“A stunning, beautifully written exploration of the asteroid associated with learning to love. A new must-have in the astrology library.”
Victor Olliver, Editor of The Astrological Journal and Stellar
The story of Psyche, immortalized by Apuleius over two thousand years ago, is a magnificent myth about a love thwarted by the goddess of love herself, Venus — the love between a mortal princess, Psyche, and Venus’s own son, Cupid. Condemned to perform four impossible labours to appease the goddess’s wrath, Psyche, aided by unexpected helpers, ultimately ascends to Mount Olympus to be reunited with Cupid and to attain immortality. Yet to accomplish this, and to win the favour of Venus, she must first embody four essential qualities — the celebrated cardinal virtues of the Platonists.
In astrology, the planet Venus symbolizes not only what we value, but also our sense of self-worth. This is why she plays such a vital role in love and relationship: we cannot truly unite with another unless we choose them in accordance with our values — and unless we can first recognise our own worth. When we are faced with the asteroid Psyche, we must, like the princess in the myth, carry out our own inner work in order to develop certain qualities within ourselves that will content Venus — that is, the qualities that allow us to build a relationship through which she may truly bring forth the joy and happiness she promises.
Thus, this asteroid holds the key to building healthy, joyful, and fulfilling relationships — relationships in which the Self may unfold and the solar identity, our symbolic immortality, find its full expression.
Anne-Marie Chabellard
Anne-Marie Chabellard holds a PhD in biological sciences and has always nurtured a keen interest in research and experimentation. She also earned a de...
Show moreThis is a completely new book and the first by any author to have been dedicated singularly to the asteroid Psyche. According to the research that went into my web article from early 2003, ‘Introduction to Celestial Bodies’, Psyche is the tenth largest asteroid that was then known, after Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, Hygiea, Davida, Interamnia, Europa, Eunomia and Sylvia. Of the top ten by size, to the best of my knowledge, only Ceres and Vesta have previously been subjects of a dedicated single book, although there has also been a recent brief booklet on Hygiea.
However, Psyche has previously been the focus of considerable attention as part of broader treatments of asteroids, thanks in no small part to the resonances of its name with concepts in modern psychology.
Anne-Marie Chabellard has a degree in psychology and has studied astrology primarily, although not exclusively, from a Jungian psychological perspective. The blurb at the back of her new book ‘In the Name of Love: The Asteroid Psyche’ immediately contextualises her approach to asteroid Psyche in the mythological school of thinking, referring to the ancient myth related to Psyche and Cupid, and grounding the understanding of the essential meaning of asteroid Psyche in elements of that myth. To this, the introduction adds references to the meaning of the Greek-language word from which the name Psyche is said to have been derived, here transliterated as psukhê, as well as to the meaning of the glyph used to represent the asteroid.
The main text is divided into four parts. Part One: the Myth expands the themes alluded to on the rear cover blurb. Part Two: When the Progressed Sun Shines on Psyche is a collection of worked case studies using a sample of twelve famous individuals. Part Three: The Astrological Psyche defines the essential astrological meaning of the asteroid in the author’s reading, as well as looking at how to interpret it in the context of transits and progressions. Part Four: Psyche in Aspect does not set out to comprehensively delineate the meaning of natal Psyche in aspect to every planet in the birth chart. Instead, it looks particularly at aspects between Psyche and the luminaries, and then primarily through the lens of some detailed case studies. It also includes a brief investigation of the occurrence of aspects between Psyche and the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto in the nativities of a diverse range of founders and developers of modern psychoanalysis, and a chapter on the function of synastric aspects involving Psyche.
Suffice it to say that Chabellard’s work on asteroid Psyche is not and makes no pretence to offering a late-20th-century-style cookbook of natal asteroid placement delineations. If you are looking for a full set of potted readings of every possible placement of asteroid Psyche in the birth chart, including in the houses, and in major Ptolemaic aspect to every planet, this is not a book that will satisfy that want – although there is a brief section offering single-paragraph readings of each of Psyche’s possible natal sign placements included from pp. 102-6.
Instead, ‘In the Name of Love’ opens new pathways of thoughts and ideas on the essential meaning of the asteroid, and reports on the author’s investigations to date of its influence through case studies. As such, it should make for rich and rewarding reading for experienced astrologers who are capable of thinking for themselves and would like to develop a deeper understanding of ways the asteroid Psyche could meaningfully be read in a variety of different technical astrological contexts, giving them plenty of food for thought while leaving them to make their own inferences about its uses in specific cases. Astrologers who resonate with the mythological approach to reading the meaning of planets and planetoids, and modern psychological astrologers in particular, will feel instantly at home with this book.
Philip Graves
There are books that don’t merely explain astrology — they re-enchant it. Coming at the end of January, In the Name of Love: The Asteroid Psyche by Anne-Marie Chabellard is one of those rare gems. Far from the superficial horoscopes of tabloids, this erudite and fascinating work offers a true initiation: what if our romantic failures were not inevitable disasters, but necessary “labours” on the path to earning our own immortality? A celestial investigation that weaves together Jung, Plato, and the Beatles.
- This book explores the relationship between Venus and the asteroid Psyche showing that love requires a profound journey of personal transformation.
- The author reinterprets the myth of Eros and Psyche, revealing how the quest for lucid love passes through initiatory trials.
- Chabellard links the four tasks of the myth to the four cardinal virtues: Wisdom, Moderation, Courage, and Justice, offering a precise tool for personal development.
