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Signs as we know them today are a mixture of accurate observation and theory, some valid and some of little or no value. So along with accuracy we also have beliefs, dogmas and stereotypes. It's all a grand mixture at this point in time.
If that is true than that may be all the more reason to go back to the roots and remove all of our preconceptions.
Yes, but she has based her comments on people she knows with planetary emphasis in Sagittarius.
I'm a little skeptical. It sounds a lot by the book.

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Bogdan574 wrote:
Therese: Yes, but [Chiria] has based her comments on people she knows with planetary emphasis in Sagittarius.

Bogdan574: I'm a little skeptical. It sounds a lot by the book.
This may also be an indication that oft repeated observations have some basis in fact. So I don't believe we should throw out more than a century of observation (20th century) only because it's combined with material that is highly questionable and should probably be discarded.

As I said, the problem is that it's all mixed together, and astrologers aren't particularly skilled at separating truth from fiction.

A note on Fagan's "Egyptian" concept of flipping sign rulership of parts of the body. A portion of Hellenistic astrology comes from Egyptian sources, and there is no support for Fagan's idea. We have many translations now of foundation astrological texts that were not available when Cyril Fagan was alive. These texts have been translated by Robert Schmidt, Robert Hand, Benjamin Dykes, James Holden and others.

It would be helpful to correct Fagan's idea on Solunars if this hasn't been done already.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

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Bogdan, I spent a few minutes on Solunars, and I see why you would like to start all over again with zodiac signs. I have to admit my head starts to spin when reading and trying to remember lists of sign traits such as Jim Eshleman has on Solunars. I really do believe that it's best to simply understand the nature of the energy in each sign, and then study how that energy influences planets placed there.

You have a huge stellium in Sagittarius. What does that mean? Perhaps not much. I've studied stelliums in sidereal Sagittarius, and haven't found a coherent picture, except that the underlying energy is internal. Sagittarius acts from its own internal motivation. People with this sign prominent are often quiet as they don't feel the need to be extroverted or have a lot of excitement going on with other people. They just go about diligently working in their area of interest or expertise.

Sagittarius' perception and experience are through the mind rather than the emotions. I've noticed there is the Jupiter trait of not liking to be told it's wrong about something. Sagittarius does represent the heights and wants to stay there. Zeus was king of the gods after all. Greek mythology of the planets does seem to be related to the sidereal signs in a general way. This is why ancient astrologers placed various planets as guardians for each zodiac sign. We have so much research to do to figure it all out!! http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/APlanets.htm

A planetary stellium has to be taken apart and the interrelationships of planets analyzed. In your case it would be productive to consider:

Venus conjunct Mercury
Mercury conjunct Venus and Uranus
Moon conjunct Neptune
Then through dispositorship all that Sagittarian energy is moved to Cancer in the 3rd. (Jupiter in Cancer)
You also have Uranus and Ketu on your navamsa ascendant. This may make you seem strange or unusual to others. It's a highly psycic combination, but can also be too open to external influences, real or imagined.

I haven't found that the Moon in zodiac signs means much of anything. Sometimes the lunar mansions can be helpful. The Moon is receptive and will be influenced by planets in aspect to it. So your Moon is most closely conjoined to Neptune. That would be your prominent emotional and mental nature.

I recently read an interview with Jyotish astrologer James Braha. He said his favorite book on psychological interpretation was Isabel Hickey's Astrology, A Cosmic Science (1970) The author was a tropical astrologer who was also a psychic sensitive. In general, her aspect interpretations are quite good. Charles Carter's The Astrological Aspects (revised 1967) is also a helpful reference. But always, feel free to question "the experts."
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

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Hi Bogdan, Therese and others,

an interesting discussion about the nature of the sidereal signs - an eternal topic, it seems.

In the last months I?ve been doing these statistical studies where I?ve taken a lot of different groups from the now defunct AstroDatabank software and studied all kinds of things with them. For now I have 273 different groups ranging from personality traits to professions to diseases to family issues, sized from nine to 1500+ charts.

