An Intro Info Note On Astrology (- YES, IT'S ABOUT THE STARS)

If you were asked “What’s your sign” and you answered “Cancer”, this would imply, in the usual, popular, tropical astrology understanding, that the Sun at the time of birth would be ‘found’ in that sign (the ‘sign of Cancer’ in our example). However, if we were to look to the sky at the time of your birth, we wouldn’t actually see the stars from the Cancer constellation! What we'd most likely see is that the Sun is "in" the starry backdrop of Gemini constellation.

How is this possible?

The term ‘Zodiac’ refers to the 12 constellation-zones of the circle of the Ecliptic, i.e. the starry-regions in this belt (out of the whole observable sphere-of-sky).

From the point-of-view of Earth, the relative positions of the stars to each other have been the same for thousands of years. But the spacial inter-relation of the visible belt of constellations and the horizon and the seasons goes through a cycle; if we take the north-hemisphere Vernal  Equinox as a reference point (or any other annual, Earth-revolution-based, point in time), we notice that "the Zodiac rotates", i.e. over time different stars align with the Sun at a given fixed moment of Earth's own year.
 One whole cycle of this movement of the vernal point through the Zodiac takes about 26,000 years to be completed. This phenomenon is known as the ‘precession of the Equinoxes’ and is due to the fact that the earth's rotational axis lies with a slight angular tilt upon the plane of Earths revolution. About every 2,000 years the vernal point – the degree of the ecliptic that rises on the eastern horizon at the moment of the vernal equinox – passes from one constellation to another. We are now ‘at the end’ of the VP being "in" Pisces and  slowly moving towards entering Aquarius (the sequence of this motion is in the reverse order of the annual motion of the Sun through the constellations).

The concept of the Zodiac as we know it (12 divisions, each 30-degrees-wide, in the starry belt of ecliptic) originated in Egypt. It came came to  Europe during the early centuries B.C. by transfer of the Egyptian and Babylonian (Chaldean) knowledge to the Greek cities. It was during these early centuries of astrology in the Western culture that the famous Hellenistic astrologer-astronomer[2], Ptolemy, lived and worked, and whose work (especially the book, Tetrabiblos) became the foundation for the further development of astrology. As all of his contemporaries, Ptolemy was convinced that the celestial sphere was rotating, and that the Earth is fixed, so naturally, observations regarding the changed position of vernal point along the Zodiac were attributed to this motion of the celestial sphere  But, it's important to note that between 127. C.E. and 151. C.E., when he wrote his most influential works, the Tetrabiblos and Almagest, the vernal point was traversing the part of Zodiac between 01° 11’ and  00° 51’ Aries. 

Not long ago after Ptolemaic time, due to the Christian overrun, all the important astrological writings, including the two mentioned, were moved to the Middle East; there, they had been translated into Arabic during the subsequent centuries, in order to, through this unexpected journey, to come back to the West during the 12th Century. Ptolemy’s translators and students of his work during the Middle Ages  simply copied his statement that  ‘the Zodiac begins with the vernal equinox’[4]. This was actually true during his time, and it certainly is an accurate observational remark on the constellations in relation to seasons (the position of Sun in relation to the starry backdrop, at the rising at vernal Equinox); but it isn't the definition of what is the Zodiac![5]  Unfortunately, the whole tradition of what is known today as Western, or Tropical astrology, developed over time, into a body of astrological knowledge that incorporated this simple mistake, and continued to live divorced from the stars, referring to the four seasons of the Northern hemisphere as the defining-framework of the Zodiac.

What is surprising is that this kind of ‘fixating’ on the equinoctial points, and understanding the starry clusters as those that rotate, did not stop even after Copernicus’ 16^th century discovery that the Earth is the one actually rotating! In the West this divorce of astrology from the starts has survived for centuries, and still exists.

On a practical level, this astrological misunderstanding owes much of its continued existence to the fact that a huge amount of practical, detailed astrological work has been based, not on the Zodiac per se, but on the analysis of planets and their angular interrelations (aspects), as well as their positions in the houses of the horoscope.

“Well, if practical results are obtainable either way, why would it matter at all what we call the tool?” one might ask. The question is not without merit.

First, I have to assert that they are not ‘obtainable either way’!

Sidereal astrology can predict events and individual experiences with an astounding accuracy, with finely-tuned timing, using only the simplest techniques, such as transits, Solar and Lunar Returns, and their progression.  Using tropical astrology, the Solar Return (being anchored on the fixed Equinoctical time-space point in Earth's annual rotation, not the Zodiac, i.e. the Starry 360-degrees belt in the sky) completely loses its meaning, as do all the progressions based on this and related cycles, while transits, during time, show more and more discrepancy.

In natal astrology, where we handle the more ‘subjective’ facts, the advantage of real, stellar perspective is also easily displayed in practice: while contemporary tropical astrology is flooded with innumerable techniques, in a funny attempt to explain what life shows but the chart doesn't , with adding more and more sub-divisions of divisions, ‘inserted houses’, rulers of the rulers of the house cusp, etc., Sidereal astrology's method is clear, and interpretation is rooted in few essential factors. A simple analysis gives a strikingly accurate, clear and comprehensive picture of the character.

Second, there is a matter of meaningful use of names, and the fact that consistent use of particular concepts and terms, as well as precise definition of the terms used, is an important aspect of that which we call science.

The true problem of holding to the tropical frame of astrological thinking is that it prevents astrology from becoming established experientially, based on empirical data, and thus from being used in the most fruitful way possible to the advancement of mankind – as a tool that helps human beings become in tune with themselves and everything in Nature.

The rediscovery and revitalization of the knowledge of astrology as it really is – with the Zodiac of 12 constellations on the Ecliptic – happened in the West at the beginning of 20th Century, thanks to the modern pioneers of Sidereal astrology, Cyril Fagan and Donald A. Bradley (aka Garth Allen). Their work has been carried on to the present day by a handful of authors, who mostly by their own individual efforts and investigations contributed bit-by-bit to the growing elucidation of this hugely important astrological matter: http://home.comcast.net/~siderealwest/biblio.htm

... During the second and the (current) beginning-of-third decade of the 21st century, various new --- both online and in printed form --- informational resource-hubs, related to Sidereal astrology and its techniques, have emerged.  A new learner/student will benefit the most by getting familiar with as many as possible differently prismed-perspectives among these, while staying determined to primarily, as the-first-and-foremost, rely on one's own Observation & note-taking process, without neglecting both the ground-work as well as, thereafter, the intentional continual-refining of own observational capacities. 

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[1] see C. Fagan, „Astrological origins“ Llewellyn Publications, Minnesota 1973

[2] there was no distinction between these two roles then; there was only the term ’astrologer’, which included aspects of what we would separate as ’astrology’ and ’astronomy’ by today’s definitions

[3] many places in Tetrabiblos point to the fact that he used the words ’sign’ and ’constellation’ as synonymous, always having in mind the real, physically observable constellations

[4] Tetrabiblos I, 11

[5] the Zodiac, according to the ancient Egyptians, began with the constellation Taurus, the Bull, and that

observed from the midst of this constellation, which they determined in relation to the fixed star Aldebaran