The "revival" of Astrology in the 900s according to Eliade, Jünger and Santillana

The revival of the astrological discipline in the last century has aroused the attention of some of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century, who analyzed the phenomenon philosophically and from a mythical-traditional point of view: from Ernst Jünger to Mircea Eliade, up to the "Fatalism" by Giorgio de Santillana.


di Marco Maculotti

When Mircea eliade (1907 - 1986), in 1976, taking up a series of lectures and articles written over ten years, he published for the University of Chicago Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural Fashions (ed. it .: Occultism, witchcraft and cultural fashions. Essays on Comparative Religions), could not help noticing, in an essay entitled "The Occult and Modern Man", the renewed interest of the contemporary world in one of the most ancient esoteric disciplines in the history of humanity: astrology [1].

The book Le retour des astrologues, published in 1971 by some French psychologists and sociologists, allows the Romanian historian of religions to link the success of this Revival with the peculiarities of the historical era in which we are living: in this sense Eliade quotes Edgar Morin, in the opinion of which the attraction that young people feel for astrology "derives from the cultural crisis of bourgeois society", and in this regard it is significant that the peaks of this renewed interest "are not found in the countryside, among the farmers, or at the lowest levels of employment, but in the most densely populated urban centers and between White collars» [2]. It follows that Morin believes that, in youth culture, astrology is configured as "part of a new gnosis, which professes a revolutionary conception of the new era: the Age of Aquarius". Evola himself (1898 - 1974), on the other hand, he noted as a "not strange interpretation the fact that the present epoch is under the sign of Aquarius: the waters, in which everything returns to a fluid, shapeless state" [3].

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However, Eliade notes, the editors of Le retour des astrologues they failed to highlight what he defines la parareligious function of astrology, in his opinion absolutely central to better understand the reason for this comeback. This is how, addressing the reader, he attempts to define this metaphysical dimension and function of astrology [4]:

"...once you discover your relationship with the stars, you are no longer the anonymous individual described by Heidegger and Sartre, a stranger thrown into an absurd and meaningless world; you are no longer condemned to be free, as Sartre said; you are no longer an individual with limited freedom to your situation, conditioned by your historical moment. The horoscope reveals to you a new dignity, it shows you your intimate connection with the whole universe. And if it is true that your life is determined by the movement of the stars, it is also true that it is an exceptionally grandiose determination. Although you are ultimately a puppet moved by invisible strings and strings, you are still part of the celestial world. Furthermore, this cosmic predetermination of your existence is a mystery; it means that the universe moves according to a predetermined plan; that human life and history itself follow a plan and progress progressively towards a goal. A secret goal or beyond human understanding; a goal, which gives meaning to that cosmos which for the majority of scientists is the result of the blindness of chance […] This parareligious dimension of astrology is even placed by some above existing religions as it does not involve difficult theological questions; the existence of a personal or supra-personal God, the enigma of creation, the origin of evil; and so on. By following the directions of your horoscope, you feel in harmony with the universe and you are not plagued by abstruse, tragic or insoluble problems. At the same time you acknowledge, consciously or unconsciously, that a great, if incomprehensible, cosmic drama is taking place and that you are a part of it.... "

Although Mircea Eliade, after having posed the question in these terms, then goes on to analyze other "cultural fashions" of our time, two other texts that may come to our attention here come to our attention, and which perhaps at the time inspired the historian of the Romanian religions: we refer to An der Zeitmauer di Ernst Junger (published in 1959 and released in Italy with the title At the wall of time; and in particular to the chapter "Measurable Time and Time of Destiny: Reflections of a non-astrologer on astrology") and the collection of essays published in Italian as Ancient fate and modern fate (time title: Reflections on Men and Ideas, 1968) of George de Santillana, best known for the treatise on mythical-astronomical morphology entitled Hamlet's mill, co-authored with Hertha von Dechend.

It should be said immediately that also for Ernst Junger (1895 - 1998) the revival of astrology it is [§26], a "revolutionary premonitory sign", the indicator of a change destined to come: behind the renewed interest in the stars lies "the yearning to get out of the abstract time that imprisons man with a thousand bonds and oppresses him with an increasingly unchallenged dominion» [§13] [5]. This intuition, however, seems in turn to betray a conceptual influence of Eliade himself: we refer in particular to the well-known dichotomy "sacred time" / "profane time" and his lucubrations on the "breaking of levels" and the consequent "exit from time (historical-profane) "to access theillud tempus, the "sacred time" of the Origins. Son the other hand, offering us the "revolutionary" character of this Revival, Giorgio de Santillana notes [6]:

