The new impulses and developments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the second half of the 1980s that were characteristic of the Uranus-Neptune complex—emancipatory, unitive, innovative—did not arise smoothly but rather precipitated considerable resistance and strife. Throughout just these years, from 1985 to 1991, Saturn was in a rare triple conjunction with Uranus and Neptune, the only one of the twentieth century. The tensions between the old order and the new, the various collapsing structures and destabilizations, and the increasing loss of faith in the communist dream—a collective shift of consciousness widely catalyzed by television broadcasts that crossed borders and revealed the reality of life beyond the Iron Curtain—all reflected themes typical of these planetary complexes in intricate tense interplay.
It was precisely when Jupiter moved into close opposition alignment to this triple Saturn-Uranus-Neptune conjunction from the summer of 1989 to the summer of 1990 that the revolutions that swept Eastern Europe took place, as did the release of Nelson Mandela and the beginning of the end of apartheid in South Africa. The atmosphere of collective euphoria in the witnessing of seemingly miraculous sudden radical change, almost entirely nonviolent, accompanied by a definite spiritual dimension (as articulated by Václav Havel, for example), was eloquently reflective of the characteristic archetypal themes associated with the combination of Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. The fall of the previously impenetrable Berlin Wall and the dismantling of the long dividing barrier between East and West Germany took place with such astonishing speed that reporters and photographers were forced to run frantically simply to record it. As the Associated Press reported: “And wherever the dike collapsed, rivers of cheering, weeping Germans burst through.” Here we see the characteristic Neptunian metaphors—rivers of people weeping—combined with the Saturn-Uranus motif of suddenly collapsing structures, amid the Jupiter-Uranus themes of euphoria, dazzling speed, and freedom’s sudden victory.
The liberation not only of millions of people from the oppression of Soviet communism but of the collective consciousness of the international community from the imprisonment of the Cold War and its constant threat of nuclear apocalypse precisely coincided with the period of this multi-planet alignment. Also appropriate to the Uranus-Neptune complex in particular was the decisive spread throughout the world of the democratic ideal in the years of the conjunction. The synthesis of the emancipatory Promethean impulse with a mythically embodied idealism was vividly illustrated in the spring of 1989 by the appearance in Tiananmen Square of the Goddess of Liberty statue constructed by Chinese student rebels.14
The spectacular transformation of both individual and collective experience produced by the rapid development and dissemination of high technology, above all the personal computer and the Internet, is of course basic to an understanding of this entire era and is equally reflective of the characteristic motifs of the Uranus-Neptune archetypal complex. Here we can briefly note a few major themes that clearly reflect the combination of Uranus and Neptune: the synthesis of technological innovation with radical changes in consciousness, the unprecedented speeding up of the flow of information and the internal experience of life, the ceaseless stream and instantaneity of communication produced by email, the sense of unlimited interconnectivity, the accelerated dissolving of boundaries (relational, global, economic, epistemological). The experiential dimension of these changes clearly reflects the Uranus-Neptune complex in the sudden, liberating and, to many, bewildering opening up of unlimited networks of connections and access to new sources of data. So also the addictive, druglike, trance-inducing aspect of Internet use.
Equally suggestive of this archetypal gestalt are such characteristic terms and metaphors as “cyberspace,” the “World Wide Web,” “surfing the datastream,” “hypertext,” and the dynamic and nonlinear amorphous “sea” of virtually infinite sources of information, complexly interconnected through hypertext links, all mediated by genie-like search engines that have revolutionized the search for and transmission of knowledge. The many allusions to the Internet as facilitating the emergence of a “global mind,” “Gaia mind,” the “Teilhardian noosphere,” and “Indra’s net,” with Internet connections, high-speed fiber-optic cable (much of it undersea), and wireless technology that can potentially link every individual node of consciousness to every other on the planet, clearly reflect the Uranus-Neptune archetypal complex. We can also recognize the distinctive signs of this planetary combination in the widespread utopian, even mystical aspirations that emerged during these years in direct connection with the new technologies.
