Ouranos: would I be right in assuming that your questions are based on an unstated assumption that a 'sidereal zodiac' ought to include as many fixed stars and constellations as possible?

Yes, maybe not as many but simply the ones defined by the tradition. Some constellations have the same name as zodiacal signs like Scorpio but when we anchor the planets to the ecliptic, the precession has separated the signs and the fixed stars. And why through history have astrologers kept records of the difference between both? Wouldn't have been simpler to discard the tropical as a proof that sidereal was the valid system for all?

I don't understand what the tropical zodiac has to do with the rest of this passage. As someone who works with the equatorial system (in the form of primary directions) all the time, I can assure you that it is not contingent on a particular definition of the zodiac.

Tropical or Sidereal as a measure of time. I would say it will be reflected in the primary directions when a planet changes sign. Say for example, the Lord of the Year or the Lord of the SR moves to the sign (house) of the natal ASC or any highlighted point in the chart. You do not get the same timing in your predictions.
And a question for you Martin. In your practice, have you found many examples where something showed up in the sidereal and not in the tropical? Or vice-versa? And do you include Fixed Stars in your practice?

Appreciate your input,
Ouranos

Ouranos wrote:

Ouranos: would I be right in assuming that your questions are based on an unstated assumption that a 'sidereal zodiac' ought to include as many fixed stars and constellations as possible?

Yes, maybe not as many but simply the ones defined by the tradition. Some constellations have the same name as zodiacal signs like Scorpio but when we anchor the planets to the ecliptic, the precession has separated the signs and the fixed stars. And why through history have astrologers kept records of the difference between both? Wouldn't have been simpler to discard the tropical as a proof that sidereal was the valid system for all?

It seems to me that you are still conflating two issues here. The ecliptic is not something we can choose to anchor the planets to (or not); it is simply the case, because of how the solar system is constructed, that the apparent orbits of all planets lie within 8-9 degrees either side of the ecliptic. This is not relevant to the tropical/sidereal distinction, which is simply about what point along the ecliptic constitutes 0 Aries. Siderealists keep the starting point fixed relative to the constellations, tropicalists to the equinox.

Whether you are a siderealist or a tropicalist, you can use as many fixed stars and constellations as you like. The tradition (starting with the Babylonians, who used a sidereal definition) recognizes a difference between the twelve signs, which are equal divisions of the zodiac belt (with the ecliptic down the middle), and the constellations, which are not. The signs were named for the constellations which, in a sidereal zodiac, largely coincide with them, but they are not the same.

From a siderealist perspective, tropical and sidereal measurements just have different areas of application. Tropical measurements are required for calendar purposes, but not useful for astrological judgement. The offset of 0 sidereal Aries from the equinox (that is, the ayan??ṃśa or precessional value) is a handy tool for calculation of planetary cycles and conversion between equatorial and ecliptical systems (because 0 tropical Aries is the point of intersection of those two circles). So it's not that the tropical reference system has no uses; it is just that astrological meaning is vested in the sidereal rather than the tropical divisions.

Tropical or Sidereal as a measure of time. I would say it will be reflected in the primary directions when a planet changes sign. Say for example, the Lord of the Year or the Lord of the SR moves to the sign (house) of the natal ASC or any highlighted point in the chart. You do not get the same timing in your predictions.

I don't fully understand your examples, but the interpretation of the whole nativity, and therefore of the directions as well, will naturally change with a change of zodiac. However, directions as such, or the equatorial system generally (which was my main point), are not dependent on either definition of the zodiac. The intersection between ecliptic and equator is where it is, whether you call it 0 Aries or not.

And a question for you Martin. In your practice, have you found many examples where something showed up in the sidereal and not in the tropical?

Emphatically yes. Of course one can always make arguments and counter-arguments, but in my experience the sidereal ones tend to be much more direct and to the point. One example is my brief discussion of Robert Zoller's chart here (bottom of page).

And do you include Fixed Stars in your practice?

