For centuries academics and thinkers have observed two different mental processes going on in the brain: Intuitive thinking and conscious reasoning. And in 2011 Daniel Kahneman – an Israeli psychologists and Nobel Prize winner – took a giant leap and divided your thinking into two subsystems which he labeled: System 1 and System 2.
In his book Thinking Fast and Slow Kahneman explained that system 1 ‘is the brain’s fast, automatic, intuitive approach’. It’s unconscious and involves innate mental activities that you were born with. It’s the thinking that you make heavy use of during your routine daily life.
And system 2 is ‘the mind’s slower, analytical mode, where reason dominates’. It’s all about slow, calculating, conscious thought and you’ll only resort to it when you have a perplexing problem to solve.
Back in 2011 Kahneman’s theory got everyone excited and quickly spread from the academic to the non-academic world and popular media. People were invited to analyze their behavior through a system 1 and 2 lens to get a better understanding of their thinking and decision-making.
But in its transition to pop-culture the theory got over generalized, simplified and misunderstood. As a dual thinking system it gave rise to the idea that the brain was literally divided into two thought systems. This was fake news just like the myth that people were either right or left brained was false.
Now, in 2021, research into Kahneman’s theory continues and it’s believed that the two information processing systems work in tandem and both systems can be biased and make mistakes. And neuroscience will tell you which part of the brain lights up when each system is operating.
So in 2011 Daniel Kahneman’s system 1-system 2 thinking theory provided a helpful analogy for understanding how your mind processes information.
Playing catch up with Elbert Benjamine
But 77 years earlier in 1934 Elbert Benjamine (aka CC Zain) – founder of the Church of Light – not only explained the two thought systems, he identified their astrological markers and revealed how you could determine their influence in your life by assessing the Moon (Kahneman’s system 1) and Mercury (Kahneman’s system 2) in your birth chart.
Elbert explained: The Moon-sign signifies the mentality. It indicates the type of experience most easily received and most readily assimilated by the unconscious mind; thus the general trend of mental activity is shown by the Moon.
But the method and facility with which such thought, and those arising from the character and personality, express is markedly determined by the sign occupied and the aspects made by Mercury.
Then in 1943 when Elbert published Beginner’s Horoscope Reader he explained for astrology students what the rest of the world had to wait 68 years to learn.
He wrote: ‘Mental processes are of two kinds. In the type ruled by Mercury, cerebral processes resort to careful reasoning, classified observation, and the formulation of words and sentences. And to get ideas across to others such words and sentences are essential.
Yet the mental attitude as a whole and the mental capacity, are not due to such cerebral processes. Instead they arise mostly from the unconscious mind and from the impressions received from environment which have not been carefully pigeon-holed.
The feelings about certain things, the unreasoned mental processes, the hunches and intuitions and capacities for absorbing certain kinds of information, which rather than the expression of opinions thus formed through words and sentences, chiefly constitute the mentality, are expressions of the thought-cells mapped by the Moon.’
So in 1943 Elbert Benjamine – thought leader and Aquarian Age upgrader of the Brotherhood of Light teachings on astrology, alchemy and magic – not only observed two types of mental processes he identified their astrological markers.
The Moon rules ‘feelings about certain things, the unreasoned mental processes, the hunches and intuitions’ – Kahneman’s system 1 thinking; and Mercury rules ‘cerebral processes that resort to careful reasoning, classified observation, and the formulation of words and sentences’ – Kahneman’s system 2 thinking.
And by assessing the power of the Moon and Mercury in your birth chart and their harmony and discord profiles you can learn about and understand your mentality and innate potential to rely on feelings and intuitions or reason when making a decision… and to get it right or wrong.
Astrology for Aquarius – sharing our knowledge
