Philosophy, Richard Tarnas, and Postmodernism

Richard Tarnas

CONTENTS KEY

1. Holistic Confusion

2. Richard Tarnas and the Passion

3. The Kantian Cordon

4. Official Death of Metaphysics

5. Romanticism and Nietzsche

6. Crisis of Modern Science

7. The Postmodern New Age

8. Jung and Pseudo-Metaphysics

9. Postmodern Relativism and Wikipedia

10. Negotiating Contractions in Academe

11. Avoiding a Neo-Jungian Hazard

12. Findhorn Foundation Holistic Censorship

13. CIIS and Astrology

I. Holistic Confusion

Many entries on this website comprise critical treatments of alternative or "new age"

thought. That form of thinking first arose in America during the 1960s, though speedily

being transplanted to other countries, including Britain. There was an obsessive anti-

establishment mood, and new cliches such as "higher states of consciousness." The

advocates of this alternativism saw themselves as pioneers of a new world era, with

peace and love being widely aired as characteristic traits.

Much of the enthusiasm was inspired by the vogue for cannabis and LSD. The

extremist academics Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert created a bizarre lore about

expanding consciousness, and were influential in the psychedelic vogue for Oriental

religions. Their version did not impress many scholars of Buddhism and Hinduism.

Meanwhile, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi achieved an opportunistic celebration of

Transcendental Meditation, a bestselling novelty which claimed the Beatles as some of

the fans. Such trends had a transient aspect, leaving many disillusioned persons

wondering what was really happening.

Many gurus benefited from the new mood of alternativism. At first they were all treated

as renaissance angels of the American Dream. Eventually a number of predatory

entities revealed some very disconcerting tendencies. However, the Eastern faction

became substantially outnumbered by the Western claimants to enlightenment,

healing, empowerment, integration, and other diverse presumptions.

California became the seedbed of notorious enthusiasms, cults, and lunacies. During

the 1970s, almost any fad could quickly succeed in becoming a popular commercial

attraction. New "therapies" became legion, and the word "workshop" became

identified with entrepreneurial new age excursions into supposed "higher

consciousness."

The commercial offerings of the Esalen Institute were very influential, with the critics

being in perpetual wonderment at the consumption of doubtful activities and crazes.

One of the most influential entities at Esalen was Dr. Stanislav Grof, a resident for many

years during the 70s and 80s. His theories about psychedelic experience and

hyperventilation are not accepted in conventional medical quarters. See further Grof

Therapy and MAPS on this website.

Such books of Grof as LSD Psychotherapy(1980) aroused enthusiasm in Esalen

circles, but strong queries as to validity in other sectors. Grof's subsequent book The

Adventure of Self-Discovery (1988) amounted to a promotion of his new therapy

Holotropic Breathwork, which was commercially administered via the auspices of Grof

Transpersonal Training Inc. Some investigators were very critical as to why that book

was published by SUNY (State University of New York).

The Findhorn Foundation was the major point of entry for the Esalen enthusiasms into

Britain, a trend facilitated by the affluence of the 1980s and an international list of

subscribers susceptible to entrepreneurial workshops.The apparent success of

Stanislav Grof's trademark "therapy" of Holotropic Breathwork during the period 1989-

1993, at the Findhorn Foundation, masked suspicious events and casualties that were

covered up at every step by those in charge of the promotionalism.

I have related in other articles (and epistles) on this website how the Holotropic

Breathwork problem was more realistically diagnosed outside the Foundation. An

expert in forensic medicine at Edinburgh University was fortunately resistant to Grof

Transpersonal Training Inc. The expensive "workshops" were nevertheless invested

by believers with an aura of unassailable authority, meaning the pronouncements of

Dr. Grof, who was also the promoter of "LSD psychotherapy."

In general, the "workshop" innovators often assumed "holistic" expertise, and some

referred to the holistic movement. These presumed experts claimed intuitive abilities,

healing powers, ecological prowess, skill in resolving conflicts, shamanistic faculties,

esoteric wisdom, self-development proficiency, and indeed numerous other variants of

the suspect enthusiasm. Critics remained unmoved, investigating what the holistic

exemplars actually did and how much money they charged.

As a conglomerate trend, these parties claimed a form of dynamic spiritual education

sufficient to change the world. This myth has been ongoing until the present day.

Phrases like "personal and spiritual transformation" are ubiquitous in the sectors to

which they appeal, but the evidence of accomplishment is far more difficult to find.

Some analysts of the phenomenon concluded that the "new age" developments

basically represented the response of persons who desired a form of alternative

religion to Christianity, which was increasingly viewed as an inadequate doctrine.

Others say that, although this theory appears to have an element of truth, there is the

problem involved of two basic new age contingents: the affluent clientele and the

entrepreneurial "experts." The affluent clientele in Western countries clearly do want a

different doctrine to that found in traditional religion, but they are misled by the

innovators in workshops, fads, and "holistic" lore.

The nominally holistic enthusiasts have often depreciated traditional education (in

schools and universities) as being inferior and anti-intuitive. Many of them have

decried analysis and critical appraisal as evils. Science is particularly abhorred in their

ranks, although scholarship is also ridiculed as being irrelevant. The sense of history

in some alternative circles has been so vestigial that records of recent events do not

exist. Except, that is, amongst the critics who have reasons for strong objection to

disconcerting "holistic" codes.

Traditional philosophy is another target of the alternativism. The former is accused of

being based on logic and analysis, which are supposedly anti-holistic and therefore to

be discounted. The reasoning involved in some of these verdicts has been considered

almost beyond belief by close assessors. In a "holistic" world where there is no due

analysis, no real sense of history, and no trained reporting, almost anything suspect

can take control. Critics say that this drawback is a more or less daily occurrence in

the circles under discussion.

2. Richard Tarnas and the Passion

There have been extensions of the alternativism that are more literate than the

generality. Some "new age academics" have contributed theories which are articulate,

but which are nevertheless in doubt elsewhere. For instance, ProfessorRichard

Tarnas authored the widely read bookThe Passion of the Western Mind (1991), which

includes a review of modern Western philosophy, though accompanied by a theme of

contemporary "epochal transformation" (p. xii). The message is that Copernican

astronomy, the metaphysics of Rene Descartes (1596-1650), and Kantian epistemology

were milestones en route to the contemporary spiritual alienation. More specifically,

those three developments are described in terms of "a threefold mutually enforced

prison of modern alienation" (The Passion of the Western Mind, repr.: London:

Pimlico, 1996, p. 419).

