An Evening with Richard Tarnas

Join CIIS Professor Emeritus and cultural historian Richard Tarnas for an illuminating talk examining the pantheon of the planetary archetypes. Of the many archetypes that Carl Jung recognized as informing the psychological life of his patients, those he found in the astrological tradition seemed to him especially significant, as reflecting timeless structures in the deep psyche. He drew on their meanings throughout his career and spoke repeatedly of the insights rendered by studying birth charts and transits.

Becoming familiar with the profound archetypal meanings associated with the Sun, Moon, and planets is invaluable for everyone interested in depth psychology and self-understanding. Because they are so universal in nature, as soon as each planet’s archetypal character and range of major expressions is presented, we quickly tend to recognize them as familiar realities in our lives.

First, the Sun and Moon, including how both the solar and lunar principles have masculine and feminine expressions, as well as those beyond any binary framing—and of course how both Sun and Moon live in all of us, just as they shine on all of us. Then the five planets visible to the naked eye and known to the ancients: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. And finally, the three outer planets discovered by telescopes in the modern era: Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, "the ambassadors of the galaxy," as Dane Rudhyar called them.

In the course of describing these planetary energies, Richard will touch on which ones are now especially active collectively and in what ways. The focus this evening will be the entire archetypal pantheon, rather than current world transits, since the world situation is in such rapid flux. That said, it is crucial to understanding both world transits and personal charts that we grasp the intrinsic nature of all archetypes, and how our always-evolving level of self-awareness and agency can play an important role in the ways these powerful forces and complexes are enacted in our lives.

This talk includes live audience Q&A.

Richard Tarnas is Professor Emeritus at California Institute of Integral Studies, where he was the founding director of the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness department. During his thirty years of teaching, he taught courses on the history of ideas, depth psychology, archetypal cosmology, cultural history, and the evolution of consciousness. He is the author of The Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche. He was formerly the director of programs and education at Esalen Institute, the president of the International Transpersonal Association, and a member of the Board of Governors for the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.

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