Instructor: Joseph Crane

Prerequisites: This course is open to the general public. IAA Diploma Program students are required to complete the Natal Studies Module before taking this course. This course is one of the electives for IAA Diploma Program students to graduate.

If you are not an IAA Diploma Program student you need a thorough understanding of natal astrology. You may access this course with no homework, no exams, no credit.

Course description: Astrology is one of the great adventures of human civilization and has contributed greatly to people’s lives and to culture over time. This noble enterprise has spanned different cultures and historical periods and has had times of flowering and being on the fringes, yet over astrology has remained with us, always adapting to new conditions. We’ll explore the continuities and the changes in astrology and astrologers over time. This course will also demonstrate some astrological methods that may not be familiar to you and show the origin of many of the methods of modern astrology. We may find that some astrological technique we take for granted are of relatively recent origin, or that there are other dimensions of technique and interpretation worth exploring. You may also find yourself intrigued by a particular astrologer in the past or you want to know much more about a particular era in its relationship to astrology.

Video: Joseph Crane talks about his course, “Astrology, History, and Culture.”

Classes are held weekly.

Class Meeting 1: Bronze Age: Mesopotamian culture, Egypt, and the Hellenistic Synthesis

Class Meeting 2: Techniques of Hellenistic astrology: Dorotheus, Valens

Class Meeting 3: Rome: The “Scientific” Astrology of Ptolemy

Class Meeting 4: Late antiquity: Firmicus, Paulus, and the Christian Criticism of Astrology

Class Meeting 5: Islamic Renaissance: Who’s Who, Mundane Astrology

If no classes are currently available above for registration, you can request this class.