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Jung’s Studies in Astrology: Prophecy, Magic, and the Qualities of Time
Winner of the IAJS award for best authored book of 2018!
C. G. Jung had a profound interest in and involvement with astrology, which he made clear in virtually every volume of the Collected Works, as well as in many of his letters. This ancient symbolic system was of primary importance in his understanding of the nature of time, the archetypes, synchronicity, and human fate.
Jung's Studies in Astrology is an historical survey of his astrological work from the time he began to study the subject. It is based not only on his published writings, but also on the correspondence and documents found in his private archives, many of which have never previously seen the light of day. Liz Greene addresses with thoroughness and detailed scholarship the nature of Jung's involvement with astrology: the ancient, medieval, and modern sources he drew on, the individuals from whom he learned, his ideas about how and why it worked, its religious and philosophical implications, and its applications in the treatment of his patients as well as in his own self-understanding. Greene clearly demonstrates that any serious effort to understand the development of Jung's psychological theories, as well as the nature of his world-view, needs to involve a thorough exploration of his astrological work.
This thorough investigation of a central theme in Jung's work will appeal to analytical psychologists and Jungian psychotherapists, students and academics of Jungian and post-Jungian theory, the history of psychology, archetypal thought, mythology and folklore, the history of New Age movements, esotericism, and psychological astrology.
C. G. Jung had a profound interest in and involvement with astrology, which he made clear in virtually every volume of the Collected Works, as well as in many of his letters. This ancient symbolic system was of primary importance in his understanding of the nature of time, the archetypes, synchronicity, and human fate.
Jung's Studies in Astrology is an historical survey of his astrological work from the time he began to study the subject. It is based not only on his published writings, but also on the correspondence and documents found in his private archives, many of which have never previously seen the light of day. Liz Greene addresses with thoroughness and detailed scholarship the nature of Jung's involvement with astrology: the ancient, medieval, and modern sources he drew on, the individuals from whom he learned, his ideas about how and why it worked, its religious and philosophical implications, and its applications in the treatment of his patients as well as in his own self-understanding. Greene clearly demonstrates that any serious effort to understand the development of Jung's psychological theories, as well as the nature of his world-view, needs to involve a thorough exploration of his astrological work.
This thorough investigation of a central theme in Jung's work will appeal to analytical psychologists and Jungian psychotherapists, students and academics of Jungian and post-Jungian theory, the history of psychology, archetypal thought, mythology and folklore, the history of New Age movements, esotericism, and psychological astrology.
244 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2018
32 people are currently reading
454 people want to read
About the author
Liz Greene
76 books451 followersLiz Greene is held in high esteem by astrologers all over the world, professional and non-professional alike. She is a prolific author of books and various publications and has been instrumental in shaping modern psychological astrology.
She holds doctorate degrees in psychology and (as of 2010) in history and is a qualified Jungian analyst. She also holds a diploma in counselling from the Centre for Transpersonal Psychology in London, and a diploma from the Faculty of Astrological Studies, of which she is a lifetime Patron.
She holds doctorate degrees in psychology and (as of 2010) in history and is a qualified Jungian analyst. She also holds a diploma in counselling from the Centre for Transpersonal Psychology in London, and a diploma from the Faculty of Astrological Studies, of which she is a lifetime Patron.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 23, 2019
Published 57 years after Jung’s death, this book marks a breakthrough in Jung scholarship. In contrast to, say, the widespread myth that Isaac Newton was an astrologer (perpetuated by countless astrologers eager to dignify their profession), the extent of Carl Jung’s astrological research has been underreported: minimised, dismissed, or simply ignored. Some of the latter has no doubt been deliberate – Jungians loath to taint their guru’s reputation through association with an unworthy subject – and some degree of omission has presumably occurred because scholars and biographers lacking in-depth astrological knowledge wouldn’t have understood what they were looking at; couldn’t see the forest for the trees because:
Liz Greene, a Jungian analyst with a PhD in history, who’s taught and written on psychological astrology for more than four decades, is ideally qualified to explain how astrology informed Jung’s major theories, a fact Jung himself downplayed because he sought scientific legitimacy. Astrology had lost mainstream cred long before it came to his attention, yet his interest in it endured for the next half century. Greene cites Jung’s daughter Gret’s quoting him saying, at the end of his life, ‘The darned stuff even works after death’.
