What is "Jungian astrology"?

[athenian200]

I've seen people talk about it, and mention the Jungian concept of the shadow in particular when doing so. I happen to be very familiar with Jung's work because I was on a psychology forum for several years where we picked apart Myers-Briggs, Keirsey, Socionics, Lenore Thompson, John Beebe, etc... with everything ultimately going back to long-winded discussions about Jung and what he meant, and everyone wondering which system of personality typology stemming from his ideas worked best or was most faithful to the original, etc.

As far as I know, though, Jung wasn't an astrologer, and didn't start any astrological schools. Not to say he didn't study astrology or alchemy, but ultimately he never really got deep enough into those topics to innovate in them, his main contributions are in the field of psychotherapy. The concept of the "shadow" in Jung's work actually has nothing to do with astrology specifically, though the description I'm hearing people use is remarkably close to what the shadow actually does. Essentially, people have a conscious self, an identity or ego, and tend to deal poorly with aspects of themselves that don't fit with that identity. That can mean they manifest those parts of themselves in a very primal, negative way, or that they deny or suppress those parts of themselves entirely.

The only difference is, Jung would have defined four functions... Intuition, Feeling, Thinking, and Sensing. Jung theorized, basically, that someone whose mind is dominated by Intuition would tend to repress or struggle with Sensing, someone whose mind is dominated by Thinking would tend to repress or struggle with Feeling, etc. Someone who naturally focuses on the introverted, subjective factor might also tend to repress awareness of the extraverted, objective factor.

That said, this "Jungian Astrology" idea is pretty interesting. Now that you mention it, it's pretty obvious how someone who is consciously very Aries might struggle with their Libra side, someone who is very Taurus might struggle with their Scorpio side, someone who is very Cancer might struggle with their Capricorn side, etc. I can definitely see why someone would notice that the signs that are opposing each other seem very much like opposing functions in Jungian psychology (which is what I'm familiar with).

What's really funny about this whole situation to me, is that when I'm not studying astrology and casting charts for people, I'm having people take MBTI tests and trying to figure out what their dominant psychological function is, whether they're Introverted Intuitive types or Extraverted Sensing types, maybe even using Beebe's archetypes to try and figure out the "role" each function attitude is playing in their psyche, etc. It just... somehow never occurred to me to try and use them together. And for that reason, it kind of blows my mind that someone out there apparently attempted to combine two subjects I'm obsessed with into one thing, and I never heard about it until now.

I guess what I'm wondering at this point is... does Jungian astrology have much of a connection to Jungian psychology, and who exactly came up with it? It's just a little odd because I doubt Jung himself applied his own ideas to astrology in this way. Though I know for sure he did come up with the idea of synchronicity, which is actually a proposed mechanism by which astrology could work without planets physically influencing people through something like, say, gravitational influences. I also heard someone reference his idea of the collective unconscious once when explaining why tropical signs usually aren't reversed in the Southern Hemisphere. So I was definitely aware some astrologers were familiar with an idea or two of his, but I didn't know there was a whole system of astrology named after Jung himself.

 

[leomoon]

I found this one:

Jungian Astrology: Integrating the Psyche and the Cosmos

Jungian astrology, also known as archetypal astrology, is a unique approach to astrology that integrates the psychological insights of Carl…

medium.com

But I think Liz Greene is synonymous with the term Jungian Astrology:

Greene is one of the chief writers for astro.com, the website for her company Astrodienst.
Greene has written several astrology books based on Jungian psychology and other forms of depth psychology, contributing to an application of astrology called Psychological astrology. She relocated to the UK, then to Zürich, Switzerland to continue her work. Since 2004 she has again been living in the UK. (Wikipedia)

Liz Greene - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[leomoon]

Carl Jung's daughter practiced Astrology:

Jung was a Professor at the University of Basel in 1943. He married Emma Rauschenback 14 February 1903. They had four girls and one boy. Daughter Gret Baumann-Jung became an astrologer, presenting a paper on the horoscope of her father before the Psychological Club in Zurich, October 1974.

Carl Jung, horoscope for birth date 26 July 1875, born in Kesswil, w…​

www.astro.com/astro-databank/Jung,_Carl

 

[athenian200]

Carl Jung's daughter practiced Astrology:

Jung was a Professor at the University of Basel in 1943. He married Emma Rauschenback 14 February 1903. They had four girls and one boy. Daughter Gret Baumann-Jung became an astrologer, presenting a paper on the horoscope of her father before the Psychological Club in Zurich, October 1974.

