Horseness

"One of Plato's critics once stated,

 'I see particular horses, but not horseness.'

Plato answered,

 'That is because you have eyes but no intelligence."

-Richard Tarnas The Passion of the Western Mind

            There are things that humans can sense and things that humans can perceive. Often times the things which are the most perceptible are insensible, like love, or god, or joy. Those things which are sensible are often imperceptible, like color, or taste, or sound. It is the uncanny magic of the human experience that it is able to balance the duality of the material, sensible world with the transcendent, perceptible realm. Humans have gazed at the lights of heaven for millennia, charting the paths and positions of celestial bodies whilst narrating those very journeys with complex and profound mythologies which seek to explain the interdependent nature of the material world. Whether to justify the circle of life that intimately connects humans with the animal and plant kingdoms, or to imbue the seemingly chaotic human experience with divine purpose, mythology has always been the perceptual counterpart to the sensible world.      Astrology, the study of the relatedness of the celestial and terrestrial spheres, is an idyllic example of human's capacity to see beyond what is seen; to see the horseness beyond the horse. A seamless combination of mythical archetypes, visual observations, and mathematical magic, astrology, like human, stands astride the boundaries of perception and sense, bridging the great gap between the human psyche and the cosmos. Astrology, as an approach to mythology, has not only ensured the survival of the gods and goddesses whose stories inform astrological theory and practice but it has in fact suggested that their very existence lies within the archetypal consciousness of each individual. From its birth in the Fertile Crescent, through a sophisticated maturation in ancient Greece and a number of renaissances, including that of the modern period, astrology has served as a vessel that both holds and forms the mythic imaginings of humankind.   

            At the dawn of civilization, in a vastly open skied part of the world, astrology and mythology were one. The Babylonian cosmos envisioned the celestial realm as a literal heaven, and the beings that inhabited it were the gods and goddesses. Indeed, the languages of the ancient near east, Akkadian and Sumerian, make no differentiation between the words that signify the physically manifested planet stars and the words which refer to the god power within them (Jacobsen 7). Marduk and Shamash, among others, were believed to reside in the unpredictable stars which bore their names and observation of them was necessary in order to both understand the will of the gods, and to align ones actions with that will so as to avoid imminent evil (Hunger 6).

            The Babylonians catalogued many of their astrological omens in a text known as the Enuma Anu Enlil, or When Anu and Enli'. The omens in this text, prognostications based upon the activities of Babylonian deities in their planetary forms, generally referred to the destiny or duty of the king. The text begins with an introduction which "traces the order of heaven and earth back to the gods Anu, Enlil, and Ea" (Hunger 14) thereby establishing a divine purpose to everything that might occur in the heavenly sphere. It follows naturally that this divine purpose is made visible to man by the night sky as a means for understanding the desires of the gods and goddesses; an astral scripture not too unlike a certain tablet handed to Moses in a nearby part of the world. The Babylonian astral legacy that would be inherited by the Greeks after the conquests of Alexander the Great would evolve into a sophisticated system of mathematics, observations, and philosophical theory while still relying on the mythological correlations that had been established in its earliest days.

            Despite some very successful attempts to collect the extent Greek astrological texts, there is simply no way to know how much material has been lost or what has yet to be recovered. The main source available to scholars of Hellenistic astrology is the Catalogue of Greek Astrological Codices, or CCAG, that was compiled by David Pingree in the mid 20^th century. Much of this material has been translated by Robert Schmidt from Project Hindsight, however, due to the rarity of the texts, the complexity of the Greek language, and the sheer volume of information awaiting discussion, there is very little cross examination of the material and thus, very little consensus on it's interpretation. Although there are astrologers who believe that Hellenistic astrology was a theoretical construct that used primarily the nuances of the Greek language itself along with astronomical observations, as opposed to the mythical attributes of the planets and zodiacal constellations, the unreliability of the texts and the limited translations of them ensures that revelation of a coherent system of astrological theory is impossible. In order to understand the connections, or lack thereof, between astrology and mythology in the mind of a Hellenistic astrologer one can only examine the philosophical, cultural, and cosmological paradigms within which they would have worked.

