Astrology

Astrology was originally the Greek science of heavens (αστρός = star | λόγος = word/speech), which was based on a proper rule or method, the Astronomy (νόμος = law/rule), and which concerned the effects that the celestial world have generally in material world. The ancient astronomers, like Hipparchus and Ptolemy, are no longer important astrologers, and saw in astronomy a mathematical (geometrical) means to obtain a more reliable astrological knowledge.

After the scientific revolution, the word "science" gained a more restricted usage of investigative efficient causes, rather than final ones of the phenomenal universe. In addition, many of the cosmological presuppositions that support classical ancient astrological knowledge, relations between stars and human life in general, have fallen into discredit. In that time, the scientific investigation associated to the celestial rule, searching for efficient causes of the stars' movements and processes, in a new un-earth-centered, planets-like-earth, stars-like-sun and perhaps infinite Universe, was made origin to Astrophysics; and Astrology, like other ancient disciplines (as Alchemy and Kabbalah) was legated to mysticism, and not seriously recognized by most academics.

Today, however, astrology is still a popular and active field of study, with many periodicals and newspapers having an astrological section.