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Alejandro Christian Luna is an Astrology Consultant and Teacher, Professional Ontological Coach, and Graphic Designer. Trained in Psychosynthesis. Co-author with German artist Nil Orange of the Visual Zodiac, Visual Zodiac Pro, and Orange Luna Tarot card decks. He has presented at conferences and workshops in Argentina, America, and Europe. Contact: [email protected]. www.astrohologia.com.ar

Astrology and Ken Wilber's Integral Approach

Victoria Zain, Alejandro Lodi,
Alejandro Luna, Mauro Mazzarella

What follows is a dialogue between Victoria Zain, Alejandro Lodi, Alejandro Luna, and Mauro Mazzarella — a meeting to share perspectives between two ways of perceiving and understanding reality: Astrology and the AQAL Model (1), which we consider among the most comprehensive and profound frameworks in existence today. One of our key concerns is to question the place that Astrology occupies within Wilber's system — that of the mythic worldview, a pre-conventional stage. For us, Astrology, in some of its deepest expressions, clearly carries a transpersonal connotation — both in the tone of its symbolism and in its application across multiple human fields, from art to consulting and the hermeneutic accompaniment of profound processes of consciousness transformation. With the intention of enriching and deepening our understanding, we decided to address the critique made from within the Integral Model and to share our perspectives in this dialogue among astrologers.

Mauro: From within the AQAL matrix, the psyche-cosmos relationship — as understood in Astrology — cannot be explained either in terms of synchronicity or through the principle of correspondence (2).

In the evolutionary spectrum of the Integral Approach, the planets of the solar system belong to the lower-right quadrant (“the exterior of the collective”) and emerge at level 2 of this sequence, whereas the properly human psyche emerges in the upper-left quadrant (“the interior of the individual”) at level 9 of that unfolding (3).

That is, since the solar system and human consciousness do not co-emerge at the same level of the spectrum, there can be no structural correspondence between psyche and cosmos.

To affirm “Psyche = Cosmos” implies asserting that a subjective phenomenon (self-consciousness) occurs as an effect of — or simultaneously with — an objective phenomenon (the positions of the solar system). According to AQAL, this is inadmissible, as it mixes both quadrants and levels.

Another argument used to invalidate Astrology as a “pre-” discipline (4) is that of quadrant invasion. From the AQAL model, each quadrant has its own way of knowing the world and, as such, its own methods of validation — distinct from those of the other quadrants (5).

From the perspective of the Integral Model, then, the relationship of correspondence can only be understood in magical terms — as mythic syncretism. Unless, starting from a rigorous and well-defined research hypothesis, such correspondence were validated rationally through the scientific method. Only then could Astrology be regarded as a conventional discipline, able to continue its evolutionary process towards post-conventional domains.

Lodi: That already makes me combative… (laughs). I sense a kind of inverse Neptunian attitude — an excessive valuation of rational demonstrations. One can prove that astrology cannot work… yet, if you practise it, it works.

And I'd like to distinguish our approach from using Astrology merely to define personality traits. Let's take the rigour of planetary cycles, for instance: the Twin Towers faced a test of vitality at age 28 (the Saturn return). The Berlin Wall had its test at age 29… even such structures undergo a 29-year vitality trial. If they have enough “moisture” to regenerate, they endure; if they have crystallised, they collapse.

Victoria: That's interesting. We can observe the type of statements we make: “I know it works because I've been researching it.”

And yes — generations of us have been studying and practising Astrology; it works for us. We observe the cycles, and for us, it's literal. We find Richard Tarnas's work on Mundane Astrology brilliant — but then… why can't we validate it?

Lodi: You mean from those (AQAL) perspectives?

Victoria: From the perspectives of the academic world in general. Whether from modernity or postmodernity — obviously not only from Ken Wilber's AQAL view, which is merely a map.

If we enter the field of science, philosophy, or other social sciences, Astrology isn't taken seriously. Validation is required — something that at least partially fits the criteria that allow one to engage in conversation with them.

The question is: what happens with the criteria of validation? what happens with the method? So far, we haven't been able to verify Astrology using academic research methodologies.

Lodi: Following Tarnas, he would say it's a problem of paradigms. The paradigm of Western science is separative — it separates the observer from the observed… Within that framework, it's impossible to find validation for Astrology.

Victoria: Yes, and then we have postmodern methodologies, where the observer does enter the field of the phenomenon being studied. There isn't much formal astrological research…

And then we face the issue Wilber maps — the quadrants, the four corners of knowledge that approach reality in different ways. One thing is the contemplative and subjective sciences of the upper-left quadrant. Astrology, as a contemplative discipline that enables self-understanding and meaning-making, could be located within that quadrant. But the moment we try to verify it in the external world — with the sky, planets, solar system, cycles — we enter into an inconsistency.

