[JSRNC 1.

2 (2007) 220-236] JSRNC (print) ISSN 1749-4907

doi: 10.1558/jsrnc.v1i2.220 JSRNC (online) ISSN 1749-4915

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The Hero’s Journey: The Search for Identity from a
Psychological, Mythological, and Astrological Perspective
____________________________________________________
Silvia Pannone
[email protected]

Abstract
The intention of this paper is to ascertain whether the search for one’s
highest and true being is inherent in humanity, how it can best be accom-
plished, and with what possible results. To this end, I have tried to identify
common themes in psychology, myth, and astrology. This article begins
with an exploration of the tenets of the main exponents of growth-oriented
psychologies. I will then look at the role of mythology and its symbolic
language. Consequently, I will analyse current developments within
astrology and what the influence of psychology has been. Looking then for
possible correlations between psychology and astrology, I will use, as my
principal example, the archetype of the Self and the symbolism of the
astrological sun. I will suggest that the theme most deeply-rooted in the
human psyche is that of the hero’s journey and I will examine what this
means in the different disciplines.

Psychological and Mythological Perspectives

Humanity has long believed in gods in some form or other, and it seems
to be Jung’s opinion (1990: 23) that only an unparalleled impoverishment
of symbolism would make it necessary to identify the gods as psychic
factors, that is, as archetypes of the unconscious. Jung appeared to
equate gods with psychological complexes1, where both have always
existed, just under a different denomination. Within a contemporary
scientific worldview, the gods have been secularized. It was Jung’s belief
that it was not necessary to discover the unconscious until the twentieth
century, because, until then, humanity had a great wealth of symbolic

1. Complexes can be defined as the building blocks of the psyche and the source
of all human emotions. In Jung's words: ‘Complexes are in fact “splinter psyches” ’
(CW 8, par. 204). ‘Complexes are focal or nodal points of psychic life’ (CW 6, par. 925).

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Pannone The Hero's Journey 221

languages, including religion (1990: 8). He defined symbol ‘As an image

that describes in the most complete way the dimly discerned nature of
the spirit… It points beyond itself to a meaning that is darkly divined yet
still beyond our grasp and cannot be adequately expressed in the
familiar words of our language’ (Jung 1972: 336).
One of the key factors behind Jung’s formulation of the collective
unconscious, Robert Aziz observes, is his understanding that instinct is
never integrated directly but is raised to consciousness only indirectly
through archetypal images, which evoke the instinct, although in a
different form from the one we meet on the physical level (Aziz 1990: 5).
Rollo May expressed the opinion that contemporary therapy is almost
entirely concerned, when all is surveyed, with the problems of the
individual’s search for myths. ‘The fact that Western society has all but
lost its myths was the main reason for the birth and development of
psychoanalysis in the first place. Freud and the divergent therapies
made it clear that myths are the essential language in psychoanalysis’
(May 1992: 9). May (1992: 15) described myth as a way of making sense
in a senseless world, where myths are seen as narrative patterns which
give significance to our existence and are able to provide an individual
with the inner security he/she needs in order to live adequately.
In contrast to creation myths, hero myths already come packaged as
narrations about personalities rather than about the impersonal world.
The hero’s main accomplishment, in Jung’s view, is his overcoming of
the monster of darkness. Claiming that day and light are synonymous
for consciousness, night and dark for the unconscious, the hero’s victory
consists in the ‘Long-hoped-for and expected triumph of consciousness
over the unconscious’ (Jung 1990: 167).
The heroes are usually wanderers, and Robert Segal, paraphrasing
Jung, describes wandering as a symbol of longing, of the restless urge
which never finds its object, of nostalgia for the lost ouroboric sense of
unity and wholeness. He compares the sun’s wanderings with those of
the hero, and draws the conclusion that the myth of the hero is a solar
myth, being ‘First and foremost a self-representation of the longing of
the unconscious, of its unquenched and unquenchable desire for the
light of consciousness’ (Segal 1998: 148). Astrologer Liz Greene considers
that one of the main themes of the hero’s quest is the discovery of his or
her true origin, which she posits as both mortal and immortal.
In this mythic image of hybrid birth we can perceive a deep sense of
duality, a conviction that we are not merely made of earth and doomed to
eat, reproduce and die. Each of us is special, unique, and has a personal
destiny, an individual contribution to make to life (Greene 1992: 84).

