It is sophisticated, insightful, and balanced.

Yet the astrology he presents is some of the best thinking on the subject available to a contemporary person. He doesn’t even use the “A” word until page 61. We see how the same themes emerge time and again here on Earth as the planets repeat the movements of their dance in the sky.Īlways aware that he is writing for an audience that is very likely to be skeptical, Tarnas takes great pains to distance his message from the astrology most people know – that of the tabloid sun-sign columns. Most of Cosmos & Psyche is devoted to an explanation of how the cycles of the five outer planets of our solar system, and their angular relationships to each other, correlate with social and political change. The idea of a meaningful cosmos becomes somewhat more palatable when physicists (champions of the material world, after all) give a nod in its direction.īut what evidence do we have to support this view? Tarnas takes the bold step of introducing astrology as the primary witness in the case for re-enchanting the cosmos. David Peat, who see parallels with the worldview emerging in contemporary physics. The term was coined by psychologist Carl Jung in the middle of the 20th century, and it has since become of great interest to physicists like David Bohm and F. Synchronicity, or meaningful coincidence, is at the heart of the approach Tarnas takes. He approaches the task with the utmost caution, aware that he is moving outside of a worldview that has been accepted since the 19th century. Tarnas then begins to introduce the idea that meaning may be present throughout the cosmos – suggesting the existence of something more than a human interpretation of physical events. Recognizing the size of his task, he starts out slowly, reviewing the history of Western thought and noting the problems with our materialistic conception of the universe. In Cosmos & Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, Tarnas opens up the possibility of a meaningful cosmos, one in which consciousness is just as much a part of the overall picture as matter. As Richard Tarnas describes it, a “disenchanted” cosmos. Modern people have worked hard to move away from the dark cloak of superstition and the choking grasp of religious dogma, with the result that sophisticated thinkers have settled on the belief that life, love, and meaning are merely the outcomes of random interactions among inert matter bound by physical law.

Just what kind of universe do we live in? With the rise of science, the Western world has become increasingly materialistic in its outlook, and the very notion that there is any meaning inherent in the cosmos has become laughable – a leftover vestige of primitive thinking.

Cosmos and psyche book