Solunars by Aldebaran Sidereal Academy

Cyril Fagan’s last major exploration and innovation, occupying much of his writing for the last years of his life, was the novien chart, also called the novienic equivalent. In the immediate aftermath of his passing (especially after the posthumous release of his final book, Astrological Origins), the novien fired the imagination of the Sidereal community for a time. However, little has been done in the intervening decades to develop his initial ideas further.

Enough new work has been done, though, to authenticate the novien as a legitimate framework disclosing previously unsuspected things about the structure of astrological fundamentals like signs and aspects. Ultimately, the novien’s most important contribution may be giving us this deeper view into the structure of things.

Additionally, the novien may have practical value as a virtual second horoscope, although the scope of its practical value in this regard has not yet been firmly established.

This thread will include a few cogent points on things I feel confident we have confirmed about the novien plus discussion of things we do not know for sure: speculations, questions, possibilities, and matters requiring future exploration.

Cyril Fagan chose the name novien from the Latin noviens, meaning “nine times.”

The novien framework postulates that the zodiac is replicated nine times within itself. That is, within the 360° from 0° Taurus to 30° Aries, the same Taurus-to-Aries structure repeats every 40° (one-ninth of the circle).

This zodiac replicated within the zodiac can be thought of as fractal self-replication (self-similarity or, in this case, self-invariance), also called unfolding symmetry. Like the simpler idea of symmetry mentioned with regard to midpoints, iterative self-similarity exists abundantly in nature, including the branching patterns of blood vessels, pulmonary vessels, and neurons in the human body, the structure of DNA, or the shape of eroding coastlines and lake shores.

With the full zodiac replicated every 40°, each sub-sign (called a novien) occupies one-twelfth of the 40° range (40°/12 = 3°20'). Each constellation has nine such sub-signs (30°/9 = 3°20'). Since both the zodiac and the novien sub-zodiac begin at 0° Taurus, the sub-divisions of Taurus are:
Gemini continues with Aquarius through Libra segments, Cancer with Scorpio through Cancer noviens, and Leo with Leo through Aries. Three twelve-part cycles complete in each 120°, so that the pattern starts again (with a Taurus novien) at 0° Virgo and 0° Capricorn.

Keep in mind that the first novien of every sign is the Hub constellation of the same triplicity; e.g., Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn all begin with a Taurus novien. A table near the end of this thread gives a complete novien map around the zodiac.

A novien chart, then, is a new horoscope-like chart calculated by multiplying the celestial longitude of each planet by nine to get a new longitude. You may recognize this as an example of a harmonic chart: A novien chart is exactly the same as a ninth harmonic chart, provided you measure the zodiac (begin your multiplication) from 0° Taurus instead of the 0° Aries starting point favored by Tropical astrologers.

Historic roots of the novien, though, are in an important Indian astrology technique called the navamsa. Navamsa means “one-ninth part.” Indian astrology relies on many -amsa (“parts”) sub-charts, most of which are also harmonic charts. Collectively, these sub-schemes are called vargas (“divisions”). Of the sixteen common vargas, the navamsa is widely revered in India as the most important, ranking equal (or nearly equal) to the root natal horoscope itself. Usually the navamsa is shown side-by-side with the radix.

India’s zodiac has begun with Aries (like the modern Tropical zodiac) since at least the 6th century CE – probably a few centuries earlier – even though the earliest Indian zodiac began with Taurus. Therefore, India’s traditional navamsa series starts from 0° Aries as well. With Aries as the first sign, Aries’ nine sub-signs would be Aries through Sagittarius. Taurus would then continue with Capricorn through Virgo navamsas, whereas Taurus’ nine noviens are Taurus through Capricorn.

Navamsa placements are always 120° earlier than the corresponding novien placements. This makes a dramatic difference in practice!

K.M. Kharegat was a highly respected Indian astrologer, a frequent contributor to Spica, and a good friend of Cyril Fagan.

Sri Kharegat had tried unsuccessfully to persuade Fagan to examine the navamsa chart that Indian astrologers esteem so highly. Though Fagan had looked at the navamsa in passing, he had not been impressed. It also struck him as questionable in principle. As he wrote in Astrological Origins:

Not without sound reason, this writer has always looked askance at all forms of schematism in astrology as being highly unscientific and superstitious, for which reason he also was prejudiced against the Hindu Navamsa charts and other micro-zodiacs.

