Astrology: Its Worldview & Implications

By Joseph Howard Tyson

J. H. Tyson writes that astrology is neither a science nor pseudoscience. It falls into the category of crafts which somehow work, though science can’t fathom why. In that respect it resembles acupuncture and Feng Shui (the Chinese art of proper arrangement.)

Astrology holds that cosmic forces influence us, just as the moon affects the ebb and flow of tides. Since 6,000 B.C. learned astrologers have collaborated on a body of data which links planetary positions at birth with certain human traits.

A birth chart summarizes the native’s personality characteristics and provides an indication as to how that person might fare in various departments of life. Astrologers help clarify clients’ aptitudes with the intention of facilitating their development. Natal charts may be conceived of as blueprints which encourage people to cultivate their strengths, overcome faults, and circumvent avoidable problems.

Tyson’s book outlines the history and principles of astrology, then provides examples of its value by juxtaposing biographical sketches of Napoleon, Theodore Roosevelt, Empress Alexandra of Russia, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and others with their natal charts.

Tyson argues for Earth’s inclusion into astrological theory. This globe under our very feet exerts great influence. He demonstrates how the slower-moving planets (Jupiter-through-Pluto) provide more accurate generational profiles than the “boomer,” gen-x-er, millennial classifications bandied about by pundits. In his chapter on Esoteric Astrology Tyson explains the Sixteen Astrological Ages of Humankind.

Check out J. H. Tyson’s latest book for new insights into the prehistoric art of astrology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663222152

Joseph Howard Tyson

Joseph Howard Tyson graduated from LaSalle University in 1969 with a B.A. in Philosophy, took graduate courses in English at Pennsylvania State University, then served in the U. S. Marine Corps. He has worked in the insurance industry since 1972, and lives in the Philadelphia area. He and his wife have four children and three grandchildren. Tyson has contributed several articles to The Schuylkill Valley Journal. His previous nonfiction books include Penn’s Luminous City (2005), Madame Blavatsky Revisited (2006), Hitler’s Mentor: Dietrich Eckart (2008), The Surreal Reich (2010, World War II Leaders (2011), and Fifty-Seven Years of Russian Madness (2015).

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Copyright © 2021 Joseph Howard Tyson.

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 A Historical Survey of Astrology, 6,000 B.C to 1932 A.D.

Chapter 2 Planets and Aspects

Chapter 3 Astrological Signs, Birth Chart Calculation, and Houses

Chapter 4 Sensitive Points

Chapter 5 Music of the Spheres

Chapter 6 Cook Books and Imponderables

Chapter 7 Twentieth Century Advances

Chapter 8 The Art of Synthesis

Chapter 9 The Life and Horoscope of Napoleon Bonaparte

Chapter 10 The Life & Birth Chart of Theodore Roosevelt

Chapter 11 Two African-American Civil Rights Leaders

Chapter 12 The Natal Charts of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra

Chapter 13 Relocation Charts, Medical Astrology, and Synastry

Chapter 14 Astrological Methods of Prognostication

Chapter 15 Hitler’s Transit Scheme

Chapter 16 Sunrise Charts & Rectifications

Chapter 17 An Astrological Study of Rose Hawthorne

Chapter 18 Esoteric Astrology

INTRODUCTION

This book is a collection of essays, not a comprehensive dissertation on astrology. It contains nothing about horary or electional astrology, and has little information about dwarf planet Chiron, dark moon Lilith, or asteroids Ceres, Juno, Pallas, Vesta, etc. I’ve tried to make the subject matter accessible to intermediate level astrologers, as well as beginners. Fifty years of study and practice have given me some perspective on this subject. The self-appointed mandarins and gatekeepers of astrology may not agree with all of my opinions, but open-minded readers will hopefully find some worthwhile observations in these pages.

Astrology falls into the category of crafts that somehow work, though science can’t fathom why. In that respect it resembles acupuncture, Shiatsu (therapeutic Japanese massage,) and Feng Shui (the Chinese art of proper arrangement.) At the beginning of his book Astrologia (1629,) Tomaso Campanella wrote:

… We show how scientific Astrology is to be separated from the superstitious. By it neither are Divine Providence and power to be overthrown, nor freedom of the human will; and we shall prove that Astrology is partly true knowledge, partly conjecture, and partly supposition, like medicine.¹

Jean Baptiste Morin, author of Astrologica Gallica, also likened astrology to medicine, navigation, politics, and other practical arts. All are crafts dependent on instructed and experienced conjecture.² Morin and Campanella both admitted that astrology, a body of anecdotal folklore and informed surmises, wasn’t 100% correct.

