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Today, we are joined by a woman who knows a thing or two about astrology per your wishes and per my wishes as well.
So, without further ado, I would like to welcome Philosophy Cat to the show.
Thank you, Marcus.
It's great to be here.
I love to talk about astrology, so I'm very excited about this.
Hopefully, your audience will find this entertaining and enlightening.
All right, awesome.
Yeah, let's get straight into it.
As is my custom, I usually like to ask about the origin story of guests.
So, if you could give a Philosophy Cat origin story, primarily, actually, I want to hear how you got acquainted with Julius Evola.
You have, of course, made a very good series on his work, which everyone can check out.
And yeah, how did you stumble upon the good Baron Evola and how did you get into astrology?
I suppose they are interlinked, the story of how you got into Evola and the story of how you got into astrology.
So, yeah, give us a background story.
They definitely are linked.
So, kind of in a nutshell, I've been a long time student of philosophy.
I did my degree in political science, but I kind of focused on the political theory.
So, it's really more of like a glorified philosophy degree than anything.
And, you know, I've been aware of Evola since the late 2000s, but I was really too young to appreciate him at that point.
I didn't start seriously studying his work until about several years ago.
And I think my story in that regard is a fairly common one that a lot of people who come to this stuff seem to share.
So, I basically kind of like I'd reached a crisis point in my life.
I didn't really know it at the time, but it was the beginning of the end of my atheist phase.
And I was no longer satisfied with just these purely material answers.
You know, they can only go so far, but they never, they never really quite touched the root of the problem, which was essentially a chronic nihilism and despair at that point.
It's just, you know, it's the sickness of the modern world, right?
And so, at the urging of one of my close friends, I picked up Evola's Doctrine of Awakening, his Buddhist text.
I'm sure you're familiar with that.
I think you've done a review on it.
Yeah, yeah, I read it during the summer and I reviewed it.
And of course, everyone, every one of my esteemed subscribers here on YouTube and Odyssey, they read all of my book reviews, I've heard.
No, I'm joking.
I don't think that's the case.
I wish it were.
But yeah, I did.
I did review it and I found it really nice.
One of the most epic quotes.
I will actually read it now.
I'm sorry to interrupt your origin story, but, um, so he describes Buddha and I think this is a good, um, because you have this image of the Buddha as being, uh, a pudgy, well, a Jolian pudgy guy to put it mildly, but here in not great physique.
Yeah, exactly.
Not the best physique.
But Evola here, he quotes the Jakata.
And in there, it says of the Buddha, the enlightened one, that thou hast a perfect body.
Thou art resplendent, well born, of noble aspect.
Thou hast a golden collar and white teeth.
Thou art strong.
All the signs that thou are of noble birth are in thy form.
All the marks of a superior man.
So that is how you should view the Buddha.
Yeah, anyway, great book.
So sorry to interrupt.
Continue with the great book.
And I would recommend everybody to read it, even if they're not into Buddhism.
Like, you don't have to be a Buddhist or interested in pursuing that path to get a lot out of the book in terms of just what it outlines as far as being like noble, being Aryan.
And, you know, but that book was, it was exactly what I needed at that time.
It really appealed to me because Buddhism doesn't ask you to believe in anything.
It just says, here's the path, here's how to walk it, see what you find at the end.
And that was perfect for me for where I was at because I wasn't really at a place yet where I was ready to believe in anything.
You know, I was just coming out of like my atheism.
And so I liked that it was just about my journey and the experiential wisdom gained from following the path.
And it was just a life-changing book for me.
I became a lot more interested after that in reading Evela's other work.
And so if you've then fast-forward a few years, and I'm working on the Revolt Against the Modern World series on my channel, and I'm putting in this huge amount of study into it, because if you want to teach something to someone else, you have to understand it really well yourself.
So not only was I making a deep study of Revolt, but also all of his other books, because he references all of them in Revolt.
And at some point, you know, he also references like many other texts.
And I'm diving into all of those.
And one thing that I started to notice among all of this esoteric study is that astrological symbolism is in everything.
And I was quickly reaching a point where my existing astrological knowledge was just not sufficient to go further with this study.
And I've always been interested in astrology, but I never took it super seriously.
And it was now time to take it seriously.
What was it that the ancients thought was so important about this practice?
Like, I had to know more.
So I started studying astrology more in depth, taking courses and stuff like that.
And I didn't initially intend to set up an astrology practice.
That just sort of happened organically.
I was mainly interested in getting this more nuanced understanding of the symbolism and the allegories and how does it all fit in with this divinely ordered cosmos.
But I will say I am glad that I did start practicing as an astrologer because working with people's birth charts has also deepened my relationship to the planets and their cycles and allowed me to see real-world examples of this stuff actually at play in our mundane lives.
And then I also saw that there's actually this real need for this sort of service among the right because our people have very few options for where to turn when they need help and guidance because almost every, you know, like quote-unquote helping industry, like whether it's astrology or psychology or even churches or whatever, it's all kind of been taken over by leftists.
And to steal a term of theirs, they don't exactly create, you know, safe spaces for people on the right, especially young men, as you know.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm sure you hear a lot from young men about this kind of stuff.
I'm sure you get a lot of people reaching out to you looking for guidance.
And there's just, there really is nowhere else for them to go.
So I kind of it's, I feel it's a little bit my civic duty.
I don't know that I'm necessarily like the best or most qualified person to be giving life advice to people, but I can certainly say, you know, here's what your birth chart says, and here's what tradition says, and you make your own choices.
Yeah, I mean, here's my perspective on astrology.
I suppose most of our listeners now saw my recent video where I acknowledged that astrology is real.
