Astrology First Cultivated by Farmers in 3rd Century B.C.

Astrology, defined as the study of correlations between human nature or events and the positions of the sun, moon and planets, dates to the 3rd Century BC, evolving from agricultural uses, for planting crops, to predictions about people’s lives.

Originally astrology and astronomy, the study of the universe beyond the Earth, were one discipline, but split as astronomy became a purely objective science. Astrology uses subjective reasoning, and is described by Sydney Omarr as more a “scientific art.”

“I call it a science,” said Bernice Bede Osol. “I do not call it a pseudoscience because it is, first, based on mathematics. And it’s based on nature’s cycles. We, being part of nature, partake in this. Astrology . . . follows a cyclical pattern. There isn’t any guesswork.”

Astrological predictions are based on a “horoscope,” a circular chart showing the positions of the planets at the exact time, date and in relation to the place an individual was born. Each of the planets, their locations and distances from each other are said to affect a person’s personality and motivations. The timing of events in people’s lives, the theory goes, can be forecast by comparing the current positions of heavenly bodies with those on the birth chart.

The ancients believed that the Earth was stationary and the sun moved around it. The horoscope chart, then and still, is drawn as a circle, symbolizing the sun’s apparent path through the heavens during the year. The circle is known as the “zodiac,” from the Greek for “circle of animals.”

The ancients also divided the horoscope chart like a year, into 12 divisions or “signs,” probably patterned after the number of the moon’s cycles. The sign in which the sun appears at the time of one’s birth is the sun sign.

Astrology column writers mass-produce their predictions, in effect, by charting the horoscopes of sun signs instead of individuals, and it is a practice widely criticized by other astrologers as too generalized.

Joyce Jillson defended the practice, saying: “The sun is the light of the horoscope, the ego, the major part of a chart. It’s not as exact as doing an individual chart, but it shows the general trends.”

To forecast this way, the column writers say they do a daily chart for each sign, using an almanac of daily planetary positions, and then interpret how those positions might affect people born under that sign.

Omarr and Jeane Dixon said they add to this some techniques of numerology, a branch of the occult dealing with the significance of numbers. Dixon said she also “meditates” on each sign “to see what I pick up psychically. And then, I think I have the degree of the 10th planet (as yet undiscovered) and I use that.”