Using the Tropical Zodiac with Vedic Astrology

sibylline

Well-known member
muchacho,

The definition can likely be found in the same place you cherry-picked your definition from.

My mistake was thinking you were honestly interested in discussing this topic. Since you're not, this is my last reply to you.
 

HoldOrFold

Well-known member
HoldorFold, thank you for the information and videos.

What actually caused you to rethink using sidereal with Vedic? Was it Wilhelm? I admit, I'd never heard of these people before you mentioned them.

I've been into western astrology for about 10 years so I know my chart and the charts of people I know quite well in tropical. I started getting into vedic awhile ago and so looked at my chart and the charts of people I knew.

When I switch to sidereal in my chart, my Ascendant, Mars and Mercury stay the same but the other planets change. I mainly noticed the discrepancy in my Saturn which moves from Scorpio into exalted Libra. Now many of my friends born are born around the same time and I don't feel we have exalted Saturns in Libra. Another reason in regards to Saturn is it's current transit through tropical Sagittarius, we have textbook stuff going on now like the migrant crisis and more austerity towards foreigners / border control etc. This fits Saturn transiting through Sagittarius perfectly.

I also looked at some of my friends charts including a friend with very strong Leo placements who is Leo through and through, from the way he looks to his behavior. These placements changed to Cancer in sidereal which is completely off. The same with a friend with lots of Cancer who's placements changed to Gemini which doesn't fit.

Another more subjective reason is because there's been occasions when I've actually felt the difference when a planet enters a new tropical sign.

And then I found out that Wilhelm, and some others, are using the tropical zodiac with vedic so then things started to fall into place. I've also heard in several places about many sidereal vedic astrologers who don't pay much attention to the signs and instead focus more on aspects, house placements etc. This would make sense if they have had to adapt to using a zodiac which is out of sync.
 
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muchacho

Well-known member
@HoldOrFold: thanks for your link! Anyone interested in Wilhelm's reasoning behind switching to tropical just listen to this 3 hour podcast:

http://www.vedic-astrology.net/FreeClasses/Ayanamsa-and-Rasis.mp3

He explains in great detail his take on the different zodiacs and the reasoning behind changing methods of calculation.

He also explains his Ayanamsa choice which I find interesting, although flawed. He says the only fixed point we have is the galactic center, everything else is constantly moving. So he chooses the galactic center as his reference point and as the center of Mula ('root') Nakshatra. Which gives an Ayanamsa value that is very close to Usha-Shashi.

He also references Yukteswar a lot. However, according to Yukteswar the phenomenon of precession is due to the Sun's orbit around another star which gives us the Great Year (24,000 terrestrial years) and not due to the Sun's orbit around the galactic center which gives us the Galactic Year (up to 250 million terrestrial years).

Apart from changing calculations and Ayanamsa, I think I can mostly agree with Wilhelm. His youtube channel also has a lot of great stuff!
 

muchacho

Well-known member
muchacho,

The definition can likely be found in the same place you cherry-picked your definition from.

My mistake was thinking you were honestly interested in discussing this topic. Since you're not, this is my last reply to you.
That's not fair. You see, you've questioned my honesty right from the start when you jumped into the discussion. I've been very straightforward with you thru-out the entire discussion. But you keep redirecting me to google so I have to assume that you either don't understand the topic at hand or you do understand but don't want to admit that you are wrong.

The seasonal argument can be defeated all too easily. Maybe that's what made you so upset. However, this doesn't mean that the tropical zodiac is useless or debunked. It just means that the seasons can't be the actual reason behind the 12 signs of the tropical zodiac.
 

HoldOrFold

Well-known member
@HoldOrFold: thanks for your link! Anyone interested in Wilhelm's reasoning behind switching to tropical just listen to this 3 hour podcast:

http://www.vedic-astrology.net/FreeClasses/Ayanamsa-and-Rasis.mp3

He explains in great detail his take on the different zodiacs and the reasoning behind changing methods of calculation.

