Download or read book A Brief History of Ancient Astrology written by Roger Beck and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brief History of Ancient Astrology explores the theory and practice of astrology from Babylon to Ancient Greece and Rome and its cultural and political impact on ancient societies. Discusses the union between early astrology and astronomy, in contrast to the modern dichotomy between science and superstition. Explains the ancient understanding of the zodiac and its twelve signs, the seven planets, and the fixed circle of 'places' against which the signs and planets revolve. Demonstrates how to construct and interpret a horoscope in the ancient manner, using original ancient horoscopes and handbooks. Considers the relevance of ancient astrology today.
Download or read book Ancient Astrology written by Tamysn Barton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-11 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of astrology from its beginnings in Mesopotamia, focusing on the Greco-Roman world, Ancient Astrology examines the theoretical development and changing social and political role of astrology.
Download or read book Astrology through History written by William E. Burns and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-07-20 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alphabetically arranged entries cover the history of astrology from ancient Mesopotamia to the 21st century. In addition to surveying the Western tradition, the book explores Islamic, Indian, East Asian, and Mesoamerican astrology. The field of astrology is growing rapidly, as historians recognize its centrality to the intellectual life of the past and sociologists and anthropologists treat its importance in a number of modern cultures. Despite the historical and cultural significance of the subject, most reference works on astrology focus on instructional techniques and are written by astrologers with little or no interest in the history of the topic. This book instead offers an objective treatment of astrology across world history from ancient Mesopotamia to the present. The book provides alphabetically arranged entries by expert contributors writing on such topics as horoscopes, court astrologers, Renaissance astrology, and comets. While it considers the Western tradition, it also treats Islamic, Indian, East Asian, and Mesoamerican astrology. In doing so, it explores the role of astrology in shaping science, literature, religion, art, and other defining cultural traditions. Sidebars offer excerpts from various historical texts, while entries provide suggestions for further reading.
Download or read book A History of Horoscopic Astrology written by James H. Holden and published by American Federation of Astr. This book was released on 2006 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thoroughly researched book is a history of the development of Western horoscopic astrology from its origin among the Babylonians and its subsequent creation in its present form by the Alexandrians down to modern times. Special attention is given to background history and to the working conditions and techniques used by astrologers during the last two thousand years. Numerous footnotes provide additional information and bibliographic references. A separate bibliography lists reference sources of particular importance. Two comprehensive indices containing more than 2,800 individual entries enable the reader to locate persons, publishers, topics, and book and periodical titles that are mentioned in the history. The book also contains discussions of several questions and topics relating to astrology. James Herschel Holden is Research Director of the American Federation of Astrologers and has been especially interested in the history of astrology.
Download or read book Early Christianity and Ancient Astrology written by Tim Hegedus and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2007 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Original Scholarly Monograph
Download or read book Hellenistic Astrology written by Chris Brennan and published by Amor Fati Publications. This book was released on 2017-02-10 with total page 696 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hellenistic astrology is a tradition of horoscopic astrology that was practiced in the Mediterranean region from approximately the first century BCE until the seventh century CE. It is the source of many of the modern traditions of astrology that still flourish around the world today, although it is only recently that many of the surviving texts of this tradition have become available again for astrologers to study. Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune is one of the first comprehensive surveys of this tradition in modern times. The book covers the history, philosophy, and techniques of ancient astrology, with a special focus on demonstrating how many of the fundamental concepts underlying the practice of western astrology originated during the Hellenistic period.
