Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View

by Richard Tarnas

From a philosopher whose history of Western thought was praised by Joseph Campbell & Huston Smith comes a book tracing the connection between cosmic cycles & archetypal patterns of experience. Drawing on years of research & on thinkers from Plato to Jung, Tarnas explores the planetary correlations of epochal events like the French Revolution, the world wars & 9/11. Whether read as astrology updated for the quantum age or as a contemporary classic of spirituality, Cosmos & Psyche is an important work of sophistication & learning. importance.
Preface
1 The transformation of the cosmos. The birth of the modern self
The dawn of a new universe
Two paradigms of history
Forging the self, disenchanting the world
The cosmological situation today
2 In search of a deeper order. Two suitors: a parable
The interior quest
Synchronicity & its implications
The archetypal cosmos
3 Through the archetypal telescope. The evolving tradition
Archetypal principles
The planets
Forms of correspondence
Personal transit cycles
Archetypal coherence & concrete diversity
Assessing patterns of correlation
4 Epochs of revolution. From the French Revolution to the 1960s
Synchronic & diachronic patterns in history
Scientific & technological revolutions
Awakenings of the Dionysian
The liberation of nature
Religious rebellion & erotic emancipation
Filling in the cyclical sequence
The individual & the collective
A larger view of the sixties
5 Cycles of crisis & contraction. World Wars, Cold War & 9/11
Historical contrasts & tensions
Conservative empowerment
Splitting, evil & terror
"Moby Dick" & nature's depth
Historical determinism, realpolitik & apocalypse
Moral courage, facing the shadow & the tension of opposites
Paradigmatic works of art
Forging deep structures
6 Cycles of creativity & expansion. Opening new horizons
Convergences of scientific breakthroughs
Social & political rebellions & awakenings
Quantum leaps & peak experiences
From Copernicus to Darwin
Music & literature
Iconic moments & cultural milestones
Great heights & shadows
Hidden births
7 Awakenings of spirit & soul. Epochal shifts of cultural vision
Spiritual epiphanies & the emergence of new religions
Utopian social visions
Romanticism, imaginative genius & cosmic epiphany
Revelations of the numinous
The great awakening of the Axial Age
The late 20th century & the turn of the millennium
8 Towards a new heaven & a new earth. Understanding the past, creating the future
Observations on future planetary alignments
Sources of the world order
Epilogue
Notes
Sources
Acknowledgments
Index

Genres: Astrology, Philosophy, Psychology, Nonfiction, History, Spirituality, Science

592 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1996

About the author

Richard Theodore Tarnas (born February 21, 1950) is a cultural historian known for his books The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View and Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View. Tarnas is professor of philosophy and psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is the founding director of its graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness.

Reviews

[adam prometheus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I think this book is going to change the world. Tarnas' research is absolutely astounding-- he is a well-renowned historian, and he's the only one to go into historical astrology in such depth and with such scientific dignity and prowess. 30 years in the making, Cosmos and Psyche is a mind-blowing masterpiece which presents historical eras alongside the planetary alignments and astrological events, along with the lives of historical figures, their birth charts and planetary returns, and explains carefully and explicitly the archetypal energies at play on earth and the heavenly aspects that correspond to them, emphasizing that the relationship between events in space, events on earth, and events in the mind are not in his opinion causal relationships one way or the other but are nevertheless simultaneous and correlate in a predictable manner. And he shows the evidence for this to such a great length that I don't think anyone could actually read this book and continue to view astrology as a "pseudo-science". Seriously, it straight-up proves it to be a legitimate science, and even an unbeliever in astronomy, if you could get them to read this, would have to admit that there is an uncanny relationship between human history and planetary cycles, enough so that a study of such things should be taken seriously. And I believe it will be in the near future, as this kind of understanding becomes more widespread. Tarnas' research is the key to bringing astrology back into the mainstream because it is so undeniable and without opinion or bias, it just says, here is history, and here is what the planets were doing at that time, and here are the patterns that show up. Take a look!

[Morgan Blackledge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing.

All of the "evidence" for astrology was "retro-dictive" rather than predictive.

In other words, the "research" looked at history and explained the events based on the astrology.

The idea was that the events were explainable by what an astrologer could have predicted.

And that somehow proved astrology is true.

That doesn't really prove anything.

The book had a sciencey feel.

But it was clearly not science.

I'm embarrassed that I read it.

But I did.

That was back when I still had an open mind about such things.

This 600 page monster pretty much put an end to all that.

Now I just read actual science.

It makes me feel less like I took crazy pills.

[Szplug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sure, trying to make a serious case for the cyclical positioning of the planets as having an intermediary influence upon the terrestrial course of events seems loopy and absurd in this, our high tide of technocultural rationalism - but full marks to Tarnas both for having the sheer balls to publish this obvious labour of love and for refusing to back down from the implications of his own argument. He will doubtless join the ranks of those like Koestler, who endured much maligning - and took a severe hit to his reputation - for his interest in, and turn to, the paranormal in the later stages of his eventful life - but it really does take all kinds, and this book presents a fascinating, if highly questionable means of interpreting curious and seemingly stochastic events from throughout human history.

[Owen Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has permanently altered my worldview. In short, the author, a respected scholar/scientist, presents a busload of data strongly suggesting that the movements and alignments of the outer planets of our solar system are strongly correlated (i.e., synchronistic) with certain kinds of events that repeatedly and predictably occur on Earth. Strange though it may seem, the data convincingly demonstrates that the entire solar system predicts (and perhaps influences) the trends of human history and reveals the existence of cyclical historical themes (recurring archetypes that function globally). Now you're probably saying to yourself, "Astrology? Seriously? Nonsense!" Right? I felt the same way before reading this book. My initial impression of astrology was that it contained no truth whatsoever. And, of course, much of astrology (especially horoscopes) will always be utter nonsense. Nevertheless, the type of astrology in "Cosmos and Psyche" appears to be entirely valid, and the author supports all of his ideas and conclusions with an abundance of convincing evidence. "Cosmos and Psyche" is also one of the most spiritually enlightening, intellectually stimulating, and emotionally rewarding reading experiences I've ever enjoyed. My review of this book fails to do justice to the amazing information this book contains. Note: Knowledge of the writings of Carl Jung is helpful for a full understanding of several important concepts in this book.

