Moving Toward Wholeness through Astrology
What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? — Friedrich Nietzsche
We live in what seems like the denouement of the age of reason. We feel separate and alienated in a world bereft of meaning. Astrology can be a remedy for that alienation and emptiness. To see why and how, I explore the history of science and European reason, depth psychology, and quantum physics. I then assuage concerns about the implications for free will in astrology, and talk about how Vedic astrology (Jyotish) compares with Western astrology. We go deep in this episode, because the cosmos is deep; we just have to look, and listen.
The Modern Astrology Zeitgeist
“I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.” — Arthur C. Clarke
Why are Millennials so into Astrology? (Jan 2018)
“Astrology is not a science; there’s no evidence that one’s zodiac sign actually correlates to personality.” [citing a 1984 research paper showing no correlation between astrology and personality.]
Astrology in the Age of Uncertainty (Oct 2019)
“Millennials who see no contradiction between using astrology and believing in science are fueling a resurgence of the practice.”
Exploding popularity, a booming $40 million business for apps (Nov 2020)
The New York Times Modern Love podcast recently featured a story about Vedic astrology.
Influences
Some of the luminaries who Influenced my thinking on astrology, both Western and Vedic, include:
Fritjof Capra — I highly recommend reading his now-famous Tao of Physics. Despite being almost 50 years old now, it is still highly relevant today.
"Nature is alive and talking to us. This is not a metaphor." — Terence McKenna
Sign up for my newsletter and join my online yoga community.
You can find me on Instagram: @elementalyoga
Show Transcript
What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?
This is a quote from Frederick Nietzsche, in 1882, where he was sort of calling the alarm in a sense, and we'll come back to this later in the discussion. But I wanted to open this episode with that quote, because I feel like it really tees up the discussion of astrology and puts this context around what I feel is the modern predicament where we have, you know, we've entered the age of reason, you could say that we are living under the tyranny of reason and the tyranny of mind. And we've sort of lost touch with our interconnectedness, our interpenetration, with nature, and with ourselves, too. And so a big theme of this episode is going to be exploring the history of this kind of separation, and this disunity, this disintegration, and the ways that it has started to sort of reify and reaffirm and coalesce in the 20th century, and, and especially in the 21st century. And so I want to talk about, you know, look at the history of our separation from nature, but then the process that we've been going through healing it and how astrology can play a role in that. So in this episode, I'll be making the case for both the validity and the power of astrology, and what I'm calling the denouement of the tyranny of reason. So that's what we're going to talk about today, it's gonna get deep, and so you know, take a seat, have some tea, and just kick back and have a listen. And I'll do my best to, to keep it as short as I can. But also, let's have some fun with it, right? It's a big topic, it's a big topic, astrology, very large, very large.
And I wanted to add this disclaimer, you know, we're going to talk about the history of reason, the history of science, going back to the Renaissance, and I'm going to be in various places, critiquing science, I just want to make clear that by no means am I anti- science or anti-reason, right? I'm very much a believer in science and scientific progress. And the points I'm gonna be making are pretty nuanced, you know. So it's, it's not rejecting science, it's just pointing out that science and Pure Reason is not the only modality or the only way of understanding our place in the world and of, of deriving meaning from life. And not only that, but you know, if it is our only modality, then it can be quite harmful, actually, and quite alienating. So that's all. So I want to make that disclaimer about science. I'm pro science. And I just wanna make that clear up front.
So in terms of our relationship to nature, I think we're starting to move into a place where we're rediscovering that to a large extent, you know, and I'm thinking about this, Terence McKenna, quote, nature is talking to us. This is not a metaphor, right. And so that's gonna be kind of the theme of our discussion around astrology as we go through this episode.
Welcome to spiritual but not ridiculous, a podcast that explores the world of spirituality, from a grounded and clear eyed perspective. I'm your host jayadev, a yoga teacher, Vedic astrologer, attorney and technologist.
