The farmer prophet

Robert Nixon, a rural visionary with a reputation of mentally retarded, was born toward 1467 in a farm of the English county of Cheshire. He started to work as a waiter of tillage because he was too dumb to do anything else. He barely spoke, although sometimes he talked incomprehensible things. However, one day, while he was working, he made a pause, He looked surprised and exclaimed: "Now, Dick! We are going, Harry! Very bad!!, Dick! Well done! Harry! Harry has triumphed!" Such exclamations, more coherent than they used to be, although also incomprehensible, filled of confusion to his colleagues, but the following day everything was clarified: At the same moment of the strange attack of Robert, the King Richard III died in Bosworth Field, and the winner of this decisive battle, Henry Tudor, became Henry VII of England.

The news of the bucolic fortuneteller did not take long to reach the new king, who was very intrigued, and who wanted to see him, Nixon was accompanied to the palace. He had not yet left the court, when full of anguish, he began to wander around the village shouting that Enrique had called him and that he was going to die of starvation.

Meanwhile, Enrique had planned a method to test the young prophet, and when Nixon was led into his presence he seemed to be embarrassed. He explained to him that he had lost a valuable diamond. Could you please help me to find it? Nixon then replied calmly, "Who can hide can find". Naturally, Enrique had hidden the diamond, and caused him such an impression the response that ordered to record whatever the boy said. What did he say? Duly interpreted, he predicted the civil war in England, death and abdication of their kings and the war with France. Also he predicted that the place of Nantiwich, in Cheshire, would be ravaged by a flood, which had not yet happened.



But the prophecy of most fear for Nixon was the most unbelievable of all: that he would die of hunger in the royal palace. To calm these worries, Enrique ordered that he would be given as much food as he wished and whenever he wished it, this order did not precisely contribute to make friends to the strange young in the real kitchen, whose staff, anyway resented his privileges.

However, a day Enrique left London, one of his officials was taking care of Nixon, to protect him from the bad intentions of the palace´s servitude, he enclosed Nixon in one of the King´s chambers. Urgent matters led him outside of London and he forgot to leave the key or instructions to take care of Robert. When he returned, the poor peasant had died of hunger.

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Legend of the Rectory of Borley

It is said that in Borley, England, existed in the Benedictine monastery of the 13th century, a couple of religious. They escaped to live a love story. But they were captured, the monk was hanged, the nun was confined alive inside one wall of the monastery and the driver of the hearse beheaded.
On the ruins of the building, where the Rectory of Borley was built in 1863, lived Henry Bull and his family, in a Victorian mansion residence. Those who lived there 65 years (1863-1927), saw multiple paranormal events.
After the death of the rector Bull, the priest Smith was installed in the mansion and in 1929 told to the journalists from the Daily Mirror details about everything that was happening inside the mansion. Published on: doorbells and rings that sounded alone, a luminous figure dressed as a nun wandering through the garden, a carriage with horses guided by a coachman beheaded…etc.
They requested the assistance of the researcher Harry Price, who organized a meeting of spiritualism and a week after the parish priest and his wife left the house due to the violence of the phenomena.
Then the rectory passed to the hands of the reverend Foyter and similar phenomena happened. The ghosts were present, the bells rang, pounded strings, materialized and flying objects, even were heard screams heartbreaking. Mr Foyster, was launched from his bed, slapped and almost smothered by a mattress. After that, appeared written messages on the walls, Price discovered one of prophetic character that said: "This house will be burned to the ground". In 1935, Mr. Foyster left the house.
During the year 1938 was a time of abandonment, and the Price used it to gather a group of 48 volunteers for the study of the paranormal phenomena of the building.
And in February 1939, Captain William Greg, made reality the prophecy when an oil lamp fell to the ground in a violent manner and the building was burned; uncovering the remains of the confined nun to whom Price gave Christian burial, closing the case, and collecting their conclusions on two thick books.
In 1974, a group of Research of Enfield, headed by Ronal R. Russel, confirmed the existence of a paranormal phenomenology on Borley.
Each 28th of July, the nun appears and always performs the same route, known as the nun's Walk, an event that attracts thousands of spectators to "the most haunted house in England". In spite of the fact that the building was burned in 1939, there have been calculated more than two thousands of different supernatural cases.

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The Chinese legend of the Blue Rose

Image By Maria William

A powerful emperor of China, wise and gentle, was very happy in his palace: his people were blessed under his government and his home, a paradise of love and peace. But there was something that he was concerned at the highest level. His only daughter, so beautiful, as smart, she was unmarried and did not show great interest in marriage.
The emperor wanted to find a worthy candidate for her, for which he proclaimed his desire to marry the princess. The aspirants to the hand of the young princess were many; at least one hundred and fifty. But the intelligent girl, found a way to avoid the provision that had taken his father. She said that she was willing to get married to obey the emperor, but very subtly, she requested a single condition for accepting her husband: who had to marry her, should bring her a Blue Rose.
The pretenders were discouraged by that request. No one had ever seen a blue rose. What garden of the world flourish that wonderful? And with the security that finding the Blue Rose was an impossible company, the majority of them resigned to marry the beautiful princess. Only three persisted: a rich Merchant, a Warrior and a High Chief of Justice. The Merchant was not a dreamer, but a very sensible man. So, very wisely, he went to the best flower shop in the city, where, with all security, he should find what he was looking for. He was wrong. The florist had not ever seen a blue rose in all his years of Merchant. But the rich Merchant offered a fortune in exchange for this strange flower and the florist promised to take care to search for it. The suitor Warrior, who had known wonderful lands in his campaigns, chose to head toward the country of the King of the Five Rivers. I knew it was a sovereign rich, in whose kingdom overflowing the treasures.
The Warrior departed accompanied by a hundred soldiers, and that armed retinue and dazzling, made a deep impression on the King of the Five Rivers, fearing an attack, ordered his servers to run to bring the blue rose to offer it to the gentleman who had made the request. A servant returned bringing in his hands a beautiful box. When he opened it, the Warrior was dazzled. Inside the box there was a beautiful sapphire carved with the form of a rose.
It was definitely a real present and the Warrior, sure of his triumph, returned with the jewel to his country. But the princess moved the head to contemplate the jewel. The present of the Warrior was not more than that, a precious stone, not a true flower. That gift did not correspond to the condition required. Little took the Merchant to know that his rival had failed and returned to urge his florist to get the blue rose. The Merchant was desperate without any result, until one day, the florist wife, full of cunning, believed to find the solution. Nothing easier than painting blue a white rose, and with it, the Merchant would win the hand of the Princess and them a large fortune. Impossible to describe the joy of the rich Merchant when the Merchant of flowers made him know that he had already found what he needed. Ran to the florist, took the petal blue flower and do not delayed a second to reach the palace. And when everyone believed that the Merchant had reached their prize, the intelligent Princess moved its beautiful head and said: "That is not what I want". This Rose has been tinted with a poisonous liquid that would cause the death of the first butterfly that pose on her. She did not accept neither the jewel of the Warrior nor the false pink flower of the Merchant.
I want a blue rose. In his turn, the High Chief of Justice, who had been seen the failure of his two rivals, saw that the field was free to him. Thought a lot of time in the way of finding the Blue Rose that the Princess wanted, and finally, an appropriate idea emerged in his mind. He visited in his workshop an exquisite artist, and requested him to make a fine glass, where he asked the artist to paint a blue rose. The artist took great care in his work, and when he presented to the High Chief of Justice, he did not hesitate a moment that the triumph was already his. With this security he presented to the Princess. The young woman was really admired with that work. No one had ever seen a glass of porcelain so beautiful and transparent, and the Blue Rose in it painted, it was a true work of art. But although she admitted the gift and thanked him with gracious gesture, she had to confess that it was not a rose painted what she wanted. Much regretted, but neither the High Chief of Justice had found what she wanted to grant his hand. And since then nobody returned to talk about the marriage of the Princess, nor was another aspirant to get her hand, much to the delight of the young.
But shortly after, something happened that should make her regret her ingenious trick. The people began to talk in the palace about a young troubadour that travel the country singing sweet songs. And one night the beautiful Princess walked with one of the maidens in the palace garden and came to her ears a sweet melody. The troubadour jumped the wall, and that evening he sang for her his most beautiful songs. The Princess and the troubadour fell in love, and the young man returned other nights to sing under her windows. More time greater was their love, and the troubadour wanted to present himself to the Sovereign to ask for the hand of the Princess. It was then when the beautiful young warned that the cunning that she had used to zoom out to her suitors would prevent also that she could marry with the troubadour, if he could bring the Blue Rose. Her father would also require him to bring the Blue Rose. And she knew that this was impossible. But her lover reassured her "his love could everything".
A great commotion occurred in the court when it became known that a new suitor was subjected to the test to find the Blue Rose and would be submitted with it. The troubadour went through between the row of courtiers and ladies, and came to the Princess. Tended the hand, and offered her a beautiful white rose moments before he had taken it of the palace garden. The princess smiled happy, and with the consequent astonishment of all, stated that this was exactly the blue rose she wanted. A murmur of surprise and indignation ran by the lounge, and the emperor also looked at her daughter, as if he believed that she had gone mad. But the saying was so blessed, which included all, cut immediately the talks saying that the princess was the one who had demanded that condition, and that if she, as smart as all the wise men of the court, admitted that the rose submitted to her was blue, nobody could doubt about it. Therefore, triumphed the love of the Chinese Princess.
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Meridiana: The succubus lover of a Pope.

