Richard Tarnas
Encyclopedia
Richard Theodore Tarnas, Jr. (born February 21, 1950) is a philosopher
and cultural historian
known for his 1991 book The Passion
of the Western Mind
: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View
and Cosmos
and Psyche
: Intimations of a New World View, published in 2006. Tarnas is professor of philosophy and psychology
at the California Institute of Integral Studies
, and is the founding director of its graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology
, and Consciousness
.
, where he studied Greek, Latin, and the Classics at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy
.
In 1968 Tarnas entered Harvard, graduating with an A.B. cum laude in 1972. He received his Ph.D. from Saybrook Institute in 1976. His thesis was on psychedelic therapy. For ten years he lived and worked at Esalen Institute
in Big Sur, California, studying with Stanislav Grof
, Joseph Campbell
, Gregory Bateson
, Huston Smith
, and James Hillman
, and later served as director of programs and education.
From 1980 to 1990, he wrote The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View, a narrative history of Western thought
which became a bestseller
and continues to be a widely-used text in colleges. Tarnas was the founding director of the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies and he remains a core faculty member.
In 2006, Tarnas published Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View which was awarded the Book of the Year Prize by the Scientific and Medical Network in the UK. Tarnas was featured in the 2006 film Entheogen
: Awakening the Divine Within, a documentary about rediscovering an enchanted
cosmos in the modern world. In 2008, Tarnas was invited to address members of the Dutch Parliament
about creating a sustainable society
.
and Judaeo-Christian
mythologies
. He then argues that with the advent of postmodernism
, the modern world is in a serious spiritual crisis
, which manifests as the global ecological crisis
. He proposes that a potential resolution, which he calls the participatory framework, has also been in development in the West for centuries.
Tarnas first describes the ancient world view, which was described by Max Weber
as being "enchanted
." In the ancient world view, humans are undifferentiated from nature in a participation mystique
. This ancient world view gradually transformed into modernity
. In the modern view, the world is perceived as an objective
reality
which is open to scientific observation and manipulation, but which is radically separate from the human mind.
With the Renaissance
, the Copernican cosmological revolution
displaced and relativized
mankind's place in the cosmos. Then Descartes' metaphysical
revolution divided the cosmos into matter
and mind
. Finally, Kant
's epistemological revolution
separated our senses from the objects
of their perception
. These three events trace the process which has resulted in the ontological estrangement and spiritual alienation
which is characteristic of the contemporary world.
in an empty, meaningless world.
According to Tarnas, the participatory framework takes into account the critical insights of modernism
and postmodernism
, while repairing the ontological separateness of the psyche and the cosmos, which are, in the participatory framework, synthesized in a dialectical hieros gamos
, or sacred marriage.
the Awakener, focuses on the astrological
properties of the planet Uranus
, and is a "description of the uncanny way astrological patterns appear to coincide with events or destiny patterns in the lives of both individuals and societies..." Tarnas suggests that the characteristics associated with the mythological figure Uranus do not match the astrological properties of the planet Uranus, and that a more appropriate identification would be with the mythological figure Prometheus.
and dysteleological
assumptions of the modern world view, and sets forth evidence for a correspondence between planetary alignments and patterns of human history. The book is thus an example of archetypal astrology
. It is also an attempt to supply an archetypal cosmology
to accompany his proposed participatory epistemology.
According to magazine editor Louise Danielle Palmer:
Tarnas uses C. G. Jung's concept of synchronicity
, or meaningful coincidence
, to argue that there is an acausal connection between the outer world and the human psyche.
According to John Heron
,
Tarnas does not argue for a causal relationship between the stars and human events:
, selling over 200,000 copies by 2006. It continues to be a widely-used text in colleges. It was hailed as an important work by Joseph Campbell
, Huston Smith
, Stanislav Grof
, and David Steindl-Rast
. According to Christopher Bache
, Passion is "[w]idely regarded as one of the most discerning overviews of Western philosophy
from the ancient Greeks to postmodern thought." Jorge Ferrer
said that it contained a "devastating assault on the Cartesian-Kantian paradigm
."
