Astrology and the Jesuits: what was actually permitted

This is an earlier address of our article on astrology and the Jesuits, kept because it still receives links.

In short: what was in force was a distinction rather than a prohibition. Natural astrology — weather, agriculture, medicine — was uncontroversial and taught in the colleges. Judicial astrology met a specific theological objection about free will, which practitioners answered with the doctrine that the stars incline but do not compel.