Carl Jung, horoscope for birth date 26 July 1875, born in Kesswil, w…​

www.astro.com/astro-databank/Jung,_Carl

Thanks for the info! I suspect this might be the answer, that it's named for his daughter and not him. Either that, or it's just a generic descriptor for Liz Greene's work, in which case it's too bad Jung got top billing and that people may not be aware that Liz Greene was the main one responsible for applying his ideas to astrology.

 

[leomoon]

It was only after Jung met Toni Wolff that his interest in astrology emerged. A year after they met, he informs Freud that he is engaged in studying the new topic: “At the moment I am looking into astrology.” This revelation is followed four weeks later by another letter to Freud, dated June 12, 1911, in which he expands:

"My evenings are taken up very largely with astrology. I make horoscopic calculations in order to find a clue to the core of psychological truth."

In a 1916 lecture, Jung further notes that the cultural climate of the day encourages such study: “There is a regular library of astrological books and magazines that sell far better than the best scientific works.”

Jung was thoroughly familiar with Toni Wolff’s astrological horoscope, and he even kept a copy of it in his files. Gräfin Elizabeth Klinkowstroem recalls that, during one of her later analytical sessions with him, Jung told her that her astrological chart resembled Toni Wolff’s. Indeed, he shared with her they are almost “the same.” According to Jungian analyst and astrologer Liz Greene, Jung did not draw up, or “erect,” Toni Wolff’s chart. The copy in his files was drawn up by an “unknown hand,” not Jung’s, most likely a professional astrologer employed at the time. Jung’s copy of Toni Wolff’s chart is currently held privately.

Interestingly, during her only two analytical visits with Jung in the late 1920s, Gräfin Elizabeth Klinkowstroem remembers that he referred to a book similar to The Horoscope Hours in which one could look up one’s planets: “Like a watch, one could turn from the hour of one’s birth . . . and it gave you at once what horoscope you had, and very quickly. And then you can very quickly find it in the book.” It is not clear whether Jung ever learned the intricate mathematical formulas necessary to erect a full natal chart. As he was not inclined toward math by nature, it is likely that he relied upon books such as The Horoscope Hours, referred to by Klinkowstroem, to provide him with a close approximation of a natal chart. However, the copy he kept of Toni Wolff’s birth chart was an exact one

 

[leomoon]

Toni Wolff & C.G. Jung - A Collaboration

When she first met Jung, Toni stood at a personal crossroads. Her life was at a standstill with no apparent opportunity to advance her intellectual aspirations, and her hope for a vibrant future had dimmed. As commentator Maggy Anthony puts it, “She was gifted and intelligent, but had no...

www.astro.com

​

Portrait of Jung’s Inner Conflict​

Jung’s daughter Gret Baumann-Jung elucidates the inner clash between her father’s conventional and non-conventional selves in her analysis of his astrological horoscope. Building upon Jung’s early interest in astrology, she gained proficiency as an adult in the interpretation of natal charts. Publishing her insights in a 1975 article in the Jungian journal Spring, she traces her father’s conflict between his traditional and non-traditional sides back to the astrological symbolism in his chart. She considered this conflict to be the singularly deciding factor in his psyche.


In support of her contention, Gret cites the dramatic placement of Uranus and Saturn at divergent ends of her father’s astrological chart. Their opposition suggests that he experienced a contradiction in his basic temperament. In astrological symbolism, Saturn points to tradition, while Uranus points to non-tradition. Standing at polar ends of Jung’s horoscope, the planets reflect the intense contradiction that he experienced in himself. Engaging in a kind of tug-of-war in the heavens, Saturn and Uranus mirror the struggle he experienced in his own nature.(1)


Gret writes:


His horoscope has two rulers. Saturn is in the first house, where the conscious ego is formed. Uranus is on the opposite side of the chart. Uranus corresponds more to the unconscious.


Saturn aligns with her father’s personality No. 1, she says, which is his traditional persona, while Uranus, the seeker of mysteries and the unconscious, corresponds to his personality No. 2, the mediator to the underworld. Toni Wolff resonated closely with Jung’s personality No. 2, his unconventional, non-rational, and spiritual side, while [his wife] Emma resonated with his personality No. 1, his traditional, Swiss burgher persona.


Jung’s inner conflict became projected upon two separate and quite distinct women. While Gret Baumann-Jung does not mention Toni Wolff by name, she does indicate that her father’s unconventional nature, symbolized by Uranus, falls squarely “in the seventh house, in the house of partnership,” suggesting that he will opt for a highly unusual marital arrangement. Jung himself wrote two decades later that one may find that “unwished for guests” have entered a marriage, specifically a second woman whom the husband needs as much as his wife.