Descartes is a familiar target of other alternativists like Fritjof Capra, and his due

context will not be found in the American new age. The despised "Cartesian-

Newtonian" paradigm has more detail in the old age versions. See the bibliography in

my Rene Descartes, Philosopher and Scientist (2010).There are different versions of

what he believed.Descartes certainly represented a transient phase in physics, but had

a more enduring influence in the vivisection horrors attaching to biology, zoology, and

medical science. SeeAnimal Ethics, Animal Rights.

The basic complaint broached by Tarnas in his controversial Epilogue amounts to:

"The world revealed by modern science has been a world devoid of spiritual purpose,

opaque, ruled by chance and necessity, without intrinsic meaning" (Passion, p. 418). A

citizen is easily able to agree with that verdict. Yet there are different ways of seeking a

solution to the problems involved.

Descartes is rather accusingly assessed in terms of "the crucial midpoint between

Copernicus and Kant" (ibid., p. 417). The truth is that Descartes was not an academic

professor like Kant, although he was a scientist, and perhaps more of an empiricist

than a philosopher. His confusing mechanist doctrine suited the scientific temper of

his era in the revolt against religious dogmas. According to some writers, Descartes

was ideologically eliminated by Kantian empirical reasoning, along with others whom

Tarnas barely mentions in the alienation theory. Descartes was really the midpoint

between Bacon and Spinoza, the latter being almost invisible inPassion.

Some said that Tarnas was rivalling the popular book by Capra entitled The Turning

Point(1982), which more aggressively downgraded traditional philosophy in favour of

a purportedly holistic approach, in this instance a version of systems theory. Capra

was noticeably benign towards Grof LSD theory, and his general attitude was

symptomatic in several respects of Esalen "progressivism." Cf. Capra, The Hidden

Connections (2002), which makes no mention of Grof, instead favouring Anthony

Giddens and Jurgen Habermas as reference points (ibid., pp. 67ff.).

The Tarnas version of Western philosophy is comparatively amiable, though not by

any means complete. He commences with a brief version of early Greek exemplars,

culminating in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The distinctions between Aristotle and

Plato are drawn, and some credit is given to both, in which respect "we find a certain

elegant balance and tension between empirical analysis and spiritual intuition, a

dynamic beautifully rendered in Raphael's Renaissance masterpiece The School of

Athens" (Tarnas, Passion, p. 68). The supra-aesthetic dimensions of the polarity

involved were fairly extensive in the literature of Arabic-speaking philosophical

repertories, although Tarnas does not pursue this angle.

The Stoics and Neoplatonists receive rather less profile, and Plotinus gains only two

pages, and of a generalised nature. Further, the Muslimfalasifa are missing, although

this is a common failing in presentations of Western thought (despite the fact that Ibn

Rushd was active in Spain). The Christian Schoolmen come under review, with the

lion's share of attention falling to Aquinas. Roger Bacon is only fleetingly mentioned. A

chapter on the Renaissance is followed by others on the Scientific Revolution, the

favoured subjects here being Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, and with reference to

Isaac Newton. The accompanying "philosophical revolution" is treated in terms of

Francis Bacon and Descartes, which is a basically conventional view.

Tarnas appropriately observes that philosophy in the classical era "had held a largely

autonomous position as definer and judge of the literate culture's world view" (ibid., p.

272). Yet in the medieval period, Christianity replaced that autonomy, "while

philosophy took on a subordinate role in the joining of faith to reason" (ibid.). In

contrast, the modern period saw philosophy transfer to science and "establish itself as

a more fully independent force in the intellectual life of the culture" (ibid.).

For whatever reason, Tarnas makes only very fleeting reference to Spinoza, whose

ideological trajectory has elsewhere been viewed as significant, despite the enigmatic

nature of some components (cf. Shepherd, Baruch Spinoza, Rationalist Philosopher).

Indeed, there is very little information supplied in Passionabout Leibniz also, giving the

impression that such pre-Kantian thinkers were of small relevance. In contrast, there

are rather more substantial allocations granted to Freud and Jung, reflecting the

contemporary preoccupation with a type of psychology. The theories of C. G. Jung

have created much confusion, but Tarnas is clearly an enthusiast, not a critic in that

direction. The word archetype is generously listed in the index of Passion to a degree

quite overshadowing a fair number of philosophers.

3. The Kantian Cordon

A section entitled "Self-Critique of the Modern Mind" dwells upon John Locke (1632-

1704), Bishop Berkeley, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Tarnas

observes differences between the British empirical tradition and Continental

rationalism of the seventeenth century. The former was triumphant over the latter, but

the complexities of "Enlightenment" transition are more acute than is generally stated,

especially with the Kantian factor attached.

Locke opted for the immediacy of sensory experience, being influenced by the

empiricism of Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and the Royal Society. The provocative

idealism of George Berkeley (1685-1753) has been variously classified as empiricist

and Cartesian. Tarnas comments that "in effect, while Locke had reduced all mental

contents to an ultimate basis in sensation, Berkeley now further reduced all sense data

to mental contents" (Passion, p. 335).

The scepticism of David Hume (1711-76) early opposed the idealism of Berkeley. The

theory here moved back to sense impressions. More radically, Hume "concluded that

the mind itself was only a bundle of disconnected perceptions, with no valid claims to

substantial unity, continuous existence, or internal coherence, let alone to objective

knowledge" (ibid., p. 340; cf. Shepherd, Pointed Observations, 2005, pp. 224-38, for a

critical version of Hume). A form of extreme scepticism was expressed by Hume, who

was inclined to deny the validity of inductive reasoning.

The outlook of Hume has been subject to varying shades of interpretation. He can be

credited with a genuine interest in psychology, though his rudimentary version is in

question. In his Treatise on Human Nature (1739-40), he stated that "reason is, and

ought only to be the slave of the passions." This hedonistic assertion does not

necessarily follow from his more credible deduction that emotion (or desire), and not

reason, governed human behaviour. Due reason has to be cultivated, and should not

be a slave.

Hume was blocked from obtaining the Chair of Logic at Glasgow University. He was

charged with atheistic heresy, though he was acquitted. Yet if "labelling Hume as an

'atheist' is misleading," he was certainly very critical of religion. Quote from Paul

Russell, Hume on Religion (2005). With regard to scientific implications, Bertrand

Russell complained that Hume "arrives at the disastrous conclusion that from

experience and observation nothing is to be learnt" (History of Western Philosophy,

second edn 1961, p. 645).

l to r: David Hume, Immanuel Kant

Tarnas goes into more detail with Kant, who is effectively his major reference point in

philosophy during the modern period. Kant was concerned to offset Hume's

scepticism, but at the same time was influenced by that negativity. He strongly

believed in Newtonian science, but in assimilating Hume, he transited from what some

describe as the German rationalism associated with Leibniz. "His solution was to

satisfy the claims of both Hume and Newton" (Passion, p. 342). That assessment may

be considered correct, though Kant does not gain full profile in the neo-Jungian

version.

