Clare Gibson - The Complete Book of Birthdays: Personality Predictions for Every Day of the Year (Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1)

ince time immemorial the heavenly
bodiesluminaries, planets and stars
have exerted a mysterious fascination upon

their Earth-bound observers. Even today,
when the scientific precepts of astronomy
have come to marginalize (some even say,
discredit) the astrological beliefs that pre
vailed for millennia, we remain captivated
by their ethereal beauty and elusive promise
of worlds as yet undiscovered.

Ancient stargazers, who lacked instru
ments like the telescope with which to
study the heavens in accurate detail, still
discerned that certain astral bodies com
prised fixed formations that moved in pre
dictable fashion through the night sky, their
appearance and disappearance heralding the
changes of season. They believed that the
universe was geocentric, and that the posi
tions and majestic progressions of the Sun,
Moon, planets and stars influenced the lives
of human beings and all of the events that
occurred on Earth. This concept is encapsu
lated in the word astrology, a composite of
the Greek words astron (star) and legetin
(speak). It was only through the ground
breaking work of such later astronomers
as Nicolaus Copernicus (14731543), who
first postulated that the Earth did not, in
fact, occupy the center of the universe, but
rotated on its axis while revolving around the Sun; and Galileo Galilei (15641642),who described it as part of a solar system,that the geocentric view began to change,if slowly. (The Vatican, for example, did not formally accept Galileos findings until 1979). Their successors built upon the work of these pioneering astronomers to provide us with knowledge undreamed of by the ancients. In learning more about our universe and the celestial bodies that it contains, we have learned that many aspects of the astrological beliefs professed by our ancestors were correct. We also know that numerous cosmic truths have yet to be discovered.

Today astronomy is regarded as a scientific discipline distinct from astrology,which most scientists dismiss as simply a naive divinatory system. Yet our affinity with astrology endures: Why is it that even astrological nonbelievers cannot resist sneaking a glance at their stars for the day? The human psyche, through the collective unconscious that we all share, clearly has a profound and complex connection to the stars. In order to understand the reasons underlying this attraction, we need to trace the history of astrology through time to its ancient origins.

Blessed as we are with our inherited legacy of millennia of human thought, experience and discovery, our current level of intellectual sophistication and knowledgethough still increasingis unprecedented in human history. Scientific advances have enriched our lives and understanding immeasurably,but have also in some respects detracted from the awe with which our forebears regarded the natural world. Especially mysterious to them were the celestial bodies:the life-giving, yet also destructive, powers of the brightly burning Sun; the apparently magical ability of its nocturnal counterpart,the Moon, to regulate the ebb and flow of the oceanic tides; and the regular cycles of these two luminaries (as well as those of the constellations), which helped humans to determine the measurement of timenight and day, months and years. In fact, the regular movements of the heavenly bodies, and their corresponding influence over the passage of the seasons, have long been understood as related to one another.

In trying to comprehend the role of the luminaries in governing natural life on Earth, many ancient cultures ascribed supernatural properties to the Sun and Moon, and later also to the planets and stars: the subsequent personification of the solar, lunar, planetary and stellar bodies as deities was an entirely logical progression.Star-worship (also termed astrolatry or Sabaism) was practiced in differing degrees by most of the worlds early civilizations,especially those that depended upon agriculture for subsistence. Thus, for example, the ancient Egyptians venerated their supreme deity, the Sun god Re, who was believed to traverse the sky in his solar boat.Such megalithic structures as the standing stones of northern Europe (many aligned with the position at which the Sun rises on the summer and winter solstices), the Native American medicine wheels of North America, the pyramids of ancient Egypt and the ziggurats of Mesoamerica and Mesopotamia also attest to a widespread veneration of the celestial bodies.

Historians believe that the roots of Western astrology are embedded in Mesopotamiathe Near Eastern region comprising the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, which was ruled successively by the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians. Elements of the preceding cultures beliefs were adopted by each subsequent civilization, and yet although the Babylonians absorbed many Sumerian sacred concepts, it is they who are generally believed to have formalized the first astrological precepts. (It should be noted that there is some confusion as to whether the credit for the evolution of this astrological expertise should be given to the Babylonians or the Chaldeans. Chaldea was a region of Babylonia, and the two terms have become interchangeable, although there is reason to believe that the Chaldean astrologers, as priests of Baal, were especially renowned astrologers. Even the Bible refers to the astrological prowess of the Chaldeans, and during the classical period all astrologers

were generically known as Chaldeans.)It is estimated that by 3000 bc the
Babylonians believed that their Sun god,
Shamash; their lunar deity,Sin; and the goddess of the Morning Star (Ishtar) had special power to regulate Earthly life. To keep
track of their movements, the Babylonians
built stepped pyramids, or ziggurats, which