Shade
Siderial Astrology - Real Sky Astrology - I'm not 100% sure what the best term is for it but I was wondering, are there any books people would recommend who use this system rather than Tropical astrology?
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Books on Siderial Astrology?
Barleywine
I know that Cyril Fagan was an early proponent of Western Sidereal Astrology, and Kenneth Bowser is a current practitioner. Fagan had a few associates whose names I can't remember. The Eastern form is Hindu astrology. The only exposure I ever had to Hindu astrology was in working with harmonic charts back in the'80s. I don't have any books specifically on Sidereal Astrology, so I'm no help there.
zhan.thay
Hi Shade, there are many arguments for and against in the Tropical/Sidereal debate. For me, it boils down to a personal choice. Tropically, I am a Virgo, always have been, always will be. When I was born the Sun, Venus and Mars were near the star, rho Leonis, roughly the elbow of Leo the Lion. However, a Virgo is a Virgo is a Virgo in my case.
The Tropical system is linked to the equinoxes and solstices and therefore the seasons. This is also in alignment with the way atronomers and other scientists measure the positions of celestial bodies in our solar system. Also, the meanings attributed to the signs have been used and reinforced for many hundreds, even thousands, of years and there is a concept proposed by Jung and others that these archetypes have entered the collective consciousness of our civilisation ie most people think about star signs in the same way as each other.
The Sidereal system proposes that the meaning of the signs is directly attributable to the patterns of stars in their constellations, that the stars' influence creates the meaning of the sign. Under this system, I would be a Leo but I still don't feel like a Leo even though, tropically, I have 3 other planets in Leo. Some friends of mine, who have been students of Thoth tarot and astrology for many years, are adherents but they are yet to convince me of it's applicability to me haha. I challenge them to meditate on a star and describe what clairvoyant influences they detect. To date, I have no reports.
In conclusion, by all means investigate Sidereal if you are interested. Doing so is all part of the great quest to know and understand Astrology. Personally, having looked at my chart sidereally, it's not for me.
The Tropical system is linked to the equinoxes and solstices and therefore the seasons. This is also in alignment with the way atronomers and other scientists measure the positions of celestial bodies in our solar system. Also, the meanings attributed to the signs have been used and reinforced for many hundreds, even thousands, of years and there is a concept proposed by Jung and others that these archetypes have entered the collective consciousness of our civilisation ie most people think about star signs in the same way as each other.
The Sidereal system proposes that the meaning of the signs is directly attributable to the patterns of stars in their constellations, that the stars' influence creates the meaning of the sign. Under this system, I would be a Leo but I still don't feel like a Leo even though, tropically, I have 3 other planets in Leo. Some friends of mine, who have been students of Thoth tarot and astrology for many years, are adherents but they are yet to convince me of it's applicability to me haha. I challenge them to meditate on a star and describe what clairvoyant influences they detect. To date, I have no reports.
In conclusion, by all means investigate Sidereal if you are interested. Doing so is all part of the great quest to know and understand Astrology. Personally, having looked at my chart sidereally, it's not for me.
RohanMenon
@shade
Start with these two books.
1 Kenneth Bowser's "An introduction to Western Sidereal Astrology"
2. James Eshelman's "Interpreting Solar Returns" - though focused on Solar Returns, this book has a lot of material about Sidereal Astrology in general.
A tougher book,but much more of a deep dive, with lot of hand calculations is
3. Cyril Fagan's A Primer of the Sidereal Zodiac. I wouldn't bother with this one till you finish the first two.
Of course all of Vedic astrology is based on a sidereal zodiac, but this is not really Western astrology and it has its own distinct philosophical framework.
Also, almost all the techniques you know from Tropical work perfectly well with Sidereal Zodiacs. Anti/contrascia seem to be the one exception.
Personally, I find that every technique from Valens and Lilly, (both of whose books I'm working through) work perfectly with Sidereal charts, which is my preference.
Finally wise words from our own Minderwiz from another thread
"The aspects between planets don't change when you switch zodiacs. All that changes arere the sign placement and therefore the essential dignities. Planets may become more or less capable of acting but their opportunities to act remain the same. Angular planets are still angular, planets in the 6, 8 or 12 houses are still there. That only changes if you change house systems"
Changing Zodiacs doesn't fundamentally change Astrology, indeed it doesn't change it at all (unless you change your approach or methods at the same time). "
I wouldn't bother fighting the dreary battle of which zodiac is 'true'. The best analogy I've encountered is that astrological systems are symbolic languages , each with built in assumptions, used to interpret changing cosmic conditions and their impact on human life (1).
