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2017 Published book on Amazon
This newly published book has contents which correlate the Huber Age Point Progression in the life cycle with sensitive points in the horoscope. There are psychosocial tasks which must be accomplished based on Age Progression Point traveling around the horoscope beginning at birth and going till age 72.
This book identifies these passages but also finds that interpreting the dreams at these times more likely leads to a better dream interpretation. In this way the context of dream interpretation with Age Point Aspects is a much more thorough way of identifying problems and psychological developmental issues.
Here is the preface to the book written by Sue Lewis, MA.
Preface
I was very pleased to be asked to write the preface to Life Passages, in which John Grove synthesizes age progression through the twelve houses of the horoscope—the method devised by Bruno and Louise Huber—with the eight stages of psycho-social development identified by Erik Erikson—the German-born, American psychotherapist who coined the phrase, ‘identity crisis’—and he applies these methods to the processing of personal material that arises from within at strategic times of change accompanied by vivid dreams. John is a psychotherapist with extensive experience of working with veterans and interpreting dreams, who has a Diploma of the Astrological Psychology Association and is ideally qualified to write this sequel to his earlier work, Dreams and Astrological Psychology: The Way through the Maze of the Unconscious. Time Passages is a more tightly constructed volume that concentrates on establishing connections between the Life Clock of astrological psychology, developmental psychological profiles, and dreams that represent a turning point in the lives of individuals. A selection of revealing case studies illustrates John’s findings.
The quest to identify correspondences between astrological significators and dreams has a long history, dating back to classical and biblical eras. Notably, the Renaissance astrologer Girolamo Cardano kept a dream diary on which the psychotherapist C G Jung gave a series of lectures in the 1930s. Cardano’s dreams stimulated him intellectually, and he looked for clues to understanding the immediate future, so he took a different perspective from Jung, Huber, and Grove, who use astrological and dream interpretation to guide the individual towards wholeness and strength.
The Huber Life Clock adds all-important timing to events in the outer and inner lives of individuals. Its location in house and sign, and its relationship to specific planets can help client and counsellor to make sense of images that emerge in dreams at pivotal moments, and connect them with the motivational patterns shown on an accurately drawn astrological chart. As well as being rooted in esoteric wisdom and attuned to the hermetic maxim ‘as above, so below’, astrological psychology’s birth chart is a precise psychological map, and its method is assimilated with the psychosynthesis of Roberto Assagioli, as reiterated by Louise Huber in her interview with Verena Bachmann (2003). This volume emphasizes the importance of using visual and symbolic language to develop a healthy ego in preparation for the spiritual path, and images that arise from the unconscious in dreams can be assimilated into consciousness with the help of astrological interpretation.
Following the Introduction, Chapter 1 presents the seventy-two-year cycle of the Life Clock with its loud and soft phases and rhythms, together with psycho-social tasks from infancy to late adulthood. Notwithstanding the acknowledged need to revise Erikson’s dated definitions of sexual identity in a contemporary context, overall the combined framework of reference stands up well. This first chapter culminates with an analysis of an important dream the author had at the age of 24, just after his age point entered the fifth house. At this time, he finally left behind the security of the family home and took a challenging job overseas. John is at his very best when illustrating his points with case histories, and giving honest portrayals of himself and those who are willing to share their experience with a wider public.
Chapter 2 takes a closer look at life tasks, and emphasizes how necessary it is to differentiate between wants, desires, and self-gratification on the one hand, and what one actually needs to do to develop a healthy ego on the other. The threefold personality of Huber astrology and Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs provide helpful tools for working in a supportive therapeutic environment. Tensions between inherited behaviour traits and environmental pressure are explored in some depth, with a couple of illustrative case histories, testing the ego as it strengthens and prepares for initiation.
In Chapter 3, the focus is on dream patterns, how to create the right environment for capturing dreams, and how to assimilate such ephemeral material from unknown worlds into waking consciousness. This sets the scene for the six case histories of dreams at critical moments in life, featured in Chapter 4.
The final chapter sums up the advantages of using the Huber method of astrological consultation with dream interpretation to achieve personal integrity and psychosynthesis, preparing the way for a spiritual path, a perspective on life supported by astrological interpretation that I fully endorse.
Sue Lewis, MA (Western Esotericism), DipAPI, DFAstrolS
7 April 2017
Dreams revealing unknown emotional content
12/212018 The Dream by John D. Grove: Mr. President Donald J. Trump lifted himself up and climbed through a hatch to get out of a submarine vessel. He opened the hatch and disappeared. Meanwhile I watched this but the hatch closed, sealed off and locked preventing me from following even if I wanted to do so.
