Skyscript Astrology Forum

But you haven't given a single example of a person with Sagittarius traits (as you see them), not even yourself. Bogdan, the traits you mentioned about yourself on Solunars are connected to the planets, as I noted in an earlier post. We can re-visit these traits on the "Sagittarius" topic since you have made your chart public on Solunars.

I can't with Sagittarius because I simply haven't paid that much attention to Sagittarius. I did show my Soluners (and jamescondor's) ideas on Scorpio though. I can list some friends I know well with various signs to show you, perhaps how the signs and planets reflect themselves in a more "pure" way, without the tropical astrology baggage. I will change their names to protect their identity. I don't know their rising signs though but you can still make a natal chart.

You often speak of observations. Well, here are mine.

Sophia (Dec 10, 1991): She has a rich and complex personality. She is quirky, energetic, and outgoing. Lively, cheerful, optimistic, and has a very bright smile. She often refers to herself as an extrovert. She is also quiet and brooding. She is rather introspective and has strong emotional intelligence. She also says she broods and thinks too much. What I like most about her is her way of thinking. She is nuanced and she goes to the heart of the matter of an issue, and also thinks outside the box. Often talks about the depth something has and about unpacking things. Her interests are an eclectic blend: Russian history, linguistics, philosophy, anarchism.

She is very warm and caring, but also extremely self-critical and self-effacing. She suffers from anxiety and depression. She is a dedicated activist, hard working, and professional in demeanor. Very worldly and sophisticated, especially regarding sex. Likes BDSM and alternative beauty. She is passionate and intense, has a strong presence belying her small and frail body. I shook her hand once. She was a very strong grip, even though her hands are small and bony.

Hannah (August 5, 1987) is a rather compassionate and nurturing person. She has a very sweet disposition, and I think of her as very maternal. Most of her work is devoted to reaching out and helping people who are disabled. She loves pet animals and possesses many pet cats and turtles. Corporeal body. Last time I saw her in person she completely glomped me (big, smothering hug). Her writing is intelligent and eloquent, often lengthy and detailed, and has many sources.

Mary (February 24, 1991) is chipper and cheerful usually but also can be cantankerous. She often labels herself as an introvert, which is interesting because she is much more forthright and aggressive than Sophia is. I notice that her mental processing is more abstract. Takes graduate school in psychology and thus her attention is focused on therapy. Focuses heavily on feminism and takes it very seriously. Draws a clear line from what is expected of partners, at least on OKCupid. Is polyamorous.

Maya (December 15, 1986) has a difficult personality. She is quiet, brooding, unassuming, a bit closed off. She is also reserved and mistrusting of most people, but if she counts you as a friend she is caring, selfless, and devotional. Her intellect is penetrating and goes to the heart of the matter. Often talks about the depth something has and about unpacking things. Her thinking is very intuitive and spacial. Her abilities in music, philosophy, and chess are versatile and broad ranging. Has a small body but has a powerful aura. Unfortunately she has a violent streak and is a very jealous person. Kinky. She is also rather diabolical and manipulative.

Bogdan574 wrote:

Anyway, shouldn't the traits coming from within be a trait of the odd signs under your theory? I have problems with even those configurations of masculine (odd) and feminine (even) signs. They're patriarchal inversions of what the masculine and feminine originally were. I could describe this with your own terminology

Yes, my mistake. The sidereal odd signs tend to act from their own motivation. Sidereal even signs tend to look to others for support and verification. Even signs are more comfortable with interaction with others. Of course the planets have the final say. Sidereal odd signs are more solar, even signs more lunar. That is why I began the discussion of signs on the Lost Zodiac site with a discussion of these two lights.

Bogdan, we need to have the complete birth data in order to judge a horoscope. The day of birth isn't enough. The ascendant degree is the key to the chart because the ascendant ruler, its position and aspects are all very important. You'll find ample support for this principle in ancient texts. Also we need the ascendant degree to note the position, degree and aspects of the all-imortant Moon. Experienced astrologers can't properly judge a chart without a birth time. The ascendant degree also marks the houses and whether planets are placed in positions favoring success in life.

Today I hope to post charts on the "Saturn, Jupiter, Sagittarius" topic with published biographical information on the charts. If you have the timed birth data for charts with Sagittarius emphasis, it would be helpful to post one or two of them there.

Thank you,
Therese

And one more reply Therese:

Any area of the ecliptic/sky has an observable energy that can influence planets. It doesn't matter what name you call it. Bogdan, you keep playing the same tune over and over without considering that valid observations are indeed part of astrology.