He also explains his Ayanamsa choice which I find interesting, although flawed. He says the only fixed point we have is the galactic center, everything else is constantly moving. So he chooses the galactic center as his reference point and as the center of Mula ('root') Nakshatra. Which gives an Ayanamsa value that is very close to Usha-Shashi.

He also references Yukteswar a lot. However, according to Yukteswar the phenomenon of precession is due to the Sun's orbit around another star which gives us the Great Year (24,000 terrestrial years) and not due to the Sun's orbit around the galactic center which gives us the Galactic Year (up to 250 million terrestrial years).

Apart from changing calculations and Ayanamsa, I think I can mostly agree with Wilhelm. His youtube channel also has a lot of great stuff!

Cheers, I'll check out that vid when I have some time.

I also found this article on his site which is quite detailed re: his take on the sidereal / tropical issue: The Mystery of the Zodiac

I've got a lot of time for Wilhelm, he's a pretty wise astrologer regardless if you agree with his use of tropical.
 

muchacho

Well-known member
It's not a video, it's just an audio file. You probably just need to listen to the first one and half hour. There's all you need to know.

I've been browsing thru this article you linked and the content is similar to the audio file.

I agree, Wilhelm seems to be an excellent astrologer who has given this zodiac topic a lot of thought and consideration and obviously did a lot of calculations in order to find out what 'works'. He's very much in favor of a scientific (which to him seems to mean purely mathematical) approach to astrology. He says the reason why astrologers with all kinds of different Ayanamsas still get it right the vast majority of the time is because they heavily rely on intuition. They psychically tune into their client even before they cast the chart and so certain things stick out immediately after the chart has been drawn even though it has been drawn incorrectly. Which may explain why both tropical and sidereal 'work'.

Another point he is making and what prompted him to try out tropical again is the fact that both sidereal and tropical use the same points of exaltation and rulerships etc. which means both tropical and sidereal astrology are drawing from one and the same source, one original astrology. Which must have been known by all cultures during the Golden Age (satya yuga) and has been more or less lost by all cultures during the Iron Age (kali yuga). Which means history is cyclical and not linear and so the story that astrology started in Mesopotamia and then moved on to Egypt, then Greece and then India doesn't actually make sense in that regard. I made a similar point recently.


Wilhelm agrees with Yukteswar that the larger cycle of the Great Year is responsible for the cyclical rise and fall of civilizations (due to the cyclical rise and fall of consciousness/awareness of man). According to Yukteswar we've just left the Iron Age (kali yuga - where any kind of true knowledge is lost) behind. So it's no wonder that astrology is still very much in disarray. So Wilhelm acknowledges that fate of civilizations and nations (aka mundane astrology!) is linked to the Great Year cycle, which is sidereal. And since the tropical zodiac is out of sync with that larger cycle it then follows that he would have to use the sidereal zodiac for mundane astrology again! So the more I think about it, the more confusing the practice of Wilhelm's tropical vedic astrology becomes. I've also mentioned his Ayanamsa problem and Navamsa issue.

Anyways, apart from the zodiac issue, I think Wilhelm is a great source for students of vedic astrology.
 

david starling

Well-known member
That's not fair. You see, you've questioned my honesty right from the start when you jumped into the discussion. I've been very straightforward with you thru-out the entire discussion. But you keep redirecting me to google so I have to assume that you either don't understand the topic at hand or you do understand but don't want to admit that you are wrong.

The seasonal argument can be defeated all too easily. Maybe that's what made you so upset. However, this doesn't mean that the tropical zodiac is useless or debunked. It just means that the seasons can't be the actual reason behind the 12 signs of the tropical zodiac.

