Hellenistic Astrology

Hellenistic Astrology refers to the practice of astrology during the Hellenistic period of Ancient Greece. Astrology is a divination practice of deriving meaning from the planets and cosmos, but Hellenistic Astrology has the concepts of fate and fortune woven into it. In this episode, we'll explore how this is similar yet different from contemporary astrology and why it matters on a larger scale. Let's begin.

Thank you for tuning in to an episode of Merwin's Philosophy, where I explore the connection between spirituality and psychology and how that coincides with social issues we face today. Now here's the show.

So in an old blog post, I wrote about wanting to change directions and rebrand from a fiction writer. I do have two books out. One is a chap book. So a small book of poetry and another one is an actual novel. But I was wanting to do something a little bit more closer to real life, not so close to fiction, because I read way more nonfiction books than I do read fiction. And it wasn't until I read a book on Western Esotericism. That it made a lot more sense. It seemed a lot more interesting. So that's where we're going with this, in this podcast, and probably from here forward, but we'll see.

But basically, Western Esotericism is a field of study that examines philosophies and practices, often of a spiritual nature, that have been rejected from common knowledge. And yet they have influenced religion and philosophies today. And these groups of philosophical and sometimes religious, but often spiritual practices have been viewed in a negative light and pushed out of academic and religious studies, despite their historical importance. And some of these esoteric practices are still being done today.

Now in the list of examples, you don't know exactly what I'm talking about. astrology, alchemy, magic. People have heard at least of astrology and alchemy and have felt one way or another on both sides of the extreme. It's nonsense and delusion versus it's divine knowledge. But what's interesting is that from these more esoteric beliefs, we have what's more acceptable and part of common knowledge now. So for example, from astrology came astronomy, because they were one and the same back in ancient times. From alchemy developed chemistry and from magic developed what we call the natural sciences. Now, even in the realm of Christianity, you have the Kabbalah and Gnosticism, which are more esoteric beliefs within that religion of Christianity.

And so due to the prejudice passed down from the church and academic institutions, unfortunately, the general public labels these as delusions and superstitions without Any thought to their cultural and historical relevance and because the church labels this as blasphemy because a lot of it is from pagan beliefs not so much from the gnosticism in Kabbalah because it was again very associated with Christianity or the Abrahamic religions of some sort, but the astrology, mostly astrology, was viewed as more of a pagan belief. And there's others too, that I want to get to in a later episode.

I just finished reading a book called Western Esotericism A Guide for the Perplexed by Wouter Hanegraaff, I know I mispronounced his name, but I just finished my second read through of the book to understand the very complex and complicated knowledge that is within it. I will definitely do a separate episode about that because it is worth its own episode. Western esotericism is a modern label put on a very wide spectrum of esoteric practices, philosophies, and beliefs. So we'll look into that at a later period.

But this episode is more so about Hellenistic astrology or astrology during ancient Greece. And as usual, I'm going to break this down into three parts. Number one is the overview of Hellenistic astrology. Part two is the culture and philosophy behind the practice. because that is very important when we're talking about esoteric beliefs, such as astrology. And part three, why does any of this matter?

[04:17] Part 1: Overview of Hellenistic Astrology

Most of the knowledge that I'll be talking about is from a book called Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Faith and Fortune, written by astrologer Chris Brennan. And this is the first book that I've read that uses information from archaeological findings to explain the techniques and the rationale behind these techniques, and also credits the various astrologers of the time. It gives. this subject a more academic approach, which is something I've been looking for because sometimes, or a lot of times, honestly, articles on websites are the most common and immediate source of information, but they don't have that rigorous fact checking that a more academically inclined book will have, and those sites can spread misinformation and have too much of an enchanting and fantastical view about it instead of a more balanced view that is rooted in history and not so much personal belief.

