Skyscript Astrology Forum

Good afternoon,

Upon Mr Mark's (Moderator) suggestion, i have read this thread. Perhaps the following items will be found useful:

• 1. There appears to be consensus that the astronomical zodiac is composed of unequal constellations, the borders, names, attributes of which have differed historically and amongst cultures.
  
  2. There also seems to be consensus that equal-sign 'sidereal' zodiacs, many of which have been proposed and are used, pegged to some astronomical phenomenon (by which criteria?), do not change from one hemisphere to the other.
  
  3. Consensus is widespread that tropical and polar zones of both hemispheres exhibit climatic patterns somewhat different from the temperate zones in between.
  
  4. The apparent difficulties and questions thus appear restricted to the applicability of the tropical equal-sign zodiac of the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere (and vice-versa?), aggravated in tropical zones near the equator.

Like Ms Margherita i have yet to encounter a specific case requiring me to astrologically analyse an event in the southern hemisphere. Should i do so in the future, i should probably, when applying a tropical zodiac, also use the technique suggested by Cielo e Terra and Renaissance astrologers of shifting by 180 ecliptical degrees for the southern hemisphere. Unfortunately, i not yet seen or heard of an astrology software programme with this capability. I have much appreciated the contributions here of persons who reside in the southern hemisphere and frequently analyse such cases.

The following items might perhaps assist in reflection and clarification:

• A. As far as i know, Klaudios Ptolomaios used neither the word nor the concept of 'archetype' in his Tetrabiblos, not surprising in view of his apparently Aristotelian philosophical orientation.
  
  B. The polar zones exhibit extremes of light and darkness and of temperatures in lieu of 'seasons' in the temperate zones. Tropical zones usually exhibit wet and dry 'seasons' corresponding to the yearly solar declination cycle.
  
  C. A lady from Quito, Ecuador, told me that when one takes a boat excursion to the exact equator, one can see the waters on one side of the boat (southern hemisphere) swirling clockwise, on the other side (northern hemisphere) swirling counter-clockwise when the boat is stopped.
  
  D. In Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, Book I, Section 2, That Knowledge by Astronomical Means is Attainable, and How Far, we read (translation by Prof. Frank Robbin):
  

  "... For differences of seed exert a very great influence on the special traits of the genus, since, if the ambient and the horizon are the same, each seed prevails to express in general its own form, for example, man, horse, and so forth; and the places of birth bring about no small variation in what is produced. For if the seed is generically the same, human for example, and the condition of the ambient the same, those who are born differ much, both in body and soul, with the difference of countries. 17 In addition to this, all aforesaid conditions being equal, rearing and customs contribute to influence the particular way in which a life is lived. ..." (bold emphasis added)

  Quite remarkable, 'modern' sounding statements from an ancient Hellenistic astronomer / astrologer!
  
  One reads often that 'the tropical zodiac of the northern hemisphere seems to work astrologically in the southern one'. Of course there are phenomena of suggestion, auto-suggestion and the like to which astrologers and their clients are scarcely immune. Moreover, many, probably most of the current inhabitants of the southern hemisphere originated in the northern one at most a few centuries ago. Since intermarriage amongst colonising and indigenous peoples has apparently been more the exception than the rule and colonists have mostly maintained their prior languages, religions, diets, etc., might they still be more 'in tune' to cosmic rhythms experienced in their northern hemisphere of origin? When one considers that the Old Stone Age was about 99 % of human history to date, deeply 'going native' ex. gr. in Australia might take quite some time.
  
  E. Since Ptolemy purposely and deliberately separated astrological signs from constellations in all but names (retrospectively, perhaps to avoid confusion it might have been better to choose different names as well), we can only seek to investigate and observe by diligent research to what extent, if at all, the often climatological and geographical elements of his astrological system basically hold true like the klimata 'reversed' in direction for the southern hemisphere. For such research, of main interest primarily to astrologers practising in the southern hemisphere, may i suggest locations not too far from the 45th geographic parallel of southern latitude?
  
  F. In this thread little attention appears hitherto to have been paid to primary diurnal motion essential in heliacal phenomena and in the Hellenistic prediction techniques of primary directions. Unless i am severely mistaken, which is always possible, Helios rises in the East and sets the West in S?o Paulo, Brazil, like in Alexandria, Egypt.
  
  G. Serious modern German astrologers, for example Reinhold Ebertin, have been careful to state that the tropical zodiac used is for the northern hemisphere.

Best regards,

lihin

Good evening,

Looking into the thread's subject further has yielded the German-Swiss astrologer Ms Wilma Sommer's web site (German language only!) with a page dedicated to the Southern Hemisphere HERE.

