Customer Reviews

Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View

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This review, in all fairness, is dedicated to peers and careful skeptics who would take anonymous "Book Nut's" comment as being scientific. My academic foundation is in engineering physics and philosophy. I must ask Book Nut if (s)he read Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas before scoring it "1" on this Amazon page?

Nonetheless it is a common reaction amongst scientists to discard astrology's natural archetypal patterns without due examination as being unexplained with physical proof. Yet we forget to acknowledge that our natural organic life support systems rely on structured and orchestrated rhythmic patterns around and within our physical bodies.

1) If "patterns by themselves don't mean anything" why do we all need to sleep after being awake for a while? Can patterns ever exist by themselves if they form as relationships between entities?
2) Fundamental scientific research and investigation is based on pattern recognition whether it is analyzed in a space, time or energy continuum.
3) Chemical, molecular patterns of your own DNA play a significant role in the patterns of your body's hormonal biochemistry, biological processes and organic transformations.
4) The biological rhythms of living organisms on Earth are mostly synchronized with the regular patterns of the Moon and the Sun daily, monthly and annual cyclical motions relative to the planet. Some of these obvious life supporting cyclical patterns are environmental and internalized: gravitational (tidal), electrostatic (osmotic) and photo-thermo sensitive (endogenous circardian rhythms).

Most biological and ecological living processes are cyclical. Open-system living organisms integrate a multitude of internal and external rhythms to regenerate and remain alive in a dynamic equilibrium for their lifetime. What is "Book Nut" missing here about very real and natural patterns (s)he is inscribed in?

Human beings are not just pattern-matching animals. We have an extreme discerning sensitivity, linked to "intelligence", enabling us to ride the waves of natural patterns and orchestrate them towards civilization. A definite human capacity to do more with less if only we haven't lost touch with the rhythmic breath of our environment and cosmos.

Of course, I recommend Richard Tarnas' masterpiece "Cosmos and Psyche" for daring to set a valid scholarly foundation for a science of consciousness. Isn't it consciousness that we ought to evolve as human beings?

If an eminent scholar and acclaimed cultural historian were to publish a major study of human history insightfully analyzing and interpreting various notable epochs and their formative figures, then the intellectual community would be entirely open to, and interested in, what this person had to say. If this person were at the same time to present a variety of parallel phenomena -- geographic, political, biological etc. -- demonstrating correlations between these two lines of phenomena, then the intellectual community would be moved to seriously consider and engage this new knowledge. But what if, most boldly, the phenomena being demonstrated as parallel with the mozaic of cultural history were to be the major alignments of the outermost planets -- what then?

Richard Tarnas, author of the acclaimed cultural history, 'Passion of the Western Mind', has presented us with just such a paradigmatically challenging and mind-expanding account of a human-cosmic connection. With 'Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View', he has produced a penetrating analysis of the complex thematic character of a number of generally recognized significant historical moments and epochs, revealing how the peaks and valleys of the earthly course of human unfolding demonstrate a rhythmic concordance with the peaks and valleys of the outer-planetary dance. As the church fathers were invited to look through Galileo's telescope we are invited to examine certain newly discovered phenomena. Are we to cling to our old dogma and refuse to look, or are we to open our minds -- indeed without putting aside our critical faculties -- to see what this obviously credible historian and new paradigmatic thinker has to say?

By revealing the very architecture of the evolving collective psyche in resonance with a 're-enchanted' cosmos, Cosmos and Psyche points us toward a greater coherence beyond postmodern fragmentation. Rather than our universe being solely dead matter and rocks banging around according to the laws of physics, as Tarnas explains, it is the confirmation of the cosmological dimension as meaningful that provides the missing dimension of all new paradigm strategies which, especially after Jung, deal very well with psyche but leave cosmos out of the picture.

Tarnas's opus does not require a previous knowledge of astrology or even a general prior acceptance of it. The astrological configurations that Tarnas engages in his account are necessarily basic both in order to be accessible for the non-astrological public and also to provide clear and verifiable evidence rather than esoteric complexification. In full accordance with astrological consensus, the author provides a lucid yet profound introduction to the archetypal meanings of the relevant astrological principles.

In order to attempt in good faith to refute this book, one would need the scholarship necessary to argue extensively against the characterization of the essentials of a certain period or event, against the interpretations of various works of art, or against the significance of numerous discoveries. One would have to be able to demonstrate convincingly -- with many counter examples -- either how there are in fact no real historical peaks, or that the peaks which Tarnas identifies are questionably chosen simply to fit the theory, or that in each specified period in which relevant works and events are cited that there are just as many events and works of the same essential quality that can be found equally distributed across other times bearing no astro-archetypal resonance to them. A rejection based on anything less than such a meticulous scholarly counter-argument would be cavalier and intellectually disingenuous. But intellectually honest critique and interpretative differences promoting constructive dialogue in the field are entirely appropriate and even required by a work of this magnitude.

This is really a very solid academic book, but I found it far too detailed, and it really makes the same argument throughout. I felt it could all have been said in a quarter of the space.

With its open-minded spirit of hypothesis, empirical observation, and ongoing theoretical refinement, this book is a scientific triumph, scientific in the highest sense of the word: Here is the evidence, and here is a possible theory to explain the evidence. Most importantly, the correlations in Tarnas’ methodology are replicable. Anyone with a knowledge of the basic tools of this method of analysis, which he carefully introduces, can investigate the patterning of archetypal principles in his or her own life. To preemptively criticize this body of research without actually investigating it, to refuse to look through the telescope for oneself, might, I believe, be symptomatic of a vested emotional position rather than a genuinely scientific attitude toward the evolution of knowledge.

Tarnas recognizes and even celebrates the virtue of skepticism, as Santayana did when he referred to skepticism as “the chastity of the intellect.” Yet Tarnas goes further, reminding us that while “the mind that seeks the deepest intellectual fulfillment does not give itself up to every passing idea,” what is sometimes forgotten is that the purpose of skepticism is not to be an end in itself but to prepare us to be ready when a new and deeper truth finally arrives.

It is sad when an obviously intelligent academic falls into a cognitive trap. There's a word for the fallacy in his approach: data mining. Given a large amount of data, you can always find a pattern that matches any preconceived notion of your choice.

Humans are pattern-matching animals. It's a strength but also a profound weakness because sometimes we see patterns that don't mean anything. Whether its the face on Mars, conspiracy theories of all kinds, patterns by themselves don't mean anything.

Astrologers have been busy for millennia but they're no better than anyone else at forecasting the future - doesn't that tell us something?