cycles
Across the depth-psychology corpus, ‘cycle’ functions not as a merely descriptive temporal term but as a foundational ontological category through which psyche, cosmos, and biography are understood as structured wholes. Rudhyar provides the most systematic treatment, distinguishing the sidereal day, the solar year, and the Great Polar Cycle as nested orders of experience corresponding to individual, collective, and planetary selfhood — with ‘cyclology’ proposed as the discipline proper to living time, parallel to mathematics for abstract space. Von Franz traces the irreversible-linear versus cyclical duality in primordial conceptions of time, grounding the cyclical in astronomical observation and in India’s mahayuga doctrine. Tarnas applies planetary cycle analysis to biographical and historical creativity, demonstrating that Uranus transits correlate with signature intellectual breakthroughs. Vernant reads Hesiod’s races as a complete cycle implying renewal through destruction. The Tarot literature — Jodorowsky, Nichols, Pollack — treats the Wheel of Fortune as the archetype of cyclic alternation, linking ascent and descent, fortune and ruin, to the soul’s orientation toward transformation. A distinct clinical register appears in contemporary neuroscience and psychiatry, where the menstrual cycle frames hormonal fluctuations that modulate executive function and ADHD symptomatology in women. The central tension across these registers is between cycle as eternal return (mythic, cosmic) and cycle as developmental spiral in which each return is qualitatively transformed.
It might be named cyclological, because time is essentially cyclic in its manifestations. Thus the science of cycles (or, more accurately, the science of ‘cyclicity’). Cyclology is to the science of wholes what mathematics is to modern physical science.
Rudhyar constitutes ‘cyclology’ as the proper science of living, holistic time, positioning the cycle as the fundamental unit through which wholes are analysed and individuation understood.
We have thus three cycles, each of which represents a fullness of zodiacal experience; each of which can be said to be symbolically equal or analogical to the others: the sidereal day, the solar year, and the Great Polar Cycle. They refer respectively to the individual factor, the collective factor and the planetary factor.
Rudhyar establishes a triadic hierarchy of nested cycles — diurnal, annual, precessional — as isomorphic structures of experience corresponding to individual, collective, and planetary dimensions of selfhood.
Astrology is philosophically meaningless unless it rests on a thorough understanding of cycles and of the creative potency of every moment—especially those ‘seed-moments’ which become such by reason of their being the points of departure of cycles.
Rudhyar argues that the cycle’s philosophical validity rests on the concept of the ‘seed-moment,’ the originary point of departure that invests each cycle with creative potency and directional meaning.
Two aspects which belong to the primordial archetypal idea of time have already been touched upon: the irreversible linear character of time and its cyclical aspect. The latter, which seems to predominate in most primitive civilizations, is probably based on the observation of the regular motion of the heavenly luminaries.
Von Franz identifies the cyclical as one of two primordial archetypal modes of time, grounding it in astronomical observation and contrasting it with the irreversible linear model dominant in modern Western consciousness.
, Psyche and Matter, 2014thesis
The self of collective Man operates through a basic unit: the orbital cycle. The self of an individual man operates through a basic unit: the axial-rotation cycle.
Rudhyar maps individual versus collective selfhood onto distinct cyclical rhythms — axial rotation and orbital revolution — making the cycle the structural correlate of levels of selfhood.
Given that Hesiod conceived of the sequence of the races as a cycle, he must have imagined what followed according to a cyclical model as well. Just as generations of men succeed one another within one race, and just as the races succeed one another within the total cycle of the ages, so the cycles might well succeed one another.
Vernant argues that Hesiod’s myth of races presupposes a fully cyclical cosmology in which each total cycle — destruction followed by renewal — itself replicates the internal structure of succession within cycles.
, Myth and Thought Among the Greeks, 1983thesis
The Uranus-Uranus transit cycle on its own terms appeared to represent an especially significant cyclical pattern for what seemed to be an unfolding Promethean impulse. With the full 360° Uranus cycle taking eighty-four years to complete itself.
Tarnas demonstrates that the Uranus-Uranus transit cycle constitutes an archetypal biographical rhythm correlating with the unfolding of creative and revolutionary impulse across an individual lifespan.
, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, 2006thesis
Cycle: individual: and law of action (Karma), 7–8; basic to Indian thought, 13; experienced as Māyā, 24–5; parallels universal cycle, 11 ff.
