In episode 316 of the podcast Dr. Justin Sledge and Chris Brennan talk about the relationship between astrology, philosophy, and religion in the ancient world.

Our main focus is on discussing the ways in which astrology influenced some of the different philosophical and religious schools in the Greco-Roman world, from the Hellenistic era through the time of the Roman Empire and into the early Medieval period.

We also discuss questions like what was the philosophy underlying the practice of astrology in antiquity? To what extent did ancient astrologers articulate a personal philosophy? What was the purpose of practicing astrology in the ancient world?

During the course of the discussion we ended up touching on topics such as what is the mechanism underlying astrology (whether it works through signs or causes), issues surrounding fate, free-will, determinism, as well as the role of various schools such as Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Christianity, and more.

This was originally an interview for Justin's Esoterica YouTube channel, where he interviewed Chris based on his book Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune, but afterward we agreed to release the discussion as an episode of The Astrology Podcast simultaneously because it ended up being such a fantastic discussion that is very relevant to both of our audiences.

Find many more videos on ancient philosophy and mysticism on Justin's channel:

YouTube.com/ESOTERICAchannel/

This episode is available in both audio and video versions below.

Timestamps

Here are some timestamps for topics covered at different points in the episode:

00:00:00 Intro

00:05:50 The Hellenistic World

00:07:50 Astrology and coping philosophies

00:08:50 Mundane astrology

00:09:18 First birth charts dating to 410 BCE

00:13:57 How a Hellenistic astrologer would define astrology

00:19:00 Fate in the Hellenistic world

00:21:33 Stoic philosophy and Hellenistic astrology

00:29:02 Internal and External Fate in Astrology

00:32:20 Impact of Plato's Timaeus and Myth of Er on astrology

00:39:20 Names of gods applied to planets

00:47:21 Astrology of causes: Aristotle and Ptolemy

00:56:00 Stoic eternal recurrence model of the universe

00:58:16 Ptolemy and determinism

01:02:55 Backlash against determinism from Christianity

01:16:10 How Justin would teach Greek philosophy

01:18:10 How astrology was used to justify the birth of Jesus

01:20:00 The birth chart of Jesus controversy

01:21:30 Length of life technique

01:24:10 Astrological magic tradition

01:28:05 Increase in popularity of astrology

01:33:24 St. Augustine's criticism of astrology

01:38:12 Different levels of astrology in society

01:39:38 Ronald Reagan's astrologer

01:40:40 Levels of magic in society

01:43:30 Technical Hellenistic manuals translated into verse

01:44:55 Lost 1st century BCE source texts

01:47:33 Astrological texts in verse

01:53:34 Dorotheus verse example

01:55:10 Origins of horary astrology

02:02:15 Astrology straddling line between science and religion

02:05:03 Astrology a practical technology

02:06:40 Future discussion: philosophical challenges to astrology

02:07:29 21st century practice of astrology

02:08:11 Addressing ancient skeptical critiques of astrology

02:14:20 Closing Remarks

Watch the Video Version of This Episode

Watch the video version of this episode on ancient philosophy and astrology:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1YnPGVLlAM

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Transcript

A full transcript of this episode is available: Episode 316 transcript

Listen to the Audio Version of This Episode

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