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222 Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture

In her approach to the study of Jung’s individuation process, Marie-

Louise von Franz (1982: 99) argued that, generally, the initial guiding
factor eventually turns out to be the goal itself, namely becoming con-
scious of the self. In other words, the self already exists at the very begin-
ning and is what guides or regulates inner growth in the individuation
process. Joseph Campbell confirmed this stance, positing that the cos-
mogonic cycle is presented with astonishing consistency in the sacred
writings of all the continents, giving to the adventure of the hero a new
and interesting turn:
For now it appears that the perilous journey was a labour not of attainment
but of re-attainment, not discovery but rediscovery. The godly powers
sought and dangerously won are revealed to have been within the heart of
the hero all the time. He is the ‘king’s son’ who has come to know who he
is and therewith has entered into the exercise of his proper power. From
this point of view the hero is symbolical of that divine, creative, and
redemptive image which is hidden within us all, only waiting to be known
and rendered into life (Campbell 1993: 39).

The two—the hero and his ultimate god, the seeker and the found—are
thus understood as the outside and inside of a single, self-mirrored
mystery, which Campbell (1993: 40) saw as identical with the mystery of
the manifest world. The great deed of the hero is to acquire the knowl-
edge of this potential unity by becoming conscious and integrating the
multiple facets of his being, and then to make it known.
For Jung (1966a: 173), individuation meant becoming an individual, a
single, homogenous being, and, in so far as individuality embraces our
innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming
one’s own self. More precisely, the archetypal image which leads from a
polarity to a union of the two psychic systems—consciousness and the
unconscious—Jung (1966a: 173) called the self. This he defined as the last
station on the path of individuation, which he named self-realisation. In
Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Jung considered that the values and
strivings of the past no longer interest the individuated person. Indeed,
he can only be so, ‘When he has come to the very edge of the world,
leaving behind him all that has been discarded and outgrown, and
acknowledging that he stands before a void out of which all things may
grow’ ( Jung 2003: 201). Jung made two points which are relevant to the
present article: the first is that the individuation process, in its purposive
directionality, seems to be inherent in human nature; the second is, how-
ever, that the acquisition of a sense of purposiveness requires the
conscious involvement of the person (or psyche, in Jung’s terms).
Fundamental to a methodological approach is Jung’s discovery that
the psyche is a self-regulating system, capable not only of maintaining its

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Pannone The Hero's Journey 223

own equilibrium, but also of bringing about its own self-realisation (Aziz
1990: 17). Jung claimed that unconscious processes stand in a compensa-
tory relation to the conscious mind. He stressed the use of the word
‘compensatory’ because he did not judge conscious and unconscious as
being in opposition, but as complementing one another to form a total-
ity, to form the so-called self ( Jung 1966a: 177).
Aniela Jaffé (1975: 80) observed that scientific research ends by estab-
lishing that the archetype of the self reaches its goal in every life. Jung
was careful to point out that the difference between the ‘natural’ indi-
viduation process, which runs its course unconsciously, and the one
which is consciously realized is immense. ‘In the first case consciousness
nowhere intervenes and the end remains as dark as the beginning. In the
second case so much darkness comes to light that the personality is
permeated with light, and consciousness necessarily gains in scope and
insight’ ( Jung 1973: 106). And it is the conscious realization of the self
which Jaffé (1975: 79) stated was for Jung the meaning of life. Para-
phrasing Jung, Jaffé wrote that the unknowable and timeless archetype
of the self assumes a specific and unique form in everyone. Moreover,
the task or goal of individuation lies in fulfilling one’s own destiny and
vocation (1975: 84).
Consistent with other holistic theorists, Maslow (Frick 1971: 144) pos-
ited an inherent tendency to growth and self-perfection, also known as
positive growth tendency. Maslow (1970: 116) agreed with Fromm that
the realization of the self occurs not only by acts of thinking, but rather
through the realization of the total human personality. Or, in May’s
words (1961: 23), through the expression of the ‘sense of being,’ where
‘being’ is to be defined as the ‘individual’s unique pattern of potentiali-
ties’ [author’s italics]. These potentialities, while shared in some degree
with other individuals, will in every case form a unique pattern for each
individual. This perspective is in fact shared by astrology, where every
individual has the same planets in their birth chart, but each chart forms
a unique configuration. Fromm expressed the same idea in his statement
that to be alive is a dynamic, and not a static concept.
Existence and the unfolding of the specific powers of an organism are one
and the same. All organisms have an inherent tendency to actualise their
specific potentialities. The aim of man’s life, therefore, is to be understood
as the unfolding of his powers according to the laws of his nature (Fromm
1966: 6, author’s italics).

