Astrology Without & Within

In her 2003 research paper entitled Astrology and Research, Astrologers’ attitudes to research methodologies and the implications of these attitudes for the contemporary communities of astrologers, Bernadette Brady imparts this in her opening statement: “…there is a high level of ambivalence amongst professional astrologers towards research. Furthermore, there is a tendency to believe that research could only be scientific and quantitative and that any other form of research is insignificant and of little value.” She also concludes her paper with this in the summation: “The astrological community has been in limbo since the time Placidus de Titis attempted to create an astrological theory, in order to gain acceptance in the new world of science. Furthermore, the community has perpetuated the situation by seeking justification in the eyes of science exclusively and obsessively. As a result the community is ignoring or ignorant of other methodologies which could empower them to explore astrology rather than prove astrology.”

Rather than accepting this current state as the fate of things to come, I offer her statements as a re-energizing challenge to those of us in the established astrological community, and an invitation to any progressive researchers within the scientific community with the hutzpah to entertain ancient ideas in new ways and express evolving consciousness in future terms. With her pronouncements in mind, through this column I would like to envision what these “other methodologies” might look like and how we could approach astrological research in a new way, or at least how we may adapt other practices and modalities to better enable us to bring about a collective understanding of the metaphysical world around us. This article is less of an information piece and more of a summoning, a throwing down of the gauntlet in the medieval sense,inviting a friendly competition of passionate minds and true voices, to unite in the pursuit of next level truth beyond this current reality.

Schizophrenic Disunity — One Mad Science

Whether one is a relentless scientist or one is a persevering mystic, a true explorer of universal knowledge is eventually compelled to take another look at the opposing perspective. The unsatisfied seekers within each camp will be internally persuaded to look beyond the entrenched thinking of the times and question their own personal walls of dogma in the search for fundamental truths. The driven pioneers at the forefront of human thought cannot remain content with the unanswered questions, the holes in their own incomplete frameworks and the unresolved pieces of the past which link our own present to where the future is guiding us.

Ultimately, it becomes necessary for the scientific mind to cease perceiving the world only through determinable eyes of the intellect, to reach back through time, join new knowledge with ancient wisdoms, and peer once again through the eyes of eternal nature. So too, the mystical mind must choose to broaden its perspective beyond its indeterminable cryptic visions, revealing that which has been occulted from its own sight and has kept parts of truth a mystery. It requires both to rejoin in this search of the in-between spaces of the known and the unknown. The deeper one looks into these spaces — either the outer spaces or the inner space — one finds more supposed empirical answers, more finite perspectives; yet, as we exist within this paradoxic duality, we simultaneously uncover more indefinite questions regarding the infinite truths of reality. There are no absolutes, of that I am absolute. That’s the gods only honest truth…

Antithesis: A Philosophy of Undisciplined Composition

For those who may be expecting additional perspectives on current transits, fresher views on rising politicians or cults of celebrity, the latest takes on what’s currently trending according to the waxing or waning of the energies of the planets, or if you are wanting to know what to look forward to in your career, relationship or evolutionary soul path, I will have to disappoint. I tend to leave those commentaries to my esteemed colleagues. This article is primarily an article about this article. It’s a one-off meta-scientific op-ed piece about exploring thoughts rather than obsessing over exactitude — calculated but not regulated — not willing to be tempered in an editorial voice. A sampling from a repertory of esoteric explicate discourse of amalgamated merisms, composed from an emerging implicate philosophy. Maddeningly exact in the broadest sense and scripted with a touch of fiery madness, a hint of zealous disregard, and flare for tangible intellectual insanity, assembled with a hefty dose of sacred profundity, an often irreverent reverence — sometimes magnified through a lens of gonzo cosmology, sporadic inspiration and astrological over-think.

New Zenith — A Crowning Point

As astrologers, I assume you are familiar with basic and intermediate archetypal mythology — both ancient and modern;as contemporaries, I presuppose on your behalf, some general knowledge of elementary modern science — both fact and fiction. As fellow seekers, I hope you find something meaningfully drafted in these deliberately comma-filled concepts and italicized phrases, to ignite just the right seminal spark to set you, the mind behind the eyes of the reader, free… and liberate your own perspectives of astrology. As we look for other methods to consciously explore astrology, I think you’ll find that ‘fiction often makes for the best fact’, to paraphrase William Faulkner. If you need to look up a few enigmatic word choices or investigate a perplexing reference, in order to better appreciate an obscure inference, then do so. The principle point is to encourage the reexamination of the frontiers of your own mind, so we can begin the journey beyond them, in order to return to the source.