[Gregory Tilden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Quote me on this, that this book is an early sign of an entirely new potential re-structuring of the way we relate to the world. Most beautifully written, brought me to the point of tears as well as shakes when reading, even only 100 pages in. I hope to study with Tarnas at CIIS for graduate school.

[Abner Rosenweig · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was deceived. There is nothing in the book's title, or on the description on the back cover, or in the first 60 pages(!), that mentions the book is about astrology. If I had known this book was about astrology, I never would have bought it.

I want my money back.

Disappointment aside, Tarnas is an outstanding writer and I would eagerly read his other book, "The Passion of the Western Mind." The first two parts of "Cosmos and Psyche"--approximately the first 60 pages--are a stunning recapitulation of the development of cosmological views throughout history and an intriguing assessment of where we are and where we're headed. The astonishing scholarship and clarity of writing in the first two parts were the only reasons I decided to continue reading once the book took a nosedive off the cliff of credibility.

The main exposition of the book consists of various coincidences of astrological archetypes and historical events. While Tarnas' writing and scholarship are impressive, he never considers examples that don't fit his model, only ones that do. In this way, any system of thought, no matter how fanciful, could claim legitimacy. He even states near the end, "The researcher must engage in a constant renegotiation between theory and data, reconsidering each in the light of the other in a continuous process of recursive feedback"--namely, when facts didn't fit his theory, Tarnas simply bent his theory until the facts did fit.

In spite of the book's brilliant introduction, I am not at all convinced that astrology has merit. However, I maintain an open mind. Just because I don't see astrology's worth doesn't mean there's no value in it. As Tarnas says in the book, quoting William James, "Those who have ears to hear, let them hear."

[daemyra, the realm's delight · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first time that I had a review gone missing!!

Thankfully, the review was just an apology to Richard Tarnas for not finishing all of it 🫣

A good read for modern astrology and archetypal astrology. 👍🏽💗

Reading is academic, sometimes I am with the flow, sometimes I am lost. 😣 I’m sure for those who are comfortable with academic writing and read a lot of astrology, this is probably a comfortable read. However, this was a little inaccessible to me. Makes me a little sad 😞 but also I shouldn’t be sad. 😤 I’m not reading academic texts all the time. 🥸

PS I think it’s an interesting thought-experiment when academic authors try to write for an everyday plebeian audience… and it’s still a smidge dry. 🫠

[Giovanni Gardinale · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has radically changed my worldview. It brought me to tears several times. Tears of joy. Tears of meaning, of cosmic purpose. This book is a first handbook of the music of the spheres, let it work on you, keep an open mind and an open heart and it will deliver. It spans millennia and gives extensive evidence of a correspondence, a resonance, between the cycles of the planets and events in human history and culture.

The evidence is not of a literal kind, it's not about prophecy. It's about rythm and patterns of potentiality. The author has worked on it for 30 years and has an encyclopedic knowledge of (mostly) western cultural history.

I've discovered Tarnas thanks to a Goodreads comment that mentioned him in the section under Jung's Aion (another masterpiece) and knowledge and personal experience of archetypes helps to digest the book.

What first made it click for me is the fact that I found the archetypal correspondence of world events and planet cycles most astonishing and beautifully, intricately intelligent in the domains that I know most about (like the history of physics and philosophy) whereas I tended towards a skeptical attitude about the significance of the correspondence in other domains in which I'm more ignorant.

It has changed the way in which I see history, psychology, cosmology, metaphysics, artistic creativity and inspiration (a random list of my favourite subjects in the world) and many more.

The biggest impact, though, remains the existential one: the patterns that we can recognise the most are the ones in our own life and our own history is a fundamental part of the cosmos.

It feels particularly funny for me, because of how scornful I have been in the past towards astrology (this book is reaaaally not about horoscopes and the author is critical of mainstream, shallow, astrology) and how important it may well be in my vocation (connecting cosmos and meaning, the reason why I studied physics and philosophy in the first place).

Please, please, give it a chance

[A.J. McMahon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tarnas is not a very good writer, being one of those authors who is verbose in the extreme. He never uses one word where ten will do, and his prose style is so over-the-top that at times I just had to laugh. His ideas are interesting, however, and he expresses them so clearly as to be highly intelligible, which is a big point in his favour. His argument is that up till the Enlightenment we lived in a world in which we were a part of a larger whole, which meant among other things that meaning was objective. Tarnas then discusses a development (which was news to me, and which alone made reading this book worthwhile) called the disenchantment of the cosmos, which involved a paradigm shift which resulted in us seeing the world as merely a material process onto which we projected meaning. So far so good, and I would give him five stars up to this point (and simply forgive him his verbosity). However, he then tries to further advance his argument by putting forward evidence he has gathered over the years concerning correlations between the planets, especially Uranus and Pluto, and key developments in history and the achievements of historical figures; for example, Melville wrote Moby Dick during a particular phase of the Saturn-Pluto cycle. I found these correlations unconvincing because the outer planets move so slowly that any correlations can unfold over such a wide span of time that lots of things are bound to have been going on. Tarnas bravely has a stab at making predictions at the end of his book on the basis of his correlations but none of them to date have come true. He completely missed the Arab Spring. I will re-read the first part of the book sometime, as that was a very interesting background discussion, but I was not too impressed with the remaining sections, hence my grading of this book as average.

