The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 210, titled:
On Psychological Astrology, with John Green
With Chris Brennan and guest John Green
Episode originally released on June 27, 2019
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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com
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Transcribed by Elizabeth Ocean
Transcription released September 15, 2019
Copyright © 2019 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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Chris Brennan: Hey, thanks for joining me today.
John Green: Oh, thank you, Chris. It’s nice to be here.
CB: What’s your name?
JG: John Green.
CB: What’s your official title or position right now in terms of your work?
JG: Well, I wear many hats, but I suppose my main one is I’m director of the Mercury Internet School of Psychological Astrology. MISPA, it’s here in the UK, but it’s an online school, so we have students worldwide.
CB: Okay. And your primary thing is psychological astrology, right?
JG: Yes, that’s correct. It’s sort of changing what we do all the time as they’re are new discoveries as people research more into the past. So I’d say it’s probably already moved on from what we originally set it up as, and you know, I’m trying to make it a more sort of fully rounded astrological school, but with the focus coming from the psychological.
CB: Sure, and in terms of the history of your school, it’s not a spin off, but it’s somewhat loosely connected with the Center for Psychological Astrology. Right?
JG: Yeah, well I suppose we could call it a sister school or something like that. I mean, I could explain the history, which is, I personally studied under the CPA, Centre for Psychological Astrology when it was based in London and just doing London classes and I took my diploma there, and then started teaching for them not that long afterwards actually, and I was teaching their diploma. Then, a few years passed and Liz Greene, who was the director of the school, decided that she didn’t want to run diploma courses anymore. So she was happy to run seminars and talks, but didn’t want to be in the sort of formal process of exams and you know, judging what people did and what level they were. So she took that step and it meant there was no longer a diploma course in the UK or the EU, you know, on psychological astrology.
CB: And that had existed for like 30 years since the 1980s, right?
JG: That’s right, yes. She’d set that up in the 1980s with Howard Sasportas. And so I started teaching the foundation course at that school as an online course and we were getting an awful lot of interest from people that knew about the CPA that have read Liz’s books, Howard’s books and so on. And whilst I could take them to that beginner’s level and I also ran a sort of intermediate class to build them up. It was obvious that people were looking for a piece of paper, something to say that they, that their peers have judged them and said, this is fine, they’re of a good enough standard. And I sort of get that.
It’s one of those things, I think not everybody wants people, some people don’t want to have a qualification or worry about that too much. But I think it’s important for many, many people, particularly in a field like astrology where we have a variety of schools and it’s nice to know where that person has been trained, what they might’ve learned. So I basically started thinking about the diploma course and initially I approached Liz to see if she would be interested in running it through the CPA, but maybe taking it a little bit of a back seat, and having the other people do it. And, I went out for, well, I went to her house and had lunch with her. And she said that no, she had enough of that side of things and she was sort of taking a little bit of a backseat anyway.
So as I already had in my head, I said, well, if you don’t, do you mind if I do and set up my own school? And she said, well, I’d be delighted and I’m happy to support you. So that’s how Mercury Internet School was born, MISPA was born, really.
So, I took that. I was very pleased Liz wrote us wrote a letter that we put on the CPA website, our website saying how this was perhaps the next step, the next progression. And I mean, when I spoke to her, her feeling was that she wanted someone who wouldn’t just do a carbon copy of what she was doing, but would lead it forward in their own direction. And so, as we’d worked together for some time, luckily she thought that I was the right person to do that and have her blessing. And she still does webinars for us once a year, which is fabulous.
So, that’s basically how it set up. And then I just set about finding the tutors I wanted and I took, I approached ones that had already worked for the CPA, but then also students that I’d, studied alongside that I thought were ready to take that next step. And so that’s what we set up. And then since then we’ve sort of expanded and added some other tutors and we brought in, people like Shawn Nygaard from the states. Then we have guest tutors coming in, as well, each term. So that’s the way I see it as constantly evolving. You know, tutors will change, and new ones will come in. I like to go around and sort of conferences around the world and look for people that I think will, will fit that where we’re coming from, if you like.
CB: Right? Yeah, because you’re a part of a lineage, which is interesting, like the, the restarting of the modern astrological lineage of astrologers, through your school and through that school, the CPA. But even going back, maybe even a generation before that, could we talk a little bit about…on the podcast, I’ve talked a lot about the origins of modern astrology in the revival of modern astrology in the early 20th century, especially in the first half, but I haven’t covered a lot, the psychological revival or the focus on depth psychology that really got going in the 1960s and seventies. Do you know a lot of that history?
JG: It’s not a specialty subject of mine or whatever, but I mean, obviously a lot grow out of the work of, Leo and Rudhyar, coming forward. And then, it sort of starts becoming focused in, I think with the work of Liz Greene and Howard. They started teaching when Liz came to the UK in the 80s. And, they got together. I mean, they were originally teaching from people’s houses and apartments they could borrow and this type of thing.
CB: And she was a Jungian analyst and was he as well or what was his background?
JG: Howard had trained in psychosynthesis so he’d followed the such reality. Obviously that again was quite an astrological based, psychology. I mean many people might know as well that, you know, Liz has since, you know, looked a lot into Jung’s work and published a couple of books, you know, in the last few years. One on the red book and one on Yogananda astrology. And I mean, it’s interesting. I don’t think it’s well known enough how much Jung did use astrology. Right, that it wasn’t just a case.
There were mentions in his books of the Astrology experiment, which was like a synastry experiment that he did with his work on synchronicity. But actually, from the research that Liz has done, it’s quite obvious that he was doing charts, for pretty much all of his clients and that was going on. His daughter was drawing them up for him because he wasn’t particularly good at drawing up the charts and he was using that. So, there was a lot going on in the background. There are some quotes that I’ve come across where he sort of then dismisses astrology. There’s a few in letters and stuff. But I get the feeling that a lot of that was because he was desperate to be a scientist. Desperate, really to be accepted in that and didn’t want to scupper his chances, but in the background he was certainly playing around with it and using it with his clients.
CB: Right. So it seems like while we see people as early as Rudhyar in the 1930s starting to integrate Jung a little bit, it seems like it’s not until people like Liz Green come along that yeah, the full apparatus of Jung’s work really gets integrated and synthesized into contemporary astrology in a serious way. Right?
JG: Yeah. I would say that’s the case. You know, certainly with the work of Liz and Howard, that’s where it comes into focus. I think you see, I think some people get a little bit worried sometimes that psychological astrology is all about Jung, if you like. And whilst, you know, his psychology is a very good fit in many ways, for astrology. And I mean, even to the point that I would say that some of his theories are guided from the history of astrology or the work with astrology. What we’re trying to do now is keep abreast of, various different psychologies and, and what is current, that also fits astrology. Not every psychology works particularly well with astrology. But I think, you know, often people’s viewpoint of psychological astrology is that it is basically studying Jung, which we certainly do and we look at that. But you know, I think it’s more for me that psychological astrology is a broader thing, which is purely looking at it. When you have interactions between people and when it is focusing on, personality of people and what they feel and what they think and what’s going on inside. That’s a psychological thing. Whether you want to name it after a particular theory is a bit irrelevant, really. It’s more about, the slant if you like, that you’re taking.
