Astrology can feel like a cosmic overlord: the stars are whispering your fate, Mercury is in retrograde, your chart says this, your rising says that, and you start to feel like you’re just an ant waiting for celestial permission. If anything, traditional approaches to astrology can feel geared towards a notion of pre-destiny, karmic sentences, and general human disempowerment.
But here’s the secret: Astrology is a two-way projection of the human mind onto the stars and vice versa, and you can choose to use it in a way that is empowering (and yes, even transcendent). That’s where Archetypal Meditation comes in.
Now, for astrology adepts who might balk at the word “projection,” let us remember that to project our inner realm onto the outer realm is not a symptom of faulty wiring in the human mind. Nor does the occurrence of projection indicate “falseness” (as in, when an impatient spouse says to their partner in a fight, “You’re just projecting.”) Nor is projection something we only do occasionally in hot button moments. Projection is actually a beautiful feature of human imagination and world-making, a constant, malleable, intelligent aspect of the fractal nature of reality. The outside is the inside, and what we experience and create within our minds actually bends the nature of the “external” world we inhabit.
We’ve all heard the Hermetic axiom: As above, so below. As within, so without. But have we really listened to it? Are we really working with it to the extent that we can in our time on earth? Astrology, if nothing else, is actually our cheat sheet for how to apply the broad insights of Hermetic wisdom to our unique lifetime.
Astrology helps us get inside and under the hood of the specific operating instructions that came with our particular slice of the unconscious mind (the patterning that has been pre-programmed by the conditions of our early life, our immediate family and caretakers and all of their concerns and history, our more distant ancestors, and our larger human collective mind). The archetypes represented by the planets, signs, and stars – infused with millennia of human mythology, legends, and practical observations of recurring patterns that seemed to tie celestial and human events like clockwork – are ours for the collaborating and remolding.
Our secret friend to astrology*, Carl G. Jung, was known to regard dream interpretation as the more passive, everyday way to work with the archetypes, while alchemical active imagination was where archetypal transformation could really rock the psyche and make major waves in human lives (1). Jung kept a copy of his famous Red Book on display in his office to encourage his clients to get curious about the active imagination process he described in his own richly illustrated odyssey of confrontation with various archetypes.
Decades later, an astrologer named Edwin Steinbrecher decided to put his knowledge of active imagination to work with the natal astrology chart. He developed what he called The Inner Guide Meditation, after discovering that activating a key Universal archetype, the Inner Guide, can make alchemical imagination a safe “DIY” practice (without the need for a Jungian analyst to be there to facilitate every session).
The development of The Inner Guide Meditation was a major contribution to human life science, pre-dating the deluge of self-improvement and manifestation techniques that we are oversaturated with in the 2020’s. And, it was nearly forgotten once Steinbrecher passed away and his book fell out of print. The Soul Figures Method picks up where his left off, offering a contemporary, multimedia way to engage the archetypes in personal practice.
So here’s the takeaway: the stars aren’t overlords. Your chart isn’t a cage. Astrology is a mirror — a set of archetypal prompts — and it’s up to you whether you let them boss you around or collaborate with them like a co-creative.
The Soul Figures Method is a practical, human-centered way to step into the archetypes your chart illuminates, engage them with curiosity and imagination, and use them as tools for empowerment rather than excuses for helplessness.
If you’ve ever felt like astrology was something happening to you instead of with you, this is your invitation to flip the script. You can explore your archetypes, activate your Inner Guide, and start redesigning your inner world. When we actively turn towards the archetypes to initiate a conversation with them (rather than passively wait for them to send us information) we spark new circuits and patterning not only in our own lives, but in the collective.
*Jung’s esoteric leanings were kept quiet to protect his reputation, but the guy was basically a modern day alchemist in scientific garb, a mystic hiding behind credentials.
(1) This Jungian Life, podcast. “Jung’s Inner Guides: The Secret of The Red Book.” September 4, 2025.