The fruit of a tree that grows in one seasonal clime can be consumed in another. Tropical-astrology definitely has Northern Hemispheric roots with particular seasonal connotations, but that doesn't disqualify it's applications in the Southern Hemisphere. Sidereal-astrology has seasonal connotations as well, since the names and images were recorded by Ancient Babylonians at a time when there was seasonal correspondence to the helical positions of the Zodiacal constellations. Both Tropical and Sidereal Astrology were inspired by, and have connections to, seasonal conditions in Northern Hemispheric locations.
 
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sibylline

Well-known member
That's not fair. You see, you've questioned my honesty right from the start when you jumped into the discussion. I've been very straightforward with you thru-out the entire discussion. But you keep redirecting me to google so I have to assume that you either don't understand the topic at hand or you do understand but don't want to admit that you are wrong.

The seasonal argument can be defeated all too easily. Maybe that's what made you so upset. However, this doesn't mean that the tropical zodiac is useless or debunked. It just means that the seasons can't be the actual reason behind the 12 signs of the tropical zodiac.

muchacho, when you know everything, there is no room for anything else.

You're now pretending as if you believe the tropical zodiac has any merit and you find Wilhelm so enlightening when anyone can read how you completely dismissed the tropical zodiac several times on the first page. Have you changed your views so easily? Why not discuss the issues in the sidereal zodiac, re: modalities? These tactics of yours are why I say you're being dishonest.

I said I would not reply to you but on the off-chance there is any sincerity in your comments (or for anyone truly interested), I will.

I rerouted you to Google to save time and because I thought you knew, as well as I do, that many areas around the equator experience weather changes (what you call seasons) and you were playing smart aleck.

It's not clear now that you do know that. So let's discuss it:

It's actually your argument which doesn't hold, any way you dice it. Weather is an aspect of a season, not a season itself. Let's address your comments re: weather, however.

What are the 4 distinct seasons you've experienced on the equator?

Here's a bit on Kenya, where I lived. All easily found on Google.

Kenya lies on the equator [...] Kenya's climate is divided into four distinct seasons: Hot-Dry season (mid-December to mid-March), Long-Rains (mid-March to mid-June), Cool-Dry season (mid-June to mid-October), Short-Rains (mid-October to mid-December)...

https://books.google.com/books?id=7yIoPkkEyU8C&pg=PA51#v=onepage&q&f=false

At the equator, temperatures stay basically the same thru-out the year as do daylight hours. The only thing that may change is the amount of rain.

Response:

Over the course of a year, the temperature [in Kenya] typically varies from 53°F to 80°F and is rarely below 51°F or above 82°F.
 

sibylline

Well-known member
[...]And then I found out that Wilhelm, and some others, are using the tropical zodiac with vedic so then things started to fall into place. I've also heard in several places about many sidereal vedic astrologers who don't pay much attention to the signs and instead focus more on aspects, house placements etc. This would make sense if they have had to adapt to using a zodiac which is out of sync.

I was worried initially about using tropical with Vedic because I thought Vedic may have been adapted over centuries to suit sidereal and tropical may be less effective or completely ineffective. So it's good to know there are others having success with it. Still, I want to test the two out and see the differences. An issue I'm having is with weighting all of the factors. I just got a book which contains information on the Neecha Banga Raja Yoga so I went to look up some more on it but sources vary so much in their views on it. Some very experienced astrologers afford it essentially no power in ameliorating debilities, while others think it changes the picture entirely.
 

HoldOrFold

Well-known member
Wilhelm agrees with Yukteswar that the larger cycle of the Great Year is responsible for the cyclical rise and fall of civilizations (due to the cyclical rise and fall of consciousness/awareness of man). According to Yukteswar we've just left the Iron Age (kali yuga - where any kind of true knowledge is lost) behind. So it's no wonder that astrology is still very much in disarray. So Wilhelm acknowledges that fate of civilizations and nations (aka mundane astrology!) is linked to the Great Year cycle, which is sidereal. And since the tropical zodiac is out of sync with that larger cycle it then follows that he would have to use the sidereal zodiac for mundane astrology again!