 

[leomoon]

His Mistress - and what he called "His Anima" Toni Wolff - aged 23 also died young - She introduced him to Astrology: Some of "their" patients thought she was better at psychology than he was.

Just before his death, he told his close acquaintance, Laurens van der Post, that Wolff had supplied the "fragrance" of his life, while his wife, Emma, had supplied "the foundation"

The intensity of Jung's relationship with Wolff initially caused tensions in his marriage, but eventually an understanding of sorts was reached,[17] as it became abundantly clear that Jung would not give up either his wife or Toni, whom he called his "second wife"
This arrangement satisfied what Jung had termed "my polygamous components",[19] and fit into his lifelong habit of distributing his affections for safety among a number of his so-called Jungfrauen

Toni Wolff - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[leomoon]

Carl Jung had Pluto square his Saturn (rx) - he "used women in particular" imo. One was this young woman who came for analysis (new in those days), and herself studying the art. She lost her father and was deeply depressed. "Using people" meaning all psychiatrists know they should not bed their clients. I always thought it was his Algol conjunct Pluto - and his 7th house Uranus.

 

[athenian200]

Carl Jung had Pluto square his Saturn (rx) - he "used women in particular" imo. One was this young woman who came for analysis (new in those days), and herself studying the art. She lost her father and was deeply depressed. "Using people" meaning all psychiatrists know they should not bed their clients. I always thought it was his Algol conjunct Pluto - and his 7th house Uranus.

Ah, well if "Jungian astrology" is what they call it when an older male astrologer with a lot of innovative, disruptive ideas starts attracting a lot of devoted, younger female followers that they may or may not sleep with, then I think I may have seen a few of those before...

Okay, that's probably not what they mean exactly, but it's funny to think that such astrologers could, in a sense, be considered to be taking a "Jungian" approach to their astrology. LOL.

Though yes, more seriously, I do agree that psychologists shouldn't sleep with their clients, and that it is worrying that the founder of modern analytical psychology might not even qualify to be licensed as a psychologist by modern ethical standards. Hopefully the stigma of these indiscretions doesn't become the mechanism by which both MBTI and Socionics are discredited...

 

[david starling]

Jung did one thing for which I'm forever grateful - he used his prestige as a psychologist to put the astrological, precessional Ages "on the map", giving the very concept of such Ages, a sense of reality and importance they would have otherwise lacked. They embody his idea of the "collective unconscious".

 

[waybread]

athenian200, this is mostly off-the-cuff , but my understanding is that "modern psychological astrology," started as the new astrology of the 1970s, and was based on combining the astrology of personality with the precepts of analytical psychology; i. e., the theories of Carl Jung and, to a lesser extent, Sigmund Freud.

Here is a run-down from the Astrodienst Astro-Wiki:

Psychological Astrology

www.astro.com

I think of it today as heavily invested in Jungian concepts like archetypes, shadow material, anima-animus, and the impact of parents on the child's psychological development.

Liz Greene has been the major proponent, and she has published extensively on this topic.

There are all kinds of obvious connections between astrology and analytical psychology. For example, the moon symbolizes both one's emotional nature and one's mother. In psychological astrology, the 4th house shows the native's early childhood conditioning. Presumably, then, an afflicted 4th house moon in Aries suggests the Bad Mother who was unable to meet her child's emotional needs.

I have a couple of problems with it.

1. I once did some sleuthing into the origins of Jung's theories of dreams, anima-animus, archetypes, and the subconscious, and think he falsified a lot of his literary-historical evidence. (See psychologist Richard Noll's research on Jung.)

2. Jungian psychology is scarcely taught in the psychology departments of accredited comprehensive North American Colleges and Universities. Today psychology research is more clinical and experimental, not introspective. Jungian psychology in North America is largely restricted to specialized institutes. Which is not to deny that Jungian analysists help a lot of clients. It is to say that the psychology of "modern psychological astrology" is not really psychology as the behavioral science it has become today.

3. Family horoscopes are interesting to compare. In the case of the Bad Mother in the native's chart, we never see Mom's side of the story. The native's siblings might have very different moon placements that show Mom in a more favorable light. So I think it's fair to see that parental signifiers show the native's experience of the parent, not the objective actual parent herself.

4. Few astrologers have credentials in either mainstream clinical psychology or in Jungian psychology. Few practicing psychologists understand astrology with any level of sophistication. (Liz Greene's Ph. D. is in history, not psychology.)