Maslow defined growth as ‘The various processes which bring the per-
son toward ultimate self-actualization’ (1968: 26). This perspective is
close to the Greek concept of entelechy, which describes a particular type

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224 Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture

of motivation, the need for self-determination, inner strength and the

vital force which directs one towards becoming all that one is capable of
being. For Aristotle, entelechy represented the potential of living things
to become actualized. Borrowing the term ‘need for self-actualization’
from Goldstein, Maslow (1970: 22) used it in a more specific and
restricted form, in order to describe the desire for self-fulfilment, in other
words, the tendency for people to become what they are in potential,
to become everything that one is capable of becoming. Accordingly,
Maslow felt that it was possible to solve many value problems that
philosophers have struggled with ineffectually for centuries.
For one thing, it looks as if there were a single ultimate value for mankind,
a far goal toward which all men strive. This is called variously by different
authors self-actualization, self-realization, integration, psychological health,
individuation, autonomy, creativity, productivity, but they all agree that
this amounts to realizing the potentialities of the person, that is to say,
becoming fully human, everything that the person can become (Maslow
1968: 153).

In Rogers’ view, the organism in its normal state moves toward its own
fulfilment, toward self-regulation and an independence from external
control (1980: 119). He acknowledged that the actualizing tendency can,
of course, be thwarted but also felt that it cannot be destroyed without
the annihilation of the organism itself.
Rogers mentioned, in this respect, an example from an event of his
youth. He remembered that when he was a boy, the bin in which the
winter’s supply of potatoes was stored was in the basement, several feet
below a small window. Despite the unfavourable conditions, the potatoes
would begin to sprout—pale white sprouts, unlike the healthy green
shoots they sent up when planted in the soil in the spring. These scanty
sprouts, however, would grow a couple of feet in length as they reached
toward the distant light of the window.
The sprouts were, in their bizarre, futile growth, a sort of desperate expres-
sion of the directional tendency I have been describing. They would never
become plants, never mature, never fulfil their real potential. But under the
most adverse circumstances, they were striving to become. Life would not
give up, even if it could not flourish (Rogers 1980: 118).

At this point, doubts could arise as to whether what Rogers called the
actualizing tendency is not similar to what would be called survival
instinct in psychoanalytical terms, indicating that it is therefore not
linked with purposive development. Rogers added, though, a clarifying
comment when he remarked that to speak of this growth tendency as
though it involved the development of all the potentialities of the
organism is not correct. The organism does not tend towards developing

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Pannone The Hero's Journey 225

its capacity for nausea, nor does it actualize its potentiality for self-
destruction, or its ability to bear pain. Only under unusual or thwarted
circumstances do these potentialities become actualized. ‘It is clear that
the actualizing tendency is selective and directional—a constructive
tendency, if you will’ (Rogers 1980: 121).
Furthermore, in his practice, Rogers (1980: 120) was able to verify the
fact that human directional tendency was not effective when it came to
traits that were not already present. If, however, he provided the condi-
tions that allow growth to occur, then this positive directional tendency
would bring about constructive results. From this, Rogers (1980: 134)
concluded that when we provide a psychological climate that permits
persons to be, we are not involved in a chance event. We are tapping into
a tendency that permeates all of organic life—a tendency to become all
the complexity of which the organism is capable.

