Program:  The Pantheon of Planetary Archetypes: A Lecture with Richard Tarnas

Friday, September 25, 2026, 7:30PM - 9:00PM Eastern Time

This program WILL BE RECORDED.

This weekend I will be offering a two-part presentation—an overview in Friday’s lecture followed by a deep dive in Saturday’s workshop—focused on the ten fundamental planetary archetypes that all Jungians, perhaps everyone, should ideally have a basic understanding of. We will explore the great luminaries, the Sun and Moon, including how both the solar and lunar principles have feminine and masculine expressions, and how both live in all of us. We will then discuss the five planets known to the ancients—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. And finally, the three outer planets discovered by telescope in the modern era —Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto—for which we have both the most evidence and unanimous consensus among practicing astrologers as to their archetypal meanings.

Of the many archetypes that Jung recognized as informing the psychic life of his patients, those he found in the astrological tradition seemed to him especially significant, as reflecting timeless structures in the deep collective psyche. He drew on their meanings throughout his career and spoke repeatedly of the insights rendered by studying the birth charts and transits of his patients. Indeed, he suggested that it was the modern negation of this level of symbolic knowledge in our era that forced the need for the very existence of psychology:

Since the stars have fallen from heaven and our highest symbols have paled, a secret life holds sway in the unconscious. That is why we have a psychology today, and why we speak of the unconscious. All this would be quite superfluous in an age or culture that possessed symbols.

Becoming familiar with the profound archetypal meanings associated with the Sun, Moon, and planets is invaluable for everyone interested in depth psychology and self-understanding. Because they are so universal in nature, as soon as each planet’s archetypal character and range of major expressions is presented, we quickly tend to recognize them as familiar realities in our lives.

Central to this weekend’s presentation, of course, is our understanding—or at least glimpsing the mystery of—the very nature of archetypes, and how our always-evolving level of self-awareness and agency can play an essential role in how these powerful forces and complexes are enacted in our lives.

In Friday’s lecture, I will summarize each of the ten major planetary archetypes of the astrological pantheon, setting out the essential features of each. I will also explore the richly iridescent range of potential expressions that each archetypal principle can take. While in contemporary astronomy, the names of the planets reflect specific Greco-Roman deities of the Western tradition, the ultimately universal and cross-cultural character of the great archetypes associated with the planets fully transcends any specific deities or cultural mythology. Rather, those archetypes are variously inflected through those deities and mythologies in distinctive ways as shaped by the particular social and cultural paradigms informing the myths. In the same way, of course, no single person’s embodiment of any archetype represents the full multivalent amplitude of that universal principle, but rather enacts it in specific ways affected by many other factors—including our level of self-awareness and personal agency.

Prices:

Non-Members - $41.00/ticket

Individual Members - $34.00/ticket

Senior 65+ Members - $29.00/ticket

Student Members - $13.00/ticket

Richard Tarnas is Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he was the founding director of the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness department. For thirty years there, he taught courses in the history of ideas, depth psychology, archetypal cosmology, cultural history, philosophy of history, and the evolution of consciousness. He also frequently lectured on archetypal studies and depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and was formerly the director of programs and education at Esalen Institute. He is the author of The Passion of the Western Mind, a narrative history of the Western world view that is widely used in universities, and Cosmos and Psyche, which received the Book of the Year Prize from the Scientific and Medical Network. He is also the co-editor of Psyche Unbound: Essays in Honor of Stanislav Grof, with contributions by Joseph Campbell, Huston Smith, and others. He is a past president of the International Transpersonal Association and has served on the Board of Governors for the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.

DETAILS OF THE PROGRAM:

RECORDINGS:  The recording will be sent out 24-48 hours after the session has concluded. You will have 14 days to watch the recording.  

ZOOM LINK: The Zoom link can be found in your registration confirmation email. They will also be shared about 24 hours before the program start time and one hour before the program starts. Registration closes before Zoom links are shared. If you do not receive your link 24 hours in advance, please reach out asap directly to support@jung.org.

CANCELLATION: You may cancel your registration up to 1 week prior to the program.

By agreeing to enroll in an online program offered by the Jung Society of Washington, you are also agreeing to comply with our terms. This means that you cannot record (through internal or external devices) the audio, visuals (photos), or any videos of the program. The intellectual property belongs to the presenter, and we ask you not to violate this policy. Also, we highly value the anonymity of the content of the program, of the presenters, and of individuals present in the program, and hope that everyone can contribute to a respectful and trust-building online environment. Thank you!