The explanation is as follows: The builders of Christian churches in Europe have, as a rule, set out the ground plan of the church shaped like a Latin cross, so that the arms of the cross run north and south--the head points to the east, or Orient, and the base to the west. In consequence of this custom the word “orientation” has come into use, to signify the direction purposely given to the main length of a temple or church. Now it appears that many, if not all, ancient temples (including the ancient stone circles and avenues of Britain) were purposely so “oriented” by their builders that a particular star, or the sun itself, should at a fixed day and hour in the year be seen during its movement across the heavens through an opening in the building especially designed for this purpose, so as to allow the light of the star to fall into the most sacred part of the temple, the “Naon,” or Holy of Holies. At the moment of its appearance special ceremonies were performed by the priests and worshippers in the temple. The temple was dedicated to and carefully “oriented to” that particular star. Thus, in ancient Greece, the Pleiades, Sirius (the dog star), Spica, and other stars were thus used; in Egypt, Capella, Canopus, and Alpha Centauri; in Britain, Arcturus, as well as those used by the Greeks.
These temples were really astronomical observatories, and were meant always to remain “oriented” to their special star, which must, if the earth were steady in its position, although spinning like a top, and also circling round the sun, duly appear each year at the expected day and minute in the special “window” or aperture designed so as to allow the star--then, and then only--to shine into the temple. But the astronomers have discovered that the earth is not steady! It “wobbles” very slowly and regularly as a top wobbles. The position of the axis of rotation--corresponding in position to the stem of a top--does not remain one and the same, but is pulled aside by the attraction of the sun and moon, and moves round as one may often see in the spinning of a top. The earth takes about 26,000 years for its poles to complete the cycle of its wobble. Moreover, in addition to this, there is the fact that the earth’s axis (stem of the top) is not nearly upright, but inclined at a considerable angle (23 deg.) to the horizontal or plane of its orbit round the sun, and that this inclination very slowly changes, in addition to the wobbling movement. The amount and rate of these changes in the inclination of the axis of the earth have been definitely ascertained by astronomers.