Astrology
is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs in which
knowledge of the relative positions of celestial bodies
and related information is held to be useful in understanding,
interpreting, and organizing knowledge about personality,
human affairs, and other terrestrial events. A practitioner
of astrology is called an astrologer, or, less often, an
astrologist.
Although the two fields share a common origin, modern astronomy
is entirely distinct from astrology. While astronomy is
the scientific study of astronomical objects and phenomena,
the practice of astrology is concerned with the alleged
correlation of heavenly bodies (and measurements of the
celestial sphere) with earthly and human affairs. The use
of astrology to create a chart of likley events and influences
upon an individual is known as a horoscope.
Central to horoscopic astrology and its branches is the
calculation of a horoscope or what has recently become known
as an astrological chart. This is a diagrammatic representation
in two dimensions of the celestial bodies' apparent positions
in the heavens from the vantage of a location on Earth at
a given time and place. The horoscope of an individual's
birth is called a natal chart - horoscope chart. In ancient
Hellenistic astrology the rising sign or ascendant demarcated
the first celestial house of a horoscope, and the word for
the ascendant in Greek was horoskopos.
This is the word that the term "horoscope" derives from
and in modern times it has come to be used as a general
term for an astrological chart as a whole. Other commonly
used names for the horoscope/natal chart in English include
natus, birth-chart, astrological chart, astro-chart, celestial
map, sky-map, star-chart, nativity, cosmogram, vitasphere,
soulprint, radical chart, radix, or simply chart, among
others.