Alejandro: In AQAL, that's called quadrant invasion.

Victoria: Exactly — a subjective phenomenon is being mixed with something objective.

Lodi: And what about the Principle of Correspondence, for instance?

Victoria: According to them, it's the most mythic idea in the universe! The Principle of Correspondence doesn't hold up philosophically either.

Mauro: Moreover, they might even cite psychiatrists and speak of pathologies such as delusion of reference or apophenia — the human mind's tendency to find meaning in everything.

They claim that Astrology cannot predict events and always validates itself a posteriori. And of course, it's easy to find correlations between any set of random events after the fact — that's another critique.

Obviously, some points are questionable; it's clear that they refer to an Astrology that we do not practise. Still, there's an unavoidable issue: how can a group of concrete planets (located in what they call the lower-right quadrant) be related to consciousness, an internal phenomenon of the upper-left quadrant, emerging at another developmental level?

How can one validate the correspondence if the statistical studies conducted have not been reproducible?

And then we have the entire complexity of the consciousness factor…

Because in astrology, we know that according to its positioning within one's own birth structure, one perceives or experiences one thing or another. That underlying question is always there: How can one rationally justify that psyche corresponds with cosmos? That the form of the sky corresponds to the form of consciousness (psyche)?

Well — AQAL says that one cannot. Because each quadrant has its own criteria and methodologies of validation.

Alejandro: It can be validated, but it would be a pre-personal or pre-rational validation.

Mauro: Exactly. For them, astrological symbols are valid only as a symbolic system, but not as a correlation between the actual astronomical positions of celestial bodies and human consciousness or “destiny.” And that's precisely where we're stuck.

Lodi: Ah, yes. My feeling is that I simply don't want to argue with such people! (laughs)

So I see you both caught up in a tangle I wouldn't get into! There's such a weight placed on the rational — maybe it's in the way you present it, I don't know if that's how they phrase it — but in some way, don't you think that in us that weight has already dissolved?

That burden of having to prove Astrology's rationality in order to validate it?

Of course, there's always the risk of irrationality and of confusing transpersonal with irrational — which is worth warning against. Transpersonal is not irrational; non-rational is not irrational. Astrology need not go against reason. But validating it in terms of reason — to me that feels like a knot, like a labyrinth where you'll inevitably end up biting your own tail.

Alejandro: Our intention would be to validate it in trans-rational rather than rational terms. The thing is, because of the very Pre/Trans structure, if it isn't first validated rationally, it's hard to validate it trans-rationally…

Mauro: In that case, we'd be doing what they call elevationism. As they say about Jung: by calling archetypes “transpersonal”, he falls into the pre/trans fallacy

Alejandro: Then there's another issue — whether one wants to engage in that task or not… At first, Wilber's ideas used to enrich Astrology for me, and at some point I wanted to adapt Astrology to the Wilberian framework — I'm not sure when that was…

Lodi: Of course — it's like wanting to adapt Astrology to Freud, or to Jung… it's always a reduction. It's valid to speak of Astrology in terms of social or human sciences, but it would also be valid to speak of it in terms of something beyond science, wouldn't it?

Alejandro: If there were ever a “scientific” proof that validated Astrology, it would close this gap.

Lodi: Do you remember when Wilber criticised Capra? He said that spirituality cannot be demonstrated scientifically — that would be a reductionism — and that Capra's Tao of Physics falls into that trap. To me, Astrology belongs more to the realm of the spiritual traditions than to that of science.

Mauro: Yes, but there's another critique. There are spiritual traditions that made use of Astrology, and it would be pretentious and omnipotent to invalidate that entire legacy. Still, the Wilberians argue that Astrology lacks concrete instructions for embarking on a process of spiritual development, as such instructions do exist in meditative paths like Zen. That made me think — that there is no spiritual application of the astrological. When we say Astrology can function as a transpersonal practice, the question is: well then, where are the instructions?

Alejandro: But Astrology is a way of perceiving reality; we're not proposing it as a “transpersonal discipline.”

Lodi: Yet it could become one… I mean, if you take the Zodiac as a path — as spiritual guidance.

Alejandro: Like the Labours of Hercules.

Victoria: Or the Lunation Matrix — the Sun-Moon cycle.

Alejandro: Tracking one's birth chart over time is almost a spiritual practice.

Lodi: Surely. But I mean — by taking the Zodiac, one can see the process of consciousness development, even in Wilber's own terms! He calls “Centaur” a stage that is quite similar to Sagittarius.

