Review of 'Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Interestingly, and I imagine quite intentionally, one would not know this book is about astrology - or archetypal cosmology - until the third or fourth chapter. At least I didn't. But I read it anyway.
Tarnas has clearly invested an enormous amount of effort into researching the material that comprises this book. Unfortunately, the result is that the book largely reads like a massive information dump of dates, places, events, and people that after hundreds of pages becomes confusing, redundant, and predictable. The general point - that when in certain alignments, the archetypal correspondents of the outer planets correlate to manifestations of the same archetype among people and events on Earth - could have been made with greater concision.
I commend him for acknowledging that what he is proposing is a starting point for further inquiry with numerous remaining unanswered questions. Upon completion, I was intrigued but beguiled and hesitant …
Interestingly, and I imagine quite intentionally, one would not know this book is about astrology - or archetypal cosmology - until the third or fourth chapter. At least I didn't. But I read it anyway.
Tarnas has clearly invested an enormous amount of effort into researching the material that comprises this book. Unfortunately, the result is that the book largely reads like a massive information dump of dates, places, events, and people that after hundreds of pages becomes confusing, redundant, and predictable. The general point - that when in certain alignments, the archetypal correspondents of the outer planets correlate to manifestations of the same archetype among people and events on Earth - could have been made with greater concision.
I commend him for acknowledging that what he is proposing is a starting point for further inquiry with numerous remaining unanswered questions. Upon completion, I was intrigued but beguiled and hesitant due to those unanswered questions. Such as, what of events that occurred which didn't correspond to the archetypal alignment in place? What of events that occurred during time frames and in geographies not addressed in the book? How does one explain this phenomena overall? When each archetype is so broad, has both a light and shadow side, and is multivalent (a oft-used word), can't one see nearly whatever one wants to see in a certain biography or historical moment? Is it only in our solar system or are exoplanets also archetypal? And perhaps most frustratingly, there is little offered either in the book or the corresponding website for readers to further investigate this for themselves and apply it to their own lives and time periods.