We’ve all heard that there are many paths to God: main highways such as Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Taoism, Theosophy, and Science; then secondary streets like history, art, philosophy, poetry, yoga, genealogy, music, woodworking, and astrology…

Astrology does not pretend to be scientific. Although we may say Jupiter in the 1st house tends to produce a jovial personality, such a result does not occur by causation. The happenstance of one’s birth time is a synchronicity, or meaningful coincidence. Psychologist C. G. Jung viewed synchronicities as messages from the spiritual realm impinging upon our material world. Such resonances as synchronicities, déjà vu, dreams, and the stars’ positions at birth ought to be analyzed because they have transcendent significance.

Astrology bears some resemblance to the inexact science of psychology, which recognizes contradictory behavior, but too often tends to stereotype people as schizophrenics, paranoiacs, kleptomaniacs, psychopaths, etc. Astrology takes incongruous conduct into account as a matter of course. A person with Mars in Aries (energetic, aggressive) may also have Venus in Pisces (sympathetic toward loved ones.) Astrology assumes that we’re paradoxical creatures. Theodore Roosevelt’s young brother Elliott had Sun trine Jupiter, indicating optimism and contentment, but also a Moon-Saturn square, indicative of pessimism and depression. Those two conflicting aspects well described his bipolar personality.

This work’s title alludes to astrology’s worldview and implications. By worldview I mean its inherent philosophy, which boils down to: 1) cosmic forces influence us just as our Moon determines the ebb and flow of tides; and Sun spots affect our weather, radio wave propagation, the stock market, and other phenomena; 2) astrology’s planetary signs, houses, and aspects comprise a theoretical model which captures the nature of earthly existence. A review of planet and house meanings makes it clear that humanity’s characteristics and condition haven’t changed much since ancient times.

Sun: Vitality, life force;

Moon: Habit patterns, cycles, daily life;

Mercury: Mind, speech;

Venus: Love, pleasure, sports, art;

Earth: Material world, reality;

Mars: Competition, war;

Jupiter: Good fortune, comfort;

Saturn: Obstacles, limitations;

Uranus: Innovations, objectives;

Neptune: Spirituality, delusion;

Pluto: Upheaval, revolution.

1st house: The self, identity, physical body;

2nd house: Money, possessions;

3rd house: Rational mentality, communication, siblings;

4th house: Family, home;

5th house: Children, recreation, sports, theater;

6th house: Work, service, health care;

7th house: Marriage, partnership, significant relationships;

8th house: Property of others, estates, finance, taxes;

9th house: Law, higher education, literature, travel;

10th house: Vocation, career;

11th house: Friends, clubs, organizations, aims;

12th house: Mysticism, seclusion, karma, and places of confinement whether prisons, monasteries, or asylums.

The above categories sum up human experience rather neatly.

With me, readers always get a dose of history with their astrology. A few years ago I wrote a book on forensic astrology titled World War II Leaders: A Historical and Astrological Study. It provided mini-biographies of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Josef Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Emperor Hirohito, and Adolf Hitler, along with interpretations of their natal astrology charts. Some of the present work’s chapters follow a similar format, juxtaposing biographical sketches of Napoleon, Theodore Roosevelt, Tsar Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rose Hawthorne with their birth charts. In my view, natal chart interpretations of well-known figures—typically 70-to-80 percent accurate— confirm the essential validity of astrology.

In the mid-20th Century French mathematician Michel Gaquelin conducted statistical studies of athletes, scientists, artists, politicians, and other occupational groups. By some abstruse calculations he deduced that the probability of astrological delineations being due to random chance alone was extremely low—something like 1 in 100,000.

