The Development of Personality

309 Pages·1987·2.76 MB·English

by  Liz Greene

To our students
CONTENTS
Introduction
Part 1
The Stages of Childhood
by Howard Sasportas
Part 2
The Parental Marriage in the Horoscope
by Liz Greene
Part 3
Subpersonalities and Psychological Conflicts
by Howard Sasportas
Part 4
Puer and Senex
by Liz Greene
Suggested Reading
About the Centre for Psychological Astrology
Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life
is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground
lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. . .
. I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the
eternal flux. What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains.
—C. G. Jung
INTRODUCTION
There was a time, not so very long ago, when an astrological consultation was
something people sought because they wanted predictions about the future—
money, love, health—and, if there was any “character analysis” involved at all,
it consisted primarily of the astrological “cookbook” kind: You are a Gemini
and therefore you are clever, versatile and articulate. This listing of static
personality traits was either already well known to the client, in which case
there was not a great deal of value to be gained from such a reading; or the
client could not immediately identify with the character traits described, in
which case the validity of astrology itself was consequently held in question.
Naturally there are still many people who go to an astrologer for these
reasons—predictions and a pat on the back about one's apparently fixed and
unalterable behaviour—and there are still many astrologers who will happily
oblige such clients by providing the information requested. But over the years,
particularly the last five years, there has been a gradual change not only in the
reasons why people seek out astrologers, but also in the kind of people who
seek them out; and the astrological community has in turn met this challenge
and has begun to formulate a different and much more creative kind of
astrology, built firmly upon tradition but adapted to the changing and more
sophisticated needs of the client. There was a time, not so very long ago, when
an astrologer's clientele was fairly predictable—a fair number of show business
people, notoriously “superstitious” anyway, and a smattering of upwardly
spiritually mobile aspirants hoping for a formula for enlightenment without
mess. This, too, has been changing. Now the astrologer's client may be anybody
at all, from a government minister to a secretary, from a doctor to an artist, from
a computer programmer to a fashion model. Having one's horoscope interpreted
is no longer an obscure sort of entertainment or a replacement for making
choices in life.
The reasons for this shift lie in part in the increasing interest in—and
investigation of—serious astrology, which has helped break down the barriers
which often spring from the ignorant layman's assumptions about what
astrology can and cannot do. But this increasing interest is itself a symptom of
something. There may be some quite profound underlying reasons why we, as
astrologers, are beginning to be taken more seriously; and why we, as
astrologers, are increasingly being challenged to take ourselves more seriously,
and more professionally, as well. For one thing, the astrological consultant has,
willingly or not, been usurping what was once the role of the priest, the
physician, and the psychiatrist. The client is no longer merely a gullible soul
seeking fortune-telling, nor an esoterically inclined aspirant wondering what he
or she was up to in the last incarnation. The client may be depressed without
external cause; anxious or fearful; in the throes of an emotional crisis, or the
breakup of a relationship; seeking serious insight into potential vocational
opportunities; or troubled by apathy and an inability to make anything of his or
her talents. In short, the client may have psychological problems and questions,
and may be intelligently seeking insight into these problems in order to have a
greater range of choices and responses—a situation which can apply to just
about anybody at a certain crossroads in life. And with due respect to those
readers who might be members of the clergy or of psychiatry, this client with
psychological problems may often fail to find the tolerance or depth of
understanding that the clergy might justifiably be expected to provide, receiving
meaningless aphorisms instead; or may fail to obtain the insight into symptoms
and the openness to discuss them without clinical labelling which the orthodox
medical establishment sometimes finds rather difficult to offer. So, willingly or
not, consciously or not, the consultant astrologer has arrived as a counsellor.
And those astrologers who heatedly deny this psychological aspect of their
work are at best naive and at worst destructive through their ignorance of what
they are really dealing with. But for the most part, astrology has responded to
this new role by accepting the psychological dimension of the study, and
whatever term we wish to use—psychological astrology, astrological
psychology, or simply good and insightful astrological counselling—astrology
is coming of age and taking its place among the helping professions.
There is another thread to this fabric which is being woven out of the
marriage of astrology and psychology, and that is the thread of meaning.
Meaning is essential for life, and human beings seem to require it. Without
meaning, there is often the feeling that we have nothing to live for, nothing to
hope for, no reason to struggle for anything and no direction in life. Whether it
is ultimately up to us to create our own meaning, or whether it is our task to
discover some grand cosmic scheme or divine intention, the search for
guidelines, goals, and a sense of purpose is an innate drive in all of us. And the
problem of meaning has, in the last few decades, become an urgent one.
Disillusionment with traditional religious structures accounts for some of this
crisis of meaning which is upon us; and the increasing complexity of our lives
in a world beset by new and daunting problems and challenges for which there
are no existent guidelines or methods of approach accounts for even more of it.
Loss of meaning is often the root from which spring the myriad psychological
problems which masquerade as clinical symptoms, and loss of meaning is often
the crisis which drives the client to seek an astrologer.
The astrologer who uses the chart as a counselling tool is in the unique
position of helping others in this all-important search to find meaning in their
lives. It is a task to be taken humbly, yet seriously. The man experiencing a
difficult marriage with natal Venus square Pluto can be helped if he can find
some meaning or relevance in his relationship troubles. What can he learn about
himself through these issues? Why has he landed himself in this situation?
What are the connections to earlier events in his life? Questions such as these
may reveal a theme or pattern which he is unconsciously attracting and living
out. A woman with Saturn conjunct Neptune in the tenth house, struggling to
forge a career while facing debilitating anxieties, insecurities, and fears of
failure, can be helped if these problems are appreciated and given significance
within the larger context of her whole life and development. With the
astrologer, she can explore the deeper archetypal conflict underlying her career
problems, and what the struggle is asking her to learn about, face up to, and
deal with in herself. Because of her dilemma, she may be pushed into
developing certain qualities, resources or strengths which she might never have
bothered to develop if the issue were not there in the first place; and this
glimpse of an intelligible “reason” why we suffer is often the magical
ingredient which can distill confidence and clarity out of a painful and
confusing situation. Sign and house placements, aspects, transits, and
progressions, not to mention life itself, all become more meaningful when
understood in this way.
Psychological astrology has, like the old Roman god Janus, a double face. It
can provide a surgical scalpel which cuts through to the underlying motives,
complexes, and family inheritance which lie behind the manifest problems and
difficulties which the individual faces; and it can also provide a lens through
which can be viewed the teleology and purpose of our conflicts in context of the
overall meaning of the individual's journey. Both faces ultimately turn toward a
central mystery, the mystery of the human psyche of which astrology is both
our oldest and our newest map.
The seminars in this book deal with the experiences of childhood and the
development, dynamics, and structure of the personality. They are part of the
training programme of the Centre for Psychological Astrology, founded and co-
directed by the authors, with branches in both London and Zürich. The Centre
was established to promote, explore, and encourage the use of astrology—both
as a vehicle to self-knowledge and as an effective approach to counselling.
These seminars—and transcriptions of others which will follow in further
volumes of this series—are components in the three-year course of seminars,
supervision groups, and classes which comprise the in-depth training in
psychological astrology which the Centre provides.
In editing these transcripts, we have made every attempt to preserve a sense
of the flavour and feeling of each of these one-day events. The reader is invited
to fully experience and participate in them. It is hoped that the serious student
of astrology will gain not only enriching insights into how to interpret; the chart
psychologically, but also will grow in the kind of personal self-understanding
and self-knowledge which are such necessary ingredients for productive
counselling of any kind.
Liz Greene Howard Sasportas November, 1986
PART ONE
THE STAGES OF CHILDHOOD
The childhood shows the man, As morning shows the day.
—John Milton
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
—Anonymous