A short inquiry into astrology

A sign

As noted at reference 1, I recently acquired – and have now disposed of – three books about astrology, listed below as references 2, 3 and 4. This prompted me to look in Chambers Encyclopaedia for more and at Wikipedia for still more. What follows is a condensation of the result of these wanderings.

We start on the relatively firm ground of the Zodiac, a circular band of sky containing the fixed stars in the region of the elliptic. As their name suggests, the fixed stars have fixed positions in the Zodiac, although the Zodiac as a whole rotates in they sky we see, along with the sun and the moon, reflecting the daily rotation of our earth. At any one time, roughly half the Zodiac is below the horizon.

The Zodiac is divided in twelve equal parts of 30° each: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. Each of these names is projected onto a constellation or group of conspicuous stars very roughly taking the shape of the thing in question. Aries is conventionally listed first, as he is first over the hill, as it were, on the dawn of the vernal equinox, the two equinoxes and the two solstices being very important dates in this world. The sort of thing that the builders of Stonehenge knew all about.

As well as the stars, the Zodiac, also contains the seven (an occurrence of the magic number seven I had not previously noticed) heavenly bodies – Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Unlike the stars, the heavenly bodies wander around the Zodiac, more or less along the line of the elliptic. Their positions relative to the signs and relative to each other are very important. Note that these positions are more or less fixed from day to day, but change from month to month, in the case of the moon on a roughly 29 day cycle – and in the case of Saturn on a roughly 29 year cycle. But I don’t think the number 29 is accorded any especial significance.

Both signs and bodies have properties and personalities which can be transferred, in whole or in part, onto qualifying subjects. The Ancient Greeks of Alexandria are credited with being the first western astrologers to properly document these matters.

The system is completed by dividing the sky into twelve houses, with there being various competing ways of, or systems for, doing this, although roughly speaking, the first house is always in the east (corresponding to sunrise) and the seventh house is always in the west (corresponding to sunset). The system called Placidus (that used at reference 3) seems to be the most popular in this country, with this system being time based rather than space based, which means that the houses are not all the same size. Its big downer is that it does not work very well at high latitudes, say greater than 60°, where some elements of the Zodiac often fail to set and others often fail to rise. I suppose the Inuit and the Sámi are not considered to be a qualifying populations. And anyway, being near illiterate, they go in for shamans rather than astrologers.

Houses are not all equal and the allocation of both the signs and the bodies to their houses, at any particular place or time, is very important. All kinds of emanations whanging around the universe, tying everything together.

A horoscope

Having got all this machinery in place, a horoscope is a sort of map or diagram of all the signs, bodies and houses at some particular place and time, perhaps the place and time at which I was born, in which last case we have the natal horoscope, the horoscope most commonly bought from a practising astrologer. A horoscope which more or less plots one life out for one. One can also get excited about some other horoscope which has important similarities to one’s natal horoscope. Perhaps the place and time in question would be a good place and time for some particular activity or action. Like getting married or kicking off the siege of Troy. All kinds of possibilities here, and I get the impression, probably unfair, that divining all the lines drawn on a horoscope has a lot in common with divining from tea leaves.

I suppose the attraction in all this is the way it gives one a place in the world, with this cunning blend of fact and fiction, with the fiction reasonably firmly based in fact, but just too complicated for the average punter to bottom out. Lots of obscure signs and symbols. All pleasingly mysterious. And according to Chambers, more attractive to the Muslim theologian than to his Christian colleagues.

I wonder how much of the mystery would fall away if the axis of the earth’s rotation was at right angles to the plane of the elliptic, rather than being tipped over by more than 20°? Perhaps this tipping over was one of our Lord’s more important contributions?

I close by wondering what status one should accord all this nonsense. The western liberal tradition is that one should respect the beliefs of others, to the extent that they do not cause harm. So one mocks neither Muslims nor Christians. But what about all the people who go in for astrology? The number of websites and the number of books turned up by Amazon suggest that there are still plenty of them here in the west, never mind in the east where they have strong astrological traditions of their own. Should Prime Minister Elect Corbyn show respect for all those people – many of whom will be voters and some of whom will be his voters – who believe, to the extent of having an astrologer publicly divine the proper date for calling the general election at which he is going to win a stunning majority?

PS: the snap of Aries included above seems to have lost one of its four stars. But it serves to give the general idea. While the horoscope was calculated for January 1, 2000 at 12:01:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time in New York City, New York. Millennials, ahoy!

References

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/ryanes-park.html.

Reference 2: Electional Astrology: the art of timing – Joann Hampar – 2005. Llewellyn Publications, Woodbury, Minnesota.

Reference 3: Table of Houses: Placidus – The Rosicrucian Fellowship – 1986. Oceanside, California. A well thumbed book, a bit like the tables of logarithms which used to be important in schools.

Reference 4: Astro-Carto-Graphy. A cheaply produced booklet on cheap off-white paper, with no attribution whatsoever, beyond a sticker from Equinox, an astrology shop in Neal Street, Covent Garden. Maybe it came as part of a DIY kit for casting horoscopes.

Reference 5: Astrology decoded: a step by step guide to learning astrology – Sue Merlyn – 2013. A self-help book turned up by Amazon, a book which appears to have sold rather well.