CB: Sure. So let’s talk about that then and define that. I mean, what is psychological astrology and how can we differentiate that from like, let’s say some other forms of astrology or some tradition? Like what is the underlying emphasis that’s important to convey? If there was a new student of astrology that didn’t know what made psychological astrology different from any other approach?
JG: I mean, I think it’s, the focus is probably on the person’s psyche, on their psychology. And so rather than it necessarily, you know, our focus is not necessarily on the prediction of events. It’s not that we don’t do that and it’s not that we don’t look at trends, but we look at it from I suppose the process of development. You know, what is going on in this person’s life? What is going on in the world out there that is impinging on them? And how might that relate, to their psyche. So I suppose the focus is more on people and it’s more on helping really, rather than helping them make a say a decision, do I buy this house or do I take this job or whatever. It’s more about them growing as a person.
That’s not a wishy washy way either, we tend to go quite deeply when we work long term with clients, helping them work through problems that they may have. Through complexes, in their life, through repetitions that they see in their life and they keep falling into the same pattern over and over again and helping, framing that in an astrological context, so this is a Venus square Saturn thing but then taking it into the psychology of, well, what does that mean? You know, what has been, what Venusian things have been denied by the fact that Saturn is square to it. How’s that manifested in their life, which might have come from circumstances, it may have come from treatment by their caregivers or parents or whatever, or relationships they have had and how can they work with those, how can they get Saturn and Venus to work together better basically to go forward and perhaps improve their relating styles and in how they are with people to feel more comfortable in themselves.
So the focus in is helping people become, I suppose, the best person they can be. Given the chart, which is there anyway, and it’s still sort of part of that, but we have a flexibility to it. It’s not set in stone. Yes, a Venus square Saturn will always be, Venus square Saturn. But by being aware of what it does in your life, I think you can make certain judgments, you can make certain changes in your approach to life that can make that work. You can work alongside it rather than fighting it all the time or falling into the traps, of them.
CB: Sure. So using astrology as a tool for self development and growth rather than just strictly as a predictive or divinatory tool for making statements about the future.
JG: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I mean, one of the broader context, I think whenever people work as astrologers, in an awful lot of cases, it is psychological astrology. You may not name it as that, but as soon as you’re sitting there with a client, whether you’re giving them advice on something they’re doing or on a relationship or telling them something that may be coming up, you’re interacting with another person, there’s a psychological connection between the astrologer and the client.
And so I think it’s important that we don’t ignore that whatever work, astrological work that we do, we can’t be blasé and just go, well, I’m just telling you what the stars say or I’m just telling you what the astrology says. It’s important to, to think, well how does, how might that affect that person? What are they like inside? And sometimes by giving them information, you know, are they going to blindly follow that or is it going to cause them difficulties in other areas of their life. So it’s looking at in a more, I hate the word holistic because it always brings up the sort of images of, you know, perhaps being a bit airy-fairy, but it, you know, it’s this, you know, treating everything together and making sure that we are being careful as astrologers and taking responsibility.
CB: Yeah, that’s really brilliant. And something that probably was missing from the tradition up until that point is considering how the astrologer, what the astrologer says will impact the client. And maybe just because you can say something doesn’t mean that you should or that you should be careful how you say because of the impact it may have.
JG: Yes, I think that’s fine. And I think it’s one of the things that is perhaps come up, particularly of the last few decades as there’s been this wonderful wealth of translations and rediscovery of old techniques and it’s very easy to get lost in those, and go, well, isn’t this marvelous? This is what they did, these systems, that we hadn’t thought of before. And techniques and you know, going into that and it’s brilliant and I’m really happy that we were building on this information, but we mustn’t lose sight in technique that we’re actually providing a service as an astrologer and we’re working with other human beings and it isn’t, a closed box, that they have emotions, they have feelings, they have instincts and so on that we need to take into account, when we’re working with them.
CB: Right. So it’s not just a matter of just throwing it out and giving it to the client and saying it’s up to them how they deal with it, but being really cognizant of how you’re presenting that information.
JG: Yes, and knowing how to talk to a client, I mean, certainly MISPA, what we ask is that students have or are either undergoing therapy themselves or have done, in the recent past. Also that they have, undertaken at the very least a counseling skills course because it’s not just about being aware, well this might upset the client if I say that or whatever. It’s about being able to read a client, to listen to them, to hear what they’re not saying, but that’s going underneath. Whether that’s through, their body language or the things they don’t say as much as the things they do say. And I think, even just a small amount of training in counseling skills allows us to be better astrologers because we become aware of how we affect them.
The fact that it’s an interactive process, the fact that they will put things on us, you know, I mean psychological terms, that it’s transference and then you have countertransference going back. But in simple terms, it’s about us being aware that because we are telling them stuff and they’re like, well, how does this person know this about my life? They may see us as, you know, an authority as a guru or a wizard or whatever. Oh, even, in a parental role, this type of thing. And so you get that transference from them and it will bring in stuff from their background, how they’d been treated by authority in the past. What was their relationship like with those figures? And so, you know that’s coming into the room, whether you like it or not as an astrologer and you may not want that, but you can’t avoid it, because that’s how they see it.
If you’re sitting there, as we probably get quite used to doing, which is, to describe, even if we’re just describing the personality, telling them about things in the past. To them that’s a revelation because we haven’t met them, we don’t know them. How does this person know that? And immediately you’ve been elevated. So that’s putting something on you, now. So they may see, father or mother role or whatever. Well, depending on their relationship with their father or mother or people in that position, that may not just be, well, isn’t this wonderful, this person’s authority. It may be, dad didn’t love me enough or he never respected me or mum didn’t do this. And so that then gets put alongside it unconsciously of course, but it’s there in the room. And so we need to be prepared and be able to notice that and gently put it back to them.
And also be aware of, if they are treating us like that, how we made them respond, how do we respond when we put in that thing? If someone sees us as an authority figure, do we get inflated? Do we get anxious because we don’t want to be put in that position, and then we’re putting that back on them. So, it’s an important process to understand and it doesn’t matter what type of astrology you are doing. I think it’s something that, an awareness, or an understanding of how to work with is important.