Is Greene’s rigorously researched and measured account destined for a wide audience? That she had unprecedented access to correspondence and documents found in Jung’s private archives makes for an intriguing read. Yet despite their formative influence on new-age thought, Jung’s ideas have been unfashionable for decades, so new revelations concerning his intellectual life after he’d left the sceptical Freud behind don’t have the appeal of, say, A Dangerous Method, Cronenberg’s star-studded film about Jung’s affair with Sabina Spielrein. Nor will this book engage Jungians with no real affinity for astrology. Likewise, many consumers of astrological books evince little if any interest in archetypal psychology, and see astrology as a typology or use it for prediction, not as a path to in-depth self-knowledge.
In her introduction, Greene refers to liminal subjects, ‘enigmatic borderlands of human exploration’ that resist ‘universally agreed definition’, describing astrology as ‘one of the most historically significant and enduring, as well as one of the most poorly understood’ liminal realms of knowledge.
And Jung delved into ancient texts in his unending quest for understanding. We live in an age that devalues history, a culture that collapses time, erasing its traces and fudging its lines. And, despite apparent concern with the mechanics and meaning of moments in time, as well as its long and short cycles in their infinite variety, astrologers can be strangely blind to the sort of hard facts that could help them test and refine their practice. Jung’s Studies in Astrology: Prophecy, Magic and the Qualities of Time is exemplary for its breadth of focus and balance. To her credit, Greene refrains entirely from the stylistic excesses that have tended to characterise her astrological writings. (And unlike so many astrology books, whether pop or scholarly, Jung’s Studies in Astrology is almost free of typos and errors. Kudos to Routledge for meticulous editing.) And when Greene discusses, besides astrology’s influence on Jung, Jung’s influence on astrology, she never once refers to how hugely influential her own work has been.
For those with narrow or simplistic notions of what astrology is, this book, by tracing its imprint all the way through Jung’s far-ranging fields of inquiry, throws light on its multifaceted nature.
As Sonu Shamdasani writes in the foreword:
The only points at which I winced involve speculative phrasing like ‘may have been’, ‘seems likely that’, and ‘seems to have’. Yet the absence of the kind of total certainty that can prove hypnotic at least guarantees integrity of scholarship.
This landmark text should hold interest for independent thinkers who wouldn’t dream of putting Jung on a pedestal, yet recognise the significance of his impact on 20th-century thought.
… astrology, for Jung, was not a discrete entity in itself. Rather, he perceived complex relationships between astrology and alchemy, magic, ritual, symbol, individual psychological transformation, and collective shifts in religious perception, and these interconnections preoccupied him throughout his life (p. 76).
Liz Greene, a Jungian analyst with a PhD in history, who’s taught and written on psychological astrology for more than four decades, is ideally qualified to explain how astrology informed Jung’s major theories, a fact Jung himself downplayed because he sought scientific legitimacy. Astrology had lost mainstream cred long before it came to his attention, yet his interest in it endured for the next half century. Greene cites Jung’s daughter Gret’s quoting him saying, at the end of his life, ‘The darned stuff even works after death’.
Is Greene’s rigorously researched and measured account destined for a wide audience? That she had unprecedented access to correspondence and documents found in Jung’s private archives makes for an intriguing read. Yet despite their formative influence on new-age thought, Jung’s ideas have been unfashionable for decades, so new revelations concerning his intellectual life after he’d left the sceptical Freud behind don’t have the appeal of, say, A Dangerous Method, Cronenberg’s star-studded film about Jung’s affair with Sabina Spielrein. Nor will this book engage Jungians with no real affinity for astrology. Likewise, many consumers of astrological books evince little if any interest in archetypal psychology, and see astrology as a typology or use it for prediction, not as a path to in-depth self-knowledge.
In her introduction, Greene refers to liminal subjects, ‘enigmatic borderlands of human exploration’ that resist ‘universally agreed definition’, describing astrology as ‘one of the most historically significant and enduring, as well as one of the most poorly understood’ liminal realms of knowledge.
And Jung delved into ancient texts in his unending quest for understanding. We live in an age that devalues history, a culture that collapses time, erasing its traces and fudging its lines. And, despite apparent concern with the mechanics and meaning of moments in time, as well as its long and short cycles in their infinite variety, astrologers can be strangely blind to the sort of hard facts that could help them test and refine their practice. Jung’s Studies in Astrology: Prophecy, Magic and the Qualities of Time is exemplary for its breadth of focus and balance. To her credit, Greene refrains entirely from the stylistic excesses that have tended to characterise her astrological writings. (And unlike so many astrology books, whether pop or scholarly, Jung’s Studies in Astrology is almost free of typos and errors. Kudos to Routledge for meticulous editing.) And when Greene discusses, besides astrology’s influence on Jung, Jung’s influence on astrology, she never once refers to how hugely influential her own work has been.
