tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29437623331195512422024-03-13T06:53:16.795-07:00Ďιχιт ÁѕтяσℓσgуĎιχιт Áѕтяσℓσgуhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15346026943677026217noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2943762333119551242.post-12592533421455394142008-07-21T04:44:00.000-07:002008-07-21T05:04:53.043-07:00pt.B.R. Dixit Astrology Research centre<a href="http://img1.tradeget.com/advanceservice/VCEP2HEA1astrology-palmistry.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://img1.tradeget.com/advanceservice/VCEP2HEA1astrology-palmistry.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.indianetzone.com/1/images/48_vastu.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.indianetzone.com/1/images/48_vastu.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://rising-dragon.co.uk/catalog/images/astrology.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://rising-dragon.co.uk/catalog/images/astrology.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><p><span class="shw"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;">Astrology</span></strong></span> took its place in the body of Western knowledge with the spread of astrological lore from Babylon to Greece several centuries before Christ. This transmission began with Berosus, a priest of the temple of Bel, who settled on the island of Cos, the home of Hippocratic medicine, where he established a school of astrology at the end of the fifth century <span style="FONT-VARIANT: small-caps">bc</span>. However, the full application of astrology to medicine called <i>iatromathematica</i>, was developed subsequently in Hellenistic Egypt.<br /><br />Both Greek medicine and Greek astrology shared the predominant Aristotelian physics of the day: that everything was composed of the 4 elements of fire, air, water, and earth in varying proportions. The 12 signs of the zodiac were divided into four groups of three, each group or ‘triplicity’ being associated with one of these elements, whose qualities of heat, cold, dryness, and moisture they symbolized. A particularly Egyptian feature was to give to each zodiac sign signification over certain parts and organs of the body, the first sign, Aries, signifying the head, through to the twelfth sign, Pisces, for the feet. Moreover, the four humours, which Hippocratic medicine held to constitute the human body as the elements composed the physical world as a whole, were assigned planetary significators, along with the organs which contained them: Jupiter ruled the blood, the liver, and the veins; the Moon, phlegm and the brain; Mars, yellow bile and the gall bladder; and Saturn, black bile and the spleen. The Moon in addition represented the humours as a whole, while the Sun denoted the vital spirit of the body, radiating from the heart via the arteries. Venus governed the genitourinary system, while to the seventh planet, Mercury, was given rulership of the mind.<br /><br />The continuous movement of the planets in their courses, and their mutual interactions, were seen to correlate with the constant changes in the physical world: the cycle of the seasons, its mirroring in the four ages of Man, and the alternations between health and disease in an individual or community. The birth horoscope was used to identify the individual temperament, whether sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic, or a combination of these, from which followed advice on the correct diet and lifestyle to maintain health and avoid the diseases to which that particular temperament was liable. The horoscope cast for the time of a person falling ill, called a <i>decumbiture</i>, was employed to help identify the nature, origin, and location of the disease, the likely prognosis, the kind of treatment to be given, and the most propitious times for its administration. The critical days in a disease, when an alteration in the condition for better or worse was anticipated, were calculated from the movements of the Moon and Sun for acute and chronic conditions respectively.<br /><br />Medicine, as systematized by Galen in the second century <span style="FONT-VARIANT: small-caps">ad</span>, combined with late Stoic and Hermetic doctrines concerning the influence of the seven planets in the zodiac on terrestrial matters — encapsulated in the notion of a ‘cosmic sympathy’ and in the phrase ‘as above, so below’ — produced a positive science of astrological medicine for medieval men. A more fated attitude took hold among Arab, Jew, and Christian, that everything was ‘written in the stars’.<br /><br />When astrological medicine was transmitted to Western Europe in the later Middle Ages; it required harmonizing with Christian theology. The position came to be accepted that the stars incline but do not compel, keeping intact Man's essential free will. For, although the human body might be subject to alteration and change occasioned by the movements of the planets in the zodiac, Man's immortal soul remained free from such influences so that he could indeed command the stars, insofar as he commanded his passions. This theme, that ‘the wise man rules his stars, the fool obeys them’, was powerfully developed by Marsilio Ficino, a fifteenth-century Florentine priest and physician steeped in Plato. The notion of a pre-ordained length of life, calculated from the points of life (<i>apheta</i> or <i>hyleg</i>) and destruction (<i>anareta</i>) in the natal horoscope, was overturned by correct physical habit and spiritual development, which nurtured the health of the body and soul, so extending the lifespan. However, the planets were still held accountable for epidemic diseases. The medical establishment in Paris blamed the triple conjunction of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn for the outbreak of the Black Death in 1348. The spread of syphilis at the end of the fifteenth century was thought to be caused by the conjunction of many planets in Scorpio in 1484, while the very name ‘influenza’ is testimony of the belief in the celestial origin of that disease.<br /><br />Nicholas Culpeper, the famous seventeenth-century herbalist and astrologer, was one of the last to practise with integrity the combination of Galenic medicine and astrology, before the celestial art was relegated among the educated to a superstition, along with alchemy, which depended on astrology for its correct operations. Culpeper popularized astrological medicine by issuing inexpensive books in straightforward English on these learned subjects, with the effect of extending people's knowledge beyond the simple rules for seasonal blood-letting, purging, and bathing, and the times for doing so according to the zodiac sign occupied by the Moon, which were common to many popular almanacs of the time.<br /><br />This astrological medicine, now very much marginalized, was carried on by a small number of enthusiasts. Ebenezer Sibly, an eighteenth-century doctor, believed that Enlightenment learning derived from observation and experiment was improved by a knowledge through astrology of the occult properties of substances. His Solar and Lunar tinctures, for men and women respectively, achieved some efficacy and popularity as medicines, while his edition of Culpeper's Herbal carried on the iatromathematical tradition. In Victorian England, the astrologer A. J. Pearce, whose career stretched into the 1920s, used to assist his father, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and a homoeopath, by providing astral diagnoses of his patients. Today, on the fringes of the popular revival of astrology, the iatromathematical tradition continues.</p><p style="FONT-STYLE: italic" align="right">— Graeme Tobyn</p><p class="shw">Bibliography</p><!--<p class="shw">Further reading</p>--><ul><li>Tester, S. J. (1987). <i>A history of Western astrology</i>. Boydell Press</li></ul><!-- closeheaderdiv --><div id="Britannica_Concise_Encyclopedia"><div class="h_ads_ggl" id="h_ads2"></div><div class="content"><div class="DsAndEntryName"><a class="tabTitle" href="http://www.answers.com/library/Britannica%20Concise%20Encyclopedia-cid-4931"><span class="tabTitle"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:</span></strong></span></a> <span class="hw"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#003399;">astrology </span></strong></span></div><div class="newLine"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#003399;"></span></strong></div><style type="text/css">.content{clear:both;}</style><br /><div><tab_here><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/divination" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Divination</span></a> that consists of interpreting the influence of stars and planets on earthly affairs and human destinies. In ancient times it was inseparable from <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astronomy" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">astronomy</span></a>. It originated in Mesopotamia (<i>c.