A History of Western Astrology Volume II
A History of Western Astrology Volume II

Author: Nicholas Campion

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2009-04-16

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 1441107495

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Astrology is a major feature of contemporary popular culture. Recent research indicates that 99% of adults in the modern west know their birth sign. In the modern west astrology thrives as part of our culture despite being a pre-Christian, pre-scientific world-view. Medieval and Renaissance Europe marked the high water mark for astrology. It was a subject of high theological speculation, was used to advise kings and popes, and to arrange any activity from the beginning of battles to the most auspicious time to have one's hair cut. Nicholas Campion examines the foundation of modern astrology in the medieval and Renaissance worlds. Spanning the period between the collapse of classical astrology in the fifth century and the rise of popular astrology on the web in the twentieth, Campion challenges the historical convention that astrology flourished only between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries. Concluding with a discussion of astrology's popularity and appeal in the twenty-first century, Campion asks whether it should be seen as an integral part of modernity or as an element of the post-modern world.

Astrology and Western Society from the First World War to Covid-19
Astrology and Western Society from the First World War to Covid-19

Author: William Burns

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-11-12

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 3031404866

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This book gathers contributions on the topic of astrology in the West during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from 1914–2022. It is the first collection exclusively devoted to a period that has been mostly neglected by historians of astrology, who have mostly devoted themselves to the ancient, medieval and early modern periods. Uninterested in vindicating or debunking astrology, contributors consider its cultural impact, its relation to historical events, and the ways in which it has changed in the last century. The broad range of subjects on modern Europe and the US include the relation of astrology with indigenous thought, interwar Polish astrology, and the relation of American astrologers to COVID. A bibliography of studies of modern astrology on a global basis is also included. This collection is a thoughtful contribution to the history of astrology and the sociology of belief as well as carrying significant implications for twentieth and twenty-first century history broadly.

The Puzzle of the Western Zodiac: Its Wisdom and Evolutionary Leaps
The Puzzle of the Western Zodiac: Its Wisdom and Evolutionary Leaps

Author: Alex A. Gurshtein

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2017-12-29

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1546219005

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Though familiar to all, the twelve-strong Western Zodiac remains an enigmatic artifice of the archaic past. To date, no scholar has been able to determine who conjured up its constellations and when this might have happened. Nor do we know what the grand design behind this innovative endeavor might have been. This book, however, goes a long way towards answering those questions by combining together a variety of clues from multiple disciplines, including astronomy, archaeology, and linguistics. It provides a comprehensive framework that greatly expands our understanding of the genesis and purposes of this remarkable intellectual relic of our cultural heritage. The books overarching outcome that the zodiacal necklace in the sky appeared gradually over time in three different stages, with each reflecting the immanent social and spiritual concerns of its time provides a fundamental impact to reconsider our understanding of prehistory. No special knowledge is necessary to understand this captivating writing.

Galen, De diebus decretoriis, from Greek into Arabic
Galen, De diebus decretoriis, from Greek into Arabic

Author: Glen M. Cooper

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 633

ISBN-13: 135193502X

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This volume presents the first edition of the Arabic translation, by Hunayn ibn Ishaq, of Galen's Critical Days (De diebus decretoriis), together with the first translation of the text into a modern language. The substantial introduction contextualizes the treatise within the Greek and Arabic traditions. Galen's Critical Days was a founding text of astrological medicine. In febrile illnesses, the critical days are the days on which an especially severe pattern of symptoms, a crisis, was likely to occur. The crisis was thought to expel the disease-producing substances from the body. If its precise timing were known, the physician could prepare the patient so that the crisis would be most beneficial. After identifying the critical days based on empirical data and showing how to use them in therapy, Galen explains the critical days via the moon's influence. In the historical introduction Glen Cooper discusses the translation of the Critical Days in Arabic, and adumbrates its possible significance in the intellectual debates and political rivalries among the 9th-century Baghdad elite. It is argued that Galen originally composed the Critical Days both to confound the Skeptics of his own day and to refute a purely mathematical, rationalist approach to science. These features made the text useful in the rivalries between Baghdad scholars. Al-Kindi (d.c. 866) famously propounded a mathematical approach to science akin to the latter. The scholar-bureaucrat responsible for funding this translation, Muhammad ibn Musa (d. 873), al-Kindi's nemesis, may have found the treatise useful in refuting that approach. The commentary and notes to the facing page translation address issues of translation, as well as important concepts.

