Horoscopic Astrology - Overview

Overview

Based on literal sources, it is held that Horoscopic astrology first appeared in the Mediterranean region, likely Hellenistic Egypt, sometime around the late 2nd or early 1st century BCE. In ancient Hellenistic astrology the ascendant demarcated the first celestial house of a chart, and the word for the ascendant in Greek was horoskopos. This is the word that the English term "horoscope" derives from, which in modern times has come to denote the diagram of the heavens as a whole. It is also a fact that horoscopic astrology was practiced in ancient India and modern Vedic astrology is its surviving form.

Horoscopic astrology can, in essence, be summed up as the practice of casting astrological charts that reflect the apparent positions of a variety of celestial bodies and points from the perspective of the subject at any given moment in time. The most prevalent application of horoscopic astrology is to use it to analyze the birth charts of individuals in order to read character, psychological traits, and, to some extent, destiny. In theory, however, a horoscope can be cast for the beginning of any entity, including organisations, nations, animals, and even objects (for example ships, cars and aeroplanes).