The method is to let the Jigsaw software calculate the astrological parameters of those groups and compare the results to those given by a large amount of randomly generated ?birth times?. Further information about the general procedure can be found in this thread http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7694 .

Recently I completed a large study about the sidereal signs. The results were really interesting. As a spoiler I can say that they support Bogdan more than Therese or Chiria. But the main point is that the traits of the signs can most clearly be seen in the ascending signs. They can also be seen in the sign of the MC. But what is notable is that planets, stelliums, etc. in signs do not give much insight into the nature of the signs. It might be because planets affect the nature of the signs they are located in, not the other way out. For example Mars in Gemini does not become ?Gemini-like?. Maybe in that case Gemini becomes more ?Mars-like?.

Here?s an example. Let?s look at Taurus that Bogdan pulled out. Here is the top-20 of the 273 groups I went through that most often have Taurus as the ascending sign. The first column is the sample size, the second is the name of the group, the third column is the observed result, the fourth is the expected value (from the same amount of random charts), the fifth column is the difference between the observed and the expected result, and the last column is the p-value that measures the statistical significance of the result, ranging from 0-1. The smaller the p-value is, the bigger the effect. I've put groups showing some kind of a common theme in green.
Image
Practical / realistic personalities, private personalities, vulnerable personalities, anxious people, people spent their whole life in the same location, counselors, therapists and psychiatrists. This is not like tropical Gemini at all. There are TV personalities and talkative people, but that is not the general tone of the results.

As a comparison here is the list of the top-20 groups having any of the seven traditional planets (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury or the Moon) most often in sidereal Taurus. For example the first row means that we have 39 persons with Parkinson?s disease that have total of 37 planets in Taurus, when the expected value from a random group of the same size would be 21 or 22.
Image
As you can see, it?s much harder to find a general theme.

It?s the same with every sign. Another example might be Scorpio that is also represented in the discussion at hand. Here?s the top-20 list of the groups having Scorpio as the most frequent ascending sign:
Image
This is very well in line with what Bogdan (and Valens and Rhetorius) wrote. We must remember that in ancient astrology the ascending sign was the most important one in a horoscope, not the Sun sign as in modern astrology.

Then, if we look at the groups having most often one or several of the seven traditional planets in sidereal Scorpio, we get again a more diverse list without a unifying general theme:
Image
So, the bottom line would seem to be that looking for stelliums is not a very fruitful way to find out the traits of the signs, tropical or sidereal, possibly because planets seem to affect the signs, not the other way out. Supposedly planets don?t get colored by signs, but signs get colored by planets located in them. Therefore the modern approach of looking for planetary emphasis in signs works neither tropically nor sidereally. What we should look for is dignities. For example Indian friendships and enmities would seem to give very promising results.

It seems that the same thing applies with the nakshatras: they work very well with the Moon as lunar mansions, and exactly as the texts describe, but it?s not very fruitful to use them as ?signs? with other planets.
Last edited by Papretis on Mon Nov 18, 2013 2:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Papretis wrote: It seems that the same thing applies with the nakshatras: they work very well with the Moon as lunar mansions, and exactly as the texts describe, but it?s not very fruitful to use them as ?signs? with other planets.
Hi Papretis,

You may want to look at 3 texts on nakshatras.

Ravana Samhita
Lunar Mansions by Mohan Koparkar
Nakshatra by K.T. Shubhakaran

Here is an excerpt from Vol. 1 of Nakshatra by Shubhakaran, for example:
Shubhakaran wrote:
Rahu [in Jyeshtha nakshatra]

1st quarter (226.40 degree to 230 degree): Rahu in this quarter gives two wives and it is certain when ascendant also falls here. Longevity of the first child is doubtful. If this combination is aspected by malefics, the native will die within 7 years.

IInd quarter (230.00 degree to 233.20 degree): The native will be cruel and deceitful. He may not hesitate to deceive even his own parents and co-borns. Will have frequent sexual acts with base women, inspite of the fact that the native has a sickly body.

IIIrd quarter (233.20 degree to 236.40 degree): While the native has the ability to express his ideas and make others understand them, he has to live in a dilapidated condition.

IVth quarter (236.40 degree to 240 degree): The native will be discarded by his family members. Will have a sickly body. Cunning and deceitful disposition.
Those 3 texts all delineate the different planets in the nakshatras, only not in the way someone would interpret the nakshatra characteristics and apply them the same way to each planet, rather the planets are portrayed as functioning differently depending on which nakshatra, or in the example given which nakshatra pada, they are in.

Here is by contrast, the results of Moon in Jyeshtha nakshatra, by comparison in contrast to Rahu in Jyeshtha nakshatra, according to Shubhakaran:
Shubhakaran wrote:
Moon [in Jyeshtha]

If Moon in this Nakshatra is aspected by the Sun, the native will be kind to the person approaching him for help, but his overall mentality will be of a cruel type, enjoys power and authority from the government; if Mars aspects the native will have teeth and ear problem, lives by depending on certain section of the society; if Mercury aspects, enjoys name and fame and all comforts of life; if Jupiter aspects, becomes highly learned and imparts knowledge to others; if Venus aspects, he will enjoy company of ladies, will be wealthy; if Saturn aspects, his health will be poor, unkind to others and not lucky to have good children.

Ist quarter (226.40 degree to 230.00 degree): If malefic planets aspects Moon in this quarter, death takes place due to fire or weapons. Any prediction about the child born in this quarter should be made only after one year's of age of the child, as there is danger to life up to 1 year from the birth.

IInd quarter (230.00 degree to 233.20 degree): When Saturn aspects Moon in this quarter, the native is selfish, hates his elder brother, becomes a hypocrite, but lives happily. The native is hot-tempered, indulges too much in sexual acts with ladies not belonging to him.

IIIrd quarter (233.20 degree to 236.40 degree): If Saturn is also placed here, the native is fond of elderly women and is expert in sastras. He has a wicked wife. He will abuse his parents and will be devoid of wealth.

IVth quarter (236.40 degree to 240.00 degree): If ascendant is placed in Hasta nakshatra with Jupiter also in Hasta, that native will lose his wife or her husband as the case may be. However, they are much educated and highly placed in profession, preferably as a doctor or a scientist. In addition to the misery of separation, they will have to suffer much mental tension due to their child.
Regardless of whether we are looking at the Moon or Rahu in Jyeshtha, we can notice Shubhakaran interprets Jyeshtha with the traditional classification idea of Jyeshtha being Tikshna (sharp) and Daruna (horrible), but not necessarily with each planet in each pada. I am not sure if Shubhakaran also was influenced by the Sign (Scorpio) in these attributes, although he does state further traditional teachings of Jyeshtha attributed to deaths of siblings or parents depending on which planets and which padas they are in, somewhat influenced by gandanta sandhi perhaps, although that was usually considered to be the first and last navamsha padas, Jyeshtha padas in general are treated as harming, generally speaking, but with positive points also.

There may be more texts than this that interpret planets other than the Moon in the nakshatras, but those are the three I know of, if someone knows of more please mention which ones.

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Varuna2,
thank you for you comment. I had forgot that I've actually seen similar interpretations at some point. But as you wrote, "the planets are portrayed as functioning differently depending on which nakshatra, or in the example given which nakshatra pada, they are in". So, actually we might look at other planets than the Moon in the nakshatras too as long as we don't fall into the "Mars in Jyestha becomes Jyestha-like" type of interpretation.

