Saturn: A New Look at an Old Devil (Weiser Classics Series) Paperback – December 1, 2021

Saturn symbolizes a psychic process as well as a quality or kind of experience. He is not merely a representative of pain, restriction, and discipline; he is also a symbol of the psychic process, natural to all human beings, by which an individual may utilise the experiences of pain, restriction, and discipline as a means for greater consciousness and fulfilment. Psychology has demonstrated that there is within the individual psyche a motive or impulsion toward wholeness or completeness. The state of wholeness is symbolised by what is called the archetype of the Self. This symbol does not suggest perfection, where only the “good” aspects of human nature are incorporated, but instead implies completeness, where every human quality has its place and is contained in a harmonious way within the whole. This archetype stands behind much of the symbolism of the various world religions and may also be found in folklore and in fairytale in every civilisation and in every era of history.

There is no fast and easy method of making a friend of Saturn. In many ways the ancient art of alchemy was dedicated to this end; for the base material of alchemy, in which lay the possibility of gold, was called Saturn, and this base material, as well as having a concrete existence, was also considered to be the alchemist himself. Modern psychology, which is paralleling more and more the path of the alchemists, also seeks to make a friend of Saturn although here he is called by other names. But if one is persistent, it is possible to extract the gold, and in the end one may find, if the effort is made, that Saturn has a sense of humour after all—when we have become subtle enough to understand his irony.