I think from personal experience that Jung's work on shadow material is probably the most helpful transfer to modern astrology.

 

[david starling]

I recall that "Synchronicity" and "Archetype" are two words Jung contributed to the explanation of how and why astrology "works".

 

[passiflora]

Not sure we could have a psychological astrology --- way of interpreting stellar influences through the historical patterns of mind -- without Jung. There's tons of fake data in university psychology (hellooooo, Dan Ariely) anyway.

 

[athenian200]

athenian200, this is mostly off-the-cuff , but my understanding is that "modern psychological astrology," started as the new astrology of the 1970s, and was based on combining the astrology of personality with the precepts of analytical psychology; i. e., the theories of Carl Jung and, to a lesser extent, Sigmund Freud.

Here is a run-down from the Astrodienst Astro-Wiki:

Psychological Astrology

www.astro.com

I think of it today as heavily invested in Jungian concepts like archetypes, shadow material, anima-animus, and the impact of parents on the child's psychological development.

Liz Greene has been the major proponent, and she has published extensively on this topic.

There are all kinds of obvious connections between astrology and analytical psychology. For example, the moon symbolizes both one's emotional nature and one's mother. In psychological astrology, the 4th house shows the native's early childhood conditioning. Presumably, then, an afflicted 4th house moon in Aries suggests the Bad Mother who was unable to meet her child's emotional needs.

Ah, so it's not usually called Jungian astrology specifically, but the whole field of psychological astrology does tend to draw from Jung and Freud more than from contemporary psychologists, who would tend to approach the subject in ways that wouldn't be very compatible with astrology at all. That does make sense, I was thinking it was a specific school of astrology beyond just the regular psychological astrology.

I have a couple of problems with it.

1. I once did some sleuthing into the origins of Jung's theories of dreams, anima-animus, archetypes, and the subconscious, and think he falsified a lot of his literary-historical evidence. (See psychologist Richard Noll's research on Jung.)

Well, I would tend to agree that anima and animus are fairly sketchy concepts and have found that it assumes a bit too much about how much gender roles influence personality (in fact that part of his theory is the most debated by contemporary Jungians), though I would say archetypes more generally seem like a pretty well-supported concept to me. Plato's theory of forms presupposes an idealized world of perfect forms, of which things in the real world are only imperfect imitations. This predates Jung's concept of archetypes by a few thousand years, and it's pretty clear how the theory of forms would have evolved into both the idea of a subconscious (a separate world of forms) and the concept of an archetype (a form), so at the very least those two concepts seem justified from the perspective of ancient Greek philosophy, which is not to say it's a cultural universal, but that seems to work well enough within Western culture in general given how heavily influenced a lot of us still are by Greek philosophy as transmitted via the Romans.

I think the concepts of archetypes and the subconscious were also used to great effect in marketing by Ernest Dichter, and he's somewhat infamous for it, but it seems to suggest that the concepts do have some validity if they can be used by companies to induce people to buy things or understand why consumers want to buy things, making them want things they don't need, etc. So while I don't know anything about Jung's falsification of specific evidence, the concepts themselves seem to be based on something much older, and also seem to have been successfully used by others in marketing.

Though, to be fair, I am the type of person that tends to get accused of being everything from a Neoplatonist to a Gnostic Christian from time to time, and I would readily admit that Jung's ideas make a lot more sense to someone already steeped in Platonic idealism like I am, than they would to someone who applies the scientific method and prefers to look at the world in terms of data.

2. Jungian psychology is scarcely taught in the psychology departments of accredited comprehensive North American Colleges and Universities. Today psychology research is more clinical and experimental, not introspective. Jungian psychology in North America is largely restricted to specialized institutes. Which is not to deny that Jungian analysists help a lot of clients. It is to say that the psychology of "modern psychological astrology" is not really psychology as the behavioral science it has become today.

That part is true, in fact a lot of my more scientifically-oriented friends scoff at me when I dare to mention Jung for that reason. Wasn't really expecting to see an argument like this here, but I'll acknowledge it for sure. Sometimes, for them, I have to try and find another way to say what Jung is saying using numerous frameworks that are far more tedious and need a lot more words and data to describe a lot less, in a much less impactful way, but still ultimately say the same thing. Like for instance, to me, Big Five is pretty much just MBTI with its "soul" ripped out and enslaved entirely to external data and impressing academic journals (though using MBTI with a fifth factor and having "Assertion" or "Turbulent" brings it closer to Big Five anyway).