Mauro: But then we'd be using the symbolism, not necessarily the positions of the heavens, to justify the structure of a psyche. One thing is to take the Zodiac as a symbolic canon and say that it reflects, even in Wilberian terms, the process of consciousness evolution. And another thing entirely is to say, “Because a person was born at such a time, their consciousness is primarily structured according to certain qualities.” According to them, that's where we fall into the fallacy.

Lodi: And they're right.

Alejandro: Of course. The idea that the birth chart symbolically corresponds to the person being born has no rational logic.

Mauro: For them, symbols — as archetypes — might activate unconscious or repressed contents, or connect us with the source of vitality of the mythic level. But that would be completely independent of the astronomical positions. They say Astrology is the mythic father that gave rise to psychology in the domain of the “left-hand quadrants” (the sciences of subjectivity) and to astronomy in the “right-hand quadrants” (the sciences of objectivity).

Lodi: Fair enough. Even in Integral Spirituality, Wilber says that if one follows certain instructions, then experiences, it becomes something “verifiable” in scientific terms.

Victoria: Yes — the three steps of Knowledge: instruction, prescription, and verification with the experienced community.

Lodi: We're here because we share those three steps with Astrology.

Victoria: Exactly. This would be verified hermeneutically, so to speak (from the lower-left quadrant) — in terms of the “We”, the intersubjectivity of the astrological community. But when we add external data — “planets” — we return to the same problem.

Lodi: I've read No Boundary, and the idea is that divisions are illusory. So — would the boundary between the design of my life and the design of the heavens also be illusory? If I affirm that the design and unfolding of my life, and of what is born on Earth, share the same pattern of unfolding as the heavens… isn't that dissolving a boundary? Aren't we actually investigating a dissolution of boundaries?

Alejandro: Totally.

Lodi: And to insist so categorically that one thing has nothing to do with the other — isn't that, in fact, establishing a firm boundary that, as Wilber himself says, inevitably generates a battle?

Alejandro: For me, the mother of all battles is the Pre/Trans fallacy. Because yes, a boundary may be dissolved — but in their view, it's a dissolution at a pre-rational level of consciousness, not a trans-rational one.

Mauro: Exactly. Because how do you rationally justify that the position of a planet influences consciousness if you deny any kind of causal connection?

Lodi: Does it need a causal connection to be valid?

Mauro: Causal connection has been scientifically shown not to exist. Gravitational attraction is weak and it doesn't come from there. But when we talk about correspondence or synchronicity, they speak of the difference between levels — and claim that acausal connection is a form of mental pathology.

Victoria: They understand synchronicity as boomeritis — “unhealthy green”, meaning narcissism.

Lodi: I understand that perfectly… but you know where it doesn't sit right with me? Even if they explain it that way, my experience of meaningful synchronicities in my own life leads me to believe I can't simply dismiss that information.

If I face a profoundly striking synchronicity and ignore it because I lack a causal explanation, I feel like a primate before a feast. There's something that yields to evidence when one investigates.

Maybe it's my own bias — but we all began studying Astrology with a certain scepticism: “It sounds beautiful, I'd like it to be true, but let's see how this actually works…” And one gradually yields to the evidence — to the concrete fact that it does work. That's why when the concept of synchronicity appears, we cling to it — because it's a way of framing the phenomenon that allows one to include that experience.

Otherwise, where do you place those experiences? Those striking synchronicities. I find it far more interesting to share, say, fifteen examples of synchronicities operating in an utterly evident way — even if it's true that they can't be explained and have no causal connection.

Mauro: The issue is that astrological symbolism is so vast that one could, at times — when one fails to find meaning — “astro-justify” it by saying, “It's because I'm delaying the clock of the cycles,” and so on.

Lodi: It's true that Astrology is sometimes used in that way. What seems excessive to me is to say that Astrology is that. Maybe that's a resistance to acknowledging my own pathological belief. But honestly, I feel it's the opposite — it was Astrology that saved me from psychosis!

Alejandro: When they say we fall into quadrant invasion — relating an outer planet with an inner subjective experience — they're applying the same logic as when they say that a subjective experience has its physiological correlate in the brain.

Victoria: Well yes, it's the same interior/exterior problem.

Mauro: Every experience, in any quadrant, has a correlate in the others. In the upper-left quadrant, a person meditating reaches a subtle internal state, and in the upper-right quadrant, a scientist can measure an increase in brainwaves of a certain frequency.

Lodi: And that's causal?

Mauro: No — what appears in each quadrant doesn't justify the other; it's the external correlate of an internal phenomenon.

Victoria: The difference is that, for example, neuropsychologists will say that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain — that is, there's a causal relationship: if I adopt a certain posture, or make a movement, or take a medication, this will affect my consciousness. In AQAL, there's no causality — it's said to co-emerge, or “tetra-emerge.”