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Hi Papretis,

Is your right hand column the p-values? P-value generally means the odds that a given finding is due to chance as opposed to a true correlation (this can be verbalized a myriad of ways but this is generally what it means). In general, findings with p-values > 0.05 are not considered statistically significant and wouldn't be further utilized in formal statistical analyses. Certainly, findings with p-values of 0.99 are, essentially, almost certainly due to chance by definition. In other words, analysing groupings of such findings wouldn't be undertaken, as these would just represent trying to find patterns in groupings of random collections. For a small fee, you can likely hire a statistician to vet your data.

Phil

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Papretis wrote:Varuna2,
thank you for you comment. I had forgot that I've actually seen similar interpretations at some point. But as you wrote, "the planets are portrayed as functioning differently depending on which nakshatra, or in the example given which nakshatra pada, they are in". So, actually we might look at other planets than the Moon in the nakshatras too as long as we don't fall into the "Mars in Jyestha becomes Jyestha-like" type of interpretation.
You are welcome.

I have questions also if you do not mind.

Why did you test National Socialists as a category, and what is the significance of National Socialists that would stand out as being possibly Scorpio type, out of all of the political movements in the world from any place or time?

You do realize that one had to be a National Socialist to retain a position of influence in that place and time, just as people in varied places must pledge their allegiance to the government of wherever they live, and by law usually, depending on the place and the position of influence in that place and time.

Therefore, it would be like creating a category of people in the government of China and expect to find astrological similarities with one sign, or to create a category of U.S. politicians and expect them all to be Scorpios or some such sign.

Who were those National Socialists in your list and did you include people such as Martin Heidegger?

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Phil wrote:Hi Papretis,

Is your right hand column the p-values? P-value generally means the odds that a given finding is due to chance as opposed to a true correlation (this can be verbalized a myriad of ways but this is generally what it means). In general, findings with p-values > 0.05 are not considered statistically significant and wouldn't be further utilized in formal statistical analyses. Certainly, findings with p-values of 0.99 are, essentially, almost certainly due to chance by definition. In other words, analysing groupings of such findings wouldn't be undertaken, as these would just represent trying to find patterns in groupings of random collections. For a small fee, you can likely hire a statistician to vet your data.

Phil
Hi Phil,

thanks for your comment. Yes, I know that the single p-values in this study or in similar studies I?ve done are not statistically significant as such. I?ve used p-value here in a bit unorthodox way, as a measure to find out the results that might possibly give some hints about something. In other words, the single results here mean nothing, but when you go through 273 different groups, and the top-20 results with a positive effect giving the smallest p-values (thought these p-values are not statistically significant as such) show some kind of a visible common theme (which of course might be considered a subjective opinion), that might point to something. Especially when it happens times and times again.

This way of studying is at least as much qualitative as quantitative ? as astrology always is. What is the probability of having 20 groups out of 270 so that about half of them show some kind of connection to rebelliousness and violence, like in the Scorpio rising example above? Of course, if about 50 % of all of those 273 groups had a connection to rebelliousness and violence, then that would naturally be inevitable. But that is not the case, which you can see by looking through a few more signs and the results that they give.

First Aries:
Image
The groups having Aries as the (proportionally) most frequent rising sign show similar sharp, Martian themes as the Scorpio rising people: courageous people, hard workers, disciplined personalities, highly educated people, critics. We can also see the darker side of Mars in people who have been physically / verbally abusive parents, prisoners, assaulters, murderers or thieves.

Next we will look at people who have Gemini as the most frequent rising sign when compared to a random control group:
Image
Creativity is one of the main themes here. Directors, architects, cartoonists, pop / rock singers and opera singers. Also aesthetics and beauty: gorgeous looking people, fashion designers, beauty queens & kings. Then is intellectual beauty and harmony: mathematicians, physicists and perfectionists. Again we would seem to have a distinctive type.

Then comes Cancer:
Image
This may not be so clear as the previous signs, but there emerges some kind of a mysterious and independent picture: on the other hand we have mystical personalities, alternative healers (also physicians), and people with mystical experiences, on the other hand we have moving people (like the Moon that moves fast): people moved a lot, soldiers, private pilots, diplomats, combats. The results reflect the nature of the Moon: moving, changing, mysteriously proceeding on its way.