            In the wake of the conquests of Alexander, the dynamic philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, and the artistic expressions of the classical Greek period such as the tragedies and the epics, the Hellenistic astrologer would likely have been freed of the archaic notions that the gods and goddesses of Homer and Hesiod actually resided on Mount Olympus, supervising the lives of humans while navigating their own personal dramas, but rather the Hellenistic astrologer would have been more likely to believe that "the cosmos as a whole is expressive of a pervasive intelligence that gives to nature it's purpose and design, and [that] this  intelligence is directly accessible to human awareness" (Tarnas Passion70). This shift in consciousness from a pagan mindset to that of a sophisticated Greek by no means diminished the power of the mythological figures associated with the heavenly bodies, in fact, it is arguably because of their new non-material status that they became mythic; once divested of their anthropomorphic identities their archetypal significance could be clearly discerned. It is at this point when the gods and goddesses had lost their humanity that the Greek mind could perceive of them as stars.

            The first Greek author to explicitly correlate the planets with the gods and goddesses was none other than Plato. In the Epinomis he "postulated a cosmic association between the planets and specific gods, speaking of them as cosmic powers and visible deities" (Tarnas Cosmos 89). Although Plato was not an astrologer and therefore did not discuss the attribution of mythological characteristics to the planets specifically, the saturation of archetypal images associated with the planetary gods and goddesses would have immediately inundated any Greek person living in the Axial and Hellenistic Periods, though the latter would have responded differently to the images, recognizing them as expressions on the visage of the cosmic Nous to be read much in the way one reads body language. That the Hellenistic astrologers never overtly assert that the significations of a particular planet are rooted in the mythic stories associated with the planetary deities is simply a testament to the starkness of the correlation.

            Comparing a strictly astrological text with mythological stories may provide a more palpable experience of the connection. Here is an excerpt from the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite:  

Vettius Valens (b.120CE), an astrologer from Antioch whose works have been almost entirely collected and translated describes the planet Aphrodite (Venus) as follows:

Aside from both sharing the archetypal message of beauty, femininity, and love, the similarities of the details are too explicit to be inconsequential, or worse, coincidental. Though each planet's significations harmonizes broadly and specifically with the mythical identity of the god or goddess who shares its name, and while many of the zodiacal constellations have inextricable ties to mythological stories, mythology forms and informs astrology at an even deeper, though more subtle, level. Very likely developed as one element of the multi faceted Hermetic system, astrology's very existence is embedded within a tradition that is rich with mythological significance and connotation. 

            There is one golden thread that undoubtedly binds the Hellenistic astrologers to each other and to mythology; the figure known as Hermes Trismegistus is widely celebrated as the being who bestowed upon humans knowledge of astrology, magic, and other divine arts. Drawing on the extensive research of Festugiere and Gundel, Garth Fowden describes the prolificacy of Hermes Trismegistus in the ancient astrological tradition:

                        It is in the astrological literature that we find the most frequent                                           attributions to Hermes, to the point that even other generally                                           acknowledged authorities in this field- the gods Asclepius and Isis, for                                  example, the priest Petosiris and King Nechepso- were all thought of

                        as pupils of Hermes, or at least as expositors of Hermetic doctrine.                                      (Fowden 2)

Possibly a man who became enshrouded in mystical legend, Hermes Trismegistus is a myth himself. Balancing the attributes of the Greek Hermes with the Egyptian Thoth, Hermes Trismegistus is an amalgamation that "well illustrates the tensions that arose from the encounter of these two strong-minded cultural traditions" (Fowden 22). Assuming the roles of magician, priest, psychopomp, sage, astrologer, doctor, and philosopher, Hermes Trismegistus embodied and married Egyptian and Greek mythology while simultaneously providing humankind with a cosmological and theoretical orientation in which free will could exist. Through devotion to the Hermetic arts humans had the opportunity to learn the ebbs and flows of the cosmic ocean, the sympathetic correspondences between the material and divine realms, the healing properties of herbs, and the efficacy of ritual magic. The Hermetic system exposed that "Man's crippling disability is his ignorance; and the Hermetist's highest aspiration [is] to overcome that ignorance, and by helping man to understand his true nature, bring him at last to know God and assert his own divinity" (Fowden 105). The aim of the Hermetic arts is to sever the ties that bind humans to the corporeal and to reunite them with the patiently awaiting, ever receptive primordial Nous. Astrology can therefore be appreciated as a physical means to a mythological end; an instrument that called upon material powers to convey divine mythic messages while substantiating the mythological world view in which it exists.

