Both Rekigaku and western horoscope originated from the ancient Babylonian Empire practice of astronomy, which goes back to 4,000 years ago.   Ancient Babylonians, when they invented a calendar, tied the stars in the sky with the Gods and came up with a theory that the positions of the stars would predict what might happen on earth. This theory had been brought to Greece, which further developed it into astrology using horoscope.  This idea was brought in to Egypt and the Roman Empire then to the entire Europe.

Each horoscope was originally drawn up by the positions of stars when one was born, but the Greek renamed the stars with names of Gods.  That made horoscope more symbolic, poetic and artistic than before.

 Ancient China had its own method like astrology based on their calendar before the Babylonian’s. It was different from the horoscope which was based on the positions of the stars.  Theirs was observing the solar eclipse, the moon eclipse, shooting stars, comets and appearance of novae and super novae.  They tied the movement in the sky with the phenomena occurred on earth which influenced human activities. 

B.C.326, Alexander the Great invaded India and deposited the Hellenism culture in India. It is believed that this was the time when Grecian style horoscope came into India.  This placed the Indian astrology to a higher level.  The Indian style horoscope entered into China around year 2,500 and was woven into already existed Chinese horoscope based on their ideas. Chinese  began to apply the newly enhanced horoscope knowledge to select the right people for their army to win the war.

While the Grecian horoscope, adding elements of Gods, developed into a method to bring better fortune to individual, Chinese used their horoscope to develop army strategies to win the war as well as to manage the conquered people.  Their horoscope was also developed into more of a tool to evaluate personal character and ability.

The objective of the Chinese horoscope was to focus on the analysis of the current situation and how to improve it, not predicting one’s future.  They developed the horoscope with an idea that it was possible to change the future by changing the current situation.   They enriched the horoscope by adding statistics that included changes in the sky, weather patterns, a phenomenon, changing times, psychological aspects of people who were impacted by those changes. Their horoscope enabled them to see both macro as well as micro views: a big picture for an entire era and a small picture for individual human beings.

In the meantime, the European horoscope which has much weight on the position of the stars is geometric and requires the precise positions of the stars.  Thus it encouraged the development of modern astronomy. On the other hand, Chinese calendar-based horoscope is algebraic in that it culls changes in the sky, natural phenomena, social phenomena, winners and losers of the time and the reasons behind into statistics.  The knowledge was mainly used for developing war strategies and ways for the  government to control people and was used only by selected people.  Even today, it is prohibited for ordinary citizens to use it in Mainland China.

When China became a communist country, many Chinese scholars moved to overseas.

They brought the knowledge, which had been kept secret and had never been transmitted to outside of China, to Japan. While common Chinese fortune telling methods use 4 techniques, Chinese scholars’ knowledge    which has been used exclusively by the rulers for developing military strategies, offers as many as 16 techniques.  It is a high level science of statistics to analyze a wide range of subjects when used mixing various techniques.

About 20 years ago, I got a chance to study the concept of Chinese horoscope from Master Nampo Shimizu who is the first disciple of Master Yoshimasa Takao, who has acquired the knowledge directly from a Chinese scholar.  Those two masters have developed the concept further by adding Zen thinking to it. I attempted to scientifically prove their theory through programming by demonstrating its reproducibility. And, I am pleased to say that I was able to successfully translate it to UNGA technology as a business tool for human resources development.

 When I started learning the concept I had to use my brain and hands to calculate, but today I can do detailed complicated calculation instantly.  My dream is to create a society where people can understand each other by utilizing the tool.