The Birth of a New Discipline

This volume, the premier issue of the Archai journal, lays foundations for the academic discipline of archetypal cosmology, which has emerged from the confluence of a number of different fields: depth psychology, archetypal astrology, history, philosophy, cosmology, religious studies, comparative mythology, cultural studies, the arts, and the new-paradigm sciences. With contributions from Richard Tarnas, Stanislav Grof, Keiron Le Grice, and Rod O'Neal, this book provides an introduction to the theoretical basis of archetypal cosmology and its applications to cultural history, biography, and the arts.The articles address topics such as the historical context of archetypal cosmology, the nature and meaning of the planetary archetypes, their connections to the psychodynamics of the unconscious, and the new method of historical analysis called archetypal historiography. Also included, as examples of this kind of analysis, are a case study of the Puritan movement, an analysis of Bruce Springsteen's song lyrics, and an exploration of the Saturn-Neptune complex through the study of the lives and works of major cultural figures, including Blake, Coleridge, Freud, Wilde, Bergman, and Woolf.