</i> 3rd millennium <span style="font-size:+0;">BC</span>) and spread to India, but it developed its Western form in Greek civilization during the Hellenistic period. Astrology entered Islamic culture as part of the Greek tradition and was returned to European culture through Arabic learning during the Middle Ages. According to the Greek tradition, the heavens are divided according to the 12 constellations of the <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/zodiac" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">zodiac</span></a>, and the bright stars that rise at intervals cast a spiritual influence over human affairs. Astrology was also important in ancient China, and in imperial times it became standard practice to have a <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/horoscope" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">horoscope</span></a> cast for each newborn child and at all decisive junctures of life. Though the <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/heliocentrism" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Copernican system</span></a> shattered the geocentric worldview that astrology requires, interest in astrology has continued into modern times and astrological signs are still widely believed to influence personality.</div><p style="COLOR: #888888; FONT-STYLE: italic">For more information on <a style="COLOR: #6699ff" href="http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108511/astrology" target="AnswersQueryWindow">astrology</a>, visit <a style="COLOR: #6699ff" href="http://www.britannica.com/" target="AnswersQueryWindow">Britannica.com</a>.</p></div></div><!-- closeheaderdiv --><div id="English_Folklore"><div class="h_ads_ggl" id="h_ads3"></div><div class="content"><div class="DsAndEntryName"><a class="tabTitle" href="http://www.answers.com/library/English%20Folklore-cid-4931"><span class="tabTitle"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">English Folklore:</span></strong></span></a> <span class="hw"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#003399;">astrology</span></strong></span> </div><div class="newLine"></div><p>One of the clearest examples of an item of culture originating among intellectuals, but passing to the peasantry. Throughout much of its long history, it derived its authority from complex mathematics and philosophical speculations; its prestige was high in courts and universities in medieval and Renaissance Europe, and as late as the English Civil War it was still important in political propaganda. Its symbols and concepts were also diffused through cheap printed almanacs, and were used in simplified forms by farmers, magicians, healers, and fortune-tellers (Davies, 1999a: 229-46).<br /><br />During the 18th and 19th centuries astrology became marginalized, and by the early 20th century had virtually disappeared from public view. However, it was given fresh life by a press stunt in 1930, when the <i>Sunday Express</i> invited an astrologer to draw up a nativity chart for the newborn Princess Margaret, and to compile a simple horoscope applying to anyone whose birthday fell that week. Other newspapers copied the idea, encouraging semi-serious curiosity about astrology; like other aspects of the occult, it is currently enjoying a revival.<br /><br />See also <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/john-dee" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">DR JOHN DEE</span></a>.</p></div></div><!-- closeheaderdiv --><div id="Classical_Literature_Companion"><div class="h_ads_ggl" id="h_ads4"></div><div class="content"><div class="DsAndEntryName"><a class="tabTitle" href="http://www.answers.com/library/Classical%20Literature%20Companion-cid-4931"><span class="tabTitle"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">Classical Literature Companion:</span></strong></span></a> <span class="hw"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#003399;">astrology</span></strong></span> </div><div class="newLine"></div><p>The study of the heavenly bodies as predicting the fate of individuals was ultimately due to the Babylonians. The belief underpinning astrology, common to educated people generally, was that the cosmos was a unity, and that whatever happened in the heavens was bound to affect or be reflected in events on earth. As it was possible to predict the recurrence of celestial phenomena by astronomy, so it might also be possible to predict terrestrial events by observation of the heavenly bodies (astrology), and it came to be generally believed that the fortunes of an individual depended upon the aspect of the sky at the moment of his birth, and that astrologers could give guidance accordingly.<br /><br />Astrology does not seem to have exerted much influence on Greek life until after the third century <span style="FONT-VARIANT: small-caps">BC</span>, in the wake of Alexander the Great. By the next century astrology had spread to Rome, and a vogue for it began when a number of manuals began to circulate widely. Believers included Sulla, Posidonius, and Varro (but not Cicero). Vitruvius, Propertius, and Ovid all professed to believe, and Augustus published his horoscope. From the first century <span style="FONT-VARIANT: small-caps">AD</span> onwards virtually everyone, Christians, pagans, and Jews alike, accepted the predictability of fate and the maleficent powers of the planets (see <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/m-n-lius-1" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">MANILIUS</span></a>). A few held out against this tyranny, usually with the argument that while stars, by reason of the universal ‘sympathy’ pervading the cosmos, may indicate the future, they cannot <i>determine</i> it. Rome particularly was sensitive to the potential political dangers, and at times of national crisis banished all professional astrologers. However, no permanent ban was intended, and the emperors themselves frequently had recourse to horoscopes. It was not until the fourth century, with Augustine's emphatic denial of its validity, and with the advent of the Christian emperors, that the practice of astrology was officially banned. Neverthless for the ordinary man it retained an axiomatic validity until the seventeenth century and beyond. See also PTOLEMY.</p></div></div><!-- closeheaderdiv --><div id="Buddhism_Dictionary"><div class="h_ads_ggl" id="h_ads5"></div><div class="content"><div class="DsAndEntryName"><a class="tabTitle" href="http://www.answers.com/library/Buddhism%20Dictionary-cid-4931"><span class="tabTitle"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">Buddhism Dictionary:</span></strong></span></a> <span class="hw"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#003399;">astrology</span></strong></span> </div><div class="newLine"></div><p>In <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/india" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">India</span></a>, <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/buddhism" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Buddhism</span></a> adopted the Hindu scheme of astronomy but rejected the latter's preoccupation with astrology. The position and movement of the celestial bodies was of interest to Buddhists only for pragmatic purposes such as calculating the time of day, the length of the lunar month and its holy days, and the period of retreat during the rainy season. Such skills were especially important in the case of forest-dwelling <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/monk" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">monks</span></a> who were cut off from society. Such monks were to learn ‘the positions of the constellations, either the whole or one section, and to know the cardinal points’. Astrology as we know it probably did not exist at the time of the Buddha—it is largely a Greek synthesis of Fertile Crescent star-lore, created around the 3rd or 4th centuries <span style="FONT-VARIANT: small-caps">bce</span>. Nevertheless, early sources such as the <i><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/brahmaj-la-s-tra" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Brahmajāla Sutta</span></a></i> of the <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/pali" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Pāli</span></a> Canon describe numerous techniques of divination including predicting eclipses of the sun, moon, and stars, and forecasting the events they were believed to herald. The Buddha is singled out for praise as one not devoting himself to such ‘low arts’ (tiracchāna-vijjā). Despite this, in practically all Buddhist cultures, monks officiate as advisers to the laity and employ techniques of divination. In south-east Asia the use of horoscopes is widespread among Buddhists, and they are known in <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/myanmar" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Burma</span></a> as <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/sad-3" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">sadā</span></a>, and as cata in northern <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/thailand" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Thailand</span></a>. In the Buddhism of <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/xizang" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Tibet</span></a> and central Asia, indigenous shamanistic practices were incorporated with only superficial modifications, and in <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/people-s-republic-of-china" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">China</span></a> a complete system of astrology and divination based on the <i>Book of Changes (I-ching)</i> found an accommodation within Buddhism.</p></div></div><!