CHAPTER 1

"Astronomical" clocks showing "phlebotomic figures" had become the latest craze. From the figures' dissected body even laymen could tell which stars governed which human organs.
Nostradamus
The Renaissance, one of the most superstitious epochs in world history, raised astrology to still greater heights in Europe. It took Rome so much by storm that Pope Julius II called upon an astrologer to predict the most propitious day for his coronation. His successor Leo X, a highly educated and otherwise sceptical gentleman greatly concerned with his failing health, was sur- rounded by astrologers who cast the most unequivocal horo- scopes about the duration of his reign. Unfortunately the stars failed to reveal that Luther's theses were more than idle monkish chatter. Paul III, the first Pope of the Counter-Reformation, also had no scruples about using astrologers in determining what hour was propitious for holding his Consistory. ^
The Vatican's high regard for astrology was one of the reasons why Luther was so opposed to it. All the same, though the notion that the stars governed man's fate ran counter to his belief in free will, he never called for the complete suppression of astrologers. His friend Mel- anchthon, who was otherwise so critical of all superstitions, even looked upon astrology
18. In the 16th century, ^^ ^ ^^^^ '^"^'"^ '^^^^^^- ^^ chemistry was an important would therefore be wrong to means of prophecy. Chemical suggest that, at the time of the still from Destillierkunst (The Reformation, the Catholic art of distillation) by Bruns- Church was for, and the Pro- wig ( 1 547 ) . testant Church against, astrol- 1 Zinner: Sternglauhe und Sternforschung, p. 104.
SHORT HISTORY OF THE ART OF PROPHECY 83
ogy. Differences of opinion on this subject cut right across theological divisions.
It was under the reign of Paul III that the writings of Nicolaus Copernicus were given the Papal imprimatur. These writings were later to deliver so crushing a blow to astrology, that it would never again fully recover. His first work, the De revolutionibus orbium coelestium — On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres — seemed to have little bearing on astrology as such and was therefore ignored by all but a few experts when it first appeared in 1543. Only some decades later did the devastating astrological consequences of Copernicus' revolu- tionary doctrine come to be fully appreciated.
Astrology had previously been based on the fact that the planets move about the earth, and Copernicus had shown that they do not. Fortunately, true believers in astrology are extfemely conservative and rarely allow themselves to be influenced by mere facts. To this day, they continue to base their predictions on the tables set up by Regiomontanus eighty years before the. Copernican revolution. But astronomers began to grow rather wary of astrology. Thus Tycho Brahe, who had been reared on astrological notions and who began by being extremely sceptical of the Copernican system, turned his back on astrology towards the end of his life, and — according to Kepler — dismissed all casters of horoscopes as ignorant and corruptible charlatans.^ But what were the serious and critical astronomers to do when their patrons demanded predictions rather than scientific knowledge."* Kepler who, like Tycho Brahe, was expected to cast horoscopes for his noble employers, con- soled himself with the fact that astrology, though a "mad daughter", came to the aid of her poor and aged mother, astronomy, and helped to support her.
Such was the tragic plight of real astronomers, and it took ages before a clear distinction between astrology and astronomy was finally drawn. Still, astrology was on' the wane, and even astrologers began to worry about their colossal blunders.
For instance, Geronimo Cardano ( 1501-1576), equally famed as a physicist, a mathematician, a physician, and an astrologer, was known to have foretold that King Edward VI of England
1 Johann Kepler: Vorrede zu den Rudolpbinischen Tafeln des Tycbo Brahe (1627).
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