Determining who an astrologer is is pretty easy. First of all, this is a person who has knowledge of the craft, in whose honor his profession is named, and who understands well that his central principle is the reflection of the unity of the individual and the cosmos, all parts of which are interconnected with each other.
Natal chart
An astrological (natal) chart depicts a chart of the Universe at the moment of its birth, focusing an individual in the center, next to the Sun, Moon and other celestial bodies, which are considered to be personal planets or stars of this person and have unique significance only for him. Although astrological practices in different cultures have common roots, many peoples have developed unique methodologies, the most significant are Hindu astrology (also known as Vedic astrology or jyotish). This field of knowledge has had a great influence on the cultural history of the world.
Who is an astrologer and what does he do
Astrologers are famous for their ability to predict the future from stars and planets. People usually tend to consult with them about their horoscopes, as an expert astrologer can help them with issues related to health, relationships, money, education, career, property and travel. There are examples of many people who found a guide to life through their horoscope, especially in those cases when they had to make difficult decisions. Initially not understanding who this is an astrologer, over time they began to have great respect for people of this occupation.
What is astrology
Astrology as a science is the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial objects as a means of obtaining information about human destinies and earthly events (past and future). Accordingly, an astrologer is a person specializing in astrology.
This teaching originated in at least the second millennium BC and has its roots in calendar systems used to predict seasonal shifts and interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communication. Many cultures attach great importance to astronomical events, and some, for example, Indians, Chinese and Mayans, have developed complex systems for predicting earthly events due to the movement of celestial bodies.
Western astrology
Western astrology is one of the oldest systems, and yet it is still very popular. It can trace its roots back to Mesopotamia of the 19th century BC, from which it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Arab world and, ultimately, Central and Western Europe. The definition of "astrologer" is as ancient as the discipline itself.
Modern Western astrology is often associated with systems of horoscopes, which are designed to explain aspects of a person’s personality and predict significant events in his life based on the positions of celestial objects. Most professional astrologers rely on just such a system.
For most of its history, astrology has been considered a scientific tradition and has been prevalent in academia, often in close connection with astronomy, alchemy, meteorology and medicine. Many people even still believe that an astrologer is, first of all, a scientist. People of this profession were often present in influential political circles, and the discipline that they practice is mentioned in the works of great writers: Dante Alighieri and Jeffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Lope de Vega and Calderon de la Barca. During the 20th century and after the widespread adoption of the scientific method, astrology was successfully contested both theoretically and experimentally, and over time it was proved that it had nothing to do with science. Thus, astrology lost its academic and theoretical position, and the general belief in it decreased significantly. Therefore, today many believe that an astrologer is a marginal and even quack profession.
Etymology
The word astrology comes from the early Latin word astrologia, which, in turn, comes from the Greek ἀστρολογία - from ἄστρον astron ("star") and -λογία -logia ("study") - "account of the stars." Astrology later acquired the meaning of "stellar prediction", in contrast to astronomy, which is considered serious science. Many are interested in who such an astrologer, fortune teller, astrologer. These are all completely different terms.
History
Chinese astrology was developed during the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 years. BC.). Hellenistic astrology after 332 BC e. mixed the Babylonian tradition with the Egyptian decanal, the foci of which were preserved in Alexandria, creating the horoscopic astrology familiar to all of us. The ancient Greek astrologer is the same "master of horoscopes" as a modern specialist.
The victory of Alexander the Great in Asia allowed astrology to spread to Ancient Greece and Rome. In Rome, discipline was often associated with "Chaldean wisdom." After the conquest of Alexandria in the 7th century, astrology was studied by Islamic scholars, and Hellenistic texts were translated into Arabic and Persian. In the 12th century, Arabic texts were imported into Europe and translated into Latin. Large astronomers, including Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo, practiced as court astrologers. Astrological references appear in literature and poetry, for example by Dante Alighieri and Jeffrey Chaucer, as well as playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare.
Astrology in the broadest sense is the search for meaning in the sky and celestial bodies. Early studies by philosophers and occultists who make conscious attempts to measure, record, and predict seasonal changes with reference to astronomical cycles are found in abundance in the form of marks on bones and cave walls, which show that lunar cycles were observed 25,000 years ago. Thus, the influence of the moon on the ebbs and flows was discovered, the first calendars were created. Experienced farmers used their knowledge in astrology, or rather that part of it that later became part of astronomy, to predict the seasons of rains and droughts. Therefore, people turned to experts in this field because they believed that an astrologer is a person who can predict anything with absolute accuracy. By the third millennium BC, the first civilizations already had a clear understanding of the heavenly cycles and built special temples in accordance with the heliac ascents of the stars.
Manuscripts
Numerous data indicate that the oldest known astrological documents are copies of texts made in the ancient world. It is believed that the legendary Venus Table is actually assembled in Babylon around 1700 BC. The scroll documenting the early use of astrology is attributed to the rule of the Sumerian king Gudea of Lagash (c. 2144 - 2124 BC). In the scroll, the ancient ruler describes how the gods revealed to him in a dream the secret of the constellations, the knowledge of which helped him build sacred temples. But many believe that in reality this document was written much later.
