When the Impossible Happens (48 page)

The precise astrological correspondence with the experiential aspects of BPM III is particularly extraordinary and surprising because this matrix represents an unusual combination of elements characteristic of the final stage of biological birth. Here belong unrelenting thrust of an elemental driving force, clash of titanic energies, Dionysian ecstasy, birth, sex, death, rebirth, elimination, and scatology. We can further mention the experiences of life and death relevance and the motifs of volcanic eruptions, purifying fire, and of the underworld—urban, criminal, psychological, sexual, and mythological. Astrologically, all these are attributes of the archetype of Pluto.

And finally, the phenomenology of BPM IV—the experience of emerging from the birth canal—is closely related to the archetype of Uranus. This is the only planet the archetypal meaning of which considerably deviates from the nature of its mythological namesake. As Rick has convincingly shown in an essay specifically dedicated to this subject, the archetype associated with Uranus actually exactly reflects the basic characteristics of the Greek mythological hero Prometheus (Tarnas 1995). It is characterized by such features as unexpected resolution of a difficult situation, breaking and transcending boundaries, brilliantly illuminating insights, Promethean epiphany, sudden rising to a new level of awareness and consciousness, liberation, and freedom from previous constrictions.

The discovery of these deep similarities between the description of four major planetary archetypes and the phenomenology of the basic perinatal matrices was extraordinary in and of itself, considering that the latter originated quite independently and from completely different sources than the former. However, even more astonishing was Rick’s later discovery that in holotropic states the experiential confrontation with these matrices regularly occurs at the time when the individuals involved have important transits of the corresponding planets.

Over the years, we have been able to confirm this fact by thousands of specific observations. Because of these surprisingly precise correlations, astrology, particularly transit astrology, turned out to be the long-sought Rosetta stone of consciousness research, providing the key for understanding the nature and content of present, past, and future holotropic states, both spontaneous and induced.

The correlations concerning past experiences are primarily of theoretical interest and can be used as a basis for longitudinal research. Examining current transits can be extremely useful in the work with individuals undergoing spiritual emergencies, providing a road map for otherwise incomprehensible experiences and their timing. And the possibility of making remarkably accurate predictions based on future transits is an invaluable tool in the planning of psychedelic and holotropic sessions.

Modern Euro-American civilization is under such a strong influence of materialistic science that it usually takes years of research of holotropic states and extensive personal exposure to them before we are able to break its spell and accept the radical revisions that have to be made in our understanding of the human psyche and the nature of reality to accommodate the new data. It is not surprising that this process is so difficult and that it encounters so much resistance. The vast array of challenging observations from holotropic states and astrology cannot be handled by a little conceptual patchwork, occasional cosmetic adjustment using minor
ad hoc
hypotheses. It would require a drastic overhaul, shattering and replacing the most fundamental metaphysical assumptions and beliefs of materialistic science.

The specific implications for psychology and psychiatry go far beyond those I have discussed over the years in my books—the vastly expanded model of the psyche, the much more complex multilevel structure of emotional and psychosomatic disorders, the concept of the inner radar, the existence and therapeutic use of inner healing intelligence, and a few others. Another area that requires radical revision in the light of the new findings is the role of the medical model in psychiatry and the influence it has on clinical practice, particularly in relation to the use of diagnostic labels.

Because the experiences of clients in ordinary, as well as holotropic, states of consciousness show deep correlations with the archetypal fields of the transiting planets at any particular time, they are subjected to constant changes. Clinicians and theoreticians who are trying to establish a fixed classificatory system of psychiatric diagnoses find their work very frustrating. We are currently on the fourth revised version of the official American
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV),
and psychiatrists and psychologists keep ex pressing their frustration concerning the lack of correspondence between the description of the diagnostic categories and the actual clinical pictures they encounter in their patients.

From an astrological point of view, this versatility of the clinical picture reflects the constantly shifting angular relations among the planets and the corresponding archetypal influences. At various periods of history, two or more planets form important aspects in the skies; this is particularly significant and long-lasting if it involves the outer planets from Jupiter to Pluto. The combined archetypal field associated with these planets will give this period a certain experiential flavor, determining its Zeitgeist.

For example, the entire period of 1960 to 1972 coincided with a conjunction involving Pluto and Uranus, the only such conjunction in the twentieth century. This certainly was a very appropriate archetypal combination for a period of sustained major psychospiritual revolution of a Dionysian kind, characterized by social upheaval, the civil rights movement, technological triumph, radical innovations in music and arts, the sexual revolution, the feminist movement, student unrest, and widespread countercultural activity and creativity.

By contrast, the major archetypal influence throughout the 1990s was a Neptune-Uranus conjunction. This was a period of profound, but generally nonviolent, spiritual and social changes, or “velvet revolutions,” such as the unification of Germany, liberation of Eastern European countries, and peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union, a dangerous superpower. At this time, Jungian psychology gained increasing acceptance, and a multitude of spiritually oriented books made the bestseller lists. Transpersonal themes—mythology, near-death experiences, UFO abduction phenomena, instrumental transcommunication (ITC), and virtual reality-attracted the attention of professionals and the general public and many of them have become favorite subjects of movie makers (Tarnas 2006).

At the time of major planetary aspects for the whole world, these planetary combinations also become personalized for individuals as they form major transits to specific planets in their natal charts. These alignments will then be reflected in tendencies toward specific emotional and psychosomatic disorders. As a result, psychiatrists from different historical periods do not see the same phenomena as their colleagues from earlier or later times. This suggests a possible explanation for why the creation of a fixed, universally valid
DSM-IV
seems to be intrinsically problematic.

