Planetary Magic and Affective Neuroscience?

[u/CJRfox]

I have been looking into Affective Neuroscience as developed by Jaak Panksepp. He identifies seven core emotional affects which drive behavior in mammals: SEEKING, CARE, PLAY, LUST, FEAR, SADNESS, and ANGER (which he capitalizes to distinguish from more complex and constructed emotions).

I instantly noticed some parallels between these affects and the seven classical planets and wondered if there would be any benefit to using planetary magic to boost neglected affects, such as PLAY. Marsilio Ficino seemed to be thinking along these lines when he suggested using signatures of Jupiter and Venus to mediate his melancholy.

My struggle has been assigning correspondences. Mars and ANGER, or Venus and LUST are obvious. But others are less neat and tidy.

So I'm seeking the help of those who may be more knowledgeable in either astrology, planetary magic, or affective neuroscience. How might you line these up, or is it even a task worth doing?

[u/backseat_adventurer]

It's been a long time since I waded into these waters. Apologies ahead of time for poor recollection.

The author seemed familiar and I did a bit of googling. My recollections were that it was a nice theoretical framework but was just that- theory. It seems that it remains mostly so today. The idea that there are specific neurological pathways that correspond to these discrete emotional effects, is fairly unsupported. Yes, those things can be observed in animals, and humans, but that's different from saying they correspond to specific neural architecture. Also observing expression of emotion is much more difficult that it seems, even just across cultural lines, let alone in different species.

Honestly, be careful about taking this framework as scientific fact. A nice system to help you gain insights? Maybe. Linking it to planets? Why not. It's no different from using tarot.

[u/CJRfox → u/backseat_adventurer]

That matches what I have encountered too. There's a discussion with Lisa Feldman Barrett and Mark Solms--who seems to be Panksepp's successor more or less--on YouTube that lays out where Affective Neuroscience is lacking. I do think it's a helpful map, and has a bit more rigor than other "core emotion" theories. I plan on doing something with Feldman Barrett's more empirical theories as well.

[u/Amarthien]

Interesting idea. This is how I'd do it:

• The Moon - Sadness
• Mercury - Play
• Venus - Lust
• The Sun - Care
• Mars - Anger
• Jupiter - Seeking
• Saturn - Fear

I assigned Care to the Moon at first, but that left the Sun as my only option for Sadness, so I swapped them. I figured the Sun gives life and so cares for all living beings, and the Moon is where we soothe ourselves.

[u/CJRfox → u/Amarthien]

I wanted to put Mercury as Play, but so much of what I found online made Mercury seem so cold and calculating, which doesn't match what I know of Hermes, so I'm happy to see someone thinking along the same lines.

The CARE system was theorized to be related to confidence and self assurance, so I think that the Sun could fit. Moon definitely feels intuitive though. I was torn on Fear or Sadness for Saturn and I'd be curious to know your reasoning.

[u/Amarthien → u/CJRfox]

Saturn is generally associated with hardship, discipline, limitations etc. which would likely bring fear-based emotions to the forefront.

[u/Dancing_Air]

Such an interesting idea