Top Research Papers on Astrology

Contents Acknowledgments A Note on Sources Introduction 1. From Athens to Augsburg 2. Mathematics and the Sacred 3. The Flood 4. The Campaign against Superstition 5. Confessional Constellations 6. Fate and Faith 7. Centrifugal Forces Postscript Literature Index

Abstract Divination in the Ancient Near East took many forms. One of the most important practices, however, was astrology—the art of observing the sky and weather for signs. The first written evidence for this began in the late third millennium BCE, but it probably existed even earlier. Throughout the early and middle centuries of the second millennium BCE, there are glimpses of astrology preserved in letters and other texts. It was not until the end of the second millennium that the practice began to be codified and written down in standard works. During the Neo‐Assyrian period (911–609 BCE) ...

Abstract While most modern approaches to the religious and social reforms of the sixteenth century give scant attention to stellar preoccupations, this study argues that astrological concepts played a key role in preparing the ground for the evangelical movement sparked by Martin Luther in the 1520s, as well as in shaping the distinctive characteristics of German evangelical culture over the following century. Spreading through cheap printed almanacs and prognostications, popular astrology functioned in paradoxical ways. It contributed to an enlarged and abstracted sense of the divine that led...

In The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence, Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum investigates for the first time the concept of the daimon (daemon, demon), normally confined to religion and philosophy, within the theory and practice of ancient western astrology (2nd century BCE – 7th century CE). This multi-disciplinary study covers the daimon within astrology proper as well as the daimon and astrology in wider cultural practices including divination, Gnosticism, Mithraism and Neo-Platonism. It explores relationships between the daimon and fate and Daimon and Tyche (fortune or chance),...

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In her wide-ranging study The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology, Dorian Greenbaum explores the daimon and astrology’s connections to fate, mythology, philosophy; Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Gnostic and Mithraic religion; the doctrine of lots and allotment; concepts of fortune, love and necessity.

Contents: Preface Astronomy: Habash al-Hasib on the melon astrolabe Two topics from an astrological manuscript: Sindhind days and planetary latitudes Al-Sufi on the celestial globe Applied mathematics in the 10th century: Abua (TM) l-Wafaa (TM) calculates the distance Baghdad-Mecca Two mappings proposed by Biruni The spherical case of the Tusi couple Spherical astronomy in Kashia (TM)s Khaqani Zij Two medieval approaches to the equation of time Ibn al-Haythama (TM)s determination of the meridian from one solar altitude Ulugh Beg as scientist The heritage of Ulugh Beg Planetary theory: late Isl...

The object of this paper is to investigate the social status of the astrologer in medieval Islamic society. Therefore, I will not investigate the theoretical status of astrology in medieval Islam, nor will I attempt to analyze the numerous arguments either pro or contra astrology which have been preserved in the classical sources. On that score, I only wish to say that the theoretical framework of the astrological doctrines that were known in medieval Islam were mainly derived from the major tenets of Aristotelian philosophy 1 . In some ways they shared the same fate of that philosophy, but in...

This article re-examines the most celebrated, and most controversial, of the Cordoban ivories, the al-Mughīra pyxis, from a perspective of gender and kinship relations within the court hierarchy. It proposes an alternative patron for this object, namely al-Mughīra's mother al-Mushtaq, a consort of the Cordoban Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Rahmān III (r. 929–61) in the latter years of his life, and a patron of architecture. The article suggests astronomical and astrological possibilities for interpreting the pyxis’ unusual iconography, which arise from considering al-Mushtaq as a potential patron of ...

Astrology, Almanacs, and the Early Modern English Calendar is a handbook designed to help modern readers unlock the vast cultural, religious, and scientific material contained in early modern calendars and almanacs. It outlines the basic cosmological, astrological, and medical theories that undergirded calendars, traces the medieval evolution of the calendar into its early modern format against the background of the English Reformation, and presents a history of the English almanac in the context of the rise of the printing industry in England. The book includes a primer on deciphering early m...

This study surveys the\nintroduction of astrology into East Asia with a primary focus on the Buddhist\nexperience of Indian and Iranian astrology during the eighth and ninth centuries.\nIt is argued that prior to the introduction of Esoteric Buddhism during the 8th\ncentury, the Chinese sangha had no pressing need to observe astrology. However,\nfollowing the rising popularity of Tantric rituals, which require proper timing\naccording to non-Chinese astrological conventions, Chinese Buddhism took a deep\ninterest in astrology. This in turn prompted a wider interest in astrology\namong Chinese ...

BM 36303+36326, BM 36628+36786+36817+37178+37197, and BM 36988 are three fragments of what was once a large, almost square tablet containing a compendium of astrological texts. The compendium, which dates to sometime after the invention of the zodiac in the late fifth century BCE, contains sections that concern astrological geography, business and the height of the river Euphrates, astrological medicine, the Dodecatemoria and Kalendertext schemes, and the first occurrence in Babylonian sources of the so-called astrological doctrine of the Terms, which is well known from later Greek and Latin s...