CB: Yeah. Just, because it puts a tremendous amount of power in the astrologers hands, but being able to be sure that, especially new students of astrology know how to use that wisely and in a way that’s helpful or healing to the client and not the opposite.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve found it very encouraging actually the last few years where I’ve been to, I went to UWAC and did the SOTA conference in Buffalo and so I know was speaking to a lot of younger astrologers of younger than I necessarily get. And a lot of them had trained, perhaps on your calls or they’re working with, traditional techniques, Hellenistic techniques, etc. When I explained what I did, I was really happy with the openness to it, that it wasn’t, I think sometimes we get to see these things online or Twitter arguments or what, and it’s very easy to think that there’s this big battle going on, between traditional and there doesn’t need to be, and I mean, you did the talk at the AA conference just the weekend past.
We’re talking about, a renaissance, finding, translating out texts, bringing new information and then a resynthesis of what had been going on before. And I think that’s what we have coming. And I noticed this, when you actually go out and talk to people and I’d explain what I did and they’d say, well, I think that would be useful to me. And I think it’s great because we’ve got a whole generation who have learnt very in depth techniques, techniques that perhaps students 20, 30 years ago weren’t learning. So they’ve got this big armory of tools they can use, but they’re now looking, well, how do I use that with a client? How can I approach that? And realizing that, once you finished the study and you then sitting in a room with someone that suddenly things change, and you can be very sure of, yeah, I think this is this and that’s going to mean that and whatever.
But then when you’re presented one on one with a person and they’re questioning you or asking things, it’s very easy to suddenly feel in that awkward position of like, Oh, this is a lot of responsibility and that, and so I think, people are now seeing that. And so a very open to this synthesis, you know, of, well, I want to use these techniques, but maybe there’s stuff we can also learn from the psychological and astrology that’s been running, recently. And we can bring that together and find ways of absolutely serving our clients by using the best techniques that we have at our disposal. And also techniques to make sure that they are okay and that we’re looking after them on a, you know, on a psychological level as well as just an astrological level.
CB: Yeah. I mean, you’re not gonna find counseling skills in a second century text, whereas, a circle of modern astrologers have been doing astrology and integrating it with counseling for several decades now for entire careers. And there’s a lot of important, accumulated wisdom coming from that, no matter what tradition or approach you’re using seems important and vital to integrate.
JG: Yeah, and I think that’s probably the way forward. I mean I think I don’t, it is hard to see exactly how it will go, but I can see that, certainly, I’m enjoying bringing in some more traditional thoughts and stuff into our psychological school and starting to embrace some of those and also, sort of investigate them and see, well, how can we apply this in a psychological context? Then, say for people that absolutely want to work traditionally, I think it is important to bring in this idea, that we are working as counselors, priests, in that role of someone supporting and guiding someone. And so, yeah, I think how the synthesis will go is that, you know, people won’t see such a disparity between it and they’ll start to see that yes, there’s a way forward which can use the best of both worlds. They’re not antithetical to one another. They actually can work alongside quite well.
CB: Sure, so if the goal, it sounds like one of the things is that, the underlying goal is making sure that astrology is helpful in healing. What are some of the things though then that could be problematic to avoid? We’ve talked about like transference and I’m trying to think of other things that are important for astrologers to be aware of or dynamics that come up in consultations that could be problematic.
JG: I mean, I think there are all sorts of trigger points. I mean, certainly when I teach, when we look at a consultation, as well as looking at perhaps the consultation chart, obviously the client’s chart transits progressions and you know, whatever techniques we want to bring in, I will always do as synastry chart between the client and the astrologer.
CB: Okay
JG: I think it’s important in several ways. One is to check where all their planets may be touching trigger points in our chart and vice versa. So, if they have a very complicated, I don’t know, Moon Pluto Saturn arrangement in their chart or whatever, which is going to be something you’re going to be talking about something important, does that touch one of our planets? Are we setting it off?
Are we being Saturn Conjunct? Are we being Saturnian towards that? Are we being, is it our Moon? Is it our Mars or whatever? And to think about, well, how might that approach be coming across? Is that going to be something that helpful to them? Or, perhaps if we’re not careful, we’re going to go in with a Mars approach and just go, what is this, this and this, and scare the hell out of them, and take that approach. So that’s one thing. Also vice versa, what’s coming back from them. So that if we have one of those are they touching that and so inadvertently may start bringing up things in us that’s going to affect how we feel about them, are we gonna get on with this client, are we’re going to feel comfortable with them?
Or is it perhaps going to be hard work or we’re gonna feel perhaps, worried that we’re not good enough and all of this type of thing. And it helps to prepare for that and be aware of it. And I also look, just for very simple things like the communication between it, even if it’s elemental balances, that type of thing, what their Mercury, how their Mercury works, this type of thing compared to ours. So how do they take in information and obviously we can see that in the chart, but is it a predominantly visual based thing? Is it something based on feelings, is it based on logic and they want to follow a process. So, I think we can then look at that and go, right, well this is how I should amend my communication techniques to make sure they get the most out of it.
CB: So you will adjust or adapt your approach based on the client?
Yeah, yeah. I think it’s a useful thing. I mean I have Mercury in Aries. So it’s very easy for me to sort of go in there and go, well I think this, this and this and approach it sort of in a very direct manner and almost try and give the client a bit of a kick to go where you need to get going on this. Often that works really well. I attract clients that perhaps ready for that bit of a boost. But you have to be careful that that’s not an approach that, may feel intimidating to them or put them on the spot or make them feel they should be doing something when actually obviously it’s always their decision, what they do next. So you may adapt that to put in a more feeling based mode of how do you feel about that and sort of reflecting through it with them and getting them to work with it. So that’s certainly something I would look at beforehand.
CB: So one of the things that I’ve noticed, with the revival of traditional astrology and older forms of astrology recently is that it seems like it’s making me a little nervous, frankly, is that some new students of astrology are starting with traditional astrology. And with that technical approach right from the start, which in some sense I think is good and it gives them a nice technical basis for astrology. But one of the unintended side effects is they’re then skipping over some of the counseling techniques and the background psychology for astrologers that people like myself take for granted already since that’s what we started with first. And that there might be something vital and important about that, that shouldn’t be skipped over in one’s early studies?
JG: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s, I mean obviously it’s easy to, you know, to sort of say, well this might be a good pathway to follow. But I remember one of the Demetra’s books, she sort of mentioned the idea that perhaps it’s a useful idea, to study a more modern astrology, you know, with the psychological bent first and it allows you to understand your role and what you’re doing. And also perhaps it initially it can be a little bit simpler to learn because you’re not crowding as many techniques. And then obviously once you’ve got that salt, that basis and that understanding, I mean, you’ve then got a lifetime to delve into all the areas that you would like, and build up the tools that you would like to do so you can learn different techniques and follow your interests into areas of astrology that work well.