Most dictionaries define the word implications as effects following from assumptions or conditions. Presuming certain facts true leads to inescapable conclusions. For example, astrology’s slower-moving planets (Saturn through Pluto) furnish age group characteristics dissimilar from sociological constructs such as baby boomers, gen-x’ers, millennials, etc. Astrologers’ near-unanimous agreement that stressful aspects (squares, quincunxes, oppositions, etc.) have greater impact than easy ones hints that we earthlings inhabit a purgatorial world. Belatedly recognizing Earth as a planet automatically turns all bundle and bowl astrology charts into buckets. Earth’s long overdue admittance into the astrological mix changes Taurus’s ruler from Venus to Earth, thus altering chart interpretations for everyone with an Ascendant, or planet in Taurus.

For years astrologers such as Alice Bailey, Barbara H. Watters, and Alan Oken have advocated Earth’s inclusion into the astrological canon. I’m simply following their lead, not proposing anything radical. When I first began studying astrology in 1971, texts still stated that Venus ruled both Taurus and Libra. Mars co-ruled Aries and Scorpio. Aquarius was governed by Saturn and Uranus, and Pisces by both Jupiter and Neptune. During Ptolemy’s era, before Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were discovered, astrologers had no choice but to use known bodies in our solar system as sign rulers. Few serious practitioners today believe Mars to be Scorpio’s ruler, Saturn lord of Aquarius, or Jupiter as Pisces’ governor. But we still have one remaining holdover from feudal times. The improbable pairing of Venus with Taurus should end. Refined Venus, patroness of love, beauty, and sensual pleasure resonates much better with Libra than the bull’s sign.

Writing is a learning experience. Authors write introductions last, after discovering what their works-in-progress have revealed. I surprised myself by proving to be a (Saturnine) back-to-basics sort of astrologer, favoring Sun-through-Pluto over unproven novelties such as Chiron, Juno, Pallas, Lilith, Cupido, Ganymede, and all the rest.

Despite condemnation by religious fundamentalists and their secular humanist enemies, astrology still appeals to the public imagination, as evidenced by daily horoscope guides in hundreds of newspapers. It has remained popular since 6,000 BC. Misguided efforts by detractors to suppress the Divine Science will never succeed.

Astrology is color-blind, multi-cultural, ecumenical, gender neutral, and non-judgmental about sexual orientation. It appeals to the rich, middle class, and poor. Devotees include Europeans, Blacks, Asians, Gays, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and members of other faiths. Bigots have failed to suppress it for the last six millennia. Though close-minded religious zealots disparage astrologers, astrology associates organized religions with Jupiter, a fortunate planet linked with piety, benevolence, and learning. Jupiter’s natural house—the 9th—signifies law, order, scholarship, higher education, literature, philosophy, and sensible theological doctrines. Astrology regards conventional denominations to be civilizing influences which have eliminated such barbaric practices as mummification, caste systems, genital mutilation, and human sacrifice. All of the above were sanctioned by tribal cults in the bad old days. Though slow to abjure slavery, the subjugation of women, and pointless religious wars, most mainstream denominations condemn such evils nowadays.

Astrological organizations have adopted moral standards. The International Society for Astrological Research’s guidelines state:

"Never bring harm to a client… Act at all times in the client’s best interests … Respect and support all who seek counsel. Encourage their autonomy … in making their own decisions. .. Never frighten a client with extreme predictions, nor create false hopes, (but emphasize) that every astrological configuration can manifest in a variety of ways …

Maintain appropriate and clear boundaries with clients. … whether … sexual, financial, or emotional. … Constantly improve your astrological expertise. … Familiarize yourself with this code (of conduct,) and cooperate with ISAR’s ethics committee if you are ever named in a complaint. … Enhance astrology’s image by always acting properly, and behaving in a manner that brings credit to the profession."³

A natal astrology delineation summarizes the subject’s personality traits, and provides an indication as to how that person might fare in various departments of life—such as the spheres of family-home-country (4th house,) marriage, partnerships, and close relationships (7th house,) and career or vocation (10th house.) Astrologers point out clients’ aptitudes with the intention of furthering their development. They identify inborn psychological characteristics, and warn of pitfalls likely to be encountered. Birth charts may be conceived of as blueprints which encourage people to cultivate strengths, overcome faults, and circumvent problems.

Tabloid pop astrology columns, based on Sun signs only, deal in half-truths. Seekers following the Dao (Way) of Astrology require more detailed road maps to actualize their higher selves. Spiritually advanced natives understand that difficulties symbolized by bad aspects of Saturn can lead to self-improvement. They realize that the drives of an afflicted Venus in Scorpio should be resisted in order to avoid karmic debt. Pursuing the path indicated by a well-aspected Neptune in the 10th house may lead to salvation—even though it seems impractical from a materialistic standpoint.