[Mateo · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first encountered this book at the Henry Miller Library last summer I had a vague hunch that there were answers to be found somewhere inside, so I followed up and began the complicating, invigorating, and disillusioning process. What I found was: a cultural history of the past 2500 years of "western civlization" engaging enough to almost have a plot; an introduction to discerning archetypes within the collective and individual texts of cultural-ish activity (and thus, over time, intimations of comprehension of that term 'archetypes'); 490 pages of examples, boggling in depth and fluidity, of how these archetypal dynamics play out through the trajectory of history, seemingly implying deeper structures that--this is the best part!--seem to be correlated to how and which planets are aligned with each other from the earthling's perspective. You see, as the planets interact around us, the same characters that they represent within the human and natural world also seem to be interacting and playing out certain moments as if the universe were some sort of stage and the actions had some amount of structured intent to them. An inundation of scholarship follows. One idea that Tarnas mentions early on is the concept that each moment is imbued with a certain 'quality' that can be discerned (often after-the-fact), and I've been thinking about that recently--why did 2 people, just the other day, both tell me separately that they had the same song stuck in their head? Hmmmm... As I was saying, I'm not sure if I found the answers I was looking for about how greater powers control my destiny, but I did learn a whole lot of telling factoids and big pictures about the history of art, politics, science, and religion, and in a way that felt creative and kept me engaged and guessing--for that alone I'd easily recommend this book. The academic tracts within the book are accessible enough, though, to make me feel smart while reading them, which I actually think I liked, and I feel somewhat more prepared now to hunt for hints of meaning, no matter how arbitrary it may seem, within the cultural fabric. One last thing I did learn was that we will be surprised by the future, even if some things will remind us of other things.

[Andrew H · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mechanistic view of astrology is not believable in the C21. In Cosmos and Psyche, Tarnas proposes a psychological link. How this works is never thrashed out. There is a heavy reliance on Jung and Archetypes, and the subconscious; in fact, Jung is used a convenient touchstone. In one throw away sentence, Tarnas hints at the method, then skates away quickly into heavy prose. Simply put, certain people open themselves up to archetypal planetary structures, connect to cosmic, archetypal patterns and express these energies. Out of this connection movements arise ... instead of planets influencing human life, human life senses the solar system, psyche connects to cosmos.

Tarnas makes grand claims by referring back to history. His arguments are tantalising. But when questions are raised they wobble terribly. For example, in 1643-1654, one of the main archetypal cycles, Pluto-Uranus, coincided with the English Civil War. Pluto-Uranus, according to Tarnas, creates emancipation and eroticism. Lo and behold, in 1643, Milton wrote his divorce tracts. Clear evidence of psyche responding to cosmos. Unfortunately, I have never found the divorce tracts particularly Dionysian and Tarnas does not give an example passage. His arguments are frequently without detailed textual support. Now, had Milton written the Sixth Elegy in this period, his sensual epistle to Diodati. The Pluto-Uranus cycle peaked in 1648-9. Was Milton following Dionysus at this major exact alignment? Sadly not. He was occupied with Eikonoklastes and regicide.

Cosmos and Psyche is a provocative read. But it paints with broad brush strokes and does not engage with cultural developments in sufficient detail. A new science is born? That is a grandiose claim indeed. This is a book that needs counter-argument at every stage and in that sense it is a good read.

[deborah pearmain · Rating 2 out of 5]

This author really got on my nerves with his" why use 10 words when 100 will do" approach.Verbose is a word I don't use often but to this book it should be applied in spades.I did not enjoy the book. I didn't find anything new and refreshing in it. The ideas were all familiar to me. Maybe that is because I had studied astrology in considerable depth prior to reading the book. I did not experience a meeting of minds between myself and the author or any profound revelations. It's easy to prove astrology in retrospect. One simply cherry picks important events that took place at the time of the particular planetary configuration one is looking at. In the case of the outer planets which have such long cycles this is not difficult. I am an astrologer myself but with a healthy dose of skepticism thrown in. For some reason the book just did't cut it for me. I wanted to like the book. It came highly recommended by a friend. It obviously took a lot of time and effort to write. Pity.

[Carole Brooks Platt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Tarnas is a man with a vision, which happens to include not only the vastness of the universe (the cosmos), but also the depths of the individual creative mind (the psyche). In the process, he combines a historical time frame (the synchronic) with the diachronic sweep of time through the lens of the alignment of the outer planets. Whereas you would think an astrological vision would be totally out of reality's ballpark, it turns out that his argument is very convincing, most of all because of the 30 years of research he has put into this magisterial work. His knowledge of history and the most important, game-changing books written over time's past, leaves you breathless. It's not an easy read, but it's a deep, deep thesis reaching to the ends of the known universe. One would not expect less from a mind of such enormous scope and erudition.

[Anita Ashland · Rating 5 out of 5]

An almost overwhelming look at history and how the patterns of various cycles of war, economic downturns, inventions, bursts of creativity, etc. coincide with the transits of the outer planets. A superb reference for just about any historical event and how it relates to, say, Uranus-Neptune, or any of the other outer planet transits.

His archetypal descriptions of the 7 traditional planets are excellent. He also has a section on what it is like to experience an outer planet transit in your personal life, which helps give you self-compassion about those inevitable mid-life crises.

[Travis Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable book. After 1000 pages of Richard Tarnas (I read "Passion of the Western Mind" before this one), I can't imagine a more thorough, open-minded, and incisive tour through western human consciousness of the past 2000+ years. And in the end, it's a comprehensive and effective argument against the scientism that has dominated our relatively recent culture, and a compelling call to reanimate the world around us so that we can evolve and survive, both individually and culturally.