I'm not denying that observations are a valid part of astrology. I just think that many "observations" people make are heavily skewed in the dogmas of tropical astrology. And the "observations" made by tropical astrologers is largely unsound. It is a result of erroneously judging what people's signs are on the one hand and on the other hand of downright making things up.

And I already spoke of how making "observations" of the sidereal signs based on the tropical zodiac is bad. I agree that there is some similarities you can gleam between the tropical signs and the sidereal signs whose place they stand in, but it is small. I hope I made myself clearer.

The reason why I wrote about a bunch of people's personality traits and listed their DOB is to talk about people's character with none of the baggage of astrology with it.

What a fascinating discussion this is!

Bogdan574 wrote: The reason why I wrote about a bunch of people's personality traits and listed their DOB is to talk about people's character with none of the baggage of astrology with it.

That is the best way to verify and substantiate any of the zodiac sign personality traits. One has to be objective in analyzing human behavior, of course a computer would be the "best" way to do it, in order to be completely objective. However, to do that, it would require extensive and very broad social analysis techniques, we should be approaching this subject of human behavior without the distortion of preconceived ideas about "fitting" personality traits to zodiac signs.

Bogdan,

Interesting thread. My question to you (and anyone else) is about odd vs. even numbers. In antiquity, odd numbers were considered masculine, and even numbers feminine. This is almost universally noted. Numbers: Their History and Meaning, by Graham Flegg, gives a typical discussion of this in terms of Pythagorean theory. This can also be explored here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta16.htm Jim Tester?s acclaimed and widely cited academic work, The History of Western Astrology, also notes the masculinity of odd numbers and the femininity of even numbers as related to the zodiac.

Very interestingly, it seems that people today tend to subconsciously associate the odd and even numbers with masculine and feminine, respectively: http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/ ... nd-female/

In your ?Lost Zodiac? thread, you describe each sign with their traditional gender associations, alternating between male and female in accordance with the typical traditional scheme: Aries is Masculine, Taurus feminine, Gemini masculine, etc. (This is done via your use of ?his? or ?her? within each sign description.) However, you begin your sign descriptions by noting that ?Taurus, not Aries, is the traditional leader of the zodiac?, and you conclude by noting that ?Aries was traditionally the last sign of the zodiac, and not first as the moderns often believe?. (I'd interject that many traditional western astrologers actually are familiar with the MUL.APIN, for instance, and might feel their "tropical" viewpoint supported there.) In any event, wouldn?t this make Taurus, the "true" first sign, not Aries, masculine? Why wouldn?t all the signs be of switched gender, if we are shifting their order by one?

Phil

PS- Konrad, thanks for the info you mention below. I just removed the trailing "." from each link.

Phil wrote:This can also be explored here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta16.htm.

Phil,

this link isn't working for me, can you give another?

EDIT: actually, it is fine. There is a '.' at the end of the address nullifying the link.

You make a good point, Phil. I have actually been sitting on this for a number of months, but I may as well communicate it now.

I had a problem with the Tropical zodiac as it struck me as a calendar and not much else, so I went Sidereal. I then couldn't rationalise the rulership scheme or the genders (or sect) of signs. I have now melded the inlfuences together in the spirit that I believe the Mesopotamians and early Hellenes were living in.

I still use the Babylonian measurement of Aldebaran at 15 Taurus but I count the sign of the Equinox as "one". So in my system, Pisces is ruled by Mars; Aries by Venus and so on. I have a theory on why the Sun rules the sign after the Summer Solstice but that isn't really anything other than an intuition at this time. Obviously, the rulership scheme is derived from that point.

My thinking was really related to Bogdan's claim that the ancients saw Taurus as the first sign - it is quite obvious from their existing seals that the Bull was considered so important because it was the constellation in which the Sun and Moon traversed at the time of their New Year. I merely have updated the rulership scheme to fit with where the Equinox falls, and I am seeing good results with it. It bothered me that the Sun would eventually rule a sign in which is was at its lowest point in the sky, and I no longer have that issue!

Phil wrote:

Interesting thread. My question to you (and anyone else) is about odd vs. even numbers. In antiquity, odd numbers were considered masculine, and even numbers feminine. This is almost universally noted...

Phil, on my web site I've gone into great detail about the symbolism of odd and even numbers and signs in the sidereal zodiac. My view of the sidereal zodiac is very different from Bogdan's. I don't know why Bogdan chose "lost zodiac" as the title of his thread since "Lost Zodiac of the Stars" has been the title of my web site for many years.

