Anthony Perrotta  0:01  (Intro quote)
You know, spirituality is so intangible, and it's a concept that's hard to wrap your head around. But spirituality and science, they are actually looking at the same thing -they're looking at kind of understanding our purpose.

Anthony Perrotta  0:11  (Intro quote)
I started researching astrology and I noticed there was a lot of math component to it. And because my background is in interior architecture, I love geometry, obviously. And math is all patterns. Well, astrology is the same, it's all patterns.

Anthony Perrotta  0:21  (Intro quote)
You may not think you're a math person, but it's all about a shift in perspective.

Vanessa Vakharia  0:25  (Show intro)
Hi, I'm Vanessa Vakharia, aka The Math Guru. And you're listening to Math Therapy, a podcast that helps guests work through their math traumas, one problem at a time. Whether you think you're a math person or not, you're about to find out that math people don't actually exist. But the scars that math class left on many of us definitely do. Oh, and don't worry, no calculators or actual math were involved in the making of this podcast.

Vanessa Vakharia  0:50  (Episode intro)
So a lot of you who follow me on the "gram" know that I've gotten super into astrology. I think it's cool and like, stars are pretty, and why the fuck not. But I started noticing that as I posted about cool astrology stuff, I started getting shade from some of the scientists that follow me. Well, today I have an actual astrologer on the podcast to talk about why astrology gets such a bad rap in the world of science, and why pitting spirituality against science actually does us a huge disservice. Guys, I am so pumped to introduce you to Anthony Perrotta, aka the astrologer I met on Instagram at the beginning of the pandemic, who has now become my spiritual internet BFF!

Vanessa Vakharia  1:30 
Anthony, welcome to the podcast!

Anthony Perrotta  1:32 
Thank you! I am so excited, you don't even know.

Vanessa Vakharia  1:35 
Okay so first of all, I think we should discuss how we even met in the first place. Okay, so I don't even know how but I started kind of getting interested in astrology, and somehow you got sent to me on Instagram. I love when random shit like this happens. So we met on Instagram, and actually, a couple of weeks ago, I got my first ever birth chart reading by Anthony - it totally blew my mind! I feel like it changed my life. I'm a Gemini sun, Capricorn moon, and Gemini rising in case you were wondering. And Anthony, like, is there anything listeners should know about me from my birth chart that you feel like we need to say right now?

Anthony Perrotta  2:10 
(pauses) ... communication is key. (laughing) Girl loves to talk? No, I'm just kidding.

Vanessa Vakharia  2:16 
(laughing) True.

Anthony Perrotta  2:17 
No, it is true. I mean, anywhere that Gemini is present, there's this strong need to verbally communicate things in this lifetime. So for you, obviously, like girl, you're doing it. It's also - Gemini is a cerebral sign, so focusing on like math, science, and concepts that are a lot less emotional. And so here we are.

Vanessa Vakharia  2:41 
Okay, interesting. So another thing I was just thinking, I'm like, you know, listeners might be like, "Why the fuck do you have an astrologer on your math podcast?" So I just want to back up. And this is actually going to be a big theme of this episode, but I think this actually started because I was getting a lot of flack, which I will get into later, I was getting a lot of flack on my account about being into astrology AND math. So I would post things about like crystals and astrology and tarot cards, and I was getting messages from people in science being like, "this is kind of ruining your credibility". And I remember I reached out to Anthony, and for some reason we were talking about it, and he said, "I don't know what you're talking about. astrology is so mathematical. I love math." And I was like, "Wait a second. I actually had no idea. Let's talk about this!" So like, let's talk about this - first of all, is it common for astrologers to be in math? Or are you unique?

Anthony Perrotta  3:35 
So I think a lot of astrologers will say that they don't like math, but not realize that what they're doing is math, essentially. So the way that astrology uses math is you're looking at a chart, and a chart is a circle, right? So it's a wheel, essentially. And it's divided into 12 pieces, or 12 pies, if you will. So it's geometry, essentially. And so the wheel is 360 degrees, right, because that's what creates a circle.  Every sign within it - so there's 12 signs - has 30 degrees. So of course, then 3 times 12, you get your 36, so 30 degrees, you get your 360. Within that, astrology looks at how every planet on that wheel - so it's a snapshot of the sky at the moment you were born - how every planet interacts with one another, and the interactions are based on their degrees apart from each other. So if a planet is let's say 180 degrees away from another planet, that is called an opposition, so it's an obstacle. And then let's say a planet is 120 degrees away - it's a trine, so it's a harmonious and flowing aspect. This kind of relates to sacred geometry and certain aspects of that (which I feel like we can probably talk about at some point in this podcast that I think is important) but in thinking about this, you can actually end up creating shapes, geometrical shapes in the center of that wheel based on the aspects and the correlations between the planets.

