Hello All,

This is my first post on this forum to which i was directed by Alois Treindl. To introduce myself as briefly as possible:

I am an american author of five books currently running an on-line university called Nemeta.org. I was a professional astrologer for 35 years using the tropical format. From the mid-1970s I began developing an interface between tropical and sidereal systems and used them both. For 30 years I have been teaching naked-eye observation of the sky.

I wonder if anyone can tell me how many sidereal models are currently in use around the world? I know about the Vedic sidereal system. I studied one version with Willi Sucher, a student of Rudold Steiner, who developed what he called astrosophy using a sidereal model. I also am familiar with the sidereal zodiac of Robert Powell, another anthrosopsphist, whom I met years ago. I believe a woman named Diane Rosenberg used a sidereal format -- based on Vivian Robson's work on the fixed stars?

Is that it, then? Or are there other models currently in use?

regards,
JLL

Welcome to the forum. There was a somewhat similar query some months ago; I don't know if you have seen it:
https://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11776

Hi Martin

I read the thread you referenced. I was struck by the statement "there is no sidereal astrology per se in that almost any technique can be applied in the sidereal zodiac," which I am not sure I understand. I am guessing that it means that there is no standard body of techniques for interpetation of the sidereal zodiac comparable to the large tool-kit for tropical astrlogy.

Before saying any more, I want to make sure that anyone who takes an interest in my posts will recognize that I have no intention to pit tropical against sidereal or refute one or the other. As I said, I have used both by a certain method of interface over decades. Be assured about that. That said, I have two comments:

It became clear to me from the first moment of using a star-based zodiac (rather than sign-based) in the mid 1970s, that I could not and would not work that system using the tool-kit of tropical techniques. I have never done so or even attempted it. What I have done is construct a way to read the constellations that stands entirely apart from the work I pursued as a professional tropical astrologer. No houses, aspects, rulerships, etc. I do not concur that "almost any technique" can be applied to the sidereal zodiac. I had to work out a totally novel technique to decode what I found in the constellations.

Secondly, in reference to the thread on Learning Sidereal, I found unnecessary to go back to Hellenistic systems, although I have studied the Hellenistic legacy as well as Sumerian, Egyptian, Chinese, Hindu, Scandinavian, Celtic, Native American, Maya and Aztec star lore. "Sidereal mythology" as you may know is the study of myths and legends associated with the star-patterns that have been observed in all cultures around the world from time untold. For a comparative mythologist, sidereal mythology is a sub-genre that requires close attention.

Finally, I would ask if it is necessary to go back into ancient siidereal material to "learn sidereal." For me, it was not. I based the new sidereal system I use (which I call forensic astronomy) on observing the actual constellations in the sky. I went directly to the source.

JLL wrote:

I wonder if anyone can tell me how many sidereal models are currently in use around the world? I know about the Vedic sidereal system. I studied one version with Willi Sucher, a student of Rudold Steiner, who developed what he called astrosophy using a sidereal model. I also am familiar with the sidereal zodiac of Robert Powell, another anthrosopsphist, whom I met years ago. I believe a woman named Diane Rosenberg used a sidereal format -- based on Vivian Robson's work on the fixed stars?

For now I'll very briefly reply to this question as my Internet time is limited for a day or two. A few decades ago (prior to the mid 1980s-1990s) this was an easy question to answer. The sidereal model/systems question has become much more complex in recent years. Aside from various practices in Asian countries, the older sidereal picture was composed of only two systems:

(1) The various Indian astrological systems were still intact. (There are a number of these systems.)

(2) Cyril Fagan's discovery of the ancient sidereal zodiac resulted in a western Sidereal School based on the 'synetic' vernal point ayanamsa. Members of this very small school today still routinely refer back to Fagan's writings. Many of these writings, however, are very much out of date. Today this system is simply called Western Sidereal Astrology. There is no unified doctrine except the ayanamsa, and different practitioners (primarily Kenneth Bowser and James Eshleman) have their own unique ideas about details of this system.

Robert Powell (History of the Zodiac, 2007) espoused this system and ayanamsa. (Recently I haven't reviewed this book for precise details.) The Steiner-Sucher astrological emphasis isn't really a sidereal system that can be used in practice. Those who explored astrology in that way didn't understand the mathematics of the sidereal zodiac. These were simply Steiner's ideas about the planets and constellations linked to Astrosophy. Sidereal boundaries were not understood which resulted in some guesswork about the extent of constellations/signs.