-- closeheaderdiv --><div id="Celtic_Mythology"><div class="h_ads_ggl" id="h_ads6"></div><div class="content"><div class="DsAndEntryName"><a class="tabTitle" href="http://www.answers.com/library/Celtic%20Mythology-cid-4931"><span class="tabTitle"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">Celtic Mythology:</span></strong></span></a> <span class="hw"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#003399;">astrology</span></strong></span> </div><div class="newLine"></div><br />[Gk. <i>astrologos</i>] <p>Students of the study of the purported influence of the stars on our lives profess to see evidence of astrological thinking in their reading of <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/celtic-mythology-religion" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Celtic myth</span></a>, but there is scant verbal evidence in early texts to demonstrate the widespread practice of astrology. The Irish term néladóir, ‘cloud diviner’, may be synonymous with ‘astrologer’. Another Irish word, astralaíoch, is borrowed from the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/greek" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Greek</span></a>. Reflecting Christian attitudes towards astrology, <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/canadian-gaelic" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Scottish Gaelic</span></a> speuradaireachd may also mean ‘swearing loudly’ or ‘blasphemy’. <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/manx" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Manx</span></a> planartys; Welsh sêr-ddewiniaeth, astroleg; <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/breton" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Breton</span></a> hudsteredoniezh. See also <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/divination" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">DIVINATION</span></a>.</p></div></div><!-- closeheaderdiv --><div id="Columbia_Encyclopedia"><div class="h_ads_ggl" id="h_ads7"></div><div class="content"><div class="DsAndEntryName"><a class="tabTitle" href="http://www.answers.com/library/Columbia%20Encyclopedia-cid-4931"><span class="tabTitle"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">Columbia Encyclopedia:</span></strong></span></a> <span class="hw"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#003399;">astrology,</span></strong></span> </div><div class="newLine"></div><div id="ency_0">form of <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/divination" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">divination</span></a> based on the theory that the movements of the celestial bodies—the stars, the planets, the sun, and the moon—influence human affairs and determine the course of events. Celestial phenomena have been the object of religious sentiment since earliest times (see <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/moon-worship" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">moon worship</span></a>; <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/sun-worship" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">sun worship</span></a>). The Chaldaeans and the Assyrians were the first to discard their sky gods in favor of a nondeistic system of divination founded upon astronomy and numerology. They saw the heavenly bodies as exerting an influence upon the lives of individuals and the destinies of empires. Generally, future events were believed determined beforehand by a universal order that was a result of the motions of the planets and stars. The practices of astrology spread throughout the ancient Middle East, Asia, and Europe, but with the rise of Christianity, which emphasized divine intervention and free will, interest in astrology subsided, although astrologers continued to flourish. During the European Renaissance astrology as a form of divination regained popularity, due in part to the rekindled interest in science and astronomy. The European astrologer, considered a scholar exploring the mysteries of the universe through science and reason, was held in high esteem in the community for many years. However, in the 16th and 17th cent., Christian theologists waged war against astrology. In 1585 astrology was officially condemned in a bull of Pope Sixtus V, and in 1631, Pope Urban VIII reinforced this with another bull. At the same time the astronomical work of such men as Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo was undermining the tenets of astrology. Astrology, however, continued to be practiced. All of the aforementioned scientists remained practicing astrologers, as did other great thinkers such as Descartes and Newton; moreover, Copernican theory did not find sudden and widespread acceptance. Gradually, however, astrology declined, although this form of divination is still very much alive. One's horoscope is a map of the heavens at the time of one's birth, showing the position of the heavenly bodies in relation to the 12 “houses” or signs through which they pass (see <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/zodiac" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">zodiac</span></a>) and their positions in relation to each other. Each house has as its “lord” one of the heavenly bodies; the one in the “ascendant” is the one of greatest significance to the inquirer, supposedly endowing him with his temperamental qualities, his tendencies to particular diseases, and his liability to certain fortunes or calamities. <p><span class="shw"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;">Bibliography</span></strong></span></p><p>See E. McCaffery, <i>Astrology: Its History and Influence in the Western World</i> (rev. ed. 1942); L. Thorndike, <i>History of Magic and Experimental Science</i> (rev. ed. 1958); M. Gauquelin, <i>The Cosmic Clocks</i> (1967); C. McIntosh, <i>The Astrologers and their Creed</i> (1969).</p></div><p><hr /></div></div><!-- closeheaderdiv --><div id="History_1450-1789"><div class="h_ads_ggl" id="h_ads8"></div><div class="content"><div class="DsAndEntryName"><a class="tabTitle" href="http://www.answers.com/library/History%201450%2D1789-cid-4931"><span class="tabTitle"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">History 1450-1789:</span></strong></span></a> <span class="hw"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#003399;">Astrology</span></strong></span> </div><div class="newLine"></div><p>Defining early modern astrology is a <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/thorny" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">thorny</span></a> issue. The early modern distinction between "natural" and "judicial" astrology, still widely used among scholars, served to express moral and religious qualifications. Hence, its meaning was highly localized. A more useful starting point is obtained from astrology's status as an academic discipline, which endowed it with more universal pedagogical narratives. Following Hellenistic and Arabic antecedents, Italian professors such as Peter of Abano (1257–c. 1315) distinguished between a "science of motions" and a "science of judgments." While this distinction roughly mirrors that between our "astronomy" and "astrology," a closer look reveals important overlaps. For instance, late medieval astronomical textbooks often included considerations of the distances and size of celestial bodies, astrological aspects, planetary conjunctions, eclipses, and lunar mansions. It is therefore best to approach late medieval astrology as a "science of the stars" that comprised both celestial motions and judgments. Paraphrasing Gervasius Marstaller (1549), we might define our topic as follows: "Astrology aims at predicting and/or studying the power of celestial bodies on earth and measures their positions by means of astronomy."</p><p>This definition reflects astrology's position within the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/disciplinary" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">disciplinary</span></a> hierarchies of the late medieval university. The emphasis on prediction reveals the simple fact that astrology was mostly taught as an auxiliary tool for medical <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/prognosis" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">prognosis</span></a>. A practical ability to calculate astronomical data and assess <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/concomitant" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">concomitant</span></a> celestial effects was widely expected from medical graduates. The reference to a more "theoretical" study of celestial effects reflects the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/pervasive" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">pervasive</span></a> influence of Aristotelian logic, <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/epistemology" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">epistemology</span></a>, and physics, which was <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/institutionalize" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">institutionalized</span></a> in the arts faculties. Just like medical physiological textbooks, most introductions to astrology (typically Ptolemy or Alcabitius) sought to express basic parameters like planetary effects, or the nature of zodiacal signs, in terms of <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/aristotle" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Aristotle</span></a>'s four manifest qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry). When this proved <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/unconvincing" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">unconvincing</span></a>, astrological effects were counted as "influences," based on "<a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/occult" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">occult</span></a> qualities": one could perceive their results on earth, but not their manifest action in the celestial bodies. This did not necessarily <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/undermine" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">undermine</span></a> astrology's academic status. Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly (1350–1420), for instance, promoted a "concordance of astrology and theology" that proved highly successful in several universities.</p><p>Many developments in the early modern period can be interpreted as attempts to <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/safeguard" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">safeguard</span></a> astrology's status as it branched out beyond the university. Most academic astrologers were trained to perform a wide range of astrological tasks: they discussed large-scale predictions (<a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/mundane" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">mundane</span></a> astrology), individual fates (<a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/natal" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">natal</span></a> astrology), or even particular events (horary astrology, subdivided into elections and interrogations). Courts and local town authorities increasingly drew upon political astrological consulting in the late Middle Ages. Beginning in the 1470s, print technology brought these political particulars to a wider, predominantly urban, audience through a new astrological genre: the annual prognostication. The propagandistic value of such initiatives contributed to the formation of close alliances between prognosticators and court culture in Italy, France, Germany, Poland, and the Low Countries in the late fifteenth century.</p><p>Such alliances proved to be a liability in times of political or religious crisis. The self-fulfillment of popular prognostications, and their ability to <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/stir" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">stir</span></a> unrest, provoked several astrological debates, where both prognosticators and their university learning came under attack. Undoubtedly the most influential example of such criticism was Giovanni Pico's massive<i> Disputations against Divinatory Astrology</i> (1494). By the early sixteenth century, humanistic astrologers in both Italy and northern Europe addressed the Piconian challenge through reform proposals. These were often, but not exclusively, directed at the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/courtly" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">courtly</span></a> audience that supported the rise of the prognosticators.</p><p>In the course of the sixteenth century, astrological reformers accomplished two significant feats. By advocating a return to ancient, mostly Ptolemaic astrology, they inaugurated a departure from the Arabic traditions that dominated the late medieval "science of judgments." And by tackling both astronomical and astrological reform, they legitimized a gradual change in the definition of astronomy. For example, it is now becoming clear that the astronomical innovations of Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Johannes Kepler can be interpreted within the framework of Pico's attack. Their reversal of the traditional subordination of mathematics to natural philosophy seems to flow from an attempt to rescue the physical basis of astrology. Likewise, educational reformers like Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560) strongly emphasized astrology as a part of physics.</p><p>This development also provoked a gradual separation of the "science of motions" and "science of judgments." Although Copernican astronomy also presented theological challenges, these were easier to negotiate than the social and religious problems of astrological judgment. As a result, reformers gradually abandoned public astrological predictions: first horary astrology, then natal astrology, and finally weather prediction and some forms of medical astrology. Likewise, "astrological" prediction was gradually ousted from official university curricula. After the 1560s, and well into the second half of the seventeenth century, Catholic and Protestant church authorities issued numerous condemnations of "judicial" or "<a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/superstitious" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">superstitious</span></a>" astrology. The "science of motions," on the other hand, was flourishing. It is important to realize that this emerging "astronomy" retained several astrological interests, such as the nature of the heavens, the size and distance of celestial bodies, and the origins of comets.</p><p>The pace at which such changes occurred depended on local circumstances. In England, central licensing through the Stationers Company (1603), the absence of strong academic links, and the subsequent explosion of astrological consulting during the Civil War propelled astrological reform projects into the late eighteenth century. Possibly due to local academic structures, Italian medical astrology also seems to have enjoyed a longer lease on life than elsewhere on the Continent. In the seventeenth century, influential astrologers Simon Forman, William Lilly, and Jean-Baptiste Morin remained highly visible, while astrological almanacs even outsold the Bible.</p><p>But although extraordinary phenomena like eclipses (1652, 1654) or comets (1664–1665) still provoked general <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/unease" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">unease</span></a>, a gradual popularization of astrology occurred in the second half of the seventeenth century. The new royal scientific societies rejected astrology from their research agendas. The upper class no longer found its way to reputed astrological practitioners by the late seventeenth century. After 1650, ecclesiastics and university physicians increasingly left the writing of popular almanacs to surveyors, engineers, or local teachers. Their products became increasingly pseudonymous or anonymous, showed a rapid decline in astrological content, and were mainly distributed in rural areas by peddlers. By the early eighteenth century, the middle class and the nobility were closing ranks in the condemnation of an "<a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/irrational" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">irrational</span></a>" astrology, which, at the same time, became socially <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/innocuous" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">innocuous</span></a>. Paradoxically, this situation may have contributed to the survival of local pockets of astrological beliefs, both "traditional" (such as Ebenezer Sibly) and "modernized" (for example, among British colonial army doctors).</p><p class="shw" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bolder; FONT-SIZE: 15px">Bibliography</p><p>Curry, Patrick.<i> Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England.</i> Princeton, 1989. Innovative in its systematic focus on the social and political meaning of seventeenth-century astrology, but with a somewhat narrow selection of relevant backgrounds.</p><p>Grafton, Anthony.<i> Cardano's Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer.</i> Cambridge, Mass., 1999. An entertaining introduction to Italian astrology in the Renaissance.</p><p>Harrison, Mark. "From Medical Astrology to Medical Astronomy: Sol-lunar and Planetary Theories of Disease in British Medicine, c. 1700–1850."<i> British Journal for the History of Science</i> 33 (2000): 25–48.</p><p>Smoller, Laura Ackerman.<i> History, Prophecy, and the Stars: The Christian Astrology of Pierre d'Ailly, 1350–1420.</i> Princeton, 1994.</p><p>Thomas, Keith.<i> Religion and the Decline of Magic.</i> New York, 1971.</p><p>vanden Broecke, Steven.<i> The Limits of Influence: Pico, Louvain, and the Crisis of Renaissance Astrology.</i> <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/leiden" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Leiden</span></a>, 2003. Investigates the links between astrological practice in the university, court, and city, and the implications for elite astrology, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.</p><p>Westman, Robert S. "Copernicus and the Prognosticators: The Bologna Period, 1496–1500."<i> Universitas</i> 5 (1993): 1–5.</p><p align="right"><i>—S<small><span style="font-size:78%;">TEVEN VANDEN</span></small> B<small><span style="font-size:78%;">ROECKE</span></small></i></p></div></div><!