Astrology Decoded
Astrology Decoded

Author: Sue Merlyn Farebrother

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2013-01-03

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1448175763

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Have you ever wondered what astrology is about, or whether there is more to astrology than the popular sun-sign columns in the media? Are you fascinated by the idea of being able to interpret your own or other people's personal horoscopes? If so, this is the book for you. Accessible, entertaining and informative, Astrology Decoded explains, step by step, how astrology works, when to use it and ways to take it further. In this fascinating guide, expert astrologer Sue Merlyn Farebrother offers a practical and comprehensive course that will take you through the colourful ingredients that make up a birth chart, from the 12 zodiac signs to subtle astrological combinations and aspects, and the ways in which these express themselves through a person's character. Whether you are a beginner or have some knowledge of this fascinating subject, Astrology Decoded will deepen your understanding, and show you how to use astrology to enchance your life and the lives of others. Discover how the heavenly bodies really do influence us all and, in the process, learn more about yourself and those you care about...

A History of Horoscopic Astrology
A History of Horoscopic Astrology

Author: James H. Holden

Publisher: American Federation of Astr

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 0866904638

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This thoroughly researched book is a history of the development of Western horoscopic astrology from its origin among the Babylonians and its subsequent creation in its present form by the Alexandrians down to modern times. Special attention is given to background history and to the working conditions and techniques used by astrologers during the last two thousand years. Numerous footnotes provide additional information and bibliographic references. A separate bibliography lists reference sources of particular importance. Two comprehensive indices containing more than 2,800 individual entries enable the reader to locate persons, publishers, topics, and book and periodical titles that are mentioned in the history. The book also contains discussions of several questions and topics relating to astrology. James Herschel Holden is Research Director of the American Federation of Astrologers and has been especially interested in the history of astrology.

A Scheme of Heaven: The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data
A Scheme of Heaven: The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data

Author: Alexander Boxer

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2020-01-14

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 039363485X

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An illuminating look at the surprising history and science of astrology, civilization’s first system of algorithms, from Babylon to the present day. Humans are pattern-matching creatures, and astrology is the universe’s grandest pattern-matching game. In this refreshing work of history and analysis, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines classical texts on astrology to expose its underlying scientific and mathematical framework. Astrology, he argues, was the ancient world’s most ambitious applied mathematics problem, a monumental data-analysis enterprise sustained by some of history’s most brilliant minds, from Ptolemy to al-Kindi to Kepler. Thousands of years ago, astrologers became the first to stumble upon the powerful storytelling possibilities inherent in numerical data. To correlate the configurations of the cosmos with our day-to-day lives, astrologers relied upon a “scheme of heaven,” or horoscope, showing the precise configuration of the planets at a particular instant in time as viewed from a particular place on Earth. Although recognized as pseudoscience today, horoscopes were once considered a cutting-edge scientific tool. Boxer teaches us how to read these esoteric charts—and appreciate the complex astronomical calculations needed to generate them—by diagramming how the heavens appeared at important moments in astrology’s history, from the assassination of Julius Caesar as viewed from Rome to the Apollo 11 lunar landing as seen from the surface of the Moon. He then puts these horoscopes to the test using modern data sets and statistical science, arguing that today’s data scientists do work similar to astrologers of yore. By looking back at the algorithms of ancient astrology, he suggests, we can better recognize the patterns that are timeless characteristics of our own pattern-matching tendencies. At once critical, rigorous, and far ranging, A Scheme of Heaven recontextualizes astrology as a vast, technological project—spanning continents and centuries—that foreshadowed our data-driven world today.