So astrology is, again, it's a big topic. It's, it's definitely a thing that's blowing up in popularity right now. It's been gaining in popularity going back to at least 10 years ago, I would say, and obviously, it had a huge resurgence in the 60s and 70s. But but we're going to another another resurgence right now. And so I think it's an especially relevant moment for us to be talking about it too. It's one of those interesting things that's so popular, but also so maligned by the mainstream and the intellectual elite at the same time, right. It's sort of coming into the back door. And people are talking about it working with it. Everybody, everybody I know is into astrology at this point. And you see these these apps, you know, like costar and the pattern are gaining a lot of traction, you know, celebrities are talking about them. And so despite this astrology being part of the great superstition, purge of the modern era, you know, for the longest time newspapers have been printing horoscopes, and yeah, we see the mainstream media really covering this resurgence as well. You've got the Atlantic talking about how Millennials are really into astrology. Going back to 2018, you've got the New Yorker, writing about millennials, in astrology as well and 2019. And this whole app, the astrology app industry, I think, is worth $40 million, at least at least as of 2020, according to Business Insider, so it's definitely a thing and you know, in like in like, with yoga, where we've got the terminology entering the common lexicon, or with karma, and mantra and all that. It's the same thing with astrology. You know, everyone talks about mercury in retrograde and their Saturn return, and everyone knows their sun sign, even if they don't really, quote unquote, believe in astrology. So yeah, it's definitely present in our light Geist, and I think our relationship to astrology, as a culture is really summed up well, in this famous quote from Arthur C. Clarke. I don't believe in astrology, I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical. Right? So it's that idea, right? It's that idea that I think we're able to sort of hold these two ideas simultaneously, with a little bit of cognitive dissonance perhaps. So yeah, I'll be in this episode, I'm going to be talking about the history of, of science going back to the Renaissance, and history of religion and to some extent as it's relevant, and then the 20th century developments that have kind of brought us back to astrology. This is very ancient practice. And so I eventually wind my way around to talking about vedic astrology and the differences between Eastern and Western astrology because I personally practice Vedic Astrology or Jyotish. And actually, in terms of is like Geist. A few weeks ago, there was an episode of The New York Times Modern love podcast that featured a story that kind of revolved around Vedic Astrology. So I'll put that in the show notes. And I recommend checking that out as well. But yeah, I think astrology, if you look, if you look back over the history of the Western, Western Western civilization, it's been popular during periods of heightened intellectual luminosity, really. So you see it, you know, being used widely in the Greek and Roman antiquity, and the Hellenistic era in Alexandria, in the high Middle Ages, and obviously in the Italian Renaissance, and the Elizabethan age. And so it's something that keeps popping up right? And famous, famous thinkers, famous astrologers include Plato and Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Kepler himself, Goethe, Yeats, and Carl Jung, who will come back to a little bit. So astrology has been with us for a long time. And I think it's time for us to, to embrace it really, is what I'm saying.
So some of the common misconceptions about astrology that will tease out as we go through the episode include that it's about predicting the future, which which is really not. And we'll talk about that, that you know, that it means that the universe is deterministic, or that everything is pre determined. That's also not true. There is freewill with astrology, and we'll talk about that later. There's this misconception, I think that the planets are doing something to us. You know, I think that's a lot of times when you hear somebody sort of, sort of criticize it or poopoo it, you know, they're talking like, oh, it sounds so ridiculous, talking to planets be doing something to us, because I think most people are still trapped in this kind of materialist worldview, which we'll unpack in a little bit as well. And, you know, there's this notion that astrology is not a science, when in fact it is, and we'll talk about that. So I, for me, astrology is extremely life affirming. What it's doing is it's it's a way of capturing the cycles of life using these very deep archetypes. It's a way of giving you a snapshot of your past karma. And it's ultimately a way of helping you to find balance and courage and inner resolve. It's helping you to utilize your incarnation to the highest, most meaningful and fulfilling manner. You know, it's helping to see that all gifts are wrapped in challenge and how there's ways to approach challenge in a very graceful way. And I think you know, a big part of what I'm saying in this episode is that astrology is a way for us to pierce through this tyranny of mind and to overcome the resistance that the mind has to non rational ways of knowing. So astrology is really nothing less than a grand restoration of soul and and Mystique, and a redefining of our relationship with nature. It's a poetic recognition and integration of the discoveries of modern physics and