Well every western astrologer knows about the procession of the equinox and the ages etc. and also the use of fixed stars so it's not necessarily as if it's anything new that sidereal is used for certain things.

But then it's quite a big leap to say because of this one must use sidereal for all mundane astrology. Nobody has the concrete answers so there's just speculation, but to me, on an intuitive level, it seems to imply that there is a higher spiritual influence from the sidereal procession. I've also read about the view that the age we are in is like a dial which dials into a certain frequency which is always being emitted from our galactic core. This would be a galactic, spiritual infuence and I can see how it's sidereal. I see tropical as more earth based, influences from our perspective here on earth. Perhaps the sidereal zodiac even creates a background influence to the tropical signs like a secondary progressed birth chart.

Maybe this might help explain why the age of Pisces hasn't exactly been all unicorns and rainbows, instead we've had the biggest wars in the history of the planet. Perhaps there's the age also filtered through a tropical influence of Aries. This is all just wild speculation on my part though, not something I've properly thought about.
 

HoldOrFold

Well-known member
The fruit of a tree that grows in one seasonal clime can be consumed in another. Tropical-astrology definitely has Northern Hemispheric roots with particular seasonal connotations, but that doesn't disqualify it's applications in the Southern Hemisphere. Sidereal-astrology has seasonal connotations as well, since the names and images were recorded by Ancient Babylonians at a time when there was seasonal correspondence to the helical positions of the Zodiacal constellations. Both Tropical and Sidereal Astrology were inspired by, and have connections to, seasonal conditions in Northern Hemispheric locations.

When you think how the signs are symmetrically ruled by the planets in order (illustrated in this post here) it would imply that the creation of the attributes of the signs are heavily influenced by their ruling planets as there is the order from the Sun to Saturn. And then of course also the order of the elements and modalities, from cardinal fire all the way to mutable water. Is fascinating how this has lined up with the seasons at all when you think about it, but it has.
 

HoldOrFold

Well-known member
I was worried initially about using tropical with Vedic because I thought Vedic may have been adapted over centuries to suit sidereal and tropical may be less effective or completely ineffective. So it's good to know there are others having success with it. Still, I want to test the two out and see the differences. An issue I'm having is with weighting all of the factors. I just got a book which contains information on the Neecha Banga Raja Yoga so I went to look up some more on it but sources vary so much in their views on it. Some very experienced astrologers afford it essentially no power in ameliorating debilities, while others think it changes the picture entirely.

Yes a lot of personal experience will help, I've only looked at this yoga in my chart personally. It seems to intuitively make sense to me, I've always felt that a debilitated planet should function better depending on the condition of it's dispositor. That just made sense to me, I suspected that before hearing about this Yoga. There's lots and lots of Yogas and some are used more than others, but I've only really looked into this one so far.

I've also heard that some vedic techniques work better with tropical, some vedic techniques apparently don't work at all in sidereal but fall into place when using tropical. I can't really comment on that from personal experience, just from what I've heard Wilhelm and others say.
 

muchacho

Well-known member
muchacho, when you know everything, there is no room for anything else.

You're now pretending as if you believe the tropical zodiac has any merit and you find Wilhelm so enlightening when anyone can read how you completely dismissed the tropical zodiac several times on the first page. Have you changed your views so easily? Why not discuss the issues in the sidereal zodiac, re: modalities? These tactics of yours are why I say you're being dishonest.

I said I would not reply to you but on the off-chance there is any sincerity in your comments (or for anyone truly interested), I will.

I rerouted you to Google to save time and because I thought you knew, as well as I do, that many areas around the equator experience weather changes (what you call seasons) and you were playing smart aleck.

It's not clear now that you do know that. So let's discuss it:

It's actually your argument which doesn't hold, any way you dice it. Weather is an aspect of a season, not a season itself. Let's address your comments re: weather, however.



