sidereal and tropical astrology

[Jitendra Hydonus]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_astrology

I think what we have to ask ourselves is whether distant stars are the determining influence or the relationship between the Sun and earth. I do not have a finite fixed answer...only my own personal observations. Sometimes we find another explanation that may incorporate both views of a what appears to be a contrasting set of variables.

An interesting point from the link below; the constellations do not fit in neat 30 degree sections. This being the case; we may ask ourselves how influential are the constellations themselves when they do not fit neatly into 30 degree departments although 30 degree divisions are used in sidereal as well as tropical astrology.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110806164006AAZkBSt

[mccoy]

Steve, as far as I know, there are sydereal systems which consider the constellations unequal and even introduce the Ophiucus constellation. I referenced them in the thread on astrology and astronomy. One of such systems has been pretty successful in Japan.

[mccoy]

I foudn the link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_and_tropical_astrology

Cyril Fagan relates sidereal to tropica, shifting the boundaries (same as in Vedic astrology).

Whereas Walter Berg devised a system based on 13 signs and variable boundaries.

In 1995, Walter Berg introduced his 13-sign zodiac, which has the additional sign of Ophiuchus. Berg's system was well received in Japan after having his book translated by radio host Mizui Kumi (水井久美) in 1996.

For the purpose of determining the constellations in contact with the ecliptic, the constellation boundaries as defined by the International Astronomical Union in 1930 are used. For example, the Sun enters the IAU boundary of Aries on April 19 at the lower right corner, a position that is still rather closer to the "body" of Pisces than of Aries. The IAU defined the constellation boundaries without consideration of astrological purposes.

[mccoy]

from the Wiki voice on walter Berg:

Berg argues that the movement of stars, planets, comets and asteroids through space affects the solar magnetic field; this in turn affects the geomagnetic field influencing collective and individual electro/chemical/ biological systems.[citation needed] Human bio-resonant systems are able to tune into particular astro-resonant cycles. When constructing charts he uses dimension z in addition to the x and y coordinates which form the geometric patterns. The z co-ordinate is allocated an energy value of varying strength.[citation needed]

[mccoy]

Walter Berg's site.

My first impression: I,  I, I, ..... His presentation ostensibly reeks of a giant ego. Even though it's a strategy some people use against theft of intellectual property.

http://www.walterberg.co.uk/

In his system scorpio has a very limited width

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Steve, as far as I know, there are sydereal systems which consider the constellations unequal and even introduce the Ophiucus constellation. I referenced them in the thread on astrology and astronomy. One of such systems has been pretty successful in Japan.

As you may or may not already know the signs almost always will be unequal if you do not use the equal house system. This is true because the closer you get to the poles the more the signs are skewed. The question one would have to ask is what do the signs look like if someone was born at the equator?

[mccoy]

Steve, this being not my arena I cannot answer precisely right now, my understanding though was that the reference is the plane of the ecliptic, following the table by Berg illustrated in this link. So the boundaries are defined by astronomical reference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_and_tropical_astrology

For the purpose of determining the constellations in contact with the ecliptic, the constellation boundaries as defined by the International Astronomical Union in 1930 are used. For example, the Sun enters the IAU boundary of Aries on April 19 at the lower right corner, a position that is still rather closer to the "body" of Pisces than of Aries. The IAU defined the constellation boundaries without consideration of astrological purposes.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Notice that the width of Cancer in Berg's illustration is even smaller. His idea is not a new one. i found this at space.com

 Constellations names: What's your Zodiac sign?

The sun, the moon, and the planets travel on a set path through the sky known as the ecliptic as the Earth rotates. The list of 13 constellations they pass through are known as the stars of the Zodiac. The Zodiac constellations' names:

    Capricorn
    Aquarius
    Pisces
    Aries
    Taurus
    Gemini
    Cancer
    Leo
    Virgo
    Libra
    Scorpio
    Ophiuchus
    Sagittarius

Astrologers use 12 of these constellations as signs of the Zodiac, omitting Ophiuchus, to make predictions.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

The constellations are divided up into equal parts each one being 30 degrees. Adding to 360 degrees of a circle. There are many references to 12 in history as an example: the 12 disciples the 12 tribes of Israel etc. 12 is a number of perfection. Numerology and Astrology are inseparable. There are four elements and three qualities. Notice: 3 times 4=12 There are many constellations if you look deeper and deeper in the sky-not just the ones of the zodiac. At some point we must pick and choose. The ones most visible and that divide into the significance of 12 are used. Four is for the earth and its qualities of fire, air, earth and water. Three describes the three qualities of cardinality, mutability and fixity. 3 times 4 equals 12. The 12 signs or houses in astrology.

