Zodiac sign

“ Zodiacal ingresses are those that are made by the planets into the signs of the zodiac successively, and it is held that a change in the trend of affairs will take place in that department of the life ruled by the House wherein that sign is placed at birth. ”

“ The sign of the zodiac, too, under which a child comes into the world, possesses a power to produce a particular form of body and mental inclination, always, however, subject to the influence of the seven planets. ”

“ Aries was originally the leader of the zodiac, but the Precession of the Equinoxes has now thrown it into second place, and brought Pisces to the front, the twelve signs of the zodiac being like a fixed circular framework through which the constellations drift toward the east. The sign Aries remains the first of the zodiac, but is occupied by the constellation Pisces. Is there in any language a word more mysteriously impressive than “zodiac”? ”

“ The constellation Libra—the seventh sign of the zodiac, and the middle one of the Air Triplicity—is a cardinal, sanguine, diurnal, airy, masculine sign, governing the loins. The higher attributes are inspiration and perception. ”

“ The Sun enters Aquarius about the 21st of January each year.
ARIES (the Ram) .—The first sign of the zodiac. In making up the 360° in the zodiac, we count from 0° of Aries. The Sun enters Aries on the 21st of March each year.
ASCENDANT.—This is the first house, or that point which rises at birth.
ASCENDING.—When a planet is between the fourth and tenth house; it is always the east.
ASPECTS.—This means the relationship one planet, or sign, has to another in the zodiac. The Table of Aspects should be well studied; it is important. ”

“ When the Sun leaves Capricorn, by precession, it enters the sign Sagittarius, and this is pictured in the symbolical Zodiac as a Centaur, part horse and part man. Thus it shows aptly, the fact that we have evolved through the animal stage into the human. The centaur is in the act of drawing his bow, showing that there is something for which. the human spirit, on its pilgrimage through matter, is seeking, that it aspires to something that lies beyond it, as a lofty ideal, for the bow points upward to the stars. ”

“ The earlier Greek writers—Eudoxus, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus—knew of only eleven zodiacal symbols, but made one do double duty, extending the Scorpion across the seventh and eighth divisions. The Balance, obviously indicating the equality of day and night, is first mentioned as the sign of the Libra and Scorpio. autumnal equinox by Geminus and Varro, and obtained, through Sosigenes of Alexandria, official recognition in the Julian calendar. ”

“ For the Chinese series has the strange peculiarity of proceeding in a retrograde direction or against the course of the sun. Thus, the second sign (of the Ox) occupies the position of Capricorn, the third that of Sagittarius, and so on. The explanation of this seeming anomaly is to be found in the primitive destination of the “animals” to the purposes of an “horary zodiac.” Their succession, established to mark the hours of day and night, was not unnaturally associated with the diurnal revolution of the sphere from east to west. [19] They are unquestionably of native origin. ”

“ Some reliance in the influence of the moon, and a small degree of attention to the aspect of the sign of the zodiac according to the time-honored frontispiece in the almanac, both materially lacking in the important requisite of full and trusting faith, are very nearly the only mysteries which can be regarded as having acquired a practical adoption in any appreciable degree. ”

“ An astrological calculation is often made with the view of determining by what sign of the zodiac the two persons are influenced who contemplate becoming man and wife, and thence ascertaining whether they will agree. ”

“ That astronomers should have divided the sun’s course into imaginary signs of the zodiac, was enough to originate astrological rules that these celestial signs have an actual effect on real earthly rams, bulls, crabs, lions, virgins. A child born under the sign of the Lion will be courageous; but one born under the Crab will not go forward well in life ”

“ The circle of the zodiac has an oblique motion and is divided into twelve sections called zodia, or signs: each sign has three divisions of ten each, i.e. thirty divisions, and each division has sixty very minute subdivisions. ”

“ The prominent pagan symbols which are now adopted by the Christian prelacy are generally astronomical. Astrology and religion always went hand in hand, and have not been legally divorced. At an earlier period the sun entered the zodiacal sign of Taurus at the vernal equinox. This fact led to the adoption of the bull or calf as a symbol of the Deity. We notice this fact all over the ancient world, and in some modern peoples that have not had a learned caste of priests. Every 2152 years the zodiac shifts backward one sign—i. ”

“ The other constellations of the two hemispheres are not unconsidered in astrology, but those of the zodiac are more important, because they form the pathway of the sun, the moon, and the planets, and are supposed to receive from these bodies, as they roll through their spaces, extraordinary energy. ”

“ Manly or humane, curteous Signs, Gemini, Virgo, Libra, Aquarius. Ferall Signs are Leo and last part of Sagittarius. Mute Signs or of slow Voice, Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces; the more if Mercury be in any of them, in Conjunction, Square, or Opposition of Saturn. The use hereof is, that if your Significator or Lord of the Ascendant be in Aries, Taurus, Leo, Sagittarius, Capricorn, there’s in the condition of that party something of the nature of that Beast which represents that Sign he is in; as if he be in Aries, the man is rash, hardy and lascivious ”

