The Rudhyar Audio Archives were created by and are curated by Nicki Michaels.
Rudhyar Institute for Transpersonal Activity Conference 1983
“The idea occurred to me shortly after the inception of RITA, that a conference honoring Rudhyar’s lifetime body of work would be a very special and meaningful event for all of us whose lives Rudhyar’s writings and music had touched. I suggested the idea to my friend and Rudhyar’s wife, Leyla Rael, who encouraged me to discuss the possibility with Rudhyar. I did so and, with Rudhyar’s support and input, the 1983 RITA Conference took place in September of that year.
It was held at Vallombrosa,a beautiful and peaceful Catholic retreat center near Rudhyar’s home in Palo Alto, CA, and included presentations by Rudhyar himself, his wife Leyla, Alexander Ruperti, myself and others deeply involved in some aspect of Rudhyar’s work. Over 100 people came from all over the country and the world. It was a very special gathering of those who resonated deeply with Rudhyar’s message and who were nourished by the intimate setting, the presentations, and the timeless message of Rudhyar’s creativity in its many forms of expression. By the end of the weekend everyone felt uplifted and inspired, including Rudhyar himself.”
Nicki Michaels
Conference Coordinator
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Only audios marked with the above Some Rights Reserved symbol on this, the RITA 1983 Conference Audios page of the Rudhyar Audio Archives are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. For more information on exactly what this means for you, please read License FAQ page. All audios without the Some Rights Reserved logo on this page have All Rights Reserved and may be downloaded only for personal use.
Astrology & Transpersonal Living 
This was the opening presentation of the conference on the evening of Friday, September 23,1983. Leyla Rael briefly discusses the origins of RITA and then introduces Rudhyar. Rudhyar inspires participants to view astrology as a means to understanding one’s dharma or path. At the end of the talk Rudhyar answers questions from conference participants—you feel like you’re in the room.
Part 1 – 46 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 2 – 46 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 3 – 33 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Understanding Rudhyar
Leyla Rael is by far the most adept interpreter of Rudhyar, and in this talk she presents a lively and fascinating overview of Rudhyar’s philosophy. Using her book The Essential Rudhyar as the study guide to both the conference and to this talk, Leyla masterfully provides insight and understanding into the entirety of Rudhyar’s large body of work. She reveals how his philosophy consistently permeates everything from his approach to astrology to his poetry and music. This was the morning presentation on Saturday, September 24, 1983.
Part 1 – 32 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 2 – 32 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 3 – 32 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 4 – 23 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Rudhyar’s Multileveled Approach to Psychology
Rudhyar approached astrology as the study of a complex web of processes, and he applied the same philosophical orientation to art, music, philosophy, literature and psychology. In this in-depth presentation, Dan Johnson focuses mainly on how this approach is reflected in Rudhyar’s most explicitly psychological book, Beyond Individualism where he discusses the four levels of humanity’s potential psycho-spiritual evolution. This was the first presentation on the afternoon of Saturday, September 24, 1983.
Part 1 – 47 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 2 – 31 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Progressed Lunation Cycle in Astrology
Nicki Michaels presents an explanation of the Progressed Lunation Cycle, Rudhyar’s groundbreaking technique revealing the context and meaning of events within an individual’s unique life structure. This 8 phase, 30 year cycle emphasizes the importance of how we meet life, rather than on the particular events that happen to us, the normal focus of traditional astrology. For a more in-depth understanding, read Leyla Rael’s The Lunation Process In Astrological Guidance, a section of the Aurora Press edition of Rudhyar’s The Lunation Cycle. Also listen to the free online audio of Rudhyar’s talk titled The Lunation Cycle.
Part 1 – 33 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 2 – 46 minutes – Click here to download mp3
My Work with Rudhyar’s Approach to Astrology
In this biographical talk, Alexander Ruperti shares remembrances of his long relationship to astrology. Beginning with his studies of traditional astrology as a young man in England, leading to his encounter with Alice Bailey who suggested that he read Rudhyar’s newly published first book The Astrology of Personality in 1936. Ruperti says that book “opened me up to myself.” He discusses his long career as an osteopath, using the birth charts of his patients to understand the psychological issues behind their physical problems, and to the profound influence of Rudhyar’s work on himself personally, and on the world of astrology. This was the closing presentation on the afternoon of September 24, 1983.
40 minutes – Click here to download mp3
A Musical and Artistic Interlude
This was the evening presentation on Saturday, September 24, 1983. After a full day of talks by Rudhyar’s students, Rudhyar presented a powerful evening which included a discussion of his approach to music along with moving readings of his own poetry. Rudhyar discusses the place of music in various cultures and the use of sound to communicate a state of being. Pianist Edmund Correia, a talented interpreter of Rudhyar’s compositions, played several potent renditions of Rudhyar’s pieces.