In 1996, Nobel laureate and chemist Ilya Prigogine
approvingly quoted Tarnas in a paper entitled "Science, Reason, and Passion." The paper's topic was how modern science appears to be overcoming the duality which separates humans from nature.
In his 2000 book Wandering God: A Study of Nomadic Spirituality, cultural critic
Morris Berman
called The Passion of the Western Mind "a fairly decent summary of European intellectual history
, written in a a lucid and accessible style." Berman then wrote that Tarnas "argues for a biological mysticism", and called Tarnas' theory escapist
, regressive
, totalitarian, and utopian.
In papers posted to the Shambhala Publications
website in 2003, Ken Wilber
called Tarnas a "boomeritis
theorist", and criticized Tarnas for using Abraham Maslow
as a "whipping boy
", for allegedly misusing Thomas Kuhn
's concept of the paradigm
, and for allegedly engaging in "hermeneutic violence" by using a metanarrative
which denies hierarchical stages. However, contrary to one of Wilber's claims, Tarnas only mentions Maslow once in Passion, and this is in a non-critical context.
Also, Margaret Masterman has pointed out that Kuhn uses the term "paradigm" in many different senses.
that Tarnas' book The Passion of the Western Mind "was hailed as a liberal education
in one volume and became a staple in some college curriculums." Meaney panned Cosmos and Psyche, writing that the premise may sound "like an elaborate joke" and calling it "unadulterated crack-pottery."
In Inside Bay Area, bookseller Esther Fields wrote,
Anthroposophist and attorney Frederick Dennehy wrote in Lilipoh magazine, "Tarnas’ deeply radical hypothesis is that the disenchantment of the modern universe is unreal – the result of a “simplistic epistemology” and moral positioning totally inadequate to the depths, complexity and grandeur of the cosmos."
In The Observer
, astrologer Neil Spencer favorably contrasted Tarnas' book Cosmos and Psyche to the writings of Richard Dawkins
:
John Heron
is a theorist who shares Tarnas' philosophical background, who was an astrologer for 15 years, and who accepts a relationship between astronomical entities and human existence. Heron critiqued the methodology and conclusions of Tarnas' Cosmos and Psyche in the journal Network Review. He described 18 internal problems with Tarnas' theory.
In Tikkun
magazine, philosopher Jordi Pigem
concluded,
formed the Archetypal Research Collective for pursuing research in archetypal cosmology. An online journal, Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology, edited by Keiron LeGrice and Rod O'Neal, was begun a year later, based on the research orientation and methodology established in Cosmos and Psyche. Advisory board members include Christopher Bache
, Jorge Ferrer, Stanislav Grof, Robert McDermott
, Ralph Metzner
, and Brian Swimme
. Contributors have included Keiron Le Grice, Richard Tarnas, Stanislav Grof, and Rod O'Neal.
Articles and interview
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and cultural historian
Cultural history
The term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural...
known for his 1991 book The Passion
Passion (Christianity)
The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering – physical, spiritual, and mental – of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion...
of the Western Mind
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View
World view
A comprehensive world view is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the entirety of the individual or society's knowledge and point-of-view, including natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and...
and Cosmos
Cosmos
In the general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from the Greek term κόσμος , meaning "order" or "ornament" and is antithetical to the concept of chaos. Today, the word is generally used as a synonym of the word Universe . The word cosmos originates from the same root...
and Psyche
Psyche (psychology)
The word psyche has a long history of use in psychology and philosophy, dating back to ancient times, and has been one of the fundamental concepts for understanding human nature from a scientific point of view. The English word soul is sometimes used synonymously, especially in older...
: Intimations of a New World View, published in 2006. Tarnas is professor of philosophy and psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
at the California Institute of Integral Studies
California Institute of Integral Studies
California Institute of Integral Studies is a private institution of higher education founded in 1968 and based in San Francisco, California. It currently operates in three locations just south of the Civic Center district...
, and is the founding director of its graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
, and Consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
.
