A Scheme of Heaven: The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data

A Scheme of Heaven: The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data PDF Author: Alexander Boxer
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039363485X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
An illuminating look at the surprising history and science of astrology, civilization’s first system of algorithms, from Babylon to the present day. Humans are pattern-matching creatures, and astrology is the universe’s grandest pattern-matching game. In this refreshing work of history and analysis, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines classical texts on astrology to expose its underlying scientific and mathematical framework. Astrology, he argues, was the ancient world’s most ambitious applied mathematics problem, a monumental data-analysis enterprise sustained by some of history’s most brilliant minds, from Ptolemy to al-Kindi to Kepler. Thousands of years ago, astrologers became the first to stumble upon the powerful storytelling possibilities inherent in numerical data. To correlate the configurations of the cosmos with our day-to-day lives, astrologers relied upon a “scheme of heaven,” or horoscope, showing the precise configuration of the planets at a particular instant in time as viewed from a particular place on Earth. Although recognized as pseudoscience today, horoscopes were once considered a cutting-edge scientific tool. Boxer teaches us how to read these esoteric charts—and appreciate the complex astronomical calculations needed to generate them—by diagramming how the heavens appeared at important moments in astrology’s history, from the assassination of Julius Caesar as viewed from Rome to the Apollo 11 lunar landing as seen from the surface of the Moon. He then puts these horoscopes to the test using modern data sets and statistical science, arguing that today’s data scientists do work similar to astrologers of yore. By looking back at the algorithms of ancient astrology, he suggests, we can better recognize the patterns that are timeless characteristics of our own pattern-matching tendencies. At once critical, rigorous, and far ranging, A Scheme of Heaven recontextualizes astrology as a vast, technological project—spanning continents and centuries—that foreshadowed our data-driven world today.

A Scheme of Heaven: The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data

A Scheme of Heaven: The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data PDF Author: Alexander Boxer
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039363485X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book

Book Description
An illuminating look at the surprising history and science of astrology, civilization’s first system of algorithms, from Babylon to the present day. Humans are pattern-matching creatures, and astrology is the universe’s grandest pattern-matching game. In this refreshing work of history and analysis, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines classical texts on astrology to expose its underlying scientific and mathematical framework. Astrology, he argues, was the ancient world’s most ambitious applied mathematics problem, a monumental data-analysis enterprise sustained by some of history’s most brilliant minds, from Ptolemy to al-Kindi to Kepler. Thousands of years ago, astrologers became the first to stumble upon the powerful storytelling possibilities inherent in numerical data. To correlate the configurations of the cosmos with our day-to-day lives, astrologers relied upon a “scheme of heaven,” or horoscope, showing the precise configuration of the planets at a particular instant in time as viewed from a particular place on Earth. Although recognized as pseudoscience today, horoscopes were once considered a cutting-edge scientific tool. Boxer teaches us how to read these esoteric charts—and appreciate the complex astronomical calculations needed to generate them—by diagramming how the heavens appeared at important moments in astrology’s history, from the assassination of Julius Caesar as viewed from Rome to the Apollo 11 lunar landing as seen from the surface of the Moon. He then puts these horoscopes to the test using modern data sets and statistical science, arguing that today’s data scientists do work similar to astrologers of yore. By looking back at the algorithms of ancient astrology, he suggests, we can better recognize the patterns that are timeless characteristics of our own pattern-matching tendencies. At once critical, rigorous, and far ranging, A Scheme of Heaven recontextualizes astrology as a vast, technological project—spanning continents and centuries—that foreshadowed our data-driven world today.

A History of Western Astrology

A History of Western Astrology PDF Author: S. J. Tester
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 9780851152554
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Superb general account.' Times Literary Supplement The story of the history of Western astrology begins with the philosophers of Greece in the 5th century BC. To the magic and stargazing of Egypt the Greeks added numerology, geometryand rational thought. The philosophy of Plato and later of the Stoics made astrology respectable, and by the time Ptolemy wrote his textbook the Tetrabiblos, in the second century AD, the main lines of astrological practice as it is known today had already been laid down. In future centuries astrology shifted to Islam only to return to the West in medieval times where it flourished until the shift of ideas during the Renaissance.

Astrology for Writers

Astrology for Writers PDF Author: Corrine Kenner
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 0738733334
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Enhance your storytelling with the cosmic drama of the stars The nighttime sky has inspired writers and astrologers alike to spin stories on the strands of starlight. Discover that inspiration for your own creative writing in Astrology for Writers, the essential guide to understanding the core concepts of astrology--the planets, signs, and houses--and discovering how they correspond to the elements of fiction. Unleash your creativity with a wide range of ideas that help you add astrology to your writing practice. Learn how to use the planets for characters, the signs of the zodiac for plot and themes, and the houses of the horoscope for settings. Develop unique characters based on mythic archetypes, use astrological imagery and symbolism for your descriptions and dialogue, and put theory into practice with writing prompts and examples. Invite the gods and goddesses of astrology to enter your writing and share their stories through you.

You Were Born for This

You Were Born for This PDF Author: Chani Nicholas
Publisher: HarperOne
ISBN: 9780063043770
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From beloved astrologer Chani Nicholas comes an essential guide for radical self-acceptance. Your weekly horoscope is merely one crumb of astrology's cake. In her first book You Were Born For This, Chani shows how your birth chart--a snapshot of the sky at the moment you took your first breath--reveals your unique talents, challenges, and opportunities. Fortified with this knowledge, you can live out the life you were born to. Marrying the historic traditions of astrology with a modern approach, You Were Born for This explains the key components of your birth chart in an easy to use, choose your own adventure style. With journal prompts, reflection questions, and affirmations personal to your astrological makeup, this book guides you along the path your chart has laid out for you. Chani makes the wisdom of your birth chart accessible with three foundational keys: The First Key: Your Sun (Your Life's Purpose) The Second Key: Your Moon (Your Physical and Emotional Needs) The Third Key: Your Ascendant and Its Ruler (Your Motivation for Life and the Steersperson of Your Ship) Astrology is not therapy, but it is therapeutic. In a world in which we are taught to look outside of ourselves for validation, You Were Born for This brings us inward to commit to ourselves and our life's purpose. --Los Angeles Magazine

From the Omens of Babylon

From the Omens of Babylon PDF Author: Michael Baigent
Publisher: Penguin Mass Market
ISBN: 9780140194807
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
From the Omens of Babylon examines the fusion of religion, astrology, and magic of ancient Babylonia and shows how many of the Mesopotamians' teachings and beliefs are present in contemporary astrology.

Stowe's Bible Astrology

Stowe's Bible Astrology PDF Author: Lyman E. Stowe
Publisher: Health Research Books
ISBN: 9780787308506
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
1907 the Bible Founded on Astrology. "The old testament and astrology or religion keeps pace with the sun through the great zodiac. the story of the Sun God and the story of the Son of God are one and the same. Man made in the image of his creator, th.

Postcolonial Astrology

Postcolonial Astrology PDF Author: Alice Sparkly Kat
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1623175305
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Tapping into the political power of magic and astrology for social, community, and personal transformation. In a cross-cultural approach to understanding astrology as a magical language, Alice Sparkly Kat unmasks the political power of astrology, showing how it can be channeled as a force for collective healing and liberation. Too often, magic and astrology are divorced from their potency and cultural contexts: co-opted by neoliberalism, used as a force of oppression, or distilled beyond recognition into applications that belie their individual and collective power. By looking at the symbolic and etymological histories of the sun, moon, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter, we can trace and understand the politics of magic--and challenge our own practices, interrogate our truths, and reshape our institutions to build better frameworks for communities of care. Fearless, radical, and fresh, Sparkly Kat's Postcolonial Astrology ushers in a new wave of astrology revival, refusing to apologize for its magickism and connecting its power to the spirituality and politics we need now. Intersectional, inclusive, and geared towards queer and POC communities, it uses our historical and collective constructs of the planets, sun, and moon to re-chart our subconscious history, redefine the body in the world, and assert our politics of the personal, in astrology and all things.

Jung on Astrology

Jung on Astrology PDF Author: C. G. Jung
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131530449X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Jung on Astrology brings together C. G. Jung’s thoughts on astrology in a single volume for the first time, significantly adding to our understanding of Jung’s work. Jung’s Collected Works, seminars, and letters contain numerous discussions of this ancient divinatory system, and Jung himself used astrological horoscopes as a diagnostic tool in his analytic practice. Understood in terms of his own psychology as a symbolic representation of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, Jung found in astrology a wealth of spiritual and psychological meaning and suggested it represents the "sum of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity." The selections and editorial introductions by Safron Rossi and Keiron Le Grice address topics that were of critical importance to Jung—such as the archetypal symbolism in astrology, the precession of the equinoxes and astrological ages, astrology as a form of synchronicity and acausal correspondence, the qualitative nature of time, and the experience of astrological fate—allowing readers to assess astrology’s place within the larger corpus of Jung’s work and its value as a source of symbolic meaning for our time. The book will be of great interest to analytical psychologists, Jungian psychotherapists and academics and students of depth psychology, Jungian and post-Jungian studies, as well as to astrologers and therapists of other orientations, especially transpersonal.

The Fated Sky

The Fated Sky PDF Author: Benson Bobrick
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743268954
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
'The Fated Sky' looks at famous figures and important historical events that were influenced by astrology.

The Secrets of Astrology

The Secrets of Astrology PDF Author: DK
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 074403728X
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Discover the hidden meaning of stars in this first introduction to astrology for children. Secrets of Astrology tells you all you want to know about astrology, from the meaning of zodiac signs, to how to read a birth chart. Simple, readable text clearly explains the origins of astrology, the role of the planets, and the significance of the 12 Houses. Young astrologers are guided through all of the different zodiac signs, and can learn more about themselves in the process. Bold, colorful illustrations bring key concepts to life, and make this the perfect addition to your bookshelf. This book is the perfect gift for budding astrologers, or those who love the night sky.