But what especially stimulated and, in the end, compelled my reconsideration of astrology was, as in Jung’s case, the unexpected results of research I myself decided to undertake. I believe now that only this direct encounter with empirical data that one has personally investigated can effectively serve to overcome the extreme resistance that virtually every person educated within the modern context must initially experience towards astrology. Despite the parallels with the other emerging theories and perspectives just mentioned, and despite its perhaps noble ancient lineage, astrology has for too long represented the very antithesis of modern thought and cosmology to permit most educated individuals today to approach astrology effectively in any other way. Of all “new paradigm” perspectives and theories, astrology is the most uncomfortably beyond the prevailing paradigm boundary line, the most likely to evoke immediate scorn and derision, the most apt to be known more through its caricature in the popular media than through its serious research, journals, and scholarship. Above all, astrology is that perspective which most directly contradicts the long-established disenchanted and decentered cosmology that encompasses virtually all modern and postmodern experience. It posits an intrinsically meaning-permeated cosmos that in some sense is focused on the Earth, even on the individual human being, as a nexus of that meaning. Such a conception of the universe uniquely controverts the most fundamental assumptions of the modern mind.
For just this reason, astrology has long been uncompromisingly opposed, often with vehement intensity, by most contemporary scientists. As they frequently point out, if astrology were in any sense valid, the very foundations of the modern world view would be placed in question. Its inherent absurdity has been regarded as so self-evident as to be beyond discussion: Astrology is the last lingering vestige of primitive animism, a strangely enduring affront to the objective rationality of the modern mind.
These are formidable obstacles confronting anyone considering this perspective and method of inquiry. Yet human knowledge constantly evolves and changes, sometimes in quite unexpected ways. What is unequivocally rejected in one age may be dramatically reclaimed in another, as happened when the ancient heliocentric hypothesis of Aristarchus, long ignored by scientific authorities as valueless and absurd, was resurrected and vindicated by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. Widespread or even universal conviction at any given moment has never been a reliable indication of the truth or falsity of an idea. I could not dogmatically rule out the possibility that there was more to astrology than the modern mind had assumed.
After learning the rudiments of how to calculate natal charts, I directed my attention to a curious phenomenon of which I had heard reports circulating among professionals in the mental health field, corroborating an observation that Jung also had made. The reports concerned planetary “transits,” which are alignments formed between the current positions of the orbiting planets and the planetary positions at an individual’s birth. Beginning with a small sample and then steadily augmenting it, I found to my considerable astonishment that individuals engaged in various forms of psychotherapy and transformational practices showed a consistent tendency to experience psychological breakthroughs and healing transformations in coincidence with a certain category of planetary transits to their natal charts, while periods of sustained psychological difficulty tended to coincide with a different category of transits involving other planets. The consistency and precision of these initial correlations between clearly definable psychological states and coinciding transiting alignments seemed too significant to be explained by chance. Yet given currently accepted views of the universe, such correlations simply should not have been happening. What especially drew my attention was the inexplicable fact that the character of the observed psychological states corresponded so closely to the supposed meanings of the relevant transiting and natal planets as described in standard astrological texts. For there to be any consistent correlations at all was obviously puzzling; for the correlations also to match the traditional meanings of the planets was startling.
As I investigated further, it soon became apparent that the nature of the planetary correlations was far more complex than my initial observations concerning a simple dichotomy between positive and negative psychological states had led me to believe. A deeper understanding of astrological principles, combined with recent theoretical advances in depth psychology, particularly from the archetypal and transpersonal schools, gave me a glimpse into a much larger range of correlations between planetary movements and human experience. These findings impelled me to step back and approach the research task in a more fully prepared and systematic manner. I decided to examine the history and principles of astrology in earnest by reading carefully through the canon of major astrological works, from Ptolemy’s summation of classical astrology, the Tetrabiblos, and Kepler’s On the More Certain Fundamentals of Astrology, to modern texts by Leo, Rudhyar, Carter, Ebertin, Addey, Harvey, Hand, Greene, and Arroyo.12 I studied planetary ephemerides—astronomical tables that list the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets for any given day and year in terms of degrees and minutes of celestial longitude as measured along the zodiac—until I could decipher the changing planetary patterns and alignments with some facility. Because this was before the advent of personal computers, I learned to make fairly quickly the numerous calculations necessary for constructing accurate natal charts, showing the exact planetary positions at a person’s birth, and for determining other basic astrological indicators such as transits. The mathematics required for these operations, I discovered, is relatively simple. But more important, and more revealing, I found the symbolic principles associated with the planets at the core of the astrological tradition unexpectedly easy to assimilate, since they proved to be surprisingly similar—indeed, essentially identical—to the archetypes of modern depth psychology familiar from the work of Freud and Jung and their successors in archetypal and transpersonal psychology.
