 I decided to study Astrology after being introduced to psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung's magnum opus a while back, while studying Philosophy at Sao Paulo University. Condemned to examine my own existence up to the very last day of my life, I needed answers not easily available in a regular academic environment. Our minds, for instance: are our minds tabula rasa, empty of contents at the time we are born like intended by Cartesian orthodox science, void spaces awaiting to be filled up with information? My intuition always answered no to this question, as I was frequently assaulted by memories from places I have never been, idees fixes I knew were mine and mine alone.
Astrology was just another body of knowledge I decided to investigate and incorporate in my self-discovery journey, a translation tool that could help me decodify my own reality. As I delved deeper and deeper in to Jung's writings and his association of the Universal Archetypes with astrological symbolism I realized I was getting much more than what I've bargained for: what started as just a new path of investigation ended up growing uncontrollably, I've entered some sort of Pandora's Box with tentacles, a place where each section of a tentacle would give birth to some other avenue of investigation in a never ending path of reproduction. When I meditate about this Pandora's Box I came in contact with through Jung and Astrology, I'm reminded of Lewis Carroll's Alice and her own acausal submersion in to a world of endless possibilities, a world where reality recreates itself in a non-stop fashion. That book, Alice in Wonderland, was my 5th birthday present and I can remember how impressed I was by her journey to this day. I have no idea how many times I've read it but I can certainly remember how shocked I was by the deconstruction of reality as we know it available to Alice. I wanted to be Alice, from that point on I knew I could never read the tri-dimensional "real" world on an "as is" basis, what my eyes could see was just a cover up for a much more complex reality, a level of reality I could fit in, extra dimensions my mind could travel through. My personal journey through the unconscious mind had started. Carl Gustav Jung and the use he made of Astrology, his own journey through the world of Symbolism and Synchronicity was the key I searched for my whole life. I've found the key, the door to the Unconscious Mind was now wide open!... "Today humanity, as never before, is split into two apparently irreconcilable halves. The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as Fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves." Carl Gustav Jung (in Aion - Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, par.126) |