| |
Mundane astrology is the
application of astrology to world affairs and world events,
taking its name from the Latin word Mundus, meaning "the
World". Mundane astrology is a branch of Judicial astrology
and is widely believed by astrological historians to be the
most ancient branch of astrology. In the Middle Ages mundane
astrology was more commonly known as the study of Revolutions
- meaning the study of the revolutions of the planets in their
apparent orbits around the Earth, as they were then believed
to do. Political astrology is a
branch of mundane astrology dealing with politics, the government,
and the politicians/laws governing a particular nation, state,
or city. A wider definition of mundane astrology focuses also
on natural and man-made disasters.
There are two major approaches to the study
of mundane astrology. One is the focus on national horoscopes.
It is held that certain countries have astrological charts
(or horoscopes) just like a person is said to in astrology.
For example, the modern state of India is widely considered
to have come into being at midnight on August 15, 1947. This
time gives rise to a national horoscope for this country,
which can be analyzed in terms of the natal potential and
the impacts of transiting planets in the horoscope at any
given time. The other approach is the ancient practice of
finding correlations that exist between geological phenomena
(such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc.) and astronomical
phenomena (the movement of celestial bodies in the Solar System).
This approach is based on the horoscope of the astronomical
placements at any given time, without reference to a national
horoscope.
Mundane astrology had two purposes:
one was to look back and explain history, looking for patterns
and a sense of some greater purpose in apparently chaotic events
such as the rise and fall of empires or religions. The other
was to predict the future. Some philosophers believed that the
world could be saved from disaster if future troubles could
be predicted – and subsequently averted. Although
it was originally developed in ancient Babylon there have
been three subsequent major periods of developments. In 120
AD the Greek astrologer Claudius Ptolemy set down the fundamentals
of mundane astrology in his famous treatise on astrology,
the Tetrabiblos. In the ninth and tenth centuries the astrologers
of the Islamic world added many more techniques, particularly
the use of the cycles of Jupiter and Saturn to identify the
rise and fall of states and religions. The twentieth century
saw a major proliferation of techniques mainly based on the
use of planetary cycles rather than, as had always been the
case the interpretation of planetary positions in horoscopes
or natal charts.
An approach to studying longer-term history
through astrology is through the use of "precession of
the equinoxes" indicators, providing a source for the
idea of Astrological Ages.
|
|
