Plato and Reincarnation

Plato: The Evolutionary Journey of the Soul

by Charlie Obert, June 2019.

Does the human soul have a purpose for being here on earth? Is our life here part of a larger experience that transcends a single human lifetime?

I come at the subject as a traditional astrologer who is rooted in the Platonic and Pythagorean tradition of philosophy.

The purpose of this post is to examine reincarnation and the immortal soul in a platonist model – exploring the soul’s purpose in life – and how we could address it in traditional astrology.

Evolutionary Astrology

Evolutionary astrology is very popular today. It expresses a prominent dimension of modern astrology that works with reincarnation and multiple lives, and with the soul’s purpose for this life within that context. This is a typically modern approach that heavily emphasizes the outer planets in talking about past lives. Like much modern astrology, evolutionary astrology typically looks to India for a metaphysical underpinning for their work.

That hunger for a sense of meaning and for a sense of soul purpose is a large part of what draws people to astrology.

Can we address the subject matter of evolutionary astrology – the soul’s purpose in this lifetime viewed in the context of a series of lives for the immortal human soul – using the context and tools of traditional western astrology? Yes, I think so.

The Platonic and Pythagorean Tradition

In our own Western tradition we have a model of reincarnation, of multiple lives and an immortal soul having a purpose in this life. I look to the Platonic and Pythagorean tradition for that context.

You can make a very strong case that Plato is presenting a model of an immortal human soul that takes on a series of human lives. I realize that there is a prominent school of modern academic scholarship which claims that Plato didn’t “really” believe in reincarnation or an immortal soul, and that all of the references to those in his dialogs are metaphors and not to be taken as his actual views.

In fact, there is much prominent discussion of reincarnation and the immortal soul in Plato across several dialogs, and it is stretching the “only a metaphor” argument to a point of absurdity to make his dialogs agree with the reductionist stance of much modern philosophy. Granted that the references to reincarnation and the immortal soul are not to be taken literally, they are meant to be taken seriously as pointing to an aspect of consciousness that transcends the boundaries of a single earth life.

In this post I want to examine one of the most important places where Plato presents a multi-lifetime model – the closing section of the Republic, known as The Myth of Er.

Note that the word myth here means account or story or tale, and does not have the modern connotations we attach to the word mythical. Plato presents it as a tale told by a warrior who has been taken for dead for some days and returns to life to share what he experienced.

I want to put the section in the context of the argument of the entire book, as this story is really the culmination.

Justice leads to Happiness, Injustice to Suffering

Does it pay to act justly? Is the just life also the happy and successful life? Or, does it sometimes pay to act in unjust ways to gain advantage?

This is the question that starts the entire dialog, and is the thread that holds the entire book together. From the very start Socrates is attempting to prove that acting justly and virtuously is beneficial in its own right, acting unjustly is harmful in its own right, and that it is never of benefit to act unjustly – that acting unjustly for benefit is self-contradictory and self-defeating.

Much of the book has to do with the definition of what virtue is, and whether to act virtuously is always advantageous, or whether to act in unjust ways can produce good results. It examines justice and virtue in the context of a political structure, and in the parallel context of the individual human soul. The individual and political structures mirror each other, and virtuous action in a city is mirrored by the virtuous balance within the human soul. Both the individual and the political order are mirrors of the larger cosmic structure that we study in astrology.

The Two Worlds

In Plato’s model there are two worlds, two dimensions of existence. There is the eternal world of the Forms, which transcends time and space. There is also the temporal, changing, transitory world of physical existence, of the body, the senses and passions.

There are two aspects that human consciousness that mirror these two worlds. There is the immortal soul, and there is a mortal and temporary human soul tied to the human body, and both the body and the transitory part of the soul disentegrate at death.

Both Plato and Aristotle identify the immortal soul as the Nous, a word that means Mind. It is the thinking, judging and reasoning part of the human. This is larger than our current concept of reason. In Plato’s model reason has a connotation of underlying principles, and includes the ability to distinguish right from wrong. There is a moral and ethical dimension that is part of the basic structure of the eternal world.

The Immortal Soul

The story follows on a section [608] where Socrates attempts to prove that the soul must be immortal.

The argument for the soul’s immortality is basically an argument from justice. Socrates argues that the only thing that can harm the soul is injustice or going against virtue. This means that whatever can harm or kill the body does not necessarily harm the soul.

However, acting against virtue or justice does not kill the soul, but does wound it and cause suffering. In fact the only thing that can harm the soul is acting aqainst justice and virtue. Injustice harms the soul but does not destroy it. If the only thing that can harm the soul does not kill it, then the soul must be immortal in a just universe.

Only the physical incarnate part of us is subject to mortality, to death and destruction. Our immortal Nous, our perceiving, reasoning and judging mind, cannot be destroyed.

The basis of the Nous, the immortal soul, like the basis of the universe itself, is The Good – virtue, justice. The essence, the base principle of the universe, the One and the Good, is immortal and just – or rather, since justice emerges from the One and the Good then its source must contain and transcend justice.

In the Platonic model we live in a just universe, a moral universe, where the principles of justice reach all the way to the core of being.

This is the key principle of the entire argument – that which is real, that which eternal in the human, the immortal soul, is that part of us which makes the decisions about virtue and vice, justice and injustice. Therefore that is the part of us that is worth cultivating – and that is what the philosophic life is all about – cultivating that awareness, and learning to make it the guiding light of all of our actions.

Keep that principle in mind. We will return to it at the end of this essay, when we tie in how this dialog applies to our practice of astrology.

One Lifetime Too Short for Justice

Given that the universe is just and the human soul is immortal, it follows that each soul must have more than one mortal life, as one lifetime is too short a length of time to fully work out issues of good and evil.

This final tale, on the immortal soul, the after life, and the period between where we choose our next life, is designed to tie the entire argument together. Socrates has argued that justice is its own reward and is worthwhile in itself, and injustice is its own punishment and creates its own problems. It is never of benefit to act in an unjust way.

Now that we have that principle in place within the span of a single lifetime, the tale puts it in context of the pilgrimage of the immortal soul across multiple lifetimes, and the periods of reward or punishment between.

Note that all quotes from Plato here are from the public domain Benjamin Jowett translation, with a few sections altered for clarity by me based on the Cornford translation. Quotes are in italics, and I have emphasized some particularly important passages. The numbers in square braces are the standard section numbers for Plato’s dialogs, that are referenced in all translations. For the interpretation I am particularly indebted to the translation and commentary of the Republic by F. M. Cornford.

Returning from the Dead

The transition to the story of the afterlife begins here.

“Such then while he lives are the prizes, the wages, and the gifts [614a] that the just man receives from gods and men in addition to those blessings which justice herself bestowed.” “And right fair and abiding rewards,” he said.

Well, these,” I said, “are nothing in number and magnitude compared with those that await both after death. And we must listen to the tale of them,” said I, “in order that each may have received in full what is due to be said of him by our argument.”

“Tell me,” he said, [614b] “since there are not many things to which I would more gladly listen.”

“It is not, let me tell you,” said I, “the tale to Alcinous told that I shall unfold, but the tale of a warrior bold, Er, the son of Armenius, by race a Pamphylian.

He once upon a time was slain in battle, and when the corpses were taken up on the tenth day already decayed, was found intact, and having been brought home, at the moment of his funeral, on the twelfth day as he lay upon the pyre, revived, and after coming to life related what, he said, he had seen in the world beyond.

This is presented as a story told by a man who returned to life after being in the world after death. It is not described as a fairy tale or myth, but an account. How it is to be taken depends on the reader. Granted that the details may not be meant as actual description – but if it is a metaphor, then a metaphor for what? It is definitely pointing to a continued existence after death of the body, and the story at its very least is a way to point to important aspects of that existence.

If it is metaphor it definitely points to some form of continued existence over multiple lives, even if the details he frames it in here are not meant to be literal. He is pointing to it rather than pinning it down.

Heaven and Hell

He said that when his soul went forth from his body he journeyed with a great company [614c] and that they came to a mysterious region where there were two openings side by side in the earth, and above and over against them in the heaven two others, and that judges were sitting between these, and that after every judgement they bade the righteous journey to the right and upwards through the heaven with tokens attached to them in front of the judgement passed upon them, and the unjust to take the road to the left and downward, they too wearing behind signs [614d] of all that had befallen them, and that when he himself drew near they told him that he must be the messenger to mankind to tell them of that other world, and they charged him to give ear and to observe everything in the place.

And so he said that here he saw, by each opening of heaven and earth, the souls departing after judgement had been passed upon them, while, by the other pair of openings, there came up from the one in the earth souls full of squalor and dust, and from the second there came down from heaven a second procession of souls clean and pure, [614e] and that those which arrived from time to time appeared to have come as it were from a long journey and gladly departed to the meadow and encamped there as at a festival, and acquaintances greeted one another, and those which came from the earth questioned the others about conditions up yonder, and those from heaven asked how it fared with those others.

And they told their stories to one another, the one lamenting [615a] and wailing as they recalled how many and how dreadful things they had suffered and seen in their journey beneath the earth – it lasted a thousand years –while those from heaven related their delights and visions of a beauty beyond words.

The general argument of the Republic is that it pays to act virtuously – at the start of this section he basically says it pays off even in the context of this one life – and this tale puts it in the multi life context including a thousand years of either heaven or hell in between each life – meaning we reap tenfold of what we sow of either good or evil.

Reward or punishment after death has nothing to do with how rich, or successful, or famous, or wealthy, or well-liked, or whatever. The criteria are strictly ethical – did you live justly or unjustly. And notice it is either one or the other, completely up or completely down, an after life of unalloyed bliss or unalloyed suffering, with nothing in-between.

That argues for this being metaphorical – but then the metaphor is strongly pointing to the fact that all our actions have consequences in terms of justice and injustice – that we reap the rewards of just and virtuous action, and that we reap the suffering and ill fruit of unjust action. It is a universe where justice and injustice are core structural principles, at the very heart of what existence is all about.

What strikes me here is how very black and white dualistic it is – you are either left or right, evil or good, down or up, and there is nothing in-between. It is pretty obvious that either the Christian heaven and hell are modeled after this or they go back to a common root.

In this story, while each in-between life is either a sheer heaven or a sheer hell, between each life there is the chance to choose anew, to keep growing, to move on.

Neither condition, of either heaven or hell, is permanent. From later sections here we will see that, as within a single human life, the general human tendency is to forget quickly. Those returning from heaven tend to forget their lessons and choose poorly. Those returning from hell tend to choose more wisely since they have learned through suffering.

In terms of a single life this implies that good fortune is actually more dangerous ethically, while misfortune and suffering is the best environment for growing the soul. Or virtues grow best in a soil of adversity.

Plato argues that, in general, we make our choices in life out of inertia and habit rather than conscious ethical choice. The Republic, and all of the Platonic dialogs, are arguing for conscious ethical choice as being the only thing that matters – indeed, as ultimately being the only thing that is real and eternal.

To tell it all, Glaucon, would take all our time, but the sum, he said, was this. For all the wrongs they had ever done to anyone and all whom they had severally wronged they had paid the penalty in turn tenfold for each, and the measure of this was by periods of a hundred years each [615b] so that on the assumption that this was the length of human life the punishment might be ten times the crime;

Getting Ready for the Next Life

…But when seven days had elapsed for each group in the meadow, they were required to rise up on the eighth and journey on, and they came in four days to a spot whence they discerned, extended from above throughout the heaven and the earth, a straight light like a pillar, most nearly resembling the rainbow, but brighter and purer.

This plain is a place where returning souls go when they are getting ready for a new earth life – and that is the choice of each regardless of whether or not their previous place was hell or heaven.

The Spindle of Necessity

To this they came [616c] after going forward a day’s journey, and they saw there at the middle of the light the extremities of its fastenings stretched from heaven; for this light was the girdle of the heavens like the undergirders of triremes, holding together in like manner the entire revolving vault. And from the extremities was stretched the spindle of Necessity , through which all the orbits turned. Its staff and its hook were made of adamant, and the whorl of these and other kinds was commingled.

The model that Plato describes here, which he calls the Spindle of Necessity, is the geocentric solar system, a system of spheres revolving around a spindle. From our point of view that spindle is the equator and its daily revolution – that is the clock, the main system of order that ties everything together. This is where the world of astrology comes in.

So that set of spheres around the Spindle of Necessity is the domain that the reincarnating soul enters for an earth life. That is the domain controlled by the three fates.

That implies that the larger between life domain or structure is outside of that spindle of necessity – but that the entire universe is founded, structured, on principles of justice – in other words that the very structural foundational principles or structures that the entire universe is built on, material and immaterial, spiritual and physical, eternal and temporal – is the eternal principles of justice, of beauty, of mercy and love. Literally, that without those principles the universe has no order or reason – or better yet, that without those principles there is no universe.

The spindle of necessity is the north/south pole, and the whorls or orbs are the planetary spheres plus the fixed stars. So incarnation is entering into the solar system, the world of the gods of astrology. This whole system is the sphere of the fates, and incarnation consists of descending out of the stars and through the spheres and down into earth.

And the nature of the whorl was this: [616d] Its shape was that of those in our world, but from his description we must conceive it to be as if in one great whorl, hollow and scooped out, there lay enclosed, right through, another like it but smaller, fitting into it as boxes that fit into one another, and in like manner another, a third, and a fourth, and four others, for there were eight of the whorls in all, lying within one another, [616e] showing their rims as circles from above and forming the continuous back of a single whorl about the shaft, which was driven home through the middle of the eighth.

And the spindle turned on the knees of Necessity, and up above on each of the rims of the circles a Siren stood, borne around in its revolution and uttering one sound, one note, and from all the eight there was the concord of a single harmony.

The music of the spheres – all of the planetary rotations together sounding a harmony.

The Three Fates

And there were another three [617c] who sat round about at equal intervals, each one on her throne, the Fates, 1 daughters of Necessity, clad in white vestments with filleted heads, Lachesis, and Clotho, and Atropos, who sang in unison with the music of the Sirens, Lachesis singing the things that were, Clotho the things that are, and Atropos the things that are to be.

These are the three Fates – so they are outside of the entire system, not to be identified with any one planet. And also, the domain of the Fates is life on earth – and a bit later in this section it is made clear that each soul freely chooses its coming lifetime – either thoughtlessly or thoughtfully.

The fates are those powers that structure the world of past, present and future – that weave the web and pattern that makes up the incarnate human existence that we know.

One way or other it is chosen in terms of desire and value – the soul gets the life it is lusting after.

And Clotho with the touch of her right hand helped to turn the outer circumference of the spindle, pausing from time to time. Atropos with her left hand in like manner helped to turn the inner circles, and Lachesis [617d] alternately with either hand lent a hand to each.

Casting Lots and Choosing Lives

“Now when they arrived they were straight-way bidden to go before Lachesis, and then a certain prophet first marshalled them in orderly intervals, and thereupon took from the lap of Lachesis lots and patterns of lives and went up to a lofty platform and spoke,

‘This is the word of Lachesis, the maiden daughter of Necessity, “Souls that live for a day, now is the beginning of another cycle of mortal generation where birth is the beacon of death. [617e] No divinity shall cast lots for you, but you shall choose your own deity. Let him to whom falls the first lot first select a life to which he shall cleave of necessity.

But virtue has no master over her , and each shall have more or less of her as he honors her or does her despite. The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless. “

Our Life is Our Responsibility – There is no Blame

Each soul chooses its lot in life, the general shape of the life it wants and the challenges it gets. God is blameless; each is responsible for their own lot. Essentially this means that we choose our own fate.

We choose our lives in terms of what we value, and we reap the consequences of those value choices. essentially we choose what we want out of the life; we then reap the consequences of those choices.

So saying, the prophet flung the lots out among them all, and each took up the lot that fell by his side, except himself; him they did not permit . And whoever took up a lot saw plainly what number he had drawn.

[618a] And after this again the prophet placed the patterns of lives before them on the ground, far more numerous than the assembly. They were of every variety, for there were lives of all kinds of animals and all sorts of human lives, for there were tyrannies among them, some uninterrupted till the end and others destroyed midway and issuing in penuries and exiles and beggaries; and there were lives of men of repute for their forms and beauty and bodily strength otherwise [618b] and prowess and the high birth and the virtues of their ancestors, and others of ill repute in the same things, and similarly of women.

But there was no determination of the quality of soul, because the choice of a different life inevitably determined a different character.

Very important here – the good or bad fortune of the life has nothing to do with the determination of quality of soul. That means good or bad fortune can be turned to good or bad account according to justice and virtue. (This is very important in astrology when we work with the benefics and malefics, the planets of good and ill fortune. Benefic and malefic has nothing to do with good and evil in any ethical sense.)

At a higher dimension, this implies that there is an already planned set of lives to be chosen from, to be enacted. This implies that each human life has a place. Life is structured like a play where the main plot and its characters are set, and now the actors are all selecting their part within the play.

But all other things were commingled with one another and with wealth and poverty and sickness and health and the intermediate conditions. – And there, dear Glaucon, it appears, is the supreme hazard for a man.

[618c] And this is the chief reason why it should be our main concern that each of us, neglecting all other studies, should seek after and study this thing – if in any way he may be able to learn of and discover the man who will give him the ability and the knowledge to distinguish the life that is good from that which is bad, and always and everywhere to choose the best that the conditions allow, and, taking into account all the things of which we have spoken and estimating the effect on the goodness of his life of their conjunction or their severance, to know how beauty commingled with poverty or wealth and combined with [618d] what habit of soul operates for good or for evil,

It is worth emphasizing that good and bad fortune, and good and evil, are two completely different categories. We do not have control over the general shape of fortune once we get here – in this model we have already previously chosen our lot in life – but we always have control over quality of soul, over good and evil response – and it is precisely that response which determines how we are judged.

and what are the effects of high and low birth and private station and office and strength and weakness and quickness of apprehension and dullness and all similar natural and acquired habits of the soul, when blended and combined with one another,

so that with consideration of all these things he will be able to make a reasoned choice between the better and the worse life, [618e] with his eyes fixed on the nature of his soul, naming the worse life that which will tend to make it more unjust and the better that which will make it more just.

This is the core – the main argument of the Republic – and the main reason for human life – is to grow in our ability to make conscious and wise value judgements.

But all other considerations he will dismiss, for we have seen that this is the best choice, [619a] both for life and death. And a man must take with him to the house of death an adamantine faith in this, that even there he may be undazzled by riches and similar trumpery, and may not precipitate himself into tyrannies and similar doings and so work many evils past cure and suffer still greater himself, but may know how always to choose in such things the life that is seated in the mean and shun the excess in either direction, both in this world so far as may be and in all the life to come; [619b] for this is the greatest happiness for man.

“And at that time also the messenger from that other world reported that the prophet spoke thus: ‘Even for him who comes forward last, if he make his choice wisely and live strenuously, there is reserved an acceptable life, no evil one. Let not the foremost in the choice be heedless nor the last be discouraged.’

A Thoughtless Choice

When the prophet had thus spoken he said that the drawer of the first lot at once sprang to seize the greatest tyranny, and that in his folly and greed he chose it [619c] without sufficient examination, and failed to observe that it involved the fate of eating his own children, and other horrors, and that when he inspected it at leisure he beat his breast and bewailed his choice, not abiding by the forewarning of the prophet.

For he did not blame himself for his woes, but fortune and the gods and anything except himself.

He was one of those who had come down from heaven, a man who had lived in a well-ordered polity in his former existence, [619d] participating in virtue by habit and not by philosophy; and one may perhaps say that a majority of those who were thus caught were of the company that had come from heaven, inasmuch as they were unexercised in suffering. But the most of those who came up from the earth, since they had themselves suffered and seen the sufferings of others, did not make their choice precipitately.

For which reason also there was an interchange of good and evil for most of the souls, as well as because of the chances of the lot.

Choice from Inertia

This is one of the most interesting twists of the whole story – those who had just come from hell were more likely to make good choices, and those from heaven more likely to make foolish choices! The good don’t keep getting gooder, and the bad don’t keep getting badder. Part of the lesson seems to be precisely that point, that good and bad fortune do not coincide with good and evil, and that we can take bad fortune in this life and turn it towards goodness of soul.

Yet if at each return to the life of this world [619e] a man loved wisdom sanely, and the lot of his choice did not fall out among the last, we may venture to affirm, from what was reported thence, that not only will he be happy here but that the path of his journey thither and the return to this world will not be underground and rough but smooth and through the heavens.

For he said that it was a sight worth seeing to observe how the several souls selected their lives. [620a] He said it was a strange, pitiful, and ridiculous spectacle, as the choice was determined for the most part by the habits of their former lives.

How slow we are to learn from experience! Even in terms of soul growth we are mostly creatures of simple habit. Again the emphasis on living consciously here and now, that what we are ultimately building is character and quality of soul, and that any life circumstance can be used to contribute to that growth.

And it fell out that the soul of Odysseus drew the last lot of all and came to make its choice, and, from memory of its former toils having flung away ambition, went about for a long time in quest of the life of an ordinary citizen who minded his own business, and with difficulty found it lying in some corner disregarded by the others, [620d] and upon seeing it said that it would have done the same had it drawn the first lot, and chose it gladly.

And in like manner, of the other beasts some entered into men and into one another, the unjust into wild creatures, the just transformed to tame, and there was every kind of mixture and combination.

Returning to Earth

But when, to conclude, all the souls had chosen their lives in the order of their lots, they were marshalled and went before Lachesis. And she sent with each, [620e] as the guardian of his life and the fulfiller of his choice, the genius that he had chosen, and this divinity led the soul first to Clotho, under her hand and her turning of the spindle to ratify the destiny of his lot and choice; and after contact with her the genius again led the soul to the spinning of Atropos to make the web of its destiny irreversible, and then without a backward look it passed beneath the throne of Necessity.

[621a] And after it had passed through that, when the others also had passed, they all journeyed to the Plain of Oblivion, through a terrible and stifling heat, for it was bare of trees and all plants, and there they camped at eventide by the River of Forgetfulness, whose waters no vessel can contain.

They were all required to drink a measure of the water, and those who were not saved by their good sense drank more than the measure, and each one as he drank forgot all things.

Each are required to drink the water of forgetfulness – but the wise ones drink less – implying that it is thirst for experience that keeps driving us here – and also implying that wisdom keeps in mind that the life we are living is our own choice – is a mirror of our desires and values – basically that we get the life that we choose, that we want.

We learn by living out our desires and values, learning from them. As we grow and mature over the lives our values grow and mature, and mere earthly desire or good or bad fortune become left behind, and true soul or spiritual growth is left as the real good, the only real value. The growth process over multiple lives parallels the growth process in a single well-lived human lifetime.

[621b] And after they had fallen asleep and it was the middle of the night, there was a sound of thunder and a quaking of the earth, and they were suddenly wafted thence, one this way, one that, upward to their birth like shooting star.

Er himself, he said, was not allowed to drink of the water, yet how and in what way he returned to the body he said he did not know, but suddenly recovering his sight he saw himself at dawn lying on the funeral pyre.

– And so, Glaucon, the tale was saved, as the saying is, and was not lost.

[621c] And it will save us if we believe it, and we shall safely cross the River of Lethe, and keep our soul unspotted from the world.

The Moral of the Story

But if you will believe with me that the soul is immortal and capable of enduring all extremes of good and evil, and so we shall hold ever to the upward way and pursue justice with wisdom always and ever, that we may be dear to ourselves and to the gods both during our sojourn here and when we receive our reward, [621d] as the victors in the games go about to gather in theirs. And thus both here and in that journey of a thousand years, whereof I have told you, we shall fare well.

Here ends the Myth of Er, and the Republic.

We reap what we sow in terms of good and evil, so growth through the lives is growth in righteousness and wisdom – the two are synonyms.

Conclusions

Here are the general conclusions that are drawn in the Republic, and in the Platonic tradition in general.

As human beings we have immortal souls – or better, we are immortal conscious beings currently living mortal lives. We don’t HAVE souls, we ARE souls.

The part of us which is immortal is what Platonists would view as the rational part. I think that reason as we currently think of it has too limited a connotation. I think of it as the part of us that makes conscious and ethical decisions. It is also the part of us that can stand back from our mortal condition and judge how to act.

Given that the soul is immortal, this means that we grow and evolve through a series of lives. The part of our lives that survives this one life is our ethical and moral part, and concerns our acting with justice or injustice. It is the part that makes value judgments.

The basic shape of our lives is chosen by us according to what we desire – we choose the basic shape of our lives. This means that we are here in this particular life condition because there is a set of experiences we have chosen for a specific purpose. This purpose is both for us as individuals, and for us as part of the larger human collective – we are growing, changing, and evolving, individually and collectively.

The life we choose aligns with our values and desires, and our choices can be more or less thoughtful, reasoned and conscious. As in any single event in our lives, our choices and actions may be careful and thought out, or thoughtless and impulsive. The Myth of Er story specifically describes someone jumping into a life without thought and then bewailing their choice, blaming the Gods, blaming fate – blaming anything except themselves.

It follows that a central part of the overall purpose of human life is precisely this growth process, learning the implications and consequences of our desires and values. Like children growing into adults, our desires and needs grow and change. Our sense of values and our conduct changes and matures as we have more experience and (hopefully but not necessarily) become more self-aware – though I would say that lack of self-awareness can be viewed as younger or more immature, and developed self-awareness can be viewed as more advanced or mature.

This growth in awareness of values is a meta-value to the entire process that spans lives – self-awareness, choosing our values maturely, deliberately, rationally and consciously.

This is where the path of philosophy comes in, as being a path of self-awareness – and this is also where astrology comes in.

What of Astrology?

How does this tie in with astrology?

Astrology only makes sense in the context of the philosophic life. To me this means that astrology needs to include growth in awareness of value judgments. Most people I work with are less concerned with what will happen to them, and more concerned with the Why questions, questions of purpose and meaning.

Given that there is a purpose to human life, the question then becomes how we can best work with, and respond to, the lot in life that we are cast, in such a way as to further our growth in virtue and self-awareness. This benefits us, it benefits others and it benefits our society. Ultimately, in a way beyond we can usually conceive, our life fits within a larger cosmic order.

This concept of the multiple levels of order all mirroring each other is one of the foundation principles of the Republic. Individual human virtue is mirrored in a virtuous structure in the political arena, and this in turn is a mirror of the cosmic order of the heavens. We study astrology to align ourselves with cosmic order, which includes a moral order.

How does astrology help? By helping us to wake up, to engage in this process of growth in values consciously by thinking through our desires and values so that we may choose and act more wisely.

This is the purpose of astrology – to help us to make wise and self-aware choices of how to live our lives, and to take responsibility for those choices.

Recall from the story that it is the Fates who offer us the lives from which to choose, and it is the Fates who weave and control the structure and unfolding of that fate through a life within Plato’s Spindle of Necessity – life on earth surrounded by the heavens, the whole cosmic structure mirrored in astrology.

The movement and order of the planets in astrology shows the unfolding of that order – or, in other terms, our fate. We always need to remember that fate does NOT determine whether we choose to act justly or unjustly – that is always within our choice – and sometimes that is all that is within our choice.

This growth in awareness over time and experience leads to the conclusion that is the central premise of the entire Republic dialog. Simply put, it is wise to act righteously and unselfishly, and it is unwise to act selfishly and dishonestly. In the larger multi-lifetime view of things, virtue pays and vice punishes – and ultimately that is all that matters. The only truly important things in life are those concerned with the state and growth of our immortal souls.

This assumes there is a built in moral order to the universe – that existence is not morally neutral – and, that the underlying structure of the universe is one of justice. Justice is not some kind of overlay that we place as humans on top of a morally neutral material universe. The structure of justice is wired right into the very basic principles on which all of creation is built. In Platonic terms, justice is one of the primary platonic forms – or in other terms, justice is one of the most basic and primary of the gods.

The One and the Good – moral goodness, justice, fairness, mercy, are properties of our universe that are so foundational that they precede and underlay even existence itself. We are part of that Oneness, and part of our purpose here is to wake up to that fact, and to always act within that context.