Astrology - the weirdest and hardest science of all. Yes: Science. Because if you look closely, all modern science has evolved out of mixing mud trying to make gold.
But astrology hasn't evolved, has it? Those weirdos are still trying to find truth in rotating balls of gas, ain't they? Plus - there's THIRTEEN signs in the zodiac, so...
First things first.
Western astrology is commonly believed to have been developped by the Babylonians of Mesopotamia. Ca. 3500 B.C. they used stellar going-ons to predict floods, wars and royal indigestion. Then they began to investigate connections between the visible planets and normal lives; for example the seven good and seven bad years that Saturn inflicts.
Early descriptions of planetary qualities have survived on clay plates.
Time went on and peolpe gathered data, based on the old descriptive systems. That way, more and more qualities of character fell into place. By the time of the Greek philosophers a complex system of natal astrology was in common useage. The Romans, eagerly lapping up everything that fell from their paidagogoi's tables, continued to use the old systems.
During the early middle ages astrology lay dormant in clerical libraries, but the categories of sun signs and planetary qualities never quite fell away. Mystics and clergymen used them for practical ends - to find out what to eat for lunch (rose-petals on a moon-in-libra day, e.g.), when to sleep with your wife so it'll be a boy THIS TIME and so on.
But then, during the Middle and Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque times, astrology really flourished. I guess even Macchiavelli used mundane astrology to further his own progress. Famous the horoscope of Wallenstein, predicting his violent death.
Alas, then came Kant and told people to "have the guts to think for themselves". And from that moment on, it was utterly impossible for a strong man to believe in inexplicable influences on his precious own mind. Too many people had been shot asking for personal freedom - astrology went by the bord, along with the Ancien Regime.
During the 19th century, some mad romantic astrologers still scribbled around in their private studies, but it was not until the beginning of the 20th century that horoscopes were taken more seriously again.
Sigmund Freud and C.G.Jung messed around with the archetypal structure of astrology finding it "amazing stuff". The large Astrology papers in the U.S. were mass marketed, and things went their way. Neil Postman would have one or two words to say about Daily Newspaper Horoscopes.
Then something awful happened. Uranus had been found, then came Neptune and Pluto. Astrologers worldwide went very queasy. But the great world wars gave them something to think, and a nice place was found for the Outer Planets: Obviously, they didn't influence the individual, as much as whole generations (because they move so slowly and don't care about your daily heartburn).
Uranus was assigned to sudden changes and creativity, Neptune to idealism, the subconscious and misty generalizations, Pluto to power and transformations.
During all of the 20th century, astrologers have been uneasy about what they are doing, mainly due to those developments. Modern science didn't seem to go with astrology. And that did not even include the discussion of the thirteenth sign. That may be why people like Michel Gauquelin tried to prove astrological phenomena statistically.
Actually, in the late seventies even the national statistical institute of France had to acknowledge lots of Gauquelin's results. And the latest statistical data gathered by the German Statistische Bundesamt prove that sun signs have something to do with certain patterns of behaviour. No doubts possible.
Today, even insurance companies take into account if you are a Taurus. It'll cost you LESS, then, and that's a sign for truth in astrology, if you ask me...
So - astrology might be on the rising branch, because the paradigm is changing.1
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Because all the old farts who don't like astrology, because their wife's a Leo and that's supposed to go along well with Aries, are dying away.
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