Astrology

Astrology (in the 16th century as Greek astrologia, star interpretation, formed from ancient Greek ἄστρον astron 'star' and λόγος logos 'teaching') is the interpretation of connections between astronomical events or constellations and earthly processes. It was already practiced in pre-Christian times in various cultures, especially in China, India and Mesopotamia. Western" astrology has its origins in Babylonia and Egypt. Its basic principles of interpretation and calculation, which are still recognizable today, were developed in the Hellenistic Greek-Egyptian Alexandria. For a long time it formed a barely distinguishable unit with astronomy.

In Europe, astrology had an eventful history. After the elevation of Christianity to the state religion in the Roman Empire, it was partly fought against, partly adapted to Christianity, and at times also pushed to the sidelines. In the course of the early Middle Ages, astrology, especially the learned astronomy-astrology, revived in the Byzantine Empire from about the late 8th century, as it did somewhat later in the Muslim Al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula. From the later High Middle Ages and especially during the Renaissance until the 17th century, it was often regarded in Europe, always in conjunction with astronomy, as a science, albeit a thoroughly controversial one. Only in the course of the 17th century did astronomy and astrology begin to separate more strongly, and astronomy developed into the interpretation-free observation and mathematical recording of the universe, while astrology lost its plausibility in the educated circles of Europe. Around 1900 a serious interest in astrology re-emerged, often in the wake of new esoteric currents such as Theosophy or the occult fad from the later 19th century. From the 20th century onwards, the focus of "Western" astrology in particular shifted strongly towards the interpretation of the human natal chart. Since the late 1960s, starting with the New Age movement, it has gained a high degree of popularity in the Western hemisphere mostly in the form of natal charts and newspaper horoscopes.

Nowadays, the origins, development and manifestations of astrology are being researched scientifically, for example from the perspectives of religious studies, ancient philology, archaeoastronomy, ethology, cultural history, mathematics, medicine and science, and in many cases also interdisciplinarily.

Since the 1960s, statements by astrologers in the Western cultural area have been increasingly examined empirically and scientifically. The results of all methodically correct verifications show that the verified statements are not statistically significantly better true than arbitrary claims.

Term

The strict separation of astronomy/astronomia and astrology/astrologia did not exist until late antiquity. Both terms could mean the interpretation of the alleged effect of the celestial bodies on the so-called sublunar sphere, i.e. the earth, or the observation of the heavens for the purpose of recording and researching the movements of the celestial bodies. Accordingly, the astrological aspects of astronomy found interest and recognition with ancient astronomers such as Ptolemy or Hipparchus, which remained so in astronomy with clearly decreasing acceptance partly until the end of the 17th century. When the separation between scientific astronomy and unscientific astrology was finally completed is disputed. The philosopher Siegfried Wollgast names the second half of the 17th century, the classical philologist Stephan Heilen names the Age of Enlightenment for it, according to Kocku von Stuckrad the process was in its final consequence only completed in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Astrology originated in antiquity initially as Mundane astrology; since Hellenism, even before the birth of Christ, the astrological areas of natal horoscopes, cataract horoscopes for the best time to begin a public or private action, and the so-called thema mundi, a kind of "primordial horoscope" for the legendary time of the creation of the world, were added. Today, astrology is usually understood to mean only natal horoscopy.

Underlying worldviews

Until the 18th century, astrology was often based on the assumption that there was a physical connection between the positions and movements of planets as well as stars and earthly events, often referred to as "natural astrology", which was supposed to have an effect on the weather, agriculture and in medicine, for example. On the other side, far less clearly understood in physical terms, was especially birth chart astrology with its effects on people's lives, which often claimed to be able to predict future developments in human life, and which often enough repeated in its interpretations actual or supposedly long handed down astrological experiences going back a long way. In birth horoscope astrology this goes back, among other things, to the idea of macrocosm (universe) and microcosm (earth or man), which are thought to relate to each other as a unity. Man as a microcosm is a mirror of the macrocosm, there is a correspondence of the human body with parts of the cosmos, and thus a system of mutual dependencies of the parts of the cosmic organism. Some assume a direct influence of the macrocosm on the microcosm (effect theory), others believe merely in a reflection (symbol theory). "As above, so below," as the Hermetic Tabula Smaragdina puts it. This worldview is religious in a broader sense.

In contemporary Western astrology, four views of the nature of astrological statements can be distinguished. Esoteric astrology refers to knowledge communicated by divine beings or "initiates". Symbolic astrology presupposes a traditional system of interpretation in which astronomical facts are ascribed a meaning in relation to earthly ones. In addition, an "astrology as a science of experience" is advocated, which strives for an empirical foundation, and finally there is the influence hypothesis, according to which the astrological planets affect living beings in a way that is not yet known in detail.