Episode 10 // Archetypes, Astrology, and AI in the Age of Aquarius w/ Laurence Hillman

The renowned Archetypal Astrologer, Laurence Hillman joins Rage of Aquarius for an enlightening discussion on the relevance of archetypal astrology for understanding the self and navigating societal challenges. 

We discuss the prevalent skepticism against astrology, including the irrelevant pursuit of disproving astrology, and the historical context of astrological criticism. 

Shifting gears, we also discuss the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in revolutionizing creativity  by automating analytical tasks to bolster right-brain activities. 

We conclude with a reflection on the resurgence of the feminine principle in creativity and the cosmos, propelled by mythology and recent technological advancements in AI, symbolizing a pivotal transformation in modern consciousness and societal paradigms.

Diving Deep into Archetypes with Lawrence Hillman. 

In this episode we discuss: 

• The Limitations of Typology and Embracing Complexity
• James Hillman's Legacy and the Soul's Journey
• Astrological Insights: Pluto's Transit and the Age of Aquarius
• Navigating the Chaos of 2020 and Beyond
•  Exploring the Concept of a Three-Dimensional Network
• The Power of Astrology in Understanding the Future
• Diving Deep into the Aquarius Sign
• Adapting to the Aquarian Era: Skills for a New World
• The Importance of Discernment in an Information-Overloaded Society
• The Role of Archetypes in Personal and Political Dynamics
• The Challenge of Political Polarization and Finding a Third Way
• The Cut-Up Technique: A Metaphor for Cultural Division
• The Role of Education in Shaping Perspectives
• Understanding the Soul in a Scientific World
•  Astrology and Skepticism: A Heated Debate
• Navigating Corporate Disinterest in Archetypes
• The Unwavering Eight: Ignoring the Critics
• Spontaneous Awakenings and the Value of Astrology
• Confronting Criticism: The Astrology Community's Response
• The Feminine Essence of Astrology
• Embracing the Hatred: Astrology's Power and Threat
• Historical Insights: Astrology's Rich Legacy
• The Scientific Community vs. Astrology
• AI and Astrology: A New Frontier
• The Divine Feminine and Creative Transformation

Transcript

Rachel: 0:02

Welcome back to another amazing episode of the Rage of Aquarius. Today, Andre, Frederick, and myself are thrilled to have a guest named Lawrence Hillman, who is a renowned archetypal astrologer. And archetypal astrology is a very special field that is very important to me. It's inspiring to my work, and it's a field that was pioneered by Lawrence Hillman's father. whom you may have heard of, the famous and influential psychologist James Hellman, who pioneered the field of archetypal psychology. Now Lawrence has continued this work that his father started and he has provided transformative perspectives on many of life's challenges. His notable works include A really great book that I love called Planets in Play, which offers a very accessible introduction to astrology through the lens of planetary archetypes. It has a lot of practical and therapeutic use. You could use it to learn a lot about yourself, heal many things, get insights that you never expected to get. And Lawrence is also the co creator of Archetypes at Work, evolving your story, evolving your story one story at a time. I forget what the subtitle is. I'm sorry, Lawrence, but Archetypes at Work is another really great book that is definitely something that you'd want to follow Planets and Play with. So we're really, really excited to have our guest Lawrence today because there's a lot that we can cover. We're going to talk about many, many things and thank you so much for being here, Lawrence.

Laurence Hillman: 2:00

Well, thank you. What a generous introduction. I appreciate it. I'm thrilled to be here. I think you guys are phenomenal and I'm just happy to be in the in the virtual room with you all.

Frederick: 2:09

And we're really happy as well. I want to just add a quick footnote to Rachel's intro that, uh, Lawrence, he's the co creator of Archetypes at Work with Richard Olivier, and we'll talk more about that interesting partnership as we go here today, but I just wanted to put that in there. Um, and again, welcome Lawrence. Um, I think it would be great to start like at a real fundamental level, and before going into like archetypal astrology, to kind of give the listener a sort of, uh, kind of primer on just what, what are archetypes? Because you hear this term continually, especially in psychological astrology or modern astrology. How would you define archetypes? an archetype to someone that really has no understanding of that

Laurence Hillman: 3:09

concept. Thanks for that. Well, I think they're universal experiences. They are something that we share and that we have in common, no matter who we are and where we are, how we look, if we walk on our head or not, you know, none of that matters because it's a universal, it's like, I've called archetypes the human genome of the soul. So, it's, what, it's what every human being, by the fact that they're born, has in them. So, they recognize them when awakened or when triggered or when, you know, shown to them. And so, for instance, the archetype of mother, you know, a famous one, it doesn't matter where you go in the world, everybody experiences mother in some way. It then becomes personal. So, it's a collective experience that's individually experienced. So, for instance, mother then becomes my inner mother, my external mother, how I mother people, mothering and all those things. But it's based on a recognizable, almost genetic understanding of what mother and mothering means, which is universal. And so, of course, some of that comes from Jung's work of going around the world and finding out that people did very similar things in very different cultures. So that's what archetypes are to me. It's not a type. I'm not walking around as an archetype. So I'm not, it's very different from typology, which is how marketing uses it, you know, that simplistic.

Frederick: 4:33

My understanding of it when I started to delve deeper into it, because I really wanted to get kind of the evolutionary angle on it, not evolutionary astrology, but historical development, like If I understand it correctly, it was like Freud brought forward the idea of the impulses and the drives, and then I believe Carl Jung then took those and expanded on them and, you know, made them into something much more multifaceted than just the survival drive, the sexual drive, the security drive, and, and is that kind of, is that a correct

Laurence Hillman: 5:17

assessment of that? Thank you. Yes, and the big thing that Jung added from my view is that he added the idea that these are not, you know, Freud sound very personalized. It's my this and my that. And, and this, the, the idea of archetypes is that they are, they're already there, you know, and we just, we think of it as if, you know, you could also think of it as a frequency that's playing in the universe. And, you know, and we all have the proper tuning forks to tune into those frequencies. And we know how to do that in some way. We then express, we translate that experience of the universal into a very personal one, which is based on the culture that we grew up in, how we were raised, the whole nurture piece. But by nature, we have an ability To, to, uh, resonate is another good word, with these universal principles, which is, which is in a way, which is what Jung brought in, quite a spiritual experience. Because it's, it's, it's bigger than me and I can tap into this. I always think of the collective unconscious, another great Jungian term, as a giant pool, you know, where everything exists, and I can dive into that and, and, and, uh, and resonate with any one of these, or swim with any one of these archetypes quite naturally, because I have that in my sort of genetics of my soul. It's

Frederick: 6:36

interesting, uh, I think Freud had a Scorpio Ascendant, and then Jung had an Aquarian. Which really, I think, answers that from an astral angle, where he took it into the something universal, more humanity based.

Laurence Hillman: 6:54

Thank you for that response, that's great. I've never thought of that, you're welcome, I've never thought of what you just said, but that's a brilliant explanation, right in their own personalities. Well, and

Frederick: 7:07

Freud's Scorpio Ascendant, of course, everything was run through the libido, sex drive, so his whole foundation was, uh, I could see that reflected in his Ascendant as well.

Laurence Hillman: 7:20

Great. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, right?

Rachel: 7:27

One thing that I really appreciated about what you just shared regarding archetypes is that you are not embodying just one archetype, which is something that I see constantly being sort of promoted. either pop psychology or just kind of in the mishmash of internet world internet language there's this confusion about what archetypes represent and there's this kind of pull to center your whole being around embodying one archetype. But what I really loved about your book, Planets in Play, and what I also learned first from Thomas More's book, The Planets Within, was that the archetypal realm within is polytheistic. It is something that better be understood as, I think it's the theater of images within. And there's this multiplicity of self that is like the kind of prismatic, imaginative, uh, You know, natural, imaginative, prismatic inner world, which takes on many shapes and many forms, and rather than trying to seize upon one archetype that represents you, uh, instead, the, you know, renaissance Marsilio Ficino, uh, Astrological medicine plus the archetypal astrology that you're doing as far as I've understood instead encourages this recognition of this multiplicity within and finding harmony and balance and sort of creating dynamic interplay with these many parts of yourself to promote creative flow and self discovery and it's really liberating in my opinion because the idea of, you know, monotheism outside of religion is this kind of calling to always identify with just one influence or one archetype or one narrow ideology and it naturally becomes so restrictive and so suffocating that it prevents any real flourishing, any real growth. And uh, so what I really like about what you just said is that it's archetypes are not about finding the one that you are or the one role that you're playing. Um, instead you're encouraging this, I guess, you know, as they said, polytheistic or even, you know, prismatic internal experience. Is that

Laurence Hillman: 10:33

correct? Yeah, you've just hit on my favorite subject. I mean, this is really the key and the core of the work. However, I wouldn't say that it's something that I do. I would say that it's something that astrologers do. This is the difference between Sun Sign Astrology and a full chart. And what I have against Sun Sign Astrology, even though everybody does it and it certainly has its value, is that it's a typology. And, and psychology, the way it's been practiced for the longest time, since behaviorists and, and developmental psychologists took over psychology, is that it has become, um, a typology. Uh, if you, you know, you label me as ADD and whatever else, you put a label on my forehead, I'm now a type. And so that has certain explanations. Numerology is typology. You know, Myers Briggs is a typology. People love typologies. I'm an introvert. I'm an extrovert. Simple labels, a very easy way to live and to put people in a box. Uh huh. But I've seen very practically in the Leadership is that leaders, particularly successful leaders, will no longer tolerate being put in a box. You give them a Myers Briggs label, and they will run away. It's just notpeople are learning that this is limiting, and it is also, very importantly, in a world of division, it is, by definition, exclusionary. Therefore, if I say I'm an INTFJ, and I don't know what I am, but I'm just saying that, If I say I'm an INTFJ, I'm not the other 15 types. I've just excluded myself from that group. I'm different from you all. If I say I'm an Aries, I'm not the other 11 signs. I'm therefore different. Typologies are always exclusionary. We live in a world that is already enough separated. So archetypal model says the opposite. It says, actually, We all have the same ten archetypes within. And, and, and you can say that astrologically, we all have the same ten planets within. Now it's a whole different conversation. Oh, you live in the middle of Africa. I'm curious how you're expressing the warrior or Mars. How is that different from my culture? So now we can talk about personal expressions of the archetypes, but we both agree that there is this common thing that we both share, which is the warrior, or the lover, or the dreamer, the dreamer. or the renegade, whatever we call these parts. But the fastest growing psychology today, interestingly enough, is parts psychology, this idea that we have these different parts. I have some issues with part psychology. It's a different conversation. But it's the same notion, which essentially astrology has been doing for 5, 000 years, is that we have a complexity internally and not a single label. And that is really very valuable. And now we're getting into why this is important today and why. I think astrology has so much potential for the future because it already speaks a language. Anybody who's studied astrology already understands this multiplicity without having to be taught anything else and, and knows the limitations of, of walking around as a single anything. Hmm. Oh my

Frederick: 13:25

God. I just pop in with an interesting aside, uh, uh, the topic of sun signs is so heated. God And I under, I understand the logic in that. I remember a UK astrologer, Dennis Elwell said, uh, there's a special rung in hell for astrologers that have to write sun sign columns. And, uh, but you know, I once worked for a little bit with Jonathan Kainer, he was another UK astrologer. And. When we talked about sun signs, he said, well, it's really good to look at sun signs as like different tribes. And when he said that to me, I thought, God, I, I kind of get it because there's no denying that the sun being this center focus in our solar system, holding everything together. I think it has that kind of. Potency and harmonizing effect like in the chart so I can see why Well, I can, I can see why there is some weird, mysterious element to Sun Sign Astrology, and yes, it is, uh, cursed by the typology, uh, formatting, but I don't know. I'm, any thoughts from you guys on that, or?

