Training Your Brain for Astrological Synthesis

[Jim Eshelman]

An astrologer’s job is to understand the whole of a person’s nature from their natal chart (so far as another person can do that) and to assist them to understand themselves as a single whole thing. Historic approaches to delineation (especially those that are heavily house-driven) usually have simplified this to collating isolated fragments of a person’s nature. While this fragmented approach is a reasonable training exercise, it is an excessive simplification that falls short of the real task.

Full psychological health only occurs when all major parts of one’s character are given full expression in our resulting life and all lesser factors have at least occasional, proportionate voice. Astrologers exist to be midwives, counselors, and coaches to this process of understanding one’s innate (i.e., natal or inborn) nature.

If an astrologer simply copies known reliable interpretations of each important factor in a chart, the large number of words will overwhelm the reader’s mind. This will be true even if you only select the strongest factors and all the details are entirely correct: It will not be comprehensible. The challenge is to understand the person as a single whole thing rather than merely as a collation of pieces.

To prepare yourself for this training, you will find it helpful to observe, feel, and admit the shortcomings of your mind in the face of the enormous amount of important information that is true about each person you meet.

[Jim Eshelman]

If you have tried to understand all the important information available in someone’s natal chart – your own or that of someone else – you surely have seen the limits of your mind for holding a coherent picture of someone based on all information available. This is a primary weakness of computer-generated horoscope interpretations that primarily list one-to-many paragraphs on each technical detail of a natal chart, leaving a fragmented picture of someone that usually misses the point. Too many words can leave one staring blankly into space, either hesitantly nodding consent or slowly shaking one’s head in disagreement or bewilderment.

At the same time, in your practice thus far you may have observed your mind adapting to the data flood by grouping the voluminous available information in more manageable, assimilable ways. This is a reflexive response to data overwhelm and a tactic that can be strengthened with practice.

My approach to viewing a horoscope sharpened long ago when I first learned what I call the Rule of Six: Most people’s minds can only integrate six or seven separate items of information at once. Despite individual and situational variation, a good working rule is to think of six-to-seven as the accurate number. Since the average horoscope has about six major aspects within 3°, you may understand one reason I suggest you focus solely on the closest aspects initially.

Furthermore, many charts have more than six close aspects, plus sign placements, wider aspects, angularities, and other important factors. Also, each chart element has many things it likely means, each of which is a further data point.

Yet, it is an astrologer’s job to understand the whole person (and understand the person as a whole). Even if the astrologer were not expected to do this, everybody needs to do it for themselves – to make an integrated, expansive understanding and enactment of oneself a centerpiece of life.

Since the Rule of Six does not leave psychological or neurological “room” for such a comprehensive, holistic synthesis of dozens of factors, what is one to do?

If we take “astrological synthesis” to mean bringing together the many astrological facts about a person into an understanding of a meaningful whole, how do we do this given the neurological limits of brains?

[Jim Eshelman]

Human behavior is complex. By complex, I mean each person’s psyche is a self-contained, discrete system with vast parts connected and interacting according to rules that make sense within that psyche – but not necessarily outside of it. Each person’s psyche has its own internal logic.

For example, we each have needs, histories, stimuli, impressions, and other psychological pressures coexisting and interacting within us, driving toward a unique bounded equilibrium. Nobody else can understand the necessary balance except to the extent they understand all the balls in another’s juggling act, all the features and forces that need to be brought into equilibrium, and what it takes to keep them all in motion.

Every equation has its own structure and variables. Knowing and accepting them is the only way to solve that particular equation. Figuratively, we each are expressible by this sort of equation.

This view exposes crucial implications for any of us that set out to understand others and assist them to fully understand themselves.

By etymology, complex means “braided together, entwined.” (The similar word intricate adds the idea of “tangled.”) These are not separate chart components standing alone, though some parts may dominate and have a stronger role.

