ANNOUNCER: Warning. The following episode includes talk of magical texts, boxing
ANNOUNCER: the mafia, and how a child preacher who railed against
ANNOUNCER: astrology found his path in the stars. Sensitive listeners take care.
MANGESH: At the very beginning of the show, we set out
MANGESH: to find people with unusual stories biographies that up ended
MANGESH: our understanding of astrology. And so my colleagues Mary and Mitra,
MANGESH: they went looking for all sorts of folks, right like
MANGESH: finance bros who believed in astrology, cheesemongers used the stars
MANGESH: to guide their process, towns that have built their entire
MANGESH: identity around astrology. And then one day Mary said to me,
MANGESH: I think that is a community of ex evangelicals who
MANGESH: fled the church and now they put their entire faith
MANGESH: in the stars. And you know, I was immediately fascinated,
MANGESH: right like, how do you walk away from one set
MANGESH: of really strong beliefs and then dive headfirst into another.
MANGESH: What type of person decides to do that? And what
MANGESH: are the circumstances that help you find your faith again?
MANGESH: And that's how we found Sam Reynolds. I went to
MANGESH: an astrologer, a gemini. Sam is an extraordinary person, and
MANGESH: the truth is, he's got a story I can't stop
MANGESH: thinking about at birth, his parents were told he wouldn't
MANGESH: walk as a child. He wasn't supposed to become a
MANGESH: preacher in college. He wasn't supposed to question his faith
MANGESH: or take comfort in astrology. But Sam is kind of
MANGESH: defied expectations at every point of his life. And what
MANGESH: makes him so fascinating to me at least is that
MANGESH: in this search for faith and love and a truer
MANGESH: understanding of humanity, he moves with such grace and assured
MANGESH: nous and the past. For him it never seems to
MANGESH: be a mistake, like just a stepping stone to where
MANGESH: you were always meant to be. From Kaleidoscope and I
MANGESH: Heart Podcast, I'm Mangesh Hattikudur. Welcome to Skyline Drive: Minisode Two.
SAM: Sam. My name is Sam Reynolds. I'm from Buffalo, New York.
SAM: I currently live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I have
SAM: been a practicing astrologer for twenty years, and I got
SAM: into astrology trying to disprove it. I was born with
SAM: multiple birth defects and being able to function, to walk,
SAM: to do the things that the doctors predicted I wouldn't
SAM: be able to do. They said that I would be
SAM: developmentally delayed. I wasn't, and so I became assigned as
SAM: a miracle baby by my family.
MANGESH: Sam was raised as a Southern Baptist, so he grew
MANGESH: up knowing that on Judgment Day he would have to
MANGESH: stand before God and account for his life.
SAM: I did feel a calling, literally, hearing a voice in
SAM: my head, you know, a calling into the ministry saying
SAM: I went you to preach. So I went to my
SAM: mother's friends church, and the pastor took me under his wing.
SAM: My father didn't fully believe me because I actually was
SAM: a boxer at the time, and so I was boxing
SAM: and he kept arranging fights for me, and I was like, no,
SAM: I don't think it's right to kind of beat people
SAM: up on Saturday and then go preach about love on Sunday.
SAM: And he um didn't believe me. So my mother suggested
SAM: would write him a letter of resignation. And I wrote
SAM: him a letter telling him that I was going against
SAM: the ministry, and he was like, oh, I guess this
SAM: is real. I preached my first sermon on my mother's birthday,
SAM: septem maybe. There were about seventy people there. My parents
SAM: were there, and I saw something I had never seen.
SAM: After I preached, my father stood up and testified and
SAM: he started to cry. My father didn't cry. I knew
SAM: my father had a complicated life. When I say a
SAM: complicated life, my father was into the numbers racket. Before
SAM: we had state lotteries, there was an underground mostly seen
SAM: as criminal ne work of people who would give people
SAM: to play the numbers for money. I mean it's tied
SAM: to the mob, to the mafia, and so my father,
SAM: my father killed people. So for him too to cry,
SAM: I mean that was you know when you talk about
SAM: Tony Soprano, you see it on TV. He literally lived
SAM: that life. And I think that was probably just the
SAM: first time out of maybe two times I ever saw
SAM: my father cry in his life.