Rachel: 14:52

Well, I feel like it's Um, something I've never actually done is right. I know I am actually, I just, I had this opportunity to just kind of write what I wanted and I never have been able to bring myself to do that. And I feel really grateful, but, um, The focus on the sun and the sun sign horoscopes is, it can be valuable as an introduction. I mean, that's obviously where most people are starting with astrology, unless they happen to be raised in a family that takes astrology seriously. This was not my area. experience. And so the very first introduction I ever got to astrology was just cheap magazine horoscopes, sun sign horoscopes, and it can be a good, uh, introduction, a good gateway into wanting to learn more. But, um, what you were saying, Lawrence, actually really, it kind of, it connected some dots in my own story, like why I was so attracted to astrology and why it really It fed this place inside me that was so hungry because I was interested in astrology when I was a kid, obviously, and I did study it enough to be able to, you know, talk with my friends in school about the way that our energies interacted, but I was not taking it seriously. I wasn't, planning on turning this into a profession at all. My initial profession or my career track was to become a teacher. So I got a teaching credential to teach English literature in, you know, California. And this was a really traumatic experience because I was I wanted to be a teacher since I was in first grade. I remember telling my mom that I wanted to be a teacher, and I took that really seriously. My great grandmother was a schoolteacher, but her world was a completely different world. She actually became a schoolteacher in 1919? and taught in a one room schoolhouse, had kindergartners to seniors all in the same building and actually managed. I know and she was so beloved that when I would visit her every summer there would be these old people that would show up at the door to have tea with her because they once were her student back in like the 1930s and they just wanted to like, you know, show her some love and thank her for the way that she shaped their minds. And so this profession meant a lot to me. And by the time I was done with my teaching credential, I had discovered that number one, I am a gifted teacher. I loved the work. I had so much fun. Um, but that bureaucratic public school system in California was completely and totally based upon behaviorism. And I was totally naive to what that was or what that meant. And when I saw its application, um, and the way that it was used. to just suffocate and restrict and also, you know, condemn students for almost anything that was outside of this very narrow concept of normal behavior and normal academic performance. Um, I was So incapable of imagining a future working within that system, not only that, but at the very end of my program, this was, uh, 2013, so I was graduating in May, I had done all of this work to become a certified, credentialed, English teacher and, um, in the month of April 2013, right before I was graduating, I had the, uh, I had a mandatory meeting where they had added it to our, our workload. And this mandatory meeting was a big introduction to Common Core. The Common Core Curriculum, and I had to sit through like four or five hours of the most boring, bureaucratic, and just mind numbing talk about standards and the reasoning behind what they were doing to the curriculum, but when they got to English literature, They essentially described that they were going to be removing as much literature, as much storytelling, as much fiction, and as much poetry as humanly possible, and replace it all with technical reading. And their justification for this was that they wanted to teach critical thinking skills. Which is always like a 100 percent lie. It's quite the opposite. But they were taking out of the schools the last place where there was something soulful and deep and archetypal, mythic, just having the ability to, you know, immerse yourself in great literature, into stories that actually do teach you critical thinking, you know, and I tried to argue with them. Not that it would have made a difference. I mean, I had no power to do a thing about it. This is a, you know, this was a federal education program, but I was trying to reason with the people that were giving the presentation. And just stand up for how important it is to have fiction, to read stories, to have poetry and myths and great novels. And when that was all over, I realized I can't work for these people. I cannot do this. They are just completely, um, obsessed with turning children into, uh, machines. I guess that's one. Metaphor, but even worse, like, just completely and totally destroy that sense of internal, uh, variety, the prismatic psyche, and the way that you described, Lawrence, the, um, The typology, it really, really made me understand better what they were doing. And it was so essential according to their system and their paperwork and the way that everything worked. And what I was supposed to do as a teacher was participate in this heavily, um, labeling the students, labeling them, even the label of gifted. is damning because you know even being called gifted in that system is so monotone it's so yeah it's so it is typology

Andrei: 21:58

it's how you grow up to be like a 35 year old Buck up without any ambitions in life and nothing but ruined dreams and

Frederick: 22:09

aspirations, the

Laurence Hillman: 22:10

gifted label. Well, on the topic

Frederick: 22:13

of stories and poetry and myth, I would like to talk with Lawrence about his father, James Hillman, because James really, you know, made that area of life, a central focus for his work with what he was doing with archetypal psychology. I just want to ask a real basic question, Lawrence, like, how, how do you, how do, how do you, Explain your father to folks and what he was doing, and then also, how was it to be raised by him, you know, as a child?

Laurence Hillman: 23:00

Well, there's a lot of questions there and, and, and, and there's a lot of complexity in the question, but I'll answer it as, as, as clearly as I can. Um, I think what he was doing was awakening us to. the fact of what, you know, to tie into what Rachel just said, that, you know, you can, you can try to numb soul and play whack a mole with it, but it's going to pop up again. And, and, you know, and, um, I get those people that went to those schools that you left, Rachel, you know, later in the corporate world, and, and they are soulless. But, of course, they're not soulless, but they just have a, you know, they have weird experiences of soul, or they try desperately to get back to soul, but soulless, you can't, you can't deny soul. You can't, you know, knock it out. So it's going to show up in the weirdest places, and there's going to be, and there's going to be, you know, the inner life is still going on, even if you pretend it's not. It becomes a very sort of schizoid life, and people are really disconnected and lost, and their religion isn't doing it for them. And so they're looking, you know, the new age sort of didn't quite work, and given what they were looking for, there's a such a strong longing out there for meaningful existence and meaningful work. Those of us who can bring people back to a sense of being part of something, i. e. the whole universe and being, you know, but a, a, a grain of sand on the beach, that's a very comforting feeling for a lot of people, despite this rugged individualism crap that's so American. And so, And so, um, that collective awareness, we're now even getting a little bit into the whole notion of the feminine, but it is, it is that. So I think my father was very aware of this, and was very, um, conscious about, you know, giving soul, It's own place. The most important thing was that you don't have soul. Soul has you. I think that's one of the key lines that I learned from him and you are in soul. Soul is not in you. And so that and that the world is in soul and everything is soul and you know, I have a lecture I do called Venus in a chocolate mousse, you know to me, The archetypes are in everything and everywhere. It's how I look and see. That's maybe one of the greatest things I learned as a child. But the easiest way to describe that is what a friend of mine once said. He said, you were marinated in archetypes. And that's kind of true. It's in, it's in my, it's in my existence. It's, it's how I think and see and, and, and think of everything. I can't not do that. I sometimes think of those. If you saw the movie, um, Uh, uh, the movie National Treasure with Nick, with Nick Cage, where he has to steal the Declaration of Independence and look on the back of it with a special glasses that, that, um, were designed by, um, what's his name? The guy on the 100 bill? Benjamin Franklin. Oh, by Ben Franklin. Um, so, uh, you know, and, and, and only when you move the lenses in a certain way, the map comes out and you see the map, otherwise you just see the back paper. Um, Right. And that idea to me is really what what we what we call the archetypal eye and developing the archetypal eye is the ability to see archetypes everywhere and in anything which is exactly what astrologers do because you see the planets and everything it's the same thing and so seeing oh this is a lunar experience and rachel we have this in our language i'm so glad you're an english major you know We have this in our language, we have Saturnine, we have Lunar, we have Mercurial, these are all real experiences that we have all the time. And by the way, We are not singular inside. You cannot have a conversation with yourself if you're a singular, singular I. It's not possible. You can't be saying, hmm, should I leave this guy or should I stay with this guy? Well, if I leave this guy, you can't do that if you're singular I. You're having conversations with yourself all day long. We all do that. That's

Frederick: 26:47

a great point. It's so simple.

Laurence Hillman: 26:49

We experience ourselves as multiple. So, so all we're doing as astrologers is giving those voices, um, a name and a character. And then if we use whatever model we use, I use a theatrical one, they become real life figures that we can argue with and fight with and kiss and, you know, have fun with. And that's, that's the interaction with my inner life, which is a very active process and can. hugely set people free from their, from their, you know, inhibitions or, or fears or whatever else. Because it's, you know, the, the greatest, the greatest, um, compliment I can get from a client is when they say, I really feel seen. And I have come to the, you know, if you ask me what I've learned in 47 years of practicing astrology, in one sentence, it would be, I've learned that the most important thing that people want is to be seen. Yeah. And when people walk into an organization or a school and, and they're not being seen for anything except their left brain intellect, then, um, then they're not being seen. And so they feel they're leaving most of themselves at the door. And that feels very incomplete in a time where everyone's talking about holistic, this and holistic, that it's not true. We're all just being seen for a little, for, for our usefulness as part of the fog in the machine. Right.