Biography
Tarnas was born on February 21, 1950 in Geneva, Switzerland, of American parents. His father, also Richard Tarnas, was a government contract attorney, former president of the Michigan Federal Bar Association, and professor of law. His mother, Mary Louise, was a teacher and homemaker. The eldest of eight children, he grew up in Detroit, MichiganDetroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, where he studied Greek, Latin, and the Classics at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy
University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy
The University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, founded in 1877, is one of two Jesuit high schools in the city of Detroit, Michigan...
.
In 1968 Tarnas entered Harvard, graduating with an A.B. cum laude in 1972. He received his Ph.D. from Saybrook Institute in 1976. His thesis was on psychedelic therapy. For ten years he lived and worked at Esalen Institute
Esalen Institute
Esalen Institute is a residential community and retreat in Big Sur, California, which focuses upon humanistic alternative education. Esalen is a nonprofit organization devoted to activites such as meditation, massage, Gestalt, yoga, psychology, ecology, and spirituality...
in Big Sur, California, studying with Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof is a psychiatrist, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of analyzing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche...
, Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
, Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
, Huston Smith
Huston Smith
Huston Cummings Smith is a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religions remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.-Education:...
, and James Hillman
James Hillman
James Hillman was an American psychologist. He studied at, and then guided studies for, the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, founded a movement toward archetypal psychology and retired into private practice, writing and traveling to lecture, until his death at his home in Connecticut on October 27,...
, and later served as director of programs and education.
From 1980 to 1990, he wrote The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View, a narrative history of Western thought
Western thought
The term Western thought is usually associated with the cultural tradition that traces its origins to Greek thought and the Abrahamic religions...
which became a bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
and continues to be a widely-used text in colleges. Tarnas was the founding director of the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies and he remains a core faculty member.
In 2006, Tarnas published Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View which was awarded the Book of the Year Prize by the Scientific and Medical Network in the UK. Tarnas was featured in the 2006 film Entheogen
Entheogen
An entheogen , in the strict sense, is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context. Historically, entheogens were mostly derived from plant sources and have been used in a variety of traditional religious contexts...
: Awakening the Divine Within, a documentary about rediscovering an enchanted
Disenchantment
Disenchantment is a term in the social sciences used to describe the cultural rationalization and devaluation of mysticism apparent in modern society...
cosmos in the modern world. In 2008, Tarnas was invited to address members of the Dutch Parliament
States-General of the Netherlands
The States-General of the Netherlands is the bicameral legislature of the Netherlands, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The parliament meets in at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The archaic Dutch word "staten" originally related to the feudal classes in which medieval...
about creating a sustainable society
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
.
The Passion of the Western Mind
In Tarnas' first book, The Passion of the Western Mind, he outlines the intellectual-cultural development of the modern world view from its origins in GreekGreek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
and Judaeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian is a term used in the United States since the 1940s to refer to standards of ethics said to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, for example the Ten Commandments...
mythologies
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
. He then argues that with the advent of postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
, the modern world is in a serious spiritual crisis
Spiritual crisis
Spiritual crisis is a form of identity crisis where an individual experiences drastic changes to their meaning system typically because of a spontaneous spiritual experience...
, which manifests as the global ecological crisis
Ecological crisis
An ecological crisis occurs when the environment of a species or a population changes in a way that destabilizes its continued survival. There are many possible causes of such crises:...
. He proposes that a potential resolution, which he calls the participatory framework, has also been in development in the West for centuries.
Tarnas first describes the ancient world view, which was described by Max Weber
Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...
as being "enchanted
Disenchantment
Disenchantment is a term in the social sciences used to describe the cultural rationalization and devaluation of mysticism apparent in modern society...
." In the ancient world view, humans are undifferentiated from nature in a participation mystique
Sympathetic magic
Sympathetic magic, also known as imitative magic, is a type of magic based on imitation or correspondence.-Similarity and contagion:The theory of sympathetic magic was first developed by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough...
. This ancient world view gradually transformed into modernity
Modernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
. In the modern view, the world is perceived as an objective
Objectivity (philosophy)
Objectivity is a central philosophical concept which has been variously defined by sources. A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—that is, not met by the judgment of a conscious entity or subject.- Objectivism...
reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
which is open to scientific observation and manipulation, but which is radically separate from the human mind.