The question of sidereal models has become greatly changed from the 1990s when The American Council of Vedic Astrology was inaugurated in California, USA. From that date India's basic astrological concepts (many of which can be traced to Hellenistic and Perso-Arabic roots) began to be combined with western zodiac sign and psychological attributes. We now have an astrology which has become labeled 'Vedic' or 'Jyotish' which is actually an eastern-western hybrid, but which is often stubbornly referred to as India's astrology.

Another major change in the sidereal perspective has happened with the translation of older texts from the Hellenistic through Perso-Arabic up to the present. These translations began in the 1990s, and continue today, courtesy of modern scholars. We realize now (as Martin Gansten indicated above in the link he noted) that Classical principles in these texts can be applied in either the tropical or sidereal zodiac, as they often were in past centuries. I see this trend as a New Sidereal astrology which will become more popular and better understood in future years.

Note: Diana Rosenberg was a tropical astrologer, but she did include Lahiri ayanamsa star positions in her two volume Secrets of the Ancient Skies (2012).

JLL wrote in reply to Martin:

I read the thread you referenced. I was struck by the statement "there is no sidereal astrology per se in that almost any technique can be applied in the sidereal zodiac," which I am not sure I understand. I am guessing that it means that there is no standard body of techniques for interpretation of the sidereal zodiac comparable to the large tool-kit for tropical astrology.

Actually the standard body of techniques in western classical texts can and were applied in both zodiacs depending on the astronomical tables available and the choice of practitioners. Only modern 'Sun Sign' astrology is strictly tropical. Most astrological techniques used today can be traced back to ancient texts beginning with the Hellenistic. This is why in the past Kepler College began the student's first year with a detailed study of astrological history.

Today's sidereal astrology is based on a specific ayanamsa date, not on the stars. The actual stars and constellations are a different study which Steiner touched upon.

JLL wrote:

Secondly, in reference to the thread on Learning Sidereal, I found unnecessary to go back to Hellenistic systems, although I have studied the Hellenistic legacy as well as Sumerian, Egyptian, Chinese, Hindu, Scandinavian, Celtic, Native American, Maya and Aztec star lore. "Sidereal mythology" as you may know is the study of myths and legends associated with the star-patterns that have been observed in all cultures around the world from time untold. For a comparative mythologist, sidereal mythology is a sub-genre that requires close attention.

Finally, I would ask if it is necessary to go back into ancient sidereal material to "learn sidereal." For me, it was not. I based the new sidereal system I use (which I call forensic astronomy) on observing the actual constellations in the sky. I went directly to the source.

Mythology of different cultures, a vast study indeed. My favorite constellation starter book for students is Julius D.W. Staal's The New Patterns in the Sky (1988). Of course one also needs good astronomy software, and a telescope that can be software linked directly to stars is helpful.

JLL wrote:I am guessing that it means that there is no standard body of techniques for interpetation of the sidereal zodiac comparable to the large tool-kit for tropical astrlogy.

Therese has largely answered this already, so I'll be brief: I don't think one can really speak of a standard body of techniques in modern (say, post-1900) astrology, tropical or sidereal. The field is much too fragmented for that. The phrase makes more sense in the context of (Late Classical and) medieval astrology, and the further back we go along that line, the more we find sidereal values being used. Tropical and sidereal are not styles of astrology as such, they are different opinions on what constitutes the 0 Aries point. That's really all there is to it.

Hi Therese,

This is a thorough and informative response to my opening question. My purpose in asking was to get some perspective from practiced and well-studied professionals about the current status of sidereal systems.

What next, then? I don't know. If I am reading what you say correctly, it looks to me that current or developing practice and investigation of sidereal formats is completely irrelevant to the star-based system I use. You write that "the standard body of techniques in western classical texts can and were applied in both zodiacs." If you mean the techniques of house, sign, aspect, 4 elements, Cardinal Fixed Mutable, rulerships, and all the other accessories in the tool-kit of astrological interpretation -- I completely disregard all of that. Nor do I use the new star-based system for prediction, horary analysis, synastry, etc. As for personality profiling and analysis of psychological complexes, I have done all that in my work with the tropical format. Psychological interpretation is not the objective of the star-based format I use.