-- closeheaderdiv --><div id="Occultism_&_Parapsychology_Encyclopedia"><div class="h_ads_ggl" id="h_ads9"><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div class="content"><div class="DsAndEntryName"><a class="tabTitle" href="http://www.answers.com/library/Occultism%20&%20Parapsychology%20Encyclopedia-cid-4931"><span class="tabTitle"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">Occultism & Parapsychology Encyclopedia:</span></strong></span></a> <span class="hw"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#003399;">Astrology</span></strong></span> </div><div class="newLine"></div><p>The art of divining the fate or future of persons from the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/juxtaposition" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">juxtaposition</span></a> of the Sun, Moon, and planets. <i>Judicial astrology</i> foretells the destinies of individuals and nations, while <i>Natural astrology</i> predicts changes of weather and the influence of the stars upon natural things.</p><p>The characters used in astrology to denote the 12 signs represent natural objects, but they have also a hieroglyphic or <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/esoteric" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">esoteric</span></a> meaning that has been lost. The figure of Aries represents the head and horns of a ram; that of Taurus, the head and horns of a bull; that of Leo, the head and <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/mane" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">mane</span></a> of a lion; that of Gemini, two persons standing together; and so on. The physical or astronomical reasons for the adoption of these figures is explained by the Abbé Pluche in his <i>Histoire du Ciel</i> (1739-41), and Charles F. Dupuis, in his <i>Abrégé de l'Origine de tous les Cultes</i> (1798), endeavors to establish the principles of an astro-mythology by tracing the progress of the moon through the 12 signs in a series of adventures he compares with the wanderings of Isis.</p><p class="shw" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bolder; FONT-SIZE: 15px">Nativities</p><p>Traditionally, the cases for which astrological predictions have chiefly been sought were nativities, that is, in ascertaining the fate and fortunes of individuals from the positions of the stars at the time of birth, and in questions called <i>horary,</i> which <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/comprehend" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">comprehend</span></a> almost every matter that might be the subject of astrological inquiry. Sickness, the success of business undertakings, the outcome of lawsuits, and so on are all objects of horary questions.</p><p>A person is said to be born under that planet that ruled the hour of his birth. Thus two hours every day are under the control of Saturn; the first hour after sunrise on Saturday is one of them. Therefore, a person born on Saturday in the first hour after sunrise has Saturn for the lord of his or her ascendant; those born in the next hour, Jupiter; and so on in order. Venus rules the first hour on Friday, Mercury on Wednesday, Jupiter on Thursday, the Sun and Moon on Sunday and Monday, and Mars on Tuesday.</p><p>In drawing a nativity or <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/natal" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">natal</span></a> chart (<a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/horoscope" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">horoscope</span></a>) a figure is divided into 12 portions representing the <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrological-houses" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">astrological houses</span></a>. The 12 houses are similar to the 12 <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrological-sign" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">astrological signs</span></a>, and the planets, being always in the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/zodiac" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">zodiac</span></a>, will therefore all fall within these 12 divisions or houses. The line that separates any house from the preceding is called the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/cusp" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">cusp</span></a> of the house. The first house is called the ascendant, or the east angle; the fourth, the <i>imum coeli,</i> or the north angle; the seventh, the west angle; and the tenth, the <i>medium coeli,</i> or the south angle. After this figure is drawn, tables and directions are given for placing the signs, and because one house corresponds to a particular sign, the rest can also be determined. When the signs and planets are all placed in the houses, the astrologer can <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/augur" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">augur</span></a>, from their relative position, what influence they will have on the life and fortunes of the native.</p><p class="shw" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bolder; FONT-SIZE: 15px">History of Astrology in the West</p><p>The precise origin of astrology is lost to history, but its practice appears to have developed independently in both China and Mesopotamia, and was quite known early in India. One of the most remarkable astrological treatises of all history is the fabulous <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/bhrigu-samhita" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Bhrigu-Samhita</span></a> of ancient India, said to contain formulas for ascertaining the names of all individuals, past, present, and future, and their destinies. Unlike popular Western astrology, the key to a <i>Bhrigu</i> consultation is not the birth sign and conjunction of planets, but the moment of consultation of the oracle.</p><p>Marco Polo found astrology well established in China, although <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/chinese-astrology" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Chinese astrology</span></a> developed apart from Western history and only recently has been imported into the West. Western astrology seems to have originated in Mesopotamia, and all of the cultures of ancient Iraq and Iran contributed to its creation. Among the earliest records of astrology are the cuneiform tablets from the library of King Ashurbanipal of <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/assyria" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Assyria</span></a> (669-626B.C.E.). Astrologers were making periodic reports to <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/ashurbanipal-1" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Ashurbanipal</span></a> on such matters as the possibility of war and the probable size of the harvest. Astrology had been present in the region for at least a millennium but was given a distinctive boost by the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/chaldeans" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Chaldeans</span></a> who took over the Tigris and Euphrates valleys in 606 B.C.E. The Chaldeans mapped the sky, improved the methods for recording the passing of time, successfully predicted eclipses, and accurately determined the length of the solar year (within 26 minutes).</p><p>Thus astrology was well developed in <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/chaldea" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Chaldea</span></a> when (in the second millennium B.C.E.) the biblical Abraham migrated from <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/ur" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Ur of the Chaldees</span></a> (Gen. 11:31) to Palestine. The conflict between the emerging religions of the Israelites and Babylonian astrology can be seen in <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/isa-3" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Isa</span></a>. 47:13 and repeatedly in the book of Daniel (e.g. 2:27, 4:7). A primitive astrology had developed among the Greeks, but during the conquests of Alexander in the West beginning in 334 B.C.E. Chaldean astrology flowed into the Mediterranean basin. Alexander's conquests also introduced astrology into India, although the Indians took the Chaldean notions and developed them in a unique direction.</p><p>In Egyptian tradition the invention of astrology is attributed to Thoth (called <deadilnk tname="hermes-trismegistus" entry_key="eop_01_02154.xml" ds_id="2587">Hermes Trismegistus</deadilnk> by the Greek), the god of wisdom, learning, and literature. He is the Mercury of the Romans, the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/eloquent" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">eloquent</span></a> deliverer of the messages of the gods.</p><p>In imperial Rome astrology was held in great repute, especially under the reign of <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/tiberius" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Tiberius</span></a> (14-37 C.E.). Augustus (27 B.C.E.