Tuesday 20 July 1999

Aspects of the 5th harmonic (quintile and biquintile), creativity and cultural innovation

Aspects of the 5th harmonic represent creativity and cultural innovation. Like the semisextile and the quincunx, aspects of the 5th harmonic are also green aspects, so that --without directly being noticed-- the cultural internalization occurs in a self-organized way, in which motivation, attention and consciousness takes an important role, so that the internal flexibility becomes gradually increased over a very long period (months or years), until a culminant point is reached, in which a great, very fast (hours or a few days) and obvious self-organization of the internalized elements takes place through flow experiences of great emotional intensity, in which specific aspects of very diferent cultural fields are interconnected, as for example psychology and astrology, economics and mathematics, computer science and art, etc...

The cultural talent of aspects of the 5th harmonic is lower than that of the golden aspects. In exchange, the aspects of the 5th harmonic have greater flexibility and can easily take out of context cultural elements and operate with them in an abstract mode, and then put them back in an integrated manner. In addition, they include a greater dynamism turn into curiosity and cultural interest.

"The Lost World (Jurassic Park 2)" (1997)

From the 5th harmonic arise two astrological aspects: the quintile@72º, related with the integration of different cultural fields; and the (bi)quintile@144°, related with the division of a cultural field in two distinct areas.

From the 10th harmonic (5x2) arise two astrological aspects: the decile@36º and the (tri)decile@108°, related with the creation of new cultural fields, derived from the existing, after a bifurcation point.
And from the 20th harmonic (5x4) arise three astrological aspects: the vigintile@18º, the (tri)vigintile@54º, (hepta)vigintile@126º and (nona)vigintile@162°, related with the minor network connections that act as a bridge between different areas of a cultural field, from which a new concept can be supported in that field.

Shiva, Hindu deity of the cosmic dance

Astrologers began to understand the aspects of the 5th harmonic at the end of the 70s, at the same time that in the natural sciences began to study fractal structures and develop the chaos theory (despite that conceptually had already begun to be formulated in mathematical terms at the end of the nineteenth century and during the first quarter of the twentieth century).

Robert Hand,
in his book "Horoscope Symbols" (1981), confirmed the point of view of John Adey (1975), in which aspects of the 5th harmonic were related with intellectual function and the specifically human aspects, and associated aspects of the 5th harmonic to the transformation and cultural evolution through history of mankind. In addition, he highlighted its emotional quality.

The distinction between the lower psychological processes (common to animals and human beings) and higher (specific to human beings) has a long tradition in psychology. During the first quarter of the twentieth century, Vigotsky explained the development of the higher psychological processes as a result of the social interaction and the interiorization and decontextualization of physical and psychological tools (which were developed through collective interaction throughout history). For example, initially the language is a tool that lets you communicate with others, but subsequently it is internalized and facilitates the processes of thought. At the end of the 70s, the work of Vigotsky was translated from Russian into English, reaching great dissemination.

"
In youth, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, dean of the public opinion research in Europe, made up imaginary populations: 'My favorite toy when I was a child were not dolls, but pieces of wood to build a town: trees, houses, fences, animals, and quite different houses, for example, a town hall. And I spent two or three days each time, with ten-twelve years old, imagining stories about the lives of the people of the town'”. (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996)

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi,
in his book "Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention" (1996), summed up the conclusions reached after interviewing a wide sample of people who were culturally creative.