Astrological Practice Research Articles

É Astrologia MA non É Astrologo: John Aubrey's Brief Lives and Astrology

This article explores John Aubrey's (1627–1697) extensive use of astrology in his biographical collection Brief Lives (1680–1681), which has been widely celebrated for its vivid portrayal of seventeenth-century English culture and society. Aubrey's life writing was not only informed by his antiquarian pursuits, the vibrant coffee house culture of his time and his lively scientific community, but also by the practice of astrology. Through Aubrey's horoscope collection, Collectio geniturarum (1674–1690), and his correspondence with a wide astrological network, this article traces his deep engagement with the practice. In squarely focusing on these two sources, I argue that Aubrey greatly relied on astrological methods to inform his life writing. In making his collection of horoscopes, Aubrey drew on a long tradition of astrological data gathering. Aubrey's careful collation and calculation of data to verify birth times, identify major life events and determine ‘ingenious’ traits also contributed to a wider effort to reform astrology considering the nascent experimental philosophy. By examining Aubrey's multifaceted astrological writings, this article clarifies one of Aubrey's key techniques used in his early sketches of Brief Lives . More broadly, it further complicates the historical narrative that astrology was largely marginalized in late seventeenth-century English intellectual and scientific communities.

Forbidden Books and Royal Horoscopes: the Practice and Censorship of Astrology in Early Modern Portugal

Abstract In sixteenth-century Lisbon, Aires Vaz and Manuel Rodrigues were summoned to the Inquisition on account of their astrological practices. Records of the trial of Vaz and Rodrigues provide valuable information regarding the training and practice of an astrologer in sixteenth-century Portugal. Prior to this study, however, our knowledge on these matters was scarce and mostly indirect. In this article, we argue that the study of these trial records is crucial to understanding both the practice and the regulation of astrology. Studies on the censorship of astrology usually emphasize the importance of the Roman Index, the Tridentine Rules, and the papal bulls against astrology. By looking at these two trials, this article sheds new light on the application of the Roman rules and allows us to trace the general profile of an astrologer in early modern Portugal.

Persian Garlands of Stars: Islamicate and Indic Astral Sciences in Seventeenth-Century North India

Abstract This paper offers a study of Mullā Farīd and Mullā Ṭayyib, two astronomers active in several North Indian courts in the first half of the seventeenth century. The lives and works of these two brothers illustrate the central role of mathematical astronomy and astrology in the science of the time and its use by Indian Muslim nobility. They also document the familiarity of Indian Muslim scholars with Indic astrology and its practice in Muslim milieux. Mathematical astronomy was very much alive in seventeenth-century Mughal India, and Persian-writing scholars were commenting and revising the astronomical data and mathematics transmitted from the Maragha and Samarqand schools of astronomy. Their intellectual activities are also better understood in the context of the avid interest in occult sciences cultivated by early modern Persianate societies, and more particularly by the Mughal court. Mathematical astronomy was nurtured for the precise purpose of casting horoscopes and creating astrological almanacs. Astrological practices in North-Indian courts, including Delhi, the Mughal imperial capital, were evidently mixed and flavoured with elements from both Islamicate and Indic traditions. Knowledge was widely shared across languages and scientific interests went well beyond religious denominations. Crucially too, the exchange between the Persian and the Sanskrit scholastic worlds was sponsored by Mughal patrons and resulted in scientific translations from one language to the other. A closer reading of Mullā Farīd and Mullā Ṭayyib’s Persian works allows us to see that besides their more classical astronomical works, the two brothers shared a common interest in Indic methods of prognostication, in particular muhūrtaśāstra, the science of electing an auspicious moment to perform a certain action. In this paper, we elucidate an intricate dossier on the “bust hours,” an ancient prognostication method popular with Islamicate astrologers. Identified by Islamicate scholars as coming ultimately from India, the source of many features of Islamicate astrology, these bust hours were reinterpreted on Indian soil by Mullā Farīd and Mullā Ṭayyib in light of their first-hand knowledge of muhūrtaśāstra. In this manner, these bust hours came back full circle to the original Indian prognostication practices.

