Meteorology has no monopoly of the future. Astrologers, too, are forecasters, and their predictions are awaited daily by a multitude of faithful fans. Weather forecasters confine their efforts to the elements; astrologers investigate the very core of human nature.
Early stargazers noticed that groups or patterns of stars appeared and marched across the sky in a great and regular procession, and then disappeared, in a progress which appeared to be closely associated with the four seasons.
Twelve of the constellations, as they called them, received particular attention; it was noticed that the sun and the moon always rose and set within the part of the sky which held one of these 12, a part of the sky which came to be known as the Zodiac, the "circle of living things".
It was but a small step then to the notion that divine energy was manifested in some way in this ordering of the heavens, and it came to be believed that the destiny of an individual could be forecast by the aspect of the stars at the hour and place of birth.
This aspect was represented by a figure called a horoscope, , for the purposes of which the celestial sphere was considered in relation to the horizon visible from the birthplace. It was divided into 12 zones called houses, six above the horizon and six below.
The part of the sky immediately below the eastern horizon was the first house, or the ascendant, because the stars in it were just about to rise. The second house was next, in the sense of being still farther below the horizon, and so on, the first six houses being beneath the Earth.
The part of the sky immediately above the western horizon was the seventh house, and thus they went until the 12th house which was immediately above the eastern horizon.
The most important part of the sky for a new-born infant was the ascendant, and it was necessary to determine which planet or sign of the zodiac occupied that house at the moment of its birth. But each of the 12 houses had significance, one governing health, another marriage, and so on.
The astrological planets - Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon - had each its own particular influence, Jupiter being the most propitious and Saturn the most unfavourable.
The planet governing the ascendant at an infant's birth had an intimate effect on its temperament; it might be of a saturnine, jovial or mercurial disposition, all words which acquired their corresponding niche in the English language.