Mauro: I think that from AQAL's view, nothing in one quadrant is justified by the correlate of another. For example, the experience of eating chocolate and the brainwave frequencies measured during that experience wouldn't be equivalent. Both forms of knowledge — objective and subjective — are valid, but one cannot be used to justify the other. Each is valid within its own domain.

Alejandro: But the AQALers would agree that the experience of eating chocolate corresponds with the chemical response in the brain.

Mauro: They correspond, but one doesn't justify the other. The brainwaves don't justify the fact that a person is in an intense state of deep meditation. What they'd say is: even if the scientist measured that satori experience in terms of delta brainwaves on an EEG, they have no knowledge of satori itself — only of electromagnetic waves. And even if the meditator is experiencing satori, they have no scientific knowledge of the other quadrant.

Alejandro: What I mean is that a satori experience has a certain quality of brainwave frequency, and an everyday experience has a different frequency, doesn't it?

Victoria: Yes — at some point, all this has been studied. It's the phenomenon they call entrainment, or brainwave convergence.

Mauro: Something similar happens with gongs — but simplified in terms of wave frequencies.

Victoria: There's a study done by people endorsed by Wilber — in fact, they use Wilber as a legitimising reference — showing evidence that beta waves are related to waking attention, alpha-theta waves to subtle states of consciousness, and delta waves to causal states. They draw analogies with Wilber's research in a very literal way.

Alejandro: Well then, in that sense, the Wilberian framework does justify such correspondence. We'd say: “An experience of deep personality restructuring corresponds with a Saturn transit.” That's valid too. Why is there quadrant invasion in one case and not in the other?

Mauro: Because you're not demonstrating how the phenomenon occurs. If you formulate a hypothesis like “through these instructions one enters satori and delta waves appear,” then you conduct an experiment and might find “sufficient evidence verifying correspondence” across the four quadrants.

Whereas when you say, “Saturn produces a time of crisis and maturation,” you're not scientifically demonstrating that correspondence from AQAL's standpoint — because the planets are on one level, and the emergence of consciousness on another. And unless you can explain the causal connection…

Lodi: But then, does the explanation have to be causal?

Mauro: That's precisely what modernity is about — the scientific criteria for validating knowledge. Take, for instance, the myth of Oedipus, or that of the Centaur — the use of mythological metaphors. Wilber often employs them, such as “Eros-in-Action”. There are countless symbolic narratives. Yet, these are taken as illustrations of processes in the evolution of consciousness that were scientifically studied by structuralism. It's not the same to speak of the myth of Oedipus as of the Oedipus Complex. The Oedipus Complex was validated globally by establishing that all cultures prohibit the mother-son incest taboo, and so on. In that sense, it's recognised knowledge. Astrology, however, seems unable to reach such consensus at the level of empirical evidence — neither in its planetary cycles nor in the contents of consciousness related to the positions of the heavens. There's no way it can be validated unless it's demonstrated with greater methodological rigour.

Victoria: One could use methods belonging to the upper-left quadrant — like structuralism — to validate processes related to planetary cycles such as Saturn's or the Sun-Moon cycle. I don't know if anyone has done it. But I did find someone who carried out research within a phenomenological framework — a Russian astrologer with a PhD in Transpersonal Psychology, Elena Lumen. Nicolás Boqué and I translated her work.

Mauro: The underlying issue remains: how does one rationally justify the link sky position - form - psyche? The mythic stage of thought is based on concrete things — for example, the actual positions of material planets in the sky. Hence, they argue that Astrology remains bound to this mode of thought, because it doesn't use symbolism alone but symbolism tied to astronomical data, to objective data, through the principle of correspondence (2). Therefore, it remains caught in the labyrinth of mythic-operational thought.

Lodi: I notice there's a kind of Mercurial debate at play, when the substance of what we're exploring is Neptunian — which inevitably brings that labyrinthine feeling, where: “Yes, you're right, but still, I'm perceiving it.” It's that Virgo-Pisces or Mercury-Neptune nightmare. I can see that what I'm perceiving can't be rationally true, yet I'm perceiving it nonetheless. And even if they explain it to me as pre-rational, I still perceive it. And if this perception awakens in me experiences of subtlety, expansion, or greater inclusiveness, then the label pre-personal feels utterly inadequate for what I'm experiencing.

Alejandro: A prejudice.

Lodi: Exactly. And when I try to explain it, it's like explaining a film — when you explain a film, the other person falls asleep (laughs). You can't explain a film, because nothing compares to the direct sensory experience. The experience surpasses description.

