BOOKS IN REVIEW
By
GLORIA R. LALUMIA
Conversing with the Planets--How Science
and Myth Invented the Cosmos by Anthony Aveni. Kodansha
Books, New York: 1994 (paper); Times Book, New York: 1992
(hardcover).
The Moment of Astrology--Origins in Divination by Geoffrey Cornelius. Penguin Arkana, London: 1994 (paper).
Occasionally, like hermit crabs without
shells, we astrologers find ourselves outside the safety of our
astrological groups trying to explain “how astrology works”
to those who are sometimes accepting, but more often than not,
skeptical if not hostile. In truth, though we are eager to
read all about the latest interpretation techniques or add yet
another “cookbook” to our libraries, we rarely take the
time to delve into works dealing with the foundations of
astrology. Two recent publications, one by an astronomer
and one by an astrologer, challenge us to reflect on our beloved
Art. In Conversing with the Planets--How Science and Myth
Invented the Cosmos, Anthony Aveni, a professor of astronomy
and anthropology at Colgate University, invites the reader to
“Turn out the lights and watch the real ones in
heaven--those our ancestors’ imaginative minds used to mold
a wonderful poetic imagery about themselves and their relation to
the universe” (xiii).
Aveni argues that modern day man has separated himself from nature and has, in the name of science, reduced events to “chain-link cause-and-effect explanations” while our predecessors interrelated the behavior of things in the sky with other natural phenomena they experienced. They joined the inanimate world with the animate world they lived in through sky myths which described their history, social relations, creation, and life after death beliefs. Aveni focuses on the central role of Venus in the Mayan and Babylonian cultures to illustrate how the celestial observation (astronomy) of the planet’s cycles became intertwined in the culture of these ancient peoples.
The author asks whether astrology’s
debunkers “overexert themselves in the defense of science,
not because they feel enthusiasm about celebrating its successes
but because they lack the quiet confidence that it can really
solve all our problems” (176). He observes that “we
have been conditioned to think in...mechanistic terms (228) and
suggests humankind renew its cast-off links with nature. Describing
astrology as a framer of “the dialogue between people and
their gods, between society and nature” (218) he concludes
that “Whether astrology did or did not work seems more our
problem than that of the believers who took comfort in it for so
many thousand of years” (219). Coming from a member of the
scientific community, and an astronomer, no less, this is a
stunning observation. Geoffrey Cornelius, British astrologer and
expert on the I Ching, tackles the problem of defending
astrology in The Moment of Astrology--Origins in Divination
by proposing that astrologers free their art from the
Aristotelian-Ptolemaic model that, he believes, limits
astrology. The author argues that “despite the
possibility that a few factors...can arguably be validated by the
appeal to science” astrology “is properly to be
understood as a form of divination. It is divination
despite all appearances of objectivity and natural law”
(xix). Cornelius argues that although “psychological”
or “person-centered” astrology, as first introduced by
Dane Rudhyar, moves chart interpretation toward the subjective
and spiritual and away from the focus on predicting fated “external”
events, the individual is still “imprinted” with “a
particular pattern of these potentials at the instant of birth”
(102). Pointing to horary as an example of astrology that
works outside the traditional the Ptolemaic model, the author
uncovers astrology’s buried ties to the Greek katarche
which has been obscured by classical astrological forms. Cornelius
shows how katarche provides a link between astrology and
divination and “magical-religious imagination.”
Emphasizing the role of the astrologer as a participant in the
“ moment of astrology”, he argues that astrology is
“psi” (containing unknown paranormal elements), and
that it should be reconnected, in all its forms, to its
divinatory roots. The question of “wrong” charts
that work may also be less problematical in light of this
approach.
Cornelius presents a “Fourfold Interpretation of the Symbol” which is based on “a model of meaning and interpretation which was developed ...in early and medieval Christianity” (264) and also incorporates insights from psychoanalysis and Jung’s analytical psychology. In this model, the Four Levels of interpretation build on the “marvelous legacy of the Western mystical tradition” (265) by encompassing the literal (the straightforward signs); allegory (matching astrological symbols to things); trope (which reveals insights beyond those initially examined in the interpretation, and includes the participation of the astrologer); and anagoge. It is this anagogic level, which is “demonstrated by the common recognition of mystery at the heart of the possibility that astrology ‘works’ at all” that leads the author to the conclusion that astrology’s symbolic language “permits it to point through the shadows of reality to the reality itself (by using) images to unbind images” (292). Furthermore, “we astrologers are in a weak position if we do not properly acknowledge the symbolic and divinatory nature of what we do” (293).
Although the material is challenging,
Cornelius writes in a lucid, flowing style as he presents
a vast amount of material in a logical and straightforward
manner. You will also want to read the highly informative
footnotes. As this book unfolds, astrology is freed from what
Cornelius calls “an intellectual time warp” and moves
beyond the attack of scientific critics. This book is must
reading for all astrologers interested in raising the level of
their beloved Art. Be prepared to be swept up in an exciting
adventure of discovery. I had the good fortune to study the
I Ching with Cornelius about 10 years ago while living in London
and also attended a lecture he presented entitled “Parting
the Veil” in which he first outlined some of the ideas he
develops in this book. Happily, the ideas he sketched out
in that lecture have grown into a pivotal work which Robert Hand
calls “one of the most important astrological books of our
time.”
Copyright Gloria R. Lalumia