Astrologers of the past considered astrology to be an art, but it also
has many mathematical and technical elements that do not fit our contemporary
understanding of art. Many contemporary astrologers strive to prove that
astrology is a science — and it was indeed one of the three Great Sciences of
antiquity — however, astrology will never conform to the Procrustean bed of the
contemporary view of what a science entails.
In my understanding, astrology can be defined in a most comprehensible
way as an applied philosophy. Astrology offers a special, cosmic perspective of
the events happening in our lives. It gives the events an orderliness, and
because of this, it can help us to find a solution for a predicament, or —
since astrology provides an understanding of the moving forces behind events —
to make a prognosis.
Traditional astrology has a number of branches, of which the main ones
are discussed in the next section.
The Main Branches of Astrology
Traditional Astrology has three main branches:
Natal Astrology deals
with human life on the level of individuals and its main tool is a person's birth chart
(aka, natal
chart, or the horoscope of birth). These refer to a map of the sky drawn
for the moment of a person's birth as viewed from the birthplace. This branch
also contains synastry,
or the astrology of relationships, as well as astrological healing.
Mundane Astrology
studies the life of large communities of people such as cities, countries, and
nations, as well as the world as a whole. In this branch, we are often unable
to establish the moment of birth of such an entity. After all, when exactly is a
city born? Therefore, some special varieties of astrological charts are used.
This branch also contains political astrology, astrometeorology, financial
astrology, and astrology of business, as well as the smaller branches that
study various cataclysms such as earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, etc.
Judicial Astrology was
almost forgotten by the 20th century and only relatively recently was it
reborn. This is a mysterious branch, which is as far from science as it can be,
and is very close to the ancient magic. The best-known disciplines included in
judicial atrology are horary astrology, where a chart is cast for the moment
when a question was asked, and elective astrology, which teaches how to select
the best possible moment for various humane initiatives.
The Horoscope, aka the Natal Chart
All these branches and disciplines share a common tool, the Horoscope.
A horoscope
is a schematic
picture, or map, of the sky at a specific moment of time as viewed from a
specific location on the Earth. Some examples include: horoscopes
of birth, which are calculated for the moment of people’s births and for their
birth places; horoscopes of important events; or horoscopes of the equinoxes
(vernal or autumnal) calculated for specific locations.
This is exactly where "what is above" joins with "what is
below": the map that depicts the state of the universe is used to
understand a human being, or some other microcosm.
The word horoscope was used, and used properly, for many centuries,
if not thousands of years. Nowadays, however, it is so often and widely misused
by applying it to just any kind of astrological and pseudo-astrological writing
that Western astrologers rarely use it. Instead, the word chart is used:
a natal chart, a chart of a nation, a chart of a Vernal Equinox and so on. I
will be using both terms interchangeably so that readers can begin to have a
clear understanding of where the word "horoscope" truly belongs.
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