Vanessa Vakharia  5:00 
This is fascinating! So this is a good visual though because I actually don't think I even understood it. So when when you look at your birth chart, it is a circle divided into 12 even pieces.

Anthony Perrotta  5:12 
Those are called "houses".

Vanessa Vakharia  5:13 
Okay, those are called houses. And each house represents like something about you, right?

Anthony Perrotta  5:18 
Yes, a different portion of your life. So it could be career, relationships, self, spirituality, health, anything.

Vanessa Vakharia  5:26 
Okay, so now just to break it down further, so we have this wheel, it's divided into 12 houses, and there are basically planets scattered around that wheel. And then you're looking at the formations that they form with one another or where they are in relation to each of those houses.

Anthony Perrotta  5:40 
Exactly.

Vanessa Vakharia  5:42 
I actually feel so much better, I actually needed to say that for myself, because I really wasn't sure! Okay, so that's actually really, really helpful. So like, this is interesting. So it's based in math, we divided up mathematically - here's a question I get a lot though.  When people are like ... someone said to me, "according to the laws of physics, there is no way that the the way the planets were in the sky at the time you were born has any effect on your personality". Do you ever hear that?

Anthony Perrotta  6:10 
Okay, so here's my thing. And this is gonna sound a little cliche, right? But the idea that the moon can affect the tides, and we're made up of -

Vanessa Vakharia  6:18 
I always say that too!  Ok anyways, sorry -

Anthony Perrotta  6:20 
- exactly! So we're made up of like, 65% or 60% water, how can it not affect us too? And there have been a lot of studies talking about how the lunar phases of lunar cycles actually affect people's psychological state in some way. And if you look at the root word of like, someone who probably is considered a "lunatic" - "Luna" right? "Moon".

Vanessa Vakharia  6:39 
Hmmm.

Anthony Perrotta  6:41 
So there's a lot of correlations, actually, between the planetary placement and energy and how it actually affects us. So I would disagree. But once again, back in history, once upon a time, astronomy and astrology were so interlinked, and so a part of one another, and over time, during the Age of Enlightenment, and as Christianity took a stronger hold, it was seen as a form of divination. And so then it was associated with evil, and then cast aside as being a pseudoscience and not an actual science.

Vanessa Vakharia  7:12 
Wow. Okay. So this is really interesting. Let's pop back - I want to get into that in a second, but I don't want to gloss over what you said about sacred geometry. First of all, can you tell us what is sacred geometry?

Anthony Perrotta  7:23 
So sacred geometry is pretty much the connection of the spiritual world through math. It's looking at patterns, naturally occurring cycles, it's looking at symbology, astrology, numerology, and how math is integrated into that. So design principles, art, and music all sort of have their own sort of sacred geometry.  In correlation with this, there is this connection between architecture. So in creating, let's say, like a mosque, or a temple, or church, architects would actually take certain geometrical shapes that they felt were had a spiritual impact, usually circles or crosses, and they would literally physically build architectural spaces based on this using math principles, using geometry, right? To make those correlations between the divine and something a little bit more concrete or scientific.

Vanessa Vakharia  8:16 
Wait, this is so cool! I really had no idea of any of this. So how does this relate to astrology then?

Anthony Perrotta  8:24 
So within astrology, obviously, it's part of that sacred geometry, because within it, you're utilizing math to explain something a little bit more spiritual or esoteric.

Vanessa Vakharia  8:34 
Okay, so basically, sacred geometry is using math principles to explain things that are a little more like spiritual or sacred, and how they're interconnected. That is so - so this is so fascinating, because so many people would say that math and science cannot coexist with spirituality, right? You hear all of the, you know what, actually, my friend who takes bio at university told me that her Professor walked into their first year biology class, and said, "If you believe in God, you do not believe belong in this class", like literally said that to a lecture room of 400 people and was like, "it's either the theory of evolution, or it's God" - Anthony is shaking his head right now very vehemently.

Anthony Perrotta  9:13 
I am.

