Psychological Aspects of Astrology’s Return to the Academy From a paper originally titled “Light from Dark Matter: The Burden and the Gift of Astrolo

Author: Jean Hinson Lall
Abstract: The reasons for astrology’s long exile from the academy have been as much psychological as intellectual and political, for it represents the shadow of the scientific, professional and technical value-system of the contemporary academic culture. The reintroduction of astrology as a serious topic of university studies produces an inevitable collision between the norms of intellectual objectivity (the stance of the modern scholar who stands apart from the material being studied) and the reality of what C.G. Jung called the objective psyche, or collective unconscious, from which we can never fully separate our conscious standpoint. For astrology systematically reveals the unconscious, archetypal factors underlying conscious experience and collapses the subject-object dichotomy fundamental to the modern psyche and the modern intellect, thus undermining the assumptions and identity of the modern scholar. To reintegrate astrology into academic life requires bringing more objectivity into astrology but also bringing the implications of the objective psyche fully into the academy. This requires a historical perspective on astrology’s psychological position since the Enlightenment and a capacity to do personal and intellectual ‘shadow work’ in academe – a slow and costly alchemical process, but a necessary one if astrology’s full contribution is to be realized.
Keywords: shadow, C. G. Jung, subject-object dichotomy, archetypal factors, academic life, Enlightenment, hist
Notes:
Publication: Astrology and the Academy: papers from the inaugural conference of the Sophia Centre (published by C
Issue:
Dated: 2004
Pages: 114 – 130