This view of complexity resembles that used in complex systems theory, an emerging study increasingly arched over many fields of science in recent decades. Complexity may be the hallmark of 21st century thinking as increasing digital capabilities unleash ever-intensifying torrents of information that entangle data for every equation.

Everything is becoming more complex. Or, where things were already enormously complex, we are becoming increasingly aware of it, needing to confront and manage greater intricacy. We are each more complex and individual than earlier generations knew. Our behavior, often seeming nonlinear and random to other people, is our own real time juggling of the legion of needs, drives, hungers, and other imperatives within us seeking expression, balance, and full satisfaction.

Every new ball added increases the complexity of the juggling.

Complex systems theory has been applied to so many fields already that it surely will be applied increasingly to the study of human behavior in the decades ahead. Already it subsumes astronomy and cosmology, the physical anchors on which astrology relies. Human behavior is no less complex than the universe, so it is no wonder humanity has long intuited an intimacy of the two. Astrology, the meeting point of cosmology and psychology, is an obvious candidate for inclusion.

This turns one of astrology’s historic frustrations into an asset: Astrology’s complexity is sufficient to model the vast complexity of human behavior. As you engage with one of astrology’s most important methods, the integration of all aspects in a nativity, this complexity will become increasingly evident.

[Jim Eshelman]

Our goal is not merely to identify the myriad components of a psyche and assent to their incomprehensible complexities and trajectories. We seek understanding of the integrated whole.

Nature answers our need: Complex systems theory tells us that from complexity arises emergence.

In simple terms, emergence is something arising spontaneously from a complex system (often as a surprise) that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Understanding emergence in a personality is the primary goal of natal astrology.

Emergence is a higher order consequence of the uncountable interactions of all the parts of a complex system. For example, it refers to the full human being (the whole person) that arises from juggling all his or her coexisting psychological, biological, and environmental forces into a unique equilibrium.

We are each an emergence from the chaos and complexity of everything that streams together from within us and about us to converge in an eruption of individual identity and purpose. Our actualization and fulfillment are in maturing and expressing each part of ourselves while finding a context in the world that deeply needs and provides welcoming space for the whole of us.

It seems obvious that the whole person is greater, more interesting, and even more stunning than any itemization or summation of his or her several parts.

Understanding emergence, born from within the complexity of a personality matrix, is the primary goal of natal astrology.

[Jim Eshelman]

Several tactics help make sense of the complexity of a horoscope. These include prioritizing information and grouping data to reduce the effect of complexity, and using multiple parts of your brain together in ways that increase your capacity to deal with complexity you encounter.

Each of these tactics deserves its own book. I will focus briefly on specific approaches useful in astrology while encouraging you to explore these problem-solving tactics more extensively on your own.

One blessing and advantage is that our brains, on their own, tend to discover and apply these approaches. We can get full benefit by applying them intentionally and strengthening them with practice.

[Jim Eshelman]

In a swarm of complex, interactive information, all facts are not equally important. Some information dominates, having greater voice or a larger part in the resulting whole.

You likely already apply priority in your study and practice: For example, with the constellations you know that signs holding Sun and Moon are far more important than all the others. You have prioritized sign information by reading Sun and Moon sign interpretations to the exclusion of others, knowing that you can always come back and add information once you have a solid picture from the most important signs.

“Priority” means not only importance but also sequence. Priority information (being prior) comes first. The key tactic is to use priority information as if it were the only information, drawing a full initial impression from the fewest possible factors. This reduces the impact of complexity.

With aspects, the chief priority consideration is smallness of orb: Begin with Class 1 aspects as if they were the only aspects in the chart. If a chart has too many Class 1 aspects, apply other prioritizing to filtering considerations that simplify further:

• Hard aspects (conjunctions, oppositions, and squares) urgently demand expression. Prioritizing them zooms in on the most obvious, compelling drives.
• Luminary aspects tie planets more intimately to one’s basic nature or character core. Consider them first.
• Aspects with at least one luminary or inner planet (Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars) usually feel more personal and deserve priority and closer scrutiny.
  vPrioritize further by orb size, favoring aspects within 1° first, then within 2°, etc.

Remember, you only need these tactics if you have too many aspects to understand together initially. None of these considerations means that outer planets or soft (or wide) aspects are unimportant. These tactics help you get the clearest initial assessment of a person’s salient traits.

[Jim Eshelman]

You probably already have observed that, when faced with more information than your brain can easily integrate, you automatically start grouping, which includes two main tactics:

1. Identifying and collating similar things.
2. Identifying and contrasting dissimilar things.

Similarities among astrological factors take many forms, both mechanical and implicit.

Mechanically similar forms include several aspects to one planet (which allow you to synthesize themes of that planet into a single idea); or aspects by related planets, such as the two luminaries, two or three benefics or malefics, the two outlier planets Uranus and Pluto, or two planets that are masculine-themed or feminine-themed. Planets resemble each other many different ways.

In addition to mechanical similarities, we also may encounter implicit similarities. For example, technically unconnected or dissimilar aspects that suggest similar characteristics, such as two aspects that anticipate strong feelings or a creative bent.

Grouping also includes identifying dissimilarities. Psychological (and, thus, astrological) dynamics often group along polarized extremes. An easy way to see this in a chart is to think of the planets in natural pairs with similar themes but opposing qualities, e.g., Moon-Sun, Venus-Mars, Jupiter-Saturn, Uranus-Neptune, and Mercury-Pluto. Someone with very strong Venus and Mars drives will have strong traits of an opposite nature, such as needs for affection, connection, and friendship plus needs for competition, conflict, and (in the extreme) enmity. Most people find an easy meeting of these opposites, e.g., by forming close friendships around shared competitive activities. Though Venus and Mars are so dissimilar, they collaborate in passion (sexual passion or other powerful feelings). When both planets are similarly strong, we commonly find a strongly sexual person who easily swings between aggression and response, dominance and submission, penetration and reception, or other Mars vs. Venus contrasts.

Besides the five planet pairs just named, other planet polarities are easy to see. For example, Mercury polarizes with Venus and Moon on an intellect vs. emotion basis and with Neptune on reason vs. belief. Social, cooperative planets balance against those that prefer solitude, independence, and autonomy. Saturn contrasts with Neptune on a material-immaterial axis and with Uranus on themes of restriction vs. freedom.

From basic knowledge of the compelling psychological energies (needs) typical of each planet, you already know enough to see the coexistence of contrasting needs sets and (based on your life experiences and familiarity with people) think and feel your way through how they might coexist or conflict, the problems their contrasts might stir, and how one might resolve the tension of their differences.

Contrast or polarization is a tactic that helps structure seemingly irresolvable, contrasting facts that evade easy synthesis. Some of the most powerful moments in studying a horoscope come when you encounter sets of information (conflicting needs or opposing character traits) that seem not to fit together. When this occurs (as it will frequently), remember the prime axiom of wholeness:

Psychological health and wholeness only occur when ALL major parts of one’s character get
full expression in one’s life.

When two fundamental needs conflict with each other or demand powerful expression in ways that seem at odds, several possibilities exist:

• By expressing only one of these needs (or neither), we live in conflict, feeling unfulfilled or that prioritizing one part of us blocks other important parts from being fulfilled.
• We can choose diverse activities that give each part a chance to mature and express, meeting each need separately (e.g., through vocation, avocation, and social connection).
• We can take turns being one way sometimes and the other way at other times.
• We can create or find one or more activities that meet all of our needs, in which all sides of us can find expression.

Considering yourself and your friends, you likely can easily think of many examples of such contrasts. For example, you may know a bookkeeper or software engineer who spends work hours engaged in detailed mental labor and then dives into music enjoyment or performance outside working hours. More broadly, there is no real conflict between a strong desire to work and a strong desire to play if one works hard and plays hard or finds work so enjoyable that it feels like play. No actual conflict exists between an ardent desire for closeness and strong, frequent needs for solitude if one organizes one’s life to allow for both.