depth psychology, which we'll explore as well in this episode. So that's, that's just teeing up the discussion there. I wanted to, before we get into it, really, I wanted to just talk about a way to think about astrology as I go into this discussion. And so, you know, one way to approach it is this yoga view of the nature of reality, which is, you know, whether you're a person who believes in Brahma or the goddess of classical Tantra, the yoga view is that the universe is imbued with intelligence at every level, the universe is self aware to varying degrees. And so it's like an enormous living entity. And so the cosmos or the Goddess, or whatever you want to call it, is continuously creating the world we live in as an act of play, and an act of love. And so this worldview is pantheistic. And it's been sold. And so this is also the view of astrology, these, these two views are in line. And I think that's why I think that's why Jyotish or Vedic Astrology is ultimately considered to be part of the larger yogic tradition. So in this sense, astrologers are Yogi's, really, and we'll talk more about this too. But you know, this, this worldview of this sort of self aware universe flies in the face of this dogmatic, modern materialist scientific worldview. And so there's a real tension here. And that's the tension that I want to try to alleviate in this episode. So another way to think about astrology is that, you know, it's like the earth, the cosmos is like the earth, the universe is made up of these various cycles and currents and eddies and waves of energy. And we can see this the most immediately, and the most apparently in the orbit of the planets and other celestial bodies. But it's also there in these kind of unseen energetic forces. And some of these forces science has already recognized, like gravity and electromagnetism, right? So it's just these invisible forces that are out there. And astrology is also a way to tap into those, and in some sense to measure those things or to, to understand the cyclical nature of those right. And so the planets are both reflecting ag man magnifying these cosmic forces. And this is part of what we'll come to understand in this episode. And it's so important, I think, this discussion is so important because the cosmology of a civilization ultimately reflects and influences all human activity and understanding within that civilization. So I think it's that's that important, you know. And just, I'll finish this, this introduction with a brief history of my own
relationship with astrology. So going back to 2013, I was in a Burning Man camp, just through happenstance. It wasn't even something I planned on doing. The last minute I joined this, this archetypal astrology Burning Man camp. So it was like 70 people, mostly astrologers offering astrology to the playa as our as our gift to apply it. And it was fascinating because it was like a deep immersion into astrology, kind of jumping into the deep end, in a sense, and it was beautiful, because I was with all these people who are talking about these archetypes that I had never really heard much about before. And I've always been curious about astrology. But this was my first real deep exposure to it. And you know, we'll see in a minute that a big part of my thinking around astrology has been influenced by this astrologer and academic Rick Tarnas. And what's crazy is that he was in her camp, and I knew he was in our camp, but I didn't really know who he was, you know. So looking back now, just amazed that I was in a Burning Man camp with Rick Tarnas. So, so yeah, 2013 was when I really started to get curious about it. And then it wasn't until a few years later that I you know, I went to the jungle and did ayahuasca in Peru in the Amazon. And that experience really opened me up to other kind of ways of thinking and being more deeply than let's say yoga had before that. And that's when I hired my first astrologer I came back from the jungle and immediately hired Western astrologer and had a reading and that reading was so profound and so transformative. And I gained such deep respect for the practice of astrology. And then, a few months later, I went to India, I found one of my teachers in the Himalayas, who was also a Jyotishi, he practices Vedic Astrology. And I got a reading from him. And that was also very eye opening and sort of just made me feel understood in a deep way for the first time and really gave me the courage to start approached my life in a new and creative way. And then, a year after that I had another Western reading more of an arc of archetypal reading with Erica Jones, one of the women in my Burning Man camp. And that reading was so profound, so transformational. And just to give one example, towards the end of the reading, she asked me this question. The Cosmos wants to know why I am refusing to wield my power. And it was one of those questions. It was like a Zen koan, you know, I, my mind went blank, I had no thoughts, and I realized that I didn't have any conception of my relationship to power. And it set me on this long journey of exploring my relationship to power and, you know, understanding different kinds of power and soft power. And I, you know, it really changed my whole perspective around power. And that was just one of many, many things in that reading. So, so I've had this, this great journey through astrology, and I'm so blessed and fortunate now to be, you know, trained in in as an astrologer in what, in Vedic astrology and offering readings. So it's a real passion of mine, it's maybe my favorite thing right now. So I just so excited to go into this episode and to explore it.
