The ancient language of astrology postulates a correlation between the cosmos and psyche, made manifest through what Jung called synchronicity. Archetypes are first principles, the scaffolding of experience. Jung called them “modes of perception,” and James Hillman, the father of archetypal psychology, called them “categories of imagination.” Archetypal astrology is then rooted in the depth psychological tradition, viewing planets as archetypes and their particular configuration in a natal chart—in astrology, this is called “aspects”—point to psychological complexes. These are highly charged emotional centers, often highly unconscious, and therefore they can be tempered with consciousness brought to bear upon them. Astrology helps us locate the personal within the universal, our microcosm within the macrocosm. In the words of Hermes Trismegistus: as above, so below.

Jung’s Type Theory provides a logos of soul. There are four personality orientations that correlate to the elements astrologically: intuition (fire), sensation (earth), thinking (air), and feeling (water). These functions have an attitudinal preference—either introverted or extraverted. They express themselves in a hierarchy that has archetypal resonance. There are four functions that operate within consciousness, and four opposing functions in the unconscious. The inferior function is then the gateway to the unconscious—through that trapdoor one meets the shadow. When a person begins to embrace their lowest, they enter into a new relationship with their highest. The personality then operates from a new center of gravity. Typology offers an image of the transcendent and numinous, as well as a rooted, embodied guide to living a life in full, one in which everything belongs.

Myth is the most direct expression of the archetypal realm, animating the shared matrix of primordial images that Jung called the collective unconscious. Hillman too viewed mythic figures as psychic personifications, and in depth psychology we turn to Greek myth in particular as the indigenous wisdom tradition of Western Civilization. Myths help make life meaningful. The multivalent psyche is most accurately depicted in the pantheon of Greek gods. Whereas the ego would have us believe in its monotheistic stance, the psyche is polytheistic—a cacophony of inner voices and divine entanglements, as the gods demonstrate. As celebrated mythologist Joseph Campbell stated: “Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.” Turning to myth then gives insight into energy patterns of culture, and provides us with those very images of the psyche speaking itself.