However, many people, in their frustration or failure to find a fulfilling compromise, resolve competing needs in unhealthy, unsatisfying ways. Someone with similarly strong closeness and solitude needs may choose a relationship with an emotionally distant partner. Someone whose chart shows kindness and charm with the need to have others affirm their strength may be charming and connecting in public, though violent and controlling in private.

Although an astrologer’s familiarity with human behavior may make it easy to see ways (positive or negative) that contrasting traits can manifest healthily, the burden is not entirely on the astrologer. As each of us matures and explores life, we encounter diverse activities and experiences, assessing (usually unconsciously) whether they “feel right” and choosing to adopt some of them. Sometimes receptive people seem drawn to fitting endeavors as if to a beacon, as if aligning with a matching tuning fork; or perhaps they are only quicker to notice when encountering them. In any case, the main point is:

Finding how ALL a client’s pieces can fit together rarely falls on the astrologer. Usually, the client already has figured out a way – just in the course of living.

Most people live ingeniously, though usually unconsciously. Most adults already have found ways to express all their “parts” by making the best choices that have occurred to them, responding to what seems to fit. These choices often are among the most interesting things to learn about someone. As a counsellor, an astrologer’s role is (1) to make the competing dynamics conscious, increasing the client’s self-awareness of his or her deep needs; (2) to praise successful life navigations and fulfilling resolutions of competing needs; and (3) if the client has made poor and unsatisfying choices, to dialogue about making better ones.

Some people, of course, reach adulthood without an equilibrium of their strong internal contrasts; or we may be asked to interpret the birth chart of an infant or child. In such cases, identifying contrasts or polarization in the inborn nature can launch a powerful conversation that helps someone make choices that create a fulfilling life.

[Jim Eshelman]

To understand someone’s whole self through their horoscope (or any other way), you have to bring your own whole self to the game.

In the final analysis, an astrologer’s job is to understand a person’s entire nature so far as another person can do that. When it comes to “whole selves,” it takes one to know one. Therefore, your lifelong training in astrology necessarily includes your lifelong exploration and unfurling of yourself.

My third recommended tactic for addressing complexity in a horoscope is to use your whole brain. Consciously, intentionally use all the parts of your brain in new ways. Besides their advantage to astrological interpretation, these practiced abilities will contribute to your effectiveness in most parts of your life.

In the discussion following, I will not dwell on which part of the brain connects to each function I mention. You do not really need this information, the details are readily available if you want to explore them on your own. Brain scientists have changed their minds on certain things every few years and (based on new research) are likely to keep doing this in the future. Nonetheless, the functions I mention are not controversial. You probably will be familiar with all of them.

You activate a portion of your brain by using it, exercising the function it performs. You strengthen that part of your brain by repeatedly using it, the same way you would strengthen a muscle.

[Jim Eshelman]

One part of your brain is especially responsible for analysis and another for synthesis.

Analysis is linear and logical, collating and organizing explicit information, breaking down something whole into component parts. Think of it as carefully reading the printed lines of a book. In astrology, we do this (for example) when we isolate explicit measurements such as identifying sign placements or calculating and organizing aspects.

Synthesis is nonlinear, holistic, and creative, recognizes patterns more than data, and unifies inferences or implicit information into an integrated whole. Think of it as reading between the lines. In astrology, we use this when faced with all the data points of a chart and needing to understand it as a unified whole or single thing.

We routinely use both functions. They generally work together smoothly. We need both in astrological interpretation.

Analysis without synthesis feels lifeless: compiled data with no sense of it being a single thing. In astrology, the typical computerized horoscope interpretation is an example of analysis without synthesis: all the parts, none of the whole.

Synthesis without analysis may produce fiction if the synthesis is not based on accurate data. This is a weakness of those who think of astrology solely as an intuitive system without ensuring they are starting with sound underlying information.