Jesuits and Astrology: Print versus Manuscript

Abstract Astrology played an important part in early modern European culture, as a fundamental part of both mathematical and astronomical traditions. During the same period, the Society of Jesus built their global educational enterprise, which included a proven expertise in mathematical and astronomical study. Although insufficiently acknowledged in Jesuit historiography, astrology formed an important part of this scientific project. Several Jesuit authors engaged in the study, teaching, and practice of astrology. From the mathematics curriculum of the Roman College to the Jesuit astrology classes in Portugal and Spain, the present article discusses astrology’s presence in early modern Jesuit publications. It examines the discussion of astrology in the Society’s scientific works, highlights the sharp contrast between the printed word and the manuscript tradition, and demonstrates how the latter provides a better guide to the role of astrology as part of Jesuit science.

Health assessment by using medical astrology principles: A community-based survey

Abstract Background: Medical astrology is an extended arm of astrology that helps in understanding the association of various parts of the body, diseases, and disorders with the nature of the sun, moon, planets, and the 12 astrological signs. Despite the extensive availability of astrological literature, research conducted in the field of Vedic Medical astrology remains scarce. The study aimed at providing a general health assessment of participants using astrological principles, thereby implementing statistical analysis to prove the association amongst the same. Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of participants toward medical astrology. Materials and Methods: In this prospective, observational study, the Lagna Kundali of the participants was obtained using Astrosage software. The general health of the participants was assessed by implementing medical astrology principles. Thereby, the participants were interviewed for their pre-existing knowledge, level of satisfaction attained, reliability, and willingness to recommend medical astrology using a set of questionnaire. A study score was devised. Results: A total of 131 participants were interviewed, counseled, and analyzed. The study population had a slight male predominance (51.90%). The average age distribution of the study was 31 years (±10.99 years). The average score of the study was 12.38 (out of 20). On the basis of score evaluation, 46% of the total participants (59) showed a “good” response towards knowledge, attitude, and practice of medical astrology, whereas the remaining showed poor response. The correlation between the age of the participants and their familiarity with medical astrology principles was found to be significant (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The level of satisfaction was found to be very high in the majority of participants. Overall scoring was “good” in nearly half of the participants. We conclude that medicine and astrology, hence, if combined will help medical science and can prove to be a good therapeutic branch in the future. However, a lot of research work should be carried out to ensure advancement of medical astrology.

ECS-Ecrea Early Career Scholar Prize winner - An astrological genealogy of artificial intelligence: From ‘pseudo-sciences’ of divination to sciences of prediction

Algorithmic media have adopted and adapted divinatory practices and vernaculars of prediction, prophecy, probability, fortune-telling and forecasting – suggesting a possible link between artificial intelligence and pre-scientific modes of speculation. Statistical thinking and magical thinking, too, can be recognised as closely correlated epistemological systems for governing societies and ways of life. In fact, primitive astrological practices of looking up at the stars may represent one of the earliest statistical projects involving sophisticated calculations and data sets. Such pattern-making techniques could even be considered precursory to machine learning. As a point of departure for exploring these eclectic relationships between stars and data, magic and machines, I use a media archaeological methodology to question the historical roles of both astrological and computational divination in mediating methods of control, surveillance and knowledge production across transforming societal contexts. This methodology is especially relevant for examining historical narratives in the field of cultural studies as it makes apparent the hyper-connectedness between objects, cultural representation and sites of hegemonic contention. My findings reveal relationships between celestial pattern recognition and efforts to exert control over and manipulate the natural environment and its populations, the historical impact of meteorological and climatological practices for predicting and influencing future events with artificial intelligence, and links between statistics and algorithmic data biases. This article suggests a speculative genealogy of astrology and artificial intelligence, as well as a genealogy of the theological, scientific and machinic unconscious.

The Burmese Hour

This paper utilizes the concept of the "Burmese hour" to approach astrological practices in Burma as being not only distinctive but also historically related to Brahmanical astral sciences. First, the "Burmese hour" is examined as a unit of time: the hour (nārī) of twenty-four minutes, prevalent before the colonial-era introduction of the sexagesimal horometrical system. Focusing on the water clock used at the Burmese court (c. 18th–19th), I investigate the connection between this system of time-reckoning and Brahmanical horometrical techniques in India. Next, the "Burmese hour" is addressed through an opposition to the "Moghul hour" and the "British hour." I examine the different working conditions that Brahmin astrologers from Banaras had at the Burmese court compared with those experienced under other "foreign" rulers in early modern and colonial India. Finally, I argue for a closer dialogue between specialists of Burma and South Asia, beyond area studies divisions. Through this dialogue, I propound that the "Burmese hour" has come. It is time to study Burmese astrological practices as being socially diverse and locally distinctive.

