From Eastern Orthodox Christianity to Jungian psychology and Hellenistic Astrology: my debut as a podcast guest

From Eastern Orthodox Christianity to Jungian psychology and Hellenistic Astrology: my debut as a podcast guest

My friend Sam Torode, who is an author and an artist, interviewed me for his Living From the Soul podcast. My podcast debut!

Per his description: “First, they talk about their shared history joining the Eastern Orthodox Church in early adulthood, and their reasons for leaving. They discuss the paradigm shift from a literal reading of religious language to a metaphorical, symbolic understanding. Anita then delves into Jungian psychology, the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, and Hellenistic astrology. This quote from Jason E. Smith summarizes her theme: “Religious institutions should not be seen as repositories of truth, but instead as opportunities for the individual’s own experiments in truth.”

You can find the podcast on your favorite podcast platform, such as Spotify or Apple podcast. Or you can listen to the YouTube version.

The show notes are below, which have links to the books, resources, and people I discussed.

Show notes:

Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas

Religious But Not Religious by Jason E. Smith

Nate Craddock (see especially his interview on the Astrology Podcast about Christianity and astrology)

James Hillman and the Peaks and Vales essay is from Senex and Puer

James Hollis

CG Jung

Nightlight Astrology classes and YouTube channel by Acyuta-bhava Das (Adam Elenbaas)

As for the personality typology, you can find many posts about that here on this blog, of course.

We didn’t get around to mentioning it on the podcast, but there is a Facebook group called Exodoxy for people who are former Eastern Orthodox Christians, or current members with one foot firmly out the door. It’s a private place to discuss our past struggles with the church and our current spiritual and philosophical interests. If you meet the criteria (there are a series of questions you have to answer to gain admittance to the group) you are welcome to join.

And, finally, please check out Sam’s books. I especially like Everyday Emerson, Living From the Soul, his translation and paraphrase of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and his translation and paraphrase of Tao Te Ching.

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On astrology, therapy, animals, and the blessings of the broken parts

You know, people come to therapy really for blessing. Not so much to fix what’s broken, as to get what’s broken blessed. – James Hillman

Dream Animals, page 2

There is so much emphasis on “fixing” in our culture.

We think we are broken and need fixing. Or we put pressure on ourselves to help others solve their problems or give them “actionable takeaways” (ugh, I hate that phrase).

It’s easy to forget that feeling seen by another person is sometimes the greatest gift they can give us.

The past five years of Jungian analysis has helped me discover ways to listen to and feel seen by my soul, because a Jungian analysis isn’t about fixing. You aren’t “in treatment.” As Hillman wrote about in The Soul’s Code, one’s “symptoms” can sometimes point you in the direction of your calling; if you listen to the symptoms carefully, they can show you what it is your soul would rather attend to.

Since starting to study ancient astrology a year ago, I’ve discovered that an astrologer can bless someone simply by showing them the breathtakingly intricate ways that they are seen by the cosmos in their birth chart. It helps flip one’s inner narrative from marinating in regrets about certain past events to compassion towards self and others. As Hillman said at an astrology conference in 1997, ” The astrologer reverts events to their sources in the heavens, thereby taking the person out of circumstances and into heaven. Hence the revelatory feelings when a striking interpretation is made. Heaven’s gates open and a connection made between the two spheres.”

And let’s not forget the blessings of animals! The Hillman quote at the beginning of the post was from the book Dream Animals, in which Hillman says blessing by the animal occurs when they wake up our imagination when see them in nature. And when they enter our dreams. He also said that pets were the first psychoanalysts and make us aware of ourselves. I also can’t help but add that astrology reminds us of the blessings of animals, too, as several of the zodiac signs are animal symbols. “The planets are largely stabled among beasts,” as Hillman said.

Yesterday, while getting ready to write the draft of this post, the Lutheran benediction that I heard hundreds of times during childhood and early adulthood came to mind. I was able to recite it without difficulty and it goes something like this:

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you… and give you peace.

I put ellipses in there because I seem to remember the pastor pausing before saying those final four words. Then afterwards the pastor made the sign of the cross, not by touching his or her forehead and chest with their fingers, but with their arm extended from their body, Blessings aren’t meant to be kept clutched to ourselves.

Of course it’s not just a pet, priest, therapist, astrologer, or God that dispenses blessings. All of us can lift up our countenances upon each other and give each other peace.

