Skyscript Astrology Forum

It has been suggested in the "Traditional Techniques in the Sidereal" thread that tropical signs have been altered to match the sidereal signs which is suggestive that tropical astrology is inherently flawed and that there is only one true zodiac, the sidereal one, and that tropical astrologers ignorant of this continuously alter their tropical sign meanings to match the sidereal ones.

As I do not agree with this sentiment and as it was expressed in the thread several times I have chosen to rebut the point. However as it is prone to distract from the original purpose of that thread I've created a new thread to discuss the issue separately.

For example one poster in particular, Therese Hamilton, argued the point that Tropical Cancer has changed its symbolism/meaning to align itself with Sidereal Gemini:

James writes

You seem to be saying that we are seeing sidereal Gemini when we see the planets (tropically) in Cancer. This seems to be implying that:

Sidereal Gemini = Tropical Cancer

To which Therese responds with:

Yes.

However, earlier in the thread Martin Gansten asserts that:

We know that most Hellenistic astrologers seem not to have used Ptolemy's tropical zodiac; Persian astrology appears to have been all sidereal, and so is Indian astrology. Ptolemy found greater favour with later Arabic authors (and their Latin translators); but they simultaneously drew on non-Ptolemaic Hellenistic, Persian and Indian sources.

So my point is that both arguments appear to contradict one another.

As we know that traditional authors of tropical astrology such as Lilly drew on hellenistic astrologers as his source, if Martin Gansten is correct, then tropical astrologers have preserved the same meanings that were used by hellenistic sidereal astrologers.
However Therese's point appears to contradict this.

I wish to examine the issue further and hopefully settle the debate as much as can be done as it is not an uncommon argument that some sidereal astrologers make: namely that the tropical zodiac is actually just the sidereal zodiac in disguise without tropical astrologers reaslising.

If this is true then I'd ask anyone who suggests as much to provide some evidence of this change in meaning by examining traditional authors such as Lilly (or whomever they deem more appropriate) against a hellenistic or traditional sidereal astrologer of their choosing.

Thank you, Paul for the "break out" here of the other topic. It does deserve its own space, is respectful of Therese's original thread, and quite frankly, is more interesting to me.

I still have a fundamental stumbling block over the idea of (for instance) Tropical Cancer = Sidereal Gemini in terms of qualities...

And even if that were to be true, it doesn't seem to work (in my mind) in terms of the zodiacal connection. In other words...the (tropical) Cancerian qualities fit the real-life crab. (ie. make the Cancerian insecure and he crawls into his shell...poetically perfect alignment of animal/image and sign, being a triple-Cancer, I know!) Using the simple statement above that Tropical Cancer = Sidereal Gemini (which Therese agreed with), we logically [A=B & B=C, therefore A=C] can deduce that (sidereal) Gemini fits the real-life crab. Why would Gemini fit the crab? Why, why why???

And IF it ever even DID, then we should have Gemini, the Crab; not Gemini, the Twins.

The "tropical signs as mutations of the sidereal signs" is giving off a very fishy scent to these nostrils. I am looking forward to some hard proof, because I just can't relate to the idea at all.

Thanks, Paul

James

Hi Paul - I queried this myself. If you click the link below it leads directly to the point where I pick this up, and my 2nd post (4th on this link) demonstrates why I felt it contracticted the view the of other siderealists:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 3&start=54

When I asked for clarification of the 'typical view', Theresa explained (7th post down

My approach is definitely atypical, Deb, but I'm quite sure it's correct. From my experience I would say that making the sidereal signs exactly the same as the tropical signs of the same name is as Spock would say, "Captain, that is not logical."

From my point of view, making the sidereal signs the same as the tropical is just plain wrong. And this approach is found everywhere in the western and Jyotish literature. How can one segment of the ecliptic have two totally different and opposing meanings just because a different label is used?

I'm sorry, Deb, but I feel very strongly about this.

So I owe a great debt to tropical astrologers for taking a century to observe sign traits. I don't reject them at all. Like Cyril Fagan, my belief is that they have been seeing the nature of the underlying sidereal signs. Plain and simple. Call the signs whatever you like. The nature of the energy in any segment or degree of the ecliptic is exactly the same.

I don't want to speak for Theresa but it seems only fair to point out that she has already explained that her approach is not the typical one. However, it does seem to raise quite a significant point because it affects the way we follow her explanation of charts interpreted according to the sidereal perspective. Are we talking about a mainstream sidereal perspective or a controversial sidereal perspective? In the example comment I referred to the implication appears to be that the shift in meaning has affected the sidereal sign interpretation, so that sidereal Libra has become more like tropical Scorpio. A neat solution if it were widely accepted - the two zodiacs give different sign locations but end up giving similar meanings anway. I imagine most siderealists will have more of a problem with this than I would.