There one finds two charts illustrating the presentation of the same time in the northern and southern hemispheres. Note that North is at the top of the southern chart so Helios rises in the East to the Right. The signs are reversed by 180 degrees of ecliptical longitude from their northern hemisphere assignments. Here are both charts beginning with the northern hemisphere:
The selections of displayed points and the emphasis on the 2nd to 8th Placidus house axis are by Ms Wilma Sommer. She wrote that her 'dualistic' delineation system does not work using the northern hemisphere tropical zodiac for southern hemisphere events.

There is an astrology software programme called Galiastro that supposedly contains this functionality but the demonstration version includes only German-speaking countries.

Best regards,

lihin

Good morning,

Had Klaudios Ptolomaios, the Hellenistic astronomer / astrologer usually credited (or condemned) for having established the tropical zodiac of the northern hemisphere in horoscopic astrology, been asked the question of this thread, he would have answered, methinks, with a resounding 'SEASONAL'.

Here is the relevant text from his Tetrabiblos, Book I, Section 10, English translation by Prof. Frank Robbin. The last paragraph indicates the utility of the prior contents to arrive at astrological judgements.

"Of the Effect of the Seasons and of the Four Angles.

Of the four seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, spring exceeds in moisture on account of its diffusion after the cold has passed and warmth is setting in; the summer, in heat, because of the nearness of the sun to the zenith; autumn more in dryness, because of the sucking up of the moisture during the hot season just past; and winter exceeds in cold, because the sun is farthest away from the zenith. For this reason, although there is no natural beginning of the zodiac, since it is a circle, they assume that the sign which begins with the vernal equinox, that of Aries, 62 is the starting-point of them all, making the excessive moisture of the spring the first part of the zodiac as though it were a living creature, and taking next in order the remaining seasons, because in all creatures the earliest ages, 63 like the spring, have a larger share of moisture and are tender and still delicate. The second age, up to the prime of life, exceeds in heat, like summer; the third, which is now past the prime and on the verge of decline, has an excess of dryness, like autumn; and the last, which approaches dissolution, exceeds in its coldness, like winter.

Similarly, too, of the four regions and angles of the horizon, from which originate the winds from the cardinal points, 64 the eastern one likewise excels in dryness because, when the sun is in that region, whatever has been moistened by the night then first begins to be dried; and the winds which blow from it, which we call in general Apeliotes, 65 are without moisture and drying in effect. The region to the south is hottest because of the fiery heat of the sun's passages through mid-heaven and because these passages, on account of the inclination of our inhabited world, diverge more to the south; and the winds which blow thence and are called by the general name Notus are hot and rarefying. The region to the west is itself moist, because when the sun is therein the things dried out during the day then first begin to become moistened; likewise the winds which blow from this part, which we call by the general name Zephyrus, are fresh and moist. The region to the north is the coldest, because through our inhabited world's inclination it is too far removed from the causes of heat arising from the sun's culmination, as it is also when the sun is at its lower culmination; and the winds which blow thence, which are called by the general name Boreas, are cold and condensing in effect.

The knowledge of these facts is useful to enable one to form a complete judgement of temperatures in individual instances. For it is easily recognizable that, together with such conditions as these, of seasons, ages, or angles, there is a corresponding variation in the potency of the stars' faculties, and that in the conditions akin to them their quality is purer and their effectiveness stronger, those that are heating by nature, for instance, in heat, and those that are moistening in the moist, while under opposite conditions their power is adulterated and weaker. Thus the heating stars in the cold periods and the moistening stars in the dry periods are weaker, and similarly in the other cases, according to the quality produced by the mixture."

Best regards,

lihin

lihin wrote:C. A lady from Quito, Ecuador, told me that when one takes a boat excursion to the exact equator, one can see the waters on one side of the boat (southern hemisphere) swirling clockwise, on the other side (northern hemisphere) swirling counter-clockwise when the boat is stopped.
[...]
F. In this thread little attention appears hitherto to have been paid to primary diurnal motion essential in heliacal phenomena and in the Hellenistic prediction techniques of primary directions. Unless i am severely mistaken, which is always possible, Helios rises in the East and sets the West in S?o Paulo, Brazil, like in Alexandria, Egypt.

Only two short annotations to your very interesting thoughts, lihin:

C.: This example seems to be very doubtful: the exact equator on the ever moving water?
But there is another example: the different movement of the air in high areas in the northern hemisphere and in the southern hemisphere. The same difference - but vice versa - is with depressions.

F.: You are right, because north and south, east and west never change north or south of the equator. But to see the Sun at noon you'll have to look to the north if you are south the equator. Thus the Sun's daily movement from the east to the west is then from the right to the left. And this is probably a certain problem for primary directions.