With the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, the Copernican cosmological revolution
Copernican Revolution
The Copernican Revolution refers to the paradigm shift away from the Ptolemaic model of the heavens, which postulated the Earth at the center of the galaxy, towards the heliocentric model with the Sun at the center of our Solar System...
displaced and relativized
Galilean invariance
Galilean invariance or Galilean relativity is a principle of relativity which states that the fundamental laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames...
mankind's place in the cosmos. Then Descartes' metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
revolution divided the cosmos into matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
and mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
. Finally, Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
's epistemological revolution
Transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century. Kant's doctrine maintains that human experience of things is similar to the way they appear to us — implying a fundamentally subject-based component, rather than being an activity that...
separated our senses from the objects
Noumenon
The noumenon is a posited object or event that is known without the use of the senses.The term is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to "phenomenon", which refers to anything that appears to, or is an object of, the senses...
of their perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
. These three events trace the process which has resulted in the ontological estrangement and spiritual alienation
Social alienation
The term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...
which is characteristic of the contemporary world.
Epilogue
In the Epilogue, Tarnas describes how in postmodernism, meaning is projected onto or constructedConstructivist epistemology
Constructivist epistemology is an epistemological perspective in philosophy about the nature of scientific knowledge. Constructivists maintain that scientific knowledge is constructed by scientists and not discovered from the world. Constructivists claim that the concepts of science are mental...
in an empty, meaningless world.
Thus the modern condition begins as a PrometheanThe contemporary world of postmodern thought, according to Tarnas, is caught "between the inner craving for a life of meaning and the relentless attrition of existence in a cosmos that our rational scientific world view has assured us is empty, dead, devoid of all purpose." Tarnas' proposed transcendence of this "Cartesian-Kantian epistemological box" involves a participatory epistemology: a theory of knowledge in which "human beings are regarded as an essential vehicle for the creative self-unfolding of reality."PrometheusIn Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...
movement toward human freedom, toward autonomyAutonomyAutonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...
from the encompassing matrix of nature, toward individuationIndividuationIndividuation is a concept which appears in numerous fields and may be encountered in work by Arthur Schopenhauer, Carl Jung, Gilbert Simondon, Bernard Stiegler, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, David Bohm, and Manuel De Landa...
from the collective, yet gradually and ineluctably the CartesianRené DescartesRené Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
-Kantian condition evolves into a Kafka-BeckettSamuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
-like state of existential isolation and absurdityAbsurdismIn philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
--an intolerable double bindDouble bindA double bind is an emotionally distressing dilemma in communication in which an individual receives two or more conflicting messages, in which one message negates the other. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other , so that...
leading to a kind of deconstructive frenzy.
According to Tarnas, the participatory framework takes into account the critical insights of modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
and postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
, while repairing the ontological separateness of the psyche and the cosmos, which are, in the participatory framework, synthesized in a dialectical hieros gamos
Hieros gamos
Hieros gamos or Hierogamy refers to a sexual ritual that plays out a marriage between a god and a goddess, especially when enacted in a symbolic ritual where human participants represent the deities. It is the harmonization of opposites...
, or sacred marriage.
This participatory epistemology, developed in different ways by Goethe, Hegel, SteinerRudolf SteinerRudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
, and others, can be understood not as a regressionRegression (psychology)Regression, according to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, is a defense mechanism leading to the temporary or long-term reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more adult way...
to naive participation mystique, but as the dialectical synthesisThesis, antithesis, synthesisThe triad thesis, antithesis, synthesis is often used to describe the thought of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel never used the term himself, and almost all of his biographers have been eager to discredit it....
of the long evolutionEvolutionEvolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
from the primordial undifferentiated consciousness through the dualistic alienation. It incorporates the postmodern understanding of knowledge and yet goes beyond it. The interpretive and constructive character of human cognitionCognitionIn science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
is fully acknowledged, but the intimate, interpenetrating and all-permeating relationship of nature to the human being and human mind allows the Kantian consequence of epistemological alienation to be entirely overcome.
Prometheus the Awakener
Tarnas' second book, published in 1995, PrometheusPrometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...
the Awakener, focuses on the astrological
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
properties of the planet Uranus
Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus , the father of Cronus and grandfather of Zeus...
