AbstractAbstracts Vol. 1 no 2

Otto Neugebauer 
‘On the History of Wretched Subjects’
Editor’s note: Otto Neugebauer was for many years Professor of the History of Mathematics at Brown University, RI. His prolific output included The Exact Sciences in Antiquity (Brown University, 1957) and the three volume A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy, (Springer Verlag, 1975). Sadly he died in 1992. The following text, which appeared in Isis, vol. 42, June 1951 is a classic statement of the importance of the history of astrology in the history of ideas. 
pp. 3-4.

Nick Kollerstrom
‘The Star Zodiac of Antiquity’
pp.5-22.
Abstract. In the early third century AD, two zodiac systems converged.1 One was the ancient star-zodiac derived from the constellations, while the other was the tropical zodiac, with its beginning at 00 Aries firmly anchored to the Vernal Point, the Sun’s position at the Spring Equinox. It will be  argued here that this latter, tropical, system had not, in the third century, come to be accepted by astrologers, but that it was to gradually come into use amongst astrologers as the earlier, sidereal system sank into a deep oblivion, at least in the West, from which it did not re-emerge until rediscovered late in the nineteenth century.

Robert Zoller
‘The Hermetica as Ancient Science’
pp. 23-34.
No abstract available

Edgar Laird
‘Christine de Pizan and Controversy Concerning Star Study in the Court of Charles V’
pp. 35-8.
No abstract available

Jürgen G.H.Hoppman
‘The Lichtenberger Prophecy and Melanchthon’s Horoscope for Luther’
pp. 49-59.
Abstract. The Reformation coincided with a boom in the publication of astrological almanacs and astrology became a potent means of propagandising for differing political positions. One of the most notable Reformation astrologers was Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560), professor of Greek at Wittenberg from 1518, where he became one of Martin Luther’s closest friends and collaborators.1 In 1521 he briefly found himself leader of the Reformation when Luther was confined in the Wartburg. His interest in astrology and his position at the centre of the Reformation raises important questions concerning the possible use of astrological forecasts of the Reformation’s future course. Martin Luther’s birth chart was to become a focus of debate amongst astrologers who wished to establish whether he was a new messiah or the Anti-Christ.

Elizabeth Heine
‘W.B.Yeats: Poet and Astrologer’
pp. 60-75.
No abstract available