Elements of the Zodiac

From our earliest days on this planet, the sky above has been one of the most engrossing mysteries of the natural world that surrounds us. In the modern-day, scientific studies have made explaining the truth of those miracles all the easier. For early humankind, the situation was much different.

Babylon was one of the oldest civilizations that sprung up out of Mesopotamia's "Fertile Crescent" region. It was the Babylonians who first introduced the concept of the zodiac to the ancient world.

The Babylonians identified a sequence of twelve separate constellations that heavenly bodies had to pass through on their yearly journey, and divided them into equal segments. These segments acted like a yardstick of sorts for the analysis of celestial "time".

The ancient Greeks, inspired by the work of the Babylonians, studied the connection between their gods and the heavenly bodies above.

The ancient Romans were also drawn to astrology. The names they chose to identify the planets and constellations are the same names we use in western astrology today.

But with the fall of the Roman Empire, most of contemporary Europe experienced what is now known as the "Dark Ages" where the knowledge gained by the civilizations of antiquity were lost to the sands of time, their works on astrology included. From here the study of astrology was mainly centered in the Middle East.

Following the Renaissance and The Great Awakening, the practice of western astrology soon began to fall out of favor as new scientific discoveries pointed us towards "reason", and away from old "superstitions".

No longer was it used to influence political, social, and religious leaders; but while its popularity as an academic discipline waned, its use as a tool of metaphysical divination would not.

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