The Psychology of Astrology

The Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung studied astrology for over 40 years, and was primarily interested in the way astrology could help to explore the psyche. For Jung, astrology represents the sum of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity. The notion of seeing mythic narratives through patterns in the heavens is one of the earliest attempts to link the outer world with the inner world. The well-known Hermetic dictum, “As above, so below,” is key to astrology. It is the idea that man (the microcosm), is influenced by the universe (the macrocosm). That is to say, truths about the nature of the cosmos may be inferred from truths about human nature, and vice versa. At the exact moment of birth, each person receives the typical qualities of the libido or energy which is characteristic of him or her. Time, or the moment understood as a peculiar form of energy, seems to coincide with our psychological condition. For Jung, this leads to a peculiar hypothesis, that our personality d