Around 1968, Kharegat renewed his efforts to engage Fagan’s interest in the subject. Out of his considerable respect for his colleague, Fagan decided to have another look.

As he prepared to dive into the topic anew, Fagan – who by then lived in Tucson near the American Astrology offices – asked Donald Bradley for any opinions he might have on the topic. As Fagan reported the incident, Bradley nonchalantly suggested that, if there were anything to the navamsa, it should start from 0° Taurus like every original zodiac. Fagan later wrote,

Without realizing it, [Bradley’s] casual remark led to the unearthing of the long lost kernel of true lunar interpretation, thus adding enormously to the understanding of the effects of the Moon in astrology.

Fagan tried out the idea… and, this time, the system came to life for him. He was hooked! To distinguish the new Taurus-originating system from the Aries-anchored navamsa, Fagan switched from Sanskrit to Latin and named the new approach the novien. Based on his sometimes-effervescent enthusiasm during the year and a half remaining in his life – seen in his monthly “Solunars” column, a new section for the Primer of Sidereal Astrology co-authored with Roy Firebrace, and two chapters in his final book – Fagan was completely smitten with the idea. “The noviens are becoming quite exciting and are giving explanations never before revealed,” he wrote to a friend in the fall of 1968.

Why did Fagan write that the novien unearthed “the long-lost kernel of true lunar interpretation”? It was because the novien chart was quickly discovered to be primarily Moon-based. One common approach to using the navamsa in modern Indian astrology anchors the chart’s “Ascendant” – its symbolic 1st cusp – to the navamsa Moon position. Fagan ran with this approach and struck gold.

Across millennia and diverse cultures, Earth’s Moon has been symbolically associated with the number nine. For at least a thousand years, Qabbalah has attributed Moon to nine by association with an idea called y’sod, meaning “foundation,” which is the ninth of ten emanations of Divinity on the Tree of Life. Another lunar association is to the nine months of gestation and childbearing.

Fagan cited even older linguistic links, observing that the ancient Egyptian phonetic spelling of new moon (psd) also spelled nine. “New moon” and “nine” were homonyms.

To calculate novien planet longitudes, multiply each planet’s absolute longitude (its distance from 0° Taurus) by nine. How to do this is detailed near the end of this thread. The chart is then drawn with Moon marking the 1st cusp (the normal place of Ascendant), other house cusps being marked off at 30° intervals. This is purely a method of presentation: The houses themselves have no meaning.

As an example, here are the natus and novien of Judy Garland. While Garland’s nativity is well-known and highly expressive of her life, career, and singular talent, her novien also has remarkable – even astounding! – symbolism for the same distinctions. While the natus already has a 0°07' Sun-Mars opposition and 0°03’ Jupiter-Pluto square, these aspects survive in the novien, fall atop each other, and are joined by other planets. No less than six planets are connected in the novien T-square, with Sun opposite a Mars-Pluto conjunction, all square a Moon-Venus-Jupiter conjunction. Furthermore, that novien T-square falls atop Jupiter-Pluto-Ascendant in her natus.
Although the novien most vividly plays up the positives of her life, it also speaks to many of the negatives. In particular, Mars-Pluto fits her temperament and her recurring burn-out episodes. Mars-Pluto’s square to Moon is the only straightforward sign of her substance abuse issues (even more so if the Gemini-Virgo sign placements are considered, though novien sign placements are controversial). So important a detail as her substance abuse history is surprisingly hard to see in her conventional nativity.

Only planets are included in the novien chart. Novienic equivalents of Midheaven and Ascendant are not included. This is contrary to practice in India, where navamsa Ascendant is considered important. Nonetheless, both practical and theoretical reasons demand this point of practice.

Regarding theory, remember that the major angles are the great circles of the horizon and meridian, not discrete ecliptical points. Ascendant, for example, is half of the horizon, which has all the longitudes of half the zodiac. (This is true of all the major angles.) Furthermore, angles do not make aspects – they are locations, not points – and including them in the novien (or any harmonic chart) would lead us to think they made any number of aspects (e.g., every 10° multiple in the circle).

