Abstract

Historically, cosmological and astrological symbolism have had a place in the Judeo-Christian tradition, while astrology itself as a practice of divination has been held suspect. What role such symbolism plays in the development of human consciousness and in the dynamics of Christian conversion needs critical examination. ;This dissertation offers a critical analysis of cosmological symbolism and of its transformational character by assessing the project of Dane Rudhyar. Rudhyar, who died in 1985, was a writer well-versed in the history of astrology. He is one of the more important contributors to the reinterpretation and use of astrological symbolism as entry into a transpersonal relationship with the cosmic order. For Rudhyar, the human person finds fulfillment at the level of the transpersonal. Rudhyar uses the term transpersonal to describe the human subject as: related to the cosmic order, having an openness to the beyond, and having the capacity to receive spiritual power which transcends the self. He develops a heuristic use of astrological symbolism to assist those who are ready for cosmic transformation. ;To consider Rudhyar's project from within a Christian tradition and to evaluate the contribution that his heuristic use of astrological symbolism can make to the process of Christian development, a critical correlation can be established between Rudhyar's understanding of human consciousness and transformation and the thought of Bernard Lonergan, S.J., and his interpreters on the operations of human subjectivity and Christian conversion. Lonergan's project affords this dissertation a well-accepted and necessary theological foundation on which to make a critical assessment of Rudhyar's cosmological enterprise. ;Chapters One and Two introduce the reader to the thinking of Augustine and Aquinas about astrology and the cosmic. This introduction is grounded in an historical framework of astrological usage in the West. The next four chapters examine Rudhyar's transpersonal and astrological project. Chapter Seven concludes the dissertation with a critical analysis of Rudhyar's work and its possible contributions to the Christian tradition by placing it in dialectic with the writings of Bernard Lonergan and his interpreters