[Vallin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Proof of astrology and that Pluto is a planet.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cosmos and Psyche is a classic of ‘mundane’ astrology – the branch of astrology that looks at world events (as opposed to individual nativities) – which focuses on the cycles of Uranus/Pluto, Saturn/Pluto, Jupiter/Uranus, and Uranus/Neptune alignments and their correlation to (mostly Western) historical developments.

His approach to astrology is modern, with strong Jungian influences. Tarnas’ view of what astrology can do is somewhat modest (at least compared to how bad faith critics of astrology characterize it): he does not suggest the alignments he identifies mean anyone can predict the future with absolute certainty, but he does argue that “time is not only quantitative but qualitative in character, and that different periods of time are informed by tangibly different archetypal dynamics” [489]; his perspective is ultimately one of planet/events correlation, not an argument that planets ‘cause’ worldly events, and he leaves a lot of room for human agency.

In terms of writing style & the organization of the text, Tarnas excels at making his subject matter accessible. He covers a wide range of areas of history including developments in politics, philosophy, various scientific fields, culture, and the arts, and manages to make all of these details both comprehensible to a non-expert and interesting. The endnotes and bibliography are substantial.

I appreciate Tarnas’ way of describing the need to move beyond a view of nature/universe that is mechanical and unthinking and purposeless. I also appreciate his discussion of what he describes as the “emancipatory potential” of archetypal astrology: to open individuals to self-reflection and self-awareness and connection to and participation in a living and meaningful cosmos.

What doesn’t work for me, ultimately, is some of the framing. I knew this would be the case when starting the book, but I am simply not as interested in or convinced by psychoanalytic theoretical approaches as the author. I can appreciate the utility of ‘archetypes’ as a concept in astrology, certainly, but pretty much any of the psychoanalytic / Jungian elements of the book beyond this I could’ve done without. I would also really love to see another book like this with a less Western-centric approach – Tarnas acknowledges this limitation of his book and invite further contributions to the field from diverse perspectives.

Content warnings: discussion of historical events including war, violence, and oppression (nothing graphic)

[Aleksandra Bekreneva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Я не побоюсь громких слов, эта книга гениальна. И сделает для 21 века то же, что работы Фрейда и Юнга сделали для 20 века.

Ричард Тарнас — учёный из Калифорнийского университета, у которого хватило стальных яиц для того, чтобы рискнуть своим добрым именем и академической карьерой и написать огромный, подробный, со множеством статистических данных, труд, который подтверждает тот факт, что планетарные циклы влияют на события в мировой истории.

Я могу только стоять и аплодировать. Я читала эту книгу несколько месяцев и от каждой страницы у меня взрывался мозг.

Я знаю, что у меня тут люди свободомыслящие, новаторы, интеллектуалы. Поэтому я вам горячо рекомендую эту книгу к прочтению!!!

А теперь подробнее:

Вы никогда не задумывались, как это люди веками жили без психологов, а вот в ХХ веке вдруг «бац» — и бум психологии, и каждому срочно нужен психотерапевт (и мне тоже), иначе жизнь не жизнь?

К ХХ столетию окончательно и бесповоротно сформировалось наше представление о Вселенной как о бездушной, бескрайней, холодной, пугающей, где всем управляет хаос и случайность, бесстрастно и механистично.

И в этой безбрежной Вселенной, на самом отшибе, на микроскопической Земле живёт Венец Творения, человек. И его мозг, который превосходит по уровню развития ни много ни мало, а всю Вселенную разом. Человек и его разум каким-то образом обособленно существуют среди бездушного, бескрайнего НИЧТО.

Как пишет Ричард Тарнас, профессор философии и психологии в Калифорнийском институте интегральных исследований в Сан-Франциско, в своей книге, ни в одну эпоху, ник��гда, уровень человеческого высокомерия не был настолько высоким — космических размеров — как сегодня. Мы, каждый, за редким исключением, искренне полагаем, что исключительный источник всего смысла и цели во Вселенной сосредоточен в человеческом разуме. И разум этот абсолютно уникальный, особенный и превосходит весь Космос.

Какая плата за наше высокомерие? Пустота и одиночество. «Бог умер», как сказал Ницше. Все к психологу!

Мы больше не верим в принцип «что внутри, то и снаружи», иными словами, что человек и Вселенная — едины и устроены по схожим принципам. Ведь допустить это, значит, предположить (О БОЖЕ!!!), что у Вселенной, вероятно, тоже есть душа, разум ...

И что Вселенная НЕ бездушное и хаотичное НИЧТО.

Для наших предков было естественным, к примеру, считать священными реки, горы, леса и т. д. Для наших предков у всего вокруг, а не только у одного человека, была душа и разум.

В ХХ веке одним из первых о том, что что-то явно пошло не так в нашем понимании Вселенной, задумался психолог и психиатр Карл Густав Юнг, описав явление синхронистичности, которое он также живо обсуждал с такими знаменитыми физиками, как Альберт Эйнштейн и Вольфганг Паули.

Цепи необъяснимо повторяющихся событий, совпадения, которые никак не объяснить логически — периодически возникают в жизни многих людей.

И В ТВОЕЙ ЖИЗНИ ТОЖЕ, ЧИТАТЕЛЬ, Я ТОЧНО ЗНАЮ.

Например, вам может сниться сон о воробье, потом на работе в ваше оконное стекло бьётся воробей, потом ваши коллеги обсуждают воробья за обедом, а вечером вам дарят книгу о воробьях и по телевизору идёт передача о воробьях, и т. д.

Это и есть синхронистичность / синхроничность / синхронность.