Of course it's up to Theresa if she wants to say more on this. I pointed out in my post how I had seen another sidereal astrologer take a similar approach to Theresa but have no idea whether we could consider this view to have a significant number of advocates.

Perhaps the first thing we need is a clarification of what the argument is. Are the tropical signs supposed to have shifted their meaning from what was originally recorded? Are the sidereal signs supposed to have shifted their meaning to convey qualities of the corresponding tropical signs? Are they both supposed to have had an influence on each other? I had assumed the latter was Theresa's position but now I'm wondering if I misunderstood her response because I wasn't specific enough in what I asked her to clarify.

Deb wrote: I don't want to speak for Theresa but it seems only fair to point out that she has already explained that her approach is not the typical one.

True, I had read this far into the discussion when I replied, I've nearly read the whole thing now.
However she also says "Like Cyril Fagan, my belief is that they have been seeing the nature of the underlying sidereal signs. Plain and simple. Call the signs whatever you like. The nature of the energy in any segment or degree of the ecliptic is exactly the same." which does suggest that she's saying that she, like Cyril Fagan, see the tropical signs, whatever we want to call them, as the 'same', and I assume the 'sameness' she means here is in reference to the sidereal.

Now I'm not sure first of all if that is actually what Cyril Fagan believes, just that Therese appeared to have been suggesting that it is and that she too follows this logic.

So it's a bit confusing, on one hand she has said that she's atypical, and on the other she appears to be saying she's following Cyril Fagan in this approach. So if it's atypical, it's at least not uncommon (Fagan being of course a well known and well respected sidereal astrologer with many followers).

Of course it's up to Theresa if she wants to say more on this. I pointed out in my post how I had seen another sidereal astrologer take a similar approach to Theresa but have no idea whether we could consider this view to have a significant number of advocates.

Yeah it's up to Therese really. I only highlighted it because it's not unique to Therese, even if it's not widely accepted by other sidereal astrologers. There are enough other sidereal astrologers who I've met with who share similar beliefs - perhaps they'll be posting here too, I don't know. But as an 'ambassador' of the idea, having presented it, it doesn't seem unfair to critique the idea. Though it's probably worth highlighting as you have that it's not necessarily to be taken as a unilateral view that all sidereal astrologers have.

Yes - I added an extra paragraph to the end of my post, which overlapped yours, to say it would be helpful to clarify what is being proposed, because some of the previous comments are contradictory, or appear that way to me.

Deb wrote:Yes - I added an extra paragraph to the end of my post, which overlapped yours, to say it would be helpful to clarify what is being proposed, because some of the previous comments are contradictory, or appear that way to me.

Yes one part I wasn't sure was whether the slippage of symbolism works both ways or whether it was just one way.

Certainly agreeing with statements that "Sidereal Gemini = Tropical Cancer" makes it sound one way, but then there was an analogy with scorpio and libra that confused me.

I am copying my post here from the earlier thread:

Konrad wrote:

I can't speak for Therese but my understanding of it is not that she is claiming the Moon rules Gemini, but the qualities of each sign we have become accustomed to in the modern positions of the Tropical zodiac are actually qualities belonging to the Sidereal sign which lies "behind" the 30 degree portion that makes up each tropical sign.

This actually doesn't change much though in regards to rulership since if you had the Asc at mid-cancer Tropically, you will have Gemini siderally and the Moon will not figure there at all, Mercury will. So in one system you look to the Moon, the other Mercury.

I think the point is what you would term "Leo-like" qualities, she would say are actually Cancer and Moon related...

Thank you, Konrad. You have it exactly right. It's a very simple premise.

but herein lies the problem. When you attach personality traits to signs, then it loses any accuracy you could have had when testing it (especially when considering that the subject will often have a very different view of their persona than someone else would, only a complete egotist would presume to know how they are received by others, in my opinion)

Yes, this is true. We can't use personality if we want to define zodiac signs.

which is why I have been testing the Sidereal zodiac on injuries, ailments, diseases and deaths since the body-parts and manner of death are very much different in Leo as they are in Cancer, for example. Or when using Valens 8th from Fortune to show death, you will often have different rulers of both the lot of Fortune and the 8th sign from it when using different zodiacs.

Amen. We have to study observable facts rather than personality.

