vements of the
heavenly bodies. Thus, the casting of a horoscope that is, the methods
by which the astrologers ascertained the relative position of the
heavenly bodies at the time of a birth--was a simple but fairly exact
procedure. Its basis was the zodiac, or the path traced by the sun in
his yearly course through certain constellations. At the moment of
the birth of a child, the first care of the astrologer was to note the
particular part of the zodiac that appeared on the horizon. The zodiac
was then divided into "houses"--that is, into twelve spaces--on a chart.
In these houses were inserted the places of the planets, sun, and moon,
with reference to the zodiac. When this chart was completed it made a
fairly correct diagram of the heavens and the position of the heavenly
bodies as they would appear to a person standing at the place of birth
at a certain time.

Up to this point the process was a simple one of astronomy. But the next
step--the really important one--that of interpreting this chart, was the
one which called forth the skill and imagination of the astrologer. In
this interpretation, not in his mere observations, lay the secret of his
success. Nor did his task cease with simply foretelling future events
that were to happen in the life of the newly born infant. He must not
only point out the dangers, but show the means whereby they could be
averted, and his prophylactic measures, like his predictions, were
alleged to be based on his reading of the stars.

But casting a horoscope at the time of births was, of course, only a
small part of the astrologer's duty. His offices were sought by persons
of all ages for predictions as to their futures, the movements of an
enemy, where to find stolen goods, and a host of everyday occurrences.
In such cases it is more than probable that the astrologers did very
little consulting of the stars in making their predictions. They became
expert physiognomists and excellent judges of human nature, and were
thus able to foretell futures with the same shrewdness and by the same
methods as the modern "mediums," palmists, and fortune-tellers. To
strengthen belief in their powers, it became a common thing for some
supposedly lost document of the astrologer to be mysteriously discovered
after an important event, this document purporting to foretell this very
event. It was also a common practice with astrologers to retain, or have
access to, their original charts, cleverly altering