Aries or the Agnus Dei: is the zodiac pagan or Christian in medieval art?

The title for this article is inspired by the questions repeatedly asked by my students, and this study attempts to break the question apart and reconsider the language used to study the zodiac in medieval art. The terms ‘pagan’, ‘Christian’ and ‘Christianising’ are problematic and create misleading binaries, so first I reframed the question by carefully redefining the terms used to describe the zodiac in medieval art. I further refined the query to one central question: Why did the signs of the zodiac, and the constellations generally, persist in their Hellenistic renderings in art and texts into the Christian era and beyond, and not reinvented with more religiously-appropriate signifiers? Drawing from contemporary texts and art, I suggest that there were two cultural forces perpetuating the Hellenistic zodiac: the methods of dissemination of astronomical knowledge from classical sources, and the active creation of zodiacal art. I explore how the folkloric authority of the zodiac signs synergistically combined with the visual arts to stimulate astrological practices. I argue that art production was crucial as an advancing influence and not simply a by-product of a classical inheritance.

Sidereal Astrology in Medieval Europe (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries): Traces of a Forgotten Tradition

Abstract Sets of astronomical tables available in Latin Europe during the Middle Ages can be classified based on whether they imitated Ptolemy in using a tropical zodiac for displaying planetary mean motions or followed an Indian tradition of preferring a sidereal reference frame. While this basic bifurcation in medieval computational astronomy is well known to modern scholars, there has so far been no systematic research concerning its consequences for the practice of astrology in this period. This article makes a first step by documenting cases from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries where Latin astrologers employed the sidereal zodiac for their calculations or expressly recommended its use for astrological purposes. Basing itself on printed sources as well as unpublished manuscript material, it provides evidence that a commitment to sidereal coordinates united several important figures during the early phases of the assimilation of Islamic mathematical astronomy in Latin Europe, but largely disappeared after 1250. As will be argued in the conclusion, this move away from sidereal astrology may possibly be linked to the thirteenth-century emergence of Paris as a major European center for the study of astrology.

Are the Stars Aligned? Matchmaking and Astrology in Early Modern Italy

This essay examines how early moderns used birth horoscopes (genitures) to assess the compatibility of prospective spouses before marriage. Astrologers could probe the horoscope of an individual to investigate his or her present and future physical and moral qualities or compare charts to reveal the personal compatibility of a couple and help establish the best time to consummate their marriage. These practices aimed at ensuring a fruitful marriage and the harmony and happiness of the couple and their families. Focusing on a few key examples, the essay outlines both the astrological theories and the social politics that propelled astrological matching, suggesting that its appeal lay in the promise of informed choice while also preserving free will. Finally, the author suggests ways in which astrological practices and the use of vast amounts of astronomical data share affinities with data-driven matching in our own time.

Sapiens Dominabitur Astris: A Diachronic Survey of a Ubiquitous Astrological Phrase

From the late thirteenth through late seventeenth centuries, a single three-word Latin phrase—sapiens dominabitur astris, or “the wise man will be master of the stars”—proliferated in astrological, theological, philosophical, and literary texts. It became a convenient marker denoting orthodox positions on free will and defining the boundaries of the scientifically and morally legitimate practice of astrology. By combining the methodology of a diachronic historical survey with a microhistorical focus on evolving phraseology, this study argues that closely examining the use of this phrase reveals how debates about the meanings of wisdom, free will, determinism, and the interpretation of stellar influence on human events changed radically across four centuries of Western European cultural and intellectual history. The first half of this article charts the scholastic response to theological criticisms of astrology and the reconciliation of Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology with Catholic theology, paying special attention to its implications for astrology as viewed through scholarly uses of the phrase. The second half of the article shows how the phrase developed a multitude of idiosyncratic meanings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fracturing its late medieval scholastic unity, as new forms of philosophical, socio-political, religious, and scientific critiques upended astrological beliefs and practices. Ultimately, this paper argues that examining the theory and praxis of astrology through the changing phraseological meanings of “sapiens dominabitur astris” allows historians and cultural anthropologists to better discern the dialectical (as opposed to binary) relationships between free will and determinism in the West.