Image By Diane Özdamar

The demons and vampires are not only recurrent visitors of cemeteries, but they also lived in most of the medieval cuts, in each convent and library. In fact, even the Vatican wasn´t safe from them. Meridiana was a famous succubus, i.e. a female spirit prone to debauchery lover, very feared by monks, bishops, cardinals, and even by the pontiff.
The history of Meridiana was noted by Walter Map in his work of 1185 De Nugis Curialum, which means something like: The trifles of courtier. Walter Map maintains the hypothesis that Meridiana was the lover - and friend and counselor, and confidant- the mathematician and scholar Gerbert of Aurillac, who would become Pope Sylvester II, more known as the Pope of the Millennium, and whose pontificate, brief and agitated by continuing conflict, spread between 999 and 1003.
During its four years of Pope Sylvester II fought hard and with little success, against simony and the heresy that threatened to Rome. Its greatest ally in this crusade against the blasphemy crime was, strangely, one sent from the hell: Meridiana.
Go back in time to know the origin of this mythological story of love. As a young priest Gerbert of Aurillac fell madly in love with the daughter of the Provost of Rheims; case doubly unfortunate if we take into account their vows of chastity in addition to its ugliness. She unequivocally rejected, and perhaps with cruelty. Gerbert, desperate, fell into a deep melancholy.
In this awful state met Meridiana, who offered him money, wisdom, and above all his own body, delicate and perfect, under the condition that he be unconditionally faithful. Gerbert of Aurillac agreed and his career amounted very faster. It soon became Archbishop of Rheims, in Cardinal, Archbishop of Ravenna, and finally Pope.
Throughout his life he kept his relationship with Meridiana in a prudent secret. Walter Map noted with any logic that the powers of hell did not always work for their own benefit, and which often acted as true love toward the mortals. Meridiana fell in love sincerely of good Gerbert of Aurillac, even she was indulgent with some infidelities, as that remained with the daughter of the Provost of Rheims, who found him suddenly attractive once he was ordered Pope.
The relationship of Meridiana with the Pope Sylvester was, as they say, ideal. Intellectually stimulating during the day and epidermal during the evenings. For greater benefits, the supernatural presence of a diabolical agent - argue the demonologists- redoubles the force of the men of faith. Someday, before traveling to the East,
Meridiana was snatched by a breathtaking vision, which prophesied the end of his mistress: he will die saying mass in Jerusalem. Aware that his end was approaching, the Pope Sylvester made a public confession, regretted of his sins and departed quickly toward Jerusalem, where he died just at the end of the mass.
His body was moved to Rome in the middle of large laments and funeral processions. Even the fiercest papal lackeys managed to persuade Meridiana to abandon the procession. She soon accompanied him in death. During a council secret, a group of flexible ideology priests decided that this love, although unnatural and unjustifiable theologically, was pure in essence, and the body of Meridiana was deposited in the sarcophagus of the own Sylvester II in the Basilica of St John Lateran.
Those who have accessed to the crypt ensure that the common gravestone flows a thick steam and dark that announces the death of the Pope. Walter Map, less pious, ensured that in the evenings you can hear strange moans and jolts from the sarcophagus, accompanied by a kind of fog or sweat that condenses on the marble sacred, although reserves any type of interpretation on this mystery.

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The history of the Magician Pope

The Middle Ages is a period of the history that has always been so mutilated. In the schools we learned that it was a stage of chaos and constant wars and conflicts created by uncultured and stubborn feudal lords. Some circumstances are certain, of the Middle Ages are studied the wars, successions, the feudal lords and some other important kings, leaving completely aside to those men who had the responsibility of civilization and the welfare of people. What really matters and defines a civilization is their culture, their social organization and the way of life of people in the city or in the country, and not that chaos that existed in the early centuries of the Middle Ages and so highlighted by the history books.
In the Middle Ages arose the Benedictines order which, in a society lacking of principles, they were worried about the wisdom of the people, they recovered old documents of the cultures of all the existing civilizations, thereby creating the cult aristocracy ready to govern worthily. 
Even the Benedictines were interested in the Arab culture, which was the owner of the science and the knowledge of the East, that was longed for the members of the Order of Saint Benedict. To this end they decided to expand them from France to Spain, encouraging the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula that was in the hands of the Muslims. But, while harangue to wield the sword against the Muslims, the Benedictines maintained contact already in Spain with the Arab culture as scientific and they knew that they would make progress.
Spain was a key point for the Benedictines, order which, in the midst of that profound moral and intellectual crisis, "fought" for having the know, attaining great influence at this time (this pioneering spirit would lead to the creation of the Order of Cluny) and giving great characters who, being completely unknown and forgotten today, shocked the entire medieval civilization. 
One of these characters was Gerbert d' Aurillac, also known as the Pope Sylvester II or the Pope Magician.

Gerbert, a young man with an intelligence nothing normal in his time.

On Gerbert and his entire life, even discounting what is legend, exceeds the imagination. Picturesque character and uploaded color, Gerbert is one of the most extraordinary geniuses that mankind has produced. It is unclear in what year Gerbert was born, although it is accepted it was between the years 945 and 950 in the Occitan region of the Auvergne, in France. 
Nor do we know very well if he was a descendant of a family dedicated to grazing in the rural area of Auvergne or, as it is suggested by some investigators, belonged to the family of the dukes of Aquitaine, seeing clearly that they are two very different theories, but is predominantly the first one.
Whatever was his offspring, Gerbert was admitted by the Benedictine monks of the abbey of Saint-Géraud d' Aurillac at the age of twelve years, where he studied the "trivium" and the "quadrivium" with the master Raymond Lavaur.
The Benedictines were fascinated by the intelligence that young Gerbert showed, fitting perfectly with the model of person that this order was looking for. In the year 963 arrived to venerate the relics of Saint Geraldo of Aurillac, that were preserved in the Abbey, the Conde Borrell II of Barcelona, a city which at that time was closed to the Hispanic Mark created by Charlemagne to stop the advance of the Saracens. 
Speaking with the Abbot, the count of Barcelona was surprised by the vast knowledge of the young Gerbert, to whom he offered to continue his education in his county, what Gerbert accessed. Already in the county of Barcelona, he continued his education in monasteries such as Vic or Ripoll where he matured his knowledge about science and where he entered in contact with Greek culture and with the arithmetic.
 This would be a passage of time to be mentioned in Gerbert education. He also stayed in Toledo and Cordoba, where he transformed himself into a wise person, since his intellectual training. As we have said before, the Benedictines wanted to own that knowledge that kept the Arab sealed after having been learned by other civilizations. The Arabs were well-informed of the sciences, being much wiser than the Christians, in addition to having studied things as the heretical gnosis, the Kabbalah and the Egyptian culture.
The Benedictines did not send Gerbert to these cities randomly, he was sent so as to enter in that Spain esoteric that concentrated all the knowledge of the moment in the hands of the Muslims. While Christians required any explanation of God, the Muslim scholars were experiencing and looking at the stars.
According to the English Chronicler, William of Malmersbury said that Gerbert had gone to Muslim cities like Toledo and Cordoba in search of knowledge of astrology and other sciences airtight, acquiring knowledge that would be disqualified. He also said that he learned magic formulas and discovering new inventions nonexistent in Christian Europe.
It is in these cities where they knew the number zero, which later would be introduced in Christianity when he became to be Pope, as well as replaced the roman numerals for the ones used by the Arabs. Gerbert exceeded all their teachers in knowledge less one, from who he wanted by all means to know his secrets; even he came to seduce his daughter. Gerbert left Spain and moved to Reims, where he amazed everyone by his high knowledge and raised the suspicion of others.