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) was composed in the academic milieu, unlike

earlier philosophical works. There is the unventuresome insistence in the Critique that

anything not apprehended by sensory impressions cannot be experienced. Kant thus

fell in line with Humean scepticism, and may himself have been more of a sceptic than

is often believed. He stated:

"The principles resulting from this highest principle of pure

reason will, however, be transcendentin relation to all

appearances, that is to say, it will be impossible to make any

adequate empirical use of this principle" (Critique of Pure

Reason, ed. V. Politis, London: Dent, 1934; repr. 1993, p. 241).

This pedagogic angle meant that the world of phenomena is the only field of possible

knowledge; in contrast, the noumenal or "transcendental" world is not accessible to

human experience. "The end result of his [Kant's) critical labours may seem to

resemble Hume's skepticism" (Manfred Kuehn, Kant: A Biography, Cambridge

University Press, 2001, p. 246).

Views have differed as to the extent of Kant's Christian bias; he was apparently far

more of an Enlightenment intellectual than anything pietist. He relied solely on rational

criteria in his writings. "It was clear to anyone who knew Kant personally that he had

no faith in a personal God; having postulated God and immortality, he himself did not

believe in either" (ibid., p. 3). One could perhaps connect that psychology with the

basic message of his critical philosophy:

"God, immortality, and other such metaphysical matters could

never become phenomena; they were not empirical;

metaphysics, therefore, was beyond the powers of human

reason" (Passion, p. 341).

Religious faith was left free in this argument. It was only "pure reason" of the deceased

gentlemanly amateurs that was sent to ideological jail by the academic professor. One

of those amateurs (Spinoza) was a heretical Jew, still largely subterranean when Kant

wrote his Critique.

In a subsequent work, The Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Kant was committed to

morality. His moral philosophy implies that "morality is the exclusive domain of

reason"; the secondCritique was one in which "from the point of view of traditional

theology, Kant turned things upside down" (Kuehn, op. cit., pp. 312, 314). Yet this was

a purely rational exercise, and mysticism was debunked.

"Kant affirms that even the Stoics went astray in proclaiming

'virtue' as being fully attainable in the present life of the wise

man.... In Kant's view, holiness cannot be attained by any

creature.... Plato is duly castigated for having entertained an

'extravagant pretension' to a 'theory of the supersensible' "

(Shepherd, Meaning in Anthropos, 1991, p. 147).

Greek philosophy was curtailed by the modern academic syllabus. Yet Kant's secular

morality was commendable, and he is much superior to Hume, Nietzsche, and various

others on that score. His Groundwork of the Metaphyiscs of Morals (1785)

demonstrates a convergence with Cicero (the Stoic), and furthermore opposed class

biases (Kant was the son of an artisan). "Any attempt to defend or justify social

differences by appealing to morals must be rejected as well; the conservative status

quo must be challenged" (Kuehn, op. cit., p. 282).

Kant pursued an a priori ideal of pure reason in the moral sphere, and contrasting with

the earlier pure reason of Leibniz and his predecessors (relating to metaphysics).

Kant's ideal emerged in the form of what he called (in German) the categorical

imperative, meaning "the unconditional command of morality," even though his

Enlightenment reasoning imposed a belief that "the ultimate condition of the

possibility of morality cannot be understood" (ibid., p. 286). Again perhaps a rather

cordoning conceptualism, and the entire presentation marked by a notoriously

convoluted style of expression.

"Everyone finds his writing difficult; it is nearly always obscure,

and sometimes it borders on the impenetrable.... his work, even

after two hundred years, is still unknown territory to most

educated people.... he [Kant] is widely regarded by serious

students of philosophy as the greatest philosopher since the

ancient Greeks" (Bryan Magee, The Great Philosophers, Oxford

University Press, 1988, pp. 185-186).

Yet despite his moral worth and academic intensity, the cordoning and empirical Kant

is not particularly enviable for his situation of mental confinement to sensory

impressions. By 1777 he was a hypochondriac worried about his constipation.

Moreover, "Kant felt that it was ultimately the obstructions of the bowels that caused

distractedness and periods of confused thinking from which he was beginning to

suffer. These complaints, though comical-sounding, made his life quite miserable"

(Kuehn, op. cit., p. 239).

In contrast to some citizen complaints, the cameo by Tarnas is relatively indifferent to

contrasts in career background. Professor Tarnas writes in an academic idiom which

neglects to emphasise that Kant was the first major philosopher to fill a professorial

role, though he does usefully indicate that in later generations, the academic pursuit of

philosophy tended to become circumscribed and largely unintelligible to citizens.

For any citizen philosopher to stand up and contest circumscribed and unintelligible

matters today, the effort could too easily amount to being erased from Wikipedia by a

"postmodern" strategy of pseudonymous cult supporters assisted by an officious (if

anonymous) academic specialist in plant biology, the latter explicitly ignorant of (and

disinterested in) the issues at stake. The sympathetic academic philosopher (Simon

Kidd), who contested this censoring decision (using his real name), was outvoted by

web anonymity. This point is actually demonstrable to readers via recorded

occurrences expunged by the Wikipedia administrative system. See Wikipedia

Anomaliesand Wikipedia Misinformation. Suppression did not end with the Spanish

Inquisition, and to some extent, cordon is now an American speciality, rather than a

Eurocentric one.

4. Official Death of Metaphysics

The ingenious reasoning of Kant argued that "although one could not know that God

exists, one must nevertheless believe he exists in order to act morally"

(Tarnas, Passion, p. 349). Professor Kant was a liberator by comparison with later

strictures. A long list of celebrated names is given in this trend, which had the effect of

"altogether eliminating the grounds for subjective certainty still felt by Kant" (ibid., p.

351). Not merely the radicals Marx and Nietzsche, but academics like Heidegger,

Wittgenstein, Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Popper, Quine, and Kuhn. This process led to the

postmodernist view that underlying principles of experience are not absolute and

timeless, but "varied fundamentally in different eras, different cultures, different

classes, different languages" (ibid.), and so forth. Still at issue is whether such views

can be relied upon as an accurate judge of reality, which is not necessarily determined

or negated by prestigious rank, influential radicalism, and paradigm shifts.