Victoria: The method that deals with those kinds of processes is Husserl's phenomenology. What's interesting about phenomenology as a method is that it extracts, not only from one person but from several, the essential ideas that emerge from the description of a phenomenon. It's a postmodern methodology of verification. You don't rely on a single person's account to define a phenomenon, because you'd leave a lot out. And with astrological symbols, we face the same problem: every time one tries to define a symbol, one leaves out countless meanings. Yet for some, that's precisely astrology's richness.

This is also a key difference from psychology: while psychology is based on definitions, astrology is based on symbols, which are far broader than definitions. For example, if we're asked to define an astrological symbol, each astrologer will give a different answer — and that's another critique of astrology.

Alejandro: But it's not entirely true.

Victoria: We know it's not — we're all speaking of the same symbol in different ways. But if you ask a psychologist what the Oedipus Complex is, you'll get a definition — and they'll all say the same thing.

Alejandro: What Freud said.

Victoria: Exactly. In psychoanalysis, there are highly specific definitions that analysts know by heart — but not so in astrology. Except perhaps among the devotees of Morin de Villefranche, who might give some strict symbolic definitions — though even then, much information is left out.

Lodi: And how does Kabbalistic symbolism fit within AQAL?

Mauro: It fits, because Kabbalah is a spiritual tradition with concrete techniques for development towards the transpersonal.

Victoria: But they don't use planets, do they?

Mauro: They do — there is Kabbalistic Astrology.

Lodi: They use the structure of the solar system as a signifying framework.

Mauro: Yes, and all of this helped me to see the shadow of the Integral System — and also the shadow of Astrology. That's what I'm exploring now: trying to investigate it without sinking in the process. They actually recommend the Kabbalah within what's called the Integral Life Practice, which includes various modules — for body, mind, spirit, and so on — and one of these practices is Kabbalah. I believe there's even a rabbi at the Integral Institute who teaches it. But of course, the way Kabbalah uses astrology also involves inner work. Each month corresponds to a specific activity aimed at inner transformation.

As for the planetary positions, though, they maintain their stance: that there's no way to resolve that equation — at least not from within AQAL. Outside of AQAL, we have our own criteria for validation.

Lodi: But, for instance, that the Saturn return is associated with a specific kind of inner work — couldn't that be validated?

Victoria: One would have to propose a hypothesis and gather data with a clear methodology. Another philosophical critique is precisely that — that we lack control methods.

Lodi: I think all this is marvellous! (laughs)

Victoria: The scientific method is essentially a methodology of controls.

Lodi: The quality of the different ages is fascinating.

Victoria: We know so many things “just because”, aside from having learned to reason them astrologically.

Lodi: And we see them in people's lives…

Victoria: The proposal would be: fine, then study it with the proper methodology and see what you find.

Lodi: And what would be the proper methodology? Those three steps you mentioned?

Victoria: Yes — but in the case of life cycles, I think something like phenomenology or structuralism would be more suitable at first, rather than statistics. Many have sought statistical relevance — like Gauquelin, and more recently Aleix Mercadé from Barcelona, who is translating material by researchers working on such studies — identifying a variable and tracking it. Or like Alejandra Eusebi here at the Centro Astrol�gico de Buenos Aires, who also seeks statistical significance.

But for the kind of psychological processes we're looking to verify — such as Saturn's influence — I don't think that's the way. From the scientific side, the best approaches for now would be the methodologies of the subjective left hemisphere — Husserl's and Giorgi's phenomenology, and structuralism, which I haven't yet explored. These are methods that do have some mechanisms of control. Otherwise, one just interprets and says, “It's like this because I say so,” and then we fall into boomeritis.

Lodi: Of course. But I mean, the quality of the Saturn return…

Victoria: One would have to formulate hypotheses and investigate them methodically.

Lodi: The quality of the midlife crisis, around forty-something… I'm trying to go towards something more objective.

Alejandro: Any Saturn transit to the Sun goes beyond generalities.

Lodi: Because here we're acknowledging that perhaps there's a debt — an excess of subjectivity — and that we owe something to the realm of objectivity, of the scientific method. Now, turning the shadow back on AQAL, there's a hidden subjectivity in AQAL itself — an unconscious assumption of objectivity stemming from the scientific paradigm. I'm not sure AQAL should inherit that, but as a method it strives impeccably for an objectivity that surpasses all subjectivity.

Perhaps, in some ways, they're right. But in another, if Wilber truly embraced Astrology — would this whole discussion even exist? Would Astrology have a place within AQAL?

Victoria: Astrology does appear in AQAL — but within the mythic world-space.

Lodi: Right, but what place would it occupy?

