The true purpose of philosophy (before "philosophy" came to be merely a sterile

word game used to perpetuate intellectual arro#gance) was once held to be the
search for essences and for the
underlying nature of manifested things, all based upon a love of
wisdom. In modern terms, this could be called a search for the
archetypal level of reality. Nowadays, of course, any statement
about "essences" would cause one to be labeled an "occultist." But
when we look around us at the world and try to make some sense
of our lives and the sort of reality with which the mass media
deals, we have to admit that everything of significance is occult,
that is, hidden. Despite all the supposed knowledge that we have
accumulated, meaning is nowhere to be found, except in those
frelds of study that point to a unity between man and the uni#verse. This unity of,
and relation between, man and the universe
is really the only assumption upon which astrology is based.