Yet at first, there were idealist responses to the Kantian conceptualism. German

thinkers, most notably Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), "constructed a metaphysical

system with a universal Mind revealing itself through man" (ibid., p. 351). A big

drawback here was the Eurocentric tendency of Hegelian theory, which is arguably

not the best point of departure for what might escape the ring of sensory impressions

favoured by the sceptics. Hegel was an elite professorial entity with a verbose dialectic

that did not create the most readable corpus in the history of philosophy. "Often

Hegel's historical judgments seemed peremptory, his political and religious

implications ambiguous, his language and style perplexing" (ibid., p. 382).

Nevertheless, and to his credit, Hegel did inspire "a renascence of classical and

historical studies from an Idealist perspective" (ibid., p. 381). It was the last

renaissance, as academic philosophy thereafter contracted into contentment with the

minutiae of language and conceptualism well known in twentieth century works.

Metaphysics was dead, having been dismissed according to standards of the

prevalent laziness and convenience in psychological endeavour, a situation ideal for

someone like Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), whose private life was a problem often

criticised. The academic commentary states that:

"As philosophy became more technical, more concerned with

methodology, and more academic, and as philosophers

increasingly wrote not for the public but for each other, the

discipline of philosophy lost much of its former relevance and

importance for the intelligent layperson, and thus much of its

former cultural power" (ibid., p. 354).

5. Romanticism and Nietzsche

Meanwhile, another trend had been operative. According to Tarnas, Romanticism was

the polar complement to the Scientific Revolution, both sharing common roots in the

Renaissance, though the former enthused about aspects of experience suppressed by

the eighteenth century Enlightenment. German and British names figure prominently in

the list of Romantic exponents, from Goethe and Herder to Blake and Byron. "While

the scientist sought truth that was testable and concretely effective, the Romantic

sought truth that was inwardly transfiguring and sublime" (ibid., p. 367). There were

idiosyncrasies in both camps, and some lunacies in Romantic ranks, which is a citizen

observation.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The Tarnas account describes Nietzsche (1844-1900) as a Romantic. There is strong

scope for disagreement in the sense of eulogy afforded. Tarnas describes the subject

in terms of "a uniquely powerful synthesis of titanic Romantic spiritual passion and the

most radical strain of Enlightenment skepticism" (ibid., p. 370). This verdict represents

the excessive academic enthusiasm that is quite often found. It is much easier to credit

that "in Nietzsche, as in Romanticism generally, the philosopher became poet" (ibid.,

p. 371).

Nietzschean concepts such as the" superman" and "will to power" reveal a basic

confusion that need not be ascribed to Romanticism but to the peculiar psychology of

the subject. In particular, the elitist complex of Nietzsche is expressed in passages that

require due critical assessment. For Nietzsche, the violence of Napoleon was

preferable to the supposed herd instinct for less damaging manifestations of social

deportment. His contempt for the Indian untouchables became known to reserved

Indologists. In citizen terms, he was an elitist prig living in an academic situation of

privilege that knew no sympathy for the working man and outcastes.

The elitism of Nietzsche was of an acute and very objectionable type; this was not the

usual class bias at all, but instead a "superman" power complex of manic dimensions.

Nietzsche opposed religious and secular morality and glorified the instincts, perhaps

because he had visited a brothel and there got into trouble; the aristocratic and

bourgeois dimensions of license do not validate caste society. His stigma of "slave

morality" can be strongly contested.

"The Nietzschean will to power frowned upon four main

contingents of slave morality: Christianity, the tradition of secular

morality associated with Kant and other German philosophers,

Socratic and related Greek philosophical traditions, and the herd

morality of the unprivileged masses. The Indian untouchables

were included in the stigma in his Twilight of the Idols (1889), in

which caste tactics were approved by the atrocious nihilist.

Living on a university pension, he [Nietzsche] had no sympathy

for, or conscience about, the plight of so many persons less well

placed than himself.... There are some pedagogues who blandly

equate Nietzsche with Socrates in a theme of 'archetypal

sacrifice' initiating epochal transformations in the history of the

Western mind." (Shepherd, Some Philosophical Critiques and

Appraisals, 2004, pp. 244-5).

The last sentence abovecited refers to the archetypalism of Richard Tarnas

(cf. Passion of the Western Mind, p. 395). The archetypal exegesis may be said to

illustrate the extreme confusions created by Jungian and related theory. Nietzsche

tragically became insane in his last years. Critics have implied that he was

psychologically maladjusted, and dangerous in his views, rather than being any kind

of viable philosopher. Some lenient critics say that his early writing is of interest,

though his later "oracular" works are disconcerting. "The bite of conscience is

indecent," wrote Nietzsche, and such assertions are not to be commended.

In a discussion of relevance, Professor J. P. Stern (an expert on the subject) stated that

Nietzsche "is most emphatically not a democratic philosopher." This judgment was

explicitly in agreement with the description supplied by Professor Bryan Magee: "He

[Nietzsche] believed... that the individual great man, the hero, should be a law unto

himself, should not be hamstrung by consideration for lesser mortals, and still less by

petty rules and regulations" (Dialogue with J.P. Stern, in Magee,The Great

Philosophers, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 237).

Discrepantly perhaps, the brief Tarnas chapter entitled "At the Millenium" selects the

figure of Max Weber (1864-1920) along with Nietzsche, Jung, and Martin Heidegger

(1889-1976) as suitable indicators of the contemporary epochal transformation

denoted. There are marked differences between Weber and the other three, e.g.,

Nietzsche, Jung, and Heidegger are all associated with Nazism in different ways (and

in controversial arguments), unlike the sociologist Weber. Tarnas does not mention

this less romantic factor. Instead he approvingly cites (Passion, p. 413) from Thus

Spake Zarathustra, the "Romantic" novel by Nietzsche that has no relation to the

ancient Iranian prophet of Zoroastrianism. Tarnas does not make any distinction

between that literary curiosity and Iranian religion, as his index reveals. Perhaps the

envisaged epochal transition will lead to insanity and/or the neglect of due knowledge

about the history of religion.

"Our moment in history is indeed a pregnant one" says Tarnas on the same page as

his quote from Thus Spake. Abortion is a common resort in the decadent

"postmodern" society, and so even the archetypal moment may transpire to represent

miscarriage rather than birth. The "boldness, depth, and clarity of vision" evoked in the

same passage may decode to total blindness induced by social and pedagogical

misconstructions.