«… In all modern times, revolution has meant the irreversible. He brought the real history with him. That is the forward flight. Yet there is an old sense that is still hidden from us, known to authentic revolutionaries: the return to origins. It is what has always been thought of since archaic times, it is palingenesis, even if it were in terms of multimillennial upheavals. Every apocalyptic vision is a way of rejoining the end to the beginning, so that time reacquiresit makes sense. There was always the idea of ​​a Great Year, of the turning of the time machine, to quiet the minds. At that time everything returned, not in the literal sense of the Eternal Return, but of the constants of the human adventure, the great actions, the great upheavals of peoples, the foundation of laws. "

This is a semantic survey already underlined by Julius Evola which, by reconnecting toLatin etymology of the term (deriving from the Latin verb I will be back, "To turn, mostly in the sense of a circular motion"), claimed that the true "Revolution" is to be considered in relation to this cyclical character of the cosmos, which by rotating on itself returns, from round to round, to the starting point. Re-volve it means then return to the starting point, to the Origins, And then  in a mythical-traditional conception — to the paradisiacal Golden Age remembered by all archaic traditions.

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This must be read in connection with what Jünger says about the science of the stars, namely that it "provides us with the model of a method that connects life to wider processes», Going« far beyond the biological-historical understanding of both single individuals and civilizations»[§38]. In his opinion in fact astrology, unlike the other "games" and "oracles", is distinguished by the fact that it has "not only a system of fields and signs" but also because these signs "they own theirs period, recede, return and fix time in definite and measurable ways»[§4]. Own the recognition in the cosmos of this geometric perfection and the possibility of investigating the fate of the single individual on the basis of cosmic-mathematical calculations it is, in his opinion, the secret of the revival of astrology, agreeing in this sense with the "parareligious" conception of Eliade [§33]:

«Here the turning of the big wheel is still seen in the old, familiar way that infuses man with the feeling of his centrality, of habitable security. Above him he once again has a celestial vault, where the fixed and mobile signs return in a mathematically calculable way. This connection between a fleeting date of destiny and the unshakable course of the cosmic clock gives astrology its peculiar seduction.." 

Elsewhere, always there At the wall of time, the German philosopher adds that from an astrological point of view [§4] "the great theater revolves around man. With each man, the world is conceived anew". More: not only the ineffable vision of the inexorable, mathematical dance of the stars and the sensation of feeling oneself in a position of centrality on the part of the querent, but the way in which the latter feels within the cosmic system is also significant. Defining himself through - not thoughts and actions proper to the empirical and daily dimension, but - symbols and archetypes, obtained from the topical moment of birth, the individual looks at himself not as a person (in the original Latin meaning of "mask") inserted in a society, with its specific roles and functions, but as cosmic man, regardless of "this world and its goods". Jünger again notes [§4]:

"The being of man is therefore related to a movement independent of both the will and other factors, such as race or inheritance, it is connected to this movement only through the time and place of the entry into the world. Not this world and its possessions, but the stars determine the real home. A new, small wheel begins the course that has been prescribed for it within the immense cosmic revolution. Man's horoscope serves as an image of the cosmic clock. Its configuration will establish the law "according to which man has entered the game"."

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Ernst Jünger (1895 - 1998).

Another characteristic of the astrological discipline, which derives from what has just been pointed out, can be deduced from the fact that "in its insistence on the singularity of destiny and on theinnate inequality of men, it also tends to combat leveling out "[§26], in the face of the threat of which - says Jünger -, who are "the astrologer never loses sight of the innate dignity of man, and does not listen to the abstract formulas of equality and freedom: "è the "being-so" of man to serve as a prerequisite. He believes that with the single individual, and precisely with every single individual, not only a new image of the species is born, but also a new world. Therefore the astrologer assigns to the individual a higher rank than that which abstract thought can grant him, an abstract distributive rule "[§31]. 

The vision epicurean di George de Santillana (1902 - 1974), although more "fatalistic", frames the question of "human freedom" and free will equally in the same conception of the universe as a great cosmic machine that assigns each its own position and respective telos [7]«Under these conditions, what can the freedom of the individual mean? Caught, wedged, boxed by infinite converging forces, what can be alone? The real "inhabitants" of the world are not us, they are the stellar powers. And they too need because the Number is above them". However, this is not to be read according to today's meaning of "fatalism", overshadowed by the meaning of a negative sign, of passive resignation, but according to the conception of Fate proper to the ancients: hence the distinction made by Santillana between "ancient fate" and "modern fate" [8]:

“Thus, I believe, classical clarity is born. The relationship of thought with nature in classical times was very different from ours; not already looking for a breakthrough point from which to overwhelm the opponent, but the search for a harmony, a proportion, a rhythm in which one fits. Man conceives of himself as living in the bosom of nature, not opposed to it - citizen of the great republic of gods, men and all that is. It can be a sense of rediscovered home, it can be desperate and grandiose resignation as in Marc'Aurelio; it is always an effort to justify the cosmos, to show its order and justice as it is. The clarity of the truth will save us from great bewilderment, from the horrendous ambiguities that later in the Middle Ages will make man a stranger to the world. "