I would actually go so far as to say that modern psychology has basically been subsumed by neurology on one end, and sociology on the other. It's mostly become a battleground for those two disciplines, and sometimes a place where they collaborate to do interdisciplinary work. Let's not even get into cultural anthropology, which is also taking psychology's lunch. The sociologists and the anthropologists deny the value of the individual somewhat and say everything can be explained in terms of the cultural context we live in, while the neurologists say that unhealthy mental states all arise from the physical brain and body at some point and thus suggest psychological problems are ultimately results of bad health or neurological dysfunction.

One unfortunate consequence of Jung and Freud being rejected so much by the academic establishment is that psychoanalysis/psychotherapy as a whole is sometimes taken less seriously, and now it's much more common to go straight to having psychiatrists prescribe drugs, or a neurosurgeon cut away at the brain to fix problems, because the results can be measured more easily with a data-driven approach and it's much less messy and subjective.

Psychology as a whole is slowly but surely meeting the same fate as philosophy, astrology, and religion, just managing to use the right statistical methods and reinventing old concepts with new data in watered-down forms to stave off the inevitable. Then again, it's not like physicists don't do that when proposing new theories about how dark matter works. That's my perspective as someone who almost went into psychology, helped a friend get a bachelor's in it with essay and homework help, but ultimately felt the field had no future and studied Computer Science instead.

3. Family horoscopes are interesting to compare. In the case of the Bad Mother in the native's chart, we never see Mom's side of the story. The native's siblings might have very different moon placements that show Mom in a more favorable light. So I think it's fair to see that parental signifiers show the native's experience of the parent, not the objective actual parent herself.

That I agree with for sure, a person's experience of their parents doesn't really tell us anything about their parents as individuals. Their parents could be very good people, but due to external circumstances or what the person was going through at the time, they might have seemed insufficiently nurturing.

4. Few astrologers have credentials in either mainstream clinical psychology or in Jungian psychology. Few practicing psychologists understand astrology with any level of sophistication. (Liz Greene's Ph. D. is in history, not psychology.)

Also very true, which is why I was excited to hear there was such a thing as Jungian astrology, I was expecting something a bit more elaborate... like, say, associating Air signs with Thinking, Fire signs with Intuition, Water signs with Feeling, and Earth signs with Sensation, and maybe trying to trying to associate Zodiac signs with Jungian archetypes, like pointing out how Aries is like The Warrior, Cancer is like The Caregiver, etc. Or even comparing the whole chart to a mandala, things like that.

While Liz Greene's ideas are cool, I don't get the impression she's delved as deeply into Jung's ideas as most of the people I know. I was half-wondering if I was going to get an excuse to talk about how, say, Trickster Te manifests with various Ascendants, or whether planets that are strongly placed in a chart give a hint as to someone's dominant psychological function, and see debates about whether it's the planets or the signs that should represent archetypes or psychological functions. Presumably, some people would see the planets as functions and the signs as archetypes, while others might see the signs as functions and the planets as archetypes, etc.

I think from personal experience that Jung's work on shadow material is probably the most helpful transfer to modern astrology.

Yeah, out of all of Jung's ideas, that is the one I think has helped the most people cope with trauma.

Anyway, sorry in advance for the long-winded response, I don't expect you to reply to everything here. I just had a lot to say.

 

[waybread]

You all know a lot more about Jungian psychology than I do, so I'll add just a few little bits.

One is about Liz Greene, the doyenne of modern psychological and Jungian psychology. Her original doctorate was through a now-defunct diploma mill, but I understand that she did get credentials in Jungian psychology through a Swiss institute. Later in life she acquired a Ph. D. through an accredited British university, with a thesis on the kabbalah, in the history department. She's written many books on Jungian astrology.

Alice O. Howell was another astrologer and author who integrated Jungian theory into her astrological practice.
https://oxfordastrologer.com/2016/01/alice-o-howells.html

Another psychological astrologer, Stephen Arroyo, wrote about astrology's 4 elements precisely as symbolizing mental, material, emotional, and active principles in the horoscope.

A Google search revealed several newer books on the topic but I can't comment on them. Some of Greene's earlier books were co-authored with Howard Sasportas.

There is a question of what constitutes "modern psychological astrology." The name of Dutch astrologer Karen Hamaker-Zondag comes up a lot but I don't find her particularly Jungian.

I don't know that a lot of modern astrology is particularly psychological. I don't know what particular theory or school of thought I would pin it on.

