Astrology / History

Ancient Greek

    One of the greatest Greek philosophers was Heracleitus of Ephesus (c500 B.C.) who developed the concept that there are two states of existence in the Universe. The two states were Being, an ideal state of permanence, and Becoming, a state of constant change affecting the physical world. In this idea, which is not perhaps too dissimilar to the Chinese conception of the Yin-Yang polarity, and which was directly applied to astronomy by Plato, lies the origin of the astrological idea of polarity and the distinction between the positive and negative signs of the zodiac.
    
    The early Greek philosophers were astronomers rather than astrologers, for astrology was virtually unknown to them, but step-by-step they built up the intellectual structure, which was to be combined with Mesopotamian divination to produce modern astrology. It may be argued that astrology became the most popular method of divination in the western world precisely because it inherited the intellectual depths of Greek philosophy.
    
    It was with Pythagoras of Samos (born around 586 - 572 B.C.), who is generally regarded as one of the most brilliant and influential philosophers of all time, and who was the virtual founder of western European-Mediterranean philosophy, that the significant leap took place in Greek thought. Pythagoras was educated in the mathematics of the Lonian School, and as a young man he knew both Thales and Anaximander, but he also studied in Egypt and, after the capture of Egypt by the Persians in 525 B.C., in Babylon, where he was taken as a prisoner. As a result of this he was directly in touch with oriental ideas, and, although he did not bring astrology back to Greece with him he did bring the philosophy within which astrology was developing. Around 518 B.C. Pythagoras returned to his home on Samos, and both there and in other parts of Greece he used his time visiting religious shrines and teaching mathematics, combining religious initiation with a scientific quest. In about 520 B.C. he emigrated to Croton, a Greek colony in southern Italy, which became the base for the Brotherhood, the group of disciples which congregated around him, eager to hear his synthesis of reason and belief.
    
    The Pythagoreans were a fascinating order who observed a code of secrecy which placed a ban on the propagation of Pythagorean teachings outside the order. True initiates abstained from eating meat, grew their hair and nails, held all their goods in common, and observed a series of taboos that made for a strict lifestyle. In the context of Greek religion they represented a reformed branch of the worship of Dionysus, Orphism, but although they rejected the Bacchic revels of the Dionysians, they still used a mixture of wine and opium to achieve transcendant states.
    
    Pythagoras' major contribution to astrology lay in his theory that number and numerical relationships were the basis of the Universe, that the Universe could be explained through number, and that therefore each number contains a meaning beyond the literal representation of a particular quantity. Thus number one represents "one-ness", two represents "duality" and so on. The fact that the fourth house in a modern natal chart represents the home is based on the Pythagorean concept of four as the number of structure. Pythagoras was a mystic and religious reformer, and, although the brotherhood he founded did not last long as a formal body, the tenets of Pythagoreanism have always been at the roots of astrological theory. In recent years Pythagoreanism has served as the inspiration and philosophical justification for the highly mathematical work of John Addey on "Harmonics". Pythagoras taught the pursuit of spiritual elevation through contemplation of the eternal, in which the symbols of mythology and the symbols of mathematical science (i.e. numbers) were but different aspects of the same indivisible reality. The potency of this belief is demonstrated by the fact that even Kepler based his theories of planetary motion on Pythagorean geometry, theories that ironically were to be responsible for seriously undermining 17th century belief in astrology. One of Pythagoras' main theories, which Kepler used, was that planets in motion create a noise which may be described as a musical note. Taken together the notes produced by the seven planetary orbits produced a chord which was described as the "Harmony of the Spheres". From this concept comes the idea, expressed by Plato, that the study of music was the highest expression of philosophical (and hence astrological) practice.

 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9