The Role of Values

Although, from a growth-oriented perspective, Frankl’s search for mean-
ing in suffering, and the importance of learning how to transcend pain,
seem too pessimistic, he made a valid point, when proclaiming that
suffering is an unavoidable part of human life (Frankl 1997: 123). Pain
and suffering are values that are not recognized in the Western world; in
fact we try to repress and avoid them, labelling them as ‘negative’. But
hypothetically following Jung’s line of thought, which acknowledges the
polarity of light and dark as inherent in life itself, we would have to
accept that opposites acquire their moral weighting only within the
sphere of human endeavour and action, and that it is not possible to
provide a definition of good and evil that could be considered univer-
sally valid ( Jung 1979: 267). In other words, we would not be able to
define what good and evil are in themselves. For this reason, Jung sup-
posed that they originate from a need of human consciousness, and
therefore lose their validity outside the human sphere. In this sense, a
hypostasis of good and evil as metaphysical entities is inadmissible,
because it would deprive these expressions of human meaning.
So, if the opposition of dark and light is inherent in life itself, they are
archetypal, and by definition then at least partially unconscious. If we
try to avoid one extreme of this polarity, and perhaps even succeed, we
are bound to create a psychological unbalance. Continuing with this
hypothetical flow of thoughts, we should remember at this point that,
according to Jung (1966a: 187), the psyche is, as we have seen, a self-
regulating system, working incessantly for the maintenance of its own
equilibrium. Consequently, if ‘negativity,’ or what is consciously

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226 Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture

regarded as ‘bad,’ is suppressed, or avoided, or is not lived out, we will

inevitably be confronted with it externally. Events or values perceived as
negative are, from a Jungian perspective, thus intended to restore
psychic balance and foster the growth of consciousness.
Maslow’s view of the gravity of the current loss of values seems to be
indeed a point worthy of consideration. With the secularization of the
external world, myths suffer the same fate as religion, of which they have
traditionally been a part. And with the loss of our myths and religions,
we have lost more than values alone. We have lost a measuring-stick
against which we were able to measure our own values. Are we right,
are we wrong? It is hard to tell when there are no guidelines. There is
today a lack of structure and of the ‘ancient’ values that were once col-
lectively respected. We have lost the guidelines against which we could
develop.
There is light and shadow, and we would neither be able, nor (in the
long run) willing to live only in light. Contemporary technology attempts
to make everything so easy that there is no longer any sense of achieve-
ment. Let us take as an example the auto-cruise: one no longer reads a
map, there are no more mistaken roads. But does not ‘being wrong’
sometimes actually make one feel better in the final analysis? An error
allows one to learn, and from learning one feels one is growing. Growth
gives us the impression that we are reaching a higher level of evolution,
which makes us feel more complete, as if another piece of the jigsaw had
been slotted into the right place, another talent used, and we feel closer
to our potential of perfection, and perhaps even closer to the divine.
In mythological narrative, the hero’s journey often begins with what
would appear to be a terrible mistake, where the hero takes a wrong
path, or follows the wrong people or ideals. But it is from such an
impasse that the hero is challenged to perform, and so develops his
heroic qualities. Courage has to be evoked. In the absence of those initial
blunders, how would he be able to discover that he is a hero?

An Astrological Perspective
Moving to an astrological perspective, it seems appropriate at this point
to provide a brief definition of astrology itself. The most neutral and
generally accepted definition is that it is a symbolic language. If we wish
to dig deeper and find out what this language describes, we begin seeing
the complexity of this point, as it is hardly possible to do so in a unani-
mously agreed manner. A psychological astrologer would say that it is a
symbolic language representing the dynamics of the psyche, a traditional
astrologer would say that it represents a particular moment in time, a

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Pannone The Hero's Journey 227

spiritual astrologer would answer that it is the representation of the

soul’s path chosen for this lifetime—to list but a few of the possibilities.
Phillipson (2000: 185) reminds us that it is necessary to bear in mind
that astrology is not 100 percent objective. Astrology is supposed to work
according to the principle of the interconnectedness of everything,
however one believes this effect to express itself (causal effect, symbolic
representation, or Jung’s law of synchronicity, to name the most wide-
spread positions). And since everything, as Phillipson argues must
include astrologers as well, ‘It is inconsistent to imagine that their mental
attitude (for instance, the presence, or absence, of doubt) will not influ-
ence a reading’ (2000: 189). Being aware of the subjectivity of astrology,
and considering the aim of this article, I will here limit the astrological
perspective to that of psychological astrology.
A bridge connecting psychotherapy and astrology can be found in
Jung’s approach, where meaning is ascribed by the individual, and
astrology gets away from the necessity to be validated in objective/
scientific terms.
The collective unconscious…appears to consist of mythological motifs or
primordial images… In fact, the whole of mythology could be taken as a
sort of projection of the collective unconscious. We can see this most clearly
if we look at the heavenly constellations, whose originally chaotic forms
were organized through the projection of images. This explains the influ-
ence of the stars as asserted by astrologers. These influences are nothing
but unconscious, introspective perceptions of the activity of the collective
unconscious. Just as the constellations were projected into the heavens,
similar figures were projected into legends, and fairy-tales… We can there-
fore study the collective unconscious in two ways, either in mythology or
in the analysis of the individual ( Jung 1972: 152).

In Jung’s view, in other words, astrology is linked with mythology as

one of the two possible ways in which it is possible to study the collec-
tive unconscious and its expression, the archetypes.
As described previously, Jung perceived archetypal forces as the
manifestation of the main motivational agents of an individual’s psyche
and of the main psychological schemes of entire cultures. These univer-
sal principles form the principal area of study both of astrology and of
mythology. Psychological astrologer Stephen Arroyo (1988: 38) believes
that these principles diverge, noting that while mythology highlights the
cultural manifestations of the archetypes in various ways, astrology uses
the main archetypes themselves as its language in order to comprehend
the fundamental forces that effect both individual and collective life. He
considers astrology to be one of the vastest mythological structures that
ever existed in human culture, defining myth as that vivifying force

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228 Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture

present in every culture, because it emphasizes the relationship between

individual and a vaster universal reality. Therefore, according to Arroyo,
what astrology offers is the key to comprehend these forces and the basic
functions existent in every individual, because it is one of the most com-
plete, energetic, and precise languages known to humanity. In other
words, astrology can be considered as a ‘Mythology to be used in a
conscious way ’ (Arroyo 1988: 38, author’s italics).2
In the Western world, humanity has reached in its evolutionary path a
point at which it is no longer satisfied with living without consciousness,
according to old myths, rigid dogmas, or archaic traditions. However, in
its attempt to get free of those limitations and traditions, Arroyo (1988:39)
remarks that humankind has gone too far and has lost contact with the
fundamental archetypes of its own being, along with the support of
spiritual and psychological sources that these offer. He sees astrology as
a means of reuniting a person with his/her inner source, with nature,
and with the evolutive process of the universe. In Arroyo’s view of
astrology (1988: 41) every individual is regarded as a complete and
unique expression of universal principles, design, and energies. Astrol-
ogy is thus a language of universal principles, a way of perceiving and
symbolizing the form, order and identity of each individual. More speci-
fically, Arroyo (1988: 9) describes astrology as a language which can
express the real energies that stimulate human behaviour, and which can
be considered the most exact way we have to describe the real nature of
each individual.
Despite its youth, psychological astrology is now the dominant form
of astrology among contemporary practitioners. In his contributions to a
jointly-authored book, Patrick Curry illustrates it as a development and
renewal of neo-Platonic/Hermetic astrology, with its emphasis on self-
knowledge and self-transformation (Willis and Curry 2004: 73).
Pioneering psychological astrologer Dane Rudhyar recognized that
Jung’s theories were close to his own astrological thought: he saw the
birth horoscope as a dynamic compound of opposing forces in equilib-
rium, and the various facets of a natal chart, with their innumerable
aspects and interrelations, as a symbolic representation of archetypal
forces struggling to transform themselves into an integrated whole.
Rudhyar realized that the process of individuation is implicit in every
horoscope (Rudhyar 1970, 1976, 1984). His fundamental astrological con-
cept was based on the origin of Jung’s synchronicity theory according to
which everything that is ‘born’ at a particular time and point of space
is organized according to a particular seed-pattern, or archetype,