I'm not sure most modern astrologers have a good handle on the most popular concepts from psychology, like narcissism, psychopathy, or gaslighting. No astrological signature works 100%, but I think that mental health problems often relate to conjunctions or hard aspects of the moon and Uranus. Astrologers and their clients are often accused of confirmation bias, or the Barnum effect.

For sure, we can have modern astrology without the word "psychological" appended to it.

 

[waybread]

Athenian, part of my concern about Jung is the extent to which I truly believe he falsified a lot of his data. It's beyond giving him the benefit of the doubt as simply playing fast-and-loose with it.

Jung's archetypes are a big case in point. Jung was extremely well-read, a fact which seemed to scare off lesser mortals from critically examining Jung's methodologies. But yeah-- can we really talk about archetypes in the collective unconscious when every well-educated man of Jung's generation would have been required to study the classics, learn Latin (and possibly Greek,) and acquire knowledge of European history? Jung would have read Plato, not dreamt up the concept of pre-existing thought-forms. I see a lot of transmission of knowledge through ordinary conscious means, like teaching, where Jung claimed a collective unconscious.

Jung was a man of his era, from a country that gave women the right to vote only in 1971. The anima-animus thesis maps reasonably well onto astrology (men are from Mars, women are from Venus) in an old-fashioned kind of way. I don't know what Jung would have made of the spectacular emergence of female athletes and sports, or the rise of LGBTQ identities. There must be a connection between "the animus-driven woman" and Jung's personal shadow material somewhere.

At one time I had a huge interest in western mythology, and read a lot of it in the "original" (in English translation.) You may be aware of the website theoi.com. If Jungian astrologers want to use mythology, that's fine; but their versions often bear little resemblance to what the ancient authors wrote (who actually worshipped these deities.) I mean, we have this entire field of classical studies that gets ignored in favor of more simplistic versions of the grand myths and characters of the ancient world.

It saddens me to see all of the complexity of the goddess Demeter and her worship reduced to a pop-psych Smothering Mother.

I think we can do more with Mercury: both trickster and mythical founder of Hermeticism.

Given how external funding drives academic research funding, I think psychology will turn more to neuroscience, or the more lucrative practices like clinical psychology.

I think a better model for us is psychology's poor relation, counseling. Counseling is a huge part of what we do on this Forum in reading horoscopes for people, including horary astrology which is not based on psychology.

 

[athenian200]

Athenian, part of my concern about Jung is the extent to which I truly believe he falsified a lot of his data. It's beyond giving him the benefit of the doubt as simply playing fast-and-loose with it.

Jung's archetypes are a big case in point. Jung was extremely well-read, a fact which seemed to scare off lesser mortals from critically examining Jung's methodologies. But yeah-- can we really talk about archetypes in the collective unconscious when every well-educated man of Jung's generation would have been required to study the classics, learn Latin (and possibly Greek,) and acquire knowledge of European history? Jung would have read Plato, not dreamt up the concept of pre-existing thought-forms. I see a lot of transmission of knowledge through ordinary conscious means, like teaching, where Jung claimed a collective unconscious.

Ah, well to be fair... that's actually not very different from my own background. I took AP European History in high school, and also studied ancient Latin as my foreign language, actually joining the Latin club. No, it wasn't a private school... just a regular public school that happened to offer the courses at the time.

So just to clarify... your issue isn't with the concept of archetypes or the subconscious being complete and utter nonsense in your mind, but rather that Jung claims too much credit for them, acting as if he dreamt them up when in fact he just repackaged something that any educated man of his time would have known? If that's where you're coming from, I think we actually agree. You would be emphasizing that he's claiming credit for common philosophical ideas and inflating his own ego, laying claim to a special insight which really isn't all that mysterious or surprising in origin. I mean, it's not like people weren't aware of archetypal motifs that cut across cultures before Jung, or the fact that there's not just one culture with a war god or a fertility goddess, etc. I mean, even the Romans more or less said that Ares and Mars had a lot in common when comparing their culture to Greek culture...

I would tend more to feel that it's precisely because the ideas are not Jung's alone, and have a much longer and well-tested history that I'm reluctant to discard them as irrelevant. That is, Jung was probably inflating his own importance in repackaging these ideas, but I tend to see him more as a catalyst for reviving interest in older ideas that needed more attention anyway. It's unfortunate that he was such a flawed catalyst, both in terms of his personal conduct towards women, and in terms of his methodology.

