Astrologer, artist, and academic Jenny Montgomery sits down with host Jenn Zahrt from Missoula, Montana to chat about books (both real and imagined!) and more: correspondences, primary directions, archetypes, archaic instincts, synchronicity, zodiacal releasing, and Neptune remediation. Plus: conjuring up a graphic novel for Project Hindsight, walking the Prague zodiac, and… are a plethora of Jennifers the secret to the universe??
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Song “Wake Up” used with permission by The E-Block Band.
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Episode timestamps (conversation recorded Oct. 2023):
00:31 – As a graduate student at Columbia University, Jenny focused on the history of esoteric sciences in the medieval Greco-Arab world. She then traveled on a Fulbright-Hayes Dissertation Research Fellowship to study in Cairo, Istanbul, and Oxford for her PhD thesis, which examined the relationship between Greek and Arabic astrology as practiced by the 11th century Egyptian physician Ali Ibn Ridwan.
01:31 – The first astrology book that Jenny read was a colorful, illustrated kid-friendly book from the 1970s! Unfortunately, she no longer has that exact book, but a similarly delightful one would be Heaven on Earth by Fritz Wegner. (Tabs we can pull? A pop-up with wheels that spin? Count us in!) Another that was influential was Ali Ibn Ridwan’s commentary on Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos.
07:04 – If Jenny were going to a remote place, which three books would she bring? Waving a magic wand, she would love to conjure up a text that doesn’t exist: the book on astrology that C. G. Jung would have written had he not been embarrassed to talk about it! Enjoy the side trip to Liz Greene’s two-volume Jung’s Studies in Astrology and Clare Martin’s Alchemy: The Soul of Astrology.
12:24 – Interlude: Join CAELi’s inaugural annual support campaign and snag yourself a Saturn stress ball. (Yes, you read that right!)
13:10 – Jenny’s second selection also arrives on the imaginary bus: the unwritten books by Robert Schmidt of Project Hindsight. Currently, Robert’s work is in hard-to-find audio form. Time, philosophy, and wonderful idiosyncratic theories all take the stage here.
16:52 – Jenny’s final pick is a deep dive into the intriguing city of Prague, which is laid out according to the zodiac! Check out Praga Mysteriosa: The Secret of the Prague Solstice by Milan Spurek. Take a trip to Prague and walk your birth chart! (Hat tip to Michal Maryška, who will soon release a series of books about the Prague zodiac.)
20:28 – For beginners, Jenny recommends: the previously mentioned Heaven on Earth; Rex Bill’s The Rulership Book (with bonus points for Jenn’s mention of The Book of Rulerships by Lee Lehman); Key Words for Astrology by Hajo Banzhaf and Anna Haebler; and Sun Sign, Moon Sign: Discover the Personality Secrets of the 144 Sun-Moon Combinations by Charles Harvey and Suzi Harvey.
24:54 – Jenny's website is: http://www.jenny-montgomery.com/.
25:28 – Thanks for listening to Within Orb! If you love the show, please help support it at no cost to you: Follow or subscribe wherever you listen, rate it five stars, or write a happy review! And if you’d like to become a CAELi member or support our work with a contribution of any amount, we’d be delighted – thanks!
Show notes by Jen Braun, JJ Boots Productions LLC.
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