In the sidereal zodiac Aries is the first sign, and it is odd--masculine, Taurus is even, feminine, and so on with the remaining signs of the zodiac. Bogdan has referred to western sidereal writings of the Fagan school for his thread. I don't believe Cyril Fagan considered number symbolism in his writings.

Please realize that Bogdan's view of signs is unique to himself. He has combined symbolism from diverse sources without consideration of a theoretical foundation. I have dealt with sidereal foundation principles in my writings which I believe reflect the true nature of the sidereal zodiac. My work with the sidereal zodiac has been in process for many years (from 1974), and now incorporates principles from recent interpretations of classical texts. Bogdan is fairly new to astrology (Born in 1990---his chart is on the Solunars web site.)

I have no desire to debate the zodiac issue with Bogdan. I only wanted to note that number symbolism is as important in the sidereal zodiac as in the tropical zodiac, but has not been considered by the Fagan school of astrology. "Male" and "female" have different interpretations in the sidereal zodiac as noted on my web site. In the discussion of each sign of the zodiac I've taken number symbolism into consideration.

As number symbolism is an important part of astrology, I've opened another thread for discussion of this topic. Phil, I've copied part of your question to that thread. I hope that is O.K.

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 7545#87545
Number Symbolism and the Sidereal Zodiac

In your ?Lost Zodiac? thread, you describe each sign with their traditional gender associations, alternating between male and female in accordance with the typical traditional scheme: Aries is Masculine, Taurus feminine, Gemini masculine, etc. (This is done via your use of ?his? or ?her? within each sign description.) However, you begin your sign descriptions by noting that ?Taurus, not Aries, is the traditional leader of the zodiac?, and you conclude by noting that ?Aries was traditionally the last sign of the zodiac, and not first as the moderns often believe?. (I'd interject that many traditional western astrologers actually are familiar with the MUL.APIN, for instance, and might feel their "tropical" viewpoint supported there.) In any event, wouldn?t this make Taurus, the "true" first sign, not Aries, masculine? Why wouldn?t all the signs be of switched gender, if we are shifting their order by one?

I didn't notice this. Thanks for pointing it out. Taurus is traditionally the first sign because back in Ancient Egypt when astrology was first formed it was the Age of Taurus (other sources say it was the Age of Scorpio though). That is where the traditional order comes from. But now that it is the Age of Pisces as of now Pisces is the first sign, Aries the second, Taurus the third etc. As for how the signs became masculine and feminine, I'm not entirely sure how that came to be.

Phil wrote:

However, you [Bogdan] begin your sign descriptions by noting that ?Taurus, not Aries, is the traditional leader of the zodiac?, and you conclude by noting that ?Aries was traditionally the last sign of the zodiac, and not first as the moderns often believe?. (I'd interject that many traditional western astrologers actually are familiar with the MUL.APIN, for instance, and might feel their "tropical" viewpoint supported there.) In any event, wouldn?t this make Taurus, the "true" first sign, not Aries, masculine?

The zodiac itself never began with Taurus. The zodiac was not invented in the Neo-Assyrian period (721-627 B.C.) when the positions of the planets and Moon were referred to in relation to 17 constellations that were described as "Gods standing in the path of the moon..." Yes, the first in this list of stars was the Pleiades, "The Bull of Heaven." But the Pleiades was not a sign of the zodiac. (p. 132, Koch-Westenholz)

The zodiac was first used in Babylonian astronomy in the 5th century B .C. The twelve signs of the zodiac were as they are today with Aries as the first sign and Pisces as the last. This has been noted by several authors including David Pingree. My reference here is Ulla Koch-Westenholz's Mesopotamian Astrology (1995), p. 164.

Cyril Fagan made some assumptions that later scholarship proved to be errors. Many translations of ancient texts we have today were not available when Fagan was alive. I'm not sure if those who still align themselves with Fagan's sidereal astrology are aware of recent scholarship. Fagan believed that the oldest 12 sign zodiac began with Taurus, but there is no evidence for that belief.

Therese,

you may be interested in Rumen Kolev's latest work ( http://www.amazon.com/Babylonian-Astrol ... 9521013451 ) which dates the "projection of the ideal year of MUL.APIN onto the starry sky" (p132) to 800BC at the latest. He proves this using the "Dodekatemoiria Rising Tables" which talk of certain dodekatemoiria rising as certain stars culminate. The book itself is a great read, and very enlightening.