According to Rick Tarnas, a Harvard-trained philosopher and former “skeptic,” archetypal astrology explores the connection between planetary patterns in the.
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I cannot but be in them. From the archetypal astrological perspective, the cosmos is structured and ordered according to these primordial principles, which permeate every level of being, from the depths of the psychic interior to the interrelational dynamics of worldly and cosmic events. Archetypal astrology is a continuously ongoing, universally visible form of synchronicity, what Jung describes as a meaningful coincidence between an inner and outer event.
In the practice of astrology, human participation in the archetypal realm occurs not only in the archetypal manifestations in our daily lives, but also in our very cognition and interpretation of astrological correlations. From this perspective, one could say that every moment is a participatory event co-created with the archetypes. With greater awareness of the planetary movements and archetypal combinations, the individual human participant can co-create a more emancipated reality through their own conscious participation.
I want to emphasize that such participation is a co-creation, and is neither exclusively subject to the independent free will of the human nor solely to the fundamental principles of the planetary archetypes, but rather a constantly shifting relationship between these agential entities. It implies both a level of responsibility on the part of the human being, and a trust in the ultimate, dynamic creativity of the archetypes.
This ongoing co-creative participation with archetypal reality can be approached as a spiritual practice, a daily engagement with the sacred forces at play within our lives and in our cosmos. The primary aim of most contemplative spiritual traditions is not actually to have mystical experiences of the divine, but rather to be liberated by greater spiritual knowledge and to overcome self-centeredness. When we see the manifestations of the archetypes in realms beyond the individual, or even the human, we can recognize that spiritual meaning pervades the cosmos, and is not exclusive to the connection between humanity and the divine alone.
Rather, the cosmos itself seems to be alive, aware, and participating with and between the human and the divine mystery. The aim of astrology, as with other spiritual traditions, may not be to have a mystical experience of the divine, but such experiences can provide a deeper and more profound understanding of the archetypes in their multivalent complexity.
Keiron Le Grice, an archetypal astrologer and depth psychologist, intimates the great power of such an encounter:. In deep psychological exploration, or in heightened moments of openness, receptivity, and inspiration, one can have a direct encounter with the archetypal realm in all its unbridled power and intensity, an experience that is distinguished by a sense of the numinous——of mystery and awe, of tremendous power rising through the body, of intense religious affect, of emotional arousal, of tingling nerves, of soaring moral uplift, of demonic strength or even evil, or of overwhelming beauty and a sense of rightness or truth.
In such moments, it seems that one has truly stepped into the realm of the gods. Beyond even the magnificence and power of what one has encountered, to recognize the astrological correlations between such a direct experience of the archetypes and the significant positioning of the planets at that time can deepen the profundity of such revelations.
The apt naming of the planets and luminaries—from the Sun and Moon, to Mercury out through Saturn—by the peoples of numerous ancient cultures indicates that they perceived a clear connection between the archetypes as planets and the archetypes as gods, although the names of the gods and planets together varied from culture to culture. In a discussion of archetypes and gods, Hillman alludes suggestively to their cosmic status in the very metaphor he chooses to describe them:.
By setting up a universe which tends to hold everything we do, see, and say in the sway of its cosmos, an archetype is best comparable with a God. And Gods, religions sometimes say, are less accessible to the senses and to the intellect than they are to the imaginative vision and emotion of the soul.
From ancient gods to psychological complexes, the archetypes seem to have pervaded human consciousness in their multivalent expressions since the dawn of our species. From this perspective, archetypal astrology can be seen as a spiritual path, discipline, or tradition: one of many religions participating in the great mystery of divinity. The practice of astrology calls upon each of us to participate more fully in the spiritual unfolding of our lives, as we learn to become ever more conscientious co-creative partners in the great dance with the primordial archetypes.
Ferrer, Jorge N.
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Zurich, Switzerland: Spring Publication, Jung, Carl Gustav. Translated by R. Edited by H. Read, M.
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Fordham, G. Adler, and W. Bollingen Series XX. Eminence as evidence. Far from being elitist, astrology implies that we all partake in the same basic set of archetypal dynamics. To the extent that the archetypal principles can potentially be consciously engaged with by any individual, astrology is in fact inherently democratic.
There is no cultural elite to which astrology exclusively applies; it applies to everyone.
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Heron is labouring here under some basic misconceptions. First, the historical source of the meanings of the planets is actually Mesopotamian, rooted in many centuries of Babylonian and Chaldean observations, and the Greeks subsequently named the planets according to the mythic equivalents in their own tradition.
