Manifest Your Astroself
Use Astrology to Gain Self-Knowledge
Contents
Perennial Astrology
Potential Astrology
Need a Guru?
Perennial Astrology
Don’t be misled by concepts you vaguely know. This means you need to act counter to the misinformation you have received by a modern form of vulgarized mass astrology that is, to say the least, heavily influenced by commercial interests rather than the desire to provide competent spiritual support for the truth-seeking client.
Let me thus first summarize what Perennial Astrology is all about and how it can be applied for finding out who we are, thus helping us gain basic self-knowledge.
In Antiquity, astrology was part of the hermetic corpus scientia that the philosopher or sage studied. As such, it was a sacred science, a part of cosmic knowledge and a tool for self-knowledge.
Astrology was not dissected from astronomy; the two ways of projecting macroscopic events were complimentary sources of knowledge. Astrology was in ancient times considered to be the Queen of all Sciences.
It was unthinkable, even still in the Middle Ages, that an erudite or sage would not study astrology and excel in it whether for personal or mundane forecasting, or just for learning about cosmic laws.
The past millennium was perhaps the culmination point of ignorance in the whole run of human history. The Church’s absolute power quest was based upon the ignorance of the common believer, and therefore knowledge became a form of subversion, generally knowledge about the roots and functions of life, and in particular self-knowledge.
However, we can see that astrology went all the way through to us, from ancient times until today, and astrologers were among the wisest people in the world. Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) was known to be an excellent astrologer, Isaac Newton (1643–1727) is said to have had solid knowledge about not only astronomy but also astrology. And Nostradamus, the French astrologer and prophet Michel de Nostredame (1503–1566), was one of the most powerful psychics and visionaries of all times. He was the personal consultant of kings and queens and the basis of all his psychic power was astrology.
Within the 19th and 20th centuries, astrology became more and more vulgarized and the use of the true astrology remained a knowledge tool for a minority of educated and spiritual individuals while the majority became more and more indoctrinated by the mass media to believe in a reductionist form of it — rainbow press astrology.
Today, there is a profound split between true astrology which is a science, and popular astrology which is gossip and fake or at best a pleasant social game. This is why not only myself, but many serious astrologers have to distance ourselves from people who make money with the ignorance and the greediness of the masses.
This difference is both on the competence level and on the motivation level. Astrology is a science and an art that requires not only intelligence and commitment, but also strong intuitive and associative thinking capacities, as well as a profound basic knowledge of mythology, psychology and psychoanalysis. It is concerned with truth and helping people to identify and accept the truth of their greater life cycle and cosmic identity.
What you get in popular press and on the Internet, for the most part, is neither truth nor is there any commitment from the side of those who do it. It is fake from the first to the last in that only one or two parameters of more than one hundred are considered and taken for the absolute truth, without caring for the individual astrological chart of the person.
Telling you that you are a Gemini by your sun sign does not reveal you anything about yourself since there are millions of people in every country that are born in the sign of Gemini.
Second, serious astrologers are not motivated by money gain or to appear in fashionable media, but solely by the positive impact that their work has on their clients, an impact that ideally helps clients to live with a greater sense of identity, to derive more satisfaction from the effective realization of their unique talents, and generally, to live a life that is balanced and healthy. This means also that clients learn to use their resources in such a way that their high-energy input comes back to them in a transformed form of this energy, which is money, fame and recognition. This, and only this, is the true reward of the astrological work and profession.
Until these days, most people think that astrology was either some kind of leisure game or else a form of charlatanism. However, since the turn of the millennium, a raising minority of people become interested in the true and originally scientific use of astrology in its purest form. In fact, the New Age will be again oriented toward self-knowledge and individualized forms of spirituality; and astrology will then play a predominant role in the quest of the individual to reconnect with the self and its higher cosmic octave.
Potential Astrology
The term Potential Astrology is my own creation, while the technique itself is not, and actually not new. It is a branch of astrology that is not divinatory but revelatory in character in that it deals with the revelation of the client’s unique life mission, and that mirrors to the client their special karmic gifts and talents ideally to be realized in this life cycle.