The oldest indisputable evidence of the use of astrology as an integrated knowledge system is the records of the first dynasty of the rulers of Mesopotamia (1950-1651 BC). This astrology had some parallels with Hellenistic Greek (Western) discipline, including the concept of the zodiac, normalizing a point of about 9 degrees in Aries, the trial aspect, planetary exaltations and dodecategory (twelve signs of 30 degrees each). The Babylonians regarded various celestial phenomena as possible omens, and not as the cause of all events in our world without exception.
Ancient China
The system of Chinese astrology, as mentioned earlier, was developed during the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BC) and flourished during the Han Dynasty (from the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD). It was during the reign of this dynasty that all the elements of traditional Chinese culture that are familiar to us - the Yin-Yang philosophy, the theory of the five elements, Heaven and Earth, Confucian morality - were combined to formalize the philosophical principles of Chinese medicine and fortune telling, astrology and alchemy.
Ancient india
The main texts on which classical Indian astrology is based are early medieval collections, in particular Bṛhat Parāśara Horāśāstra and Sārāvalī Kalyāṇavarma. The first collection is a complex work of 71 chapters, and its first part (chapters 1-51) refers to the VII-beginning of the VIII centuries, while the second (chapters 52-71) - to the end of the 8th century. Sārāvalī also refers to the year 800 A.D. e. English translations of these texts were published by NN Krishna Rau and VB Choudhary in 1963 and 1961, respectively.
Islamic world
Astrology was properly studied by Islamic scholars after the collapse of Alexandria by the Arabs in the 7th century and the founding of the Abbasid empire in the 8th. The second Abbasid caliph Al Mansour (754-775) founded the city of Baghdad to become a center for science and art in the Middle East, and included in his project a library and translation center, known as the House of Wisdom Bait al-Hikma, which continued to be developed by his successors and was supposed to be an important incentive for Arab-Persian translations of Hellenistic astrological texts. Early translators included Mashalla, who helped choose the time to create Baghdad, and Sahla ibn Bishra (aka Zael), whose texts directly influenced later European astrologers such as Guido Bonatti in the 13th century, and William Lilly in the 17th century. Arabic texts (including translations of ancient classics) began to be massively imported into Europe in the 12th century.
Medieval europe
The first astrological book published in Europe was Liber Planetis et Mundi Climatibus (Book of Planets and Regions of the World), which appeared between 1010 and 1027 years of our era and, possibly, was actually a work of Herbert of Aurillac. The second treatise of Ptolemy AD Tetrabiblos was translated into Latin by Plato Tivoli in 1138. Dominican theologian Thomas Aquinas followed Aristotle, believing that the stars can control an imperfect "ribbed" body (to say our world), and tried to reconcile astrology with Christianity, saying that God rules the human soul through the stars. It is said that the 13th-century mathematician Campanus Novara developed a system of astrological houses that divides the primary vertical into "houses", although a similar system was used earlier in the East. The 13th century astronomer Guido Bonatti wrote the textbook Liber Astronomicus, a copy of which belonged to King Henry VII of England at the end of the fifteenth century. For the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, an astrologer is a profession of chosen and noble people who had an influence on the most important people of that time.
In Paradiso, the concluding part of the Divine Comedy, the Italian poet Dante Alighieri mentioned astrological planets “in innumerable details”, although he interpreted traditional astrology in accordance with his Christian convictions, for example, using astrological thinking in his prophecy about the reform of the Christian world.
Western astrology is a form of prediction based on the construction of a horoscope at a specific moment, for example, on the birth of a person. It is based on the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies, such as the Sun, Moon and planets, which are analyzed from the point of view of their movement through the zodiac signs (twelve spatial divisions of the ecliptic) and their aspects (based on geometric angles) relative to each other. They are also considered depending on their placement in the "houses" - twelve spatial divisions of the sky. The modern idea of astrology in popular Western media usually comes down to the so-called astrology of the Sun, which studies the influence of this celestial body on a person’s date of birth and is only 1/12 of the total natal chart.
Horoscope
The occupation of an astrologer primarily involves the compilation of horoscopes. A horoscope visually expresses a set of relationships for the time and place of a selected event. These relationships are between the seven "planets", meaning such meanings as war and love, twelve zodiac signs and twelve houses. Each planet is in a certain sign and a specific house at a selected time, when observed from a selected place, creating two types of the above-mentioned relations.
Along with divination on tarot cards, astrology is one of the main forms of the western esoteric tradition, influencing the systems of magical faith not only among western esotericists and sealants, but also on the beliefs of new age cults such as Wicca, which borrowed a lot from esotericism. Tanya Lurmann once said that “all wizards know something about astrology” and refer to the correspondence table in Starhawk's “Spiral Dance” as an example of astrological knowledge learned by magicians.
Profession "Astrologer": where to study
Since astrology is not considered a science, it cannot boast of any certified training centers. There are no astrological faculties in universities either. An astrologer is one who knows how to predict the future by the arrangement of stars and planets, and modern science denies the very possibility of such phenomena. However, there are many informal courses and schools in which experienced professionals can teach this craft for a fee. Apparently, the profession of an astrologer is quite in demand, otherwise we would not see horoscopes, “advice of astrologers”, various articles with predictions and other fruits of the activities of these people at every turn. It is also worth recalling the enormous popularity of Pavel Globa and some of his colleagues. Therefore, those who are interested in who the astrologer is and what he does, can be advised to go to a professional in this matter - perhaps he himself will want to do this work.