Let's go back and explore the history of science and to some extent, religion, in order to tee up a discussion of the relevance of astrology in the modern world. So in order for us to understand how we've gotten to this place in modernity, of skepticism, and materialism, and a rejection of these deeply powerful ancient ways of understanding nature and the universe and our relationship to it, I think we need to go back to the Renaissance, to understand sort of the trajectory of Western thought, and how that ultimately led to a rejection of, of the installment of nature basically. So I want to start this session with a quote from Rick Tarnas. One need not be graced with prophetic insight to recognize that we are living in one of those rare ages, like the end of classical antiquity, or the beginning of the modern era that bring forth to great stress and struggle, a genuinely fundamental transformation and the underlying assumptions and principles of the cultural worldview. Ours is an age between worldviews, creative, yet disoriented, a transitional era when the old cultural vision no longer holds, and the new has not yet constellated. So I think that quote, tees up nicely, our little trip back in time to the Renaissance, and to the Copernican revolution, which was, in large part this, this turning point that led to the modern world. Because I think to understand astrology, and its significance in our present moment, it's necessary to understand how we got here, this kind of strange inflection point where we are slowly and suddenly finding our way out from under the tyranny of mind and the tyranny of reason. So let's explore the history of Western thinking. And I just want to say that my thinking around this this subject has been primarily influenced by Rick tarnis, but also fritjof Capra, Amit Goswami, and my teacher Ananda Rotorua, so much gratitude to all of them for shining the light, or helping me to find the light of the darkest night. So the Copernican revolution, you know, if you go back about 600 years, at that point, you know, there was everyone thought that the sun revolved around the earth, and there was the earth was flat. And so there was a real significance to Copernicus, helping people to understand or start to understand that the sun was actually the center of the solar system. You know, he showed that if you change the perspective that all of our all the math of around astronomy would actually become quite simple and much simpler. And what's fascinating about this, too, as somebody who's studied the history of East and India, especially, is that this is a sharp contrast to what, what Yogi's and Jota she's and other you know, people in India at that time understood, I mean, at that point, people in India had understood for 1000s of years, if not longer, that the earth rotated around the sun. And so it's like Europe is coming quite late to this party. But yeah, so so Copernicus and then you know, those who followed sort of shifted substantially the way that people thought about our place in the universe because of this heliocentric revolution. It's a fundamental turning point, and Western civilization. So up to that point, there was, you know, everyone believed in this sort of grand cosmic order, and, and in sort of this interconnected relationship with nature, and I want to emphasize to you that Copernicus, and you know, Kepler, and Newton, all these guys, all these early pioneers, they still saw their scientific breakthroughs and realizations, as divine, the divine illuminations as like spiritual awakenings to this grand cosmic order. So they weren't, it's not it's not like we went straight from superstitious beliefs and religious dogma, straight to Pure Reason and science, right. It was a gradual process of still living in that court sort of cosmic order, universe, those so to speak. So they believe that there was this cosmic order that was created by some creator to be known and admired by human intelligence. And I think it's important for us to understand that that was that was still the kind of in the middle you at the time.