Mathematics, Astrology and Astronomy are inseparable. One depending on the other. Astronomy can not exist without and understanding of mathematics. Astronomy is devoid of spirituality without Astrology and Mathematics are dry without Astronomy and Astrology. As a matter of fact the more we understand about one discipline the more we realize they are dependent upon one another. So Numerology plays a part in Astrology also.

Lastly, it is best to keep an open mind to others views. However when someone decides to use other constellations or to divide up for instance the great pyramids in Egypt into 13 faces or perhaps 5 faces we immediately are suspect to such views that appear to contradict all previous archetypes of Mathematics,  Numerology and Astronomy.

Now let us look at the zodiac. It is evident that there are many more stars out there that could have been designated as signs of the zodiac. Ophiuchus is rather off course to some of the other stars close to the zodiac. So this results in a simple observation: Is it really the stars of the zodiac that affect events in our lives or is it rather the sections of the sky and the position of the the planets and Sun and Moon in front of them that emanate their own unique meaning to events on earth? You may notice that there are many stars in between the zodiacal constellations. With this in mind it appears that the constellations themselves are only an outward confirmation of 30 degree sections and 12 divisions in the sky as related to the Sun's yearly orbit through them and all other objects of our solar system that have the backdrop of these stars. These 12 areas and 30 degree sections remain the same no matter how much the the Sun processes in a 24000 year cycle. The Sun will still cross the equator each year at spring and fall at the equinoxes and all the planets will willingly follow the motion of the Sun having the same relationship to the sky as the Sun. We should ask ourselves which came first the chicken or the egg? In this case it is more likely that the Suns' path and the planets' path through the sky came first and then someone developed some signs along the way called the zodiac.

By the way that is my intellectual property. LOL

[SpiritImage]

I bet there are reasons for all this we have never even thought of, nor begin to imagine. 360, 12, 24000, could be so elementary that renders their meaning insignificant when measured against the real meaning of which we can only speculate.

[mccoy]

Is it really the stars of the zodiac that affect events in our lives or is it rather the sections of the sky and the position of the the planets and Sun and Moon in front of them that emanate their own unique meaning to events on earth?

Thinking about the sections behind (or in front) of the constellations, which are used as a benchmark, sounds pretty reasonable and sensical to me.

We should read Berg's book though to see which are his points  and why he introduced the ophiuchus section. Sure enough, his method is pretty awkard to apply and needs a specific software (which is in commerce as far as I know) or a certain skill with ephemerides and astronomy tables. And it should be validated as its accuracy goes, with respect to the classical method, tested throughout a couple of millennia.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Is it really the stars of the zodiac that affect events in our lives or is it rather the sections of the sky and the position of the the planets and Sun and Moon in front of them that emanate their own unique meaning to events on earth?

Thinking about the sections behind (or in front) of the constellations, which are used as a benchmark, sounds pretty reasonable and sensical to me.

We should read Berg's book though to see which are his points  and why he introduced the ophiuchus section. Sure enough, his method is pretty awkard to apply and needs a specific software (which is in commerce as far as I know) or a certain skill with ephemerides and astronomy tables. And it should be validated as its accuracy goes, with respect to the classical method, tested throughout a couple of millennia.

You know, in music, we also have a 12 note chromatic scale. i try to think of a 13 note scale. Have you ever considered it? Intervals are in thirds. Interesting how numbers reoccur from one medium to another. i must say i was a bit put off by Berg's puffed up attitude. It is almost as though he has to be different and put his signature on it.... no matter what it takes. It is difficult for me to get beyond that. As i have already brought up-- this is not a new idea... Ophiuchus.  Astrologers just choose the stars they did at the time a long time ago and made patterns out of them. You could easily have used Ophiuchus instead of Scorpio or seen different patterns in the sky then the ones we accept. The stars forming Scorpio just are closer to the ecliptic then Ophiuchus. If he finds some significance in Ophiuchus and some other astrologer finds significance in some other stars. Then so be it. There are many ways of looking at life and human creations can be viewed differently.