I conclude what I already knew but relied on this exchange to confirm it: I am not doing astrology by any known or conventional standard. But I said, I do not call it astrology. I call it forensic astronomy. But that still leaves open the question, what can be done that supercedes astrology, taking the actual, observable constellations as the matrix of a system of interpretation... Interpretation of what? With that tools? And to what purpose? I can answer those questions, of course, but it remains to be seen if this forum is the right place for doing so. Or even to discuss it.

If any interest in what I am trying to say is there, please bear in mind that I work with the appearance of the actual, observable constellations in their exact astronomical display, period. I have taught naked-eye astronomy for decades. No one can see an astrological sign, i.e. an ecliptic sector. If baffles me that none of the various alternative systems designated as sidereal -- as far as I can tell from this exchange so far -- take into consideration the source of it all, the starry constellations illustrated in countless astronomy books and skywatching manuals. I don't go back to ancient systems, Vedic, Greek, or otherwise, because the oldest encoded source of "the language of the stars" is right there where it has always been. In the vast field of stars you can observe.

It's a rather strange turn of events to find myself here. Anyone's guess what happens next.

JLL wrote:

I conclude what I already knew but relied on this exchange to confirm it: I am not doing astrology by any known or conventional standard. But I said, I do not call it astrology. I call it forensic astronomy. But that still leaves open the question, what can be done that supersedes astrology, taking the actual, observable constellations as the matrix of a system of interpretation... Interpretation of what? With that tools? And to what purpose? I can answer those questions, of course, but it remains to be seen if this forum is the right place for doing so. Or even to discuss it.

Do you have a web page or series of on-line articles that can enlighten us on your perspective?

If baffles me that none of the various alternative systems designated as sidereal -- as far as I can tell from this exchange so far -- take into consideration the source of it all, the starry constellations illustrated in countless astronomy books and skywatching manuals.

The nakshatra systems of India's astrology consider the formations of stars, but the Indian view of the sky is very different from the constellations that have come down to us from antiquity in the west.

Hello All,

The various ways the constellations have been pictured through the ages is something one can study, using Allen, Stahl, the Timochares model, Durer's woodcuts, and a few others. I rely strongly on the Hellenistic construct of the Dendera Zodiac, one of my specialities, but I always return to a primary truth: no matter how the constellations have been imaginatively visualized in China, India, Scandinavia, or Polynesia, no matter what the ancient precedents are, how the Chinese asterisms or the Egyptian decans, or the nakshatras might have been pictured, the panoramic view of the star-patterns known to the ancients is there for immediate observation. So I go to the stellar matrix to construct my version of a sidereal system.

In short, I consider but set aside astrological artefacts to go to the source code.

I appreciate your interest in knowing something about my perspective. The system I now use has been developing since 1976 when I met Willi Sucher who invented a sidereal format called Astrosophy. I do not follow Sucher but I learned a lot from him. I have so far not reached out to other professionals about "forensic astronomy" using the real-sky constellations. In my next post I will provide a glimpse of how it looks and works.

Anticipating more dialogue, may I clarify a few points that might be helpful in your approach to my version of "constellation astrology" as it might be called.

1, I do not use personality typology. No sidereal signs. Hence, no star-based sign-types or equivalents.
2, I use no tools or techniques in the operational kit of astrology, as already noted.
3, I do not use the method for psychological analysis, personal profiling, reading syndromes and complexes, etc.
4, I do not use Jungian archetypes although I have a lot to say about that concept, and especially about the unsolved riddle of the inheritance of psychic engrams, primordial images, urbild.

The goal of my system is to track the phylogenetic transfer of inherent talents and drives across generations, using biographic studies.

In my next post, I will provide a look of the new system. Right now, I am involved in completing a large project so it may be a week or so before I post again.

regards, JLL

JLL, the Skyscript Sidereal forum has relatively few readers compared to Nativities and General Astrology. As the stars and constellations are of general interest to most astrologers, many more will see your posts if they are placed on that part of the forum. I suggest that you place your current post and future posts regarding your system there. You can start a new topic under Nativities and General Astrology as your did here. It would be good to include the word Constellations in your title. Forensic Astronomy and the Constellations??

Good idea. Will do.