Hi Ernst,
Thank you so much for the "Healing Rahu and Ketu" class. It is quite a masterpiece!
I am most interested in counseling my clients on their Rahu/Ketu as my healing practice is already focused on guiding people into their subconscious minds to heal the parts of themselves they have rejected or repressed.
But I would like to make sure I am understanding Rahu and Ketu correctly. I feel I can do so by understanding them using terms I already use in my practice. My clients are familiar with these terms so I am also wondering if it would be correct to use them to describe Rahu/Ketu when counseling.
Would you mind telling me if these terms mean the same thing/ or a similar thing as the terms you use to describe Rahu/Ketu?
Could Rahu be described as what Carl Jung in Jungian Psychology referred to as the “Shadow” self?
“The shadow is (1) an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself, or (2) the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is the unknown side.”
When working with my clients on the subconscious level, I often see the shadow as a black, density, which reminds me of how you describe Rahu.
When you journey into the Rahu house, is this a journey to face some aspect of yourself that is hidden in your shadow? Is the goal to integrate/or heal this aspect of yourself through the doorway of the house Rahu is in?
As for Ketu, could Ketu be described as a “Mask Self”?
As per Susan Thesenga’s work in her book, “The Undefended Self,” she states that early in life we create Masks as a protection of being hurt by people and protecting our vulnerabilities and wounds.
“The mask is one part of the personality that we artificially identify with and show the world on an unconscious level. The mask is who we think we should be or wish we could be, how we want others to perceive us, and is based on our idealized self-image. With our masks, we can also blame others and not take responsibility for what we have created.”
You describe Ketu is an uptight/Security Paradigm self that is false as it is based on doing the same/or opposite as our parents and ancestors. So would this make Ketu a false “Mask” that is used to hide the shadow/ lower self that is Rahu?
Thank you for any guidance with this,
Rhiannon
In my experience, I have found Rahu-Ketu to be an integration of the Persona and Anima, and we tend to do it more and more throughout our life. Thus, the Self wants to integrate both aspects and expand its consciousness, and in the process brings out the Ego and the Shadow Self to be looked at and healed.
From that perspective, I would say Rahu is the “Undiscovered Self” and it brings out the Ego. Hence it would be the mask that we present to the world, because we do not know ourselves, but think that we do.
Ketu would be the Anima/Animus, the “Misaligned Self” which brings out the Shadow. It is the split between our masculine and feminine aspects, and we function primarily from that wounded place. But it is who we really are once we bring ourselves into alignment after healing our wounds.
Before Rahu maturation, we tend to go towards the Ego Self, which gets ripped off over and over, and we tend to fall back into our Ketu and our Shadow Self which is our wounded state. It is the mirroring - show your false self and your false self gets ripped away. But since we do not know that, we feel hurt and confused. We lash out, because we do not understand why we feel hurt and confused. And so continues the journey.
After Rahu maturation, we start to integrate our Persona - now the Self is expanding and going beyond the Ego to find itself. After Ketu maturation, if we have understood and integrated Rahu properly, we turn around to integrate our Anima/Animus - understanding our wounds and a journey into healing them and bringing ourselves into alignment with all that is.
That is my understanding based on my experience and knowledge. Would love to hear Ernst’s views on it.
@manisha This is all very illuminating and gives me more to ponder. From this perspective it seems that it is Ketu that represents / contains more of the shadow self. This would make sense since Ernst said after we integrate the aspect of Rahu from 42 - 45 that we find through the house than we go back to Ketu and face ourself and all the shadow material tends to come up to be integrated.
45 is the mid-point between Rahu-Ketu maturation. Ernst mentions that it is the most crucial year. This is when things start coming up for review. How deep it was buried in the subconscious will determine how much of a shock it will come as. And then how will the person react to it?
Ketu is where we have mastered ourselves, but it is buried under psychological junk. Facing Ketu is the hardest thing to do. We are facing those little voices in our subconscious. It is like digging into the festering wound without anaesthetic to find the splinter. Layers and layers get peeled away, and past every layer lies some pain that needs to be faced and resolved. No wonder people run away from it.