years ago where it was so hot we could barely breath in our rooms. Here’s a link to Jessica’s piece about Michael on her website.

I have known Michael since the early 90’s. I met him at one of Ray Merriman’s fabulous astrology conferences in Michigan. It was the first astrology conference in the States that I spoke at. Ray Merriman gave me the opportunity to do a ‘free lecture’ – this is where you are given a chance, as a newbie, to give a class.

I well remember meeting Michael at that conference. After eating lunch together, we walked down the stairs. He stopped suddenly and asked me to describe Scorpio 1 in the Sabian Symbols. At that time, I knew the vast majority of the Sabian Symbols off the top of my head but not all of them. Thankfully, I knew Scorpio 1. TOURISTS ON A SIGHT SEEING BUS. I said that the ‘tourists’ were travelling, knew their destination (they had maps) but may not be familiar with it, took souvenirs and photos and may have felt out of their usual environment or depth. I said something like that. I had no idea that his question related to the Alien Follies stage show that Michael had previously put on at the United Astrology Conference in Washington D.C. a few years before. I saw that show, it was a corker and I ended up making some great friendships with people in that show. I remember that Michael had his ‘aliens’ put flyers (excuse the pun) under the hotel doors of people at the conference, giving a map of the alien’s progress towards Washington D.C. for his stage show. But I digress.

As I described Scorpio 1 Michael stopped walking and slapped himself on the forehead in that style that those that knew him would understand. He immediately told me that he wanted me to speak in New York at an NCGR conference the following year that he was organising. Which I did. I stayed with him on that trip to New York as I did several times in the following years. He also stayed with me in Sydney in Avalon and Katoomba.

So, Ray and Michael were the two that gave me my break into astrology in the United States (as many of you realise, I’m from Sydney, Australia).

Michael had such charisma and presence. You always knew when he was around as he could command a room. He was also a fabulous astrologer and he always hit the nail on the head, in quips, in his books, in his lectures, in his conversations with you. We used to speak often on the phone or on Skype. He was always rather dramatic and definitely larger than life.

The photo above is a pic of two pics taken some twenty five years ago in Australia. The one on the left is Michael with my then cat Smudge in my home in Avalon and one standing at the back door to my cottage in Katoomba in Sydney’s Blue Mountains (where I now live full time).

We’ll miss Michael – he was a mainstay at a conference – he was so popular and in demand. Here’s a link to his website.

What does the Sabian Oracle say to you?

Apologies to those that see this twice. I also posted it to my Substack.