And I would agree that, yeah, as you said that, I know your path was sort of learning modern and then developing into that. And I think that can be a good, I’m certainly enjoying the sort of freedom that I have now, I can just delve into a technique, learn about it and say, okay, is that helpful to what I do as an astrologer? Is it something I want to bring in or is it just something I’ll learn, it’d be interesting. And it may not become part of my day to day usage. And so I think that can be a useful way of way of learning astrology. As you say, it’s very easy, I think to dive into those techniques and get absolutely fascinated or you can do this and working out and you’re working out all the time-lord stuff and profections for the year, all of those techniques.
JG: And then it can be easy to get lost of, well, where do I go with this and how do I feed it into a sort of one-to-one reading without it being a list of this, this and this.
CB: Right.
JG: So, I mean, certainly one of the things I tell my students is that actually less is more with an actual consultation. In that, when we get carried away with a lot of techniques and/or when we spend, you know, weeks and weeks preparing for a client, writing notes or whatever, I always say to them, well, that’s fine, but be prepared to not touch, more than about 10% of that when you’re actually in the room with them.
CB: Right.
JG: Because you know, the important thing is one, what is the, what does that person need right now? Is it any help for them to know that, this is something to do with their Venus when they’re actually worried about a work situation or whatever.
CB: Right.
JG: What is relevant for them right now? And also how much can they take in, you know, we’re familiar with this language and we’re talking about it in that way and yet, you know, for them it sounding like a huge amount of information at once and really hard to deal with and know what to do with it.
CB: Yeah. The client, the use of language on the part of the astrologer and, and how that sounds to a client. I know that that’s been a major topic of discussion and focus, in the psychological astrological community over the past few decades.
JG: I mean, it’s something we always look at and I think it’s important not to get rid of astrological jargon, because we need that jargon to show people we are following rules. You know, we’re working this out. So I like to present them with the chart. And even if they don’t understand, I like to say, okay, so you know, your Venus is here, it’s square to Mars, this is what they do. But to ground it in the astrological language and whatever language you want to use. But to sort of point out that it’s a chart you’re following, because I think the danger, if we skip the jargon altogether, we come across as, as a medium, we’re just knowing this stuff out of thin air. If that’s your particular approach, it’s one thing. But I think in general with astrologers, we want to show that, it is techniques and ancient techniques that we are following and working with, that we want the client to understand. So I think that’s an important thing. But yes, it’s also not about not overwhelming them, too much, you know, do they really need to know the sect, that it’s in detriment or whatever, sometimes that may not be useful to them. It’s great for you to know and to build your interpretation. But I think, keeping it slightly simpler will probably work better for them.
CB: Right. Or even the issue of using what can come off as, as scary language to the client. Like there was a lot of discussion in the sixties and seventies about the terms benefit and malefic for example, and their appropriateness in a, in a consulting setting.
JG: Yeah and I mean, sometimes it can sound, we use it’s a challenging thing or it’s a growth thing, you know, and sometimes these words can sound almost a little bit too trite or whatever. I think there’s a balance to be found. I don’t think there’s a problem saying, well actually, this can be a little bit difficult for your Mars, but then explaining to them how that might feel. And I think that’s the important thing is translating it to how it actually manifests in their life. Being told you have a malefic in a sign of its detriment is quite intense language for somebody to say, and isn’t really that helpful. Whereas explaining what the outcomes of that might be, so how that Mars doesn’t fulfill its task or, or leads them astray or whatever you think it does, that’s a far more helpful approach.
And then also I think an explanation of why that is and how they can work with that, rather than, the danger I think, when we use language like that is them feeling, well this is fated, this is set in stone. I can’t escape this. And I think maybe not all, but most of us think, well there are at least, there are ways you can work better with this. There are ways that you can, see it as a tool rather than a constant reverser to what you’re trying to do in your life. And so that use of language I think is important and it’s, it’s always a dialogue worth having. And I think it’s something that will probably change over and over again. I think there was a danger, from the psychological side of it getting almost too easy. If everything is to do with growth, well it might be a challenge, it may be doesn’t appreciate how hard the client might be struggling with this.
CB: Sure.
JG: Certainly, the idea of a difficult transit or whatever you’re trying to explain, just talking about the meaning of it, well this is good for growth and you’ll look back on this and see this is a period that’s no good to a person if they’re going through crap.
CB: Sure.
JG: I think that I would see also as psychological, which is empathizing with that client of like, yeah, this is awful. This is a horrible thing to be going through. You may look back in the future, but right now this is how it feels.
And maybe be able to give them a few techniques, psychological techniques or tips that can help them cope with it, whether that’s mindfulness or distraction even, for this time that they’re doing it.
I think that’s, that’s the discussion to have, and this is the sort of thing that I think needs to be taught in all courses. I think there is room for how we work with a client in every course. And it shouldn’t just be business approach, this is how you can make money out of it. Or a technical approach of what you do. Maybe an order that you want to look through a chart and help like that. But it should also be a thing in every course. This is how you work when there’s a real person sitting there who might get upset, who might cry while you’re talking to them, which if you’re not used to that, that will really throw you the first time it happens. And it’s not that uncommon if you’re touching on things that are very important.
CB: Yeah. It sounds like one of the things you’re getting to that’s really here is the focus
on not talking necessarily, even though you might list scenarios or possibilities of like a transit that’s coming up, talking more about how the person will feel during that time and how such a transit might affect them emotionally as being the most important underlying thing rather than focusing on trying to predict the specific manifestation.
JG: Yeah. Yeah, I mean that is certainly the angle we come from, if you like, and is it helpful to pin down what it will manifest in this way? That would be wrong because we’ve slightly, you know we’ve related the, or responded to, something that perhaps hasn’t manifested or, is it more helpful to go, cause this is a long transit, a Pluto transit and this is what many people experienced during it and help them with that, not to scare them because they probably come to see you when it’s already started. Not to scare them, but to say, okay, I understand you’re probably feeling like this right now. And you reflect and you wait to listen to what they have to say and explain what the process is.
Explain how you can work with the Pluto transit, work with theSaturn transit, and be totally honest. We’ll know it’s often quite hard for people, but this is the best way to approach it and to get something out of it rather than, you know, be huddled in a corner going, when’s this going to end? And so that’s what I think is important. Again, it comes back to listening to what they have to say as well, validate their experience of it. I mean, I’m often, people are surprised, if I’ve done a consultation with them when they listened back to the audio, they’re like, well, I spoke so much and I’m happy with that, it shouldn’t be an hour, hour and a half of me just talking at them, you know? It’s a dialogue and that’s why I always use the word consultation rather than reading.