“ Aries governs the East, Cancer the North, Libra the West, and Capricornus the South.
The Double-bodied signs are Gemini, Sagittarius, and Pisces. It is important that all these classifications should be learned, as they form an essential part of the doctrine of Astrology, and are frequently employed in the reading of a Horoscope.
The types of people under the various signs should also be known as intimately as possible. A person is said to be “under” a sign—that is to say, under its influence, when that sign is rising in the East at the [Pg 26] moment of birth. ”

“ For from [5] (the moment) of birth [6] the ascension of the zodiacal sign rising in the heaven should be closely watched, [7] since the Chaldeans, determining (from this) the horoscope, frame the configuration of the stars in accordance with the ascension (of the sign) ; and they term this—disposition, in accordance with which they devise their predictions. But neither is it possible to take the birth of persons, falling under consideration, as I shall explain, nor is the horoscope infallible, nor is the rising zodiacal sign apprehended with accuracy. ”

“ Astronomers distinguish between a fixed and intellectual zodiac; and the movable and visible zodiac. According to the former, Aries still stands as the first of the signs; that is to say, the first thirty degrees of the zodiacal circle, reckoning from the equinoctial point in spring, are allotted to Aries in the intellectual zodiac.... Astronomers generally choose to reckon by the fixed and intellectual zodiac.— (Drummond's "Oedipus Judaicus.") ”

“ The twelve constellations of the zodiac form an ingenious machine, a great wheel with buckets, which pour into the sun and moon, those shining ships that sail continually through space, the portions of light set free from the world. ”

“ Astrological Systems.—The refined system of astrological prediction based upon the solar zodiac was invented in Chaldaea, obtained a second home and added elaborations in Egypt, and spread irresistibly westward about the beginning of the Christian era. For genethliacal purposes the signs were divided into six solar and six lunar, the former counted onward from Leo, the “house” of the sun, the latter backward from the moon’s domicile in Cancer. Each planet had two houses—a solar and a lunar—distributed according to the order of their revolutions. ”

“ Of the signs of the zodiac in general, then, the solstitial signs produce souls fitted for deaIing with the people, fond of turbulence and political activity, glory-seeking, moreover, and attentive to the gods, noble, mobile, inquisitive, inventive, good at conjecture, and fitted for astrology and divination. The bicorporeal signs make souls complex, changeable, hard to apprehend, light, unstable, fickle, amorous, versatile, fond of music, lazy, easily acquisitive, prone to change their minds. ”

“ Each cycle⁠—each zodiacal sign⁠—brought its special powers which they quickly typified in the monstrous effigies we label today in our dull museums. Each sign took some two thousand years to traverse. Each sign, moreover, involved a change in human consciousness. There was this relation between the heavens and the human heart. All that they knew. While the sun crawled through the sign of Taurus, it was the Bull they worshipped; with Aries, it was the ram that coifed their granite symbols. ”

“ Many ingenious hypotheses have been thrown out, which may perhaps be accepted as steps towards a true explanation; and while waiting the result of further inquiry, we shall endeavour to make our readers acquainted with the interesting phenomenon.
The zodiacal light is a peculiar brightness, pyramidal or wedge-like in form, seen at certain periods of the year in the eastern or western sky, before sunrise and after sunset. Its direction is in the line of the zodiac, whence its name—not perpendicular to the horizon, but at a varying angle, being in the spring from 60 to 70 degrees. ”

“ The features in all are not the same, nor, however, remarkably different: they are such as those of sisters ought to be. The Earth has upon it men and cities, and woods, and wild beasts, and rivers, and Nymphs, and other Deities of the country. Over these is placed the figure of the shining Heaven, and there are six Signs of the Zodiac on the right door, and as many on the left. ”

“ In modern works we find the terms “useless,” “fanciful,” and “inconvenient,” applied to the Zodiac and its constellations; and for regulating a tropical year the constellations are “useless” and “inconvenient,” but the theory that the reckoning of the year and all its religious festivals depended on the observance of the Zodiacal star-groups, would help to account for the widely spread veneration in which they were held throughout so many ages and by so many nations. ”

“ They do not attend to the circumstance that, in this sort of argument, there is a complication of three suppositions equally uncertain: the country in which the zodiac is presumed to have been invented, the signification which is supposed to have been given to the constellations which occupy it, and the position in which the colures were with relation to each constellation, when this signification was attributed to it. ”

“ The mundane factor as distinguished from the zodiacal, that is to say, the positions of the planets in the prime vertical as distinguished from their positions in the zodiac, is that which makes for individual expression. Three hundred and sixty persons could be born in a single day in any one locality and each of these could have a horoscope that is distinct and individual. The highest record does not reach this number. ”

“ Saturn, dull, morose, and cold; the Moon moist and melancholy; Jupiter, temperate, and his influences kindly; Mars, dry and fervent; Venus prolific and affable; Mercury, inconstant and variable.
Astrologers assigned twelve houses to the zodiac, appropriated to the different planets. The first was consecrated to life and the body; from whence emanates the white, black, and copper coloured races, giants, dwarfs, albinos, idiots, and men of genius. The second house is devoted to the interests of society in general ”