Gerbert appointed Pope: Sylvester II.

Thanks to the Benedictines, he was appointed Bishop of the city of Reims where he began to distribute at its headquarters the arithmetic, astronomy, the geometry and the music. This would be the time when the first graph, the globe, an astrolabe of great precision and a pendulum clock were built, until that moment unknown in Europe. To accomplish such inventions, quickly it began to circulate the rumor that Gerbert was a necromancer who had made a pact with the devil, because such inventions could only be made by the Malign. After several intrigues in Reims and after the death of the Pope, the Benedictines demonstrated their power in the Church and put Gerbert as Pope in the year 999. The recent Popes had belonged to the Benedictine order and to continue the tradition and also to be able to continue accumulating knowledge, they decided to place Gerbert, that was a sage who surprised the whole world that dealt with him. At this time Gerbert was transformed into Sylvester II, the Pope of the year 1000, while during his four years as Pontiff until his death in 1003 the people considered him as a warlock who had made a pact with the devil.

The Discoveries of Sylvester II. Did he discover the computer in the Middle Ages?

From his return in the Muslim world, Sylvester II deployed a revolutionary scientific activity without neither rate nor measure. He has bequeathed to us, and his books can be consulted in libraries, twenty-four mathematical works full of important discoveries, a treaty of geometry, a treaty of weights and measures, and even a treaty of the game of chess, which is not fortuitous if we remember that this game has a prominent esoteric significance. Sylvester II or Gerbert likely was also an alchemist, probably the first Christian alchemist. Tells an old legend in Aurillac that, still young, he had collected gold in the Jordan River by placing in the water a fleece of sheep to which joined a few pips. We do not know if at that time there were seekers of gold nuggets, but the procedure is similar to the practice of alchemy, he also was very advanced in the Ars Magna, since the precious metal was not within the reach of many. He taught at Reims, as well as astronomy and astrology which had been incorporated into their knowledge in Muslim Spain. In addition, he produced the first great accuracy astrolabe, as well as the first watch, free weights and pendulum. He also built a curious hydraulic component in which the differences of steam pressure produced a whole range of musical sounds, machine that probably would be of the interest of our modern music researchers’ cybernetics and electronics. Sylvester II was who introduced in Western Europe, bringing them from Arab centers, algebra and the use of the figures known as Arabic, which replaced the system of Roman figures, which had as its main consequence, in addition to greater ease of calculation, the possibility of using the zero, with all the revolutionary applications mathematics that meant this number. Finally, in full X century, produced a machine that raises the question of whether it was already an ancestor of the computer. In fact, as noted by Gérard de Sède, which is interested in Sylvester II in his book on Templars "Les Templiers sont parmi nous" ("The Templars were among us"), speaks about a device ignored that replied with a yes or a no to the questions that it faced, was even able to predict the future. Silvestre II never wanted to reveal the secret of their employment, but always responded to the question of its operation as something very simple, based on the calculation of two figures, i.e. a binary code, like our computers contemporaries. This description corresponds entirely to a computer. At his death, Sylvester II, because of his investigations and especially because of those machines considered by most of the population as a " witchery ", was cursed for centuries, being sometimes deleted from the list of popes. Gerbert will be remembered as a French Benedictine alchemist that, already in the X century, had learned all the knowledge and secrets of our civilization and the Eastern Sciences, and that he was misunderstood in his time, being a true Magician Pope.
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Astrology and Religion in the Middle Age

At the beginning of the Middle Ages the astrological fatalism collided with the religious dogmas: with the doctrine of the free will of the Christians and with the Muslim law, because according to the Koran only God knows the future. To try to explain the deep-rooted belief in the astrology without betraying those dogmas, it was used all kinds of arguments. It was recognized that the stars "leaning" but did not oblige; rejected the fatalism but not the astral influences, recognizing that, prevented by the Planets, the man could avoid the dangers that were predicted; this was recognized as a natural astrology and admitted the astral influence on plants and animal life, but were rejected the horoscopes by be presumed as superstition.

Despite all this, astrology enjoyed many adepts; including kings and caliphs, popes and emperors, which had "mathematics" to whose they consulted about personal or official matters. The Arabic influence, which began to manifest itself in the Western Christian world from the eleventh century, contributed largely to this boom, since by natural disposition or in virtue of the Greek culture that had assimilated, cultivated the astrology for religious purposes or to make horoscopes.

The Arab conception of astrology as "decrees of heaven", was born the name of "Judicial Astrology" applied to make horoscopes. The influence of the "Tetrabiblos" can be measured through their translations. This book is one of the first Greek works translated into Arabic (in the second half of the VIII century), and the first work translated from Arabic into Latin, in the first half of the twelfth century. It was translated in many modern languages and until the middle of the twentieth century was the only work of Ptolemy translated into English.

During the Middle Ages the astrology continued his triumphant march: even the Jews cultivated it, although Maimonides the explicitly condemned. In the Byzantine world astrology does not enjoyed greater acceptance, perhaps by the memory of the classical Greek knowledge. On the other hand, was easily introduced in the slave people.

In the Christian world astrology was part of mundane knowledge, with plenty of activity of astrologers and production of astrological works. Began then the linkages between stars and planets and different elements. Dante combined the seven planets with the seven liberal arts and correlated the grammar with the moon, the dialectic with mercury, rhetoric with Venus, arithmetic with the sun, music with Mars, the geometry with Jupiter and the astronomy with Saturn.

He also established the link between astrology and alchemy, and each metal was assigned to a planet, to each operation of the alchemists, a sign: gold to the Sun;  silver to the Moon; iron to Mars; mercury to Mercury; copper to Venus; tin to Jupiter; lead to Saturn; calcination to Aries; freezing to Taurus; mounting to Gemini; dissolution to Cancer; digestion to Leo; distillation to Virgo; sublimation to Libra; separation to Scorpion; creation to Sagittarius; fermentation to Capricorn; multiplication to Aquarium and projection to Pisces. Also appeared the widespread "astral man", materialization of the doctrine of the macrocosm and microcosm, in which every sign of the zodiac is a member or organ of the human body.

According to one of the established correspondences, current, we have that Aries rules the head and brain; Taurus, the neck and throat; Gemini, shoulders, arms and the lungs; Cancer, the chest; Leo, the upper part of the back, the heart and the spine; Virgo, abdomen and intestines; Libra, the lower back and the kidneys; Scorpio, the pelvis and the lower ducts; Sagittarius, the thighs and the flesh; Capricorn, knees and the skin; Aquarius, legs, ankles and the skin; Pisces, feet, the liver and the lymphatic system.

Thus was born the astrological medicine, which remained in full swing until well into the seventeenth century, when famous doctors recommended astrological uroscopy: without seeing the patient, with only to examine the urine and compiling the horoscope of the moment of urination diagnose the disease. Also appeared an astrological pharmacology, according to which the medicinal plants governed by the sun should be collected on a Sunday or the ruled by the moon on Monday, and so on.

The renaissance period printed the seal of ambivalent time to astrological legacy from the medieval era. Coexist the brilliant renaissance of the sciences and the arts with an infinity of civil and religious wars, with rebellions and with the "Night of San Bartolomé" with pests and famine, calamities which recognize the signs of the wrath of God or of evil spirits. Consequently, escalates the belief in hidden powers, enchantments and Bruges.

The discovery of the nature, characteristic of the Renaissance, raised another ambivalence. The man is faced with two masters: God and Nature. Transcendent one, immanent the other, accordingly the astrology, that vague between heaven and earth, offers the possibility to explain that coexistence. For the first time, astrology was also responsible for the religion: manufactures the horoscope of Christ; the conjunctions indicate the birth, and sometimes death, of the great religions.

The characteristic ambivalence of the period was also noted in many thinkers and scientists compared to astrology. The mathematician Cardano, Paracelsus, medical and chemical, the astronomer Kepler, reconcile the cultivation of science with the belief and practice of astrology. In any case, this contradiction yields a crisis: Kepler exclaimed that its laws were not generated through the influence of Mars and Mercury but inspired by the teachings of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. But in the final analysis, the Renaissance, in whose womb was brewing the scientific revolution of the XVII century, was also the golden era of astrology. It would be more accurate to say, astrologically speaking, that was its culmination, precisely because in the XVII century begins the decline of astrology.
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Western astrology

The IV Century B.C. was a particularly fertile ground for the proliferation of astrology. Plato and Aristotle had a common point of view of the universe, and they spoke about connections between the celestial bodies and the world under the Moon (Earth). Astrology had influenced the study of medicine as evidenced in the work of Hippocrates (460-377 a.C.) that lived on the island of Cos. Hippocrates defined the four humors, which he said are found in the blood (hot and humid), in the yellow bile (hot and dry), in the black bile (cold and dry), and in the phlegm (cold and wet) and established the correspondences of these humors with planets.

