087 | Kristin Mathis: Orphic Boot Camp!

Scholar and translator Kristin Mathis joins host Jenn Zahrt from the Big Apple! Enjoy this unique and insightful episode with one of the world’s foremost experts on the Orphic Hymns! Tune in for a deep chat covering lots of terrain, including: the deets on Orpheus; pondering the mystery traditions; preserving and translating the archaic Greek understanding of the cosmos; and the profound idea that living in a human body may limit our ability to perceive what we already are! Plus: a Kevin Bacon moment, weaving together the cosmos, and… what do ancient Egyptian texts have to do with baboons singing?

 

 

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Transcripts available upon request.

Song “Wake Up” used with permission by The E-Block Band.

 

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Episode timestamps (conversation recorded March 2025):

 

00:12 – Kristin Mathis is a translator and scholar of ancient Mediterranean religions and esoterica. Her current Mysteria Mundi project aims to re-translate the ancient Greek Orphic Hymns, making the esoteric content hidden in the original Greek wordplay accessible to a modern lay audience. The Orphic Hymns, which predate the development of Hellenistic astrology by several centuries, form a critical link between the Bronze Age astral temple traditions of Egypt, Babylonia, and Phoenicia, and all subsequent “Western” esoteric traditions, from Greek to Roman to Islamicate and beyond. Kristin resides in Brooklyn, NY, with her son, two cats, and way too many books and herbs.

 

00:52 – Kristin’s first book about astrology (that she came across in her research) was a catalogue of Thrasyllus’s library in the CCAG (Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum)!

 

06:09 – If Kristin could bring only three books to a deserted island, her first pick would be The Orphic Hymns, translated by Gabriella Ricciardelli!

 

07:45 – Kristin’s second choice would be the gargantuan two-tome Greek-English Lexicon by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott.

 

09:00 – The third title Kristin would bring is The Fragments of Sappho (in Greek)! For an English version, she suggests the one translated by Anne Carson.

 

09:26 – Interlude: Join the CAELi Support Drive and for only $35, you can enjoy your morning beverage out of a gorgeous CAELi mug! And be sure to check out our upcoming labs and summer camps!

 

10:13 – Enjoy Kristin and Jenn’s in-depth discussion of the Orphic Hymns!

 

36:24 – The books that Kristin recommends for diving into the scholarship about these cosmologies and astrologies are When They Severed Earth from Sky by Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber and Echoes of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations by E. C. Krupp. (She also mentions Hamlet’s Mill by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend.)

 

42:09 – Find Kristin at her Substack: https://mysteriamundi.substack.com/. On Bluesky, her handle is @kristinmathis.bsky.social.

 

42:52 – 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 and production by Jen Braun of JJ Boots Productions LLC.