Многие учёные знакомы с этим явлением не понаслышке, так как оно значительно учащается в их жизнях особенно перед важными открытиями.

Если коротко, объяснить синхронистичность можно только одним способом. Допустив, что Вселенная — это НЕ ТОЛЬКО хаотичное НИЧТО. Допустив, что она живёт по своим, разумным, законам.

«Cosmos and Psyche» / «Космос и душа» — большое исследование об устройстве нашей Вселенной, которое понравится всем ищущим и пытливым умам.

А также тем, что живёт по принципу i want to believe.
Все тайны я вам не раскрою.
Читайте!

[Walter · Rating 3 out of 5]

If what he claims is true, it would be something beautiful. Unfortunately, it takes a stretch of the imagination to convince myself. The selective choices made concerning persons and events, along with the elasticity of archetypes, allows for a kind of dullness of the intellect to take over if one gives in to it. Skepticism chastens us for the better, I believe, and I prefer to remain in good conscience. That being said, though the thesis here is not a topic for proving, it is not necessarily untrue.
A few additional notes: All of Section One can be glossed over or skipped if you've finished Passion of the Western Mind (particularly the Epilogue). It wasn't particularly interesting having read it.
Section two is where Tarnas properly begins. The parable of the Two Suitors is where the reader realizes that they're either in or out- willing to suspend the imagination and consider this woowoo worldview or not. I struggled here but decided to go on; our way of seeing a disenchanted universe is overwhelmingly obvious to most of us, of course, but just what if this objectified world as we know it has a soul? So he brings up synchronicity to entertain the idea. (Which, by the way, this idea of synchronicity has fascinated me since coming across it in Peck's The Road Less Traveled years ago). Then he delivers the basics on astrology and a renewed vision of cosmology. It all seems whacky but again, growth comes via humility and I'd decided to entertain the idea.
Next he explains and historically situates archetypes. This leads into the relationship between archetypes and their planetary counterparts, aka astrology.
It is at this point that the worldview starts crumbling fast for those of us who are on high alert, cynics, or skeptics. Personally, I expect something that resembles certainty if it's novel and I'm asked to live by it.
What I preemptively cringe at here is that he describes the archetypes as being fluid in their nature and not like math (in other words, playing whatever role one needs them to in order to make a correlation). One has to keep reading some five hundred additional pages to find out whether or not they are so malleable as to have any acceptably valid, fixed meaning and whether one can claim these ideas as their own.
Lastly, this guy loves the word multivalent. And why doesn't he cite his quotations (if anyone who comes along and reads this knows)?

[Jessica Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brilliant book follows on from The Passion Of The Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View and offers a worldview and cosmology to help heal the disastrous split in the Western psyche. Tarnas demonstrates with overwhelming levels of detail and clarity, that there is another way of looking at reality. For full review: http://jessicadavidson.co.uk/2013/12/...

[Mitzi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book - I was very interested in the subject matter (archetypes and astrology) and the author's point of view. Unfortunately, the writing style was so academic and dense that it was a real struggle to get through a page, let alone a chapter. I got the feeling that the author was using difficult language as a way to add credibility to his ideas. I read about a quarter of the way into it, and skimmed the rest.

[Alejandro Carrillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Más allá de ser una gran compilación de datos para echar luz sobre los patrones arquetípicos que laten tanto en la psique como en el cosmos (lo que hace muy bien), me gusta más para seguir aprendiendo sobre las combinaciones arquetípicas y sobre la historia del mundo occidental. Es decir, no me interesa tanto como compendio de pruebas sino como llave hacía la imaginación arquetípica.

De todas formas es un trabajo titánico, bien documentado y muy interesante.

[Alex Ast · Rating 4 out of 5]

This scientifically paradigm breaking book radically reshaped my world view. The Harvard educated historian, Richard Tarnas, set out on an intellectual quest equally spiritual, aesthetic, and moral as he attempts to infuse meaning and purpose to our mechanistic and disenchanted worldview that Max Weber in the early 20th century claims pervades every aspect of our modern, post-enlightenment perspective we are all instilled with today.
Tarnas was initially a skeptic of the astrological perspective, as was I, until he began to dive in the science and art of the stars and began to see remarkable coincidences and correlations that could not be simply left ignored if one wants an accurate and truthful representation of reality that doesn't leave in any gaps. Our modern scientific perspective today is severely reductive in its materialistic analysis and will immediately negate anything that seems contrary to the larger perspective (in a way very similar as to how Christianity used to regard and immediately dismiss heretical ideas throughout the Medieval era that went against popular support). "The physicist and philosopher of science, P. W. Bridgeman famously observed, 'coincidences' are what are left over after one has applied a bad theory". The astrological perspective, I am beginning to believe, serves to explain those coincidences that our mechanistic, disenchanted worldview fails to explain or altogether just flat out ignores.
Jung's notion of "synchronicity" was pivotal to this exploration because it allows one to see the significance of events even though there appears to be acausal forces at play. In fact, reading Jung is what initially piqued my interest in astrology because he would analyze people's natal charts with his clients in order to get a better representation of their psychological profile and saw its validity. "Most of us in the course of life have observed coincidences in which two or more independent events having no apparent casual connection nevertheless seem to form a meaningful pattern." The thrust of this book is Tarnas utilizing a variety of disciplines, history, philosophy, cosmology, in order to analyze planetary configurations in the heavens that archetypally reflect human dynamics and patterns on earth. The number of coincidences that appeared in this analysis is enough to at least make one consider the possibility of these ideas.
Tarnas analyzes four major world-transits throughout the book and how they appeared in archetypally consistent manners throughout many epochs of history. The four transits were: Uranus-Pluto, Uranus-Saturn, Jupiter-Uranus and Uranus-Neptune. For example, Uranus-Pluto transits (which are archetypally resonant with themes of liberation, revolution, Dionysian power and eroticism, and evolution) were in alignment during the American and French Revolutions, the sparkings of revolution in Europe with the rise of Marxist theory and in America the beginning of the fight for abolition, and most recently with the 1960s and the civil rights movement. The majority of the book is Tarnas delivering example after example of coincidences of this kind and the build up of evidence is astonishing.
Tarnas also epitomes how crucial it is to develop an archetypal view of history in order to understand the fullest extent of what he is laying out because it can take on many forms while simultaneously still adhering to its base principles. Tarnas is also Platonist who sought to understand his Theory of the Forms in a way that is more attached to our participatory existence with the cosmos and not in some transcendent world not attuned to our sensory reality.
Tarnas makes a point which he emphasized repeatedly that astrology is not concretely predictive (able to predict exact future events down to the persons involved and exact time, this gives a bad name to astrology and should and is rightly criticized by the larger public and scientific community) but rather archetypally predictive (meaning that we can understand common themes of historical periods and can anticipate in what style and manner it will come about). Another way to understand this is with the determinstic and free-will comparison. Concretely predictive astrology says we are beholden to our fate and can do nothing to block and bring it about in our lives. Archetypally predictive astrology allows us to inhibit our free will still while simultaneously allowing us to align our lives and actions through the cosmic trends and waves that the universe naturally goes through. We are not slaves to fate, but co-creators with the cosmos in shaping our destinies. Realizing this has been immensely empowering and inspiring in my personal life and I think holds great potential for if and when our collective psyche comes to realize this.
What I liked about this book was that Tarnas didn't even talk about astrology well unto 60-70 pages in, slowly introducing the reader to the possibility that we live in an enchanted cosmos. What I didn't like about the book was that some of his historical examples did get a little repetitive overtime and dragged on a little too long, but that was simply because there was so much data that he was examining so I understand. It didn't make it an easy read though, that's for sure!
Despite its challenges while reading, it was a blast reading this book and it gave me an even deeper appreciation for the stars and its effects on the dynamics of human history and more importantly, our future.