Instead of arguing one is more 'true' (which makes about as much sense as claiming that English is a 'true' language and Chinese is not), the better focus is to get really good at whatever symbolic system you do choose, so you can use astrology to meet your intended purpose.
Good Luck with your studies
(1) Not my idea, the credit belongs to astrologer (and Hermetic magician) David Coleman, who wrote about this in his book "The 26 keys"
Start with these two books.
1 Kenneth Bowser's "An introduction to Western Sidereal Astrology"
2. James Eshelman's "Interpreting Solar Returns" - though focused on Solar Returns, this book has a lot of material about Sidereal Astrology in general.
A tougher book,but much more of a deep dive, with lot of hand calculations is
3. Cyril Fagan's A Primer of the Sidereal Zodiac. I wouldn't bother with this one till you finish the first two.
Of course all of Vedic astrology is based on a sidereal zodiac, but this is not really Western astrology and it has its own distinct philosophical framework.
Also, almost all the techniques you know from Tropical work perfectly well with Sidereal Zodiacs. Anti/contrascia seem to be the one exception.
Personally, I find that every technique from Valens and Lilly, (both of whose books I'm working through) work perfectly with Sidereal charts, which is my preference.
Finally wise words from our own Minderwiz from another thread
"The aspects between planets don't change when you switch zodiacs. All that changes arere the sign placement and therefore the essential dignities. Planets may become more or less capable of acting but their opportunities to act remain the same. Angular planets are still angular, planets in the 6, 8 or 12 houses are still there. That only changes if you change house systems"
Changing Zodiacs doesn't fundamentally change Astrology, indeed it doesn't change it at all (unless you change your approach or methods at the same time). "
I wouldn't bother fighting the dreary battle of which zodiac is 'true'. The best analogy I've encountered is that astrological systems are symbolic languages , each with built in assumptions, used to interpret changing cosmic conditions and their impact on human life (1).
Instead of arguing one is more 'true' (which makes about as much sense as claiming that English is a 'true' language and Chinese is not), the better focus is to get really good at whatever symbolic system you do choose, so you can use astrology to meet your intended purpose.
Good Luck with your studies
(1) Not my idea, the credit belongs to astrologer (and Hermetic magician) David Coleman, who wrote about this in his book "The 26 keys"
Minderwiz
There's also a useful podicast on the Sidereal v Tropical debate at:
http://theastrologypodcast.com/2016/01/03/zodiac-debate-tropical-vs-sidereal/
I use the Tropical Zodiac but employ techniques from Traditional Astrology, including Hellenistic Astrology, the earliest form of Horoscopic Astrology (that which constructs a chart based on the Ascending sign, at the place, date and time of the event under consideration - usually someone's birth).
I think much of the interest in the Sideral approach is that it is shorn of the wishy washy, vague statements of Modern Western Astroloygy, which is now based on psychology (mainly Jungian) rather than events in the real world. Indeed they might even question whether we can know anything about the real world for certain, being prisoners of our own psyche).
That was the reason I went back to the tradition, but in looking at Hellenistic Astrology, I came across a form which is neither wholly Tropical, or wholly Sidereal but contains elements of both. That's not surprising given that the two zodiacs were more or less in alignment when they were writning
Like RohanMenon, I don't think it's possible to say that one zodiac is correct and the other is false. They are both valid. One thing to remember is that the sidereal zodiac is constantly changing, due to a phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes - it moves backward one degree every 72 years, compared to the Tropical Zodiac. So the March Equinox is now, somewhere around 6 degrees of Pisces in the Sidereal Zodiac, or rather, a sideral zodiac because there are quite a few ways of trying to measure that distance between the two zodiacs. These methods use ayanamsas, to define that longitudinal distance from Tropical to Sidereal and you will find a host of those. Their main differences lie in selecting the Star in Aries from which to measure precession and the exact calculations used for that meansurement. The basic approach is to calculate the tropical positions and then to shift them back by the appropriate factor. You will find that the factor is larger for, say your current or next Solar Return, than it was for your nativity. That's because during your lifetime that precessional drift has continued.
This means that some Astrologers (notably our own Dadsnook2000) only use a sideral approach for Solar Returns, rather than everything in Astrology.
As RohanMenon, points out the only part of Western Astrology that doesn't work is Antisica. These are degrees equally spaced from the Solstice line, 0 Cancer to 0 Capricorn, but on opposite sides, which, when the Sun is in them, have equal hours of daylight. Thus 15 Gemini (Tropical) has the same daylight hours as 15 Cancer. This only works because the June Solsitice represents the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere and the December Solstice is the longest day in the Southern Hemisphere. It's a property solely of the Tropical Zodiac and can't work in a sideral zodiac because it's out of alignment with the solstices and equinoxes.