[mccoy]

Steve, some instruments like keyboards just cannot be played in one third tones or one fourth-tones, whereas Indian music as you know makes wide use of microtones. There are techniques by which sax players can play microtones, on my digital  piano I cannot though!!

I want to give Berg the benefit of doubt. In academia, sometimes people act puffed up because they want to declare thei rown intellectual property over a subject. Benoit Mandelbrot, who codified the mathematics of fractals, in his seminal book constantly used 'I', 'my', 'mine'. The same goes for Sthepen Wolfram when he speaks about cellular automata.

As far as Ophiucus goes, it is not too clear to me. I understood that Ophiucus dominates the ecliptical circle in one interval, whereas Scorpio dominates it in a shorter interval. Your illustration would tend to show otherwise. Who's right? I know that there are arguments between western and sidereal astrologists.

[mccoy]

The wiki voice on Ophichus clearly states that Schmidt and succesively Berg had the idea to include Ophiuchus into the zodiac. According to the 1930IAU constellation boundaries, the sun would cross the Ophiucus field.
That's the source of Walter Berg's hypothesis and model.

Now, I'm not able to falsify or verify that.

Ophiuchus (⛎) (/ɒfiˈjuːkəs/) has sometimes been used in sidereal astrology as a thirteenth sign in addition to the twelve signs of the tropical Zodiac, because the eponymous constellation Ophiuchus (Greek: Ὀφιοῦχος "Serpent-bearer") as defined by the 1930 IAU constellation boundaries is situated behind the sun between November 29 to December 17.[1]
The idea appears to have originated in 1970 with Stephen Schmidt's suggestion of a 14-sign zodiac (also including Cetus as a sign). A 13-sign zodiac has been suggested by Walter Berg and by Mark Yazaki in 1995, a suggestion that achieved some popularity in Japan, where Ophiuchus is known as Hebitsukai-Za (へびつかい座?, "The Serpent Bearer").
In sidereal and tropical astrology (including sun sign astrology) a 12-sign zodiac is used based on dividing the ecliptic into 12 equal parts rather than the IAU constellation boundaries. That is, astrological signs do not correspond to the actual constellations which are their namesakes, particularly not in the case of the tropical system where the divisions are fixed relative to the equinox, moving relative to the constellations.

...Based on the 1930 IAU constellation boundaries, suggestions that "there are really 13 astrological signs" because "the Sun is in the sign of Ophiuchus" between November 29 and December 17 have been published since at least the 1970s.[5]
In 1970, Stephen Schmidt in his Astrology 14 advocated a 14-sign zodiac, introducing Ophiuchus (December 6 to December 31) and Cetus (May 12 to June 6) as new signs.[6] Within 20th-century sidereal astrology, the idea was taken up by Walter Berg in his The 13 Signs of the Zodiac (1995). Berg's The 13 Signs of the Zodiac was published in Japan in 1996 and became a bestseller, and Berg's system has since been comparatively widespread in Japanese pop culture, appearing for example in the Final Fantasy video game series and the manga and anime series Fairy Tail.
In January 2011, a statement by Parke Kunkle of the Minnesota Planetarium Society repeating the idea of "the 13th zodiac sign Ophiuchus" made some headlines in the popular press.[7] However, Kunkle is an astronomer, not an astrologer.[8]

[mccoy]

As far as I uinderstand, continuing my research, is that at present (actually, based on observations of 1930, 85 years ago) the exact subdivision of the zodiac according to the classic constellations is in 13 parts of unequal width.
This as described by the vector (arrow) leaving the earth thru the sun and outward bound.

Of course, this is strictly related to Sidereal astrology and has nothign to do, as Steve has explained, with classical tropica astrology whose subdivision is just conventional.

The modern constellation boundaries weren’t defined until 1930 by the International Astronomical Union. With the current boundaries, there are actually thirteen constellations that lie along the sun’s path. The extra one not listed in any horoscope is Ophiucus, the Serpent Bearer, who sits between Sagittarius and Scorpius. Whereas the signs remain fixed relative to the solstices and equinoxes, the solstices and equinoxes drift westward relative to the constellations or backdrop stars.