In his preface to Passion, Tarnas says that "today the Western mind appears to be

undergoing an epochal transformation, of a magnitude perhaps comparable to any in

our civilisation's history" (ibid., p. xii). Other analysts are inclined to view contemporary

tendencies in terms of a potential breakdown of civilisation, accompanied by climate

change(which is not the only problem). Due education, and ecological rectification, are

not realistically in sight.

Tarnas does qualify his reflection by stating his belief that "we can participate

intelligently in that transformation only to the extent to which we are historically

informed" (ibid.). Historical information is not the same as Romantic sentiment or hero

mythology, and may even belie aspects of Enlightenment scepticism. The elusive

contemporary transformation has not so far survived due analysis.

6. Crisis of Modern Science

The Passion is more convincing in describing the "crisis of modern science," and

some remarks are quite graphic. The "classical Cartesian-Newtonian cosmology"

collapsed as a consequence of fresh discoveries in physics, and further problems of

interpretation arose.

"By the end of the third decade of the twentieth century, virtually

every major postulate of the earlier scientific conception had

been controverted.... The solid Newtonian atoms were now

discovered to be largely empty.... Matter and energy were

interchangeable. Three-dimensional space and unidimensional

time had become relative aspects of a four-dimensional space-

time continuum. Time flowed at different rates for observers

moving at different speeds. Time slowed down near heavy

objects, and under certain circumstances could stop altogether.

The laws of Euclidean geometry no longer provided the

universally necessary structure of nature.... There was now no

coherent conception of the world, comparable to

Newton'sPrincipia, that could theoretically integrate the complex

variety of new data. Physicists failed to come to any consensus

as to how the existing evidence should be interpreted with

respect to defining the ultimate nature of reality" (ibid., pp. 356-8).

The mood of relativism (and scepticism) that gained currency by the 1970s reacted to

the dependency upon belief in science. The crux of the matter is that scientists do not

know the nature of reality, while academic philosophers have failed to explain this

unknown priority in ongoing or assimilable terms. Attempts to do so are often

discredited or regarded as totally hypothetical. The postmodernist resort to forms of

relativism is no proof of competence.

Meanwhile, the technological offspring of science continue to exploit nature to a

degree that is generally concealed. Genetic engineering is only one of the offensive

manifestations of incompetence and commercial enterprise.

7. The Postmodern New Age

The Tarnas version of postmodernism says that this phenomenon "varies

considerably according to context" (ibid., p. 395). Ingredients are described as ranging

from "pragmatism, existentialism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis to feminism,

hermeneutics, deconstruction, and postempiricist philosophy of science" (ibid.).

These are academic trends, of course; the public are generally fed with commercial

entertainment, and usually have no cognisance of the ideational influences at work in

society. Yet the academic resorts are often flawed, with "a perspectivism rooted in the

epistemologies developed by Hume, Kant, Hegel (in his historicism), and Nietzsche"

(ibid., p. 397).

The "postmodern" problem of scepticism is stated to be strongly influenced by the

analysis of language, with many contributing sources such as Nietzsche, Peirce,

Ferdinand de Saussure, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Foucault. Strong criticism can

be levelled at some of these influences, and even more so perhaps, at the

deconstructionism of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), described in terms of "challenging

the attempt to establish a secure meaning in any text" (ibid., p. 398). The general

postmodernist conceptualism is described in terms of "applying a systematic

skepticism to every possible meaning" (ibid., p. 399).

More pointedly, the target of postmodern aspersions is the Western philosophical

tradition since Plato. "The whole project of that tradition to grasp and articulate a

foundational Reality has been criticised as a futile exercise in linguistic game playing, a

sustained but doomed effort " (ibid., p. 400).

The present writer contributed a web entry onDerrida that included reference to the

opposition in academic ranks. The friction in viewpoint is obviously relevant to dwell

upon, contrary to some accounts which do not mention the opposition. My basic view

on deconstruction is one of strong resistance. If there are no secure meanings in texts

(however the contention is worded), deconstructionist texts may also be insecure, or

for that matter all academic texts. Truth values are so elusive in the general

postmodernist ideology that anything is at best only personal or cultural taste, and

quite relative to any permanent achievement.

In the current deceptive climate, one could almost be relieved to hear that "there is no

'postmodern world view,' nor the possibility of one; the postmodern paradigm is by its

nature fundamentally subversive of all paradigms" (ibid., p. 401).

There is, of course, a catch here. Twenty years later, the subversive paradigm is now

extensive. Furthermore, postmodernism discernibly includes (however indirectly) the

"new age" contingents and cults, which thrive in the general ignorance and confusion.

Tarnas does not say this, instead commenting that "there remain few, if any, a priori

strictures on the possible, and many perspectives from the past have reemerged with

new relevance" (ibid., p. 403). He refers to forms of intellectualism, Romanticism, and of

Eastern and Western religion, including "Neolithic European" and "Gnosticism and the

major esoteric traditions."

Tarnas does not mention the extreme confusions caused by this new wave of the

supposedly antique. He was writing during the 1980s, at a time when, for instance,

theRajneesh sect was demonstrating strong antisocial tendencies in Oregon, a

retrogressive feat accompanied by alternative therapy and the exaltation of

Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra (favoured by Rajneesh), which had become a cult

fad of presumed supermen. According to an American sociologist, "Rajneesh's vision

of the new man was based upon Nietzsche's ideal of the individual who is absolutely

free of the constraints of family, church, governments, and cultures" (Shepherd,Some

Philosophical Critiques and Appraisals, 2004, p. 62, and citing Professor Lewis Carter).

We are told by Tarnas that "the postmodern collapse of meaning has thus been

countered by an emerging awareness of the individual's self-responsibility and

capacity for creative innovation and self-transformation in his or her existential and

spiritual response to life" (Passion, p. 404). This may indeed be an advance upon

nihilism, but there are pronounced drawbacks to the enthusiasms. I have seen the

word transformation enticingly employed so many times during the last forty years that

my response has long been one of nausea at the persistent assumption denoted. Far

too many deluded cult recruits have believed they were transformed; alternative

therapists have exploited that belief to a staggering extent in another sphere; the

"creative innovation" has included ecobiz and numerous other doubtful capitalist

ruses.

The "postmodernist" themes are said to have rooted in social sciences and the

humanities, in America and other countries. Many academic philosophers do not

appear to subscribe to those themes. Indeed, the year after Passion of the Western

Mind was published, in 1992 a petition of disapproval was filed by eminent

international Professors against Derrida, in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent his

gaining further honorary credentials. The academic situation is far more complex than

some generalising accounts imply. For instance, in Britain, analytical philosophy has

often been resistant to the Continental "poststructuralism" associated with Derrida

and Foucault. Not merely the despised metaphysical matters, but also science and

scholarship, are said to be at issue in the extreme arguments propounded.