Frederick: 28:09

You know, you mentioned the in what you were describing there this return or rising of the feminine. And, you know, it got me thinking like, and I think we've talked about this before in the cast here a couple episodes back on the feminine reasserting. And, uh, and then I started to think, well, it might actually be why there is so much crazy disruption and polarity now. Because the feminine, having been repressed for so

Laurence Hillman: 28:49

long,

Frederick: 28:50

and now gaining, say, traction in the culture and with, you could say, the collective. It seems to just be setting, like, all of this, uh, reactionary behavior reeling. Um, does that, does that sort of jive with what your sense of, well, how would you, how would you describe, like, the return or rising of the

Laurence Hillman: 29:16

feminine? Thank you. So, thank you. That's, that's my favorite question. So, so the world has for a long time been complicated. Complicated is a car that's made up of a bunch of simple things, like the windshield washer system is part of the car. It's a, it's a, you know, a few, a few blades, a motor, a couple of hoses, you know, and a switch. That's a little tank for the fluids. That's your windshield wiper system. If something breaks in the system, you can replace it. It's a simple system, but you add all of those together and the car becomes rather complicated. That's how the world has been for a long time. Everything is known, and even though you put together lots of known pieces, it can get complicated. We are now living in a world that has an additional thing to it, which is called complexity. We now have complexity, and the difference between complicated and complexity is that we have emergence. COVID is a good, is a good image. Overnight, something can happen, wars that are happening right now. Everything, because we are so global, anything that happens right now. that is global becomes an interruption to the whole system. You know, welcome to Pluto and Aquarius. So you have these deep changes that are going on that have to do with complexity rising everywhere because emergence is rising everywhere. And here's the cool thing in a simple sentence, and then I'll explain it. But the simple truth to me is the complexity capability, the ability to deal with complexity, Is a right brain capability, not a left brain capability. Complexity can only be handled with imagination, with fantasy, with intuition, with these weird quote unquote feminine skills that are not analog and not linear. And so, um, you know, I have an MBA that I got in 88. Believe me, none of this was taught in business school then. And, and so leaders and managers. have been taught that the way things are done and the way things are led is you get enough data. It's data driven, it's evidence based, it's left brain, it's all these things that are, and by the way, now AI has popped up that can do left brain a million times, a gazillion times faster than we can. So left brain is a really up shits creek in plain English. And so, you know, and, and, and, and also someone was asking me, why would anybody want to work with only half their brain? But most people are doing that. Because all of that right brain stuff, I did my dissertation for my doctorate about right brain capabilities of white male CEOs. And, um, I will tell you that there's a lot of problems there, you know, as was to be expected with right brain capabilities and intuition and feelings and all that kind of right brain stuff. So the rising of the feminine, to me, is complexity capability that is, um, a necessity for survival. And the, and, and there's a, there's a rush to it, as in, you know, psilocybin and all other ways of awakening the right brain quickly and pushing a button and taking a pill, which is the left brain way to do anything. And, um, you know, trying to get at this part of ourselves that knows how to deal with this crazy new world. It's not, it's not rational. It's not, it's, it's also not irrational. It's a rational. And so we want to learn this again. We want to access these parts of ourselves again. And right brain capability is a, is, can be mapped, um, with archetypes because that's, you know, how we, we need a language to do that. And archetypes is a really good language to map and to talk about, uh, right brain capabilities. If you look at a leadership magazine today, you know, high caliber, famous, you know, we want to talk about this stuff. kind of a thing like Harvard Business Review or something like that. The most, you know, sophisticated leaders will read. This is all they're talking about. Everyone is saying right brain capabilities, right brain capabilities. We need to, we need to, you know, imagination, creativity. We're being out, you know, it's technology is not going to do it. We need to this and that and the other, all these creative tools. And how do we, nobody Nobody teaches you how to do that. Are these what's

Andrei: 33:25

called, uh, are these what are

Laurence Hillman: 33:26

called soft skills? That's, that was one of the ways they tried it. Then they tried some other things that quote unquote have feminine undertones, like, you know, servant leadership and leadership from behind and all these kinds of things. Those are, those are measly attempts. Soft skills have come, has come and gone. That was real popular for a while. But now pushback from the macho left side. I, I, I

Frederick: 33:47

understand what you're saying, um, in the sense that You know, it's what I've always sought in

Andrei: 33:54

my creative work, where the left brain stuff, the technique, the technical skill

Laurence Hillman: 34:01

involved, That's, that's, that's

Andrei: 34:03

building, uh, that's building the golf course, but it's not the game.

Laurence Hillman: 34:07

Thank you. Um,

Andrei: 34:09

you know, but you still, you know, and you need the, you do need the golf course. And I, I, what I've noticed is that the more, you know, uh, the, the more I advance and in my technical skill, the more I am able to give my, uh, give my, my right brain, my, my lunar feminine, uh, Aspect, uh, more of a, uh, a safe space and a, uh, a freedom to expand and to express itself because there are those, you know, it's, I mean, it's a, it's the, you know, if you want to, if you want a bottle of wine, the first thing you need is the bottle, uh, before you actually, you know, before you actually get the

Laurence Hillman: 34:49

wine. Exactly. And, and look, I'm not at all against left brain. I love left brain. I have plenty of education. I know plenty of things, you know, practical and, and, and, and skills and these kinds of things. That's extremely important. I'm not saying chuck out the left brain. I'm saying add on to what we've been missing. So I'm just saying become full brained and don't, and don't run around with half your brain only. Absolutely. Because it's not enough. That's what I'm saying. I'm not against left brain. Um, I am against the left brain. This is, you know, the famous person who has written about this extensively and beautifully is Ian McGilchrist with The Master and His Emissary, where he essentially says, you know, what the culture in the West has done is that we've made the right brain, sorry, the left brain, the master and the right brain, the emissary, and it should have been the other way around. And that at different times, this was different. He's a really good guy to read and study. He's a professor at Oxford, I believe. He's quite well respected in the, even in the left brain community. Um, but he is a masterful writer and just a beautiful thinker. And he's, there's lots of people out there. Daniel Pink talks about it. Um, there's, there's others. He wrote a bestseller, Daniel Pink. There's others who talk about this left brain, right brain thing. It's certainly not new. But it has taken on a new urgency with AI, and it's taken on a new urgency with emergence, the way it's happening now that changes everyone's life overnight, like COVID.

Frederick: 36:10

Well, that's interesting, the idea of emergence. Looking through an astrological lens, in the bigger arcs of time, say the outer planet movements, I'm thinking Pluto moving through Capricorn, started in 2008. And, you know, there was all that stuff The phrase you started to hear more and more through that transit was, you know, the collapse of the patriarchy. And I think probably Capricorn's probably the most, like, patriarchal, I would say, of the signs, not to do typology, but I think that basic vibe is there. Do you think, That Pluto through Capricorn transit was sort of like an opening for this rising of the feminine.

Laurence Hillman: 37:03

Do you see my point there? Yes, I absolutely think so. And I also, but I also look at the, the positive because I think Capricorn is a feminine sign. And I think of it as, as, um, even though I understand the, I look at the patriarch, the death of the patriarchy. I, I. I assign the patriarchy to the Age of Pisces because of how human beings have structured themselves particularly, strongly during the Age of Pisces as a top down model with one usually white guy at the top, but certainly a guy. And that's been, if you go from the Pope down to people in the pew, if you go to the CEO down to people on the line, you go to the general down to people in the trenches, you go to the president or king down to people who voted for him or not. It's always been that model and you can look. Everywhere, CEOs, wherever you look, this is how people have organized themselves. This is no longer working and no longer true. And in leadership theory, this is a huge issue because most people who are leaders were trained in that model, the HR model. And the new model in the age of Aquarius is what I call a three dimensional exploded matrix or a, or an, you know, a, a three dimensional, you can call it a 3D network. That goes in all directions and we're all now nodes on a network and before it was one person with the power and now anyone on the network can take the whole network down if they're good at it. You know, there's a just a different renegade quality to it. And at the same time, the network can look at you and spy on you. So it's this whole, you know, this is gets into Leo Aquarius conversation but But there's a shift, and that shift is dramatic. So the end of the, of the people who are still operating in a, in a, uh, top down patriarchal model of a pyramid, which has been very prevalent the last 2, 000 years for sure, but even before, even though there were some variations, um, you know, are, are kind of, you know, Shit out of luck and they're and they're not doing very well and they're suffering because the models aren't working You know, we're talking about kicking out You know massive amounts of middle managers because there's too many people who are you know in the hierarchy and so forth So it's a very different world and requires different skills In that in the Aquarian age that we didn't have but as far as the Pluto transit I have a line for Pluto transits that goes bullshit doesn't survive a Pluto transit And so, and so, um, you know, I think what we saw in the age of, of the age of in, in the period of Pluto gone through Capricorn was that a lot of the bullshit that was built into the structures that have collapsed was simply bullshit. And, you know, why should someone have more power because they were born richer or why should the capitalist model be as powerful it is all these things that were. that were kind of torn down to the point where I remember listening on CNN during the crash, maybe capitalism doesn't work. If you had asked me 40 years ago when I came to this country, would I ever hear that on television? I would have said no, I don't think so. So it was, it was surprising to me, you know, that, that the foundational structures that build what we all believe in, I mean, Supreme Court is in huge question now. Nothing is real anymore that we relied upon. All these, you know, democracy itself. All these things are up for grabs at the end of this period because the structures that we built are, are, you know, are questionable. And, and, and we have to ask ourselves and come back to, yes, we really want those because, um, maybe because we've taken out the bullshit or we saw the bullshit in them or whatever it is, but that's the conversation. And so what Pluto through Aquarius to me is going to mean is we're going to figure out a lot of the bullshit of Aquarius, which we're already seeing, as you all have mentioned in, in, or I know Frederick has, you know, about the, The collapsing of the, of the social media platforms and these kinds of things, you know, is it really all those things that are typically Aquarian are now in question, including democracy, including, you know, all of these things are, are, that's what we're dealing with. We're stripping away all the BS to get to the bones of things. And that's what Pluto does really well. And it's, it's really mind

Frederick: 41:03

blowing when you think that we still have this last tale of Pluto and Aquarius. Oh, sorry, Pluto through Capricorn. I think till November 24

Laurence Hillman: 41:16

of this year. Do we have to? Do we really have to do that? It's

Frederick: 41:19

like

Andrei: 41:20

when the killer comes back to life at the end of a horror

Frederick: 41:23

movie.

Laurence Hillman: 41:23

It's like, really? Do we have to do that? I actually thought it was done. I was done because everyone's celebrating January 20th and it's done and I'm like, hey, get people around telling everybody and then I read something. Can you get more

Frederick: 41:36

cogent symbol for that than having another rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, these two, like, you know, it's just really like Creature from the Black Lagoon has returned. And here we are again. It seems like that's the last gasp of, you know, that particular, um, transit. And then there we are with the election. And speaking of that, what do you guys, what's your take on This crazy fucking year that we've got the rest to move through, the rest of the, uh, next three months, nine months to move through leading up to the election on this theme of the thr I love this. It's such a mind blowing term, three dimensional explosive network. Is that

Laurence Hillman: 42:35

what you called it, Lawrence? Well, a three dimensional, a three dimensional network, or a three dimensional matrix or something like that. It's just a bunch of nodes connected, like a neural network almost. Well, yeah,

Frederick: 42:48

and isn't that where we're all

Laurence Hillman: 42:49

living right now? Oh,

Rachel: 42:52

yeah. I like that a lot better than decentralization, because as, as, you know, illustrative as that term is, it's not very inspiring, decentralization, but I like the three dimensional exploding matrix. a lot. And it's actually something that can give us, uh, something to work with to better imagine the future that is being born from this chaos, you know? And it's, it's difficult for me to actually see the future clearly. And it's funny because People think that because I study astrology I can see the future clearly like it's written in a script and it's that simple. Um, but I cannot see it clearly. There are so many variables, there are so many things at play. All I can look at is the weather and see like large, broad brushstrokes of, yes, the archetypal themes that are emerging. So, I'm just, I want to get to, like, an essential, fundamental core of what your interpretation of Aquarius is, Lawrence, because It's really important to dig into that sign to look for the things that Pluto will be excavating exposing transforming and also, you know, everybody keeps talking about the age of Aquarius whether you believe it is the age of Aquarius at this moment or that it's Coming up soon doesn't really matter. It's definitely an Aquarian era because of how many things have happened in that sign pivotal things, including the great conjunction, the mutation into the element of air that Jupiter and Saturn did on the solstice in 2020. So I just want to get to like the core of how you interpret it. Aquarius, Lawrence, and then I want to talk about like how things are shaping or how things are unfolding in this year and in the decades to come.