So it's really for these early pioneers in modern science, the primal world was still in sold and alive and living a conscious thing that was communicating with us, right. Again, Terence McKenna nature is talking to us, right? So, as science and Western philosophy evolved over the centuries, it did increasingly increasingly reject the old and sold primal world in favor of reason and understanding everything through the mind. But it was a gradual process. And I think this movement away from superstition and religion, towards reason and science was happening for good reason, obviously, right? We needed we needed to sort of do away with the abuses of religious dogma. And to increase personal freedom. I think through through this revolution, we needed this course correction. But what a part of what I'm going to be outlining in this episode is that in that process, we lost something along the way. We overcorrected. And we lost touch with the intelligence of nature, I think. Because reason and his modern worldview that we still exist in today is a worldview of separation and mechanization, right? This view that the modern world is a mindless machine filled with atoms that are set in motion by an intention, this big bang with no inherent order or purpose. In a cold and empty universe, you know, it's a, it's an alienating is a deeply alienating worldview. And so what I want to what I think is fascinating is that this, this sort of priori assumption about the nature of reality that you know, that it's separate, and that it's mechanistic, and materialistic, and all that, it was really an assumption that all of scientific discovery was founded upon, but it wasn't, it wasn't the result of a scientific hypothesis that was then proven out, right. So it's still to this day, this, this understand our understanding, our sort of cosmic cosmological understanding of the nature of the cosmos is still based on an assumption, which I think is fascinating, because, you know, scientists today are so arrogant and dogmatic about this assumption, despite the fact that it's just an assumption. So anyways, we'll come back to that, but it was, you know, so it was Francis Bacon really unrated Rene Descartes, who made this assumption into kind of an accepted fact. Right? They, they, they thought that objects out there cannot contain any human qualities or projections. Right. It was just it seemed like it wasn't consistent with this new scientific worldview that they were developing. And so we live in the shadow of this assumption today. And this assumption, you know, does it did seem to pay dividends? Right? It seemed to support the advance of progress, especially technological progress. And the more that we saw, the more that we saw the world and nature as something to be manipulated and dominated. And the more we saw it as separate, the more we seem to achieve a sort of progress with that. But But yeah, I mean, just thinking about the arrogant superiority of those who are still enthralled by the cult of mind that came out of this. And the fact that it's entirely based on a set of assumptions that have actually failed to keep up with the two biggest developments of the 20th century, which we'll talk about in a minute, is an important point that I don't want to get lost. So, with this split, you know what the split is, is being Driven between us and the cosmos, we begin to see nature as a mere resource to be exploited for human benefit. Before the 17th century, the goals of science were wisdom, understanding the natural order and living in harmony with it. In the 17th century, this attitude which we could call an ecological attitude changed into its opposite. Ever since begun, the goal of science has been knowledge that can be used to dominate and control nature. And so today, both science and technology are used predominantly for these purposes, which we can see is a dangerous and harmful and anti ecological endpoint. And so, again, we see nature as mechanistic and personal unconscious, it's simply there to do our bidding. And it's just because we say so and so nature seems to imply, at least it did until the 19th century.
But I think it's, I think that the nature of the cosmos too, is that it just reflects back to us, whatever we project onto it. And so if we think that nature is mechanistic and impersonal and unconscious, then I think the cosmos will happily reflect back to us this reality. And so in that sense, I think the cosmos has infinite patience. So I think the sad part of this story is that, you know, the price you pay for this kind of arrogant, alienating worldview, is living in a state of alienation. You know, we've we've achieved autonomy over nature, in exchange for alienation, which is, which I think is a is too big of a price to pay. And so with this, with this evolution, up through, you know, Francis Bacon, and Rene Descartes, and all these Western European scientists and philosophers, what develops is a absolute superiority of the Western mind over all others, you know, other worldviews, other errors, other other time periods, other cultures, especially, and other modes of cognition. And again, it's not based on it's not like, there was a scientific proof that this worldview was superior, it was just all an assumption, you know, a sort of a, everyone just adopted it, and then just kind of Lord have that superiority over others. And I think this alienation and this, this separate worldview, is uniquely a product of the mind and the ego, which by its very nature sees everything as separate. You could even say that this alienation and this sort of separation is one of the primary European exports, you know, this tyranny of mind. So I'm happy to say that I think we are finally truly reckoning with it in this current era. And, of course, it's no accident, that the Renaissance and the age of reason that we're talking about, coincided with the birth of modern colonialism, you know, because this arrogant supremacy, of a certain kind of European way of life, was then thrust upon the rest of the world, you know, in violent ways. And so, so I think, you know, we can say that the tyranny of mind this, this European worldview, is itself a form of colonialism. And this is why I think it's largely the spiritual traditions of non European cultures, or pre Renaissance traditions, that are increasingly becoming an antidote to our modern crisis of meaning. And again, like I said, at the beginning, I'm not anti reason or anti science, I support a holistic approach to life that includes the mind, but not at the expense of the heart and the soul, or the environment, for that matter. Okay, so that's just a little bit about the history of the development of science, going back to the Renaissance, and then coming up through the enlightenment. And I wanted to just I wanted to go into a little sidebar about monotheism, and, and then the death of God, right. So another big influence here is the trajectory that we take once we start moving into the Age of Reason, where religion plays less and less of a role, but it also has a heavy influence on what I think is the scientific worldview, without maybe scientific knowledge of the past, right. So if you look at monotheism and Europe, they believe they believe that man was made in the image of God. And so God and that, in that conceptualization is the supreme subject, who created the world as a separate object. And so as a result, because we're made in the image of God, you know, we are separate. God is separate up there somewhere in some other reality. Heaven is separate, you know, so I think there's this this approach to the world that comes From monotheism and from European religion, Christianity heavily influences the scientific worldview that comes out of Europe as well. So then as reason started to rise and religion began to wane slowly, slowly, then, you know, we had to take on Europeans had to take on that role of Supreme Intelligence presiding over this alien world, this mindless, soulless vacuum, with no inherent purpose behind serving our material needs. And so we can trace this process of increasing alienation through Descartes, Locke, and Hume and Kant, and all these Western philosopher Schopenhauer, Darwin even and marks. And then Nisha, who had the wherewithal to see what was happening. And he really kind of raised the alarm, I think, you know, in 1882, he needs to declare that God is dead. And actually, I think I wanted to share the full quote from that, actually. So here, here's Nisha.
