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Luckily we have today online translate services. I've copied the first 2 pages from the "Astrology" chapter from the linked PDF of the book to give you an idea how the automatic translation looks like: "In order to understand astrology well, it is necessary to know it from the very roots. It originated in ancient Babylon, around 1000 BC, although some
historians claim that astrology was conceived by the Sumerians, a whole millennium earlier. The precondition for the existence of large cities was well-developed agriculture, and
this required knowledge of a precise calendar, as agricultural
who had to know when to start sowing and how to adapt all agricultural work to the seasons. Establishing an accurate calendar is not
it was possible without a good knowledge of mathematics and constant astronomy
observations, and these jobs were most suitable for priests (the picture shows
a stone on which is a record of the movement of the Moon, found in Mesopotamia).
Thus the first astronomers were clergy, and it is logical that celestial bodies,
which they discovered, were named after the then Babylonian gods. We
we still use those names, actually theirs
Roman translations: Mars instead of Nergal, Venus
instead of Ishtar, Jupiter instead of Marduk and so on
further. Here we come to the first paradox which
is an integral part of astrology: although the names of the gods were assigned to the planets in the random order in which they were discovered, the meaning and
the significance that each particular planet carries with it
bears is firmly attached to the role of the god by whom it is
got its name, and it has remained unchanged to this day. For example, Nergal (Mars) is the god of war, so the summers that began with a stronger
the radiance of the planet Nergal in the sky was immediately
women as particularly suitable for military campaigns, and the springs in which the splendor of Ishtar (Venus, the goddess of love) was emphasized, were destined to be concluded
marriages. Same as for the planets, and for the stellar constellations
the rule was that people born in a certain sign of the zodiac were attributed traits derived
from the name of the sign. In the Babylonians, the number of characters that
consisted of constellations initially changing between 6 and
18, but stabilized at about 600 BC
12. Soon the first horoscopes appeared: the oldest
known dates from April 29, 410 BC.
By the way, the division of the zodiac into 12 signs is not even today
valid worldwide - Chinese and Indian horoscopes
have 28, and Toltec cultures (in Central America)
20 characters. However, he respects all these horoscopes
is the principle that the characteristics of people born in someone
character directly depends on the name of that character.
The oldest surviving critique of astrology was written by Cicero in 44 BC
new era. His philosophical skepticism could not relate human characteristics to astronomical parameters at birth. He states that he would
it would be more logical to establish the influence of meteorological conditions on the child at the time of birth, but not to notice any connection there either.
The Greeks learned about astrology when they conquered Babylon in the fourth century
BC, and the Romans took it from the Greeks. Before the end of the twelfth century
ideas were taken over by northern Europe, so astrology soon entered the then school system. Around the seventeenth century, the sudden rise of science (primarily astronomy) caused the expulsion of astrology from European universities, so
thus we come to another great paradox: its “golden age” astrology
not experienced during the Middle Ages, when people were deeply religious and knowledge was transmitted mainly orally, but only since 1930, when
British astrologer Naylor (R. H. Naylor) received an entertaining column in the daily newspaper in which he introduces an innovation: the horoscope! The interest of the audience in reading the fate was such that in record time all the papers got theirs
horoscopes, and astrology experts sprouted like mushrooms afterwards
rain. Today, for example, 96% of people in Europe know in which sign they were born, and only
34% know their blood type." |