Astrology / History

The Origins of Astrology

    
    To all astrologers and astronomers before the 17th century A.D. the terms "astrology" and "astronomy" were often interchangeable, although sometimes the emphasis applied to each was different. Astronomy was considered more mathematical and astrology more philosophical, but in general the practitioner of one was also a practitioner of the other. Thus the twin sciences share a common origin sometimes before the advent of recorded history in the third and fourth millennia B.C.
    
    We may assume that the earliest astronomical observations were made by people who were anxious to plan their lives for the year, and who felt it necessary to know when the solstice was due, or the equinox, or perhaps the next full moon. Such activities presuppose an ability to perceive that physical events on Earth were linked in some way with events in the sky, and also mean that in some places at least, human society was approaching a measure of conscious organization. It therefore follows that any society that wishes to regulate itself in some way must do so according to celestial phenomena. The fact that we still do this today has been obscured by our use of watches and calendars to tell the time and the date, but all human life is basically regulated by the movement of the Sun and the Moon, and the rotation of the Earth. The recognition of this was a central part of the process of the development of early civilization.
    
    To our ancestors it was imperative to know when flood and drought, heat and cold were due, so that migrations might take place, and crops might be planted. All these activities could be regulated with reference to the stars, and were so, even in countries such as ancient Egypt, which never developed their own astrology.
    
    Evidence of the recording of lunar phases has been revealed by notches carved on animal bones dating back to about 15,000 B.C., during the Old Stone Age, and before the development of agriculture. Such recording would have become far more important as a result of the development of agriculture between 10,000 B.C. and 5,000 B.C., and evidence from many early cultures shows that the heliacal rising of the stars was used by 2,000 B.C. to give a more precise timing to the agricultural year.
    
    Such pragmatic reasons were not the sole ones behind the development of astrology, the history of which is also intertwined with the history of religion. At the same time as practical correlations were made between such events as the Sun's annual rhythm and the seasons, symbolic connections were made between events that were not so obviously linked. The human pattern of life, moving from birth to death, was equated with the daily motion of the Sun in the sky, bringing with it the transition from darkness to light, and the annual cycle of vegetation throughout the seasons. Thus the observance of the calendar became, as it still is, an object of religious ritual, and there was a measure of interchange between heavenly sky deities and earth-bound vegetation deities.
    
    No precise dating can be applied to the history of human religion, but it seems likely that some religious motive lay behind the construction of the Megalithic monuments of northwestern Europe (4,000 - 2,000 B.C.). Recent archaeological research indicates that the builders of these monuments had reached a level of astronomical and mathematical sophistication that equaled that of Renaissance Europe, but the communal effort and concentration involved in the construction and maintenance of a building such as Stonehenge (2,600-2,000 B.C.) suggests some common ritual purpose. This society was clearly obsessed by the need to regulate the calendar and predict eclipses. It is only with the aid of computer technology that modern archaeologists have been able to understand the design of these monuments, which litter the countryside of large areas of Western Europe, but we still have no means of understanding the full intentions of the society that constructed them.
    
    It seems probable that the learning, which was acquired in the Megalithic cultures, was communicated to Mesopotamia, perhaps between 3,000 and 2,000 B.C. and it was in Mesopotamia just after this last date that we find evidence of the emerging combination of astronomy, mathematics and mythology that was to become the basis of astrology.