I want to engage with them. I want to know how it’s working for them, and explain, how they can then perhaps work with that and what it means in the greater context of their whole life. And so I need to hear what they have to say. I need to be listening to them and making sure that I understand what they’re saying as well. So yes, clients will talk for an awful lot, in my consultations. But I see that as you wouldn’t expect to go to see a doctor and walk in the room and just stand there and go, what’s wrong with me? There’s gotta be that dialogue like, well, okay, I can look at the trends. Okay, it seems like you’re going through this, imagine it feels like this, but you need them to go, yes, that is how it’s manifesting in my life, or not. And so that’s the thing, it’s that dialogue between, and so I always make sure my clients know before they come, that that’s what I’m going to do.
CB: Right. That this is a dialogue, not a lecture.
JG: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, mind you, a lecture is no help to you. You know, we’ve all been to lectures and sometimes we will take some of that stuff in, but it’s only going to push us in a certain way or feel uncomfortable or even just not quite feel…Well, that’s not quite what I’m experiencing, you know? I understand what you’re saying, but it’s not quite how I am. Well, they need that opportunity to go, well, I’m feeling it like this. And then you can look at the chart and go I see now and maybe that’s bringing that in as well. It’s bringing in that Mars aspect and it may be a bit wide, but maybe that is how it works in their life.
CB: So, the dialogue helps you to focus in and narrow in on things and maybe even clarify things so that you can have a sharper, discussion and interpretation of the things that are relevant to them.
JG: Yeah, to make it about them. It’s not about me showing them how much I know about astrology, that’s hopeless to them. It’s about them and how they feel. And so, I think, I mean, that’s the way I liked to work with people and it, and I, and I think it probably allows the best results. It’s one of those things. I think when we’re, when we’ve just finished studying, we can be quite nervous about what we know, what we don’t know. We’re not used to preparing a chart and this type of thing. It can be very easy to be overwhelmed and think, I’ve got to impress this person. I’ve got to show them how much, I’ve got to just launch into a whole diatribe, if you like about, this is what I know. So they’ll go, oh wow. It isn’t about the astrologer, isn’t about you as that person. It’s about them.
CB: There’s something kind of like egoic, I don’t know if that’s the right term for that, tendency that sometimes astrologers have, especially in newer students. And what’s important about your saying is just needing to reorient that away from yourself and your anxiety or what have you to them and what they actually need at that moment.
JG: Yeah, I think, I’m not criticized and I think we all go through that thing of that there’s that need. We’re worried, we want them to like us, we want them to go, yes, you’re absolutely right. You know, we need that feedback in order to feel that what we’ve learnt hasn’t been in vain. So, I’m not knocking that. It’s just about becoming aware of that and, and you know, realizing that actually you’re really not that important in the process. You are sowing seeds if you like, ideas of this may be what you’re feeling and allowing them to work with that and to come back to you with their experience too, so then you can go deeper. I mean, here is one of the criticisms often of psychological astrology is that we use really big orbs, not just in a natal chart, we use them for transit or whatever. And most people say, how can you use a 10 degree or for a Pluto Transit?
CB: Okay, so 10 degrees, that’s considered really big?
JG: I’ve certainly been criticized in the past. Okay. If we’re using, orbs that big, now I appreciate you look back at some of the traditional ones, and it’s when it enters the sign, you know? And so I think we’re starting to, to revise that through our studies. But the way I’ve always thought, psychologically you think of a big change in your life, we’d say Pluto transits the sun is right, that doesn’t happen overnight. Yeah, you feel a shift in things coming years before, you’re starting to change you’re not sure. I’m not sure I want to do that anymore. I’m not sure I like that anymore.
Or I’m not sure uncomfortable with this relationship anymore. And it builds up and builds up and then maybe a couple of things happen when it’s closer and then it moves away. Well, it doesn’t finish when it moves away, it’s still there. Often that’s the process where you’re working through and saying, oh, now I see, because you’ve made that change in your life. And then you’re then coming to terms with that and seeing how you’ve changed as a person. So from those first feelings, that sound of drums in the distance to going, oh yeah, no, I’ve really changed over, and you look back and yeah, that’s when I changed. That’s the process of that whole period.
CB: Right. Because sometimes while there can occasionally be like an event around the exact degree, let’s say for the sake of argument, often times you’re looking at it more from the standpoint of a developmental process, which is usually a much longer term sequence of events.
JG:Yeah, absolutely. Yes, as you say, there may be, an event or two along the way or a push of something, maybe I’d know you leave a partner or you decide to move and those add into it. But that’s not the process. It’s not about that moment in time that you, that something happens to you or you do that. I mean a simple thing, an accident. Well, yeah, the accident is that moment, but your behavior up to that may have helped cause the accident and how you then adapt to what happened in the accident comes after. So it’s still that period of a process, isn’t it? So that’s the way to look at it. But as you say, it used to be a criticism, psychological astrology uses a vast orb but I think it is shifting.
CB: Yeah, I love that the traditional take astrologers will now take that criticism now.
And you guys are kind of off the hook a little bit.
JG: Exactly. No, I know. I agree with you and I was pleased, looking through some of the older texts are going well, yeah, yeah they, they recognize that this isn’t a, it’s not all about what is happening, this is here. Again, that it’s a long term thing.
CB: Right. And that’s actually a really great, from a technical standpoint, I almost want to say one of the greatest technical innovations of late 20th century psychological astrology is to look at transits as cycles of development and looking at most things as cycles of development. So that looking at like the Saturn return and looking at that within the context of the entire Saturn cycle and the important turning points during the course of it as well as other long term cycles, like Uranus squares and opposition and things like that. That’s very important. I would assume to your work, at least in terms of transit analysis?
JG: Absolutely. Yeah. You know, we’re looking at, that idea of that something starts at that conjunction point, so it was like, birth and then, the next Saturn return. If we take Saturn as an example and then you’re looking at those big points along it and seeing it as a process going through. So, something is started at that Saturn return, if you like. It’s usually, in Saturn, it’s usually a checkpoint. Am I happy with where things are?
Do I feel that I’ve achieved something or am I beating myself up for having failed totally at what I planned, or thought I had in my head to do. And then you’ve got these checkpoints. You may feel comfortable with the sextiles and trines that you’re working at something and that you decided on, but then at the squares and oppositions, you’re getting those challenges or someone’s blocking you or you’re blocking yourself, like feeling doubts or worrying that you’ve done the wrong thing and this type.
And so seeing that as a whole process, looking back on that point, well, what happened last time this happened? Looking back in those periods of seven years ago for the last square or you know, 29 years ago for the last time it was there, this type of thing. So it’s a constant, checking through and working with that. And I mean, I like working with the cycles because they’re constants in people’s life, like for everybody. So they’re very useful tools for students because, whereas transits will happen depending on where that person’s planets are, you get very used to seeing clients coming around their Saturn return or around Uranus opposition, the Neptune square, things like that.
