Origins of the Planetary Myths in Astrology

The Astrology Podcast

Chris Brennan

Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Spirituality

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2024

⏱️ 187 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In episode 436 astrologer Demetra George joins me to discuss the origins of the myths associated with the planets in astrology, and how the Greek gods were assigned to the planets by the philosopher Plato and his students in the 4th century BCE. Early in the Greek tradition the planets either didn't have names or were given descriptive names that matched their appearance, and it wasn't until later that they were given the names of gods. It wasn’t until the time of the philosopher Plato and his students in the 4th century BCE that we see that Greek authors begin to give the planets specific names based on the gods of Greek religion and mythology ( i.e. Hermes/Mercury, Aphrodite/Venus, Ares/Mars, Zeus/Jupiter, Kronos/Saturn). The names first appear in the works of philosophers surrounding Plato's Academy in Athens: Plato, Philip of Opus, Eudoxus of Cnidus, and Aristotle. The full set of names seems to first appear in a philosophical text called the Epinomis, which is thought to have been written by Plato's student Philip of Opus. The names appear to have been chosen deliberately partially based on matching them to the older names that the Mesopotamian astrologers had given the planets in their pantheon (e.g. the god Hermes was assigned to the planet Mercury because Hermes was the Greek god of writing, and this matches the god the Mesopotamians assigned to Mercury which was called Nabu who was also a god of writing). Our goal with this episode was to talk about this process of naming the planets after the gods, compare the Mesopotamian and Greek myths for the planets, and discuss the impact this had on astrology. We spend the first 52 minutes setting up the problem and talking about the historical context and the issues involved, and then for the next hour and a half we go through and compare the Mesopotamian and Greek myths for each of the planets to see the ways in which they are consistent or inconsistent with each other. Finally after that we have a 30 minute segment drawing some conclusions and wrapping things up. In some ways this episode acts as the third in a trilogy of episodes I've done over the past month in exploring the impact of Platonism on astrology, with the Lots episode being the first and the Proclus episode the second, and in this one we take things even further by tracing things right back to Plato and his students in the 4th century BCE. The episode is important then because it addresses some very core issues about what do the planets mean in astrology and how did those meanings develop, and it takes us back to the very roots of western astrology and helps us to get another step closer to understanding where this system came from and how it first came together. This episode is available in both audio and video versions below. Demetra's Time-Lords Workshop Demetra is doing an intensive on Hellenistic time-lord techniques in person in June, and you can find out more information about it here: https://www.astrologyuniversity.com/shop/in-person/hellenistic-time-lords-retreat Resources The Epinomis Previous episode on the myth of Inanna and Venus Episode on the Lot of Fortune where Plato's Republic was discussed Episode on Proclus where Plato's Timaeus was discussed Robin Waterfield, The Evidence for Astrology in Classical Greece John Dillon, "The World-Soul Takes Command: The Doctrine of the World-Soul in the Epinomis of Philip of Opus and in the Academy of Polemon," in World Soul – Anima Mundi: On the Origins and Fortunes of a Fundamental Idea, ed. C. Helmig, De Gruyter, Berlin, 2020, pp. 155-66. Timestamps 00:00:00 Introduction 00:02:46 Premise of the discussion 00:05:05 The Mesopotamian tradition 00:19:30 Greek involvement in astrology 00:26:43 Plato and the Academy 00:42:20 Philip of Opus and the Epinomis 00:52:09 Myths of the Planets comparison begins 00:53:50 The Sun 01:05:23 The Moon 01:22:20 Mercury 01:45:10 Venus 02:00:20 Mars 02:10:20 Jupiter 02:22:20 Saturn 02:33:13 Ouranos, Kronos, Zeus 02:35:28 Concluding remarks 03:00:40 Demetra’s time-lord retreat 03:03:37 Credits Watch the Video Version of This Episode Watch the video version of this episode on Proclus and astrology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSUpWk6smQc - Transcript A full transcript of this episode is available: Episode 436 transcript Listen to the Audio Version of This Episode Listen to the audio version of this episode or download it as an MP3:

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, my name is Chris Brennan, and you're listening to the astrology podcast. In this episode,
0:04.9	Aestrologer, Demetra George, is joining me, and we're going to be talking about the ancient
0:10.3	myths associated with the planets and the gods and goddesses that came to be associated with those planets, and also how these names were originally established by the philosopher Plato and his students in the fourth century B.C.
0:27.0	Hey Dimitra, thanks for joining me.
0:28.6	It's great to be back on the astrology podcast and talking ancient astrology with you.
0:37.1	Yeah, ancient astrology and ancient myths, because the last episode we did together was on the Mesopotamian goddess Anana who was connected with Venus
0:46.8	and we talked about how the myths associated with Venus were very relevant in terms of the
0:52.0	meaning of that planet in astrology.
0:54.5	And so here we're back again to talk about that in a broader sense
0:58.9	through the lens of both the Greek as well as the Mesopotamian myths? Yes and the whole study of cross-cultural myths and how different cultures often have the gods who carry similar attributes is a fascinating study to untangle as to whether it comes
1:22.3	through actual transmission of cultures interacting with another and sharing
1:27.8	their knowledge or whether it comes possibly from a more union concept of that the gods represent the basic arche
1:39.2	forces or qualities forces of the psyche within the human being and that all cultures will have
1:48.0	manifestations of similar gods with similar attributes.
1:55.0	And so to what extent the whole study falls between actual tangential transmission or something that exists more on the level of the collective
2:07.2	unconscious is like a very rich area of study.
2:10.8	Yeah and it's an area of study that you've done, put a lot of your focus on over the course of your
2:17.4	career both in terms of mythology and in terms of astrology.
2:21.2	And you had an even older connection though with myths in terms of how you grew up right?
2:25.6	Right, you know, both of my grandmothers were Greek and they formed part of my, I lived with both of them when I was young and those were my bedtime stories.
2:38.0	Okay, so yeah, that's a, you have a deep like intimate connection with them then that sort of flows through your life is woven through your life in different ways.
2:46.8	Well, so for the purpose of this episode, we're going to focus on the myths of the planets, and I wanted to just quickly set up an overview of the premise of our discussion, which is that early in the Greek tradition there weren't names for the planets like it didn't always exist in Greek literature where there were names for these wandering stars.
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