It was Sari who posted her perception of the shifting meanings of the tropical zodiac. My only claim is that some of the traits Valens' links to the signs are obvsiously related to the ruling planets. I'm quite sure they are "untested" traits. I'm not arguing for a shifting of meanings. Today we have thousands of horoscopes we can study to determine how signs express in the lives of people.

Therese Hamilton wrote: Konrad wrote:

Konrad wrote: the qualities of each sign we have become accustomed to in the modern positions of the Tropical zodiac are actually qualities belonging to the Sidereal sign which lies "behind" the 30 degree portion that makes up each tropical sign.

Thank you, Konrad. You have it exactly right. It's a very simple premise.

Therese Hamilton wrote: It was Sari who posted her perception of the shifting meanings of the tropical zodiac. My only claim is that some of the traits Valens' links to the signs are obvsiously related to the ruling planets. I'm quite sure they are "untested" traits. I'm not arguing for a shifting of meanings. Today we have thousands of horoscopes we can study to determine how signs express in the lives of people.

Hi Therese

Thanks for joining us on this thread.

You mention a poster named Sari who said this. Yet it wasn't from Sari that I read the post. It was from you. Even in your post here you say the very same thing when you agree with Konrad in the portion I've quoted above.

What I'd like to know is why do you feel that the tropical signs have changed their meanings to align with the sidereal ones? At what point, do you know, in our history did this begin to occur? Or rather can you identify a source where you can clearly see where this occurs.

I ask for historical records because it is of historical relevance. If we accept Martin Gansten's suggestions in the other thread, namely that the likes of Lilly etc referenced the hellenistic astrologers who themselves used a sidereal system then it would see that Lilly actually was preserving the same associations and symbolism as the sidereal astrologers did with the sidereal signs and applying them to the tropical ones, so that symbolism of sidereal cancer is the same as tropical cancer.

However you (not Sari) mentioned that Sidereal Gemini is equal to Tropical Cancer. Why do you think this is? Can you put forth a convincing case to demonstrate that this is the case? I haven't been able to find any examples of that at all.

Of course, we should bear in mind that in the late 19th early 20th century a creeping idea that signs=houses=planets began to take shape in modern astrology which might be why you recognise that the signs appear to have changed meanings, though why you believe they changed in accordance with precession is beyond me. What makes you think this is the case?

Paul wrote:

So it's a bit confusing, on one hand she has said that she's atypical, and on the other she appears to be saying she's following Cyril Fagan in this approach. So if it's atypical, it's at least not uncommon (Fagan being of course a well known and well respected sidereal astrologer with many followers).

I should qualify my statement about Cyril Fagan. I don't have the references at hand, so all I can say is that I "remember" this was Fagan's view. Western astrologers of Fagan's school have mostly left work with signs and concentrated on the nature of planets and angularity in the charts. Signs have generally fallen by the wayside. So Cyril Fagan was an individual, and his followers are individuals with their own persepectives except for the actual computation of charts: The Fagan-Bradley ayanamsa reigns supreme in their work.

Yes, my view of signs is atypical and shared only by some of my past students and Sari M. who is no longer here. I came to my conclusions through much research and study over 40+ years.

Therese Hamilton wrote: I should qualify my statement about Cyril Fagan. I don't have the references at hand, so all I can say is that I "remember" this was Fagan's view. Western astrologers of Fagan's school have mostly left work with signs and concentrated on the nature of planets and angularity in the charts. Signs have generally fallen by the wayside. So Cyril Fagan was an individual, and his followers are individuals with their own persepectives except for the actual computation of charts: The Fagan-Bradley ayanamsa reigns supreme in their work.

Yes, my view of signs is atypical and shared only by some of my past students and Sari M. who is no longer here. I came to my conclusions through much research and study over 40+ years.

Ok so when you say that 'this' was Fagan's view, which bit was his view? Was the idea that the tropical signs are secretly just the sidereal ones because tropical astrologers have changed their meanings accordingly Fagan's view (as you remember/understand it)?

Paul, let's study some horoscopes. I have no interest in an argument regarding the "shifting" of sign meanings. There isn't enough information in the literature to support that premise either way. It's a dead argument in my opinion. I have a collection of Gemini charts I can post, and these charts can be studied on the AstroDatabank site.

Paul wrote:

However you (not Sari) mentioned that Sidereal Gemini is equal to Tropical Cancer. Why do you think this is? Can you put forth a convincing case to demonstrate that this is the case? I haven't been able to find any examples of that at all.

I'll post some charts as soon as possible. Then perhaps we can discuss them in peace. I do believe that Konrad is on the right track in his research by looking at factual information rather than the more nebulous traits of personality.