"Human beings are beings unknown to themselves, filled to the brim with incredible resources that are never used" (Don Juan)
"The assumption that Art, Science and Magic cannot exist in the same space is an obsolescent remnant of the Aristotelian philosophical categories ." (C. Castaneda)
In my astrological journeys I have had one persistent thought and concern about the role of astrology in our society and its real possibilities. I ask:
Are the practices that astrologers maintain and the ideas they sustain aligned with the real nature of the tool we use? More precisely, are we applying our effort as professionals and researchers in the right direction?
What are the real benefits that astrology and all symbolic systems have to offer to the human being?
My recent path has led me from astrological symbols and the Jungian soil that nurtured them, to experience the premises and world view of Carlos Castaneda. His works have convinced me that we astrologers can benefit greatly from an examination of our values, beliefs, and practices in the light of his ideas. I have long considered Jung to be the brightest star in the western cultural firmament. Jung built a bridge that allowed us to connect with our historical roots of wisdom (medieval alchemy, Gnostics, etc.). In perusing Castaneda's vital experiences, I have found another bridge across the racial and cultural abyss separating us from other cultural universes and the astonishing evidence that we ignore a great deal about ourselves and our possibilities.
Based on his experiences as an apprentice to the Yaqui sorcerer, Don Juan, Castaneda states that one of the major accomplishments of sorcerers is to "perceive energy as it flows in the universe, and more important than anything else yet, they are capable of reinterpreting the flow of energy without the intervention of the mind.''l I believe that astrologers need to pursue the same goal because our aim is also to perceive and interpret the energy as it flows in the universe and how it affects us. To realize this feat, we "have to suspend the effect of [our] normal interpretation system. This is the first premise. . . we are organisms whose basic orientation is perceiving. We are perceptors, and that, according to sorcerers, is the only source from which we could establish our stability and obtain orientation in the world."2
Astrology deals with symbols and archetypes. Symbols are devices which facilitate the shift from the concreteness of daily concerns to the abstract realm of impersonal forces and powers which give form and substance to our life path. In astrology, we refer the facts to symbolic patterns, and in the core of every symbol we always encounter an unfathomable mystery. Jung said: "a symbol is the better representation of something that could never be totally well-known". In my work with symbols, I have always felt more intrigued by the unknown face of each symbol than with the endless descriptions with which people drain them.
We are not cognizant of our capacities nor of the magic and mystery which surround us. We have no idea, beyond the limited descriptions of science, about the immense vastness of the Universe. I find that in our cultural milieu, and in the astrological arena, in particular, we are missing the Socratic spirit of "I only know that I don't know." As Don Juan would remind us: only in front of the unknown, man grows and discovers the best of himself.
I try to create this same spirit in my consultations with clients, where my goal is not to cram them with descriptions and advice but rather to help them align with the mystery of their destiny as human beings and individuals so that they can discover by themselves the illusory foundations of almost all of their worries, fears, and anxieties: "Am I normal?" "Will I be successful?" "Will that person be compatible with me?" "Will my genius be discovered some day?"
When we face the practical requirements of our clients, we try to use astrology to help people change, to know themselves, to become themselves. These are stupendous goals, but no matter what astrological school of thought we embrace, we always end up telling people to adjust themselves to some preconceived notion about the meaning of life or collective values and belief systems. All we can know (it seems) comes from a fundamental idea of what a human is and ethical assumptions of how a human being should be, dictated by our social order. "Our choices in life are limited due to the fact that they are defined by the social order. . . . by accepting only these choices, we set a limit to our nearly endless possibilities."3
Of course, one may argue that this is typical of human interaction. Most psychologists and spiritual leaders would do the same as astrologers. But, as Nietschze once said: what if our culture was totally wrong? This is a big question that almost anybody would take seriously, but Castaneda's revelations make me indeed think seriously about it. As an astrologer I prefer to awaken the sense of mystery in my clients so that they discover their own unpredictable yearnings. Once awakened, this sense begins to whisper in their ears that what blocks and limits their potentials comes from the social order. It is a social order that conditions them as human beings and forces them to incorporate as theirs assumptions about the nature of the universe and their possibilities in it which betray their magical inheritance.
Castaneda insists on a concept that seems to me very pertinent for us as astrologers: the taxonomist mind. He points out that our culture has produced in us a compulsion to make and adore inventories. With the help of symbolism and astrological techniques, astrologers can accumulate astonishing amounts of data to describe people or events. The obvious question that arises is: Where does this human insistence on taxonomizing lead us?
The compulsion to label and to describe everything we perceive and experience is not intrinsically bad, provided this activity remains framed within the proper context. If not, our passion blinds us till the point where we invert the relationship: the medium becomes an end in itself. Any description of reality has the effect of creating the illusion that reality itself is contained in the description and we forget that any description is a product of our interpretation system. Thus, interpretation systems and descriptions are mutually reinforced so that we are convinced that nothing more exists. We could live an entire life full of descriptions and ideas about ourselves and be very unconscious at the same time.
The ego uses the taxonomist mind to constantly feed ideas about itself. I might believe that I know myself when I accumulate many descriptions about my personality traits from astrologers (some): " Gemini people are so and so; That conjunction confers this feature; This transit will make you be aggressive, passive, etc." This pseudo-knowledge is useless when the time comes for living and facing the challenges of our destiny. So, I prefer not to define myself as it is much more important and fascinating to focus on what I still do not know about myself.
We as astrologers assume that we have to help people make decisions, whereas sorcerers perform acts of discovery instead of making decisions. Better said, the act of making decisions is the natural consequence of the act of discovering the convenient course of action to be taken. This course has nothing to do, many times, with concerns of the ego (Should I invest? Should I tell her/him how wonderful/miserable I am?, etc.), or preconceived illusions we hold about ourselves or about the meaning of life. Sorcerers pay attention to omens, signs, or, in their words, the commands of the Spirit.
In my opinion, the best of what astrologers can do for others and for themselves is to make people conscious of their link with the Spirit. Such a link expresses itself as the ability to pay attention and to understand the mandatory signs, the flow of energy that approaches us from the Universe. We usually call these synchronicities, transits, progressions, etc. Astrology should not define people or predict forthcoming events. Instead, it should invite us to read a possible meaning in them. This meaning should help in our effort to understand ourselves and the Universe in which we live; an understanding that is not a set of intellectual descriptions, but a realistic comprehension of the task that we must perform for each particular step throughout our existence.
Castaneda says that human beings are navigators of the sea of consciousness,4 that our real journey is toward the unknown. It is the obsessive manipulation of the known which transforms people into tyrants. Only when human beings face the unknown about themselves and the mystery that surrounds us, does the best of their nature arise. Human beings should see themselves as something indescribable, undefinable, and open-ended. This, too, may define the real nature of astrology.
REFERENCES AND NOTES:
1. "The Warriors' Way Viewed as a Philosophical-Practical Paradigm," Readers of Infinity, #3, vol. 1, March, 1996, p 3.
2. "The Warriors' Way Viewed as a Philosophical-Practical Paradigm," Readers of Infinity, #3, vol. 1, March, 1996, p. 3.
3. Florinda Donner, Being-in-Dreaming , San Francisco:Harper, 1991, p.2.
4. They present an astonishing idea: awareness can be a medium for transportation or movement.