After almost a year of talking about it and sorting things out behind the scenes, it finally happened: I was featured as a guest on the inestimable, amazing Chris Brennan’s show, The Astrology Podcast! Yes, the same Chris Brennan who wrote, like, the textbook on Hellenistic astrology, fittingly titled Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune. You can find the link to The Astrology Podcast’s page on the episode here, or you can check out the YouTube video of it below.
In a way not unlike J.M. Woolfolk’s book title (though arguably with far more legitimacy), Chris’ show really is the podcast on astrology; while there are definitely countless good podcasts out there, The Astrology Podcast stands above them all going back to 2012 with over 300 episodes with such amazing guests as Ben Dykes, Robert Hand, Chris Warnock, Lee Lehman, Demetra George, and so many other luminaries of astrological research and practice—on top of all of Chris’ own informative solo talks, forecasts, and lectures. And, summertime last year, shortly after I put out my Hermeticism FAQ (part I, part II, part III, and part IV here), Chris invited me to be a guest on his show to talk about classical Hermeticism. It’s a topic that (so he says) he had been wanting to have a show about for about ten years now, but hadn’t found the right time, context, or person to talk with him about it. Heck, even in his own textbook on Hellenistic astrology, he somewhat evaded an in-depth exploration of Hermeticism; although many astrological texts of the classical period attribute plenty to Hermēs Trismegistus, to even begin to talk about how Hermeticism developed with (perhaps even because) of astrology in the Hellenistic period is worth a whole book unto itself.
To that end, Chris had me on his show recently to talk about Hermeticism with him, not only how it played out across the millennia that ensued after the Hellenistic period, but also how it developed in its own context, what its textual and practical ties are to astrology, why astrology is important to Hermeticists and why Hermeticism is (or should be) important to astrologers, and so much more. It was a great three-hour chat, and despite that length, I still feel like we only began to scratch the surface (which makes sense, given the profundity of the topic). Still, it was a great thing to talk about, and I definitely had a blast!* Not only did I get to talk about a topic that’s near and dear to my heart, but Chris also opened up my eyes and showed new things to me during the course of the chat that really reinforces and reemphasizes how important astrology is to Hermeticism and vice versa; more than ever, I certainly must say that astrology really is the Hermetic art, above and beyond any other spiritual practice.
In addition to the show itself, Chris put out a call on Twitter asking for questions that might want to be reviewed. Although we didn’t have time to get to any of them, I did make an effort to answer what I could in the various replies to this tweet on Twitter. If you’re interested in a little bit of quasi-bonus content, take a look at that thread there!
Of course, if you have any interest in astrology (if nothing else, that episode above should certainly convince you that you should!), then definitely subscribe to The Astrology Podcast:
Plus, you could always become a patron of Chris on Patreon to support the podcast, which gets you early access to new episodes, a monthly Auspicious Elections episode, Casual Astrology, and more bonuses, too!
Also, as part of doing this podcast, I also made a new page up under About at the top: Hermeticism Posts. Much like with my Geomancy Posts index page, the “Hermeticism Posts” page offers an index of all the various posts I’ve made over my blogging career touching on Hermeticism—specifically the philosophical, theoretical, theosophical, devotional, mystic side of things. To be fair, there’s plenty (perhaps even plenty more) that could be said about the practical, technical, magical side of things in Hermeticism, too, but that’s such a wide and varied category that crosses so many boundaries and topics and categories and tags that I can’t make an index of such posts at this time. Rather, the “Hermeticism Posts” index provides a quick look-up for all the stuff related to classical Hermeticism as evidenced by and extant in the classical Hermetic corpora, including my own Hermeticism FAQ, my writeup of CH III, my writeups of the Armenian Definitions, and much more. Take a look when you have the chance!
* also oh my god I hope I didn’t embarrass his show, this was probably one of the most professional things I’ve had to do in years, I’m so sorry &c and thank you for having me on your show chris
The Digital Ambler 