What Is the History of Astrology?

Early societies moved, harvested, and hunted in time with the stars for thousands of years, living in harmony with the cycles of nature. Astrology was reduced to a source of curiosity and a way to become more self-aware. Humans are storytellers who constantly connect the past, present, and future to explain our existence. Astroyogi dissects the history of astrology in this article. Let’s get going.

What is astrology, exactly?

It is nothing more than a method used by the greatest astrologer in Canada to foretell earthly and human events using the positions of the sun, moon, and planets within astrological constellations. The 12 constellations of the zodiac are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpius, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces.

Your “sun sign” is based on the location of the sun on your birthday. Your “birth chart,” which details the moon’s location at the time of your birth, offers further perspective on your personality and major life events.

The Mesopotamian Babylonians

The earliest people to record the positions of the planets and stars were the Sumerians, who were indigenous to Mesopotamia, a former part of Western Asia. Around 3000 BCE, they took note of and recognised the notable constellations and patterns.

The first well-known astronomers in Mesopotamia were the Babylonians (sometimes referred to as the Chaldeans). Building on the Sumerian research, the Babylonians constructed the first zodiac wheel.

At the end of the 5th century BCE, Babylonian astronomers divided the ecliptic into 12 equal “signs,” which stood for the 12 months of the year, each with 30 days.

When each sign had 30 celestial degrees of longitude, the earliest known celestial coordinate system was developed. Each piece was typically identified by the name of an animal.

In the Hellenistic era, Egypt

When Alexander the Great took control of Egypt in 332 BCE, it came under Hellenistic rule. Horoscopic astrology was developed at Alexandria, which Alexander founded in the third and second centuries BCE, by fusing Babylonian astrology with the Egyptian tradition of the Decanic zodiac.

The Egyptians valued the rising decan, the Greek pantheon of planetary gods, sign rulership, and the four elements.

The Greek word “horoskopos,” from which the English word “horoscope” is derived, is where the phrase “ascendant” originates.

Initially, astrological charts showing the positions of the sun, moon, and stars at a person’s birth were made by a horoscopic astrologer. The personality qualities and even the fate of an individual could be inferred from these birth charts.

Ancient Rome and Greece

A priest of Bel from Babylon named Berossus visited the Greek island of Kos in about 280 BCE with the purpose of imparting Babylonian culture and astrology to the Greeks. Horoscope reading and theurgic astrology, which means “god’s labour,” were both widely employed by the first century BCE.

While the latter was more concerned with the soul’s ascent to the stars and personal development, the former was more interested in learning about the past, present, and future.

The Greeks had a key role in bringing astrological philosophy to Rome. According to legend, Tiberius was the first emperor to employ a court astrologer. He did so in the first century CE when he hired Thrasyllus of Mendes.

In the second century CE, astronomer Claudius Ptolemy had such a fixation on making precise horoscope predictions that he started creating intricate globe maps to show the relationship between a person’s birthplace and the stars.

Prior to this, most maps were symbolic and pictorial. Ptolemy therefore contributed to the creation of maps as we know them today while looking for astrological significance. The phrase “geography” was initially coined by him.

Indian astrology

The best-known of these Sanskrit translations of Greek astrology was made in the second or third century AD by Yavaneshvara and taught as the Yavanajataka by Sphujidhvaja in the second or third century AD.

The practises of a Toronto astrologer are analogous to their Hellenistic equivalents. But the strategies were passed on without any intellectual support (which the Indians replaced with divine revelation). Instead, to make them applicable to their culture, the Indians adapted the prognoses that were originally intended for Greek and Roman culture.

They specifically took into account Indian value systems, the caste system, the idea of soul transmigration, and the Indian philosophy of the five elements (earth, water, air, fire, and space). Today, we still look to the skies for guidance, but we have no way of knowing if our horoscopes will come true.