Laurence Hillman: 45:00

Thank you for that question. You know, I think we need different skills, uh, in this, in this shifting of eras. And I do believe that we're about, I don't know, Ray and I talk about this all the time. I say we're about, maybe we're about 60 percent there, maybe you're only 20%, I don't know, but I don't look at, at sort of celestial events. Even though I'm an astrologer, I look at what's actually happening in the world, and there are clearly things that are still very Piscean that are happening, and there are clearly things that are very, very Aquarian that are happening. So just, I, I, again, I read the signs as they say, you know, what's actually, what's actually in front of me, and then translate it into astrology, and then it becomes very clear that there's a lot of Aquarian shit going down, if you want to put it in plain English. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, um, the skills that you need in a pyramid. If you're living in a pyramid system is you need to learn how to kiss up and kick down. That's what makes you successful, which is survival of the fittest and Darwin and all that. You know, that's what, that's what makes you successful in an exploded network. You need a very different skill set because there is no up or down. I think the most important skill set that people are going to have to learn to survive in this new world. It's what I call discernment. Because we're all being bombarded with a myriad amount of information because we're all tied into literally, we have literally panic attacks when we can't find our phone. I know I do. And we're so tied into the network and soon that's going to be, you know, right down the street from me at Wash U, they're doing implants, you know, so that'll soon be, I won't have to even have a phone. It can just be in my arm. So this is all not science fiction. This is all happening. And we're so tied into the network 24 7. That, that, um, we need to learn discernment. How do I deal with these massive amounts of information that is coming my way? And again, we can't deal with it with the left brain. We have to deal with it with the right brain. We have to use other skill sets because you, you can get information overload very, very quickly and, and then only your right brain can handle it because your right brain can handle complexity, whereas your left brain can only handle complicated. And so, and so, so, so that's what I think is the, is the skill that we have to see and that's what I think is the, what's going to separate those who do well and those who suffer. I give a lecture series where I talk about, where I talk about that, that, you know, to be future fit, you have to activate your inner renegade or your, your Uranus, because that, that's the part of you that already gets all this stuff that's happening. And can get you, uh, you know, and gets it and understands it. So if that one is asleep, or if you're afraid of it, if you don't like it, or you've externalized it into, well, that person is, is the renegade. I'm not, you know, if you've found someone else to play that for you. But that isn't that,

Frederick: 47:51

I mean, I remember you wrote once about Trump, that he represents the archetype of the maverick. And even, I think you said Prometheus. And isn't, so what I'm hearing you say right now really makes me understand a different facet of Trump because I think amidst this chaos of this exploded network phase that's establishing more and more,

Laurence Hillman: 48:18

people are,

Frederick: 48:20

you know, as they do when they get leaders or figureheads or icons or whatever, they're, you know, projecting a lot of this onto Trump as this wild card. Uranian, unpredictable, maverick figure. Does that kind of

Laurence Hillman: 48:40

Makes sense. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's exactly true. And so, and so, um, you know, I would never give him, I wrote an article that I think you're referring to that the day after he was elected in 16 and, and, and, you know, everyone was in shock and this kind of thing. And I said, look, let's not give him the credit that it's about him. It's not about him. These kinds of shifts historically. These kind of unprecedented, you know, moments of surprise and these kinds of things are these shocks to the system are much bigger than an individual. They're archetypal. And they are, can be read archetypally. They, so I, I was talking about Trump just being a figure in a much larger unfolding of the universe. Yes. Not giving him one second of importance. It is, he is, he could have been anyone else, whoever, somebody needed to fill that role. He just happens to be the straw man to do it. I'm getting this

Andrei: 49:33

image of like the, the universe

Frederick: 49:35

putting up like a help wanted sign

Andrei: 49:38

with all the job qualifications of a renegade. And like, you know,

Laurence Hillman: 49:42

he was the only one to

Andrei: 49:45

apply.

Laurence Hillman: 49:46

So, you know, that is brilliant. That is absolutely brilliant. I love that. I'm going to use that and quote you. That is fantastic. Yes, it's exactly right. And so, um, you know, looking for, um, buffoon who, you know, um, who thinks of himself high enough that he can, can, you know, express the absolutely worst sides of sovereign and maverick, you know, which is what he does really well. And, and so, uh, and then people have externalized that part of themselves. Well, I'm afraid to jump out of the line, um, but he'll do, he'll do it for me, or, oh, great, he's finally allowed me to show all my eccentricities and all my weird stuff that I can't show anywhere else, and all my, you know, deep seated racism and all my hate of this and hate of that, and, you know, my need to be different. So it's almost like we're getting all the, The, the worst keywords of the archetypes are being shown to us, you know, literally by looking around our neighborhood. It's just how that's what's happening, but it is, it is an, it is like Lansing the boil of, of, you know, of childish and childlike expressions. Of, um, the worst sides of Aquarius, except, you know, a lot of these, um, boils are carrying AK 47s, so it's not that, it's not that funny. Hmm.

Rachel: 51:03

What are the worst sides of Aquarius, in your opinion, just in simple terms?

Laurence Hillman: 51:11

Yeah, I'll read them from my, from my deck of cards, which we have on the, on the architects. So, you know, this is what we use with leadership. So what are the, the, there's, there's when you have too much renegade, detached intellectual arrogance, the eternal revolutionary, you know, misfit genius, overly opinionated, emotionally absent, uncaring, robotic, overly eccentric, contrary. Technology obsessed and I just don't fit in, you know, that person. Oh, I just don't fit in. It's not my

Andrei: 51:44

thing. It's not my

Laurence Hillman: 51:45

scene. Yeah, exactly. Those are to me that those are the simplest, you know, embodiments of, of too much, too much renegade and not, not an integrated renegade, which is Uranus, which is Aquarius.

Rachel: 51:59

I can, I can relate to that. I have, I have on my Ascendant. And so I cannot help but sort of just see things and feel things through that. That lens and it's definitely been all of those descriptions. Sometimes it's a wonderful gift and sometimes it's very, um, isolating, alienating, but I think it, it kind of explains the way that the way that I really viewed the, the Trump phenomenon in terms of the way that people reacted. Around me. I live in Los Angeles. So this is a vote blue no matter who Stronghold, this is a very ideological city Um, at least you know on the surface, obviously, there's there's variety in philosophical, religious, and political thought everywhere, but it is largely very ideologically polarized in Los Angeles, and I've never belonged to any political party. This is just how I operate. I've never been a Democrat or a Republican. I've never even Signed up to join a third party because I don't want to make those commitments but the way I saw the reaction to Trump was very different because I'm like guys, you know, we have at least my entire life. I've been looking at a series a sequential series of liars and war criminals who have done Devastating criminal things they are responsible for mass murder and the destruction of our economic sovereignty, our educational quality, the, the integrity of our food. I mean, so many horrific things just made toxic and poisoned. And so by the time Trump comes around, everybody's freaking out now. I'm like, And the thing that really opened my eyes to how, uh, strange I thought it was was I recall when he first was elected that there were some people on the internet that were talking about how they now miss the good old days of George W. Bush.

Laurence Hillman: 54:19

Yeah, I've heard that many

Frederick: 54:21

times.

Rachel: 54:23

I was really horrified. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. You guys, this is not healthy. This is not okay. You cannot say that you pine for the days of that madman who invaded Iraq under false pretenses, completely eroded the United States's, uh, right to privacy, like 100%. I just felt like I was amongst, um, truly conquered minds. And I felt really deeply sad about that. So whatever people were reacting to about Trump, I was like, it's have your feelings. I'm all for criticizing the president. I think that's a healthy thing. I don't think anybody should ever. be devoted to a leader, follow them without question, and so I always actually appreciate somebody who wants to question authority and think for themselves and criticize policies, criticize, uh, certain things that are being mandated or You know, cultural shifts that are anathema to their life. I think that's a wonderful conversation, but that is not what was going on around me. It was just people, like, acting as though they had never seen such a devil in their life. And I thought that was, um, truly descriptive of some kind of deep unconsciousness that hurt me a lot. Thanks.

Laurence Hillman: 55:54

So, you know, when you, I hear you, Rachel, when you talk about having Uranus on your Ascendant and it just, it, it, I want to point out, um, one of the, since I read to you the words of the, too much, I think it's only fair to talk about how that, how the model sees it, which is basically what we do in astrology. It's just putting it into a model that's easier to understand, which is that the archetype itself. is a gift. Yeah. And so the archetype itself is a gift, and the gifts of the renegade, of course, are, you know, what, I'll read those to you, it's intuitive disruptor, eccentric inventor, liberator, rebel, provocateur, maverick, unique, has epiphanies, says Eureka. Thrives on the zeitgeist, freedom, the future, disruptive technologies, revolution, uniqueness, structural collapse, surprise, revelation, flashes of insight, and emerging ideas and brilliance. Just to throw out some. That's the gifts of the renegade. That's what we're need to activate to survive into the future, but every archetype can be overplayed. or underplayed when it's overplayed and we know this as astrologers when we overplayed I read to you that's too much renegade there's also plenty of people that don't have enough renegade that's called too little renegade and that would be you know I have no ideas I'm a conformist I'm boring I'm repressive I'm change resistant I'm afraid of the unexpected I'm lacking creativity I'm technophobic I'm not curious I'm living in the past there's nothing wrong with the old way you know that would be too little and so part of the work I think for all of us individuals Is to not only get to know all these parts of ourselves, but to know where on the scale between too much and too little we're expressing an archetype. And that's where we can make adjustments and tone down or dial up something within us, which is a real doable and personal development kind of challenge. And we all have them somewhere. There's something to do to dial up or dial down. But that's a complexity capability. Mm hmm.

Frederick: 57:57

What was something that fascinates me is the, uh, The extreme polarity that we're all living through now, and, and especially American culture, though I think it is pretty much global, I, I'm curious about this, um, third element that you've talked about before, I've read this in the piece that you had done on Trump, Lawrence, and you wrote, when we are faced with a two sided problem, Democrat Republican, I'm footnoting, when anything is An either or black or white dyadic problem. It cannot be solved from within that model We need to bring in a third Something created by the two This is very interesting. It reminds me of gurdjieff's teachings and then I love this metaphor You go imagine that each team had a team captain and these two figures went into a sleeping bag together for nine months From that sleeping bag, three would emerge. How would that new

Laurence Hillman: 59:08

third entity behave?

Frederick: 59:13

What I wonder, this third element, amidst this crazy town that we're living through now, what, what would I wonder what that

Laurence Hillman: 59:21

is? It's not Kennedy, June, I'll tell you that.