Ancient Greek philosophers, and among them especially Socrates, spoke in this context about the daimon of an individual which could also be called the cosmic imprint of the soul. Knowing this cosmic imprint in its cosmic cycle and development through karmic astrology is a unique opportunity for personal growth, for we do not incarnate as blank books.
Potential astrology is a particular branch of astrology that deals exclusively with the birth chart, looking for the unique gifts and talents of a person, by preference a newborn, an infant, a toddler or school child or an adolescent, to find out their power potential and the areas where they can possibly realize it to its fullest.
This kind of astrology starts from the insight that there is karma, which simply is cause-and-effect, and that as a result of that, we all come with an agenda, when we incarnate in this world. This agenda is a mix between elements we can’t control and that are karmic, and elements that we have put, by choice, before we decided to incarnate.
Potential astrology is thus primarily a diagnostic tool for the life consultant in order for them to know the particular inner maps of the client. The life consultant does not do any forecasting and this is what distinguishes him or her from the astrologer.
Our central goal in potential astrology is to assist people in their quest for leading happy and fulfilled lives in maximizing the effectiveness with which they realize and deploy their specific talents and character strengths while, at the same time, minimizing character weaknesses and misbalances.
Potential astrology serves as a mirror to reflect our hidden potential. It is therefore a precious tool for those who desire to know more about themselves, or of the destiny and the unique possibilities of their children, or children in their care.
The birth chart reveals in which areas of life our greatest talents are and how we can possibly realize them, provided we are willing to invest the energy needed to achieve this goal. In fact, potential astrology draws a soul pictogram that includes karma and dharma of the soul.
It clearly indicates the traits of our unconscious and our conscious personalities, not only the ones that we show like a mask to the outside world (persona, old Greek, means mask), but also the personalities that we bear inside of us (and try to hide) and that represent our shadow and most of which are still virgin or in a state of potential. This entity in us has been called by the old Greek the daimon, and it has been given a name in all the ancient wisdom traditions.
Here is a simple definition: Our Daimon is what upholds us. It is the door keeper of our Inner Sanctuary.
Let me now explain a little more in detail the following vectors of potential astrology:
Character and Talents | Life Lessons | Karma Lessons | Inner Maps
Character and Talents
The first broad area that potential astrology looks at is the character and the talents of the client.
Every soul comes with a special and unique potential of talents and skills when it incarnates for a particular lifetime. These talents have been developed and worked on either during one or several life cycles. Some talents are in a state of virginity or potentiality when the soul incarnates, which means that their realization is intended by the soul, and by the specific constellation of energies their realization is indeed highly probable. Yet they are not yet real in the sense that they need to be worked on by constant practice, refinement and mature realization.
Character is a special mixture of male/female energies and energies from the four elements (fire, water, wind, earth), as well as planetary energies that have molded a certain thought, emotion and behavior pattern. This pattern is distinct in the birth chart and it can be seen in which ways it has developed from former life cycles and in which way it is supposed to evolve according to the cosmic life plan.
This part of the analysis also deals with particular obstructions, energy obstructions and misbalances that lead to karmic challenges and/or life lessons. Karmic astrology can reveal what exactly those particular blockages are and in which areas of the client’s life they are located. Generally, if the person refuses to work on those issues, stagnation and/or health problems, accidents and other ‘misfortunes’ tend to happen until consciousness is mature enough to face the issues.
Life Lessons
Life Lessons are created by the soul in order to become more perfect and pure. You can imagine them as something like a plan that we have built before we incarnated. Let me formulate one of my own life lessons:
In this life cycle I wish to become more autonomous. I wish to dissolve attachments and bonds that keep me enslaved in unhealthy relationships that chain my development and evolution. At the same time I wish to learn what healthy and constructive relationships are like and how to build such relationships. This is valid both for the private and professional sphere.