Here's a bit on Kenya, where I lived. All easily found on Google.



https://books.google.com/books?id=7yIoPkkEyU8C&pg=PA51#v=onepage&q&f=false



Response:
My argument was that the tropical zodiac is out of sync with the larger cycles and that the seasonal argument is bogus. Please show me where I have changed my position on that.

The kind of thinking 'Wilhelm = tropical zodiac therefore if tropical zodiac = bad then Wilhelm = bad' is not helpful and also very unfair toward Wilhelm.

As suspected, you don't actually understand the topic at hand. And as long as you don't give your own definition of 'season', we have to go with the definition I gave earlier. Which means seasons are also connected to daylight distribution, not just temperatures and precipitation. A point you've totally ignored. And equator means zero degrees latitude. Kenya stretches over an area of 10 degrees of latitude, between 5 degrees north and 5 degrees south of the equator and there's also great differences in terrain. It's also obvious that you didn't actually read the posts I linked because you would have come across this climate chart of Singapore which isn't exactly on the equator either, but pretty close and also at sea level:

SR48698.png



As you can see, in terms of temperature and daylight hours there are no distinct seasons in Singapore. Only when you add precipitation you could conjure up maybe 2 seasons - 'wet' and 'a little more wet'.

Singapore has a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen: Af ) with no distinctive seasons, uniform temperature and pressure, high humidity, and abundant rainfall. Temperatures usually range from 22 to 35 °C (72 to 95 °F). Relative humidity averages around 79% in the morning and 73% in the afternoon While temperature does not vary greatly throughout the year, there is a wetter monsoon season from November to January.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore#Climate
What really defeats the seasonal argument though is the reverse order of the seasons in the southern hemisphere. See JA's earlier post for details.
 
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muchacho

Well-known member
The fruit of a tree that grows in one seasonal clime can be consumed in another. Tropical-astrology definitely has Northern Hemispheric roots with particular seasonal connotations, but that doesn't disqualify it's applications in the Southern Hemisphere. Sidereal-astrology has seasonal connotations as well, since the names and images were recorded by Ancient Babylonians at a time when there was seasonal correspondence to the helical positions of the Zodiacal constellations. Both Tropical and Sidereal Astrology were inspired by, and have connections to, seasonal conditions in Northern Hemispheric locations.
Are you suggesting we should blame Ptolemy and his kali yuga contemporaries for the confusion?
 

muchacho

Well-known member
Well every western astrologer knows about the procession of the equinox and the ages etc. and also the use of fixed stars so it's not necessarily as if it's anything new that sidereal is used for certain things.

But then it's quite a big leap to say because of this one must use sidereal for all mundane astrology. Nobody has the concrete answers so there's just speculation, but to me, on an intuitive level, it seems to imply that there is a higher spiritual influence from the sidereal procession. I've also read about the view that the age we are in is like a dial which dials into a certain frequency which is always being emitted from our galactic core. This would be a galactic, spiritual infuence and I can see how it's sidereal. I see tropical as more earth based, influences from our perspective here on earth. Perhaps the sidereal zodiac even creates a background influence to the tropical signs like a secondary progressed birth chart.

Maybe this might help explain why the age of Pisces hasn't exactly been all unicorns and rainbows, instead we've had the biggest wars in the history of the planet. Perhaps there's the age also filtered through a tropical influence of Aries. This is all just wild speculation on my part though, not something I've properly thought about.
That sounds like a reasonable conclusion. As I've already mentioned, Santos Bonacci sees the sidereal zodiac as the spiritual background and the tropical zodiac somehow connected to the physical and I think with 'physical' he had medical astrology in mind.
 

HoldOrFold

Well-known member
That sounds like a reasonable conclusion. As I've already mentioned, Santos Bonacci sees the sidereal zodiac as the spiritual background and the tropical zodiac somehow connected to the physical and I think with 'physical' he had medical astrology in mind.

