Musician, poet, painter, astrologer, Dane Rudhyar is seed-man, a pioneer and forerunner of the new age, which has demonstrated through his philosophy the true place of man in the universe.

Dane Rudhyar was born in France with the name of Daniel Chenneviere on March 23, 1895. He emigrated to the United States in 1916 at the age of 21 and took the name of Rudhyar, derived from Sanskrit Rudra.

Rudhyar identifies himself with "a seed carried by the storm over the ocean... to germinate in the fertile virgin soil of a 'New World'." (The Essential Rudhyar Leyla Rael Rudhyar-, Ed L'Or du Temps)

Thanks to the music Rudhyar arrived in New York in 1917. He then gave a performance at the Metropolitan Opera, a piece for orchestra, which did not hold the attention of his contemporaries, especially because this evening America entered in war...

Rudhyar had the intuition that the compositions of Debussy were the "autumnal phase" of European culture. He wrote at 16 his first book "Claude Debussy and his work.

Rudhyar composes in a non-conventional form, with the sole purpose of shifting the traditional minds. It is a simple externalization of emotions and inner experiences. After the study of eastern and tribal music, he sees in music a language conditionned by the culture which allow communication with the collective psyche.

Rudhyar began painting at the age of 43, to put into practice what he stands for in his autobiography :

"I believed that a truly creative artist should be able to create significant and original works even if the technological control was not perfect in any art...".

The same day in 1938, he painted his first picture in front of a group of friends in Santa Fe.

Rudhyar made a few paintings and drawings, forty paintings, which reflect all the "transcret" art (from Latin : to grow through), revelation of a transcendent quality or an archetype of Self.

For him, the essential point is the feelings of the viewer, after he entered into a close relationship with the painting.

Rudhyar learned the basics of traditional astrology in 1920/21, reading authors such as Max Heindel, Alan Leo, Sepharial, then in 1931 with Marc Edmund Jones's courses. In 1932/33, Rudhyar discovers the first translations of Jung, the works on Einstein's new physics, and "Holism and Evolution" by Jan Smuts.

Related to theosophical studies, he decided to integrate astrology into a more global view, as a link between the psyche and the cosmic. From a psychological standpoint, the birth chart becomes for Rudhyar the basic structure of personality.

In 1936 he published his first great treatise on astrology "The Astrology of Personality", then for 40 years he will write articles for specialized magazines such as American Astrolgy, Horoscopes, Astrology World...

Rudhyar has completely reformulated the Western astrology, and although his ideas were widely adopted and popularized, many students are unaware that he is the creator.

For Rudhyar, astrology has not to respond to the need for security but become a tool for understanding changing events in human life. It is a symbolic language which the part (the person) can read the message of the largest "whole" written in big.

The term Humanistic Astrology has been employed by Rudhyar in the 60's.

Citations
Bibliography of Rudhyar

Find Dane Rudhyar on the web :
All about Dane Rudhyar, paintings, unpublished texts... on www.khaldea.com
rudhyar-ipseite.com by Adèle Caillot (French)
Rudhyar and music :
http://www.khaldea.com/rudhyar/musicarticles.html
http://newalbion.com/artists/rudhyard/



Illustrations :
Photo of Dane Rudhyar : in Dane Rudhyar, The planetarization of consciousness, Ed Servire, 1970.
Star, Soul and Soil : in Dane Rudhyar, From humanistic to transpersonal astrology, Ed The seed center, 1975
Poem The Depths : in Dane Rudhyar, Toward Man, Ed Carmel the seven arts 1928
Drawing : in Dane Rudhyar, From humanistic to transpersonal astrology, Ed The seed center, 1975
A Mandala for new men in New mansions for new men, Servire, 1971, p.XVI