Vanessa Vakharia  9:14 
But that's fucked, right? So how did that ever happen? Why did we get to this place where we have made the two such polar opposites? Like, what's the reason for it?

Anthony Perrotta  9:23 
I think it's a way for us to limit in to segment certain things within our mind, right? So in thinking that, for us, it's easier to see when we can place something in a box and we can place kind of a label on it. So to say, you know, spirituality is so intangible, and it's a concept that's hard to like wrap your head around, but spirituality and science, they are actually looking at the same thing. They're looking at kind of understanding our purpose at the end of the day, right? Biology is looking to understand how our body works, and why we're here right? Science is trying to figure out why are we here, what's our purpose? Spirituality is doing this same exact thing. So when I was talking about before where astronomy and astrology were so inexplicably linked, right? They were intertwined so closely, but they weren't seen as different. It was during the rise of Christianity and the Age of Enlightenment in which it sort of was spread apart. And it was, you know, before that, Popes would actually consult astrologers to make decisions.

Vanessa Vakharia  10:23 
What?! Oh my god, okay, crazy.

Anthony Perrotta  10:25 
And of course, astrology is looking at astronomy, it's looking at the snapshot of the sky, the physical planetary placements. So there is a sense of science there in some way. But it fell out of favor, of course. Because like I said, the church saw it as a divination and not a science.

Vanessa Vakharia  10:40 
Wait wait, let's explain that - like just tell us what's a divination?

Anthony Perrotta  10:44 
So divination is anything that's spiritual and esoteric, so you're looking at like tarot, you're looking at astrology, you're looking at pretty much -

Vanessa Vakharia  10:53 
Like witches? Is this where like witch hunting came in?

Anthony Perrotta  10:56 
Kind of, it's a part of that.

Vanessa Vakharia  10:58 
And why? Like, because we're just scared of it? Like, why is that bad?

Anthony Perrotta  11:02 
Exactly, because there's not a way to fully grasp and explain it in scientific terms. So if we can't prove it, right - we are not a "seeing is believing" kind of group of people, right? It's true. We don't have blind faith. And those of us that do we're seen as crazy in some way, right, or kind of offbeat. But then you know, if you think about it, the reality of this is that astrology can be seen as a social science, right? So it's using math to show correlations between the different facets in one's personality. So thinking back to that wheel, you know, every house rules a different part of your life and a different part of your personality, and how those planets kind of interact with one another - therapists now and counselors will use Tarot and astrology to actually help heal and create breakthroughs for their clients.

Vanessa Vakharia  11:51 
Okay, so this is actually I think, a really interesting point because I want to ask you this question - so many times, because I'm into Tarot and I took a tarot course and I find it fun and I'm into my horoscope, but I always try to explain to people and this is just me personally, it's not like I'm pulling a tarot card and being like, "Oh, my God, this card says, I have to do this". Or same with my horoscope, right? Like with all of these things, it's all about how you interpret them. And that's like, the therapeutic part of it right to like, you know, you're telling me for example, like just something simple from our birth chart reading, you had said something like, "oh, is there a body of water near you? Because it feels like that's where you're most at peace". And that got me thinking, "you know what, yes, many of the times in my life when I've been most at peace have been when I'm near water", maybe that's something I should think about for like healing or maybe I should live near water? So my point is when people are like "science, science, science", there's no way - like, you can't say that the way the planets were, automatically dictates your destiny and I'm like - isn't that not what it's about? Isn't astrology about interpretation?

Anthony Perrotta  12:55 
Yes, exactly.  So you know, there are different types of astrology, there's traditional astrology - it looks at fate, right? So things are a lot more concrete - but I'm a modern astrologer, so in my case, I believe in free will.

Vanessa Vakharia  13:05 
Ok, this is important, this is important.

Anthony Perrotta  13:07 
So in looking at the way a chart is set up, I always talk about how it's the energy and the roadmap to guide your life in some way. But it's up to you to use it or not, you can decide that you want to - it's the same thing as therapy, right? It's all about self awareness. So all this is teaching you how to become a lot more aware of your own inner nature and your own inner workings, just the same as science does for us.