The practical, empirical considerations are more to the point, though: Ascendant and Midheaven contacts in the novien do not work. I have seen too many cases where they give visibly wrong descriptions. These failures outnumber the occasional random example where they seem correct.

However, novien planets do seem to validly contact natal angles. The theoretical justification is clear if novien positions are ecliptic points with no celestial latitude, which always would conjoin the horizon or meridian circle at the same moment as the ecliptic point with the same longitude.

As mentioned earlier, the novien is regarded as primarily a lunar chart. This is evident in several ways, although it also seems that we do not entirely understand the ways that this is true. Fagan summarized his views thus:

…the novien is a more intimate and personal chart, depicting the true destiny of the individual by means of the mutual aspects subsisting between the planets, which are frequently not at all apparent in the birth chart.

He also thought that one’s underlying temperament (“humors”) was shown as much by Moon in the novien as Moon in the natus. For example, in Astrological Origins, he detailed ways he thought that novien Moon’s aspects affect the type of home and workaday environment someone desires. He also thought Moon’s novienic condition affects one’s desires: appetites in all forms, especially sexual desires.

Other lunar life areas seem less reflected in the novien chart. For example, it seems that the novien is not a health chart, despite Moon’s demonstrably (almost singularly) important role in managing the immune system and otherwise describing health matters. It may, however, describe behaviors surrounding or connected to illness.

Nor does the novien chart as a whole or its Moon in particular seem to describe subconsciousness in the sense usually understood. Subconsciousness is not the “lunar layer” intended. The novien chart does, however, seem to have a strong connection to instincts, to one’s unthinking first responses to circumstances.

Novien indications are not lunar in the sense of being infantile. Psychological energies attached to novien aspects mature as the psyche matures, though perhaps they retain a vulnerable innocence: Afflictions between the natus and novien can show deep wounding of a vulnerable psyche.

One striking example of this is the novien of murderer Ian Brady (below), which Fagan gave as an example in the Primer. Moon’s close squares to Saturn-Pluto and wider aspects to Uranus and Mars tell the tale – even more vividly when we add that his natal Sun was 17°36' Sagittarius, right in the mix of that heavy affliction pattern.
I strongly suspect a more precise key exists to exactly what layer of the psyche the novien chart signifies and how we can better articulate its distinctly lunar nature.

Aspects are where the novien shines! The novien chart shows new aspects usually not visible in the natal horoscope, or newly combined with other aspects to give a different impression, sometimes startling in its clarity. As Fagan wrote in the Primer of Sidereal Astrology:

It must not be supposed as our Hindu brethren would have us believe that the novien chart is a secondary geniture. It is nothing of the sort. It is just an aspect-vernier. It permits the user to measure micro-aspects that may not be otherwise apparent, especially to the Moon.

A vernier, as few people know today, is a mechanical device allowing instruments (such as a sextant or barometer) to measure fine gradients or fractional parts of its scale. By aspect-vernier, he meant a tool to disclose micro-aspects. This, of course, describes the use of any harmonic chart, such as the fifth harmonic to more easily display quintiles.

Since the novien multiples all planet positions by nine, gaps between planets are also magnified ninefold. Because 360°/9 = 40°, every multiple of 40° in the horoscope is equal to a conjunction in the novien. Similarly, every odd-numbered multiple of 20° in the horoscope becomes an opposition in the novien (180°/9 = 20°). Every odd 10° multiple becomes a square (90°/9 = 10°).

Every 10° separation in the horoscope becomes either a conjunction, opposition, or square in the novien.

Exceedingly close conjunctions, oppositions, and squares in the horoscope remain conjunctions, oppositions, and squares in the novien. Similarly, a trine (3 x 40°) becomes a conjunction; a sextile (3 x 20°) becomes an opposition.

How close is “exceedingly”? For reasons elaborated below, this means less than 1° orbs. Look back at Judy Garland’s charts (above): Her 0°07' Sun-Mars opposition (multiply its orb by nine) becomes a 1°02' novien Sun-Mars opposition, still quite strong; while her 0°58' Moon-Mercury opposition, also multiplied by nine, becomes a wide (8°43', Class 3) opposition.