At what price the "modern world" has distorted the concept original, cosmologically grounded, of freedom? Santillana replies: «The price is the neurosis. Where there is choice, possibility, hesitation, research, one is also free. Those who submit to fate suffer, but fate protects them» [9]. And then he adds: "This is an astronomical universe. For us, quite scary. Yet it is in it that the archaic spirit found its peace». We are here in front of what the ancient Romans called love fati. Pfurther on, the Italian historian and physicist justifies his earlier assertions [10]:

«… In the archaic system, there is no sovereign whim of divinity, just as there is no other hand to think of mercy. Everything is science. Necessity I said, dependent on divine forces which themselves do not have freedom of choice, which are identified with natural laws. Everything, our fate as well as what is around it, is rigorously determined; that I say, not only uniquely determined, as in mechanics, but overdetermined on various conspiring levels, polysupersaturated determination at the scale of the cosmos. Here we already discover the God of Spinoza, who commands theintellectual love is, even before the abstract intellect is formed. But where we resign ourselves, where Fate reigns, we find the freedom inherent in the tragic character, the fullness of his form. “Geprägte Form, die lebend sich entwickelt”. And it is precisely that freedom that is revealed in myths - technical language of the beginning, but so dense with form and suggestion that it has invaded the historical consciousness of the peoples, where we still find it today. It is a coincidence, as Lévi-Strauss would say, of "All-encompassing imagination". "

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This archaic and traditional view concerning the freedom human being is intimately connected, as can be easily understood, to the very foundations of the astrological doctrine: the little cosmic wheel belonging to each individual begins to spin at a different time; the very place of birth is another factor of differentiation, and from this astrology would lead, as Jünger notes, "to the areas addressed by the study of races, peoples and tribes" as well as "to those of climatology and physiology" [ §27]. On this, he also comes to the rescue Julius Evola, according to which:

“In all traditional civilizations the principle of a fundamental equality of human nature was always ignored and was regarded as a visible aberration. Every being has, with birth, a birth 'of its own', which is equivalent to saying its face, its quality, its personality, even if more or less differentiated [...] in this, moreover, no 'chance' was seen, but the effect of a kind of election or determination prior to the human state of existence was presented. »

This would be, referring back to the classical tradition, to be put in relation with the Platonic and Orphic conception ofhistoryaccording to which, as Evola wrote [11]:

 "...existence down here is not a coincidence, nor an irrationality, nor the unsolicited gift of a Creator, but the effect of a transcendental prenatal choice made by each one, although of a very varied meaning. The overshadowing of this truth should already play down everything that is tragic and dark in an existence [...] But to those who have a higher degree of conscience - or (almost platonic) memory - that truth should provide a further foundation »To be taken into account »

It is, as Santillana points out, the Reason applied to the Number: "is, after all, the Pythagorean universe, where the ultimate fate of man is expressed with the return to the stars (each to his own, as stated in the Timaeus) " [12]. To this, again, it is connected the importance of "falling right" over time, the Pythagorean καιρός, "the incidence by virtue of which life was articulated in its flow as the geometric measures of the diagram are born", to say it in the words of Santillana [13].

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Taking into account what has been said, it is worth going beyond the discourse, mentioning how, according to Jünger [§31], the growing favor enjoyed by astrology is consequently also "symptom of how man begins to tire of uniformity that perhaps until recently still thrilled him [...] Its meaning lies in the fact that here, at first in a veiled and ambiguous form, a force begins to awaken that is opposed to Leviathan and originates from very different depths than individualism liberal". A force, in other words, titanic and we could say "Luciferian": a ὕβϱις that will eventually lead the "last man" to reach over the «Wall of Time»: on the one hand beyond states, communitarianisms and institutionalized religions, on the other beyond scientistic rationalism, materialist atheism and liberal individualism. And take into account, noting the extreme actuality of these words, that they were written at the end of the fifties, that is almost sixty years ago.

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It is urgent, in conclusion of this short essay, to underline how the astrological doctrine appears, in the final analysis, strictly connected to the traditional doctrine of the cycles of the world: precisely the flow of the planets and constellations from one house to the next would determine the beginnings and conclusions of these infinite cycles and sub-cycles, an extraordinarily effective image of great cosmic clock of which each individual represents a cog. From this perspective it derives according to Jünger (who At the wall of time devotes a large discussion to the question of the “world cycles” of the mythical tradition) that «land deeper transformations of the human order are announced in the science of the stars. The gaze turned to the starry sky traces the first, invisible path» [§32].