So let's talk about Hellenistic Greece for a minute. The Hellenistic period of Greece started when Alexander the Great died in 323 BC, all the way until the Roman Empire took over in 30 BC after the death of Cleopatra. Before then, Alexander the Great was the king of the Greek Empire. He's called The Great because he went on a campaign to basically take over as much of the Asian and Mediterranean world as he could and he did he took over a lot. But after he died in 323 BC began the War of the Diadochi which basically translates to the War of the Successors.

So a lot of his generals fought over the land that he conquered which stretched from present day Greece all the way up to the Balkans , all the way around the Mediterranean, all the way from present day Greece down to India, so the Middle East. The Western part of Asia, all the way down to India all the way around North Africa, where Egypt is. There are three main kingdoms that took over. When it comes to Hellenistic astrology, the one that Brennan mentions the most in his book is called the Ptolemaic dynasty. And basically this is the area around Egypt in North Africa.

After the War of the Diadochi, there was a lot of Greek influence into these other areas that Alexander the Great had conquered. And there was a lot of mixing of Greek and the culture that was already there. For example, one major figure that comes to mind is Hermes Trismegistus, and this was a combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. There's a lot of astrological writings attributed to him within Hellenistic astrology, as well as other religions and philosophies such as Hermeticism, which is a philosophical and religious movement that is attributed to this Hermes figure. But that as an example of how the Greek and other cultures were mixed together.

Now, what we learn in school , at least what I learned in school, was classical period of Greece, which makes sense because the classical period of Greece is a time when there was much flourishing of the culture. There was a lot of developments in art and literature in science and philosophy. A lot of the main Greek philosophers that I've heard of actually come from the classical period. This would be Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, as well as Pythagoras, who created the Pythagorean theorem that we still use and are taught in school today. But this Hellenistic period is after that classical almost golden period of Greece

And so Hellenistic astrology or astrology in general actually derives from the ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures. The Greeks just developed the techniques and significations of the planets a little further . They expanded the significations of the planets as well as the houses, which are the sections of the sky that is along the elliptical, which is the path that the sun takes across the sky, and the planets through the constellations or the Zodiac, which I'll explain a little bit more in part two.

But astrology was a big factor of the culture, or at least that's what I gathered from Brennan's book. And it continued on through the Roman Empire until it fell and then Christianity took over. So if you've looked at Roman history, you will realize that the Romans actually adopted a lot of the Greek culture. As a matter of fact, when I was doing a little bit of research on this Hellenistic period, there's this, I can't say it verbatim, but there's this idea or this saying that even though Rome took over Greece, Greece heavily influenced Rome and their culture, almost as if Greece still took over Roman ideas. Because again, Romans adopted the pantheon of Greek gods and just gave them Roman names. I've always found it fascinating how Greek deities have a Greek and a Roman name. .

Part of the culture that they took over was the idea of astrology being so pervasive in the culture. However, Christianity took over, denounced it as pagan and blasphemous, and denounced it from Western Europe. However, it continued in the East because at that period the Greek empire, was broken into two. So you had , where Greece is now and the other areas of the Mediterranean Sea, but then where Turkey is on through the Persian area, that's called the Byzantine Empire at the time. And when you study a little bit about Greece, that's called the Byzantine period. And so that's where more of the Greek culture continued on while the Western area of what used to be the Greek empire, continued on to a more Christian thought. And I'll do another episode on the continued history of astrology because it's actually fascinating. It goes on into the Medieval period to the Renaissance and continues on until we have the modern and contemporary version of astrology today.

But there are several components that will definitely be part of later episodes, it's beyond the scope of what I want to talk about today. But the major components are the planets in the sky that the ancients could see at the time. And they included the moon and the sun because to them it was a big planet. Those were big planets, but you have Mercury, Mars, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter. In contemporary astrology, there's other planets, Neptune, Pluto, however, they're too far away for the naked eye to see. So those are not included in traditional or Hellenistic astrology.