In the year 140 B.C. Hiparco of Bitnia cataloged 1,081 stars, and a few decades after the Syrian Posidonio of Apamea extended their knowledge of magic and Astrology to the school he founded in Rhodes, where he studied both the Romans and the Greeks. Probably Manilus frameworks was influenced by Posidonus of Apamea when he wrote his verses titled "Astronomic".

The Romans, who had a primitive form of divination traditionally practiced by the augurs, received the astrology in the II Century B.C. of the Greeks who lived in the colonies in the south of Italy. The Romans took the Greek system of the Zodiac, appointing the planets with the names of the Roman deities and Latins (names that are still in use) and naming the seven days of the week with the corresponding Gods and planets. This tradition also influenced the Anglo-Saxon names of the days of the week that still reflect an old connection. Around the year 270 BC they mentioned the judicial and medical astrology in the poem Diosemeia of Greek Aratus of Soli which was translated into Latin and influenced the Romans.

In ancient Rome the Judicial Astrology survived the years of the Republic despite the efforts anti astrological of famous intellectuals of the moment such as Cato (the Censor) and Cicero. In the year 139 B.C. after of the concern of the slaves and the low class in Rome, astrologers were expelled from the roman borders of Italy. In spite of this opposition, astrology gradually came to be accepted among the intellectuals toward the end of the I century B.C. mainly as a result of the spread of Stoicism (that had taken to astrology as part of your system). At the same time that the empire is christianized, the Christian Church began to oppose officially to certain types of astrology in the IV century A.D. (for example in the writings of the Council of Laodicea).

During the Hellenistic Age astrology began to flourish in Egypt through the school of Alexandria, in which the astrological knowledge of Babylonians and Egyptians were melted in Greek philosophy. The earliest Greek Hermetic literature in the II Century A.C. focused in astrology. Fragments of these texts, among which are the Salmeschiniaka and the book of Nechepso and Petosiris, have survived in the Catalogus codicum astrologorum Grecorum, as well as appointments in Arab jobs in the IX century and books written by Latins later.

A poem of astrology, Astronomica, of which there are still five books, was composed at the beginning of the century I A.D. by Marcos Manilius. Manilius collected contemporary knowledge of this science, often in contradictory terms and under the influence of the cosmic vision of the Stoics and their correlation between the macrocosm and microcosm. In the II century A.D. Vetius Valens, an intellectual of Antioch who was in Alexandria, Egypt, compiled the anthology, a job of astrology that displays the new concept of this field as a secret art learned through the initiation.

Ptolemy, one of the most influential intellectuals in the history of astrology, also lived in Alexandria in the century II. Its main tasks were the Almagest by (Greek of the largest) and the Tetrabiblos Quadripartitum (in Latin). The Almagest was a work of astronomy that taught as predict celestial phenomena through the use of mathematics. The Tetrabiblos became the main text for astrologers and occultists of the Western world by several centuries.

Ptolemy met the knowledge of Chaldean and Egyptian astrology and re-interpreted it at the light of Greek philosophy, in particular from the perspective of the Stoics. The idea is that the whole matter is linked in a continuous cosmic and it became a rational explanation for the relation between the changes in the universe (macrocosm) and in the man (microcosm). The magic and traditions such as the symbolism, palmistry, geomancy were annexed to the divination astrology, although these have not changed the basic principles of astrology.

The work of Ptolemy was an authority for centuries, particularly in Constantinople (Byzantium), the capital of the eastern part of the empire where the Greeks remained as the language speaker. In the year 500 A.C., Retorius introduced, among other elements, the division of the Zodiac signs in triads, corresponding to the four classic elements.

Although some theological schools in Byzantium accepted Astrology, several Christian emperors like Constantine, Teodocio, and Valerian, began to ban and threatened to astrologers with exile. In the first years of the century V, in Plato's Academy of Athens, the last bastion of the pre-Christian culture, Proclo (410-485) commented the Tetrabiblos with respect to the stars as a "secondary cause of terrestrial events". But in the year 529, the emperor Justinian (527-565) closed the Academy, saying that it was a center of pagan thought and much of the scholars of Athens fled to Persia and Syria.

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Astrology in Christianity

The conversion of Constantine the Great to Christianity put end to the importance of this science, which for more than 500 years had governed the public life of Rome. In the year 321, Constantine issued an edict threatening to kill all the Chaldeans, magicians, and their followers. With this astrology disappeared during centuries of the Christian areas of western Europe. Only Arab schools in teaching, especially from Spain after the Moors conquered the Iberian Peninsula, accepted the wisdom of classic era. Schools for Arabs and Jews children were the representatives of astrology in the Middle Ages, while the church and some governments of Christians countries rejected and persecuted.

The Caliph Al-Mansur, Baghdad's builder was as his son, the famous Harun al-Rashid, a promoter of education. It was the first Caliph who called Jewish students to develop in his empire the study of mathematics, especially astronomy. In the year 777 the learned Jew Jacob ben Tarik founded in Baghdad a school for the study of astronomy and astrology that soon had a great reputation; between those who studied here was Alquindi (Alkendi), a notorious astronomer.

It was one of the inmates of Alquindi, Abumassar (Abu Mashar), Bath in Chorassan, born around the year 805, who was the largest Arab astrologer of the Middle Ages. Among Jew astrologers more reputed can be mention Sahl ben Bishr al-Israel (near the 820); Rabban al-Taban, the well-known kabbalist and talmudic school; Shabbethai Donalo (913-970), who wrote a commentary of the Sepher Yezirah astrology which was then a standard work in Western Europe; and finally, the lyric poet and mathematician Jew Abraham ibn Ezra.

The recreation of the astrology was driven by Jew school children who lived in Christian lands, since the considered as a necessary part of the Kabbalistic studies and talmudic.

The didactic poem "Imago Mundi", written by Gauthier of Metz in 1245, has an entire chapter about astrology. Pierre d'Ailly, the notorious French theologian and astronomer, wrote a number of treaties about the subject. The public importance of Astrology grew together with the internal disorder of the Church, to grew and declined with the papal and imperial power. Toward the end of the Middle Ages almost all the princes, as well as each regent of importance, had his astrologer in their courts, people like Angelo Catto, the astrologer of Louis XI of France. The renaissance of classical education brought a second period of prosperity for the astrology.

Toward the end of the twelfth century the Florentines used to Guido Bonatti as its official astrologer. Emperors and Popes became devotees of astrology, the emperors Charles IV and V, and the popes Sixtus IV, July II, Leo X, and Paul III. Amid the jealous patterns of science were the Medici. Catalina de Medici made astrology popular in France. It was erected an Astrological Observatory for her close to Paris, and his astrologer of the court was the famous Doctor Michel de Notre Dame (Nostradamus) that published in 1555 his main work on astrology.

Another well-known man was Luke Gauricus, the astrologer of the court of the Popes Leo X and Clement VII, which published a large number of astrological treaties. Some of the past romans astrologers among whom was probably Firmicus Maternus, thought reform astrology idealizing and raising its moral tone. The same purpose encouraged Paolo Toscanelli, called Maistro Pagollo, a doctor widely respected by the piety of his life, that belonged to the scholarly and artistic circle that met the brother Ambrosius Camaldulensis in the monastery of Los Angeles. They were special teachers of astrology in the universities of Pavia, Bologna and even in La Sapienza during the pontificate of Leo X.

The three intellectual centers of astrology in the most magnificent period of the Renaissance were Bologna, Milan and Mantua. The work of J.A. Campanus, published in Rome in 1495, and often commented, "Oratio initio studii Perugiae dwells" showed a clear light on the lack of understanding shown by the Fathers of the Church in its attitude toward the pagan fatalism.

Even the victorious progress of the Copernican system could not destroy the confidence in astrology. The greatest astronomers were still obliged to assign their time to make astrological predictions in the slices per well to the gain; Tycho Brahe made calculations for the Emperor Rudolf II, and the same Kepler, the most distinguished astronomer of the time, was astrologer of the imperial court. In the same period were written astrological treaties by the most famous of the English astrologer, William Lilly of Diseworth, Leicestershire, who received a pension of 100 pounds of the State Council of Cromwell. Among his work was one frequently published, "Christian Astrology".