Rob Hand has an excellent article at:
http://cura.free.fr/quinq/01hand.html
Which looks at the differences between the zodiacs and how Babylonian and Hellenistic Astrologers tried to cope with tropical and sidereal factors. His main conclusion is that the Hellenistic ones mixed both. (For RohanMenon, Valens gets significant mentions). But be warned there's some maths invovled.
http://theastrologypodcast.com/2016/01/03/zodiac-debate-tropical-vs-sidereal/
I use the Tropical Zodiac but employ techniques from Traditional Astrology, including Hellenistic Astrology, the earliest form of Horoscopic Astrology (that which constructs a chart based on the Ascending sign, at the place, date and time of the event under consideration - usually someone's birth).
I think much of the interest in the Sideral approach is that it is shorn of the wishy washy, vague statements of Modern Western Astroloygy, which is now based on psychology (mainly Jungian) rather than events in the real world. Indeed they might even question whether we can know anything about the real world for certain, being prisoners of our own psyche).
That was the reason I went back to the tradition, but in looking at Hellenistic Astrology, I came across a form which is neither wholly Tropical, or wholly Sidereal but contains elements of both. That's not surprising given that the two zodiacs were more or less in alignment when they were writning
Like RohanMenon, I don't think it's possible to say that one zodiac is correct and the other is false. They are both valid. One thing to remember is that the sidereal zodiac is constantly changing, due to a phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes - it moves backward one degree every 72 years, compared to the Tropical Zodiac. So the March Equinox is now, somewhere around 6 degrees of Pisces in the Sidereal Zodiac, or rather, a sideral zodiac because there are quite a few ways of trying to measure that distance between the two zodiacs. These methods use ayanamsas, to define that longitudinal distance from Tropical to Sidereal and you will find a host of those. Their main differences lie in selecting the Star in Aries from which to measure precession and the exact calculations used for that meansurement. The basic approach is to calculate the tropical positions and then to shift them back by the appropriate factor. You will find that the factor is larger for, say your current or next Solar Return, than it was for your nativity. That's because during your lifetime that precessional drift has continued.
This means that some Astrologers (notably our own Dadsnook2000) only use a sideral approach for Solar Returns, rather than everything in Astrology.
As RohanMenon, points out the only part of Western Astrology that doesn't work is Antisica. These are degrees equally spaced from the Solstice line, 0 Cancer to 0 Capricorn, but on opposite sides, which, when the Sun is in them, have equal hours of daylight. Thus 15 Gemini (Tropical) has the same daylight hours as 15 Cancer. This only works because the June Solsitice represents the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere and the December Solstice is the longest day in the Southern Hemisphere. It's a property solely of the Tropical Zodiac and can't work in a sideral zodiac because it's out of alignment with the solstices and equinoxes.
Rob Hand has an excellent article at:
http://cura.free.fr/quinq/01hand.html
Which looks at the differences between the zodiacs and how Babylonian and Hellenistic Astrologers tried to cope with tropical and sidereal factors. His main conclusion is that the Hellenistic ones mixed both. (For RohanMenon, Valens gets significant mentions). But be warned there's some maths invovled.
Shade
Thank you so much for the recommendations. My interest in Siderial Astrology isn't that I think it's more "correct" than Tropical astrology, I just thought the notion was intriguing. I've never been especially interested in exploring Astrology beyond knowing my own Sun/Moon/Rising but something about Siderial astrology feels very, very appealing. I'm looking forward to diving in and exploring.
RohanMenon
@shade
I didn't mean to imply you wanted to explore which zodiac is more right. I was just hinting at the tendency of discussions on this topic to go that way vs addressing your question (which was about books to learn from).
I personally find using a sidereal zodiac very satisfying. But as Minderwiz correctly points out, the really significant step (in my case, and speaking strictly for myself) was abandoning the psychology based modern astrology and re focusing explicitly on events and prediction. The fact that I personally find a sidereal zodiac more useful in this is (relatively) just a detail.
I didn't mean to imply you wanted to explore which zodiac is more right. I was just hinting at the tendency of discussions on this topic to go that way vs addressing your question (which was about books to learn from).
I personally find using a sidereal zodiac very satisfying. But as Minderwiz correctly points out, the really significant step (in my case, and speaking strictly for myself) was abandoning the psychology based modern astrology and re focusing explicitly on events and prediction. The fact that I personally find a sidereal zodiac more useful in this is (relatively) just a detail.
Shade
Ah got it! Also I probably shouldn't have used quote marks for "correct" I probably came across wrong there. Given how Tarot readers can sometimes go to ward over Marseilles vs Rider-Waite-Smith I do imagine there have probably been some epic battles between astrologers over the years on this topic ;-)
