Episode 188 features an interview with astrologer Demetra George about her new book titled Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice, A Manual of Traditional Techniques – Volume One: Assessing Planetary Condition.
This is the first of two volumes where Demetra provides a detailed treatment of ancient Hellenistic astrology, which is the type of astrology that was practiced around the time of the Roman Empire.
Unlike other treatments of ancient astrology, Demetra spends most of the book focusing on the actual techniques and practice of the early forms of astrology, rather than spending a bunch of time talking about the history.
It is also designed to be a workbook, so that at the end of each chapter you can apply the techniques to your own chart, using guided lessons so that you can confirm that you understand what you read by putting the interpretive principles into practice.
The book was published by Rubedo Press, and can be ordered here:
Demetra George, Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice
This interview with Demetra is available in both audio and video versions below.
The interview was originally recorded on November 9, 2018, but then I just released it today on January 2, 2019 to coincide with the official release of the book today.
Watch the Video Version of This Episode
Here is the video version of my interview with Demetra:
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Transcript
A full transcript of this episode is available here: Episode 188 transcript
Listen to the Audio Version of This Episode
You can either play this episode of the podcast directly from the website or download it as an MP3 to your computer by using the buttons below:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:17:36 — 53.6MB)
Great podcast. Demetra George’s “Astrology and Yourself” heavily expedited my learning of Hellenistic last summer. This is a must-get. Will you have Charles Obert on when he drops his next book?
One gripe: you two spent time contrasting Hellenistic’s conceptualization of astrology, steeped in astronomical observations as basis for first principal interpretation, with Modern astrology having you learn things without the why.
How about some examples? This has been a fairly routine sentiment on many podcasts (the forecasts come to mind most notably) but I can’t recall a single concrete example of you/your guests breaking down an example of such.
One example is the rulership scheme, which assigns the luminaries to Cancer and Leo because that is the hottest and brightest part of the year in the northern hemisphere. Then all of the other planets are assigned flanking out on either side of the luminaries based on their relative speed and distance from the Sun. This provides what is initially an astronomical basis for the zodiacal sign rulership scheme. In modern astrology though these sign rulerships are just something that is taken for granted, and the presumption is that the assignments occur simply due to an affinity between the ruler and the quality of the sign, since these qualities are already pre-established or taken for granted. That is why there are often suggestions to reassign new rulers to signs like Scorpio, Virgo, or Libra, because it has just become a matter of associating symbols based on affinity, and the notion that there was originally more of an astronomical motivation for the rulership scheme was largely lost until recently.
Maturity and experience resulting in Wisdom. DG is a great expression of positive Saturn, her book is timely as one would expect.
Loved the interview. Just beginning my exploration into Hellenistic Astrology. Have just gone to order Demetra’s book via your link (thanks) and am pleased to find that for once I can order this from within my own country. Little old New Zealand. Yay!!
I’ve just finished plowing through this gem of a book and I highly recommend it. The Jackie O and Picasso examples are really well chosen. As another very interesting chart for further practice of the techniques, I would suggest Noam Chomsky (from Astrodatabank) who has Mercury conjunct Antares.