VMs: Jung and Modern/Traditional Astrology?

["CWLee" <cwlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

While probably "interesting" to some on the list, I find
this discussion about Jung and various astrological
approaches harder and harder to connect to the Voynich
Manuscript (VM), and to potential methods to solve it.

I believe 20th Century nuclear physicists demonstrated very
expensive ways to change small amounts of lead into gold - a
long held goal of medieval alchemists.  Perhaps the VM
discusses some then-contemporary approaches to that task.  I
don't believe, however, that we would advance our
understanding of the VM by comparing and contrasting various
methodologies associated with the lead-to-gold attempts over
the centuries since its probable creation.

Best regards to all.

===========================

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pamela Richards" <spirlhelix@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 8:56 PM
Subject: Re: Re: VMs: Modern Astrology vs. Traditional
Astrology


> Hi, Nick!
>
> Now you've gone and done it. . .  I'm usually quite
> cautious about reading very many modern historians so
> I won't become too biased to modern thinking.  But now
> I have become curious about the ideas behind Jung's
> development of "psychological astrology."
>
> I found this article shed an interesting light, if you
> don't object to looking at it from my point of view
> for a moment.
>
> Let's say it's my contention that Ficino was not the
> originator of "modern psychological" astrology except
> by Jung's own hand; that Ficino himself had
> antecedents which were known to Jung, and used by him;
> and that the reason "modern psychological" astrology
> fits so well with certain conceptual themes of Ficino
> is that Jung pretty much modelled his work on that of
> Ficino, Plato, neoplatonists, gnostic tradition,
> alchemy, etc.  And that Ficino was not the founder of
> Jung's school, but rather that Jung was indebted to
> Ficino, as well as others.
>
> So if it were not for Jung and his openness to these
> themes, you would not have a Ficinian basis of "modern
> psychological" astrology.
> And as several of Ficino's acknowledged antecedants
> were consciously utilized by Jung as well, Ficino is
> actually a questionable founder of "modern
> psychological" astrology, as far as I can tell.
>
> This is apart from the question of technique,
> intention, and application of astrology.
>
> I would have no problem saying that conceptually(apart
> from the problem of intention, technique, and
> application) Ficino was an antecedent or precursor of
> "modern psychological" astrology, right along with
> Plato, Hermes Trismegistus (I know he is perhaps not a
> historic figure, but the writings nevertheless are
> there), and others. . .but to say he founded it, no.
> I also disagree with the statement that he practiced
> "modern psychological astrology", for reasons we have
> already discussed. IMHO, it required Jung to found the
> movement.  The techniques employed did not exist until
> the twentieth century.
>
> I would call attributing "modern psychological"
> astrology to Ficino reading history backwards from
> Jung.  The problem is, if we keep going backwards,
> where do we stop?  Gnosticism. . . Neoplatonism . . .
> Plato?  Please, surely we can agree these guys were
> not "modern psychological astrologers", right?
>
> Anyway, I hope you find this interesting!
>
> Warmly,
>
> Pam
>
>
> Bruce MacLennan
>
>
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/papers/EvolutionJungTheurgyUPS.pdf
>
> III. Connections with Neoplatonism
>
> Jung's Debt to Neoplatonism
>
> For our purposes, the important point is that the
> archetypes are essentially the Platonic Ideas. This,
> in itself, is not a new notion, nor is it surprising.
> Indeed, Jung (CW 9, pt. 1, ¶5) says,"'Archetype' is an
> explanatory paraphrase of the Platonic ei]doj,"and he
> cites its use by Philo Judaeus (De opf. mundi,
> I.69),Irenaeus (Adv. haer., II.7.5), the Corpus
> Hermeticum (I.8, II.12),and pseudo-Dionysius (De cael.
> hier., II.4; De div. nom., I.6); theterm is also used
> by Plotinus (e.g., 5.1.4). Indeed Jung (CW 8,¶154)
> defines archetypes as active living dispositions,
> ideas in the Platonic sense, that preform and