There is a rather monotonous postmodernist theme that objective truths are a myth,

only local beliefs being in evidence. Scientists have understandably reacted to such

undermining insistences. See Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont,Fashionable Nonsense:

Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science (1998), which repudiates the idea that

science amounts to social construction, i.e., meaning something improvised and

equivalent to myth. See also Sokal, Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy, and

Culture (Oxford University Press, 2008). A basic point made is that scientific discovery

occurs across local and relative social and linguistic boundaries, the databank thus

amounting to something that is substantially real and objective.

By extension, there may well be philosophical (and even metaphysical) truths that are

similarly elusive of the "local belief" lore. The necessary "universalist" endeavour is

currently in low profile. What is largely visible instead is the popular "new age" of

presumed metaphysical relevance, in which science and scholarship are frequently

dismissed as distractions, while philosophy is regarded as a folly of superfluous logic

(indirect or partial convergences with academic postmodernism do exist, therefore).

The degree of knowledge about the past is often nil, or nearly so. The commercial

"workshop" is very often the ideal in sectors prone to entrepreneurial exploitation,

which manipulates factors of emotion and belief.

8. Jung and Pseudo-Metaphysics

One of the most celebrated and confusing writers in the twentieth century was Carl

Gustav Jung (1875-1961). His views have been copied and regurgitated in countless

formats, to the extent that he has been described as the virtual founder of the new age.

Yet Richard Tarnas is one of the votaries, a position quite evident from statements

made in Passion; he had evidently become a believer in the view that "archetypes"

govern mental functioning. Moreover, the underlying tendency of that author's

exposition is perhaps revealed by his reflection concerning a "Romantically influenced

science," where he adds that "the most enduring and seminal proved to be the depth

psychology of Freud and Jung, both deeply influenced by the stream of German

Romanticism that flowed from Goethe through Nietzsche" (Passion, p. 384; cf.

Shepherd, Some Philosophical Critiques and Appraisals, 2004, pp. 23-38, for a critical

version of Jung).

Of the two celebrity names in psychology here elevated, Jung was far closer to

Nietzsche. There are some other factors also involved.

"With his philosophical grounding in the Kantian critical tradition

rather than in Freud's more conventional rationalist materialism,

Jung was compelled to admit that his psychology could have no

necessary metaphysical implications. It is true that Jung's

granting the status of empirical phenomena to psychological

reality was itself a major step past Kant, for he thereby gave

substance to 'internal' experience as Kant had to 'external'

experience" (Tarnas, Passion of the Western Mind, p. 386).

The non-metaphysical psychology became a pervasive "metaphysical" resort of the

postmodern new age, via hundreds (and perhaps thousands) of overnight experts on

the garbled lore of "collective unconscious." The popular reception of this lore was

catastrophic for public discernment of tangible events in process.

9. Postmodern Relativism and Wikipedia

In more academic sectors, the Jungian speculations were paralleled by strong

relativist accents that have also been strikingly influential. Tarnas expresses a

confusing version of the converging doctrines and opinions:

"The postmodern philosopher's recognition of the inherently

metaphorical nature of philosophical and scientific statements

(Feyerabend, Barbour, Rorty) has been both affirmed and more

precisely articulated with the postmodern psychologist's insight

into the archetypal categories of the unconscious that condition

and structure human experience and cognition" (Passion, p. 405).

The basic theme here is not convincing, at least to a citizen analyst unmoved by the

persuasive confusions in evidence within academic and new age postmodernism.

Jung is more well known than the other names mentioned. The philosophers Paul

Feyerabend (1924-1994) and Richard Rorty (1931-2007) have also been very influential

within intellectual circles, especially the former, whose acutely confrontational form of

relativism manifested in the philosophy of science. Not everything he said was

questionable by any means, but certain flippant emphases and attitudes were and are

objectionable. "Anything goes" has more or less become the social norm.

In my first published book, I included a citizen riposte to Feyerabend, and I still deny

the underlying drift of his faulty logic (Psychology in Science, 1983, pp. 169ff.; see

also The Resurrection of Philosophy, 1989, pp. 45ff.). The argument is not just about

science, but about how philosophers think [and the tendency tonew age relativism].

Some academics said at the time that they had never known a contemporary citizen to

comment in an annotated format upon such matters. The inherently metaphorical

nature of some Feyerabendian statements is substantial enough, despite the adulation

awarded in some endorsing academic sectors.

I should state here that I did defend the empirical relevance of scientific method

against certain nuances of Feyerabend's epistemological anarchism. There were also

social factors involved in the loaded argument. For instance:

"Feyerabend advocates a 'Free Society' in which anything goes

in the commitment to universal standards, and in which science

is treated as being of no more importance than any other subject

or approach. In contrast, I maintain that we already have an open

society in which virtually anything goes, to the detriment of true

freedom and truly universal standards" (Psychology in Science,

p. 169).

Nearly thirty years later, the so-called free society (at least in Britain) is far more

unrestrained and violent, with confusions mounting about what is most real or most

valuable. Big business dictates what goes (and what sells), and more so even than the

postmodernist innovators.

Some academics noticed a comment in one of the annotations to the book abovecited:

"I cannot say that I disagree with everything Feyerabend says,

but if Feyerabend can instate such axioms as a Professor of

Philosophy at a well known university in California, then I can

state that I am quite content to be considered an ordinary

member of the public in Cambridge" (ibid., p. 191 note 285).

The American neopragmatism of Richard Rorty has been considered confusing by

critics, science and reason gaining a relativist complexion in his theory of life. "No area

of culture, and no period of history, gets Reality more right than any other." Truth is

elusive in such formulations. In a well known web video, Rorty states, "the less

certainty we have, the better," though such an impoverishment is not considered

desirable by everyone. Of course, certainty in some instances does transpire to be

unfounded. However, philosophers and others should be more enlightened than yob

society, which thrives upon uncertainties about justice.

So the postmodernist event has been unfolding in academic and popular circles, with

heretics (and conservative Professors) being in opposition to the high priests. All

areas of culture are the same (if we believe Rorty et al) with regard to Reality. One

popular manifestation of "postmodernism" is therefore the riot of errors and

reductionisms visible in too many Wikipedia articles, especially those concerning

religion. The vast majority of the editors and administrators of that controversial

project are anonymous, assuming exotic and insipid pseudonyms reflecting the

evasive spirit of the American web that dominates the world. The concealed entities

evidently do not wish to be countermanded for any of their mistakes, including their

support for cultic confusions that have been documented in their dismissal and

repression of citizen argument (a number of the Wikipedia pseudonymous personnel

are known to be academic entities of rather varying background). See also section 3

above.

