Astrology Essay -- essays research papers

The basic astrological assumptions are not unsaid to grasp. For if astronomy is the study of the move ments of the supernal bodies, then astrology is the study of the do of those movements. The astronomers of the ancient world assumed a division of the universe whereby the superior, abiding bodies of the celestial worlds ru lead over the terrestrial or sublunary sphere, where totally was mortality and change. It was assumed that the stars had special qualities and influences which were transmitted downwards upon the passive earth, and which varied in their effect, according to the changing relationship of the heavenly bodies to individually other. They were led to postulate a single system in which the seven contemptible stars or planet shifted their position in relation to the earth and each other, against a fixed backcloth of the dozen signs of the zodiac.      There was nothing overcloud about these general assumptions. At the beginning of the sixteen th century astrological doctrines were part of the educated mans picture of the universe and its workings. It was broadly speaking accepted that the four elements constituting the sublunary region (earth, air, fire & water) were kept in their state of ceaseless transformation by the movement of the heavenly bodies. The various planets transmitted different quantities of the four physiological qualities of heat and cold, waterlessness and moisture. Therefore astrology was less a separate discipline than an horizon of a generally accepted world picture. During the Renaissance, even more than in the Middle Ages, astrology pervaded all aspects of the intellectual framework in which men were educated. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at that place were four main branches of judicial astrology. First, there were the general predictions based on the future movements of the ravens and taking note of such impending events as eclipses of the sun and moon. These forecas ts related to the weather, the state of the crops, mortality and epidemics, governance and war. They indicated the fate of society as a whole but not that of particular individuals. Secondly, there were nativities, maps of the sky at the moment of a persons births either made on the spot at the call for of the infants parents or reconstructed for individuals of stature, those who could supply the details of their time of births. The horoscope at b... ...nglish churches and may have helped to shape popular religious attitudes. Pictures of the sun and moon were order in several Suffolk churches and the churches themselves were built to face the rising sun.How far such practices affected mens basic beliefs it is difficult to tell. Anne Bodenham, who was executed for witchcraft at Salisbury in 1653 was a former servant of the astrologer John Lambe, she had long practiced as a cunning woman, claiming to be able to do more than Master Lilly or anyone whatsoever. When she dealt with a wet-nurse who had convulsive fits, she is reported to have proposed a frankly pagan still -prayer to Jupiter, the best and fortunatest of all the planets. Even more striking is another Wiltshire case, which came in advance the quarter sessions in 1656. A Lacock weaver, Wllllam Bond was charged with atheism and blasphemy, and in particular with publicly affirming that there was no God or might ruling above the planets, no Christ but the sun that shines upon us and that the twelve patriarchs were the twelve houses. "This was astrology run wild and it is tantalizing not to fill in how many of William Bonds contemporaries may have held similar views.