J. H. Tyson

Lansdowne, PA

April, 2021

Endnotes

¹ Jim Tester, A History of Western Astrology, Boydell & Brewer Ltd., Martelsham, Suffolk, UK, 1987, p. 213.

² Ibid., p. 237.

³ International Society for Astrological Research website, isarastrology.org.

CHAPTER 1

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A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF ASTROLOGY,

6,000 B.C TO 1932 A.D.

"It is abundantly evident that the motions of

the heavens affect things on Earth."

Plotinus

I

ASTROLOGY IS LITERALLY AND figuratively universal. It studies the universe and has gained widespread acceptance from various cultures. Egyptians, Chaldeans, Brahmans from India, Greeks, Chinese, Celts, and Mayans all developed different versions of this ancient discipline. According to legend Western Astrology emerged from Chaldea, a province of Babylon, sometime prior to 6,000 B.C.

The art of natal chart interpretation existed in some form by 5,000 B.C. Astrologers used planets Sun through Saturn, as well as other visible bodies, to ascertain the personality characteristics and fates of kings. Scholars suspect that the astrological signs originated in Babylon, the houses in Egypt, and aspects in Greece.

Mathematician, numerologist, astrologer, and musical theorist Pythagoras of Samos (570 B.C. – 495 B.C.) realized that all heavenly bodies, including Earth, were globes. Influenced by eastern thought and the Orphic mystery religion, he employed numerology to interpret aspects, the fortunate and unlucky distances between heavenly bodies.

Aristarchus of Samos (310 - 230 B.C.,) a geographer and astronomer, accurately estimated Earth’s size, correctly observed the ecliptic’s obliquity, and postulated the heliocentric theory that Earth revolved around the Sun, rather than vice versa. Aristarchus, or one of his contemporaries, incorporated pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles’ four-element theory (fire, earth, air, water) into astrological lore.

Around 280 B.C. Babylonian astrologer Berosus moved to the Island of Kos off present-day Turkey’s coast and set up a practice there. Star-gazers in Greece, Rome, and Egypt fused his divinatory Eastern astronomy with their own Euclidian and Pythagorean system.

Hipparchus of Nicea (190 B.C. – 120 B.C.,) reputed inventor of trigonometry, catalogued more than 1,000 fixed stars, devised a method for predicting solar and lunar eclipses, discovered precession of the equinoxes, and agreed with Aristarchus of Samos that Earth traveled around the Sun.

Present day astrologers have a propensity to claim all pre-Copernican astronomers as fellow astrologers. In my opinion geniuses Hipparchus and Aristarchus more closely fit the mold of pre-scientific scientists, who looked askance at Chaldean fortunetellers.

Archeologists have dated the first Greek horoscopes which took natives’ birth moment into account at 70 B.C. That advance spawned the concepts of an Ascendant and the astrological houses. The Greeks might have borrowed those notions from Egyptian and Indian astrology which recognized constellation mansions hundreds of years earlier.

Over the centuries astrologers have been persecuted, even martyred. Praetor Cornelius kicked all Chaldeans out of Rome in 139 B.C. Political unrest flared up whenever star-gazers predicted misfortune for an emperor. Although Caesar Augustus ordered the goat-fish symbol of his Capricorn sun sign engraved on coins, and consulted astrologers himself, he issued an edict outlawing his subjects from doing so. Astrology became a hazardous profession. Roman authorities exiled its practitioners from the city no less than six times during the 1st Century A.D.

Augustus (63 B.C. – 14 A.D.) and Nero (37 – 68 A.D.,) had their court astrologers. Emperor Claudius (10 B.C. – 54 A.D.) was an accomplished astrologer in his own right, who banished fellow practitioners from Rome during his reign.

