Original Magic: The Rituals and Initiations of the Persian Magi - Stephen E. Flowers Ph.D. 2017

Astrology
The History of Iranian Magic

Our survey of the history of Mazdan magic has already served as an introduction to the importance of astrology to the Mazdan tradition in a general way. The most important surviving Pahlavi text, which often concerns matters of astrology, is the cosmological Bundahishn. The essential technical elements of astrology were synthesized into the Mazdan tradition with the contact between the Iranian and Mesopotamian peoples (Assyrians and Elamites). However, there were also certainly elements of archaic star and sky lore inherited from the Indo-European culture of the steppes. A symbol that would later be made famous in Islamic contexts, the crescent moon juxtaposed to a star, has been shown to be of Central Asian origin. It actually depicts what is called a lunar occultation, a rare phenomenon created when a star or planet seems to touch the moon or is partially covered (occulted) by it. Such phenomena are highly local and difficult to predict; they are miraculous visible omens or signs in the sky, special visible communications to individuals living in this world. Whatever the real origins may have been for the astrological science of the Magians, it is well known that they developed this into a highly sophisticated system—so much so that it was often assumed that they were the inventors of astrology itself.