Astrology with Travis Black: from Courtney Love to Austin Coppock
Travis Black the Bathhouse Mystic TALKTALKTALKS his gorgeously wild astrological education
Someone at the Northwest Astrology Conference (NORWAC) confused Travis Black for an Uber Eats delivery driver — and I don’t know why, but I love that. Maybe it’s because it tickles me that Travis is one of the greatest, longest practicing, astrologers I know, and most people have no clue.
For those of you unfamiliar with the world of deep astro, NORWAC is a yearly astrology conference that acts as something of a rockstar gathering for what is a truly nerdy crowd. We’re talking about Astrologers with advanced degrees in topics like Philosophy and Medieval Studies and many, many, thoughts on how to do things—the right way. The kind of people who stay up late translating ancient Greek and Latin.
Perhaps this is something of an exaggeration, but it is definitely not an exaggeration to say it can be an intimidating experience. (For the record, I’ve attended twice, and I plan to attend every year for the rest of my life.)
Travis grew up a few miles from the DoubleTree hotel that hosts the conference, and has stories about working in the neighborhood movie theater and being a teenage shoplifter. Still in his late teens, he went on to tour with the band, Hole, where he first learned Astrology from Courtney Love and her bandmates.It’s an art he would put into practice for the rest of his life in practical, and often, life saving ways.
In the time since, he’s held multiple titles, including filmmaker and screenwriter. He’s a former sex worker. He’s studied tarot, palmistry, various healing modalities and multiple astrologies. He currently studies astrological magic with Austin Coppock.
If you ever have the chance to meet him, you’re in for a real treat. In addition to being a gracious oracle of knowledge, he’s warm, genuinely kind, gives the best hugs, and, while he’s loath to put in on blast, he can break down those ancient texts in ways that are nourishing and relatable.
The following Interview was conducted over the course of a week, at my favorite location: the Internet.
Vivi Henriette: Let’s start with the current moment. Who are you? How do you answer the most dreaded of all socially awkward party questions: What do you do?
Travis Black: With my Sun (6th) opposite Neptune (12th), can I ever really know who I am without laboring to create an identity in the face of nebulous enemies? There is no self: I am nothing!
But this truth isn’t very operative in the real world, so at the end of the day, I’m just a crunchy, goth, new-age kid from Seattle who ended up living and studying all over the world and becoming a professional astrologer.
Vh: Now that we’ve established that, let’s dive off the deep end. In your interview with Cameron Steele of Interruptions, you write, “Mine was a dark, isolated childhood” and that even as a toddler you were “running away.” In hindsight, can you see what you were running towards?
TB: Anything that would make it better. There was no real clear goal I suppose. But in retrospect, it seems I was trying to gain independence to govern my own life. Those tasked with doing so in my early life were not good at making decisions for my well-being. I wanted to take the reins, at minimum, and see where they would take me.
Vh: I’m thinking of teenage-you discovering Astrology through Twin Peaks and later attending film school in NYC. Your life seems to be weaved together with a magical thread. (Perhaps all of ours are.) I know; I know the phrasing is a bit cringe, forgive me— do you feel you’ve led a magical life?
TB: Magical in the Hollywood sense? Not so much. Magical at the daily enchantment level? Yes, absolutely. It has led me to spend time with the most interesting of people, in the most interesting of places. Life is as magical as one’s belief in animism will allow.
Vh: I’m also curious to hear how you discovered Twin Peaks and what paths that opened.
TB: It was filmed near where I grew up, and we ended up at the RR Diner by accident on the first day of filming for the pilot episode. I got to watch and hang out all day on set with my Dad.
The show is steeped in film history and is a wide survey of occult philosophy. There are enough references and cosmologies therein to keep someone busy with study for a lifetime. The show led me to the Theosophical Society and the Astrology et al Bookstore in Seattle, where things really took off for me.
Vh: What role has intuition played in your life? Here, what comes to mind is that time you were forced into a cult. There’s probably a better way to phrase that. When you were a teenager you were sent a way to a cult designed as a place for troubled teenagers. Am I describing that correctly? After a few attempts, you successfully ran away. From the stories you’ve shared in the past, others never got out.
TB: I think my intuition got me in trouble more than it helped out. Which is why I turn to astrology: it can clarify the adrenalized states of life that confuse our internal compass. Stress negates insight.
As for the cult, every cell of my being knew that I was undergoing indoctrination at the highest order, and resisted. At one point they were called “the most dangerous cult in America” for their tactics. I have some of the training manuals for the brainwashing “propheets” (or retreats) to prove it.
I never complied or cracked under the brainwashing, which created a world of problems for me in the organization and also psychologically. It seems my nervous system got stuck in flight or flight mode and relegated my intuition to the background.
