The Astrology Podcast

Transcript of Episode 519, titled:

The Magi and Astrology in the Nativity Story

With Chris Brennan and Lindsey Turner

Episode originally released on January 21, 2026

Original episode URL:

https://theastrologypodcast.com/2026/01/21/the-magi-and-astrology-in-the-nativity-story/

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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com

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Transcribed by Teresa “Peri” Lardo

Transcription released February 13th, 2026

Copyright © 2026 TheAstrologyPodcast.com

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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hey. My name is Chris Brennan, and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. Joining me today is astrologer Reverend Lindsey Turner, and we’re gonna be talking about the Magi, the birth of Jesus, and the astrology surrounding the nativity story. So hey Lindsey; thanks for joining me again. 

LINDSEY TURNER: Hey Chris. It’s my pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. 

CB: Yeah. It’s been a little while since we talked last time. I think our last episode was one of the Venus retrograde news stories that we did last year, right? 

LT: It sure was, yeah, around April I think. 

CB: Yeah. Well, I think this is a good occasion to talk to you today, because today is the celebration of Epiphany or what’s known in some countries as Three Kings Day, which is actually a day when some Christians actually celebrate the Magi and the tradition surrounding them, right? 

LT: Yeah. Yeah, it is. January 6th in the tradition that I come from is when we celebrate Epiphany, and it is the kind of official end of the 12 days of Christmas and the start of a new liturgical season. And yeah, it’s a celebration of this presentation of Jesus to the world, right, as kind of like, unveiling or coming out. And the word “epiphany” comes from the Greek epiphainein, and it literally means like, “epi” is upon and “phainein” is to appear. And then the earlier roots of that could even mean like, to shine or to glitter, so I think a lot about stars and astrological tradition too in this context. Like, what appeared on the horizon that really drew these magi to this place in this story? 

CB: Yeah. And that’s been the question astrologers have been asking themselves for 2,000 years, because there is this nativity story in the gospel of Matthew, which is like, one of the four canonical gospels at the heart of the Christian tradition. And it’s this really interesting story about some astrologers that went to visit the birth of Jesus and that followed some sort of star or astrological apparition to get there. So for 2,000 years now, astrologers have been talking about that and people have been debating it, and there’s a lot of different things built up surrounding that. But it’s interesting to talk about and think about as astrologers. And then, you know, I did a whole episode on this actually called “The Star of Bethlehem” that was a really early episode of The Astrology Podcast that’s just an audio version with my friend Kenneth Miller that’s available on the podcast website. But I’ve been thinking about this topic again recently, because for some reason like a month ago, I started thinking about like, how do classical scholars approach the four canonical gospels and especially the question about like, the historical Jesus and what can be known or reconstructed based on the textual analysis of the Greek passages and things like that? And it got me into this whole thing about like, watching different videos and reading things. There was one YouTuber named Bart Ehrman that I’ve been watching a lot of videos on that sort of approaches this as a classicist, I think, of just like, who was the historical Jesus. And you released a video today where you were kind of talking a little bit about that and talking about that in the context of the Magi, I think, right? 

LT: Yeah. And you know, when I approach this, I think it’s really helpful to think in two lanes here where one is we can explore – yeah – if this is a depiction of a historical event, this nativity story, what was really happening and trying to piece that together. I think that that’s one approach. And there’s also another approach that I think is no less significant, which is to look at this story as literature. And to think about, right, to approach it as like, the authors of the gospels are writing literature; they were learned men, and they were trying to tell a story and convey a message through this literature. And so how is the story of the Magi used as a plot device to kind of like, tell us something about Jesus that maybe we wouldn’t necessarily know if we didn’t understand astrology and the context of astrology in the time of Jesus’s life. 

CB: Right. Yeah, for sure. And that’s actually, it brings up an important point, which is like, the gospels – like the gospel of Matthew, which is the only one that contains this nativity story – were written decades after Jesus the historical figure died, right? 

LT: Yeah. The idea is that they’re like, in the first century, and there are different scholars to debate exactly when, but they’re typically considered first century texts. 

CB: Okay. Right. Yeah. So it’s like, Jesus dies in like, the 30s roughly – around 30 or 33 CE – and then the gospels like Matthew and other gospels are written in like, the 70s and 80s or give or take like, a decade or two in that range. 

LT: That’s my understanding, yeah. 

CB: Okay, got it. So in that context, though, it seems like different gospel writers had different approaches or different sort of agendas in terms of some of the stories they were trying to tell or focus on. And one of the recurring ones in Matthew is that he’s often trying to link some of the stories that he’s telling about Jesus to prophecies from the Hebrew bible and from what the Christians would later call the Old Testament, I think, right? 

LT: Yeah, which is interesting in this story of the Magi because they I believe refer to the prophecy – the Hebrew prophecy – that they think this is what was prophesied and what’s coming true. And so there’s already we’re given a little bit of information that the Magi knew Hebrew like, prophetic texts somehow. So it’s like a little clue in there. 

CB: Right. Yeah. And it seems like throughout Matthew that he’s just constantly – the point of many of his narrative stories is to have or to create something that connects back to a story or a prophecy or something that’s being interpreted as a prophecy from the Hebrew bible even though sometimes it’s recontextualizing predictions that were meant for Israel or other things like that and making them as to be like, prophecies about Jesus. 

LT: Yeah. 

CB: Okay. So when it comes to the Magi, though, and the story about the nativity story with the Magi, it has this story about these magi or these wise men coming from the East to like, witness the birth of Jesus or to pay homage to him basically after he’s born. And it’s like this mysterious story about them following some sort of celestial alignment or apparition that appears at that time, right? 

LT: Yeah. Do you think it would be useful to read the passage from Matthew? 

CB: Sure, yeah. 

LT: Of like, the story? 

CB: I have — 

LT: I have it up. Oh, go ahead. 

CB: Which version do – I had like, in my original episode I had one from the Oxford Annotated Bible. 

LT: Yeah. I have the New Revised Standard version in front of me, which has some really interesting annotations and is probably the same that you have because I think the Oxford is the NRSV. 

CB: Okay. Sure, yeah. Go ahead if you wanna read it. 

LT: Sure. So this is from the gospel of Matthew, chapter two, verses one through five. 

“In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi” – which is annotated to say “or astrologers,” so magi or astrologers – “from the east came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east’” which is also annotated to say “or at its rising,” so we observed his star in the east or at its rising, “‘and have come to pay him homage.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, and calling together all of the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah” or the Christ, that’s another annotation, “was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet: 

“‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd’” or rule “‘my people Israel.’

“Then Herod secretly called” – oh sorry, this is versus six and seven. “Then Herod secretly called for the magi” or astrologers “and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’” 

CB: Right. “So that I may go” – but then it goes on. There’s a little bit more, right? 

LT: Oh, yeah. And then – sorry – then we get versus nine through 12. “When they had heard the king, they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen in the east,” or at its rising, “until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” 

CB: Right. So end scene, and that’s like, the end of the Magi story basically. Like, that’s the extent of it, because this is – Matthew is the only place in the gospels that we see any version of this story. 

LT: Yeah. Sadly, it is. We don’t get any more clues about these fellows and who they were. 

CB: Right. So part of the context is it’s interesting like, in that version, for example, there’s always this tension of how to translate the word “magi” and what the word “magi” is supposed to mean, and whether they are like, Persian priests, which I think is one interpretation of that, but it’s obvious in context that these are meant to be astrologers that are following some sort of astrological sign or omen that is telling them that somebody important has been born. 

LT: Right. And I think at this time, right, like, Babylonia and Persia no longer existed, but they had established astrological lineages. And so maybe they were like, Persian priests under Parthian control. But “magi” was specifically the name of an ancient Median tribe of priests who were Zoroastrians. And this is the root of the word “magician,” so this has like, super ancient roots in this area of the world and people who were doing, you know, ritual magic and was part of the like, religious and ritual practices of the time. 

CB: Yeah. And part of the context also is this is like, the first century; Matthew’s writing in the… Yeah, this is the first century CE or AD, and so the context of this is we’ve had four centuries ago, the concept of natal astrology emerged in ancient Mesopotamia where the first birth charts date to like, 410 BCE, and there’s this concept that the moment that you’re born, the alignment of the planets has something significant to say about your life. And then that becomes like, a really popular and explodes in popularity in the ancient world, especially during the Hellenistic era in the second and first century BCE so that like, everybody’s looking at their birth chart and especially like, kings and rulers sometimes are publishing their birth chart to gain legitimacy and to show that they’re meant to rule. And in this context, you have this story in Matthew where he’s saying like, there was this really important astrological thing that was happening, and the astrologers knew about it, and that this legitimizes that this was the birth of the Messiah, basically. 

LT: Yeah. I think so. I mean, there wasn’t a lot of space to write these stories, right? Like, the information that the authors chose to share was very intentional. And so I think it really does bare the question – why did they write about these astrologers? Like, how does it advance the plot, basically, of Jesus? Because they’re trying to tell us something about the nature of this person. And really, the gospels are trying to – the work is to like, convince the reader that this person was truly king, right? They live in this Roman imperial context where the emperor is this like, god-human figure who is oppressing and ruling over everyone, and this is a group that’s saying like, “Actually, the real king is born in poverty, is a refugee” or about to flee as a refugee. Saying all of these things about like, the true nature of god and the true nature of this god-king is actually this baby. 

So if everyone has context for like, what makes a king at this point in history, then I think that’s what the gospel writer is doing here is saying like, “You know, the astrologers were really interested in this person. So that must mean that he’s a king.”

CB: Right. And that, by calling them magi, he’s specifically saying it’s like, astrologers from the East, which was widely thought to be like, the birth place of astrology at that point because astrology was associated with people from Mesopotamia. And one of the other words for “astrologers” that was really common in this time period was “Chaldeans,” which originally was like, an ethnic group of people from Mesopotamia that came to really specialize in astrology. But by the first century became like, a generic term for all astrologers was like “Chaldeans,” even though it still had some connotations of people from the East or people from the Middle East or what have you. And I think this term “magi” is almost being used somewhat interchangeably in that context to refer to like, astrologers from the East. 

LT: Yeah. Based on my research, I’ve gathered that as well, that “magi” is kind of a catch-all term for like, you know, religious or magical or spiritual people from foreign places.

CB: Right. That makes sense. And that there was still a concept, to some extent, that astrology was like, this foreign thing even though by the first century it was quickly becoming like, Hellenized and there were Greek-speaking people practicing it, and it was becoming popular with Roman emperors who were using it and doing different things with it at different points. 

And then another thing that’s kind of important also is the mysteriousness surrounding – you mentioned the term “at its rising,” or Anatole here, which is really interesting term to use in this context because that actually shows up as a technical term in astrological texts from that time period. 

LT: That’s so cool. Yeah, I’ve seen crossover between technical words like, used in text and the New Testament Greek which is really exciting. And I think that the writers of these texts would have, you know, because they were learned and because what was written knowledge was – it was achievable to read everything that was written at that time or much of what was written at that time. And so these are learned writers who were perhaps making reference to technical astrological terms in order to convey meaning. 

CB: Right. At Kepler when I was first learning Hellenistic astrology, Demetra also taught a course on Greek. And at the time, we learned – we used a textbook on like, New Testament Greek, because it turns out if you wanna learn the type of Greek that was used by the Hellenistic astrologers like Vettius Valens who lived in the second century or Claudius Ptolemy, the closest thing you can actually get is like, New Testament Greek from the same time period or Koine Greek, because that was the common Greek. So if you learn basically the Greek of the New Testament, then you also see that they use a lot of technical terms that are also used in the Hellenistic astrological texts, which is pretty cool. 

LT: It’s really cool. Gosh, I feel like we could have a whole other conversation just on the like, crossover of terms and terminology and the sort of ideas that they convey in the theological sense. Really interesting stuff, but yeah, the worlds were mixed. And I think it’s so important to name that. I think we have this idea that there has always been this severance between the Christian tradition and Christendom and like, astrology. But the worlds were mixed at the time of Jesus’s birth. So it’s natural that the writers would have been drawing upon these ideas when they were telling this story. 

CB: Right. For sure. And the term that’s used here for rising – Anatole in Greek – it’s often translated as “East.” But as a technical term in Hellenistic astrology, it can mean either “rising over the eastern horizon,” which is like, the Ascendant or the rising sign, or secondarily and sometimes more commonly it can mean making a heliacal rising, which is when a planet emerges from under the beams of the Sun and makes a sudden appearance that like, speaks. So those are two of the like, possibilities, just in terms of drawing on the actual technical astrological tradition of what that term could be signifying in some way. 

LT: Yeah. That’s so cool. And I’m wondering – and not to put you on the spot, but I haven’t looked closely at this, but when they saw that the star had “stopped,” right, I’m kind of wondering if it – that is like, an idea of culmination like on the Midheaven or some idea. Because if you imagine this journey that they’re taking, right, like, they’re seeing something that’s risen in the east; they’re walking toward it, and then of course, like, that is going to rise and then culminate on the Midheaven at some point, which has its own entire set of meaning. And so yeah, I’ve wondered about that little passage there too, I think in, yeah, verses nine and 10. 

CB: Yeah. I mean, for me, this started to make more sense a couple of years ago when I got super into research on comets and ancient cometary theory and especially like, how comets were treated in the ancient world, especially around this time period. And one of the things I kind of realized or I kind of – one of the conclusions I came to at the time was I think that this was partially probably meant to convey the idea that it was something like a comet. Because only a comet could kind of like, move around in that way and maybe like, point in a certain area based on its tail. And I was researching this, because at the time, there were some ideas associated with comets. Like, for example, a comet appeared at the death of Caesar early on or a death of like, a famous Roman who basically changed the Roman empire from a republic to like, a dictatorship or quasi-dictatorship to an empire. So there was already this association similar to eclipses with sometimes like, comets happening at the death of important people. But there was also an instance of a comet coinciding with the birth of an important person. And while comets were often interpreted negatively as like, harbingers of doom and of plagues and other things like that, they were also occasionally interpreted positively based on certain conditions. Like, for example, if the comet was connected with the planet Jupiter, there could be positive interpretations of it in texts like Hephaistio of Thebes, or there’s an Egyptian priest from the first century named Caraman who also said that comets could sometimes be associated with positive things. 

LT: Oh cool. Yeah, I didn’t know any of that. I don’t know much about comets and the astrological history, but yeah, it’s super interesting to think about. Like, what could this have been, this phenomenon? 

CB: Yeah. And astrologers have had different speculations, because it’s been like, 2,000 years of astrologers speculating about this, especially in the western context because many of them were Christian. So there was an assumption of like, one, that this is a story that actually happened, and two, that this was the birth of either god functionally or at least a very important person – spiritual or religious leader – at this time. And so you’ve got astrologers like, sometimes saying if it was somebody that important being born, then it must have been a major planetary alignment. So like, Johannes Kepler thought it was a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction that happened in the sign of Pisces, for example. Or Jerome Cardan thought it was a comet. So there were some that thought that it was a comet. 

There’s other that thought that it was like, in recent times, people often point to this stellium of planets in Pisces that happened around seven BC, for example. Or other people thought that it was like, a supernova or an aspect pattern or more recently one scholar thought it was like, a Moon-Jupiter occultation. Another scholar thought it was the heliacal rising of Venus, and that’s why it was talking about a planet making its appearance. Basically, interpretations have been all over the place, but a lot of it depends on the astrologers are making certain assumptions going into it about, you know, what it could have been or what it was signifying and other things like that. 

LT: Yeah. I think the occultation is a really interesting theory, because in the text, it does seem that Herod is surprised, or like, caught off guard by what’s happening. And I think some folks are working with the assumption that like, he would have had astrologers on his court who were, you know, or on his team who were aware of what was happening in the sky and kind of keeping their eye on this, so. Yeah, that introduces a question, I think, that’s really interesting to consider is like, was it something that everyone could see? Was it something that was like, plain for all to see, or was it – did you have to have special astrological knowledge in order to kind of see or know what was going on? 

CB: Right. Yeah. Well, and also just is it plausible in the sense of is there any astronomical thing that could have geolocated that it’s at this specific location right here? And that’s where it gets a little dicey, because a lot of the things on the different astrologers’ lists are listing off things that, as astrologers today, we could have said, “Yeah, that could have indicated an important turning point,” like the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, for example, could have indicated somebody really important being born, or like, the birth of a new religion let’s say as Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions came to be associated with in the medieval tradition. Or yeah, if there was a huge stellium of planets, like, that could have been significant. Like, for example, in March of 2020 when the covid lockdowns happened, there was a whole stellium of planets that came together in Capricorn at that time that indicated something important was happening. Or more recently, eclipses, for example. We’ve seen a bunch of eclipses coinciding with either the death of really famous people or sometimes the birth of very important individuals or important things happening and the rise and fall of different people. So it’s like, there’s all sorts of things like that that could address the question of, yes, as astrologers we think that when somebody important is born, there could be a significant astrological alignment of some sort. But it’s sort of a separate question of like, can you actually use that to geolocate the location of the birth of somebody on earth at a specific point in time? And that’s where it gets a little bit more of like, almost coming off as like a literary device for me to some extent. 

LT: Yeah, I think so, when you really start to pick it apart as with a lot of things, right, it kind of – some of it falls apart. And you know, another good example of this, which I think is important to the conversation is that there is something like an eclipse that happens during the crucifixion when Jesus dies. And that happens in all three of the Synoptic Gospels. And you know, but people are like, “Well, it couldn’t have been an eclipse because it was Passover and the Moon phase wouldn’t have been right for a solar eclipse.” And then you’re like, “Right. Yes. True.” But if they are trying to convey that this person was a king, and everyone at that time associated solar eclipses with the death of kings, then yeah. It’s a great plot device, even if it wouldn’t have been historically accurate.”

CB: Yeah. I mean, it’s absolutely described as an eclipse in at least one of the gospels, they basically I think say explicitly at one point that Jesus died under an eclipse and that it made everything dark that day for like, an extended period of time. And that’s like, a really common idea in the ancient world going back a thousand, maybe even 2,000 years at that point. Because in one of the recent episodes I pointed out on Mesopotamian astrology, one of the things we learned from that was that eclipses may have been one of the first things that really started to get people’s attention in the ancient world and start making them write down astrological omens when something important would happen in the sky, and then when an event would happen on earth. And there’s one scholar who argued that there was a succession of three kings who all died at the time of eclipses around let’s say 2,000 BCE, and that this might have been the thing that made them start actually recording these omens on clay tablets and then building up a whole astrological tradition. And while that sounds like, fantastical, ironically just in the past century, there were like, three kings in the UK that died in succession all around the time of eclipses. So it’s like, it still happens to this day. 

LT: Yeah. Yeah, and there’s a moment – I would have to check which gospel it’s in, but one of the Roman guards, like the sky turns dark, and one of the centurions is like, “Oh shit!” Like, “I guess it was true!” You know, like, they’re like, “Oh my gosh!” Like, and that line doesn’t really make sense if you’re not thinking about the context of the meaning of the sky turning dark and what that might symbolize to people at this time. So yeah. It’s fascinating. And I was wondering when you’re ready if we can go back to something you said about the birth of god, because I had this like, little thing that I wanted to share with you around that. 

CB: Sure. But to wrap up the eclipse thing, you know, it’s important – one of the points you mentioned is just even though it was said that an eclipse happened at the crucifixion, there’s an inconsistency with the story because it was also like, supposed to be astronomically impossible based on the fact that it was supposed to have happened near Passover. And what was the deal with that? Because Passover is tied into — 

LT: The Full Moon.

CB: — the Full Moon? 

LT: Yeah. So a solar eclipse would happen under the New Moon, but yeah, that wouldn’t have – the timing would have been wrong for a solar eclipse. 

CB: Okay, got it. So it’s like, that’s one of the things where there’s sometimes like, inconsistencies that are probably important and are telling us something at different points. But nonetheless, it’s interesting from at the very least a narrative standpoint that one of the gospel writers, Matthew, is saying that there was this major astrological event of some sort and there were actually astrologers attending the birth of Jesus. And then we have other ones that are also saying that there was this significant astrological event that happened at the death of Jesus as well, of an eclipse of some sort. And so part of the point that I always draw from this is that first century Christians, some of them, at least – Matthew certainly – are using astrology to legitimize the birth of Jesus and to legitimize the idea and their belief that he was the messiah. And even though this changed later, because in subsequent centuries, Christianity became more hostile against astrology due to the issue of fate and free will, and so a lot of later Christian writers had to try to like, explain away some of these stories about the Magi and everything else and to try to downplay it. But at least in terms of some of the first century authors, it seems clear that astrology is integral to the attempts to legitimize that this was something important that happened and that Jesus was an important person. 

LT: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s funny, the divorcing and the history of severance between the church and astrology. It’s funny to think about, because even when we look at Epiphany traditions in the current church, like, current liberal church traditions – a lot of them will, you know, like, chalk over the doors during Epiphany to bring in good fortune and will also do a form of divination called Star Words, where they will draw words from a hat for like, the year. And so yeah, there’s this attempt to kind of distance the tradition from divination and astrology, and yet, these things still kind of like, you know, have made their way out anyway. And so it is really nice to just name, like, yeah, this is all connected! 

CB: Right. Or even like, in one of the gospels, they do lot divination at one point, I think, to determine which apostle’s gonna replace the other. What was that story again? 

LT: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think to replace Judas, yeah, they cast lots. I think in Acts? The Book of Acts, yeah. So — 

CB: Okay, yeah. And they cast lots and then allow basically like, the idea that the divine will choose the outcome for us, and that will be the correct outcome based on the divination. So it’s like, there’s these instances of divination and stuff happening in the Bible, but then yeah, in subsequent centuries, because there became this animosity against especially the established Chrsitan church against astrology, there were even attempts to like, reinterpret the Magi story. So some of the later Christian authors attempted to say that because the astrologers decided to take a different route and go a different direction at the end of the story that meant that they gave up astrology and they gave up their belief in astrology and it was symbolizing that. And I was just, it’s like, obvious to me that’s always been a clear example of just later Christians attempting to cope and attempting to downplay the fact that you have this astrological narrative very prominently in one of the most important gospels and to like, explain that away somehow when it’s clear that that’s not really narratively in the story what that means. It was just the astrologers avoiding going back to Herod because it became clear he was up to no good. 

LT: Right. Yeah. I think there is this idea, and even in the Greek, right, like, the term “repentence” means to turn around literally – to like, turn oneself in 180 degree direction. And so that might be where that correlation comes from of like, oh, they turned around and they went another way home and so they repented of being astrologers. But I think in the story, it’s much more likely that we have a murderous king who is very insecure and very frightened and threatened by this prophecy and this child that he goes to the point where, you know, he’s killing all of the babies in the area. Yeah, I think they’re like, “We’re gonna avoid this guy. We’re gonna jet!” 

CB: Yeah. Well, and the reason why that was important at the end is because in the first part of the story, they are accidentally unwittingly about to be the ones that lead Herod to Jesus, and he’s telling them to let him know when they find Jesus and when they geolocate them with their advanced astrology techniques. But then once they find Jesus, there’s like, a dream about what is it? It stopped over the place; they gave him the gifts. “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” So instead of being like, unwitting accomplices to Herod murdering Jesus, they decide to go another route to protect him, basically, is the point of them going a different route. 

LT: To protect him, or I mean, maybe a more skeptical read is to protect themselves. But it could be both. 

CB: Sure. Yeah. I mean, they did offer him the gifts which themselves – like, the gold and frankincense and myrrh have symbolic significance, but then also gold and frankincense is mentioned in one of the passages in the Hebrew bible, and so that’s one of the narrative things that Matthew is doing there is he’s connecting something from what for him became the Old Testament with the new messiah. 

LT: Yeah, that kind of like, intralinear signaling to the Hebrew texts. Yeah. 

CB: Yeah. So what was the thing you said you wanted to circle around to again? 

LT: Oh yeah, okay. So I thought this was very interesting, and I’m excited to share this with you and see what you think. But I don’t know – are you familiar with this book, Star Myths? 

CB: Who is that by again? Yeah. 

LT: Theony Condos.

CB: Yeah, I think so. 

LT: So these are basically translations of two classical texts – the Catasterismi of Pseudo-Eratosthenes, which is a first or second century CE text, and then also another book, but I’m not gonna read that part, so just the Catasterismi, which is the constellations. And I was reading about Cancer, and this is what it says. 

“The crab, Cancer, is thought to have been placed among the stars by Hera, because when all the other animals favored Heracles in his struggle against the Hydra, the crab jumped out of the lake and bit him on the foot as Panyassis recounts in his Heraclea. Angered, Heracles allegedly crushed the crab with his foot. For this reason, the crab received great honor, being numbered among the 12 signs of the zodiac. Some of the stars in this constellation are called the asses – assini. These were placed among the stars by Dionysus. Their distinguishing sign is the Manger – Praesepe. And their story is the following: 

‘When the gods were attacking the giants, it is said that Dionysus, Hephaestus, and the satyrs rode to battle on asses. As they approached the giants who were not yet visible, the asses brayed and the giants, hearing the noise, fled. For this reason, the asses were honored, being placed on the western side of the crab.

“The crab has two bright stars on its shell; these are the asses. The nebula visible within the crab is the so-called ‘Manger,’ beside which the asses are standing.”

So when I was reading this, I was like, this is kind of blowing my mind, because we’re talking about a manger as being this image in like, a nebula in the constellation Cancer. And so I was thinking that there may be – I wonder if there’s a symbolic layer here for those who are in the know of the Thema Mundi and this indication of the birth chart of god, right. If we’re like, talking about the nativity of god, that the birth chart of god has Cancer rising. And so maybe it’s a stretch, but thinking of a manger in the east would indicate Cancer rising and the birth of god. And so just throwing that out there as, I don’t know, just something fun.

CB: Right. Yeah. I like that. That’s really interesting, because yeah, the Thema Mundi for the Hellenistic astrologers did play such a big role, and we do have that mysterious reference in Antiochus where he says that some astrologers treat it as the nativity of god itself, because in a Stoic and Hermetic context, the entire – and a Platonic context – the entire cosmos was viewed as a living, sentient, divine being, and that it had a birth chart just like each of us does. So that would be super cool if, like, in a Christian context, that was partially being drawn on or like, reinterpreted somehow in that way. 

LT: Yeah. I mean, it certainly seems beyond accident that we are hearing about a manger and donkeys in this nativity scene, and that it was also considered part of this Cancer story and constellation. But yeah, I don’t know, it may be also a Thema Mundi kind of reference, like, just tucked in here. 

CB: Right. Yeah. For sure. 

So yeah, so that brings up… I’m trying to think of what that brings up or where to go from there. What points have we not touched on related to this? 

I mean, one of the issues is like, astrologers have tried to figure this out for hundreds of years, like, what is the birth chart of Jesus? But there’s no information, basically, in the Bible that actually tells you what part of the year he was born in. And later Christians came to celebrate December 25th with his birthday, which is basically the winter solstice, but there’s no indication that that was actually his birthday, right? 

LT: Yeah. I think it’s – go ahead. 

CB: I don’t know if that’s – unless – I don’t know if you —

LT: No. There’s no indication that that – I mean, I think that some folks have conjectured that he was likely born in the spring, but I would have to do some research and just see exactly what people said about that. But I don’t think, yeah, like, December 25th – there’s certainly not any biblical record of a birth date. But yeah. I mean, I think it’s tough to try to reconcile the story with the facts, and I don’t know; my personal take is that it doesn’t – just because something isn’t like, factual doesn’t mean it isn’t true, and that it doesn’t have, like, it’s myth! And myth doesn’t mean, like, not factual. Myth is story and it’s larger than life and it has elements of magic. And so I think, yeah, trying to pin this story down into factual reality kind of makes it work less. I don’t know. For me, personally. I don’t think it’s an unworthy pursuit, but I think thinking of it from this other point of view as literature is really interesting and something that… You know, writers at this time and cultures at this time were borrowing and reworking all the stories and the myths that came from the cultures that preceded them and the cultures that they’re being born out of. And I have a bit of a theory that I’m sure I share with others that a lot of the Jesus story is like, reinterpretations of some of the mythos, you know, coming out of the Greek and Roman culture kind of surrounding this place and being reworked and reinterpreted for a new audience that needed new meaning from those stories. And so if this is like, a cool take on the Thema Mundi or a cool take on astrology or a cool take on what does it mean to have a virgin birth, right? Like, there’s a whole Greek history of virgin birth and what does that mean, what does that suggest about a person if they’re born from immaculate conception. Yeah, there’s so much to think about from that approach, and I think pulling astrology in is just a really interesting thing to do or like, fun, playful thing to do. 

CB: Yeah. For sure. And you know, as astrologers, I guess it’s something that it’s one of everyone’s first questions sometimes when you learn about astrology is I think sometimes, especially if you grew up in a Christian context, it only makes sense to inquire about that and think like, what was the star of Bethlehem? Or like, what, you know, can you find out the birth chart of Jesus? Because we do have the concept of rectification, for example, in modern times as something we all sometimes have to engage in with clients if the birth time isn’t known. And then you go through this process of like, reverse engineering the chart. So sometimes people want to try to do that to historical figures, and obviously one of the most important singular people in the history of the world is this Jesus fellow.

LT: Yeah. Yeah! And yeah, like I said, I don’t think that’s an unworthy pursuit, but it might be like, not fruitful. And so and I think that there is this kind of, I don’t know, I sense this allergy that Christians often have where they want the story to be totally unique and just like, to not come from something else. To not have the “pagan roots.” But that sanitizes it, and I think it removes so much of the context. And so if we think of Christendom and the Jesus story as coming out of a rich tradition that included a lot of astrology and a lot of like, mythology particular to the constellations, to the planets, to the zodiac – it actually really, to me, fleshes it out and gives it even more meaning. And so I think that’s, you know, what I hope to invite people into is to not insist on this strategy that this is like, a clean, unique story, because everyone at this time was adapting myths to make their own meaning. And this first century group of Christians were trying to reimagine what god looked like under oppression. You know? They didn’t feel free. And they needed to reimagine some of these stories so that they felt free and empowered and had a different ethic to operate under than what was the status quo. 

And so I think it’s really neat to imagine them kind of reimagining what they were given for a different context. 

CB: Right. Yeah. And to yeah, how they were conceptualizing some of those things and how even – I mean, one of the things that’s interesting to me is how even some of the gospel writers are conceptualizing things or having their own unique stories about Jesus’s life and teachings and how even some of their views were different than, you know, let’s say some of the views of people like, a few centuries later or what have you. And sometimes it’s really helpful to read each gospel on its own and understand what the author is trying to say without trying to integrate too much from later theological doctrines or other things like that, if that makes sense. 

LT: Yeah, totally. I mean, so much of the church fathers who were writing on this were writing much later and interpreting things in the context of a Christianity that had been codified as the state religion by Rome. And so there was a very, very different power dynamic than these – I mean, before the Bible was a thing, right, these were just texts that were differentiated from one another and weren’t – you couldn’t just like, pick up one book and read all of them. And you know, I think in my own study, one of the texts that I have developed some expertise on that’s not in the Bible – it’s an extracanonical text, but dated from the first century – is called the Acts of Paul and Thecla. I did my master’s thesis on this text. And it’s a story about a virgin who has a very special relationship with a lioness. And you know, it was like, one of my epiphanies was realizing that I think that this is a Christian Leo-Virgo story, because there are many myths around this time, stories of lions either carrying virgins or leading virgins around, and this happens in this story of a Christian martyr. And yeah, so there’s a lot happening in first century Christianity that got mowed over by the Council of Nicea and kind of said like, “We’re not gonna treat this” – even though it was a very popular first century text concurrent with the gospels, this story about Thecla – they’re like, “No, it’s a story about a woman who baptizes herself. We’re not gonna include that in the canon!” And so yeah, there is – I’m excited – you told me that you’re like, learning more and more about the context of Christianity in the first century, and it’s wild and it’s very different than what the history books kind of share about the fourth century and beyond. 

CB: Yeah. Well, and it’s – with the December 25th thing, it was only in the fourth century that the church officially established that Jesus was born December 25th and like, picked that as the date. So it’s interesting that some of those things that are so much taken for granted now happened later. That’s like, three centuries after Jesus lived, for example, once Christianity is becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire. And the text you’re bringing up, is that like, one of the gnostic texts? Or like, where does that text fall in terms of its — 

LT: Yeah. 

CB: — outside of what was chosen to be like – because that was the other part of this is that over the next century or two, there were all these debates about what text should make up the official Bible, and some were chosen to stay in it versus others were excluded for different reasons. 

LT: Yeah. So this was a text found in the Nag Hammadi, but there was evidence that this text was very, very popular and kind of widely renowned. And Thecla was canonized as a saint in the Catholic tradition; she was like, decanonized I think somewhere in like, mid-20th century. But yeah, this was a text that I was introduced to in seminary by one of my advisors, Hal Taussig, and he put together a collection of – he calls them extracanonical texts called The New New Testament for folks who are interested. And it includes a bunch of texts that we believe were as popular, like, as circulated, and concurrent to the gospels. And so he kind of fleshes out like, if we were to reimagine the texts that like, the New Testament would include, you know, they brought in an extra, I think, like, maybe 10 or 12 texts to add to it. So that’s really cool. And one of my goals is to read through those and to see if I can find other kind of astrological motifs in them. 

CB: Yeah. I know there’s one gnostic group I’ve meant to try to interview somebody that has specializes in this, because I know there’s a lot of scholars I’ve read that specialize in different gnostic traditions. But there was one gnostic group that seemed like they integrated astrology as part of their theology in some sort of significant way – one gnostic Christian group. And it’s interesting that some of that stuff kind of got filtered out for different reasons over the course of the next few centuries. But also just the idea that like, that the Bible itself – that the New Testament – isn’t like, this singular thing, but it’s a collection of texts that were written by different people at different time periods that sometimes had different views and sometimes slightly different like, theological stances. And even though as readers and as, like, a 2,000 year tradition of Christian societies kind of reconciling or smoothing out some of those differences, that sometimes when you read them on their own terms they’re saying different things. And that becomes really clear when you start reading some of the gnostic texts that didn’t make it in that have sometimes like, wildly different theological views. 

LT: Yeah. Very different theological views, but also, you know, these were also political choices, what got included in the Bible. I think there are, you know, people who are more conservative theological scholars than I am who would fight me on this, but you know, just to put it in context, right, they were making this the Roman imperial religion. Power is involved! And so you know, a lot of the stories that were left out are stories that center women’s experiences; they’re stories that center empowered faith experiences, right? Like, experiencing God in a firsthand way, or baptizing oneself, or yeah. And those were excluded. And when you read what was left out, it becomes very clear. There’s kind of a very clear – to me – delineation between what was able to kind of help prop up the Roman state, and what would have been more difficult to kind of justify as being included in the canon.

CB: Okay. Yeah, for sure. I mean, even – I thought it was interesting like, the role of Mary Magdalene in some of the early gospels and what an interesting figure that she sort of plays. One of the references I saw that perked up my ears that I was curious about was saying that Jesus did like, an exorcism on her to remove seven daimons or seven demons. And it kind of made me wonder about that seven, just because the number seven is often associated with the seven planets in the ancient world, in ancient astrology, and if there wasn’t some sort of like, implication there in terms of maybe a connection. I mean, maybe not, but who knows sometimes when you have little references like that to numerological things.

LT: Yeah. Yeah. Or I think like, Paul references maybe the seven gates or something at some point. And that’s in the canon. Yeah. I think it’s totally plausible that these would be maybe references that people at the time would have been like, “I get that.” 

CB: Right. 

LT: You know? “I like, get what they’re talking about,” and we’re kind of like, “Huh?” 

CB: Yeah. Well, it’s kind of like, you know, if you watch one of the Marvel movies right now, like The Avengers when it’s like, all of them coming together in one movie, there’ll be a bunch of references and callbacks to the earlier movies, which all the people that have watched all the movies get. But if you haven’t watched all of the Marvel movies up to that point, it just flies over your head. And I feel like so much of when you read the Bible and you see Bible scholars that know a lot of the background at this point can start cross-referencing like, when they’re referring implicitly to earlier things, there’s so much that flies over a modern reader’s head that you don’t realize if you don’t have that full context of what a person in the ancient world knew and what they had read up to that point. 

LT: Yeah. Exactly. And people who could read, you know, had read a lot. It wasn’t just like, everyone could read, right? So everyone was kind of in the know, you know, if you were reading and writing, then you were very, very well-educated at this time, so. Yeah. 

CB: Yeah. But like, Mary was the one that – Mary Magdalene was the one that supposedly like, went to the tomb and found the tomb empty. And that was one of the things I was learning about that I found fascinating recently is like, technically she’s the first one then that starts what would become in some ways the Christian religion and belief, which is the idea that Jesus rose after death. She would have been the first person, according to the Synoptic Gospels, to have that experience or to report that she had. 

LT: Yeah, the first preacher. 

CB: Okay. 

LT: Yeah. Sharing the gospel, the good news, right? That the resurrection that happened.

CB: Right. But then it’s like, there was another one after that of one of the core people who then said he also had a vision of Jesus being alive and then from that point, it becomes a core thing, and that’s what everyone is reporting or is saying that they experienced. But it’s interesting from just trying to put a historical timeline together that Mary’s the first one. 

LT: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s again, like, different accounts from different gospels, different writers, different times, different perspectives, different theologies, and yeah. When we really try to pin it out, I think it can kind of fall apart. So yeah. I think people who kind of err more toward a literal take of the Bible will be like, more preoccupied with those details or a more, yeah, like, this is a historical account. It’s just not really my personal disposition to look at it that way, but to treat it as literature and as stories that, yeah, are trying to tell us something about someone. 

CB: Right. So as a Christian today, your primary interest is the underlying message that the gospels or that Jesus’s teachings had? 

LT: Yeah. I mean, I would say I’m like, have more of an ethical approach to Christianity and a mythological approach and a sort of like, pluralist approach to Christianity in like, really looking at the heart of the matter. And as an astrologer, I really hope to empower people to understand the story better in the context of astrology and to also to help people reconnect with the sky, because astrology has been so vilified and demonized by the church and many Christian thinkers and leaders. To really unpack some of that history and to help people feel more comfortable to have a relationship with what I view as creation, right? And this is our inheritance – the sky just like the earth is our inheritance. And to be able to commune and communicate with the sky and with the divine is good and holy and right, I think. And so, yeah, that’s sort of my position as a Christian or what feels like my good news to share is this like, knitting together this torn tapestry of Christianity and astrology and that they are really quite intertwined, and that astrology isn’t evil or Satanic or bad. 

CB: Yeah. It always struck me that – to the extent that astrologers are just observing a natural phenomenon, which is that the planets and their movements and their alignments in the sky are coinciding with and correlating with events on earth – to the extent that that’s true, like, if you believe that god created the universe and the solar system on some level, however the details of that worked out, then it seems weird to attribute that to negative forces somehow if it’s something that’s genuinely arising from nature and from creation. And to me, that always at a core level makes it seem like there shouldn’t be a conflict between astrology and Christianity fundamentally. 

LT: Yeah, I don’t think that there is. And even when you consult the Bible on this topic, right, I think the very first chapter of Genesis – I mean, the Bible as we know it today – opens with the reason that the lights were created, or one of the reasons, is for signs. And so you know, it’s telling us, like, the sky is for messages. And it’s your birthright, it’s your inheritance to consult the sky for signs and messages. 

Yeah, and I think the other major argument, the kind of fate and free will also really falls apart because I know astrologers who run the full gamut of, you know, their philosophies of fate and free will. And then also Christians, right, who – we have very, very fatalist Christian movements, like Calvinism where we get like, predestination and things like that where you can’t change your fate. So yeah, I think that argument kind of falls apart too. But we can really trace back to the formation of the state religion, right, as when it gets like, pretty angsty and aggressive towards astrologers and astrology. And that, you know, the church becomes pretty vehemently and vocally opposed to these practices. But I think, again, it was about power, and it was about having the sole spiritual power and authority to help control people. 

CB: Yeah. And one of the issues was that astrologers were running around making predictions about the emperor at the time, which was a big no-no. And the emperor would keep, you know, trying to outlaw and make not okay, so that is one of the areas where astrologers did have a major tension from the beginning of the Roman Empire or the imperial period all the way through the later parts of it where they were eventually more successful in trying to stamp astrology out. But it was that tension between astrologers making predictions about the future and sometimes the people in power don’t like it when you make predictions about them. 

LT: Yeah, it’s a threat to power when you, you know, say that someone in charge is going to pass. Yeah, that’s a threat to power. 

CB: Yeah. And then the core theological issue became about fate, and the tendency for a lot of the astrologers of that time period when we’re coming out of a period when Stoicism was like, super popular in the ancient world just as a philosophy in general, and Stoicism at its core believed that everything was predetermined according to fate and according to providence. And astrologers who were influenced by that also had a much more deterministic view about astrology and about fate and that the purpose of astrology was to learn your fate so that you knew what you had to accept about the future. But then with Christians over, you know, after that first century period when Matthew was using astrology to justify the new religion functionally – after that point, there became the core theological thing where it seemed like a lot of Christian thinkers thought that the notion of free will was really important, and that we had to be able to choose salvation and choose whether or not to be saved, or that somehow that’s like, a core Christian theological doctrine, right? 

LT: Yeah. And it may have even more kind of like, oscillations than even that, because that is really a theological debate about salvation and the afterlife. But I think the early Christians in the first century were also really concerned about social location and that to – there was this idea that, you know, if you were a slave, you were a slave. If you were whatever you were, whatever – that was your identity; that was your lot in life, and you had to accept it and live it out. And I think that there was an element of social rebellion in the early Christian movement, and you see this like, in the letter to the Galatians, right, where in Christ you are neither slave nor free, male nor female, really kind of trying to throw off the shackles of oppressive identity binaries and say like, “No, you have will. You can find your identity in something beyond what has been placed on you as your fate in this life.” So I think maybe that may have morphed over time into more of like, a crystalogical afterlife salvific kind of mode. But you know, I think at first, yeah, there might have even been some resistance to astrology in the early Christian movements just purely based on social location. 

CB: That makes sense. Yeah. And I’ve talked about this; I did a previous episode on astrology and Christianity with Nate Craddock, and I talked about, like, one of my realizations at a certain point was that, you know, the early Hellenistic astrology was so Stoic and so fate-oriented and everybody agreed that the purpose was to learn your fate so that you knew what you had to accept, that there was this real reaction to that by the time you get to the first and second century CE where there were different philosophical and religious groups who started offering a way out of that. And that if you had a way out of the notion that your fate is completely predetermined, it would have seemed pretty appealing, basically, and that I think this probably was one of the early selling points of Christianity is that some of the Christians believed that once you were baptized, that it freed you from your fate and from your birth chart and meant that you were no longer tied to that. And if that’s true to any extent, I think we can have an access point for suddenly really realizing like, one of the core things that would have made Christianity appealing, although it was just one group that was offering that and there were a number of other groups that had similar things, including like, magical traditions where in some of the magical texts, there’s like, a person who is trying to do a spell to free them from their fate that was indicated by the birth chart, for example, so that there were other spiritual and philosophy groups offering similar things. But Christianity was the one that really took off in the Roman Empire. 

LT: Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. There was some hefty domination in that culture, and I think that there is a natural human inclination to pursue autonomy and agency and freedom and that you use your resources to figure out how to do that. And in some contexts, it really does come through faith and philosophy, right? Like, if you can’t physically escape your condition, then at least you can make meaning of it and claim your own freedom and agency. And so, you know, even when I talk to – because I’ve had some conversations with Christians, you know, recently who don’t even necessarily think that astrology is like, bad or demonic, but would rather place their sense of identity – they understand astrology as being something that is reflective of our identities, and so they’re trying to place their identity in Jesus and in Christ. And you know, I’m not gonna – I’m not interested in pressuring anyone into anything. But it is a really interesting… Yeah, kind of like, resistance to the practice. And I do understand, and I think for those of us who know that it can be used for so much more than kind of finding our sense of identity, then it’s available to us to practice. 

CB: Yeah. Well, and it’s interesting that so much of the public context is just thinking about astrology as like, character analysis in like, a cosmic version of the Myers-Briggs test or something like that. But for astrologers, there’s this whole other side about the predictive element or the timing element, or using it to study – to understand – different chapters of your life or different eras and phases and different things like that. And I think there’s an element there where some of the notions about like, providence in Christianity I think are amicable to what astrology represents. Because I think, to me, nothing would be more interesting to – I would think – a believing Christian than if there was something that could demonstrate that the concept of providence exists, or that there is some sort of like, divine plan or purpose or meaning underlying things that could be demonstrated. And to me, that’s always been one of the most compelling things about astrology from let’s say a religious or philosophical standpoint is the demonstration through astrology that there’s some sort of underlying story or narrative to each of our lives. 

LT: Yeah. That we have purpose and yeah, and that we have meaning. And I think even too astrology gives us a direct connection to the divine, right? Like, we are able to study and interpret the signs and be informed by the tradition and learn and be connected to a lineage. And I think that that’s a really powerful – and a threat to power is I think one of the reasons that people were dissuaded or warned against using astrology was because it was like, too much power and too much responsibility for lay people to have. To have, like, a direct line to the divine, to have a direct line to their own purpose and their own story and ways to pursue their own meaning. And so that’s, you know, it’s taking that away from people allows them to be controlled by others. So I also think of astrology as really a way, yes, to understand providence and to also understand like, to be empowered in our own stories and in our own connection with God. 

CB: Right. That makes sense. Yeah, and to take your fate into your own hands in some sense rather than – and to be able to have a dialogue about that or to see the way your story interconnects with other people’s stories or the world’s story in a way that you can do that directly without having to have some sort of like, intermediary in order to understand things. 

LT: Exactly. Yeah. It removes the need for an intermediary, I think, which it is powerful. And on a really simple, you know, simple practice that I have too is that astrology I think helps me to embody the principles of my faith more, because I can see ahead when I’m like, gonna have a day that looks like, really hard or cranky or whatnot, and to kind of intentionally cultivate and practice patience or kindness or compassion for people. And so yeah, that’s another element of it for me. 

CB: Absolutely. I love that. That’s really great. And yeah, to focus on those ethical things of like, Christianity as an ethical practice and as a way of approaching life with those positive moral qualities that you’d like to cultivate more in yourself, even though they don’t always come easily, especially if something really difficult or hard comes up. 

LT: Exactly. Yeah. So that’s also one way that I’ve talked to a lot of people about utilizing astrology is to use it to help you live even more deeply into your own values. 

CB: Got it. Okay. That makes sense. 

All right, so I’m trying to think, going back to… Because I mean, that kind of addresses – because that was one of the open questions I had recently was like, is there a place for astrology in a modern Christian context, and can astrology be reconciled with contemporary Christianity? And it seems like the answer is yes, and also that it has been already at different points in the future because there’s been many famous Christian astrologers in the past who had made major contributions to society. Like, you know, William Lilly who wrote the first English language textbook on astrology, or Johannes Kepler, or Theophilus of Edessa in the 7th or 8th century or other major figures like that. 

LT: Yeah. Absolutely. Another way that I think astrology can support Christian faith is that if you look at the liturgical seasons in the Christian calendar, they map on quite nicely to the seasons of the zodiac. For instance, Lent and Advent both happen during Jupiterian seasons, so during Pisces and Sagittarius season we have Lent and Advent. They are both seasons of making meaning, going deeper, kind of quietening the spirit, cultivating hope, cultivating patience. And so it is, yeah, it just kind of works. The overlay is really interesting. So that’s some of the work that I’m doing and have done and will be writing about hopefully very soon. 

CB: Nice. Yeah. I love that when different seasons or celebrations kind of align with some of the astrological things like that. Like it always is funny to me how like, Halloween coincides with Scorpio season, for example. But seeing that in other traditions and how that’s worked out is really fascinating. 

LT: Yeah. The qualities emerge. Like, the qualities of time just seem to emerge in so many different calendars and really like, overlap and overlay. But I think that there are also probably some more definite connections to the zodiac and the liturgical season or more obvious or literal than even just, like, oh, it’s an accident that these things line up, but I think that by virtue of the Roman Catholic church coming out of a Hellenistic and Roman cultural tradition that you just get, you know, Saturnalia turns into Christmas, things like that. 

CB: Got it. Okay. Right, Saturnalia, so that was the previous Roman tradition that was practiced around the winter solstice that then the Christmas celebrations kind of like, morphed into or became? 

LT: Right. And then I think even a couple centuries into the Common Era, you get the Sol Invictus, which was given December 25th, which is like, the day of the unconquerable Sun, and so it’s kind of like, the solar comeback from the darkness. And then, of course, that was given to Christmas. So there are some very strong liturgical ties to kind of the pre-Roman Catholic church and what we have now as the Christian liturgy. 

CB: Nice. Got it. I think that’s really fascinating, like, seeing some of the genuine connections like that that exist to ways in which astrological or astronomical and earlier traditions do tie into and influence the later Christian tradition versus – like, sometimes there’s like, people in modern times that try to reach or stretch too far to connect different astrological things to the Christian tradition and say that there’s like, a one-to-one correspondence. Like, I remember like, what was that movie that was really popular like, 10 or 20 years ago — 

LT: I know what you’re talking about, but I can’t remember the name of it. 

CB: It’s like, it was like in three parts. And the whole —

LT: Yeah. 

CB: — first part is trying to argue that all of Christianity was just derived from astronomical correspondences having to do with like, procession and stuff like that, but it was pretty out there and just like — 

LT: Yeah. 

CB: There’s a lot of reaches sometimes that go on to try to make things seem like there’s more connections than there are, which is one of the tricky things when it comes to these discussions. 

LT: Totally. I think it’s really important to be really clear on what you’re conjecturing and what you can kind of trace back. But even then, right, like, we don’t have any primary sources that are like, “And then we turned the day of Sol Invictus into Christmas, and symbolically it’s the same!” Right? Like, we’re drawing those conclusions. But yeah, they’re a lot more apparent than some of the other ideas about, yeah, Christianity and you know. Like, the number 12 is really significant in the zodiac and in the Christian tradition. But I don’t know – I haven’t seen any like, very literal obvious ties between say, like, the 12 apostles and the 12 signs. You can do like, a fun experiment and kind of like, line them up and see how that goes, but yeah. I mean, it’s not something that I’ve seen super compelling evidence that they’re like, directly tied. 

CB: Right. Yeah. Well, one of the things that’s nice, to bring it back to the original topic, is it’s nice that we can have some of these discussions in modern times, or when astrologers can speculate about things without getting in trouble, because that’s not always been the case. And there’s actually been different periods of oppression where even like, speculating on the birth chart of Jesus was something that some astrologers died over during the Inquisition, for example. 

LT: Yeah. It was very life-threatening at certain times. And I would say even now, you know, in my practice, I work with a number of clergy and people who are interested in learning astrology and having these discussions and studying their natal charts who have to remain in the closet about it. Like, would lose their entire career if they were to be found out. 

So it isn’t life-threatening, but it’s livelihood threatening still for a lot of people. And because I am no longer tied to a particular denomination or work for a church, you know, I feel like it’s a privilege but also an obligation to speak on these things publicly because I don’t face direct consequences for it, but many of my colleagues would. 

CB: Got it. Yeah. That’s really important. There is still that tension and that stigmatism there where astrology is often stigmatized in Christian circles, and I guess that was part of the purpose of this discussion a little bit is seeing the other side of the coin and understanding some of the positive ways in which astrology has had a positive influence or interaction with the Christian tradition at different points, and the ways in which astrology is probably reconcilable with Christianity in contemporary times for those that choose to do so, and that there’s nothing I think inherently that makes them incompatible or not capable of being reconciled. 

LT: Yeah. Yeah. I would agree. I think if you want to belong to both traditions, there is completely – there’s tons of room to do that. And on different ends of the political spectrum, too. I mean, I have seen some, you know, I happen to be progressive and embody those ethics and values in my faith and my astrological practice. But I have, you know, I’ve seen it across the board, too, so I think there’s kind of room for everyone to reconcile the two in their own way.

CB: Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. 

Cool. All right. Is there anything we meant to mention? Anything we’re forgetting to cover when it comes to like, the Magi especially? The idea of the birth chart of Jesus? I mean, something you said or alluded to multiple times was just it is kind of… I understand why people have the motivation to wanna do this, and I’ve seen some astrologers like, make that their entire thing – discovering the birth chart of Jesus. It is kind of a thing that might not be because of many different reasons something that you can ever actually figure out. Like, it’s always gonna be a highly speculative and kind of problematic attempt to figure that out for many of the reasons that we’ve talked about here, both in terms of ever truly understanding what the star of Bethlehem was, if there was such a thing, but also the more specific attempt to actually like, determine the rising sign and the exact date of birth of Jesus. There’s really not a lot to go off of, and so there’s so little to go off of that it becomes a highly speculative endeavor no matter which way you cut it. 

LT: Yeah. And I think if we – I think we can just also just like, let it be magical. And there’s nothing wrong with that, and it doesn’t mean that Jesus wasn’t born or didn’t have a nativity. It just means that it would probably be next to impossible to figure that out, or to confirm it, right? There’s nothing to confirm it. But you know, instead of focusing on that, really focusing on the relational quality of the nativity as a whole between the earth and the cosmos. Because even beyond the Magi, right, we have the shepherds in the fields who are sung to by the heavenly host, which refers to the fixed star realm. Right? This is the angelic realm; it’s the stars. There are points in human history where people report being able to hear stars singing. And so I think that – I’m really touched when I think about how much the writer of Matthew wanted to pull in this cosmic relationship into this story. And I just really wanna encourage people to have their own cosmic relationship that is as meaningful. And you know, I think like, this is a major moment where we have satellites and all sorts of junk filling up the sky, where there are legal battles around projecting hologram images and stuff into the night sky for advertising, and that the night sky is our inheritance. I think people of faith I really want to encourage – and just everyone in general – that the night sky is our human right to have access to that and to have a relationship to the cosmos. And so yeah, you know, if we can’t like, pinpoint Jesus’s nativity, I hope that no one will let that get in the way of the magic and the poignancy of the story and what the writer was trying to convey. 

CB: Yeah. And just the idea that the cosmos itself can sometimes speak to you or can send signs and omens about important things that are happening and that there’s something beautiful and magical and inspiring about that, just in and of itself, and that to the extent that that’s there in one of the Synoptic Gospels that that sets a precedent where it may be something that is okay within the context of that faith, just as there are many other faiths where astrology plays an important role as well in terms of queuing you in or cluing you in, letting you see something about the majesty of the cosmos. 

LT: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’m sure, Chris, like, you have your, like, a why for doing astrology, and I would imagine that at some point you went outside and were just like, totally awestruck by what you beheld. And so, yeah, I hope ultimately we remember that, both as people of faith and astrologers and wherever you find yourself if you straddle the line. 

CB: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I have that like, every day. I mean, that was definitely my why I got into astrology was because I was so impressed by the – I was so awestruck by the implications of it that something like that would work, even though it seems like it shouldn’t from a purely let’s say rational modern perspective. We don’t have any immediate reason to see why something like that would be true. And yet for some reason, it is. And there’s something that’s so fascinating about that and that astrology works at all that I decided to, you know, dedicate my life to studying it and seeing how far you could go with it. And part of that is understanding the way that it’s influenced just like, Christianity. That’s actually how I opened my book on Hellenistic astrology was I opened it by saying, you know, Hellenistic astrology got really popular and originated around the same time that the gospels of the New Testament were being written. And just like Christianity has had this immeasurable impact on world and especially western culture, astrology has also had this immeasurable impact on western culture and world culture. And in that way, the two are intertwined and have been continually criss-crossing at different points in history. And while they sometimes drift apart at different times, during other periods they come back together again. 

So during this period in which it seems like Christianity is again maybe there’s a little revival or something going on, my hope is that instead of it becoming one of those periods again when astrology and Christianity become antithetical due to people’s preconceptions or misconceptions about it, I hope there’s people that see the ways in which it’s reconcilable and which those two paths come back together in a positive way. 

LT: Yeah. I hope for that, too. I really do. And I also wanna extend my appreciation to you for what you wrote in your book, because that for me was the moment that like, knit all of my interests together at once, and I was like, I had left the church rather painfully, and was really interested in astrology and had been studying for a couple of years at that point. And then when I read that, it was like, there was like, a detonation in my mind of just like, “Oh my god, I finally like – they come from the same place and time! Like, they’re related and they’re intertextual!” And yeah, how cool! So you know, thank you for that gift. I really appreciate it. 

CB: Yeah. Totally. I’m glad I could extend that to somebody else, because it’s something that blew my mind as well is just realizing the origins of both of those traditions around the same time period, and then going back and studying so much of ancient astrology and understanding reading different scholars’ reconstruction of ancient astrology and what we can know about it by reading these different texts. Like, a lot of the skills that astrologers have picked up by doing that in the past two or three decades after this revival of ancient astrology, you can apply some of those same skills to going back and studying different religious traditions, including Christianity, to better understand what it was and what its origins were from these different authors that were writing in the same time period and similarly were just as excited about their own religious and mystical traditions as some of the astrologers were at the time. Like, Vettius Valens or Dorotheus or what have you.

LT: Yeah. And I hope that the – I mean, I don’t know if I really hope this. But in the moment, I hope that the academy will start to take more seriously the astrological tradition, like, vis-a-vis the Christian tradition. Because as we’re talking about here, like, they have a lot to say to one another, and I think the academy in general doesn’t take astrology seriously. But you know, I think at this point, it’s like, kind of becoming irresponsible not to. 

CB: Yeah. Well, one of our jobs, I think, as astrologers and one of the things we’re doing in our time is just making it compelling and recovering astrology and giving a presentation to it and outlining the theoretical principles and doing the important historical research and empirical research to demonstrate the validity of astrology. And the more and more we do that and the more compelling we do that, the harder I think it will be to ignore it as a legitimate phenomenon that’s occurring in nature. And I think that’s true both in an academic context as well as in a religious context. 

And astrology’s always been in this weird place where sometimes it finds itself not on good terms, both in a scientific standpoint but also in a religious standpoint. And it’s kind of funny in that way that we’re just like, on the receiving end of criticism from both sectors of those different ways of viewing the world, and yet in a way astrology combines both of those things. And maybe that’s one of the reasons that it sometimes finds itself on the outs with both of those, because it has both an empirical tradition of dealing with a naturally occurring phenomenon connected to planetary cycles, but then it also has serious religious and philosophical and very profound implications for our outlook on the world as well at the same time. And while — 

LT: Yeah. 

CB: — that can seem threatening, I think, to both of those traditions, I think to me it always seems like it should be the opposite. That there’s something tremendously appealing about that.

LT: Right. That rather than being threatening, it could be the kind of interstitial space between the two, where there’s a kind of bridge that connects the two kinds of modes of being. But you know. We’re mystics at the end of the day! 

CB: I mean, in the ancient world, astrology was ruled by Mercury and it was associated with the planet Mercury, and Mercury was always this in-between figure where any time you’ve got a divide between two opposite things, like, Mercury’s always the thing that stands in the middle. And it has one foot in both worlds. And to the extent that that’s true, I think that’s where astrology is as well, and that’s why it was associated with Mercury because when it comes to even divisions like this of let’s say science versus religion, astrology has a foot in both camps, and like you said, could potentially connect both, which is perhaps its greatest appeal or the thing that could be the most important about it ultimately in the end. 

LT: Yeah. Maybe in our lifetimes, we’ll see more and more people ascribing to that disposition. That would be great. 

CB: Yeah. It would be really good. 

All right, well, thank you for joining me for this discussion today. I really appreciate it. This was actually a very impromptu discussion that we just had today, but it was things both of us have been thinking about a lot lately and thinking about for a long time, and especially talking about doing, so I’m glad we got to do this. Yeah. 

So what are you up to? What are you working on at this point? What do you have coming up? 

LT: Yeah. So I’m actually working on a book. I am hoping to find a deal this year for the book, and hopefully have it coming out in 2027. But I will be writing on these topics on the relationship between the church and astrology, and also my own journey between the two. And so I’m really excited about that, so you know, that’s like, a more distant future thing. Keep your eyes out for that. But then, you know, I do one-on-one work with folks, either weekly or just, you know, one-off consultations. But I am starting a new group accompaniment program where I’ll be forming cohorts and we’ll be going using the astrological calendar for empowerment work and growth together in small groups. So if that sounds like something you’d be interested in, you can reach out to me. My email is Lindsey@BadPastor.Me, and my website is BadPastor.Me. And you can find me on Instagram at Bad.Pastor. 

CB: Brilliant. Awesome. Well, I’ll put a link to your website in the description below this video on YouTube or on the podcast website in the entry for this episode. But thanks so much for joining me today; I appreciate it. 

LT: Yeah, thank you, Chris! I appreciate it. And happy Epiphany to everyone who celebrates! 

CB: Yeah, happy Three Kings Day! 

LT: Yeah. 

CB: All right. Thanks everyone for watching or listening to this episode of The Astrology Podcast, and we’ll see you again next time. 

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