[Todd B Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

It turns out astrology is right.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every serious student of astrology should read this book before getting mired in all the pop personalistic pseudo-spiritual colour-by-numbers texts that offend the intelligence of thinkers who approach them with open minds. Richard Tarnas has sought and in some ways managed to bridge two worlds: the domain of subtle awareness and experience science has yet to explain, and the no less esoteric if rational realm of the academy.

It’s typical of educated sceptics to regard Tarnas’s project with ambivalence: to concede his cultural history cred while dismissing his woo-woo notions of planetary archetypes as delusional. Yet these would be the same sceptics who acknowledge the game-changing genius of, among others, Galileo and Kepler but, lacking context, fail to see astrology as integral to their thinking.

This magnum opus preoccupied Tarnas for an entire Saturn cycle and he undoubtedly had high hopes for its paradigm-shifting potential. But 13 years later, it looks like he’s underestimated collective disenchantment. The view from an ivory tower reveals little about life on the ground. And pattern recognition – at which Tarnas shines, and essential for learning the lessons of history – appears to be on the decline in humanity at large while enabling the rise of AI, which can process mind-blowingly complex data without any need to make it mean something.

Tarnas has all the fervour of a convert who began his research from a sceptical standpoint. And research he did. One obstacle, even for the open-minded, to absorbing his findings is the inevitable repetition involved in charting two+ millennia of sociocultural change and developments against a backdrop of outer-planetary cycles. Words like ‘remarkably’ and ‘finally’ recur until they look like tics. Despite (or because of?) his sophisticated vocabulary, Tarnas made me acutely aware of the inadequacies of language for transmission of holistic, multidimensional perspectives. And yet, by eschewing both the laughably loose use of language that mars so many books on astrology and the dry convolutions that can blight serious scholarship, he comes closer than many to conveying a sense of something larger and stranger and vastly more awe-inspiring than his own considerable vision.

[Garrett Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe Tarnas is onto something here -- of Promethean significance if true.

It takes some perseverance to get through the hundreds of pages of evidence he has gathered here (jaw-dropping at times, I might add) but that amount of data is necessary to make archetypal astrology palatable to us proudly rational moderners.

The author is obviously deeply concerned with reframing our relation with the cosmos because mechanistic cosmology just isn't doing us any good anymore -- a point with which I heartily agree.

[Ivonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro que todo astrólogo debería leer, pero también los escépticos. En Cosmos y Psique Richard Tarnas aborda la astrología desde diversas ciencias y encuentra varios patrones a lo largo de la historia de la humanidad que se relacionan con ciertos aspectos planetarios.
Una lectura bastante apropiada para un año en el que la astrología fue bastante literal en muchas formas. Un libro de leer y releer.

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mind-numbingly over-written with many repetitions and 70+ word sentences. This could easily be a couple hundred pages shorter and get the same points across. The points made in the book are interesting, but they're buried excess verbiage.

[Alanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt silly about “believing” astrology until I read this book. Now I feel silly for having ever had the audacity to believe the universe is dead and dumb.

[Yitzchok · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book! If you are on the fence about astrology this should put you in the believer camp.