-14 C.E.) had <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/discouraged-3" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">discouraged</span></a> the practice of astrology by banishing its practitioners from Rome, but his successors recalled them; and although occasional edicts in subsequent reigns <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/restrained" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">restrained</span></a> and even punished all who divined by the stars, the practices of the astrologers were secretly encouraged and their predictions extensively believed. <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/domitian" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Domitian</span></a> (51-96 C.E.), in spite of his hostility toward them, was in fear of their pronouncements. They prophesied the year, the hour, and the manner of his death, and agreed with his father in foretelling that he should <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/perish" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">perish</span></a> not by poison, but by the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/dagger" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">dagger</span></a>. The early Christians gave some <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/sanction" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">sanction</span></a> to astrology in the Gospel of Matthew, which opens with the visit of the three magi (Persian astrologers) who, having seen the star in the east, have come to worship Christ.</p><p>After the age of the Antonines and the work of the third-century C.E. Roman scholar <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/censorinus" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Censorinus</span></a>, we hear little of astrology for some generations. In the eighth century <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/bede" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">the Venerable Bede</span></a> and his distinguished scholar, <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/alcuin" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Alcuin</span></a>, are said to have pursued this mystic study. Immediately following, the Arabians revived and encouraged it. Under the patronage of Almaimon, in the year 827, the <i>Megale Syntaxis</i> of Ptolemy was translated, under the title <i>Almagest,</i> by al-Hazen Ben Yusseph. Albumasar added to this work, and the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astral" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">astral</span></a> science continued to receive new force from the labors of <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/al-farghani" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Alfraganus</span></a>, Ebennozophim, Alfaragius, and <deadilnk tname="geber" entry_key="eop_01_01882.xml" ds_id="2587">Geber</deadilnk>.</p><p>The conquest of Spain by the Moors carried this knowledge, with all their other treasures of learning, into Spain, and before their cruel expulsion it was naturalized among the Christian savants. Among these Alonzo (or Alfonso) of <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/castile" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Castile</span></a> has immortalized himself by his scientific research, and the Jewish and Christian doctors who arranged the tables named for him were convened from all the accessible parts of civilized Europe. Five years were employed in their discussion, and it has been said that the enormous sum of 400,000 ducats was disbursed in the towers of the Alcazar of Galiana in the adjustment and correction of Ptolemy's calculations. Nor was it only the physical motions of the stars that occupied this grave assembly. The two Kabbalistic volumes, yet existing in <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/cipher" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">cipher</span></a>, in the royal library of the kings of Spain, and which tradition assigns to Alonzo himself, indicate a more <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/visionary" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">visionary</span></a> study. In spite of the denunciations against this <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/orthodoxy" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">orthodoxy</span></a>, which were thundered in his ears on the authority of <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/tertullian" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">Tertullian</span></a>, Basil, and Bonaventure, the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/fearless" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">fearless</span></a> monarch gave his sanction to such masters as practiced the art of divination by the stars, and in one part of his code enrolled astrology among the seven liberal sciences.</p><p>In Germany many eminent men pursued astrology. A long catalog could be made of those who have considered other sciences with reference to astrology and written on them as such. Faust has, of course, the credit of being an astrologer as well as a wizard, and we find that singular but <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/splendid" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">splendid</span></a> genius, Cornelius Agrippa writing with as much <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/zeal" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">zeal</span></a> against astrology as on behalf of other <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/occult" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">occult</span></a> sciences.</p><p>Of the early developments in astrology in England little is known. Bede and Alcuin have been mentioned. Roger Bacon included it among his broad studies. But it is the period of the Stuarts that can be considered the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/acme" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">acme</span></a> of astrology in England. Then <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/william-lilly" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">William Lilly</span></a> employed the doctrine of the magical circle, engaged in the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/evocation" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">evocation</span></a> of spirits from the <deadilnk tname="ars-notoria" entry_key="eop_01_00325.xml" ds_id="2587">Ars Notoria</deadilnk> and used the form of prayer prescribed <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/therein" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">therein</span></a> to the angel Salmonoeus, and entertained among his familiar <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/acquaintance" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">acquaintance</span></a> the guardian spirits of England, Salmael and Malchidael. His ill success with the divining rod induced him to surrender the pursuit of <deadilnk tname="rhabdomancy" entry_key="eop_02_03868.xml" ds_id="2587">rhabdomancy</deadilnk>.</p><p>The successor of Lilly was Henry Coley, a <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/tailor" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">tailor</span></a>, who had been his <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/amanuensis" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">amanuensis</span></a> and was almost as successful in prophecy as his master.</p><p>While astrology flourished in England it was in high repute with its <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/kindred" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">kindred</span></a> pursuits of magic, <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/necromancy" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">necromancy</span></a>, and <deadilnk tname="alchemy" entry_key="eop_01_00116.xml" ds_id="2587">alchemy</deadilnk> at the court of France. Catherine de Medicis herself was an <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/adept" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">adept</span></a> in the art. At the Revolution, which commenced a new era in France, astrology declined.</p><p class="shw" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bolder; FONT-SIZE: 15px">Modern Astrology</p><p>Astrology has now <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/permeate" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">permeated</span></a> every activity of modern life, from daily household activities to politics and stock market speculation. Leading names that have emerged in the astrology revival include Luke D. Broughton, Evangeline Adams, Manly Palmer Hall, Elbert Benjamine Heindel, and <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/llewellyn-george" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Llewellyn George</span></a>. More recently, figures have included Sydney Omarr, Jeane Dixon, "Zolar" (Bruce King), "Ophiel," and<a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/sybil-leek" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Sybil Leek</span></a>. Also still popular in its various editions is the mass circulation <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/almanac" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">almanac</span></a> of "Old Moore," which first appeared nearly three centuries ago.</p><p>The psychologist C. G. Jung related astrology to "<a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/synchronicity" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">synchronicity</span></a>," an acausal connecting principle in nature (as distinct from normal cause and effect), and believed that horoscopes offered useful psychological information on patients. Astrology was widely used during World War II as a psychological weapon by both Germans and British.