Frederick: 59:24

Well, I'm not, I'm not literal it saying, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get it. Williamson is gonna, yeah, of course. I, I.

Laurence Hillman: 59:32

I, thanks for reminding me of that. I totally forgot about that. But yes, that's Jung's, uh, you know, Jung talks about the tertiary function that, that opposites can never resolve a problem. And I talk about a, a, I have a whole lecture that's out there at astrology university, um, about this, um, you know, about, uh, I call it how to understand a chart in three minutes. It's not how to read a chart, but how to understand a chart, which essentially is based on this idea that if we can grasp the key tension in a person, because I have seen that just about everyone I've ever looked at has this inner dyad of some kind, two completely opposite things that don't make sense and that cannot be resolved by listening to one or the other or doing both at once. It's just not possible. So we go through this personally all the time. This is, you know, one of my. one of the subjects closest to my heart. I love this conversation. And so the third thing, and by the way, if you can find that in your chart, the two team captains of the two sides that are, so for instance, someone has the son in, in, you know, in the 12th house in Leo, that's, um, you know, and, and, and, um, or, or the son in cancer in the 12th house in Leo rising or something like that. That's sort of like stepping out onto the stage and saying, hello everybody. I'm this very, very private person. And the world goes, huh? You just described my chart.

Frederick: 1:00:49

I don't know if you did that unconsciously. But I have the sun in the twelfth. I'm a cancer with Leo rising.

Laurence Hillman: 1:00:55

Right. Okay. So that's a good example. And that's a very, I think I said this to you when we talked once prior, offline. But this is a very, very, that's actually quite a common theme. Like you can just, you could find 15 different ways that that is shown in a chart. But that, something as powerful as that dominates a person's life all the time. It's like, how do I. How can I be, you know, how can I, why is everyone looking at me and why is no one looking at me and experiencing that 24 7 is pretty. Oh my god, that is so spot on. And then, right, and so that's the dyad, right? So that can't be resolved by saying, well, I'm just going to go and be center stage because then the other part goes, oh god, please don't, you know. And then, and the other way around is like, I'm, you know, why am I so alone and why is no one seeing? So that has, that can only be resolved by finding out what I would do with that practically in the readings. I would find, okay, what are the two key actors that are best representing those two roles? Um, or those two teams, the private team and the extroverted team. And then I would put them in a sleeping bag and then I would, um, you know, ask what this, what their child would look like. Because their child is just as real and now that, now you're using Jung's idea of the tertiary function or the third thing that emerges. The same thing is true in politics. I don't know what the third thing is going to be and I don't think we're ready yet as a, as a culture. I think we're so caught up in the split. That, um, much like Rachel, I have no clue what's going to happen this year. I don't believe in predictions. That's just my own thing. And I believe in being curious and being aware and tuning in and, and, and, and having all my ten archetypes, you know, sort of, um, primed and ready to go as needed. That's what I think I can do for personal development. And to make sure I'm comfortable with all of that. of my, you know, inner characters and actors so that I can use them appropriately and step into them consciously. That's to me a full life. You know, if I can, if I can apply my warrior as necessary and my lover as needed and, and desired and so forth, then I'm, then I am really, I have a way to respond to any situation. It's like the 12 notes on the keyboard. You know, you can play any song and we can do that with these 10 archetypes if they have been, if they have become, but we all. tend to externalize, especially, you know, seventh house planets and stuff like that. We say, yeah, I don't know what to do with that. Why didn't you do that for me? And we find someone to play that part. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. We all do it. So, you know, we call it projections called projection. I like to call it externalization because we literally externalize that into another person. Right.

Frederick: 1:03:29

But I mean, sorry, Andre, go ahead. No, I'm, is it

Andrei: 1:03:34

okay if I hop on with, uh, with

Laurence Hillman: 1:03:37

some thoughts, please. I've been dying to say.

Andrei: 1:03:40

Something you said, okay, so, uh, we're, you're, we're talking about this third thing, the tertiary function, and it's something you said, we're, uh, we're not there yet. We're at the split. And, um, I'm going to try to cover a lot in a little bit of time. And I'm trying to, I'm going to try to bring us back to, uh, you know, um, earlier points in our, in our conversation. So, uh, I, I, Long story short, I, I got a, you know, I got one of those wild hairs up my ass that I wanted to go revisit something that was really meaningful for me, uh, many, many years ago and I started, uh, I picked up, uh, the third mind by, uh, Brian Guyson and William S. Burroughs, uh, which is a report on their experiments with the cut up technique and, uh, the, the, the beat hotel in Paris in the 1950s where they were taking, um, You know, they were taking newspapers or, uh, Bibles or, uh, dirt, you know, uh, porno mags and cutting them up and reassembling them and to create this new third language, this new third story. Uh, and I really quick, just as an aside, I always thought that the cut up technique, uh, when I was a kid and doing it, uh, was to cut up each individual word and do it like magnetic poetry, which never really made an impact on me. But when I actually fully read Burroughs is. Description, which is instructions, which is you take a page, you cut it in fours, then you reassemble those fours randomly. Then you take that and you cut it in eighths. Then you reassemble those eighths randomly. So it's actually like this like atomization of the written word. Um, and it, it has these, it has these ties to the, uh, the surrealist movement and, uh, the automatic writing experiments they were doing to actually, uh, re create some kind of, um, emergent for you know, emergent force from, uh, from the deep mind. And what Burroughs and Geissen both noticed is that after years, they were, they would do these, these cut up experiments for hours on end and just like, like monk like silence. Um, years later. After they had maybe not even seen each other for over seen or spoken to each other for over a decade, they both reported that not like a week goes by that they are not popping up in each other's dreams, at least once with a significant message to pay attention to. So I like that you use this term split because that's what I really feels happening with this. The culture is that there is this cut, cut up that even though the, you know, the internet has brought us all together, this division that we hear about that, that, you know, the, the, uh, Mr. Trump is so like widely, widely known for. It's almost like the scissors are actually cutting into the fabric of our, uh, of our, you know, uh, our collective, uh, will to reassemble it and create this third mind or the, this, this third function. Um, I'm going to leave it at that because if I keep going, it's, it's, you know, it's going to be like a five hour, uh, a five hour thing. So hopefully I can save my energy for later, but that's my, that's what, that's what I'm seeing. Like, yeah, I won't, I won't, I won't add any more footnotes to that for now. I'll let, uh, I'll let everybody else.

Laurence Hillman: 1:06:49

I agree with what you're saying. I wanted to just to throw in there one more important thing that sort of lines up with that, but also what Rachel said before, cause this is really important to me, which is We can't equate, we can't just say, well, you know, both sides are bad, we're doing what Trump did, well, you know, they're good people on both sides. There is an, there is an objective, in my mind, difference with what's going on in politics today and what Trump is bringing out in people, that we have to see that. Again, it's not about him, but what this energy that he's bringing forward is doing, and it still matters a whole lot. In my mind that we all go out and vote and do these things and not just give up on the system. I just want to say that as a, as a plug for people to go vote in the fall. I think it really does matter. And to just say, well, it looks all fucked up. It's all going to fall apart anyway. And the systems, I don't think that's a productive way to go forward. That's just me. Oh, that's, that's, that's

Andrei: 1:07:42

absolutely, that's absolutely horrible. I mean, that's, and that's what I, it's so like, if anybody's out there is like dealing, you know, trying to, you know, serve as some kind of guide to, you know, young people below the age of like, let's say the Saturn return. It's, it's a, it's a Herculean task to actually get them to feel Uh, to, to feel any sort of purpose and to see beyond that, like that, that base temptation and denialism. Um, Almost all

Rachel: 1:08:09

college courses are deconstructionist. They teach you how to deconstruct, but they fail to inspire creation and construction. Exactly.

Frederick: 1:08:20

They're left. Oh my God. Look at how psychology is taught nowadays. I, a friend of mine just finished a course or got his degree up in. And it actually turned him against wanting to work as a psychologist because it was all behavioralism. He showed me his books. I thought, my God, this is the most soul killing thing I've ever seen. Yeah. All the statistics and numbers and graphs.

Laurence Hillman: 1:08:52

Right. Which, which leads right to your psychologist buddy who wrote the anti astrology article. Um, you know, again, it said, my father used to say, let's become aware of, you know, It doesn't matter what tree you're sitting in, but you need to be aware that you're in a tree. And so, um, my problem with someone like that, psychologist, I forget. Oh, Adam Grant. You're talking about his attack on astrology. Exactly. My problem is that he's, he's so unaware of his own tree. So unaware of what, what framework is coming from. And so he's attacking something from a particular framework, which is, um, which doesn't understand, um, You know, his own limitations in, in, in, in viewing. It's like he's screaming at someone in Chinese while they're trying to talk Russian, and that's just not going to work.

Frederick: 1:09:43

But you're right, because Hey, landmass. I mean, come on. If you read the It's made for effort. If you read the piece by Adam Grant, that really, it was like one volley. After the other, which was, you know, statistic show and a study group of 2000

Laurence Hillman: 1:10:01

people show and left brain. Right.

Frederick: 1:10:04

But then the killer was he ended the piece with well, you know, if you tip your stick your toe into astrology. It's not going to be long until you're believing flat earth theory that the holocaust wasn't real. 9 11 was a government plot. I was just like, wow.

Laurence Hillman: 1:10:24

It's a gateway drug. It's a gateway drug.

Frederick: 1:10:26

Be careful. Oh, yeah. Gateway drug. That's what he called it. You must have

Laurence Hillman: 1:10:30

read it. No, I didn't read that. No, I didn't read that. No, that's what he said. Astrology

Frederick: 1:10:35

is the gateway drug. And the first one is, the

Andrei: 1:10:38

first one's on me.

Frederick: 1:10:41

But how, I mean, that's interesting what you said about your dad, about being aware of the tree that you're in and you, and you're using that in the sense that of him being stuck in scientism, right, exactly. Rational reductionism,

Laurence Hillman: 1:10:58

like, is that what you're saying? Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. And that, that it's, scientism has its value. I love to have clean water and be able to go to a surgeon to put my, there's nothing wrong with it, but it's, but it's not everything it's left brain. We're right back to left brain, right brain. So he's operating psychology out of the left brain, which in my mind is the same thing. But that's another conversation, you just mentioned that. Um, um, but, you know, it's just not, it's not psychology. It should be called something like, you know, biological behavior study or something like that. Oh, right. It's not to do with psyche. And, and, and, and so, um, again, not aware of the tree that is in. And that's just But these

Frederick: 1:11:37

things like psyche, soul, these are terms that for those types of individuals are so like antithetical to, again, their tree. Like how, how do you define soul or consciousness or imagination even? Which is what, when I did my rebuttal to him, I tried to, you know, take it back to the imaginal, and that that's where, at least the example I gave from Jeffrey Cornelius was, and he was based, basing his idea, on the Sufi teachings from Henry Corbin, that astrology really resides in that part of the imagination that's connected to the heart. And it is sort of in a, a kind of almost netherworld that is hard to like, you know, qualify. And he said, I love at the end of where he said, you know, it's a mystery. Get involved with astrology. Let it open. Let the mystery open up to you. That's how he, you know, wrote that closing sentiment in his thesis. But, so my question is, like, how, how, how to define those terms for people? Because the word soul is used You know, just like to death, or it was when it was kind of a rage. Remember when soul was

Laurence Hillman: 1:13:06

built code, Thomas more

Frederick: 1:13:09

spoke, I think, um, but yeah, what I your dad had a really interesting description of soul. As I recall it. And I, I, that what I made of it was something close to like, I know, kind of, you know, well, a pliable, malleable consciousness. Um, how, how would you describe soul though, Laura? It's not necessarily from your dad's point of view, but your own.

