Astrology refers to any of several systems, traditions or beliefs in which knowledge of the relative positions of celestial bodies and related information is held to be useful in understanding, interpreting and organizing knowledge about personality, human affairs and terrestrial events. A practitioner of astrology is called an astrologer or, less often, an astrologist. Historically the term mathematicus was used to denote a person proficient in astrology, astronomy, and mathematics.
The core beliefs of astrology were prevalent in most of the ancient world and are epitomized in the Hermetic maxim As Above, So Below. Tycho Brahe also used a similar phrase to justify his studies in astrology: Suspiciendo despicio — "By looking up I see downward." Although the principle that events in the heavens are mirrored by those on Earth was one generally held in most traditions of astrology across the world, historically in the West there has been a debate among astrologers over the nature of the mechanism behind astrology and whether or not celestial bodies are only signs or portents of events, or if they are actual causes of events through some sort of "force" or mechanism. While the connection between celestial mechanics and terrestrial dynamics was explored first by Isaac Newton with his development of a universal theory of gravitation, claims that the gravitational effects of the planets and the stars are what accounts for astrological generalizations are not substantiated by the scientific community nor are they advocated by most astrologers.
Many of those who practice astrology believe the positions of certain celestial bodies either influence or correlate with people's personality traits, important events in their lives, physical characteristics, and to some extent their destiny - a claim that is often disputed by skeptics. Most modern astrologers believe that the cosmos (and especially the solar system) acts as a single unit, so that any happening in any part of it inevitably is reflected in every other part (thus "as above, so below" is still held to be true).
Most astrological traditions are based on the relative positions and movements of various real or construed celestial bodies and on the construction of celestial patterns as seen at the time and place of the event being studied. These are chiefly the Sun, Moon, the planets, the stars and the lunar nodes. The calculations performed in casting a horoscope involve arithmetic and simple geometry, which serve to locate the apparent position of heavenly bodies on desired dates and times based on astronomical tables. The frame of reference for such apparent positions is defined by the tropical or sidereal zodiacal signs on one hand, and by the local horizon (Ascendant) and midheaven (Medium Coeli) on the other. This latter (local) frame is typically further divided into the twelve astrological houses.
In past centuries, astrologers often relied on close observation of celestial objects and the charting of their movements. Today astrologers use data drawn up by astronomers, which are transformed to a set of astrological tables called ephemerides, showing the changing zodiacal positions of the heavenly bodies through time.
Traditions
There are many different traditions of astrology, some of which share similar features due to the transmission of astrological doctrines from one culture to another. Other traditions developed in isolation and hold completely different doctrines, although they too share some similar features due to the fact that they are drawing on similar astronomical sources, i.e. planets, stars, etc.
Significant traditions of astrology include but are not limited to:
- Babylonian astrology
- Horoscopic astrology and its specific subsets
- Hellenistic astrology
- Jyotish or Vedic astrology
- Medieval & Renaissance horoscopic astrology
- Modern Western astrology with its specific subsets
- Modern tropical and sidereal horoscopic astrology
- Hamburg School of Astrology
- Uranian astrology, subset of the Hamburg School
- Cosmobiology
- Psychological astrology or astropsychology
- Chinese astrology
- Persian-Arabic astrology
- Kabbalistic astrology
- Mesoamerican astrology
- Tibetan astrology
- Celtic astrology
Horoscopic astrology
Horoscopic astrology is a very specific and complex system of astrology that was developed in the Mediterranean region and specifically Hellenistic Egypt sometime around the late 2nd or early 1st century BCE. This tradition deals largely with astrological charts cast for specific moments in time in order to interpret the inherent meaning underlying the alignment of the planets at that moment based on specific sets of rules and guidelines. One of the defining characteristics of this form of astrology that makes it distinct from other traditions is the computation of the degree of the Eastern horizon rising against the backdrop of the ecliptic at the specific moment under examination, otherwise known as the ascendant. Horoscopic astrology has been the most influential and widespread form of astrology across the world, especially in Africa, India, Europe and the Middle East, and there are several major traditions of horoscopic astrology including Indian, Hellenistic, Medieval, and most other modern Western traditions of astrology.
The horoscope
Central to horoscopic astrology and its branches is the calculation of a horoscope or what has recently become known as an astrological chart. This is a diagrammatic representation in two dimensions of the celestial bodies' apparent positions in the heavens from the vantage of a location on Earth at a given time and place. The horoscope of an individual's birth is called a natal chart - horoscope chart. In ancient Hellenistic astrology the rising sign or ascendant demarcated the first celestial house of a horoscope, and the word for the ascendant in Greek was horoskopos. This is the word that the term "horoscope" derives from and in modern times it has come to be used as a general term for an astrological chart as a whole. Other commonly used names for the horoscope/natal chart in English include natus, birth-chart, astrological chart, astro-chart, celestial map, sky-map, star-chart, nativity, cosmogram, vitasphere, soulprint, radical chart, radix, or simply chart, among others.
The tropical and sidereal zodiacs
The path of the sun across the heavens as seen from Earth during a full year is called the ecliptic. This, and the nearby band of sky followed by the visible planets, is called the zodiac.
The majority of Western astrologers base their work on the tropical zodiac, which evenly divides the ecliptic into 12 segments of 30 degrees each with the start of the Zodiac (Aries 0°) being the Sun's position at the March equinox. The zodiacal signs in this system bear no relation to the constellations of the same name but stay aligned to the months and seasons. The tropical zodiac is used as a historical coordinate system in astronomy.
All Jyotish (Hindu) and a few Western astrologers use the sidereal zodiac, which uses the same evenly divided ecliptic but which approximately stays aligned to the positions of the observable constellations with the same name as the zodiacal signs. The sidereal zodiac is computed from the tropical zodiac by adding an offset called Ayanamsa. This offset changes with the precession of the equinoxes.
