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Astrological signs... new ones?

03:10 / 05.05.04

i recall a few years ago a bit of a kerfuffle in the press about how, over several thousand years, the orbit of the earth round the sun shifted its axis a little and we now transit through a broader set of astrological constellations, making the old 12 signs and their dates obsolete, with new calibrations required.

is this true? what are the new signs? when are they?? or who propogated the myth, if it were such?

05:58 / 05.05.04

The Earth wobbles on its axis - precession - over a period of 25,800 years. This has several results. One is that the pole star changes during that period (in 14,000 years' time it'll be Vega, not Polaris). Another is that the Sun's entry into each of the various zodiac constellations is about a month off the "signs of the zodiac". A third is that the Sun now moves through thirteen zodiacal constellations instead of twelve. The thirteenth is Ophiuchus, the Serpent Handler.

I seem also to recall that there's some evidence for a particularly big wobble sometime in the past, which could have made the Sun pass through still more constellations.

There's a longer-term effect, too, which arises from the stars themselves moving in the sky. This hasn't made much difference over human history to date, if I recall correctly.

As for consequence, well, I can't say that it makes any difference if there are changes in the perceived motion of one celestial body in front of some arbitrary assemblages of other, vastly more distant and completely unrelated bodies. This may be the only area in which I'm in agreement with the astrological community, although they give a rather different rationale.

15:45 / 05.05.04

I'm inclined to think of the signs as markers of time rather than causing or directly influencing.

Although this wobble does kind of cause a little chaos as far as the level of signification, (Now, a virtual sign is used as a sign of something?)

04:13 / 08.05.04

This would only have an effect on the Vedic school of astrology, which is based on the Sidereal Zodiac and is mainly practiced in India, as opposed to Western astrology which is based on the Tropical Zodiac. The Tropical system has nothing to do with where the actual constellations are. The signs that the Sun and other planets are in are determined by where they are in relation to the Ecliptic (apparent path of the Sun as it moves around the sky during the year). So, the Sun enters the beginning of the Zodiac at 0 degrees Aries when the Sun crosses the Equator (which marks the first day of Spring in the northern hemisphere), where it continues to rise higher and higher until it reaches it's zenith at the Tropic of Cancer, which is (surprise) when it reaches 0 Cancer (summer), then the path of the Sun moves back toward the Equator, crossing it at 0 Libra (fall), and reaches it's lowest point at the Tropic of Capricorn at 0 Cap (winter).

Vedic astrology, on the other hand, does go by where the planets are in relation to the constellations, so in Vedic all of your planets would be placed 23 degrees earlier than "normal", causing most of your planets to be in the earlier sign.

This difference is used by detractors of astrology to try and discredit it, but these two systems are completely different. In Vedic, the emphasis is on predicting external events, while Tropical/Western astrologers are much more psychological and view the planets/signs as elements of the psyche.

05:58 / 28.05.04

well, thank you all very much - if nothing has changed in the western atrology system then, i can continue to disbelieve..?

or is skepticism a gemini trait...! : )

07:39 / 28.05.04

astrojax69: talking of such matters, you can have great fun by swapping all the horoscopes around. Take one newspaper, copy all the horoscopes out and then randomly substitute the horoscope for Leo for that of Aquarias (say) - you can switch days if you like or grab horoscopes from other newspapers or off the Internet. Then try them out. Nobody will know the difference.

Recently there was a user on a forum I hang out on who described how she had been reading the wrong horoscope all along: she'd been reading Aries instead of Taurus. But she didn't want to "change" to Taurus, because she felt like she was more of an Aries.

Plus there's the "What sign are you?" question. Lie, and enjoy the results of somebody telling you "Ah, yeah, I knew you were a Saggituarius" whilst sitting thinking "Ha ha, I'm not one really".