There is a psychic/astrology storefront near my office. Some of my students have used her services and suggested that I check it out, as a lark. I have yet to do so.
Adam Grant recently devoted a Substack post to destroying any last remaining shred of credibility of astrology. Not only is astrology a bunch of malarky – as the science proves! – but it is a “gateway drug” to other strange and unmoored ideas. I’m not sure about the “gateway drug” bit (more on that below), but I totally agree with the rest. Even as entertainment, I recoil at the idea of giving my money to a charlatan.
Yet if I am being completely honest with myself, I also am afraid of what she will say. Who knows what kind of odd and potentially disturbing thoughts she will give me? I rationally know that I should not feel this. Yet, there is, perhaps, something seductive about the idea that someone can tell your future, combined with the belief that your fate is intertwined with the movements of the heavenly bodies. Whatever drives that feeling, I know that many others share it. Even in our scientifically-centered world astrology is a billion dollar business.
The practice of astrology is, of course, ancient. So too is criticism of it. Like today, most politicians and intellectuals throughout antiquity thought astrology to be, at best, a dubious activity. At worst, it was a way to manipulate the masses to oppose the State. At the same time, these same intellectuals largely subscribed its basic tenets.
Astrology is grounded in three basic beliefs. First, that time has quality. That is, moments of time are intrinsically different. Second, that this quality is linked to the movement of the constellations and the planets. Of special interest to astrologers is where the constellations are in the sky and the planets in relation to them. Third, that the there is a connection between the quality of the time as indicated in the heavens and what happens here on earth. This connection is sometimes referred to as the doctrine of correspondences. (The later theologian Emanuel Swedenborg would later apply this idea to his own spiritual and religious world.) The truth of these propositions was hardly questioned through antiquity, or for that matter, until the early modern period.
The nature of the correspondence was, however, a topic of ancient debate. Was the movement of the astral bodies (in which, according to some, were embodied the gods themselves) the cause of events, or signs of the future? This philosophical problem, of course, is at the heart of all future-telling activities: Are signs of the future deterministic and unalterable? One of the more famous ancient examples that leans toward determinism is that of Oedipus, whose family tried to do everything they could to alter a bad reading of the future only to discover that they facilitated that very outcome. Jewish and Christian intellectuals in antiquity never denied that there were meanings in the movement of the stars but they did largely shun deterministic interpretations. The future could be foretold but knowing its course could also be altered, especially (when bad) through acts of piety.
As with dream interpreters, there were learned and less-learned astrologers. Expert astrologers would have known not only how visually to recognize what was happening in the heavens but also how to compute the movement of the constellations and stars. One Hebrew manual from Late Antiquity, Sepher Ha-Razim, describes how one can ascend through the seven firmaments of heaven, what one will see at each level and how one should respond. According to its preface, the angel Raziel originally gave this information to Noah who learned from it the movement of the constellations and what they mean. Sepher Ha-Razim is not an astrological manual as we might usually understand the term since it does not detail the correspondences between the quality of time and the meaning of events. It does, though, link astrological phenomena to adjurations of angels and the firmament in which those angels reside. For example, if a man wants to win the heart of a rich woman (the manual entirely assumes a readership of men), then during the full moon he should invoke the angels of the first firmament by putting a piece of tin inscribed with an adjuration into a flask containing one’s sweat and bury it on her doorstep. The manual assumes a ritual expert who has many abilities, including at least some facility with astronomical observations, the names of angels, and scribal skills.
The rabbis very rarely mention astrologers, and when they do, they use a Greek loan word and reduce the position to a pedestrian and frequently incorrect predictor of the future. Despite frequent Roman claims that astrology is “Chaldean”, and thus originally practiced in Aramaic, rabbinic literature never uses an Aramaic or Hebrew term that we might translate as astrologer. The astrologer, even more than the dream interpreter, is mocked, even if the rabbi acknowledges that he (always he) does have the power to accurately predict the future. Even the rabbis never seem to condemn them outright or reject their expert knowledge and it is likely that other Jews did not have scruples about consulting them. Whether there were specifically Jewish astrologers (as there may have been dream interpreters) is unknown.
Christian authorities had a dimmer view of astrologers. Already beginning in 357, Roman imperial legislation astrologers get lumped together with soothsayers, diviners, augurs, seers, Chaldeans, and wizards – anyone who consults one is liable for the death penalty. (How often, or even whether, this was ever enforced is a different question.) The teaching of astrology was banned in 373 and in 409 all astrologers throughout the Roman Empire were to be banished unless they “transfer their faith to the practice of the Catholic religion and never return to their former false doctrine.” While the legislation becomes increasingly severe over time, it is quite possible that astrologers continued to work, with some catering to Christian customers. (For more on Christian astrology, see this excellent, open-access book.)
Astrology is a nice example of the complicated intersection between science, theology, philosophy, “official” religion, and actual human practice. That practice is often driven by deeper, ubiquitous psychological impulses. Scientists, philosophers, theologians, clergy, and lawmakers can work around the edges of those impulses, but our desire to know the future and to feel connected to a world beyond ourselves is here to stay – and thus too, the market for astrology and astrologers.
It’s equivocal, I know, but I wonder whether Rosh HaShanah 19a (“they sought the advice of a certain *matronita* whom all the nobility of Rome frequented”) might actually be a reference to a female astrologer, especially since her advice was to “cry out at night” – i.e., that a certain time of day would be more propitious for their complaints.