Victoria: At its core, AQAL is the Great Chain of Being — from Plotinus and the great traditions — updated through modernity and postmodernity. That's what AQAL is. In that sense, the text “Integral Post-Metaphysics” (Excerpt G) (6), also included as an appendix in Integral Spirituality, is excellent. You can see that AQAL is essentially a contemporary reformulation of that ancient vision — that's where the four quadrants originated. It's a fascinating and unfinished quest.

Lodi: Is the Zodiac outside the Great Chain of Being?

Victoria: For us, the Zodiac is everywhere!

Lodi: I still can't quite make the quadrants fit, but those four dimensions — with the four dimensions of the quadrants — I know they're speaking of the same thing. The maps don't align perfectly. You find relief when you stop trying to make them fit perfectly. There are four planes, dimensions, or quadrants — biological, psychological, social, cultural — to put it simply, thinking of the four astrological quadrants.

Mauro: There's no way to make them fit, because in Astrology each symbol is inside-outside at the same time, whereas in AQAL you have external, internal, and collective quadrants…

Lodi: Let's see if we can make them fit. The biological level, where the molecules are — to me, that would be the first quadrant… I propose it as a thought experiment. It would be the quadrant of body, matter…

Alejandro: Aries, Taurus, Gemini…

Mauro: The thing is, Aries, Taurus, and Gemini have both objective and subjective manifestations at the same time. Each symbol is inside and outside simultaneously — there's no way to make them fit neatly together…

Lodi: What I mean is this: for me, Aries, Taurus, and Gemini represent the most concrete, behavioural, pre-personal experience — the stage before the sense of identity. That sense of identity arises with Cancer, Leo, and Virgo, which would correspond to the subjective, the upper-left. Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius would represent interaction, the lower-right — and I'd even include Marxism here, as class consciousness: what we perceive is conditioned by how we're inscribed within the system of production…

Victoria: Here we have the difference between what would be the intersubjective internal and the interobjective, where the systems of production lie.

Lodi: The social one, then? The lower-right quadrant? That, for me, would be Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius — societies with division of labour, groups, families.

Victoria: That's the field of material interaction — systems.

Alejandro: Objective systems — political and economic.

Lodi: Yes, I see that too. In terms of the fixed cross, it would be the experience of Scorpio — sharing energy with others, awareness of shared energy. So, yes, the social. For me, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius correspond to the social.

Victoria: Careful though — here we have to distinguish between the cultural and the social.

Lodi: Right. The cultural would be the last three — Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces — the web, the network of unconscious assumptions we share.

Mauro: Well, yes — but Capricorn also relates to the State and to social order. From that point of view, it would move into the lower-right. You can't avoid the overlaps.

Alejandro: There's something that seems to align for a moment, but when you look closely, it blurs again.

Mauro: They're two different systems.

Lodi: For me, in terms of Id / I / We: “It” would be the first three signs; “I”, the next three — intentional; “They” would be Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius; and Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces would be “We” — the cultural. That's the correspondence that comes to me. It doesn't fit perfectly, but I sense resonances or correspondences. I could attend to details, but these are the four basic planes or dimensions in which consciousness operates. We are conditioned by these four levels: the bodily, the psychological, the social (methods of production and organisation), and the web of assumptions, images, and symbols of the unconscious.

Alejandro: I don't see it as that linear.

Victoria: Nor do I. I'd love to — but as soon as I think “how great”, a whole set of obstacles and shadows arise.

Alejandro: If you lower or raise the level of abstraction, the number four already points to a mental framework of coordinates — you need four axes to locate yourself.

Lodi: If you define a point, with a horizontal and a vertical line, you've drawn four.

Alejandro: The natal chart is that four. And, at one point, why four quadrants? Why didn't Wilber make three, five, or seven?

Mauro: They can be reduced to three if you combine the objective world, including both the individual and the collective (7).

Alejandro: I find Wilber's four quadrants interesting — the symbolism of the number four. The four has always been a method of positioning, with two perpendicular axes of coordinates. It seems that something archetypal is operating there, and Wilber expresses it in the form of four — as though reality itself were divided into four. Why did he end up defining it as four, and not three or five? Perhaps here we can see the power of the symbol — the archetype of number (as Jung would say) — in this case, four as a manifestation of reality.

Lodi: For us, that four can be subdivided into twelve — depending on whether you focus more or less — and sometimes into two, a pulse of manifestation and another of reabsorption.

Alejandro: What becomes very clear to me — even if not everything fully fits — is that shadow of AQAL: a kind of insistence that everything must be in light, in focus, neatly clear. And, in doing so, it underestimates the unconscious — which, as we begin to suspect, seems far more intelligent than the conscious.

Lodi: We know that from the AQAL perspective, Astrology is placed at a pre-personal level. But if that annoys you or stirs some drama, it's because you're projecting authority onto the AQAL system.

