Ancient Philosophy and Astrology

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: – Transcript