God is dead. God remains dead, and we have killed him. How shall we can comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned, has bled to death under our knives? Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement? What sacred games? Shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed to great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? And so yeah, I think this is nature being very insightful here. And yeah, calling attention to this sort of trouble that we've gotten ourselves into by the late 19th century. And so then you can see the trajectory of modern philosophy after that seems deeply troubled. You know, if you look at the existentialists, from care regard to Heidegger, and Sartre and Camus, you know, if you read their works, which I did in law school, because I think I was feeling very existential back then do you see that? Yeah, they're deeply disturbed, I think by this alienation, right? That's kind of the theme, the overarching theme of, of existential ism. So by the end of the 19th century, we've ended up in this situation where, just like, the antiquated view that the Earth was at the center of the universe, we are now suffering from this flawed perspective, placing the human perspective at the center of knowing. And so we were in this deep state of alienation. You know, we feel that man is just this kind of curious accident resulting from random and meaningless collision of atoms and Darwinian evolution. And so it's, it's not a very comforting place to be right. But fortunately, we then have two or three, depending how you want to count it. These two these these developments, the common the 20th century that begin to offer a different way. And that's what I want to explore in the next section.
So in the 20th century, we see these two developments that both arise out of the scientific endeavor. There's depth psychology, and there's quantum physics. So these, these two, I think, are the key to saving us from ourselves, so to speak, or for undoing the tyranny of reason, in the 20th century. So let's look at depth psychology first. So starting in the late 19th century, and going into the early 20th century, we see the influence of nature, actually, on psychology. And so this relatively new field of psychology develops with William James and in America, and Freud and Jung in Europe. And as, as we start to see the recognition of the existence of an unconscious, the mind starts to lose its position of power, you know, you got Sigmund Freud coming in first, and developing his theory of the unconscious and the influence of the unconscious. And so it's like, all of a sudden, we're at the we're at the mercy of all these on conscious influences. What does that mean for the supremacy of mind? Right? For the supremacy of reason, it means there's trouble afoot. So it's like, what is going on here? What does it mean that there's an unconscious right and so, so Freud really set the stage here. And then, you know, William James talked a lot about the importance of acknowledging the existence of all kinds of other ways of being and different types of conscious states, you know. And Carl Jung, though, came in and really ran with it, and he's the one who started to introduce these these modalities from antiquity and to have truly an open mind when it comes to how to understand ourselves and our place in the world. And so he brings in this stuff psychology, that is then located at the intersection of the Enlightenment, you know, it's still science, but then also romanticism. So there it brings in the humanities and mysticism. It's, you know, it's mythic, it's symbolic, it's numinous. And it's, it's a real challenge to pure rationality in a in a beautiful and important way. And in Jung, I think, you know, the, these two developments, I'm talking about Deaf psychology and quantum physics. They go hand in hand, because Jung was friends with Einstein and Wolfgang Pauli, and all these guys. And so he was heavily influenced by their work in quantum physics. And so Jung here starts to, in his practice with patients, he starts to encounter profound synchronicities. There are some great ones documented in his in some of his books, and some some of the papers that come out of that time. But I just wanted to highlight one to give an illustration. So he had this, in the early days, I think, around the turn of the century, you only had this young female patient, and she was a real tough nut to crack like they weren't making any progress in her and her therapy. And part of that was because she always knew better about everything. And she had a very good education. So this gave her this kind of ideally suited kind of armor, for breaking through any kind of mental barriers, and kind of a highly polished like Cartesian rationalism, and a very linear idea of reality. And so Jung was having a very hard time getting through