What Is the Zodiac? (Garth Allen)

[Jim Eshelman]

WHAT IS THE ZODIAC?
from "Pow Wow Corner," by Garth Allen, reprinted in American Astrology September 1978

The stars and traditional constellations are not at all germane to the structure of the sidereal zodiac. The most basic things are often the most difficult to describe in elementary terms, but we'll try. Let's begin with the physics of the pendulum. The reason the swinging-plane of a pendulum gradually rotates as the hours of a day pass by is that its mass in motion is beholden to the rest of the universe and not to the immediate environment or to you, the observer of the phenomenon. The friction-free pendulum keeps swinging in the same direction, with respect to the stars in their entirety, and the apparent rotation of this direction is due to the turning of the Earth on its axis. The pendulum ignores terrestrial rotation in favor of the totality of mass within the whole universe.

In fact, anything and everything in motion moves within the frame of reference of the universe as a whole. There are now thousands of artificial satellites revolving around the Earth. If one of them, for example, is seen to pass overhead, a few hours later it will cross your sky considerably to the west of the zenith. It has not changed the plane in which it revolves, but you on the surface of the Earth have changed position with respect to the orbital plane of the body.

Within our Machian** cosmos, anything and everything in motion moves only in terms of sidereal space, by which is meant the total distribution of matter throughout the continuum of the universe. When you twirl an object on a string around your head, the centrifugal pull away from you, more intense the faster the motion, is the net result of all the matter in existence tugging at the object from all directions.
[** - You can read about Mach's Principle here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach%27s_principle - it is quite relevant to the nature of the Sidereal zodiac. - JAE]

Take a toy gyroscope and hold it while it is spinning. It will fiercely resist any of your efforts to shift its angular position, because it is directionally locked to all the stars and galaxies existing throughout space-time. Gyrocompasses in modern aircraft and ocean-going vessels keep perfect track of directions free of even magnetic interference by virtue of this same sidereal principle. Nothing in space, no pebble and no planet, knows anything about the vernal equinox, for instance, or any other imaginary parameter of the ambient.

All existence is geared to the sidereal universe. This is why it is meaningless to describe a planet's period of revolution around the Sun in other than sidereal terms. And this is why we state that the zodiac exist in space-time independently of individual stars, and certainly independently of cultural artifices like constellation-visualizing. The divisions of the sidereal zodiac are similar to the planes of crystallization within a mineral - from every point of observation within the crystal, the directional planes are the same to the observer who always seems to be at the center of the molecular lattice.

The artifices of ancient culture provide us with handy names and definitions of the structure and functions of the zodiac as used in astrology. But the zodiac still would be there whether there was a human being around to label its parts and interpret its contents. And the zodiac still would be there quite intact as the natural "grain" of space-time, even if there weren't a single star outside the solar system bright enough to earn a name and accumulate a traditional significance.

For all practical purposes, however, one may legitimately refer to constellations when speaking of the sectors of the sidereal zodiac - but these are not to be taken literally as the classical figures. It has been established beyond question that the civilizations which originated the zodiacal concept considered the divisions of the zodiac to be exactly 30° (or six pentades) in width, and that these divisions themselves, rather than the happenstance star arrangements within them, are the astrologically viable signs.

Knowledge along this line is so readily accessible, it is a mystery why there are so many astrological writers and self-proclaimed teachers who continue to exhibit ignorance by confusing what is popularly called "constellations," as reorganized by the International Astronomical Union into meaningless areas bounded by right ascension and declination, with the astrologically valid structuring of the celestial sphere. It is not a question of differences of opinion; it is a matter of knowing what one is talking about.

From astrology's earliest formalization, the conspicuous groups of the brighter stars which have visual appeal have not been essential to the actual makeup of the zodiac. The manner in which the sky was anciently divided alone proves this. This is why we deplore the widespread amount of misinformation one can encounter in connection with this subject - even some of the most enthusiastic devotees of sidereal astrology tend to think of their zodiac more in terms of nighttime vistas and Renaissance woodcuts than in terms of astronomical and historical realities!

[Jim Eshelman]

It is not a question of differences of opinion; it is a matter of knowing what one is talking about.

I feel a needlepoint pillow coming on.

[Jim Eshelman]

Earlier from the anonymous pen of Donald Bradley (Garth Allen) in the October 1973 issue of American Astrology.

...the hardest thing for astrological students to get straight Is the fact that there is no true connection between classical or aboriginal star patters and the structural divisions of the sidereal zodiac. There is no question but that from the very inception of astrology as a formal body of lore and/or knowledge, the zodiacal divisions were distinctly 30° or six pentades in width...

The individual stars and star patterns come and go, via different rates of stellar evolution and orbital velocities within our neighborhood of the galaxy, but the zodiac itself as a kind of great cell in space "goes on forever," so to speak. Many of the brightest stars, and such features as the Pleiades, for instance, were not even in existence in the apparent sky of early hominids. The true zodiac is essential Machian rather than visually stellar [emphasis added]; it simply could not be otherwise...

Of the many possible meanings of "Machian," I think, in this case, he means it is holistic, which, among many other implications, expresses the determination of patterns of the macrocosm in microcosm.

[Jim Eshelman]

Saying the same thing differently:

By “the zodiac,” we mean all of space itself (the universe). Signs are equal partitions of space with boundaries at 30° intervals, the celestial sphere segmented into 12 equally sized zones perpendicular to Earth’s orbital plane. With this simple definition, the form of the zodiac (or space) resembles the internal symmetrical lattice of a crystal that appears the same from every point within it (every center) and at any viewing angle.

Because signs are sections of the universe itself, their structure is not beholden to fleeting local phenomena. For example, their positions are no more beholden to the location of Earth’s wandering equinoctial points (the theory of the Tropical zodiac) than to Los Angeles street traffic. Though the equinoxes meander backwards (precess) against the backdrop of space, space itself is precession-free.