Skyscript Astrology Forum

I'm moving the focus from my thread on the Traditional forum:
http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 3&start=15

To this one at the request of Therese Hamilton:

This particular historical point that interests you so much, Paul, is an acceptable topic for the sidereal forum. I suggest that the conversation be moved to that forum. I can give quotes from Gleadow's book, as he was the scholar who looked deeply into the ancient texts. A problem, of couse, is choosing the statements of tropical astrologers today. There are many books, web sites and authors, and they don't all agree with each other.

What I was interested in examining is the statement made by some sidereal astrologers, Therese amongst them, that the tropical signs have changed their meanings in line with precession.
If this is true this suggests that really there is only one 'real' zodiac, the sidereal one, and that tropical astrologers being ignorant of this have had to regularly alter the meanings of their signs in order to remain accurate. In other words rewrite their zodiac to match the sidereal one.

In addition I would be interested in hearing from any sidereal astrologers who disagree with this viewpoint, or finding out if this is a fairly common, if not unanimous, viewpoint amongst sidereal astrologers.

It might also be worth examining if sidereal signs have appeared to borrow from the tropical as well, with examples from Therese's website appearing to suggest this.

I'm interested primarily in western astrology here, so whilst I accept that jyotish astrology uses a sidereal zodiac, I'm less interested in their usage of the zodiac and more keen to narrow the focus to the history of western astrology.

Paul wrote:In addition I would be interested in hearing from any sidereal astrologers who disagree with this viewpoint, or finding out if this is a fairly common, if not unanimous, viewpoint amongst sidereal astrologers.

I don't think it is. The first person I ever heard voicing that opinion was Sari/Papretis, here on Skyscript, some years ago.

Sign symbolism has changed over time, and particularly in modern times, but not (I think) in a systematic way that would make it possible for the sidereal and tropical zodiacs to be simultaneously correct. (If it had, there would be very little incentive for astrologers in the west, which is almost exclusively tropical, to 'convert' to siderealism.)

To me, this idea reflects the modern emphasis on the signs at the expense of the planets, as charater traits are considered to depend primarily on the signs. On the original thread, someone suggested that a 'triple Aries' (someone with the ascendant and both luminaries in Aries) should be easily distinguishable from a 'triple Pisces'. Personally, I am not so sure. The Sun and Moon both near the ascendant would be more likely to dominate it by their own natures, making the background of the rising sign itself a tertiary consideration at best. Empty rising signs would be easier to tell apart.

Traditionally, the signs are used more for the determination of dignities than for straight character analysis; and it is difficult to see how the tropical and sidereal zodiacs could be reconciled so as to place Venus or Jupiter simultaneously in domicile and in fall (Virgo/Libra and Sagittarius/Capricorn, respectively).

I'm interested primarily in western astrology here, so whilst I accept that jyotish astrology uses a sidereal zodiac, I'm less interested in their usage of the zodiac and more keen to narrow the focus to the history of western astrology.

When and where do you consider that astrology becomes 'western'?

Martin Gansten wrote: When and where do you consider that astrology becomes 'western'?

Hmm...maybe western was a bad phrase.
I'm basically using it in the same context that Campion uses it in his book The History of Western Astrology. So obviously we are probably stretching it to see Babylonian astrology as western, but really what I meant is astrology that is not predominantly Indian such as Vedic/Jyotish astrology. In other words sticking with its history through to hellenistic astrology as it was practiced in the west surviving through to the arab astrologers (again western might be a bad word to use) through to the likes of Bonatti and then Lilly and Worsdale. I'd be inclined to kind of stop there to keep it in the traditional vein. Certainly we know that the sign meanings change somewhat after this time due to the astrological alphabet of sign=house=planet.
I guess rather than making an inclusive statement, I should make an exclusive statement. I'm not so interested in the 'vedic'/jyotish branches of sidereal astrology.

I am in agreement with Martin's post above, and have little to add to it. The Tradition remained fairly stable from the Hellenistic period until Alan Leo and Charles Carter in modern times. This is the earliest that a collection of psychological meanings was routinely applied to signs of the zodiac. Sari was merely pointing out that some of these meanings can be traced back to Valens in his descriptions of the previous signs in the zodiac. But after Velens we don't find lists of psychologically related traits applied to zodiac signs, though we do find many characteristics applied to planets.

So we have Valens------>a stable tradition------>Modern psychology

Therese wrote:

But after Valens we don't find lists of psychologically related traits applied to zodiac signs, though we do find many characteristics applied to planets.

In general I agree. I am not aware of any such characteristics applied to signs before Valens either. So the intriguing question is whether Valens was recording an approach of his predecessors regarding the signs or setting out ideas of his own based on his years of astrological praxis.

The increasing influence of Ptolemy with his exclusive focus on the planets as primary determinants of character was probably a major factor in ensuring Valens ideas on the characteristics of signs were not taken any further.

The only slight exception I can think of after Valens regarding the assigning of characteristics to signs comes in the medieval Catalan astrologer Ramon Llull ( ca. 1232/3? ca. 1315) who did associate some characteristics to signs. Still, even he still gives primary focus to the characteristics of the planetary rulers natally.

Mark

Paul I?m confused about the logic of your first post. Constellations changing significations over time, in order to coincide with the seasons, seems to emphasize the primacy of the time within the solar year during which a constellation rises or has the sun in it. In other words, this emphasizes the primacy of the seasons.

For instance, if I take your meaning right, any sign that occurs just before the spring equinox, say, would have certain spring-like characteristics attributed to it, regardless of which actual constellation were in that spot. Gavin White gives a great example of the original ?golden calf? constellation of spring (in the age of Taurus) morphing into a raging bull that drinks the rivers dry in the arid near eastern summer (in the age of Aries, when the bull is now a summer constellation). This early Taurus constellation changed signification with precession. Yet new pastoral symbolism (the ram) replaced the bull-calf as a springtime symbol. This seems to be what you?re talking about, but to me it?s the very definition of a tropical scheme. The essences of the seasons, equinoxes, and solstices are the root sources of meaning, and imbue the coincident constellations with their own characteristics, not the other way around.

Conversely, a purely sidereal system would have constellations that maintain their meanings whenever they rise (or contain the sun or other planets), forever, regardless of which season that might be.

To me constellations changing their meanings depending on where they fall in the seasonal year is the opposite of sidereal. Am I totally off on this? Am I totally misunderstanding you?

Phil wrote:Paul I?m confused about the logic of your first post. Constellations changing significations over time, in order to coincide with the seasons, seems to emphasize the primacy of the time within the solar year during which a constellation rises or has the sun in it. In other words, this emphasizes the primacy of the seasons.

I'm not sure which bit you were confused by. What I was saying was in relation to a point that was suggested whereby the theory was given that the signification that tropical astrologers have given to signs has changed over the years and this change coincides with the change of precession. So in effect that tropical astrologers are just sidereal astrologers and don't realise it.

Conversely, a purely sidereal system would have constellations that maintain their meanings whenever they rise (or contain the sun or other planets), forever, regardless of which season that might be.

To me constellations changing their meanings depending on where they fall in the seasonal year is the opposite of sidereal. Am I totally off on this? Am I totally misunderstanding you?

Yes, it was more that the tropical signs change their meaning due to the fact that these signs are precessing in relation to their sidereal counterparts. However a point was made by someone else that the sidereal signs also changed in relation to tropical - so really it's a quite confusing set up, but I wanted to cut straight to the point by examining what was said about the signs through history and see if this change occurs in the first place.