What do you do with the 13th sign in astrology?

dadsnook2000

Signs

Minderwiz, you have concisely covered the differences between signs and constellations and their relevance to astrology or to astronomy. A textbook definition which should be placed in the notes or resources section for new-comers and early-studies astrologers to refer to. Although those of us who have been in the business for some time often tire of this conversation we have to remember that it is important as part of our grounding in our craft.

If only we could make the mathematics of manual charting so simple to explain. Instead, we have computers -- which are great, but which permit many to skip over another important learning step.
 

GoldenPhi

My point is that constellations and signs are totally different things. Signs don't exist in modern Astronomy. If Astronomers refer to regions of space they either use a modern degree based notation based on celestial coordinates or refer to the constellations, of which Ophiuchus is one. It's nothing to do with religious or philosophical views, we are talking about different systems of defining regions of space.

The key difference between Astronomy and Astrology in defining regions of space is that Astronomers use both celestial latitude and longitude, whereas Astrology concentrates only on the ecliptic circle with just a narrow band north or south of it, corresponding to the two tropics. But the essentials of the modern system are those established 2,000 years ago. Both Astrology and Astronomy use degree based systems but Astronomy doesn't give names to segments or assert that there's a qualitative difference between segments.

A sign is not a constellation and a constellation is not a sign. They never were the same thing either in the ancient world or the modern world. Claiming a thirteenth sign is like claiming you've found the 365th degree of a circle; or that as 'C' exists as a number in Hex then the decimal system has to be corrected to allow for new numbers.

It's not heresy to claim a thirteenth sign, it's just plain wrong; both in Traditional and Modern Astrology.

I have nothing against people who choose to use constellations in Astrology. Fixed stars always were a vital part of it, all that I'm asking is that you don't confuse signs and constellations and draw erroneous conclusions.

By all means use Ophiuchus or rather the stars in it, but don't confuse that with a thirteenth sign.
Minderwiz there are Sidereal Signs as well as Tropical Signs which you may have researched
If you ever have taken the same chart and used both Sidereal Signs as well as Tropical Signs, just for the sake of interest - I'm wondering which works best or does it not matter and if not then why not?
 

dadsnook2000

Tropical and Sidereal

Surprisingly, or perhaps disappointingly, they both work --- EXCEPT for one factor in my experience. That factor is "timing." For Return charts, the timing of events are markedly better and consistent when using the Sidereal or precession-corrected Tropical zodiac.

If you have to ask then the answer will be confusing. If you don't have to ask why, then you know the reason.
 

Minderwiz

Dave is, as usual, spot on. Both zodiacs will work, though the tools used may not all be the same. Vedic Astrology uses a sideral zodiac and it's been doing so for 2000 years, during which precession has moved the equinox point through nearly 30 degrees.

If you use tools which are tropically related, for example putting weight on the qualities of signs (Cardinal, Fixed, Mutable) then the tropical zodiac is probably better. The inventors of Horoscopic Astrology lived at a time when the tropical zodiac started around 4 degrees sidereal Aries, so they did not recognise this distinction... though they were aware of precession but it seems it was not given any weight, other than by Ptolemy.

Their texts, though make it clear that they took the equinoxes and solstices as very important and they used the term Tropical for Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn.

That doesn't make the tropical zodiac right and the sidereal zodiac wrong but it does caution about the need to not treat the zodiacs as completely interchangeable and irrelevant to interpretation.