</p><p>The most noticeable aspect of the occult revival of modern times has been the widespread popularity of astrology, particularly among young people. It is estimated that there are more than ten thousand professional astrologers in the United States, with a <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/clientele" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">clientele</span></a> of more than twenty million people. Most American newspapers run an astrology column. Even the respected <i>Washington Post</i> includes a horoscope column.</p><p>In 1988 the revelations of former White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan (in his book <i>For the Record</i>) caused widespread media comment with the claim that Nancy Reagan consulted astrologers on questions relating to presidential schedules of her husband, Ronald Reagan. Joan Quigley was cited as her astrological consultant. Caroline Casey, daughter of a former congressman, was also revealed as a leading astrologer to politicians, high-ranking officials, and Georgetown socialites.</p><p>None of this would be surprising to Indian and other Asian celebrities, since the astrologer is still an <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/indispensable" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">indispensable</span></a> figure in Asian society, consulted on marriage dates and partnerships, business enterprises, and affairs of state. But the extent of American involvement with astrology surprised and infuriated many commentators, who condemned "occult superstitions." In May 1988, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, Donald Regan was asked whether he had ever heard of American stockholders using astrology for guidance. He replied, "Recently a study was made of Wall Street people and stockholders—and 48 percent admitted that they used astrology of one sort or another in the stock market."</p><p>One astrologer responded, "What's new? Queen Elizabeth I set her coronation date by her guy, John Dee, and consulted him every day. Kings have always used us—and popes! Some of those guys were do-it-yourselfers, like Fixtus IV and Julius II. Others just kept their astrologers in the <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/closet" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">closet</span></a>, like Nancydid."</p><p>There has been little new to add to popular belief in astrology in the present revival except its linking with modern technology in the use of an IBM computer for rapid calculation of horoscopes. For some time the giant <deadilnk tname="astroflash" entry_key="eop_01_00379.xml" ds_id="2587">Astroflash</deadilnk> computer was a familiar sight to commuters at the Lexington Avenue entrance to Grand Central Station, New York.</p><p>In spite of its pseudoscientific basis, deriving from <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/outmoded" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">outmoded</span></a> theories of the planetary system, astrology can point to documented successes, particularly by astrologers who combine their calculations with an <a class="alnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/intuitive" target="_top" name="&lid="><span style="color:#003399;">intuitive</span></a> faculty of interpretation. There is also scientific evidence for the influence of lunar and solar rhythms on human activity.</p><p>One interesting development in modern astrology has been the research of the French statistician Michel Gauquelin and his wife Francosise Gauquelin, beginning in 1950. They claimed to find a significant correlation between the position of planets at birth and the chosen professions of a large sample of people from all walks of life. The research of the Gauquelins, whose collaboration lasted until 1980, is so significant that it is the most frequently cited research validating astrology.</p><p class="shw">Sources:</p><p>Collins, Rodney. <i>The Theory of Celestial Influence.</i> London: Stuart & Watkins, 1955.</p><p>Eisler, Robert. <i>The Royal Art of Astrology.</i> London: Herbert Joseph, 1946.</p><p>Gauquelin, Michel. <i>The Cosmic Clocks.</i> Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1967.</p><p>——. <i>Cosmic Influences on Human Behavior: The Planetary Factors in Personality.</i> New York: Stein & Day, 1973. Rev. ed. New York: ASI Publishers, 1978.</p><p>——. <i>Dreams and Illusions of Astrology.</i> Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1978. Reprint, London: Glover & Blair, 1980.</p><p>——. <i>Scientific Basis of Astrology.</i> New York: Stein & Day, 1969. Reprinted as <i>Astrology and Science.</i> London: P. Davies, 1970.</p><p>Hone, Margaret. <i>Modern Textbook of Astrology.</i> London: Fowler, 1951.</p><p>Howe, Ellic. <i>Astrology & Psychological Warfare during World War II.</i> London: Rider, 1972.</p><p>Kenton, Warren. <i>Astrology: The Celestial Mirror.</i> London: Thames & Hudson, 1974.</p><p>Lee, Dal. <i>Dictionary of Astrology.</i> New York: Warner, 1968.</p><p>Leo, Alan. <i>Casting the Horoscope.</i> London: Fowler, 1969.</p><p>Lewis, James R. <i>The Astrology Encyclopedia.</i> Detroit: Gale Research, 1994.</p><p>McIntosh, Christopher. <i>The Astrologers and their Creed.</i> London: Praeger, 1969.</p><p>Rudhyar, Dane. <i>From Humanistic to Transpersonal Astrology.</i> Seed Center, 1975.</p><p>Sachs, Gunter. <i>The Astrology File.</i> London: Orion, 1998.</p><p>Thompson, C. J. S. <i>The Mystery and Romance of Astrology.</i> London, 1929. Reprint, Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1969. Reprint, New York: Causeway, 1973.</p></div></div><!-- closeheaderdiv --><div id="Mythology_Dictionary"><div class="h_ads_ggl" id="h_ads10"></div><div class="content"><div class="DsAndEntryName"><a class="tabTitle" href="http://www.answers.com/library/Mythology%20Dictionary-cid-4931"><span class="tabTitle"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">Mythology Dictionary:</span></strong></span></a> <span class="hw"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#003399;">astrology</span></strong></span> </div><div class="newLine"></div><p><p>A study of the positions and relationships of the <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/sun" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">sun</span></a>, <deadilnk tname="moon" entry_key="moon" ds_id="2050">moon</deadilnk>, <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/star" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">stars</span></a>, and <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/planet" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">planets</span></a> in order to judge their influence on human actions. Astrology, unlike <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astronomy" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">astronomy</span></a>, is not a scientific study and has been much criticized by scientists. (<i>See</i> <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/zodiac" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">zodiac</span></a>.) <br clear="right"></p></div></div><!-- closeheaderdiv --><div id="Quotes_About"><div class="h_ads_ggl" id="h_ads11"></div><div class="content"><div class="DsAndEntryName"><a class="tabTitle" href="http://www.answers.com/library/Quotes%20About-cid-4931"><span class="tabTitle"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">Quotes About:</span></strong></span></a> <span class="hw"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#003399;">Astrology</span></strong></span> </div><div class="newLine"></div><p><span class="shw"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;">Quotes</span></strong></span>:<br /><br />"<i>Faithful horoscope-watching, practiced daily, provides just the sort of small but warm and infinitely reassuring fillip that gets matters off to a spirited start.</i>" <span class="shw"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;"><strong>- </strong></span><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/shana-alexander" target="_top"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;">Shana Alexander</span></strong></a></span><br /><br />"<i>The stars which shone over Babylon and the stable in Bethlehem still shine as brightly over the Empire State Building and your front yard today. They perform their cycles with the same mathematical precision, and they will continue to affect each thing on earth, including man, as long as the earth exists.</i>" <span class="shw"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;"><strong>- </strong></span><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/linda-goodman-1" target="_top"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;">Linda Goodman</span></strong></a></span><br /><br />"<i>We need not feel ashamed of flirting with the zodiac. The zodiac is well worth flirting with.</i>" <span class="shw"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;"><strong>- </strong></span><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/d-h-lawrence" target="_top"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;">D. H. Lawrence</span></strong></a></span><br /><br />"<i>You stars that reigned at my nativity, whose influence hath allotted death and hell.