Next Leo rising:
Image
Courage and adventurousness might be the central themes here: outdoor people, race drivers, NASA astronauts, possibly also biologists. The darker side of the theme is people with a sexually transmitted disease and alcohol abuse. This is classic Fire / Leo stuff IMO.

Next Virgo as the most frequent rising sign:
Image
Practicality and Earthy materialism: real estate agents, producers, top executives, outdoor people, people spent their whole life in the same location, persistent personalities. One might think that obsessive / compulsive disorder would be tropical Virgo stuff, but it?s actually sidereal Virgo that shows up here. Also celibates have sidereal Virgo rising slightly more often than averagely. The effect is way too small to be statistically significant as such, but together with the other results, it is interesting.

I hope you have got some kind of idea of what I'm trying to do here. I?m not claiming that any of the results I?ve got would be statistically significant as such at all. It?s the bigger picture, the qualitative picture that doesn't seem random to me, but would seem to give a pattern. Could these results be a mere chance? Could it be a mere chance that the rising signs seem to give a certain characteristic types, and not only that, but these types would seem to reflect astrological tradition actually quite well (except for being extracted by using the sidereal zodiac, not tropical)? Or is it so that I only see what I want to see (which unfortunately applies to astrology too often)?
Last edited by Papretis on Tue Nov 19, 2013 2:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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varuna2 wrote: Why did you test National Socialists as a category, and what is the significance of National Socialists that would stand out as being possibly Scorpio type, out of all of the political movements in the world from any place or time?

You do realize that one had to be a National Socialist to retain a position of influence in that place and time, just as people in varied places must pledge their allegiance to the government of wherever they live, and by law usually, depending on the place and the position of influence in that place and time.

Therefore, it would be like creating a category of people in the government of China and expect to find astrological similarities with one sign, or to create a category of U.S. politicians and expect them all to be Scorpios or some such sign.

Who were those National Socialists in your list and did you include people such as Martin Heidegger?
Hi Varuna2,
in general I?ve taken my groups quite randomly from the AstroDatabank software http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Main_Page and used the classifications and categories of Lois Rodden and her co-operators without questioning or editing them.

What comes to Nazis in history, it?s not that simple. I?ve recently read a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German priest who rose to oppose Nazis in the 30?s and was therefore executed by them in a concentration camp in 1945. Most of the German people at that time were like most of us: not active in politics and trying to cope as well as they could in confusing times. There were a lot of people who were appalled about the National Socialist party, the SS men and their ideology, but couldn?t do anything. I suppose people whom Lois Rodden has listed as ?Nazis? in ADB were more actively supporting the ideology than most Germans at that time, especially when Rodden has listed only a few dozens of them.

I checked it out - yes, at the quick glance the people listed in ADB as members of the Nazi party were active and prominent in the movement. Heidegger is not listed among them.

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Therese, I'll give it a look. Overall I feel very suspicious of modern astrology. I obviously reject the tropical zodiac, both its sign descriptions and its placings of the signs in the night sky because they are obviously wrong. The modern sign descriptions bear only some resemblance to the descriptions provided by Rhetorius and Valens for instance. And placing the beginning of Aries in a place no where near where Aries actually is in the night sky is clearly absurd.

And while I do think sidereal astrology is taking steps in the right direction, attempting to retcon the faulty tropical zodiac into the sidereal zodiac only creates more problems. So for me I'll just go to the original sources.

My own sign, Sagittarius, looks dramatically different between ancient and modern descriptions. Valens and Rhetorius describe Sagittarius as magnanimous and noble-hearted, yet also elitist and mysterious. This bears little resemblance to how Sagittarius is described in modern astrology. Linda Goodman describes Sagittarius as "the sign of the clown". WTF.

