The astrology is part of the so – called pseudoscience: disciplines that are presented as scientific but which, however, do not respect the scientific method. Thus, their knowledge is neither empirically based nor measurable.
According to those who believe in astrology, it is possible to obtain information about the personality of human beings and make predictions from the study of the stars. Astrologers, therefore, analyze the location and movements of stars to provide data on the character of individuals and anticipate events that will occur in the future.
The main method of prediction in astrology is the horoscope. This system indicates what a person is like according to the location of the stars at the moment of their birth. This study, astrologers say, also serves to anticipate events.
For scientists, the supposed effectiveness of the horoscope is given by the high probability, by the vagueness of the guesses and by a phenomenon of psychology that makes individuals remember the successes and put aside the mistakes. For example: an astrologer can write a horoscope that indicates that people born under the sign of Cancer will have, in the course of the next few days, a surprise. Those who believe in astrology can take an enormous number of facts (from a phone call to an invitation to dinner, to a job news, a visit or a movie premiere) as the anticipated “surprise” by the horoscope.
Regarding the etymology of the term astrology, we note that its origin is found in the Greek language, from where it later passed into Latin, and that it is composed of the following two words: άστρον, which can be defined as “stars”; λόγος, whose definition includes the concepts “compendium, speech” and “treatise”. In this particular case, we should go for ” discourse about the stars.”
The history of astrology is very broad; Human beings have been looking up at the sky for millennia to find answers to their existential questions, and this has occurred in all parts of the world. The Chinese, the Mayans and the Hindus, among other cultures, found relationships between astronomical events and reality on Earth based on the observation of the celestial vault, and this led to the development of complex prediction systems.
The horoscope system, as well as the interpretation of the birth chart are very common elements in western culture, where astrology studies the past and the present to anticipate future events, in addition to explaining personality traits based on activity cosmic.
The roots of astrology have not been clearly defined, since it is believed to be at least four millennia old; however, some experts claim that they are found in agricultural calendars used to anticipate the changes of the seasons and interpret the cycles of the stars as signs of divine messages. Between the years 1950 and 1651 a. C., a period that corresponds to the first Mesopotamian dynasty, a form of astrology was already being carried out.
In China, astrology emerged a few centuries later, about the beginning of the last millennium before our era, during the Zhou Dynasty. Just three hundred years before the birth of Christ, the first version of the current astrological horoscope was developed in Alexandria, as a result of the fusion between Egyptian Decane and Hellenistic astrology. This knowledge reached ancient Rome and Greece when Alexander the Great conquered Asia Minor. Then the Muslims conquered Alexandria, and then the Islamists began to study astrology.