Equipping myself in this manner, I first made an intensive examination of my own natal chart and the charts of forty to fifty other individuals I knew well, attempting to ascertain whether a significant correlation existed between the planetary positions at birth on the one hand and the personal character and biography on the other. Keeping in mind the suggestibility inherent in such assessments, I was nevertheless deeply impressed by the range and complex precision of the empirical correspondences. It was as if an uncommonly gifted depth psychologist, after long acquaintance with my own or another individual’s life and personality, had determined the archetypal dynamics operative in that person’s biography and then constructed an appropriate planetary diagram to match—though in reality this diagram represented the actual positions of the planets at the time of that person’s birth.
This certainly would have been striking in itself, yet even more extraordinary were the correlations between specific transits and the timing of major events and psychological conditions. Expanding upon my initial observations, I observed that the continuously moving planets as listed in the astronomical tables consistently seemed to cross, or transit, the planetary positions in the birth chart in coincidence with times in a person’s life that in archetypal terms were uncannily appropriate. In each instance the particular meaning and character of significant life experiences closely corresponded to the postulated meaning of the planetary transits occurring at that time. The more systematically I examined the two sets of variables—planetary positions and biographical events—the more impressive were the correspondences.
Yet there were also problems and discrepancies. A considerable portion of the astrological tradition was so vague, overspecific, or quaintly irrelevant as to make useful correlations unobtainable. I came to suspect that a number of conventional astrological tenets were no more than inherited ad hoc formulae that had been gradually solidified into established doctrine, elaborated, and passed down over the centuries much like the epicyclical accretions of medieval astronomy. Certainly much astrological theory and practice
entirely lacked critical rigor. It seemed to me that considerable waste, misdirection, and even harm occurred as a result of many astrological teachings and consultations.
Nevertheless, a certain core of the astrological tradition—above all, the planetary correspondences with specific archetypal principles, and the importance of major geometrical alignments between the planets—appeared to have a substantial empirical basis. As time passed, I applied the same mode of analysis to the lives of more and more persons in a widening circle of inquiry, with equally illuminating results. The more exact the available data and the more deeply familiar I was with the person or event, the more compelling were the correspondences. Both the quantity and the quality of positive correlations made my initial skepticism difficult to sustain. The coincidence between planetary positions and appropriate biographical and psychological phenomena was in general so precise and consistent as to make it altogether impossible for me to regard the intricate patterning as merely the product of chance.
I should clarify that the focus of this research was not the astrology of the fortune-teller and the newspaper columns. It bore no resemblance to sun-sign horoscope predictions. In contrast to my previous uninformed impression of the subject, the mode of inquiry that gradually emerged was, I discovered, an intellectually demanding method of analysis, mathematically precise and even elegant in form, that used all the planets and their shifting geometrical alignments with each other, and that required a constant reciprocal interaction between archetypal insight and empirical rigor. Moreover, an essential characteristic of this analysis was that it did not predict specific events or personality traits. Rather, it articulated the deeper archetypal dynamics of which events and traits were the concrete expression. This it seemed to do with astonishing precision and subtlety.
Compared with the more rigid determinism and literalism that characterized much of the astrological tradition, the evidence I encountered pointed to a rather different understanding of astrological “influence” on human affairs. This newer understanding better recognized the critical significance of both the particular context and the participatory human role, and it challenged the possibility and appropriateness of specific concrete prediction. A key to this emerging perspective, I came to realize, was the concept of archetype as developed by Jung, taking into account not only its complex Platonic, Kantian, and Freudian background but also its more recent evolution in depth psychology through the work of James Hillman, Stanislav Grof, and others. Only as I more fully appreciated the multidimensional and multivalent nature of archetypes—their formal coherence and consistency that could give rise to a plurality of meaning and possible manifestation—did I begin to discern the precise nature of astrological correlations.
The archetypes associated with specific planetary alignments were equally apt to express themselves in the interior life of the psyche as in the external world of concrete events, and often both at once. In addition, any particular manifestation of a given archetype could be “positive” or “negative,” benign or destructive, admirable or ignoble, profound or trivial. Closely linked yet entirely opposite polarities contained in the same archetypal complex could be expressed in coincidence with the same planetary configuration. Individuals with the same alignment could be on either the acting or the receiving end of the same archetypal gestalt, with altogether different experiential consequences. Which of all these related multivalent possibilities occurred seemed to be determined largely by contingent circumstances and individual response rather than by anything observable in the birth chart or planetary alignments per se. My eventual conclusion was that the archetypal principles at work in these correlations were powerful but radically participatory in nature. That is, though they represented enduring, structurally decisive forms or essences of complex meaning, and were clearly discernible underlying the flux and diversity of the observed phenomena, these principles were also both fundamentally shaped by many relevant circumstantial factors and co-creatively modulated and enacted through human will and intelligence.