Jung was a man of his era, from a country that gave women the right to vote only in 1971. The anima-animus thesis maps reasonably well onto astrology (men are from Mars, women are from Venus) in an old-fashioned kind of way. I don't know what Jung would have made of the spectacular emergence of female athletes and sports, or the rise of LGBTQ identities. There must be a connection between "the animus-driven woman" and Jung's personal shadow material somewhere.

Yeah, no disagreement on that here. Out of all of Jung's concepts, I would say I've found the anima and animus to be the least useful and the most misleading, especially for people who aren't traditionally masculine or feminine in personality.

At one time I had a huge interest in western mythology, and read a lot of it in the "original" (in English translation.) You may be aware of the website theoi.com. If Jungian astrologers want to use mythology, that's fine; but their versions often bear little resemblance to what the ancient authors wrote (who actually worshipped these deities.) I mean, we have this entire field of classical studies that gets ignored in favor of more simplistic versions of the grand myths and characters of the ancient world.

It saddens me to see all of the complexity of the goddess Demeter and her worship reduced to a pop-psych Smothering Mother.

I think we can do more with Mercury: both trickster and mythical founder of Hermeticism.

Okay, now I think I understand where you're coming from. I have found that, for me personally, classical studies have really helped flesh out the ideas I think Jung was trying to express better than he actually expressed them. His books are not known for being accessible, and most of what he was trying to say has been said before. I actually lament the fact that the classics are not taught enough these days, and that there's a certain lack of intellectual depth, and obsession with novelty in the world today.

So you're not looking at it from the perspective that because Jung's ideas are bad, we should also discard the classics that inspired him... you're looking at more from the perspective that Jung isn't worthwhile because it makes more sense to go straight to the source, to Plato and Greek mythology, if we want to make sense of these ideas and their relevance. That makes a lot more sense to me, and I broadly agree. I think I'm just used to people trying to use Jung's flaws as an excuse to throw the baby out with the bathwater, metaphorically speaking.

I think a better model for us is psychology's poor relation, counseling. Counseling is a huge part of what we do on this Forum in reading horoscopes for people, including horary astrology which is not based on psychology.

Yeah, I would say ultimately, it all does come down to counseling. Astrology, philosophy, Jungian ideas, religion... all of them tend to provide a starting point for people to counsel one another and meditate on issues they might not normally. Those starting points tend to get dismissed rather easily by modern academia, but they can be very important to the individual seeking meaning or guidance.

So overall, I'm not really seeing many points of disagreement. It seems like we have similar views on most of this, with the main difference being that you're used to dealing with astrologers who seem to half-unknowingly venerate Jung far beyond what is reasonable while ignoring his influences, whereas I am more used to dealing with scientifically-minded skeptics who use Jung's flaws as an excuse to dismiss ideas that are a lot older than him without a fair hearing.

 

[waybread]

Thanks for your post, lostsagittarian. In an open Forum we're all free to comment on everyone else's postsso thanks for bringing up mine.

I think you raise a valuable concept, that an author himself might have behaved and written in questionable ways during his lifetime, but we can take what works and what helps people, and leave the rest.

So let's ask, Do We Really Need The Collective Unconscious?? For What Purpose? I don't think we need it at all, not to mention that Jung's formulation doesn't stand up to critical scrutiny.

Social scientists and historians talk about innovation and diffusion: an idea originates at Point A in Time T, and spreads from there. It can spread around the edges of the area through word-of-mouth or whatever form of longer-distance communication those people had. In ancient times: ideas spread through trade and military conquest. Ancient empires also had top-down administrative structures governing conquered territories. Some of the ideas might be passed along informally through parenting or community norms. Others might be taught through an education system.

I think we can take a lot of Jungian ideas of a collective unconscious and actually historically trace their lineages. If you or Athenian would like to give me a concept or archetype that you think stems from the collective unconscious, I'm prepared to do that.

So far as archetypes go, some of them would just be part of the common human social structure. The Mother. The Father. The Wise Village Elder. Again, we don't need a collective unconscious to recognize core principles of human social organization.

So what sort of intellectual, emotional, or spiritual problem does the collective unconscious actually solve?

For sure, if Jungian astrologers want to take a Mythology Lite approach to archetypes, that's their prerogative.

From my perspective, however, the ancient myths often had so much depth and richness to them that much better informs the human condition, as well as individual personal problems. Some of the mythological characters we the basis of profound ancient religions, as well.

TBC

 

[waybread]

Really wonderful insights, folks. Thank you for making them.

Incidentally, I am an INTJ, and retired a retired academic with interests in various complex systems. (Astrology being enormously complex.)