Yes we did discuss that at the start of the thread, but it appears to not be as simple as that since tropical describes spiritual attributes rather well. I'm inclined to think sidereal works more as a background influence on a larger scale and less in a personal sense. Perhaps because our personal lives are from more of an earth perspective and the rise and fall of civilisations are more macro-level events tapping into more galactic type energies. Again just speculating.
 

Shanti

Well-known member
Perhaps the greatest and most respected western astrologer Robert Hand says at his facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/robert.hand.98284/posts/808801582575987

"
I received an email recently from an individual who is requesting that I make a definitive statement about which was the “correct” zodiac, sidereal or tropical. The correspondent hoped that I would say sidereal, because this person had Saturn in a good navamsa in the sidereal zodiac and a bad navamsa in the tropical. I thought that my readers on this Facebook page might find my response useful. Therefore, here, slightly edited to preserve this person’s privacy, is the response that I gave to this email.
The email that I sent back:
If the question that you raise were a simple one, then it would have been answered a long time ago. The problem is this; the two systems of astrology are so different in the way they handle the basic astronomical information that it is very difficult to make a one-to-one comparison about any part of the two systems. For example, you state that in the sidereal zodiac (by the way there are more than eight of them) your Saturn is in a favorable navamsa but in the tropical it is in a bad navamsa. Well, insofar as Western astrology uses the navamsa chart, it is used very very differently from the way it is used in India. Most importantly, the mere fact that Saturn is in a bad navamsa (which it would have been for thousands of thousands of people born around your birthdate) is not enough to indicate any kind of major problem by itself.

Second, the whole way that aspects are handled in the two systems is completely different. The system of dignities and rulerships in classical Western astrology (pre-modern) is extremely complex and has no counterpart in Indian astrology. While modern Western astrology is very much simpler (and probably too much simpler than Hindu astrology) Classical Western astrology is every bit as elaborate and has just as much information in it except that the techniques are quite different.
It is extremely likely that both some form of sidereal and the standard tropical zodiac are effective but they have to be treated very differently. The fact is that is exactly what is happening. The problem is that no one has yet been able to relate the two systems. What you don’t want to do is to use Hindu sidereal techniques with Western charts or vice versa.
Also one of the biggest differences between the two systems of astrology is that the Western (more accurately Middle Eastern) systems of astrology do not claim that any problem is absolutely inevitable. In fact neither does Hindu astrology properly done. Indian astrology has a rather elaborate system of ceremonies, rituals, prayers, amulets and talismans that is designed to mitigate the effect of any negative indication. And just so that we get things really clear about what Western astrology is, in its classical form it is Hellenistic, Persian, Arabic and medieval Latin and it is an unbroken tradition (except somewhat modern times) since the Babylonians. In fact the major elements of this Hellenistic/Persian/Arabic/ Latin system were pretty much in their present form by about 800 A.D. Contrary to what you hear from many fans of Hindu astrology, Hindu astrology has changed at least as much or more since then than the Middle Eastern system which is what Westerners actually practice.
A problem! Most contemporary Western astrologers do not practice the authentic tradition even in a modernized form. The consequences are that our tradition seems tremendously inferior to Hindu astrology. But this very simplified modern Western astrology does not represent the authentic traditions of the Greeks, Persians, Arabs, or for that matter medieval astrologers writing in Latin in the Middle Ages.
I am not saying that this ancient Middle Eastern tradition does not require modernizing but that modernization cannot fly in the face of the authentic tradition. Rather it must explain it in a larger context so that a new astrology, more appropriate to the twenty-first century, can be built solidly on the foundations of the old. I am happy to say that this is exactly what is happening.
So let me say this to answer your question finally. The tropical zodiac used in the context of the authentic Middle Eastern tradition intelligently modernized is every bit as effective as the sidereal zodiac used in the authentic Indian tradition. So the answer to your statement, that they cannot both be true, is actually not correct. I do not know if they are equally true, but I do have to say that, properly used, they seem equally effective."


 
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