10. Negotiating Contractions in Academe

It is possible to view Western philosophy in a manner that is not fashionable amongst

the diverse postmodernists, who sceptically evict the science of Descartes, the

morality of Kant, and the metaphysics (and political thought) of Spinoza. The

polymathy of Leibniz is quite beyond most contemporary aptitudes. In brief,

philosophy was adversely mutated by twentieth century developments which still

chewed the cud of Hume's scepticism. The major pre-Kantian philosophers were not

academics (though Hume tried to become one), and the Continental "Rationalists"

eschewed the scepticism deriving from Montaigne and other sources. The much later

Continental academic wave, now so famous and influential, were the polar reverse of

their origins.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a marginalised thinker who objected to the

increasingly academic operation of philosophy, but his independent voice was at the

fringe of contested events.

"It was not until the 20th century that nearly all outstanding

philosophers were academics. This professionalisation of

philosophy was sharply criticised early on by Schopenhauer as

being bad for the subject, and has always been controversial, but

it is now institutionally entrenched, and seems unlikely to be

reversed" (Bryan Magee,The Story of Philosophy, London:

Dorling Kindersley, 1998, p. 132).

In the face of monolithic institutionalism, the citizen thinker is not obliged to rest

content with crumbs falling from the starvation diets of Heidegger, Derrida, Rorty,

Alfred J. Ayer, Gilbert Ryle, and even Wittgenstein. A similar option of independence

exists in relation to the alternative and neo-Hegelian format of Ken Wilber (i.e., AQAL

and Quantum Theory), though he exists outside academe, or rather within the less

officious Integral Institute. Wilber believes that he can incorporate the postmodernist

sceptics in his "integral spirituality," which he has also called "integral post-

metaphysics." There is a contrasting argument.

The diet of postmodernist Michel Foucault (1926-84) extended to sadomasochistic

eroticism in acutely hedonistic environments of California, conferring the ability to

contract AIDS, which proved fatal. Academic deportment can sometimes be

questioned (Shepherd, Some Philosophical Critiques and Appraisals, 2004, pp. 245ff.).

The American postmodern media has overshadowed some other countries, though

being keen to assimilate British scepticism, Continental relativism and nihilism, and the

more commercial Jungian theory acquired from Europe. The dissenting British

intellectual citizen is, in contrast, free to take a different route that can instead feast

upon the original pre-Kantian exponents of modern Western philosophy, and the

rather substantial legacy of international thought existing before Descartes. The

history of science is incorporated in this repast (cf. my Psychology in Science, 1983),

and the focus can still probe more recent events in philosophy from Kant onwards.

The ongoing history of religions (from prehistoric eras to the present) is a relevant

accompaniment for intellectual nutrition (cf. my Minds and Sociocultures Vol. 1, 1995),

not least because the contemporary knowledge of that subject is frequently almost nil,

as Wikipedia too often demonstrates. Archaeology is an empirical ballast

(Shepherd, Meaning in Anthropos, 1991, pp. 77ff., 156). A form of citizen

sociology orsociography can also be useful to pursue for due analytical and social

health, antagonism to science not being a requisite, save in relation to the extensive

technological capitalism and laboratory horrors.

11. Avoiding a Neo-Jungian Hazard

Such a citizen recourse has the further advantage of bypassing a major obstacle in

contemporary neo-Jungian events. That hindrance is demonstrated in the Epilogue

toPassion. The main text comprises a review of entities and trends, and the underlying

affiliation of Richard Tarnas does not emerge until the closing pages.

"The most epistemologically significant development in the

recent history of depth psychology, and indeed the most

important advance in the field as a whole since Freud and Jung

themselves, has been the work of Stanislav Grof" (Passion,

p.425).

There is also the enthusiastic assertion that (neo-Jungian) Grof theory has major

implications for philosophy. Readers are further told that "the unexpected upshot of

his [Grof's] work was to ratify Jung's archetypal perspective on a new level" (ibid., p.

425). The Tarnas account was celebrated by Grof partisans. The envisaged epochal

transformation, strongly indicated in Passion as a contemporary occurrence, has

persistent Grofian associations in the new age sector represented by the Esalen

Institute of Big Sur, California.

The Tarnas worldview thus demonstrated an underlying orientation in alternativism

associated with the controversial Esalen Institute. This is not surprising, given that

Tarnas was formerly director of programmes at Esalen, where he lived for ten years,

alongside Grof and others. His 1976 Ph.D. thesis was favourably committed to LSD

psychotherapy.

In his introduction to The Secret Chief, a web text dating to the 1990s, Stanislav Grof

stated: "Particularly valuable and promising were the early efforts to use LSD

psychotherapy with terminal cancer patients. These studies showed that LSD was

able to relieve severe pain, often even in those patients who had not responded to

medication with narcotics. In a large percentage of these patients, it was also possible

to alleviate or even eliminate the fear of death, increase the quality of their lives during

the remaining days, and positively transform the experience of dying." (The Secret

Chief is available at www.maps.org, and is noted for celebrating the illegal activities of

an experimenter in LSD therapy).

Critical assessments do not tally with Grof's optimism. Here is a non-partisan report:

"Grof describes how his [terminal cancer] patients, dosed with

LSD, 'spent hours in agonising pain, gasping for breath with the

colour of their faces changing from dead pale to dark purple.

They were rolling on the floor and discharging extreme tensions

in muscular tremors, twitches and complex twisting

movements.... there was often nausea with occasional vomiting

and excessive sweating'.... At Spring Grove Hospital a total of one

hundred [terminal cancer] patients were pressed into the LSD

torture programme which Grof called 'research,' though criminal

license is probably a more scientific description. 'Given that the

patients were all deceased within months, no study of the long-

term consequences of this therapy was undertaken.... Grof, his

many prominent supporters, and the National Institutes of Health,

never questioned the ethics of using human subjects in this type

of research'." (Shepherd,Pointed Observations, 2005, p. 13, and

citing an article by E. P. Curry in The Scientific Review of

Alternative Medicine, 2002).

The psychedelic torture pills are evidently not something to welcome, either in normal

states or in severe illness. As an ideological extension, the archetypal theme

associated with Jung has been a pervasive alternative resort, employed in very

numerous "workshops" for the affluent clientele, many of whom have probably never

read Jung in sufficient detail to ascertain the relevance of controversial theories.

