Richard Tarnas
From Archai Issue 1, 2009

The concept of planetary archetypes, in many respects the pivotal concept of the emerging astrological paradigm, is complex and must be approached from several directions. Before describing the nature of the association between planets and archetypes, however, we must first address the general concept of archetypes and the remarkable evolution of the archetypal perspective in the history of Western thought.

The earliest form of the archetypal perspective, and in certain respects its deepest ground, is the primordial experience of the great gods and goddesses of the ancient mythic imagination. In this once universal mode of consciousness, memorably embodied at the dawn of Western culture in the Homeric epics and later in classical Greek drama, reality is understood to be pervaded and structured by powerful numinous forces and presences that are rendered to the human imagination as the divinized figures and narratives of ancient myth, often closely associated with the celestial bodies.

To read the rest of this article please see: “Archetypal Principles“

Archetypal Cosmology in Historical Perspective

Keiron Le Grice
From Archai Issue 1, 2009

At the turn of the twentieth century, when Sigmund Freud first developed the theoretical framework and therapeutic method of psychoanalysis in Vienna, one could scarcely have conceived of a movement less likely to exert a powerful, lasting influence on the modern mind. Controversial, taboo, ridiculed and rejected by many, psychoanalysis, with its theories of repressed libidinal impulses and childhood sexuality, radically contravened and challenged the deeply entrenched values, mores, and attitudes of the Victorian morality of the era. To many people at the time it must have seemed certain that psychoanalysis was destined to be quickly consigned to history, to be written off as a curious oddity, a failed experiment, a perverted and warped conception of human nature. The early reactions to Freud’s publications were scornful and scathing. According to Ernest Jones, Freud’s biographer and fiercest ally, “The Interpretation of Dreams had been hailed as fantastic and ridiculous . . . the Three Essays were [deemed] shockingly wicked. Freud was a man with an evil and obscene mind.” Psychoanalysis moreover, was an affront to the nineteenth century’s assured belief in progress and rational self-determination. The notion that the modern human being, despite pretensions to rational autonomy, was in fact the unwitting instrument of unconscious impulses and complexes, and that the pious morality of that time concealed a seething cauldron of instincts whose sublimated expression lay behind humanity’s most elevated cultural aspirations and achievements was a message both unpalatable and, seemingly, altogether untimely.

To read the rest of this article please see: “The Birth of a New Discipline“

Richard Tarnas
Adapted from The Mountain Astrologer, 2011

In the following essay, I would like to describe, first, the key individuals and influences that contributed to the academic discipline and philosophical perspective called archetypal cosmology, and then its longer ancestry, the centuries-old traditions out of which it emerged.[1]

It could be argued that the emergence of archetypal cosmology was in some sense inevitable, as scholars and researchers working in late 20th-century academia recognized the larger implications of the evidence for planetary correlations with the patterns of human experience. Given the extraordinary nature of these correlations, the obvious task was to pursue the research in a more systematic way, think deeply about the resulting evidence, then integrate this with the relevant ideas and conceptual frameworks from both the admired past, such as the Platonic–Pythagorean tradition or the work of Johannes Kepler, and the cutting-edge present, from depth psychology to the new paradigm sciences.

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