The recent revival of traditional astrology that's happened over the past 30 years and to place it in the context of the history of astrology and it was really good discussion i really enjoyed having it although it made me realize that i'd never um given an overview of the history of astrology on the astrology podcast even though i've dealt with little individual topics during the course of little pieces of the history of astrology or subtopics
Astrology never really gone over everything so that's going to be my goal here today alright so why don't we jump right into it with that said so this is going to be kind of one of those long detailed overviews so it is an overview but i'm also going to get into some detail um it'll probably be one of those longer discussions but think of this like a class like a deep dive into the history of astrology especially for those of you that don't have any background
Astrology really want to know where it came from and how astrology in the west got started all right so here's my little slideshow presentation so as i said i'm going to give a broad overview of the history and transmission of western astrology i'm going to focus especially on periods of transmission and synthesis when when astrology in the west was transmitted from one culture to another which um essentially inaugura inaugurates a new era in the history of astrology each time
Astrology going to discuss some similarities compared to back then when some of these transmissions took place and when there were these revival of older forms of astrology and how that actually compares to now and how things are very similar in some ways i'm also going to explore the role of tradition versus innovation and by the end of this i hope to give you sort of an idea and some reflections on where things are headed now based on the trajectory of astrology
Astrology starts here in ancient mesopotamia which is the term used to refer to the geographical area that roughly coincides with what is today modern day iraq so it's the area around the tigris and the euphrates rivers in between them and when where they converge so for all intents and purposes the history of western astrology starts here in mesopotamia about 4 000 years ago and what happened is that at some point around 2000 bce give or take the basic premise
astrology was formulated in mesopotamia so this is a translation from a much later text from cuneiform known as the diviners manual that was translated by francesca roschberg who's a historian who specializes in ancient mesopotamian astrology and astronomy and this passage says of the translation of this text says sky and earth together produce omens each separate not divided sky and earth are interconnected a sign which is bad in the sky is bad on earth
A sign which is bad on earth is bad in the sky so this this is basically the fundamental astrological premise and what i mean by that is that astrology posits that there's a correlation between celestial movements and things that happen in the sky and earthly events so for example in mesopotamia one of the things that they focused on was for example if there is an eclipse in a certain part of the sky and a king dies or if there's a certain eclipse in a different part of the sky and there's a plague
Astrology can act as signs or omens of the events that are either happening on earth in the present or that will happen in the future and this is part of the premise of astrology that was really formulated during this time so mundane astrology developed around by at least 1500 bce so there may be evidence that it came together a little bit earlier from about 2000 bce but we definitely have records where the mesopotamian astrologers started to write down observations of omens
Astrology were recorded as conditional statements where it was put in the framing of x if x then y so for example if there is an eclipse in this part of the sky then the king will die or if there's an eclipse in this part of us the sky a foreign enemy will invade the country or what have you so a basic if this then this type statement so the mesopotamian astrologers began compiling these omens over the course of centuries on these little tiny clay tablets using a wedge shaped language known as cuneiform
Libraries which would be part of the collective sort of knowledge and wisdom of the astrological tradition which would be passed down from generation to generation and from astrologer to astrologer eventually the high point of state state-supported astrology and mesopotamia occurred during the assyrian empire somewhere around let's say 750 bce and at this time astrology was state supported and there were 10 different colleges of astrologers that were all over mesopotamia
whatsApp Us
Call Us
The origins of Naadi astrology as most popularly known, is traced back to Vaitheeswaran Koil, a Hindu temple in Tamil Nadu (India), dedicated to god Shiva.
Tamilnadu (VAIDEESWARAN KOIL)
45/2, Opp. Railway Station, Sirkali Taluk,
Sri Vaideeswaran Koil, Naagai District,
Tamilnadu, Pincode: 609117, India
