Astrological lore was being drawn

Gradually, astrological lore was being drawn together into a more or less coherent body of knowledge. This did not mean, however, that it was free of contradictions, or that it developed with any more coherence than other theories about the nature of the universe. In the three centuries before the birth of Christ, splits occurred between astrologers which continue to this day. Perhaps the chief one concerned free will. On school of ‘scientific’ astrologers took a severely empirical view: everything was predetermined, and the movements of the planets were, so to speak, geared to coming events. Another, the ‘catharchic’ school, believed that some things were predetermined, but by no means all. If you studied the planets’ movements sufficiently minutely you could, by seizing a propitious moment bring about success when to act at another might provoke disaster. Free choice meant the right to chose the moment at which to start a project, conceive a child, be born.