JupiterAsc, perhaps we can agree on the historical facts. Check out Wikipedia for corroboration. I have to stress that there is a way that the past happened: we don't get to make it up to suit our rhetorical purposes.
1. There was no "church" 2000 years ago, when Jesus presumably was alive. He lived and died a Jew, and the concept of a new religion took root only after his death.
2. Christians were a perseceuted minority until the reign of the emperor Constantine in the 5th century.
3. The difference of a few centuries is not neglible.
4. Judaism was a tiny persecuted minority under the Roman empire and subsequently. Its priests and rabbis had no power to enforce anything beyond their small group. They appear to have practiced some astrology but its details are sketchy.
5. The development of the tropical zodiac took place over several centuries; namely because during the Age of Aries (BC) the differences between the sidereal and tropical zodiacs were negligible given the imprecision of astrological/astronomical calculations. An astrological interpretation offered at the cruder level of a planet in a sign affords a lot of wiggle room that an astrology based upon a planet at a particular degree does not. Ptolemy, for example, based his aspects upon the position of signs, not degrees.
6. As the discrepancy bectween the tropical and sidereal zodiacs became increasingly apparent, western astrologers used the tropical zodiac because it (a) more closely approximated their seasons in the northern hemisphere; and (b) enabled them to retain their astrological lore derived from assuming zero degrees Aries as the vernal equinox point.
7. Scholars of antiquity freely borrowed from one another, with or without attribution. When one scholar was aware of the works of another, he was free to discard it, use it or build upon it.
8. Ptolemy was a Roman citizen living Egypt and a pagan. He wrote at a time (2nd century AD) when the influence of the infant, persecuted Christian church was negligible. Moreover, corrections to his work started immediately and notably among Arab astronomers of the early middle ages. (Hey, he wrote in the 2nd century AD, a period of fairly primitive astronomical instrumentation.) The idea that he faced punishment for his work has zero basis in historical evidence.
9. Astrology flourished under early Islam, as these scholars translated the Greek texts, made more detailed star catalogues, and added their own insights to the classical works. Islamic astrologers were not living in Christendom and the influence of Christianity on their astrology was neglible. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, western astrologers obtained classical pagan astrological works via the Arab world.
7. By late antiquity, the tropical zodiac was the normal one used in the West. (See also Rhetorius The Egyptian, Astrological Compendium, early 6th century, who starts out his book with the rationale for the tropical zodiac.)
8. Astrologers use the geocentric solar system, not because they don't know about the heliocentric solar system, but because of the rationale of the geocentric system for astrological purposes. Astrology looks at the influence of heavenly bodies on earth-people.
9. We are all clear on the differences between the sidereal and tropical zodiacs, signs vs. constellations, and on the precession of the equinox.
10. 30 degree signs in the sidereal system do not coincide sufficientlyclosely with constellations to argue that the sidereal system is purely constellation-based. The constellation Virgo occupies portions of 3 signs. Aries doesn't touch the ecliptic and occupies much less than 30 degrees. Portions of the ecliptic have no zodiacal constellations covering them. Several constellations overlap, such as Capricorn and Aquarius, and Scorpio and Sagittarius.
11. Right now, tropical signs are about 27 degrees out of synch with sidereal signs. If you have planets in the first three degrees of a tropical sign, it will be in that sign in the sidereal system.
12. As the church did become powerful in Europe, it exhibited an on-again, off-again relationship with astrology. Many astrologers were members of the clergy, as they were among the few people who were literate and could do the math. See Nicholas Campions' books here. The church did not persecute anybody for believing in a heliocentric solar system prior to the Renaissance, because it took the work of Nicholas Copernicus in the early 16th century to make this case.
13. The Powell book looks interesting, but it is not the only work on this subject. The Gleadow book, BTW is titled The Origins of the Zodiac. See also David Ovason, The History of the Horoscope.
and tell me what's so wrong in studing/recording/associating events from this Planets in Zodiacal Charts?
Because so often I see the exaltations get shuffled around. Like Mercury in Aquarius (I think that's what it was..)