2. My translation.

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symbolized by its birth chart. This seed-pattern theory that, as Curry

(Willis and Curry 2004: 73) reminds us, goes back to the Ptolemaic
system, according to Rudhyar (1970: 30), ‘Defines what that organism
should be if it fulfilled its function in the cosmic scheme, or in other
words, according to God’s Plan’ (1970: 30).
Psychological astrology deals essentially with the issue of self-actuali-
zation. The end purpose, for Rudhyar (1970: 105), was not only to fulfil
one’s individuality but, in the very process of this fulfilment, to realize
consciously and clearly the cosmic/divine purpose of one’s birth, or, in
other words, the reason of one’s existence as an individual person. Dif-
ferently from Freud (for whom the individual enters this world blank),
for Jung the basic typological structure was an a priori with which indi-
viduals are born. Greene, in accordance with this Jungian precept, states
that an individual’s perception of an experience is coloured by how he or
she perceives that experience, which is in fact bound to the structure of
his or her individual psyche.3
It is this point about inherited temperament that raises for Greene the
issue of fate. Individuals are born with a certain birth chart, independ-
ently from how they will express it.4 A particular placement in the birth
chart is said to reflect a particular ‘pattern’ or ‘psychic organisation’
within the individual. Such patterns Greene (1995: 276) understands to
be both the core of mythic stories and also the core of what Jung called
complexes and, in a sense, fate, because they are written from birth.
Analysing the Greek word mythos, Greene (1995: 166) writes that it con-
tains two nuances of meaning. In one sense, mythos is a story. In another,
deeper sense, it implies a scheme or plan. She finds this latter meaning of
the word most relevant both to psychology and astrology, because the
universality of basic mythic motifs appears to reveal a basic plan or
purposeful pattern of development inherent in the human psyche as
well as in the human body. In her words, ‘The life of individuals is
therefore not random, nor shaped exclusively by environmental factors;
it has intent, or teleology’ (1995: 166, author’s italics).
Drawing on Leo’s well-known statement ‘Character is Destiny’,
astrologer Glenn Perry nicely sums up one of the main pillars of psy-
chological astrology: events are perceived as a product of the conscious-
ness of the experiencer, implying that the relationship between inner and
outer is circular, and not linear. If fate produces character, then the
reverse is also true: character is fate. The connection is not a linear,
cause-effect relation, but circular, with one feeding into the other so that

3. Liz Greene, lecture, Bath Spa University, 23 March 2004.

4. Liz Greene, lecture, Bath Spa University, 23 March 2004.

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230 Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture

the two are related by mutual interdefinition. To the extent that an indi-
vidual learns from experience, consequent experience may be altered.
This puts the weight of responsibility on the individual: if character is
fate, and if we can alter our character, we can mutate our fate (Perry
1998b: 173). Or, to use the words of Ferrucci: ‘Our thoughts define our
universe’ (1995: 94).
In the final analysis, however, if astrologers claim to have an effective
psychological methodology, they thereby raise expectations of what their
work should achieve. To this end Perry defines the signs of the zodiac as
psychological needs and archetypal principles. Just as Maslow organized
his system of needs hierarchically, so Perry (1998a: 61) claims the signs of
the zodiac are organized hierarchically as well. The difference is that the
zodiac hierarchy includes Maslow’s basic needs and his metaneeds, all of
which unfold in a precise developmental sequence. Like an archetype, a
sign’s motive cannot be reduced to a single word; rather, it describes a
category of need. A complete analysis of the zodiac suggests that there
are twelve fundamental, innate needs that correlate to the signs. These
signs obey a precise, developmental sequence. Perry thus presents astrol-
ogy as a hierarchically organized, twelve-drive model of motivation. At
the heart of the theory is the assertion that people act in the service of
their needs (1998a: 61).
Limiting human needs to twelve categories, though, seems restrictive
and questionable. Whatever need arises has then to be comprised in one
of the twelve zodiacal signs, not because there are twelve categories of
needs, but because there are twelve signs. This leads to a two-dimen-
sional approach to astrology, whereas the wealth of astrology, in my
opinion, lies in how the variations it offers are unlimited, just as are the
variations in human beings. I would like instead to present astrology in a
tri-dimensional way, looking at it as a developing spiral-cone. After the
last sign of the zodiac, the first again comes in an unfoldment that moves
upwards according to the level of consciousness of the individual. The
core needs of each sign are still recognizable but express themselves now
in a different manner. I do not wish to imply that there are unlimited
core-needs. On the contrary, I believe that the main need from which
everything starts—and ends—is that which has hitherto been described
as the need for individuation, self-actualization, or self-realization.
Endorsing von Franz’s (1982: 99) perspective about the hero’s journey, I
would argue that the beginning and the end are the same; what changes
is the level of awareness, and consequently the exterior expression. The
higher, figuratively, one is in this developmental graphic, the less clear-
cut the differences become, until the apex is reached, at which point
pluralism disappears into unity.

