by Claus Larsen
One thing immediately strikes the student of Astrology: The predominant feature is confusion. No consensus seems to be achievable on just how Astrology works. Sure, it’s the planets that “influence” us humans here on Earth, but that’s about where the agreement ends.
Let’s look at the basic piece of data that all Astrology centers around: The time you were born. Pretty simple, isn’t it? It turns out that it is far from simple.
Tropical vs. Sidereal Astrology
The chart shows how far apart the two fractions have grown today. Red indicates conflicting signs. |
One of the glaring contradictions in Astrology is between the two major factions, Tropical Astrology and Sidereal Astrology.
Tropical Astrology is the “old” astrological division of the sky. When the Zodiac was invented, the position of the constellations were written down. But since then, the whole Zodiac has shifted almost a whole sign due to the Precession, so whoever was once born a Virgo, is now probably born a Leo – with the personality changes that come with it. Tropical Astrology ignores this, and keeps using the old tables – which have nothing to do with where the planets actually are in the sky.
Sidereal Astrology acknowledges the problem with the shifting signs, but digs itself deeper into the ludicrous: The more sidereal astrologers try to follow the real division of the sky, the more they are distancing themselves from the old “wisdom”. Sidereal astrologers cannot claim to build on ancient knowledge, but have to change the signs and characteristica over time. They are in turn making the whole concept of Astrology invalid.
The real astronomical signs are a few days off from the Sidereal system by now – so not even Sidereal Astrology is using the correct star signs!
Is Marilyn Monroe a Gemini or Taurus? Yes!
Both systems cannot be right. If you are born on January 1st, then you cannot both be a Capricorn and a Sagittarius. If we look at a handful of famous people, we see how ludicrous Astrology is when it claims that a Scorpio is different from a Libra:
| Date of Birth | Name | Tropical | Sidereal |
| Jan-12 | Hermann Goering | Capricorn | Sagittarius |
| Jan-27 | W. A. Mozart | Aquarius | Capricorn |
| Feb-28 | Linus Pauling | Pisces | Aquarius |
| Mar-30 | Vincent van Gogh | Aries | Pisces |
| May-05 | Karl Marx | Taurus | Aries |
| Jun-01 | Marilyn Monroe | Gemini | Taurus |
| Jul-06 | Dalai Lama | Cancer | Gemini |
| Aug-13 | Fidel Castro | Leo | Cancer |
| Aug-30 | J. Wolfgang v. Goethe | Virgo | Leo |
| Oct-02 | Mohandas Gandhi | Libra | Virgo |
| Oct-14 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | Scorpio | Libra |
| Nov-30 | Sir Winston Churchill | Sagittarius | Scorpio |
Astrologers from each camp struggle to convince the other side that they are right. Until they decide, the rest of us can only find them amusing.
Was March 18th 1609 the same date in Denmark as in France?
Sounds like a silly question? Of course it was…?
Well, it wasn’t. When Pope Gregor XIII decreed the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, all Catholic countries followed almost immediately. The Protestant countries, such as Denmark and Britain, made the switch more a century later, at various times.
Not only did it mean profound confusion, it also meant that horoscopes were instantly rendered meaningless. How could one person born on a certain date be a Scorpio when he could be a Sagittarius when born on the same date, a few years later?
E.g., Galileo was born on February 15, 1564, in Pisa, Italy, making him an Aquarius. Had he been born 20 years later, he would have been a Pisces.
Not good?
It gets worse. Much worse.
Since the new calendar was not implemented all over the world at once, it meant that two people born on the same day and year could have two different astrological signs, if they were born a few miles apart, in two different countries.
Let’s look at some more famous people and see what different signs they would have been, had they been born in another country:
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 |
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| Frederik III | James II | Louis XIII | Stalin |
| The Danish king Frederik III was born on March 18th, 1609, in Denmark. That makes him a Pisces. | The English King James II was born October 14th, 1633, in England. That makes him a Libra. | The French king Louis XIII (father of the Sun King) was born on September 27th, 1601, in France. That makes him a Libra. | The Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin was born on December 21st, 1879, in Russia (Georgia). That makes him a Scorpio. |
| But… | But… | But… | But… |
| In Catholic France, which had a different calendar than Protestant Denmark, he would have been born on March 29th, making him an Aries. | In Catholic France, he would have been born on October 25th, making him a Scorpio. | In Protestant England, he would have been born on September 16th, making him a Virgo. | In Catholic Italy, he would have been born on January 1st, 1880, making him a Capricorn. |
According to the Tropical Zodiac, that is. What these people would have been according to the Sidereal Zodiac is a very good question!
Postlude
Whatever comes out of these confusing aspects of history, one thing is certain: Not only are the Zodiacs(!) messed up, the shifting calendars are also proving to be another mortal blow to Astrology.
How anyone can believe this bunk is amazing.
