A New Mythology for our Times

	Book review on The archetypal Cosmos by Keiron Le Grice (2010) Reviewed by David Lorimer, 2011 published in Network Review No 106
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Some readers will have read Richard Tarnas' The Passion of the Western Mind, and his more recent book, Cosmos and Psyche, where he outlines the kind of archetypal cosmology elaborated in this new book. Many people, especially scientists, any association with astrology is off-putting, but one needs to understand the differences between popular and archetypal astrology in order to do the argument justice. Following my review of Rick's book, I also printed a critique by John Rowan, to which Kieron Le Grice replied in the following issue. Readers will have to make up their own minds about the merits of archetypal astrology, but there is no doubt that it seeks to address an enormously significant issue, namely the relationship between what we call inner and outer aspects of reality. Since the 17th century and especially in the philosophy of Descartes, these are sharply demarcated into res cogitans and res extensa, and much philosophical energy has been expended on working out how mind and matter can possibly interact. It may well be that we have simply misconstrued this relationship, and that the outer is a much closer reflection of the inner then we normally realise, as suggested by what Jung calls synchronicity. Correspondingly, we have created dichotomies between subject and object, and nature and spirit.

Readers will be familiar with calls for a new world-view, and this book elaborates just such a perspective. The architecture of the argument is carefully and systematically laid out to guide the reader towards a new understanding. The work of Joseph Campbell is important in this respect in that he redefined the status of myth and mythology - people tend to dismiss myths as lies instead of understanding the power of their symbolism. Many thinkers have also called for a new story or a new myth in the widest sense. Kieron identifies five functions of myth: mystical or metaphysical, cosmological, sociological, and pedagogical or psychological. It follows that any adequate new story must fulfil these functions and the progressive rather than regressive. The process must also correspond to the dynamics of individuation in the journey from ego to Self, representing not only a personal centre but 'a centre that connects one to being as a whole.' This is a living rather than abstract relationship to the divine and implies a new form of spiritual realisation.

The next chapter explains the fundamental principles of archetypal astrology based on the work of CG Jung and others, giving an explanation of the elements of human personality according to symbolic astrology. The author also discusses the evolutionary significance of the hero myth in uniting the personal with the transpersonal, the individual with the universal, the conscious of the unconscious, and the masculine and feminine. In this sense, representative lives like those of Goethe, Nietzsche, Jung and Campbell are a pre-figuration of wider human possibilities, although arguably with an over-masculine emphasis. The map provided by archetypal astrology can shed some light on one's life patterns, both with respect to the time of birth (natal astrology) and to the timing of one's experiences represented by transit astrology. Such maps can provide an extra perspective on life, similar to consulting the I Ching.

An important part of Kieron's overall argument is the consonance of archetypal astrology with the new paradigms of holism and organicism. It goes without saying that archetypal astrology contradicts a mechanistic and reductionist worldview. No materialistic thinker will be convinced by these arguments, and will probably be underinformed about the implications of the new scientific models discussed here. These imply a wider understanding of rationality and include systems theory, self-organisation, process philosophy and synchronicity. They also embrace meaning and purpose, symbolism and geometry. The next step is to understand self-organisation in relation to what Kieron calls the Cosmic Mind. Mind can be understood in an evolutionary and systems context, as suggested by such thinkers as Fritjof Capra, David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake, Ervin Laszlo, Brian Swimme, Thomas Berry, James Hillman and Gregory Bateson. The outer aspect of this uses the language of Gaia, while the inner is reflected in the unity of mystical experience. Teilhard de Chardin proposes that 'coextensive with their Without, there is a Within to things.' This proposition underlies Kieron's whole argument, and it is by his own admission a theoretical conjecture. He reinforces it with an explanation of transpersonal psychology and the collective unconscious, drawing on the work of Stanislav Grof, postulating, like Tarnas, the underlying identity of psyche and cosmos.

The next step is a further discussion of the dynamic ground in Bohm's theory of the implicate order, suggesting a form of dual aspect monism where mind and matter have a common origin. Kieron arrives at a formula where the dynamic ground of energy is the generative matrix of existence unfolding according to an underlying pattern of self organisation into the explicate realms of psyche and cosmos. Expressed spiritually, Spirit is the divine ground of everything, its unfolding is ordered by the universal logos, and this creates the unus mundus of the physical cosmos and psyche, a correspondence of outer and inner space. This is linked in Kieron's argument with the symbolic significance of planetary positions. He brings together the oneness of Atman and Brahman with a psychological understanding of individuation and evolution which our individual lives reflect and embody in a form of cosmological dynamics were self-realisation enables us to reach a wider and deeper cosmological identity.

The book takes the reader on an epic journey through many contrasting landscapes of thought. In the final chapter, Kieron draws on the work of Jean Gebser, with his mapping of various phases in the evolution of consciousness, moving towards what he calls integral consciousness. He shows how his thought is consistent with Gebser's formulations in its integral structure and awareness of both the ground of being and the evolutionary journey. While acknowledging the demythologisation process of the last 200 years, he nevertheless shows how archetypal astrology can fulfil the four functions of a mythology specified by Campbell. It is the responsibility of every aware person to become what Edward Edinger calls a carrier of the consciousness of wholeness, because only in this way can the world itself become whole and a new era unfolds. The book is a brilliant synthesis of new ideas, and readers will have to decide for themselves whether the argument is ultimately compelling. It is certainly stated in a comprehensive manner. For a rather different view, see Gunnel Minett below.

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