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ABSTRACT
Humanity finds itself in a collective liminal space between worldviews, on a trajectory from a dominant scientific materialism towards a participative worldview informed by a spiritual and archetypal consciousness. This paper suggests that Spiritual Intelligence (SQ), the cognitive ability to find higher meaning, value, and purpose in life through transcending rational intelligence may help to birth and reinforce the emerging worldview. The dominant modes of thinking embedded within educational institutions, however, remain within the confines of the mechanistic-materialist model. Nurturing SQ requires multiple ways of knowing, a pedagogy based on engaging the head, heart and accessing our inner experience and intuitive voice. This paper identifies one recent expression of a participative worldview - Archetypal Cosmology - that is not only consistent with post-materialist views of consciousness but can also contribute to cultivating and developing SQ. Archetypal Cosmology is based on an enchanted cosmos in which the microcosm of the psyche is reflected in the macrocosm of the universe through a mysterious yet empirically observable planetary synchronicity. After reviewing the key tenets of SQ and Archetypal Cosmology, the paper: (i) highlights a correspondence between the principles of SQ and the planetary archetypal meanings suggesting that SQ may be a type of Archetypal Intelligence; (ii) illustrates how Archetypal Cosmology provides another mode to cultivate SQ; (iii) suggests that the synthesis of SQ and Archetypal Cosmology, both multi-sensory ways of knowing that include the imaginal, symbolic, mythical and spiritual, may help bring about new modes of thinking to bridge the sciences and humanities.
Acknowledgement
I thank Roni Lorenzato for our conversations about the ideas outlined in this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Scientific empiricism within psychology holds that only empirical scientific methods provide valid knowledge (Hartelius Citation2019).
2 On the origins of Archetypal Cosmology as an academic discipline see Tarnas (Citation2011a, Citation2011b); Le Grice (Citation2009).
3 See Haule (Citation2010) for a Jungian perspective on how developments in biology may suggest a material basis for archetypes.
4 Jung coined the term ‘planetary archetype’ to describe the meanings associated with each of the planets in astrology (Le Grice Citation2017a, 40–1).
5 See Ferrer (Citation2002) and Ferrer and Sherman (Citation2008) for further discussion of participatory approaches.
6 Tarnas (Citation2006, 149–158) illustrates these patterns through examination of the alignments of the Uranus-Pluto cycle and social and political developments.
7 Tarnas refers to astrology's status as the ‘Gold standard of superstition’, a view he himself originally held. What seemed like an ‘unlikely candidate’ as an explanatory framework for his then research with Stan Grof on the psychotherapeutic role of psychedelics led him to the decades long research that culminated in Cosmos and Psyche (Tarnas Citation2011a; Olivetti Citation2015). On how Archetypal Astrology differs from other astrological approaches see Tarnas (Citation2011b).
8 See also the reports of the Galileo Commission (https://galileocommission.org/).
9 Le Grice completed his graduate work with Tarnas at the California Institute of Integral Studies and is currently Professor and Chair of Jungian and Archetypal Studies, Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, CA., USA
10 New science and other influences in addition to R. Tarnas and C.G. Jung include the work of D. Bohm, F. Capra, R. Sheldrake, B. Swimme, P. Teilhard de Chardin, S. Grof and J. Campbell. See Le Grice (Citation2010) for references.
11 Archetypal Cosmology also focuses on archetypal complexes (the combination of themes associated with two or more planetary aspects) that can also be used to illustrate the transformative dimension of SQ. For example, a Mercury – Pluto aspect corresponds to a combination of SQ3 and SQ10 (e.g. having a deep understanding of an issue or communicating with great depth).
12 Jung (Citation1969, 275) defined individuation as the ‘process by which a person becomes a psychological “in-dividual”, that is, a separate, indivisible unity or “whole”’.
13 Hillman's ‘archetypal eye’ is referred to in Tarnas (Citation2006, 70) and sourced in Tarnas (Citation2016, 91).
14 See the various empirically-based articles in Archai (http://www.archai.org/previous-issues/). Accessed 22/6/2020.
15 To the ancient Greeks, kairos indicated a critical point of balance, or the right moment for a new opening or understanding (Courtney Citation2019).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Gianni Zappalà
Dr Gianni Zappalà is a Professional Fellow at the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. He has degrees in Economics and Politics from the Universities of Sydney, London and Cambridge, and has taught and published on a wide range of social and policy issues, including Spirituality and Business. He also developed Meaningful Evaluation, a holistic and systemic framework for social impact assessment consistent with participatory approaches.