MANGESH: Sam was only twelve when he became a preacher, and
MANGESH: he fully absorbed this evangelical lesson that astrology is a sin.
MANGESH: He even preached a sermon warning against its evils. Besides,
MANGESH: the one time he did look up his horoscope, he
MANGESH: couldn't tell which sign he really was because his birthday
MANGESH: fell on the cusp of Scorpio and Sagittarius, And as
MANGESH: far as he was concerned, it was a sin that
MANGESH: didn't even make sense.
SAM: By the time I went into the ministry, I was
SAM: already convinced that astrology was hogwashed. You know, people asked
SAM: me what signer? You know, I'm the sign of the Cross.
SAM: My first year of college, I thought it would be
SAM: cool to take religion classes. Technically that was a mistake
SAM: because it made me start questioning my religion. I started
SAM: to have a crisis of faith. I started talking to
SAM: different ministers because I was like, well, how can I
SAM: really preach sincerely when I'm confused. Some of the ministers
SAM: I talked to, they were like, and it comes with
SAM: the job kit. My idea was to take a step
SAM: away from the ministry until I would recoup my faith.
SAM: But my faith never came back. By the time I
SAM: was twenty two, I had become an atheist.
MANGESH: Newly liberated from his old beliefs, Sam headed to Temple University,
MANGESH: where he enrolled in the Africa An American Studies graduate program.
MANGESH: While he was there, he felt for one of his classmates.
SAM: There was just one problem, and she was really into astrology,
SAM: and I was like, uh, you know, well, if I
SAM: had to choose between being an arachnid, a scorpio, and
SAM: a centaur, clearly on a centaur.
MANGESH: How could Sam possibly impress this woman a Gemini who
MANGESH: teased him about not knowing his own sign.
MANGESH: She's like, no, I think you're the bug.
MANGESH: Finally he remembered something.
SAM: There was a book when I was younger that my
SAM: great grandmother had. It's called the sixth and seventh Books of Moses.
SAM: It's a supposedly a magical text.
MANGESH: He figured his crush would be blown away by a
MANGESH: copy of this strange book, so he starts making calls
MANGESH: and finally tracks it down at a North Philly bookstore.
MANGESH: But when he goes to pick it up,
SAM: This guy starts talking to me about astrology and he's
SAM: an astrologer. At first I was like, and let me
SAM: just get the book, man, but then he's like, oh,
SAM: you ever had your chart done? It was like okay,
SAM: I agreed to get the reading. For the first fifty minutes,
SAM: I was convinced this is BS and he's like, oh,
SAM: it looks like your mom had some problems while carrying you.
SAM: In my head, I said, no, shit Sherlock, I mean,
SAM: I'm four, nine chances are I didn't have the normal birth.
SAM: And then he said, oh, well, it looks like you're
SAM: a pretty smart fellow. But again I was thinking, I
SAM: told you I was in the PhD program, and then
SAM: it happened. He said, it looks like the complications they
SAM: talked about what your mom may have been from some
SAM: involvement with your mother, your brother, and your father. What
SAM: do you mean, And he's like, yeah, some issues with
SAM: your father and your brother happened and then adversely affected
SAM: your mother. What I had learned two months before is
SAM: that my brother, when he was eight years old, my
SAM: mother was making kissing faces at him and playing with him.
SAM: And he said, oh, you're doing me like Daddy was
SAM: with that white women last night. And she's like, what
SAM: are you talking about, And she's like, Daddy was in
SAM: the front seat with this white woman making U kissing
SAM: noises and doing all this stuff and huffing and puffed.
SAM: He thought I was asleep, but I was just in
SAM: the back of the seat listening and looking at them.
