Through the Looking Glass – A search for the self in the mirror of relationships

Through the Looking Glass teaches how to gain self-knowledge through the mirror of relationships. Culling the best insights from astrology, psychology, and sociology, the material here ranks amongst the outstanding astrological contributions on the market today. Richard Idemon’s book deserves to be on the shelf of every student, dabbler, teacher, and counselor. Perhaps because this book was transcribed from a seminar, the style of presentation is engaging and easy to follow.

Idemon begins by describing how most relationships are reflections of the parent-child relationship. In order to begin expressing the true inner self, one needs to break the “psychological umbilical cord,” the patterns of relationship that connect us to our family myths. These patterns are unconscious projections and repeat until conscious integration takes place. As Idemon says, “If you think you’re advertising for a poet and you keep getting truck drivers, you had better check your advertisement.” Because adult relationships tend to reconstellate the inner child’s understanding of the world, the Moon is the dominant significator of relationships, not Venus, as is commonly assumed. Idemon describes Venus as being self-absorbed, narcissistic, and totally involved with the pleasures of the body. She’s devious, tricky, sensuous, and not at all loyal. The Moon, on the other hand, creates relationships that nurture the inner child, and planetary aspects to the Moon describe what the individual needs to express to feel nurtured in the relationship.  Moon-Mercury aspects, for example, need to be able to communicate, while Moon-Mars needs to compete or fight. Moon-Venus aspects, Idemon warns, do not describe the benign, easygoing affairs often associated with these two planets. Any aspect between the Moon and Venus can create confusion between the motherly, maternal type and the flirtatious, seductive Venus type. Idemon says that under this aspect, the relationship between mother and daughter often turns sour when the daughter hits adolescence. He compares Moon-Venus to the myth of Snow White and the Wicked Queen. The Queen becomes the Monster-Mother when Snow White suddenly becomes the “fairest of them all.”

In Part Two of Through the Looking Glass, Idemon expounds on the multidimensional nature of love. Unfortunately, in English we have only one word for this elusive quality, which is generally associated with romantic love. But the Greeks understood love to be much more, and had a different word for each association. Idemon recognizes four essential aspects of love and equates them to the four fixed signs (Taurus-epithemia, Leo-philia, Scorpio-eros, and Aquarius-agape). Traditionally, we hope to experience “love” through marriage, but because marriage tends to be based on romantic love, when the erotic side wanes, the partnership either has to evolve into other forms of love or end.

In the chapter on self-assertion in relationships, Idemon describes the value of anger. Denied or repressed anger is toxic, but direct expression brings clarity by forcing issues out into the open. Because such directness tends to disrupt the security of a relationship, most people opt for unhealthy expressions of their Mars. By themselves, the two pages describing the possible distortions of anger are worth the price of this book, and include blaming, sarcasm, vindictiveness, and violence. A warrior-like awareness evolves out of the healthy integration of Mars.

Richard Idemon died in 1987. Currently, this is the only work available that brings his provocative and original teachings to the general public. By reading and studying this book, you will likely come to agree with Idemon that “astrology offers the most perfect model of the human condition that exists.”