Authority Is Constructed and ContextualInformation resources reflect their creators’ expertise and credibility, and are evaluated based on the information need and the context in which the information will be used. Authority is constructed in that various communities may recognize different types of authority. It is contextual in that the information need may help to determine the level of authority required.
The authority that people have to speak or write on a topic is complex. Some things that merit inclusion as primary sources may not be credible scientific literature, and that is fine as long as they are being cited in an appropriate context. (A primary source is a firsthand account of something. Examples include an Ancient Greek medical manual, diary entries from someone going through a specific historical event, or a scientific paper giving an account of what happened during an experiment.) If you are doing research on astrological systems for an essay, it may be useful to check some of these resources to learn more about the systems you are discussing.
Important note: Where possible, the link goes to the online version of the item. The call numbers are available in case you want to find the physical item. It is possible to search by call number in QuickSearch (see the drop-down options by the search box when you are in the Books+ section of that search tool).
Some modern works not held by the Yale Library (from astrologers and astrology-adjacent people) are Chris Brennan's Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune, Thomas F. Aylward's The Imperial Guide to Feng-shui & Chinese Astrology, and Komilla Sutton's Essentials of Vedic Astrology. Many books by astrologers are not held by academic libraries, but by public libraries — search in Borrow Direct or Interlibrary Loan for any titles you need to review. If you are a student writing a paper, make your request early, as finding less common titles is a few days slower than you may expect.
In the Path of the Moon by 
Maharishi Parasara's Brihat Parasara hora sastra = Maharṣi Parāśara kr̥ta Br̥hatpārāśara horā śāstram by 
Chinese Mathematical Astrology by 
Tetrabiblos by English translation of Bharatiya jyotish sastra (History of Indian astronomy) by It's easy to locate modern critiques of astrology in library databases, the astronomical literature in the Astrophysics Data System, and in publicly-available videos and social media discourse. Often, we present people from the past as uncritical, comparing them to an ideal (not the reality) of who we are today. The fact of the matter is that critiques of astrology have always existed, and in many cultures, these critiques have been written down and transmitted to us. Here are a few sources to get started.
To find journal articles, use Articles+ to do your searches — that will help you stay in Yale Library resources, and it makes things easy when you want to read something because Articles+ will send you directly to the place where we have access to something. As with books in the catalog, there are many filters and tools that you can use. See the Finding Books and Articles tab for more information. You can also use the ADS, which does have some digitized materials that may not be indexed in Articles+.
Ancient Critics in the Mediterranean:
The podcast The Secret History of Western Esotericism, for individuals who prefer listening, interviews scholars and others about a variety of topics that include astrology; each episode includes detailed show notes and scholarly citations. Here is a link to the subject tag "astrology."
Some surveys of critiques of Arabic astrology in the medieval period:
Morrison, Robert G. “Islamic Astronomy.” The Cambridge History of Science, by David C. Lindberg and Michael H. Shank, vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013, pp. 109–138. The Cambridge History of Science.
Do a CTRL+F search for the word criticism (or for astrology) to find the section(s) of interest.
Subject headings are the best way to locate what you need in Quicksearch Books+. Subject headings are keywords applied by Yale Library to most print resources we have in the catalog, and they come from standards set by the Library of Congress. Some online books may have subject headings, but occasionally, the data about the book we receive from a publisher is not complete.
The easiest way to use them is to visit Quicksearch Books+ (a subset of Quicksearch) and change the type of search you are doing. The screenshot below shows the drop-down menu beside the Quicksearch Books+ search box that you can use to toggle which field(s) you want your search to look at.
When you are looking at multiple subject terms, use the Advanced Search. The screenshot below shows that I am looking for two subject terms, astrology and horoscope. Pay attention to the radio buttons! They default to AND, but I decided to use OR — if I selected AND, I would only get results that mentioned both of the terms, and the OR tells the system that I don't care which of the terms is in my results.
The feed below is pulling from a general search for the two subjects above. If you click through, you can refine from there.
How do you filter down from the thousands of results to a more manageable number? You can use the left-hand filters. As mentioned, click on the Website link (below the five items shown in the RSS feed).
The image below shows some of the subject terms in the left-hand sidebar. You might want to filter to something like early works, or you may wish to refine to a specific type of astrology.
This second screenshot shows what happens when you click "See More" — a box appears that allows you to select one term to filter to. You can also keep a pen and paper handy if you just want to see what is available for you to use as subject terms in an advanced search.
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