The History of Astrology

Chris Mitchell

This is an important strand, since the various forms of astrology practiced in the world today do not sit in splendid isolation from the cultures around them. The Vedic astrologer in India dispensing marriage advice and the Jungian therapist in London using astrology to help her clients may be applying very different techniques, but those techniques haven't materialised out of nothing - they have a long history that helps us put those techniques into context, and tell us something about how astrology has survived and grown over time, through numerous cultures, religions and power structures.

The History module covers a broad sweep of history, starting with the sky-watchers of ancient Babylon, and going up to the astrology revival of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It looks at the transmission of ideas in astrology - how astrological concepts travelled through time and place, from the omen literature of Babylon developing into a visual astrology and a proto-zodiac with names we would all recognise, into classical Greece where these ideas were formalised into a more mathematical framework, and via pagan Rome into the neighbouring Persian empire. In the 7th century, the new burgeoning religion of Islam, in contrast to its polytheistic forbears, might have been hostile to such pagan concepts, but instead embraced astrology from the classical world, Persia and India (to where classical Greek concepts had found their way during the time of Alexander the Great). These classical ideas were stirred together in the melting pot of great centres of Islamic learning stretching from Afghanistan to Spain.

I would argue that the history of astrology is an important topic to study, since in the twenty-first century the mainstream perception of astrology is one of horoscope columns and zodiac signs, used merely as a form of light entertainment. Popular science documentaries portray it as a ridiculous pseudo-science, while the Catholic catechism condemns astrology as "contradicting the honour, respect and loving fear that we owe to God alone" in a section that also forbids "recourse to Satan".[1] It is therefore important to put the history of astrology into context.

It is true that the Catholic church has had a difficult relationship with astrology since the church's inception, but nevertheless it was an essential requirement of the church to be able to understand lunar and solar cycles in order to calculate the date of Easter. Similarly, although Jewish scholars were divided on the legitimacy of astrology, many were active astrologers. The Persian Jew Masha'allah worked for the Islamic caliph al-Mansur and was part of a team that used electional astrology to determine the best date for the caliph's new capital of Baghdad, and ibn Ezra in the eleventh century wrote various astrological texts. However, the twelfth-century Jewish philosopher and astronomer Maimonides was opposed to astrology and wrote a cutting response to the rabbis of Southern France who wrote to him enquiring about the use of astrology, describing it as "foolishness".[2]

Thus astrology has always been something of a controversial science, and treated by religious authorities with a certain amount of suspicion. Nevertheless, its perceived usefulness meant that astrology - including its use in prediction and for decision-making - was taught in monastic schools and formed an integral part of the curricula of universities with the church's blessing. It was considered a science in the broadest sense throughout the medieval period and has driven the development of scientific disciplines.[3] Astrological terms and imagery abound not only in medieval art and the literature of Chaucer and Shakespeare, but in the English language of today. Throughout its long history, astrology has been an essential component of science, religion, literature and art and an integral part of humanity's fascination with the sky. This module examines its growth and development, and it is an essential one as it is vital for students to be able to put their own specialist topics into context.