Abraham Maslow, born in 1908 and deceased in 1970, was an American psychologist considered one of the founders of humanistic psychology, which later gave rise to the humanistic astrology developed by Dane Rudhyar, drawing inspiration from it.
As a reminder, humanistic psychology emphasizes the positive potential of the human being, in all its capacity to grow, to achieve personal fulfillment, and above all to seek profound meaning in things (in the quest for meaning and the underlying psychospiritual crisis).
His central idea, as he put it: “If you decide to be less than what you are capable of being, I assure you that you will be profoundly unhappy for the rest of your life.”
He places strong emphasis on the notion of self-realization, becoming who one truly is, in order to flourish the various predispositions given to us (“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be at peace with himself”).
He is notably credited with the famous “Maslow’s Pyramid”, to which reference is often made, yet which is nevertheless frequently misunderstood, or poorly implemented by the personality (I often observe this in exchanges with my clients).
This pyramid represents a hierarchy of human needs and suggests that human motivations must follow a certain progression: certain needs are entirely major and prioritary (the broad base of the pyramid), while others are less vital and imperative but emerge as the individual disengages from materiality, and they are more subtle to realize (the apex of the pyramid).
The higher one ascends in the pyramid, the more it indicates that material needs are satisfied and that one can free one’s mind for more ancillary, spiritual, and metaphysical considerations.
The foundational pyramid he designed thus comprises 5 main levels:
1+ Physiological Needs (Base of the Pyramid)
Breathing, food, water, sleep, sexuality, shelter…
These are survival needs, primordial and immediate.
This is truly the foundation of foundational vital needs !
If this level of the pyramid is not fully satisfied, it is futile to attempt to build above it, as one cannot even manage the minimum requirements of existence…
2+ Safety Needs
Stability, protection, employment, health, financial and material resources, safe housing and environment (home, city, country, etc).
Once physiological needs are met, one seeks a stable and predictable environment in which to build while avoiding, as much as possible, destructive forces.
As we unfortunately observe, even in our modern Western societies, many people already struggle considerably to fulfill these first two levels of the pyramid !
3+ Social Needs (Sense of Belonging and Love / Attachment)
Social, friendly, familial, intimate relationships; belonging to a group; the need to connect with the surrounding society, to integrate into it, to hold a role within it, and to feel useful there.
The feeling of being accepted and recognized by others is crucial for psychological equilibrium, and it is best constructed once security needs are fulfilled.
A society that leaves no place for its members, or even disdains and rejects them, or allows them to remain plunged in insecurity, is necessarily toxic and lethal, and must be reformed or fled.
4+ Esteem Needs
Confidence, autonomy, independence, self-determination, freedom, recognition of one’s competencies and value.
This is the level of esteem indirectly conferred by others (prestige, social status), that is to say, the culmination of social needs, when society (our loved ones, others) fully recognizes our personal worth and we obtain gratification from it (material, psychological, social).
5+ Self-Actualization Needs (At the Summit of the Pyramid)
Realization of one’s full potential, expression of one’s creativity, projection of one’s personality onto the world, personal and spiritual growth, culmination of the quest for meaning, thus a sense of meaning given to one’s existence, inner peace, understanding of one’s incarnation, contact with and integration into “the flow of consciousness”, perception of universality and the absolute, deeper self-knowledge, knowledge of the world, of Consciousness.
This is truly the final possible level of the pyramid, the ultimate fulfillment of one’s existence, one’s full karmic realization.
It is the idea of becoming fully oneself, of accomplishing one’s ikigai, and of having developed the process of individuation.
In reality, this may take different names, different approaches, in different cultures, but the fundamental bases remain very similar !
As Maslow stated: “Transcendence refers to the highest values of humanity, to self-transcendence toward something greater, whether truth, beauty, justice, or unity.”
All cultures, across the entire planet, are sensitive to these values when speaking of the fundamental fulfillment of self and society.
The Pyramid as a Chronological Process
As you may have noticed, there is in these needs of Maslow’s pyramid a certain “progression” very similar to what one can find in various zodiacal archetypes (Safety / Taurus, Social Needs / Gemini, Cancer, Libra, Esteem / Sagittarius, Capricorn, Self-Actualization / Aquarius, Pisces).
There is truly this important notion of “progression”, and what is described here is truly a “process”, a logical sequence that unfolds and thus describes an archetypal path, something that possesses coherence and can be tamed.
Because there is a logic, one can also apply a development strategy to it !
Too often, I see people who already struggle enormously with levels 1 and 2 of the pyramid, and who do not understand why, despite their good intentions, the upper levels fail to manifest ?
Simply because one cannot build anything solid if the foundations have not first been secured…
Even to pass merely from level 2 to level 3, one clearly understands that if one is not in a secure and stable environment, it will be compromised to build at the familial and social level.
Regardless of the time and energy it takes, it is imperative to begin with the base of the first levels and to focus upon them until their full realization.
If one has solid foundations, the upper levels realize themselves naturally and spontaneously; they arrive and impose themselves as a logical sequence (like a fruit that eventually ripens and detaches naturally from the tree).
Proportionally, moreover, the pyramid shape is well conceived: the lower the needs, the more effort they demand and the larger a portion of energy they represent; but conversely, the closer one approaches the top, the lighter the efforts required and the easier the shift (the Pareto principle applies to these realizations).
Thus, one can very well undertake a psychological exercise of attempting to situate oneself within the pyramid in one’s current life ? Where does one block most ?
Normally, upon reading the various needs, you have necessarily felt greater affinity or friction with one or another of the levels, and it is therefore here that you find yourself, and upon which you must focus.
Note, always within the vision of humanistic astrology, there is nothing inherently good or bad about being at one level rather than another; it is simply the stratum of evolution one must pass through and sublimate in the present, but this in no way predetermines where one may ultimately arrive.
See also notably my article “How the Study of One’s Birth Chart Operates Psychologically“.
Abraham Maslow’s Birth Chart
For those interested, here is Abraham Maslow’s birth chart cast for April 1, 1908, in solar houses (as his birth time is unknown).
He was born under a highly energetic Aries New Moon phase, here at the apex of the Lunar Nodes, with Uranus conjunct his South Node and Neptune conjunct his North Node, then the New Moon conjunct Saturn and also trine Jupiter / Black moon.
His chart forms a highly interesting blend of personal affirmation dynamics (Aries / Leo) and transpersonal forces.
He also has Taurus values on his personal planets Venus and Mars, which bring him an important Earth touch.
It is amusing, because precisely if one analyzes and decomposes his chart in function of the pyramid he theorized and popularized, one sees that he possessed a fairly good equilibrium that was able to express itself between the different levels of the pyramid.
He had strong natal energies for realizing and sublimating the different stages, especially since apparently he originally came from a poor Jewish immigrant family from Ukraine when they arrived in the United States…
Thus, he truly experienced the first two levels of the pyramid; he likely had to struggle within them and in order to discover the upper levels.