“How much is lost through disbelief!”
–Heraclitus
Carl G. Jung believed that there is an indisputable connection between our minds and our bodies. Most people today would agree with that assessment. Our bodies affect our minds, and our minds affect our bodies. Our external situation affects our bodies, which affects our minds, and vice versa.
Taking it a step further, he believed that we affect our physical environment, and that ultimately, we affect the solar system. The solar system affects us, we affect the solar system. Our lives are not “caused” by the stars - the stars do not initiate anything, but there is an ongoing two-way relationship between ourselves and the stars.
Taking it another step further, he believed that the singleness of the solar system paralleled the singleness of human experience, and that “we are one.” That there is a single external world, and a single internal world. The single internal world is not accessible by our conscious selves, rather it exists in the unconscious mind. He believed that each person’s unconscious mind contains not only personal unconscious, but at a deeper level contains collective material that in inherited - the “collective unconscious.” Jung felt that we can learn a lot about the human psyche through astrology, not only because the stars and planets are an external reflection of our inner selves, but also because the inherently symbolic nature of astrology allows us to consciously correlate symbols with unconscious knowledge. Jung felt that astrology is a language of symbols that mediates between levels of consciousness. Read the rest of this entry »