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The Astrological Sun

The sun’s placement in a birth chart can be roughly interpreted as the
Jungian ego, Assagioli’s personal self, and the mythological hero. The
total chart can be seen as the Self, the potential for a person’s wholeness,
or in mythological terms, the hero’s journey. Here follow some points for
consideration, in which the sun is described from a psychological astrol-
ogy perspective. By mentally substituting the word sun with self, it could
be read as a psychological text.
The principal motivational drives the sun needs to express can be sum-
marized as being the validation of identity, of self-esteem, of creative
self-expression, positive self-image, approval, admiration, and enjoy-
ment. Light in general, and more specifically the sun, is seen as a symbol
of consciousness (Greene 1998: 8; Neumann 1995: 160; Tarnas 1994: 13).
Steven Forrest (1998: 105) equates the meaning of the sun with life itself.
Astronomically, the life-giving sun is the centre of the solar system, and
astrologically the sun works the same way: it is the symbolic gravita-
tional centre of the human personality. It is thereby understood as the
focal point of all the varied functions that coexist in each of us: our sense
of identity, our sense of being a distinct person with certain ways of
feeling, seeing and shaping life. Without the sun a person would be lost,
paralysed by contradictory whims.
In astrological understanding, the target state of the sun is pride and
confidence, independence, self-reliance, and self-confidence (Perry 1998a:
83; Hand 1989: 103). A significant and frequently overlooked point that
Greene (2001: 34) brings up is that the sun requires a struggle in order to
develop its capacity to give light. That is why, in solar myths, the sun
has to fight night’s darkness ( Jung 1972: 153; Neumann 1995: 160), and
sun-gods must fight dragons and monsters or some other horrible crea-
ture from the depths in order to fulfil their destiny. The motive behind
this struggle is the fear that one would otherwise not get born, that one
would die, or not even exist.5
Amplifying the sun symbolism, Greene touches on the collective aspect
of myths, observing that in mythology the gods seem not to be able to
deal properly with their own business and require a hero to do the deed
for them, implying that the collective unconscious depends upon each
individual’s authenticity to fulfil its greater design. All these are mythic
images for the deeper function of the sun which, becoming the conduit
for an individual’s authentic self-expression, inevitably contributes
something to the larger psyche from which the individual has come.

5. Liz Greene, seminar at the Centre for Psychological Astrology, 30 June 2002.

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232 Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture

It is essential though, Greene remarks, that the hero performs his/her

task because he/she is driven to it from within. If he/she does it merely
to please others, however humanitarian he/she might wish to sound,
he/she will wind up in trouble, because he is not being true to him-
/herself (Greene and Sasportas 1992: 91). The gods thus seem to require
an individual to act from a point of vocation, ensuing from his having
become an individual, in the completest sense of the word. Greene
maintains that by becoming an individual, the hero, the expression of the
archetypal sun, contributes something to others by that act (Greene and
Sasportas 1992: 91). This principle reconnects to Jungian, humanistic and
transpersonal perspectives, where a self-realised individual is deeply
bound to the well-being of society.
The concept of healing and health is associated with the sun. Greene
(2001: 24) defines ‘healing’ as a process where something that is not
functioning properly is restored, which is to say, it becomes entirely
itself again, according to its essential purpose: it has its integrity back.
The sun represents a kind of integrity, something whole, something
complete, ‘right’, and loyal to itself. A beautiful description of the sun’s
core can best be left in Greene’s words:
The sun, embodying the mythic hero, strives toward an ultimate reward,
an indestructible nugget of identity which justifies and validates one’s
existence. The hero and his prize are really the same thing. The treasure is
the essential core of the hero, his divine side which was always hidden in
his mortal body (Greene and Sasportas 1992: 96).