For those with narrow or simplistic notions of what astrology is, this book, by tracing its imprint all the way through Jung’s far-ranging fields of inquiry, throws light on its multifaceted nature.
As Sonu Shamdasani writes in the foreword:
Like a hermetic riddle, the signs and ciphers of astrology were both abundantly evident, while their significance lay simultaneously concealed: from indications of his study of the subject in his correspondence with Freud and numerous recollections of patients and associates, to the copious references in his alchemical work, the role of his ‘astrological experiment’ in his paper on synchronicity, through to the overarching astrological framework of his study of the psychological significance of the precession of the equinoxes in Aion. Furthermore, there was little by way of a trail that linked this to the main body of his work and its process of formation (p. x). […]
This work … tracks Jung’s evolving use of astrology – or, as the work demonstrates, a number of forms and currents of astrology – in the construction of his psychology, which in turn paved the way for a psychologically inflected astrology. […] Critically, this study does not fall into the trap of proposing yet another monocausal account, but situates Jung’s uses of astrology within broader frameworks in a non-evaluative historical and contextual manner (p. xi).
The only points at which I winced involve speculative phrasing like ‘may have been’, ‘seems likely that’, and ‘seems to have’. Yet the absence of the kind of total certainty that can prove hypnotic at least guarantees integrity of scholarship.
This landmark text should hold interest for independent thinkers who wouldn’t dream of putting Jung on a pedestal, yet recognise the significance of his impact on 20th-century thought.
January 16, 2025
Un libro espectacular, fascinante y muy bien estructurado.
El tema es muy amplio, dado que toca la biografía “oculta” de Jung, y todo aquello que otros teóricos critican sin hacer referencia, analizar o buscar pruebas de sus teorías y su manera de observar la psique, el “destino” y la “astrología”.
Este libro no habla de astrología en sí, sino que repasa y explica todo aquello que Jung estudió como parte de la astrología dejándola de lado como una superstición, sino más bien viéndola como un proceso filosófico y de teosofía personal para la consciencia y el autoconocimiento profundos.
Además de esto, habla de distintos puntos importantes en astrología que no se suelen tocar entre astrólogos: los orígenes de la astrología y porque sería válida o no, cuál es la veracidad y la exactitud de la astrología, o porque muchas veces sus cálculos son tan exactos con los eventos externos.
Liz Greene hizo un gran trabajo al investigar y describir conceptos clave para entender la perspectiva tanto de Jung como la suya, sin embargo, puede parecer que este libro es solo el comienzo de un estudio complejo de la astrología “en serio”.
La escritura con la que lleva a cabo Liz, de manera grandiosa entre tantas referencias y el análisis de distintos puntos de vista y argumentos compartidos o diferidos entre autores me hace pensar en la gran mente que tiene esta mujer.
Considero que es un MUST READ para cualquier persona que busca darle sentido a sus “creencias” esotéricas, sean de astrología o ajenas a ella, sin embargo, sí puede ser un libro pesado o muy teórico para adentrarse a él sin previo aviso.
Además de que muchas veces, es necesario o recomendable hacer investigación, junto a Greene y todas sus referencias, de los conceptos de los que se habla para no perder los cabos y atarlos todos.
El tema es muy amplio, dado que toca la biografía “oculta” de Jung, y todo aquello que otros teóricos critican sin hacer referencia, analizar o buscar pruebas de sus teorías y su manera de observar la psique, el “destino” y la “astrología”.
Este libro no habla de astrología en sí, sino que repasa y explica todo aquello que Jung estudió como parte de la astrología dejándola de lado como una superstición, sino más bien viéndola como un proceso filosófico y de teosofía personal para la consciencia y el autoconocimiento profundos.
Además de esto, habla de distintos puntos importantes en astrología que no se suelen tocar entre astrólogos: los orígenes de la astrología y porque sería válida o no, cuál es la veracidad y la exactitud de la astrología, o porque muchas veces sus cálculos son tan exactos con los eventos externos.
Liz Greene hizo un gran trabajo al investigar y describir conceptos clave para entender la perspectiva tanto de Jung como la suya, sin embargo, puede parecer que este libro es solo el comienzo de un estudio complejo de la astrología “en serio”.
La escritura con la que lleva a cabo Liz, de manera grandiosa entre tantas referencias y el análisis de distintos puntos de vista y argumentos compartidos o diferidos entre autores me hace pensar en la gran mente que tiene esta mujer.