The last astrologer of importance on the European continent was Jean-Baptiste Morin, that made the "Galica Astrology" in 1661.

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Ancient History of Astrology

Bharat (India)

In Bharat exists today records that clearly point to a highly developed knowledge of astrology of almost 6,500 years old B.C. and manuscripts show documents that were written near the 3,700 B.C. Some of the originals have been destroyed or are lost but copies of these were made by astrologers and can be found in the libraries of the Maharajas and in some states in Bharat.
 One of the most ancient authors of Vedic Astrology, copies of whose works have not been found is Pita Maha who wrote a treaty called Pita Maha Siddhanta.
He lived and wrote this book about 3000 BC 500 years after another writer called Vashishttha wrote several books in astrology, astronomy and philosophy. In the book called "You and Your Hand" by Count Louis Hamon, better known as Cheiro, found this statement: "people in ignorance of which disdains the wisdom of ancient races forget that the great past of India contains secrets of life and philosophy that the following civilizations could not contravene, but were forced to accept it.
For example, it has been demonstrated that the ancient Hindu understood the precession of the equinox and calculated that this (a complete cycle) is carried out every 25,870 years.
 The observation and mathematical accuracy needed to establish this theory has been the wonder and admiration of modern astronomers.
They, with their modern knowledge and current instruments continue to argue among themselves if the precession - the most important feature in the astronomy is done every 25,870 years or every 24,500 years.
The majority believed that the Hindus are not mistaken, but as they reached this calculation is a great mystery as the same origin".

Babylonians Beginning

To the Babylonians are credited the birth of astrology. Their charts allowed them to predict the recurrence of the stations and certain celestial events. Thus, in the beginning and for more than 2,000 years, astrology and astronomy were the same science. Astrology was introduced in Babylon by the Greeks in the first part of the IV Century A.D. and through studies of Plato and Aristotle and others, astrology was referred to us as a science. It was soon taken by the Romans (we still use the Romans names for the zodiacal signs) and the Arabs extended over the entire world. Astrology as we know it today began in the European world in the beginning of the Greek civilization (the word astrology comes from the Greek Astron, star and logos, study). The study of the stars had purposes both scientific and religious. The step of the stars provided the basis for calculating the calendars; they also represented a natural clock at a moment without clocks and gave important points of reference for navigation. A Chaldean priest of Belus, Berosus, which settled in Cos to teach, probably at the beginning of the fourth century B.C., was awarded traditionally to have entered the astrology to Greece. However, the Greeks were already interested in the study of stars from the antiquity. The philosopher presocratic such (625-547 B.C.) who founded the ionic school, philosophy that have any theories the origin of the universe from a simple principle, and Pythagoras of Samos (580-500 B.C.) founder of Pythagonearism (a philosophical system that combines the medicine, astronomy, the musical scales and mathematics to describe the reality in terms of numbers), had already put his attention to the stars and speculated about the nature and constitution of the heavenly bodies.

Other antecedents

In the beginning the astrology of Mesopotamia was as other cultures, a simple observation of the sky to search for influence that could affect the kingdom. These observations included climatic phenomena, mixed with astronomical. What made the difference was that the natives of Mesopotamia began to make systematic observations of the phenomena to find regular patterns in heaven and correlate them with events.
According to the researchers, the leadings astronomical writings known of Mesopotamia come from the oldest period Babylonian near the time of Hammurabi. It is not known if the Sumerians were involved in astronomical studies but it seems that yes.
There are even some writings that relate to the period of the Akadios, near the 2300 Before Christ. This is an example of such written: "If Venus appears in the east in the month Airu and the Twins, large and small, are surrounded by the four and she is dark then the king of Elam falls sick and not be alive."
The natives of Mesopotamia believed that the stars and planets were associated with or were themselves the gods. Ishtar-Venus was one of the largest divinities of people.
The Egyptians had the same notion and identified the constellation Orion with Osiris. But Osiris was a god of the dead that governed the underworld. Transport to the heavens was very similar to other transport facts in classical mythology. 
The researchers give three phases in the evolution of astrology.
The first consists of the mentioned above, which is essentially questions of astronomical observation. The second phase is very much related to this but has a Zodiac in the modern sense of the term with twelve signs of 30 degrees each.
There are no personal horoscopes in this middle level but gives much attention to the transits of Jupiter through the signs to an approximate range of a sign per year.
 Here you see clearly an offspring of the Chinese practice of assigning a year to each zodiacal sign and probably also the annual progressions of astrology hourly. Here too there are no houses of any kind. The academics date this second phase between the years 630 and 450 before the Christian era. The zodiac at this point is clearly one sidereal.
The third phase is the astrology horoscopes. Several ancient sources mention the "Chaldeans" who made several natal charts of different people. It is mentioned that according to Aristotle is made him a prognosis Chaldean the death of Socrates on the basis of your natal chart. Reference is made to the Chaldeans and of course that refers to the art in this period was fully associated with recent Babylonians, i.e. with the Chaldeans.
It has been found many natal charts written with cuneiform characters. Most data of the Hellenistic age near the 410 b.c. other researchers say that was in Egypt the astrology home. However, some researchers claim that the most ancient texts were lost when a catastrophe occurred which changed the geography of the planet.
And they sustain this with the theory of Russian Emanuel Velikovski that explains such a catastrophe in his book "Worlds in Collision". However, the Book of Enoch, of the apocryphal Jews and Christians say another thing about who taught astrology and other sciences to the old human beings, although the doctors of the Church say otherwise (see Summa Theological of St Thomas Aquinas).
The most ancient astrological document still in existence is the work called "Namar-Beli" composed by King Sargon I and which is contained in the cuneiform library of King Assurbanipal (668-626 b.C.). Includes observations and astronomical calculations of moon and solar eclipses with astrological predictions.
The oldest mention of the art of astrological prediction in the old classic literature is in "Prometeus Vinctus" of Aeschylus (line 486 and subsequent). Astrology was probably cultivated by the Pythagorean school which kept the exclusivity of a caste. The teaching of Pythagoras on the "harmony of the Spheres" aims to certain astrological hypothesis of the Egyptian priests. The astrology, in the era of Posidonius was called apotelesmatika that indicates the influence of the stars on the final destination of man; i.e. apo, "from"; telos, "end" and matika, "accurate".
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The archetypes of Jung and the Tarot

The term archetype was introduced by Carl Gustav Jung - psychiatrist, founder of the school of analytical psychology- at the beginning of the last century. He suggested that after the ego (the human mind) and the personal unconscious (repository of repressed emotions, feelings and traumatic memories) in the structure of the human psyche there is a deeper layer - the collective unconscious. It is the same in all people, being the place of the human experience, which is transmitted from generation to generation.

The contents are the archetypes of the collective unconscious (of the Greeks. Arxetypos, "prototype"). Jung wrote about them as models and patterns of instinctive behavior patterns that influence the perception of reality and the reactions, in some way to the events in our life. This is the shape of the main concepts of the world, of life and human relations, which are basic, as the instincts of the animals, and that do not depend on the level of education.

In their studies, very soon, came to the conclusion that the existence of archetypes, through the exploration of dreams, the images and the hallucinations of their patients. They found that ancient symbols, mythological figures and images, there were, even in those who never had seen before, who were not interested in the history of the ancient civilizations and did not know mythology. Suddenly seemed to be an absolutely understand.

Another test of his theory, Jung believed that the fairy tales, legends and religious texts of various peoples of the world were built on the same stories - the history of love, loyalty, betrayal, revenge, the death and the Resurrection. We see in these archetypes characters similar corresponding to God, the devil, The Wise Old Man, Mother, Hero, children, etc. All of them present in the folkloric heritage since remote times and isolated frequently from one culture to another, that also have a similar content, semantics and emotions.

If something happens in life, which corresponds to an archetype, it becomes active, and it reaches an irresistible compulsion that, like the instinctive reaction prevails, despite the reason and free will.

There are archetypes, as many as typical situations of life - explains Jung:

The archetypes do not elect to influence or influence in us, simply can be activated when the circumstances of our life will fit in a recognizable archetypal history. In reality this is the mechanism of action of the archetype. They are therefore in a situation of struggle, when we have to deal with something or someone, we can discover the qualities of an enviable courage, desire or not sacrificed and that appeared in us not as a result of learning . This is the manifestation of "primitive instincts mental" - archetypes.