, and is a "description of the uncanny way astrological patterns appear to coincide with events or destiny patterns in the lives of both individuals and societies..." Tarnas suggests that the characteristics associated with the mythological figure Uranus do not match the astrological properties of the planet Uranus, and that a more appropriate identification would be with the mythological figure Prometheus.
Cosmos and Psyche
Tarnas' third book, Cosmos and Psyche, for which The Passion of the Western Mind was an introduction, challenges the materialisticMaterialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
and dysteleological
Dysteleology
Dysteleology is the philosophical view that existence has no telos or final cause from purposeful design. The term "dysteleology" is a modern word invented and popularized by Haeckel...
assumptions of the modern world view, and sets forth evidence for a correspondence between planetary alignments and patterns of human history. The book is thus an example of archetypal astrology
Archetypal astrology
Archetypal astrology is a branch of astrology, influenced by Jungian and post-Jungian depth psychology, that studies the connection between the changing positions of the planets in the solar system and archetypal patterns in human experience. It is practiced by a growing number of archetypal...
. It is also an attempt to supply an archetypal cosmology
Archetypal cosmology
Archetypal cosmology is a field of study that explores correlations between "discernible archetypal patterns in human experience and the structural order within the solar system."...
to accompany his proposed participatory epistemology.
According to magazine editor Louise Danielle Palmer:
Tarnas makes a compelling case for the idea that we are not an isolated oddity of consciousness floating in a meaningless, indifferent universe. And more: that we are participating in one that is conscious and exquisitely ordered, albeit mysteriously. Tarnas supports this case by laying the philosophical ground for a radical shift in perspective, supported by a sweeping body of evidence that illustrates an uncanny correspondence between the movement of the planets and the timing and character of historical events, from September 11th to the French RevolutionFrench RevolutionThe French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, from the unfolding creative genius of Descartes and DarwinCharles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
to Beethoven and the BeatlesThe BeatlesThe Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
.
Tarnas uses C. G. Jung's concept of synchronicity
Synchronicity
Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance and that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner...
, or meaningful coincidence
Coincidence
A coincidence is an event notable for its occurring in conjunction with other conditions, e.g. another event. As such, a coincidence occurs when something uncanny, accidental and unexpected happens under conditions named, but not under a defined relationship...
, to argue that there is an acausal connection between the outer world and the human psyche.
According to John Heron
John Heron
John Heron is a pioneer in the creation of a participatory research method in the social sciences, called co-operative inquiry, which was based on his work in 1968-69 on the phenomenology of social encounter, and which has been applied by practitioners in many fields of professional and personal...
,
The greater bulk of Cosmos and Psyche is devoted to making correlations between each of four kinds of world transit on the one hand, and human events in diverse fields in the history of the Western cultural tradition on the other. A world transit is a temporary alignment, also called an aspect (angular relation), of two planets with the earth, such that, according to Tarnas, the distinctive archetypal principles linked to those planets have a potent interactive influence within the human psyche throughout the world for the duration of the alignment. The four planetary alignments Tarnas considers are UranusUranusUranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus , the father of Cronus and grandfather of Zeus...
-PlutoPlutoPluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun...
, SaturnSaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...
-Pluto, JupiterJupiterJupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
-Uranus and Uranus-NeptuneNeptuneNeptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System. Named for the Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times...
. With each of these world transits Tarnas correlates a large amount of data drawn from the Western historical tradition, as illustrative of the special archetypal dynamics involved.
Tarnas does not argue for a causal relationship between the stars and human events:
In the perspective I am suggesting here, reflecting the dominant trend in contemporary astrological theory, the planets do not “cause” specific events any more than the hands on a clock “cause” a specific time. Rather, the planetary positions are indicative of the cosmic state or archetypal dynamics at that time.
The Passion of the Western Mind
The Passion of the Western Mind was a bestsellerBestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
, selling over 200,000 copies by 2006. It continues to be a widely-used text in colleges. It was hailed as an important work by Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
, Huston Smith
Huston Smith
Huston Cummings Smith is a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religions remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.-Education:...
, Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof is a psychiatrist, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of analyzing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche...
, and David Steindl-Rast
David Steindl-Rast
David Steindl-Rast is a Catholic Benedictine monk, notable for his active participation in interfaith dialogue and his work on the interaction between spirituality and science....
. According to Christopher Bache
Christopher Bache
Christopher M. Bache has been a professor of Religious Studies at Youngstown State University for almost 30 years as well as an intermittent adjunct faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies...
, Passion is "[w]idely regarded as one of the most discerning overviews of Western philosophy
Western philosophy
Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
from the ancient Greeks to postmodern thought." Jorge Ferrer
Jorge Ferrer
Jorge Ferrer is chair of the department of East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is also the author of Revisioning Transpersonal Theory: A Participatory Vision of Human Spirituality, and co-editor of The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious...
said that it contained a "devastating assault on the Cartesian-Kantian paradigm
Paradigm
The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...
."
In 1996, Nobel laureate and chemist Ilya Prigogine
Ilya Prigogine
Ilya, Viscount Prigogine was a Russian-born naturalized Belgian physical chemist and Nobel Laureate noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility.-Biography :...
approvingly quoted Tarnas in a paper entitled "Science, Reason, and Passion." The paper's topic was how modern science appears to be overcoming the duality which separates humans from nature.
In his 2000 book Wandering God: A Study of Nomadic Spirituality, cultural critic
Cultural critic
A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole and typically on a radical basis. There is significant overlap with social and cultural theory.-Terminology:...
Morris Berman
Morris Berman
Morris Berman was born in Rochester, New York. He earned his BA in mathematics at Cornell University in 1966 and his Ph.D. in the history of science at The Johns Hopkins University in 1972...
called The Passion of the Western Mind "a fairly decent summary of European intellectual history
Intellectual history
Note: this article concerns the discipline of intellectual history, and not its object, the whole span of human thought since the invention of writing. For clarifications about the latter topic, please consult the writings of the intellectual historians listed here and entries on individual...
, written in a a lucid and accessible style." Berman then wrote that Tarnas "argues for a biological mysticism", and called Tarnas' theory escapist
Escapism
Escapism is mental diversion by means of entertainment or recreation, as an "escape" from the perceived unpleasant or banal aspects of daily life...
, regressive
Regression (psychology)
Regression, according to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, is a defense mechanism leading to the temporary or long-term reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more adult way...
, totalitarian, and utopian.
In papers posted to the Shambhala Publications
Shambhala Publications
Shambhala Publications is an independent publishing company based in Boston, Massachusetts. According to the company, it specializes in "books that present creative and conscious ways of transforming the individual, the society, and the planet". Many of its books deal with Buddhism or related topics...
website in 2003, Ken Wilber
Ken Wilber
Kenneth Earl Wilber II is an American author who has written about mysticism, philosophy, ecology, and developmental psychology. His work formulates what he calls Integral Theory. In 1998, he founded the Integral Institute, for teaching and applications of Integral theory.-Biography:Ken Wilber was...
called Tarnas a "boomeritis
Boomeritis
Boomeritis: A Novel That Will Set You Free is a polemical 2002 novel by American philosopher Ken Wilber principally designed to explain Wilber's integral theory and to explain his concept of "Boomeritis"...
theorist", and criticized Tarnas for using Abraham Maslow
Abraham Maslow
Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...
as a "whipping boy
Whipping boy
A whipping boy was a young boy who was assigned to a young prince and was punished when the prince misbehaved or fell behind in his schooling. Whipping boys were established in the English court during the monarchies of the 15th century and 16th centuries...
", for allegedly misusing Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American historian and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was deeply influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift," which has since become an English-language staple.Kuhn...
's concept of the paradigm
Paradigm
The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...
, and for allegedly engaging in "hermeneutic violence" by using a metanarrative
Metanarrative
A metanarrative , in critical theory and particularly postmodernism, is an abstract idea that is thought to be a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge. According to John Stephens, it "is a global or totalizing cultural narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge...
which denies hierarchical stages. However, contrary to one of Wilber's claims, Tarnas only mentions Maslow once in Passion, and this is in a non-critical context.
