HISTORY OF ASTROLOGY
Imagine for a moment….it’s 25,000 B.C. and you are a prehistoric human. Food, shelter and sex are your main priorities. After a long day of hunting for food you settle against a rock while the fish you ate digests. You look up at the sky and enjoy the starry display. You’ve mastered most of your environment. Everything in your world you can touch, smell and hear…except the sky. You reach up with your hand and try to grasp the twinkled lights only to discover that they are untouchable. The stars and moon fascinate you and become your nightly entertainment. You sigh and marvel at their mystery and wonder what their purpose is. Every night you study these lights and start to notice that the day after a ”big” light completely disappears you seem to catch more fish! This discovery excites you because it means more food!
As early as 25,000 B.C. cavemen carved the phases of the moon into reindeer bones and tusks of mammoths.
The path of the stars was recorded 6,000 years before Christ was born. As early as 2767 B.C., a horoscope was cast in Egypt by Imhotep, the architect of the great Step Pyramid in Saqqarah. That horoscope still exists! You can still read star charts that were made by Egyptian astrologers in 4200 B.C.
In ancient societies, it was IMPOSSIBLE to separate astrology and religion; they were intertwined with one another. The astrologers were mainly priests. In fact, the Sumerian symbol for divinity was a star.
In the south of England, a series of large stones called Stonehenge, have a circle of holes. In 1961 Professor Gerald S. Hawakins submitted the pattern of Stonehenge to analysis by an IBM computer. He discovered that these strange stones and holes can be used to record the position of the Sun and Moon, and that virtually every eclipse of the Sun and Moon can be predicted from them.
Throughout history astrologers have been consulted to predict crops, famine, war, profit and even death.
Astrology is the oldest organized knowledge known to man. All of our Sciences and Religions originated from Astrology. From Astrology came Astronomy, calculation of Time, Mathematics, Medicine, Botany, Mineralogy, Chemistry, Optics, Psychology, Weather Prediction, and the belief of a Higher Power. As far as Astrology is concerned, there is no conflict between Science and Religion; they are one in the same.
Below show the periods across the world when Astrology was a major tool.
HINDU (5000 B.C. – 3000 B.C.)
EGYPTIAN (3000 B.C. - 300 B.C.)
CHINESE (2800 B.C. – Present)
BABYLONIAN (4000 B.C. – 125 B.C.)
GREEK (900 B.C. – A.D 150)
After the fall of Rome, astrology went into a decline — more like a total eclipse —- which it did not recover until after 1200 A.D. One of the reasons for its decline is that astrology became linked with superstition during the Roman era because the Church eventually saw the authority of astrology as competing with its own authority, so they condemned it.
Though there was little Astrology practiced in Europe during this time, it didn’t disappear completely. It simply changed its principal residence for a while. In the Arab world Astrology remained a serious science.
MODERN ERA (A.D. 1200 – 2000)
The renowned Church figure St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) turned the tide back, when he lent the legitimacy and value to the study of the stars. By the time of the Renaissance, Astrology was in full swing again. The Catholic popes used Astrology as a matter course (1475-1521).
William Lilly, a famous English Astrologer (1602-1681) accurately predicted the Great Fire of London. He was arrested but later acquitted.
Toward the end of the 17th century, Astrology fell out of favor again. The next century was known as the Age of Enlightenment, so Astrology was linked with superstition and occultism.
In 1875 the Theosophical Society played a large part in the revival of Astrology. Around the turn of the century, two very popular astrologers helped to bring Astrology to the masses: Alan Leo, a British Astrologer started a magazine, and Evangeline Adams—referred by many as the First American Astrologer—had a very popular radio program. Alan Leo’s books were the first to explain Astrology to the average person. Both Leo and Adams, although practicing in different countries, were charged with “fortune-telling” the same year, but most of these cases were dismissed and did no real harm to their careers.
During World War Two, Nazi leaders used Astrology for propaganda intent. One of Hitler’s advisors, Joseph Goebbels, had a number of astrologers on his staff.
First Lady Nancy Reagan, wife of President Ronald Reagan, regularly consulted a personal astrologer after her husband Ronald was shot on March 30, 1981.
For more Astrology History read:
The Fated Sky, by Benson Bobrick
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