Vanessa Vakharia  13:28 
So okay, we're gonna go in a bit of a different direction, because I've been thinking a lot about this too. Like, you know, I love astrology. And I love reading my horoscope and interpreting it this way. And I think we're at a really interesting point in society where I think the divide has even - the gap is huge now. Where is the line between saying, "Oh, yeah, it's all up to interpretation" and, you know, as you said, we're not seeing is believing kind of people - but actually, it kind of feels like we're starting to go that way, where people are like, "fuck science, I'm going to believe this random thing". I don't know, do you know what I'm saying? Like, where is the line that we cross between being like, "well, it's all fun and games, you know, I'm gonna read your birth chart and you interpret it or you don't" and saying,""No, there are some things that are facts."

Anthony Perrotta  14:14 
You know, this is a really interesting question, because it kind of lies in the idea of paradoxes. Right? In some way, because we can look at science and we know that it can be quote, "concrete", but then also science is based on theory and hypothesis, and the hypothesis needs to be proven in order for that science, that theory to be correct, right? Otherwise, it's just this intangible concept, just like spirituality and divination and astrology. On the other side, we do have conspiracy theorists, which I completely disagree with, personally, because I actually do believe in science. But those people are then of course, taking it too far. There's always extremists on either end. And I think about finding the middle ground, right, and how we can come together using different practices instead of being pulled apart into two separate - you know, instead of continuing to put ourselves separated into two different boxes, how can we use these different concepts and bring it together?

Vanessa Vakharia  15:06 
Yeah, like I find it's so challenging because, so for my next math book, it's a children's math book, I convinced the publisher to let me do a math horoscope section. So it's like, I have horoscopes based on each star sign, like about what might be the best study techniques. So like, "you're a Gemini, you might like to study with your friends", blah, blah, blah. But as I was posting this on Instagram, as I was saying, I got a bit of backlash. And I think it was interesting, because on the one hand, someone said to me, you know, women get a hard enough time in science being believed as experts. And when you start talking about astrology, you get put into the Gwyneth Paltrow goop category. And I know, your face. (laughing) But it was interesting, because I was like, I obviously would want to avoid at all costs being seen as someone who's like, "Well, no, it's scientifically proven that the way the planets were aligned, when you were born has an effect on your personality" - I would prefer to be like, "you know what, I like reading it, I like interpreting it, I actually don't really know much about the science behind it." Because I don't, as opposed to saying like, no, this is scientifically proven, because then I do feel like a conspiracy theorist who starts being like, "No, no, there's proof because you can find proof for everything on the internet."

Anthony Perrotta  16:18 
It's true. I think, here in this case, it's best or I guess, easiest to view astrology as a social science now.

Vanessa Vakharia  16:28 
Ok yes, I like, what is this?

Anthony Perrotta  16:30 
So this is like psychology. Right? So psychology. So if you notice, the more tangible sciences are the ones that people feel more comfortable with - the biology, the geology, right? Because we can we have theories, we can prove them, when it comes to mental health, emotional health, psychology, any of those things, they're intangible, they're harder concepts to prove, right? We can theorize why someone has, you know, a certain behavioral disorder or certain, whatever it is, but there's no real "proof", quote, unquote, that we can -

Vanessa Vakharia  17:02 
No for a lot of the things you're right, though, because I think about how like, for adults to get an ADHD test, for example, you could either do the eight hour - like, they put you in front of computers and do all this stuff. Or you can fill out a fucking questionnaire. So that to me is pretty intangible and subjective. Like, I can fill out pretty much any questionnaire - like if I did a questionnaire on ADHD, like, "Are you distracted often?" Yes. "Do you use your phone too much?" Yes. Like, "Do you often lose focus?" Yes - like those things, first of all, if me and you both did it, our interpretation of the question "do you get distracted could be completely different". And in the end, we could get the exact same result. So it is a little more like, I know what you mean, it's a little more subjective. So I think that's interesting.

Vanessa Vakharia  17:42 
And that kind of leads into my next question about the popularity of astrology now, because we were talking about this earlier, and I definitely want to get into this now. Like, you know, it's funny that we frown down so much on astrology, whereas the same is not true for religion. Right? But it seems like astrology is replacing religion, especially for the younger generations. But so it's a double question, number one: why is that happening? What trends have you seen? And number two: why actually don't we act that way about religion? Because actually, the same people who've been coming down on me for astrology would say, when I asked them, "no, believing in God is different. Being spiritual is different. That's okay. But astrology and Tarot are not credible." So like, what the fuck?

