Frederick Baker

• Author bio -- FREDERICK HAMILTON BAKER

Formal education includes an A.A. degree in Biological Science; a B.A. in Psychology; an M.A. in Archetypal Psychology; advanced studies in Counseling Psychology and School Counseling. I have a long history of study, professional experience, and teaching in the fields of astrology and yoga.

Transferring to the new UC Santa Cruz campus in 1965 began a notable period of my life, meeting many excellent professors of philosophy, psychology, and religious studies. In addition, the first year of attending UCSC brought me in contact with Zen teacher, Suzuki Roshi, and began my practice of meditation. Intensive study of Carl Jung’s works and learning with Santa Cruz astrologer, Lew Fein, began a lifelong interest in astrology, with its rich combination of myth, psyche, and cycles. A year in the Navy in Viet Nam was traumatic and revealing and provided me with travel to Japan and more Zen meditation experience.

I returned to UCSC in 1970 to complete a B.A. in Psychology, which included building a large redwood labyrinth on the campus. The construction had an alchemical result that led to meeting the Himalayan yogi, Baba Hari Dass, and the beginning of an ongoing practice of Ashtanga Yoga. I was taught by the master himself in the early years, which included the full practice of Ashtanga Yoga, Ayurveda, and Vedanta. Later I came in contact with other masters in the U.S. and in India for studies in Vastu, Ayurveda, and Vedic astrology.

My various studies led to travel and hitchhiking throughout Europe. Visiting power places took me as far as the great Labyrinth of Crete and back to the Spanish island of Formentera, where I met and studied with a French astrologer. I had a unique experience there, as described in the book, of hearing the “Music of the Spheres.” This experience occurred just after my 30th birthday, on Christmas Day, 1973, during an eclipse, and the closest approach of the comet Kohoutek. I consider these transformative and revelatory events to be fundamental to the development of my present book, since they motivated me to understand both the meaning of that rare astrological time and its relation to my extraordinary experiences.

Returning to California, I lived in and taught hatha yoga classes in a dance studio in downtown Oakland. Around this time I was especially fortunate to attend a workshop in San Francisco with Dane Rudhyar and Jose Arguelles on astrology and mandalas that inspired me to focus on the work of these two excellent teachers on astrology and the astrological chart as a mandala. Jose also inspired me to study more about the Maya culture and its calendar.

Next, I took part in two life-changing programs at Sonoma State University. The first was a graduate level experimental Humanistic Psychology Program, where we, the students, designed the curriculum and interviewed professors, learning about group process along the way. The second program was a Master’s program in archetypal psychology that began with studying Carl Jung’s collected works, and led into an in-depth study of archetypal psychotherapist James Hillman’s work. Professor Hillman was impressed enough with our program to come to our classes as a visiting professor and actively participate with our class for several years. My Master’s thesis was entitled “Hermes: Logos of Psyche” and included sections on astrology in the context of archetypal psychology.

It was at this time that I met my first wife, Jeannine Parvati, who was a midwife and herbalist. I assisted her in writing and publishing three books, with help from Richard Grossinger at North Atlantic Books and Bookpeople. Following this thread, we taught classes together and attended conferences on the general themes of parenting, natural childbirth, and pre and peri-natal psychology. In many ways I was not only a husband but also an apprentice to Jeannine, who was an advanced yogini, astrologer, herbalist, midwife, and teacher of woman-craft.

Since I was doing some astrology for Terence and Kat McKenna and helping in their mushroom business, this led to Jeannine becoming the midwife at the birth of their first child. I had access during this time to Terence’s great library and mind-altering conversations with this radical ethno-botanist and psychedelic explorer.

In the early 1980’s, Jeannine and I moved to rural Utah to pursue our home business and home education of our children. We had three do-it-yourself home births. Jeannine and I led Family Vision Quests in the red rock canyons of Utah with the help of a Piute Indian mentor, Red Cloud.

I eventually took a job with the State of Utah as an employment counselor, working primarily with veterans and families of children at risk of educational failure. The State of Utah paid me to take graduate classes in school counseling and psychological counseling at Utah State University and the University of Phoenix. I was not able to complete these programs as Jeannine became ill with hepatitis C and eventually passed away in my arms in 2005.

Returning once again to Santa Cruz, CA, I met my present wife, Judith Claire Joy, in 2007, who introduced me to many new friends and associates, including a truly amazing occult astrologer, Ronald L. Byrnes. I was focusing on the year 2012 and the Maya long-count calendar, and shared some of my writing with Richard Grossinger, who suggested I consider writing an introduction to Robert Sitler’s book for NAB on the Maya. Although an indigenous writer was eventually chosen for the job, appropriately, to write the Preface, Claire and I accompanied a group of Maya scholars (including Robert Sitler and John Major Jenkins) and Maya elders on a speaking and ceremonial tour of Guatamala and Izapa, Mexico, in 2010, certainly a wonderful prelude to the winter solstice of 2012 and the end of the Maya long-count calendar.

During the time described above, hints from astrology, alchemy, and yoga have coalesced into my present book with Inner Traditions, Alchemical Tantric Astrology. I presently lead a study group that I call “AstroYoga.” We meet as a group (until recently interrupted by the virus) on the new and full moons of each month. In these meetings new insights are arising, with the help of myth and science, to the connections between astrology and yoga and further to the DNA molecule and the siddhis or paranormal powers of yoga.