May 2014
Scorecard
26/May/14 10:40
Yesterday afternoon I unexpectedly found myself in a debate with a close associate of Richard Dawkins.
It wasn’t the best of circumstances. We were trying to talk to each other around the corner at the end of a bar (a square aspect and Neptunian context). We were both under some emotional stress (her father, my cat). She is the sister of one of my closest friends, but we haven’t seen each other since Reagan’s first term.
She asked what I had been doing for the last 35 years, since she had last seen me. “Well,” I began, “that day I went home and had dinner, I think it was pizza, and then the next day...”
Eventually, she told me that she had just been traveling around the country with Dawkins, and what a wonderful experience it was.
“I think you and I have very different worldviews,” I offered. Part of me didn’t want to get into it, certainly not there. But when pressed, I went on, “Dawkins has that very scientific-materialist reductionism thing going on” (remember, this was no formal debate).
“Oh,” she said, “then your religious?”
“That’s a false dichotomy,” I retorted, a little more willing to engage now that I could feel the blood rising, “it’s not as though there is only a choice between hard materialism and blind religious faith...”
To be fair, she sees it as a battle of science against the kind of fundamentalist religious fantasy that makes up a large minority of America (and a slim majority of its electorate). The country that four decades ago was sending people to the moon now has 46% percent of its population believing that God created the earth, as is, 5,000 years ago. In darkness that deep, the flashlight of science is to be appreciated, no matter how narrow the beam. But that doesn’t mean that it’s okay to reduce the world to modern, scientific materialists and simplistic religious fanatics.
At one point, I used my favorite line (you can find it in my book, Integral Astrology): “The problem is that most religious people have a high school knowledge of science, and most scientists have a kindergarten knowledge of spirituality.”
We went on for a while. I talked about consciousness, and morphic fields. She talked about DNA and RNA. As is to be expected, no one convinced anyone of anything. I wasn’t even looking to prove a point, really, so much as to find a judo move that would land her on her philosophical backside.
I found no such move. Looking back, I might have chosen a different angle here and there, and my choice of evidence could have been better (because of course the question of evidence was key for her). But the problem was that I couldn’t really put forth much in the way of ideas, because I had to continually fight my way out of the religious fundamentalist box she kept trying to construct around me. She was so sure she already knew what I had to say that I couldn’t say much without refuting her assumptions. When someone is so sure that the argument is this-or-that, black-or-white, it’s very hard to be heard above that noise.
Oh, and that black-and-white, with-us-or-against-us thing? That’s fundamentalist thinking.
(Image from NASA.gov)
It wasn’t the best of circumstances. We were trying to talk to each other around the corner at the end of a bar (a square aspect and Neptunian context). We were both under some emotional stress (her father, my cat). She is the sister of one of my closest friends, but we haven’t seen each other since Reagan’s first term.
She asked what I had been doing for the last 35 years, since she had last seen me. “Well,” I began, “that day I went home and had dinner, I think it was pizza, and then the next day...”
Eventually, she told me that she had just been traveling around the country with Dawkins, and what a wonderful experience it was.
“I think you and I have very different worldviews,” I offered. Part of me didn’t want to get into it, certainly not there. But when pressed, I went on, “Dawkins has that very scientific-materialist reductionism thing going on” (remember, this was no formal debate).
“Oh,” she said, “then your religious?”
“That’s a false dichotomy,” I retorted, a little more willing to engage now that I could feel the blood rising, “it’s not as though there is only a choice between hard materialism and blind religious faith...”
To be fair, she sees it as a battle of science against the kind of fundamentalist religious fantasy that makes up a large minority of America (and a slim majority of its electorate). The country that four decades ago was sending people to the moon now has 46% percent of its population believing that God created the earth, as is, 5,000 years ago. In darkness that deep, the flashlight of science is to be appreciated, no matter how narrow the beam. But that doesn’t mean that it’s okay to reduce the world to modern, scientific materialists and simplistic religious fanatics.
At one point, I used my favorite line (you can find it in my book, Integral Astrology): “The problem is that most religious people have a high school knowledge of science, and most scientists have a kindergarten knowledge of spirituality.”
We went on for a while. I talked about consciousness, and morphic fields. She talked about DNA and RNA. As is to be expected, no one convinced anyone of anything. I wasn’t even looking to prove a point, really, so much as to find a judo move that would land her on her philosophical backside.
I found no such move. Looking back, I might have chosen a different angle here and there, and my choice of evidence could have been better (because of course the question of evidence was key for her). But the problem was that I couldn’t really put forth much in the way of ideas, because I had to continually fight my way out of the religious fundamentalist box she kept trying to construct around me. She was so sure she already knew what I had to say that I couldn’t say much without refuting her assumptions. When someone is so sure that the argument is this-or-that, black-or-white, it’s very hard to be heard above that noise.
Oh, and that black-and-white, with-us-or-against-us thing? That’s fundamentalist thinking.
(Image from NASA.gov)
Freedom From the Known
17/May/14 06:45
This week marked the 119th birthday anniversary of Jiddu Krishnamurti, a kind of anti-guru who stressed the importance of questioning our assumptions about everything. Initially, Krishnamurti was on a path to become a guru but he rejected the idea of spiritual (or just about any type of) authority. In his lectures and writings, he continually stressed the individual’s ability to discover what is real, without the help of teachers and others who promise to have the answers.