Mauro: I think the reason we're here is precisely because we value the AQAL matrix. In my case, it's helped me greatly to illuminate the astrological matrix — even if, from its point of view, it corresponds to a lower level of development.

Lodi: It's clear that I stand with one foot in the matrix of Astrology, and from there I engage with the AQAL matrix. Standing in one makes me question the other — AQAL adherents rely on their model, and they, in turn, question Astrology's.

Victoria: The issue, as Armand Díaz (author of Integral Astrology) says, is whether the astrologer can finally take a seat at the table of contemporary knowledge…

Lodi: Well, I'll tell you — I wouldn't dream of going to the Academy to debate astrology…

Victoria: Right — and that's exactly the point. What's interesting about AQAL is that it gives you an interface through which you can communicate. What frustrates us is that Astrology is placed within its model in such a way simply because it fails to pass the test of modernity.

Lodi: But Victoria, after doing all this astrological research — if someone underestimates it, it's their loss!

Victoria: Of course! And I don't take it personally — it's more a motivation to understand. The critique made me ask, “What is this really about?” I'm interested in exploring how we can enter into a fruitful dialogue with other disciplines. I just published a post on Integral Astrology (8) that includes a powerful critique from philosophy. It's excellent — because from that philosophical standpoint, they question fundamental things we never even think to doubt.

Alejandro: Do you remember anything in particular from those critiques that struck you most?

Victoria: Yes. For example: science progresses through research and its principle of falsifiability — but astrology does not.

Alejandro: How come it doesn't?

Victoria: We don't use a method. We have a very particular language, and that's why we don't modernise — we don't evolve.

Alejandro: I don't think that's entirely true. If you read authors like Rudhyar, Tarnas, or Carutti, you can see they speak of something very different from what Morin de Villefranche, Kepler, or Ptolemy described.

Victoria: They'd say those are pathological beliefs — that's why I posted it there, to open the discussion.

Lodi: But when Freud suggested that every transpersonal experience is a threat of psychosis — should that worry us? I feel that tension is largely dissolved today. If we were talking with artists, for instance, we'd be on a different frequency altogether. The fact that Astrology ends with “-logy” doesn't mean it's a science. Perhaps it corresponds more to art than to science.

Victoria: Another point made in that article is that we needn't give undue importance to astrology's unverifiable or “irrational” aspects (as they call them), because that's not the essential part. When evaluating the phenomenon, what is essential is recognising the emotional need that astrology fulfils — as a giver of meaning. And that, of course, brings us back to the mythic space, to the pre-rational.

Mauro: Do you remember that critique where they mockingly called us “prototypologists”? Because if astrology can't pass the test of modernity without transforming into astronomy or psychology, then it becomes a study of prototypes — like tarot or the enneagram. In other words, since it can't rationally explain the correspondence between cosmos and psyche, at best we'd be some kind of “prototypologists”. There's a mystery that can't be rationally validated — that's the point. There's simply no way.

Alejandro: I must confess, when they call me a “pre-personal prototypologist”, it gets to me (laughs)… I feel I'm more of a transpersonal astrologer.

Lodi: And I'm in an even worse predicament — because when I talk to astrologers with a more classical perspective, I realise I'm doing something entirely different. It's becoming harder and harder for me to explain what astrology actually is. When you work with others, you see it — we don't just teach classes. When you follow a person's process, you notice that something forms between what you interpret from the chart and the feedback you give — and you see that something is operating that couldn't have emerged without that map in between.

And before such compelling evidence, the need for that experience to be legitimised by science simply fades away. The discussion dissolves. Now, when Wilber's Journal publishes a critique of a certain kind of astrology, I can't entirely disagree — but I do wonder how he could have been unaware of other kinds of astrology!

Mauro: Wilber criticises astrology even after reading Tarnas (9); he hasn't changed his stance and continues to affirm that it's a hermeneutic of the mythic level.

Lodi: Let's be open to accepting our shadow — that perhaps it is true, that we are, or remain, at a lower mythic level.

Mauro: Wilber says that if astrology were ever to be definitively validated, it could indeed become a profound hermeneutic of the World Soul. And for Wilber, the World Soul at the transpersonal level is linked to theistic mysticism.

Alejandro: For now, this whole investigation has been more useful to me for demystifying the AQAL model than for anything else.

Victoria: “If you see the Buddha — kill him!”…

Mauro: In one of those exchanges we had on the forum, there was a very strong critique from Gunther Emde, exposing the AQAL shadow (10).

Lodi: I'm realising this is moving more into the realm of perception — where the head, the intellect, reason, all that, start to become increasingly slippery.