Many characteristic Uranus-Neptune themes were evident in the sciences during these same years. The rise of theories of hyperspace, alternative realities, virtual particles, invisible dark matter and dark energy, and multidimensional string theory (with the universe composed of strings “so small that a direct observation would be tantamount to reading the text on this page from a distance of 100 light-years”) all suggest this archetypal gestalt. Similarly reflective of the Uranus-Neptune complex is the increasingly popular “multiverse” theory, with our universe seen as but one of countless other universes existing in other dimensions, with new self-reproducing inflationary universes being endlessly produced out of black holes and big bangs like bubbles out of an infinite sea of bubbles. Here we see the spontaneous rise in the scientific mind of Neptunian metaphors and qualities (sea, bubbles, infinity, invisible dimensions of reality, unfettered speculative imagination) combined with Uranian themes (astronomical science, surprising new realities, ceaseless cosmic creativity and new beginnings).
More generally, the rapid rise of cosmology itself and the catalyzing of creative cosmological speculation during this alignment is a correlation we have observed repeatedly in association with the Uranus-Neptune cycle. Such speculations and theoretical advances were greatly accelerated throughout these years by new data made possible by improved telescope technology, computer-based image processing, satellites, and probes (much as Galileo’s telescope provided a similar stimulus for new understandings of the solar system and the cosmos centuries earlier during another such alignment). Remarkably, at the beginning of the Uranus-Neptune conjunction, the first images of the planets Uranus and Neptune themselves were sent back to Earth by Voyager II, in 1986 and 1989, respectively. Evidence for the existence of planets outside our own solar system was demonstrated in a series of discoveries beginning in 1989, with more than one hundred extrasolar planets discovered by the end of the alignment period. The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite’s discovery, announced in 1992, of primordial ripples in the cosmos that date from three hundred thousand years after the big bang provided unprecedentedly precise information for such crucial cosmological parameters as the deep structure, geometry, and expansion rate of the universe. Yet the most spectacular stream of revelations was provided by the Hubble Space Telescope, “the single most important instrument ever made in astronomy.”
Launched during the Jupiter-Uranus-Neptune alignment of 1989–90 that also coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution, the Hubble Telescope transmitted images year after year during this conjunction that made possible an extraordinary series of astronomical advances. Its four hundred thousand parts making it perhaps the most complex instrument ever constructed, the space telescope enabled astronomers to calculate the age and expansion rate of the universe and opened human vision and the human imagination to cosmic realities across vast distances in both space and time. Countless discoveries were announced during the alignment. As the end of the Uranus-Neptune conjunction approached in 2004 (and in coincidence with the Jupiter-Uranus opposition that occurred one full cycle and fourteen years after that of its launch), the Hubble made possible the deepest telescopic view into the universe ever obtained by humankind. Among the ten thousand new galaxies it revealed were what appeared to be infant galaxies that emerged during the first half-billion years after the big bang, in the “dark ages” before the formation of
stars was possible.15 The era of the Uranus-Neptune conjunction was repeatedly celebrated by both scientists and journalists as having produced a “golden age” and a “renaissance” in astronomy.
The character of much scientific discourse and theory during this period suggested yet other expressions of the same archetypal complex, such as the growing ascendancy of systems theory, complexity theory, and chaos theory with their focus on ever-shifting networks of relationship, nonlinear dynamics, and the complex interdependence of living systems. Here too could be mentioned the widespread popularity of holistic and participatory scientific perspectives such as those of David Bohm (wholeness and the implicate order in physics), Ilya Prigogine (the theory of dissipative or non-equilibrium structures in chemistry), Rupert Sheldrake (morphic field theory in biology), Barbara McClintock (“a feeling for the organism” in biological and genetic research), Edgar Morin (transdisciplinary complex holism in both social and physical sciences), Stuart Kauffman and the Santa Fe Institute (self-organization and complexity in evolution), Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela (the theory of autopoeisis and enactive co-creation of reality in cognitive neuroscience), and Ervin Laszlo (the postulation of a “psi field” that acts as an underlying cosmic plenum or superfluid energy sea that conserves all information and conveys interconnected patterns of coherence), among many others.
