5Astrology is a major feature of modern popular culture. Its westernised form has spread around the world yet has attracted almost no academic attention. Skylights breaks new ground in paying systematic attention to the theories, claims and practices of western astrology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Three chapters set the scene by examining the roots of astrology in classical interactions with the divine, Islamic apocalyptic belief, and the introduction of the astrology of the Islamic world into medieval Christian Europe. Eight chapters then explore issues which have ancient roots but run through modern astrology. The book explores how astrologers interpret history and portray the soul. It discusses the emergence of modern psychological astrology and the popular horoscope column, and asks how astrology can be understood as a language and relates to traditional notions of nature as conscious.