Mauro: Lodi, have you published any study in which you've systematised, through those interviews, how it's evident that astrology actually works? That would be an incredible contribution — a validation not only of the astrologer's first-person experience but also of the lived experiences of the clients.

Lodi: But that evidence is there all the time…

Victoria: Yes, but it's not very systematised…

Alejandro: Well, what you're doing with the cyclical study of Argentina's natal chart already seems to be a step in that direction. And it's even wilder, because it's the chart of a country. You're concretely demonstrating direct relationships between reality, politics, archetypes, society, and culture.

Lodi: The Jupiter cycles in Argentina's chart are almost pornographic… Still, I don't think it will convince anyone — we astrologers can't even agree among ourselves.

Victoria: What we have, really, are initial observations that could serve to formulate a hypothesis, which could then be demonstrated.

Lodi: And what about shamanic experiences — like those described by Castaneda — how do they fit into Wilber's model?

Mauro: He says those are psychic experiences — not actual experiences of the non-dual. He speaks of shamans as pioneers of transpersonal states of consciousness.

Lodi: Think about it — Wilber has the Moon in Pisces and Neptune in the First House. The creator of this implacable method is a Neptunian! There's a strong fatherly energy at play here — of model, of authority. There's an enormous Saturnian spell woven through it all…

Alejandro: Yes — a Saturnian spell coming from an inverse Neptunian.

Notes

(1) The Integral Model, known as AQAL (an acronym for All Quadrants, All Levels), includes five aspects of reality:

Four quadrants — the four dimensions of reality: interior, exterior, individual, collective;

Levels of consciousness — pre-conventional, conventional, post-conventional (to summarise);

States of consciousness — ordinary, subtle, causal, non-dual;

Lines of development or intelligences — cognitive, moral, spiritual, self, sexual, etc.;

Types — masculine/feminine or personality types (such as the Enneagram).

As an Integral Life Practice, the model includes Shadow work (the hidden, repressed, unconscious, denied) and, of course, non-metaphysical Integral Spirituality.

For more information, see A Brief History of Everything, Integral Vision, or Integral Spirituality by Ken Wilber, or read Raquel Torrent's interview with Wilber in Verde Mental Guía Alternativa: link.

(2) Synchronicity: a term coined by Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung to describe “the simultaneity of two events connected by meaning but not by causality.”

Principle of Correspondence: “As above, so below; as within, so without.” This is the Second Hermetic Principle, upon which the symbolic structure of astrology is founded.

(3) The hypothesis is that the Kosmos evolves. It is a process of deepening that moves from the simple to the complex, from the less conscious to the more conscious, in a natural wave-like sequence. The four dimensions mapped by AQAL evolve simultaneously. Each new level that tetra-emerges includes and transcends all that came before, reaching ever higher structures of novelty and creative awareness.

The increase of interior consciousness corresponds with an increase in exterior complexity. Evolution has no ceiling — ever higher levels can emerge.

In this framework, the planets of the Solar System emerge in the lower-right quadrant (the exterior of the collective) at Level 2 of the evolutionary sequence, along with the emergence of molecules (UR), apprehension (UL), and pleromatic experience (LL).

Meanwhile, human consciousness emerges in the upper-left quadrant (the interior of the individual) at Level 9, when the neocortex appears (UR), our capacity to generate symbols (UL), inscribed within a worldview called Archaic (LL), in the context of Tribal social organisation (LR).

(4) In the Integral Model developed by Ken Wilber, it is essential to understand the Pre/Trans Fallacy when approaching spiritual disciplines. Astrology is classified as a pre-rational discipline.

(5) In AQAL, the left-hand quadrants (subjective) measure development in terms of depth or inner consciousness, while the right-hand quadrants (objective) measure development in terms of outer complexity.

(6) Excerpt G - Integral Post-Metaphysics (Ken Wilber, 2004)

(7) The Great Three — the reduction of the four quadrants into: Subjective, Intersubjective, and Objective (the latter including Interobjective), with symbolic correspondences such as Art, Morality, and Science; Buddha, Sangha, and Dharma; I, We, and It, etc.

(8) Integral Astrology Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/511292665629586/

(9) Richard Tarnas, author of Cosmos and Psyche — one of the most important works of contemporary astrology, containing a wealth of systematically organised information on the correspondence between planetary cycles and social phenomena.

(10) “Violence, AQAL, and the Shadow” - El Blog Integral (2013)

Websites

Alejandro Lodi. www.alejandrolodi.wordpress.com

Alejandro Luna. www.astrohologia.com.ar

Mauro Mazzarella. linkedin.com/in/mauromazzarellag

María Victoria Zain. https://www.instagram.com/templogong.pipa/