History of Astrology
Introducing History of Astrology
What to do when Mercury is in the microwave, and why we’ll still care in 2023
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What’s your sign?
Astrology is everywhere, from #Witchtok to street fashion and office coffee chats. Its rotations and retrogrades ebb and flow — as does its popularity.
But why is this wheel of the year so popular right now? Why do we care whether our best friend is a fish-goat or a contemplative set of scales? Where does this version of the zodiac come from? Does it help us better understand ourselves?
In this new series, we’ll dive into the history behind each of the zodiac signs, explore popular perceptions from Capricorn to Sagittarius, and try to understand why we still care about star stuff in 2023.
Let’s begin with a short dive into the history of the zodiac, and its journey from mathematics to the occult.
Setting boundaries
Let’s pause for a moment to note that Astrology is at best a system of beliefs and at least a cultural phenomenon, akin to choosing your favorite Hogwarts house. “Is not a science; there’s no evidence that one’s zodiac sign correlates to personality. But the system has its own sort of logic,” writes Julie Beck for The Atlantic.
What practicing astrology does is give us some insight into our personalities and how we might manage our less appealing traits. Tauruses tend to be stubborn? Learn to let things go. Is Mercury in retrograde? Try beefing up your communication skills.
Beck also argues that individuals — particularly younger Gen Xers, Millenials, and Gen Z — turn to astrology when the world seems to be spiraling out of control. That’s been happening a lot lately.
But where is this age-old system of belief coming from? What does it have to do with magic and the occult? And why do we care about a small ring of constellations in the sky thousands of years later?
A short history of astrology
Astrology is OLD. The 12 symbols of the zodiac trace back to Mesopotamia around 3000 BCE. Babylonians created the first zodiac wheel, such as the one pictured at the top of this article.
Astrology picked up much of its flair from later Greek, Egyptian and Islamic traditions. It has also been used in Jewish traditions and condemned by the church. Astrology hit a sharp decline during the Inquisition and Enlightenment when first religious and then scientific beliefs forced divination into the shadows. But astrology’s long history helps explain why belief in the zodiac is so widespread across different cultures.
In 140 CE, Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos explained the basics of astrology that we still use today, including correspondences between planets, zodiac signs, and houses. Two schools of astrology fought for attention. One focused on mathematical theories to determine the workings of the universe, while the other turned to magic to make predictions.
We know most of this history from idea transfer between Arabia and the Western World in the Middle Ages, as well as historical accounts by Early Modern European and Central Asian literaries.
According to UNESCO, “Throughout much of history, and up until the 17th century, astrology was considered an academic discipline across much of Eurasia… commonly accepted in political and cultural circles with astrological concepts applied in other fields including alchemy, meteorology, and traditional medicine.” Even Galileo, the physicist-astronomer who improved telescope designs and first explained gravity, believed in astrology.
This means that a lot of really smart people were charting the sky hundreds of years ago. And while we might argue today that astrology is nothing more than a passing trend, all that attention focused on the skies led to some important discoveries in geometry, inventions like the astrolabe, and cross-cultural communication across the Silk Road.
Even if you don’t believe in the zodiac, people relied on the shifting skies for many years. That’s shaped our perspective — and our magic.
Is astrology considered a type of magic?
The answer is yes, but there’s more.
Magical practices during the Renaissance predicted that celestial movements could affect our lives down here on Earth. This makes sense if you think about the changing seasons: the sky looks very different in winter than it does in seasons of abundance.
But from here it gets trickier. The planets also corresponded to different Greek and Roman deities — Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn. The Christain church naturally didn’t like this, and so it cast astrology and other forms of magic as demonic arts.
Yet at a time when natural science couldn’t explain why people got sick or why some herbs healed otherwise fatal diseases, magic was as good a guess as any.
There’s a lot more history tying astrology to occult beliefs that we won’t dive into here. But all of this information is stuck in the past. We know why some herbs improve our health, and why storms eventually pass. We know how to treat terrible diseases. We go to the doctor and don’t usually consult an astrologer when we’re sick.
So why do we still care about astrology today?
Modern Magic
Astrology became popular during the New Age movement of the 1970s, and it’s recently made a comeback in the 21st century.
There’s a lot of occultist history that led to the rise of astrology in the ‘70s, but it’s important to know that occult practices like divination, yoga, and astrology were mixed during this time to give practitioners new tools for taking control of their lives. That desire for control isn’t so different from what inspired the current astrology boom.
We may have already reached Peak Astrology. There are queer astrology and apps that will tell you what stars align with your big three signs this week. There are astrological correspondences in tarot. Need I remind you that we are currently in the Age of Aquarius? Witchcraft and divination are having a moment. Astrology is a bustling business. And it’s doing extremely well.
The limitations of astrology
As with all cultural phenomena, we need to be careful and acknowledge the limitations of astrology. There’s a danger in believing your fate is sealed in the stars, a dark side to unchecked profit-driven advice. There’s the Zodiac Killer and Ted Bundy, who allegedly started conversations with his victims by asking what their astrological sign was.
The danger in astrology is not that it’s demonic or overwhelmingly woo-woo. It’s that like all tools, we need to make sure that astrology isn’t used to swindle or dupe impressionable internet users into following QAnon conspiracies.
Like all tools, astrology can be used for evil.
But so too can a knife.
So… does it work?
With strained political landscapes, a global pandemic, and the looming threat of climate change, the future looks bleak.
American Psychological Association data from 2017 shared that 63 percent of Americans were significantly stressed about their country’s future, with Millennials reporting the highest levels of stress. And this “combination of stress and uncertainty about the future is an ailment for which astrology can seem like the perfect balm,” suggests Beck.
What better way to balance these stressors than manifesting better solutions to the crises around us, or at least manifesting a better future for ourselves? Of course, manifestation has its limits. But we don’t necessarily have to 100% believe in manifestation to start making choices that lead us in a better direction.
And while there’s no evidence that one’s zodiac sign correlates to personality, you can tell a lot about a person based on how they feel about astrology.
I don’t care about what the sky looked like the moment you were born or how many Scorpios you have in your astrological chart. I care about what you think your zodiac sign says about your personality and how that affects your behavior.
I care about whether you think astrology is nonsense and how you treat my interest in occult history. I care whether you can respect my interests, even if you don’t share this fascination yourself.
And so if Mercury is in the microwave, I will respect that so long as you still try to communicate despite hangovers, hardships, or heavenly obstructions.
And I’ll look to the stars, if only to believe that there’s hope for the future a little further along in our astrological charts.