            With the rise in power of the Christian church, astrology, mythology, and the other Hermetic arts were immediately recognized as potential threats to the prevailing dogma of the Hellenistic Era. In 313CE, the Roman emperor Constantine legally made Christianity the official religion on the Roman Empire, thereby sending many astrologers either underground or eastward. Astrology and the Hermetic Arts, retaining the mythological tradition of the pagan world, would be openly received outside of the Roman nucleus, eventually being embraced and enhanced by the highly affluent, avant-garde intellectuals of Islam's high culture. They would remain exiled from their birthplace in the Western world for nearly one thousand years until that fateful day in 1460 when Cosimo de Medici handed a copy of the Corpus Hermeticum to Marsilio Ficino.  

            The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries relished in the rediscovery of the classical material that had been cherished and supported by the Arabic world. Magical texts, astrological treatises, the works of Plato and Hermes Trismegistus flooded into the West carrying with them such potent imagery that the foundations of Christianity would be shaken to the core, the effects of which would not be fully realized until the nineteenth century when Friedrich Nietzche proclaims "God is Dead." Jean Seznec describes the situation in the early Renaissance:

                        Still in full force in the sixteenth century, astrology continued to keep                                 alive the veneration for the gods for which it had served as a shelter since                             classical times. Attempts might be made to Christianize or laicize this                             veneration, to bring it into line with theology or reduce it to a rational                                    theory of universal law; it still bore the imprint of those mythological                                  powers whose names had been preserved by the stars. (Seznec 62)

It is his well argued supposition that the survival of the pagan gods was due to the astrological tradition which not only carried them through the ages but instilled in them an undeniable power by binding them to the heavenly bodies. Seznec points out that despite the rising tradition of humanism and its opposition to fated ideologies such as astrology, humans still feared the authority and dominance of the pagan gods. "At the very moment when great thinkers are striving to throw off the humiliating yoke of the cosmic bodies as such, they tremble before the mysterious divinities which inhabit them" (Seznec 61). Unlike the philosopher astrologers of the Hellenistic period, humans in the middle ages and Renaissance appear to have reanimated the celestial divinities with a power and identity that bears greater resemblance to the Homeric understanding of the gods and goddesses then to the refined and sophisticated philosophical, archetypal recognition of Plato and the Hermetists. It would take a post modern mind to finally sever the anthropomorphic identities of the planetary gods and goddesses from their archetypal significance; to revolutionize, in the Copernican sense of the word, the space in which these enduring deities exist.

            Modern astrologers have struggled to stay afloat in a disenchanted universe. The astrological community is fraught with sharp distinctions and divisions amongst different schools of thought and practice. Modern astrology is as fractured as the gods and goddesses of the celestial sphere. Far from the fearful and controlling gods and goddesses that once demanded worship and placation, who threatened the supremacy of an almighty god, whatever his name might be, the planets are now believed to be nothing more than heaps of matter devoid of any sacred connotation and certainly incapable of affecting the lives of humans on Earth. The planets have fallen from grace. By emulating the very creatures they were supposed to be in command of, the planetary gods and goddesses committed their own form of hubris and have been severely punished. The postmodern mind may be the only one capable of restoring them to their thrones. The works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung have revealed a realm over which the planetary gods and goddesses might rightfully rule. Their relegation to the confines of the human psyche ensures their survival through the disenchanted contemporary world view and by recognizing their presence within, humans may be able to reignite that divine spark that once animated our world

Works Cited

Fowden, Garth. The Egyptian Hermes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 1986

Hunger, Herman and Pingree, David. Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia.  Netherlands: Brill             1999

Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion.        New Haven, CT: Yale UP 1976

Sargent, Thelma. The Homeric Hymns New York: Norton and Company Inc. 1973

Schmidt, Robert. Kepler College Sourcebook of Hellenistic Astrology Cumberland, MD:              Project Hindsight 2005

Seznec, Jean. The Survival of the Pagan Gods. New York: Bollingen Foundation 1953

Tarnas, Richard. Cosmos and Psyche. New York: Penguin Group 2007

Deconstructing Jung: Astrology and Archetypal Theory

            On February 17 of the year 1600 Giordano Bruno, an astrologer, scientist, and Renaissance magus, was burned at the stake. From that day forth being an astrologer has been risky, to say the least. Although modern astrologers are unlikely to face heresy trials and subsequent executions, they are at risk of being labeled as insane, stupid, or both and are therefore in a constant state of desperation and anxiety regarding the acceptance of their craft. Much in the same way a poor peasant boy might steal a loaf of bread from a prosperous baker at the local bazaar, astrologers take whatever they can from influential thinkers who enjoy a higher status in the intellectual community than themselves.