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On the other hand, sccording Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend [14], who are "it was attention to celestial events that shaped the minds of men before recorded history; but since writing did not yet exist, these thoughts fell - to put it in the astrophysicists - beyond the "horizon of the event". Their survival is entrusted solely to fragments of stories and myths, since these were the only technical language of the time.". In conclusion, it would emerge a significant and undeniable connection existing between the early astrological science and the "creation" of the first myths, and therefore between the movement of the cosmic vault and the destiny of man. «This thought - writes Santillana [15] - it was in essence a cosmology. And not, as one would believe, a first form of the animistic and magical cosmos of the Renaissance, but a strictly astral cosmos, in which everything is thought in terms of regular and measured motion. All reality hinges on the stellar powers: those who command the change are the planets ». It's still [16]:

"What can you see of that thought?" A vision of the universe as a rigorous order, dominated by an absolute necessity of a mathematical nature. And this vision is already metaphysical, if Valery was right to say that all metaphysics requires man to participate in a spectacle that excludes him. Nothing exists, in an ontological sense, if not that order which is not so much the will of the gods as their very nature, impassive and inexorable, bearer of all good and all evil [...] Reality, in the ontological sense, is one, it is that regularity of the cosmic machine. The idea of ​​cold archaic computers is very close philosophically to that of current physics, but how much more demanding: because that machine commands us, much more than the current physical reality, which we seem to be able to use, at least for the our limited purposes. "

In conclusion, the renewed intuition of great cosmic clock it gives contemporary man a new perspective, new lenses through which to look at the world: it leads us straight to the idea that life, as Jünger writes, [§136] «from its origins, has moved in a single motion, flowing regularly on the next track, sleeper after sleeper. The stations change, without the travelers noticing; in the long run, however, the change is noticeable as it progresses. After all, there are no stations, there are no stops; there is only the journey". This metaphor of the train and the journey will be used other times by Jünger ne At the wall of time, especially with regard to the theme of the so-called «acceleration of the current of time», which, in the times in which we live, appears to the German philosopher (but also to Evola and Eliade) to be ever more irreversible. Also in this sense, the race of the stars and the journey of humanity appear to be linked, from the beginning of time, to a double thread.

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Note:

[1] ELIAS: Occultism, witchcraft and cultural fashions, pp. 98 - 102

[2] TIRYAKIAN: Toward the Sociology of Esoteric Culture, P. 496

[3] EVOLVE: Riding the tiger, P. 27

[4] ELIADE, op. cit., pp. 101 - 102

[5] For convenience, as regards the citations of At the wall of time by Jünger, we will report in the text of the article the paragraphs from which they are taken, instead of quoting the page number of the Adelphi edition here in the notes.

[6] SANTILANA: Ancient fate and modern fate, pp. 20 - 21. From this book we have published an excerpt of an essay on our pages: G. de Santillana: “History to be rewritten”. Reflections on "Ancient Fate" and "Modern Affliction"

[7] Ibid, p. 30

[8] Ibid, pp. 33 - 34

[9] Ibid, p. 58

[10] Ibid, pp. 76 - 77

[11] EVOLVE: Apolicy, pp. 95 - 96

[12] SANTILLANA, op. cit., p. 19

[13] Ibid, p. 27

[14] SANTILLANA & DECHEND: Hamlet's mill, P. 184

[15] Santillana, op. cit., p. 13

[16] Ibid, p. 15


Bibliography:

  • AA.VV .: Le retour des astrologues; 1971
  • ELIAS, Mircea: Occultism, witchcraft and cultural fashions. Comparative Religion Essays; Lindau, Turin 2018
  • EVOLA, Julius: Apolitia. Writings on "existential orientations" 1934 - 1973; Notebooks of Evolian texts n. 40; Julius Evola Foundation, Rome 2004
  • EVOLA, Julius: Riding the tiger; Mediterranee, Rome 2012
  • Junger, Ernst: At the wall of time; Adelphi, Milan 2000
  • de SANTILLANA, Giorgio: Ancient fate and modern fate; Adelphi, Milan 1985
  • de SANTILLANA, Giorgio & von DECHEND, Hertha: Hamlet's mill; Adeplhi, Milan 1983
  • TIRYAKIAN, Edward A .: Toward the Sociology of Esoteric Culture; 1972

7 comments on “The "revival" of Astrology in the 900s according to Eliade, Jünger and Santillana"

  1. In this regard, it is interesting to mention the experiment of the two monkeys subjected to (minimal) electrical torture, which de Santillana tells us about, in which it appears that only the animal that identifies a solution to limit suffering will, in the end, be suffering from somatizing neurosis. Contribution that, like this post, arouses reflections.

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