I swear to all the Gods...

Let’s talk about the zodiac and the ongoing myth that one is more accurate than the other.

Tl;dr version: neither is accurate according to constellations alignment, and it was not designed to be that way.

Now for details:

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According to the EVIDENCE we have found and can confirm, the earliest records of astrology start around 4,000 years ago in the Mesopotamian empire. This was not just one culture, but several. They begin with simple prognostications and form star cults.

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At some point they realize there are wondering stars (planets) and fixed stars. This is when the first zodiacs emerge, linked most directly to Babylonian culture. These *were* aligned with the fixed stars, as a method of recording where the wandering stars were located.

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There were 2 problems with this:

1. The constellations varied in size (they still do).
2. Precession of the equinoxes, which is the earth’s tilt shifting over time and causing the fixed stars to slowly change their heliacal rise by 1 degree every 72 years.

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It’s also important to note that the earliest zodiac was VERY DIFFERENT to the zodiacs we use today. At one point it was considered 6 major constellations (which were huge) rather than 12.

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The Babylonian empire only lasted about 300 years, so precession was wasn’t that big of a problem... but then the Egyptians form a cosmology around the heliacal rise, culmination, and setting of stars and create a night calendar called the Decans...

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The Egyptian empire lasts for 30 centuries. Precession becomes rapidly apparent as they have to change their decans lists every couple hundred years (give or take).

Then the Hellenistic Greeks come around.

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They absorb (ahem imperialize) the last of Mesopotamian knowledge and the expansive knowledge of the Egyptians... but to the Greeks, prediction and symmetry is holy. Which means precession is an issue, as it prevents time from being measured in a predictable fashion.

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So they create a zodiac (borrowing the initial idea from the Babylonians) but fashion it according to seasonal sunlight, the equinoxes and the solstices.

Longest days of the year = summer solstice = Cancer
Days becoming even with nights = autumn equinox = Libra

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Shortest days/longest nights of the year = winter solstice = Capricorn
Days begin to lengthen again = vernal spring equinox = Aries

They call these signs Cardinal, or movable, or as we would call it today INITIATING. They mark the beginning of the seasons

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At the time, the constellations associated with these signs lined up with these seasons changes... BUT THE GREEKS KNEW THAT WOULD NOT LAST FOREVER. They were already aware of precession, as were the Egyptians, and the Babylonians. It was an observed and recorded phenomena.

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The Greeks were greatly influenced by Platonic philosophy and believed that the highest form of divinity was unity, represented by a circle. So they create a 360 degree zodiac along the pathway of the Sun, the ecliptic. They mark the seasons with the cardinal signs...

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And then they divide the signs into a perfect 30 degrees each. But the constellations WERE NEVER a perfect 30 degrees each in size. The Greeks also knew this. They considered the zodiac fixed and symbolic, not literal. They understood everything would move (precession).

13/?

At the time the constellations for each zodiac sign were roughly lined up w:the beginning location of that sign, but AGAIN the Greeks knew that would not last forever. Also, they were aware that some constellations were small (Cancer) while others were large (Libra)

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How they justified this: they believed the Fixed Stars LENT THEIR IMAGES TO THE ZODIAC. They took the concept the Egyptians had about giving houses (literal statues) to stars that rose in their decans calendar, & mapped it into their Platonic cosmic philosophy.

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So in a nutshell: the tropical zodiac we know and use today was about seasonal light changes of the Sun, not the constellations.

With the EVIDENCE we have currently, we have seen this was transmitted to the east, where Vedic astrology emerged.

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The Vedic astrologers took a different approach and decided the Zodiac should be attached to the constellations assigned to the signs (which are identical to the signs of the Greeks)... however...

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The sidereal (Vedic) zodiac is STILL slotted to give a perfect 30 degrees to each sign, despite the fact that the literal constellations vary in size.

So this is no more accurate than the tropical zodiac. Just different.

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This trope of one zodiac being more accurate than the other reveals the true crux of the issue: modern enthusiasts do not understand the actual use of the zodiac, which is simply to determine the location and quality of a planet in the sky at any given moment.

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The zodiac is of tertiary concern in traditional astrology of both Western and Eastern persuasion. It simply helps you assess the PLANET.

This obsession with the signs is a relatively new phenomena in the last 100 years or so.

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Rather than people saying one zodiac is more accurate than the other (in what sense?!) it would be more truthful to say that one tries to follow the constellations & the other is more concerned w/seasonality & it’s patterns on earth

Thanks for attending my Ted talk

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