“As we know, it is also mistaken to limit the ‘freedom’ of interpretive choice to externals and marginal phenomena rather than think of the whole performance in a way that is both bound and free”—Gadamer, Truth and Method. (Emphasis Mine). Introduction The bounds (ὁρία) are an important yet perplexing form of rulership in traditional astrology. …
“Hegel came to connect dialectic with the triad, or with triplicity”—Findlay, Hegel: A Re-examination. Triplicity rulership is a form of planetary jurisdiction in ancient astrology. As the name suggests, instead of a single planet presiding over a given domain (as house and exaltation rulers do), triplicity rulers come in groups of three, and these three …
Exaltation (ὕψωμα) is a form of planetary rulership (δεσπότης) in ancient astrology. Like the standard house (οἶκος) rulerships encoded in the Thema Mundi, exaltations were thought to be locations where planets flourished. However, unlike standard house rulership wherein every planet apart from the luminaries is given to two signs, in the exaltation schema, each planet …
Sect (αἵρεσις) is a crucial concept in Hellenistic astrology, forging a fundamental contrast between two groups of planets. One group, the diurnal, is led by the Sun and contains Jupiter as a benefic and Saturn as a malefic. The other, the nocturnal, is led by the Moon and contains Venus and Mars respectively as its …
Plato’s Symposium is a philosophical exploration of the nature and function of erotic love. Apropos the subject matter, the dialogue begins in confusion. The dialogue proper occurs between Apollodorus, someone so obsessed with Socrates that he has been given the nickname “the maniac” (173d), and an unnamed friend of his. Apollodorus recounts a story he …
In its later articulations, the legend of the holy grail is an essentially ecclesiastical myth. According to these iterations of the tale, the grail is identified with the chalice from which Christ drank at the last super and into which his blood spilled later as his side was pierced on the cross. Likewise, these versions …
Marcus Manilius’s Astronomica is one of our oldest and most detailed historical sources for how ancient astrologers conceptualized the twelve places. Manilius is believed to have composed this work in the early first century, probably around 14 A.D.1 In contrast, Valens, whom astrologer Chris Brennan acclaims as “the single most important surviving source for studying …
The Timaeus is one of Plato’s most historically influential dialogues, because it, unlike the others, was translated into Latin1 and preserved in the medieval world. Yet it is also one of the hardest to understand. The bulk of this “dialogue” consists of a monologue by Timaeus, a Pythagorean philosopher from Locri, who tells an imaginative …
In my previous essay, I examined Plato’s four arguments for the immortality of the soul set forth in The Phaedo. Through these arguments, Plato sought to justify a rational faith in the soul’s immortality. Yet Plato did not restrict himself to this rational approach, but also attempted to construct a mythological philosophy to bolster our …
The Soul and its salvation are central to various systems of religion and esoteric philosophy. Yet, despite its centrality, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is often implicitly assumed rather than explicitly argued for. Plato’s Phaedo, which recounts Socrates last dialogue before his execution at the hands of the Athenians, makes an important …