Transpersonal Psychology and AI - Part 1
An interpretation of astrological themes using generated images
I first became interested in Numerology and Astrology in the mid 1980s. As a child, I was a keen student of science and a big fan of science fiction. My worldview was atheistic to the extreme. I did not understand how people could take religious thinking seriously and I grew up imagining a world where technology could be used to allow us to experience fully realistic worlds, including all of the sense of tangible objects and all of the types of body sensations. I sketched a kind of full-sensory Walkman device that would allow people to record and share their waking experiences and dreams, and those produced as cinema. I was sure that everything that we experience is a biochemical event in the brain, so that a VR headset could be used to electromagnetically stimulate the correct inputs, either at the site of the sense organs or directly within the brain. Our personal experience could be augmented or even replaced with another experience so that anyone could live parts of many other lives. Maybe we could even live other lives at the same time, using separate bodies in separate life experiences as a hand uses separate fingers.
As I went further into my teenage years, my scope of interest broadened from science and science fiction to fantasy. RPGs and video games replaced action figures and my mind was steeped in mythology and medievally themed creativity. A familiar trajectory for GenX kids in the US. Soon, I was interested in drugs, girls, and Heavy Metal, with its supernatural themes. In particular, I became interested in the types of drugs that produced changes in consciousness beyond stimulation or relaxation. My best friend was a voracious reader, and through him I became aware of numerology and of the philosophical models developed by Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson to describe different levels or circuits of consciousness. Their Eight Circuit Model seemed to tie in perfectly with what I had begun to put together from studying numerology obsessively. I began to realize the connection between the evolution of personal consciousness and the history of civilization, life and the universe. This brought me to something that I had often mocked and dismissed in my younger years - astrology.
Having never heard of numerology before discovering it through books, I had no bias against it as I had against astrology. Aside from learning the basic method of doing numerological analysis on names and birthdates, my entire experience of numerology came from doing the charts of everyone that I knew, and then everyone that I met, and then just all of the time. I kept meticulous records, sorting and comparing the data, making colorful graphs to contemplate and find the deeper patterns and qualities behind numbers and how they are expressed in people’s character and lifetime.
As I delved into astrology I used the same approach as I had before, collecting as many birth charts as I could of the people that I knew, and poring over them along with the book of astronomical data used in astrology (the ephemeris). I learned that in addition to the personal and interpersonal influences represented by the inner planets, there were long term influences represented by the outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. These planets are like the hands of a natural clock, slowly moving around the zodiac over years and decades rather than days and weeks. Each stage in that cycle contributes to the collective zeitgeist in a specific way, as well as to consciousness (geist) on the individual scale.
Fast forward to the 21st century, when I found myself developing my own philosophical model of consciousness, the universe, and existence that reconciled both objective and subjective, physical and metaphysical appearances of nature. In my understanding, consciousness does not arise from physical matter, but rather the appearance of physical qualities arises from the fragmenting and nesting of conscious experiences into different scales and hierarchies of relative significance. It is through that diffraction and nesting, I reason, that spatial and temporal constraints arise as perceptual lensing artifacts between each scale of experience as they distance and objectify each other using a modulation of nested insensitivities. This in turn renders the sense of worldly realism and tangibility upon which physical observation is based and the scientific worldview is built.
My view of the universe is as a single, eternal conscious experience that partially divides and reunites itself in endlessly complicated and novel ways, and not as an unconscious astrophysical substance that generates consciousness by accident of evolution. I see computation and AI as a kind of reflector of the way that divided consciousness reaches out to predict and control its experience of an objectified environment that does not appear conscious. In a way, I have come full circle from my 1986-era view of the universe as being guided by metaphysical themes represented by numbers to one of a universe of conscious experience that uses counting to objectify and automate aspects of itself. Numbers are not consciousness, they are how consciousness represents its own local limits to itself. Machines that we use to count and process information are not creating intelligence or awareness for themselves, but they are tools that we can use to both amplify/extend our access to consciousness, and/or undermine and replace our consciousness with statistics-based automation.
In my lifetime I have gone from being a true believer in scientism and technological supremacy to a full time cosmopsychist and part time AI skeptic. It is with some trepidation that I have decided to dabble with AI. Given my opposition to accepting its outputs as legitimate thinking or art, and my strong personal distaste for their offputting, uncanny aesthetic qualities, I don’t want to be hypocritical by putting more of it out into the world. It is my hope, however, that I can use its capacities to find patterns in huge amounts of data that humans have collected as one would use Tarot cards - as an oracle to reveal transpersonal psychological themes.
Although the cycles of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto all correlate to generational themes, I found that the Neptune cycle by itself works well to delineate and relate the zeitgeist of different time periods and reveal the larger historical journey that is underway.
My experiment was to plug the years when Neptune first entered (y1) and last exited (y2) each sign of the zodiac into this prompt in Chat GPT / DALL-E 3:
“please create a super-realistic photo collage of what the world was like between the years y1 and y2”.
The results that I got were impressive, at least initially. I loved the vivid and rich impact of the image as a whole, its super realistic style and artistic composition (lifted from the work of so many uncompensated human artists) and had to stop everything else that I was doing to go through each of the 12 signs and generate images for each one immediately.
As the excitement plateaued, I was able to take a breath and study the images more carefully. As I have seen with so many other AI creations, the figures presented are ultimately filled with irony, darkness and derangement. I think that behind the superficial markings of a mindless machine sorting algorithm there are unintentional hints that can be used to reveal the same kinds of mystical content that can be accessed through other metaphysical methods (astrology, numerology, I Ching, Tarot, etc). Looking at these images tends to leave me feeling drained and pessimistic, yet with a seductive hook that keeps me scrolling through them like a Social Media feed.
Putting them up on the big screen I was able to transcend the offputting vibes of the image details and find subliminal and not-so-subliminal symbols that were quite informative and interesting. Perhaps they can be used as a teaching tool, and to inspire human artists to create an antidote for the negative potentials of this new medium.
Here then is the first image, which was generated by the AI purely from the chronological prompt and having no astrological terms at all.
“please create a super-realistic photo collage of what the world was like between the years 1861 and 1871”
I put the resulting image in a larger frame so that I could matte a color that I associate with each sign behind it, and the label on the top that corresponds to the sign Neptune was in during that time. Again, the label and frame are added manually by me after the fact. The AI produced the images without any connection to astrology at all. I have not even used Chat GPT / DALL-E for astrology related subjects before, so even my conversation history is untainted by mentions of planets or signs.
In this image, the AIs reckoning of of what life was like in the era encompassing the entire Civil War and Reconstruction Era has many striking symbolic features to unpack. They will become even richer as they re-emerge in the subsequent images, but in ‘a different light’ as it were.
I did not have a good name for the generation of people who were born during this 19th century time period, so, based on the themes of the sign of Aries, I have dubbed it the “Pioneer Generation”. Keep in mind of course, that those born at the very beginning of Neptune era would still be teens by the end, so they do not begin to actively influence the world very much until later on in the decades of the next eras.
In this image I see a color palette that corresponds to the photography and paintings that we have from the time. It looks like the records we have of the late 19th century more or less. I see that where the ground is depicted it always appears with the colors of dried dirt and grasses such as would be expected in the American Great Plains. The central image is an enigmatic chimera. It appears to be part horse, part carriage, and part steam locomotive, with a human driver positioned in front of a very Steampunk looking cube. The horse and driver face forward toward what appears to be more sunrise than sunset, particularly if we follow the Right = East convention of standard world maps. The sunrise is synonymous with Aries. Early and alert, the Aries mind is like the crowing rooster, trying to wake anyone up who is ready to see the dawning of the new day.
In other tiles, we see similar sunrise references - double doors open to flood the scene with natural light. A few adults cling to the inside of the doors, lingering in what seems to be a barn, but peering out at crowds of people walking toward blinding light that suggests a long trek on foot that has begun at sunrise.
Another sunrise appears above the railroad tracks, below which are images that suggest salons in the Antebellum South with women wearing grand dresses of white cotton. Another panel suggests cotton or ghosts in a field. There are too many parts of these images even for me to get into, but we do see soldiers, cavalry, canals, ships, and other industrial structures in the early stages of construction. Aries is the sign of beginning.
On the top we see a heroic portrait of the individual union soldier on horseback that is filled with relaxed dynamism. The rider and his horse are there by themselves, moving alone across the boundless flat expanse of dry beige grass like a Civil War Era knight. There are other references to the idea of the singular man here also, seated relaxed but alert and dressed in dark suits. There is a lot of smoke from smokestacks, civilian and military assemblies of people. Ships suggest the transatlantic slave trade. Creepy, primitive looking scenes of schooling and medical care appear at the bottom two corners of the frame.
This is an unsophisticated natural world that does not offer much except the opportunity to stay or move on. The central chimera appears to be a rather unique and idiosyncratic creation - perhaps a prototype vehicle invented by the driver whose body may be part of the thing. The magical black box before him seems like a prototypical instrument panel, but more fanciful than practical as there appears to be nothing for the driver to control except a hint of a reign in is right hand that leads to the side of the box. Red flowers stand out in the field, perhaps suggesting blood of fallen soldiers.
Moving on to the second image in the series, the themes of Taurus are both an extension of, and a reaction against the previous sign’s themes. The is is true of all astrological signs relative to their predecessors. The arid, Martial sensibilities of Aries, in its pioneering solitude moves forward in pursuit of nothing in particular, only to seek the direction of the new light of the sun. Now under the Taurus lens the central figure is depicted a nattily dressed driver and a pair of equally dandy passengers. Now fully industrialized, the carriage is powered by a shiny brass trimmed locomotive. The machine is luxuriously appointed with leather cushioned seating, providing all three riders with a comfortable place to sit and watch. Even the leader does not appear to have any control over the vehicle. There is no way to steer or change speed.
The panels are separated by fuzzy fades instead of scrapbook mosaic tiles. We see a prominent early electric light bulb that is surrealistically enormous and mounted on top of a wheeled pedestal. We also see several women in dresses and hats from the time, now living alongside the men in their formal attire and top hats. We see what looks like plates of food and hints of brightly colored fabric. All echoes of Venus ruled Taurus archetypes, floating on the sea. The Brooklyn Bridge, built in the middle of this timespan, appears at the top of the frame, spanning the divide between the European and American cities that might have existed at the time on the left and an anachronistic city skyline from the far future on the right hand side.
Unlike the all-but aimless Aries knight of the plains in the prior era, the men and women in this picture are moving toward an end result that is at least imagined if not known: the material evidence of prosperity. They are builders of the tools to continue to build everything. An ongoing platform of production, like a living body or business. Yet all of the people appear relatively passive. Unlike the active Aries Pioneer, the Taurus Missionary quietly and steadily goes through the motions of fulfilling their mission.
In the center bottom the lone man on horseback appears again, this time a civilian on a civilized horse traveling down the streets of a young city that is booming with citizens and their horses crowding outside of store windows. In the 19th century looking city scene at the top left, we see a man facing away from us and toward the capitol, dressed in his black formal clothes, and maybe noticing some flames or gunfire casting an orange glow that carries over to his body. Maybe a clash with guards of an official building or some other fiery spectacle is going on, but he is not planning on participating. The Taurus hero wants to get around the chaos to get on with his productive work. He does not want to be where that kind of action is, he wants to be where he knows he can safely pursue his pragmatic goals.
Where the Neptune in Aries image contained only natural sunlight shining in the sky through windows and doors, the image for Neptune in Taurus highlights only artificial light sources. Illumination is now harnessed in a material vessel, becoming a reliable resource for human society to enjoy at will rather than being tied to the Sun’s schedule. The power of light is now deployed not only to see indoors and at night on the street, but for future attention-getting purposes such as neon signs (not yet invented in reality until 1910).
The active, living energy of natural horsepower has also been replaced by transportation that captures power artificially and utilizes it to turn cartwheels that push heavy loads. This is supply chain. Mass transport of people and resources - bringing them from their wild state to a more desirable state of convenient abundance under human control.
Third in this image series is Neptune in Gemini. Those born during this period, such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald went on to speak for the generation that Gertrude Stein dubbed the “Lost Generation”. The era of their birth is depicted by DALL-E 3 this way:
As we can see, the Gemini theme of twinning dominates the entire view here. The two legs of Eiffel Tower seem to be anchored behind two roughly symmetrical city blocks of commercial buildings contemporary to that era. The interiors are glowing with artificial light and overflowing with patrons lined up around the block. The streets are crowded with pedestrians and horseless carriages. We see echoes of Notre Dame and other cathedrals, perhaps a colosseum or amphitheater. Examples of traditional architecture flank both sides of the central tower, which is glowing with sunlight. We see an early airplane in the sky, but distorted and incomplete, reflecting the ongoing failed efforts of the Wright Brothers and their contemporaries, just before the first successful flight.
Note that unlike the central features of the Aries and Taurus images, the Eiffel Tower is an object that is neither practical nor driven or ridden by people. Constructed as the purely decorative entrance to the International Expo in 1889 to showcase French industry and steel, the tower remains an iconic monument and tourist attraction purely in the basis of how it looks and what it represents. Gemini is communication and promotion. Advertising in its most elemental, and still unbranded form.
So far, we have seen the first three elemental signs Fire (Aries), Earth (Taurus), and Air (Gemini). Together they provide a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis of modernity. From the brute pioneering spirit of the Civil War Era to the rise of the Robber Baron monopolists of the Gilded Age to the flowering of fin de siècle decadence and aestheticism, we can begin to see the outline of a story of human endeavor on a global scale. As Neptune transits into the next sign, we see that Cancer’s element of water dominates the image dramatically.
This is the time when the Interbellum Generation was born, making their mark on society in the period between the Great War that coincided with Neptune’s transit on the cusp of Cancer and Leo and World War II that straddled the cusp of Neptune in Virgo to Libra.
In this image we see the central icon of the great steam ship, probably the Titanic, beneath a robust and now fully operational biplane. Maybe the pilot has bailed out of his plane during a wartime dogfight and is falling through the sky. Lots of eerie scenes here of underwater ruins, cars in flooded and sunken landscapes. The cool color palette adds haunted undersea blues and grays to the previous themes of honey/gold and fiery orange.
Beneath the central ship and above the car in the ocean we see a scene reminiscent of the first image, where a massive crowd of people appear to be marching off toward the sun or the sea. only now they are interspersed with wheeled containers that combine the aesthetics of both baby carriages, cars, and coffins. The Cancerian agenda of personal security is well represented here, in the form of automobiles, ships, and airplanes that are physically complete. Some of the cars are well used - broken in and broken down rather than brand new. Transportation technology is now a secure Home. A comfortable, protected, and mobile place within a place. The drama of human life now wears an industrial shell made of steel and the stage is set for the warfare of tanks and bombs dropped from the air.
The next phase in the story recapitulates the first four in terms of elements, but now the fire, air, earth, and water are expressed in personality archetypes.
Under Leo, Neptune shines with the light of style and self expression. We see the central figure is tiny in relation to his surroundings. A man in a coat and more modern hat is surrounded by a halo of light, suggesting his specialness. An everyman with a vision or talent to be the star of the show.
On the right are some freakish characters, maybe a ventriloquist with a half woman half sheep sitting on his lap. Women are now wearing white while the men wear black, and themes of war and peace are presented on either side. This is the end of the Great War and the Jazz Age / Roaring 20s that followed. Speakeasy dandies drink Prohibited hooch and ogle the glamorous flapper. Maybe they are gangsters. Small airplanes fly around the skyscrapers of a now cosmopolitan city center. We see a repetition of steps, tank treads, and vertical slats or shadows. I’m not sure of the significance of that but it makes me think of social status hierarchies, the ups and downs of the stock market, and the underlying theme of assembly line manufacturing on a national scale. The machine that has been mass producing objects for human commerce and war now adds a new dimension of creativity for modern leisure and entertainment. Show business had discovered cinema, freeing audiences from the limitations of live theater, Vaudeville and circuses and opening the door to mega-replication of dramatic images on celluloid. By the end of this era, silent film actors like Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Charlie Chaplin had become world famous movie stars and filmmakers.
When DALL-E spit out this image I thought that I must have messed up my prompt. It was so different from all of the previous images that had been generating, it seemed like some parameter must have been accidentally reset. But no. The sudden appearance of semi-incoherently captioned sub-frames with dark borders appears to have been driven entirely by the numbers of the years that were in the prompt. Virgo, the sign of differentiation, makes its presence known in a very different way than the other signs.
Yes, the twin city blocks of the Gemini image was uncanny, and the display of overwhelming water in the Cancer image was jaw dropping, but this expression of Virgoan compartmentalization and Mercury-ruled news captioning was a level that I did not anticipate was even possible. The sign of miniaturization and efficient organization and administration is so on the nose here that it’s hard to overstate. We see small war planes front and center. Some flags and hot air balloons in the sky.
The tsunami and automotive motifs of the previous eras are here again, but now the back room elites of the speakeasy era have reappeared as rather neat and introverted looking gentlemen who are gathered together to conspire to control the world. Dressed in the uniforms of Nazis and Capitalists, these managers intend to run society as ruthlessly efficient war-making bureaucracy. In the very center, an Adolf Hitler likeness stands with his co-conspirators, somehow barely noticeable. These were the years of Hitler’s rise from obscurity. Unlike the glowing ‘man of talent’ in the center of the Neptune in Leo slide, Hitler here stands shaded even in the outdoor light, hidden behind an innocuous mask of near invisibility. A small nobody who is inhabited by a gigantic evil.
This was the time that the Silent or Traditionalist Generation was born. So called because unlike previous generations, they did not behave flamboyantly. They did not gather as political agitators but rather conformed to the life template that had been forged in years before and during the Second World War. Having lived through deprivation in their formative years, they learned to be thrifty and reliable in business, making material improvements to the processes that they managed. Staying quiet politically was part of the formula for success. Study hard, work hard, save money, and have a small ‘nuclear’ family.
Speaking of nuclear, the next generation is the famed post-war “Baby Boom”, a sudden growth in population that coincided with the end of WW II and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japanese cities.
See Part 2 of this article for the second half of the Neptune cycle through the zodicac.