Chris Brennan

About Chris Brennan

This author has not yet filled in any details.
So far Chris Brennan has created 9 blog entries.

Hellenistic Astrology Layout for Solar Fire

By |2021-04-05T18:35:29-06:00April 1st, 2021|Categories: Uncategorized|

Many years ago I created a Hellenistic astrology layout for the Solar Fire astrology software program. The layout contains a table of essential dignities that uses the Dorothean triplicity rulers and Egyptian bounds, as well as a separate table that calculates the seven Hermetic lots. It also has a few other useful but more general astrological features, like tables for the planetary day and hour, nearest aspects, recent lunations, and a table for planetary speeds and stations. You can download the files for the layout here: https://hellenisticastrology.com/hellenistic-page-files.zip Here is a video tutorial I made for installing the files: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1IeEAA32tM Here are [...]

New Videos on Ancient Astrology Techniques

By |2018-03-24T19:07:18-06:00March 24th, 2018|Categories: Videos|

I recently started producing some videos on different facets of astrology on my YouTube channel, and there are several new videos there that cover basic, intermediate, and advanced techniques in Hellenistic astrology. I wanted to post links to some of those videos here, for those who are just now discovering Hellenistic astrology, and want to know where to start. The videos will start with basic concepts first, and then move on to more advanced techniques. Benefic and Malefic Planets The distinction between benefic and malefic planets is one of the most fundamental concepts in Hellenistic astrology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFboowN7Gnw   Planetary Sect: The [...]

Proposing a Glyph for the Lot of Spirit

By |2014-07-17T22:49:29-06:00July 17th, 2014|Categories: Techniques|

The relatively recent rediscovery of Hellenistic astrology has led to a resurgence in the use of the Lot of Spirit by astrologers, but up until now there has been no commonly agreed upon glyph or symbol to use in order to represent this point in astrological charts or computer programs. I would like to rectify this situation by proposing a specific design for the symbol that should be used to represent the Lot of Spirit. I have included an image of the symbol that I'm proposing to the left of this paragraph. The symbol is actually pretty simple. It is just [...]

Did Ptolemy Use Whole Sign Houses?

By |2014-03-10T20:54:05-06:00December 8th, 2011|Categories: Techniques|Tags: , , , , , , |

The question of Ptolemy’s preferred method of house division came up on the discussion forum on Skyscript recently. I said that I had always thought that Robert Schmidt did an adequate job in his translation of the Tetrabiblos in pointing out the instances in which Ptolemy clearly employed whole sign houses. I suggested that anyone who wishes to argue that Ptolemy was not using whole sign houses needs to tally up every single instance in which he uses the word “zōidion” to refer to a house/place, and then explain how exactly these reference should not be understood as demonstrating that he [...]

Full Translation of Vettius Valens’ Anthology Released

By |2014-02-13T22:08:02-07:00December 15th, 2010|Categories: Translations|Tags: , , , |

A full translation of the Anthology of the 2nd century astrologer Vettius Valens was released online yesterday for free. The translator is a retired classics scholar named Mark Riley, who posted a PDF of the translation on his website (here is a direct link to the PDF). Riley’s name is familiar to those in the field because he published a few papers on Hellenistic astrology in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The most important was his paper “A Survey of Vettius Valens,” which provides an overview of Valens’ Anthology, with a particular focus on the chronology of the composition of [...]

The Glyph for the Ascendant in Hellenistic Astrology

By |2013-04-09T22:09:47-06:00October 7th, 2010|Categories: History|Tags: , , , , |

The glyphs or symbols that are commonly used by modern astrologers to represent the planets and signs of the zodiac were only firmly established in the Middle Ages.  While there is evidence that some of these glyphs may have evolved out of certain symbols that were used during the late Hellenistic tradition, and some possibly from ancient Egyptian script known as Demotic, for the most part the early Hellenistic astrologers do not appear to have employed glyphs to represent planets and signs very frequently.  Instead they tended to write out their full names as words. One of the early exceptions to [...]

Updates to the Hellenistic Astrology Website

By |2014-02-13T22:00:27-07:00April 28th, 2010|Categories: Site news|Tags: , |

It has been quite a while since I’ve done any updates to this blog, or to the Hellenistic Astrology Website in general for that matter, although I’m happy to announce that I will be returning to the project and redoubling my efforts in the near future. The first step is a round of website updates, starting with this blog, which I just relaunched this morning.  I plan to start posting here more regularly on various aspects of Hellenistic astrology, particularly with respect to the  many recent developments and contributions to the field by various scholars.  It has actually been a rather [...]

Video Tutorials for Enabling Ancient Greek Keyboard Layout

By |2014-02-13T21:56:47-07:00August 31st, 2008|Categories: Videos|Tags: , , |

Meredith Garstin and I created a couple of YouTube videos in order to show people how to setup their computers so that they can type words in ancient Greek on their keyboard. We created one video in order to show users how to setup their keyboards so that they can type in Greek for users of Windows XP, and one for Mac users. If anyone else wants to create additional tutorials for other systems then please go ahead and do so and then let us know about your video. Modern Greek and ancient Greek are quite different, particularly since ancient Greek [...]

Hellenistic Astrology Blog Launched

By |2013-04-09T22:09:48-06:00August 19th, 2008|Categories: Site news|Tags: |

I launched www.HellenisticAstrology.com a few days ago, and although I'm still working on the rest of the site I thought that it would be a good idea to set up the blog. In this section we will have articles, news and updates about all things related to Hellenistic astrology. Stay tuned for articles from some of the main contributors listed on our website.

Go to Top