The Magi


If you want to hide something, put it in plain sight.



Who doesn't know the story of the Three Wise Men? How they followed the Star of Bethlehem? And the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrhh? Most people accept a folk version of the tale that portrays the three visitors as kings. One of the more popular of these has a dark skinned man as a king from Africa, a yellow skinned man as a king from Asia and a brown skinned man as a king from India. You’ve seen their statuettes at many a nativity scene. Another source of your knowledge about these gentlemen may come from the carol, “We Three Kings”. Many simply refer to the Gospel of Matthew. Whatever version you choose there are some commonalities to all of them. First, these were men who were highly respected in their home communities, be they wise men or kings. Second, they brought gifts. Third, the guidance system for their trip had an astronomical basis. The first two of these are not a problem as far as explaining the story and there are many cultural variations as we know. One of these explanations heads toward the actual truth when it acknowledges that the original Greek word first used to describe the visitors, translated in English, is Magi. There is no question as to what a Greek or Hebrew historian in early A.D. was referring to with this word – a Zoroastrian priest and Zoroastrian priests were astrologers - the acknowledged best astrologers of the day with an international reputation. This was a time when astrology was highly regarded as a science and astrologers were treated as royalty. 



So why does this get lost in translation? We get astrologer/priests following a star but that's about as far as the truth of the story gets. Periodically we get taken on an astronomical wild goose chase by stories that claim to finally identify the star of Bethlehem. These are sadly, indicative of astrology's decline in modern culture. Following a star? Any astrologer worth their salt knows what the Magi were looking at and why. That would be the subject of an entire book. Suffice it to say that they were going to an area that their calculations were telling them to search in at a particular time. That they were “following a star” could be a poetic description of their work, it's true, and yes, their calculations were astronomical ones of actual objects. But they were not following one particular star that “shone” brighter in the heavens. That is such a gross oversimplification of astrology that it can hardly be compared to the real thing. And what about the biblical reference to the “dream” they had “warning” them to not go back through Herod's territory? Again, any good astrologer would have done what is called an election chart for the start of the journey which would have told them everything about the trip including the possibility of death through a monarch's deceit and how to avoid it. To the unenlightened it might appear the astrologer received some vision from their calculations that “spoke” a warning.



Good students of history know that astrology’s present standing in the community is not from things being merely lost in translation. It is largely due to Christianity's suppression and persecution of Zoroastrian devotees and its long historical relationship and antipathy with magic which continues to this day. Heretics are kept away from the fold and their heresies are shunned. At least they left them as Kings.