Sylla was Caligula’s favorite astrologer. Selenus advised Vespasian. Appolonius provided counsel to Titus and Nerva. Nero dabbled in astrology himself and regularly consulted Thracyllus. According to Suetonius, Emperor Tiberius tested Thracyllus by inviting him to his cliff-side villa on the island of Capri and asked him: What do the stars promise you in the near future? Tracyllus allegedly replied: Sire, my planets warn me that I am in the gravest danger! According to this anecdote, Tiberius smiled and said: You are indeed a wise man, for I had intended to have you thrown this very night from the rocks of Capri.¹

Educated Roman citizens generally studied Greek works about astrology, rather than the superficial pop astrology written in Latin. However, noble Roman citizen Marcus Manilius wrote the long poem Astronomica which preserved much of 1st Century Rome’s astrological knowledge. Though he provided the first detailed explanation of the houses (then called temples,) archeologists have found Roman horoscopes with houses dating back to 20 B.C.

Rome’s iteration of astrology has come down to us, as exemplified by our major planets’ names. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were all Roman deities.

Circa 140 A.D. Hellenistic-Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer Claudius Ptolemy (100 – c. 170 A.D.) published his treatises Almagest and Tetrabiblios in Alexandria, Egypt, then a Roman colony. Tetrabiblios endured as astrology’s standard textbook for the next 1,700 years.

Though Tetrabiblios presents some original material, most of it is a systematic compilation of previously known astrological principles, as enunciated by Pythagoras, Aristarchus, Nechepso-Petosiris (alleged collaboration between Pharoah Nechepso and high-priest/astrologer Petosiris,) Antiochus, Dorotheus Sidonius, Manilius, and others. Ptolemy infused Aristotelian philosophical concepts into Tetrabiblios, and adopted a geocentric view of our solar system. Astrologers excuse this error on the grounds that Earth is the center of the universe from our perspective. Hence, the geocentric point of view works for the purpose of chart interpretation.

Vettius Valens (120 – c. 175 A.D.) was a younger contemporary of Ptolemy, who lived most of his adult life in Alexandria. His Anthology (172 pages of single-spaced script) reveals actual astrological practice in 2nd Century Egypt, minus theories used by system-builder Ptolemy, such as triplicities (cardinal, fixed, and mutable,) quadruplicities (fire, air, earth, and water signs,) etc. 125 of Vettius’s horoscopes survive. In the Anthology he mentions eminent astrologers such as Teucer of Babylon and Critodemus, who would otherwise be completely forgotten. In that book, Vettius invoked the hermetic code:

"I abjure you, most honored brother, and all those being initiated into this … art… to keep all these things hidden, and not to share them with the uninstructed, except those who are worthy and able to guard and receive them rightly… Concerning this book, … an oath should be required of all (who read it.) … to accept what they (learn) guardedly…

as if it belonged to the mysteries."²

Astrology, which absorbed Babylonian omen literature and Pythagorean number magic into its very fabric, fashioned part of the gnostic tradition. The word gnostic means knowledge; hermetic means sealed or secret. Sacred knowledge must only be passed on to fellow initiates, and concealed from the unwashed masses.

Alexandria’s hermetic fraternity did not want its criminal class using astrology for nefarious purposes. Though this sounds elitist to modern ears, even our own liberal culture has seen a shift toward privacy and cyber security. Psychopathic trolls and hackers, who care nothing about karmic consequences, come closer each year to ruining the internet for everyone. All of us guard our social security numbers, passwords, financial data, and medical records. Governments must constantly block enemies from stealing state secrets.

Vettius Valens reflected Alexandrine-Hellenistic culture, epitomized by mythical magus Hermes Trismegistus. The name of this fictional figure translates as thrice-great Hermes. However, its recondite meaning refers to Alexandria’s syncretism of Greek and Egyptian mystery religions—the combination of Greek god Hermes (patron of communication between the mundane and supernatural worlds) and Egyptian deity Thoth (patron of wisdom, science, and magic.)

3rd Century Neoplatonists expanded upon the mystical ideas propounded in Plato’s Timaeus. Plotinus (205 – 270 A.D.,) author of The Enneads, resided in Alexandria, where he studied both philosophy and astrology. His disciple Porphyry devised astrology’s Porphyrian System of House Division. Despite his fascination with astrology, Plotinus faulted it for oversimplifying Divine Providence and casting doubt upon free will. Yet Porphyry attested to Plotinus’s astrological expertise. He once read my intention … to kill myself in the stars, and dissuaded me from doing so.³ Two other Neoplatonic philosophers—Proclus and Iamblichus—were also well-versed in astrology.

Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the state religion of Rome in 313 A.D. Roman Catholic popes and bishops condemned gnostic paganism, but copied its ceremonial magic, temples, altars, statuary, high hats, vestments, chalices, and holy days. To some the Church’s veneration of Blessed Virgin Mary and practice of canonizing saints resembled polytheism.

The mighty Roman Empire began to crumble after Constantine’s death in 337 A.D. To strengthen centralized authority the Church imposed discipline on its hierarchy, and enforced uniformity of belief.

Catholicism maintained an ambivalent attitude toward astrology. In 120 A.D. Jerusalem’s diocese excommunicated a man named Aquila for continuing to practice astrology after being baptized. By the late 4th Century repressing error became more important than promulgating truth. In short order the Church banned and punished such heresies as Manicheism. Arianism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. Initiated Gnostics with those beliefs sought knowledge from pagan sources outside the Church, and scorned the watered down pabulum priests doled out to the multitudes.

Church fathers identified astrology with disagreeable aspects of pre-Christian Rome. They did not like the fact that planets were named after false gods. St. Augustine disapproved of astrology’s fatalism, which seemed to contradict the doctrines of free will and divine grace. He believed astrology deified Fortune, a fickle pagan goddess, who favored the unworthy and delighted in usurping the place of God. Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and other Christian theologians sought to preserve the principle of free will because that made humans and the devil responsible for evil, not God. They believed that God never intended to create bloody tyrants, serial killers, or child molesters. The misdeeds of those malefactors stemmed from their own free will, in defiance of God and His Commandments.

Actually, astrology does not deny free will. Most astrologers acknowledge that freedom of choice hinders accurate personality profiling and forecasting. The liberty of individuals to choose between right and wrong relegates astrology into the category of an inexact discipline. An old saw has it that the stars impel rather than compel.

Neoplatonic philosopher/astrologer Iamblichus believed sidereal influences only affected humans’ animal natures. St. Thomas Aquinas averred: The wise man is master of the stars, inasmuch as he is master of his passions.⁴ Aquinas’s teacher, Albertus Magnus, had written the dissertation Speculum Astronomiae (1260) which argued against astrological determinism, while maintaining that astrology could help us live in accordance with Christian principles. We can rise above feral urges by means of education and God’s grace. The more advanced a soul, the less subject it will be to hedonism, blind fate, and astrological determinism.

Astrologers in Constantinople studied Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblios, as well as The Heavenly Hierarchies and Astrologia Codici. Although Byzantium boasted of such eminent astrologers as Paulus Alexandrinus, Firmicus Maternus, and Hephaiston in the latter part of the 4th Century, a reaction occurred in 409 A.D. when emperors Honorius and Theodosius ordered astrologers to burn their books before an assembly of bishops. Fortunately, this barbarism ended. By 480 Julian of Laodicea refined horary astrology and Rhetorius wrote detailed interpretations for all our solar system’s planets’ possible sign and house positions.

While Europe lapsed into feudal stasis during the Dark Ages (roughly 476 to 1,401 A.D.,) Muslim scribes conserved ancient astrological texts and developed new theories. According to tradition, Arabian astrologer Eukeaz calculated Mohammed’s chart shortly after his birth in 571 A.D. and predicted that he would grow up to be a great religious leader. In the 8th Century Caliph Al-Manum directed his linguists to translate Ptolemy into Arabic, more than two hundred years before Western European scholars rendered it into Latin. Al-Kindi (770 – 886?) wrote a thesis on magic and astrology entitled De Radiis. His pupil Abu Mashar (787 – 886) published Flores Astrologiae which outlined the effects of planetary transits and explained such Arabian contributions to medical astrology as hylegs (lords of life) and anaretic points (degrees signifying injury or disease.) Circa 900 A.D. Al-Battani (858 – 929) of Syria corrected some of Ptolemy’s miscalculations with respect to planetary motion and the ecliptic’s angle.