Favorite Excerpts:

“The planets [Uranus] discovery in 1781 occurred at the culmination of the Enlightenment, in the extraordinary ear that brought forth the American and French Revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, and the beginning of Romanticism. In all these coinciding historical phenomena, the figure of Prometheus is of course readily evident as well: the championing of human freedom and individual self-determination, the challenge to traditional beliefs and customs, the fervent revolt against royalty and aristocracy, established religion, social privilege, and political oppression: the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, liberte and egalite; the beginning of feminism, the widespread interest in radical ideas, the rapidity of change, the embrace of novelty, the celebration of human progress, the many inventions and technological advances, the revolution in art and literature, the exaltation of free human imagination and creative will, the plethora of geniuses and culture heroes. Here too were the Romantic poets with their great paeans to Prometheus himself. If the age of Uranus’s discovery is to be given an archetypal characterization, none seems more appropriate than “Prometheus Unbound.” – Page 95

“As with the period of Uranus’s discovery in 1781, the discovery of Neptune in 1846 coincided with a range of synchronistic historical and cultural phenomena in the immediately surrounding decades, and more generally in the nineteenth century, that are distinctively suggestive of the corresponding archetype. These include the rapid spread of spiritualism throughout the world beginning in the late 1840’s the upsurge of utopian social ideologies at the same time, the rise of universalist and communitarian aspirations in both secular and religious movements, the full ascendancy of Idealist and Romantic philosophies of spirit and the imagination, the widespread cultural influence of Transcendentalism, the new popular interest in both Eastern and Western esoteric traditions, and the emergence of theosophy.” – Page 98

“With respect to Pluto’s discovery, the synchronistic phenomena in the decades immediately surrounding 1930, and more generally in the twentieth century, include the splitting of the atom and the unleashing of nuclear power; the titanic technological empowerment of modern industrial civilization and military force; the rise of fascism and other mass movements…” – Page 100

“…educational circumstances that were constraining, inadequate, or discouraging (Mercury-Saturn); self-critical intellectual rigor combined with unusual economy and clarity of expression and a tendency to remain silent for long periods (Mercury-Saturn); a certain mental stubbornness or tenacity in slowly pondering seemingly intractable problems over extended lengths of time (Mercury-Saturn)…

…a tendency to think with acute, penetrating intensity that in exceptional cases reflected the possession of a powerful, driven intellect (Mercury-Pluto); an unusual capacity for strategic thinking and cunning, shrewd analysis of underlying or hidden motivations (Mercury-Pluto)…a desire to penetrate below superficial levels of understanding to grasp deeper principles and operative forces (Mercury-Pluto); a drive to develop a facility for effective and even compelling communication, written or spoken, intended to influence and transform the opinion of others (Mercury-Pluto)…

…a tendency to think in ways that dissolve previously established structures and boundaries, and to intuit, usually after sustained periods of mental confusion and amorphous daydreaming, larger unities underlying apparently separate and divergent phenomena (Mercury-Neptune); and a heightened impulse for conceiving or entering into ideas and perspectives that defy conventional views and assumptions (Mercury-Uranus) and that often elicit intense negative judgment, criticism, and sarcastic attack (Mercury-Saturn with Mercury-Pluto).” – Page 130

“Abolitionist and Civil Rights Movements

A Parallel pattern of cyclical stages of accelerated development occurred in an entirely different emancipatory struggle during these same centuries, the long movement for the freedom and civil rights of African-Americans. During the Uranus-Pluto alignment of 1787-98, that of the French Revolution, there simultaneously emerged in Britain, the United States, and France the first widespread public call for the abolition of slavery, with the appearance of enormously popular petitions against the slave trade, the founding of the Abolition Society in England led by Thomas Clarkson (1787), the Free African Society in Philadelphia (1787), the Society of the Friends of the Blacks in France (1788), and the publication of the widely read autobiography of the freed slave Olaudah Equiano (1789), which was the first English-language indictment of slavery.

…Similarly, the immediately following Uranus-Pluto alignment of 1845-56 coincided with the peak of the abolitionist activism in the United States, which was marked by the influential activity of Fredrick Douglas, the publication of his autobiography (1845) and his antislavery newspaper the North Star (from 1847), the flourishing of the Underground Railway through the work of Harriet Tubman (who escaped from slavery in 1849) among many others…Emerson’s many public lectures against slavery, popular uprisings by both blacks and whites in the North against the Fugitive Slave Act (1850-54)…” – Page 152

“…it was during the Uranus-Pluto conjunction just before this (1845-56) that Thoreau wrote and published in 1849 his seminal essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, which described his brief imprisonment for refusing, on anti-slavery grounds, to pay a tax levied by the U.S. government to support its war against Mexico. Thoreau’s essay directly influenced first Tolstoy, then Gandhi, then King.

…Radical Socialism

A comparable pattern occurred in the evolution of radical socialist theory. Thus Marx and Engel’s Communist Manifesto of 1848 and the origins of revolutionary Marxist socialism coincided precisely with the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the 1845-56 period.” – Page 155

“…the U.S. Constitution (1787-88) and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789).

…mass street insurrections in Paris in July 1789, Paris in Feburary 1848, and Paris in may 1968.” – Page 157

“Thus we see the rapid development and global proliferation of the telegraph, railroads, and steamships during the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the 1845-56 period, when the collective self-awareness of that ear’s unprecedented technological progress was displayed at the famous Great Exhibition and Crystal Palace in London in 1851 and at the Paris international Exposition of 1854.” - Page 160

“The very slogan “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternie” was Rousseau’s.
All these themes and values transmitted by Rousseau shaped the evolving intellectual and cultural climate that burst forth in the 1790’s, affecting not only the France of the revolutionaries but the Germany of Schiller and Schelling, Holderlin and Hegel, and the England of Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge.” – Page 172

“Once again we see a diachronic pattern with the preceding Uranus-Pluto conjunction period one cycle earlier, 1845-56, which brought forth Thoreau’s writing and publication of Walden, or Life in the Woods. Here Thoreau’s articulation of other characteristic Uranus-Pluto themes, such as radical individualism and social rebellion, was embedded in perhaps the most seminal of all works calling for humanity’s reawaking to the voice of nature, epitomized in his dictum, “In Wildness is the preservation of the world.

