Useful one-dimensional stereotypes

[Jim Eshelman]

During 45-plus years of studying the behavior and character of Sidereal signs, I've often been drawn back to the following Garth Allen quote from 1963. I've often felt the same:

...the job of untangling the mess (and our own minds as well) from the habit of tropical zodiac preconceptions is far from complete. Even after more than a dozen years divorced from tropical horoscopy, we personally have a dickens of a time freeing our minds from the coloration of stereotypes carried over from our earlier career in tropical astrology. The so-call stubbornness of Taurus or sexiness of Scorpio or fickleness of Gemini were so strongly entrenched in our concepts early in the astrology-learning game that such singsong catch words still intrude on our thinking processes when we endeavor to visualize the parade of "zodiacal types."

As my years-long revisiting the meanings of the Sidereal signs nears its close, I find myself increasingly interested in how to grab the general public's attention - how to leverage the sort of catchy, sexy things that have popularized Tropical sign-based astrology to the masses (like the regrettably popular Elements, sigh). One way of doing this has been to offer simplification - to reduce the long list of identified traits to a terse three or four lines, and then summarize it in three keywords.

But this week (hah! on the exact day Neptune transits my Moon), I'm drawn back to the ultra-simplistic "coloration of stereotypes" Bradley mentioned above. This isn't exactly like the single-word keywords (long abandoned as missing the target) of The New Instant Astrologer. Rather, these are meant to be social stereotypes. Who knows if we'll ever get back to the kind of astrology-laden mingling and socializing of the late '60s and early '70s, but we likely can use this sort of one-dimensional simplicity to our advantage. Here are my stereotyping recommendations (i encourage their use when seeking to engage others in conversation about Sidereal types):

• devoted TAURUS vs. volcanic SCORPIO
• playful & versatile GEMINI vs. rank & rightness SAGITTARIUS
• emulating CANCER vs. discontented CAPRICORN
• stately LEO vs. eccentric AQUARIUS
• analytical VIRGO vs. romantic PISCES
• ingratiating LIBRA vs. contrary ARIES

[Jim Eshelman]

I've slightly updated these while writing the Constellations chapter of CSA.