What it is
Astrology is the practice of reading meaning in the positions of the sun, moon, planets, and stars. For most of its history it was not separate from astronomy: the same people computed the positions and interpreted them. Its literature runs from cuneiform tablets through Greek, Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin to the present day.
The tradition has several branches, and old books often treat only one. Natal astrology reads the chart of a birth. Mundane astrology concerns nations, weather, and history. Horary astrology answers a question from the chart of the moment it is asked. Electional astrology chooses a favorable time to act. Medical astrology relates the heavens to the body and its treatment.
Where to begin
Read Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos for the classical theory, the Anthology of Vettius Valens to see an ancient astrologer at work, and William Lilly's Christian Astrology for a complete working textbook in English.
Mesopotamia
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Enuma Anu Enlil Akkadian. Compiled in the second millennium BCE. L 3
A series of some seventy tablets listing thousands of celestial omens for king and country: if the moon is eclipsed in such a month, such a thing will follow. This is astrology before the horoscope. The earliest known birth horoscopes, also Babylonian, date from 410 BCE.
The Hellenistic and Roman world
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Astronomica Marcus Manilius. Latin verse. Early first century CE. L 3
The oldest complete astrological work to survive: a poem in five books on the heavens, the signs, and their influence, written from the Stoic conviction that the cosmos is a single living reason.
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Carmen Astrologicum Dorotheus of Sidon. Greek verse, first century CE. Survives chiefly in Arabic. L 3
Five books on nativities and on choosing times for action. The Greek is lost apart from fragments. The Arabic version, made from a Persian translation, shows how far these texts travelled.
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Tetrabiblos Claudius Ptolemy. Greek. Second century CE. L 3
"Four Books" by the author of the Almagest. Ptolemy presents astrology as a natural science of celestial influence and trims away much that practicing astrologers used. For fifteen hundred years it was the chief authority of the art.
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Anthology Vettius Valens. Greek. Second century CE. L 3
Nine books by a working astrologer, with more than a hundred real horoscopes as examples. The best window onto what Hellenistic astrologers actually did.
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Mathesis Julius Firmicus Maternus. Latin. About 335 CE. L 3
The longest astrological treatise to survive from antiquity, in eight books, by a lawyer who later wrote a fierce attack on Pagan religion.
The Arabic and Persian masters
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The Great Introduction to Astrology Abu Ma'shar of Balkh. Arabic. About 848. Latin translations of 1133 and 1140. L 3
A philosophical defense and full exposition of the art by the most celebrated astrologer of the Islamic world, known in Latin as Albumasar. Through its translations Europe relearned not only astrology but a good deal of Aristotle.
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Introduction to the Art of Astrology al-Qabisi. Arabic. Tenth century. L 3
A compact primer that became, under the name Alcabitius, the standard textbook of medieval students.
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The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology al-Biruni. Arabic and Persian. 1029. L 3
A textbook in questions and answers by one of the great scientists of any age. It covers geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and chronology before it reaches astrology, about which the author is noticeably reserved.
Medieval and Renaissance Europe
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Liber Astronomiae Guido Bonatti. Latin. About 1277. L 3
The most comprehensive Latin textbook of the Middle Ages, by an Italian astrologer whom Dante placed among the diviners in the Inferno.
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Three Books on Life (De vita libri tres) Marsilio Ficino. Latin. 1489. L 3
Medical and astrological advice for scholars. The third book, on obtaining life from the heavens, is the classic statement of Renaissance astral magic and draws quietly on the Picatrix.
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Christian Astrology William Lilly. English. 1647. L 3
The first comprehensive astrological textbook written in English, and still the foundation of horary practice. Lilly's worked examples record what his clients wanted to know during the English Civil War: lost goods, absent husbands, the outcome of sieges.
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Astrologia Gallica Jean-Baptiste Morin. Latin. 1661. L 3
A vast and rigorous attempt to reform the art, published after its author's death, when learned opinion was already turning away.
India
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Yavanajataka Sanskrit verse. Early centuries CE. L 3
"The Horoscopy of the Greeks": a treatise that records the arrival of Hellenistic horoscopic astrology in India.
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Brihat Jataka Varahamihira. Sanskrit. Sixth century CE. L 3
The classic textbook of Indian natal astrology, by the author of the encyclopedic Brihat Samhita.
The modern revival
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The textbooks of Alan Leo English. 1890s to 1917. L 3
Leo, a Theosophist, simplified technique, emphasized character over prediction, and through inexpensive textbooks and horoscopes by post did more than anyone to create popular modern astrology.
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The Astrology of Personality Dane Rudhyar. 1936. L 3
Recasts astrology in the language of depth psychology. The source of most later psychological and humanistic astrology.
Opposing views
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Against the Astrologers Sextus Empiricus. Greek. About 200 CE. L 3
The skeptic's case in brief: the moment of birth cannot be fixed exactly, and people born at the same moment meet different fates.
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Disputations against Divinatory Astrology Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Latin. 1496. L 3
Twelve books of objections, philosophical and technical, by a man who knew the literature thoroughly. It provoked replies for a century.
Cicero's On Divination, described in the guide to Divination and Tarot, argues against astrology in its second book.
Landmark studies
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L'Astrologie grecque Auguste Bouche-Leclercq. French. 1899. L 3
Still the fullest technical account of Greek astrology, written by a historian who thought it nonsense and explained it with perfect clarity.
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Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans Franz Cumont. 1912. L 3
Lectures on how the worship of the stars travelled from Babylon to Rome.
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Greek Horoscopes Otto Neugebauer and H. B. Van Hoesen. 1959. L 3
Collects, dates, and analyzes the surviving Greek horoscopes from papyri and literary sources.
Things to watch for
- Two zodiacs. Western astrology since Ptolemy has generally used the tropical zodiac, fixed to the seasons. Indian astrology uses a sidereal zodiac, fixed to the stars. The two now differ by about twenty-four degrees.
- Calendars. Dates before 1582, and in some countries long after, are in the Julian calendar. Check which calendar a historical chart assumes.
- Technical vocabulary. Terms such as "lot", "sect", "bound", and "reception" have exact meanings in older texts that modern usage has blurred.
- Old translations. Many classical and medieval texts had no reliable English translation until recent decades. Nineteenth-century versions are often abridged or paraphrased.
On the shelves
Astrology is shelved at the South Gate in class L 3, with tables and ephemerides along the south wall. Related guides: Hermetic Literature, Alchemy, and Divination and Tarot.