In this case, we can talk about the impact of the archetype of the hero. Touch the process of life with different archetypes and through this opening to the contents of the unconscious, the man passes through the path of the individualization - the path of self-knowledge and acceptance of itself in all its forms, which leads to the discovery of the real "me" and its potential.
Jung called this the "opening of himself". The archetype of the Be - is the archetype of the entirety of the unity of the conscious and unconscious. It is the achievement of myself, the achievement of the understanding of what you are in reality, is the main task of the individuation."… The Consciousness - Jung writes, - will no longer be vulnerable too selfish all the desires, fears, hopes and ambitions … On the contrary, assumes the role of contact with the world of objects, which leads a man to the absolute communion and indissoluble union with the world in general.

Jung and the archetypes in the Tarot

The Tarot cards have been the subject of various approaches: the most common considers it as a divinatory mancia; the other approach, and to some people more disturbing, consider them as a symbolic language the bearer of a psychological knowledge and philosophical. The first trend has been unfortunately a popularization and it has spread primarily as a means to read the future.

The second, in our present era, considers the Tarot a map of the processes and circumstances before whom we encounter the human beings in the extraordinary journey through life. A language for the expression of psychological ideas.  This current, in our time, was driven mainly by the exceptional psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961).

According to Jung, the model that discovers the Tarot is not another thing that the deployment of the soul life. Jung, who had no prejudice to the time to address the knowledge, also investigated the Alchemy, astrology and the I-Ching. It was he himself who translated ancient knowledge, rediscovering that in the human psyche there is an autonomous process, independent of the time or geographical location, which aspires to a goal which he named process of individualization.

Our psyche is split, split between the conscious and the unconscious, between what we know and what we ignore. Individuation refers to the process through which integrates all the polarities, dualities and internal contradictions. We can access a new balance, through the flavors and troubles of the human experience.

These experiences, of which we are learning, Jung discovered that are archetypical, are repeated in all eras and cultures under different guises. Then, in the Tarot we are with these key experiences or archetypal experiences recounted in a visual language, shocking and by some very deep. These archetypes are among others, the mother, the Father, love, justice, the Transformation, the crisis, the sacrifice, etc.

The philosopher and mathematician Russian Piotr Ouspensky (1878-1947), co-creator of the Fourth Way, classified the Tarot as a philosophical machine. Ouspensky referred to the Tarot as an abacus philosophical, said: "it is an instrument for the exercise of the mind, for getting them used to new concepts and wider, to think in a world of higher dimensions and to the understanding of the symbols".

And even more so the Tarot is a tool for guidance and self-awareness, provided to learn the skills to read its symbology. For example, the card that starts the deck is The Fool. Let us look at some of the characteristics of its complex symbology. The Fool symbolizes the individual that lacks awareness of oneself as a person, i.e. that is in a phase of such immaturity and infantilism that has not yet reached the stage of development of consciousness. It is out of every order and shape, and any law that is compatible with the others. Can be neurotic, always moving in a circle around his problem, without going to any part determined. It is the eternal turn of the individual without objective defined, without a specific target. Means, movement, displacement, travel, changes, but in an unexpected way, improvised and unexpectedly.

Person who lives and enjoys the present, that takes all the juice that can to immediate, unconcerned about the damage that could cause. The Fool represents the spirit of the game, capricious, wanderer, with unlimited energy, walking without fatigue by the universe without goal known. Without worrying about what is to come, even look over your shoulder.

The Fool is that deep impulse of the unconscious that moves us to search. The Fool is lonely; its method, secret is a nomad energetic, immortal and present in all parties. It is the most powerful of all the arcane of the Tarot. It has no fixed number, it is free to travel at whim, disrupting the order in their attacks. In any game (as the jester, or Joker) bursts unexpectedly creating a stir huge. The Fool has a connection with the primary energy of fire and its habit of dancing invisible in the middle of the deck, providing new impetus to each card.

The Fool connects two worlds between them, the everyday and the imagination, he moves freely between them and also get confused from time to time. The Fool represents the idealistic, naive, played that moves guided by their instincts, which sometimes can put you in danger. His curiosity impulsive leads us toward impossible dreams while, at the same time his playful nature will return us to the world easy of our childhood. Assumed that it is a part of ourselves separate from our ego aware, can lie mental traps or at least confuse our language. Sometimes his jokes introduce us in places where our ego would never have dared to go.

The Fool represents a part of us which innocent but knowing what it does, is engaged in the search of self-knowledge. Through the experiences that we look know mad, but that then we will recognize as crucial for the confirmation of our lives.
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How and why do the Tarot and the Oracles work?

Why have a few pieces of paper selected randomly something to do with the reality of a person?

The physics of consciousness:

From a materialistic point of view no method of divination should "work". Dices, currencies, or letters randomly chosen, offer all the same probability of being "chosen" from among its possible options. In the dominant vision of science this point of view tends to be considered unquestionable. However, this view is very partial and fragment the reality in a no neutral way. One of the largest lagoons of the dominant science and consequently all the contemporary era is its doctrinal denial to critically reflect on the great mystery that is the consciousness. This is the matter of greater uncertainty for science and also for the philosophy. Why are we aware? What is consciousness? When did it start and when does it end? Where is located? What is made? Can we measure it? What is its size?
And most important… Is the consciousness limited to a complex interaction of physical and chemical factors? Is it just information that circulates in the neural networks supported by the biochemistry of the brain and the body…? Or is it something greater than the sum of its parts? What is an accident of evolution? This is the most complex and intelligent achievement of the evolution… the evolution created something different and superior to his own original ingredients? And to culminate with these questions… Do you have to see the consciousness as the reality as it is perceived?
When you begin to analyze as extensive as are the answers to these questions you can realize what limited is the starting point for the scientific perspective of materialistic nature. The materialistic point of view in the psychology has its best example in the flow of behaviorism. For this the consciousness is the black box, something that assumes too complex to address scientifically, so much so that to make behaviorism refuses the need or interest to clarify the great question about how important is the issue of consciousness? The behaviorism has been always see as the branch more "objective" of psychology. But this high status is lost absolutely if we see how it evades the mystery of the consciousness. Such evasion makes its findings and truths be proportionally reduced: how much more focuses the microscope in one tree, less see the forest and much less the ecosystem that sustains the tree.
These limitations reach proportions even more dramatic when you observe the common conclusions of fields such as quantum physics and the holographic principle, the fractal geometry or the morphic resonance. If you do not know the research on these issues and their analogies with the philosophy of the consciousness, without doubt awaits you know a different type of science to the usual. Especially if you take an overview of all of them.
The scientific paradigm dominant until now has in the classical physics (not quantum physics) its model to imitate. It used to be thought that all "scientific" should always be comparable to the simple constants of this discipline. The behaviorism has been self-reward to be the most applied to the study of the psyche. This point of departure is abysmally subjective, this is allowed to rule out the possibility that the observer has something to do with what is observed- it can boast of anything less than objectivity. It can boast of reducing its variables for practical purposes, but not of to be objective.
Although we cannot yet provide scientific evidence on how the Tarot works, we can be sure that the consciousness, energy and matter are interconnected phenomena. And the border… must be as rigorous as the laws of classical physics? The classical physics seem to be in the antipodes of able to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. Then… does it make sense to reduce the explanation of the consciousness to their mechanistic laws known up till now?
The consciousness has a mirror reflection
We don't know if we are capable of moving objects with the mind. We don't know where arrives the mysterious connection of matter, energy and consciousness. But it seems that the Tarot decks, the hexagrams of the I-Ching and the structures of the other systems of divination are provided to act in a symbolic correlation with the human psyche, that is to say that, with the Tarot for example, brought out a card that has a meaning directly related to our mind state. The mind appears to be above the matter in this level. At the time of choosing a card from a part of the deck, or that the fall of the coins of a certain way, seems to operate something different and more sophisticated than the laws of classical physics.
Something will have in these systems of divination that they "work". Probably, its design will have much to do. For most of the modern versions of the Oracles which remains unchanged is the design of its array of reference. The tarot decks are composed - almost always - of 78 cards and the hexagrams of the I-Ching are always 64. All the cards or hexagrams are grouped in an internal structure constant throughout the centuries, an internal structure that could be called matrix of array. Variations only have to do with the artistic design of parts and with the approach of its meaning.
Like the music has its array of harmonious sounds in the scales; same as the chemistry has its array of elements in the periodic table; like the colors have its array of combinations of the three primary colors… Well, maybe that mysterious but very real phenomenon of consciousness will also have its array of possibilities in the "divinatory systems".
To summarize, I will provide an attempt at a definition on what is a system of divination (Tarot, I-Ching, etc.): a symbolic matrix (or map) that represents the possibilities of consciousness systematized on the basis of an internal order with sense.