Part 1 – 31 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 2 – 28 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 3 – 37 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 4 – 23 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Collective Myths and Individual Development
Once again, Leyla Rael captivates conference attendees with an intelligent, insightful and sometimes humorous look at the relationship between the individual and the culture. Describing culture as “the womb of mind” whose collective symbols are language, she begins with an eye-opening discussion of how we quite literally see what our culture conditions us to see; how this shapes our perceptions, and how those perceptions determine our reality. Leyla quotes Rudhyar that “only a naive and unhistorical mind can think that facts are more powerful than myths” because facts change from culture to culture and from time to time. It’s culture that determines what constitutes a healthy person what constitutes success. Money, the symbol of social power, serves as the hormones of society. And Leyla goes on to discuss how the heritage of collective psychism develops from the geography out of which a particular culture was born. Based on Rudhyar’s book Culture, Crisis, and Creativity. This was the morning presentation on Sunday, September 25, 1983.
Part 1 – 33 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 2 – 33 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 3 – 32 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 4 – 24 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Where Does Humanity Stand? The Path as Rite of Passage
In this, the closing presentation of the conference, Rudhyar describes the part that each of us can play in the unfolding evolution of humanity. Beginning at the end of World War I, the “war-to-end-all-wars”, Rudhyar correlates developments of the twentieth century with significant astrological cycles such as the precessional cycle and the 500 year Neptune/Pluto cycle, focusing especially on the 90 year Neptune/Pluto sextile that lasted for most of the twentieth century. At the end of the presentation, Rudhyar, in his late 80’s, passes the torch to younger generations. This talk was given Sunday afternoon, September 25, 1983.
Part 1 – 48 minutes – Click here to download mp3
Part 2 – 29 minutes – Click here to download mp3
About Rudhyar’s Books
Provided to participants as a study guide to the 1983 RITA Conference, this well honed book The Essential Rudhyar, An Outline and an Evocation, presents a well organized and comprehensive overview of Rudhyar’s entire body of work. Written by Leyla Rael, who has the talent of taking Rudhyar’s rather complex concepts and making them simple to comprehend. This book is freely available to read online.
Beyond Individualism, The Psychology of Transformation “is not a book which will come to rest within psychology. It is a book that redefines psychology—stretches it far beyond its narrow, conventional, academic and complacent limits. It is about understanding humanity and its relation to the earth…Read it to give yourself a larger set of windows to view life from.”
Dr. James Fadiman, Ph.D., Stanford University
Culture, Crisis, and Creativity (1976) is an extraordinary vision of existence that explodes the popular myth of our cultural omniscience, omnipotence and permanence. There comes a time, suggests Rudhyar, when for the sake of our spiritual heritage, we should consider breaking away from established patterns and values that have been imposed upon us through our culture because “Spirit creates, culture reproduces.” The resulting crises appear to be necessary to the creative process. Order this book online.
This pioneering classic provides a new dimension in the use of Astrology as a powerful tool in understanding life patterns. The Lunation Cycle is a unique technical breakthrough revealing the significance of the cyclic relationship of the Sun and Moon as phases of a larger process. Rudhyar formulates and describes the eight Soli-Lunar personality types. Also discussed is the
Progressed Lunation Cycle, a technique developed and applied by Rudhyar, revealing the underlying structure of each individual’s unique pattern of lifetime unfoldment. Read more and order online
This volume originally published in 1936 is as relevant today as it was then. It was in this book that Rudhyar first coined the term humanistic astrology. In The Astrology of Personality Rudhyar tells us that the immediate purpose of astrology is not to predict events, but rather to bring a message of order, of form, revealing the meaning of individual life struggles—transforming chaos into cosmos. Presenting astrology as a symbolic system, Rudhyar uses many concepts expressed in Eastern philosophy (particularly the concept of opposites embodied in the I Ching) combined with modern psychological theories to transform how astrology is applied today. Read more and purchase this book online.
An Astrological Triptych: The Illumined Road elegantly, succinctly, and poetically, Rudhyar redefines the 12 fold path of the astrological signs and houses as well as the planetary functions. It is an inspirational book that offers spiritual insights into our human struggles on the Path to wholeness.
Read more and order this book online.
Rhythms of Wholeness (1983) has been called “Dane Rudhyar’s great opus—his masterwork—formulating and integrating his philosophical/metaphysical world view.” This book is the culmination of decades of intense research into, and creative thought about, the basic questions concerning creation and evolution
This book is available to read freely online.
In Astrological Timing: The Transition to the New Age, Rudhyar discusses the shift from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius from an original and challenging perspective. Rudhyar correlates changes in societies and cultures throughout the ages with the long planetary cycles. Starting with the 20 year Jupiter/Saturn cycle, all the way to the 500 year Neptune/Pluto cycle, they are all understood within the context of the great precessional cycle lasting over 26,000 years. Read Astrological Timing: The Transition to the New Age free online.
