Astrology and the divided brain

This post explores the implications of astrological influence as archetypal manifestation. The archetypal perspective itself comes from depth psychology, and Jung regards archetype as modus praeformandi, pre-existing psychic forms or modalities. Extended to astrology through archetypal astrology, we have the identification that archetypal principles manifest synchronously, in the sense of synchronicity or meaningful coincidence: a meaningful coinciding of the associated meaning in the heavenly and apparent meaning in the earthly, subject to the motions of the heavens.

Here I want to explore the implications of exploring the manifestation of the archetypal in the actual. An extensive exploration of such a framing would of course be possible, including in relation to various Western philosophical traditions. However, this post is intended to be a reflection of what happens when we work in such a way with astrology. Astrology is not necessarily regarded as archetypal (this is one form of it), but at the same time, arguably, it implicitly if not explicitly has this character in the sense that it works with general meanings.

The crucial point of archetypal manifestation is the multiplicity of possible manifestations. Thus an archetypal form can manifest not just in multiple kinds of circumstances, but in multiple spheres. The archetypal can and does manifest in both historical events and the art of these historical periods. In general terms, the situation is something like “one to many mapping” – one archetypal identification manifests in multiple actualities. The former is far from a discrete entity, but a multivalent ‘form behind form’. The latter is multiple actualities in multiple spheres of actualities, with no intrinsic constraint as to how and where influence may occur. What are the implications of such a situation?

On the one hand, it offers a rich ground for exploration. One may discern archetypal influences in many contexts - historical, social, cultural, artistic, epistemic, spiritual. This is what Tarnas’ Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View achieves, with a deep and insightful exploration of particular archetypal threads. The obvious criticism is “cherry picking” and historical astrological commentary can be based on compelling examples. In terms of the framing explored here, this is selecting from actualities to show the archetypal. The alternative is then to start from a pre-existing set of actualities, and explore the extent of archetypal correspondence. But in doing so, we have lost the multiple manifestation which is so defining of the archetypal. By trying to extend the correspondence, we also risk diminishing it. This begins to show the intrinsic difficulty of this interface of the archetypal and actual.

There is another important dimension to be acknowledged. Astrological theory, which is the basis of supposed archetypal influence in actuality, is extremely complex. Cosmos and Psyche confines itself to a very simple form of astrological influence, planetary aspects. Moreover, it considers only a few planetary pairs. Astrology has many theoretical dimensions though, and there are many traditions, schools, and techniques. It would be a substantial article in itself to even outline these, but there are various intrinsic identifications, and then what may be seen as elaborations on these. The basic identification seems to me to be something like a harmonic resonance of ‘charts’ through time.

Because astrological theory is so complex, there are many frameworks in which to construe archetypal influence in the actual. Moreover, there is no standard of astrological theory. Its many techniques do anything but confine it and there is no standard, while the many identifications and elaborations of these mean that it is open-ended in terms of interpretation.

Where does this leave us? We have the archetypal multivalently informing the actual via a fundamentally mysterious and open-ended theoretical framework. Phrased as such, two positions become clear. The skeptical position is quite obvious: proceeding in such a way, we could see anything we wanted to see. Also apparent is the actually similar position held at a different level: we do see anything we want to see, or see meaning in everything. This is the shadow of enchantment, which itself is an archetypal principle.

There is no easy or predefined position between these. If we can proceed with curiosity and discernment, then astrological influence becomes something to explore. And we have already begun to suggest two strategies for this. One is to work at a level of meaning, and be prepared to see the archetypal in the actual; another is to work more logically, and try to find the archetypal in the actual.

Consider the 2019 Scorsese film The Irishman. This film, released as the recent Saturn-Pluto conjunction was “closing in” is so utterly and strikingly of this character that any elaboration would be interesting but not add anything to this realisation. It is somehow an actuality in which the archetypal is so clearly expressed that it is an expression of it. Many examples could have been used here, but somehow this one has stuck with me.

In reflecting all of this, I realised that I was circling around the thesis of McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the making of the Western World. This major work explores the modalities and relationality of the brain hemispheres. He suggests the right brain (the Master) to function holistically, creatively and relationally, and the left brain (the Emissary) to function through details, capable only of novelty and self-reference. The right relationality is that insight passed from the right brain to the left for elaboration, and then passed back. The late Western cultural condition is in his view a terminal dominance of the left brain modality. The title comes from a parable of Nietzsche: a king employed an emissary to do his business, but eventually the emissary no longer saw fit to defer back to the king, and took over ruling.

McGilchrist’s work is both interesting at a neuropsychological level and powerful at a level of past and present cultural understanding, and he acknowledges his view as a metaphor for our situation while also arguing that metaphor is how we (through the right brain) come to understand the world.

It is implied then that the perception of a totality of archetypal meaning in actuality is of the right brain. On the basis of such insights, we can then start to dissect the matter. What about all of the times where there isn’t an archetypal correspondence? How often is there a correspondence when we look at one sort of thing? What sort of thing might we find correspondences for? Thus we have entered the territory of the left brain. This is interesting in its own way, and we can do detailed work, with the aim of honing the original insight – this would be dismissing for the skeptic, while others would not feel such work is even warranted.

The relatively free form of astrological theory I indicated is important here, because this is what is potentially honed by this dialectical process, which McGilchrist attributes to hemispheric functionality and relationality.

Most importantly, we can know we are doing this. We can be conscious of the modalities in which we are working. This may sound obvious, but some would occupy one uncritically. We can look for meaning and we can gain insight, but the discernment in doing so is ours to find and hold, and there is no external epistemological standard we can hold ourselves to here. On the other hand, we can work more analytically, but the potentially limited perspective on the multiplicity and subtlety of meaning this affords is likewise ours to remain aware of (this more than touches on McGilchrist’s deeper cultural critique). These positions map somewhat to astrology as an art or science – and neither of these are necessarily good.

So study of astrology is an opportunity to consciously explore multiple ways of knowing and the dialectical process they can represent, and in doing so an opportunity to explore at multiple levels the original premise of the manifestation of the archetypal in the actual, of meaning informing the world. Where all this leads in terms of the true nature of reality and consciousness, we can only imagine.

Thanks to everyone at the Astrological Association 2025 conference for a stimulating few days 🙏