Other aspects in Garland’s novien are not immediately obvious from the horoscope until you learn how to look for them. Take, for example, her 0°12' novien Venus-Jupiter conjunction. Since every 10° in the horoscope becomes a major hard aspect in the novien, you can anticipate this aspect from her natus by noting Venus at 25°22' Gemini and Jupiter at 15°20' Virgo: 25° of any sign is some 10°-multiple aspect with 5°, 15°, or 25° of any sign, so Garland’s Venus and Jupiter were 0°02' from an exact 10°-series aspect. (They are 80° apart.)

Many Sidereal astrologers became quite good at sight-reading these aspects off the face of a chart without calculating a full novien chart to see them. Though there is more to the novien than these 10°-series micro-aspects, we gain advantage by learning to recognize them.

As an example, take all of Garland’s planets, ignore the sign, and drop the first digit (if the longitude is 10° or more in its sign), building this table:
This list, called a 10° sort, is functionally the same as a 10° dial. You can instantly see 10°-multiple aspects (novien conjunctions, oppositions, and squares). Compare the long list of 5°-something longitudes to the same planets’ positions in Garland’s novien chart. In practice, you do not need to compile a sort once you learn to instantly recognize 10°-multiple aspects.

I find it insightful that Charles Carter wrote, more than 40 years before the Novien appeared:

…I am personally convinced that all exact 10° angles constitute aspects, probably of a neutral character but in this respect varying much with the essential natures and conditions of the bodies concerned.

I consider only conjunctions, oppositions, and squares in the novien. These may be natural sub-harmonics of a 40° or 20° series of aspects. Many of these will be very close conjunctions, oppositions, and squares of the root horoscope. Some of the conjunctions and oppositions will derive from very close trines and sextiles (one of the explanations for why partile trines and sextiles often behave more like hard aspects). The rest will be “new” (i.e.,
unsuspected) aspects in the 10° series.

After initially considering trines and sextiles valid in a novien chart, I long ago abandoned them. They are not simply too weak to matter: Quite often, they are wholly contradictory to a person’s nature. I have seen too many examples of grossly wrong (wrongly descriptive) novien trines and sextiles. I suspect they are not part of the novien (9th harmonic) framework – not in that “universe,” so to speak. (If they viably existed, they would mark noteworthy aspects every 6 2/3° around the circle.)

Aspects within the novien seem to have the same orbs as aspects within the radix. As expected, Class 1 aspects are the most reliable, Class 2 aspects are generally serviceable, and Class 3 aspects rarely warrant attention. If you wish to read novien aspects, instead, as 10° multiples in the radix, then you must divide the usual orbs by nine. If you use the suggested 3°00', 6°00', and 9°00' boundaries for the three aspect classes, then, to read 10° multiples in the horoscope, you need to use one-ninth of these orbs, or 0°20', 0°40', and 1°00'.

As you can see, these are quite tiny aspects in the framework of the root horoscope (radix).

Using the novien as a harmonic chart to identify obscure micro-aspects is one thing; but novien planets also appear to make valid aspects with planets in the radix.

This was initially disconcerting. It is hard to explain theoretically and seems to require that novien longitudes are objective in the same sense that the usual planet longitudes are objective positions. Perhaps the explanation is that the novien framework is indeed a fractal of the zodiac with some sort of entanglement between a zodiacal position and its fractal-zodiac counterparts. This is pure conjecture, of course – thinking aloud. We can demonstrate (objectively, statistically) that this sort of inter-framework aspect seems to exist, though it is not easy to explain why.

One example of this effect was mentioned when showing Ian Brady’s novien chart earlier. While his Moon-Mars-Saturn-Pluto novien configuration is potent by itself, his natal Sun also closely configures them, intensifying the pattern further and linking it to his ego core.

I limit myself to Class 1 conjunctions, oppositions, and squares between novien and natus planets. Perhaps wider aspects are justified, although, with wider orbs, we enter the terrain of far too many aspects. In any case, closer orbs will produce the strongest effects and are a better basis for testing the novien’s efficacy.

