These are my complete notes for Astrology, as a historical footnote.
I color-coded my notes according to their meaning - for a complete reference for each type of note, see here (also available in the sidebar). All of the knowledge present in these notes has been filtered through my personal explanations for them, the result of my attempts to understand and study them from my classes and online courses. In the unlikely event there are any egregious errors, contact me at jdlacabe@gmail.com.
Astrology (in how it pertains to Astronomy)
III. Astrology.
# A. Rule 19. While Astrology is not bound to reality, it is interesting to learn about it from a historical perspective. The seven classical wandering stars, including the sun and the moon, hold a special place in the mythos of different cultures as they developed and formed their own belief systems.
As a means of explaining the inexplicable Universe (and to support the notions that humans are central to it), weather, solar exlipses, and the patterns of birds were all assigned divine significance. Applied to Astronomy, "Astrology" was born.
The Babylonians used the knowledge of the stars to guide rulers in decision-making. By the 2nd century B.C., the Greeks applied Astrology to every individual - "Natal Astronomy" was formed through the belief that the configuration of the stars at the moment of one's birth will have an effect on their life and success. Ptolemy took this belief system to the next level by writing the "Tetrabiblos", the treatise on Astrology that transformed natal astronomy into something akin to a religion.
# A. Rule 20. The Horoscope is the central part of natal astronomy, the identifying of the time of birth with the relationship to the movement of the stars that supposedly determines one's personality traits.
If religion is the opium of the masses, Astrology is the opium of the ignoramuses. The zodiac, as mentioned in Rule 12, is divided into 12 signs, sections, each 30° long as part of the 360° celestial sphere. Each sign is named after a constellation in that section of the sky where the sun, moon, and planets were seen to pass.
# A. Rule 21. An individual's "sign" is their sun sign, e.g. the part of the zodiac the sun was in when they were born. However, because of precession (see Rule 15), the sky has been rotating over time, and in the 2000 years since the Tetrabiblos was written, the stars have shifted 1/12 the zodiac - about 1/2 of a sign. To stop themselves from allowing reason to infiltrate their minds, practioners of Astrology retain the position of stars as they were in the time of Ptolemy as their "sun sign", which makes even less sense than having the dates of the signs change over time. This speaks to the meaningless and pseudoscientific nature of Astrology as a whole, which, as an ancient spiritualistic practice, has had a remarkable lifespan past the Age of Enlightenment.
