Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View - Hardcover

Tarnas, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670032921 ISBN 13: 9780670032921

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2006

Synopsis

A companion to The Passion of the Western Mind seeks to demonstrate the existence of a consistent correlation between planetary movements and human history, tracing ancient and modern events while making predictions about the future. 50,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Tarnas is a Harvard-educated historian and professor of philosophy and psychology, and the author of The Passion of the Western Mind. He is the founding director of the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness graduate studies program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and also teaches on the faculty of Pacifica Graduate Institute.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Cosmos and Psyche

"Breathtaking in the scope and scale of its vision, this extraordinary book shatters our cosmological assumptions as it awakens us to a living universe and its creative intelligence. Tarnas succeeds masterfully in bringing his encyclopedic knowledge forged in writing the critically acclaimed Passion of the Western Mind to the task of discerning the archetypal pulse of history. Spellbinding, eloquent, compelling, Cosmos and Psyche will be a marker for an entire generation." Christopher Bache, Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Youngstown State University, author of Dark Night, Early Dawn.

"It is hard to think of many books written in the past century that will still be read two hundred years from now. Cosmos and Psyche will top that short list. It is majestic, sweeping, and profound. This will be a book for the ages. It will stand over time with the seminal expressions of the human spirit." --William Van Dusen Wishard, Principal, World Trends Research, author of Between Two Ages: The 21st Century and the Crisis of Meaning

Praise for The Passion of the Western Mind

"The most lucid and concise presentation I have read, of the grand lines of what every student should know about the history of Western thought. The writing is elegant and carries the reader with the momentum of a novel . A noble performance." Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces

"The best intellectual history of the West in one volume I have ever seen." Huston Smith, author of The World s Religions

"One of the most illuminating, satisfying, beautifully written, lucidly argued and important books I have ever read." Keith Thompson, Utne Reader

Reviews

According to Tarnas, acclaimed author of The Passion of the Western Mind, history is on the verge of a major shift, comparable to the one wrought by Copernicus and Galileo, but a seemingly antiscientific one: an astrological turn that can only be understood thorough chronicling planetary alignments as they correlate to the rise of the modern mind over the last 500 years. Understanding planetary alignments, for Tarnas, is crucial to the world's future and requires "a genuine dialogue" with the cosmos, by "opening ourselves more fully" to "the other," to ancient and indigenous epistemologies, even "to other forms of life, other modes of the universe's self-disclosure." Filled with philosophical, religious, literary and scientific thinking ranging from Luther and Kepler through Hemingway and even Hitchcock and Dylan, Tarnas's book is not only sweeping in subject but dense and sometimes painfully slow going. It requires at once a strong background in the history of modern thought, an advanced knowledge of astrology, a willingness to withhold skepticism about the role of planetary alignments of the past in understanding life today and the avoidance of imminent world catastrophe. Tarnas's call to redefine what we consider as "legitimate knowledge" will resonate in some sectors, but it will be a tough sell with the more scientifically hardheaded. (Jan. 23)
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World history is vast and confusing. How to find coherence? Tarnas thinks the answer lies in astrology. Possessing a tremendous amount of historical knowledge, the author correlates human history's big events and personalities with the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Why only Pluto, but not Pluto-size objects (or, for that matter, extrasolar planets) recently discovered, should reign over us goes unexamined, but be that as it may, Tarnas discusses charts, planetary alignments, and archetypal personality traits embodied by the planets so aligned. Reaching into mythology and Jungian psychology, Tarnas associates history makers with, for example, a Neptune-Pluto conjunction. Averring an empirical basis to his research, Tarnas proves a determined writer whose fortress of connected dates, historical trends, and philosophical thought defies would-be challengers to his cosmic viewpoint. Casual astrology buffs and readers of the daily horoscope may find this volume heavy going. This is a book for those who are as intrigued by and as convinced of astrology's validity as Tarnas. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670032921
• ISBN 13: 9780670032921
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 592