Perhaps my own novien will serve as an example. The wheel above has my novien in the outer ring (Moon placed at the 1st cusp) and natal planets on the inner circle. The most obvious feature is the exact Moon-Mercury square. (Compare their natal positions – inner ring – to see how you can catch this novien aspect off the radix.) Though my natal Virgo Sun tips my character toward Mercury so much that it may be hard to distinguish a separate strong form of Mercury, the Moon-Mercury aspect also fits me well.

Of greater interest now is that this aspect falls with Mercury conjunct (and Moon square) my natal Jupiter-Uranus conjunction. Furthermore, novien Uranus squares natal Moon. While it may be hard to distinguish this double Uranus influence from my natal Aquarius Moon, these two separate Moon-Uranus aspects between the two rings are strong indications. Among other things, these novien-natal interchanges describe well the many stages of my professional life and – most people who know me would agree – my character.

Other aspects exist between the two wheels. Novien Mars opposes radical Mercury. This accurately describes my behavior and particular talents in straightforward ways that the horoscope alone does not match. (One would have to stretch things to see this in the horoscope alone.)

This quality symbolism is common when comparing the novien to the base horoscope. Do we need this additional information enough to justify the additional work? Often, we do not. Sometimes, though, the new insights are important and easily reward the extra effort.

Consider Elvis Presley’s chart: His well-known horoscope describes much about his character and image (Sagittarius-Aquarius luminaries alone go far with that). However, his natus alone does not quite capture the intensity of the liquid sexuality bursting from him and his raw electricity and novelty. (Aquarius Moon gives part of that but not enough.) We see these traits vividly, though, on noting his Sun at 23°24' Sagittarius and Uranus 3°40' Aries: They have a 10°-multiple aspect that turns out to be a close novien opposition. In the novien itself, Venus 19°45' Gemini exactly squares his natal Mars at 19°00' Virgo. Electricity (Sun-Uranus) and sexuality (Venus-Mars) appear in the simplest ways.

Fagan thought novien signs (especially Moon’s sign) to be important: This seems to be what first excited him most when he explored the system.

I regard novien signs as controversial. They may not exist. (I do not think people really have a second Moon sign.) Or they may operate differently because of the nature of the fractal sub-zodiac’s structure.

Historic astrology for about two thousand years has included many ways of dividing signs into parts. The best known of these are decanates, three 10° segments of each 30° sign. The decanate theory is that each sign is divided into equal thirds with secondary traits as if blending two different signs. At least three theories exist regarding how these secondary themes are assigned to the decanates: The theories produce different results.

I never found value in decanates subjectively; then, in 1980, when Tom Shanks and Michel Gauquelin gave me statistical breakdowns of the Sidereal sign placements for Gauquelin occupation and character trait groups, they included decanate breakdowns. Whereas it was easy to find meaningful, statistically unusual correlations in the Sidereal sign placements (for both occupations and character traits), the decanates were worthless: Even where there were significant statistical excesses, they were spotty with no evident pattern and did not fit expected meanings of the most common theories of decanate meaning.

Both subjectively (observationally) and objectively (statistically), luminary and planet placements in decanates seem worthless. Subjectively, the same has been true of all other partitioning of signs I have checked. While twelve equal divisions of 30° (signs) can be substantiated objectively, sub-dividing further has been unfruitful.

Why, then, should noviens be any different? One simple answer, of course, is that they just might be different, that there is something unique about segmenting signs into ninths. (Or not.)

It does appear that novien signs exist as bounded 3°20' segments. Several small studies suggest it. However, the studies are ambivalent on whether novien signs have typical sign meanings.

For example, one useful data set is a collection of the charts of the most romantically important women in my life. With my birth Moon in Aquarius, it has long been interesting that 33% (one-third) of them have had either Aquarius or Leo Moons – either my Moon sign or the opposite sign. This is double the number expected by chance and a confirmation of attraction and compatibility principles already known to astrologers.

Fascinatingly, when we repeat the tabulation using novien signs, the phenomenon repeats: With my novien Moon in Libra, 29% of the women (about the same high percentage) have novien Moon in Libra or Aries – the same sign or the opposite sign. Of these, Libra is higher than Aries, with twice as many Moons as expected by chance.