But that is not the whole story. In the annual courses that Rick Tarnas and I teach at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, we discuss the major schools of depth psychology and analyze the astrological charts of their founders. It soon became obvious that these pioneers were not able to study objectively the psyches of their clients and make general conclusions that would remain valid indefinitely. They saw the problems of their clients through their subjective perceptual stencils, or distorting lenses, inherent in the aspects in their own charts and their own transits at the time of the observations.

With the exception of organically determined disorders, psychiatry thus does not have a fixed set of phenomena to study. The result of any research of emotional and psychosomatic disorders that are not organic is thus determined by a complex interplay of a number of factors: the astrological chart of the researcher and his or her transits at the time of observation, the planetary aspects for the entire world that define the Zeitgeist of a particular period, and personal transits that color the experiences of the clients.

The image of psychiatry as a discipline that possesses concise descriptions of fixed and transtemporal pathological conditions and an armamentarium of specific remedies and interventions is an illusion. The only viable approach under these circumstances is to describe psychiatric disorders in terms of relationships and tools that can be used to analyze the situation at any particular time and characterize it in terms of the phenomenology of the experiences of the client and the client’s planetary transits. As a corrective, it is also necessary to take into consideration the global planetary aspects and the researchers’ own chart and transits.

The connections revealed by astrology are so complex, intricate, creative, and highly imaginative that they leave no doubt of their divine origin. They provide convincing evidence for a deep, meaningful order underlying creation and for a superior cosmic intelligence that engendered it. This raises a very interesting question: is there a comprehensive worldview that could accommodate astrology and assimilate its findings? Over the years, and not without struggle and tribulations, I have come to the conclusion that there is a worldview that can absorb and explain my experiences and observations from consciousness research, as well as embrace astrology. However, it differs diametrically from the belief system that dominates the modern Western civilization.

I have described this worldview in my book
The Cosmic Game: Explorations of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness
(Grof 1998) and presented it also in a condensed form in a chapter of my last book,
Psychology of theFuture
(Grof 2000). This vision of reality is based on experiences and in sights from holotropic states and portrays the universe not as a material system, but as an infinitely complex play of “Absolute Consciousness.” Ancient Hindu scriptures describe a similar view of the cosmos, referring to the events in the phenomenal worlds as
lila,
the divine play. This way of seeing the universe is becoming increasingly compatible with various revolutionary advances in new paradigm science.

If the cosmos is a creation of superior intelligence and not a supermachine that created itself, it then becomes more readily plausible that astrology could be one of many different orders built into the universal fabric. It could be seen as a useful complement to the field of science, rather than an irreconcilable rival of the scientific worldview. Opening up conceptually to this possibility would make it possible to utilize the great potential that astrology holds as a clinical and research tool in psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy, as well as for a variety of other disciplines.

The major difference between the thinking of mainstream scientists and astrologers is that scientists try to apply to astrology principles of linear causality. This can be illustrated by my conversation with Carl Sagan, who was the prime representative of the “scientific” resistance to astrology. When he heard about my interest in this field, he told me: “I can’t understand how you, as an intelligent and educated person, can believe this nonsense. Astrology is total hogwash! As I am standing here, I have more influence on you than Pluto.” Carl was brilliant, and he carried out in his head a fast computation, taking into account masses, distance, and gravitational fields. This led him to the obvious conclusion that the planets could not have any significant physical influence on the human psyche or the events on earth. And he lacked the imagination to think of another mechanism that could possibly be involved.

Carl’s conclusion that astrology does not make sense if we think in terms of physical influence of the planets on the human psyche and events in the world is shared by all well-educated astrologers. They do not think in terms of chains of physical causes and effects, but in terms of synchronistic relations. To accept the worldview of astrology, one would have to abandon the image of the universe as a mechanical and fully deterministic system and replace it with a universe based on a master blueprint created by superior cosmic intelligence. According to the astrological worldview, the universal scheme of things includes systematic correlations between the movements and angular relations of the planets and the dynamics of the archetypal world. And because archetypal dynamics govern and inform the events in the material world, we can infer and predict from planetary positions what kind of happenings we might expect in material reality.

It is important to emphasize that the astrological predictions are archetypal and not concrete. It is not enough to judge astrology on the basis of the fact that it is incompatible with mainstream scientific thinking. Any critic who wants to be taken seriously has to acquaint himself or herself with the theory and practice of astrology and have adequate knowledge of archetypal psychology. The next step is to conduct one’s own research and to assess to what extent the actual observations agree with the astrological predictions. I am convinced that if an open-minded researcher conducts such a study, the victim will not be astrology, but the monistic, materialistic worldview of academic science.

EPILOGUE

My experiences and observations during the five decades I have spent researching holotropic states of my own and of thousands of others have profoundly changed my personal and scientific worldviews. The stories collected in this book describe a small but representative sample of the events that have been instrumental in this transformation.

In 1956, at the time of my graduation from the Medical School of Charles University in Prague, I shared with the academic community and with my culture the image of the universe and of the human psyche forged by Western materialistic science. This vision of the world was based on the metaphysical assumption that the universe is a mechanical system that is strictly deterministic and in which matter is primary. Life, consciousness, and intelligence were seen as more or less accidental side—products of matter, essentially flukes that happened in an insignificant section of a giant universe after billions of years of evolution of inert inorganic matter.