Because of this distinctive combination of dynamic archetypal multivalence and sensitivity to particular conditions and human participation, I gradually came to recognize that, contrary to its traditional reputation and deployment, such an astrology is not concretely predictive but, rather, archetypally predictive. Compared with, for example, the aims and modus operandi of various forms of intuitive divination and clairvoyance, with which astrology in earlier eras was often systematically conjoined, the essential structure of this emerging astrological paradigm appeared to be focused not on the prediction of specific concrete outcomes but rather on the precise discernment of archetypal dynamics and their complex unfolding in time.13 This understanding greatly clarified for me numerous long-standing issues surrounding astrology, such as the question of fate versus free will, the problem of identical planetary configurations coinciding with concretely different though archetypally parallel phenomena, and the fundamental inadequacy of statistical tests for detecting most astrological correlations.
In essence, astrology seemed to offer a singularly valuable kind of insight into the dynamic activity of archetypes in human experience—indicating which ones were most operative in a specific instance, in what combinations, during which periods of time, and as part of what larger patterns. In providing such a perspective, this emerging development of the astrological tradition can be seen as essentially continuing and deepening the depth psychology project: namely, to make conscious the unconscious, to help free the conscious self from being a puppet of unconscious forces (as in acting out, projection, inflated identification, drawing towards one as “fate” what is repressed or unconscious, and so forth). Such an astrology appeared to possess a unique capacity for mediating a heightened level of communication and coordination between consciousness and the unconscious, with “the unconscious” now suggestive of considerably larger dimensions than originally conceived—less exclusively personal, less subjective, more cosmically embedded. It provided this mediation, however, not by spelling out anything in a literalistic predictive manner, but rather by disclosing intelligible patterns of meaning whose very nature and complexity—multivalence, indeterminacy, sensitivity to context and participation, and a seemingly improvisatory creativity—were precisely what made possible a dynamically co-creative role for human agency in participatory interaction with the archetypal forces and principles involved.
As the evidence itself pointed in this direction, I eventually extended my research to encompass various categories of historical and cultural phenomena. Compared with the psychotherapeutic data and biographical material involving nonfamous individuals on which I initially had focused, the timing and character of historically significant events and the biographical data of major cultural figures presented the advantage of being publicly verifiable, so that planetary correspondences were more open to rigorous evaluation. Beyond this methodological concern, the possibility that the larger historical process might itself possess some intrinsic order relative to planetary cycles and universal archetypes seemed especially deserving of investigation. Evidence for such an order would obviously have serious implications in many fields—history, cosmology, philosophy, psychology, ethics, religion. I therefore took the basic principles for which the earlier correlations had given support and began a systematic study in this larger domain of research.
Together with many colleagues and students, I have now steadily pursued this research for three decades. What I have found far surpassed my expectations. Much remains a mystery, and certainly much will always remain a mystery, but I have become convinced, after the most painstaking investigation and critical assessment of which I am capable, that there does in fact exist a highly significant—indeed a pervasive—correspondence between planetary movements and human affairs, and that the modern assumption to the contrary has been erroneous. The evidence suggests not that the planets themselves cause various events or character traits, but rather that a consistently meaningful
empirical correspondence exists between the two sets of phenomena, astronomical and human, with the connecting principle most fruitfully approached as some form of archetypally informed synchronicity.
In the following chapters I set forth several of the major categories of evidence with which I personally have been concerned, and I discuss their broader implications. I have striven to present this material to readers new to the field in such a way that it is at once readily comprehensible, manageable in size, and representative of the whole, even though the accumulated evidence from which the present sampling is drawn comprises many thousands of meticulously analyzed correlations. This larger body of research has been the subject of many lecture courses and seminars I have taught over the past decade in graduate programs in psychology, philosophy, and cultural history. A systematic treatment of this research will require more than a single book. Yet it seemed desirable to set forth first a preliminary survey of evidence that would give the interested reader a general sense for the nature of the observed correspondences.
Many critics will of course object to the entire project of this book. Anything astrological, they will say, must be both simplistic and absurd. Having once held that opinion myself, I now believe that such an indiscriminate rejection is virtually always based on personal and cultural prejudice rather than conscientious inquiry. I can sympathize with such a prejudice, and I appreciate its background. For myself, however, a sustained examination of the evidence has been decisive. I believe that the open-minded reader who sincerely seeks to discover the potential validity and value of this perspective and method of analysis and who carefully examines the evidence—above all, the evidence pertaining to his or her own life and fields of personal expertise, which that person is especially able to assess—will be as impressed as I continue to be with the striking character and precision of the correlations. The method of analysis described in the following chapters is highly democratic: It is not unlike the telescope in Galileo’s time, through which any interested person could observe the new body of evidence supporting the Copernican hypothesis. Every reader with a modest degree of preparation can take the principles set forth in this book, focus on those experiences and events that are most personally significant in his or her life, and determine whether the archetypal astrological understanding offers a larger perspective, sheds new light, brings deeper meaning, provides greater intelligibility.
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