Anthony Perrotta  18:32 
I think people are trying to make sense of things. And it's really difficult right now, right? Like we're in this liminal space, the space in between. We don't, we don't really live in like what was, quote, "the real world". And I think we feel crisis and trauma and like, now we're sitting and we're having to reflect on our lives, right, we have no choice because we can't go anywhere. And I think people are looking for anything to hold on to, yeah, to give them hope, in some way, shape, or form. And in the past, it's been religion, right? For so many years, people turn to religion as a form of giving them hope. But our generation and younger are far less religious than the generations before us. So now we are in this space where we're trying to find meaning in our lives and a sense of purpose. And we know that it isn't through God or organized religion, it's in a more of a spiritual realm. And this actually goes along with the idea of astrological ages. So in history, there's something that happens every 2000 years: we move from one age to the next. So we just exited the age of Pisces and entered the Age of Aquarius in the year of 2000.

Vanessa Vakharia  19:49 
Age of Aquarius, is that what the song is about?!

Anthony Perrotta  19:52 
Yes, exactly, I'm not even kidding you! By The Fifth Dimension, I think it was in the play it was in Hair, right?

Vanessa Vakharia  20:00 
Yeah!

Anthony Perrotta  20:01 
So that song was like what like 1970- or 1960-something, so something like that. Because it was dawning, we were entering - we were getting ready to enter because we're starting to feel the effects of the Age of Aquarius. But we were still in the age of Pisces. So the age of Pisces is the age of spirituality. It started in one AD - well, who was lo and behold, born in supposedly one AD? Jesus Christ.

Vanessa Vakharia  20:22 
Oh my god!

Anthony Perrotta  20:24 
Well, I'm about to blow your mind a little bit more. Because if you look at the symbology of spirituality specifically in Christianity, you look at the ichthus which is the the fish symbol, right - that is used for Christianity. Well, Pisces is a fish.

Vanessa Vakharia  20:39 
Pisces!!

Anthony Perrotta  20:40 
And Jesus is the archetypal Pisces, in the compassionate, the all feeling, the all knowing, the one who is a divine spirit, a vessel for spirituality in the physical realm, and someone who has a lot of empathy and will hang around anybody and see past all their flaws, right? That's Jesus as an archetype. Well, the shadow side of the age of Pisces is the opposite sign. So that would be Virgo. And when you're thinking about Virgo, who birthed Jesus? The Virgin Mary - and Virgo is the Virgin.

Vanessa Vakharia  21:14 
Shut up, shut up, what?!

Anthony Perrotta  21:16 
And in looking at that, Virgo is all about organization and organizing chaos. So in order for religion to have grounds in some way, we needed to organize religion, we needed to make it feel tangible by giving an order and structure instead of letting us just believe whatever we wanted to believe, which is very Pisces.

Vanessa Vakharia  21:38 
So that's why there's like all these rules, is that why?

Anthony Perrotta  21:41 
Yes, exactly.

Vanessa Vakharia  21:42 
Okay, cuz now I'm having like a crazy epiphany and maybe I'm wrong, but I wonder if that's part of the reason why we're actually so much more a fan of religion because you can still control people with religion because there are rules, and astrology and Tarot doesn't have rules.

Anthony Perrotta  21:57 
Exactly. Well, there are like, set principles.

Vanessa Vakharia  21:59 
No but there's not like "you will treat others like this, you can't do this."

Anthony Perrotta  22:02 
Exactly. So this brings me into my next point. Oh, I love this! Okay, so in thinking that we're moving out of the age of controlled spirituality of Pisces, right? Because also during that time, like Buddhism came up and all these different other religions sort of formed and grew. Beyond that, we now move into the Age of Aquarius, which is the age of freedom, the Age of Enlightenment, right? So Aquarius rules kind of higher knowledge and abstract intangible concepts that somehow can be proven in some way. This involves science, astrology, occultism, social structures -

Vanessa Vakharia  22:08 
I'm freaking out! Because there's so many cults right now I feel like cults are like really popular at this time. Okay, sorry go ahead.

Anthony Perrotta  22:45 
Yes - but even the occult which is like the divination like -

Vanessa Vakharia  22:49 
(laughing) you're like, "I did not say cults". Okay, sorry, go.

Anthony Perrotta  22:52 
No, but it is true, because Aquarius is actually ruled the "group think" so you're not wrong. So it rules collective mentality.

Vanessa Vakharia  23:01 
Oh, my God. Okay. Well, this is really, really, REALLY interesting. And I have to say, like, I don't know how, like, how do you know all this? How did you even get into astrology? Like, how did this happen?

