Intro to Archetypal Cosmology
🚧 (UNDER CONSTRUCTION) 🚧
“It often happens that the fresh winds of new ideas and spiritual impulses which enter into a culture and eventually transform it do not originate in the mainstream universities, but rather come from outlier institutions and learning communities that are more countercultural, adventurous, and visionary in character.”
Archetypal Cosmology is the most important breakthrough of the 21st century, and as of yet relatively few people have heard of it.
This always has to be the case for something new… it always starts with a few people, then a tribe, then a nation, and then in some cases into an intellectual empire. At the moment in my view, Archetypal Cosmology is in the phase where it is transitioning from a late tribal phenomena (primarily centered around post-Jungian communities and astrology fans) into something that can stand as a clear nation of methodology within the currents of mainstream civilization.
So what is archetypal cosmology, and why is it important? Simply put, archetypal cosmology is the re-discovery of a relationship between planetary alignments and human psychology and history in the modern era. It would be fair enough to describe it as an “off shoot” of astrology, the way Christianity sources its roots from Judaism, or Buddhism from the Hindu matrix. However, there are also several key distinguishing evolutions that also introduce a clear separation from the work of an archetypal cosmologist from the general practice of astrology in the mainstream. For a deep dive into the origins of archetypal cosmology, a great start is Richard Tarnas’ 2011 essay “Archetypal Cosmology: A Brief Account.” The comprehensive treatment is given in his 2006 opus, Cosmos and Psyche.
Working under the shadow of Tarnas’ incredible contributions to history, psychology, and astrology have posed a challenge in terms of breaking new ground. It is largely for this reason that the first 10 years of my life after coming into contact with Tarnas’ (or Rick as he was known to his students) breakthrough led me to develop my own research into historical correlations which were inevitably inspired by, but not previously detailed by Tarnas. These correlations form the foundation of the HistoryEngine platform at Numinous Realm.
Given the heady intellectual climate at CIIS and the Philosophy, Cosmology & Consciousness department in San Francisco during the 2010s (deep in the Uranus-Pluto square), I was simultaneously in dialogue with a handful of other intellectual currents as I was surrounded by Tarnas’ rich and detailed historical, Platonic, artistic lectures and guidance. Apart from other mentors in my life, it was an opportunity to spend time with an individual who in my view had secured a clear position for himself in the index of history and individuals who have contributed the most generously to humanity’s adventure. So rather than just recreate Tarnas’ work, I felt it important to truly advance the entire paradigm forward, which could be done by integrating Tarnas’ theories into the material reality of the mainstream world.
As a finance undergraduate at NYU Stern during the Great Recession of 2008, it was inevitable that my sympathy with the global uproar against the financial industry (which I could feel, but not understand), eventually led me to consider the role played by history’s great capitalist critic: Karl Marx. What little I knew of Marx impressed me, specifically his interest in architecting a sweep of history to present an intelligible theoretical point of view to the body politic. Over the ensuing years, as I personally looked into what commerce was as a participant and not a theorist, I began to notice many incomplete deficiencies in Marx’s paradigm. However, back in 2012, I was coming out of a year spent with tribal villagers in India, helping them with economic development. I did notice that the primary concern of the villagers was just to secure a better life for themselves — not so different than many of my peers in undergrad. And yet, out there in the Nagarhole tiger preserve, I used to pass the time in the evenings reading books on history and philosophy by my kerosine lamp, dreaming of playing a larger role in helping to incept a planetary revolution (a very clear Uranus-Pluto theme as I would later discover, as this was happening under the aegis of the Uranus-Pluto square of 2007 - 2020). I was very interested to read works on the great historical figures, including the 19th century revolutionaries detailed in Doctors of the Revolution: 19th-Century Thinkers Who Changed the World by Shlomo Barer (which introduced me to figures such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Georg Hegel, Mikhail Bakunin, Heinrich Heine, and others). The book was interesting for the very personal account it gave of these individuals, their interelationships, and the larger global transformations around them which forged them. I also found myself delving into Mohandas Gandhi, Napoleon Bonaparte, Nelson Mandela, along with social enterprise work my people such as Mohammad Yunus.
Essentially I felt that in the modern era, commerce would be the most important vector of planetary revolution. I was feeling a revolutionary spirit, but I was unsure of how to actually participate with this. I felt that critique of the financial world was a reasonable target during my undergraduate years, but as I left college, it did not seem adequate to hold the true concerns of the people around me, including those in the village I had spent time with.
———
DEV NOTES
Dec 5th, 2025: Built a few paragraphs
Dec 4, 2025: Started article