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Astrology

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Astrology is a traditional practice of tracking the positions of the sun, moon, stars,and planets, with the presumption that these have some influence on human affairs. Astrology originated in Mesopotamia in the second millennium B.C.E., spreading to much of the world. In medieval Europe before the scientific method was better understood, there was no distinction between astrology and astronomy, and those who studied the sky were often called upon as counselors to make astrological predictions, or to determine the best times to take important actions. Today, astrology is seen as pseudoscience, and is practised primarily for entertainment.

Sun sign astrological charts based on a person's birthdate will show where the stars and planets were in relation to each other at the moment of birth, and specifically at the latitude and longitude of birth. The most prominent of these features is the position of the sun in relation to the constellations of the zodiac. From these planetary positions some people believe that certain conclusions can be made about the person or the event in question. Newspapers often print horoscopes, which are a highly generalized aspect of astrology. They are an attempt to provide info on what challenges might be found in a day as determined by where planets and stars are that day, as well as where they were (highly generalized) whenpersons of a particular zodiac sign were born. Typically these predictions are so vague or statistically likely that selective recognition and memory serve to make them seem accurate. People presented with randomly-chosen horoscopes report the same degree of accuracy as those given carefully prepared ones. Another interesting aspect of newspaper horoscopes is that they are usually 1 month off; the "Age of Aquarius" is here.

There are two camps of thought among astrologers about the "starting point", 0 degrees Aries, in the Zodiac. Sidereal Astrology accepts that the starting point is at a particular fixed position in the background of stars, while Tropical Astrology (which is adopted by most astrologers) accepts that the starting point is the position in the background of stars where the Sun appears in the sky at the vernal equinox (when the Sun appears to cross over from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere) each year.

As the Earth spins on its axis, it "wobbles" like a top, causing the vernal equinox to move gradually backwards against the star background, (a phenomena known as the Precession of the equinoxes) at a rate of about 30 degrees (one Zodiacal sign length) every 2160 years. In this way, the two Zodiacs are aligned only once every 26000 years, and the most recent alignment was about 2000 years ago.

Since the discovery of Fractal phenomena in nature, some astrologers suspect that astrological phenomena have the same basis, and that larger-scale patterns of the solar system are repeated in smaller-scale activity on Earth, with the vernal equinox featuring largely in more obvious seasonal variations, as well as less obvious human behaviours.

It is said by some astrologers that we are at the beginning of the Age of Aquarius, because the vernal equinox is currently at, or close to, the cusp between Pisces and Aquarius in the star background.

Astrological symbols (most of these will not display correctly in many browsers):

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