Also, Margaret Masterman has pointed out that Kuhn uses the term "paradigm" in many different senses.
Reviews and critiques
Thomas Meaney, literary editor for The New York Sun, wrote in The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
that Tarnas' book The Passion of the Western Mind "was hailed as a liberal education
Liberal education
A Liberal education is a system or course of education suitable for the cultivation of a free human being. It is based on the medieval concept of the liberal arts or, more commonly now, the liberalism of the Age of Enlightenment...
in one volume and became a staple in some college curriculums." Meaney panned Cosmos and Psyche, writing that the premise may sound "like an elaborate joke" and calling it "unadulterated crack-pottery."
In Inside Bay Area, bookseller Esther Fields wrote,
Cosmos and Psyche, by Richard Tarnas, is the kind of book that comes along only once in a great while. Not only does it challenge modern assumptions about how the world works, but it also points the way toward a new way of understanding your place in the cosmos. Like Tarnas' previous title, The Passion of the Western Mind, it is large in scope, but instead of exploring the past, it examines the present and the near future and shows how we are on the brink of world changes as great as those of the time of Galileo and Copernicus."
Anthroposophist and attorney Frederick Dennehy wrote in Lilipoh magazine, "Tarnas’ deeply radical hypothesis is that the disenchantment of the modern universe is unreal – the result of a “simplistic epistemology” and moral positioning totally inadequate to the depths, complexity and grandeur of the cosmos."
In The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, astrologer Neil Spencer favorably contrasted Tarnas' book Cosmos and Psyche to the writings of Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
:
'In effect, the objective world has been ruled by the Enlightenment, the subjective world by RomanticismRomanticismRomanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
,' Richard Tarnas says in his remarkable book Cosmos & Psyche, an attempt to heal that schism, to 're-enchant' the cosmos and redeem what he calls the 'pathos' of the modern condition. By contrast, Dawkins' one-eyed view turns reason, as BlakeWilliam BlakeWilliam Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
warned, into the enemy of imagination and of art.
John Heron
John Heron
John Heron is a pioneer in the creation of a participatory research method in the social sciences, called co-operative inquiry, which was based on his work in 1968-69 on the phenomenology of social encounter, and which has been applied by practitioners in many fields of professional and personal...
is a theorist who shares Tarnas' philosophical background, who was an astrologer for 15 years, and who accepts a relationship between astronomical entities and human existence. Heron critiqued the methodology and conclusions of Tarnas' Cosmos and Psyche in the journal Network Review. He described 18 internal problems with Tarnas' theory.
...there is surely something arbitrary, simplistic, naïve – and plain imaginatively unconvincing - about inexplicable linkages being stirred into interactive activity by rudimentary bits of geometry. Is this really how our local bit of the cosmos is dynamically ensouled?In the following issue of Network Review, Keiron Le Grice responded point by point, to Heron's critique.
In Tikkun
Tikkun (magazine)
Tikkun is a quarterly English-language magazine, published in the United States, that analyzes American and Israeli culture, politics, religion and history from a leftist-progressive viewpoint, and provides commentary about Israeli politics and Jewish life in North America...
magazine, philosopher Jordi Pigem
Jordi Pigem
Jordi Pigem is a Catalan philosopher and writer.-Career:Pigem holds a Ph.D in Philosophy from the University of Barcelona . He coordinated the ecology journal Integral between 1989 and 1992...
concluded,
In the last ten years, landmark works like David AbramDavid AbramDavid Abram is an American philosopher, cultural ecologist, and performance artist, best known for his work bridging the philosophical tradition of phenomenology with environmental and ecological issues...
's The Spell of the Sensuous, Derrick JensenDerrick JensenDerrick Jensen is an American author and environmental activist living in Crescent City, California. Jensen has published several books questioning and critiquing modern civilization and its values, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He holds a B.S...
's A Language Older than Words, and David Kidner's Nature and Psyche have been reflecting and kindling a growing awareness that nature is not merely a sum of molecules obeying physical and chemical laws, but a living, sensuous, and ensouledSoulA soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
matrix in which we fully participate and belong. Tarnas' Cosmos and Psyche extends this rising awareness beyond the bounds of the biosphereBiosphereThe biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed and self-regulating system...
