Western Zodiac

*See: Wikipedia: Astrological sign*

In Western astrology, astrological signs are the twelve 30-degree sectors that make up Earth's 360-degree orbit around the Sun. The signs enumerate from the first day of spring, known as the First Point of Aries, which is the vernal equinox. The astrological signs are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. The Western zodiac originated in Babylonian astrology, and was later influenced by the Hellenistic culture. Each sign was named after a constellation the sun annually moved through while crossing the sky. This observation is emphasized in the simplified and popular sun sign astrology. Over the centuries, Western astrology's zodiacal divisions have shifted out of alignment with the constellations they were named after by axial precession of the Earth while Hindu astrology measurements correct for this shifting. Astrology (i.e. a system of omina based on celestial appearances) was developed in Chinese and Tibetan cultures as well but these astrologies are not based upon the zodiac but deal with the whole sky.

Astrology is a pseudoscience. Scientific investigations of the theoretical basis and experimental verification of claims have shown it to have no scientific validity or explanatory power. More plausible explanations for the apparent correlation between personality traits and birth months exist, such as the influence of seasonal birth in humans.

According to astrology, celestial phenomena relate to human activity on the principle of "as above, so below", so that the signs are held to represent characteristic modes of expression. Scientific astronomy used the same sectors of the ecliptic as Western astrology until the 19th century.

Various approaches to measuring and dividing the sky are currently used by differing systems of astrology, although the tradition of the Zodiac's names and symbols remain mostly consistent. Western astrology measures from Equinox and Solstice points (points relating to equal, longest, and shortest days of the tropical year), while Hindu astrology measures along the equatorial plane (sidereal year).

## Western zodiac signs

### History

Western astrology is a direct continuation of Hellenistic astrology as recorded in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos in the 2nd century. Hellenistic astrology in turn was partly based on concepts from Babylonian tradition. Specifically, the division of the ecliptic in twelve equal sectors is a Babylonian conceptual construction. This division of the ecliptic originated in the Babylonian "ideal calendar" found in the old compendium MUL.APIN and its combination with the Babylonian lunar calendar, represented as the "path of the moon" in MUL.APIN. In a way, the zodiac is the idealisation of an ideal lunar calendar.

By the 4th century BC, Babylonian astronomy and its system of celestial omens influenced the culture of ancient Greece, as did the astronomy of Egypt by late 2nd century BC. This resulted, unlike the Mesopotamian tradition, in a strong focus on the birth chart of the individual and the creation of Horoscopic astrology, employing the use of the Ascendant (the rising degree of the ecliptic, at the time of birth), and of the twelve houses. Association of the astrological signs with Empedocles' four classical elements was another important development in the characterization of the twelve signs.

The body of the Hellenistic astrological tradition as it stood by the 2nd century is described in Ptolemy's *Tetrabiblos*. This is the seminal work for later astronomical tradition not only in the West but also in India and the Islamic sphere and has remained a reference for almost seventeen centuries as later traditions made few substantial changes to its core teachings.

### Western astrological correspondence chart

The following table shows the approximate dates of the twelve astrological signs, along with the classical and modern rulerships of each sign. By definition, Aries starts at the First Point of Aries which is the location of the Sun at the March equinox. The precise date of the Equinox varies from year to year but is always between 19 March and 21 March. The consequence is the start date of Aries and therefore the start date of all the other signs can change slightly from year to year. The following Western astrology table enumerates the twelve divisions of celestial longitude with the Latin names. The longitude intervals, are treated as closed for the first endpoint (*a*) and open for the second (*b*) – for instance, 30° of longitude is the first point of Taurus, not part of Aries. The signs are occasionally numbered 0 through 11 in place of symbols in astronomical works.
Template:Mw-datatable

The twelve signs are positioned in a circular pattern, creating a pattern of oppositions related to different philosophically polarized attributes. Fire and air elements are generally 180 degrees opposed in Western astrology, as well as earth and water elements. Not all systems of astrology have four elements, notably the Sepher Yetzirah describes only three elements emanating from a central divine source. Spring signs are opposite to autumn ones, winter signs are opposite to summer ones and vice versa.

* Aries is opposite to Libra
* Taurus is opposite to Scorpio
* Gemini is opposite to Sagittarius
* Cancer is opposite to Capricorn
* Leo is opposite to Aquarius
* Virgo is opposite to Pisces

#### Polarity

In Western astrology, the polarity divides the zodiac in half and refers to the alignment of a sign's energy as either positive or negative, with various attributes associated to them as a result. **Positive polarity** signs, also called active, yang, expressive, or masculine signs, are the six odd-numbered signs of the zodiac: Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius. Positive signs make up the fire and air triplicities. **Negative polarity** signs, also called passive, yin, receptive, or feminine signs, are the six even-numbered signs of the zodiac: Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, and Pisces. Negative signs make up the earth and water triplicities.

## Sources

1. ↑ Bobrick (2005), pp. 10, 23.
2. ↑ Johnsen (2004).
3. ↑ Sven Ove Hansson; Edward N. Zalta. "Science and Pseudo-Science". *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy*. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/. Retrieved 6 July 2012. "There is widespread agreement for instance that creationism, astrology, homeopathy, Kirlian photography, dowsing, ufology, ancient astronaut theory, Holocaust denialism, Velikovskian catastrophism, and climate change denialism are pseudosciences.".
4. ↑ Vishveshwara (1989). in S.K. Biswas: *Cosmic Perspectives: Essays Dedicated to the Memory of M.K.V. Bappu*, 1. publ., Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-34354-1.
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6. ↑ Mayo (1979), p. 35.
7. ↑ Sachs (1948), p. 289.
Isolated references to celestial "signs" in Sumerian sources are insufficient to speak of a Sumerian zodiac, see Rochberg (1998), p. *ix*.
8. ↑ Hoffmann, Susanne M. (2017). *Hipparchs Himmelsglobus: ein Bindeglied in der babylonisch-griechischen Astrometrie?*. ISBN 978-3-658-18683-8.
9. ↑ Carol Wills (2007). Rulerships.
10. ↑ Hone (1978), p. 21.
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Jeremy B. Tatum, "The Signs and Constellations of the Zodiac Archived 2023-06-01 at the Wayback Machine", *Journal of the Royal Society of Canada*, **104** (2010), 103--104.
12. ↑ Opposition (it).
13. ↑ WoC :: Sefer Yetzirah.
14. ↑ The element of Air (it).
15. ↑ The element of Fire (it).
16. ↑ The element of Water (it).
17. ↑ The element of Earth (it).
18. ↑ Hall, Judy (2005). *The Astrology Bible: The Definitive Guide to the Zodiac* (in en). Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., page 137. ISBN 978-1-4027-2759-7.
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Standen, Anthony (1975). "Is There An Astrological Effect On Personality". *The Journal of Psychology* **89** (2): 259–260. Error: Bad DOI specified. PMID 1151896. http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjrl20.
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 van Rooij, Jan J. F. (1993). "Introversion-Extraversion: astrology versus psychology". *Department of Psychology, University of Leiden, the Netherlands* **16** (6): 985–988. Error: Bad DOI specified.