Branches of horoscopic astrology
Every tradition of horoscopic astrology can be divided into four specific branches which are directed towards specific subjects or used for specific purposes. Often this involves using a unique set of techniques or a different application of the core principles of the system to a different area. Many other subsets and applications of astrology are derived from the four fundamental branches.
There are four major branches of horoscopic astrology.
1. Natal astrology, the study of a person's natal chart in order to gain information about the individual and his/her life experience.
2. Katarchic astrology, which includes both electional and event astrology. The former uses astrology to determine the most auspicious moment to begin an enterprise or undertaking, and the latter to understand everything about an event from the time at which it took place.
3. Horary astrology, a system of astrology used to answer a specific question by studying the chart of the moment the question is posed to an astrologer.
4. Mundane or world astrology, is the application of astrology to world events, including weather, earthquakes and the rise and fall of empires or religions.
History and Origins
The origins of much of astrology that would later develop in Asia, Europe and the Middle East are found among the ancient Babylonians and their system of celestial omens that began to be compiled around the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE. This system of celestial omens later spread either directly or indirectly through the Babylonians to other areas such as India, China and Greece where it merged with pre-existing indigenous forms of astrology. This Babylonian astrology came to Greece initially as early as the middle of the 4th century BCE, and then around the late 2nd or early 1st century BCE after the Alexandrian conquests, this Babylonian astrology was mixed with the Egyptian tradition of Decanic astrology to create Horoscopic astrology. This new form of astrology, which appears to have originated in Alexandrian Egypt, quickly spread across the ancient world into Europe, the Middle East and India.
Before the scientific revolution
From the classical period through the scientific revolution, astrological training played a critical role in advancing astronomical, mathematical, medical and psychological knowledge. Insofar as the interpretation of supposed astrological influences included the observation and long-term tracking of celestial objects, it was often astrologers who provided the first systematic documentation of the movements of the Sun, the Moon, the planets and the stars. The differentiation between astronomy and astrology varied from place to place; they were indistinguishable in ancient Babylonia and for most of the Middle Ages, but separated to a greater degree in ancient Greece (see Astrology and astronomy for more information). Astrology was not always uncritically accepted even before the modern era, as it was often being challenged by Hellenistic skeptics, church authorities and medieval thinkers.
The pattern of astronomical knowledge gained from astrological endeavours has been historically repeated across numerous cultures, from ancient India through the classical Maya civilization to medieval Europe. Given this historical contribution, astrology has been called a protoscience along with pseudosciences such as alchemy. (see Western astrology and alchemy section below for more information). Many prominent scientists, such as Nicholas Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Carl Gustav Jung and others, practiced or significantly contributed to astrology.
Effects on world culture
Astrology has had a profound influence over the past few thousand years on Western and Eastern cultures. In the middle ages, when even the learned of the time believed in astrology, the system of heavenly spheres and bodies was believed to reflect on the system of knowledge and the world itself below
Language
Influenza, from Medieval Latin influentia meaning influence, was so named because doctors once believed epidemics to be caused by unfavorable planetary and stellar influences. The word "disaster" comes from the Latin "dis-aster" meaning "bad star". Also, the adjectives "lunatic" (Moon), "mercurial" (Mercury), "martial" (Mars), "jovial" (Jupiter/Jove), and "saturnine" (Saturn) are all old words used to describe personal qualities said to resemble or be highly influenced by the astrological characteristics of the planet, some of which are derived from the attributes of the ancient Roman gods they are named after. More information about planetary linguistics can be found on this page.
Astrology as a descriptive language for the mind
Different astrological traditions are dependent on a particular culture's prevailing mythology. These varied mythologies naturally reflect the culture(s) they emerge from. Images from these mythological systems are usually understandable to natives of the culture they are a part of. Most classicists think that Western astrology is dependent on Greek mythology.
Many writers, notably Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare, used astrological symbolism to add subtlety and nuance to the description of their characters' motivation(s). An understanding of astrological symbolism is needed to fully appreciate such literature. Some modern thinkers, notably Carl Jung, believe in its descriptive powers regarding the mind without necessarily subscribing to its predictive claims. For others the predictive element was important and necessary; for example, Benjamin Franklin practiced and published on astrology (see Poor Richard's Almanac). Consequently, some look at astrology as a way of learning about one self and one's motivations. Increasingly, psychologists and historians have become interested in Jung's theory of the fundamentality and indissolubility of archetypes in the human mind and their correlation with the symbols of the horoscope.
Western astrology and alchemy
Alchemy in the Western World and other locations where it was widely practiced was (and in many cases still is) closely allied and intertwined with traditional Babylonian-Greek style astrology; in numerous ways they were built to complement each other in the search for hidden knowledge. Astrology has used the concept of classical elements from antiquity up until the present. Most modern astrologers use the four classical elements extensively, and indeed it is still viewed as a critical part of interpreting the astrological chart. Traditionally, each of the seven planets in the solar system as known to the ancients was associated with, held dominion over, and ruled a certain metal
The Seven liberal arts and Western astrology
In medieval Europe, a university education was divided into seven distinct areas, each represented by a particular planet and known as the Seven Liberal Arts. Dante Alighieri speculated that these arts, which grew into the sciences we know today, fitted the same structure as the planets. As the arts were seen as operating in ascending order, so were the planets and so, in decreasing order of planetary speed, Grammar was assigned to the quickest moving celestial body (the Moon), Dialectic to Mercury, Rhetoric to Venus, Music to the Sun, Arithmetic to Mars, Geometry to Jupiter and Astronomia to the slowest moving Saturn. After this sequence, wisdom was supposed to have been achieved by the medieval university student.