Chapter Five: Astronomical Astrology . . .

[. . .] or Divination, as it was customarily called in the Magical realm of the Harry Potter universe, the boy who lived.

Astronomical Astrology started mainly as a guide for the exact place and time in predicting the fulfillment of futuristic events, but it also serves as an excellent compass in acertaining the virtue of goodness and the circumstances of evil that must happen from the predictive quality of the universe, based solely on the appreciation of the nature and impetus to be found in the arrangement of the stars, as well as in the inner meanings of hevenly bodies, objects and its correlation to natural phenomena, or the revelation of the divine will involving the sign of the times.

Divination, as a subject that branched out from the odd marriage of two mainly independent disciplines of Astronomy and Astrology, has adapted within its own sphere of inquiry a set of methodology that are neither compatible nor complementary in essence, with its system and established episteme contradicting the known forces in the universe of clearly quantitative in nature as compared to the measurement of the impact of unquantifiable (or qualitative) nature of the more important independent examination of the informed analysis of such metaphysical properties.

In this regard, Divination has been given a stature of becoming a "pseudoscience" because of this notable fundamental flaw, and has earned an unpopular reputation within those who practice the art and science of the dark matter of Magic and sorcery as a mere superfluous subject matter with nothing or little value to further engage in participating thoroughly in its theoretical development.

Despite a diligent effort to revive interest in the almost forgotten discipline, most of those who concentrate in the mastery of the Dark Arts (or even those who carry within themselves the sufficient faculty in dealing with the mastery of Darkness itself) have been seen to tap a significant matter where Astronomical Astrology intersects and overlap within the two more established modalities of Magical inquiry into one coherent and homogenous field of study.

But with matters taking a dramatic turn for the worst, and with the rising influence of the practice of magical Occult (and all the unreported crimes associated with "Endorian" magic, as it was known at the time), the European community of the Wizarding World has found it imperative to establish an Academic Committee of the Most Magical and Secret College, to be spearheaded by the Triwizard Tournament schools in accordance with the said approved Convention. 

However, on the onset of the First Wizarding War, and in fear of being proliferated by the growing influence of Death Eaters, the European wizardkind has formally announced that the Academic Committee would cease operations and immediately finalize its formal dissolution, but was then covertly continued as an underground "Secret College" (hence, taking its formal name today), to continue its mandate of identifying patterns through the influence of metaphysical elements supporting the thoughts of the predictive quality of the Occult, and how curses may be effectively countered and severely weakened by the essence of its theory.

Many wizards share the view that Lord Voldemort himself was "possessing" the revived spirit of the Witch of Endor, and that he was the primary actor in all of the horrors and crime committed during the first two wars of the Wizarding World involving his powerful presence and active participation.

But this supposition has not yet been confirmed as a conclusive finding, even by the claims of authoritative sources with the academically required expertise, and many in the Wizarding World believes that Lord Voldemort himself was acting in his own volition, although some has floated the idea that he was, in fact, been suffering from an Imperius Curse himself.

That is why he wanted to be associated with the identity of "He who must not be named" instead of his proper name because he wanted to sow the many seeds of fear through anonymity, in blurring the horizon of what to come next, deliberately painting an inevitable scene that is more hideous and ruthless in imagination than ever to be written in the History of Magic. Even those who continued their scholarship within the Academic Committee of the Most Magical and Secret College were silent about the milestones of their research, despite the Wizarding World enduring the cruelty of Lord Voldemort's regime; and while the Academic Committee was formally reinstituted after the Second Wizarding War that happened briefly in the return of Lord Voldemort, with the "Potter and Horcrux Act" unanimously carried by the Wizengamot and adopted by the assembled European Wizarding Convention following his defeat.

Many scholars have hinted about Divination's main hindrance in knowing the true nature of Endorian Magic, the major Abrahamic concept of necromancers, and the overall bounds of Magic between its Ethical Practice and the exercise of the Occult. But with the way these scholars have limited the scope of their published literature as the years went by was considered very suspicious for some of those who are actually involved in the Ministry-approved academic teaching of Divination.

There is a secret buried within the labyrinth of academia. It is a deeply perilous secret waiting to be opened like a nasty can of worms.

And this reasonable intuition on what was indeed beginning to unfold may not be far from the truth.

x-----------x

This Chapter is sponsored by Versace.