The origins of astrology are of great antiquity. The astrology
practiced in the western world today, the astrology which Starscine
is concerned with, derives from ancient Mesopotamia, the whole region
in the fertile crescent between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
There is a sufficient body of documentary evidence to show that
the Babylonian and Assyrian Empires in particular were the cradle
of our modern astrology. Many of the highly regarded astrologers
came from the Chaldean area of the Babylonian Empire, and they were
widely known throughout the ancient world. The Chaldeans astrologers
were so influential that they eventually filled all ecclesiastical
positions. In their capital, Bit-yakin, and at Babylon, their name
was synonymous with priests of Bel-mardu, who were esteemed as possessors
of great wisdom. In the Old Testament of the Bible some 2000 years
B.C., astrologers were seen as rivals of the Jewish prophets and
were regarded, not surprisingly, with scorn by them. But unlike
the prophets, they have an unbroken history to the present day.
In these ancient beginnings, astrology was inextricably connected
to astronomy, which developed in response to a demand for an accurate
reckoning of time, something we take for granted today. The ancients
needed to have an accurate method of reckoning for agricultural
and religious purposes, these two things reflecting the yet-to-be-severed
connection between the spiritual and earthly life. Thus the astronomers,
also called mathematicians, were the priests, acting rather like
stewards of the land, which was reckoned to belong to the gods.
The clear, dry climate and cloudless skies of this ancient land
made it naturally favorable to astronomical observations, and in
Babylonia, the practice of observing the heavens dates from at least
the 3rd millennium B.C. Although the 12 Star Signs of the Zodiac
came later, many of the constellations, Pleiades and Orion for example,
were known to these astronomers of antiquity.
To the ancients, it seemed obvious that the heavenly bodies conditioned
human behavior and fortune. They saw the world as one, a completion
of interdependent parts. In this regard it is interesting to note
that the Gaia Theory, which evolved from the work of the eminent
English scientist, Professor James E Lovelock, in the late 1970s,
also considers the Earth as a single interconnected living entity.
Thousands of years after its beginning, the ancient correlation
of science and human experience with natural phenomena, is being
re-visited by a serious and respected member of the global scientific
community.
Horoscopes are based on three main principles:
- Individuals born under a particular Star Sign (within a particular
phase of the Earth's orbit) have particular sensitivities to the
solar elements;
- The influence of a solar element is determined by its relative
location to Earth;
- The location of the solar elements at an individual's time of
birth influences that person's future sensitivity to the solar
elements.
These principles have been used consistently by astrologers to
make their calculations throughout the last 3000 years. However,
our understanding of the universe and our place in it, has changed
considerably in that time, and so, like other disciplines, astrology
has had to adapt. The methodology used by Starscine is the latest
in an long history of advances and refinements.
The Earth is not the center of the Universe
The most revolutionary change began in 1543, when Nicolas Copernicus,
the founder of modern astronomy, published a 400 page treatise in
which he explained his theory that the Earth rotated daily around
its own axis and annually about the sun. This challenged the existing
scientific paradigm, the Ptolemaic Theory, which had held sway for
hundreds of years. Ptolemy, a Greek mathematician and the greatest
astronomer of late antiquity, had the Earth as the fixed center
of the universe, with the heavenly bodies moving around it. The
discovery made by Copernicus, which virtually reversed the Ptolemaic
Theory, was strongly resisted in spite of being supported by Rheticus,
the famous Austrian professor of mathematics and astronomy at Wittenberg,
who had worked with Copernicus.
The main challenge came from the church, which taught, for example,
that humankind was the crowning glory of all God's creation, and
thus, by association, the Earth had primary importance in the universe.
Ptolemy's Theory, which had our planet as the central point in the
universe with all the heavenly bodies moving around it, served to
reinforce the old belief in the centrality and supremacy of humankind.
The new theory presented the Earth as one insignificant planet among
many circling a small star, the Sun, thus challenging our centrality
and our supremacy in the overall scheme of things. Almost 100 years
later, in the 1630s, when the Italian astronomer Galileo supported
the Copernican theory, he was subjected to severe ecclesiastical
censure, imprisoned, and made to retract his support for the new
theory on pain of death from the Inquisitors.
Even though for those in Europe this discovery revolutionized understanding
of our place in the universe, the practice of astrology was relatively
unaffected. The movement of the solar elements in relation to the
Star Signs continued as it always had, and so, to a large degree,
did the astrological interpretations of these movements.
Saturn is not the most distant planet
Although it was well over 100 years before the Copernican theory
was accepted, later discoveries were accepted more rapidly. For
thousands of years Saturn was believed to be the most distant planet,
then in 1781 the German astronomer, William Herschel, discovered
Uranus. Herschel, who had fled to England to escape the French occupation
of Hanover in 1757, became famous over night and was appointed private
astronomer to King George 111. He was knighted in 1816 for adding
to our knowledge of the solar system, Milky Way and the nebulae,
areas of interstellar gases and dust. Neptune was discovered in
1846, and Pluto in 1930.
Astrologers have adapted their methods of calculating horoscopes
to include each new discovery. However, not all of these adaptations
have been prudent.
In retrospect it appears that the astrologer's response to the
arrival of the new planets was a fundamental cause for the split
between astrology and astronomy. The lack of rigor, and some of
the wild theories presented by some of the astrologers of the day
in relation to the new planets, provided the practitioners of the
relatively new craft of physics with ample ammunition to dismiss
them as 'unscientific'. Once parted it seemed that astrology and
astronomy would never reunite.
It is interesting to note that since this time astronomers have
been willing to accept the existence of numerous forces in our Solar
System, such as radiation and radio waves, well in advance of the
specific equipment that was devised to measure these. Unfortunately,
to date, there are no scientific instruments for measuring the astrological
forces in the way that, for example, the Geiger counter measures
radiation, or a thermometer measures temperature. Until there are
such devices, we are obliged to use deductive reasoning and scientific
principles. The development of astrological measuring instruments
is hampered further because, generally speaking, those with the
ability to create such instruments (usually scientists), are not
predisposed to do so.
N.B. The lack of such instruments does not count against the
existence of astrological forces. Scientists use deductive reasoning
and scientific principles to identify and explain various phenomena,
usually well in advance of producing the instrumentation that
'proves' the particular case. Scientists were aware of a rise
in temperature and could observe its effects in particular circumstances,
for example, long before the thermometer was invented to measure
it. The existence of radiation and radio waves was formulated
in scientific theories well before the instrumentation to measure
these phenomena was invented, even though these forces have existed
for as long as the universe itself.
In the last 100 years, our knowledge of the solar system and the
universe has been growing at an exponential rate. However, little
of this knowledge has been incorporated into the calculation of
horoscopes. The Starscine team has taken this new knowledge into
account whilst at the same time remaining true to the three main
principles of astrology outlined above. The result is a synthesis
of ancient wisdom and modern scientific knowledge that can be applied
to the calculation of horoscopes.
For example, Starscine uses the much more reliable method of relative
distance rather than relative direction as a means of determining
the level of influence of a particular planet. This is consistent
with the methods used by scientists for determining the relative
strength of other solar forces such as light, radiation, gravity
and electromagnetic fields. These, like the Starscine astrological
force calculations, are all based on the application of the Inverse
Square rule.
And so the calculation of horoscopes has entered a new age.
For more information on the latest developments in space-time theory,
go to the Super-String theory site.
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