Then you have the 12 zodiac signs. Now these are the constellations, the main constellations in the sky. And we'll talk more about that in later episodes, but they are very important as well. Then you have what's called the 12 houses or the Greek translation of what means places. Again, those are those 12 sections of the sky that the planets and the sun travel across. Then you have what's called the configurations, which are the relationships between planets in the sky. And they're measured in degrees, which we'll talk about in just a minute. All of these, the configurations, the planets, the houses, the zodiac signs, all of these are configured onto a chart. And most of the times you see them on natal charts, which is a chart of all the planets and their configurations to each other on a chart drawn up at the day and time of someone's birth.

But the main point of all of this is that the ancients believed that the planet somehow influenced our mind and actions, as well as signify future directions of our life and the challenges that we'll face. It was part of more of a philosophical debate that I'll get into in part two. But astrology in itself is just an example of divination and fortune telling practices that have existed since ancient times till today. They're not mainstream or not really known about in a deep historical sense, due again to the Christian rejection of anything pagan, but there is a resurgence of it due to the internet and social media.

I've heard people mock about astrology or make jokes about certain astrological aspects such as Mercury in retrograde. That's just proof that it hasn't disappeared, obviously, but there's not a lot of thought given to the historical elements of astrology, which are very important.

[12:33] Part 2: Culture and Philosophy

And it brings us to part two, where I talk a little bit about the culture and philosophy behind astrology. Now, when I was doing my own independent research before I found Brennan's book, one name that kept coming up was Claudius Ptolemy. Now, he was a Hellenistic astrologer as well, but he did a lot more research within the idea of natural science. And modern times, we believe that he is the most influential and representative of the time. Like he was the most representative of Hellenistic astrology. However, that's not true. He did write four books called the Tetrabiblos, which lists out important techniques and relevant philosophies. And he also made a connection between the constellations and the seasons. For example, when the sun enters the constellation, or the zodiac of Libra, that's the beginning of fall. When the sun ingresses into Cancer, that coincides with the start of summer. He made that connection at first. And the reason he did this is because he tried to make astrology into a natural science, even though other astrologers at the time disagreed with him.

He did make a lot of impact into astronomy. He created something called astronomical tables, which is still used in the field of astronomy today. And this is because he focused so much on the natural world and cosmos and trying to bridge those into the idea of natural science.

And lastly, why he's believed to be the most influential is because his work has been the most transmitted over time. And so us in modern day will tend to overhype him in a way that overshadows the other astrologers of the time, such as Vettius Valens, which when I was reading Brennan's book, there was many techniques that are attributed to Valens and led to a lot of development within astrology or at least Hellenistic astrology. A lot of Hellenistic astrology has been lost as most of what contemporary astrology seems to be taken from Medieval tradition, but we'll get to that in a later episode. I still need to do research on that one myself.

And that brings us to the main philosophical debates, which this is part of Brennan's title. It's called The Study of Fate and Fortune. And so fate and fortune were the two aspects of astrology that was caused for philosophical debate. Now, the Mesopotamians, and I think to some degree, the Egyptians believed that the planets were signs from the gods of something to come. So they were almost as omens. However, when we get to the Hellenistic period and the Greeks, there was debates between whether the planets were just signs in the sky of moments to come of the future events, or if there was a causality to them. Did they cause us to behave a certain way, or do they cause us to have to go through certain events in our life? Do they cause certain things to happen in history? Astrologers debated and fell into a spectrum of, “yeah, it totally causes us to have to go through certain periods in our life, and the planets do cause certain events”; and then others fell into the camp of, “no, they're just omens”.

And then with the concept of fate, are we completely beholden to what our natal chart shows? Whatever fate that is present in that chart? Or is it just partially true and we have free will to change it. And so there was another spectrum of , are we completely beholden to fate or is it just partially fate and we have the way to change it.