- The book introduces a technical method of observing the “Progressed Sun”, demonstrating how its activation of Psyche triggers beneficial crises.
- Ultimately, In the Name of Love nvites us to see relationships not as random events, but as powerful catalysts for our soul’s evolution.
We all know Venus. In our birth charts and in our collective imagination, she is the goddess of beauty, charm, effortless love, and life’s pleasures. But let’s be honest: if Venus were enough, why is love so often a source of torment? Why, despite our “charm”, do we keep crashing into walls, breakups, and misunderstandings?
This is where Anne-Marie Chabellard steps in with a bold and liberating thesis. She brings to light a forgotten player in our inner sky: the asteroid Psyche. Her premise is both poetic and clinical: Venus is the promise, but Psyche is the path. And that path, the author warns us, is not strewn with roses — it is paved with initiatory trials.
To grasp the full scope of this book, we must return to the beginning. The author opens with a masterful retelling of the myth of Eros and Psyche, narrated with cinematic precision. She reminds us that Psyche was a mortal of such exquisite beauty that humans stopped honouring Venus and began worshipping her instead. The insult was unforgivable. Jealous Venus ordered her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with “the vilest of monsters”. The rest is well known, but Anne-Marie Chabellard lets us rediscover it through a fresh lens. Cupid wounds himself with his own arrow and falls madly in love with Psyche. He installs her in a dream palace, offering her luxury and bliss — on one terrible condition: she must never try to see who he is. She spends her nights with an invisible husband.
How many of us have lived this? Loving a fantasy, a chimera, in the dark? Urged on by her envious sisters, Psyche breaks the taboo. One night, oil lamp in hand, she lights up her lover and discovers a divine being of breathtaking beauty. Mesmerised, she pricks herself too. But a drop of burning oil falls onto the god’s shoulder. Betrayed, Cupid flees.
This is where the book turns. The end of the romance marks the beginning of the quest. To win back her love and appease Venus, Psyche must complete four impossible tasks. “This myth shows us how we can earn Venus’s favour — that is, gain self-esteem,” the author writes. Love is not given; it is won through the transformation of the soul.
Your Four Venusian Labours
The originality of In the Name of Love lies in its ability to translate this ancient myth into an ultra-precise tool for personal growth. Drawing on Platonic tradition, Anne-Marie Chabellard associates the four tasks with the four cardinal virtues: Wisdom, Moderation, Courage, and Justice.
When the asteroid Psyche is activated in your chart, it’s not just “a meeting” that occurs — it is an imperative for growth. Depending on the sign and house where your Psyche is located, the book helps you identify your own “Venusian labour”.
Perhaps you must learn Wisdom: the ability to distinguish your true desires from those imposed by social expectations or the desire of the other. Perhaps Moderation: no longer letting yourself be consumed by devouring passions, pausing before committing. Or Courage: the strength to remain faithful to your values, even if it means enduring the pain of separation or solitude. Or finally Justice: playing your own role fully, without trying to fill the other’s voids or demanding that they be your saviour.
Reading these descriptions, we suddenly feel less like victims of romantic fate and more like active creators of our own wholeness.
The Technical Investigation: When the Sun Illuminates the Shadow
But In the Name of Love is far more than a philosophical treatise. It is a work of impressive technical rigour that will delight serious astrology enthusiasts. The author unveils a fascinating investigative method: observation of the “Progressed Sun”.
Imagine the Progressed Sun as a slow-moving flashlight that gradually illuminates different zones of your psyche, year after year. Through captivating case studies, the author demonstrates that when this “light” reaches the asteroid Psyche, a crisis erupts — but it is a healing crisis.
The example of John Lennon, dissected in the third chapter, is striking. Lennon had Psyche in Gemini. When his Progressed Sun touched this asteroid, the myth came alive: Paul McCartney sued him. A betrayal? No — an initiation. Through this rupture, Lennon was forced to develop the qualities of his Psyche in Gemini: he reclaimed his freedom of expression, became the peace activist we know, and wrote Imagine. The book brilliantly explains the celestial mechanics: “Having completed his Venusian labours, he was finally able to honour his Virgo Venus, which urged him to find purity within himself.” By activating Psyche, Lennon could at last truly live his Venus. He had to lose his musical “brother” to gain his soul.
The book is filled with such finely scrutinised destinies: Friedrich Nietzsche breaking with Wagner, Maria Montessori facing an impossible pregnancy, Gérard de Nerval losing his great love… Each time, the exact aspect triggers the event that compels the individual to accomplish their virtue.
In the final section, the book expands into relational dynamics and synastry. Why did psychoanalysts like Freud and Jung have charts marked by powerful aspects between Psyche and Pluto or Saturn? Why do certain relationships — the Kennedys, the British royal family — seem to carry the weight of destiny?
Anne-Marie Chabellard offers a vertiginous reading: the other is never there by chance. They are the trigger for our labours. The asteroid Psyche acts as a catalyst. “Its activation always aims to make us complete our Venusian labours,” she insists.
Closing this book leaves a lasting imprint. We no longer look at our birth chart — or our romantic wounds — in the same way. We understand that the pain was not gratuitous. It was the price of the burning oil, the cost of awakening.
In the Name of Love is a precious guide for anyone seeking to transform blind passion into conscious love. A book that reminds us that while Venus promises pleasure, it is Psyche — at the cost of her courage and perseverance — who ultimately grants us immortality: that is, wholeness. An essential read to begin 2026 with wide-open eyes.
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