[00:00:00] Amanda Walsh: Welcome to the Astrology Hub Podcast. I’m Amanda Pool Walsh, founder of Astrology Hub and your host For our flagship show, we explore the many ways astrology can support you and your relationships, career, health, and personal growth. Thanks for tuning in.

[00:00:21] Well, hello everybody. Welcome to this very special edition of the Astrology Hub Podcast. My name’s Amanda and I’m the founder of Astrology Hub. And I’m so excited to be here today with Christopher Renstrom to be talking about a topic that is near and dear to my heart and like endlessly intriguing, and especially when conveyed by someone like Christopher, who has a Catholic background himself, which I’ll let him tell you about, and also who has been studying the link between astrology and Christianity for decades.

[00:00:57] So today we’re going to be talking about what Christianity did to astrology, essentially the link between the two. And we’re gonna walk you through a little bit of. Um, a time capsule from pagan time to Christian time to more of when the psychological and spiritual sort of astrology came to be, and then up until modern times and how it all evolved.

[00:01:21] Christopher has some beautiful, um, Art to share with us to really help this come to life. And he, for those of you who don’t know him, he’s also a historian and a world class astrologer. He’s the teacher of our current planet’s course where he’s going into the, the depth and the meaning of the planets.

[00:01:40] We’re j we’re gonna talk about a little bit here today too. And Christopher, I’m just so grateful that you’re here with us today. Thanks for joining

[00:01:47] Christopher Renstrom: us. So, I’m so excited. I love this topic so much. It’s so, it’s so dear to my heart, and I suspect it’s dear to yours too. You know, it’s such a rich history and not one that we really know about, uh, because Christianity and astrology are often sort of, uh, uh, uh, presented as being antithetical to one another, but actually they nursed one another.

[00:02:11] They fostered one another, they fed one another, and they inspired one another. And, and that’s, that’s a big part of the Christian history, uh, that isn’t really well known and that we get to sort of dive into today. Oh my gosh,

[00:02:25] Amanda Walsh: I can’t wait. Yes. Great. All right. So let’s start with Christopher. Let’s start with this question.

[00:02:31] What got you into this? Why are you fascinated by this topic and, you know, just bring us back a little

[00:02:37] Christopher Renstrom: bit. Sure, sure. Um, I was raised as a Catholic and, um, and we were very Catholic, uh, out of San Francisco. And my, uh, great uncle was a knight of Malta, even, uh, if you can believe such a thing. And, but at the same time, uh, the Irish side of the family had a very powerful, mystical bent, you know, um, I had, uh, the, the sister of the very uncle who was, uh, the night of Malta, uh, talk to the spirits and she would, uh, she would basically, they weren’t seances, but she would light a cigar, smoke it backwards, puff out, smoke, and begin talking to spirits and, and doing predictions and they came true and all these sorts of things.

[00:03:19] And, and I was very inspired by that. And, and so there’s always kind of this healthy. Uh, pairing between Catholicism and spiritualism. And my mom, uh, was very fond of astrology. She never practiced it. She never, uh, pursued it in any sort of way, but for some reason, I have no idea why she would bring home coffee table astrology books or astrology coloring book, or there was a jigsaw puzzle and she’d be like, let’s, let’s work on the jigsaw puzzle.

[00:03:46] Or, why don’t you read about your father out loud to me? You know? And, and so we sort of bonded and shared astrology, but we also bonded and shared art. She was an art major in, in, in college and a beautiful painter. And so, you know, this love of astrology and art and symbolism and real resonance with spirituality, this was something that, you know, I really counted myself as being fortunate to have grown up, uh, in California when I did in the sixties and the seventies, and, and to really enjoy this.

[00:04:20] And so this really inspired me so that when I sort of. Picked up astrology. Not that I had ever aspired to be one. It began the language, started talking to me right off the bat, and, and so I was very grateful to have had that very positive exposure to religion and astrology. Oh my

[00:04:39] Amanda Walsh: gosh, I, I absolutely adore your mother.

[00:04:42] Every story I hear about your mom, I’m just like, oh God. I like her. Amazing. I mean, amazing that she was so religious and yet she didn’t seem to have this internal conflict with her religion and astrology. I’m curious about that, but I don’t know if we wanna go into it now. I. Maybe we

[00:05:00] Christopher Renstrom: don’t. I, I think because, um, honestly, what it gets down to is she was an artist.

[00:05:04] Mm. You know, and I think that, um, uh, people who are involved in the arts have a, don’t have such a literal, I, I’m probably generalizing to be the band, but, but I think that there was such a draw to symbol, to image, to influence, to color. Yeah. Um, that it was just kind of like, Hmm. You know, why get hung up on that?

[00:05:24] You know, sort of, sort of thing. Mm-hmm. But I was also a child of Vatican too. I mean, I’ll say that too. There was a very strong Vatican II going through, uh, where I lived in California. And so there was a much more liberal quality in the seventies and Catholicism that had been, um, experienced before.

[00:05:41] Right.

[00:05:41] Amanda Walsh: Okay. All right. So let’s talk about the transition. Mm-hmm. From pagan paganism to the Christian world and astro. What happened to astrology in that

[00:05:52] Christopher Renstrom: shift? Yeah, well, basically, um, you can, you can break down the history of astrology really easily. It begins in the mid East. Okay. It moves to the Greeks, it gets repackaged by the Romans, then it’s picked up by the Arabs, and then it’s reintroduced into Europe where it’s adopted by the medieval Christian scholars.

[00:06:14] So basically, I’ve kind of collapsed centuries of astrology into that kind of silk road of astrology, how, how astrology ends up in medieval Christian Europe. Um, the, the, the, uh, oft. Was, uh, Roman poet. He’s kind of the Truman Capote of Ancient Rome, actually. He’s, he’s a marvelous, fabulous poet. Um, and wrote some, you know, nasty and dirty little, you know, love poems and things like that.

[00:06:39] And actually ended up getting himself exiled by, um, Augusta. Caesar. But anyway, we’re not gonna stray with that. But Avid, uh, wrote a work called Metamorphosis, uh, which is basically about the changing, the changing of gods or, or people who come into contact with Gods. So essentially he collected Greek mythology and then repackaged it in a Roman voice and a Roman sensibility.

[00:07:05] At this time, uh, Greece had already been, uh, absorbed into the Roman Empire. And if you were elite, well, to-do person, you had a tutor who was Greek. Okay? So, Greek sciences, Greek philosophy, Greek mythology, Greek. Imagery, uh, Greek astrology Okay. Is getting transmitted into the Roman culture. So Avid wrote Metaform Metamorphosis, uh, which is all the Greek myths.

[00:07:31] And then these go on and they feature deities, which are named after planets. And these go on and they become allegory. We had talked about the term allegory, well last week, and allegory is a story of poem or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning typically AOR or political one. And so, These images inspired.

[00:07:53] For instance, Virgil, when he writes the en uh, for, uh, Caesar, um, it’s the great, uh, uh, uh, feats of Roman heroes who are inspired by the gods. Uh, this goes on, uh, uh, Virgil’s work, uh, appears and influences the great poet Dante. And we’re all familiar with Dante’s Inferno. Uh, Dante is, uh, by the time we get to Dante, which is 1285 to 1321, it’s Christian Italy.