Associations: This has current associations to events that have happened this week of 12/21/2018. As this above drawing shows, Mr. Trump the President abandoned the submarine. Likewise by unilaterally deciding to bring our troops home from Syria and Afghanistan; he did not involve his Secretary of Defense nor alliances of other parties including the Armed Forces, the Kurds, the Taliban and other governmental agencies. Water symbolizes the collective unconscious; the submarine is a vessel within the collective which we humans navigate. Mr. Trump, the President, is leaving the vessel and being absorbed by the collective unconscious with results- no one can predict. Sometimes dreams can show the dreamer another side of conscious life in an event that is current or in relation to a person that the conscious mind is not aware of.
“The shadow is an unconscious part of the psyche characterized by traits and attitudes whether negative or positive, which the conscious ego tends to reject or ignore. Persons of the same sex as the dreamer personify it in dreams. Consciously assimilating one’s shadow usually results in an increase in energy. (Hall, James A. Jungian Dream Interpretation, Inner City Books, Toronto Canada, 1983, p. 31).
Mr Trump represents my Shadow; the side of me that I reject, suppress and when I see it in other people- I become extremely prejudiced against them. I had been feeling distress lately at the way Mr. Trump is handling our national and international affairs. He is not in favor of traditional alliances like NATO and other relationships with foreign groups that support each other when facing a common threat. This dream is showing the side of me , my shadow, personified in the dream by Mr. Trump who represents a negative attitude that I have personally toward him. He is abandoning international tradition and global alliances which makes our country less safe in my opinion; he angers and disappoints me by his behavior. But I have to own the fact that maybe in my uncionscious, there is a part of me who would like to act with impunity and without caution, merely by instinct. If I don’t recognize a part of Trump in me, I will have hatred toward him and project all my negative attitudes on him every times he acts as President. I have had a lesson by this dream…don’t think your shadow projections are harmless. They are not and there are consequences for hating someone so much.
“Dreams come from psychological complexes in the personal unconscious of the person and from the collective unconscious. Dreams can act as compensation in content, balancing the conscious perspective so as to give the dreamer a new perspective on a person or event. They usually take the form of unpleasant images in the dream of the individual challenging him /her to face changes in an old, maladaptive attitude” (Grove, John D. Dreams and Astrological Psychology, Hopewell Publishing, Knutsford, England. 2014, p. 84. If I hate Mr. Trump, I miss the opportunity to gain a new perspective on him. For example, in the above dream, I am not to follow Mr. Trump into the field of the collective unconscious symbolized by the ocean that the submarine was submerged in. In stead, I stay within the vessel navigating through the maze of the collective unconscious while Mr. Trump “jumped ship’ and entered into the field of the unknown.
This dream , as a fact, is not looking at Mr. President critically but instead is contrasting his journey of being adrift into an impersonal unknown world in which he loses his individuality versus my journey which is navigating within the confines of a ship submerged so that I can control where I go, what I see and when to disembark. This is a new attitude that my unconscious is instructing my ego to be aware of. It is merely stating neutrally and objectively that we have differing paths and Mr. Trump may have to be swallowed by the psychic storms at sea, the waves and the uncertainty of nature in his leaving the ship.
Mr. Trump’s actions have created a departure from the norm of International and National political navigation. In the past two years of his presidency, he has chosen paths that reveal a scary possibility of an incompetent, yet instinctual individual adrift in the sea of the unconscious, unaware of where he is going. This scenario is common in elders in retirement who as they age, there is a loosening of complexes (Hillman, James Force of Character), a stubbornnesss, and if they can act out their impulses, there is usually no harm to anyone because they have little influence. And when one is an elder, one can have a second childhood, drift into the world of fantasy without any repercussions. But when one is a world leader, being a powerful President; then going on this path can scare a lot of his constituents. I believe we are in for a whirlpool of a ride. And where we will end up is anyone’s guess. I can say at this point that I have to navigate my own ship through murky waters and hope, and pray that we all make it to portside sometime.
Security in Chaotic Times
Dream on 11/30/2018: I was presented with an oval butterfly wing by a woman. The image captivated me.
Associations: Lately I was doing blogs on the relationship of Astrology, the way it works and Synchronicity. So I had on my mind, what principles would explain Astrology? The oval wing of a butterfly is related to chaos theory and how astrology may also be explained by this. Chaos theory is known as the ‘butterfly effect’.
Chaos activity is the way in which a small event initiated in a time and place far away can correlate with a large event in another place. The example used is that of a butterfly wing vibrating and correlating with a tornado in another place.
Enter Wikipedia: Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics focusing on the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. “Chaos” is an interdisciplinary theory stating that within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, self-organization, and reliance on programming at the initial point known as sensitive dependence on initial conditions. The butterfly effect describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state, e.g. a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a hurricane in Texas.[1] Small differences in initial conditions, such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation, yield widely diverging outcomes for such dynamical systems, rendering long-term prediction of their behavior impossible in general.[2][3] This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.[4] In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable.[5][6] This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos. The theory was summarized by Edward Lorenz as:[7]
Sue Lewis in her book, Astrological Psychology, Western Esotericism and the Transpersonal , ( Hopewell, Knutsford, England, 2015. p. 159) suggests chaos theory helps explain Astrology.
“Brady’s investigation (Chasms) comprehensively demonstrates astrology’s greater affinity with chaos theory and complexity than with the cosmic perfection delineated by Ptolemy, and application of this approach does not require the use of any specific techniques, rather a change of attitude on the part of the astrologer”. One can see the archetypal patterns of the planets “whether in the life of an individual, the history of a nation or the behavior of non-human systems like weather – all are in the matrix of belief of astrologers. Indeed, the astrological community is in its strongest position when talking about cycles, for at the heart of their culture are the measurable and predictable cycles of the celestial sphere and the planet archetypes (Bernadette Brady- Astrology and Research).
When one cannot count on moral, legal, fiscal, or traditional order in chaotic times; then one can be grounded on cycles of time as reflected by nature. Making goals also depends on making sure that they are timed correctly according to seasonal requirements in spite of the hectic changes happening in the earth due to Global Warming. Living on planet earth causes limitations making goals depending on whether it is spring, summer, fall or winter. The precession of the seasons with the Sun and Moon act as a biological time clock for planting and harvesting. This process has been used as early as 500 BC and planetary conjunctions presaged for early astronomers when to tell the masses to plant and reap. We take liberty to advance planting in spring both with growing things and with ideas. In summer we maintain what we started by watering and nurturing the small growth and in fall we harvest both ideas and food. In winter we reflect on the quality of the crop of ideas and get ready for the next growing cycle. The balance and cycles of nature determine the amount of liberty one can take and can be a source of security in times of upheaval and constant change.
The orbits of the planets correspond with the timing of activity: Mercury cycles have to do with active communication, Mars cycles with assertiveness and aggressiveness, Jupiter cycles with finding meaning of life, Saturn with reckoning and consolidation of actualization, Uranus with finding like-minded friends, Neptune with achieving union with the All, Pluto with guidance according to the divine will.
Here is another dream to illustrate the responsiblity I have to a voice to my vision in these times of great change and uncertainty.
12/8/2018
D1 In the early part of the night I had a dream.
I was in a room, a wood-paneled bedroom, sheltered by the chaos surrounding me outside. I went to the window and saw fierce lions, and people running around in a frenzy. They were running around going nowhere and were confused and frightened. This was a public catastrophe but it didn’t touch me so I went to sleep in this paneled bedroom. Years later a person came to reprimand me as to why I didn’t help those people who were in those life/death situations. It was a kind of accounting of myself for not doing more to help others.
Associations: Survival guilt is a theme in my life brought about by my personal history: guilt about my brother who died due to psychic injuries suffered as a spy for Army Security in the cold war and my role in taking his message forward , being of age for Vietnam but getting a student deferment when so many of my peers suffered from that war. And finally as the dream suggests, not bringing my voice out to the public when I have a system that can help people stay grounded, get a sense of security and safety in difficult times. Survival guilt has motivated me more than I was aware and it motivates me to post this.
The conclusion of this post is that we can rely on cycles of time and get guidance from the cosmos of when and how to act when normal order has been broken down. These are the times we are in and astrology provides some grounding during uncertain times.
Dreams and the water of life
Psychosynthesis involves grounding images that intend to drive one to meeting real needs rather than wants. If a dream (or any psychic image) does not become grounded through a process of writing it down and to be preferred -drawing it; maturation does not become manifest in the process of individuation. It is a gift to realize that there may be an invisible hand guiding one as a dream evolves over time. For example in my young adulthood , I had water dreams in which I was fearful of violent waves or tidal waves with it full destructive fury ; I dreamed of water seeping through my house and breaking up the plaster walls; I had dreams of water crashing into coastal villages; an finally I was overcome by a wave that broke over my head as I tumbled under water thinking I was a gonner. But then a transformation occured at mid-life: I could breathe underwater. It is as if the Self was guiding me to transform my opinion of water to a substance that I could survive in…:In subsequent dreams I had changed my relationship with that element and was guided to ride on the water in a boat, change ice into water as if by magical touch, to scuba dive under water to find treasures underneath. What force was changing my relationship to water? It was certainly the Self, the center and originator of psychic wholeness or indivuation (that empty center in the middle of the horoscope). In real life asfter the symbol of water became benign, my fears of the unknown vanished and I was able to feel more confident moving out and about in the outer world using different faculties of my personality. A transformation had occured with the contents of water, as symbolized by the feeling function in my personality (I had no planets in water signs in my astrological chart). As a thinking type my emotional side had been the least developed psychic function in my personality and I needed to balance out thinking with relationship feeling functions. That was the goal of individuation in my case: to bring about balance, wholeness, equity in relationships, justice , harmony and love into my pragmatic thinking nature.