Similar with Scorpio. Valens and Rhetorius describe Scorpio as wily and rapacious; as war-like, devious, and destructive. But tropical astrologers try to elevate Scorpio into a mystic and somehow think this is the deepest thing ever. It's like turning Bruce Lee or Vlad the Impaler (most likely a sidereal Scorpio, born on November or December) into Edward Cullen.

Likewise with Taurus. Ancient astrologers describe Taurus as kindly, artistic, expressing great love for peace and beauty, generous. But tropical astrologers try to shove Aries into it and give Taurus qualities of aggression and stubbornness that aren't there.

And so forth and so forth.

--------------------------------------------

Papretis, can you please explain your ideas a bit to me? I still don't understand.
So, the bottom line would seem to be that looking for stelliums is not a very fruitful way to find out the traits of the signs, tropical or sidereal, possibly because planets seem to affect the signs, not the other way out. Supposedly planets don?t get colored by signs, but signs get colored by planets located in them. Therefore the modern approach of looking for planetary emphasis in signs works neither tropically nor sidereally. What we should look for is dignities. For example Indian friendships and enmities would seem to give very promising results.

It seems that the same thing applies with the nakshatras: they work very well with the Moon as lunar mansions, and exactly as the texts describe, but it?s not very fruitful to use them as ?signs? with other planets.
So in my chart, I have a 7 planet Stellium in Sagittarius. According to your logic that doesn't make me more Sagittarius-like, but really makes Sagittarius more Sun-like, Moon-like etc. How does this affect my personality? If it doesn't make me more Sagittarius traits than what do all those planets do?

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Bogdan574 wrote:
And while I do think sidereal astrology is taking steps in the right direction, attempting to [fit] the faulty tropical zodiac into the sidereal zodiac only creates more problems.
We have to separate valid observations from tropical theory. Chiria, for example, isn't into theory at all. She merely observes her family, friends, and co-workers. So it isn't really productive to simply toss out everything about the tropical zodiac simply because you don't like it and see it as a corruption.
So for me I'll just go to the original sources.

Actually, this is what I've been doing as I've been attempting to build the sidereal signs from the ground up here on Skyscript and elsewhere. Have you read my summary article? http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm ("Ancient Triplicities: Key to the Sidereal Zodiac")
My own sign, Sagittarius, looks dramatically different between ancient and modern descriptions. Valens and Rhetorius describe Sagittarius as magnanimous and noble-hearted, yet also elitist and mysterious.

Yes, and aren't Valens and Rhetorius taking these traits from Jupiter?? (Although I'm not sure where "mysterious" comes from.)
Similar with Scorpio. Valens and Rhetorius describe Scorpio as wily and rapacious; as war-like, devious, and destructive.
And aren't those traits related directly to Mars by ancient astrologers??
Likewise with Taurus. Ancient astrologers describe Taurus as kindly, artistic, expressing great love for peace and beauty, generous.
Are not these traits of Venus??

Many traits given to signs in Hellenistic times up through the medieval period are simply relying on the nature of the planetary lords of the signs. So forget about your grudge against modern astrology, and start to look at people with planets in sidereal signs.

We can begin with Sagittarius. This thread has been going off on a different direction. Maybe it would it be more productive to start a new topic on Sagittarius? What is your opinion of what Chiria writes about Sagittarius? I can already see some similarities between the Babylonian Pabilsag and ancient concepts connected to Jupiter. Chiria on Sagittarius: http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/aachiria-libra.htm

Yes, I think it would be best to have a separate topic for Sagittarius. This is one of the signs that has caused a great deal of confusion between Jupiter and Saturn in contemporary astrology. After I post this message I'll open a "Sagittarius" topic. I hope you'll be interested, Bogdan, since you have so many planets in that sign. And I already have a collection of charts with emphasis in Sagittarius.

Therese
Last edited by Therese Hamilton on Wed Nov 20, 2013 5:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm