Plato vs. Pluto? Comparing Hellenistic and Evolutionary Astrology with Ari Moshe Wolfe – Episode 1

Adam Elenbaas
Hey everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today I am very glad to be joined by a good friend of mine, a colleague, one of my oldest friends in astrology, Ari Moshe Wolfe, who is here today to begin a series of talks that we have designed together in order to discuss some of the similarities and differences between ancient or Hellenistic astrology, which is the astrology that you'll hear me talk about and that I practice and teach, and evolutionary astrology, which is another very popular, one of the most popular schools of astrology in the world. And it is the form of astrology that Ari practices and teaches.

So I think that this is going to be a really good conversation because I have people who come into my programs all the time asking about the differences between these approaches, what they share in common, what the technical differences are, philosophical differences. And I think sometimes there's a lot of misunderstanding, especially around how much all of these different schools of astrology, in particular, Hellenistic and evolutionary in this case, share in common.

So my hope is that this series will also allow for some meaningful bridges to be built between these different schools and practices because, to my knowledge, I've never yet seen a Hellenistic practitioner sit down and talk shop with shop and philosophy with an evolutionary astrologer. I practiced evolutionary for a while at the start of my astrological journey, and made the shift to Hellenistic. And Ari was one of the initial people who really served, as I would say, as a guide into the world of evolutionary astrology.

When I was first learning, I met him in New York City, and he came and told me a little bit about evolutionary astrology, along with a few other people who I met at that time, and we've remained friends and colleagues over the years since Ari's done some amazing readings for me over time, also Ashley, that really stuck with me and were an important part of my development, and just like life guidance too.

So, I really think that Ari is a special person, and I'm very glad to have him here today before we get into that conversation. As always, there are a few things.

Don't forget to like and subscribe. If you're new to the channel, we really appreciate your support. We're trying to get to 70,000 subscribers on the channel by the Fall Equinox. It was a goal that I set earlier in the summer. We've almost doubled our subscriber total each month. It's been great to see everyone turn out. If you listen to the show regularly and you're not yet subscribed, it's free to do so. It helps us grow our community and business. We really appreciate it.

You can find transcripts of today's talk or any of our talks on the website, nightlight, astrology.com, and the website; I want to take you over there right now to mention just a few things. One is that our new Our next webinar is this Thursday night.

If you go to the events page and click on live talks, you will see I'm doing a talk called Venus's 12 Love Languages, and this is about the specific kinds of archetypes and learning lessons that we are here to experience through the placement of Venus by sign. So we're going to be focusing on the unique way that Venus. Venus teaches us about intimacy, love, and sexuality through the 12 signs of the zodiac. If you can't attend live for that talk. You can register here. You get the recording if you can't attend live. Attend live.

The other thing to mention is the courses. If you go to the first year, the course begins on November 16. This is our next first-year program in ancient Hellenistic astrology. Of course, all of our programs have been, I've been deeply influenced by modern forms of psychological astrology and archetypal astrology, we have some background in evolutionary, so you're going to get a little bit of a mix of things in this program, but primarily, we're focused on ancient Hellenistic techniques. You'll find at the bottom of the page that there are sale rates available until October 15, and there's need-based tuition assistance.

So, if you need some help, we want to make sure no one's priced out of studying something that is sacred, and that should be available for people, regardless of their background, financially. So make sure you take advantage of that. We're really glad to have that available for people.

At the end of today's talk, after I sign off with Ari, there's an informational video about the program you could stick around and listen to if you want to learn more about what the program includes. I will also be very glad to tell you more about what Ari is up to and how you can get in touch with him, and I will do that at the end of today's episode. So if you like what you hear from Ari and you're like, Wow, this is someone I want to tune into. I'm going to also tell you how you can do that before we sign off today. So, on that note, I'm really excited to bring my friend and colleague, Ari Moshe Wolfe, to the show. Hey, Ari,

Ari Moshe Wolfe
Hello Adam.

Adam Elenbaas
I'm so glad you're here, man; this is, like, I don't remember when the idea came up. I remember reaching; I think it was around New Year's Eve, or maybe it was the day after or something. But I remember sending you a message and being like, what do you think about this? I really had no idea, like, what you were gonna think, but you were totally game.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
Well, we were both having dreams, that's right. Oh my god, yes. I had a series of dreams where I just saw you sitting up and just relaxing. Like, that's cool; it's Adam. And you had dreams that we were having conversations.

Adam Elenbaas
Yes, okay, now I totally remember it. So I reached out to you, I think, on Instagram because I had had this dream where we were conversing, and we were it was like in the dream. It felt to me like philosophers in under the grove of trees in Greece, like 1000s of years ago or something, or sages in India. We were, but we were conversing. And it just struck me as, you know, I get a lot of people who come into my programs who are like, what's the difference between these schools?

A lot of people come from learning Hellenistic and have a background in some modern forms, evolutionary being one of the big ones. And they're like, well, what's the differences? Are the philosophies different, or are there differences in techniques and approaches? And frankly, within the realm of traditional astrology, even I did this when I first got into traditional astrology, I think it's a natural part of learning a new discipline that you sort of draw a line in the sand or a little box around yourself, and you go, these are the ways I practice.

This is the way that I use the technique. I don't use it that way. I use it this way. And in the process of doing that, I noticed myself, at least initially. And this was happening, by the way, while Sun was or Pluto was opposing my son from the ninth to the third right Capricorn to cancer, that I was going like, Okay, I've needed to kind of refine and shape and structure and sort of limit my focus. But in doing so, have I become closed down to other schools that if I think about it, like if I think about my friend Ari and the way you approach life, how seriously you take your spirituality, your growth as a person, your practice of astrology as a sacred offering to the world. I'm not any different like Ari is my friend.

Our techniques and our philosophies might not be identical, but in spirit, we're doing something that's very, very similar. For some reason, I just kept getting the feeling that there were so many people, especially in traditional astrology. I don't mean to throw anyone under the bus because I was one of them who may just get a little close-minded or may not realize how much we have in common with other schools of astrology, and I just knew that you would be the person to have this conversation with so that we could lay out the similarities that people may not be thinking of, and also explain some of the technical differences for people who could really, you know, be helped by that understanding.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
I'm so grateful for this. It's to me, this is healing. Um, it kind of feels like an interfaith dialog, in a sense, like, you know, someone from this religion or that practice, and I think we missed a point when any modality or spiritual practice becomes an end unto itself. So, for me, the value of EA evolutionary astrology and any modality is simply the way in which it serves our own evolution. I never want anything to become a dogma or a this is the way, or this is the only way. So, being able to share this conversation just feels so important. I think it's generally something the world is needing right now.

Today, I was in a steam room with three elderly men, and they're all having this very, you know, charged political conversation. And I'm like, Yeah, this is everywhere you look. It's very easy to become polarized in certain views and ideas, and so we just need more of this kind of experience right here.

Adam Elenbaas
Yeah, I think it's interesting to me that we're this will be airing as we're recording it a little bit prior to the eclipse, but this will be airing the day after the eclipse in Pisces with Neptune, right? So, I love that the host of that eclipse, from a traditional standpoint, would be Jupiter, the traditional ruler in Gemini, right? So, if you look at it from that particular view, you could use Neptune as well, right? But if you think about it as Jupiter having this kind of influence, Jupiter and Gemini facilitating this kind of dialog, or conversation between things that look opposite but share this paradoxical sameness exactly, you know, and Jupiter squaring that eclipse. So this is very active for sure.

Adam Elenbaas
Well, we have a list of questions that Ari and I designed together, and part one of this series is really focused on just understanding the philosophical foundations of these practices. What are they really trying? I think our goal today is to establish just how much the spirit and spiritual perspectives of both of these schools of astrology share in common, but we have a bunch of questions, so why don't we just dive into them? Are you ready to do it? Let's do it. All right, all right.

So, I just wanted to start off by giving everybody a little overview. So ancient or Hellenistic astrology is really something that has made a reappearance on the scene in the past couple of decades, thanks to the translation efforts of a lot of modern astrologers and scholars who aren't even necessarily interested in astrology but brought forth this collection of ancient texts that now a lot of people are studying and bringing those ancient techniques. Practices from this earliest era of horoscopic astrology also share much in common with early Indian astrology, and they're sort of bringing those techniques back.

And so you'll hear people call ancient astrology, Hellenistic astrology, traditional astrology, although traditional astrology, more broadly speaking, could move into things like the medieval era, or the Renaissance, or so ancient astrology typically refers to everything you know from like maybe three 400 BCE through the fall of the Roman Empire, that kind of earliest Greek era, culturally, culturally Greek, not necessarily ethnically Greek, the Hellenistic world and what it brought forth. Some of those earliest doctrines have been excavated, and a lot of people are now studying and practicing them.

Evolutionary astrology is one of the biggest forms and schools of astrology in the world in the modern era, though its roots, in terms of its technical practices, are rather or rather recent; I don't know exactly, but I would guess within the past 50 or 70 years, or something like that. Yes, yeah. Okay, so setting the stage for all of that probably, if you don't, if this right now sounds like Greek to you, you probably already have been exposed to both of these schools that may not even know it, yeah.

So hopefully, we'll just, you know, this will be just clarifying. But let me ask you first, Ari, so just kind of broadly speaking, what are the things we're going to do in a future episode before we get into the technical side? We're just talking about the philosophical foundation. So, what do evolutionary astrologers believe? I guess you could say, what are the underlying spiritual values or beliefs of the practice of evolutionary astrology?

Ari Moshe Wolfe
I appreciate how you spoke a moment ago, at least in terms of the technical component of EA, that's fairly recent. And I would make a distinction between the philosophical framework and the modality and the techniques, right? The philosophical framework is pretty old in the sense that it resonates with what I find is sort of at the core of many different spiritual teachings and lineages, that this human experience on this Earth is a template for ongoing soul evolution, and that from the point of view of thinking of ourselves as an evolving being, every part of our life In the total context of this life is deeply relevant and purposeful for our ongoing evolutionary growth. So, it's grounded in this framework that recognizes this process of evolution.

So you can think of it from a spiritual lens, as we're all in this process of self-realization, and self-realization itself has various stages, and you can't ignore the curriculum, so to speak. We're all here on this Earth. School of awakening is just what it is, and we all have to meet the content. So, bringing that into astrology, you then look at the needle chart, and you can think of it on two levels. You can see it from the point of view of the past; basically, what is the kind of context of the soul's journey that led to the manifestation of this life in the first place? And again, the premise of this, just to take it away from astrology, is nothing is taken for granted.

So it's not about being overly simplistic and being like, Okay, you're having this experience because in a past life, you did such. And you know, I think the for anyone that starts to really explore these deeper soul realms, the intricacy and the intelligence of the way, so to speak, behind our experiences are deep. And I think we all begin to unravel that and understand that as we continue to walk our path and sort of unpeel the layers, so the needle chart can be understood from that level. What are the core soul dynamics, the karmic patterns, and the evolutionary dynamics within the soul that have led to this life? And the idea is it's rooted in the principle of desire.

You can just imagine the idea of when we leave this life, when we leave this incarnation, the only thing that we take with us is a soul, right? Just to define the idea of the soul, as you know, take the body, your personal memories, your preferences, your grievances, your attachments, you know, all of the things that come with this human time, space, and experience. Take it away. You're left with your essence, the soul, that which is continual. The only thing that remains is the internal vibratory reality of the soul itself. Now, what are we holding on to? What are we still attached to? What are the inner dynamics within us that is then going to impel continued experience?

So, in this way, it's very similar to, maybe, more Eastern philosophical perspectives of reincarnation, and just seeing that each lifetime is designed for the soul, for us to continue to work out whatever is left, right? It's like the journey towards God is more of an elimination process, working through the next layer and then kind of rebuilding a new idea. To destructure, and that facilitates a new journey of working through the next layer.

So, on that level, you can look at the chart and say, Okay, here's the content that you've been working with. And then two, what's the evolutionary intention of this lifetime? That's where the gem is, right? You look at the total circumstantial reality of your life because the chart won't say, you know where you were born, what kind of culture, what society, what gender you might be in, and you correlate you, you bring context to all of that from an evolutionary lens. Why would you have this experience? Why is this your particular challenge? Basically, identifying what is the soul curriculum. So it's a very compassionate if done properly, right? Really, any modality and technique is going to be as valuable as the practitioners' attunement, right?

Adam Elenbaas
And that's outside manner, right?

Ari Moshe Wolfe
So if we're really approaching it from that place, we can have this sort of reverence and compassion for both the unspeakable intelligence and beauty of this journey and every part of it, how it's orchestrated, and be able to point people back to themselves, not just intellectually. Why is this happening from the point of view of maybe an old-school idea of karma? It's not about that.

It's more that everything in its highest understanding is reflecting my own inner reality back to myself. So, there's an opportunity for empowerment, self-knowledge, and greater psychological self-awareness. And so the evolutionary journey then becomes one of moving through life with knowledge of our agency, right? That I can actually make choices, and I'm not stuck and trapped and tangled, but we all are, just to a certain extent. And that's the that's the journey, right? We're unraveling greater and greater agency in our soul, an essence that is eternal and deeply powerful. So let me just see if that's the essence of what I would want to express. Yeah, I'll keep that there. That's the basic philosophical framework. When we get more into technique, I'll go into some other facets later.

Adam Elenbaas
Yeah, I think so. My follow-up question is, just because I want to pull from that a few things and just reflect them back and make sure I've understood correctly? So one, we could start off very basically saying that, uh, evolutionary astrologers believe that everything is in the soul, that every being has a soul, an eternal, divine part of the whole. Is that accurate? I think so, yeah, yeah. Like, we all have, we all have a soul, so and then that that soul is in the process of spiritual evolution, yes, toward a, a, we could call it a God-realized state, or an enlightened state, something like that. Is that fair?

Ari Moshe Wolfe
Yeah? Those things that are kind of hard to define, but whatever that is.

Adam Elenbaas
exactly right, and this happens through a process of transmigration in the material universe. Is that? Is that fair? Yeah,

Ari Moshe Wolfe
And at least that's one of the ways that happens, as far as I know from my own experience, obviously. What do we know? But, yeah, right, um, at least for here, we know that this is how it's happening here, yeah.

Adam Elenbaas
And that does, in fact, fall in line with most of what the history of yoga philosophy has taught, and they have been carriers of the horoscopic tradition for 1000s of years and share philosophical roots with Hellenistic astrology. So I'll say more about that in a second. But the other thing would be transmigration. There's a sense; there's a belief, I should say, that the soul is going to move from one body and lifetime and experience to another and that there is the purpose behind every facet of that process.

So, finally, the birth chart is then used to establish a sense of a sense because I'm sure you would say you can't circumscribe the mind of God with a chart, right? But you could say we have a sense of where you're at in that process, and what some of the core curriculum is on an archetypal level, a sort of thematic and psychological level, as well as, as well as what areas of life and what themes and places, relationships or job or what have you, within which these themes and experiences, these evolutionary lessons or curriculum will play out, and we use that to serve that process for a client or a soul?

Ari Moshe Wolfe
Yes, and I would clarify that the chart wouldn't indicate where we're at in terms of our spiritual evolution. It's an important thing for me. It's a question that always comes up for me. There's no aspect or facial relationship or sign right that indicates one stage of evolution being higher than the other. You can't determine where a soul's at on their own evolutionary journey in terms of their own spiritual growth.

From the chart alone, you have to, you know, but archetypally, you're going to see these core soul dynamics, and that has to be brought to that individual soul context, yeah. And I want to say too, you know, people ask, How do you know past lives are real? To me, that's probably the most unimportant part of this work. I mean, I can speak from my own personal direct experience, and I wouldn't even care to embellish it so much because I don't want anything to actually become a belief system, right? So when I teach, I want all of this to kind of enter through the realm of our own direct experience. Yeah, so what's essential is to basically say, however we got here, right? Just acknowledge there's relevance right now, and we have the opportunity to evolve. And that is an accessible, tangible dimension that we can all work with, regardless of our cosmology of reincarnation and things like that, right?

Adam Elenbaas 21:01
That's beautiful. I love that. And so I think just hearing all of that, you know, my hope is that a lot of people out there may just, first of all, just understand, I think, how perennial this philosophy is. Because, as you said, some of the techniques, or the way you use Pluto or the nodes, or whatever, may be relatively recent. We're going to talk about that more later, but the philosophy is really old, and it, you know, it's not, it's not just coming from one tradition, either. It's a sort of perennial philosophy that we see across planet Earth. Okay, so we'll leave it there for now. Yeah,

Ari Moshe Wolfe
beautiful. Do I get to ask you to share more about Yeah, dude, and this something I've been curious about, so I'll say this: sometimes, if I want to hear an astrologer, I'll turn to your channel, and you often say things I don't feel impelled to listen to a lot of astrologers, but whenever you speak, I've Never heard you say something that I disagree with and I find and I wonder if this is just because of your own spiritual path, or if there's something sort of embedded within Hellenistic astrology that I'm not aware of. Your perspective does feel very aligned with my own personal spiritual knowledge and understanding. So I'm just very curious: within Hellenistic astrology, is a particular philosophy, yeah, or orientation around what the heck this is all about? Yeah, absolutely.

Adam Elenbaas
First of all, let me just say, let me return the compliment in kind because, for my own creative process, I have to be very careful what I take in from other astrologers. Like, I don't know why. It's just like, it's like, I have to be careful like that. I'm not bringing in music that's totally different from my own. But Ashley and I, both of us, both had readings with Ari dating back to when we first met, and we're starting our yoga studio and stuff. We will tune in to you as well throughout the years from time to time, so it's always really resonant for me as well.

So which is part of why it's like, oh, my dirty little secret is that one of the people I follow is an evolutionary astrology. You know, I'm just kidding, but yeah, like it is. There's a similarity. And I think that's because, okay, so I'll just say this very bluntly, one of the things that I pride myself on is being more attached, in some ways, to the philosophical roots of Hellenistic astrology than I am to the techniques I love. There's a lot of the techniques that I love, right, and I think are super cool, but it's actually the love that I was a philosophy major. I started off my studies with ancient Greek philosophy. And I have always been really compelled by the ancient Greek imagination, the Renaissance, which kind of reborn it.

And so for me, that polytheistic and pluralistic world, which is very similar to ancient India, those two places have been like just, that's my jam. You know, those are my stations. So I think what I'd love to see more of in ancient astrology, in general, is more of an adherence and an appreciation of some of the core mystical and spiritual schools that practice this, as opposed to just, you know, wrote, you know, like uses of the techniques that are just sort of heavy-handed and are not acting within the context of the spiritual beliefs that accompanied them. Not to make, I don't mean to level that at everyone.

It's just something that I've noticed: sometimes traditional astrologers are technique-heavy, you know, right? But anyway, yeah, so in the ancient world, you have a variety of schools that it's we it's hard to say which school was like the progenitor of horoscopic astrology because you have within the Greek world, where we are pretty certain that the ancient Western form of astrology emerges from we have like a clear transmission from, say, Pythagoras to Plato, and then there's a lot of influence that's clearly coming from the Platonic Academy and the Platonic stream of philosophy into the origins of Hellenistic astrology, the first horoscopic astrology.

But what makes it complicated is that you know, Pythagoras was basically a lifelong student of Egyptian mysticism, right? And then in Egypt, we have this really rich dialog with India, and then we have the same sort of concurrent flowering of Jyotish and Indian astrology around the same time that Greek astrology is coming about, and as far as we know, there are some things that are really unique happening in India, like the nakshatras, for example.

In the West, there are some unique things happening. And then there's also this transmission back and forth. The ancient world is such a melting pot in some ways that it makes it really hard to say which school it was like. Was it yoga philosophy in the whole Vedic world, or was it Egyptian mysticism, or was it the unique doctrines of the Platonic Academy, or whatever? But what all of them had in common, and this is something that I did a lot of research on because I did a conference presentation on the subject, is that the core beliefs are very similar across the board, and like, for example, transmigration is largely agreed upon, that there is a soul is largely agreed upon, right?

And that, I mean, there's Stoics, there are hermeticists, there are orphic, there are plate Platonists, there are yogis, there's so there are all these different ways of approaching how the soul enlightens, or how, what is the process of enlightenment? Or, like, the stoics aren't necessarily as big on all of this, and a lot of stoics practiced astrology, but hermeticists, uh, Platonists, all of these other schools, especially the yogis, too. There is a soul, there's a process of transmigration, and there's a process of enlightenment. Your life is the field in which that process is taking place. Your actions in this lifetime, as well as previous lifetimes that impact the field in this lifetime, matter in subsequent lifetimes, right?

And this process does have something to do with virtue, like acting compassionately or wisely, or, you know, there's sort of some sense of there being karmic laws that are moral. But there's also this very mysterious sense in which a lot of your life is like in Plato; we see that it's chosen like the soul actually chooses it. And I, as far as I understand, that's something that evolutionary astrologers will often say as well: there's some participation in the choosing of your curriculum, and you and your guides or God are sort of cooperatively shaping this journey. We see that in ancient astrology, too.

So you know, for me, I didn't, I didn't really feel like Hellenistic. I shifted a lot of the views I already had when I was in my first three years of learning and practicing. EA, you know, it was very, very similar.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
Cool, yeah, I wrote down originally when you were speaking what year, but from what you're sharing, how far back does it go? But from what you're sharing, it seems like it's kind of hard to pin that, correct?

Adam Elenbaas
We have, like, a lot of evidence of the earliest birth charts that feature the familiar language of horoscopic astrology, houses, signs, planets, and aspects that come within the last 300 years BCE; we see the birth charts developing around that time. Of course, that tradition of horoscopic astrology is emerging out of prior astral Omen traditions from like Babylon and, you know, other places in Mesopotamia. And so it's like astral Omen traditions exist, and then we're starting to see this very particular form with the 12 sign zodiac and delineations of planetary hosts and aspects and this mandala of interconnected concepts and philosophical meanings behind the placement of rulers and blah, blah, blah. So that is a unique system that we know started emerging toward the end of the BCE period, and then it flourished during the Roman Empire.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
Okay, you know, something that we were talking about is just how there is often, maybe, sort of an implicit assumption or judgment that older is better, right? And so it's, it's interesting to hear that the roots of Hellenistic astrology isn't philosophically very different than evolutionary astrology now. It almost makes me think that, in general, there's a more soul-centered Renaissance happening right now, yeah, just in all areas of life, not necessarily like a specific modality, yeah.

Adam Elenbaas
I mean something that I think is. Easily lost on us is that it's like it's a mistake to worship too intensely, too extremely, at the altar of the past or the future. I think of what Plato said; for example, he said time is the moving image of eternity. And I think that the reason that it doesn't matter on one level which era the paradigm comes from, historically, is because dharma is dharma, right? Yeah, you know, it's like truth is truth. And so there's the sense in which truth reappears and reestablishes itself in every new era and generation because it's this timeless flower that exists.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
Yeah, beautifully said. So, my inner experience of EA is that it doesn't even feel new to me. And my inner experience is the place from which the teachings come. It feels pretty ancient. So, something a lot of people may not know is that Sri Yukteswar is actually considered the spiritual father of evolutionary astrology. Interesting. So Jeffrey Wolf Green is my teacher. He's the one who brought forward evolutionary astrology. Began teaching it in the 70s.

It started, as I understand, with a dream where he actually got this download for some of the core knowledge of Pluto that we'll speak about soon. In a dream from Sri Yukteswar, it was all down, and apparently, throughout his process of kind of bringing this workout, his guidance with Sri Yukteswar would occasionally reemerge for me, just on the path that I was walking. That's totally reasonable. There's nothing unusual about that, Sure, and the reality of guidance of the UN from the unseen, right? You know, in his life, Sri Yukteswar, who is known as the guru of Yogananda, An Autobiography of a Yogi.

Yogananda speaks about Sri Yukteswar as an amazing astrologer who is just beyond comprehension. There are some really amazing quotes from Sri Yukteswar in Autobiography of a Yogi; he even said that Sri Yukteswar was, according to Yogananda, one of the three Magi. So I consider Sri Yukteswar to be the source of this work, but that's not going to fly well for a lot of people who are looking for, you know, where the book is written and when it is documented. And I do not need that because right? I'm looking from inner experience.

One thing that Jeffrey Wolf Green said is that this work, this orientation, is actually very ancient. One thing I was thinking about while you're speaking about just the origins of Hellenistic astrology, I think of time more from a Yuga perspective. Sure, you know the Greek ages, right? And Sri Yukteswar himself wrote about that in his book The Holy Science. He was writing about astronomy in the 1800s, which is another fascinating topic.

Our evolution as humanity is more of a cyclic process of a downward arc and an upward arc. So if you go further back enough, you're going to look at a society and a civilization that maybe had a more advanced knowledge of reality than we currently do, that we're actually beginning to remember right now. So I like to think that what's emerging right now is actually very old and beginning to be remembered by humanity.

Adam Elenbaas
And just to dovetail and add my own little two seconds on a soapbox, which is why, to me, it's so important that we look at the spiritual roots of Hellenistic astrology as paramount, not just the techniques. And that was a big part of what, again, inspired this conversation. But, like, just to go back a second to what you said, so again, just making sure I understand it correctly. So this, when you say that for you, it's no problem, I think what we probably both would mean is that we are people who accept that truth can be transmitted in nonordinary states of consciousness, that truth can come through inspiration, that truth is not just found through some kind of empirical or deductive process.

What I love about that is that in ancient astrology, one of the things that a lot of academics and historians will skirt past in their, uh, extrapolation of ancient texts is that all of the texts say that this was downloaded from Hermes. There we go, right? It's like, so, I mean, I've used the word downloaded, of course, but that there's a sense of, like, where did this come from? It came from Hermes. What does that mean to an ancient person, in my understanding of just the very basic experiences I have had with indigenous healers in South America who are coming from, I think, a more archaic consciousness like that connected to the cosmos, to the gods, to the plants.

Yes, you know, and to these states of consciousness that come through entheogens, my experience, just that glimpse into that worldview and those states of consciousness makes me think that when an ancient sage is saying that they mean it, they mean it orientation.

Adam Elenbaas
I mean, yeah, that's my experience. I mean, that's how I see it: they're not just saying they're not saying that just tipping their cap in some obligatory sense to a God, like, you know? Well, well, I'm the genius, but thank you, Jesus. It's great. That's why they really mean it, you know. So, I think that we share in common, and because of this, you could think of these teachings. And it's not, by the way; I want to make sure we issue this qualifier.

None of these things are like; I don't think either Ari or I am here today to tell you what to believe or think, right? We're just here to tell you what the beliefs of these schools of astrology are. And what I think is amazing about this is that, again, you have this sense that these teachings are perennial and, in a sense, timeless, and so we have to be really careful that we're not that we're looking at our philosophical basis and not just our technical basis because the philosophical basis is clearly present in both schools throughout 1000s of years.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
I love that. Yeah, this feels very like Jupiter and Gemini. It seems likely that the origins of Hellenistic astrology are from the same ancient places that EA is speaking from, and then you're just looking at it from these different Gemini angles. But really, there's an underlying shared core philosophical framework at the core of all of this. And I love that.

Adam Elenbaas
Yeah, it also is to some extent, like ancient astrologers literally said in many texts and in many places that astrology was a language, that it was a language written in the sky from the Divine. And if we think about that, language evolves. I used to say cool about language changes and changes like the SLA. Now the kids say fire. You know what I mean? Like we have in the sky, it has dialects and ways of speaking that change. This is always how I've understood the ongoing novelty of astrological technique and language because that language is living and evolving. Do you think that's a fair way of looking at it? Beautifully said.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
If there was only one technique and one language, it wouldn't be what it is. If the truth itself is so encompassing, if it's a language that speaks the intelligent design of creation, it would have to be, by its nature, so available to be accessed from possibly every angle possible. That's why there are endless techniques, endless ways of organizing the sky on a chart, and endless things that you can do with astrology.

Hellenistic astrology, as well as Vedic astrology, is great when it comes to techniques and practices, and there's so much out there, and you can learn about this forever. And I think that is a testament to the fact that, yes, that which is whole and undivided could never possibly be codified and sort of crystallized as a singular form it would have to be.

And that's to me, also kind of how I think of God or love; its very nature is going to be available, literally, in any way at all. It's not, um, that statement isn't to say that, okay, sure, you can do whatever you want with astrology. I think there's real medicine in it. There's, there are actual techniques and ways of looking, ways of organizing, ways of thinking, ways of languaging and putting it together that actually work, that actually serve benefit in all the unique ways that love can kind of make its way into wherever we're available to receive it. That's how I think of that.

Adam Elenbaas
Absolutely, it's like astrology, which is a language as creative as poetry. Because, yeah, I mean, what we're doing is we're utilizing the language to speak uniquely and relatively to each soul about absolute, eternal things. And so it's like, yeah, I just couldn't agree more with how you put that.

I want to ask, just jumping around a little bit, a couple more personal questions and questions about beliefs before we maybe end with a few notes on techniques, which will preview our next talk, where we can start actually breaking down some of the differences in techniques, but try to continue drawing those different uses of techniques back to the same core values or practices or beliefs.

One of the questions I have for you is like, just what? What is it about this practice of astrology? Because you practice it and teach it, obviously, there's value if you're going to go see an astrologer in terms of using it. The chart helps you understand your evolutionary journey as a spiritual being in this lifetime through the birth chart. But what do you find about this practice of astrology itself in your life as a practitioner, as a teacher, that is aiding in your own process, or how does it contribute to your own spiritual life or growth? I'd love to hear you reflect on that. Okay,

Ari Moshe Wolfe
it's unspeakable. So you've spoken a lot about your journey with ayahuasca and how Ayahuasca led you to astrology in some creative way of expressing it. It's a little bit the opposite for me. I was involved in astrology very, very early on because there was always this fascination and intuitive sense that there's more to this. And the moment the rabbi, because I grew up Orthodox Jew, the moment I learned that, in the Talmud, astrology was acknowledged as existing. It was a question of whether you're allowed to practice it or not. But the very fact that they were having a question about whether you can practice meant that it must be real.

So, as an Orthodox Jew, I was like, Oh, my God, I don't care if it's allowed. Are you saying it's real? What? Yeah, right. And my next step was then to ask if there was a way for me to study, you know? That's the first place that I went to study Rambam Maimonides and see what he had to say about astrology. That was my gateway drug to Google and everything else. Love it. But I just knew I came into this world with that intuitive sense of there being something more, and I want to understand, like deeply, you know, my secret at the core of my being.

So as I began to explore and then, you know, the EA work, it was just destined for me to continue with this work and take on this lineage. It's a part of my contract, for sure, working with plant medicine, especially when that was first introduced to me. My early experiences were just sort of like breaking my heart open in recognizing the holographic, infinite nature and truth that's reflected in the language of astrology.

So, it's become for me that studying astrology is a path of cultivating and deepening my direct knowledge and understanding of self and reality in my own direct experience. So it's not about, you know, take Uranus, and the associations that we can learn with Uranus, like shocks and surprises and trauma, but the actual inquiry, what does Uranus reflect relative to who I am? What does it speak to relative to the nature of reality?

And so I see every planetary function through that lens. I want to understand. How does this speak to some facet of the whole creation or some facet of my total inner being? Right? So, my own spiritual practice has and continues to expand upon my knowledge of these archetypes as it reflects more of reality than the other way around, right doing readings for people. My prayer when I meet with someone is that it's going to be healing, and I'm acknowledging that whatever's happening in this space, I'm meeting well under an evolutionary journey, and what I'm able to communicate and teach is what I'm willing and available to learn. I pray.

May I teach what I'm here to learn? Teach. Have me teach what you would want me to learn. May I give the miracles that I am to receive as well, acknowledging that in the giving and receiving, they are the same, and so working through the archetypal language of astrology and the EA understanding, see, it's like an EA understanding. That kind of drops EEA, right? It points to the moon. And I'm trying not to give too much attention to the finger, but I'm trying to use that to come back home, to direct insight, but meeting with a soul and actually seeing it playing out, and actually being able to grasp within my own soul, where their own evolutionary growth is. If I can see that between them, translating the archetypal energies through a sort of intimate, real seeing of another, and then if I can articulate that in a way that they can hear it, man, the immense amount of growth and healing that's taking place there, right for me and for that individual, I think if I wasn't teaching and doing sessions, I would probably feel very confused and lost because doing this work is one of the most direct ways that I am continuing to affirm and ground and sort of anchor my own realizations. Yeah. Yeah.

So, for me, studying and practicing this work is really about continuing to understand just who I am. And I'll say one more thing about this. There's also, let's say, I'm going through a transit right like Uranus opposite my Pluto, or right now, I'm going through my Pluto square. Right now, having that map is infinitely helpful. I'm sure you and everyone who's studying this work can really appreciate what I'm saying, to objectify archetypally what's going on in my life, and then to kind of come back and say, Okay, I'm having these experiences. This is what I'm facing. But let's look at the symbology. What's the evolutionary intention? What are the teachings?

So, coming back to almost like the beginner's mind, what are the teachings on Pluto? How can I re-approach this from a very clear and available place to learn and see the challenging circumstances of my life in a helpful way? So just, you know, looking at the transits and all those things will help me cultivate a more empowered understanding of the needle chart and my own life and my experiences. I never want any interpretation or view to lead me or anyone else into disempowerment. I guess I just have to accept it and deal with it. That's never what love creation. Creator life wants of us, right?

Like our purpose in this life isn't to just sort of accept some sort of disempowering fate. I think there's a greater invitation, if we accept it, to explore reinterpretation of experience that actually bypasses nothing, but it allows us to really grow and cultivate more knowledge of who we truly are.

Adam Elenbaas
Yeah, yeah. Church, I love it.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
I can get really so for you, I guess. It's very similar to you, but I would love to hear how your work with astrology also is. And I'm very curious to hear you speak about Jesus as well, if we have time because I know that you've grown up Christian, and Jesus has been a big part of your journey. You've gone very deeply into, you know, medicine work. I am very curious to hear how astrology informs your own spirituality, but how does it connect, if at all, to your roots with Christianity? I'm very curious about that.

Adam Elenbaas
Oh, man, that's such a good question too. Yeah. Well, I mean, so I think that the basic thing that I had already, these basic things that I had already believed when I started astrology and was practicing evolutionary astrology, that were reiterated through experiences with ayahuasca and entheogens, and also to an extent in the Christian Church, where your life has a purpose, God has a plan for your life.

I mean, those are people who hear that Christian language, and they might or might not rub the wrong way, but I really was raised as a preacher's kid with the idea that your life is for you. It's not happening to you, it's happening for you, like that was I grew up with that and then found that there was a much broader universal context in which that happened to be true, that existed in and outside of Christianity, that that was the entheogenic experience, really.

In a nutshell, it was like these teachings are universal, you know, and then, you know, I think so. I think when I go to Hellenistic astrology in particular, one of the things that I love about Hellenistic astrology is that the like? This is something that I heard from Indian astrologers, and I was already discerning when reading some of the texts from Hellenistic astrologers. When I was in India, I spoke at a conference in Calcutta and had the opportunity to visit the home of an Indian astrologer. I then spent some time listening to lectures from Indian astrologers.

One of the things that was said was that the study of Jyotish, or, you know, just call it, Indian astrology, broadly speaking, is that for the practitioner, the study of this language itself is a kind of yoga. It's like when you study and learn these teachings, you're getting into some of you're getting into a divine place that's purifying, just by the nature of its study. And that, as sages of astrology, the act is like moving meditation.

You see the events happening in the valley of the world, but you're able to see within them the dynamics of the planets, which is the orchestration of divine will and creation. And that draws you closer into a trusting, personal kind of bond with the divine. That would be the primary reason for actually practicing. And we see that in the ancient world, too, where the way the practitioners talk about the study of astrology, apart from actually reading charts for people, is that the study itself allows for this kind of moving meditation, where you're able to walk through life with without attachment because you have this. Perspective of the Divine Will moving through every last you know, every movement of every blade of grass. You just are like, okay? And astrology gives you this awareness of it that allows for this kind of meditative movement.

And that would be like the primary reason for practicing for a sage in the West, too many of them, right? But then secondarily, it's like, Well, why would we serve the anxieties of human beings who are obsessed with whether or not they're going to get money or a job or a spouse or whatever if the point is to be using this language as a kind of communion with the divine? I asked that question to a practitioner in India because it just struck me as like, well, if this, this sounds like it's a practice of yoga. Why? Where did, how did we get to being like, sorry, Becky, you're not going to get a car, but you're, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna get laid off. Or, where, when astrology goes into, like, serving the anxieties of human beings who are attached to things in the world seems like a bad use. And he was like, well, actually, what's happening is where we are honoring and acknowledging where every soul is in its spiritual journey. And what's even if we might end up talking about health, or we might end up because Jyotish can be very mundane like you could be talking about health or jobs or marriages or like, you know, and sometimes the readings don't necessarily focus like it's not going to be like an evolutionary reading, or not necessarily the way I would read. And in ancient astrology, too, it can be kind of prescriptive. It's like dealing with the unfolding of destined events and so forth. But the reason that this was still considered holy is that by degrees, the soul is actually in the process of surrendering itself to the fact that Divine Will is at work in their life, and even if they're coming in attached to whether or not they get the job, when the astrologer is able to speak truth to the unfolding of their destiny, which is more likely, the more attached they are to outcomes, by the way, then there's this way in which the soul is gradually saying, Okay, so I'm in a universe that includes karma. I'm in a universe where not all of my attachments and desires are going to come to manifest.

Maybe there are reasons for that. Why would the gods do this or that? So it actually is, like homeopathic it gradually sort of treats and brings awareness and like so for me, one of the things that really for, philosophically, was satisfying about ancient astrology is I, I developed a lot more techniques and tools for dealing with a lot of the really mundane stuff that people wanted to talk about with me, that I'd often get really frustrated about and be like, Look, I want to talk about your evolution. You want to talk about whether or not to buy a car, you know, like and like. So I feel like in some of what happened, I was able to have some techniques at hand to address certain mundane things and then hopefully turn conversations into deeper things, right? And so that was a way that the ancient philosophy sort of captured me because, at heart, that's what I really want to talk about, is the evolutionary potential of every moment in our lives.

Or I would much prefer that we look at what's happening and find a way to reflect on the divine at work at the moment. And most of the time, I'm able to get there. But one of the things I like about ancient astrologers is they were pretty patient with respect to being able to address people's concerns in the karmic world. So that's valuable. But anyway, going back to the other part of what you asked for me, what I really love about astrology, in general, is that it really is that ever like I have found like, okay, Mars in Cancer transited my natal Mercury yesterday, went right over the top of it, and I had to pay $500 for a broken sink.

You know, a technician had to come out and fix it, and I had to spend money on it. And so there was this very mundane level at which the astrology is, like, see, it works. But then there was this other level at which I was invited in to explore other kinds of themes where the event is sort of synchronistic for things that are going on inside of me and like, what, what other language have I ever encountered in my life that allows us to validate the most mundane of experiences, while constantly inviting us to take our sandals off and be like, well, this is holy ground too. It's a sink that's broken, but it's just as holy as anything else.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
I really appreciate this. You know, I have a Gemini North Node, so for me, it's like an ongoing growth edge to actually open my mind to the expression of truth beyond this, like fixed, you know, gotta talk about God, or has to be about realization, right? I'm, I'm actually gonna be taking this and sitting with this a little more the holiness of the mundanity, you know, and addressing mundane concerns about places, things. And objects, and really being able to meet that content and its relevance for people on their journey because astrology speaks to it. It's like astrology is going to encompass literally all of it. I just really appreciate that.

Adam Elenbaas
Yeah, man, yeah, totally. It's funny because, yeah, there's just I can there's a lot of things working in me right now too, and

Ari Moshe Wolfe
it almost makes me more interested. It's like, something's like, maybe I'll learn some of these. There are certain areas that I just haven't been relevant to. So I haven't heard it hasn't, but it's like, oh, I can see value in this and this, yeah, yeah. That's the same.

Adam Elenbaas
That's the exact same thing. In fact, I was telling Ashley. I was like, You know what? I would really love to just brush up with Ari on all the Pluto and polarity points because it's been so many years; it'd be so nice to hear you speak to those things and bring some of those things back. In my practice, it's been so many years since I've used them, and there are just such wonderful techniques. But more importantly, they're wonderful techniques in the way that you express them. Like if anyone is ever like, where do I want to study evolution? I'm always like, Ari. Go to Ari. He's He's solid.

But you had mentioned, like, the Christian thing. And I think what I find about Christianity that's really interesting is one thing that I really carry with me from my Christian experience, aside from the fact that I see Christ consciousness as one of a number of examples of a kind of consciousness that is a model for us, that acts as a kind of icon or symbol for the journey that we're on and what we're cultivating.

So, I see Christ as a Buddha consciousness. Christ consciousness, I figures like these to me, are they now serve as like a guidepost or a lantern of some kind? I'm sure you probably feel the same way. Yeah, so. But with Christianity, one of the things that I really take with is the importance of failure, because there was a book that I read that really had a big impact on me, a book called Silence by Shusako Endo, who is, I think he's Catholic, but he was, anyway, he was raised, I think it was like he was a Buddhist in Japan, but then raised Catholic, and he writes just so carefully and beautifully about the intersection of some of the values and and almost like the thoughts of Buddhism and Christianity in that book silence, which is about a couple of missionaries that go to Japan from Portugal, I want to say trying To convert Japanese people to Christianity. And they themselves end up being converted to Buddhism. It's a very interesting book. I loved it. But one of the things that happens in the conversion experience of one of the Catholic fathers, or whatever, was he's being tortured by the officials that capture him and realize that he's, like, trying to, you know, they don't want him there, right?

So they're, and they're, and they're saying, well, like, look, we're either going to kill you, and you can become a martyr for your faith, or we're going to kill you and or we're going to let you live. But then you have to acclimate, become a Buddhist, and become a citizen of Japan. You have to acclimate to our ways, right? And he finds himself unable to be a martyr. He's just not strong enough. And he's looking at this picture of Jesus that they're asking him to spit on before. And if you spit on this picture of Jesus, then we'll let you go, and you'll become a Buddhist. You'll integrate into our society. And he looks down at Jesus, and he's admitting Jesus, I'm too weak to become a martyr, and Jesus, like, perfect.

Now, you can be a real Christian because you've admitted that you're weak enough. And so he goes into, he becomes a Buddhist, acclimated, and has, like, somehow sunk right into a real Christianity. Yeah, it's just so beautiful. I love that transition. And like, one of the things that I find that the Christianity that accompanies me is the is this, this Christianity of like grace and mercy and compassion and forgiveness and knowing that I don't get somewhere spiritually by being strong all the time, right I get, I get somewhere spiritually, most frequently through the vehicles of humility and being able to just be really honest about where I'm at, you know, and be willing to fail along the way, and that those failures somehow bring me into a more honest and connected state within myself, and that I find that it's weird, how little, how much self-righteousness, and how little tolerance there is for failure within many spiritual traditions.

And I think that's like a perversion of the tradition, right? But it's like to, whatever. To an extent, we're saying that you're spiritual; you're only as good as you perform on the level of virtue. We've just not gotten that failure is an absolutely essential part of the curriculum because we can't grow mercy or grace or forgiveness or compassion. We can't grow our halos without that part of it. And so that's really the core teaching that stuck with me.

But I find that, like astrology, is constantly reaffirming that because we find ourselves in the midst of real life, dramas, and difficulties, and we have and if we allow for those things through the archetypes to be a reflection on how this shortcoming, this failure, is also an opportunity, and it's a gift, it's a grace that's being given to me, then I'm really in receipt of something special, and my evolution can keep unfolding. And I think astrology is teaching us that all of the time because it gives us that perspective of mercy within every event.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
That's so beautiful. Yeah, I really appreciate that.

Adam Elenbaas
Oh man, I could jam with you for hours. Bro, I love hanging out.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
Yeah, me, as well. Me, as well.

Adam Elenbaas
It's such a joy.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
We haven't done this in years. I mean, we've never really done it on this level.

Adam Elenbaas
This is great. Why don't we close? You have a minute to close with just one last question. Sure. Yeah, all right. So, the last question is going to set us up for our next episode on technique. What do I mean? There are lots of techniques, obviously, but what are some of the core characterizing techniques of evolutionary astrology? And then maybe I'll say just a few things about Hellenistics.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
I'll preface this with a technique, and then there's insight. So, to me, the purpose of the technique is not to look at the chart and then see a technique, right? I think the technique is a vehicle for a certain philosophical understanding that can be correctly and usefully applied; the technique is rooted in the understanding between the soul and the human ego structure the soul creates for itself. So, I'll briefly describe this philosophically, and then I'll bring it to the needle chart. From a soul point of view, we interpret or understand the unique personality structure, which we call the ego, self, identity, and self-construct, as a projection that the soul manifests itself.

So Jeff Green described it as a focusing agent, and that focusing agent serves as a vehicle through which the soul can have the human experience, right? So, I think of the ego structure itself as a satellite to the soul in the sense that it follows suit with whatever the intentions and needs of the soul are. The ego structure, our person, our self-concept, doesn't exist in a vacuum, right? It exists for a reason, and our sense of self is going to shift and evolve as we evolve as soul beings. And so there's there's no reality to our self-concept other than who we're projecting ourselves to be.

So, from that lens, we're looking at the natal chart and particular planetary relationships as a way to understand the soul's basic evolutionary intention. So, when we think about the evolutionary intention, it's underneath the surface of all the comings and the goings and the challenges that manifest on this life journey and the good things. Where are we growing and awakening to our essential, timeless nature? And each soul has their own unique archetypal curriculum. How is that being played out through a particular human experience? This translates to, in a simplistic way of describing it, the starting of the relationship between Pluto and the lunar archetype, in particular the south and the north node of the moon, but including the moon as well; Pluto corresponds to the underlying evolutionary intention. It speaks to the kind of evolutionary dynamics that have been at play in prior lives leading up to that are relevant. Because this lifetime isn't necessarily connected to all particulars, it's a larger philosophical concept, including all the themes that are relevant to this lifetime and the evolutionary content that we're working out.

So let's say you have you know Pluto in the seventh house, broadly, right? This is going to say a soul's evolutionary curriculum is going to be linked to evolving through all things, relationships, desires, and attachments to being pleasing, being liked, and affinities to other people. And so, within that, we're going to find ourselves manifesting all kinds of experiences in order to bring out the psychological edge of our own self-knowledge, right?

Our partner is going to walk out on us, and we're going to feel Pluto disempowered, or we're going to be rejected for being who we are, and we're going to face the question, do I embrace who I am, or do I fit in to be? Accepted because of my addiction to affinity, the leader, we're going to be the follower.

But from a Pluto point of view, every relational experience, in whatever form it expresses, is pointing back to where we're evolving and growing as a soul. And it's going to mean, at times, letting go. It's going to mean empowering ourselves to make new choices, all of the things. The context for that alone doesn't say anything. Pluto in the seventh house has no particular context other than the archetypal intention for evolution. You look at the south node just to provide a basic framework. This says that in the past, there were the kinds of identity structures that the soul created for itself.

Adam Gainsborough beautifully describes it as the pattern of identity-making, which I just love, that has served as a vehicle for these particular evolutionary intentions that the soul's been working out. So, you know, let's say you put the south node in the eighth house, right? So you have Pluto in the seventh relative to the south node in the eighth. Naturally, that's going to provide a very particular and focused kind of context for how the soul has been playing out these seventh-house desires.

It's going to literally be happening through forming deep attachments and bonds and all the eighth-house kinds of experiences of loss and betrayal. But that North Node now exists in the seventh in the second house. So you look at that north node as, in part, symbolizing an ongoing evolutionary direction for the soul that's going to evolve our own existing limitations relative to that natal Pluto position, right? Because the known framework for how we've been meeting our evolutionary curriculum, so to speak, has been through that lens of the south known ego structure.

