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Western Zodiac/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
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** There are different astrological systems in western astrology, the majority use only twelve signs, a minority add a thirteenth sign.
** Most likely thrown out by the Babylonians in favor of constellations that had more body on the ecliptic than Ophiuchus. Also, the way we divide up constellations is different now, and the Libra/Scorpio combination of constellations used to just be one big constellation that was dealt with like two individual constellations until they formally separated sometime during the Roman Empire, iirc. I say all that to say that there was something else there back in those days and Ophiuchus wasn't technically at that spot in the ecliptic.
** It is correct. Ophiuchus is one of the thirteen constellations along the ecliptic, and is the only one that has no astrological sign named after it. Astrological signs are not the same as constellations. See the main document for [[Western Zodiac]] for an explanation about how this works.
* Different system, namely Astro'''nomy'''. Also Cetus is in the same path as the Zodiac.
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* Yet... these dates have never been adjusted for this. Hmm.
** You can look to the Sidereal Zodiac which is a way to sort of make up for this change, but it doesn't really do it justice as they still hold that each sign takes up 30 degrees of the sky, which isn't true, the constellations that represent those signs are varying lengths. The Sidereal Zodiac simply moves the 0 Aries point to match with the vernal equinox point. So, essentially Sidereal starts off correctly aligned, but doesn't make it out of Aries before it drifts off again. The other option is the Tropical Zodiac which is the one popularly used in the western world, it's not arranged with the constellations because the constellations and the signs that represent those constellations aren't the same thing, and the Tropical Zodiac keeps up with the beat of the seasonal changes of the Earth which seems to make it more relevant.
*** Actually, the signs do, by definition, take up 30 degrees of the sky; it is the constellations which don't. Like with geographic coordinates, you have to decide where is zero longitude, so, because it is useful to do so, zero is the vernal equinox point (in the northern hemisphere). The first sign is called Aries, so 0 Aries is the spring equinox. "Tropical Zodiac" means that the equinox of date is used. "Sidereal Zodiac" means that instead of using the equinox of date, some fixed epoch is used to determine the zero longitude (there is more than one kind of "Sidereal Zodiac"; one of the common ones is "Fagan-Bradley").
* Likewise, the stars making up each constellation are too far away to exert any meaningful force upon you at birth. The doctor delivering you exerts more gravity upon you than any distant star. Even the gravity from the other planets in the solar system (not to mention the sun) is minimal compared to the gravity from Earth, in terms of how much of a direct effect it has upon us. Demo: Jump. Did you go flying up towards the sun? No? That's because Earth managed to "pull" you (technically, it's more complex than that, but for simplicity's sake) back towards itself, being the dominant source of gravity acting on your body.
** This is assuming that the force the stars and planets exert in an astrological context is gravity or something magnetic. No one ever said it was, the popular theory (at least in Ptolemy's day) was that the planets and stars stir around the ether and those influences are carried through the individual elements of the world and effect it and us. The simplest argument is essentially that if the planets effect the seasons, then they effect us.
*** Since when do the planets (except if you count the sun) effect the seasons???
**** The Sun is an astrological planet, so since forever.
***** This is a much older definition of "planet", which included the Sun and Moon too. The modern astronomical definition of "planet" does not include the Sun and Moon. The older definition, still used in astrology (although some say "objects" instead) does include the Sun and Moon.
* Apparently, astrology, despite it's name, doesn't have much to do with the stars, but rather is about the planets. But they don't call it "planetology" because that would sound kind of stupid.
** The original greek word for the planets was planetes aster, which means "wandering star". The planets that we know of today are not stars, but back before telescopic observations were possible, the planets were simply stars that moved. Aside from that there is a rich system of symbolism for the "fixed stars" (essentially, all the other visible stars that aren't planets)that is still alive in more traditional forms of astrology today, though mostly forgotten in mainstream modern astrology.
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