             Astrologers have lived off of the affluence of Carl Jung for decades. His noted interest in astrology, the effectiveness of his theory of synchronicity for explaining the inexplicable accuracy of astrological phenomena, as well as the harmonious relationship between his archetypes and astrological doctrines all resulted in Carl Jung becoming the adopted parent of little orphan astrology. As the world moves on and Carl Jung's psychology is challenged and deconstructed the fate of little orphan astrology becomes of utmost interest. Will astrology find a new home in this Post-Jungian paradigm? Or will its dependence on Jungian theory turn into a prison from which it cannot escape? To answer these questions it is necessary to first understand the areas in which astrology is utterly tied to Jungian thought and second to guide it through the work of Post Jungian psychologists whose theories may very well be equally as embracing and supportive as those of Carl Jung.

            James Hillman is the torch bearer for Post-Jungian studies and it his he who can offer astrologers "a way out of Jung, especially his theology" (Hillman xii). Where Jung's theology, and therefore psychology, is monotheistic, Hillman emphasizes a polytheistic dimension of the psyche. Astrologers too, have fallen prey to a monotheistic view of their own art and despite their reliance on planetary deities and zodiacal myths, astrologers since the Renaissance (perhaps as a measure of safety to avoid a fate like Giordano Bruno's) have vehemently opposed belief in these deities as divine powers that control human experience. In an attempt to substantiate their craft by aligning their thoughts with Jungian theory, many astrologers believe the celestial sphere to be nothing more than a huge synchronistic projection of collective archetypes. Compared with the medieval beliefs that the planets emanated rays that caused events to happen on Earth, the theory of synchronicity is much easier for the modern mind to swallow, but by de-personifying these mythic giants, something is lost.  Just as Hillman sought to recover what Jung may have overlooked, astrologers might benefit from a Hillmanian perspective that re-deifies their planetary gods and goddesses, giving them an identity and personality that supersedes the individual human; while it is useful to know the archetypal characters that we possess it can be far more profound to experience the rush of being possessed by them. Now free from the fear of condemnation (and execution!) by the church, astrology can fully submerge itself in the living cosmos it is intimately aware of yet frightened to know so completely.

            One of the most readily observed effects of monotheism's hold on astrology is the great emphasis on the Sun in modern astrological tradition. Rather than including the multi-dimensional, polytheistic pantheon of an individual birth chart, popular astrology is based entirely upon this one star. Generally recognized as the seat of the soul, the philosopher's stone of identity, the individual to be attained, the Sun is the astrological correlate to God; in Jungian terms the Sun is the potentially individuated Self. The other planetary deities are of secondary importance, if they are recognized at all. A polytheistic astrology in which each of the planets are given equal shares in the psyche of an individual will serve two purposes: it will free the individual of what Hillman so aptly calls 'self tyranny' and it will provide a more holistic understanding of the human being as a multi faceted, complex creature incapable of being summarized by a short list of mythical characteristics based upon the placement of one all pervading solar deity at the moment of ones birth. Willing to risk the fact that "the phenomena of dissociation – breaking away, personification, multiplication, ambivalence- will always seem an illness" I agree with Hillmans belief that "these fragmenting phenomena may be understood as reassertions against central authority by the individuality of the parts" (Hillman 25). Having been swallowed by their stern and callous father, the Olympians need to be freed in order to fully engage in the lives of humans.