Considero que es un MUST READ para cualquier persona que busca darle sentido a sus “creencias” esotéricas, sean de astrología o ajenas a ella, sin embargo, sí puede ser un libro pesado o muy teórico para adentrarse a él sin previo aviso.
Además de que muchas veces, es necesario o recomendable hacer investigación, junto a Greene y todas sus referencias, de los conceptos de los que se habla para no perder los cabos y atarlos todos.
January 4, 2021
Until this book was published in 2018 there wasn't a collection of Jung's writings on astrology. Greene was given access to Jung's private library and was able to include writings from his private notes and correspondence. This book shows how Jung played a pivotal role in the development of psychological astrology in the early 1900's. Liz Greene is a Jungian analyst, astrologer, and an academic with two Ph.D.'s. This is a heavily researched academic book but to anyone with an interest in both Jung and astrology it is very accessible and easy to read.
"Consequently, little attention has been paid to Jung’s own statements: that he began studying astrology while he was still working with Freud ‘in order to find a clue to the core of psychological truth’; that he used natal horoscopes to better understand the unconscious dynamics of his patients ‘in cases of difficult psychological diagnosis’; that he recommended that any person training as a psychotherapist should learn astrology; and that astrology’s value ‘is obvious enough to the psychologist, since astrology represents the sum of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity’."
"Whatever the source, myth seems to have provided Jung with a sense that the horoscope at birth can describe not only the nature of the individual’s inherent temperament and unconscious complexes, but, more importantly, the deeper teleology of the individual’s psychic life: the path of individuation."
"Freeman asked Jung whether he still believed in God, and Jung replied: Now? Difficult to answer. I know. I needn’t, I don’t need to believe. I know. Freeman did not ask Jung whether he ‘believed’ in astrology. But it is likely that the answer would have been the same."
"Consequently, little attention has been paid to Jung’s own statements: that he began studying astrology while he was still working with Freud ‘in order to find a clue to the core of psychological truth’; that he used natal horoscopes to better understand the unconscious dynamics of his patients ‘in cases of difficult psychological diagnosis’; that he recommended that any person training as a psychotherapist should learn astrology; and that astrology’s value ‘is obvious enough to the psychologist, since astrology represents the sum of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity’."
"Whatever the source, myth seems to have provided Jung with a sense that the horoscope at birth can describe not only the nature of the individual’s inherent temperament and unconscious complexes, but, more importantly, the deeper teleology of the individual’s psychic life: the path of individuation."
"Freeman asked Jung whether he still believed in God, and Jung replied: Now? Difficult to answer. I know. I needn’t, I don’t need to believe. I know. Freeman did not ask Jung whether he ‘believed’ in astrology. But it is likely that the answer would have been the same."
December 28, 2025
La millor xapa per acabar aquest 2025. Visca Jung i visca els astres 🌟
December 12, 2019
Liz Greene is almost always a pleasure to read. This book involved two of her greatest passions, Jung and Astrology. It is so fitting that she is the author of this book, which I would call the authoritative statement on Jung’s view of astrology.
The following are some of my favorite excerpts:
Like Plato, Jung was suspicious of what he understood as ‘mass psychology’…‘Mass psychology’, for Jung, involves the human willingness to abandon individual reason, values, experience, and consciousness in order to enjoy the safety of merging with the group, which may then demand license to vent unconscious fear, aggression, hatred, and greed without the necessity for reflection or responsibility.
“All mass movements, as one might expect, slip with the greatest ease down an inclined plane represented by large numbers. Where the many are, there is security; what the many believe must of course be true; what the many want must be worth striving for, and necessary, and therefore good. In the clamor of the many there lies the power to snatch wish-fulfilment by force... Wherever social conditions of this type develop on a large scale the road to tyranny lies open and freedom of the individual turns into spiritual and physical slavery.” – Pgs. 182-183
…Although some astrologers accept the idea that fate is concrete and fixed, more psychologically inclined astrologers understand fate as multi-leveled and negotiable. In Jung’s view, horoscopic fate presents a profound conundrum. Ultimately one must ‘do gladly and freely that which one must do’; but those operative adverbs, ‘gladly’ and ‘freely’, imply a voluntary conscious cooperation with the ‘eternal facts’ – the archetypes themselves – that cannot be coerced or eradicated through any human effort. Free will for Jung, involved respect for, and acceptance of, the will of the daimon, while simultaneously encompassing a dialogue and potential transformation that could allow both the personality and the daimon to flower in the most creative possible way.