Occasionally, yes. It is not a cornerstone of my work (nor of the many texts we have by authors who used a non-tropical zodiac, from Vettius Valens to Sahl ibn Bishr and beyond).

Thanks Martin for your comments!

My new practice promotion is now reading...
"And to the people who lost a zodiac on the side of the highway, please tell me what the rest of your life is like." A new way to get Sirius!

Ouranos wrote:In Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/science/astr ... -divisions

"The Mesopotamian arrangement of constellations has survived to the present day because it became the basis of a numerical reference scheme—the ecliptic, or zodiacal, system. This occurred about 450 BCE, when the ecliptic was clearly recognized and divided into 12 equal signs of the zodiac. Most modern scholars take the zodiac as a Babylonian invention; the oldest record of the zodiacal signs as such is a cuneiform horoscope from 419 BCE. However, as Greek sources attribute the discovery of the ecliptic to Oenopides in the latter part of the 5th century BCE, a parallel development in both Greece and Babylon should not be excluded.

Hi Ray,

Most scholars do, but by no means all. Martin Sweatman (the author of Prehistory Decoded) summarizes the conventional narrative as well as the problems with it in this video (specifically see part 2, starting on about the 36:00 mark):

https://youtu.be/Eltcdfvo-Vg

Ptolemy’s star list presents a curious puzzle. The southernmost heavens, invisible at the latitude of Alexandria, naturally went unobserved. On one side of the sky near this southern horizon, he tabulated the bright stars of the Southern Cross (although not as a separate constellation) and of Centaurus, but on the opposite side a large area including the first-magnitude star Achernar had been left unrecorded. Because of precession, before 2000 BCE this region would have been invisible from Mesopotamia. Perhaps neither Hipparchus nor Ptolemy considered that part of the heavens unnamed by their ancient predecessors."

This is one indication that the early Greek astronomers (going back to Eudoxos, who first introduced the zodiac to Greece) were working from a considerably more ancient data set. There is other evidence as well that the zodiacal (and other) constellations predate the earliest extant star lists - quite possibly by thousands of years.

The most intriguing that we have up to date comes from the excavation site of Göbekli Tepe (Anatolia), where (arguably) images of zodiacal constellations can be seen that are around 12.000 years old. Prof. Sweatman talks about that in the linked video as well.

As matters stand, his discoveries are surely controversial. However, they tie in nicely with other bits and pieces of information that can be gathered from archaeological, mythological, and esoteric sources. Personally, I believe that further evidence will be coming forth and that the (pre)history of civilization will be greatly revised and rewritten in the years and decades to follow.

If we consider "the Almagest of Ptolemy as a mere compilation who measures about 1,022 stars grouped into 48 constellations", my question here is why has it been diluted and almost lost in modern sidereal zodiac? Why so much emphasis on the zodiac signs? And considering the physical location of the Mesopotamians, the southernmost heavens went unobserved.
"Ecliptic coordinates predominated in Western astronomy until the Renaissance but with the advent of national nautical almanacs, the equatorial system (right ascension measured from the first degree of Aries and declination) analogous to terrestrial longitude and latitude is customarily divided into 24 hours rather than 360 degrees", emphasizing the clocklike behaviour of the sphere and the predominance of the tropical zodiac.

Not really an innovation, though, as this was long predated by another circle of twelve animals called Dodekaoros or 'twelve hours', actually referring to the double hours that were widely used in several ancient civilizations. While closely associated with the zodiac in some ways, the Dodekaoros
was based on the celestial equator rather than on the ecliptic, according to the research of the great German historian of astrology/astronomy Franz Boll.

The Dodekaoros is mentioned by Teucer/Rhetorius. Moreover, there is an IMO reasonable assumption that it is somehow related to the Southeast Asian 'zodiac' best known to us as the Chinese Twelve Animals.

Just asking as a devil's advocate here and as always I am welcoming different viewpoints to keep learning.

Hope I was able to provide you with some! - You did ask for it...

Thank you Michael.
Very interesting video by Sweatman.
As well, some interesting links on his website and other goodies.