Astrology's Foe: Precession
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Modern day astrology claims that the position of the sun, moon, and planets in the sky somehow influences a person's life. Ironically, the true positions of those heavenly bodies cause one to seriously question the validity of astrology --- that, and a little thing called precession.
For millennia humans noticed how the sun and Moon influenced everyday life. The sun told us when to plant and reap. It gave light and warmth to all life. The Moon caused tides and was somehow connected to many biological rhythms. So, understandably, there were some people who gave reverence to the greater and lesser lights of the heavens, even deifying them.
Planets, being in the heavenlies with the sun and Moon, were thought to have some mystifying influence on life here, as well.
Over time the study of the positions of these influential, mysterious bodies evolved into a sophisticated belief system known as astrology.
One aspect of this belief system was that the position of the sun and planets at one's birth influenced that person's personality and future.
The positions of the sun and the planets actually appear to move very slowly through the fixed stars behind them. The Sun crawls along through the starry constellations, just a tiny bit each day, on an imaginary line called the ecliptic, taking a year to go once completely around us through the heavens.
The ecliptic goes right through a zoo of background constellations called the zodiac. The planets "travel" though the zodiac, as well. Hence we have phrases like "the Sun is in Scorpius" or "Mars is in Gemini."
Adherents to astrology note the positions of all these celestial players at the moment of birth. Where the sun is thought to be determines one's "sign." But where is the Sun actually? Therein lies our problem. Thinking cap time!
Earth spins on an axis. Its axis is slightly tilted with respect to our orbit around the sun. But we are spinning with the same tilt all year long, our axis "pointing" in the same direction toward the North Star, Polaris. We go through our life month after month, season after season, with Earth pointing at the same star with nary a noticeable change.
But if you could live for hundreds or thousands of years, you'd notice our axis actually drifts!
This drift is more like the wobble of a top. Spin a top for all it's worth and you'll notice that although it's spinning pretty fast, it begins to wobble slowly.
Earth
wobbles like a top. This is called precession. But for Earth to wobble
just once takes over nine million spins --- about 26,000 years! Now for
the astrology connection:
Thousands of years ago when the first horoscopes were being developed, our axis was pointing to a different part of the sky. And if you were there on the first day of "January" the sun would be in Capricornus.
But precession happens. We have wobbled. And we have adjusted our calendar through the centuries to adjust for the wobble.
But this adjustment of the calendar has had profound effects on the horoscope. A baby born today on January 1, although referred to by believers as a "Capricorn" is not a Capricorn. The sun at that baby's birth is in Sagittarius! In fact, the sun on January 1 hasn't been in Capricorn for more than 500 years. Yikes!
It turns out that because our planet wobbles almost everyone has a different "sign" than what is given in the common horoscopes. Hmmm ...
Precession is just one problem astronomy has dealt to its distant cousin astrology. We'll examine others in months to come.
Posted by Administrator at 2001.09.15 08:13 AM | Comments (0)