Several overlapping Uranus-Neptune motifs were often visible in a single theory, as in Mark and Dianna McMenamin’s “Hypersea” hypothesis in geology and evolutionary biology, in which the subject matter examined, the metaphors used, and the principles posited all reflect this specific archetypal field (sea and ocean, fluid interconnectedness, symbiosis, all terrestrial life forms in their extraordinary diversity seen as a single intricately nested inclusive life form joined by its inner sea of nutrient-carrying body fluids). Suggestive of yet other motifs of this archetypal complex are Terrence Deacon’s work on the evolutionary consequences of symbolic cognition (The Symbolic Species) and George Lakoff’s and Mark Johnson’s exploration of the pervasively metaphorical character of human perception and understanding (Metaphors We Live By). The sharp rise in interest in a multidisciplinary “science of consciousness” during the 1990s expressed in many conferences, journals, and academic programs is another characteristic expression of the Uranus-Neptune complex.
An expecially vivid reflection of this archetypal field was the rapprochement between science on the one hand and religion, theology, and spirituality on the other that was visible in the countless books and symposia devoted to such themes during the decade of the 1990s. The widely followed dialogues held between Western scientists and the Dalai Lama, as well as the decade-long research project that studied the biology and neuoroscience of meditation pursued in cooperation with the Dalai Lama and Buddhist monks that was begun in 1992, were typical expressions of the Uranus-Neptune complex that was constellated in the collective psyche at this time. The “neurology of religious experience” became a notable subject of scientific research and public discussion. Equally characteristic of this archetypal impulse was the widespread aspiration to reconcile religious perspectives with evolutionary theories, whether by synthesizing ancient Asian mystical ideas with contemporary Western science, generating theories of intelligent design shaped by biblical principles, or developing sophisticated philosophical and cosmological conceptions influenced by such thinkers as Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead.
A radically heightened fluidity and openness entered into the major religious traditions of the world during this era: Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Taoist, the various indigenous and shamanic streams in South and North America, Africa, and Australia. The complex interminglings, dialogues, and creative fusions of these traditions took place, both within cultures and within individuals, with unprecedented speed and depth during the years of this Uranus-Neptune conjunction. Within the specific traditions themselves, major reformations and even revolutionary developments took place, with creative changes in ritual, doctrine, hierarchical structures, and practices. Many of these changes reflected the influence of the emancipatory streams that had developed during previous Uranus alignments, moving the mainstream religious traditions to become more democratized and antihierarchical, more socially emancipatory across genders and sexual orientations, and more socially and politically engaged.
More specifically, this period brought a many-sided impulse in the various religious traditions to open themselves to the embrace of values clearly associated with the Uranus-Neptune archetypal complex of meanings—to become less rigidly structured and separate, more relational, more open to the whole, more ecological and cosmological, more integrally embodied, more directly experiential, more open to the mystical dimension of religion, more pluralistic and dialogical, more oriented to the larger world community, and, in many senses of the word, more participatory. All these developments are suggestive of a catalyzed Promethean impulse that expressed itself through and within the domain of Neptune—religion and spirituality, the dissolving of boundaries, the movement towards unity and interconnectedness.
Apart from these more liberalizing trends, the period of this conjunction coincided with that general heightening of religiosity throughout the world that has been a characteristic theme of Uranus-Neptune epochs. Many Christian movements—Pentecostal, evangelical, charismatic, revivalist, holiness—during these years underwent dramatic growth that began in local communities and moved out into the world through both traditional missionary efforts and the disseminating powers of electronic communications media. Driving the growth was an upsurge of charismatic phenomena, intensely emotional religious rituals, faith healings, rebirth experiences, numinous visitations, and other forms of personal spiritual transformation. The era’s heightening of religiosity took a wide diversity of forms in many religions—dramatically in Islam but scarcely less so in the resurgence of Russian Orthodoxy and Slavic Catholicism, the spread of Mormonism, the rise of Korean megachurches, of grassroots Chinese movements, of South American syncretistic churches—that were all clearly suggestive of a strongly constellated Uranus-Neptune complex in the collective psyche.