It takes a long-term daily practice to keep my intuition sensitive in the good ways and not fall into the noisy mindset adrenaline can produce.
Vh: During that time, and throughout your life, what do you think kept you going? What kept you trusting yourself after what sounds like a hard attempt at brainwashing?
TB: Twin Peaks certainly planted ideas in my head that I could be a filmmaker. Perhaps that dream kept me alive at times. But when you’re in survival mode and trying to escape a hardened cult, you don’t really have time to see the big picture or to fantasize about what my life could be. I just had to GET OUT — to BE OUT and then figure it out from there.
It's all the little synchronicities along the way that keep the trust alive. And those moments where astrology & magic really prove themselves. Those moments give me a lot of mileage.
Vh: You’re open about your years as a sex worker. While I don’t want to be that person who only talks to you about sex work, from what I can tell, it’s been a significant part of your life. Why do you think you were drawn to sex work? How did being a sex worker serve you? Did it provide a certain freedom and sense of autonomy?
TB: I ended up as a sex worker as a teen because I wasn’t old enough to get a job at, like, the mall. I think the legal working age in Washington at that time was 16. I was 14 when I left home.
It was the most significant thing in my life for sure. I was never drawn to it per se, but it was a survival choice that ended up rewarding me with the deepest of freedoms and agency. It allowed me to live outside the system in so many different ways. Independence, in order to do my own thing, is my #1 priority.
“Courtney [Love] was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. She single handedly changed the course of my life through our astro conversations.”
Vh: In multiple conversations, you talk about both your annoyance with sun sign astrology — AMEN! — and using your client’s sun signs to navigate your own safety. How do you see your relationship between sex work and divination?
Oh, if anything I usually sing the praises of sun sign astrology for the ways I’ve been able to extract so much from it.
If I was ever unsure of working with someone, and couldn’t access their chart (which was most of the time), I’d ask tarot. Divination in this way for me was always about determining my safety. It gave me an advance peek into a client.
Vh: In our podcast interview, you talk about being on tour with Courtney Love and learning Astrology from her and the other members of Hole. What was that like? In what ways did those early conversations shape your career as an Astrologer?
TB: Courtney was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. She single handedly changed the course of my life through our astro conversations. I was moving to LA in 1995, but in a reading she told me instead to move to NYC and go to film school, which I did.
We kept in touch over the years… mainly she used to chat me up on AIM and send me links to crazy AIDS conspiracy theories. I last saw her at a magazine party 10 years ago, and we laughed about the advice she gave me in that reading, “Don’t move to LA because you’ll end up in PORN!!!”
While she was one of the main reasons I got into astrology, the idea of being a career astrologer, in general, was still decades away. But I got the memo: cool, erudite, successful artists use astrology.
Vh: In our podcast interview, you spoke of the ways most Modern Astrologers you consulted with in your early years put the emphasis on you — you just need to love yourself more, work harder, ETC. Would you share some of those thoughts here?
TB: All of the modern astrology readings I had always turned into victim blaming or law of attraction bullshit. Modern couldn’t account for the more trying experiences of my life.
Vh: In contrast—again, I’m paraphrasing here—you said that when you discovered the work of Hellenistic Astrology, through Austin Coppock, you felt seen. There was something powerful about hearing that you weren’t to blame for the most difficult parts of your life, that there are forces of fate beyond your control. How was that knowledge shaped not just your astrology—but your life?
TB: Well, I’m more Hellenistish. But traditional astrology, generally speaking, really lights up a chart like a hologram for me. Suddenly the true breadth of life can be revealed, warts and all.
Vh: What do you have against medical astrology? In your interview with Cameron, you state that there’s some distrust. As someone who also distrusted medical astrology until I met medical astrologers with medical training, I’m feeling a little defensive and curious. What are your fears and concerns?
TB: The most irresponsible readings I’ve received were always about my health. I was shooketh by what some astrologers had the chutzpah to try to diagnose. Très dangereux!
Cameron Steele gave me the best medical reading I’ve had. But in my experience, the astrology never matches the issues, or the issues don’t match the astrology. I’m gonna take Judith Hill’s medical astro course soon to dig deeper. But something just isn’t adding up.
Vh: Circling back to the top of this interview, what’s your practice look like these days? I understand you’re moving towards end of life work, yes? What’s this look like?
TB: I’m definitely dabbling in some end-of-life work but there isn’t much more to say about that right now. But in the meantime I need to collect another degree or two!
Vh: Where can people find you and how do they book with you?
TB: I’m @bathhousemystic everywhere and can always be found at bathhousemystic.com!
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