These are big points in people’s lives. I think that it’s interesting and it’s useful when you are just starting out working with the clients to recognize those and people find incredibly helpful just to go, you’re not alone in this, everyone of your age is going through this and you’ve probably got friends if you’re still in touch with people of your same age, that have done this, that are happy because they’ve achieved something or suffering depression because they feel like their lives are a mess.
And the 30s coming up and all of that type of thing. And the same with the mid-forty ones, even just telling people that they’re not alone and explaining the process can be incredibly helpful to people. And they don’t necessarily need to know all the ins and outs of what might happen, but just going, oh, that’s good. I thought it was just me.
CB: Right. And that in of itself, when you go through and talk about a person’s past and you use the past to predict and anticipate the future becomes like a technical approach, but also that becomes your way of demonstrating the astrology is working in a way that’s a little bit safer by showing them how it’s worked out in their past rather than just making a prediction that’s unverifiable in the present about their future.
JG: Absolutely. I mean, it’s useful to say, what were you doing seven years ago? What was happening there? And then you can say, well, that was the opposition. You’re now square. Can you see similar themes cropping up? One, yes, you’re validating astrology for them because again, but two, you’re giving them something helpful. And I mean, when it is a difficult transit, was when you might struggle with, like I said, it’s useful to be able to look back and go, yeah, that was tough, but I got through it, it worked out okay. For all of us, that can be a useful thing. Just to know I’ve come through the other side. It’s like if you, if you suffer from depression or something like that, knowing that you’ve been through it before and come out and had, you know, a period of years where you felt fine again and maybe you slipped into depression again, but at least, when I did it before, it takes time, but then you see the light at the end of the tunnel when you do come out.
And I think, things like that are helpful for people. They are not particularly, they may be based in astrology, but just knowing the way people work, knowing how people’s psychology works is helpful in our work with them. You’re not saying, well this transit will be over. But helping them with the psychological process of it.
CB:Yeah. There’s something reassuring about that, in a sense
JG: I think, people find reassurance that they’ve done something before. It’s like stupid example. You may be frightened about doing a bungee jump, but once you’ve done a bungee jump, you survived and you either enjoyed it or you didn’t. So the next time you do it, you might be standing there still very frightened, but it was fine before. Off you go. Yeah. I think it’s just part of how we work as people.
CB: That’s a great analogy. I’m trying to think of which transits I might liken to a bungee jump maybe a Saturn transit or Uranus transit.
JG: Probably a Uranus transit.
CB: In terms of modern psychology, one of the contributions of course was the work of Freud and that contributed a lot in terms of discussions of psychology. And some of that’s still used to some extent today and some of it’s not as much. One of the criticisms I think that we’ve talked about that sometimes other astrologers or other traditions level at psychological astrology, is there being too much focus on, on the parents, or dynamics within the family as something that’s great focus in that approach?
JG:Yeah, I mean I think it’s an interesting one. Obviously the Freudian approach, Oedipus complexes and Electra complexes and stuff like that, are very much that sort of focus on, almost comes down to the it’s all the fault of the parents, whilst certainly we look at the family dynamics within psychological astrology because it is important without within our relationships, you know, we learn how to relate or how not to relate, from that very early stage purely with our interactions with family. And it’s not just mom or dad, it’s siblings, aunts, uncles, neighbors, all of that type of thing. It’s brought in.
CB: Maybe we should just establish like that. That’s true. I mean that is an important, yeah. Like and was not necessarily a thing in astrology prior to the 20th century. While you cut, might identify things about the parents or siblings or family members, like talking about the effect of those relationships on the native psychology and their future life choices. That’s a huge and very important contribution we should establish in psychological astrology.
JG: Yeah, I mean, as I said, I think there’s a balance if you like and I think one of the criticisms and not just psychological, but all of psychology is this idea of blaming, blaming the parents and so therefore, sort of escaping any blame yourself, but you know, it’ll all be the fault of your parents. I mean, you’ve got the poem, they fuck you up, your mom and dad, which is the classic sort of thing. And it’s passed on from generation to generation. But you know, the way we tend to approach is that this is an image of mom, dad and siblings. And it isn’t just, it’s not just what they did. It’s not about them. The description in the chart is not just saying, well this is what they were like, but how your perception of them was.
CB: Okay.
JG: Because we all work with, throughout filters of perception. And we filter things through our chart as we do as astrologers as well. And so therefore, you know that it may be that the needs of the client sitting in front of you, maybe you see they’ve got a, I don’t know, a Moon in Cancer square Uranus for example. And so it could be that they saw mum as that Moon and so being clingy and wanting to hold them and keep them in the family and then they feel that the Uranus part of the square and it’s like this is too much. I feel stifled. Mom was stifling, she was oppressive and this type of thing, or it can work the other way, which is that mum’s doing the Uranian thing and going, you cope, you get on with that. I’m doing my own thing.
The client is sitting there with the Cancer Moon going, but actually I need some contact here and you’re not giving me enough contact that I wanted. That’s not a blame or anything. It’s not that it’s a bad mother or you know, whatever. It’s just that there was a disconnect between the needs of the person and how their parents worked with that. And I think that, that’s an important way to work with it.
Of not well this is what your mom did, bad mother, you’re blameless. But to talk about the expectations of the client from the structure of their chart, what are they looking for because that’s gonna carry through when they start dating, or having relationships, I’m sorry, having work relationships, etc. All of those patterns are going to pop up again and those expectations will be there. So the father abandoned you, becomes the boss that never helps you and you’re carrying or the responsibility or the partner that also always seems to abandon you.
And it’s important to address, the client is part and parcel. You can’t take it out and it’s not a blame game. But yes, all those early relationships are very, very important. And I mean, one of the things that I’ve sort of been working with more and more, you know, is the idea of narrative. The stories that we tell ourselves. Whilst say, Freud analysis, Jungian analysis spends an awful lot of time sitting perhaps going through all these polished patterns and talking about, the things that, perhaps one of the more modern techniques. How can we rewrite things? It’s just not modern cause the Stoics did it. But that that idea of taking it from a different perspective and, and what is in your control and what isn’t. But did that, the idea of narrative is, well here is the story and it is a story.
The story of your life is not the truth. You all tell it one version. You’ve been told stuff by, your aunts, your uncles, your parents, what you were like as a child and you take that for Gospel, you were a naughty child or you are such an angel as a child. And you take that and go, well I must’ve been that. I don’t remember that. And that becomes part of your story. And we build it up over time, what teachers say to us, what partners say to us. What we’re telling ourselves is their own internal dialogue. And you can see those patterns within the chart. This is likely to be the story they tell themselves. And so therefore working with that, allows you to go, well hang on a minute, maybe this needs reframing.
