ASTROLOGY · LESSON 1 OF 7 · 14 MIN · FREE
From Babylonian sky-omens to Ptolemy, the Arabic masters, William Lilly and the modern revival.
Astrology is the oldest continuous thread in Western magic. For most of history, astrologia and astronomia were one study: watching the sky was how you kept the calendar, timed the harvest, treated the sick and chose the moment for a ritual.
Astrology is the oldest continuous thread in Western magic. For most of history, astrologia and astronomia were one study: watching the sky was how you kept the calendar, timed the harvest, treated the sick and chose the moment for a ritual.
In Mesopotamia the sky was a tablet written by the gods. Scribes compiled the great omen series Enūma Anu Enlil — some 7,000 omens of the form "If the Moon is surrounded by a halo… the king will…". These were omens for the king and the state, not for individuals.
By the 5th century BCE Babylonian astronomers had divided the ecliptic into twelve equal signs of 30°, and the oldest known personal horoscope, on a cuneiform tablet, dates from 410 BCE.
After Alexander's conquests, Babylonian astronomy met Egyptian star-lore (the 36 decans) and Greek philosophy in Alexandria. The result, around the 2nd–1st centuries BCE, was the astrology still practised today: the twelve signs, the seven planets, the aspects and — the decisive invention — the houses, counted from the degree rising in the east.
That rising degree was the hōroskopos, the "hour-marker", which gave the horoscope its name.
From the 8th century, Baghdad became the capital of astrology. Māshāʾallāh, Abū Maʿshar (Albumasar) and al-Bīrūnī systematised horary questions, elections and the great conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn. Their books, translated into Latin at Toledo and elsewhere in the 12th century, re-educated Europe.
Astrology entered the universities alongside medicine: physicians timed bloodletting by the Moon. Guido Bonatti advised the lords of 13th-century Italy; Marsilio Ficino made astral influence the basis of his natural magic; John Dee chose the date of Elizabeth I's coronation. Even Johannes Kepler cast horoscopes.
William Lilly (1602–1681) published Christian Astrology in 1647 — the first comprehensive textbook in English, still the classic guide to horary astrology. His almanacs sold in tens of thousands during the Civil War.
After the late 17th century astrology lost its place in learned culture. It revived in the late 19th century through Theosophy: Alan Leo (1860–1917) recast it as a guide to character. Newspaper Sun-sign columns began in 1930, psychological astrology followed, and since the 1980s a traditional revival has re-translated the Hellenistic and medieval texts.
| Era | Key figures | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Babylon | Temple scribes | Sky-omens, twelve equal signs |
| Hellenistic | Valens, Ptolemy | Houses, aspects, natal astrology |
| Islamic world | Māshāʾallāh, Abū Maʿshar | Horary, elections, mundane cycles |
| Renaissance | Ficino, Dee | Astral magic, court astrology |
| Early modern | William Lilly | Astrology in English |
| Modern | Alan Leo | Character and psychology |
Controlled tests have not found that astrologers can match charts to people better than chance. In magic, astrology is best treated as what it has always been for practitioners: a rich symbolic language and a calendar of qualities for timing your work. You can use it fully without claiming more for it.
Open the Sky and note where the seven planets are today: which sign, and whether any are retrograde. Keep the note in your journal; by the end of this track you will be able to read it.
4 questions — choose an answer to check it.
1.What did the Greek word hōroskopos ("horoscope") originally mean?
2.Who wrote Christian Astrology (1647), the first major astrology textbook in English?
3.Which second-century writer gave astrology a natural-philosophical explanation in the Tetrabiblos?
4.What is the date of the oldest known personal horoscope, on a cuneiform tablet?
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