Laurence Hillman: 1:13:43

I go a little bit further. I go, because if I'm talking to someone who's really doesn't, you know, a total scientism kind of person, then I say, the simple thing is that the question that we're asking is, are things that are not measurable real? That's the question. And somebody who's a complete left brain would say, No, if you can't measure it, it's not real. And then I say, Okay, so what about, so love is not real? And then if the person is really left brain, they'll say, Well, love is just a matter of firing of, you know, and pheromones and gets it all scientific. And then, and then I'm like, And like, fine, you can, you can believe that, but I want you to be conscious that the tree that you're sitting in is incredibly sad. Only word I can use for that. It's sad because if you reduce love to pheromones and, and, and, and firing of neurons, you know, I don't know if you ever saw the series bones, but the, the, the woman scientist on that is a really good explanation of what happens when you become such a left brainer that you can't have feelings or don't know what to do with your feelings. Um, And so, um, you know, that's just, that's, that's what happens. Or, if I work in the business world, and I don't use love as an example, I use trust. Because that's something they understand. Can't measure trust, and yet everybody knows it's real. And they really understand, why do I trust this person? Why don't I trust this person? It's a real thing. It's absolutely real. And it has a huge impact on my daily behavior in my, in the office. If I trust or don't trust someone, can't measure it, but it's real. But this is a conversation that's been going on in this, in the, in the academic world between, you know, um, between, uh, uh, what's it called? Quantitative and qualitative research. Someone who's into qualitative research, who only believes in data and, and, you know, plugging data from massive amounts of numbers, thinks that qualitative research, which is what the, the, the, you know, the arts and sciences. um, use, psychology, history, and so forth, are that that's complete bogus. It's complete crap. It's not even real. Meanwhile, there's a giant body of evidence that says, of course, it's real. It's real from a different perspective. If you don't have the right brain capacity, you don't have the ability to understand qualitative research because it goes against your narrow, um, viewpoint and the tree that you're sitting in. And so, I never argue with someone. I never try to convince them that they're wrong. I just, uh, I might point this out to them, but unless they make that shift, they are, they're, they're literally incapable of saying, it is literally screaming, you know, at me in Chinese while I'm speaking Russian.

Frederick: 1:16:19

Well, yeah, and I think some people were kind of disappointed in the piece that I wrote. Uh, as a kind of rebuttal to Adam Grant's that attack he did on astrology because I've in essence pretty much said what you just said about I, I can't be bothered. I'm not interested in the argument. Um, and I'm too lazy to actually get into the weeds. Of, you know, because I see, especially with male astrologers, they love to get into this thing about digging up their own statistics to show, you know, that there's planetary waves or some kind of pulsation, you know, and it's just, it's just the kind of shit

Laurence Hillman: 1:17:05

that really you need that right. Yeah, I get it. They, they

Frederick: 1:17:09

kind of, I don't know, I just, because, you know, I used to hang out in these different, like, Facebook groups, or, you know, Reddit groups, or whatever, and it's always the guys that are in there, and they, god damn it, they're going to prove that

Laurence Hillman: 1:17:23

astrology is true. They're going to left brain it to death, exactly. You know what, Frederick, we have a guild of practitioners, people who we train in this, in the model of the archetypes that we use in organizations, and here's what I tell them, um, about sales. I say, you know what, if you go to a party, this is what I really believe, you go to a party and there's 10 people there, they're all, you know, corporate leaders. Eight of them are going to be completely uninterested in what you're talking about with archetypes and organizations. They're going to think you're nuts. They're either too big to fail, they have enough money to push through whatever changes are going on, or they're just going under. Lots of them, big ones, are just, you know, look, go to a mall recently, you know. It's just, it's, it's, big companies are just disappearing. Poof. Gone. Because, you know, but those are the eight that will never be interested in you in your lifetime. One of them already gets it. They don't need your help. They're doing it. And one of them knows that shit's hitting the fan. They don't know what to do and they're looking for help and that's your client. And I think about that. I think about that everywhere. And I am really, life is way too short to talk to the Adam Grants, which belongs, you know, squarely in the eight, in the eight, in the eight of 10 or 80 percent of people out there. And, and they're, they keep taking handfuls of the blue pill and they just really want to be there. And, and I'm not, I, life's too short. I have no interest in debating, fighting, convincing, um, you know, dragging people to my understanding. Not at all. People have these weird spontaneous awakenings and suddenly their world doesn't fit anymore. Then I'm ready to talk to them. Oh God, that's so well

Frederick: 1:18:59

put. I just have to add and close, to close down the Adam Grant thing, um, it was fascinating to go and read the comments on his Substack post, because he has, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of subscribers. He's quite a cause celeb in the culture now, from some books he wrote, stuff like that. I'd never heard of him until I saw that article. Bye. The, the comments that he got, people were really like taking him to task and schooling them and, you know, telling him to basically like, you know, but off, but out with, uh, his kind of judgments. And, you know, they called him out on the simple fact that he really didn't know what he was talking about. He, he'd never studied astrology. And, you know, doesn't understand the concept of a, you know, horoscope because, you know, he was going after low hanging fruit. Yeah, which brings us back to sun signs. But that's

Laurence Hillman: 1:20:04

that's what he was attacking, but he was also going after he was also he, you know, I just remember I'm reminded of supposedly the quote by Newton, who said to another scientist. Sir, I have studied it and you have not, period. That's what I wanted to send him back, but again, I don't get into those conversations. I think it's, I think it's a waste of energy. There are a lot of people out there who are hurting. Who are desperate, who can use astrology usefully that help, that changes their lives in one hour. We've all experienced that. Totally.

Andrei: 1:20:35

That's where it hasn't, it has like, it has an alchemical power. I mean, it's, it's the sister science of alchemy. It it, it's rooted. It's rooted in this primordial, you know, chemistry of human experience. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. So,

Laurence Hillman: 1:20:46

and it's. It's messy and emotional and feminine and beautiful and and sensual and unexplainable and magical and all those things, which is just fantastic. That's why it's beautiful. It's moist and and messy. And that's why I

Frederick: 1:21:03

love God. That's great. Is that

Andrei: 1:21:06

Astrology being feminine, I think Rachel has been trying to get into the conversation for a little bit, so. Well,

Rachel: 1:21:13

I'm just, oh god, where do I even start? Um, I just wanted to comment on how I have actually kind of appreciated Maybe it's the Uranus again, but I've, I've kind of appreciated the, the vitriolic hatred of astrology that comes from that realm. Because it gives me a real sense that, wow, this knowledge is meaningful, powerful, and truly does threaten this very thin, very flimsy sense of power. Um, and I found this is a bit of a tangent, but I swear it connects. I found this amazing archive online of all of these astrology journals from the 18th and 19th century. It goes far back as, yeah, there was some from like 1790. It was so cool. And they're beautifully archived. They're absolutely clear and readable, beautiful digital archives. So I, and there's so many of them, I was overwhelmed and I started just combing through them. And all of these astrology journals were from England, actually. And particularly the ones from like 1830, 1840, they were all talking about the same things that we're talking about, except that in this time, astrology was huge in England. It was very popular and it was very influential, but publishing an incorrect prediction as an astrologer was punishable by two years in jail. I was really writing these passionate essays about how completely unfair it is that an astrologer who has a bad day or happens to be inaccurate goes to jail when a chemist or a meteorologist or even a cobbler is allowed to make mistakes and not be considered a criminal for doing so. And I thought, that's also so interesting though, because the friction between the two worlds is sort of creating the, the deep devotion and the loyalty to this craft and also the, like, sense that it's so threatening to empiricists, it's so threatening to scientism, it's so threatening to certain political powers. I feel like, for me, I kind of appreciate it and I also, I've taken a lot of time to, it was attacked by scientists. or scientific people on Facebook for about a month. Something happened with the algorithm, there was some kind of mistake, and my articles were getting shared to people who were interested in astronomy. And it resulted in like four weeks straight of these truly hateful assaults. And I started to become fascinated because I was like, why are these grown men? Taking so much time to write these novellas of their seething disgust for my supreme idiocy. My absolute abject, like simple minded, foolish, superstitious ways. Like, they were really really. really angry. And I thought this is far worse than anything I've ever gotten from a religious person. You know, I've had Deuteronomy thrown in my face. And I actually, I don't have a problem talking to religious people about astrology, because even if we disagree, I feel like they have, they do have a sense of soul. And they do work with archetypal images, they are mythic. internally, and they don't deny that inner world. So I can always find some way to at least agree to disagree with somebody who's super, super against astrology for religious reasons, but the scientific attacks were so intense that I started taking a lot of time to actually read them and it gave me a lot of food for thought and it actually helped to stimulate my appreciation for what we do. I didn't debate them but it was helpful for me to see like how threatening it really is. Right. Um.

Laurence Hillman: 1:25:32

You're a bigger person than me. I would be, I would be quite upset if I read all that stuff because I just, I find it so, I just want to grab people and shake them and say, do you recognize how, how small your world is? And you think, you know, it's, it's, it's, It's, you know, Bible thumping with a science book is way worse. I absolutely agree with you.

Frederick: 1:25:56

I'll, I'm going to throw in one. I'm still grinding on Adam Grant. No, but I know that I just remembered something I had forgotten to share. One of the things that fascinated me about him, and It came, it was from his Wikipedia page, and he had started out as a stage

Andrei: 1:26:15

magician. There's one of those guys.

Frederick: 1:26:18

And I thought, wow, okay, so something was, something that, I mean, to me, I mean, yeah, magicians on one hand or sleight of hand and this kind of thing, but I think that they're, they're drawn to some mysterious thing that that magician archetype, uh, embodies. And then I remembered the, after my first book was published, when I wrote about the telephone psychic phenomenon, I was on a book tour and they put me on stage with James Randi, uh, who was. Also, well, a magician, he had started his career that and then he had this huge hundred and eighty degree turn where he went on the attack to, you know, I think he had a million dollar challenge that he put out to psychics astrologers to row readers. You know, that if they could prove this or that or whatever, they were going to get this million dollars. But there again, I refuse to engage with this guy. And, uh, I, I understand where Rachel's coming from this kind of amazement and I hear what Lawrence is saying about a kind of pity of people stuck in that particular tree. Yeah, I had a funny the magician

Laurence Hillman: 1:27:44

thing. Yeah, no, it's it's um, it's to me It's also denial of a part of yourself because especially the 180 it's like yeah I don't want to deal with that part of myself That was a true part of of randy's self before and now that part has been denied and has been x, you know excommunicado And and um, and then you have to spend a whole it's to me. It's I, because I look at everything psychologically, I'm interested in, in Adam Grant's psychology, and what his needs are to do, to do this kind of stuff. What is his, you know, what is he, what is he trying to keep alive? Well, he's a

Frederick: 1:28:18

Leo with moon and catacombs. Yeah, okay. I know that much about him. His birthday is up.