Maybe we can tell a different story. And it’s amazing how just a shift of focus within that idea of how you view yourself. Rather than being the victim, how can we rewrite that story? And now we know it’s not overnight and it takes time and it takes working with a counselor to do that. But you know, to change that. And as astrologers, I think we can work with that quite well because we’ve got those archetypal planetary patterns within the chart. We know what Saturn is likely to crop up in it as a story, as you know, we know what Mars will turn up as we know what the moon might be. And so you can, you can look at those and go, well, okay, how might that work differently? If they actually had a conversation or they actually tried to compromise a bit, and you can get the client to work with a different idea.
As I said, it’s not a magic fix for things. It’s something that takes time. But I think it is a useful adjunct. I see how role is an astrologer often is a storyteller. We’re colluding with them in their story, but we also have that, I think ability as a sort of narrator of their story to say, well, hey, could you look at that differently? Is there another way of, of that story ending or being, and I think that can be very useful. And so that’s what I’m talking about. We mustn’t stand still on the psychology of things, it’s worth bringing in new ideas, new ways. Psychologists as a separate thing are working at, it’s one of those things it’s very easy for, if you study a subject inherently it’s very easy to get locked into that bit of it.
So I study Hellenistic astrology, so I’m just going to read the books on that. It happens in Science you know, biologists read biology books, they don’t necessarily read physics stuff.
CB:Right.
JG: So it can be hard too, when you have these crossovers, and I think it’s important that we’re all open to what’s going on everywhere, so changes in the world, whether it’s in AI, whether it’s in robotics, are going to affect all of us and they’re going to affect us as astrologers. They can affect people, as psychologists. That kind of effect, jobs, so many fields of life that it’s important. I think that we don’t just focus our attention on well, this is what interests me and it’s just that, that we read widely. And so that’s why I encourage my students.
Yeah, you’ve got to read traditional text as well as the psychological text. But you should also be reading psychology journals and look at astrological ones but, but don’t lose sight of what’s happening in the world or what films are coming out or what popular culture is doing it. I think it all feeds in and it’s important and I think as astrologers, that’s part of our role. We need to be able to take an overview of everything and yes, we’re framing it with what’s going on in the sky, but within that, those charts and what’s going on. Now we have that understanding of, well this is probably going to be a trend. This is probably going to be what the next films are about. And this type of thing. So we were uniquely placed, I think better than a lot of other professions to do that. So I think we should embrace that role and make sure that we fit in that as sort of, citizens of everything or people that are interested in everything and not just narrow everything down.
CB: Yeah. Plus it’s such a broad field that it’s too much for any one person to master in a single lifetime. So the only way around that is to talk with and network with practitioners from other specialty areas that might have spent a lifetime focusing on something that you just can’t get that deep into, but you can still learn from some of the nicer things that they’ve discovered.
JG: Absolutely. I think that’s what’s so beautiful about what’s happening in astrology at the moment is that, you know, I think we’re at a good point in time where we have experts in so many different fields of it that yeah, it’s just about networking and talking and seeing what is of use to you, but also appreciating what others are doing as being useful to the practice as a whole.
CB: Sure. So there are two points really quickly as we start to get towards the end of this that I just wanted to bring up, maybe you could circle back to. One of them is, I loved how you talked about how the perception of different family members, especially the parents on the part of the native or the individual may not necessarily reflect how that person is objectively or to other observers and the important way in which the birth chart can sometimes color or at least show how the native’s perception of those individuals in their life is colored in different ways.
Then, the other, the second one further back was just, there was a statement you were making about describing instead of the concrete specifics or trying to predict the concrete specifics instead of how the person might feel emotionally during a transit. And it almost seemed like, what is happening there then, is it’s getting closer to describing the archetype in some sense, which might itself not be something you can articulate, but describing the emotion is probably a lot closer to describing the archetype than attempting to describe the many different possible concrete manifestations.
JG: Yeah. Okay. Let’s go back to the, I think the idea of the perception there, I mean, if you take a very simple example, if you have brothers or sisters most likely, their Moon aspects, their Sun aspects or whatever you used as denote mom or dad house cusp, are gonna be in different signs and make different aspects. And if you talk to a sibling, I know I have a very different view of my dad than my sister did and it’s like, well, therefore, which is true?
CB: Right.
JG: And we’re back to this narrative again as well, but which is true and the answer is well they both are, but it’s just that, my sister’s set of patterns in her chart says, okay, you adored dad when you were little and then as you got older, you found him difficult. You found him obstructing you and this type of thing and it’s shifted, whereas mine was perhaps more constant throughout my life and it wasn’t necessarily a close relationship, but it was, it was fine. It was easy. We got on, there wasn’t any specific big problems. And so, you can look at that within chart and reply is always interesting to compare charts to family members and talk with sets of people in a family. But I think immediately that shows well that, those characteristics naturally are not, therefore just describing what dad was like, what mom was like,
CB: Right. There’s this interesting sort of like relativism to it. Then that’s almost inherent in astrology.
JG: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think it’s quite fascinating and it is that thing. It can be interesting if you’re working with someone over a period of time to say, if you can get permission from their brother or sister to look at their chart as well and as well how did they see your mum?
CB: Right.
JG: What was different, and bring out the relationship between the siblings. Was there jealousy there because mom seemed to prefer this one over the, over that one, and you can unlock these family patterns and said, it’s not about getting hung up on that family pattern, but it’s then relating that idea of, well if you’re jealous of your sister, how does that relate to your female friends? Or at least ones that remind you a bit of your sister or work colleagues, et Cetera. And then I’m picking those. It can really help that person go.
Actually you know what, Julie at work isn’t that bad. She just reminds me of my sister, but she’s not really like that.And it’s all, again, the projections that we’re putting onto people and suddenly your life at work is much easier because you’re not worried about what Judy from accounts is saying about you every day.
CB: Right. Yeah. So that seems really important as an aspect of things. And we were getting into that discussion because you brought up earlier before we recorded, just that you felt like sometimes there was a criticism that psychological astrology was too focused on, on family or parent, parental dynamics.
JG: Yeah, I think that, and again, it depends on the people, but I think it’s been a, criticism of psychology itself, as well. It’s all about going back into your past and looking at that,
CB: Sure.
JG: But as you said, it’s about not losing sight. Yes, that is incredibly important within relationships. But also, you know, we’re not just focusing on that, but we’re turning it back to the client and going, well, how do you feed into this? What are you expecting from life? And it’s one of the interesting, to sort of lead into the second part, you look at say, parental significators in the chart that had outer planet, or even some of the, Jupiter Saturn as well.
CB: But there’s an archetypal thing to mum and dad because you know, it’s not just about your mom and dad. It’s about your perception of what the archetype of mum and dad is. And then following from there whether your real mom and dad actually managed to fit into that. And the chances are that, if you do have that perhaps when they were little, yes, they did play that role. But then as you get older, you realized that, well actually they’ve become humans and they are no longer that.