Using visual patterning, color, and shape in the presentation of concrete, measured, linear data encourages interaction of the two faculties. Horoscope designs that engage us both mentally and viscerally demonstrably wake up more of the brain.

Many astrologers have relied so much on technical measurement that they have missed the beautiful forest for all the trees. (Historically, Sidereal astrologers often have been champs at this mistake.) We should not rely only on measurement.

Others have been so math-and-measurement averse that their intuitions have integrated false facts into a misleading fable, missing all the distinctive trees due to their absorption in the forest. They may, indeed, provide sound counsel to their clients, though it is from astromancy (a form of divination), not astrology. Their instincts would be more effective if based on correct measurements. (Do not let the computer do all the work: Develop the linear part of your brain as well as the nonlinear.)

Analysis must precede synthesis: Ancient alchemists had this right in their solve et coagula motto. We need to bring both our linear-analytical and holistic-synthetic faculties into use and, by practice and habit, train them to reflexively, routinely work together on a horoscope.

[Jim Eshelman]

A third part of our brains is primarily responsible for strong feeling. The key to activating and strengthening this function is simple: Once you have the raw information of a horoscope extracted, have applied priority and grouping, and are beginning to see it as a whole thing, you must feel into it.

Once you have isolated the salient facts of a chart, ask yourself what it feels like to be this person. Do not just view the person from the outside as a detached observer: Make it personal through feeling. Consider what you know from the horoscope and feel what it would be like if these things were true of you; then place this experience in the context of what you know of the person’s life.

Notice that using your whole brain is not a linear process. This “strong feeling” practice will overlap analysis and synthesis, spiraling through them as you progressively use more parts of your brain together more often.

[Jim Eshelman]

Another section of your brain controls biologically essential functions that rely on automatic, unthinking repetition. Though sometimes linked to pattern recognition, I think it best to label this pattern formation. Specifically, this includes habit, learning repetitive procedures, and other functions that rely on (mostly unthinking) repetition of steps.

This is ritual in the sense of something repeatedly performed in the same set manner.

In astrology, this means adopting and using (regularly and routinely) a method or familiar path through a chart. You can, of course, vary whenever you want; yet there is virtue (i.e., power) in following a prescribed path. If (for a while or forever) each time you examine a new horoscope you follow the same path, your brain will engrain it. There is nothing sacred or magical about whatever ritual you adopt except that it is practical and will gain power with consistent repetition.

My main point is: Create ritual. Create a pattern you follow, one that leads your eyes (literally, physically) to tour an astrological chart along similar pathways, tracing (as it were) lines in the sand. Once your brain learns what you are doing, it will anticipate where you are going and start “getting there ahead of you,” setting you up unconsciously to see things you otherwise might miss.

By the way, before computers did all the math for us, astrologers used to have a reliably guaranteed consistent ritual for every horoscope because we had to calculate every chart from reference books. This process was repetitive and rigorous. We did exactly the same steps every time for 15 to 30 minutes, climaxing in drafting planet glyphs, their calculated positions, and other information onto a paper chart form. Many of us felt this activated something in us, readying us to unlock the secrets of the carefully drawn horoscope.

Back in the 1970s, I asked Los Angeles Sidereal astrologer Lenny Marcus why he thought astrology was so much more powerful than numerology (which he also loved and trusted). Lenny answered that he thought astrology had a stronger ritual. He meant the process of chart calculation, our investment in the patten and the energy put into it. Numerology, in contrast, was too quick and easy.

Though I have no objective evidence that he was right, I have always liked his answer. In any case, I do know that the ritual of manual chart casting added a more intimate relationship with the chart, and that a standard, regularly repeated pathway through a horoscope has value to the astrologer.

[Jim Eshelman]

Analysis, synthesis, powerful feeling, and pattern formation through repeated ritual: These four keys leverage diverse functions of your brain. Not only are they perfectly good skills, but they also signal the brain to wake up to what you are doing.

A further faculty is worth mentioning. Neurobiologists have identified additional problem-solving faculties that we use more rarely. They are much more taxing metabolically and need not be used often. For example, a clear sense of danger or truly compelling urgency can trigger them when other brain resources temporarily fail us.

This scenario likely will not occur much in the practice of astrology. Few things horoscopic are both inscrutable and urgently necessary. However, you can use your astrology practice to develop these faculties. They arise neurologically from the rapid collaboration of different faculties of the brain and thrive best in a brain used more fully and complexly.

While I cannot guarantee that frequent drills on processes interweaving analysis, synthesis, strong emotion, and habit formation will give you ready access to what may seem like superhuman brain abilities… the practice cannot hurt your chances.

And, besides, this more complete use of your brain will make you a better astrologer.

[Jim Eshelman]

People are not simply collections of parts: we are unique compositions.

After analysis comes synthesis. Astrological synthesis is the coalescing of seemingly isolated facts about a person into a meaningful whole by understanding the relative strength of various needs and how they bond, intertwine, dance, and sing with each other within that person.

Health and wholeness are consequences of all a person’s major parts attaining full expression, of all the shouts and cries of the soul having voice. Astrology’s purpose is to assist people to understand the myriad components of their individual psyches and how to forge from these an integrated, meaningful whole.

Analysis first… and then synthesis.

If this essentially psychological process can step further toward an expanded spiritual awareness, so much the better: We each take our first breath at a unique intersection of time and space, a meeting of moment and place, a crossroads in eternity. Embodying that place-moment, we are each unique in the universe. We have no greater calling than to fully actualize the character of that intersection, to become more fully what the horoscope declares we are. Astrology can serve as our map in this quest.

As a start, though, we concentrate on our psychological health and actualizing our unique, innate capacities. In the vortex of complexity that we each embody, that draws us irresistibly toward our own center, an astrologer’s role is to understand and serve as midwife to emergence, that “something more” which is greater than the sum of all our parts.

The meaning of life is to find the meaning of life.

Everybody ultimately must do this for themselves. The meaning is different for everyone, an individual holy grail, golden fleece, or buried treasure, because each place-moment intersection has a unique character and significance. Our one shared common purpose is to give the fullest voice possible to the character of the moment we first came into existence, i.e., to all of who we are.

At every point in space and time, the universe has necessity and gives birth to what it requires. If you think I have anthropomorphized this too much, consider it a poetic approach and contemplate, instead, the physical or mechanical complex truth of the statement. Whatever arises from a given moment is a consequence of that moment necessarily embodying everything needed at and from the moment.

Journeying through our lives, we learn things about ourselves and the world, make observations, gather puzzle pieces, have insights, discovering the first matter as alchemists call it. We take one path and then another, sometimes walking seven different directions at the same time, trying one method and then a few more. As the folk-rock duo Indigo Girls long has reminded us, “There’s more than one answer to these questions, pointing me in a crooked line.” We zig. We zag.

Everyone is on a path of self-exploration and self-fulfillment regardless of whether we think of it in those terms or make it a conscious centerpiece of our lives. We gather clues as we live. At some point, we need to explore and make sense of our basket of caught fish, understanding something from them.

We undertake the steps of analysis and synthesis.

To this process, an astrologer brings important resources. First, in the course of gathering and purifying the raw data about ourselves, an astrologer shows up with a handy checklist. Second, a fully qualified astrologer, by training, experience, natural empathy, and insight, can serve as a coach, guide, or counsellor in the process of understanding our whole selves. The astrologer can help us find the person in our horoscope.

This, then, is our method: In the delineation, interpretation, or reading of a horoscope, our analysis involves breaking down the technical components of the chart, identifying and tabulating the measurements, the sign placements, angularities (and relative strength of each), aspects (including type and relative strength), and more. This done, we bring our skills, art, and insight to the task of synthesis.