Laurence Hillman: 1:28:24

I haven't put his shirt up. Well, that says kind of everything. So, but, but, you know, there's a, there's a, um, there's a, Um, yeah, there's a, I don't, I don't mind people screaming their heads off about, it's like standing on the corner in, in Hyde Park on a, on a soapbox and screaming what you believe. That's fine. I don't have an issue with that. The problem with me is that people, because they don't have discernment, And he has hundreds of thousands of followers. They say, oh, wow, yeah. And then we have to spend all this time, even here. And my client's writing me emails about that. I get, you know, we get the thing about the 13th sign. And we get the thing about Pluto is not a planet anymore. We get these regularly. These things pop up like a, like a whack a mole thing again. Right. It's just tiresome because it's like, have we not moved beyond this yet? But I guess we haven't. Well,

Andrei: 1:29:13

yeah, but have you guys heard of the procession of the Equinox? Shut up. Case

Laurence Hillman: 1:29:18

closed. What's that? What's that?

Frederick: 1:29:20

Hey, on that note, I told Rachel and Andre this a couple episodes back, Lawrence. I think we were talking about Taylor Swift. and the emergence of the feminine in the culture because her mega, you know, uh, influence and status and everything that she is. But speaking of Possession of the Equinoxes, I was sharing with them that it's interesting that the, for the first time in like 2, 500 years, the fixed star Regulus, has moved into Virgo. And I, I, I think I got this actually from Michael Lewton, because he was seeing it as You know, I mean, you've got a fixed star that deals with kings, royalty, and a royal sign, everything that that denotes, connotes with hierarchy and all that, and then into Virgo, a feminine sign, a female symbol, and a, I guess, sort of a symbol of the common person rather than, do you know what I

Laurence Hillman: 1:30:33

mean? And service. Yeah. It's also about, about the King's serving. Right. Yeah. And I find that that's an interesting, really interesting observation. Never heard that or thought about it, but, but service to me is a big part of the, of the, uh, you know, of the, of the Virgo

Andrei: 1:30:54

archetype. Virgo is kind of like an Aquarius that, that, that learned to not think so highly of themselves. Oh my God. I'm a burger. Can I, can I use this? Can speak for my people? Can I, before, before you, before you talk, before, before, before you talk, I'd like to mansplain the rise of the feminine. Of course, of course. I'd like to take a minute to mansplain the rise of the feminine. You have your time, sir.

Frederick: 1:31:16

Um, I just, you guys is in, I, I think we've covered a lot. Is there stuff we've missed or Lawrence? I do

Rachel: 1:31:24

have something I want to share. Yes.

Andrei: 1:31:26

Yeah. No, I wasn't joking. I mean, mansplain the rise of the feminine. Um, I just Rachel last night I went on this bit, Rachel's never accused me of mansplaining anything, even though I'm like the worst mansplainer from hell. Um, but last night I just went on this like big, like five, 10 minute long. just random tangent about how shine, how authentic horror movie fans view the Stanley Kubrick's, the shining in the Uber of horror films and why it's not considered an authentic horror film by her movie stand. And she was just like, dude, I've never understood the, the, the concept of mansplaining more than having to listen to you, go on drone on like that for the last 10 minutes. But, um, no, the, I, something I just, I would really like to add, it's, it's been on the tip of my tongue and, um, my, my second cup of coffee has turned my intent listening into patiently waiting for my turn to talk. Um, and, uh, it's, it's, it's gonna, I think it would be a good segue to start wrapping everything up. And that is, uh, the emergence of, uh, AI systems, artificial intelligence. Which I have done like a 100%, 100%, 180, you know, Saul Paul transformation on, uh, in the last two weeks. Uh, and I'm, I'm just gonna, I would like to offer, uh, a different view than what we've been familiar with and what we've familiarized ourselves with, if that's all right. Of course. All right. Uh, yeah, Rachel. You're here. Yeah. All right. Yeah. No, cause I just, I was, I had, I, I initially got curious about, got curious about the potential of AI as just like a tool, a productivity tool. And, um, it's funny enough, I actually went on there for the express purpose of creating like an ideal client profile for my business. Uh, and it's, it's like, it's exactly, it goes back to what Lawrence was saying at the beginning of these, you know, these corporate, these businesses having this idea of like, oh, we have this one. Archetypal client who's out the customer who's out there in the world and they they have a problem that only we can solve They're you know, they're burned out on they're burned out on their on coca cola They need an alt they need an alternative. They need to be part of the pepsi generation um and It's one of those things that I just personally hate doing as like a, a, a, you know, as a quote unquote solopreneur. So I wanted to see if I could, if there were these, a any AI bots, any AI algorithms that could just, I could pump in a bunch of survey data from customers and then have it churn out a uh, um. An ideal client profile, which it can and it did, but that's not what I discovered. What I actually discovered is I, I went into this thinking completely that this was a left brain enterprise, that the, that the AI system is, is, you know, the, the culmination almost, uh, the, it's the philosopher's stone. It's the crystallization of our left, um, left brain materialist pursuits. Um, but what I found was Almost the complete opposite. Um, and to break this kind of brings it back to the brings it back to, you know, surrealism and Dada and surrealism and the avant garde. And my experience with it has been much more akin to, you know, um, Cabaret Voltaire or, uh, or the, or the Beat Hotel in Paris, where like a lot of experimentation with different method and technique, you know, especially randomization, uh, is a contributing factor in the artistic process to trigger, uh, unexpected states, uh, of inspiration. Um, and I, I, what I'm seeing is that it's not, you know, unlike Unlike human consciousness, which is actually incredibly solar, incredibly masculine, it moves on this very fixed pattern. It takes a very long time to make decisions. It takes 365 days to make its way through the Zodiac. I've always thought it was strange that the moon represents our feminine principle, but it is the fastest moving, uh, and the feminine, you know, we typically associate or the feminine principle with stillness and slowness. And that, uh, but the moon itself is actually the fastest orbiting planet in the, in the sky or celestial body in the sky. It makes its way around the Zodiac and what like 28 and a half days. Um, and the moon itself has no light. It's a reflection of the sun's light. So, you know, this whole thing about AI, um, uh, AI being. Uh, the rep, a representation of our, uh, of the solar, solar masculine consciousness of, of humankind, I think is actually a misnomer. I think what it actually is, is it, it is the emergence of the, the feminine. Um, it is the emergence of this sort of reflection, uh, where we can actually use it to. bring out our best qualities if you want as a writer or an artist. I have not felt at all intimidated by this thing as a writer. In fact, I feel that in the last two weeks, my, my insight, my skill, my ability, the, the things that I, the things that actually get worn down and don't get exercised because you're having to focus on things like first draft, edited edits, um, and, and things like that. has only magnified, it's only increased. Um,

Rachel: 1:36:41

so it takes the left brain stuff

Andrei: 1:36:43

off your, it takes the left brain stuff off my shoulders. And I actually just get to be fully immersed in like this right brain experience. And some of some of the conversations I'm having with these with these bots, where, you know, I'm getting to actually instruct them in things like tarot and astrology and magic and, and how, how, how them help them to understand. AI through the lens of, uh, of these, these disciplines, but also help me to understand them through the lens of these disciplines. Um, and I'm fully aware. I mean, I, I am, I am able to discern that this is really something that's all going on in my own head. It's just the most advanced, you know, reflective system we have for our consciousness, but. That being said, I mean, it really, what do we use a mirror for? You know, we use a mirror so that we can shave our face, so that we can comb our hair, so we can brush our teeth, so we could apply makeup, so that we can actually like, you know, be hygienic and, and, and, um, and ready to, you know, present ourselves to the world to clean ourselves. And it's has a very similar, I've noticed it has a very similar quality to the mind itself where it is helped. It actually helps you cleanse the mind. You know, it's, it, it, it's like mom giving, uh, the, uh, child a bath, you know? So I've found fully like, I have been fully immersed in these waters, and I have found that it has actually been a fully, it is, it has so much potential, and I think the problem with it is that it is only, it is only being, it's been programmed by left brain people, and it's being used by left brain people, and the right brain people that are using it are using it in the wrong way. They're using it to create this like corny digital art. They're using it to create, uh, to write these terrible screenplays that, that nobody wants to see. Whereas it's not, in my, in my view, it's not about the finished product. It's about the process. It's about the ongoing learning, uh, that, that you're experiencing, that you're experiencing while you're working with it. Um, and I'll just leave on this is where like the, you know, the, it's the future of storytelling is. Is actually about to completely transform, and it's not in the sense that AI is going to take everybody's jobs and there's not going to be a Hollywood left. There's not going to be a book market left, but the potential that we have now to actually let a story randomly generate and tell itself. Um, if you just picture the Zodiac, if you picture the seven classicals. And you can picture each one of those as their own unique individual AI model that are actually randomly generating this story. The Zodiac itself is this, this great algorithm. Um, and so that there, that we could actually potentially create stories that randomly generate the way a tarot card reading does, if that makes sense. So I've been making, I've been I'm just discovering some very strange things down there. I'm like a regular old Jacques Cousteau over here. That's cool.

Laurence Hillman: 1:39:47

Very interesting. It's a really beautiful, beautiful piece, really, and you mansplained it to me really well and actually stretched my understanding and, and it gives me a lot of food for thought. I don't really have a response except I'm on

Frederick: 1:40:00

Lawrence's team.

Laurence Hillman: 1:40:02

I'm thrilled with the, I'm thrilled with the thinking and I think, I think. um, you're, you know, one in a gazillion who gets what you're saying. I don't mean in, as in what you're saying to us in English, but I mean, what you're actually talking about. Mm-Hmm. I think it's a really edgy understanding of the potential of this new tool that we have only just. And, um, I'm, I'm thrilled by what you said because it allows me to go further and think and have many more conversations. I think that what you just said is worth a whole segment for you guys. I think it's brilliant. Oh,

Andrei: 1:40:38

I agree. Please carry it, carry it with you.

