Re: The small mind mocking what he does not understand.
MrIVI wrote: Don't knock astrology so quickly. I bet you have no idea how it works and thus no basis to prove or disprove it.
That would be a bet you'd lose. My familiarity with astrology extends from its origins in the development of the calendar central to Summerian worship of the sun, moon and stars through its development by the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Arabs, with side trips into less-well documented Nordic, Druidic and Meso-American cultures and mythologies, and some study of Oriental pre-history, history and mythology, as are relevant to the subject.
The precursors of birth-horoscopes date to around the 14th Century BC, in Babylon, though such were little more than charts of the position of the heavenly bodies at the time of birth (or sometimes conception), and had little or no predictive aspect. The primary point was to "Prove" the worthiness of of a royal personage for special consideration by and protection of the gods.
It took a few hundred years, and the development of the astrolabe, for the Assyrians to calculate and establish a reasonably accurate map of celestial bodies, which they used to formulate the first fairly consistent, acceptably accurate calendar. The 18 constellations and 5 planets plus the Sun and the Moon originally catalogued by the Assyrians, in concert with the Assyrian calendar, form the basis of Western Astrology. The contemporary "Signs of The Zodiac" did not come into being for several centuries beyond the Assyrian catalogue of cellestial bodies.
The next phase in the development of Western Astrology occurs during the "New Babylonian Period", roughly 600 - 300 BC. During this time, the Signs of the Zodiac came about, and "predictive" birth astrology began to develop. The foundations were pretty well laid for the succeeding development, which consisted primarilly of Greek expansion upon the Assyrian/Baylonian system. This lasted from around the 4th Century BC through the period of Roman expansion, which began circa the middle-2cnd-Century BC.
By and large, Roman culture initially gave little credence to astrology, though the growing fascination of Romans with all things Greek and Egyptian eventually enshrined Claudius Ptolemy's (actually, C.P. was neither Roman nor Greek, nor even really a Ptolemy - of the Hellenic-based Royal Egyptian Ptolemaic line - but an Alexandrian astronomer/mathemetician/geographer/scholar/teacher) Ptolemaic System, and its astronomy/astrology, in the Roman consciousness. The earliest extant version of Ptolemy's astrologic writings (the
Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy the Alexandrian, also known as
Mathematical Treatise in Four Books, and also referred to as
The Prognostics Addressed to Syrus) are to be found as a 10th Century Arabic translation, the 4 books of which were re-translated back into Latin, and thusly were disseminated among the intelligentsia of Medieval Europe. In this work, Ptolemy describes 48 constellations and essentially compiles all preceeding astrological works - many of which are known only through their mention or reference within Ptolemy's books. The
Tetrabiblos draws heavilly on Ptolemy's own 13-Volume
Almagest, in which the entire Ptolemaic System is described, and of which contemporary original or near-original editions have survived to this day.
No "Scholarly" addition to astrology has occurred since, though there have been developments and expansions based on Ptolemy's works. Interestingly, though the phenomenon was well known at the time of Ptolemy's writings, he takes no notice of nor does he make allowance for the precession of the equinoxes. It also was Ptolemy's contention that conception, not birth, was the point from which to calculate an individual's astrologic chart. Apart from that, Ptolemy's work incorporated numerous astronomic and calendrical errors. It appears from the evidence he may not even have been an astrologer in the contemporarily accepted sense; no astrologic chart attributable to him is known to exist. It well may be he was not a practitioner, nor even a believer, but merely a chronicler of the art. To be noted as well is the fact Ptolemy's numbers were doctored, skewed, altered, even fabricated, to fit his various hypotheses. See
The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy: Newton, R., PhD (Johns-Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1977).
Following Ptolemy The Alexandrian, influential writings on astrology were produced ny such luminaries of the times as Paul of Alexandria, Hephaestion of Thebes, and Palchus, all Egyptians, the Alexandrian mathemetician/astronomers Pappus and Theon, and the Greek mathemetician Proclus. With the fall of The Roman Empire, interest in astrology entered a decline of several centuries, recovering somewhat in the 8th Century, when the Islamic scholar/theologian/astronomer Albumasar popularized the study of Graeco-Roman astrology among his contemporary coreligionists. The Crusades brought Ptolemy The Alexandrian's work, Albumasar's work, and other Islamic/Arabic works influenced by their writings, to the attention of Europe.
It may interest you to know I can cast an astrologic chart by any of several methods peculiar to various disciplines, Western and Oriental. I'm also pretty good with the Tarot, and fairly adept at I Ching. I love parlor games.