Conclusion
To recapitulate, Jung called the sovereign motive of human beings ‘indi-
viduation’, thus defining the intrinsic tendency of the individual to evolve
in the direction of psychic wholeness. From a humanistic approach, it is
the drive for self-actualization, while a transpersonal perspective sees it
in self-realization. As different definitions with a common core theme, all
these approaches are proponents of a teleological theory of motivation
that postulates some sort of unitive consciousness as the ultimate and
final cause of behaviour, in order to come as closely as possible, through
psychological wholeness, to one’s own core essence. Psychic wholeness
is seen as reuniting an individual with the numinous part within
him/herself, with a higher source of wisdom, which can disclose one’s
sense of vocation, and ultimately, bestow on life a sense of meaning.
The subsequent consideration of the themes of the mythological hero
has disclosed that the main and repeating leitmotif is his/her struggle to
overcome the darkness of the unconscious, and his/her unquenchable

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Pannone The Hero's Journey 233

desire for the light of consciousness on his/her quest for his true origins.
The quest has been interpreted as being not for the attainment but for the
re-attainment of the godly powers that lay within the heart of the hero
from the beginning. In this sense, the hero’s journey is symbolic for the
search for that divine, creative, and redemptive image which is con-
cealed within us all, waiting to be discovered and brought into life.
Similarly, astrology is a geocentric symbolic representation of human
development.6 Outlining the astrological perspective shows that it tends
to see life’s purpose in the actualisation of the individual’s potential
through the integration of his/her birth chart. Ferrucci (1995: 165) asserts
that each individual should try to discover his/her own unique pattern
and work toward its realization, asserting that, ‘Our entire life’s purpose
is already present within us’. This stance is in fact identical to the per-
spective of psychological astrology, where the birth chart of an
individual is viewed as a seed or blueprint of human potential. A
teleological view of life is close to the astrological position.
In this article I have described similar positions and tenets using dif-
ferent languages: the psychological, the mythological, and the astrological
idioms. Presenting a short description of the meaning of the astrological
sun provides a useful example of the way in which these languages can
be integrated. What should be apparent are the similarities among the
underlying philosophies. The fundamental beliefs of all three disciplines
are essentially philosophical in nature, with less clear-cut boundaries
than what appears at first sight. They differ essentially only in their prac-
tical application. In the process of self-actualization we reach our real
self, or ego, our most individual part. In its search for wholeness (cf. the
corresponding development of psychotherapy), humankind expresses a
growing need for a numinous component in life, or at least for an ade-
quate framework which would allow one to see one’s life in a larger con-
text than our present secularized world-view allows. Wuthnow (1976:
73) explains this phenomenon by noting that a perception of the whole
tends to create awareness that there must be some larger, undefined con-
text in which the whole is situated: the higher the personal development,
the greater the need for a larger, cosmic framework able to contain it.
One of astrology’s attractions for modern individuals is its perception of
a broader life-context.
Humankind seems in need of new myths, of a philosophical or reli-
gious guideline, able to offer individuals sustaining values, a sense of

6. Here I am considering the tropical zodiac (with the earth at the centre of the
solar system), which is how about 95 percent of astrology is presently practised.

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234 Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture

continuity, and to show them what their unique role is in life against a
larger background. Astrology seems to cover this bridging function of
intermediary between a secular world and what is perceived as cosmic
order. Considering the uneasy position of astrology, it might be worth
questioning, as Renaissance astrologer Ficino pointed out, whether the
problem is astrology or the use that is done with it (Voss 2000: 32). To
this end, it is my hope that this paper has been able to encourage such
questions.

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