Alongside this development of Hellenistic astrology was the development of the philosophy called Stoicism, which is the belief that in order to be a virtuous person, and I'm heavily paraphrasing this, in order to be a virtuous person, you had to just accept the way life is. There was no reason arguing against fate. We have little control over what happens in life. That was that idea and you just had to accept that. It reminds me of the modern day, and I've said this before in other episodes, but this kind of reminds me of the modern day idea of serenity, which is the idea of seeking a balance in life. Even in Christianity, there's something called the Serenity Prayer, which is the idea of, or really I could just recite it, Which goes, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, but the courage to change the things that I do have control over. I'm paraphrasing. And that idea of serenity that I just said falls back to the idea of Stoicism. As When I looked up the Serenity Prayer and who created it, there was an idea of it being connected to this ancient Greek idea of Stoicism.

Now, with the concept of fortune, there's this idea of good and bad fortune. If you look on a chart done during Hellenistic times, or even a modern chart using a Hellenistic idea, there are places within the chart, that are called good fortune, good spirit. And then on the opposite side, bad fortune and bad spirit, right? So there's this idea of fate within the chart.

And what separates Hellenistic astrology, in my mind, in my understanding, from contemporary astrology is this idea of external circumstances versus psychological influences. In modern astrology, I learned that when you look at a person's chart, it shows all of their kind of psychological influences. The sun represents our path in life and the major part of our personality. The moon represents our emotions, Mercury represents our thoughts, Venus represents our desires, right? And so on and so forth. However, when I was learning about Hellenistic astrology, our personality and physical body was depicted as the Ascendant. It's the horizon. But everywhere else on the chart represents external circumstances that we may face in our life. It's not so much our psychology and parts of our personality, but it's more so what we will encounter in life. Or at least that was from my understanding. And I found that very interesting.

There's a lot of negative and misinformed judgments on social media based on very immature and quick judgments and misinformation, honestly. For instance, if your sun sign is Scorpio, then that means you're a very manipulative person. Or if it's in Cancer, you're a very overly emotional person. These very extreme ideas and the idea that the sun is almost the one point on a chart that represents your whole personality. If someone ever asked you, “what's your sun sign”, and they thought they had a good reading on you based on your sun sign, that's a very immature way of trying to judge somebody because then you get people saying, “Oh, I can't date Scorpios”or “I can't date Geminis”. That's very weird. And I've even heard not horror stories, but complaints about people who have had their chart read by these very, I'm going to just continue the word immature, who have had their charts read by these people, and felt extremely judged and confused. Or you'll have people saying, I don't really feel like my Sun sign, right? And it's because your Sun is just one of the many planets within astrology that tells a much bigger story. You have to look at the whole chart

Now, because astrology is so connected to astronomy, or at least it was, it involves a lot of mathematical equations that are relayed in degrees and geometric shapes. So for Instance,, an astrological chart is expressed in a circle, and it's 360 degrees. When planets are 120 degrees apart, that relationship is called a trine, which corresponds to the 120 degrees of external angles of a triangle. If the planets are 90 degrees apart that is called a square, which a square has 90 degrees. Also the elliptical, which is the path that the sun takes across the sky, has different names and degrees as well. So the ascendant is the horizon. The midheaven is called the highest points in the sky that the sun travels across, which for us would be in the middle of the afternoon. The setting place is where the sun sets in the eastern sky before it dips below the horizon. And what is opposite from the midheaven, the highest point of the sky where the sun is, that's called the subterranean, which would be the lowest point out of view.

Now all of these calculations and degrees and relationships on the chart has esoteric explanations behind them. This is for me where it turns from just astronomy to astrology, to a more esoteric spirituality philosophical understanding, right? There are plenty astrologers who will connect these themes that will be reflected in a chart, either in a person's life, or if there are planets that are making specific configurations to each other, there's a theme that will be derived from it that will match certain events that do end up happening in life, almost again like divination, fortune telling, but a lot of times they come true. Because of these coincidences, many people , lie in three camps, or at least a spectrum of these three camps. Some believe that astrology is an example of divine knowledge. Some believe that it's just pure coincidence, and some believe that it's absolute nonsense. But either way, I do believe that it's an important and a reflection of a culture, which brings us to part three of why any of this matters.