They’re no longer, dad isn’t Saturn or mum isn’t Pluto. But that archetypal thing can linger over it. So that, even though we’ve perhaps recognized mum as human, it still hangs over a bit in relationships or it can be that as can be the case as with an absent parent, maybe a parent dies or a parent leaves, if you have say a Sun, Neptune that sees the father as being this sort of all embracing, you know, Neptunian figure and there’s no real dad to bounce that off of and to sort of correct that and have it come back down to earth, then the chances are when you go into a relationship, when you’re still looking for this goal and not a real person.
And so bringing stuff like that and sort of gently working with the client on that allows them to then if you like, come back down to earth and have more realistic expectations of what they want in a relationship and how that might work.
CB: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Then also as we’re getting towards the end of this, so that final point, just about how there’s something about describing the way a person experiences the emotions of a transit, especially a long term transit as being almost more archetypal than the specific manifestations, which can be so numerous that it’s sometimes very difficult to pick up on the specific one. Whereas you can articulate an emotion and that will cover such a range of ground that in some ways that’s more personal and is going to be more accurate than a specific manifestation.
JG: Absolutely. I mean, I think if you take something like a Neptune transit is gonna take a long time. I mean, it’s gonna depend on each individual client as to how well they cope with Neptune in their own chart. It’s not just for everybody, but that feeling of, of Neptune, if you’re not familiar with it, it can be very overwhelming. You can feel lost. You can suddenly find yourself wondering about the streets even though you know the area and go, well, where am I? Whilst yes, there could be an actual manifestation, your basement gets flooded, your something very that we can go, Oh yes, Neptune, something like that.
It’s actually not that important with regards to the person’s life. It’s the process of what is going through, what is Neptune about and how does that affect, you know, most people and therefore what might they be feeling and what might they need to be looking at in their life in order to come to an understanding with it and to work with it.
CB: Right. How is that affecting you internally? And therefore, how is that affecting your overall developmental process?
JG: Yeah. Yeah, and what’s it teaching you, what can you learn from this process if you’d like, yes, there may be good things happen. There may be bad things, can, if you take an action, you might absolutely fall in love with someone, but then it crumbles. You put them on a pedestal and they’re not the person who thought, there can be all these manifestations of it, but what is this process?
What are your dreams if you like, what are you holding close to yourself in a Neptunian sense and how might they have to be reassessed, what is important to sort of allow to drift away and boundaries broken down and what is important to, to still carry on with.
CB: Yeah. So maybe the difference between saying like with the Neptune seventh house or Venus transit, like you will fall in love with somebody and over idealize them and become disillusioned versus saying looking internally and saying perhaps there’s a tendency that you’re having during this time to put people on a pedestal. And that’s something that might be worth, acknowledging and looking into, in yourself as something that you haven’t fully worked out yet. But that might be time to at this time.
JG: Absolutely. I mean, cause I don’t think it helps, if you take that exact example, if I see them with it coming up, if I say to them, well you may fall in love but be careful around it, because they may not be what they seem.
CB: Right.
JG: That’s not help to them. Is it? Because as you know, probably all of us know when you fall in love, you don’t take notice of advice like that. I’m in love with her. This is an amazing person. So you’re never going to listen to it.You’re never going to hear it. And so to talk about the process and to maybe say, yeah, this may affect your romantic life or you know, whatever. And just subtly bring it in. But also to say, you know, maybe it is about, what you’re looking for.
Look at those expectations and to feed it back rather than, well, this could happen as an event that you then move on from. Well, has this happened to you before? Have you ever fallen in love then months later you’re like, oh, that person was terrible. It was the wrong person, you know? Do you think that might be partly within you? And then look at those prior relationships and look at perhaps parental relationships, where does that come from? And talk about how that might be worked with and how that might be part of this longer process of the Neptune transit. And I think that’s far more helpful to anyone than saying this could happen.
CB: Yeah. And acknowledging the parts of a person’s life that are, especially recurring events that are in some ways if their own creation, even if there are, that’s not everything. And there’s things that are outside of our control that there are sometimes things that we bring about in our lives, through the unconscious or just through not being aware, that those are dynamics that we’re manifesting and helping the client to identify them.
JG: Yeah, I mean, I think that that’s really important. I mean, I think we spoke about that when I talked about my synastry book with you on the podcast. But yes, that repeating patterns is such a huge part, I think of people’s lives and we all catch ourselves. Why is that happening again? Or why did I fall for the same type of person again or whatever. And it’s very easy to get into that fated way of thinking of like, oh this always happens rather than go, why?
Why does it always have and is there something I can do about it or is there something I haven’t understood about myself that could actually change that? And I mean that’s the lovely thing about doing this work, you know, is to be able to, to very gently presented to the person and sometimes see that realization that, oh actually maybe you know, the partner that leaves you isn’t always cause they’re a terrible person, but almost because actually there’s a part of you that needs a lot of freedom in relationships that you haven’t acknowledged yet. And that’s something you’ve got to work in, you know, and discuss with potential partners, okay, I need a lot of space. Do you need a lot of space too? And talk things through rather than it always happens to me, my life’s terrible.
CB: So it’s almost like that’s identifying if there’s a such thing as faith, that’s the faith is that tendency towards those predispositions. But then the focus becomes, um, actualizing your potential, your free will, if you want to call it that to, you know, potentially break out of some of those or at least negotiate them differently than you might if you weren’t paying attention.
JG: Yeah, I mean, I can’t remember the exact quote, but there’s the quote of what isn’t made conscious, appears to us as fate. That’s what happened, and so because it seems to always be happening where, oh, my life is fated and it’s an interesting one to play with, I mean, always an ongoing discussion with astrology about fate and free will, etc. But you know, I think it’s an important adjunct to that, are we creating our own fight by not becoming conscious of these things. And so I think that plays into it and it’s actually quite a nice way of working with a chart and that actually incorporates a little bit of both.
CB: Brilliant. Well that’s it, I think, I feel like that’s a really good stopping point. Where can people find out more information if they want to study with you or learn more about psychological astrology?
JG: Okay. Well our website’s called MISPA and the website is mercuryinternetschool.com.
CB: Okay. And then, you also have a personal, like a consulting site, right?
JG: Yes. I’m at psychologicalastrology.com
CB: It’s perfect. It’s easy to remember. And then finally you have written a book which we did an interview about previously. I can’t remember what episode it was, but you’ve written a book on Synastry?
JG: That’s right. Yeah. It’s called do you love me and available from the usual places.
CB: Okay, fine bookstores everywhere. Yeah. Okay. Brilliant. Well, thanks a lot for joining me today.
JG: Thank you so much, Chris. Enjoyed it.