Critics of the Tarnas format underlined another emphasis that is not universally agreed

upon. Tarnas stated this contention in terms of "the evolution of the Western mind has

been founded on the repression of the feminine" (Passion, p. 442). I have already

commented upon that neo-Jungian accusation, and to quote: "We are thus presented

with a popular idea commercialised at places like the Esalen Institute"

(Shepherd, Some Philosophical Critiques and Appraisals, 2004, p. 19). The affiliation of

Professor Tarnas to philosophy is evidently one strongly influenced by postmodernist

exegesis. Another book of Tarnas is Cosmos and Psyche, but that is not under review

here.

12. Findhorn Foundation Holistic Censorship

Esalen themes (and books by Grof and Tarnas) have been influential at "holistic

education" centres like the Findhorn Foundation (Moray, Scotland). The present writer

is not a stranger to more realistic data concerning the repressed feminine, having been

acquainted at firsthand with three female dissidents suppressed and stigmatised by

the Findhorn Foundation, and in a manner that can scarcely be forgotten by any

diligent researcher. Even legal complaints have made no difference to the severely

repressive attitude of the Foundation, who have furthermore attempted in recent

solicitor correspondence to deny extant membership details, a fact which goes very

much against them. See further Kate Thomas and the Findhorn Foundation and

my Letter to Robert Walter MP.

The Findhorn Foundation College (FFC), which proclaims on the web an expertise in

"holistic education," is clearly presuming an all-rounded sense of accomplishment. In

a recent web ad for a 2010 semester, the Americanised College asserts:

"Integrating academic and experiential learning, the programme

is based in the Findhorn Ecovillage, which provides a tangible

demonstration of the links between the spiritual, social and

economic aspects of life.... Students engage in daily seminars

with faculty, experience living education through practical work

in the community, and explore themes relevant to our times such

as spiritual practice, sustainable and systemic design & thinking,

and group process & conflict resolution." (The Human Challenge

of Sustainability: Findhorn Community Semester at

www.findhorncollege.com, accessed 12/06/2010).

This form of alternative operation has to date ignored and suppressed British female

dissidents for many years, the ongoing theme of "conflict resolution" being interpreted

elsewhere as a convenient facade for funding. The presiding agents in this situation

now have the reputation of "new age brahmins," the affirmative caste who never

concede errors or wrongs. The adverse reflection is strongly associated with

aggressive Americans who tend to assume sovereignty in judgment.

The FFC have been keen to enroll American college students, and advertise some

glowing comments from that semester category. For instance, there is the reported

phrase: "What went well for me was being treated like a human being with a heart and

a soul as well as a mind." Dissidents from the Findhorn Foundation were not even

permitted to have a mind, being censored as unworthy of review and suited to

oblivion.

One can here mention, by way of complement, that the precedent to the FFC was the

ill-fated FCIE (Findhorn College of International Education), a short-lived enterprise of

1996, in which ambitions of the faculty (Foundation personnel) were negated by the

situation of enrolled American university students who rebelled against the inadequate

"holistic education" administered to them. See furtherPropaganda Tactics (2008).

An extension of this situation applies to theScientific and Medical Network, an

alternative organisation in England led by David Lorimer, who has promoted Grof and

his disciple Christopher Bache. See my Letter of Complaint to David Lorimer (2005).

13. CIIS and Astrology

Meanwhile, Richard Tarnas became Professor of philosophy and psychology at

the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), which likewise featured Dr. Grof as a

member of staff, and to the accompaniment of Grof Transpersonal Training. The books

of Dr. Grof continued to emphasise the importance of his holotropic therapy, which he

interpreted as "moving toward wholeness." The latter phrase appeared on the cover of

his Psychology of the Future (2000).

The second book of Professor Tarnas wasPrometheus the Awakener (1995), which

celebrates the astrological significances of Uranus, and moreover, strongly suggests

that astrological phenomena influence the existence of both individuals and societies.

Archetypal astrology achieved glorification in a third book by Tarnas entitled Cosmos

and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View (2006). Some of his readers were

disconcerted by the format, though the alternativist British organisation called the

Scientific and Medical Network awarded Cosmos and Psyche their Book of the Year

Prize. In this controversial volume, Tarnas favours such themes as Jungian

synchronicity, archetypal theory, and (rather pronouncedly) the Uranus-Pluto Cycle.

The Beatles, in their 1960s activity, are described in terms of "Saturn return transits"

(p. 122). Professor Tarnas has since been identified as an astrologist.

Earlier versions of astrology were in circulation amongst the Greek and Roman

philosophers, notably the Stoics. "Platonists similarly held the planets to be under the

ultimate government of the supreme Good, but tended to view the celestial

configurations as indicative rather than causal, and not absolutely determining for the

evolved individual" (Passion, p. 84). Astrological fatalism was totally rejected by later

thinkers, though elements of a scientific reformist belief in the subject were existent

during the early phase of the Royal Society (ibid., pp. 486-7).

During the 1970s, in collaboration with Dr. Grof at Esalen, Tarnas interpreted the Grof

dossier of LSD experiences in terms of "archetypal" astrology. Professor Tarnas has

been celebrated by Grof partisans for correlating the four "perinatal matrices" of Grof's

"cartography of the psyche" with "archetypal meanings" of the planets Neptune,

Saturn, Pluto, and Uranus. Grof is reputed to have endorsed this linkage, implying that

archetypal astrology is the only means for successfully predicting the content of

experiences in LSD "psychotherapy," Holotropic Breathwork, and the "spontaneous

eruption of unconscious contents." These ideas, well known on the web, are in strong

dispute elsewhere.

The "epochal transformation" proposed by Tarnas can unfortunately be interpreted by

critics in terms of LSD psychotherapy, holotropic theory and hyperventilation,

suppression of female dissidents, synchronicity theory, archetypal theory, and

archetypal astrology. There is still no compelling reason to abandon the traditional

philosophical discipline (stretching back in variants to Plato) in favour of alternative

post-1950s practice and theory, even though the Cartesian brutality, the Kantian

cordon, Humean scepticism, and Nietzschean "will to power" can be regarded as

impediments.

My own version of philosophy, which is citizen, differs very substantially from the

current "Integral Studies" orientation favoured in American counterculture. I have

attempted to illustrate that factor on this webpage. See also my autobiographical

reflections and Tarnas-Grof. The Aristotelian class system should long ago have been

eliminated, but survives in modern science and academic philosophy.

Kevin R. D. Shepherd

January 2011 (later slightly modified)