ebook Preview - History of Astrology
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By
the Firepig
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on
Thursday, January 21, 2010
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I am working on an in depth ebook that will help answer questions people have about Chinese Astrology. Over the next month I"ll be posting excerpts from the book and will be anxious to get your opinions! Feel free to leave a comment and i'll get right back to you.
Here it goes ---------------
The history of Chinese fortune telling goes back at least as far as the written records* of China itself. When you receive a Chinese Astrology reading you are thus benefiting from a tradition that is thousands of years old.
In fact scholars have determined that the Chinese studied the stars at least four thousand years ago. This is known from writings of the Shang Dynasty, approximately the 16th to 11th century BC. Early methods of Chinese fortune telling are not, however, Astrology as we know it. Bones and turtle shells, for example, revealed a person's fate, not the stars. The historical materials nevertheless do reveal that the idea of lucky stars existed even at that early date and may suggest a role for constellations.
Chinese folklore provides evidence for very early naming of constellations. The best example is the story of the Ox-boy and the Weaving Maiden. The characters of this ancient tale lend their names to the ninth and tenth of the 28 constellations used by Chinese Astrologers to this day.
*Notable among these works are the five ching, The Book of Changes or I-Ching, Book of Documents, Book of Poetry, Book of Rites, and the Spring and Autumn Annals, and the four shu, sometimes known as the Analects of Confucius.
The Beginning | The Maturation Period | Modern Times