Who is in control of your actions?
I have been taking a psychosynthesis course by the well-known psychologist Will Parfitt for many months now. And one of the main theses is the process of dis-identification of the ego. One of the exercises we do is to say;
“I have my mind and my thoughts but am not my mind and my thoughts
I have my feelings and emotions but am mot my feelings and emotions.
I have my body and sensations but I am not my body and sensations.
I, am I a center of pure self-consciousness and will.”
Psychosynthesis, the Elements and Beyond.2006, p. 46
This concept is very close to some of the four aggregates in Buddhism which says my self is not in control of my body because I cannot ultimately cause good or prevent bad from happening to it; and the self is not in control of our perceptions, thinking or our feelings based on the same arguement. To be attached to our thoughts, feelings or sensations ultimately causes suffering due to impermanence. Why Buddhism is True, Robert Wright, 2017.
Given that the self and ego are defined the same, we can see the conditioning that we learned: to be preoccupied with our ego identifications. These identifications can become the cause of much self-imposed suffering as the impermanence of life ushers in losses in our thinking, sensation, and feeling attachments. An example of this is when we become elderly, ill and lose faculties that we relied on to navigate the world; we lose our reliable mind, body and feeling sensitivities. As a consequence of this process, we learn that we are not in control of what we experience, especially when we are invested heavily in certain outcomes have a reputation to protect, have people to please and have a life to live successfully.
Probably the most profound and esoteric part of Astrological Psychology is that it imparts the existential meaning to the horoscope and explores the meaning of the central area of the chart as an important step in self-discovery through detachment. As seen in the featured image, the central core is defined as the inner being, the source, the soul. The central core is the source of basic spiritual, psychic energies, tuned to the universe and unique to the individual experiences. When we are able to stand back and imagine we visualize the planets in the horoscope printout as seen from the center, we see the whole aspect structure. It may seem paradoxical that we would learn all the assets and liabilities of our horoscope and then reach a point where we actively transcend these personality characteristics. But yes after we learn about out charts, we purposely practice dis-identification with our horoscope and this process makes us as owner of the horoscope, an observer. When one makes contact with the center of the chart , then through meditation one can ideally experience a sense of calm, inner peace and joy. The exercise of dis-identification asks ‘Who are you?’ And from the center of pure consciousness you are not your body, not your mind, and not your feelings but a center of pure consciousness. Astrological Psychology, The Huber Method editor Barry Hopewell. 2017. pps. 38 and 47 .
I have known for about 30 years that my conscious will based on my thinking is not entirely in control of what endeavors I choose to pursue and their outcomes. I have the illusion of control but in the end, there are always some unintended consequences or outcomes that I have no control over. This insight that I am not in control of my conscious mind, comes from my dreamwork.
In my dreamwork I have been aware that Age Point aspects and the day’s events and associations feed into a person’s personal unconscious to affect dream content. Dreams actively and passively stimulate complexes in the personal unconscious through the archetype of the Self (Jungian term) or the Central Core in Astrological Psychology. A complex is an emotionally charged group of ideas or images. At the center of the complex is an archetypal image which contains elements of polar opposites, e.g. masculine/feminine; strong/weak; assertive/submissive, etc. Based on the days events and Age Point aspects, one of these archetypal images from the pair gains valency and is split off making the dreamer’s identity change based on the image that then gets amalgamated with her ego identity. Thus the ego identity of the dreamer is not fixed and can be changed by a dream image acting on it. In the end the conscious ego of the dreamer is not in control of even her own perception of her identity. And this whole process starts deep inside our unconscious and generates dream images that changes our sense of who we think we are- our identity when we awaken. We carry that identity as a mood throughout our day. And the process continues day by day, week by week, year by year. Life Passages, When Age Point Aspects and Dreams Coincide, by John D. Grove, 2017, p. 70
Do you see the connection between Buddhism, Astrological Psychology and Psychosynthesis? They all involve a process of existential detachment from the components of the personality that are made of feelings, thoughts, perceptions and sensations. So then the issue of being in control of what we think and who we feel we are becomes an open question. This has ramifications and provides a rationale for actively transcending the limits of our thinking, feeling, perceiving and sensing. We can pursue this goal through meditation and experience a unified consciousness with detachment yet still have a presence in the world.