> continually influence our thoughts and feelings and
> actions.  Certainly Jung seems to have been influenced
> more directly by Gnosticism than by Neoplatonism, for
> the Gnostics, as Jung(1965, 200) says,had been
> confronted with the primal world of the unconscious
> and had dealt with its contents, with images that were
> obviously contaminated with the world of instinct.
> But Gnosticism itself has many connections with Middle
> Platonism and Neoplatonism. Eventually Jung became
> interested in alchemy because he saw it as a "bridge
> that led from Gnosticism - or neo-Platonism - to the
> contemporary world" (op. cit., 201).  As psychologist
> James Hillman (1975a, 198) remarks,"There are striking
> likenesses between the main themes of Neoplatonism and
> archetypal psychology." He notes (Hillman1975b) that
> although Jung cites Neoplatonists infrequently, he was
> ----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------
> Page 4
>
> 4inspired at an early stage of his career by the
> Neoplatonist scholar Friedrich Creuzer, who later
> edited the works of Plotinus, Proclus,and
> Olympiodorus. Jung (1965, 162) says that he "read like
> mad"Creuzer's Symbolik und Mythologie der alten
> Völker, and "worked with feverish interest" through
> this Neoplatonic analysis ofmythology. Hillman
> refrains from claiming a direct dependence of Jung on
> Plotinus via Creuzer, but he does want to suggest, and
> strongly, that the reason Jung was so fired by Creuzer
> was because he and Creuzer shared the same spirit, a
> profoundly similar psychological attitude,
> anarchetypal attitude, which tradition calls
> Neoplatonist(Hillman 1975b, 149).He notes further
> affinities, calling the Florentine Neoplatonist and
> theurgist Marsilio Ficino the Renaissance patron of
> archetypal psychology (1975a, 200), and claiming,
> "Ficino was writing, not philosophy as has always been
> supposed, but an archetypal psychology" (1975a, 202).
> (See also Hillman 1975b on Ficino.)In summary, there
> is reason to conclude that Jung was influenced by
> Neoplatonism both directly and indirectly (via
> Gnosticism and alchemy), but even were he not, we can
> see the connections now and use each to illuminate the
> other.
>
>
> > --- Nick Pelling <nickpelling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi everyone,
> > >
> > > I've learnt a tremendous amount from this thread
> > > (especially from Pamela's
> > > most recent posts), and so don't think it's quite
> > > time to take it off-list
> > > (sorry Elmar).
> > >
> > > FWIW I think of "modern astrology" as Ficino
> > onwards
> > > and (say)
> > > "contemporary astrology" as roughly 1850 onwards,
> > > but that is informed by a
> > > literature (primarily historian-driven, and more
> > > specifically historians of
> > > ideas) quite parallel to the literature (primarily
> >
> > > practising-astrologer-driven) on which Pamela is
> > > relying. Essentially,
> > > "modern" is one of those
> > > words-that-mean-what-you-want-them-to-mean (as per
> >
> > > Humpty Dumpty), so we should be careful with it.
> > >
> > > This is particularly important if we want to
> > relate
> > > the VMs to the
> > > literature(s) of history of astrology - we have to
> > > know *which tradition*
> > > we're talking about.
> > >
> > > I also completely take Pamela's point per Jung and
> > > alchemy (IIRC, he bought
> > > a book on alchemy and had a dream, and that's
> > where
> > > his ideas basically all
> > > came from) - very much like the enneagram, Wicca,
> > > and numerous other 20th
> > > Century inventions. I need to think about this
> > more.
> > >
> > > Pamela: (as mentioned above) I do believe that our
> > > readings are from quite
> > > two parallel literatures. Which is why your kitten
> > > is ~fairly~ safe (though
> > > I'd predict that Ioan Couliano did practise some
> > > medieval predictive
> > > astrology - he did lecture on a mixture of
> > > predictive techniques at his
> > > university). :-/
> > >
> > > Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>
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> >
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> >
> >
> >
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>
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