An Overview of the History of Western Astrology

Episode 280 features a lecture by astrologer Chris Brennan where he gives an overview of the history and transmission of western astrology over the past 4,000 years. The talk begins with the ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian astrological traditions, and then traces the development of astrology through the Hellenistic, Medieval, Renaissance, and modern periods. This is based on a lecture that Chris has been giving at conferences since 2006 about how Uranus-Neptune conjunctions have historically coincided with periods in which there is a major transmission and revival of older forms of astrology, which are then synthesized with whatever the prevailing paradigm is at the time. Part of the purpose of the talk is to contextualize some of the current trends in our own time period, and the recent revival of older forms of astrology. Chris recently appeared on The Strology Show podcast with Kirah Tabourn to talk about the recent revival of traditional astrology in modern times, and that episode would be great to watch after this episode of The Astrology Podcast if you would like some more information about the traditional revival. This episode is available in both audio and video versions below. Timestamps Here are some timestamps for topics covered at different points in the episode: 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:36 Mesopotamia 00:07:44 Invention of natal astrology 00:16:21 Egypt (Decans) 00:20:58 Conquest of Alexander the Great 00:24:23 Emergence of Hellenistic Astrology 00:32:04 Thema Mundi, Rulerships 00:36:19 Aspects 00:37:42 Houses 00:39:08 Planetary Joys 00:41:45 Elements and Zodiac 00:43:00 House significators 00:44:48 Core of the New System 00:47:00 Roman Empire in the 2nd Century CE 00:47:42 Transmission to Persia and India 00:51:40 End of Hellenistic Tradition 00:54:20 Expansion of Islamic Empire 00:55:17 Early Medieval Astrology 01:01:30 Four Traditional Branches 01:05:34 Transfer of Light 01:06:51 Late Medieval Astrology 01:12:10 Renaissance Astrology 01:17:12 Late Traditional Astrology 01:23:30 The Astrological Recession 01:29:06 Rebirth in 20th Century 01:33:12 Modern Astrology 01:43:00 Revival of Traditional Astrology 01:54:33 Uranus Neptune Conjunctions 01:59:30 Chart of historical timeline 02:05:03 Value of Studying the Tradition 02:10:40 The Current Revival 02:15:40 Contributions of Each Tradition 02:21:58 The Hermetic Nature of Astrology 02:26:25 The Future 02:32:34 Further Reading 02:36:10 Concluding remarks Watch the Video Version of This Episode on the History of Astrology Here is the video version of this episode on the history of western astrology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWDq6zJVX34 - Transcript A full transcript of this episode is available: Episode 280 transcript Listen to the Audio Version of This Episode You can either play the audio version of this episode of the podcast directly from the website or download it as an MP3 to your device by using the buttons below: