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Mercurial, Martial, Jovial
Preposterous as it may be, the astrology cult suggests a deep longing for some order in the universe—an order denied by modern science and philosophy. This is expressed by Danny Weiss, a 24-year-old partner in an astrologically hip music-recording outfit called Apostolic Studios, which is guided by top-ranking Astrologer Al Morrison, president of the Astrologers' Guild of America. Danny Weiss believes that the uptrend in astrology is a result of "an awakening of religious consciousness. People have lost faith in their old beliefs," he says. But "if you believe in the order of the universe, then you'll believe in astrology because the order of the stars expresses that universal order."
The search for such order goes back to the beginnings of man. Notches cut in reindeer bones and mammoth tusks from the Upper Paleolithic period may be records of the cycles of the moon as much as 25,000 years ago. Modern astrology, in the Western Hemisphere at least, derives from the Chaldeans of the Babylonian Empire who sent Berosus and his fellow astromancers up the ziggurats to study the stars for clues to human destiny. The assumption was only natural. The influences of the sun on the earth and the moon on the seas were obvious, and it was easy to suppose that those other bright deities, the planets—which seemed to be advancing, receding, moving up and down and backward among the fixed stars—should be concerned with wars and governments and the destinies of men on earth.
The characteristics of some of these planet-gods, which were thought to be actual superbeings, could be inferred from their appearance and movement. Mars' bloody color made it the martial god of war; Mercury's quick motion near the sun gave it a nervous, mercurial quality; big, bright Jupiter suggested power, success and the joviality that goes with them; bright-burning Venus, seen so often in the beauty of evening, suggested love.
The origin of the constellations of the zodiac is more problematic. Their number, twelve, is obviously an approximation of the number of moon cycles in a year, and the system probably began as a way of measuring time and relating it to agriculture. But how the twelve signs came to be identified with specific creatures (the Greek word zodiakos means "pertaining to animals") is obscure. Only two of the zodiacal signs bear any visible relation to actual arrangements of stars in the sky. One is Gemini (the Twins), which consists of two principal bright stars (Castor and Pollux) of almost equal magnitude. The other is Scorpio, with a grouping of 15 stars reminiscent of the stinging tail of that dangerous insect, common in the Middle East.
Planet means "wanderer" in Greek, and as these gods wandered through the narrow belt of the zodiac, they exhibited changes of mood that are still important elements in the astrology of today. The ancients were convinced that the earth was the center of the universe, fixed and unmoving. When the earth's actual