Second, although the planetary archetypes in contemporary Western astrology are associated with certain gods of the Greco-Roman tradition, they are not exclusively identified with them. They are more general principles of which the mythic gods and goddesses are more specific derivations or inflections. Archetypal characteristics associated with the planets are evident in human lives across all cultures: love, beauty, courage, time, death, growth, limitation, transformation, sacrifice, freedom. The archetypal principles at this more general level transcend their anthropomorphic and theriomorphic inflections as mythic deities in any one cultural tradition.
Moreover, as Tarnas emphasizes, the planetary archetypes are at once transcendent Platonic-Pythagorean , psychological Jungian , and mythic. This, of course, is one of the central points of repudiation of astrology advanced by many scientists and sceptics in the modern era with the recognition that the solar system is actually heliocentric. In fact, however, there is nothing in the astrological perspective employed in Cosmos and Psyche that contradicts the reality of a heliocentric solar system. Indeed, both Galileo and Kepler were practising astrologers and saw no contradiction between their heliocentric and astrological convictions.
Just because the Earth appears to be a focus of cosmic meaning does not imply it cannot move in an orbit around the Sun. Moreover, the view of the universe that has now emerged, first out of relativity theory, and later confirmed in cosmology, is that all measurements of space and time are relative to the observer, and that human beings are inextricably bound to their own perspectives. Therefore, although the geocentric model has been discredited as an objectively valid cosmology, phenomenologically speaking it retains a certain validity in that we are always inescapably centred in our viewpoint with regard to the universe.
We are all in a sense centres of the universe, and astrology reflects this. Centred in our own perspective, we live and breathe here on Earth in the context, first and foremost, of our own solar system. However, this is not what Tarnas is actually saying. The hypothesis advanced by Tarnas is this: World transits correspond with periods of more pronounced and more readily discernible events that reflect the constellated archetypes in which there is a concentrated activation of themes associated with those particular archetypal principles.
It is not that transits correspond with sets of discrete events in time that suddenly stop once a transit has passed out of orb. World transits show periods of intensification and heightened activation of continuing streams and waves of archetypal energies. Of course, if one found little or no evidence of the relevant activated archetypes in world affairs when the corresponding planets were in alignment, then one would be right to call into question the validity of astrological transit theory.
World transits in the present and the future. In particular, he objects to what he sees as a change of tactic by Tarnas: a shift from single-aspect analysis of the past to multiple-aspect analysis of the future. When analysing the past, as no prediction is being made, one is obviously on safer ground when pointing out the major correlations with a single specific planetary cycle.
Is our primary co-creative access to psychocosmic patterns restricted to the natal aspects and. If the answer is affirmative, then this primary. The only thing that. There are several points one might take issue with in this section, but the main thing to keep in mind in this: To recognise the archetypal determinants behind human experience does not mean that human experience is predetermined. To say that human experience is conditioned by a set of archetypal factors that correlate with the planetary movements is in no way a constraint on human freedom because this freedom manifests at the level of enactment, not at the level of archetypal determination.
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Human experience can be radically indeterminate and unpredictable at the level of concrete manifestation—the level at which human freedom of will can be exercised—and yet this indeterminacy occurs within an a priori thematic framework. The creative tension between this underlying thematic patterning and indeterminacy is the very essence of the relationship between universals and particulars. Human freedom of will is embedded within a background context of foundational but multivalent archetypal meanings.
This archetypal context does not limit human freedom of choice, because this freedom is itself an archetypal pre-condition of human experience. That is to say, the impulse to be free, creative, and inventive is itself archetypal. Human freedom is not compromised by the archetypal perspective; it is based upon it.
It is not that there is a separate human subject who participates with archetypal factors external to itself; rather, the consciousness of the participating human is already shaped by the archetypal factors with which it participates. Participation goes both ways.
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Creativity is archetypally grounded. Full or partial co-creativity? Heron ends his critique by questioning what constitutes full participatory co-creativity. Tarnas, Heron concludes, offers only a partial, restricted, and predetermined form of co-creative participation. The realisation of true human freedom and autonomy depends upon making the archetypal dynamics conscious such that one is no longer unconsciously lived by them, but rather consciously participates in their expression.
This is fundamental to the process of psycho-spiritual transformation that Jung called individuation. A deep engagement with archetypal astrology can further this transformation process. References Ferrer, Jorge. Albany : State University of New York ,