The authority is always within…

I would help eliminate a prejudice fairly widespread. The dark style pseudo illuminated and often authoritarian regime that tend to transmit the television future tellers of Tarot - they know and you do not- feeds the image that the oracles must be superior sources external with a categorical and decisive authority. The love for personal freedom is what leads to many/as free thinkers/as to remove all credibility to the work of these people (thankfully!).
From the point of view of the Consciousness, readings of Oracles do not represent a divine assessment of an entity or on top of our person, nor our life, nor much less about what we deserve to live. Are not, in this regard, messages from a higher source outside the subject. The cards act as mirrors, as symbols of what we know about our being, an access to a more profound and complete part of ourselves. When you make a query to an Oracle the contents of the reading you… listen to you at a deeper level and complete. How paradoxical?
If you have a way of personal search (self-knowledge, yoga, meditation,…) or simply calls you the attention this modern approach of the divinatory arts, you can start freely your own experimentation: Buy a deck of Tarot cards or a book of the I-Ching or the Oracle that is closest to your personal style. You will begin a journey exciting of expansion of consciousness at many levels.
If you ever do a query or experimentation with an Oracle… simply allows the reading helps you connect with something more sage who is in yourself. The Oracle is dispensable. Your higher self is not but has in the oracle a great source of support.


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Most famous Tarot Fortune Tellers of the history

Nostradamus

Doctor and astrological consultant of Jewish origin, was born in France in the middle of the XVI century and is considered as one of the most famous authors of prophecies. Although this oracle is more recognized by their prophecies about the future, it has also been confirmed that Nostradamus used at some sessions Tarot cards to be able to predict the future. During his youth Nostradamus began to investigate in the world of the occult and to perform annual almanacs with predictions that had been able to visualize. When he began to have a reputation, the aristocrats of the country began to visit him in search of predictions for its future, which became him still more famous. At present the prophecies written by Nostradamus are highly controversial as it is assumed that this could have predicted the attack on the twin towers and other events that occurred in the future.

Lydia Clar

She is a seer who discovered that it had a special gift for the clairvoyance since she was a child, this tarotist is one of the few clairvoyants who believed that all people have the gift of clairvoyance but not all have been able to develop it. Lydia has written a book about the clairvoyance and she is known for having carried out a variety of activities of clairvoyance as numerology and the reading of the Tarot cards.

Jaime Hales

He is a tarotist, writer and lawyer of Chilean origin, this tarotist worked in the world of literature and the esotericism. He was secretary of the Chilean Writers Society, has been a columnist for television, in addition to founding an academy dedicated to the teaching of philosophy and the esoteric thought, where he works today as its director and where read the Tarot to those concerned. This tarotist has travelled to several countries of America where he has proven his works of poetry and where he has expanded his knowledge about the esoteric thought.

Micki Dähne

She is regarded as one of the most famous seers of entertainment, she has participated in a wide range of television programs in the United States. She is recognized by having predicted the attack on Perl Harbor and a snow storm in Miami, this visionary has declared that his mother was also sighted and therefore in her home is not suppressed her wishes to develop her gift, which has experimented with a variety of esoteric methods as the Tarot cards to be able to develop her gift.
Walter Mercado
He is known for being one of the most famous tarotists throughout Latin America and in the United States. From Puerto Rico started to make predictions in Hispanic television from about 30 years and its popularity grew so that began to make programs in the United States. This tarotist possesses a wide variety of surveys in the area of television and its predictions on television are witnessed by millions of spectators at the international level.

Edward Alexander Crowley

He was born on October 12th, 1875 in Warwickshire, England and was an important ceremonial and magician, with a great influence in the field of the occultism where generated a major controversy.
He founded the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also a member of the organization of the Hermetic Order of esoteric Alba Dorada, in addition to the co-founder of the Astrum Argentum and, finally, leader of the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.).
Crowley inaugurated a philosophical system called Scientific Illuminism developed to disseminate lessons that he published, the number of magazines calls "The equinox". His motto was "the method of Science, the objective of the Religion".
Crowley was not only a initiated in esoteric subjects, was also novelist, poet and essayist, and has more than eighty books written the most of them concerning the magic, Kabbalah, esotericism, yoga and, in particular, great part of them on your system MagicK, and the philosophy or "religion" that he founded (Thelema) thanks to the revelations of the Book of the Law.
Two of its most renowned works are: MagicK in Theory and Practice and the Liber vel Legis ('The Book of the Law').

Jean-Baptiste Alliette

Etteilla, pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Alliette was a french occultist of the XVIII century and, although the Tarot is known since the 15th century in Europe, was the first to popularize Etteilla divination by the Tarot for the public. It is therefore the first professional tarotist known in history and master of the most famous tarotists of the era.
Etteilla was born in Paris in 1738. He published his first book with 38 years old in 1770, Etteilla, or the way to have fun yourself with a deck of cards, a discourse on the use of a common deck of cards. Began to use the name Etteilla, which is your last name written upside down, and earned his life working as a counselor, teacher and author.
In 1785 Etteilla published a second book entitled, how to have fun yourself with the deck of cards called Tarot. This work is in fact the first book on Tarot that analyzes and describes the divinatory methods through the Tarot cards. Shortly after was published the first deck designed for that purpose. A Tarot itself.
Five years later, in 1790, saw the light a new book about Tarot, theoretical and practical course of the Book of Thoth. In addition, Etteilla founded a Society of Tarot, Society of the interpreters of the Book of Thoth. He died in 1791, at the age of 53.

Svetlana Alexandrovna Touchkoff 

She is the author of one of the most singular tarots that exists. The deck is accompanied by a book which explains step by step the origins of the deck, how to use it, etc.
The deck Russian Gypsy comes from the former Federation of the XIX century and used by the Russians gypsies, who had much fame predicting the future. The gypsies gathered around the fire each day and used this deck to predict and help the people of the family to resolve the problems and take the control of its destiny.
The Russian Gypsy Tarot of Svetlana Alexandrovna Touchkoff is formed by 25 illustrations that form in a puzzle way 50 figures, with 4 different meanings each one of them depending on the position they occupy.
The designs are connected with nature and with the Christianity, related to the cultural world of the gypsies. The cards are illustrated in full color with the russian Palekh style.
The gypsy deck has the mystical power of predicting both facts that are going to happen and indicate them favorable and unfavorable circumstances. Have a lot of energy and reveals to us our psychic power and our spiritual potential.

Pamela Colman Smith 

She was co-author, next to Arthur Edward Waite, of the famous Tarot deck known as the Tarot of Rider Waite, officially called Rider-Waite-Smith. In particular, she was the illustrator of the 78 Tarot cards, that has become a classic and a reference in the world of Tarot, serve as inspiration to hundreds of designers in the entire world.
Pamela Colman Smith was born in 1878 and was an illustrator, artist and writer. Working with the main writers and intellectuals is time. In 1899 began to design theatrical performances of the hand of personalities such as Bram Stoker, she traveled with him throughout Europe working in clothing and arrangements of the scenario.
She illustrated and wrote several books. One of the most popular books that illustrated was the last novel by Bram Stoker, the lair of the White Worm in 1911.
The merit of the Tarot of Rider-Waite-Smith is that it is one of the few that have designed the 78 Tarot cards and not only the 22 major Arcana. The designs of the tarot are the basis of the designs of many of the Tarots today.