In Jung’s context, this marriage of personality with Self does not depend on, or result in, perfection, and the suggestion that one can ‘transcend’, ‘overcome’, or ‘cure’ the difficult dimensions of a natal horoscope would have seemed as absurd to him as bowing one’s head and accepting a fate-imposed suffering without attempting to understand why. Wholeness was the ideal towards which Jung aspired, and it requires living with the conflicts symbolized by the horoscope in ways that might sometimes involve struggle and failure, but which ultimately acknowledge meaning and teleology in those conflicts, along with loyalty to the truth of oneself.
…In Oct 1959, toward the end of his life, Jung was interviewed by John Freeman. …Freeman asked Jung whether he still believed in G-d, and Jung replied:
“Now? Difficult to answer. I know. I needn’t, I don’t need to believe. I know.”
Freeman did not ask Jung whether he ‘believed’ in astrology. But it is likely that the answer would have been the same. – Pg. 186
The following are some of my favorite excerpts:
Like Plato, Jung was suspicious of what he understood as ‘mass psychology’…‘Mass psychology’, for Jung, involves the human willingness to abandon individual reason, values, experience, and consciousness in order to enjoy the safety of merging with the group, which may then demand license to vent unconscious fear, aggression, hatred, and greed without the necessity for reflection or responsibility.
“All mass movements, as one might expect, slip with the greatest ease down an inclined plane represented by large numbers. Where the many are, there is security; what the many believe must of course be true; what the many want must be worth striving for, and necessary, and therefore good. In the clamor of the many there lies the power to snatch wish-fulfilment by force... Wherever social conditions of this type develop on a large scale the road to tyranny lies open and freedom of the individual turns into spiritual and physical slavery.” – Pgs. 182-183
…Although some astrologers accept the idea that fate is concrete and fixed, more psychologically inclined astrologers understand fate as multi-leveled and negotiable. In Jung’s view, horoscopic fate presents a profound conundrum. Ultimately one must ‘do gladly and freely that which one must do’; but those operative adverbs, ‘gladly’ and ‘freely’, imply a voluntary conscious cooperation with the ‘eternal facts’ – the archetypes themselves – that cannot be coerced or eradicated through any human effort. Free will for Jung, involved respect for, and acceptance of, the will of the daimon, while simultaneously encompassing a dialogue and potential transformation that could allow both the personality and the daimon to flower in the most creative possible way.
In Jung’s context, this marriage of personality with Self does not depend on, or result in, perfection, and the suggestion that one can ‘transcend’, ‘overcome’, or ‘cure’ the difficult dimensions of a natal horoscope would have seemed as absurd to him as bowing one’s head and accepting a fate-imposed suffering without attempting to understand why. Wholeness was the ideal towards which Jung aspired, and it requires living with the conflicts symbolized by the horoscope in ways that might sometimes involve struggle and failure, but which ultimately acknowledge meaning and teleology in those conflicts, along with loyalty to the truth of oneself.
…In Oct 1959, toward the end of his life, Jung was interviewed by John Freeman. …Freeman asked Jung whether he still believed in G-d, and Jung replied:
“Now? Difficult to answer. I know. I needn’t, I don’t need to believe. I know.”
Freeman did not ask Jung whether he ‘believed’ in astrology. But it is likely that the answer would have been the same. – Pg. 186
January 22, 2022
Insightful and illuminating
Liz Greene’s recalling of Jung's delvings into the discipline of astrology should give practicing psychotherapists pause for thought and inner reflection.
Liz Greene’s recalling of Jung's delvings into the discipline of astrology should give practicing psychotherapists pause for thought and inner reflection.
April 11, 2020
Grat book, a bridge between the two sides of the river of life: Science/Empirical evidence and admitting an inner spark of divinity and greater soul purpose.
October 27, 2021
It is not surprising that C.G. Jung was interested in astrology since astrological theory is one of the longest lived and most complicated products of the human psyche. The author makes a compelling case that astrology was essential in both Jung’s theories and psychological practice. Her scholarship is extraordinary. Not only does she have a deep familiarity with all of Jung’s writings and letters; she has read all the volumes in his personal library. She also has a comprehensive knowledge of historical sources in a range of occult fields as well as contemporary work in astrology. She has woven all of these sources with her own experience as an astrologer and Jungian analyst into a brilliant tapestry. Highly recommended not only for Jungian and post-Jungian scholars and historians and practitioners of astrology. Also fascinating for readers with an interest in the nature of fate and free will and the grand cycles of time.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews