# 431 - Joshua Sturgill & Dcn Seraphim Rohlin - The Art of Imitating Heaven: Structure and Meaning in Ancient Cosmology Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-symbolic-world-1141216/431-joshua-sturgill-dcn-seraphim-rohlin-the-art-of-imitating-heaven-structure-and-meaning-in-ancient-cosmology Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-symbolic-world-1141216/431-joshua-sturgill-dcn-seraphim-rohlin-the-art-of-imitating-heaven-structure-and-meaning-in-ancient-cosmology.md Podcast: [The Symbolic World](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-symbolic-world-1141216) Published: 2026-01-20T14:37:48+00:00 Episode link: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/431-joshua-sturgill-dcn-seraphim-rohlin-the-art-of-imitating-heaven-structure-and-meaning-in-ancient-cosmology--69517386 Audio file: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/69517386/cosmology_final_podcast_01.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-symbolic-world-1141216/episodes/431-joshua-sturgill-dcn-seraphim-rohlin-the-art-of-imitating-heaven-structure-and-meaning-in-ancient-cosmology Duration seconds: 4157 ## Resource "Ancient people knew the sky the way that we know the highways around our cities." Today's podcast is a bit different. Deacon Seraphim Rohlin is here to introduce you to our new Symbolic World Course presenter, Joshua Sturgill. Together they discuss ancient cosmology, symbolism, and the meaning, power, and dangers of observing the night sky. They discuss pagan views on this, Biblical astronomy, the reservations of the church fathers, and modernity's determinism on the one hand, and confusion on the other hand. I hope you enjoy this conversation and will join us for Joshua's course. YouTube version: https://youtu.be/fQY6AyE1n1c NEW COURSE: The Art of Imitating Heaven: Structure and Meaning in Ancient Cosmology By Joshua Sturgill What is heaven? Where is it? For ancient people, the answer was obvious: simply look up at the night sky. For them, to see the stars and planets was to see the face of the divine. Christianity, too, understood the visible sky as the realm of unfallen creation. What does this belief mean, and why was it lost? πŸ—“ Live classes are on Sundays at 5-6:30pm Eastern Time, starting February 1st through March 8th, 2026. πŸ’° Price: $150 USD ⏰πŸ₯ DON'T MISS OUT! UNTIL FEBRUARY 1ST YOU CAN GET THE EARLY BIRD SPECIAL OF 15% OFF! Discount automatically applied at checkout. Register now: https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/courses/the-art-of-imitating-heaven Timestamps: 00:00 - Coming up 01:00 - Intro music 01:24 - Introduction 04:15 - Recover cosmology 08:32 - Symbolism and cosmology 12:43 - The Greeks: Pythagoras and Plato 14:39 - Other traditions 16:07 - Criticisms against astronomy 21:28 - How astrology worked 25:24 - A concrete example 26:57 - What does spring mean? 30:47 - Christmas 33:43 - The Orthodox position 37:22 - Governed by natural laws 45:55 - For the an… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-symbolic-world-1141216/episodes/431-joshua-sturgill-dcn-seraphim-rohlin-the-art-of-imitating-heaven-structure-and-meaning-in-ancient-cosmology/transcription-requests` β€” Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-symbolic-world-1141216/431-joshua-sturgill-dcn-seraphim-rohlin-the-art-of-imitating-heaven-structure-and-meaning-in-ancient-cosmology.md` β€” Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.