nized religions – when interpreted literally – are generally in fundamental conflict with science, whether this science uses the mechanistic-materialistic model or is anchored in the emerging paradigm. However, the situation changes considerably when we examine authentic mysticism based on genuine spiritual experiences. The great mystical traditions have amassed extensive knowledge about human consciousness and about the spiritual realms in a manner that is similar to the critical approach used by scientists in acquiring knowledge about the material world. This includes methodologies for inducing transpersonal experiences, systematic collection of data, and intersubjective validation. Like any other aspect of reality, spiritual experiences can be subjected to careful open-minded scientific research. Only such unbiased and rigorous study of transpersonal phenomena and of the challenges they present to materialistic understanding of the world can answer the critical question about the ontological status of mystical experiences: Can they reveal deep truth about some basic aspects of existence, as maintained by various systems of perennial philosophy and transpersonal psychology, or are they products of superstition, fantasy, or mental disease, as Western materialistic science sees them? Mainstream psychiatry does not distinguish between a mystical experience and a psychotic experience and sees both as manifestations of mental disease. In its sweeping rejection of religion, psychiatry also does not differentiate primitive folk beliefs and the fundamentalist literal interpretations of religious scriptures from sophisticated mystical traditions or the great Eastern spiritual philosophies based on centuries of systematic introspective exploration of the psyche. Modern consciousness research has brought convincing evidence for the objective existence of the imaginal realm and has thus validated the main metaphysical assumptions of the mystical world view, the Eastern spiritual philosophies, and even certain beliefs of indigenous cultures. 5.7 The importance of archetypal astrology for psychology The greatest surprise I experienced during more than 50 years of consciousness research has been to discover the extraordinary predictive power of archetypal astrology. Because of my extensive scientific training, I was initially extremely skeptical about astrology. The idea that planets and stars could have anything to do with states of consciousness, let alone events in the world, seemed too absurd and preposterous to even consider. It took years and thousands of convincing observations for me to accept this possibility – a shift that required nothing less than a radical revision of my basic metaphysical assumptions about the nature of reality. Given the controversy that surrounds this issue, I would not have even discussed astrology in this presentation, had Richard Tarnas not published three remarkable books based on his meticulous ground-breaking research: The Passion of the Western Mind, Prometheus the Awakener, and Cosmos and Psyche (Tarnas 1991, 1995, Spirituality Studies 1 (1) Spring 2015 29 (27)
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