Arthur Edward Waite 

He was born in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, in 1857 and has gone down in history as the co-author of the Tarot of Rider Waite. He was an outstanding intellectual mystic, author of several books on esotericism and occultism. It was one of the first who undertook a systematic study of these issues.
He was born in the United States, but by the death of his father, his mother returned with their children to England, where he met his family and Waite was educated in London from his childhood.
The death of his sister led him to being interested in the esoteric world and began to visit regularly the bookshop of the British Museum and studying different branches of esotericism.
In 1891 joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a fraternity of magic ceremonial and occultism founded in London. In 1901 was converted to Freemasonry and entered in the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia in 1902. In 1914 left the order of the Golden Dawn due to disagreements with the management of Aleister Crowley and began to follow the order of the Rosicrucians.
The works of Waite had a great reception in academic circles. Wrote on divination, esotericism, Freemasonry, Kabbalah and ceremonial magic; likewise translated and recovered important work of mysticism and alchemy.
However, Waite has passed into history more than by their works, from the link to the Tarot that he designs with Pamela Colman Smith and the volume accompanying him "The key of the tarot". The Tarot of Rider-Waite-Smith was notable for being one of the first wiring Tarot in illustrating the 78 letters completely and not only the 22 arcane. This tarot was published in 1909 and remains until our days.
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A very special calendar

Many people have had only connection with the zodiac through the horoscopes published in newspapers, magazines, on the radio or TV. Cannot be speechless, then, that the assessment of astrology is often negative.
That is why we would like here to focus the attention of the reader not in astrology, nor in the astrologers, but in this millennial creation where we find in cultures as different as the Azteca, Hindu, Egyptian and Greek: the zodiac.
An easy explanation tells us that the zodiac is a calendar, developed to organize agricultural work or religious holidays.
Without doubt this is true to some extent; but is it enough? On the contrary, we believe that the zodiac is much more than a calendar, and I will explain why.
We said that the zodiac is also a calendar, because it matches with the year: the 12 signs are very similar to our 12 months, only that counted from the 21^st march (spring equinox in the north and one in the fall in the South).
The interesting thing is that a year, whatever the day that you take such as home, is a cycle. And in this characteristic is the key to the importance that has the zodiac as an instrument of understanding of life.
A cycle is a recurrent temporary process, i.e.: it has a beginning and it has an ending.
A cycle is clearly differentiated from a linear process homogenous and undefined, that is what we tend to think currently.
A cycle is the path of a circle. If we draw a circle - if we live it - the moments of this path are not homogeneous, it is not the same to begin drawing the circle, to be in half of it or to be finishing it. The difference between the cycle and the straight homogeneous line can be felt when it is plotted one and the other. Draw means here: Live, starring in.
In addition, the end of a cycle is, it is at the same time, the beginning of the next.
However, if we observe with patience all around us, we see that there are innumerable cycles. For example: the process that goes from the seed to the fruit (to return to the seed); the menstrual cycle in women; the cycle of day and night; economic cycles; the historic, the cycle of the circulation of the blood, etc. Each thing traces its cycles.
In reality, we will soon realize that the world is a fabric of cycles. There are countless.
The utility of the zodiac is based on this obvious fact: everything that happens in this world can be seen as a cycle or as part of it.
One of the most interesting features of the cycles is that we can divide in so many stages or phases as suit us, (as do the current calendars with the months, weeks or days, for example). That what we divide into 12 stages is irrelevant; could be 20, 36, 8, etc. That does not matter and depends on the purposes that we propose.
What matters in contrast, it is that we can qualify or characterize as rigorously as possible each of the stages.
This is what differentiates the zodiac in respect of our current calendars. For the common almanac every day is equal to another, each month to another, every week to another one, etc. The current calendar is an instrument essentially quantitative: serves to know at what time of the year, of the month or of the week we are; but not to know which is the quality of that time. Today July 20 does not tell us much about the meaning of quality of day (barely, which can be a hot day), it only indicates its quantitative significance. In the almanac, we will not find any answer to the questions about the meaning of our existence.
In contrast, what makes the zodiac something much more powerful than a calendar is that each stage is qualified with accuracy and depth. Once the stages are qualified, we can use the zodiac as an instrument to understand what happens to us. In effect, it will serve to find at what stage we are of our cycles, to understand the meaning of what happens to us.
This is one of the tasks that makes the real astrology.
This vision allows us to understand that the signs of the zodiac are not only the symbolic names that are given. Thus, the name "Aries" (or "The Morueco"), that it is given to the first "sign", is simply a resource to evoke more easily the qualities or characteristics that has the first stage of any cycle.
To put it simply: The Moruecos (male Breeding rams) behave in a way that remind us of what´s going on, when it is starting a cycle: there is a lot of courage, a strong impetus to launch into the adventure, a desire to fertilize, etc.
"Taurus" (or "Bull") on the other hand, makes us remember the second phase of any cycle: when the initial impetus was found with the tradition of what has already been achieved on the successful history of life and has to change and be modified to continue progressing; therefore, prudence takes  courage place in decisions, etc. and due to this the bull symbolically associates ourselves with the second stage.
And so with all the phases or signs.
This understanding of the Zodiac finds it, in its rightful place, it is an instrument of knowledge, whose significance and need begins to get gradually manifest in our days.

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Origins and history of the Chinese Astrology

Image By drachenmagier

The origins of the Chinese astrology are very old. Contrary to what can be imagined in the West, the Chinese Astrology is not limited to match each year one of the famous 12 animals: Rat, Ox (or Buffalo), Tiger, Rabbit (or Cat), Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster (or Bird), Dog and Pig. This correspondence has its origin in the cycle of the planet Jupiter. Although today the Chinese Astrology is in decline, its history is long and some of the systems that were developed in the long history of China are very interesting.
At the time of the Shang dynasty (1767 -1047 BC) astrologers used a cycle hexadecimal compound planetary 10 "Hearth" (tiāngān trunks) and 12 "Celestial" (dizhi branches) based on the lunar astrology and a division of the zodiacal strip in 28 xius ("lodges"). In the Shi Ching (the "classic of the poetry"), which is a collection of poems from the X to V BC. made by K'oung-TSE (Confucius), the astrological references denote an influence of the Mesopotamian astronomy.
Between the years 400-360 B.C. the master Shi Shen writes a treaty of astronomy that allows to identify 121 stars and locate the planet Jupiter in the 28 xius ("lodges") of the strip of the zodiac. Jupiter iterates through its orbit around the Sun in 11.86 years, which is the approximate time that it takes to traverse the zodiac of 28 xius. In the Xing-King, Shi Shen describes a division of heaven in 4 rooms (xiangs) occupy each 7 xius ("lodges"). Each of these 4 rooms housed 3 animals. The set of these 12 animals was associated with the old system of the 12 dizhi or "celestial branches". In the interior of the tomb of the marquis Yi of Zeng, (died in 433 b.C) found the oldest complete list of the 28 xius ("lodges") that serves to locate the movements of the Moon and the planet Jupiter.
In the Treaty Wu Xing Zhan (" divination by the 5 planets ") written in the year 246 b.J.C. Astronomy china is separated from the Mesopotamian influence, and takes a doctrine of 5 elements (water, wood, fire, earth, metal) associated with 5 planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), 5 cardinal points (North, East, South, West, Center) but is still the system of 28 xius.
Then were invented several astrological systems. In the I century B.C. Jing-Fang created a system based on the hexagrams of the I-Ching. The astronomer and mathematician Zhang-Heng (78-139 A.C) invented a system of 9 constellations. Also appeared other systems that tried to adapt to the ideas and philosophical trends such as Buddhism or Taoism.

The twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac

Numerous legends speak of the animals of the Zodiac Chinese. During the sixth century, astrologers associated the 12 "celestial branches (dizhi) with the Buddhist cycle of 12 animals of origin Buddhist, with some influence Mesopotamian received through India or Tibet.
In summary, we can say that the Chinese astrology began using a sidereal system based on a real observation of the sky, but subsequently abandoned and replaced it with numerical calculations completely abstract. Finally, it can be concluded that the current Chinese Astrology is in decline and does not correspond to the system that had been developed at the beginning. It is only the cycle of 28 xius and the 12 signs in a great cycle that repeats approximately every 95 years of Astronomy west.

The Chinese calendar and the Gregorian calendar

The Julian calendar adopted in Rome the year -46 a.J.C. was a solar calendar (later as the Gregorian calendar of 1582). In the China used a lunar calendar, such as the ancient calendar Greek, but regulated on the solar stations. This means that the Chinese used the movements of the Moon and the Sun as indicators of annual time. In the V century BC, during the period of the springs and autumns, was already in place in the calendar Sifen that measures the year in 365.25 days, as five centuries later would make him the Julian calendar.
The Han dynasty was contemporary of the Roman Empire. The Han Emperor Wudi (156-87 J.C) replaced in -104 to J.C. Sifen calendar by the calendar Taichu that measures the year at 365,2501624 days and the lunar month in 29,5308641 days. After 2 centuries, when the calendar Taichu was inaccurate and the Emperor Han Zhangdi (57-88) canceled it to restore the Calendar Sifen. In 1281, after more than 12 centuries, the famous scientist and astronomer Guo Shoujing (1231-1316) defined the tropical year (time that the Sun used to give a complete turn of the ecliptic) in 364,2425 days, which is the same value used by the Gregorian calendar in the year 1582.
(1) dynasties of ancient China. Of the Shang dynasty (1767 -1047 to.J.C). Western Zhou dynasty (between -1046 and -771 to.J.C.) of the Zhou Dynasty Oriental (between -771 and -256 to.J.C.) according to the tradition, the King Wen, ancestor founder of the Zhou dynasty, would have created the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching.
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