Given his rebellious approach to all kinds of authority, astrologers will not be surprised to learn that Krishnamurti had a sun-Uranus opposition, with Uranus in the probing sign of Scorpio. A Taurus, one of his major points was a rebellion against material possessions. In fact, he sometimes seemed to equate attachment in general to materialism. In one lecture, he questioned why people are so reticent to die, to leave behind “your blasted bank account,” as though that were the main reason why beings fear death.
With four planets in Gemini, Krishnamurti often worked via a kind of Socratic dialogue, and his conversational partners (or opponents) rarely did better than those who argued with Socrates. He continually stressed the need to go beyond the conditioning of family and society, and particularly emphasized the hollowness of religious teachings. Krishnamurti represented a kind of modernist approach to spirituality, one that emphasized the use of logic and reason. Everyone could see the truth of the way things are, if they would but shake off (Uranus) the limitations imposed by conditioning. He didn’t want people to follow him, but rather to follow his reasoning.
Given his rebellious approach to all kinds of authority, astrologers will not be surprised to learn that Krishnamurti had a sun-Uranus opposition, with Uranus in the probing sign of Scorpio. A Taurus, one of his major points was a rebellion against material possessions. In fact, he sometimes seemed to equate attachment in general to materialism. In one lecture, he questioned why people are so reticent to die, to leave behind “your blasted bank account,” as though that were the main reason why beings fear death.
With four planets in Gemini, Krishnamurti often worked via a kind of Socratic dialogue, and his conversational partners (or opponents) rarely did better than those who argued with Socrates. He continually stressed the need to go beyond the conditioning of family and society, and particularly emphasized the hollowness of religious teachings. Krishnamurti represented a kind of modernist approach to spirituality, one that emphasized the use of logic and reason. Everyone could see the truth of the way things are, if they would but shake off (Uranus) the limitations imposed by conditioning. He didn’t want people to follow him, but rather to follow his reasoning.
Options
09/May/14 08:24
Ah, certainty.
We often seek it out, and sometimes people look to astrologers for it. Clients sometimes come in looking for certainty. Critics and skeptics of astrology chide us that we don't really offer it. Many astrologers beat themselves up trying to find it (or beat each other up for not having it).
There is, I think, a drop of certainty out there in the Cosmos. But it is only available to those who exist within very tightly prescribed boundaries. Shoehorn yourself into a culture, a belief system, or a dogma (religious or scientific) and certainty is much easier to find.
But then again, it's not so much that we can push ourselves into a more limited world (we can, all right, but it's not the easiest or best solution). It's more that we emerge out of our limitations into a world of options, as we increase our awareness. That tightly limited world feels like a warm swaddling blanket for a while, but sooner or later it becomes a straight jacket as we open up to new possibilities.
When people ask an astrologer for certainty, asking 'what is going to happen?', they are often in a state of anxiety, and the comfy if constricting world of limitations seems like the safest place for their consciousness to reside. To the extent that they are still within that world, it may very well be possible to offer some certainty. If they are running back into it, certainty will be harder to find.
Yet I don't think that encouraging certainty the best approach to take. I prefer to point out that there are options, a greater horizon of possibilities. Usually, with a little work we can expand the set of possible outcomes, and create a set of options. Having options means that a person can decide what to do at any point in a process of change. The outcome of one's actions are by no means certain, but no matter the outcome, there will be further options (at least until one runs into a truly end-game situation).
To me, it seems far better to use astrology to explore options, and to create new perspectives on situations, than to search for certainty.
We often seek it out, and sometimes people look to astrologers for it. Clients sometimes come in looking for certainty. Critics and skeptics of astrology chide us that we don't really offer it. Many astrologers beat themselves up trying to find it (or beat each other up for not having it).
There is, I think, a drop of certainty out there in the Cosmos. But it is only available to those who exist within very tightly prescribed boundaries. Shoehorn yourself into a culture, a belief system, or a dogma (religious or scientific) and certainty is much easier to find.
But then again, it's not so much that we can push ourselves into a more limited world (we can, all right, but it's not the easiest or best solution). It's more that we emerge out of our limitations into a world of options, as we increase our awareness. That tightly limited world feels like a warm swaddling blanket for a while, but sooner or later it becomes a straight jacket as we open up to new possibilities.
When people ask an astrologer for certainty, asking 'what is going to happen?', they are often in a state of anxiety, and the comfy if constricting world of limitations seems like the safest place for their consciousness to reside. To the extent that they are still within that world, it may very well be possible to offer some certainty. If they are running back into it, certainty will be harder to find.
Yet I don't think that encouraging certainty the best approach to take. I prefer to point out that there are options, a greater horizon of possibilities. Usually, with a little work we can expand the set of possible outcomes, and create a set of options. Having options means that a person can decide what to do at any point in a process of change. The outcome of one's actions are by no means certain, but no matter the outcome, there will be further options (at least until one runs into a truly end-game situation).
To me, it seems far better to use astrology to explore options, and to create new perspectives on situations, than to search for certainty.