. Our psyche is not only deeply connected with our immediate natural environment, but with the whole of the cosmos encompassing us, with the rhythms of the planets we can see above us on clear nights. Searching beneath the depths of the psyche, Tarnas has found the heights of the cosmos. Cosmos and Psyche may radically transform the way we see cultural and political historyPolitical historyPolitical history is the narrative and analysis of political events, ideas, movements, and leaders. It is distinct from, but related to, other fields of history such as Diplomatic history, social history, economic history, and military history, as well as constitutional history and public...
, individual life journeys, and our sense of participation in the universe.
Organization
In 2007, a group of fifty scholars and researchers in the San Francisco Bay AreaSan Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
formed the Archetypal Research Collective for pursuing research in archetypal cosmology. An online journal, Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology, edited by Keiron LeGrice and Rod O'Neal, was begun a year later, based on the research orientation and methodology established in Cosmos and Psyche. Advisory board members include Christopher Bache
Christopher Bache
Christopher M. Bache has been a professor of Religious Studies at Youngstown State University for almost 30 years as well as an intermittent adjunct faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies...
, Jorge Ferrer, Stanislav Grof, Robert McDermott
Robert A. McDermott
Robert McDermott is professor of Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He received his Ph.D. in 1969 in philosophy from Boston University and is president emeritus of the California Institute of Integral Studies...
, Ralph Metzner
Ralph Metzner
Ralph Metzner Ph.D. , is an American psychologist, writer and researcher, who participated in psychedelic research at Harvard University in the early 1960s with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert . Dr...
, and Brian Swimme
Brian Swimme
Brian Thomas Swimme is on the faculty of the California Institute of Integral Studies, in San Francisco, where he teaches evolutionary cosmology to graduate students in the humanities. He received his Ph.D. from the department of mathematics at the University of Oregon for work in singularity...
. Contributors have included Keiron Le Grice, Richard Tarnas, Stanislav Grof, and Rod O'Neal.
External links
- Richard Tarnas at California Institute of Integral StudiesCalifornia Institute of Integral StudiesCalifornia Institute of Integral Studies is a private institution of higher education founded in 1968 and based in San Francisco, California. It currently operates in three locations just south of the Civic Center district...
- Cosmos and Psyche website
- California Institute of Integral StudiesCalifornia Institute of Integral StudiesCalifornia Institute of Integral Studies is a private institution of higher education founded in 1968 and based in San Francisco, California. It currently operates in three locations just south of the Civic Center district...
graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness
Articles and interview
- Epilogue to The Passion of the Western Mind
- Understanding Our Moment in History: An Interview with Richard Tarnas by Scott London
- The Enchanted Universe Interview by Shelley AckermanShelley AckermanShelley Ackerman , is an American astrologer, writer, actress and singer. An avid and accomplished researcher, she specializes in creative, cultural, humanistic, and political astrology and is a frequent guest and commentator on radio and television news and entertainment shows.-Early life:The...
, beliefnetBeliefnetBeliefnet is a large multi-faith e-community that aims to provide a free forum for religious information and inspiration, spiritual tools, and discussions and dialogue groups. Beliefnet provides information about various religious and spiritual beliefs, ranging from Christian denominations to... - An Interview with Richard Tarnas by Ray Grasse Reprinted from The Mountain AstrologerThe Mountain AstrologerThe Mountain Astrologer is a bi-monthly English-language astrology magazine, written for professional astrologers and astrology students of all levels. It was the winner of the 1999 and 2000 Spica Awards for Best Astrology Publication and is widely acknowledged as the world's premiere astrology...
, issue #124, Dec/Jan 2006 - "Afterword" from Tarnas' Prometheus the Awakener
- An Introduction to Archetypal Astrological Analysis by Tarnas
- Radio interview CBC program "Tapestry"
- "The Intelligent Universe: Is Nature Trying To Change Our Minds?" by Alice Klein Now MagazineNOW (magazine)Now is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Canada. It was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein. Now is an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage....
April 17–24, 2008 Vol 27 No 33