Tags
Archetypes, astrology, Jung, Magic, Occult Conference, occultism, psychology, real magic, Zodiac
Part of a series of posts inspired by the South Wales Occult Conference in Cardiff on 2nd November 2024 – find the first post and index here.
Being somewhat of a night owl, and staying with 3 other night owls (the witching hour is a good time to be awake, in our book!) somewhat of a drive away, I sadly missed the first talk by the lovely Brett Hollyhead but we made it to the second talk: Frances Clynes on Jung and Astrology.
Astrology has long been of interest to me, though I’m far from an expert.
It combines several really cool things:
- Exploring what makes people who they are
- stories
- patterns and connections
- the magic of the planets
- cool symbols
- mystical maths
- time
and lots of confusion from people who don’t believe a philosopher can also believe in astrology!
The talk was interesting, delving into some of the principles of Jung’s work in psychology – or those attempts to understand how people tick – his model of the triple soul, and the nature of archetypes as arising form the collective unconscious.
Clynes then demonstrated how archetypes can appear as characters in astrological natal charts, through combinations of planets and their places in the signs and houses. Such as if the Sun is in a “strong” position – such as in Leo – then you might find a hero archetype. If that happens in the eighth house (sex, death, mystery), conjunct Chiron (the wounded healer) that archetype might become a dark, mysterious type with a painful past… think Batman as opposed to Superman. Both arguably heroes, but with different backgrounds and approaches. (Please take these with a grain of salt, I was too fascinated to write down the actual examples!)
Jung is so influential in modern magical understanding that this felt like it would fit really smoothly with magical practices I’m familiar with, and I found Clynes’ description of the relationship between the archetypes and the unconscious, related to the archetypes’ appearances in the charts, really reminiscent of the way deities are often said to be born as shining lights out of the darkness of the primordial night. Individual beings become out of the relationship between Powers, energies, and events.
The gods are manifestations of intersections, just like we are.
And, of course, Jung’s work was orientated towards integration of all our parts.
Bringing those archetypes in our selves together, and into consciousness, so we can become aware of their roles within us, aware of our whole selves, and working together rather than at odds.
And using the natal chart to discover those archetypes which we might not be aware of consciously within us, seems like a very practical tool for self discovery that would help with understanding some of the ways the nuances of interpreting planetary relationships manifest!
Halo Quin 