Yes there is a Thirteenth Zodiacal Sign, always has been.

For the past two weeks there have been a number of stories in the news about how NASA is Trying to change Astrology. I’ve been thinking about whether or not to post a blog on this subject and originally decided against it since astrology just isn’t worth talking about! However the story won’t go away so I’ve changed my mind in the hope that maybe this time people will recognize that astrologers don’t even know astrology let alone anything about reality.

For what it’s worth, about 3,000 years ago in Babylon the priests who watched the sky for messages from above (that is how Astronomy got started) decided that the position of the Sun against the background of fixed stars at the moment a person was born must have an effect on that person’s destiny. If the concept of astrological sign means anything that is what it is, the constellation of stars that the sun was in the moment of your birth. Now, I’ll admit that’s an interesting hypothesis, 3,000 years ago it was worth testing. It happens to be wrong but it was worth testing.

Now the ancient Chaldeans, the people of Babylon, recognized that during the course of a year the Sun went through thirteen constellations, that’s right thirteen, the twelve zodiacal signs we’re familiar with plus the constellation Ophiuchus. By the way, this is why a very easy to spot constellation like Orion or the Big Dipper is not a zodiacal sign while a very difficult to find constellation like Capricorn is.

The trouble started immediately. The Chaldeans didn’t like the number thirteen, it was considered unlucky even back then. So they just threw out the constellation of Ophiuchus, reality after all has to match our irrational prejudices. There was also the problem that some of the constellations of the zodiac are bigger that the others so the Sun spent more time in some than in others. The Babylonians solved this problem by just each making each sign the same length of time whether it should be or not. This then gave us the signs of the zodiac we’re all familiar with, Aquarius 20Jan-18Feb, Pisces Feb20-Mar19 etc.

But there was another problem the Babylonians didn’t know about, the precession of the equinox, the precession of the Earth’s axis in a huge circle every 26,000 years. The fact that it takes so long is the reason the Babylonians didn’t know about it. However it does mean that about every 2200 years the entire zodiac gets shifted by one entire sign to the left. It’s the dawning of the age of Aquarius remember, well that’s because for the past two millennia the equinox has occurred while the Sun was in Pisces but soon it will occur in Aquarius because the entire zodiac has shifted by almost one entire sign.

Now astrologers have either ignored of been ignorant of this plain fact for, well since the beginning of astrology. Because of this ignorance of their own “science” they have basically given almost everyone the wrong sign. For example, I was born on the 4th of September, which makes me a Virgo. Except that the Sun happened to be in Leo the moment I was born so, if astrology means anything at all I should be a Leo.

None of this is news. Astronomers have made headlines by pointing out the truth four or five times in my Life and the fact that reality is so quickly forgotten again is, disappointing at the very least. NASA has even had to publically say they aren’t trying to change people’s sign, actually they have issued a statement that astrology isn’t science anyway so it doesn’t matter.

As I said, we have gone through this several times in my life so at the very least it would be nice it would be nice if astrologers would take a little time to learn astrology. I’m not holding my breath.