And one perspective that I kept in mind when I started thinking about it was that it was so important for the ancients.
So it probably has some bearing even now.
And since I do believe at least that we do need in the great awakening of the European civilization, revival of European civilization, I do believe that the spiritual component is very important, which is why I have started talking about more about these matters.
So yeah, definitely, it is important.
So basically, to get into the The main topic of astrology.
For anyone who is completely new to astrology, perhaps we have a young listener here who has only heard of astrology in the context of the star science and everything like that and hasn't really thought about it.
How would you first and foremost define astrology?
What is it when we talk about astrology?
And when we say that astrology is real and we should study it, what exactly are we talking about?
Okay, well, so obviously, like most people just think of like newspaper horoscopes that read like generic fortune cookies when they think of astrology.
And that is what most people only know of it.
So I can forgive that because there just isn't really a lot of exposure to it beyond that for the average person.
But I'm hoping that anybody listening to this is probably aware that there's maybe a little bit more to it.
So what is it exactly?
Without getting into all the technicalities of how you actually read a chart or anything like this, the basic principle is this.
It's about light.
So in Vedic astrology, it's called Jyotish and it means the science of light.
And this is probably a good framework in which to consider astrology.
So first of all, it's a sacred science.
It's not a physical science, which is what most people mean when they say science.
And when they say that astrology is a pseudoscience, what they mean is that, oh, it's just not a physical science, since that's the only way of knowing that is acceptable to the majority of modern minds.
And they're like, oh, astrology is a pseudo-science, but astrology doesn't claim to be a physical science.
It is a sacred science.
So that's our science part of the science of light.
The light part is that the concept of light bouncing around is very important in ancient astrology.
The modern astrologers seem to have left this behind almost entirely.
But the way that astrology works is essentially that what you're looking at is the divine power of the sun.
You're a Leo, right?
Yeah, how did you know?
I feel like somebody told me that at some point.
Yeah, of course.
You know, Blair told me.
I think we're friends with him.
He mentioned that to me once.
Yeah, so you'll probably like this because this is all about the sun, which is kind of, you know, it's your planet.
And in many cultures, the sun is considered the manifestation of the divine.
So like in Egypt, they looked at the sun as the soul of the universe.
In the Vedic literature, it's called the eye of God.
But the principle is like, just like our souls have the power of consciousness and it illuminates the body with life, this is how the sun was considered in relation to the universe.
And that light of the sun shines out and sustains all life.
And in many of these ancient religious traditions, you also have this idea where the sun is representative of the supreme God, and all other gods are just expansions or powers or emanations of that one supreme God, right?
So the sun is considered the king of all planets, and it's seen as a direct manifestation of the supreme force of creation.
It's seen as having unlimited power and effulgence.
It can just give and give and give without diminishing.
It has this very regal quality to it.
And for yourself and your listeners who are familiar with Evela, you know, you'll see where this solar symbolism, this solar nature starts to fit into his concept of divine kingship.
It's also something that just features very prominently in mythology.
So it's like, okay, this is a sign we need to at least pay some close attention to what the sun's doing, if nothing else.
But the life and the power of the sun, it shines throughout the universe.
The light then bounces off all the various physical objects.
It's hitting your physical body, but also your astral or subtle body, and it has effects on that.
The sun was considered to be this powerful force that shines not only through the material realm, but also through the supernatural realms, in some cases in the underworld.
So it really touches all of creation, this divine light, so to speak.
So, for example, the rays of the sun will hit, say, like Mars, and it will then bounce off Mars and hit you.
Well, now that has a certain color.
The rays of the sun are now being colored by these Mars-like qualities, these warrior-type qualities that we associate with Mars, right?
Or it bounces from Venus to Saturn to Mercury and then to you.
And there's this extremely complex interplay of light bouncing around the universe and creating this web, and you're caught in that web.
So this is what is meant by the science of light.
How are you affected by the light of the sun as it bounces and bends and refracts around the universe?
And what does that say about our mundane lives down here on planet Earth?
And I saw in your video that you put out, admitting that astrology is really, you focused a lot on the moon.
Yeah.
And the moon also plays a big role in this because the moon is not only the second luminary in the sky, but it also moves really quickly around the zodiac.
So the moon is thought to govern over the material world.
You know, you'll sometimes hear our world referred to as the sublunarary realm.
The moon collects and disseminates the light from the sun and the other planets.
It's weaving this intricate web.
It's like the spinner of this web, the spider that's going around connecting everything and then disseminating it all down to us.
So however the moon goes, you know, so goes everything else.
And a lot of astrologers will pay special attention to the lunar cycles in their forecasting work for this reason.
So, sorry, did you have a question?
Yeah, yeah.
So basically to simplify matters, if then we have Mars, which I can only suppose imbues us with aggression and a quarrelsome nature, would that be correct to say that if Mars hits us with aggressive energy, you have a more thumb, so to speak, an inclination to fight and confront people.
Is that correct?
Well, one of the things that Mars is associated with is that conflict and aggression, but it's also associated with action and will in just like a more pure sense.
And that action and will can take on the aggressive nature, which is it is more likely to go that way with Mars because it's, you know, it's such a hot, excessive planet.
Mars tends to naturally go to excess in that way.
But it really depends on how Mars is configured in a person's chart.
So, you know, a person with Mars in Capricorn where Mars is exalted, you're going to get a tempering of these more problematic qualities of Mars.
And you're just going to have a Mars that is actually willing to do some real productive work and can be quite a powerhouse.
If you put Mars in the opposite sign in Cancer, where it's in its fall, you're going to maybe get a Mars that is very passive-aggressive, for example.
Oh.
Because its natural abilities, its natural way of wanting to express itself are being restricted by being in the temple of the moon.
And Mars and the moon are very, very opposite types of energies, right?
So now Mars has to play by the moon's rules and it can't do that.
So how does it express its action and its will?
Well, in a really passive-aggressive way, for example.
Right, right.
So for a man, you should hope that Mars is allowed to express itself in a good action-oriented manner.
But if it doesn't, yeah, I suppose it can be good for a man to know if he has that deficit in his astrological makeup, so to speak.
So he can, you know, if he is aware that he can act in a certain way, he can take measures to counteract it.
And by the same token, if he knows that, so I suppose if you do a reading for a guy and he has Mars in a good way, he can also sort of plan in certain activities in accord with the moon or the star phases.
Is that correct?
Yeah, so one of the things that I would do with people, if they come in for a NATO chart reading, usually when people come in for a reading, they've got some reason that they're coming.
Like there's something in their life that they're trying to figure out.
And those are the best kinds of readings.
It's nice to have that kind of context to work with rather than just kind of a general curiosity where it's kind of like, all right, like, why are you bothering the oracle with your just curiosity?
Like, do you have a problem or not?
Like, let's hear it.
But, you know, everybody has, you know, we all have our seven traditional planets in the chart.
We've all got them in different combinations, in different ways that they interact.
And we can certainly identify in a birth chart which planets are the ones causing the problem in your life.
And how can we potentially remediate that?
What are, you know, where else in your chart can you lean into in order to compensate for where the shortcomings are?
Or even when you have a debilitated planet in the chart, you know, it's not necessarily all bad.
It's just a different way of that planet expressing itself.
So how can you get the good out of a debilitated planet, for example?
I have a debilitated Mercury.
Would you guess that based on the way that I speak and write?
Probably not.
No, no, I wouldn't.
It's, you know, and most people would look at a debilitated Mercury and be like, oh, she must be dumb.
She must have learning difficulties or something like that.
And it's like, no, I've just figured out how to make my Mercury do its best job with the situation that it has.
So it's not like it's not hopeless.
A lot of people will come in with charts that look really problematic, but they have a great attitude and they manage their chart really well and they have really positive lives.
And other people come in with charts that just look so easy, breezy, and their lives are falling apart.
So it's really, it's more about like, how do you manage it?
Like our job as individuals is to kind of figure out how to make all our planets like dance in harmony and stop stepping on each other's toes.
And some people do that better than others.
All right.
Yeah.
So if we take something like charisma, would you say that's something that the gods give you via the stars?
Or do you have any take on charisma as a what should call it a metaphysical force within certain individuals?
Yeah, I think that is definitely something that you could see in a birth chart.
However, you know, charisma, that's something that I would typically relate to the sun.
So I have actually seen Leos come through my practice who I expected to be very flamboyant and charismatic.
And then I talk to them and they're like shy and timid and awkward and like there's something seriously afflicting their solar quality that should be shining really bright.
And then it's like, okay, how do we unpack this?
What's caused this to happen?
And how can you actually gain access to your solar power again so that you can have that charisma and confidence that's naturally appropriate to a Leo, you know?
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Since we do live in the modern world where we are sort of like almost poisoned on so many fronts.
So I do believe that many charismatic individuals, they have their divine energy sort of hampered by a poor diet, by not getting enough actual sunlight, by not getting enough sleep and everything like that.
So I do also believe that it has a purely biological, so that biological components that aren't correctly configured in a person's life, they will inhibit the ability to actually express the divine blessings that in other ages they could have gotten naturally, so to speak.
So keep that in mind for everyone who seeks to attain divine blessings that you have to take care of your temple, your body, your physique.
You have to take care of everything like that.
Then you can allow the divine light to shine upon you.
So, yeah, but I recognize what you're saying that there are individuals who could, you can sort of see there is a divine spark in them, but because they're so pushed down, so downtrodden, a lot of guys, of course, they've been mugged by pornography.
So, sort of their thumbs is completely gone because they have been so subject to this conditioning things.
Yeah, exactly.
And I mean, sometimes, you know, somebody will, there are things that you can do to remediate planets in your chart that have to do with diet and lifestyle.
I mean, if somebody's got a really excessively problematic Mars in their chart, I'm going to probably say, you know, lay off the spicy foods.
That's aggravating your Mars quality.
Or if they have a really problematic Venus, so, you know, lay off the sweets.
Sometimes, you know, when a planet is going to excess or to detriment in somebody's chart like that, you can actually see it in their physical bodies and their mannerisms.
And that's always kind of a clue as to, you know, what might be going wrong and where the problem is.
All right, right.
So can you elaborate on the sweet tooth and the Venus connection?
Oh, Venus is the planet of pleasure, joy, romance, love, harmony.
So when you have a Venus that is going to excess in the chart, you will often get hedonistic indulgences of some kind or another.
So with food, it's often going to be a sweet tooth, but it could also be something like, as you mentioned, a porn addiction.
It could be something like that as well.
So those are all the kind of things that you want to look at.
And interestingly enough, you know, you mentioned like the porn addiction kind of lowering a man's thumbs.
And that's kind of like that's a Venus problem there.
Well, the way that you mitigate that is to lean more into the Mars and to reinvigorate that vitality and that male virility through the Mars aspect and kind of pull back away from some of those Venusian indulgences.
Really interesting stuff.
So just to move on to a question for those who are new again, I have a question here.
How is it possible for the planets to affect us?
Is it gravity or something else?
If you could elaborate on that.
Okay.
So we've talked about how the light kind of bounces around and this sort of like colors our experiences of the world, right?
Let's just back up kind of back to that idea.
The planets, the zodiac signs, the houses, you know, they're all qualities of this absolute truth manifesting in the universe, right?
Each of these things is going to be a strainer for a particular quality of God, right?
So you take Jupiter, for example, it's straining out one particular quality of God, bringing that quality to the forefront.
And then these various qualities kind of like shine down upon us in this complex webbing of solar rays.
So when you're born, your birth chart is cast for the moment.
You take your first breath.
I know some people are like, oh, but I was born by C-section.
Doesn't matter.
First breath.
It's capturing a snapshot of that solar webbing that your soul had to pass through to descend into materiality.
And you're taking on this unique blend of qualities in your current embodiment.
So think of it kind of like this.
Imagine that your soul is sitting outside this ever-turning wheel of the zodiac.
And you can think of this as basically like the churning of samsara, if you want to take the Buddhist analogy or the current materiality, the wheel of fortune, whatever you want to call it.
As soon as your soul sees something it desires in the material world, it drops into that wheel.
All the desires and actions and outcomes take shape according to these cycles of energy.
You know, it's karma essentially.
We project ourselves through our cravings into this turning wheel.
And as soon as we do, we become bound by the same cosmic cycles and rules that determine when a flower will bloom or what happens when one person does something to another.
That's your conditioned existence in the world.
And then, you know, you'll have your house placements, which kind of represent the ways in which they become concretized in your day-to-day existence.
For anyone who doesn't know, the houses refer to very specific areas of our lives, such as, you know, marriage, career, money, things like that.
That's where an accurate birth time becomes really important because that's how your houses are determined.
And that's what gives you a very unique chart, different to a person who may have only been born an hour before you.
You'll have a very different chart.
So, you know, speaking of that, just a quick question.
How accurate does it need to be?
Does it need to be on the minute or can it be like 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there?
Or how?
Depends what you're doing.
But generally, with Hellenistic astrology, I use whole sign houses.
So, you know, within 15 minutes, as long as it's not like bordering on a cusp.
Like right now, I've got somebody who's got a very cuspy ascendant.
She's not sure what time she was born.
And we're having a really hard time rectifying her chart because even a 15-minute difference changes her chart dramatically.
But usually that's not the case.
For most people, just knowing like, you know, it was around 7 or 7:30 or whatever, right?
Like, that's usually sufficient.
Occasionally, we get a case where it isn't.
But, you know, so we've got this sort of like as above, so below sort of thing going on.
And it's not that the planets cause things to happen or that we're affected by their gravitational pull, which is a really common misconception.
The planets were understood to be the stars of the gods, but not the gods themselves.
So they can indicate the will of the gods and the movements of the planets illustrate like this inherent mandala of creation.
So in that sense, they're more like omens rather than causes.
And we can look at the patterns of the planets to understand better the cosmic rhythms that we're all subjected to.
You know, or another way of thinking about the planets is that they're offering us a testimony or a witness to the kind of things that will happen in our lives or as administrators of fate and karma.
So that's essentially how it works.
It's not that the planets make you do anything or that they are an agent of cause and you're subject to their effects, but there is a certain cosmic cycle that is occurring and those planets participate in that cycle and so do we.
But the planets have very neat and tidy cycles that are not encumbered by human emotions and relationships and day-to-day mundane crap.
So we can look at the planets and we can see those patterns much more clearly than what we can see them in our own individual lives.
And neither are those planets affected by like an individual person's birth chart.
You know, that always is going to color things too.
It's one thing to like track the transits of the planet.
It's another thing to try to figure out what the cycles are based on how they're impacting your own personal birth chart, which is going to make it a little bit a lot messier.
All right.
Awesome.
So another question.
So your chart is determined by your birth.
How is it that it's determined by your birth and not by the time of conception?
That's a really good question.
I know a lot of people, like especially in Vedic astrology, they often tend to kind of favor conception stuff, but how can you pinpoint when that occurs?
Even modern science can't tell you exactly when that occurs.
You know, you also have babies who are born early, born late, born by C-section.
Like there's just so many different ways and different timeframes in which a human being can come into the world.
And I like the idea of, you know, the first breath is your first moment completely independent of your mother.
The cord has been cut.
You are your own person now.
Have your own body.
You have to live on your own now, whereas when you're in the mother's womb, is there some way in which she is shielding you from these cosmic influences?
You know maybe um, oftentimes transits to the mother's birth chart can indicate things about how the pregnancy or the labor will go.
That tends to be something more impactful to the mother but then will often show up in the baby's birth chart when it's born.
example um a baby that i know of was uh it was quite a traumatic birth uh emergency rushing to the hospital kind of thing and this was you know his mother had to have a an emergency c-section and this is reflected in his birth chart with mars on the ascendant a very bloody brutal entry into the world right right so it's really interesting how these things happen and and sometimes you'll even kind of see these echoes of family karma in in birth charts of relatives
Yeah, so you mentioned to jump on to another question you mentioned Hellenic and Vedic astrology.
Uh, what would be the main differences between the two?
Okay, so these systems are quite different from each other.
Um so, Vedic versus Hellenistic these are kind of like the two main forms of ancient astrology and it would be really easy to think that they must have a lot of similarities, and they definitely do have some similarities in terms of the philosophy behind it.
Some aspects of Hellenistic astrology have been borrowed directly from Vedic astrology or reconstructed from it, but the primary difference and it's a big one is that they use different zodiacs and this has to do with the precession of the equinoxes.
So roughly, because the earth is tilted on its on its axis.
You know we, the signs and the stars, don't stay in exactly the same position.
So roughly every 2200 years the sign that is rising at the spring equinox changes.
So Vedic astrology uses what's called the sidereal zodiac and their system is designed to roughly match the constellations in the sky.
They are taking into account this precession of the equinoxes, but Hellenistic astrology uses what's called the tropical zodiac or the Western zodiac, and this is tied to the seasons.
So initially the tropical and the sidereal zodiacs were the same, but as time marched on, of course they got out of alignment.
So in the Hellenistic system the sign of Aries always marks the spring equinox, regardless of what sign is actually rising at that time, and upon hearing this, most people assume.
Well, the sidereal zodiac used by the Vedics must obviously be the correct one, because isn't astrology supposed to match the sky?
Or they'll claim that astrology is invalid because of this, not realizing that the Ancients did in fact know about precession.
And you know there was this kind of conscious choice as to which zodiac to use.
So let's kind of try to break this down a little bit.
First of all, the constellations are widely varying sizes and they came to initially just kind of denote general areas of the zodiac, and then this was later refined into 12 30 degree segments of the zodiacal circle.
And one thing that any student of esoterica will notice pretty early on i'm sure you have as well is that math is actually quite important in The ancient sacred sciences.
So the zodiac comes to represent the mathematical perfect circle, 360 degrees, 12 signs, 30 degrees in each signs.
That, of course, is already not matching the sky.
But the math is beautiful.
And I think you could make the case that the math is in itself this very pure divine language, so to speak.
And there's a lot of math involved in astrology.
So I personally prefer the tropical zodiac.
I use the Hellenistic system.
And this is the one that lines up with the seasons.
Why do I do that?
Because it's about the mathematical principles that underlie it, not whether or not the stars have apparently drifted.
Just because the stars appear to have moved doesn't mean we start moving the mathematical slices of the pie of the zodiac around, because that math is really foundational to how these things are measured.
And that's not to say that both zodiacs can't have value because they are both attempting to convey a symbolic language.
I guess you could, you know, you could even think of them as different dialects of the language of heaven.
But the reason I prefer the tropical over the sidereal zodiac is for those mathematical and philosophical reasons, because it seems to me like the sidereal is putting the cart before the horse, because empirical reality is something that, in my opinion, feel free to disagree, emanates from the metaphysical realm of forms.
And therefore, materiality is rooted in that higher eternal pattern.
This pattern is reflected in the math, in the synodic cycles of the cosmos.
So the seasons don't define the zodiac, but the zodiac defines the seasons because the seasons are the material emanation of something metaphysical.
Again, it's kind of that idea of the divine mandala, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, if you give empirical reality primacy over the symbolic, you know, that doesn't really make sense to me in that context.
And that seems to be what the sidereal zodiac is doing by emphasizing the material and visible world of the night sky.
The metaphysical defines the physical, not the other way around.
And the sidereal is looking at empirical reality and then trying to extract the symbolic patterns from that in like this sort of bottom-up way.
And tropical is looking more at the symbolic patterns and then looks for how it's reflected in material reality, this more like top-down approach.
All right.
So another, a quick question about a really big topic, but I just thought to ask, since I saw recently on Telegram, there were some discussions regarding Platonism, Platonism and Heathenism, paganism.
Do you have any thoughts?
Are you a Platonist?
Do you adhere to Plato?
Well, Platonistic philosophy informs a lot of astrology.
You know, Plato was a big fan of Pythagoras and all of the Pythagorean numerical stuff features in a lot of the astrological math.
I'm not a super serious student of Plato.
I like Plato.
I have read a lot of it, but I certainly haven't gone as in-depth with it as I have with Evela, just, you know, because I'm making videos about Evela, not about Plato.
But, you know, I do tend to lean more towards that kind of metaphysical framework.
So, yeah.
All right.
Okay, cool.
So I misspoke.
I said Hellenic, but it should be Hellenistic, of course.
And that led me to mention Hermes Trismegistus, if I pronounce that somewhat correctly.
He is then sort of like a god, a historical god of some sort.
But he said as above, so below, if I'm correct.
Yes, yes.
That's one of the Hermetic principles, this as above, so below.
Hermes Trismegistus was thought to be the founder of astrology, kind of a mysterious figure.
There's a lot of debate as to like who he was, whether he was actually real.
Was he a god or an incarnation of a god?
You know, again, not something I've studied like super in-depth, so I probably can't give you like a full-on dialogue about him.
But he is related to Mercury as a planet and all of that kind of like, you know, science-y exchanging of information, understanding the cosmos.
Like that's all like very mercurial stuff.
Yeah.
All right.
Moving on with the questions.
So this could be asked by a skeptic.
A skeptic of astrology might ask, how can astrology be real when twins are so different?
If they are different, I haven't encountered any twins that are different, but perhaps some twins are.
I don't know.
But yeah, go ahead and respond if you will.
Yeah, so the first thing I would recommend to anybody who is really interested in like the astrology of twins, the astrology podcast actually has a whole episode specifically on that.
And I think it's like two hours long where they just go really in depth with it.
But a lot of people will say, you know, especially parents of twins will say that their kids are like so different from each other.
And it's like, but they were born within minutes of each other usually and have like really similar birth charts, like almost identical.
And, you know, you might be like, well, if their lives are so different, their personalities are so different, like what's going on here?
And the answer to that is essentially like in its most basic form, a birth chart has a number of options for how those signatures will express themselves.
So let's say you've got a set of twins and they've got, I don't know, moon square Mars or something like that in their chart, right?
Well, one of those twins might experience that aspect as a lot of conflict with their mother.
The other one might experience that as they have like a terrible accident that seriously injures them.
Both of those are like moon-Mars kind of things.
But there's this range of options.
And the birth chart starts to narrow down those range of options.
But, you know, these are two different people.
They're not living their lives identically.
They are doing different things at different times.
They're taking different paths in some way.
And as they do that, the birth chart is going to start to reflect that within the context of their lives.
All right, right.
Does that make sense?
Definitely.
Definitely.
It does.
At least if I can meditate upon it a bit longer.
But yeah, definitely.
So speaking of which, I also thought to ask about the zodiacs and stuff like that.
So we said that charisma can be a solar quality and the Leo star sign is connected to the sun, but it doesn't really apply to all humans.
Do you need to have a certain level of divine energy within you to be able to access the powers of your zodiac?
I can only imagine not everyone born in July and August during the time of Leo.
They aren't charismatic.
So does it apply?
Does astrology apply to everyone?
Or is it only certain individuals who can access these powers?
Yeah, I would say that yes, they do apply to everybody.
We're all subject to the same karmic laws while we're on this earth for the most part.
You know, that kind of gets into discussions about fate versus free will and all of that.
But, you know, there are a lot of different ways for a signature in a birth chart to manifest.
Like we just talked about with twins or, you know, I don't know, take Mars and Leo, for instance.
Are you going to get somebody who is the kind of leader who inspires his men and rides into battle with them, like Aragorn and Lord of the Rings?
Or are you going to get somebody who's a bully and a petty tyrant?
You know, both of those are options for Mars and Leo to manifest.
Which expression a person gets is going to depend on other factors in their birth chart, their life environment, their overall character.
You know, like take Leo as a sign, for instance.
What is the sign of Leo about, right?
It's well, it's the fire temple of the sun.
It's a fixed sign.
It's very, it's got this loyalty, regality, this authority, but also like lust and jealousy and tyranny and arrogance.
And where along the spectrum is a Leo going to fall?
This is a sign in which, you know, this time of the year, the light is sustained, but steadily and slowly decreasing.
And so there is this association with Leo with the need for transcendence amid impermanence and inevitable future loss.
You know, the autumn is coming and then winter.
Like this is kind of the last hurrah for the summer sun.
So all of the themes of Leo are associated with the sun, you know, rulerships and kings and transcendent and spirit and eternity.
But there's always the possibility for those themes within the material world to become perverted.
And then rather than authority, you have tyranny and rather than regality, you have arrogance.
And rather than nobility and transcendence, you have lust and cravings for fame.
You know, it's the same principles, but it's being perverted through this not being aware of our spiritual nature and the spiritual virtues in life.
And when those virtues aren't at work in life, you know, the strong solar disposition in the chart can devolve into those qualities.
So there very much is like an environmental component here.
Like, were you raised with like good morals?
Were you raised with some spiritual awareness of yourself?
Or are you just one of these people who's obsessed with the material world?
So like with Leo, you know, it's a sign that's interested in legacy and fame and nobility.
Archetypically speaking, Leo is trying to sustain the light amidst the presence of death and darkness.
Leo wants to live on forever.
And that's the delusion of fame and the legacy we have in the material sense.
You know, why do we want to be famous and rise above other people?
We think that way because, you know, we don't want to be irrelevant.
We don't want to be forgotten by history.
We don't want to be marginalized.
We want to be at the center.
And Leo has the sense of that soul's inherent dignity and pride and certainty of purpose.
But whenever a person is kind of falling away from those pure qualities of Leo or any other sign, you're going to start getting a more degenerated version of it.
So, like, for example, I'll say this.
Most of my client base for my professional practice are right-wing men, like 80%.
I would say that's extremely unusual in the astrological world to have that many male clients.
Yeah, I can imagine.
Very, very unusual.
Most of them are like predominantly female clients.
And of those men, I would say more than half have prominent Sagittarius placements, especially Sagittarius Rising, as well as a preponderance of like fourth, sixth, and ninth house placements.
So with Sagittarius, we see the same thing.
There's this search for a higher meaning with Sagittarius.
But if they don't have those spiritual principles guiding them, they tend to fall into this hedonistic nihilism.
You know, they're seekers and they tend to look for meaning in something bigger than they are.
But if they don't have that spiritual framework in which to do that, then you get like the traveling backpacking nomad who's just out to have a good time drinking ayahuasca in the Andes or whatever, right?
You know, we all know the type.
And interestingly, you know, with Sagittarius Risings, they have Leo ruling their ninth house of higher-minded things, spirituality, philosophy.
And so it's not really all that surprising that they'd be attracted to like an Evolian philosophy that's really highlighting the solar nature of spirituality.
And then it's no surprise that that makes up my client base.
And then, you know, with the fourth house people, we get the, they're the ones very interested in ancestry, roots, family, heritage.
We get sixth house people who are a lot more likely to be activists in some way, like really putting themselves out there.
Really, they like the fight.
And then the ninth house people, you know, they're often the ones who are like very interested in like the intellectual discourse of the socio-cultural wars or they're like really seriously seeking out a spiritual path in some way.
And that's kind of just regardless of what sign is governing those houses.
It's just a general trend that these houses come up a lot among my clients.
So it's been really interesting to notice and also to compare that with some of the more normy clients that I get coming through because I do get some.
And yeah, I mean, in that sense, there are certain things in a person's chart that might mark them out as, you know, being somebody who's a little bit more switched on versus being an NPC.
Yeah.
So quick question.
Could you just elaborate quickly on when you say houses, what dost thou mean?
So there are 12 slices of the pie, which we give to the signs.
And in Hellenistic astrology, we use whole sign houses.
So whatever sign is rising on the ascendant, that entire sign is the entire first house.
And each of these 12 houses rules a particular area of life.
This is kind of how we concretize things.
Like it doesn't mean much to say that you're a Leo's son.
But if we say, well, you're a Leo's son and Leo is your seventh house.
And we say, oh, well, the focus of this person's life is going to be always kind of their plot line is always going to be kind of coming back to relationships.
And that's going to be kind of like the driving theme in their life versus somebody who's got a 10th house Leo's son.
We say, okay, well, that person's probably really going to want to put themselves out there in the world and their public image is going to be a lot more important to them.
And so this is kind of why the houses are very important.
Modern astrology tends to prefer using placidus houses, which chop up the chart and you get houses crossing sign boundaries and intercepted signs and all this kind of crap that doesn't make sense.
But I don't want to rag on modern astrology too much because there are some out there that I like and I don't want to offend them, but I don't have a super high opinion of modern astrology.
I actually thought to ask you about bashing modern astrology.
So you can do it if you want.
If not, then not.
Yeah, well, let's do that because I think most people who are aware of astrology have only really been exposed to modern astrology because that's what's been popular in the West, you know, for the last century.
But, you know, both are using the tropical zodiac.
So we don't have that issue that we had with the Vedic astrology.
We can set that aside.
But to understand modern astrology, we need to understand a little bit of history.
So first of all, it's only been fairly recently that a lot of the ancient astrological source texts have been translated.
We just didn't have access to them before.
And when the theosophical and spiritualist movements started kind of reviving interest in astrology, they didn't have access to those source texts.
And as a result, modern astrologers were really left trying to just figure out on their own the rationale for astrological principles.
And, you know, not only did they not have source texts, but in most cases, they didn't even have like a good esoteric frame of reference.
Like they just, they were not taking a solidly academic approach to this.
It was a lot of it was like just by feels.
And so modern astrology seems to have become this weird monstrosity of pseudo-Jungian evolutionary psychology dressed up with astrological jargon.
And apparently the only way to be good at modern astrology is to be a psychic or intuitive or whatever other new age crap they want to throw at you.
And many of the principles of their craft are literally just made up.
Like, I'm not exaggerating here.
Alan Leo, who's considered one of the founding fathers of modern astrology, he just decided to give the outer planets rulership because he just felt like that's how it should be.
I'm not making that up.
That's not an exaggeration.
His only rationale was his feels.
I just feel that Uranus should rule Aquarius.
He was like, he didn't know that the ancients actually had this system of planetary rulerships that was foundational to how the whole system works.
And if you pull out this thread and say, well, I don't think Saturn should rule Aquarius, let's make it Uranus.
Now your whole tapestry is becoming unraveled.
Interestingly, he was charged and convicted of fraud quite a few times because his astrological practice left a lot of unsatisfied customers.
You also have cases of like modern astrologers, they have in some ways really made an effort to try to explain things.
And one of the things that's very foundational to their practice is what's called the 12-letter alphabet.
And they've equated signs, planets, and houses, just to put it really simplistically.
So for example, they'll say something like, the third house equals Gemini equals Mercury.
And you ask why.
And all you get is this circular reasoning.
Like, why is the third house related to Gemini?
Oh, because the third house is about communication.
Okay, so why is that linked to Gemini?
Oh, because of Mercury, they'll say.
But why is Mercury linked to the third house?
Because of communication.
And it will just go round and round like that.
Like, it's so frustrating.
And they can't explain it any other way.
Unfortunately, now we have texts that tell us otherwise.
But modern astrologers seem to really be clinging to their poorly constructed system and in general seem very reluctant to delve into the actual philosophy behind astrology and actually like just even learn correct delineation techniques because it's hard.
Like there's, not going to lie, if you guys want to get interested in astrology, there's a pretty steep learning curve.
Once you get past that curve, it's pretty smooth sailing, but it's difficult.
And in this, I really become very much a scientist.
If your system is solid, you should be able to teach your method to someone else and they should be able to repeat your experiment and get the same result.
And modern astrology seems to struggle with this.
And all of this new agey stuff that has been grafted onto it tries to deflect accountability by making it seem like it's just intuitive.
And oh, you just have to feel the chart.
That's not what ancient astrology taught at all.
Like, to me, I don't really consider modern astrology to be real astrology, which isn't to say that you couldn't get a good reading from a modern astrologer, but what they're doing is not anything like what was taught in ancient times.
And, you know, I wouldn't really consider it appropriate for timing rituals or anything like that, probably.
But if you just want to go and get your astrological Myers-Briggs done, you know, they could probably help you with that.
You will get very different readings from like modern versus Vedic versus Hellenistic, though.
And that doesn't mean that astrology doesn't work.
It's in that sense, it's more like any divinatory science.
The oracle will kind of find a way to speak in a meaningful way.
But astrology does seem to be very much a closed system where you tend not to get great results if you start picking and mixing from different types of astrology.
You know, I think you could get a worthwhile reading from any type of astrologer if they're good at what they do, but they're all going to be looking at your chart through their own lens.
And it's kind of like if I ask your best friend to describe you to me, and then I ask your mom to describe you to me, they're both describing the same person, but they're going to have really different things to say because their relationships to you are so different.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
All right.
So hopefully that answers your questions.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's a bit Since I'm so new to this, still a lot to take in.
But it's interesting stuff.
And of course, I will continue my astrological studies.
So in a year, when I listen to this interview again, it will make a lot more sense.
But yeah, I thought to mention something since you mentioned Theosophy there.
And Julius Evola, he was not a fan of the Theosophists and Madame Helena Blavatsky.
Do you want to talk about them a bit?
It's always fun to bash New Age hippie magicians.
Well, I think one of the biggest red flags about Theosophy is their longtime association with organizations like the United Nations.
Like they are very much a globalist type of ideology.
To me, I'm kind of like, you know, look at the fruits of what any spirituality teaches.
And when I look at the fruits of theosophy, I see a lot of really questionable stuff and a lot of really unethical stuff, like, you know, what they did to J. Krishnamurti.
Also, just the fact that everybody who seemed to join up with Theosophy claimed to be clairvoyant.
It's like, huh.
So suddenly there's just like this influx of clairvoyance into the world and they all just happen to be theosophists.
Interesting.
What are the odds?
But it's very syncretic, syncretistic.
I can't remember which is the right word to use, but there is a lot of picking and mixing going on and disregard for like real traditional principles.
It is very much the origins of the New Age movement.
And it's, I mean, it's perfect for, you know, the modern Kali Yuga person.
It's very, it's very feminized.
It's very in the feels, and it's just very subversive.
And I, you know, I did look into some of their astrological stuff.
Like I've looked into Alice Bailey's esoteric astrology and just kind of largely found it to be like kind of pokey.
Like I just, maybe somebody brighter than I could get something out of it.
But I was just like, what is this?
Like, why would you just make this stuff up?
Like, what purpose does this serve?
And more to the point, where are you getting this information from?
If you go and read Evela, his books are heavily footnoted.
Yeah.
He tells you where he's getting this from.
Oh, this idea is from the Vedas.
This idea is from Islam.
This idea is from some primitive tribe that nobody's ever heard of.
But he cites his sources.
Theosophy doesn't do that.
Theosophy's sources are the ascended masters.
Well, who are these?
How do we know that these aren't just like demonic entities that you're interfacing with?
Like, that doesn't, that seems really sus to me.
I'm going to, I'm going to stay far away from that myself.
Yeah, that sounds like a reasonable course of action.
And we can recommend our listeners here as well to stay clear of such heretics.
So anyway, we're coming up almost to an hour.
And yeah, it's been a lot of interesting insights.
And as I said, I will continue to delve deeper into this.
And maybe we can have another conversation in a year or so when I can ask you some more in-depth and more interesting questions.
Yeah, definitely.
Introductory ones.
It is tough to talk about astrology because of that learning curve.
And it's like, how do you talk about this stuff that necessarily requires you to use all this jargon?
But now you have to explain what it is that that means to people so that they've got a frame of reference.
And there always seems to be a bit of it that's going to go over the head of a newbie.
But my hope is that it at least sparks curiosity enough that, you know, you might want to go Google it or pick up a book or something.
Which, to that end, I would recommend to you if you'd like to get started in studying astrology or anybody who's listening.
The book that I tend to recommend most often to the people who come to my astrology study groups is Demetra George's Ancient Astrology in two volumes: volume one and volume two.
They're big, huge textbook-sized things, but they come with worksheets in it that you can use to work on with your own birth chart.
And I think that that's really helpful for a new student of astrology if you wanted to just do a study on your own because courses are very expensive and time-consuming, and not everybody has the resources or the time for that.
So, that's kind of like that's where I would suggest people start if they really want to get interested in it.
Otherwise, you know, start with the astrology podcast and just kind of try to absorb it as you go.
All right, right.
And you have a page as well, and you offer consultations, correct?
I do.
So, it's astrologicat.com, and I do offer birth chart readings, forecasting.
Probably not next year, but the year after, I'll probably start offering horrory readings, which is a specific medieval technique for answering predictive questions, which I'm having a lot of fun with.
But it's, I don't, I don't feel confident enough yet to kind of like offer that as a service because I feel like I still have a lot to learn.
Um, but yeah, so people are more than welcome to book readings.
Um, coming in, I want to say January or February, I'll start up the monthly study group again, and that's just a very low-key way for people who are interested to just kind of come and learn a little bit about astrology.
It's very low-cost, and it's like it's just a casual small group.
Bring in your birth chart, we'll answer your questions.
Um, any questions you've had from your study on your own that you're not sure about, you know, people can bring those kind of questions in for discussion.
So, that's always kind of a fun little group that we do every month.
I'm just kind of taking a couple months off for the holidays, and then we'll be back.
All right, awesome.
And then you're also on Telegram, of course.
I do believe probably most of our listeners here will subscribe to your channel, but it's Philosophy Cat, correct?
Yes, so I have a Philosophicat telegram and an Astrologicat telegram.
And if you go on the Astrologicat telegram and read some of the old posts, a lot of them are set up to be kind of like instructional and build on each other in a logical way.
So, that's also a good resource for people if they want to get their toes wet and learning a little bit is just to kind of scroll back to the beginning of the Astrologicat telegram and kind of read out the instructional posts.
All right, awesome.
And then you are on YouTube and Odyssey, of course, as well.
I am.
I am still on YouTube, and hopefully, getting my Twitter back soon.
We'll see.
All right, right, yeah, yeah.
I will be sure to share if you get it back.
But, yeah, on YouTube, it's Philosophy Cat as well.
Yep, Philosophicat.
And I'm sure you'll have my name in the title of the video or something.
People can find it, or you can put the link in the description.
I will have the title as Mysterious Astrology Guest, something like that.
No, I will, of course, of course, title it something along the lines of astrology with Philosophy Cat.
But, yeah, awesome.
Thank you so much for coming to enlighten us on spiritual newbies or astrological newbies.
And hopefully, some of our listeners will continue also on their astrological studies and learn to optimize their lives via the blessings of the stars.
So, yeah, again, thanks a lot for coming on the show.
Thank you so much.
It's been, I love talking about astrology.
I don't get asked about it as often as I like to talk about it.
And it's kind of like my mission at this point to reclaim astrology from the left.
So, anybody who wants to assist in that, you better start learning.
But hopefully, we can reclaim it in a way that will make our ancestors proud.
Yeah, definitely.
That's the goal.
Okay, and thank you to everyone who has been listening to this fine episode.
