Jung

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The Red Book!

November 6, 2009 in Metaphysical Quirks by Mystic Medusa | 22 comments

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“This is a story about a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather, which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault in Switzerland. The book is big and heavy and its spine is etched with gold letters that say “Liber Novus,” which is Latin for “New Book.” Its pages are made from thick cream-colored parchment and filled with paintings of otherworldly creatures and handwritten dialogues with gods and devils. If you didn’t know the book’s vintage, you might confuse it for a lost medieval tome…”

From The Holy Grail Of The Unconscious, fab article about Jung’s controversial  “new” book…Jung was a Leo btw….Mars goes into Leo for months on end and WHAM – he gets a hugely cover-priced but bound-to-be publicised & big-selling (or at least widely reviewed) book out.

I LOVE his work and ideas (he studies astrology, Tarot and the I-Ching as well as classical psychology) but this book is bloody well $320. No I did not expect to see it on a discount table at the mall but still…Some say that nobody should read it, that it’s too bats. But others that it will prove to be the most important book ever written. Thoughts?  Can someone please read it and provide a quickie summary lol?

An Alternative Dark Matter Theory

November 1, 2009 in Metaphysical Quirks by Mystic Medusa | 33 comments

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“…The theory of Dark Matter tells us as much about the modern unconscious as about the cosmos. Jung noticed that whatever we suppress gathers in the unconscious and throws a ’shadow’ over the world. Dark Matter is precisely the shadow of the imaginative fullness we have denied to our cosmos. The daimons we cannot bring ourselves to admit return as dark ‘virtual particles’. Like the psychological shadow, Dark Matter’s massive invisble presence exerts an unconscious influence on the conscious universe. It even threatens to slow down the expansion of the universe, to stop it and then contract it in an apocalyptic counterpart to the big bang – the Big Crunch. Here is a myth which rehearses the inflated ego’s primordial fear of the unconscious that will drag it back down and like the dark destructive Mother, devour it…”

From The Philosophers’ Secret Fire by Patrick Harpur.

Astro-Fiends: Your Parents…Showing Up In YOUR Chart.

July 29, 2009 in Astro-Fiends by Mystic Medusa | 21 comments

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O.m.g. whom truly WERE your parents before there was you?? And how the hell do they show up in your chart?  I am so not an expert at Jungian Astro – though i love all things Jung. But my Jungian astro-shrink friend Michael McLay IS and this little rave is from one of his articles…When i first e-mailed with him years ago, I got the fright of my astro-life as i KNEW my chart et al but what he wrote me made me wonder if he’d actually been HIDING in the house that i grew up in & taking notes. Which makes one wonder – yet again – how weird is world we’re in…If our parents can be seen so clearly in our birth chart…

Michael’s rave is here but for a short-cut, think of the Sun-Mars-Saturn as being Dad & Moon-Venus as Mum. Then look at all the aspects they make, houses they rule & make up a little story about them. Oh all right, it’s sooo complex but for astro-fiends, fun. So you start with the relationship between Sun & Moon – what is the aspect between them? That is the relationship between your Mother & Father…

Alright, here is Mr McLay…

“If you are familiar with Arnold Mindell’s work, I think of the chart initially as a representation of the dreambody of the parental relationship.  The chart shows us the psychological disposition of the mother and father, individually and collectively as a couple, at the time of the client’s birth. The masculine planets offer us some insight into the father’s experience, and the feminine planets offer us some insight into the mother’s experience. The flowing aspects to the masculine planets represent those aspects of the father’s personality that he was comfortable with, that were well integrated. The stressful aspects represent those areas of his life that were in conflict, that were not integrated. The same is true for the feminine planets and the mother. (I’m sure this is not new to most of you.)