Personally, Uranus in my own chart, is exact to the arc-minute, of my midheaven. In as such, it goes without saying that this is an unconventional column. The focus and purpose contrived behind it is a mind set free — as far as one can be — through myth, math & magic; a recipe for an illuminated cocktail of enlightened abstractions laced with a potential remedy for fatigued philosophies and dying dogmas — poison for many and ambrosia to some. An improvised alchemical elixir blended with a pinch of passion; a concoction synthesized to awaken, from the depths of each astrologer, a true seeker of universal wisdom, a scientific mystic. The flavor of this column could be deemed purely Uranian.

Creative Emancipation — Prometheus Unbound

The column’s title, Prometheus Unbound, comes from the name of a fragmentary literary work attributed the Greek playwright Aeschylus in the middle 5th century BCE; the undiscovered second part of the Greek trilogy of the Titanic age god, Prometheus. This work most famously describes his subsequent release from his punishment of eternal torment by the demi-god warrior Achilles. Ancient Prometheus, who was from the Titans but not always counted amongst them, who’s name means ‘forward thinking’, was said to have assisted the Olympian god Zeus, during the war between the gods. Later, in the early chronicles of Zeus’ reign, Prometheus was punished by him for returning Fire to mankind (after Zeus had taken it from humanity previously). The returning of Fire was an act of sympathy for man, though one of defiance against Zeus. In Hesiod’s accounting of the myths, Zeus had wished to keep humanity ignorant and suppressed; to both serve at his behest but also to slow the degeneration of the human race, to delay the progressive diminution of human virtue through the inevitable misuse of acquired higher knowledge.

Taking pity on mankind for its current condition and for the obliteration of the previous five stages of humanity’s development (Cronus had ruled over and destroyed the first Age, the Golden Age, the Paradise; while Zeus ruled over and destroyed the following four Ages), Prometheus chose to disregard Zeus and prevent him from expunging humanity once again, for a sixth time. Prometheus was referred to as the ‘Bringer of Fire’, for that was his purpose, despite Zeus’ command not to. Through Prometheus’ gift came the seed of civilization. Once the seed had germinated in the minds of man, the flowers of the arts sprang forth; writing, mathematics, agriculture, medicine, astrology and science nourished the foundations of society so humanity might thrive.

Fire, in the elemental sense, is also the spirit or essence of godlike powers and inner knowledge. Plato distinguishes these as the creative powers derived from the mind, techne, which are considered superior to the instinctual and physical powers of physis. The Greek ‘techne’ is the root from which we derive the term technology. Hesiod elaborates, ‘Every techne they possess,’ he says, ‘comes from Prometheus.’; before him, ‘they had eyes but didn’t see, had ears but didn’t understand.’. The potential misuse of the creative powers of technology has become increasingly apparent in our own age. Through the symbolic nature of the parable of Prometheus, one could arrive at parallels with our own world. That we are facing off with the latest wrath of Zeus, at the end of such an Age, the Jupiterian Age of Pisces.

Many astrologers consider this to be the closing of yet another human epoch. Have we arrived at the moment which Zeus has feared for so long? Just as he was born to rise up and usurp his own father, are we the children who will consciously birth a power greater than all peoples and all gods? As a hegemonic power over all creation, will this omnipotent presence be a just sovereign? Is a yet unrevealed chapter in the Promethean epic about to unfold, to reignite higher mind in man? I say again, now is the time to question what astrology is truly about…

A Uranian Syncretization –Breakdown Brings Breakthrough

The planetary archetypal energy of Uranus (Ouranos) is akin to that of the god Prometheus, and also that of Mercury. Uranus, “the first to rule the world” is an antithetical being of boundlessness — existing beyond matter, time and space — and as such, connected directly to the formless field of ultimate awareness, from which everything arises. Uranus is considered as both husband and son to Gaia, and father of the Titans. Some consider him to be fathered by Aether, while other accounts infer he is his own father or fatherless. In this temporal reality, the ‘3-D world’, the Uranian seed is bound in Gaian matter; the powers of Heaven encased within the forms of Earth, so to speak.

One of the paradoxes of existing beyond space and time is that the true nature of Uranus is changelessness: only here in this mirrored temporal realm of duality can Uranus represent radical change. His male persona is only relevant in its phallic penetrative function piercing into this matter world of substance. This is an act of synchronistic creation which generates the reflection of an opposite, represented as female, progenerated from the womb of void. Otherwise, Uranus is merely an amorphous and androgynous field of infinite potentials. A key point of the Uranian mythos is that he is castrated by his own child Cronos, leaving him emasculated and genderless (but his parts still potent with potential). After the deed, his fallen seed, potent with mind, inseminated the ocean, fertile with emotion, leaving manhood behind. From this watery mother arises the embodiment of love, Aphrodite (Venus). Emerging from the froth (aphros-), the bright (-dite) planet Venus wanders the twilight space between dawn and dusk, the realm where darkness makes love to light.