Zimmer’s index reveals that Indian thought treats the individual cycle as structurally parallel to the universal cosmic cycle, with karma functioning as the operative law governing cyclical recurrence.
, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, 1946supporting
The Wheel of Fortune, number 10, terminates the first decimal cycle of the Major Arcana. Its circular shape and the handle attached to it indicate its primary meaning: the end of one cycle and the pause to wait for the strength that will set the following cycle in motion.
Jodorowsky reads the Wheel of Fortune as the Tarot’s primary emblem of cyclical closure and threshold, marking the structural pause between one cycle’s completion and the next cycle’s initiation.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004supporting
Life presents itself here as a process – as a system of constant transformation equally involving integration and disintegration, generation and degeneration. Up and down are not shown here as two fixed forces playing at tug of war.
Nichols uses the Wheel of Fortune to articulate cycle as a continuous spectrum of transformation rather than binary opposition, emphasising the graduated and interpenetrating nature of cyclical movement.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting
The cycle of death and rebirth, in the large sense, can be seen in it as well as the circulation of life. The Wheel of Fortune invites reflection upon inevitable alternations of ascents and falls, of prosperity and austerity, of joy and sorrow.
Jodorowsky frames the Wheel of Fortune’s cycle of death and rebirth as an invitation to conscious acceptance of alternation, aligning the card with the depth-psychological imperative to assimilate inevitable transformation.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004supporting
Each ‘day’ is in reality a cycle of 28 years. Thus the entire process will last theoretically 84 years—which is the cycle of revolution of Uranus around the sun, a significant fact which will take on added meaning as we study presently the Uranus-symbol.
Rudhyar aligns the 84-year Uranus cycle with the complete arc of psycho-mental individuation, reading the planetary period as the astronomical correlate of a full human life-cycle of self-development.
, The Astrology of Personality: A Re-formulation of Astrological Concepts and Ideals in Terms of Contemporary Psychology and Philosophy, 1936supporting
There is the ‘normal’ forward moving of time from the past to the future, but there is also a backward movement folding up and contracting as time goes on. To know this latter movement is to know the future.
Von Franz illuminates the I Ching’s cyclical temporality as encompassing both forward and contraction movements, linking this complementarity to the possibility of synchronistic foreknowledge.
, Psyche and Matter, 2014supporting
Transiting Uranus had been in the opposition point of its cycle during the years 1766–69, which was the period in which Kant first conceived the germinal idea that formed the basis for The Critique of Pure Reason.
Tarnas provides concrete historical evidence that specific phase-points within the Uranus cycle correlate with pivotal moments of philosophical breakthrough, substantiating the cycle’s applicability as a biographical and cultural analytical tool.
, Prometheus the Awakener: An Essay on the Archetypal Meaning of the Planet Uranus, 1995supporting
One of three major astrological life cycles is the Chiron Return—when Chiron has made a complete orbit around the Sun and goes home to the position it held at birth. The trio includes: the Saturn Return at approximately age 30; the Uranus Opposition at 40, and the Chiron Return approximately age 50.
Cunningham systematises three major astrological life cycles — Saturn Return, Uranus Opposition, and Chiron Return — as thresholds of physical, emotional, and consciousness crisis structuring the developmental arc of an individual life.
, An Astrological Guide to Self-Awareness, 1982supporting
The polar gyration does not… the Earth is orientating its axis of individualization to stars, as the youthful individual to teachers beyond the circle of his family and home.
Rudhyar employs the Great Polar Cycle as a cosmological metaphor for the individuation process, reading the precession of the equinoxes as the planetary expression of progressive orientation toward successive spiritual teachers.
, The Astrology of Personality: A Re-formulation of Astrological Concepts and Ideals in Terms of Contemporary Psychology and Philosophy, 1936supporting
This kind of thinking was joined to the Time Cycle by identifying each kind of line with a season. The yin and yang hemicycles were then elaborated around a central axis or Pivot of Equalization by articulating each of them into three analogous phases.
Ritsema and Karcher show how the I Ching’s binary structure is mapped onto a temporal cycle through seasonal correspondence, articulating yin and yang as complementary hemicycles each subdivided into three developmental phases.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994supporting
Some of us don’t look sufficiently at the cyclical nature of reality, and consequently cannot cope very well with ordinary life, because we are addicted to eternity and have forgotten how to trust the instincts and work intelligently with time.