Download or read book The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy written by James Evans and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-10-01 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy combines new scholarship with hands-on science to bring readers into direct contact with the work of ancient astronomers. While tracing ideas from ancient Babylon to sixteenth-century Europe, the book places its greatest emphasis on the Greek period, when astronomers developed the geometric and philosophical ideas that have determined the subsequent character of Western astronomy. The author approaches this history through the concrete details of ancient astronomical practice. Carefully organized and generously illustrated, the book can teach readers how to do real astronomy using the methods of ancient astronomers. For example, readers will learn to predict the next retrograde motion of Jupiter using either the arithmetical methods of the Babylonians or the geometric methods of Ptolemy. They will learn how to use an astrolabe and how to design sundials using Greek and Roman techniques. The book also contains supplementary exercises and patterns for making some working astronomical instruments, including an astrolabe and an equatorium. More than a presentation of astronomical methods, the book provides a critical look at the evidence used to reconstruct ancient astronomy. It includes extensive excerpts from ancient texts, meticulous documentation, and lively discussions of the role of astronomy in the various cultures. Accessible to a wide audience, this book will appeal to anyone interested in how our understanding of our place in the universe has changed and developed, from ancient times through the Renaissance.
Download or read book Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice written by Demetra George and published by . This book was released on 2022-04-20 with total page 698 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice provides the complete foundations and detailed dynamics of ancient chart-reading techniques. Each volume and each technique is richly illustrated with diagrams, example charts, and practical exercises.
Download or read book A Scheme of Heaven The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data written by Alexander Boxer and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-01-14 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illuminating look at the surprising history and science of astrology, civilization’s first system of algorithms, from Babylon to the present day. Humans are pattern-matching creatures, and astrology is the universe’s grandest pattern-matching game. In this refreshing work of history and analysis, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines classical texts on astrology to expose its underlying scientific and mathematical framework. Astrology, he argues, was the ancient world’s most ambitious applied mathematics problem, a monumental data-analysis enterprise sustained by some of history’s most brilliant minds, from Ptolemy to al-Kindi to Kepler. Thousands of years ago, astrologers became the first to stumble upon the powerful storytelling possibilities inherent in numerical data. To correlate the configurations of the cosmos with our day-to-day lives, astrologers relied upon a “scheme of heaven,” or horoscope, showing the precise configuration of the planets at a particular instant in time as viewed from a particular place on Earth. Although recognized as pseudoscience today, horoscopes were once considered a cutting-edge scientific tool. Boxer teaches us how to read these esoteric charts—and appreciate the complex astronomical calculations needed to generate them—by diagramming how the heavens appeared at important moments in astrology’s history, from the assassination of Julius Caesar as viewed from Rome to the Apollo 11 lunar landing as seen from the surface of the Moon. He then puts these horoscopes to the test using modern data sets and statistical science, arguing that today’s data scientists do work similar to astrologers of yore. By looking back at the algorithms of ancient astrology, he suggests, we can better recognize the patterns that are timeless characteristics of our own pattern-matching tendencies. At once critical, rigorous, and far ranging, A Scheme of Heaven recontextualizes astrology as a vast, technological project—spanning continents and centuries—that foreshadowed our data-driven world today.
Download or read book A History of Western Astrology written by S. J. Tester and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 1987 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Superb general account.' Times Literary Supplement The story of the history of Western astrology begins with the philosophers of Greece in the 5th century BC. To the magic and stargazing of Egypt the Greeks added numerology, geometryand rational thought. The philosophy of Plato and later of the Stoics made astrology respectable, and by the time Ptolemy wrote his textbook the Tetrabiblos, in the second century AD, the main lines of astrological practice as it is known today had already been laid down. In future centuries astrology shifted to Islam only to return to the West in medieval times where it flourished until the shift of ideas during the Renaissance.
Download or read book From the Omens of Babylon written by Michael Baigent and published by Penguin Mass Market. This book was released on 1994 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Omens of Babylon examines the fusion of religion, astrology, and magic of ancient Babylonia and shows how many of the Mesopotamians' teachings and beliefs are present in contemporary astrology.
Download or read book The Fated Sky written by Benson Bobrick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-11-14 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Fated Sky' looks at famous figures and important historical events that were influenced by astrology.
Download or read book Ancient Astrology written by Tamysn Barton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-11-01 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of astrology from its beginnings in Mesopotamia, focusing on the Greco-Roman world, Ancient Astrology examines the theoretical development and changing social and political role of astrology.