Athenian200: So, yeah. If someone really wants to be a scientist or skeptic, it behooves her to explore an idea in some detail and depth, to see what works and what doesn't work. As you know, there is a fallacy of overgeneralization, in which a body of thought is exposed as partly flawed, but then the whole thing is declared worthless. As I said above, I acknowledge the clients who really think Jungian/analytical psychology has helped them. I also find, personally and astrologically, some merit to Jung's thoughts on shadow material. (Pluto opposite sun here.)

Rather than looking to the collective unconscious for archetypes, I think religion and literature offer many to choose from. And then supposedly empirical history is often semi-fictionalized with these archetypes in mind. (Cf. the Great Man theory of history.) I think astrology does map onto archetypes, but astrology grew up with history, religion, and literature; so we don't need the collective unconscious as some kind of independent pre-existing foundation. Ancient Mesopotamians, for example, thought the planets were gods, each with their own attributes and lore.

I suspect that Jung himself had a colossal ego (to use a psychology term.) He was probably very charismatic and able to project himself as an alpha male to his disciples. In reading back through historical narratives, Jung pinned them on universal pre-existing archetypes; rather than looking at the theories from anthropology (extant in his day) about innovation and diffusion. Psychology professor Richard Noll spent time in the archives, and found that the young Jung (!) experienced himself as a Christ figure.

Just one last shot at archetypal astrology, though, is that some proponents go so far as to posit that, since the (collective unconscious) archetypes predate entire cultures, that archetypes take on a life of their own, with individual human beings merely slotting into stereotypes that pre-existed them.

It looks like we say things in different ways, but that there is a lot of agreement.

Very refreshing!

 

[athenian200]

I seem to test as INFJ myself on various MBTI tests, though it's worth noting I'm a male INFJ that often tries and fails to mask as INTJ or INTP. I'm kind of glad to hear that you know your MBTI type and that I'm not the only one here that's taken the test.

Well, as far as my relationship to the collective unconscious as an idea... I haven't really studied Jung's formulation of it in depth or applied any critical scrutiny, because I'm mostly just using that language to talk to Jungians in terms they understand, rather than because I am seriously committed to Jung's formulations.

I mean, this may make me sound like a sloppy thinker that takes a lot of shortcuts rather than deal with proper definitions, but usually I just use "collective unconscious" as a replacement for "world of forms" when talking to Jungians because they are more familiar with Jung's work than Greek philosophy.

However, I would tend to disagree with Jung's specific conception of it if we actually went into detail about the differences, but the differences wouldn't be noticeable to most people who study Jungian ideas anyway. Jung proposes that these exist unconsciously. I would tend to propose that the world of forms is not only conscious, but it may actually be connected to the source of human consciousness. People are definitely aware of forms, symbols, ideals, archetypes, or whatever. We apply them all the time, we are always comparing things to some idea of how they "should" be.

If we go to something more modern than the theory of forms, then I would probably say that my ideas are closer to those who hold to an "innateness hypothesis" with regards to language, which suggests that humans are born with at least some knowledge of linguistic structure. Only I think some archetypes actually precede linguistic structure to an extent, and exist at an even more basic level than that. Which is to say, humans are born with at least some innate awareness of archetypes, and like with language, exposure to their culture's particular archetypes and ideals helps them flesh out and refine these amorphous, vague, inborn ideas into something more socially useful to them. Also, there may be a critical period for being exposed to certain archetypes and making the person able to reason about matters associated with them. That's also a very controversial and hotly-debated topic within linguistics, unless those who reject the innateness hypothesis already won that debate while I wasn't looking.

However, it's at the core of why I think teaching the classics is very important. The rich, symbolic language of traditional archetypes does need to be taught, and preferably at a young age, or all we will be left with are the vague, inborn ghosts of them that people cannot deal with effectively, just as they struggle to deal with linguistic ideas they weren't exposed to during the so-called "critical period." So that is to say, I think that our human awareness of archetypes is partly an in-born faculty but also requires cultural reinforcement to truly thrive. And babies are hardly unconscious... they are constantly observing, trying to map language onto something, something a part of them understands instinctively. That may well be all there is to the "collective unconscious"... shared instincts among humans that help us acquire our first language and culture. With that subtle change, instead of having to prove something supernatural on par with the kind of proposals Rupert Sheldrake was laughed at for, now all I am arguing is that humans have shared instincts that make both language and archetype acquisition a natural process that needs cultural reinforcement, and the difference in formulation really doesn't affect 99% of discussions with Jungians about archetypes or typology. Most of the discussions work just as well this way.