…The following conjunction of 1845-56 coincided with the discovery of petroleum oil as fuel, a discovery that began the petroleum age whose cultural, ecological, and geopolitical consequences are still unfolding.” - Page 181

“…the steam-driven and coal-driven Industrial Revolution rapidly accelerated first in the 1790s and then more potently and globally in the 1845-56 period with the proliferation of railroads and steamships and the widespread mechanization of industry.” – Page 182

“Also suggestive of this archetypal combination was the unleashing of elemental forces and the violent rise of mass movements and collective actions of many kinds that took place in the 1930s – fascist, communist, socialist, the mass Nuremburg rallies, The Triumph of the Will, the Hitler Youth…

…It was during these years [1930s] that physicists first split the atom (John Cockroft and E.T.S. Walton, 1932), achieved the first nuclear fission (Enrico Fermi, 1934)…and began conducting the research that led to the development of weapons of mass destruction.” – Pages 192-193

“The eruptive emancipatory intensity and extremity of the French Revolutionary epoch, or the English revolution before it, or later the 1848 revolutions…” - Page 200

Saturn-Pluto

For anybody who is not quite sure if astrological energies affect us, check out what Richard Tarnas wrote in 2006 in his phenomenal eye-opening book, Cosmos and Psyche. He wrote about the effects on mankind when Saturn and Pluto come into alignment. Remember, he wrote this in 2006. See if it matches up with what’s happening in 2020 with the current Saturn-Pluto alignment.

“…The successive alignments of the Saturn-Pluto cycle coincided with especially challenging historical periods marked by a pervasive quality of intense contraction; eras of international crisis and conflict, empowerment of reactionary forces and totalitarian impulses, organized violence and oppression, all sometimes marked by lasting traumatic effects. An atmosphere of gravity and tension tended to accompany these three to four year periods, as did a widespread sense of epochal closure; “the end of an era,” “the end of innocence,” the destruction of an earlier mode of life that in retrospect may seem to have been marked by widespread indulgence, decadence, naivete, denial, and inflation. Profound transformation was a dominant theme…but here the transformation was through contraction, conservative reaction, crisis and termination.

Both the First World War and the Second World War began in precise coincidence with the virtually exact hard-aspect alignments of Saturn and Pluto, in August 1914 and September 1939, respectively. The most recent Saturn-Pluto alignment occurred in precise coincidence with the events of September 11, 2001, the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York and the attack on the Pentagon in Washington, and the many events set in motion in its wake.

…The vivid complex of qualities, emotions, and meanings connected with those grave events – the beginning of the two world wars, September 11 and its aftermath, and many other such events during the periods of Saturn-Pluto alignments – fits with remarkable precision the synthesis of archetypal principals associated with those two planets in combination, expressed in their most extreme form, both negatively and positively: profoundly weighty events of enduring consequence; violence and death on a massive scale; the irrevocable termination of an established order of existence; collective intensification of division, antagonism, and hostility; the deployment of massive, highly disciplined, carefully organized destructive power; and a widespread sense of victimization and suffering under the impact of cataclysmic and oppressive forces of history.” – Pages 209-210

Also he writes how its connected to diseases:

“Another such defining conjunction was that of 1348-51 that coincided with the eruption and spread of the Black Death, which similarly devastated Europe and set in motion cultural and economic shifts that permanently transformed European life in the late medieval period. The Black Death, or bubonic plague, began in China in 1333 in coincidence with the preceding Saturn-Pluto opposition and reached a climax in Europe in the 1348-51 period during the conjunction. A comparable pattern can be discerned in the AIDS epidemic, which first widely emerged and was identified during the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 1981-84, and which reached pandemic proportions worldwide, especially in Africa, during the Saturn-Pluto opposition of 2000-04.” – Page 217

“Economists are still unable to adequately account for the sudden mass collapse in 1929-33 that shook the world’s structures to their foundations and had many long-term consequences. It was also during this period that the first splitting of the atom occurred, in 1932 at the Cavendish Laboratory, which represents another form of structural breakdown with the sudden release of titanic energy, also with consequences that extended far into the future. This was the only T-square of Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto in the twentieth century.” – page 223

“…the invention of the telegraph (1844)…the first sound motion picture (1927), the first television transmission (1927)…

…the first recorded human flight of any kind, the balloon launching by the Montgolfier brothers in France in the late eighteenth century. The Montgolfiers invented the hot-air balloon in November 1782. After months of experiments they launched the first balloon with a human passenger in Paris on October 15, 1783, the first recorded instance in which a human being physically left the earth.” – Page 309

“…in May 1927 when Charles Lindbergh made the first solo airplane flight across the Atlantic from Long Island to Paris in The Spirit of St. Louis (the same conjunction as that of the Bohr-Heisenberg and Solvay congress milestones in quantum physics).” – Page 310

“…During the next conjunction, of 1844-45, Darwin wrote the first summary of the theory of natural selection, the first version of what became The Origins of Species, a two hundred page manuscript that he shared only privately (much like Copernicus with his first summation of the heliocentric theory, the Commentariolus).” – Page 315

“Here too could be cited Thoreau’s building of his cabin at Walden Pond in 1845…” – Page 331

“It was this Babylon that was the setting and crucible for the great metamorphosis of Judaism that took place during this epoch. The capture and destruction of Jerusalem in 586 by Nebuchadnezzar and the deportation of most of the Jewish population to Babylonian captivity took place in exact coincidence with the world transit of Saturn in close square alignment to Pluto and Neptune (just before Uranus reached close conjunction with the other two outermost planets). In the ensuing decades, the profound response of the Jewish prophets to those cataclysmic political and spiritual events essentially wrought the transformation of Judaism into a world-historic religion characterized by a monotheistic universalism and an ethical individualism.” – Page 414