Johannes

Good evening,

It seems to me that in respect of rise, culmination, set and anti-culmination there is a difference of perspective between the hemispheres. Except when situated in the tropical zone between the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn where wandering and fixed stars in primary motion at times can culminate directly overhead, in the southern hemisphere one faces the North to see the culmination after rise to the right in the East, before set to the left in the West. In the northern hemisphere one faces the South, again except at times in the tropical zone between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer, sees rise to the left in the East and set to the right in the West.

East and West, it appears, maintain the same effectiveness in both hemispheres with 'dry winds' from the East, 'moist winds' from the West. 'Hot winds', methinks, blow in the southern hemisphere from the North, 'cold winds' from the South, the opposite of the northern hemisphere. Perhaps fellow forum members residing in, say, Christchurch, New Zealand, 43S 32', can tell us more from direct experience.

The ancient Hellenistic astronomer-geographer-astrologer Klaudios Ptolomaios sought to base astrological delineations on observable phenomena of nature and their systematisation rather than on mythology, an approach that, even today, apparently displeases many.

Best regards,

lihin

lihin wrote: Should i do so in the future, i should probably, when applying a tropical zodiac, also use the technique suggested by Cielo e Terra and Renaissance astrologers of shifting by 180 ecliptical degrees for the southern hemisphere. Unfortunately, i not yet seen or heard of an astrology software programme with this capability. I have much appreciated the contributions here of persons who reside in the southern hemisphere and frequently analyse such cases.

Astrophasis, the new software from Cieloeterra does. This is Russel Crowe reverted chart
Signs are reverted following Campanella statement that signs shift their qualities because belong to the opposite season.

This is the usual chart for comparison:

http://www.astro.com/cgi/chart.cgi?wgid ... mvsXfV817A

Mark wrote:
...Of course that kind of analogy falls apart if your working in the Southern Hemisphere. Its hard to avoid seeing tropical astrology as an exclusive construct of northern hemisphere assumptions by suggesting a seasonal links to the signs. Ptolemy seems to support such thinking in the Tetrabiblos. As he single handedly originated tropical astrology that is surely pause for thought?

Science is now linking some aspects of personality to the seasons, which are of course caused by the Sun-Earth relationship and tilt of 23 1/2 degrees of the earth. Please see Douglas McMahon's research on Seasonal Biology:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 202510.htm

If we theorize that seasonal changes in light are received by the Pineal Gland, then it is reasonable, IMO, to assume that the planets and Zodiac signs (which took their names from the constellations named in the Northern Hemisphere as an aid to the agricultural year,) are merely markers or timers to define the quality of light at any time.

Dane Rudhyar suggested a Tropical sign reversal for the Southern Hemisphere to harmonize with Ptolemy's original idea, with an Equatorial Zone to solve the problem of conflicting signs at the Equator. An extention of Rudhyar's ideas are presented in this theory of a Dual/Bi-Polar 6 sign Zodiac:

http://www.angelfire.com/music2/alchemy ... odiac.html

I know that there has been resistance to this theory from astrologers in the Southern Hemisphere who have found no evidence of its validity, but since astrology is so subjective, this could IMO be due to confimation bias of traditional (Northern Hemisphere) expectations.

If we want to preserve the occult/esoteric link of astrology to the seasons on the whole earth, it is, IMO, surely time to address the problem.

Thanks for the links to these informative and interesting articles, Barbara!

Even though I'm not inclined to follow the Ptolomeian teachings as to signs and seasons, and I am sceptical as to the relevance of the mice-experiments in consideration of the complexity of a chart, I am willing, and it will be very interesting, to investigate the different horoscopes with respect to the relevance of the bipolar zodiac with its reversed signs.

It will be another interesting test for my conviction and experience that the signs are independent of the seasons, not changing their meanings south of the equator.

The compass needle too does not change its direction in the southern hemisphere.

Reading the following:
"We know that the biological clock regulates mood in humans. If an imprinting mechanism similar to the one that we found in mice operates in humans, then it could not only have an effect on a number of behavioral disorders but also have a more general effect on personality," said McMahon.

"It's important to emphasize that, even though this sounds a bit like astrology, it is not: it's seasonal biology!" McMahon added.
I wonder how long it will take that Biologists will do astrology claiming this to be Biology?

Johannes

Good afternoon,

Unless i have misunderstood, the magnetic coordinate system(s) ('true' and dipolar) were never used by ancient astrologers, never formed part of Ptolemy's tropical system and have only in the 20th century begun to be investigated by very few Western astrologers as a possible fourth coordinate system. Thus, they would appear not to be relevant to the subject of this thread.

One might recall that the magnetic north pole is not so far from the geographic south pole and vice-versa. Magnetic compasses point to the magnetic, not the geographic, poles.

Best regards,

lihin