to her. And so after many fruitless attempts to soften her rationalism with compassion, and these other techniques, Jung began to just hope for some kind of unexpected and irrational breakthrough, that something would happen that would burst her intellectual bubble. And so they were in a therapy session one time, and he was sitting opposite her with his back to the window listening. And she was talking about this impressive dream that she had had the night before, in which someone had given her golden scarab, this costly piece of jewelry. And while she was telling him this dream, he heard something behind him gently tapping on the window. And so he turned around, and he saw that it was a there was this very large flying insect that was knocking against the windowpane from outside in an attempt to get into the room. And it seemed very strange to him. So he immediately open the window, and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. And it was a scarab bead beetle, a kind of gold green beetle, that was actually not really known in those parts of Switzerland at that time. And so that looked like, it looked like a golden scarab. And so they he then handed the beetle to his patient, saying, Here's your scarab. And this experience, punctured the hole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intellectual resistance. And then they could continue with their course of treatment, which became quite successful. And so it was experiences like this that really influenced you all heavily. And, and, you know, caused him to research and to think deeply about synchronicities.
So Jung started to understand that synchronicity can be very healing because it's uniting the inner and outer world and imbuing your experience with that of deeper meaning in order. And he saw it as the intervention of grace, you know, graces in most traditions, the way that the cosmos or nature sort of steps in and sends you these little signals, or these little gives you these little nudges as towards evolution or towards surrender or towards trust, you know, and so, so Jung saw synchronicity as this intermission of grace, and a way to kind of nudge patients to move towards greater wholeness and individuation. Because with, with these synchronistic events, you're forced to surrender your attitude of like, knowing superiority into a state of unity, and to acknowledge the intelligence of nature, and then unify the conscious and the unconscious. And the, you know, as a result, you start to open up more to the world. And so it's, it's a means for greater personal expansion and for integration. And I think you can say the same things about astrology, as we'll see. And of course, you know, practicing using synchronicity, in this way, you know, requires a pre evolved, therapist, and you know, you have to make sure that you're avoiding any projection or narcissism when looking for synchronistic events in the world. But, you know, astrology is similar in that way where, you know, it does require an astrologer who's kind of wise and developed enough to recognize patterns within within things without projecting their own unresolved issues onto that. But anyways, Jung saw nature and Persons surrounding environment as this living matrix of potential synchronistic meaning that could illuminate the human sphere, right, as return has put it. So Jung starting to see these synchronistic phenomena as fundamentally archetypal in nature, and he saw that archetypes are the fundamental governing principles of the human psyche. For Jung, archetypes are these autonomous patterns of meaning that that inform the soul and matter, they bridge, Mind and Matter, they bridge the inner and outer these archetypes are very powerful in that way. And so Jung saw both psychological and spiritual aspects to this, this process of working with the archetypes and the archetypal unconscious. So here we see a kind of a tentative first step towards bridging both science and religion with this archetypal worldview, kind of creating a new spirituality. I mean, Jung was doing a lot, doing a lot for humanity in the 20th century. And so as a result of this process with synchronicity, and archetypal synchronicity, Jung, pretty quickly becomes drawn towards astrology. As early as 1911. Here we see evidence of him using astrological charts in his work with his patients. And so Jung, has been quoted as saying that for him astrology represents the sum of all psychological knowledge of antiquity. And so yeah, he's he's, he's using astrology readings in his group of patients. And in this process to start as he's starting to talk publicly about this, he's really taking on this enormous task of combating this enlightenment tendency to uphold rational autonomy, and to deprecate, you know, antiquity and earlier worldviews, and he becomes quite successful at it, you know, especially in his later years.