[00:08:21] Um, and so we know Dante from Dante’s Inferno, which is the dissent down into the seven levels of hell and all the awful things that happen. What people aren’t as familiar with is Dante’s Paradisio. Where Dante, uh, Dante after his journey down into hell and seeing all the awful things that are gonna happen to people when they die.

[00:08:41] That’s why everyone knows it. Okay? Um, but his journey into Paradisio is his journey through the seven Heavens Up to God. And here, the seven heavens up to God. Each of the heavens is named after a planet in astrology. So each of the heavens has the benefits and the characteristics of the planets, and this is the first real fusion that you have between Pagan, um, myth.

[00:09:11] Astrological symbolism. Okay. These are the planets and the character of the planets or, and then the mix of Christianity. So there’s no prohibitive distancing that’s going on between Christianity and mythology, or paganism or astrology. It’s actually all. Mixed up into one, into this really beautiful embroidery.

[00:09:34] It’s this real beautiful embroidery of imagery. And so of its work actually provided a kind of library of images that go on to, um, inspire Dante. Um, uh, of it, as I said, wrote in, uh, eight a d um, and the 12th century in Europe has been called the Aian Age. This comes from the academic Elizabeth Vandiver.

[00:09:58] Um, and in the 12th century you had the growth of cathedral schools in Europe, which increased knowledge and exposure of. Of its work, which is, which is all the pagan mythology. Um, medieval writers began interpreting meta nephrosis as a collection of allegories that were moral, but also specifically Christian.

[00:10:18] So they moved them away from the Greek context into a Christian one, so that, for instance, by the 14th century in the flight of Dataless and ICARs, if you remember, dataless is an architect who builds the labyrinth and ICARs is his son. And they dataless fashion’s wings. And he tells Iris not to fly too close to the sun, but he does.

[00:10:39] And, and his wings melt and he dies. Um, which is told and in of it’s work. Well, this was repackaged as an example of the soul’s flight toward God. Uh, so, so this is how astrology and its imagery, uh, and what I’m talking about here is really the planets, the way that we look at the planets. Planets are reinterpreted in an allegorical sense, and then they take on a Christian.

[00:11:06] Meaning, okay. The, uh, almost a Christian curriculum in this regard, so they’re not thrown out, but they’re actually embraced as Allegan image, so that the most famous. Person that we know of who’s influenced by Avid. And his collection of these stories is Shakespeare. In fact, Vandiver says you cannot read Shakespeare really, unless you know AVID’s metamorphosis because all of the images in the mids are being references.

[00:11:35] So this is this, you, you have to think of it as a storehouse of imagery that poets are calling upon to write about the spirit and the soul. And this is where astrology, in a way that we don’t think of astrology, we often think of just astrology as the astrological practice. But astrology had an influence that went outside the practice of astrology.

[00:11:58] It had an influence on art, an influence on philosophy, and a very powerful influence on Christianity. And, and this is kind of like how it moves from the pagan sphere into the Christian sphere. And we begin seeing the planet’s. Translate. The planets aren’t forces of prediction or forces of fate as much as they are allegories and symbols that we can live by in order to explore and develop and purify our souls.

[00:12:29] Amanda Walsh: Okay. Fascinating. And so many questions. You say what the, so did the Pagans view it as more of a predictive tool or was it a sole ba uh, was it something to understand the soul then?

[00:12:45] Christopher Renstrom: For them it’s, it, it’s actually, if you go back and look at the writings, it’s not too dissimilar from today. Right. Okay.

[00:12:51] Today you have astrologers who are very into, oh, no, this is predictive. Mm-hmm. And, and this is how I do astrology. Or you’ll have astrologers who are like, um, this is medical astrology and I’m going to diagnose according to herbs and planetary rulerships, and things like that. And then, for instance, you have astrologers who were influenced by humanistic astrology, which is basically the realization of the soul through exploration of archetypes.

[00:13:15] And that’s more allegorical, or that’s more symbolic. Those same ideas were going on in the ancient world. Hmm. They, you know, and, and I think one of the big differences is that, that in the ancient world, when one religion encountered another religion, there wasn’t, uh, before Christianity, there wasn’t this need to convert.

[00:13:36] It was kind of like, oh, that’s a good idea for God, or That’s a wonderful idea of a goddess. Or let’s set up a cult. You know? So there was this exchange. You have such powerful Eastern influences on Roman religion or Egyptian influences on Roman religions. And so it wasn’t so much like, my religion has to be different from yours.

[00:13:56] It was much more free floating. It’s when you have the abramic religions, Judaism, uh, is, uh, Muslim Islam, and, uh, Christianity in which it’s distinguishing itself as a part and separate from, from, uh, from these other religions, which we’re celebrating a pantheon of gods. And these are religions that were more monotheistic based.

[00:14:18] Okay,

[00:14:19] Amanda Walsh: so if, if, if in early Christianity, astrology was just sort of Christianized, but the planets and everything were still intact in their meanings and all the ways that we interpret them today were still basically intact. What happened that made the rift? Because I mean, I, I’ve been in recent conversations with people where we’ve been exp you know, they’re very Christian and, and I’m, and I tell them what I do, and then there’s kind of this really interesting conversation that ensued

[00:14:52] Christopher Renstrom: Right.

[00:14:52] Conversation. Yeah, yeah. But so

[00:14:55] Amanda Walsh: I’m just wondering where did, where did the rift happen and why?

[00:14:59] Christopher Renstrom: Um, the, the Rift, it’s, it’s, it’s weird because the rift, as we know it, is maybe about a hundred ish years old. It’s that recent. Yeah, it’s that recent. It’s that recent,

[00:15:13] Amanda Walsh: but, but they, but often, uh, it’s, it’s, the Bible is pointed to as like, look, it says in the Bible that astrology is not, is is of the devil or is, is prohibited.

[00:15:26] Christopher Renstrom: What? There was a big clash. I, I like to bring up John Calvin. Are you familiar? I mean, do you know Calvinism, the, the term Calvinism? Yes. Uhhuh. Yeah. Ok. I mean, I don’t know a lot about it, but I’ve heard of it. Right, right. He’s, he’s basically an early Protestant reformer. Um, he wrote this treatise on astrology in like, I think it’s 1534 or 1564, in which he distinguishes the difference between good astrology and bad astrology.

[00:15:50] It’s kind of like good cholesterol versus bad cholesterol, right? Astrology was known to be associated with weather prediction and medical diagnosis. Okay? And so that’s what it was used for, and it was still in use. The third thing is astrology was also used to create the calendar. For instance, you know, we had the Juliann calendar, and then we had the Gregorian calendar, which was initiated by Pope Gregory.

[00:16:13] Well, there’s no way he could have constructed a calendar without tmy and without the astrological books being referenced that were stored in the Vatican, that would never have happened. So that’s another, uh, influence or connection that astrology has to Christianity. Um, where Calvin, John Calvin got upset with astrology and where, uh, Christians got upset with astrology is that, uh, this idea that people could take out a horoscope and, and, and, and predict something that was going to be faded.

[00:16:45] Okay. Um, actually the origin of this is with St. Augustine. That’s the person we can blame. Um, and a quick aside is that St. Augustine used to go to astrologers all the time. Then he found Christ in God and he like completely derided astrologers. And that shows up, I believe for the first time in City of God.

[00:17:03] Um, and so it’s kind of like St. Augustine’s is a little bit like a smoker, you know, who like really enjoyed smoking. Now they’ve quit and they’re like secondhand tobacco, you know, put off that cigarette, you know, so, so he took on a steer about face, but the anxiety was that people were going to.

[00:17:19] Anticipate the will of God rather than obey the will of God. And so that’s where astrologers, um, you know, people who forecast the future, which Calvin says that’s bad astrology. Okay? That’s where they fell afoul of the church. Okay? But, um, if you were practicing astrology as a medical practitioner, Paracelsus, um, if you were practicing astrology as a weather reporter, astrology was a part of weather reporting even in America up until the 19th century.

[00:17:52] Then astrology was good. But if you started, you know, looking around the planets and looking at how that was going to affect people’s fortunes and destinies, then astrology was bad because at that point, astrology becomes a competitor to the word of God. Hmm,

[00:18:08] Amanda Walsh: interesting. So anything with like transits and even horoscopes, I mean, that would technically fall under that umbrella.

[00:18:19] Right?

[00:18:20] Christopher Renstrom: It would be like someone who’s not a priest saying mass. Okay. What’s that gonna do? Right. Okay.

[00:18:27] Amanda Walsh: Do you find evidence of this in the Bible itself or are you saying that, I mean, have you been able to find evidence of this sort of like decree coming from quote unquote God? Or do you think it’s more of a human like, oh no, this is, this is scary territory.

[00:18:44] We probably shouldn’t

[00:18:45] Christopher Renstrom: go there. Okay. From a sort of like brief reflection on it, if you look at the creation of the world, okay. In. The, the seven days, the seventh day, God rests, right? There’s astro there, there’s the setting up of the cosmos and the lights and the planets. Um, this was a reflection of Babylonian astrology.

[00:19:07] It actually is infused right into the book of, of, of Genesis, uh, which is written around the time of the Babylonian captivity. Where, when the Jews were captive in, in, in, in Babylon. And so there was a very heavy influx of that. And so astrology shows up there. Um, but as the Jewish identity begins to evolve and assert itself, you know, in, in Genesis and later books of the, of the Old Testament, um, you know, it’s that sort of thing is put to one side.

[00:19:37] I mean, you’ll have these relapses, like they follow Moses into the desert and Moses doesn’t come down down from the mountain for a while. And so they set up a gold calf, which is obviously an Egyptian or ba Babylonian deity. So there was always this anxiety about paganism slipping back into, you know, your monotheistic religion.

[00:19:57] And so monotheistic religions had a very, um, uh, uh, protective and and adverse reaction to anything slipping on in. But as far as I know, I think there’s maybe one. There’s something about Soothsayers, maybe, and Deuteronomy maybe, but, um, you know, it’s, it, it was more along the lines of if you followed Christ and Christianity, you didn’t need that because you had the one truth and, and that was going to lead you, uh, for, that’s why for instance, in the episode with the three wise men, when they talk to herd, the wise men who are basically magi, who are basically Persian astrologers, that’s what they are.

[00:20:38] They’re following a star in the sky, okay? Which is, which many people have theorized as a transit of Jupiter. Um, that’s why they can pr correctly predict. Whereas the false soothsayers of Herod cannot. But probably the most famous example everyone knows is that the Magi, the three wise men who are astrologers, that’s what a Magi was back then was an astrologer.

[00:21:00] Amanda Walsh: In one of my most recent conversations, one of my most, uh, interesting recent conversations with someone about this topic, uh, when I got to that point that the three wise men were actually, they were following a star, which mm-hmm. Like kind of. By virtue of it, it, it’s, that’s what astrologers do. They, they like study the stars and they follow sign.

[00:21:22] Right. That I, I definitely crossed into a territory that the per made the person uncomfortable and they’re like, no, no, no, no, no. That, that, that’s like a, that was a special star. Like that was not, A normal star in the sky. That was like a very special once in a lifetime kind of thing. And I was like, okay, I’m gonna back off this conversation.

[00:21:42] Right. But that’s okay, you know? Right. So, but what, what as, as an astrologer who studied history and knows the Bible and all that, what would you say that Star was that indicated the birth of Christ?

[00:21:54] Christopher Renstrom: There have been a number of different theories, um, and, and some of them very, very compelling. Uh, the one I like is that it was connected to a transit of Jupiter because the stars also described as moving backwards in the sky.

[00:22:05] And that, of course would be a planet moving retrograde. Mm-hmm. But the re But we have to remember that the way that they were talking about stars back then isn’t really the way that we talk about it now. You know? I mean, when someone thinks of following a star, the star is moving and leading and they’re following it, you know, and it’s like right.

[00:22:24] No. They’re like, oh, the star was here. You know, and then the planet’s over here another night, and the planet, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re following it. Okay. Right. Yeah. Not

[00:22:32] Amanda Walsh: following it as if it’s God, but just literally

[00:22:34] Christopher Renstrom: following its movement. They’re not Right. They’re not following it like a, you know, golden retriever, like, you know, Hey buddy.

[00:22:40] They’re not like following it across the desert like that. Right.

[00:22:44] Amanda Walsh: Oh my gosh. Okay. So I know you have some, I, I’d love to dive more into the, um, how astrology is embedded into the Christian beginnings and also in the art. And it’s not just the beginnings, it’s like throughout Christianity

[00:23:00] Christopher Renstrom: pretty much.

[00:23:00] Right? It’s the history, the, the big thing that I really want, uh, the big thing that I like to say is that, Astrology is a, a, a book read science or, or art form. Really, I prefer to call it an art form. You couldn’t just be an astrologer and be like, oh, I think, you know, like, like back then you had to study astrology.

[00:23:20] Okay. An astrology was taught in the university’s Amanda, uh, which were Christian sponsored until the 16 hundreds. Okay. Astrology was part of your curriculum. They go back and say, oh, it was astronomy, but it’s like, no, it’s astrology and I have the receipts. Okay, I’ve got the books.

[00:23:37] What,

[00:23:37] Amanda Walsh: oh, how do we know that?

[00:23:38] How do we know it wasn’t just

[00:23:40] Christopher Renstrom: astronomy? Probably Halsted. I mean, that’s a whole other thing. But Halsted um, writes an encyclopedia that is taught at Harvard University in which he goes through, um, predictions of planets predicting the end of the world. I mean, it’s right there and you had to know astrology to follow it.

[00:24:00] And he’s making, um, Auste is, is making, uh, is chronicling, uh, astrological predictions. And it was in an encyclopedia that was taught at Harvard. Wow.

[00:24:11] Amanda Walsh: So they were, even though there’s this like push pull between astrology. Being a predictive tool. They were still teaching astrology in Christian funded universities through the 16 hundreds is what you just said, right?

[00:24:26] Christopher Renstrom: Yeah, absolutely. Wow. And, and then it’s thrown out and then astrology becomes what I call a refugee science. Um, and it, and it travels over to America where it has a new life, uh, aside from Europe, but that’s a whole other, very, very long and would love to tell one day story. Yes. But, um, in this, uh, the thing that I like to emphasize with people is that if the church was so much against astrology okay.

[00:24:52] And really hated astrology, it could have burned all the astrology books. Hmm. No one else was housing them. Okay. Uh, you know, people didn’t have an astrology book on their, like nighttime ta their night tape on the 13 hundreds. Okay. Astrology was housed in either Christian universities or the Vatican or monasteries.

[00:25:16] So if it was that bad, and believe me, the church did a lot of book burning. Okay. At different, there, there are things we don’t even know that went into the, into the flames. The church did a lot of book burning. So if astrology was really evil and that bad burn the books, then you don’t have to worry about it.

[00:25:34] No one practices it cuz no one knows how to to do it. They did it. And it’s not because they had a neurotic obsession with collecting, it’s because it had legitimacy. Hmm. Either as a science in terms of being combined with, uh, predicting transits or passages of the planets. Okay. Um, or as allegory and symbol in terms of poetry to celebrate God.

[00:25:59] Renaissance is all of these beautiful paintings of, of Greek, uh, gods and myths, but as allegories to celebrate God. So, so that it was seen as a way of celebrating God. And then when the ref refer movement gets going and, and they’re saying the, you know, Catholics are too out there or whatever, you know, everything got, you know, corseted or, or, or streamlined.

[00:26:24] But before then it was seen as this celebration of God and nature. But the Catholic church had. Hundreds of years to burn astrology books if they felt like it was that dangerous and they didn’t, they actually painstakingly curated them.

[00:26:42] Amanda Walsh: Wow. That is a, an excellent point that I have not heard vocalized before.

[00:26:48] And you know, in terms of the celebration of God, I’m sure that many people in our community can say that they, that’s how they feel about astrology. That it is a celebration of God, the universe, source, whatever you wanna. Absolutely. Right.

[00:27:04] Christopher Renstrom: Absolutely.

[00:27:05] Amanda Walsh: Absolutely. I remember, I, I’m think, I’m sure you’ve heard me tell this story ad nauseum, but my first astrology reading after 12 years of Catholic school studying every world religion in college, getting my master’s in psychology, just really trying to answer this question like, who are we and why are we here?

[00:27:21] Right. My first astrology reading was my first. Tangible evidence of God for me. Like I sat there with tears just going, oh my gosh, there, there has to be a divine intelligence if that can be deduced from this piece of information. Like, it just made complete sense to me. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:40] Christopher Renstrom: And, and, and, and astrology brought with it, with its allegory of myth and the planets, these beautiful images and symbols.

[00:27:49] You know, I’m sure that when you had your reading, there were symbols or, or the way that things were interpreted that moved your soul. Absolutely.

[00:27:56] Amanda Walsh: You know, oh, and every time I hear you talk, the same thing happens over and over again. Yes. Show us some of the imagery. So basically you, you’ve talked about how the, the planets became sort of like Christianized.

[00:28:12] Christopher Renstrom: In this

[00:28:13] Amanda Walsh: transition, and I know that you have some images to actually prove

[00:28:17] Christopher Renstrom: what you’re talking about. Well, I wanna tell a little story, um, which is basically in 1627, and Joe, you can go ahead with the first image of if you like. Um, in, uh, 1627, Julius Schiller published his. Christian, which was a series of star maps that recast the heavens with Christian figures instead of pagan ones.

[00:28:41] The planet Zodiac signs and constellations were all recast as famous figures from the Bible. So that Jesus replaced the Son, Saint Peter, replaced the Zodiac sign of Aries. Uh, Mary Magdalene replaced the Constellation caia, et cetera. Um, unfortunately the Coolum DTO Christian was published at the height of the Protestant Reformation, so it never really caught on.

[00:29:07] Nevertheless, it’s very clear that a lot of thought and a little bit of something else went on into this. So I wanted to sort of get into showing how the Christian religion and astrology begin to fuse, uh, the next, uh, slide Joe.

[00:29:26] Uh, here, just to very quickly, uh, show you, we are just talking about the ma magi, right? The three wise men. Um, and, and so this is, this is an astronomical atlas that we’re looking at. Um, the three Kings replace the constellation of Hercules. It’s hard to see in that first image, it looks like. Okay. A lot of stuff, but, but here we see that the three kings were drawn out on a star map and they replaced Hercules.

[00:29:52] So this was Chilis and she was only frozen

[00:29:54] Amanda Walsh: for me. Huh? You were frozen for a moment there. I don’t know if it was me or

[00:30:00] Christopher Renstrom: I, Christopher’s fine on my end.

[00:30:04] Amanda Walsh: Oh, it was me. Okay. I’m so sorry. Just keep going.

[00:30:08] Christopher Renstrom: Uh, well, here are, here are the Magi, the three Kings, and they replaced the Constellation Christi, uh, of Hercules in the star map.

[00:30:16] So this is, you know, before like when we saw that image, it’s like, oh, a lot of things. But here we’re focusing in to show you one of the constellations, which was, uh, Hercules, replaced by the three kings. Can we go to the next one? Joe? Here’s St. Peter with the keys. Okay. Jesus’ favorite is Aries. Okay, so, so all of the Zodiac signs have been replaced by the 12 Apostles.

[00:30:42] Okay, so, so the first one, Aries, has been replaced by St. Peter. Okay. Uh, next one.

[00:30:51] Uh, subsequently, um, St. John the evangelist, for instance, is the, uh, is the cons, is the const, is the zodiac sign of cancer. So St. John the evangelist replaces cancer.

[00:31:04] Amanda Walsh: Okay? So you know that these are actually astrological because the stars. The stars, okay, got it.

[00:31:13] Christopher Renstrom: Fascinating. You know how you see a star of Aries and like a, the ram is drawn out.

[00:31:18] These are the same stars, but instead we’re seeing Saint John the evangelist. Wow. This is what Scher wanted to do. He was convinced we could just move the heavens and christianize them. And this is what this, in this marvelous star atlas, I, I love the misadventures of history. Okay, next one, please. And then this is, uh, Philip the apostle, who’s Libra.

[00:31:41] Okay. This one’s color. So, but what you can sort of see, um, I don’t know if Joe, if you’ve got a cursor, but what you can see is that, uh, Scorpio is, is right next to Bartholome, but that’s another, um, apostle. And then you can see sort of biblical figures, uh, you know, just sort of showing up there on the star map.

[00:31:59] All right. And, and, and

[00:31:59] Amanda Walsh: are they correlating the like, quote unquote personality of the apostles with the attributes of that zodiac

[00:32:08] Christopher Renstrom: line? Well, um, Aries is first, and Peter was the first. So, you know, I mean, this is what, but, but yeah, we’re gonna see how, I don’t know whether it was just symbolism or whatever, but we’re gonna see this emerge particularly with the planets.

[00:32:26] Okay. The next one,

[00:32:27] Amanda Walsh: Joe. Well, and the cancer one. He was with an animal, which seems kind of cancer, right? He

[00:32:33] Christopher Renstrom: was with a golet. A golet. Right, which is the cup, which is Yeah. Which is, which is, uh, related to, uh, uh, two more Joe, one and two right there. So it’s the cup which, uh, anyone who practices to row is associated to water.

[00:32:51] It’s, it’s the waters. Oh, interesting. Okay. It’s the chalice. Okay. Mm-hmm. It’s holding the wine. Okay. Next. And then just the one after this, and we can pause here. So this is the front piece of this marvelous atlas and what you can see, I think it’s left to right on mine. So let’s see if that works. You can see Mary, right?

[00:33:15] Is she on, on your left? Mm-hmm. Yep. Underneath Mary’s foot is the moon. Okay, so Mary becomes the goddess or the Christian ruler of the moon. Okay. If you move next to Mary, the fellow sort of scowling at Mary, okay. Is Adam. First man Adam is Saturn. Okay? He’s the first child of God, right? Um, then you go next to Adam, to the right Joe.

[00:33:50] And there you see Moses with his tablets. Moses underneath him, the star symbol. It’s very small. He can’t really see it is Jupiter. So Moses is the law giver. Okay, and Jupiter is a planet that’s associated with laws, the giving of laws. Okay, so you’ve got Saturn and that sense of, you know, you’ve got Adam and the and and the rejection.

[00:34:12] He blew it. The original sin, okay? That’s connected to the guilt. That’s part of the attorney and vocabulary. Then you move to Jupiter, the law giver, who’s Moses? Uh, in front of Jesus, you can see that there’s the sun. Okay? We all recognize the sun, and there’s the halo around Jesus’s head. So Jesus is the son.

[00:34:32] Mary is looking at Jesus. So the moon reflects the sun, so she’s looking at Jesus. Um, to the right of Jesus is Elijah, um, who is one of the great prophets, and Elijah, uh, just by his knee. If you go a little bit to the left, it’s, it’s, if, if are the two fiery wheels, they’re, they, they, they bookend him.

[00:34:57] There’s one on, on the left side and then one on the right. Then you come on over to Joshua. Elijah is associated with Mercury, messenger of the gods. He’s a prophet. He speaks God’s words, right? Then you come on over to Joshua and he has a sword, and he’s pointing the sword up at the halo of Jesus. Um, Joshua will get into a little bit, uh, in a little bit, but Joshua’s famous for having stopped the sun and the moon in the sky during a very famous battle, and so he’s pointing his sword up to the sun, which is around Jesus’s head.

[00:35:34] And Joshua being a great and terrible warrior, is associated to the planet Mars. Most fascinating is the person on the right. We would think this would be Venus. That’s the planet that’s missing. It is Venus, but Venus has been trans sexed in this, okay? Because, uh, s Schiller did not want to celebrate the voluptuous, seductive powers of Venus.

[00:36:01] Okay? So no Venus in our pantheon, okay? Venus has been transected and repackaged as St. John the Baptist. Okay? And so St. John the Baptist is gesturing towards Jesus, and Jesus is looking at St. John the Baptist. So St. John the Baptist is Venus. What’s fascinating is that the three most important people in the Christian Bible are Mary Jesus and St.

[00:36:31] John the Baptist. And the three most important orbs in the sky are moon. Son and Venus. Okay. Wow. And so Venus, as she heralds the Dawn, St. John the Baptist comes and heralds the approach, the arrival of Christ. So here he is, you know, gesturing to Christ, and Christ is is looking down at St. John the Baptist.

[00:36:56] So this begins this kind of like fabulous synthesis of the astrological deities, the planets into Christian iconography. Can we go to the next one, Joe? Gosh, are you all

[00:37:11] Amanda Walsh: enjoying this as much as me? This is fascinating. I, I’ve like, wanted this so bad, what I probably should have asked you a long time ago, Christopher, this is

[00:37:20] Christopher Renstrom: fascinating.

[00:37:20] Well, it, it’s because we’re doing the Planet’s workshop and, and this is, this is connected to that, um, it, it’s, we get, this isn’t in the planet’s workshop unfortunately, cuz it didn’t make the cut. So that’s why I was like, yay, I get to talk about it. Okay. Um, but here we see Jesus as the son, right? And we all know the resurrection.

[00:37:41] And this is a beautiful piece. It’s from, it’s by Matia Grunwald, um, and it’s part of an altarpiece and it’s Jesus rising from the dead. Okay? So, so, so it’s not just a halo, he’s really the son and he’s rising from the dead. Well, the resurrection takes place in. April in or, or March or April in the spring Equinox, it’s connected to Aries.

[00:38:03] The sun astrologically is exalted most celebrated in the Zodiac sign of Aries. Okay, so here we have Jesus gone from man to God, resurrecting as the son. In, in, in a, in, in a peace that’s, that’s centered around that period of time, which is Easter. Okay? Which, which we’re seeing right here. So Jesus is not only the son in the sky, but also the Son of God.

[00:38:29] All right? Hmm. So next one. This is something that, um, I always love to talk about because art carried so much of the history and memory of astrology. Astrology wasn’t just passed down through the treatises and the books and directions of Halo de Casto horoscope. Astrology was an art, and that’s why it was sort of jumping out the opportunity to share this.

[00:38:54] Mary is the moon, and you see the moon crescent underneath her, okay? And she’s looking up to the stars, the crown of stars above her, and Mary is the mother of God, okay? And we know that the moon in astrology is associated to, to the mother, okay? But it’s also associated to the body. And especially in a Christian understanding of the moon, the reason the moon changes its shape, its phases as it travels through the heavens, is because it’s associated with mortality.

[00:39:25] We’re born young, there’s a new moon. We grow to adulthood, and then we begin to wither and decay until we’re nothing full. Moon to the dark moon. And so the moon, the mother gives birth to us and bodies, and so the, the, the moon, and hence, Uh, I apologize for the misogyny, but hence, you know, um, women were responsible because of Eve for birthing us into bodies that are corruptible and die.

[00:39:51] And so the moon was seen as, as, as evidence of this. It wasn’t like the sun, which was pure and immortal, never changed it shape the moon, changed its shape all the time. So you have that embodied in Mary as well. But in medieval Christianity, Mary was a very important figure, more important than Christ, okay?

[00:40:10] And one of the reasons is that whenever you sinned, okay, this is where you get the flogging and things like that. Whenever you sinned, you, you, you ripped open the wounds of Christ, you know, and he would cry out in horror. This is what was taught in on in churches. And people would be like, oh no, I can’t wound Christ Mary because she had been human.

[00:40:32] And Christ wasn’t really human. Mary was human, and she was lifted up to heaven, was seen as an intercessor. Someone who interceded on the behalf of mankind to plead the case of mankind and to soften and comfort the wounds. And of course, um, it’s a whole long other thing, uh, we talk about in the workshop that comes from Persephone interceding with Pluto, the God of the dead.

[00:40:56] And that’s why we pray to Mary at the hour of our death, you know, to to, to usher our souls and, and in a more forgiving light that, that we might be seen not as evil or or bad, but you know, as human and frail. And this is all connected to, to Mary here.

[00:41:13] Amanda Walsh: And even, I mean the, the idea of the moon carrying the light of the sun and bringing it to us on earth.

[00:41:21] I mean, that is like a, an astrological concept that we talk about when looking at a chart.

[00:41:28] Christopher Renstrom: And the name of this painting is The Immaculate Conception. She’s going to carry the light of God and bring birth to it here on the Earth. So it just paralleled that astrological description that you shared with all of us.

[00:41:44] Wow. This is just mind blowing. Yeah. Yeah. This isn’t, you know, it’s, it’s here. Okay. It’s so deep. Yep.

[00:41:55] This is Elijah, um, the fiery ascent of the prophet Elijah. It’s a Russian icon. I wasn’t able to find the artist, and, and I don’t think Joe was able to find it either, although we gave it a healthy effort. And so, um, Elijah’s connected to Mercury, who goes back and forth from heaven to earth and to the underworld and back again.

[00:42:13] So Mercury is the messenger, is the messenger planet, and Elijah was a prophet. He speaks. The word of God. He’s the messenger of God. And so, um, you know, before Jesus comes along, it’s Elijah, uh, who, who is the prophet that, that people are listening to? Uh, he was famous for his denunciations of Ahab. Uh, you might recognize that name from Moby Dick.

[00:42:39] He was famous for his denunciations of Ahab and his evil queen Jezebel. Um, but he was also a miracle worker who restored a dead child to life, exclaiming to his mother that she now knew the word of. The Lord in mouth is truth. Elijah is one of the few figures in the Bible to be transported directly to heaven.

[00:42:59] A fiery territ took him there. And um, and, and that’s the reference to the fiery wheels in that front piece that I did. So here he is, he’s kind of like saying goodbye to this guy and he is going up to heaven and, and he’s this messenger of God. And so he was associated with, um, with, with Mercury, Mercury’s also the planet that moves closest to the sun.

[00:43:21] Okay, so here is the forerunner of what will later on be the role that Jesus takes on in Christianity. So, so Mercury’s, almost heralding, uh, that can, can we see the next one? This is a different variation, but I wanted to share this because this is, again, um, this is done by the artist Mark Shal. I can never resist Shal.

[00:43:46] Okay. But what you see is a char surrounded by signs of the zodiac. Okay, so, so astrology had a very powerful impact on Judaism as well in, uh, the typical, uh, uh, and this is called Elijah. That’s the name of the painting. Um, typically what you’ll see is the Sun God Helios, surrounded by, um, the 12 signs of the Zodiac.

[00:44:15] But here, uh, Shal substitutes Elijah, you know, and makes him the terrior figure that is surrounded by figures of the Zodiac. You can see Pisces in the upper hand. Left, we go Aquarius. There’s Capricorn. Sagittarius is down at maybe like the, uh, seven o’clock or eight o’clock point. And you can follow this all around.

[00:44:35] Uh, maybe when you watch this late later, just put it on pause. You can see Leo on the right side. It’s the signs of the Zodiac and it’s Elijah taking that, that that central position according to Mark Chaga. So I wanted to just, Demonstrate how much the imagery of astrology has inspired the imagination of painters and poets.

[00:44:57] Mark Chaga is a very recent painter, you know who’s, who’s inspired by this next image, Joe.

[00:45:05] And here we see the famous St. John the Baptist, you know, of, of having taken over, you know, Venus. Okay. Like, like it’s St. John the Baptist, who appears as the Venus Morning Star and not Venus. I mean, he’s quite pretty. That’s the point. Da Vinci. Yes. Look at him. He’s very feminine. Yes. Uh, and, and he’s very feminine.

[00:45:29] And there’s one finger that’s pointed up and the cross is behind. But it’s beautiful. Well, it’s a Leonardo da Vinci, what’s not to love? Okay. But. It’s also very feminine. Yes. It’s also very androgynous with the locks of hair. So there’s, Venus is kind of creeping on through, but in this next image, we will see her triumph.

[00:45:51] Yes. Perhaps you’re all familiar with Soay who asks for the head of John the Baptist. And so what I love about this image is that Soay is very much a Venesian archetype. You know, Dan of the seven veils, her strip tease that she performs for St. John the Baptist, who is unmoved in his celibacy. Okay. And then she has him beheaded.

[00:46:18] And so what you hear, what you see here is Venus is like, Well, you might have tried to, you know, transvestite me as St. John the Baptist, but I am asserting my venesian self in my archetypal salame. Okay, so here she is because we all know Salame triumphs over St. John the Baptist. Next image please.

[00:46:43] Here we have Joshua. Um, Joshua was. A very famous warrior in the Old Testament, and Joshua is associated, his connection is to Mars. Um, and in here we see him attired in, in armor. And what we see in this, it’s a stained glass window. What you see is that in order for this, um, battle to be fought, there needed to be no darkness, okay?

[00:47:15] It needed to be done in light. So Joshua orders, Joshua’s inspired in a dream or prophecy. Um, I don’t know exactly how it happens, but he orders the sun to stand its course and the moon to stand its course. And at this really beautiful rendering of a horrible event, uh, you see Joshua. Hold parting some sun from the moon, parting day from night and making them stand still.

[00:47:42] And underneath Joshua, who’s brandishing a sword, is another soldier in, um, this, this, this, this mar, this, this posture of marvel. Okay? He, he can’t believe what he’s, what he’s seeing, um, and. And so Joshua prayed to God to make the sun stand still until the Israelites had inflicted a very great slaughter on them until they were wiped out is from the Bible.

[00:48:08] The them in this case were the Canaanites Hittites parasites. Gerges Emirates and OCTs in the book of Joshua says, on the day when the Lord gave the Emirates over to the Israelites, in other words, uh, gave the approval to the battle, Joshua spoke to the Lord and he said, in the sight of Israel, sun stands still at Gibeon and Moon stands still in the valley.

[00:48:32] Ofk and the sun stood still, and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance on their enemies until Israel took vengeance on its enemies, the sun stopped in midheaven. This is from the Bible and did not hurry for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since. When the Lord heated a human voice for the Lord fought for Israel.

[00:48:56] Now Joshua put thousands of people to the sword. Kings men, women and children. And indeed the book of Joshua is a chilling account of genocide and serves as a disturbing and an, and an unnerving reminder of the power of Mars named after the God of war. So Shiller found the perfect counterpart by coming up with Joshua as being the stand-in for, for for Mars.

[00:49:24] Next image, Joe, and of course, Moses. Okay, and this is by Michelangelo. That’s why it’s so fabulous. Okay, so it’s Moses and you can see him cradling the tablets. The tablets are the 10 Commandments. So it’s Moses, the law giver. And what’s interesting here is that you will see horns. Here, um, uh, if you see closer up pictures of this sculpture, you’ll see horns.

[00:49:50] And Moses is often depicted with horns, and that became a whole sort of like, what’s that about, you know, type of thing. But what it was, was a mistranslation in the Bible. He’s depicted as coming down from Mount Sinai with horns of light. In other words, light beaming from, from his head. Um, Too much light that people could hardly see him.

[00:50:11] And when you remember that Zeus is the god of light, okay, in his magnificence, uh, Moses in his magnificence, when he reappears to his people is almost, almost too much, too much to bear. And so this is what he brings from his face to face encounter with God. Elijah might have spoken the words of God, but Moses saw God and conversed with him.

[00:50:35] And so, and so he brings the laws, uh, the laws that will, um, that, that are such a cornerstone of Judaism, but then also become a cornerstone in Catholicism as well. So, so it’s very fitting. Uh, you know, Moses is kind of like one of the, if, if not the major, uh, player in the Bible. It’s kind of fitting that Jupiter, a planet known for its magnificence and for its law would be, um, associated with Moses.

[00:51:08] And the next one, Joe, and of course Adam is Saturn. Okay. Saturn was once a great God who’s overthrown by a younger God and sent into exile. And what parallels this is that Adam is the first creation of God, um, who’s set in the Garden of Eden? Um, indeed Eve is taken from Adam’s body, okay. To create Adam and Eve.

[00:51:36] So Adam is the first creation of God, the first child of God who is expelled. From Heaven and Saturn, who’s, you know, a child of Uranus, is expelled, overthrown by Jupiter, okay. In heaven. And so Saturn is an exile and Adam is an exile. And so Adam is then forced to, because he eats from the tree, from the tree of knowledge and was told not to, is forced to live a hard life, a, a life of labor.

[00:52:03] And women are forced to give birth in labor and perhaps even risk dying, uh, in, in labor. So these are very Sian images of how do you live in a world in which things fall apart? How do you live in a world in which things are so difficult? But there’s an intrepid to. Adam, Adam doesn’t give up. Adam doesn’t leave Eden and say, I’m too depressed.

[00:52:27] I can’t go on. Okay. He doesn’t give up. He goes, and he cires an entire human race. Um, can naval, well, that doesn’t end so well. But anyway, he cires an entire human race, but he makes a work. He, he works the earth to create life here on, on Earth. And that is, um, so we have the image of the exile being cast out, being associated to Saturn, and then in this final image, Um, we see, uh, in the background you see them being cast out of Eden and then you see them working and toiling in the foreground, you see an image that will be repeated with sa with uh, Saturn icon iconography.

[00:53:11] For centuries later, it’s Saturn with the shovel. And it’s because Saturn was the God of agriculture, having been thrown out of heaven and wandering the earth. He teaches mankind how to farm and to make something of the earth. And this position that we see, the figure of Adam, you know, digging with the shovel is something that we’ll often see, uh, with Saturn in, in centuries later, particularly in Abu Asar, he shows Saturn with the shovel, who’s also working and digging as a farmer.

[00:53:40] So I just wanted to show you here, when we walk away, when we take a few steps back from astrology versus Christianity, you see the overlays of astrology and Christianity in the imagery, in the allegory. How they come together, you know, um, and they’re not at one another’s throats here, you know, the image.

[00:54:06] Amanda Walsh: Can we go there for a second? I know we’re, we’re coming up on our hour, but. Can we go to what you mentioned before, that it’s only within the last hundred years where they’ve really been sort of, I mean, really divorced and where it’s kind of like if you’re, if you’re on one side or the other, you, there’s no bridge really.

[00:54:26] Right. Right.

[00:54:27] Christopher Renstrom: Now people will say, oh, Christopher, please, city of God. You know, there’s, there’s a whole, you know, negative thing about astrologers and things like that. But the fact of the matter is, um, it’s not really until. You know, let’s put it like this. Catholicism versus Reformation. Okay? Astrology wasn’t a big thing that they were targeting.

[00:54:49] Uh, witch witchcraft. Persecutions weren’t persecutions of astrologers, Amanda. Mm-hmm. They were persecutions of witches, uh, basically persecutions of women who were seen as witches. Okay? It wasn’t persecution of astrologers. Okay? Now, someone might say, well, what about, uh, uh, the Bruno fellow, the heretic, who gets, you know, that’s because he was advocating for a solar centric.

[00:55:19] Solar system. He was one of the pioneers of that. And that Bruno Gudino, uh, or Gudino Bruno, I probably have it reversed, but that’s because he was going against the Pope and talking about alternate worlds and things like that. It wasn’t explicitly because he was an astrologer. What you have as astrology particularly.

[00:55:38] Um, and, and astrology gets picked up by the theists. And if you’re familiar with Alan Leo, there’s a lot of Christian and philosophy. Influence on astrology. Um, my understanding of it, and I can only speak from an American perspective, so maybe people from Europe or England can, can fill me in with different ideas.

[00:55:58] But in the American perspective, as astrology became more and more celebrated in periodicals and magazines, um, and became more of a popular entertainment this bent, this bent Christian’s noses out of shape. And so particularly the Catholic Lead League took a very antagonistic, um, uh, uh, approach to astrology.

[00:56:21] And that’s where you really began to see, um, you know, you know, Astrology’s bad astrology is evil, get rid of it. But I’ve got books on my bookshelf from the 19th century of astro, you know, uh, understanding astrology through the Bible, you know, linking Bible and astrology in America. I mean, so this was something that was done a lot and quite often.

[00:56:44] But whenever astrology becomes a competitor Hmm. That’s when it’s like, you know, banished and we have to stamp it out. And so

[00:56:55] Amanda Walsh: when, when did it become illegal? So if it wasn’t included in the witch hunts and all those things, when did it become actually against the law to

[00:57:03] Christopher Renstrom: practice astrology? Rome? Rome Rome was the first time.

[00:57:08] Yeah. But, but when, um, I think it’s after the assassination of Caesar, because some people were blaming the assassination of Caesar on the Astr. Remember the quote, beware the IDs of March. Yeah. They were blaming that on astrology because once that had gotten out, either an astrologer had prophesied that, or it became a self-fulfilling prophecy because someone said, beware the IDs of March and the assassins were like, oh, the IDs of March, let’s kill ’em Then.

[00:57:40] Oh,

[00:57:41] Amanda Walsh: so it’s like they intro it. The idea was that they actually introduced the idea to kill him in March because of the astrology. Whatever was happening astrologically at

[00:57:50] Christopher Renstrom: that time, or because it had been prophecy, we see a much more, um, graphic example of that with William Lilly, um, who was writing pamphlets against, uh, king James the first.

[00:58:03] Um, and then people who had conspired to bring James up on charges. And the beheading actually had used Lilly’s, um, dates that he had prophesied bad things would come to, uh, it’s not King James, sorry, king Charles, sorry. King’s Charles, the first, uh, that they, that he had prophe and they used that and that actually led to astrology being banned in England, which is a whole other very long story.

[00:58:28] So it was banned a lot of times for political reasons, not really for religious ones.

[00:58:34] Amanda Walsh: Wow. So the, the idea or the sense or the feeling that it has always been this way that astrology and Christianity or Catal have been pitted against each other and either,

[00:58:45] Christopher Renstrom: you know, it’s fallacy, uh, I hope I demonstrated, uh, practically every painter we saw there.

[00:58:50] I mean, with the exception of, um, were, were Christians. Wow. Yeah. So, you know, there’s a whole, um, walkthrough museum. You’ll, you’ll, you’ll see the symbolism for yourself. And it’s not like, you know, da Vinci code or hidden or anything like that. It was poetic allegory. It was meant to open the soul and to get people musing on thoughts.

[00:59:14] People, the reason of it, for instance, is studied in the universities, is because you couldn’t study the Bible in the universities. Mm. The Bible was hands off. In fact, in the 16th century, 15 hundreds, um, people who were smuggling in English translations of the Bible into England were put to death. That was a, an offense punchable by death.

[00:59:38] Okay, so you didn’t study the Bible academically, but you could study avid poetry. Science, Greek science, Greek philosophy. These became the cornerstones for academia. So astrology is taught in the universities, uh, in part as medicine, in part as astronomy. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s taught openly. It’s one of the liberal arts and then it gets renamed astronomy, but it was astrology before that.

[01:00:11] It’s called astronomy. Once we get the Copernican model set up and the sun is made the center of, of the solar system, then it switches over to astronomy.

[01:00:21] Amanda Walsh: Christopher, this has been like a very generous masterclass on this idea, on, and, and, and taking us through the history. And I know for so many people this can be actually very healing because there’s this like, well, there’s something about astrology that feels right and I’m drawn to it and I’m inspired by it, and it provides upliftment and hope.

[01:00:42] And yet, you know, even if, even if consciously, that they don’t think of it as bad or evil, there is for a lot of people, especially if you were born, if you’re raised in a religious household, there can be this like, Ooh, but I’m not supposed to be, you know, it’s like this, but is it bad or is it wrong? Or is there anything about this that isn’t?

[01:01:01] Christopher Renstrom: Right. Well, astr, think of astrology and Christianity as those kind of Victorian novels where it’s like, you know, why am I drawn to a stranger? Why do I feel, you know, a camaraderie or whatever, and then they discover we were from the same mother. You know? I mean, that’s, that’s what’s going on here. Yes.

[01:01:19] That’s why people are resonating. They’re like, Why am I resonating with this? You know? Yeah. And and it’s because it’s your long lost relative. Oh my God. It’s a, it’s a whole part of, it’s your long lost relative. Come back again. Oh God. It’s

[01:01:35] Amanda Walsh: so beautiful. And I know that’s how it feels for so many people.

[01:01:37] It’s like, oh my God. There’s something that feels like coming home when I’m understanding astrology, when I’m studying astrology. It’s, it is that feeling of coming home to something that is. Familiar and beautiful and inspiring

[01:01:50] Christopher Renstrom: because it’s carried your history, it’s carried your memory. This is why Carl Young, when he becomes fascinated with astrology, re translates the planets again from allegorical or symbolic figures into archetypes.

[01:02:02] And then this gets birth to psychological astrology, which then becomes more about a soulful astrology. Mm-hmm. You know, and using the planets to, to, to, to in your processes of individual individuation, you know, really, you know, soul work that’s done. Mm-hmm. So the planets have, if there’s anything I hope someone takes away from this is like, they’ve always been here, they’ve been doing this all along.

[01:02:27] The astrology we practice nowadays, isn’t that dissimilar from, you know, there were different schools of it and different uses for it and, um, it’s, it’s always been entwined. With religion because it’s a, it’s a creation of God. Why wouldn’t it be?

[01:02:46] Amanda Walsh: Well, if you thought this was good, this is basically like an appetizer, two Christopher’s full planet’s course that is available now.

[01:02:56] Module two will be released tomorrow if you’re watching this recording in the future. The planet’s course is probably done, but you can still actually access it. You can go to astrology hub.com/ruling planets, where Christopher is going to be going into the, the history, the mythology, the evolution of our understanding the art.

[01:03:16] Yes. And the evolution of our understanding of each of the planets, including the outer planets. Yeah. And then also going through them throughout the zodiac. So Saturn in Leo and Capricorn, you know, walking through the energies and, and helping you ground your interpretation in. History in mythology. So you’re not just reading a book and going, oh, it, the book said it stands for this, and you don’t know why.

[01:03:47] He’s really gonna help you go to that, why place now When I look at the moon and think about Mother Mary, it’s like, oh my gosh. Like it, it all comes together. It’s making sense on a whole different level. And that’s what Christopher’s brilliant at doing for us as a teacher and for us as students.

[01:04:03] Christopher Renstrom: Go ahead.

[01:04:04] Well, Mary was the, was the, uh, was who you pray to if you were a sailor at sea, you know, and the moon ruled before Neptune’s discovery. The moon ruled over oceans Oh. And flakes. And the moon ruled over all bodies of O ocean, uh, all bodies of water. Oh, makes complete senses. Would pray to Mary if they were lost at sea, you know, lost soul.

[01:04:26] And so they would pray to the moon.

[01:04:28] Amanda Walsh: Amazing. Amazing. If you’re interested in joining us for the course, it’s astrology hub.com/ruling planets. That’s astrology hub.com/ruling planets. The ruling planet, um, concept is also going to be explored. So you’ll get to find out what your ruling planet is and what that means, both in your birth chart and by transit.

[01:04:51] Like how to actually use that to interpret your chart and any of your friends and family and clients that you see clients. So, Christopher, this has been such a joy. Wow. Thank you so much. I mean, God, I like mind blown and there are people saying in the chat like, this is one I will definitely watch again.

[01:05:10] Christopher Renstrom: Oh, I hope you do, because they are so wonderful and it just, it’s rare when you get to see astrology like this. So thank you so much, Amanda, for, for inviting me to do this. It was, it is just such a gift. Thank you. And thank you

[01:05:23] Amanda Walsh: for sharing your passion with us. Thank you for sharing the things that interest and delight you because it’s so, Amazing to be around people that are, that lit up, you know, that are that inspired.

[01:05:35] It really, and no matter what we do in our lives, it’s like, gosh, if we could all feel that level of vitality and aliveness and, and passion and delight over the things that we’re we’re doing for our work, like this would be a really amazing world. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for modeling that in so many ways all the time.

[01:05:53] So consistently, so beautifully. Thank you for showing up for our community the way you do for the horoscope highlights every week as a teacher in these little special edition episodes. You are such a gift to us. Oh,

[01:06:06] Christopher Renstrom: you’re such a gift, Amanda. Thank you. And

[01:06:08] Amanda Walsh: thanks to all of you for being here. It was so fun to see your comments and just see it connecting and landing with all of you.

[01:06:13] Thank you for being a part of our community here at Astrology Hub. If you’re new to the channel and you like this and you like these kinds of conversations, make sure you hit the subscribe button and the notification bell so that you are notified of when we are live on the channel or when we drop a new video here.

[01:06:29] And, um, for those of you listening on the podcast, make sure you also subscribe and we’re so grateful for all of you. Thank you for enabling us. To do this work and to share the beauty and wisdom and inspiration of astrology every day. It’s such a gift. Woo. Okay. Thanks everybody. Thank you for making astrology a part of your life, and we will catch you on the next episode.