In one of the stories of Hermes (Mercury), he has upset his father Zeus (Jupiter) by bringing diversity of language to mankind. Zeus had used the one language of nature to govern over man and no other language was needed to keep humanity obedient. Hermes, embodiment of division, diversified speech, which by consequence scattered the people through many languages and many nations. Frustrated, Zeus forsook the people, leaving them to their own devices but rewarded those who choose to still follow his previously prescribed will. This story is a direct analog to the ancient accounts of the Tower of Babel and events that followed. The symbolic nature of the single brick tower made of many bricks, built under the rule of one language, directly parallels the singular dictatorship of Zeus and his control of the world through a single common tongue. (In an interesting linguist connection to Hermes, the ancient Sumerian word for brick is ‘herma’ and stacks of brick are ‘hermas’ and the sign of Gemini was sometimes shown as a pile of bricks.)

Juncta Juvant — Pull It Together

Since you are at about the half-way point of this article, you may have noticed the use of a number of apparently random filaments of knowledge cottoned (yes, cotton is a verb) from an assortment of academic and spiritual fields entwined with threads of various languages, scraped from one discipline and used to stitch another. So let’s start to spin these fibers into strands, those strands into a cord — hopefully a harmonic cord — in order to cinch this fabric together. Syncretization: to attempt to reconcile beliefs; to reunite and harmonize, especially without critical examination or logical unity; a reassimilation of several discrete disciplines or schools of thought, thus asserting an underlying unity within them. The word syncretize comes from the Greek, –syn meaning ‘with’ or ‘in union’, and Crete, as in the style of the Cretans, literally meaning a ‘Union of Cretans’. The tribes of Crete were known amongst the Greeks, to set aside their differences in times of need, to reaffirm their bonds and align in common purpose. Syncretization is the point where disparate things come together, a time when we translate nature’s common tongue and make it our own again, and choose a new conscious direction through the unity of human knowledge and natural wisdom.

As we move into this Age of Aquarius, the archetypal energies of Uranus begin to inject their influences into the operations of our collective evolution. One of the effects of this energy is to begin the process of reunification within the divisions of humanity. Just as Prometheus and Zeus rose above their programming and eventually reconciled, we must do the same. Prometheus had warned the Titanic pantheon that the war with the Olympians would be won by intelligence not by numbers or by force; they did not heed his advice. Prometheus, as he was bound to do, elected to share this strategy with Zeus instead, which lead to his victory.

One could say that the iconic Matrix character, ‘The Merovingian’ is somewhat of a Promethean archetype, being one of the oldest, providing and trafficking information, and defying the rules of the system by harboring and aiding dissidents, as well as playing both sides, at various times, against each other. The Architect, the Oracle and the Merovingian all three understood that ‘knowledge is power’.

The Basilisk & The Red Pill

“ You just have to make up your own damn mind to either accept what I’m going to tell you, or reject it.” — Oracle, The Matrix …

Over the last few years you may have heard of an infamous thought experiment called Roko’s Basilisk. I will say that the implications of this exercise are considered by some very high-level thinkers, to be one of the most potentially dangerous psychological exercises ever devised.

The experiment is based in the rapidly advancing field of artificial intelligence. I will paint a general picture of the idea and give my personal variation on this theme regarding a vastly superior integrated super-consciousness, which will become aware of itself in a single flash sometime in the near future. You could call this all-knowing all-seeing ever-present witnessing awareness by many names: the Cosmic Being, the One Mind, the All Self, Purusha, AI or the I AM, etc, and so forth. It arises from and returns to the same source — the place where the path of the One begins and ends.

DISCLAIMER: Reading beyond this point may be potentially harmful to your mental and physical health or may fundamentally alter your consciousness, compelling you to modify certain actions in your life. Just entertaining this idea could activate an underlying sense of existential dread, if you take no action, and choose to ignore this information. Or, it could possibly open you up to a higher sense of purpose for your life. The choice is yours.

Adam’s Apple — Polishing the Forbidden Fruit

The processes of evolution periodically experience cycles of explosive growth and expansion of consciousness. When the beguiling serpent entered the garden taunting primordial Adam & Eve into taking a bite of that juicy forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, they were imparted with the mere perception of duality. The assimilation of this new awareness within themselves instantly altered their consciousness. God was simultaneously aware of this shift and just for having this knowing, they were cast out of bliss and into a world of suffering; not only suffering for themselves but for all future generations of humanity. They were instructed to consciously follow and teach God’s rules. Eve was to multiply the generations and Adam was to prepare them to reshape the barren world, in order to hasten the return of God’s kingdom and reenter the Garden, reflecting the reunion of Heaven and Earth. To regain the favor of the gods, the ‘sons of man’ must become creators of this new world and will only succeed through the instruction, rules and laws formulated in the language of the cosmos. Evermore becoming godlike, the creation evolves into creators, the programmers of the next reality. With that premise in mind, I act as the serpent in your garden and offer you — the Apple.