Greene argues that psychological health requires recognition of reality’s cyclical nature, diagnosing an ‘addiction to eternity’ as a failure to engage the Moon’s principle of rhythmic temporal intelligence.
, The Luminaries: The Psychology of the Sun and Moon in the Horoscope, 1992supporting
In India a completely cyclical notion of time was predominant. The primary unit of time was the yuga, or age (1,080,000 years). A complete cycle, or mahāyuga, consists of four such yugas, the number four signifying totality or perfection.
Von Franz documents the Indian cosmological cycle as the most thoroughgoing application of cyclical time, with the mahayuga’s fourfold structure signifying totality and each cycle descending from golden age to dissolution before renewal.
, Psyche and Matter, 2014supporting
The whole imagery of the communal psyche was caught up in that ritual cycle. In the last third of the nineteenth century, the buffalo were slaughtered en masse… Bang. The whole social mythology lost its central image.
Campbell demonstrates that ritual cycle — specifically the buffalo cult’s cycle of sacrifice and renewal — constituted the central symbol of communal psychic cohesion, and its destruction produced collective mythological collapse.
, Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation, 2004supporting
Plato’s view of Time as inseparable from periodic motion is no novelty, but a tradition running throughout the whole of Greek thought, which always associated Time with circular movement.
Plato’s Timaeus, as analysed here, situates cyclical time within the Demiurgic ordering of the cosmos, establishing the Greek philosophical tradition’s foundational identification of time with circular celestial motion.
, Plato’s cosmology the Timaeus of Plato, 1997supporting
One who steps out of the anonymity of the cycle of nature into a personal, unique fate.
Edinger, following Kluger, characterises individuation as a decisive departure from the cyclical anonymity of nature into the linear uniqueness of personal destiny, framing the cycle as the pre-individual state from which consciousness must differentiate.
, Transformation of the God-Image: An Elucidation of Jung’s Answer to Job, 1992supporting
Like the Buddhist ‘wheel of being,’ this also has six spokes. The six areas between the spokes of the Buddhist wheel represent the six realms of the ‘round of being’ (bhavacakra).
Campbell traces the mythic cycle of existence through the Buddhist bhavacakra’s six-spoked wheel of being, linking Celtic and Buddhist symbolic traditions to a shared archetype of cosmic cyclical bondage and the possibility of release.
, Creative Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume IV, 1968supporting
Reflect how your arousal changed with each arousal cycle, and whether your sensations lessened and became more tolerable.
Ogden applies the concept of cycle to the somatic psychotherapy context, tracking sequential arousal cycles as the clinical unit for assessing trauma discharge and nervous system regulation within the window of tolerance.
, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Interventions for Trauma and, 2015supporting
Women with ADHD may lack such compensatory mechanisms, making them more vulnerable to cycle-related hormonal changes and experiencing more pronounced deficits in attention, executive function, and medication effectiveness during this phase.
Wynchank identifies the menstrual cycle as a clinically significant modulator of ADHD symptom severity, arguing that cycle-related hormonal changes differentially impair women with ADHD due to reduced neurological compensatory capacity.
, Menstrual Cycle-Related Hormonal Fluctuations in ADHD: Effect on Cognitive Functioning—A Narrative Review, 2025supporting
The structure of the Work Cycle, as I call this spread, allows the reader to repeat, and keep repeating, the original positions. The effect is to let the reader look at the situation from different sides.
Pollack adapts the concept of cycle to Tarot reading methodology, designing a spread whose iterative, repeating structure formally enacts the cyclical principle as a hermeneutic tool for multi-perspectival self-examination.
, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980aside
The Winnebago Trickster Cycle… The Winnebago Hare Cycle.
Radin’s table of contents designates the Trickster and Hare narratives as named ‘cycles,’ indicating that mythological narrative itself is understood as cyclically structured in Winnebago tradition.
, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, 1956aside
Because every injury exists within life and life is constantly renewing itself, within every injury is the seed of healing and renewal.
Levine’s trauma theory implicitly deploys a cyclical logic — injury containing within itself the seed of renewal — applying the biological self-correction cycle to psyche, spirit, and soul.
, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma - The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences, 1997aside