Download or read book History of the Zodiac written by Robert Powell and published by Sophia Academic Press. This book was released on 2006-12-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The zodiac was first clearly defined by the Babylonians some 2500 years ago, but until recently the basis of this original definition remained unknown. This zodiac of the Babylonians, known as the sidereal zodiac because it is specified in direct relation to the stars (Latin sideris, 'starry'), was used for centuries throughout the ancient world, all the way to India, and must be distinguished from the tropical zodiac in widespread use by astrologers in the West today, which was introduced only in the middle of the second century A.D. by the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy. Such was Ptolemy's influence, however, that the tropical zodiac gained prominence and, except for its survival (in a variant form) in India, knowledge of the sidereal zodiac was lost. In this thrilling study of the history of the zodiac, first submitted in 2004 as his Ph.D. thesis, Robert Powell rescues the the sidereal zodiac from the dusts of time, tracing it back to the Babylonians in the sixth/fifth centuries B.C. The implications of this discovery-among them the restitution of the sideral zodiac to its rightful place at the heart of astrology-are immense, they key point being that the signs of the sidereal zodiac, each thirty degrees long, coincide closely with the twelve astronomical constellations of the same name, whereas the signs of the tropical zodiac, since they are defined in relation to the vernal point, now have no direct relationship to the corresponding zodiacal constellations, owing to the precession of the equinoxes.This revolutionary history of the zodiac includes chapters on the Egyptian decans and the Hindu nakshatras, showing how these sidereal divisions, which originated in Egypt and India, are related to the original Babylonian zodiac. It also sheds light on the controversy surrounding the 'zodiac question' (tropical vs. sidereal), illuminating the history of the tropical zodiac-showing that originally it was not a zodiac at all, but a calendar for describing the course of the seasons! This book, the fruit of thirty years of research, is intended not only for scholars but for general readers as well, and offers the clearest and most comprehensive study of the history of the zodiac yet published.
Download or read book Babylonian Horoscopes written by Francesca Rochberg and published by American Philosophical Society. This book was released on 1998 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emerging for the first time in the 5th cent. B.C., horoscopes reflect the application of the idea and practice of celestial divination to the life of the individual. Whereas an omen focuses on a single astronomical phenomenon, the horoscope takes into account the positions of the moon, sun, and five planets at the moment of a birth. As such, Babylonian horoscopes presuppose the concept of the ecliptic and a methodology for obtaining the positions of heavenly bodies when they are not observable. This is the first complete edition of the extant cuneiform horoscopes -- with transcription and philological and astronomical commentary. This study offers a systematic description of the documents as a definable class of Babylonian astronomical/astrological texts.
Download or read book Christian Astrology written by William Lilly and published by Astrology Center of America. This book was released on 2005-03 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named "Christian" to avoid hassles (some things never change), this is the most famous, the most celebrated astrology book in the English language. It has been prized by students ever since its first publication in 1647. The Horary Astrology in these pages, in the hands of a master, is no mere parlour game. It is demanding and precise, combining science and art. Properly used, it will give answer to any well-defined question. William Lilly, famous throughout England for his almanacs & forecasts (he predicted London's Great Fire of 1666), lived during the English Civil War & was a minor historical figure in it. Into his studio came the rich and poor, nobles and commoners, with problems great and small. This new edition restores Lilly's original page layouts, with marginalia. Modern spelling throughout, this edition includes Lilly's bibliography, his original index & a new glossary. Also includes his original woodblock charts, and their modern versions. This is Lilly's great work as he himself knew it. In this volume: Book 1, An Introduction to Astrology, containing the use of an ephemeris; the erecting of a scheme of heaven; nature of the twelve signs of the Zodiac, of the planets; with a most easy introduction to the whole art of astrology. Book 2, The Resolution of All Manner of Questions, by a most methodical way, instructs the student how to judge or resolve all manner of questions contingent unto man, viz, of health, sickness, riches, marriage, preferment, journeys, etc. Some 35 questions inserted and judged.
Download or read book A History of Astronomy written by Anton Pannekoek and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Well-balanced, carefully reasoned study covers such topics as Ptolemaic theory, work of Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Eddington's work on stars, much more. Illustrated. References.