C.G. Jung had a profound interest in and involvement with astrology, which he made clear in virtually every volume of the Collected Works, as well as in many of his letters. This ancient symbolic system was of primary importance in his understanding of the nature of time, the archetypes, synchronicity, and human fate. Jung's Studies in Astrology is an historical survey of his astrological work from the time he began to study the subject. It is based not only on his published writings, but also on the correspondence and documents found in his private archives, many of which have never previousl...

Cet ouvrage collectif se propose de montrer comment l'astrologie et l'alchimie, reléguées de nos jours parmi les « sciences occultes », ont joué pourtant un rôle important dans les siècles passés et notamment au début de l'âge moderne.La première partie de ce volume se propose, à travers sept études sur des auteurs particulièrement représentatifs [ch.1--7], d'analyser les caractéristiques de l'astrologie et de l'alchimie ainsi que leurs rapports dialectiques (quand il y en avait) au début de l'âge moderne en Europe.La deuxième partie [ch.8], aborde la question de l'historiographie de l'alchimi...

As Above, So BelowAstrology and the Fate of Soviet Scientism Joseph Kellner (bio) An idea must come first, a fantasy, a fairy tale. These are followed by precise calculation. And ultimately, the execution sits as a crown atop the idea. —Konstantin Tsiolkovskii The astrologer Mikhail Borisovich Levin was among the last in the Soviet Union to hear of the August 1991 coup. As that committee of hard-liners clung desperately to the center in Moscow, Levin was thousands of miles away from the capital and several miles above it, hiking in the Pamir Mountains of Uzbekistan with a small group of acolyt...

In the first decades after the founding of the modern Roman Inquisition in 1542, Girolamo Cardano was the most prominent natural philosopher to face imprisonment and trial. A trove of Inquisitorial letters, decrees and censurae have survived, offering a detailed picture of how, in the early years of its existence, the Roman Inquisition placed theological boundaries around astrology and natural philosophy. This article will cover the trial and identify a critical point of contention: that Cardano allegedly naturalized heresy. It will suggest that we view the Cardano affair as a reaction against...

This book explores the changing perspective of astrology from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era. It introduces a framework for understanding both its former centrality and its later removal from legitimate practice. This removal, the author argues, was neither obvious nor without problems.

This research disentangles stereotypes from social reality by providing a real-world demonstration that stereotypes can form without preexisting social reality, yet still produce discrimination that can then shape social reality.

This paper explores the relationship between epistemic integrity, virtue, and authority by offering a virtue epistemological reading of the defences of non-scientific beliefs, practices, and traditions in the writings of Paul Feyerabend. I argue that there was a robust epistemic rationale for those defences and that it can inform contemporary reflection on the epistemic authority of the sciences. Two common explanations of the purpose of those defences are rejected as lacking textual support. A third “pluralist” reading is judged more persuasive, but found to be incomplete, owing to a failure ...

This cross-sectional study aimed to determine the associations of the extent of Social Contagion - Conscious Behavioral Response (CBR) towards Astrology on social media among Filipino Post-Millennial university students aged 18 to 23 years old with their demographics, Stress Level (SL), and Level of Susceptibility to Barnum effect (LSB) during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 406 respondents participated in the online survey and data were analyzed using descriptive and non-parametric inferential statistics. Findings showed that respondents have high SL, moderate CBR level, and high LSB. Femal...

Belief in astrology is on the rise, although the reasons behind this are unclear. We tested whether individual personality traits could predict such epistemically unfounded beliefs. Data was collected for 264 participants through an anonymous online survey shared on social media. The survey consisted of four instruments: Belief in Astrology (BAI), the Big Five personality traits (IPIP-30), narcissism (SD3) and intelligence (ICAR16-R3D). Data analysis was done with multiple linear regression. Narcissism was surprisingly the strongest predictor, and intelligence showed a negative relationship wi...

The Astrologer is proposed, a graph neural Hawkes process that can capture the propagation of events from historical events on graph with a graph convolutional recurrent neural network and can learn the dynamics of event propagation without knowing the actual parametric forms.

Psychology and astrology are two disciplines that, at first glance, may seem unrelated. However, upon closer examination, there are intriguing intersections between the two that merit exploration. This conceptual note delves into the relationship between psychology and astrology, examining how insights from both fields can contribute to human well-being. By synthesizing psychological principles with astrological frameworks, individuals may gain deeper self-awareness, cultivate resilience, and navigate life's challenges with greater understanding and purpose

Abstract Auroral records found in historical archives and cosmogenic isotopes found in natural archives have served as sound proxies of coronal mass ejections and solar energetic particles (SEPs), respectively, for dates prior to the onset of telescopic sunspot observations in 1610. These space weather events constitute a significant threat to a modern civilization, because of its increasing dependency on an electronic infrastructure. Recent studies have identified multiple extreme space weather events derived from SEPs in natural archives, such as the event in 660 BCE. While the level of sola...