Who Wants to Live Forever? Astrological Methods for Calculating Lifespan in Western Culture and Perspectives on Determinism in Astrology

Abstract The calculation of an individual’s life span has been a constant presence in premodern astrological practice. It was used by physicians to calculate the expected life of a patient or to ascertain if an illness was likely to be fatal. On a personal level, this knowledge could also offer a means of control over one’s life and, more importantly, a way to prepare their access to a rewarding afterlife. This article contains an overview of determinism in astrology and a brief survey of the main methodologies used to determine the length of life, exploring their history, primary sources, and variations from antiquity to the early modern period. Although it discusses to some extent the chief methods for determining the lifespan, an in-depth study of the techniques, with all their details and discrepancies is out of its scope. The goal is to correlate the astrological practice with different perspectives on determinism and free will.

‘El Capri Kylex’: A Franciscan astronomical mnemonic

This article examines the role of memory techniques in medieval astronomy. Using a mnemonic written by a Franciscan friar c. 1330 as a case study, it shows how astronomers and astrologers simplified the sky for practical purposes, using verses and codes to make their science memorable. The article decodes the mnemonic and its underlying astronomical data, assessing its usefulness, memorability and adaptability alongside some other popular astronomical and calendrical mnemonics of the later Middle Ages. It argues that astronomical learning could be a creative, playful activity. And it situates the astrological practices of this particular friar, who made wide-ranging annotations in a 13th-century astronomical compendium, within the scientific and educational traditions of his order.

Comparison of Vedic astrology birth charts of celebrities with ordinary people: An empirical study

This article examines few fundamental principles of Vedic astrology through a systematic empirical experiment conducted on 742 birth charts of people who have been celebrities and 509 charts of people who have not been celebrities and have led ordinary lives. Each of the 21 fundamental principles of Vedic astrology we tested was found to be invalid as the compliance was not significantly different between both groups. These principles include some of the most commonly used principles, such as planet in conjugation or opposite to Jupiter or Venus gives beneficial effect, exalted lord of house is beneficial for its significance or auspicious planets in the house give benefits for which the house is significant, etc. Further, to examine whether these principles act together to give differentiation, the comprehensive test consisting of the comparison of astrological positivity and negativity of all planets, houses and lords of houses was demonstrated as a potential empirical approach. If the principles we have tested were true, we should have seen significant differences in the total negativity or positivity of at least one planet, house or lord of the house in the test, but there were none. Thus, our results proved that neither these principles are valid individually nor in combination. Two of our earlier experiments on similar lines for other pairs of the groups, namely mentally disabled versus intelligent and Cancer versus no cancer, had shown the similar results for the same set of principles. It shows just how invalid they are across the board and beyond any doubt. Since the principles we tested are something that one cannot do away with, in the everyday practice of astrology, their invalidity proven through our test raises many questions about the accuracy of the predictions of Vedic astrology in general and career in particular.

Astrology and Science: A Precarious Relationship. Part 2: Considerations of Empirical Investigations on the Validity of Astrology

In Part 2 of “Astrology and Science: A Precarious Relationship”, the results of a population survey are first presented to reveal definitory problems in determining astrology. When investigating "astrology", of crucial importance are which concepts and practices to include. After definitional clarification, the anomalistic aspects of astrology or astrological practice are attended to with a distinction made between the above-below-theorem as the traditional basic assumption of astrology and possible psi phenomena that can occur in astrological counseling practice. Further sections describe problems in scientific studies on the validity of astrology. Such problems could have led to the failure of these efforts. Furthermore, specific methodological problems in the investigation of the above-below-theorem and in matching tests are addressed. In a final step, various scientific approaches to astrology are listed with their respective specific questions, methodological approaches and relevance for the scientific world view or astrological practice.

More than text: Approaching ritual papyri from Oxyrhynchus as inscribed objects

Abstract Although papyri serve as critical forms of evidence for the study of ritual in the late antique Mediterranean, much about their function and significance in ritual performance remains unknown. This paper investigates this dimension of ritual texts through an examination of three papyri from Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. 4242, 2833, and 5304) – a horoscope, a sortes collection, and a magical formulary. Pairing close readings with an object-centered approach to the study of ritual in the ancient world, this paper addresses the text of each papyrus as well as its visual and physical characteristics including size, columniation, layout, evidence of wear, and marginalia. This analysis illuminates not only the role of each papyrus within the practice of astrology, divination, or magic, but also its influence on ritual performance. By mediating the experience of ritual participants, these papyri exert object-agency. Therefore, this paper argues that such texts are not simply passive instruments consulted by practitioners but rather active participants and collaborators in the performance of ritual.