When you look at many charts in this way, you begin to see that the chart represents the parents’ psychological legacy. Whatever they have actualized, individually and together, is passed down to us as a gift, something that works easily for us. Whatever they haven’t actualized is passed down as our life’s work. I like Jung’s statement about parental influence in Memories, Dreams, Reflections. He said, ‘I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors. It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family which is passed on from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished’.

While it is true that our parents create us biologically and psychologically, it is also not true. There are a number of esoteric traditions (Plato, Plotinus, etc.) that suggest that we choose the time, place, and circumstances of our birth. We choose our parents to reflect, to act out for us, to imprint upon us, the complexities of our individual destiny.

I like this idea. Whether we believe in past lives as literal events in time or not, it allows us to place our family experience in the realm of the archetypes, in the realm of divine play. We can imagine our parents as messengers, conveying the character and flavor of the gods, in the form of a complex drama, acted out for our benefit.”

“…looking at the actual parents via the symbols of the birth chart provides us with an objective, living, familiar model for reflecting upon the subtle and complex archetypal world that lies within us. This approach sees through the prevailing attitude that suggests that we grow despite our parental influence; that if we could only overcome our poor parenting, we may possibly become whole again. We become whole not despite our parent’s wounds, but because of them, through them. Archetypal psychologists tell us that we meet the gods through our own wounds, but our wounds are part of an inheritance. We stand on the shoulders of (wounded) giants.”

The Book Of Changes

July 22, 2009 in Metaphysical Quirks by Mystic Medusa | 19 comments

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I have had a copy of I-Ching – a.k.a. Book Of Changes – since I was about 15.  Like old ephemerides, they tat apart from such regular use.

It’s a book of  divination – Jung went mad for it as proof of synchronicity and all. Of course, the cosmology behind it is ravingly complex – similar to the other Ancient Chinese arts/sciences of acupuncture, Feng Shui & so on – but the actual book itself is easy to use. You can just get three coins with heads & tails on them, shake them around and throw six times. Each throw creates a line and you wind up with a hexagram which you then read the ‘result’ for.

It has a rich history too. In Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, he has Eliza, his seductive spy-princess-courtesan character, using it to communicate in code. With just a few little lines that could pass as a doodle, one could be directed to a paragraph that says the king is about to be deposed. Neal Stephenson himself is a Scorpio genius…though you do  not enter his world lightly.  The moment i began to read Quicksilver, i took a deep breath & started cancelling social engagements etc, all the better to lie on the couch with sandwiches and The Book. Anyway, the I-Ching as spy code is totally fascinating and no doubt the theory of it being used in such a way has some accuracy.

I go on and off it. It’s  not at ALL New Agie & comforting like – say – The Goddess Oracle.

It constantly moralises & addresses one as if one were an aspiring ruler. It’s sexist – The Superior Man is often evoked to remind you of how to conduct yourself. And sometimes reading it is like being whacked over the hand with a ruler by some maniac but maybe-correct teacher. I haven’t got this hexagram for ages but i remember oh-my-godding when I’d ask the same question too many times, i would – without fail – keep getting the Number 4 Hexagram:

“Youthful Folly —

It is  not I who seek the young fool — It is the young fool who seeks me.

At first, I inform him with clear answers; But if he importunes, I tell him nothing,

He must persevere to succeed.”

The I-Ching also has an annoying habit of being right. Note that I’ve tried some of the online versions but i think there is something magical about having it as an actual book.

Scorped Up Again

June 4, 2009 in Astro In Books, Full Moons, Planets by Mystic Medusa | 20 comments

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Moon in Scorpio AND Mars in Taurus trine Pluto in Cap; this is so savagely earthing, grounded, sensual, primal and yet ever so bats as the Moon belts toward being Full in Set-Me-Free Saggo…Positive power tripping and optimistic, non-defensive borders can work in the before-math of this moon. Or read She for an astro-appropriate,  super-Goth, feminist & cultural trip & a half…Venus now chases Mars & she catches him on June 21, with Saturn in fave aspect. A lot of love/lust stories achieve a satisfying conclusion around then;