</i>" <span class="shw"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;"><strong>- </strong></span><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/christopher-marlowe" target="_top"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;">Christopher Marlowe</span></strong></a></span><br /><br />"<i>Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter. To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram -- lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull -- he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins -- that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path -- he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the virgin! that's our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the Scales -- happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are curing the wound, when come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and, to wind up, with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep.</i>" <span class="shw"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;"><strong>- </strong></span><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/herman-melville" target="_top"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;">Herman Melville</span></strong></a></span><br /><br />"<i>This is the excellent foppery of the world: that when we are sick in fortune -- often the surfeits of our own behavior -- we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!</i>" <span class="shw"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;"><strong>- </strong></span><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/william-shakespeare" target="_top"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#003399;">William Shakespeare</span></strong></a></span><br /><br /><p style="COLOR: #888888; FONT-STYLE: italic">See more famous quotes about <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/quote-4?subject=Astrology&s2=Astrology" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Astrology</span></a> </p><!--<p style="color:#888888;font-style:italic;">Quotes about <a href="/main/Record2?a=NR&url=http://www.quotationsbook.com/search/authors/?term=Astrology">Astrology</a> supplied by <a href="/main/Record2?a=NR&url=http://www.quotationsbook.com">Quotations Book</a>.</p>--></div></div><!-- closeheaderdiv --><div id="Wikipedia"><div class="h_ads_ggl" id="h_ads12"></div><div class="content"><div class="DsAndEntryName"><a class="tabTitle" href="http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia-cid-4931"><span class="tabTitle"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">Wikipedia:</span></strong></span></a> <span class="hw"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#003399;">astrology</span></strong></span> </div><div class="newLine"></div><div></div><div id="wpcontent"><div class="thumb tright"><div style="WIDTH: 322px"><a href="http://www.answers.com/main/Record2?a=NR&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcommons.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FImage%3AUniversum.jpg" target="GuruWnd"><img height="249" alt="Hand-coloured version of the anonymous Flammarion woodcut (1888)." src="http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/a/af/320px-Universum.jpg" width="320" /></a> <div class="thumbcaption"><div class="magnify" style="FLOAT: right"><a href="http://www.answers.com/main/Record2?a=NR&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcommons.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FImage%3AUniversum.jpg" target="GuruWnd"><img height="11" alt="Enlarge" src="http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/style/images/magnify-clip.png" width="15" /></a></div><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/hand-colouring" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Hand-coloured</span></a> version of the anonymous <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/flammarion-woodcut" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Flammarion woodcut</span></a> (1888).</div></div></div><p><b>Astrology</b> (from <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/greek-language" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">Greek</span></a>: αστήρ, αστρός (astér, astrós), "star", and λόγος, λόγου (lógos, lógou), "word" or "speech" lit. to talk about the stars) is a group of <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/system" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">systems</span></a>, <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/tradition" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">traditions</span></a>, and <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/belief" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">beliefs</span></a> in which knowledge of the relative positions of <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astronomical-object" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">celestial bodies</span></a> and related details is held to be useful in understanding, interpreting, and organizing information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters. A practitioner of astrology is called an <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrologer-3" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">astrologer</span></a>, or, less often, an astrologist. Numerous traditions and applications employing astrological concepts have arisen since its earliest recorded beginnings in the <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/2nd-millennium-bc" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">2nd millennium BC</span></a>E.<sup class="reference" id="wp-_ref-0"><a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrology#wp-_note-0"><span style="color:#810081;">[1]</span></a></sup> It has played a role in the shaping of culture, early astronomy, and other disciplines throughout history.</p><p>Historically, <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrology-and-astronomy" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">astrology and astronomy</span></a> were often indistinguishable, with the desire for predictive and divinatory knowledge one of the primary motivating factors for astronomical observation. Astronomy began to diverge from astrology after a long period of gradual separation in the <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/18th-century" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">18th century</span></a>, and has since distinguished itself as the <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/science" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">scientific</span></a> study of astronomical objects and phenomena, placing no significance on these phenomena's supposed astrological correlation.</p><p>Proponents have defined astrology variously, as a <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/symbolism" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">symbolic</span></a> language,<sup class="reference" id="wp-_ref-1"><a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrology#wp-_note-1"><span style="color:#810081;">[2]</span></a></sup><sup class="reference" id="wp-_ref-2"><a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrology#wp-_note-2"><span style="color:#810081;">[3]</span></a></sup> an <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/art" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">art</span></a> form,<sup class="reference" id="wp-_ref-Campion_0"><a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrology#wp-_note-Campion"><span style="color:#810081;">[4]</span></a></sup> a <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/science" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">science</span></a>,<sup class="reference" id="wp-_ref-Campion_1"><a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrology#wp-_note-Campion"><span style="color:#810081;">[4]</span></a></sup> and a method of <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/divination" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">divination</span></a>.<sup class="reference" id="wp-_ref-3"><a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrology#wp-_note-3"><span style="color:#810081;">[5]</span></a></sup><sup class="reference" id="wp-_ref-4"><a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrology#wp-_note-4"><span style="color:#810081;">[6]</span></a></sup> The scientific community generally considers astrology as a <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/pseudoscience" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">pseudoscience</span></a> or <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/superstition" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">superstition</span></a>.<sup class="reference" id="wp-_ref-WordNet_0"><a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrology#wp-_note-WordNet"><span style="color:#810081;">[7]</span></a></sup><sup class="reference" id="wp-_ref-asotp_0"><a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/astrology#wp-_note-asotp"><span style="color:#810081;">[8]</span></a></sup> While there is no <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/scientific-evidence" target="_top"><span style="color:#003399;">scientific evidence</span></a> behind the principles of astrology, belief in astrology is widespread</p><p>mobile no. 9411404497 and 9359816086</p></div></div></div></div>Ďιχιт Áѕтяσℓσgуhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15346026943677026217noreply@blogger.com1