Reddit reviews Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View

May I recommend a book? [Richard Tarnas] (http://cosmosandpsyche.com/) is a noted intellectual and cultural historian who has spent his career studying and writing about the issues you touch upon. Specifically, he talks about the extreme limitations of the dominant western materialist worldview and the difficulties of escaping it.

In his book, [Cosmos and Psyche] (http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Psyche-Intimations-World-View/dp/0452288592/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1422643263&sr=1-1), Tarnas explains the origins and nature of the western materialist worldview and then goes on to explain how Karl Jung, among others, began reasoning themselves out of it and laying the foundation for a modern, non-materialistic world view.

Much of Jung's argument and Tarnas's book are concerned with astrology. Now, the thing is, if you reject the work without looking at it because you experience a knee jerk rejection of the whole notion of astrology, you will be missing an argument that might change your thinking and change your life.

Tarnas goes way beyond the Daily Horoscope notion of astrology. And I find people whose opinions of astrology are based on their Daily Horoscope very tiresome, so don't ask me to explain why Daily Horoscopes give a grossly distorted picture of what astrology is about.

But even if you don't want to deal with the whole astrology argument, you will find his explanation of the origins, the limitations and the negative consequences of the western materialist worldview enlightening.

He explains it all quite well without mentioning astrology.

In fact, reading your post, and knowing Tarnas's thinking, your situation sounds like it was brought about by western materialism. As if you are one of its many spiritual casualties. No offense, but if you grasp Tarnas's discussion of the nature and origins of western materialist philosophy, you'll feel as if western materialism robbed you of something very valuable.

If you accurately described your intellectual/spiritual situation, then you owe it to yourself to read at least the introduction of [Cosmos and Psyche] (http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Psyche-Intimations-World-View/dp/0452288592/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1422643263&sr=1-1).

If you're looking to take a dip into some macro-astrology, Richard Tarnas's Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View is the book.

https://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Psyche-Intimations-World-View/dp/0452288592/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

I'm not one to await future dates of predestined unravellings and prophesied raptures, but the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 2020 will be one to keep an eye on. Basically, Kronos (the hard structure of things, the reality principle, the bottom line, the judgment, the karmic debt) meeting Dionysus (the madness, the id, the primordial energy, destruction and renewal). The two have an interesting history together, not to mention, 9/11.

Not sure if this is what you're looking for but Richard Tarnas has a book on something similar - i've heard good things but i'm still working on some other books at the moment.

http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Psyche-Intimations-World-View/dp/0452288592/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427721199&sr=8-1&keywords=richard+tarnas

• My overall intention with my all of my podcasts is to learn through engaging conversations with subject matter experts from all different types of domains. I'm not trying to prosthelytize anyone. I happen to find the topics interesting and helpful, and so I share them far and wide for anyone with an open and curious mind.
  
• I'd say astrology is more like a language than a religion.
  
• People turn to astrology to find meaning in their lives when they're facing some sort of existential crisis as to who they are and what they're doing on this planet. Astrology can provide answers to those questions in a way that aren't always found elsewhere. As to whether or not those answers are "true" can't be really answered by anyone at this point other than each individual who did or did not find value in their astrological delineation. Astrology can provide a story and working theory that has the potential to additional context about their meaning and purpose in their lives. If astrological theory can help people align with things that make them feel fulfilled and happy, then it can be a worthwhile and helpful tool. There are plenty of charlatans out there no doubt, but I've met enough professional astrologers to be able to say that they're often some of the most insightful and interesting people I've ever met.
  
• I don't find strength from astrology like one might from Christianity. It's more like looking at a weather prediction, but on a time scale of weeks and months rather than for a single day. Would you go out sailing without looking at the weather? Probably not. Even if it's not 100% accurate, it can get you in the right ballpark as to what to expect and what to prepare for. Outer planet transits of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto to a natal planet will last between a month to 18 months, and tend to carry a certain archetypal potential. I've felt it in my life, and I wrote a web app to be able to take a look at these in other people. My experience and the experience of dozens of others I've talked to personally over the last year is that outer planet transits can have a very distinct quality.
  
• Re: "deleterious to those getting the short end of the stick" - Astrology is not 100% deterministic. But most astrologers recognize that we do not have 100% free will and agency over every aspect of our lives. There are things beyond our control like we can't chose our parents or genetics, etc. So there are some things that are fated. The Hellenistic astrology movement has been bringing back in the perspective of fate into the discussion, and most astrologers realize that life falls somewhere in the middle between what's within our control and what's beyond our control.
  
• Re: "people born in the year of the pig" That's Chinese astrology. I practice Western psychological astrology, which is much more nuanced down to the minute someone one was born looking at their ascendant and midheaven. It also has a more sophisticated system of planets, signs and houses that can also change every couple of hours. Modern psychological astrology is much more complicated than you're portraying it.
  
• "everything in astrology is falsifiable" -- That's a ridiculous statement. I don't know if I'd be comfortable saying that about any topic. I'll falsify your statement with this article about the connection of certain mental disorders that are connected to seasons.
  
  > Many contemporary scientists are loath to admit to anything resembling astrology. “It seems absurd that the month you are born/conceived can affect your future life chances,” write neuroscientists Russell G. Foster and Till Roenneberg in a 2008 study. They then go on to then point out no fewer than 24 different health disorders connected to season of birth, and ultimately admit “despite human isolation from season changes in temperature, food, and photoperiod in the industrialized nations, the seasons still appear to have a small, but significant impact upon when individuals are born and many aspects of health.”
  >
  > The problem may be that there’s no clear underlying mechanism for the observed phenomena. Theories range from levels of maternal vitamin D levels during pregnancy to seasonal viral and bacterial exposure.
  >
  > “We know that there is this weird connection between seasonal birth and certain disorders, but we don’t know why,” says Chris Ciarleglio, a neuroscientist currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University.
  
  
• "When you have no other means of discovery, you make shit up." -- Some bad astrologers do this. If it doesn't resonate with people, then they'll only go so far as a professional astrologer. Full-time, professional astrologers are grounded in a solid theoretical foundation, but they have personally observed astrological configurations over many years and gotten feedback for how those energies play out.
  
• "But to hold what people randomly made up as true" Astrology is an oral tradition of observation, and involves each archetypal complex is composed of many different facets like a diamond. These sets of correspondences have survived over 2000 years because they continue to find resonance in people's lives. But I wouldn't characterize that evolution of astrological correspondences as "random."
  
• "which has since been falsified by modern science is just plain odd" -- It's true that astrology doesn't follow the practices of most items on this checklist as to whether or not Astrology is scientific. There is a lack of rigor within the astrological community that people like Richard Tarnas has lectured about. But again, I would recommend checking into the work of Tarnas who has studied astrology for over 30 years and wrote a philosophical history of western thinking BECAUSE he found validity in astrology and wanted to write a book about the correlations between outer planet synodic cycles and patterns of culture. But he needed to trace how neo-Platonic thought lost favor since the Enlightenment period in an academic book called "The Passion of the Western Mind" that's used in college philosophy courses across the country. Tarnas is on the bleeding edge of cosmological thinking and argues that astrology is starting to point towards a new worldview within his epic Cosmos and Psyche. I think if you have an open mind and can read through those two books, then he provides the philosophical foundations and evidence for why astrology is relevant and worth consideration.