As the major religious traditions underwent these various developments and transformations, with consequences that remain unforeseeable, much of the characteristic spiritual dynamism of the age took place outside the traditions. The influx of esoteric and mystical impulses into the collective psyche during the period of this conjunction was especially pronounced, as in the spread of Buddhist Vipassana meditation, Christian esotericism, and new forms of gnosticism. The remarkably widespread wave of intensified interest in the world’s mythological traditions in the aftermath of the posthumous broadcast of the Joseph Campbell interviews in the spring of 1988 is indicative of this larger movement in the culture. In the later 1980s and throughout the 1990s during this conjunction, the national best-seller lists in the United States often included an unusually high proportion of works written by Jungian and archetypally oriented authors such as Campbell, Robert Bly, Thomas Moore, Clarissa Estes, Marion Woodman, and James Hillman, and the word “soul” was in the titles of countless popular works.
Such journals as Gnosis, Alexandria, Parabola, Common Boundary, The Quest, Culture and Cosmos (England), Esoterica (United States), Esotera (Germany), and Universalia (Prague) became widely popular and were accompanied by a renewal of interest in mysticism, Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Pythagoreanism, the Kabbalah, theosophy, and anthroposophy. Scholarly conferences and books were devoted to topics such as divinatory practices in classical antiquity, the history of Hellenistic astrology, the use of psychoactive entheogens in the Eleusinian mysteries, shamanic rituals in the Amazon rainforests, esoteric currents in Renaissance art and thought, the origins of the Mithraic mystery religion, Byzantine magical practices, feminist perspectives on Tantric Buddhism, sacred geometry in Western architecture, the Rosicrucian Enlightenment, alchemy and the Hermetic tradition in seventeenth-century Prague, and the like. The
combination of the astronomical and the esoteric-mystical was reflected in heightened popular interest in archaeoastronomy, Stonehenge and the Pyramids, Native American star prophecies, the Mayan calendar, and Harmonic Convergences.
Fictional works that explored metaphysical and esoteric subjects, such as The Celestine Prophecy and The Da Vinci Code, were read by millions. The highest-selling books throughout the world during this alignment were J. K. Rowling’s series of Harry Potter novels about magic and the occult arts (beginning with The Sorcerer’s Stone or The Philosopher’s Stone, the original explicitly alchemical British title—in 1997 during the triple conjunction with Jupiter). Other characteristic Uranus-Neptune themes and topics—mystical near-death experiences, life after death, past lives, angels, auras, channeling, divination, developing the intuition and creative imagination, dream interpretation, the tarot, the I Ching, yoga, t’ai chi, holistic healing methods, mind-body healing, spiritual healing, prayer circles, bringing spirituality and social idealism into business practice, the spiritual dimension of ecology, spirituality and gender healing, dance as a spiritual path, art as a spiritual path, spiritual pilgrimages to sacred places around the world, mystical poetry—flooded the collective consciousness during the period of this conjunction. The best-selling poet in North America during the 1990s was the thirteenth-century Sufi mystical poet Rumi, in numerous translations.
More generally, the Uranus-Neptune complex was evident in what appeared to be the collective awakening of a spiritual and existential desire to merge with a greater unity—to reconnect with the Earth and all forms of life on it, with the global community, with the cosmos, with the spiritual ground of life, with the community of being. This archetypal impulse was visible as well in the new awareness of and invocation of the anima mundi, the soul of the world, the archetypal dimension of life, and in the widespread call for a reenchantment of the world—the reenchantment of nature, of science, of art, of everyday life. The archetypal gestalt associated with Uranus-Neptune especially could be discerned during this era in the nearly ubiquitous urge to overcome old separations and dualisms—between the human being and nature, spirit and matter, mind and body, subject and object, masculine and feminine, intellect and soul, cosmos and psyche—and to discover a deeper integral reality and unitive consciousness.16 All these tendencies can be understood as expressions of the archetypal impulse associated with the coniunctio oppositorum, the conjunction of opposites, and the hieros gamos, the sacred marriage. This impulse, reflecting Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and Christian mystical themes that, as we have seen, correlated with past Uranus-Neptune alignments, was articulated most recently by Jung, in the context of depth psychology, in coincidence with the preceding opposition and square alignments of this same cycle, as discussed above.
B000OVLIPQ EBOK Page 60