            Another pillar of Hillman's re-visioned psychology that would serve astrology very well is the concept of de-humanizing, or removing personal and biographical data from one's experience of an archetype. One of the greatest arguments against astrology, active now for thousands of years, is that of fate versus free will. There is nothing so frustrating to the human psyche then the possibility that it has no control. Astrology provides humans with the fuel for this fire; if my life experiences can be divined through a celestial language it must mean that my life is already determined, and therefore, what is the point of living? De-Humanization frees astrology from acting as a prognosticator of real life events and shifts the perspective to a type of archetypal meteorology. Rather than predicting particulars, such as the events that may befall ones mother, de-humanization allows astrology to explore how an individual relates to the mother archetype- the primal source of 'mother' experience.

            Combined with Hillmanian polytheistic psychology, astrology "leaves behind the riddling conundrums built upon monotheism- either religion or psychology, either one or many, either theology or mythology" (Hillman 168) to which I would add, either fate or free will. Furthermore, the de-humanized, polytheistic astrologer will make no religious enemies because unlike the monotheistic psychological model that astrology has recently aligned with, a new polytheistic view in which the gods are imagined and approached psychically inherently doubts "their theological substantiality and literal existence" (Hillman 170) thereby posing no threat to those religions which believe in their gods literally. Hillman lays to rest the argument that astrologers worship false gods when he reminds us that "It is possible to imagine in one style and worship in another" (Hillman 170).

            Astrology's compatibility with Hillmans archetypal psychology bodes well for it's survival in battles with the outside world, but what of it's own internal struggles? How can an archetypal perspective aid astrological practice and self reflection? Like psychology, astrology is plagued with an acceptance and propagation of the medical model. Astrology and astrologers are concerned with symptoms and their celestial causes, often making excuses for behavior or setting timelines for actions. Rather than facing the forthcoming cosmic storm, astrologers would rather take a metaphorical Prozac and wait for auspicious moments. Rather then revel in the pain and glory of life, astrologers prefer to diagnose problems as belonging to one planetary complex or another and they often assert that if only the individual could integrate that particular planetary disposition into their conscious ego, perhaps their suffering could be alleviated. Again, how much is lost in the battle against our symptoms and how do we begin to recover without completely recovering?

            Pathologizing is Hillman's solution for reliance upon the medical model. In his words, pathologizing means "the psyches autonomous ability to create illness, morbidity, disorder, abnormality, and suffering in any aspect of its behavior and to experience life through this deformed and afflicted perspective" (Hillman 57). Pathologizing creates a bit of an astrological conundrum: what does astrology do if not provide answers for life's illnesses, morbidity, disorders, abnormalities, and suffering? The deconstructing process has reached the root of astrology's ontological mystery. If pathologizing invites us to "follow the soul wherever it leads… to learn what the imagination is doing in its madness" (Hillman 74) then perhaps pathologizing astrologically is an invitation to witness the private life of the greater universe- the cosmic psyche. Perhaps drifting away from a monotheistic, symptom focused astrology will land us on the shores of opportunity- a chance to be the cosmos rather than to just reflect a moment in its life.

            Thus far I have explored astrology in terms of three of Hillman's four 'pillars' of archetypal psychology. I have saved the best for last. At this point it seems important to point out that the word planet is a derivative of the Greek verb planeo, which means to wander or to lead astray. Designated as such because the heavenly bodies we know as planets were recognized by the Greeks as those stars which strayed from the path of the others, astrology at its core is a study of wandering. Hillman's final cornerstone, psychologizing, is also a study of wandering. Likened to the journey of the Knight Errant aiding the poor, psychologizing "liberates the parts of the soul trapped in the poverty of materialistic perspectives" (Hillman 161). Astrologers have been trapped in their inability to conform to materialistic perspectives and have suffered dearly because of it. Psychologizing can help astrologers gain confidence in their ability to lead people astray; to beckon them down a path of nonsense, storytelling, and fantasy. "Psychologizing arrives at no conclusions, for to make a point is to come to a stop. So the errant path also follows Plato's and Plotinus' description of the course of the soul as circular" (Hillman 163). The orbit of the planets around the sun, the shape of our cosmos and our Earth, the motion of the microcosm and the macrocosm, the circle is a perfect shape of eternity. Survival in a Post-Jungian, Post-Hillmanian, Post-Modern world is dependent upon the ability to assume a circular position and form. Good thing astrology is comfortable spinning in circles.

Works Cited

Hillman, James Re-Visioning Psychology New York: Harper & Row 1977