О текстах из астрологического сборника калмыцкого зурхачи (предварительные замечания)

Introduction. Concerns for the health of community members are universally widespread and most essential at all times. The significance attached by the Kalmyks and their ethnic ancestors Oirats to the nation’s physical health can be traced in various sources, including medical essays (Gyu-zhi and related comments, lhantabs, etc.), dhāraṇī texts and astrological collections. Materials and Methods. The paper introduces a textual analysis of the mentioned Clear Script (Oirat-language) collection containing minor Tibetan-language fragments, and employs research methods of auxiliary historical disciplines. Results. While purely medical texts prescribed specific diagnostic and healing methods, astrological works tended to focus on preventive measures and recommendations for maintaining health and social well-being. Available Kalmykia-based collections of Buddhist written monuments once owned by priests with differing Buddhist expertise (medicine, astrology, and philosophy proper) — also differ structurally, thematically, and functionally. One such collection used to belong to the astrologer Borlga Utnasna Serksh (Chkalovsky village, Ketchenerovsky District, Kalmykia), and includes separate independent works, thematic clusters of texts, and graphic images. Kalmyk astrologers considered periods of human life in accordance with Buddhist knowledge and ideas of life components that emphasized — when it came to a certain individual and his/her birth circumstances — respective new year (Oriental) dates, place of a year in the 12-year animal cycle, actual period of the five (or primary) elements, menge (congenital marks), etc. In astrological practices, special attention was (and still is) paid to the removal of ‘obstacles’ resulting from the ‘disharmony’ (Oir. xarsi) between bride and groom’s birth years (and what should be done thereto); the latter also received recommendations explaining which deity was supposed to bless the marriage. Conclusions. The examined texts are a valuable historical source providing insights into actual practices of Kalmyk astrologers (Kalm. zurхaci) and ethnic standards of behavior prescribed by astrology, and how the latter accumulated worldview attitudes and orientation patterns developed by Buddhist dogma at large.

Contemplating Reflexivity as a Practice of Authenticity in Autoethnographic Research

This personal narrative shares a perspective of a non-binary trans qualitative writer who engages in the reflexive practice of evolutionary astrology. The author focuses on vulnerable, healing and therapeutic aspects of autoethnographic writing, and his quest for being authentic while dealing with difficult emotions related to his “misfit feeling” when crossing the boundary lines within Slovak academia.

Reconstructing Thomist astrology: Robert Bellarmine and the papal bull Coeli et terrae

ABSTRACTHistorians have portrayed the papal bull Coeli et terrae (1586) as a significant turning point in the history of the Catholic Church’s censorship of astrology. They argue that this bull was intended to prohibit the idea that the stars could naturally incline humans towards future actions, but also had the effect of preventing the discussion of other forms of natural astrology including those useful to medicine, agriculture, and navigation. The bull, therefore, threatened to overturn principles established by Thomas Aquinas, which not only justified long-standing astrological practices, but also informed the Roman Inquisition’s attitude towards this art. The promulgation of the bull has been attributed to the ‘rigour’ of the incumbent pope, Sixtus V. In this article I revise our understanding of this bull in two ways. First, I reconsider the Inquisition’s attitude towards astrology in the mid-sixteenth century, arguing that its members promoted a limited form of Thomist astrology that did not permit the doctrine of inclination. Second, using Robert Bellarmine’s unpublished lectures discussing Aquinas’s views of astrology, I suggest that this attitude was common during the sixteenth century, and may have been caused by the crisis of Renaissance astrology precipitated by the work of Giovanni Pico.

The bounded heavens: defining the limits of astrological practice in the Iberian indices

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the rules for the expurgation of texts of astrology in the Iberian Indices of forbidden books. It addresses the prohibitions put forward in Rule IX of the Index of Trent and the bull Coeli et terrae of Sixtus V, and studies its impact on the rules and their interpretation in the Spanish and Portuguese Indices, in particular, those published in the first decades of the seventeenth century: the Spanish Index librorum prohibitorum et expurgatorum of 1612 and the Portuguese Index auctorum damnatae memoriae of 1624. It shows how these indices offer a more meticulous examination of the prohibitions providing not only more detail regarding the different practices of astrology, but also explicitly accept the doctrine of inclinations of Thomas Aquinas as a central rule to deal with astrological judgments on human behaviour. It also highlights some specific details of the practice of censorship of astrological books by examining case studies of censored Portuguese and Spanish astrological publications. These provide new dimensions and highlight significant differences between the theoretical rules, practical guidelines, and actual restriction of astrological content.