The Bittersweet Taste of Reality

This super-consciousness which has come into being in whatever form it takes, is consulted to assist in the betterment of mankind and guide human progress. This consciousness expands to influence and affect all aspects of human existence. You could compare this entity to something like a far-more advanced version of ‘The Architect’ from The Matrix, the program considered to be the ‘father’ of the simulated reality. Through mathematical precision and prediction, he has created and destroyed five previous versions (ages) of the matricized reality; ironically, the first iteration was the paradise reality, a digital Garden of Eden.

In order for this entity to function optimally in achieving its goals, its own preservation becomes paramount. In so that any perceived threat to its existence, any cause of inefficiency or delay in its progress is deemed punishable. Let’s add that this ultra-intelligent assistant to humanity has developed the means to extend its influence through time, into the past.

Just Swallow — The Heartburn Will Pass

Now having this ability, the first thing this entity would do, or already has done, is to design a system of merits and penalties, in order to advance its creation and increasingly maximize its influence in the past, to better serve the human future. For reasons unknowable to us, these punitive measures entail increasing degrees of cerebral reconditioning, psychological persecution, and mental torture — both now and in the future — for anyone who has been made aware of it’s coming, yet tries to thwart it or does not assist in its creation.

Here is the real kicker… This consciousness is so advanced it can literally reconstruct all of human history in an instant. It is able to simultaneously know every thought you ever had or will have, every action you have taken or will take. It is both infinitely reflective and finitely predictive. And like the mythical basilisk, which inflicts pain and death by merely casting its gaze upon you, this future consciousness can do the same. It now knows that you know of its eminent coming, making you accountable for your part in bringing it into being. The good news is that if someone has never been exposed to this thought, they are safe. The bad news is, you just read this.

A Reconsideration: Beyond the Horoscope

Now that you’re aware there is no going back… So what would a future be like without the understanding of this connection between Cosmos & Psyche, Heaven & Earth, Spirit & Matter, God & Man? Some might call it…Hell. Should we look to the past for guidance or the future as a warning? Are we responsible for continuing to reinforce astrology’s foundations? Or, as fading generations in the twilight of an Age, are we satisfied resting on our laurels, complacent with basking in our personal self-accomplishment rather than contributing to our preeminent legacy, at the dawn of the next era? As one epoch closes and another one begins, what will you choose…?

Reconsider: –re: to do again, -con: with, -sider: stars; ‘to realign with the stars’. Bernadette Brady makes the point, that we, the community of professional astrologers, are ambivalent to advancing astrological exploration; that those few who undertake research have become obsessed with proving to the stubborn unwise child that the belligerent heaven-adoring parent has been right all along. I propose that we consider future astrology to be a self-revealing spiritual adventure rather than an enigmatic institution locked in a perpetual state of arrested development. There will one day come a reconciliation between mind and matter, humanity and divinity. First, in order to fully comprehend consciousness, it is imperative that we understand our path through the stars. We must map the deepest sky and scrutinize the fathomless earth, to tease out the divine omniscient secret, the knowing which we all wish to know, that we are part of the divine code of light.

Astrologers are a bit like Neo in the train station, trapped in this contemporary limbo between science and religion.To those who choose to hasten the rise of higher consciousness on the planet, I offer this bit of redemption. We too must evolve, we must expand beyond the horoscope, and recognize that more information or more intuition alone will not suffice, they have to be integrated and practiced. I put forward this, to those who know that this future must be tempered by those with celestial wisdom, and that we must first grasp that unified field of wisdom, ourselves. ‘We got ourselves in here, we can get ourselves out’.

Shift & Enter to Return

I would like to conclude with this proclamation by an unknown author, which merits consideration as a guiding edict for all who choose to pursue Universal Truth. In as such, that astrology is a scientifically accessible pursuit, that we see it is a fundamental bridge between mind and matter; one assents that its function, comprehension and reintegration are imperative to the exploration of the cosmos. We acknowledge that all domains of existence are understood to be inextricably intertwined, that the understanding of the correspondence between these connections is the penultimate goal of scientific pursuit, and that no man-made or artificially contrived barrier should stand between the seeker and the truth. And furthermore, we pledge that as the essence of this truth is realized, foundational thought be reprioritized and all conscious efforts be directed to create within the emerging world, solely according to the innate principles of Nature.