And it’s likely no coincidence that the increased awareness of astrology starting around 2009 corresponds to the social media boom that year, as Facebook and Twitter became key sources for news. What used to require a consultation with astrologer can now be easily found out by an online calculator. This is also why people are more familiar with their “rising signs,” which are based on time of birth and geographic location. Now, all it requires is a quick web search. In the past, the average person would have to be a diligent amateur astronomer in order to observe retrograde motion. Now, decades later, just as newspapers and call lines previously changed how people interacted with popular astrology, the Internet has made it possible for people to readily access more complex astronomical data. “People started to apply it to everything,” he adds. In the 1980s, Campion noticed a trend to revive and adapt older forms of astrology, and through that, the once specific meaning of Mercury retrograde became more broad. “A typical phrase that was used in relation to horary questions during mercury retrograde was ‘nothing will come of it,’ nothing will come of the question asked,” Campion says. If Mercury were in retrograde, it would elicit a negative response. A person would pose a question, and an astrologer would determine an answer by consulting an astrological chart for the moment the question was asked. The inauspicious connotations of Mercury retrograde are actually quite old, evidenced in an ancient branch of astrology known as horary astrology. Horoscopes experienced another resurgence in the ’80s, when newspapers created call lines that allowed people to phone in to receive personalized horoscopes. The book contained long passages describing romantic compatibility, how each figure in the zodiac handles money, and how to interact with employers based on their signs. In the 1960s, interest in astrology was again heightened by the release of Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs, a best-seller that expanded on the notion of identifying with a particular sign. Encouraged by their ability to drive sales, more and more publications started running horoscopes, including The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and numerous tabloid publications. The appeal of personalized fortune-telling that was readily available to the public became a continual phenomenon throughout the rest of the century. According to Campion, the language of identifying as a particular sign really began in the 1930s. Before then, almanacs were the chosen way for people to get premonitory knowledge, but not with the same degree of personalization. However, it was a magazine called American Astrology that published the first 12-paragraph horoscope explicitly tying birth date to signs in the zodiac. The earliest horoscope that offered insight based on a reader’s birthday was published in the British newspaper, the Sunday Express, in 1930 by astrologer R.H. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.Īlthough humans have been attempting to divine meaning from planetary movement since ancient times, sun sign astrology - the type of astrology most people in the West are familiar with today - got its start in the 1930s. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. The frequency makes it an ideal scapegoat for any sort of misfortune, so much so that there is a whole website devoted to the question of whether today is one of those days - the aptly named - that one can visit to seek validation on a particularly bad day.įor your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Since Mercury is the fastest planet in our solar system, it enters apparent retrograde motion between three and four times a year, for about three weeks at a time. Because Mercury is the planet said to rule communication, those who are astrologically inclined expect frequent misunderstandings, scheduling problems and disagreements with friends during this period. In the realm of astrology, retrograde motion has negative connotations. This happens due to an optical illusion caused by differences in orbit. Retrograde motion is when a planet appears, when observed from Earth, to reverse direction. In 2022, the phenomenon is set to take place four times: once took place beginning in January, with the others set to last from May 10 to June 3, Sept. At least, that is, according to proponents of astrology, who have made the phrase “Mercury in retrograde” (or the more grammatically correct “Mercury retrograde”) an increasingly buzzy one over the past few years. When the planet Mercury enters apparent retrograde motion, that marks the beginning of a span of misfortune down on Earth.
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