Re-Enchanting the Western World View with Richard Tarnas

To honour the milestone 50th episode, I’m joined by Richard Tarnas, a renowned historian and archetypal cosmologist. August 8th is the peak of the astrological event known as the Lion’s Gate Portal. The Sun (in Leo) aligns with Sirius, Orion’s Belt, and Earth. Simultaneously, Orion’s Belt aligns with the Pyramids of Giza. Ancient Egyptians revered Sirius, the “spiritual star,” and associated it with gods Osiris and Sopdet. Each year the rising of Sirius marked the flooding of the Nile.

As author of The Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche, Richard is the ideal guest to mark the occasion. He is the founding director of the graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He teaches courses in the history of ideas, archetypal studies, depth psychology, and religious evolution.

For ten years he lived and worked at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, studying with the likes of Stanislav Grof, Joseph Campbell, and James Hillman, later serving as Esalen’s director of programs and education.

In re-enchanting the Western worldview, Richard traces the historical and cultural roots of the modern mind. Although much was gained, much was lost, including the ensoulment of the cosmos, and a sense of participation with higher forms of intelligence.

Is civilisation experiencing a mythological fall from grace due to human hubris? Is global chaos a symbolic manifestation of humanity’s descent into the underworld? How can a new worldview support spiritual transformation, sense-making, and flourishing on a global scale?

Before we begin, one more special announcement: Richard is one of a number of contributing authors, including myself, for the new volume by the Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences: The Playful Universe: Synchronicity and the Nature of Consciousness. The book is released late August, with an online symposium scheduled for the 26th or 27th September.

00:00 Intro
02:30 Worldviews Shape Worlds
10:00 The Western Worldview As Inherently Nihilistic
14:00 Separation of Mind and World
17:00 The Shadow of Modernity and Moral Issues
20:00 Man Replacing God As Superior to Nature
24:00 The Crisis of Vision
28:00 Primal Worldviews, Animism and the Interior Continuum
31:30 Numinosity, Anima Mundi, and Spiritual Value
36:00 Ancient Egypt, Aztecs, and the Porous Self
38:30 Meaning, the Myth of Progress, and Greek Tragedy
43:00 The Descent Into the Underworld and Rite of Passage
47:00 How Worldviews Shape Madness
54:00 The Idol of Literalism
58:00 Participation Mystique and the Sacred Marriage
01:01:00 Synchronicity and Archetypes
01:07:00 Archetypes as Channel to the Divine
01:10:00 Individuation Embedded In the Cosmos
01:13:00 Archetypal Meaning
01:22:00 The Value of Subjective Data In Defining Reality
01:25:00 The Playful Universe
01:27:00 Re-Enchantment of the Universe

#astrology #archetypalastrology #archetypalcosmology #richardtarnas #archetypes #mythology #philosophy #darknightofthesoul #selfdiscovery #selfrealization #spiritualguidance #mysticism

[eldonscott]

50:21 “…it’s a way of maintaining the superiority of the modern view.”🔥

[heavenlyradiance]

The downside of using things OUTSIDE OF OURSELVES is a gradual collapse of our Nervous Systems however....or can be. My advise to myself is to just let go and BE who I am with nothing added. This way I find out who I am without collateral damage being done to my body. It's taken me 63 years to realize this however and I am still practicing. Again thank you both, awesome conversation.

[thebrooklynalchemist]

Richard Tarnas is a once in a lifetime gem of a find.

[heavenlyradiance]

I'd like to see the Interviewer interview GREGG BRADEN when his new book THE PURE HUMAN comes out. It would accompany this conversation very nicely. Thank you both.

[jeffersonpower]

Compare Tarnas to Jordan Peterson!! OMG! Tarnas is super intelligent but its so obvious he wants to communicate as clearly as he can whereas Peterson is so much into obfuscating, heaping words upon words, attacking anyone who doesn't agree with him. Tarnas gets Jung whereas Peterson has distorted Jung into a right wing dogma. Tarnas sees Postmodernism as a descent, its a process and he can see it in the long historical process, whereas Peterson simplistically labels it as Woke and cultural Marxism and just attacks and denigrates. Tarnas is so refreshing and so far ahead of the ball in so many ways. Great interview.

[nathandouglas]

Thank you Ricky.
This was great, many incites ❤.
I'm almost through my first year. Lucidly awake still in physical pain. But no suffering, all the stuff, you know?
Keep going brother 💜

[manna.me.inspire]

With your supreme wisdom; what should we call you sir/madam/to whom it may concern? what?