Between 1120 and 1176 European scholars such as Abelard of Bath, Plato of Tivoli, Herman of Carintha, Rudolf of Bruges, Gerard of Cremona, and John of Seville translated Ptolemy from Greek into Latin. By 1200 the Divine Science flowered again in Europe. Priests and monks mastered the subject. Popes, kings, and queens patronized astrologers. Artists adorned stained glass cathedral windows with astrological symbols. Several universities established chairs of astrology. At the University of Bologna, the professor of astrology taught a four year course. His duties included answering … enquiries from students within a month of being asked, and publishing an almanac each year.⁵

During the Middle Ages Spanish Jews made important advances. Isaac Ibn Sid, a rabbi who lived in Toledo, calculated the Alfonsine Tables under King Alfonso X’s patronage in 1252. This manual standardized the methods for computing planetary motions. The most celebrated astrologer in 13th Century Spain was Abraham Ibn Ezra of Barcelona, who fine-tuned the theory of electional astrology and wrote two medieval classics, The Book of the World and Sentences of the Constellations. (Electional astrology determines propitious times for initiating projects.)

But some regions were less tolerant of astrology than others. In 1277 Archbishop of Paris Stephen Tempier censured six astrological propositions under pain of mortal sin and excommunication:

"That fate … proceeds not immediately from Divine Providence, but from the mediation of heavenly bodies…. Different (astrological) signs signify different conditions in men, both of their spiritual gifts and temporal affairs. … In the hour of begetting a man’s body, and consequently his soul… there will be a disposition inclining him to certain actions and events. …

That anyone attribute health, sickness, life, or death to the stars (rather than God.) That our will is subject to the power of heavenly bodies.

That stars (override) a person’s free will."⁶

Tempier’s redundant condemnation boils down to this: people commit the mortal sin of heresy if they believe astrology takes precedence over either God’s power or humans’ free will.

Ignorant dogmatists have never succeeded in repressing astrology, but it was not for lack of trying. Because of its participation in The Inquisition, the Dominican Order of priests and monks became known as the dogs of God. In September, 1326 Lambertus De Cingulo, the malevolent Dominican Inquisitor of Bologna, ordered astrologer Cecco D’Ascoli to desist from teaching astrology, burn his books, and repent publicly. D’Ascoli attempted to continue his occult researches privately—including rectified natal charts of Jesus, and predictions about the Antichrist’s arrival. Those projects became known after Dominican agents barged into his home and searched it one day during the summer of 1327. Soon thereafter De Cingulo sentenced Cecco to death in a star chamber proceeding, and ordered him burned at the stake on September 16, 1327.

Yet astrology prospered in other areas. Some of Europe’s prominent astrologers during The Renaissance were:

…Guido Bonatti, a 13th Century Italian who wrote Astromaniae Tractatus, and counseled several princes and popes. Dante disparaged Guido because of his affiliation with the Ghibbelines, and thus placed him in The Inferno’s 8th circle of hell.

… Johann Muller (a.k.a. "Regiomantanus, 1436 – 1476,) of Nuremburg, invented a new system of house division. He died of Bubonic Plague in Rome while advising Pope Sixtus IV.

… Paracelsus (1490 – 1541,) a Swiss doctor, herbalist, and magician who used his extensive astrological knowledge for medical purposes.

… Jean Baptiste Morin (1583 – 1656,) a physician, mathematician, and court astrologer to the Bishop of Boulogne, King Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu, Cardinal Mazarin, Queen Marie of Poland, and Pope Urban VIII. He wrote his monumental, 850 page Astrologica Gallica (1661) in Latin, which dealt with natal, predictive, electional, and meteorological astrology. An argumentative conservative, Morin bickered with Galileo, Descartes, and King Louis XIII’s committee on the longitude problem.

… Dr. John Dee (1527 – 1608), astrologer to England’s Queen Elizabeth I, also practiced in the court of Rudolf II of Bohemia, where he conferred with Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. Dee was an ardent Rosicrucian, and friend of Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, Crown Treasurer Sir Robert Cecil, poet Sir Philip Sidney, and fellow astrologer Robert Fludd.

… Tomaso Campanella (1568 – 1639,) a renegade Dominican priest from Calabria who worked for Pope Urban VII and wrote Astrologia (1629,) which claimed to be an orthodox Roman Catholic treatment of astrology. His fellow dogs of God disagreed. He would repeatedly fall afoul their Gestapo unit in the coming years. Born in southern Italy, he entered a Dominican seminary at age fifteen, most likely at the insistence of his family. Campanella soon became more interested in astrology than soporific Church theology. By the mid-1590’s he tried to found a utopian colony (City of the Sun) on the Mediterranean coast. For that infraction his religious superiors imprisoned Tomaso and tortured him on the rack. He escaped execution by feigning insanity. The Dominicans later arrested him