– (Breno Macedo/)
Humans have never needed cutting-edge technology to study the stars. Stonehenge, that famous circle of rocks in the United Kingdom, is the best proof of this: erected over 3,000 years ago, it is still standing today, made only of stone on stone. The big balcony of the giant domino is to mark the position of the Sun throughout the year. Thus, the great grandparents of the English were able to define the right time to plant or harvest the crop. It was enough to interpret the shadows.
Already in the Neolithic, 10 thousand years ago, primitive societies made use of cosmic clocks. Tools helped the tribes prepare for the winter and guided the first plantations in history. When it became clear that heavenly wisdom was synonymous with an abundance of food, agriculture and astronomy began to grow together.
In Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq and the cradle of humanity’s first large crops, archaeologists discovered clay tablets with predictions of lunar and solar eclipses dating back to 1,000 BC They also found astrological maps that linked changes in the sky to earthly weather, such as storms and severe droughts. These early predictions were made by the Assyrians and Babylonians who soon settled in the area.
Little by little, relatively simple observations gave way to a standardized system, which divided the sky into 12 bands, corresponding to the 12 zodiac signs known to date. The scheme crossed the cycles of the Moon and the Sun with those of the other stars, noting their repetitions and thus marking the passage of time. Later came the detailed calendar, with 365 days.
ECLIPSE THE GREAT
What the Mesopotamians discovered was soon leaked to their neighbors. Who first used the studies were the Egyptians and the Greeks. Afterwards, the Persians improved their knowledge at the hands of their magicians. In the 4th century BC, the conquests of Alexander the Great formed a unique block of territory where knowledge was standardized and cultural and scientific exchange gained even more momentum.
In Rome’s heyday, astrology was welcomed by the nobility. Emperor Hadrian, for example, who reigned until the year 138, did not make a decision without first consulting his private astrologer. It was more or less during this period that the Greek mathematician Claudius Ptolemy launched the Almagest theory, that the entire Solar System revolved around the Earth.
Although he was totally wrong, his study was the first to try to explain the workings of the Cosmos. The project spurred the creation of other works, such as Tetrabiblos, a collection of four books on how to interpret each of the planets and, from there, draw an astral map and calculate someone’s individual longevity.
With so many publications appearing on the subject, it didn’t take long for Ptolemy and a retinue of new experts to divide astrology into four fundamental currents. From its debut, the “mundana” sought to predict weather, wars and events capable of deciding the course of society. In the sequence, the “natal” focused on the developments after the date of birth of someone or something; the horary was based on the hour as a determining factor for the elaboration of the astral map; and the elective was the search for choosing the best moment to make decisions.
– (Breno Macedo/)
MAPPING IS NEEDED
According to historians, the three wise men – famous for the mythology surrounding Jesus – were inspired by priests of Zoroastrianism, a Persian religion linked to astrology – hence the importance of the “star of Bethlehem” that guided them to the Messiah’s manger and the passage “from the East”, from Gospel of Matthewat Biblewhich alludes to its origin, ancient Persia (today Iran).
With Rome leaving the scene in the year 476, when the tyrant Romulus Augustus was deposed, Western astrological knowledge stagnated. The world entered the Middle Ages and Islam ascended the global throne, taking Greek and Persian territories one by one and finding in them the main books on the subject, which were transcribed into Arabic.
With the Crusades, Christians discovered that Muslims had advanced from astrology to mathematics and the arts. Even alchemy, the forerunner of modern chemistry, benefited, as research on the relationship between metals and planets intensified.
Behold, the Renaissance appears in Europe at the turn of the 1500s and, with it, the discipline becomes the darling of the time. Some of the main names of the time, such as Girolamo Cardano, father of modern algebra, Christopher Columbus, discoverer of the Americas, and Fernão de Magalhães, responsible for the first trip around the world by sea, owe a lot to astrology. After all, everyone found success through planetary charts and charts.
It was also in the time of the discoveries that the Polish mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus developed the heliocentric theory, which overthrew Ptolemy’s thesis by suggesting that the Sun, and not the Earth, would be at the center of the Universe. However, as it was contrary to biblical teachings, the Church vetoed the study.
Continuing the work started by Copernicus, the Danish nobleman Tycho Brahe tried to combine his predecessor’s ideas with those of Ptolemy and, without wanting to contest Christian dogmas, created a theory in which the Sun and Moon revolved around the Earth, while the others planets orbited the Sun. Such creativity allowed Brahe to build an immense observatory (well before the creation of the telescope), where, in secret, he taught astrology to students and developed star charts for powerful clients.
CHECKMATE OF THE UNIVERSE
Tycho Brahe kept the German Johannes Kepler as an assistant until the day he died. The assistant is even the prime suspect in murdering the master and taking over his research. But, despite the many speculations, Kepler was accepted as Brahe’s natural successor and used his calculations and data to affirm that the model proposed by Copernicus was correct. Point for heliocentrism, still in 1601.
He also proved that the orbits of the planets did not form circles, but ellipses, or «circles» with elongated ends. Despite treating astrology in a scientific and conscientious way, Kepler went to the extreme of predicting his own death in a birth chart in 1630 – he was convinced of the interaction between planets and individual souls.
His career was a watershed for astrology, as it marked both the pinnacle of the discipline and the beginning of its rift with science. Copernicus is also guilty of this: by proposing the Sun at the center of the Universe, he spread the thought that human life is a tiny part of a system turned, in fact, to a star other than Earth. The final academic blow was dealt by modern astronomy, created in the 18th century.
In 1990, NASA revealed a photo of the Earth taken from space by a space probe at a distance of 6.4 billion kilometers, proving how small we are compared to the magnitude of the Cosmos. It is reasonable to believe that, without astrology, perhaps science would never have advanced so much.
SOURCES Books Shoulders of Giants: The History of Astronomy in Comicsby Jane Gregorio-Hetem, Annibal Hetem Junior and Marlon Tenório; The Witch of Kepler, by James A. Connor; It is towards infinityby Salvador Nogueira.
CONSULTANCY Irineu Rabuke, theologian at PUCRS