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What sermons and horoscopes have in common

What sermons and horoscopes have in common

The best of sermons afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. The same can be said of horoscopes. Even when they don’t meet this high ideal, they can remind us of heaven.

There a line that I can still recall from a sermon I heard over 30 years ago, back when I was in college.

The Lutheran pastor began the sermon in a voice as loud as thunder: “Unfulfilled desires prove the existence of heaven.” He was paraphrasing C.S. Lewis and went on to explain that if a desire exists, the fulfillment of that desire must also exist.

My imagination thrilled at this and it fed my soul. Out of the many hundreds of sermons I would go on to hear in the years to come, this is the only line I remember out of all those sermons.

Zoom ahead 30+ years to today, and it is astrology and horoscopes that I partake of regularly. I recently listened to an audio of James Hillman, who was an archetypal Jungian psychologist. It is a one hour talk he gave at an astrology conference and he quoted Paracelsus:

Hillman kept repeating the words “Heaven retains.” He said he takes those two words quite literally. When I heard that I had the same thrill as I did 30+ years ago when listening to that sermon,

You only get a half truth or partial understanding of others or yourself if you neglect heaven. The ultimate meaning of heaven is unknown. It is defined simply as the place beyond the sky, the unknown. It connotes the divine.

Hillman says: “Paracelsus is insisting on the invisible path of our lives. This half is not directly graspable by any natural methods of science, any kind of naturalistic or mundane thinking or understanding. […] We humans, aware that we only live in half truths, and see only through a glass darkly, turn to astrology to find a way back to heaven, to the invisible source of our bodies and maladies.”

Horoscopes and sermons can point us to heaven because it is heaven that makes them possible. It is the arrangement of the planets in the sky during a particular day or period of time that serves up the topics an astrologer must address when writing a horoscope.

For many pastors and priests, it is a lectionary, based on the church calendar, that provides the scripture reading the sermon must address.

Of course there is always the danger that a sermon or horoscope can become too prescriptive, too mired in literalism and fundamentalism. One must choose one’s purveyors of sermons and horoscopes wisely.

In my years of listening to sermons, I noticed that, even when following a lectionary, a pastor or priest would still tend to repeat the same themes over and over again, as if it was the lesson they needed to hear. This can happen to astrologers too. Jung said that teachers, ultimately, don’t teach their subject. They teach themselves (i.e. the teacher is the subject).

Astrologer Adam Elenbaas also steers us away from a literal view:

“I find that thinking too much about when to do stuff with astrology generally gets in the way. If you meditate on something in your heart, and  […] have a good intention that’s not going to harm anyone … then you [should] just go with what feels right.

Part of astrology is trying to get us off the training wheels of astrology. That’s a big part of astrology, actually. We all have the inherent sense of divine timing built into us.”

Ultimately, true healing and comes from within, and not from horoscopes and sermons. But the astrologer and the pastor/priest can help transport us out of our circumstances by providing insights that remind us of what is above. Then we can find a way back to heaven, where the fulfillment of our desires, and comfort for our afflictions, awaits.

Sources:

Adam Elenbaas 9/15/19 video.

RIP Rev. Jerry Knoche

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The biblical “great cloud of witnesses” and archetypal astrology

The biblical “great cloud of witnesses” and archetypal astrology

The biblical phrase “cloud of witnesses” has long enthralled for me, for it hints at the mystical and archetypal.

Hebrews 12:1 is the Bible verse where it’s mentioned:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

As I continue to do dream work with my Jungian analyst, and have begun to study archetypal astrology, the phrase “cloud of witnesses” keeps coming to mind.

Dreams are populated with archetypal figures that are, in essence, a cloud of witnesses. Animus/anima figures, who often have the persona of the inferior function of one’s personality type. Powerful cameo appearances from loved ones who are deceased and bring a message of healing. And, of course, shadow figures, that remind us of what we have trouble facing in waking life.

I love how James Hillman, the late, great Jungian psychologist and founder of archetypal psychology puts it:

In astrology, this cloud of witnesses is just as evident. It is easier to have self-compassion, and empathy for others, while reviewing the times in your life when you had difficult transits (such as the Saturn return and Uranus square Uranus) because you know that every other person has had a similar period. We are all witnesses to each other.

This archetypal support emboldens us to “run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

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