This series covers events from 01/10/1983 - 04/23/1984

This class series uses Jung's natal chart to investigate three different types of planetary aspects: septiles (one-seventh of 360 degrees), quintiles (one-fifth of 360 degrees), and regular aspects (those that divide 360 degrees into a whole number of degrees).

The January 1983 class looks at the events that occurred when each of the three trans-Saturnian planets conjuncted his Mercury-Venus conjunction, and it explores the possible correlation of planetary dignities and nondignities with the notion of the pure and impure bhavas of buddhi (drawing on the Samkhya tradition of India).

The June 1983 class explores how the three types of aspects specify different ways the World-Idea relates to the individual, examining their function at both natal and transiting levels. At the natal level, regular aspects organize the ego structure and tropes, quintiles represent the image of the rational in the ego (Jones: 'genius'), and septiles represent the idea pressing into the ego as destiny (Jones: 'fatality'). At the transiting level, septiles correspond to the reception of ideas by the undivided mind, quintiles to the rational organization of those ideas, and regular aspects to their manifestation in the tropes.

This framework is then tested empirically by tracing the cycle of aspects that transiting Uranus made to Jung's natal Sun, with the group focusing primarily on the septile series in order to track whether a continuity of idea can be detected across the septile aspects from Jung's childhood through 1945, including the tri-septile (1919), when the value and significance of the psyche was brought home to him; the bi-septile (1932-1933), when the individuation process was given forth as a new and sustained direction in his work; and the septile (1944-1945), when he was forced to declare that individuation proceeds through biological and psychic processes, bringing him into open conflict with his contemporaries.

The July 1983 class develops a theoretical framework for understanding quintiles through detailed analysis of specific examples, with the preliminary finding that quintiles mark individual unfoldment rather than creativity per se. The session distinguishes quintiles from septiles (fixed ideas in the ego, representing what one should be doing) and regular aspects (psychosomatic manifestation), locating quintiles at the psychic level as the facility and ease with which the various psychic functions interrelate — what one is actually doing. The class interprets Jung's quintiles as follows: his Moon-Mars bi-quintile as individuation through the shadow and his difficulty convincing contemporaries that the seeds of individual growth lie in the inferior functions; his Venus-Saturn bi-quintile as the recognition that instinctual life and reflective consciousness are reciprocal, instinct being the ground from which self-awareness springs; his Mercury-Neptune quintile as his empirical orientation toward the psyche and his formulation of the concept of the collective unconscious; and his Sun-Pluto quintile as Jung's appropriation of the power that belongs to the Self.

The August 1983 session provides detailed analysis of Jung's natal aspects: his Uranus-Neptune bi-septile is interpreted as the core belief that "all reality is psychic," his Mars-Venus-Mercury-Pluto septile complex as his "Western Tantric" orientation, his Sun-Pluto quintile as powerful identification with the psyche, his Mercury-Neptune quintile as his ability to interpret symbols, and his one-degree squares as physiological blocks preventing direct access to higher trans-Saturnian functions.

The September 1983 class notes correlations between KCB’s three levels of subjectivity, aspect types, and degree meanings, while the October session focuses on more technical issues about the meaning of septiles and correlates the progressions of Jung’s natal Uranus-Neptune bi-septile with major life events.

In April 1984, the classes focus on the meaning of quintiles: Jung’s Mars-Moon quintile is interpreted as his ability to correlate bodily engrams (Moon) with the inferior function (Mars) and his Sun-Pluto quintile is reinterpreted as his capacity to formulate commanding images that gave him power over situations. Jung's Sun-Pluto quintile is contrasted with Wagner's, which expressed itself through his willing strange combinations of forms onto his unconscious content, producing the original musical structures that characterize his operas, and with Napoleon’s Sun-Pluto bi-quintile, which enabled him to proclaim, “I am a man of destiny chosen to destroy the old order and bring in the new.”

Classes and documents available in this series