As an astrologer, one of my favourite quotations is from Nobel Prize-winning German physicist, Max Planck (April 23 1858 – October 4 1947) :
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die…”
Do come in…
This strikes me as an observation pertinent in its essence to most of us, arising from amongst other things fear of the unknown – and desire to keep IT ( the Shadow) out, keep the light on. However, psychologist and mystic Carl Jung took the view that the major task of our lives was the reconciliation of those great opposites. Light and Dark run through the whole of life: we need them both, collectively and as individuals. Without the bleak apparently barren darkness of Winter, we cannot have the life-affirming beauty, light and energy of Spring.
Identifying too closely with either pole inevitably calls forth its opposite…at its worst, there are too many examples scattered throughout history: a perennial (and contemporary) example being religious and/or political persecution – and war – arising from one side knowing the Light of Truth and having Right on their side, being prepared to destroy those unfortunate enough to take a different view: in order to save their souls from the darkness of Hell – metaphorical or otherwise.
Those splits are especially acute in our era. Saturn in Aquarius is slogging it out with Uranus in Taurus, as Pluto concludes his long dredge through Capricorn mercilessly exposing the rotten underpinnings of a ubiquitous culture rooted in a materialistic set of values and practices which are severely damaging our mother planet, and intolerance runs rampant everywhere.
Another contemporary variation on this theme is the bitter split between materialist reductionism which posits scientific perspectives as the only Reality, and the recorded accounts of very many people over centuries and longer, who willingly or otherwise, have experienced decidedly ‘other’ versions of reality which simply do not fit the current prevailing reductionist paradigm.
I am one of those people. For a long, long time, despite being a decidedly rational individual – sceptical in the open-minded sense of the word – I experienced intermittent and unpredictable intrusions into my everyday Reality whilst going about being a stable and productive member of society. A period of unwelcome, intermittent and uninvited episodes of ‘otherness’ began when I was nearly 24 years old, with Neptune transiting my IC conjunct South Node in Scorpio. It took me a very long time, but eventually I was able to come to terms with and make peace with that ‘other’ side of myself.
Thirty years later, during a long Neptune transit in Aquarius opposite my six 12th house planets, I began writing the book in which I recorded those 37 ‘other’ experiences. Having completed the book and published it in PDF form, the episodes came (mostly) to an end. Here I am, talking about ‘Wisps from the Dazzling Darkness” and related topics with my colleague Ana Isabel – another open-minded rationalist who is no stranger to experiences of ‘otherness’ herself. I’m planning to incorporate ‘Wisps…’ into a longer memoir provisionally titled ‘Swimmer in a Secret Sea’ to be published in print and as an ebook sometime in 2023. Watch this space!
In the meantime, kick off your shoes, grab a coffee – or something stronger, and have a listen to this recording we did recently for Ana’s In the Light podcast.. I’d be most interested if you felt like sharing your experience(s) of episodes which reductionist science says do not exist…
Opening the door to ‘Otherness’…
©Anne Whitaker/Ana Isabel 2023