Basically, as we're evolving, we're going to think of ourselves in a new way. So the framework of knowing myself with that eighth house is I'm identified with this bond, with this with this resentment, this person left me. I need this person all of these core eighth house identifications and also all the gifts that come with it, you know, are going to be how the soul has been facilitating that seventh house Pluto journey with the ego structure in the second house, there's going to be a growing orientation to what do I need? How can I tend to my own inner garden? How can I care for my essential needs and my own values? It's about building self-value and self-esteem. Well, then, you have a seventh-house experience. You're in a partnership, and they say, Yeah, I don't really like it. When you do that, the second house orientation will be, hmm, I feel hurt. I feel I feel betrayed, but actually, I don't have to hold on to that. What is it like to know myself in a new way that says I'm okay and it's okay for you to feel that way? My identity isn't defined by the energy and the affirmation that I get from you.

So that's like a simplified example. And just to recap the essence of this, what's helpful to appreciate is that this is where, you know, the technique can easily become heady and linear and confusing, and then we forget how simple it wants to be. We can't evolve other than through our emotional body, right? We have to be able to emotionally integrate our experiences and internalize our experiences in a new way in order to not fall into the same grove in the record, so to speak, the same patterning, right? So, the evolution of the self-concept is a reflection and really follows our own desire, willingness, and availability to evolve.

Adam Elenbaas
Yeah, that is, that's beautiful. I love. Um, well, what comes to me right away is that looking at the chart in terms of what the soul is trying to do for the sake of evolving and then trying to find the context within which that has been taking place or will continue to take place, and trying to look for some signs or signals as to what may be regressive as opposed to what may serve for further evolution, I think, is a process that I see it certainly as a still a very strong part of my practice, although the techniques I use to get there or discern or delineate that are different, right? Exactly, but that's the thing that we actually have in common, is that there's not one person who comes into my practice as I'm sure there isn't with yours, regardless of the paradigms we use, that isn't saying, Why am I here? What should I be focused on? What? What possibly could I get hung up on? And what's the remediation or. Or what? What advice do you have so that I can continue to grow? 99% of my clients, that is exactly what they come in, wanting to know whether the techniques are exactly the same or not. Is, I don't say, like, irrelevant. It matters that we have techniques that can speak to the truth, but to think that the technique is the truth would be the finger in the moon again, right?

Ari Moshe Wolfe
Exactly, exactly it. I once heard a talk of yours, and I was like, wow, I would say the same thing, but you are not addressing points that I would have addressed to get there. Yeah. And I just found that absolutely beautiful.

Adam Elenbaas
One idea that I had, and we haven't talked about this yet, so we'll just, I'll just introduce it on camera and see what you think. I thought, you know, what we should do is get a chart that is where we can say, Look, this is the approach you take to get there. This is the approach that I take to get there. We're getting to the same point. Because I just, I, I know deep down, because I've seen so many charts where I go, Oh, if I was in EA, I just would have done it this way, you know, I would have gone through the nodes or what have you. So that's, that's, yeah, that's really brilliant, and a nice, succinct, like a summary for now, because the intention of our next talk is to really get into some of the nuts and bolts of how the different traditions utilize different techniques to get to some of the same desired conversations. Yeah,

Ari Moshe Wolfe
and I would just want to qualify what I shared regarding technique. You know, people ask me, when you look at the chart, do you look at the notes? First, you look at Pluto. And I say I don't know if I do either. Right? Again, it's like the EA, and the technique really provides a framework for understanding. So, I think of Pluto and the nodes as a sort of philosophical skeletal framework that provides a soul-level context for the rest of the chart.

Adam Elenbaas
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I can't wait to get into this on a deeper level. What I'll say right now, just to broadly qualify the techniques of Hellenistic astrology, is that there are many of those techniques. I would say their strong point is in being able to delineate more concrete, specific themes, events, and topics in people's lives on the mundane level.

So I find that the challenge is always to, like, for example, I would say I'm better now with my Hellenistic techniques than I would have been at describing being able to look at a chart and tell pretty specifically when someone is going to have a spouse that's mentally ill that they end up divorcing. I can see concrete things, not crystal clear. I'm not omniscient, but the techniques of ancient astrology are very predictively.

It's like a scalpel. I remember seeing an Indian astrologer while I was studying Hellenistic, and he was able to predict down to a week that Ashley would get a rash on her arm, right? I mean, it was like, crazy specific. I'm not that. I'm not that specific with my practice. But, you know, horary is another traditional form of tech. A lot of it is very predictive. But if that predictive skill isn't used artfully for a soul-centered approach that ultimately wants to take us beyond attachment to results and outcomes, then it's really about how and why we use them, right? Which is more important?

So it's like one of the things I love about evolutionary is that the technique is really in service of this, providing this context, whereas, in many ways, I find that the context that a client brings to me, that maybe is a hard starting point for me, I'm able to much more easily address with Hellenistic techniques. But then the challenge becomes finding my way back to that bigger context. Okay, if that makes sense.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
that's fast. I mean, I have so many questions. Yeah, I think we have to close. But in my mind, I'm excited for the for the next part of the series.

Adam Elenbaas
The other thing I want to make sure we do in the next part is, I want to, I want to just propose some ideas about how this shift in our understanding of the nodes of the moon. Because Hellenistic has a very particular understanding of the nodes. Ancient Indian astrology has a particular understanding of the nodes. Then, EA has a very different understanding. I don't think they're as different as people think. I went to four or five different places and groups where I talked about the development of the nodes of the moon across astrological history and how the meaning has changed.

One of the things that I've been thinking about a lot, especially since developing this series with you, is that I think I can see there's, I think there are some pathways to make, to make some very meaningful and not like, not disconnected. There's more connection than I think people realize historically, even between the ancient view of the nodes and the modern view. So, I have some ideas that I want to throw out there when we talk again, as well. Looking forward to that.

Yeah, I want to make sure I can plug your work. Ari Moshe Wolfe, I remember, just so you guys have context when I was first starting meetup groups of astrology students in New York City, just getting my career started, Ari came over. I remember doing some yoga in my apartment with him. He is with Adam Summer. That's right? With Adam Summer, right? It was you, me, and Adam, and you guys were the ones who were like, Hey, do you know anything about evolutionary astrology? I was like, No, I'm like, brand new.

And you know, then I was, you know, off in taking everything I could, reading all of the books from Jeffrey Green and Stephen Forrest and arimoshe.com. It is where people can find you. I'm assuming you have events and readings and things like that on your website. Yes. And then, most importantly, if you like Ari's vibe, and I know a lot of you are probably really resonating with Ari's approach today on YouTube, you can find him @HeartAndSoulCenteredAstrology.

So I couldn't recommend more highly that you put him on your subscription list. You're going to find the same care for the soul that you find on my channel. I think we're cut from the same cloth in that respect. So, yeah, I think you'll find a lot of really great content there, and if you won't feel if you feel like exploring the EA world more, I couldn't put you in the hands of a better guide than Ari.

Ari Moshe Wolfe
Thank you so much. Adam.

Adam Elenbaas
Yeah, you bet. Well, thank you, everybody, for listening, and we will be recording again soon. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks, we'll get another episode out and continue this talk. So stay tuned, and if you after I sign off, there is an informational video that I've tagged on to the end of this week's videos about the upcoming year one. Course, if you're interested in learning more about that after we sign off, there's a little bonus info video you can check out. All right, thanks, everyone. Bye.