Anthony Perrotta  23:11 
So it's really not even that interesting. So I would read my horoscopes. And I'd be like, "I don't feel like a Pisces", I'm not like hypersensitive and like a really emotional - like, I'm a sensitive person, but not like that. So then, being me, I wanted to know more. And obviously, I like to interconnect different aspects of life into something. So I could see how astrology had validity in some way. And I started researching astrology, and I noticed there was a lot of math component to it. Because my background is in interior architecture, I love geometry, obviously. And math is all patterns. Well, astrology is the same, it's all patterns, it's all cycles and how things change every so many years, and how everything's changed every year, or every month. And so it just kind of drew me in closer, and I became obsessed. And then I would just read everything I could about it, and then I would research anything I could about it. I would watch videos, I would go online for hours, to the point where I became really comfortable and reading charts and understanding them and interpreting them and then eventually making it part of my career in some way.

Vanessa Vakharia  24:19 
It's just so cool. And like do you think - I've really never heard anyone talk about astrology in such a mathematical way. And I love the way you say, "math is about patterns and so is astrology" because I really think that part is missed when we teach math in school. We're really not talking about how how it's about, like these patterns that we see every day and in the world around us. Like, you know, it's so funny, every time I teach trig functions to girls, I'm always like, this is your literal physical period like we call it, but you think about it, you call it a "period" - that's the time it takes for the wave to pass. Right? And you're talking about the beginning of it, and then you're talking about the peak period, and you're talking about like - whenever you talk to a teenage girl about it, they're like, "this makes so much sense". And I'm like, Yes. This is literally what a trig function is, like, when you look at a cosine, or a sine wave, like it actually kind of represents an actual cycle that happens in your real life. So that's just another pattern that we don't really dig into deep enough. So do you think that you know, almost the other way around, like you almost got into astrology because you were already interested in math? Do you think that it could work the other way around, that students who are math phobic could, through astrology, be like "you know what, I'm actually really interested in the math behind this."

Anthony Perrotta  25:37 
Yes, I do. Because I think that astrology is a good way to link left and right brain. So you can utilize math, which is one side of the brain, and then connect it to something more social sciences, like personality-wise. So I think it's a good connection point for it. And also understanding cycles and patterns. And what, you know, a degree is, and how things interact with one another based on their degrees and how it can create different shapes as a result of you know, how they interact. Like in astrology, there's something that's called a "grand trine", it's an equilateral triangle. So it shows when three planets are each 120 degrees away from one another on the wheel. So in the middle you then get an equilateral triangle.

Vanessa Vakharia  26:19 
I think it's so cool. And actually someone had said this to me a couple weeks ago, when I was having this whole conflict of like, "Oh, my God, is astrology making me not credible". And she was like, "You know what, it's really important for science communicators, and math communicators, to reach people where they are." And so, you have a whole group of people who are really into astrology and spirituality, who are traditionally more math-phobic, it's important to show them that math and science still happens in their realm in whatever way that it does.

Anthony Perrotta  26:49 
Well, so I was gonna say, I think one way - you know, this makes me think about how I feel like math can be taught in schools, in general should be changed a little bit.

Vanessa Vakharia  26:58 
Well yeah, that's my next question - let me ask you the question. I was gonna say it out loud. (laughing) So, because I do have two final questions, and one of them is what is the one thing you think you would change about the way math is taught in school? So yeah -

Anthony Perrotta  27:10 
Okay, perfect.

Vanessa Vakharia  27:11 
I guess I didn't have to ask you that, you are already saying that.

Anthony Perrotta  27:15 
You just wanted to hear yourself talk, let's be honest.  (laughing)

Vanessa Vakharia  27:20 
(laughing)

Anthony Perrotta  27:20 
I think for me, it's about making it more humane. So it's about making it kinesthetic, and visual, in some way. I mean, that's the way I learned, right, I learned through seeing, seeing the pattern, I learned through the doing part of astrology and doing the math behind the astrological aspects, but it's making it humane. So how can I then connect math to something that is relevant to my life, like these random concepts of "you have two apples, and this person has three" and like, those math problems don't make sense to me. But if there's a way to connect it that is more relevant, I think that's a way that I would change it. How can you make math more interesting, more connected and more humane?

Vanessa Vakharia  28:02 
I love that you're using the word humane, because what's so funny is people keep being like, well, we got to make math relevant to people's lives and their way of doing that is being like, "so you have two apples" and yeah, apples, people know what apples are that's relevant?! And you're like, "no one gives a fucking shit how many apples you have."