SAM: And she was devastated. She caught the flu early in
SAM: her pregnancy with me. I guess compromised immune system from
SAM: emotional distress. So what that astrologer was describing was pretty
SAM: much exactly as it happened. And I don't know how
SAM: he did that, you know, I was blown away, and
SAM: so for me astrology became this other way of understanding
SAM: oneself that was independent of the political sphere. Even I
SAM: was like, well, maybe it's an interesting way of asking questions.
MANGESH: These days, Sam still uses astrology to ask questions, but
MANGESH: he's found a lot of answers too. He's a mentor
MANGESH: to young astrologers just starting out and a co founder
MANGESH: of the International Society of Black Astrologers. He's developed a
MANGESH: perspective that's totally him, thoughtful, intellectual, and most of all,
MANGESH: driven by a desire to connect.
SAM: Astrology is the net cultural experience of thousands of years
SAM: of looking at the heavens and their correlations in terms
SAM: of finding significance in our life. Now you could say, well,
SAM: you're just manufacturing it sure like everything else in your life.
SAM: I'm curious about people. I always have been. I wanted
SAM: to understand how people think, why they make the choices
SAM: that they do. So astrology gives me a way to
SAM: have discussions with people about themselves. It becomes a conversation
SAM: about how the astrology illuminates their lives rather than I
SAM: would say dictates their lives. The word consider it comes
SAM: from Latin for con which means with and sidire stars,
SAM: but means to think with your stars. So I see
SAM: astrology as a way to have a conversation, which is
SAM: more way of reflecting on yourself and your desires and
SAM: your character. The young Sam would be horrified by me
SAM: being an astrologer. But what I think would soften him
SAM: is recognizing some measure of his dream for his life,
SAM: which was to be communicating and messaging people around the world,
SAM: being able to do what I do and support myself.
SAM: I think that was making proud, but he probably like, well,
SAM: why can't you do that for Jesus? So um, I'd
SAM: probably like, you know, that's a longer conversation.
MANGESH: Often there's a finality to the way people read astrology,
MANGESH: that what's destined to happen will happen. But Sam, as
MANGESH: he puts it, he doesn't use an astrological chart to
MANGESH: read your life as a finished biography, but instead as
MANGESH: a work in process. I love how there's an openness
MANGESH: to Sam, the way he believes so deeply, but how
MANGESH: he'll always listen with an open mind, how he doesn't
MANGESH: hesitate to take in your questions and your qualms and
MANGESH: to truly consider them because he isn't afraid to change
MANGESH: in his mind as long as he's thinking with the stars.
MANGESH: That's it for this week's episode of Skyline Drive. Special
MANGESH: thanks to my team here, Mary, Mitra, Mark, Anna and
MANGESH: Drew for working so hard over the holidays to pull
MANGESH: the show together, and Botany as always for the incredible soundtrack.
MANGESH: Also thank you to the wonderful Sam Reynolds for making
MANGESH: time for us to visit Sam on the web or
MANGESH: book reading with him. Be sure to go to Unlock
MANGESH: Astrology dot com. That's Unlock astrology dot com. Also a
MANGESH: quick shout out to my pal Laura Mayer, who did
MANGESH: this episode's warning, Laura not only helped us set up
MANGESH: things when we started Kaleidoscope, but also dropped one of
MANGESH: the biggest shows of the year, Shameless Acquisition Target. It
MANGESH: is so funny and if you want to know everything
MANGESH: about the podcast industry from one of its consummate insiders,
MANGESH: it is essential listening. We'll be back with full length
MANGESH: episodes next week, starting with a writer who just wants
MANGESH: to know. I had a question about like who's going
MANGESH: to die first, my mom and my dad, because there's
MANGESH: an answer that I want it's so dark. I mean,
MANGESH: it is dark, but it's also way more fun that
MANGESH: it sounds. That's it for this week's minisode. Thank you
MANGESH: so much for listening.