“She was written in the flush of success following the publication of King Solomon’s Mines (1886) and was published in its wake in 1887. Again Haggard drew on his substantial knowledge of Africa and ancient legends but now he worked with darker material. She is narrated by a man seemingly without family called Ludwig Horace Holly. A beautiful and powerful white queen of an African tribe (“She who must be obeyed”) is the centre of attention here as she falls in love with the English explorer. Even her name, Ayesha, indicates magic and mystery. She is more sophisticated but also much more disturbing that King Solomon’s Mines, even in its raising up of the concept of “Truth” in a nightmarish world where we see pits filled with skeletons and the like. She spawned a number of much lesser sequels, including Ayesha: The Return of She (1905) and the risible She and Allan (1921). She’s admirers included Jung who used it as an example of his “anima” concept…”

Biblomania – you can check out the whole book online here

Astro-Weirding Alert

May 11, 2009 in Astro-Passages by Mystic Medusa | 10 comments

andrewholder1Andrew Holder

Scheduled in my diary for next weekend: Kickboxing class, Relationship Exorcist, Kundalini Yoga, Buy mugwort seedlings.

The Relationship Exorcist was recommended by my Piscean Actress friend. She doesn’t have any contact details. I am to walk up the main street of Leichhardt (the Italian quarter of Sydney) and look to the lefthand side. The Relationship Exorcist is named Caterina and she may or may not have a pink sign. Apparently she is very good.

The Kundalini  Yoga freaks me as everyone I know who has been doing it has visions & major releases/insights. Jung thought it too powerful & that it could send some people completely cuckoo. So next week I may be chanelling well-intended but hard-to-decipher alternative dimension gibberish for you. Or writing in Sanskrit as the only lingo pure enough for my wide-open chakras.

Until May 22 – when the Sun skips into Gemini & the Auspicious Aqua-Weirding (Jupiter-Neptune-Chiron in tight orb together) begins – there are shitloads of fixed squares. Fixed squares are tricky to deal with – lots of tension but it seems harder to resolve than the more action producing mutable & cardinal squares. Truculence & power-tripping is rife + they seem to trigger already angry/resentful people. It’s only a few days but just be aware of it…Stay safe & of the light. Try to dance around/ glide away from control dramas or at least be aware when they’re going on. Take the haute road.

I did an extended rave re this in the Daily Mystic but you work this astro-vibe best by using it to make powerful internal shifts of attitude yourself & think Dignity/Resilience.

Neptunian Dreaming

May 8, 2009 in Full Moons by Mystic Medusa | 28 comments

5Leonora Carrington

Nearly everything squares Neptune over this weekend and in fact, the next few weeks. Dreams ARE IMPORTANT. How hard can it be to get one simple little exercise book & just jot down a few vital deets of any dream you remember?  Jung called them the royal road to the subconscious. I am consistently convinced that so much psycho-cultural clutter (all those ADS in self-help & alt health mags, for instance) can be eliminated by simple observance of one’s dream messages…It’s cheap. It’s FREE.  And dreams are particularly potent all this weekend a la the Full Moon and Neptunian activation.

Please feel free to rave re dreams in the Comments. I put my Mugwort dream in the comments of that post.

Have a divine weekend and happy Full Moon in Scorp!

Astro Sun Sign Query Du Jour; Your Fave Fairytale?

May 6, 2009 in Astro-Query by Mystic Medusa | 32 comments

fairytaleIrisz Agocs

WHAT is your favourite fairytale? Not the one that you think has the most Jungian resonance or that is officially cool but one that you LOVED…There is, of course, bound to be some psych-significance in your choice. Arieans & Saggos tend to love the quest stories, Librans & Pisceans the Sleeping Beauty awakened by Prince ones & Geminis the fairy tales that involve intricate tricks or beauty & the beast scenarios. Rapunzel totally gives me the merdes and I am not even sure why…My fave is The Ugly Duckling.

lgb-uglyduckling

Goth Weekend: Moon In The Scorpio…

April 10, 2009 in Astro-Fiends, Metaphysical Quirks, Moons by Mystic Medusa | 66 comments

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Limbonic Art

Happy Moonwane in Scorpio!  La Luna appropriately salutes a newly retrograde Pluto – ruler of Scorp  – and then squares jolly Jupiter in avant-garde Aqua. It’s a Goth weekend! Hilarious too that it is Good Friday – the one time fertility fest turned oh-don’t-start-one but really, any official festival SET to be on a Full Moon or closely around it has gotta be trouble.

That creature at the end of the path, above, is whom…exactly?  Your Jungian ‘Shadow’ figure, longing to bond more closely with you as it’s the Moonwane in Scorp et al? Oh and b.t.w the mystical Goth significance of this weekend is even more O.T.T. as the Moon is in the Via Combusta a.k.a the Fiery Way -  a part of the skies quite notorious in ancient days and Horary astrology… I never make much of it as my natal Moon is smack bang in the middle of it.

Or could the above figure just be a newly more austere acquaintance? Your own deepening awareness???

A suitable poem for ANY Moonwane in Scorp…

“…In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood–
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den…”

In A Dark Time by Theodore Roethke - the rest is here.

Goth Easter Sunday Outfit Suggestion;

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It’s Goth, could be passed off as Christian & yet the Stag horns beneath the veil powerfully evoke Pagan origins, Oestre, the Goddess of the Dawn & Fertility from whence Easter actually got its name. There, I managed a rant in only one sentence this year. No eggistential crisis.

Earth Signs Are Easy

February 22, 2009 in Astro-Animals, Astro-Weird by Mystic Medusa | 12 comments

a-pair-of-mating-frogs-photographic-print-c12704465Helen Fisher, an “anthropologist of love & attraction” usually gives me the shits for no particular reason other than that I hate some things being reduced to neuroscience. Also, i note that scientists/biologists et al tend to so often ascribe their own stupid prejudices to the study. One lot of old blokes wistfully noting that some male cuckoo gets to screw whomever he wants and never is asked to clean the nest – a bunch of bitched up women retaliating with a meadow-vole community where the lady voles go out cavorting & mating with young male meadow voles whilst other males raise their young…blah blah blah. Anyway, obviously one is not an academic, lol.

BUT this L.A. Times article re the latest research of Ms Sun-Sign-Unknown Fisher is interesting as it sounds SO much like the four elements of the Zodiac.

“…She wanted to learn why not, and in the process, to nail down once and for all this thing called “chemistry.” As she writes: “I realized I had to come to grips with this opportunity — a chance to apply the newest data in neuroscience to the essential question of who you love.”
Fisher began by developing a questionnaire that sought to pinpoint temperament. By responding to prompts such as “I find unpredictable situations exhilarating” or “I think consistent routines keep life orderly and relaxing,” people can determine which of the four groups fits them.

If you live high on dopamine and norepinephrine, you are an Explorer — someone who takes risks, is flexible and energetic, spontaneous and easily bored by routine.

Those with high levels of serotonin are Builders: calm, managerial, loyal, orderly and conscientious.

Testosterone drives Directors, who are competitive, self-disciplined, good with systems, often exacting and focused.

Negotiators are people people: trusting, broad-minded, empathetic, idealistic and awash in estrogen and oxytocin….”

The article is here.

BUT surely this is ye olde news???  Explorers etc. Fire, Earth, Air & Water. The Myers Brigg testing has four core temperament types. Jung has four types. Medieval humours: Choleric, Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Melancholy…Maybe it’s new to throw in endorphins et al???

QUIZ: What Is Your Medieval Personality Type???

And, even though i am vegetarian & love animals, i do not think complicated human mating scenarios can be boiled down to, say, that of some tree frog. Or an amoeba. Nor even lab rats.


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