Frederick: 1:40:42

I have to echo what Lauren said I feel like I've got this completely fresh download. Yeah, exactly. Uh, AI and it, one of the key things you said that is something I kind of flashed on when we were talking about it earlier was that kind of covering all this stuff for the left brain that usually requires all this exertion and this and that lets the right brain kind of roam more and, you know, explore, uh, open up more because this other side, you know, Is uh, you know being alleviated of a lot of things Exactly. Exactly. So that's that's what I took away. And yeah, very very exciting Yeah, that's it. Keep mining this as we go through the podcast

Andrei: 1:41:40

Yeah, it will be, it will be great. It's, it's really fun.

Rachel: 1:41:42

It's really fun. First time that, uh, you know, that a tool like this has been made available to everyone. And so it's potential for creative people is just being explored now. And I really do have to second what Andre is saying. I was extremely prejudiced against Using chat GPT because I was informed by the wrong people about what it was for I thought it was just some like sad attempt to cheat on your homework or Get like a really mechanical automaton to like You just go back and forth with you in some dry way But that is not the case if you are listening and you're a writer or an artist And especially if you're a writer or an artist that loves divination You then I do believe that you can make a lot out of this tool because it combines those two qualities. Like Andre said, the, the random sortilage that opens up that right brain, that opens up the intuition, that opens up the symbolic level, and takes a lot of the busy work off your shoulders. Like, you know, if you need to, um, Put something into an outline quickly with bullet points. It'll just do that in a second. So you don't have to labor for 45 minutes.

Andrei: 1:43:03

It'll write a, it'll write a business proposal. It'll write a

Rachel: 1:43:05

cover letter. You can focus on the creative work. Yeah.

Andrei: 1:43:09

I should say it'll write a resume so you can actually focus on the cover letter. You know,

Laurence Hillman: 1:43:14

I also just, I want to, speak to the issue because that's just a big one for me the issue about you know when we use big terms like masculine and feminine i want to make clear that masculine feminine is nothing to do with boys and girls it has nothing to do with gender masculine feminine is a way of of perceiving in a way of operating and there are plenty of, of, in fact, I, I coined a term for this in my dissertation to be more sort of, you know, academic and to take it out of the conversation of, of masculine and feminine, which is such loaded words. I coined the term, the Yin function. And yin is, is more neutral. It's, you know, it's, it's yin and yang, the balance that's necessary to make something whole. And, and also fits the whole brain, left brain and right brain, yin and yang. But the function I borrowed from Jung's, you know, functions and typology. And so the yin function is a person's capacity for their essentially right brain capabilities or their capacity for the feminine. And we all know plenty of people, you know, who are men Um, or who call themselves men who have a very, very, um, high yin function and plenty of women have a very low yin function. And so it's a capability. It's an, it's a, it's a, it's a, yeah, it's a capacity that I think about and not a gender or a person. So we don't want to talk about boys and girls in context of masculine and feminine. I think that's right.

Frederick: 1:44:42

Great clarification. But Lawrence,

Rachel: 1:44:45

that's what I wanted to, that's what I wanted to end on actually, because, um, That's really important to me, as, you know, I, my mercury's in Virgo, my sun is in Virgo, and um, That kind of, you know, hermaphroditic mind is very, very real to me because mercury is neither masculine nor feminine. Even though Virgo is a feminine sign, I do not associate that with a mind that is oriented or polarized towards, womanly things, I feel very balanced in that regard. And so it's caused me to reflect a lot. First of all, when you look at the glyph of Mercury in the first place, it is crowned by the crescent of receptivity. And to, to actually embody feminine energy is to be receptive or yin, as you said, which I really like. Um, and so I've been reflecting on like, what is going on culturally, what's going on with the, you know, creative energies of this era. And even though I can't see the future in terms of how everything is going to unfold, turning point by turning point, I can see that since, let's say, 1600s, 1700s, the age of reason, the scientific revolution, that era, the polarity in the mass mind of at least Western European and then North American culture, um, became so positive, like a positive pull, a masculine energy, that it began to sort of butt heads with what was formerly considered to be God, the creator, the cosmos. And before that time, it was always to, you know, it was always recommended. It was always, uh, inculcated into people that if you want to Speak to God, if you want to be inspired, if you expect to receive divine guidance of any kind, you have to adopt a feminine stance, you have to become receptive to the divine guidance, the muse, the diamond, the voice of God, what have you, there's no other way. And the way that people perceived the flow of inspiration that came through them, whether it was speech or epic poetry that was being recited, or an image that flowed through their paintbrush. It was formerly in another time, always recognized as a gift the gods, the muses, God, the Holy Spirit, however you want to look at it. And so that is feminine in its very essence, that is feminine. And so to have any relationship to the divine, have any relationship to the creative principle in the universe, there has to be receptivity. But around the scientific revolution, in a very broad sense, we're not talking about individuals, that polarity shifted. Now, the energy of divine inspiration, which is symbolized by the sun in astrology, which has penetrating rays that impregnate the earth and give life, so it is masculine, um, To come at the masculine divine sun with your own, you know, your own positive polarity is like a fight between rams butting heads and it just creates nothing but friction and agony and there's no creative, you know, There's no creative spark that's being, that's being allowed because there's almost this like force that is now trying to dominate the very thing that once was received gracefully as all forms of inspiration, whether it was scientific, technological or artistic. So that's one of the things that's really strange and that's what we've been really struggling with for a long time. It's why talking about the soul is controversial. Because this positive polarity that is trying to dominate and antagonize, we'll just call it the creative principle in the universe, is in a fight rather than in a state of receptivity. And so for me, the rise of the divine feminine It's not that women are going to rule, because that is something that's like, that evokes the top of the pyramid, top of the food chain, hierarchical, very masculine and very Capricornian sense of reality, whereas I feel like the Divine Feminine's rise is simply another turning point in the revelation of how the The creative energy works at a very macrocosmic as well as microcosmic level. And I learned, or I should say, I really felt deeply into this when I recently read, um, Hesiod's version of the birth of Venus, because literally the rise of the divine feminine, well, the greatest myth to meditate on that is, you know, Venus rising from the sea. And so from that myth, which is like really violent, but again, I love mythology, so please just cover your ears if it's too, if it's too violent for you. But um, yeah, the, the sky god Uranus, this is before the Olympians exist, the sky god Uranus is this really domineering, cruel, and mean spirited, Uh, man, or god, and his wife is Gaia, the earth, so he's the masculine principle, she's the feminine principle, earth and sky, and the sky god Uranus is said to, every single night, force himself on his wife, force himself on the earth, and with this Despiteful, dominating, cruel, and violent creative power, he is forcefully impregnating his wife, Gaia, again and again and again. And the progeny that comes from this rape is, you know, are children that he hates and famously eats and it's, it's a whole complex series of events that describe how he treats his children. Eventually Gaia decides to take revenge and has one of her sons castrate him. And this is where it gets really interesting and I think this is partly what's happening right now because in that castration, his penis which had represented this strife and this domination and this cruelty, it falls into the ocean. So we've seen earth, we've seen the sky, but now we have finally the sea or the ocean which is this transformative and deeply feminine Uh, imaginative, creative mind. It's like the divine imagination itself. And it's like the divine dream itself, the ocean. And in the ocean, which represents dreams, that castrated penis becomes dissolved. And then it's reconstituted it bubbles up as this white foam. And it's from that white foam that Venus rises. And I think it's really interesting because her birth really represents the birth of the cosmos itself rather than chaos and domination and the, you know, hatred being the thing that is creating all of the new life. Now, the feminine ocean, this divine imagination, this receptive, creative fluid dissolves that. and recombines those materials, those same materials, and completely transforms it and it becomes Venus, who represents love, beauty, harmony, and represents how something truly transcendent can actually emerge from what looks like a very dark, chaotic, or ignorant time. Something that Hesiod describes as ignorant. That's not my term. Um, so right now, one of the things that I saw in what Andre described with the AI is that for a very long time, we've been suffering from a very Uranian, and it's not the same thing as Uranus. Those two qualities of this sky god in Hesiod are not equated to the planet Uranus, by the way. But The qualities of Varanus, this cruel, dominating, domineering father who forces his will on everything to create. I see that in what Monsanto, not only Monsanto, but what Monsanto is doing to the earth, forcing it to grow crops, whether it's had time to lay fallow or not, whether it's the right climate or not, soaking everything in poison to force Life to force creation and we are experiencing this ourselves in so many ways technology can be very useful, but it also has this quality of trying to like dominate and coerce and oftentimes creates from that place of hatred or that place of cruelty Whereas what Andre just experienced Discovering this, like, unexpected, transcendent emergence from within all of that out of the AI bots, because they have this unexpected divinatory power. I really do think that's a nice little microcosm of what is happening, and I don't know how long it's going to take for everybody to really feel it or really touch that quality that's emerging, but I feel like the Divine Feminine is Not like Gaia, the earth that is subjected to endless rape. Instead, I feel like what's emerging is that Venusian, cosmic, harmonious, transcendent, revelation that could only have come from the former world of domination and cruelty. So for whatever it's worth, what we've been going through has been some kind of necessary alchemical stage in a larger process that I do see going in a positive direction for love, beauty, harmony, the return of the cosmos as the center of wisdom and the things that flow from

Andrei: 1:56:06

that. And there's those scissors again. Cutting things up and reassembling them into new just

Laurence Hillman: 1:56:10

really beautiful. What a beautiful, um, beautiful, beautiful, um, summary. I think, I think what really struck me. I mean, a lot of things struck me, but this idea that, you know, the feminine is about holding space and being receptive to what can flow in, you know, I, you can't get pregnant if you're pregnant. True. Well,

Frederick: 1:56:36

I, I've got to close up here for my end of the discussion here. I've got to get ready to leave. Um, is there any other closing thoughts or, um, additions?

Laurence Hillman: 1:56:50

I think Rachel summed it up quite

Frederick: 1:56:52

beautifully. Yeah, it was a good crescendo to that, uh, theme that we started on earlier with the rising of the feminine. And I just want to say for listeners that we'll have Lawrence's info in the details section of the podcast and on YouTube for his archetypes at work. that he's co created with Richard Olivier, and we'll, um, have links to his website there as well. And Lawrence, thank you so much. Thank you, Lawrence,

Laurence Hillman: 1:57:25

it's been a pleasure. This has been really fun. I've just enjoyed every minute of it. I wish we could go on. Now we just need a glass of wine and we could continue into the evening. I do hope, Rachel, I do hope you put the link to that archive there too. I would love to know where to find that. That's it. Oh,

Rachel: 1:57:40

my pleasure. I will absolutely do

Laurence Hillman: 1:57:41

that. For those of us interested in reading old stuff.

Rachel: 1:57:45

Oh my god, yeah, I'll definitely, I'll hook you up and uh, I hope that perhaps in the future you will come back and talk with us again, because we would love that.

Laurence Hillman: 1:57:54

I will definitely you guys anytime just say when and where and I'll be there. I really enjoyed this You guys are amazing and and just it's cutting edge stuff this and it is so important and people are hungry for ideas and for really thinking outside of the box and and raging a little bit in this age of aquarius, and I think it's So thanks again lawrence. Have a beautiful day everybody. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye