by Aeolian Heart
“…I know there’s an answer
I know now but I have to find it by myself…”
-The Beach Boys, Hang on To Your Ego, 1966
The zodiacal season has changed from Scorpio into Sagittarius.
To herald this time, the story of the collective psyche has shape-shifted from a sojourn through the underworld into a Mythical Quest for everlasting glory and spiritual enlightenment!
On Wednesday, November 25th, 2015 the Moon will be full in the sign of Gemini, opposing the Sun, Saturn and Mercury in Sagittarius, lending a kinetic and pedantically analytical response to some heavy confrontations with faith and ideology.
With the Moon in the mutable air sign of Gemini, the breezy motion of intellectual exercises will be exalted. Find a point of focus for mental activity because if thoughts are not given enough room to fly, all that caged energy may begin to attack the central nervous system. (Anxiety!)
This Full Moon will create a confrontation with the collective infophilia, which is the belief that wisdom can be equated with quantifiable information and therefore that the wisdom of tradition can be hacked and its bits easily interchanged.
As voracious subjects of this belief people accept this condition as dogmatically as religious zealots accept extremist rhetoric.
Historically speaking, the hallmark of the Information Age appears to be that the inheritors of the whole history of human knowledge (internet users) are at every moment just Ten Easy Steps from greatness!
Full Moons bring that music high…high..high..high-er, followed by a rushing release.
The Full Moon will arouse some of the shadow-side of the Gemini/Sagittarius axis, observed in Gemini’s unscrupulous appetite for data (more bits and bytes) which can overstimulate the Sagittarian desire to find a cause to ride on into a future of prophesied glory!
Without patience or a properly cultivated foundation, both signs have a tendency to become fanatical. In Gemini’s shadow we find the obsessive fan that knows everything there is to know about… and in Sagittarius’ shadow lies the enthusiastic cult member who is so excited to invite you to…
How can these mutable signs evolve into more resilient energies of intelligence and wisdom?
For those who wish to yield to the Sagittarian call for philosophy and who are also moved by Gemini’s high velocity of information processing, consider this to be an excellent solar – lunar opposition under which to explore the works of 19th-century philosopher, Max Stirner: originator of the School of Egoist Anarchism!
Stirner was a German philosopher, born in 1806 as a lower middle class Lutheran. He is famous for, The Ego and Its Own, a philosophical text still controversial for being as arrogant as it is idiosyncratic.
In The Ego and Its Own, Stirner proposes that the Protestant Reformation was not an historical time in which religion lessened its control, but was instead when religion gained a tighter grip upon the sensual and invaded the internal.
Stirner recognized that the same fanatical religious modes of thought were alive in the humanism that inspired all the concurrent political movements in Europe.
Based on this perspective, Stirner declared that he disagreed with all future revolutions based solely upon the fact that organized radicalism was the result of mass subordination to the will of other people, just as holy wars are an act of subordination to the will of God.
In Stirner’s mind, subordination to the will of a leader, an abstracted God or body politic was antithetical to human evolution. He believed that the only advanced response to communal hysteria was to evolve into egoism, a life of total autonomy and self-mastery.
Stirner’s egoism was defined thusly:
“I am my own, only when I am master of myself instead of being mastered by anything else.”
By considering Stirner’s points, one can see that it is nonsensical to believe that freedom can be given by any society. You either are free or you are not.
One thing is for certain though: if you have to ask for freedom, then it is nowhere to be found.
Even with its manifold meanings and shifting context, the word “egoist” still has a sting. Ascension-, Lightworkers, “Good people” usually claim to be serving their family, their community, or their traditions and want nothing to do with egoism.
Stirner was aware of the religious outrage his ideas would face and he responded saying:
“The egoist, before whom the humane shudder, is a spook as much as the devil is: he exists only as a bogie and phantasm in their brain. If they were not unsophisticatedly drifting back and forth in the antediluvian opposition of good and evil, to which they have given the modern names of “human” and “egoistic,” they would not have freshened up the hoary “sinner” into an “egoist” either, and put a new patch on an old garment.”
–The Ego and Its Own [Second Part: The Owner: 3 – My Self Enjoyment]
At the end of 2015, that “hoary sinner” is still often called an egoist, egotist, or just an ego: blamed for all manner of human flaws. Enlightenment, Personal sacrifice, compromise, and censorship are still the law of the land (ask almost anyone who has a job).
And so, Stirner’s wish for humans to pursue an autonomous life, without need for supplication to any authority outside of themselves, still remains a blurry idea. Stirner’s Egoism, and any other impulse towards true autonomy, remain totally unfulfilled by our modern infophilic cults: corporatism, globalism, scientism etc…
As the Full Moon in Gemini reflects the light of the Sagittarian Sun, there will be an exchange between raw information and a lineage of wisdom.
With Saturn in Sagittarius, this Full Moon will be particularly impactful for inspiring catharsis, especially in relation to the subject of philosophical authority.
To what or to whom do you sacrifice your autonomy and your will? Why?
It is true that there is a great deal of fundamentalism in Stirner’s ideas, but the point of his philosophy was to provoke and liberate people’s thoughts from familiar paths.
In the muddled mix of Information Age social media –brought to you by the same sponsors that “allow” freedom of speech– this 19th-century model of egoism should be considered an interesting idea and most certainly an engaging response to many recurring human problems.
Considering the potential in Egoism is a thought experiment. So relax and imagine living only for yourself, doing only what pleases you and only what feels right. The initial reactionary vision of a berserker criminal will fade quickly.
Instead, consider the life and actions of a person who never goes against their instincts, ethics, or reason. How much less resentment, hatred and guilt would exist in the mind and heart of someone who never permitted their own exploitation or enslavement?
If a person lived their life in pure integrity, truly looking out for their own autonomy, it would be impossible to manipulate them into becoming involved in a predatory cult, a pyramid scheme, or anything resembling war.
Still from Le Voyage dans la Lune by Georges Méliès 1902
This Full Moon in Gemini, in its heated dialogue with the Sun, Saturn, and Mercury in Sagittarius, will be an opportunity for you to reflect upon the wisdom that you sacrifice for information, the self-mastery that you sacrifice for Enlightenment, and the autonomy that you sacrifice for the group.
Perhaps a flurry of historical facts will suddenly combine with profound personal experience, spinning into a luminescent thread that can be followed all the way to an ontological breakthrough.
Namaste.
Aeolian Heart
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About the Author:
Aeolian Heart is a tarot reader and astrologer living in Los Angeles. She holds degrees in cultural anthropology, humanities, and is certified to teach literature. Divination, writing, and consulting are her favorite past-times.
featured image – Source
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