[22:11] Part 3: Why it Matters

Astrology and really esotericism in itself, is part of history that has been left out due to the Christian agenda and the academic elitism. Because so much of esotericism is based on philosophical reasoning and coincidences that are hard to prove scientifically and replicate, this leaving out of history makes sense. But there's this prejudice against it. For example, when someone says they're not religious or they're spiritual but not religious, some people will have a more nuanced take on Christianity, and they won't be so prejudiced against Christians. Even though, throughout history, Christians have been very prejudiced against non Christians, and this is an example of that.

Christians were very prejudiced against Pagans, basically. And as we've gone on into the Enlightenment movement and further on, a lot of the academic elites and the thinkers, again, also look down on pagan beliefs as well. And because of this philosophical aspect of it that's, again, very hard to prove scientifically, I personally put it in the camp of spirituality, even though it has contributed to modern science, like I said.

Now with all that said, and I believe Brennan said this in his book, how books can give you a more nuanced and historical information. A book that is written from a more historical and rigorous standpoint than online, which can be more personal and can give you more personal interpretations that could very well be very vague and negative.

But the reason it matters is because this is a part of history and a part of culture that will challenge the beliefs that people have come to think are true today. And I find that very fascinating. And that brings us to the conclusion.

[23:59] Conclusion

Again, astrology is part of history. It's not just spiritual nonsense, and we'll learn way more about it when I explain more about these components in later episodes. But the truth of the matter is that both royalty and regular citizens consulted astrologers for major decisions in ancient times and even today. I believe that Nancy Reagan consulted an astrologer for major events and for advice. There's a lot of celebrities that have consulted astrologers and even just regular people have consulted astrologers for major moves and things in their life. Which is another reason why I connected to the realm of spirituality. And some astrologers, even in ancient periods, taught classes, and wrote books that have survived today. Again, I've said about Claudius Ptolemy, writing his four books called Tetrabiblos. Vettius Valens transmitted a lot of information, wrote down a lot of information, which thankfully, some have survived to date.

As a matter of fact, Brennan has a whole chapter listing out over 10 different astrologers of that period whose works have survived with example charts, their own philosophies, people that I have never heard of.

And so that brings me to my last statement that I want to say. When we allow ourselves to stop being curious and ignore information out of fear or arrogance, that's when we stop learning and our understanding of life becomes stagnant.

Now some people are okay with this. Grandma or their preacher or their parents taught them this and they're not deviating from it. Those are the authority figures in their life. That's what they're going to believe 100%. They don't want to change. Other people are curious, but they're letting fear stop them. They don't want to learn about this information that is blasphemy, or that is scary to them, or delusional, or devil worship, or whatever. They're scared of that.

And other people may have the similar thought that I have, which is knowledge is power. There's a sense of expansion of your life when you learn a lot more. Now you don't have to blindly accept everything, every new information that you're taught. But it does give you a more holistic view of life and it expands your perspective when you learn more about something that you had no idea. Especially when it's related to history, or learning more about a certain culture that is different from your own.

You step out of that ignorance that you once had, and you're able to learn more and actually form a more nuanced opinion about life. I'll talk more about Hellenistic Astrology in later episodes. But for right now, this is just an introduction into it. Trying to explain the philosophy a little bit more, which will become much more clear once we get into the different components. That's gonna be it for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode. If you're watching on YouTube, be sure to leave me a comment and subscribe for more. For those of you listening through a podcast app, make sure you subscribe and leave me a review. Click the link in the show notes or head on over to merwin mccrady.com to leave me a comment there. Thank you so much, and I'll see you in the next one.