The problem is that we generally forget about our life plan after we incarnate. Only highly evolved souls such as, for example, Tibetan Lamas, also called tulku’s, can remember them. This makes us believe that life lessons are ‘fallen from heaven’ in order to ‘punish’ us. Nothing is farther from reality! We have full control about how to accomplish our life lessons once we have rendered them conscious and accept them.
Potential astrology helps us identify, recognize, acknowledge and fully accept our life lessons so that we can face and master them. The key of tremendous success in the lives of many celebrities can be seen in facing particular life lessons and ‘thus turning the bad into good.’
Karma Lessons
Karmic Challenges are life lessons from former lives that have not been met and thus been taken over into the present life cycle.
Thus, these are past issues that however have an impact on the present life cycle, either through unconscious or half-conscious remembrance, repeated dreams, patterns of behavior or relationships that are self-repeating (and often self-defeating), or a general lack of success or power in life.
Sometimes clients resent karma lessons as something like a magic spell that has been cast upon their lives and that is more or less difficult to identify let alone remove without astrological, therapeutic or otherwise spiritual help.
However, karma lessons are neither magical nor mysterious but are the mere result from our own past choices that, in most cases, we have forgotten or overridden by subsequent contradictory options or interests. They can be residues of forgotten projects that are unfulfilled yet necessary in order to complete soul lessons, or they can result from hurts or injustice inflicted to others and/or self.
Potential astrology helps to consciously recognize and face karmic challenges so that they are easier to be dealt with and met constructively and creatively. This is by far a better way than how most people do, i.e. by merely suffering them.
Inner Maps
Astrology is but one possible tool to explore our inner landscape or inner maps. And it is an accurate one. Other maps are psychoanalysis or transactional analysis or the inner dialogue, or, to mention more esoteric ones, the Tarot or the I Ching.
— See, for example, Peter Fritz Walter: The Leadership I Ching: Your Daily Companion for Practical Guidance, 2nd revised and expanded edition, 2015.
All divinations are projection systems to mirror our content of consciousness in a way that is intelligible for our rational mind. There is nothing esoteric or supernatural about this quest, and all the fuss about those forms of knowledge being silly or charlatanism are the pure results of ignorance. It is a fact that potential astrology renders a comprehensive map of our inner landscape.
Need a Guru?
Do you think you need a guru?
Since quite a few years many people from the Western hemisphere travel the globe in order to acquire self-knowledge; they go far in order to see what is very close.
The truth is that they search for a map. They know the landscape is there but they think they could not explore it without a map reader: a guru. This opinion is not wrong, obviously. One who has gone the way can show you the way. But this way he shows to you will be his way — not your way. There are two others possibilities.
— Gain wisdom without a map; — Become your own map reader.
Doing without a map may be possible after years of serious energy work, yoga, chigong or else; however the influence of our unnatural environment and culture is not to underestimate. Often sages who reach that level of consciousness have lived through a childhood full of magic and poverty which made that their basic nutrition was vegetarian. They may have suffered from abuses as the example Krishnamurti clearly shows, but were strong enough to survive them with a strong and innocent heart. The other way, the one I recommend, is that you become your own map reader. Please consider what two renowned and respected sages say, J. Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi, and that I can summarize as follows:
— You are able to explore your inner landscape without a guru;
— You do not need to reject a map as long as you keep your vision;
— You should not worry about reaching the destination by keeping focus;
— You need to develop passive awareness of your inner life.
These sages thus affirm that we are able to go the way on our own, that we can take supporting maps as long as we keep our vision intact and do not take the finger that points to the Moon, for the Moon.
They stress the need to develop attentiveness, passive awareness of our inner and outer processes and the whole process of life. There is only one truth but different ways to reach it. And there is only one truth that is yours.
Yet there are different ways to reach it. There may be a way that is more effective than the others. Because it is more direct and does not waste time and resources.
Potential astrology may be this way for you. Once you see that, you are less dogmatic in your choice of maps. You know that you have enough autonomy to not confuse the map with, and you thus take the support that serves you best in your pilgrimage to your own self.