Anthony Perrotta  28:18 
No, I don't care! (laughing)

Vanessa Vakharia  28:19 
So I think you're right that humane is the better word there is like, how can you make someone care about it and be personally invested in it? So I love that. Well, and then our final final question is: do you think there's such a thing as a math person? And what would you say to someone who says they are not a math person?

Anthony Perrotta  28:37 
I think intrinsically almost anybody could be a math person, right? I think it's just all about a shift in perspective. Because you know, there are a lot of astrologers, like I said, who probably wouldn't consider themselves math people, but they use math every single day, right? Artists are the same way, people who paint or sculpt - there's a sense of math and understanding physics in creating a sculpture. You may not think you're a math person, but it's all about a shift in perspective.

Vanessa Vakharia  29:04 
Okay, this has been - like I could talk to you forever, NOT just to hear the sound of my own voice okay, (laughing) but to hear you speak!

Anthony Perrotta  29:09 
(laughing)

Vanessa Vakharia  29:11 
But we do, we're gonna end it here, you're so amazing - for anyone who wants to get their chart read or learn about astrology I highly  recommend Anthony he's the coolest, he is the most knowledgeable person I know about this topic. Oh, and also his Instagram account, I'm just gonna say this because you're probably not gonna want to brag - his Instagram account is just so aesthetically pleasing. I would highly recommend following him at @AP_astrology. And Anthony, do you want to tell us anything else? Where can people find you, like just tell us anything.

Anthony Perrotta  29:45 
So I mean, you can find me on my Instagram, you can find me on my website - www.perrotta.co - otherwise, not really! And on the idea of my Instagram being aesthetically pleasing - that's my marketing background, right? So once again, this is a human psychology, a social science: you grab someone through visual and then you give them the copy and the content that keeps them going and keeps them staying.

Vanessa Vakharia  30:07 
Such an inspiration! Love you so much.

Anthony Perrotta  30:10 
I love you!

Vanessa Vakharia  30:13 
Bye!

Anthony Perrotta  30:14 
Bye.

Vanessa Vakharia  30:15  (episode outro)
I loved this convo so much and honestly, it kickstarted a bunch of other conversations for me about the lines we've drawn between spirituality and science. Just because you have a little faith doesn't mean that you're anti-science! I mean, I don't know I'm sort of dying to hear what you guys thought of this episode. Are you into astrology? Totally against it. Astro-curious? Oh my God, I just made that up, but I kind of love it. Well, you can find out more from Anthony's stunning IG account at @AP_astrology.

Vanessa Vakharia  30:45   (episode outro)
If something in this episode inspired you please tweet us at @MathTherapy. And you can also follow me personally at @TheMathGuru on Instagram or Twitter. Math Therapy is hosted by me Vanessa Vakharia, produced by Sabina Wex and edited by David Kochberg. Our theme song is WVV by Goodnight, Sunrise, which is actually my band. If you know someone who needs Math Therapy or needs to hear someone else getting Math Therapy, please share this podcast and rate or review it on whatever podcast app you use - those things actually makes such a big difference. I am determined to change the culture surrounding math and to give math like, a massive makeover, and I truly need your help. So spread the word. That's all for this week - stay tuned for our next episode out next Thursday.

(Outake)

Sabina Wex  31:32  
So much of our science actually comes from spirituality, like Albert Einstein also was very spiritual.

Anthony Perrotta  31:37  
I was literally about to say Albert Einstein, he was very spiritual.

Sabina Wex  31:40  
Very spiritual!

Anthony Perrotta  31:41  
He's credited as one of the greatest scientists of all time, but he had a really deep spirituality - he was also a Pisces by the way. Just saying.

Vanessa Vakharia  31:48  
(laughing) Okay, we should end here, I think we should just end on "Albert Einstein was a Pisces."

Anthony Perrotta  31:54  
Yeah, that should be the title of the episode - Albert Einstein was a Pisces.

Vanessa Vakharia  31:57  
Oh my god!!  That's pretty good!

Anthony Perrotta  31:59  
People are gonna be like, fuck this show. (laughing)

Vanessa Vakharia  32:02  
We'll just write - episode: "Albert Einstein was a fucking Pisces" (laughing)

Anthony Perrotta  32:06  
(all laughing) Literally.