This suggests that the ‘novien zodiac’ areas called ‘Libra’ and ‘Aries’ are actual bounded 30° areas like the twelve zodiacal signs.

Another study hints that novien signs may have similar traits to the root zodiac’s signs. Of the 45 men who have served as United States president, natal Moon signs form a clear pattern: Seven fall in Sagittarius and six each in Leo and Aries. These three Imperial signs have 42% of the Moons instead of the expected 25%. No presidential Moons fell in Aquarius, the least imperial sign of the Egalitarian triplicity. By comparison, the presidents’ novien Moons do not fully replicate this pattern, but the most common novien Moon sign is Aries – one of those three Imperial signs – with twice the number of Moons that would occur by chance. Also, there was only one Aquarius novien Moon (Joe Biden; before him, there were none). The novien results mostly match the root-zodiac results.

On the other hand – just to confuse things thoroughly - a compilation of 81 notorious
murderers had two natal Moon signs statistically common, Sagittarius and (in close second) Scorpio. Their novien Moon placements also had two statistically common signs, Gemini (the sign opposite Sagittarius, a seeming contradiction) and, in close second, Scorpio (a seeming confirmation).

Cyril Fagan was enthused about Moon’s novien sign placements. In fact – consistent with the seeming fractal nature of the novien framework – he proposed that there were zodiacs within zodiacs within zodiacs.

Specifically, he thought that not only was Moon’s novien sign placement important, but that the novien of the novien – what he called the second novien, an 81st harmonic chart (9×9) – was also valid. Same with a “third novien,” or 729th harmonic (9×9×9). Here is one example from Astrological Origins of how he used this idea:

…let us begin with the chart of Queen Victoria of England at whose birth the Moon was sidereally in Taurus 11°26'… Thus the novienic equivalent of her Moon was Leo 12°54'. Similarly, the 2nd novienic equivalent works out as 17°06' Scorpio. In regard to the fact that Moon’s 1st novien is in Leo, it should be noted that the Queen was very conscious of her status and dignity and never failed to impress that fact on her subjects. She also voiced the opinion that childbearing was a very undignified business! Those who have the novien in Scorpio are frequently born into military circles and inherit not a little of the heroism and the fighting spirit of the warrior caste with its itch to inflict pain on others. As Queen of England, Victoria was Lord High Admiral of the Fleet and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. For a while her popularity with the masses waned when she declined to sign an act abolishing flogging in the army.

In his published examples of novien charts, Fagan usually went straight to the novienic Moon sign first. Were we to follow Fagan’s lead on multiple, successive novien Moons, there must be a reasonable cut off point. In practice we will rarely have a birth time more accurate than the nearest minute. On average, Moon moves 0°00'33" in one minute of time. This means that, if a birth time were one minute in error, the first novien Moon (×9) would average a 0°05' error; a second novien (9×9) could be 0°44' wrong; a third novien (9×9×9) 6°40' wrong; and a fourth novien 60°02' wrong. If this theory is thought credible, the third novien (and perhaps even the second) should be its practical limit.

I would be neither surprised nor disappointed if it turns out that novien signs have no merit. I suspect, though, that they are meaningful in a different way than we are used to thinking of the twelve zodiacal constellations.

Over the decades, as I returned periodically to renew my attention to the novien, I encountered contradictory evidence. Primarily, I studied the character of people compared to both their navamsa and novien Moon signs, curious whether one or the other was decisively descriptive. Rarely did a person’s personality closely match either the navamsa or novien Moon sign using our normal interpretations for the signs. When I did find the occasional “good fit,” sometimes it was with the navamsa sign and sometimes with the novien. I took these “fits,” therefore, to be statistical noise.

Meanwhile, research involving aspects (described below) made an increasingly strong case that the novien was superior to the navamsa. Only when I dropped the expectation that Moon’s novien sign is meaningful could I see this clearly: All other data pointed to the novien’s superiority.

Once I abandoned the idea that novien Moon signs accurately describe personality, I began to notice something subtler suggesting that these signs may be meaningful in a different way. To explain this, I will use my own novien Moon and that of my wife as examples.

My novien Moon is in Libra. My temperament is not at all Libran. I match almost no details in the Moon in Libra interpretation. My Sun is in Tropical Libra and one of the tipping points of my transition from the Tropical zodiac to the Sidereal was how clearly Virgonian (Mercurial) I am and how not like Libra I am.

And yet, while the skills that have best served me professionally have been mostly Mercury skills, I have spent two-thirds of my adult life working in the field of law, first in my own law practice for fourteen years and then – after I changed course – as an information technology analyst for a large international law firm. These have been my most fulfilling occupations and those in which I have most flourished and prospered.

Although Libra does not describe my character, mannerisms, tastes, or priorities, its clearest symbol – the scales of justice – attracted me. Perhaps the relevance is that my novien Moon’s sign provided a symbol to which I was drawn and that has become significant in my destiny.

My wife’s novien Moon is in Sagittarius. Her temperament is not Sagittarian except in ways that Sagittarius resembles her Leo Moon. I have seen her become irritated at any suggestion that she embodies the most obvious traits of Sagittarius (which feel contrary to her background Jupiter and strong Pluto).

And yet, two things that have been central to her life are international travel and theater. While her long involvement with theater also connects to her Leo Moon, the focus on international travel – starting practically from the crib – does not show well in her natal horoscope other than as one form of her partile Moon-Pluto conjunction (need to get away).

Although Sagittarius does not describe her character, mannerisms, tastes, or priorities, its clearest symbol – the upward soaring arrow, unleashed in flight – has been basic to describing her life.

In these examples and others, I notice first that character and mannerisms are not described by the sign. Second, and I think more important, what stands out is the archetypal symbolism of the sign bereft of any consideration of its planetary dignities and debilities.

My Libra novien is not about Venus or Saturn, nor is my wife’s Sagittarius novien about Jupiter. Instead, they connect to such symbols as the scales of justice and the soaring arrow, respectively.

See the list of people with Capricorn novien Moons (in the next post). What a marvelous collection of storytellers! Besides literal storytellers like Hans Christian Andersen, Washington Irving, and Garrison Keillor, we find numerous actors, singers, and comedians with unique storytelling gifts. (If you ever saw Lilly Tomlin in her one-woman play or read Linda Goodman’s classic Sun Signs, you will know what I mean.) As a group, people on this list are not marked by the Saturn and Mars traits of those with Moon in zodiacal Capricorn, but they do share themes linked to Capricorn’s storytelling ancestral archetype.

Some novien Moon examples are simple: Sigmund Freud and Helen Gurley Brown both had Scorpio novien Moons and, with all else they created, their names are linked especially to sex. Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), both with Pisces novien Moons, are the best-remembered pair of missionaries of the psychedelic wave of the 1960s, two fishes tethered to each other while swimming in opposite directions. Judy Garland’s novien Moon (shown earlier) was in Virgo and she has long been remembered best as a young maiden in a Kansas cornfield.

These examples seem to link novien Moon’s sign to a destiny idea – something with which the person becomes associated – likely from being unconsciously drawn to the sign’s symbolic themes.

This thematic association is the one way I see possible meaning in Moon’s novien sign placement. If this view proves wrong, I dare say that novien signs have no merit at all.

Alan Alda
Alan Watts
Albert Hoffman
Alexander I, Czar
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Andy Griffith
Angela Davis
Barbara Walters
Beatrice Cenci
Bonnie Raitt
Brian Wilson
Brooke Shields
Bruce Springsteen
Candace Bergen
Carol Kane
Carole Feuerman
Cass Elliot
Catherine Corsini
Charles Atlas
Dakota Fanning
Diana Ross
Divine
Emmy Destinn
Eric Idle
Esther Williams
Garrison Keillor
Gena Rowlands
Glenn Close
Gustave Flaubert
H.G. Wells
H.P. Lovecraft
Hans Christian Andersen
Hedy Lamarr
Heinrich Himmler
Helen Gahagan Douglas
Jane Goodall
Jane Russell
Jesse Ventura
Jim Bailey
John Glenn
Johnny Carson
Judy Blume
Karl Marx
Kevin McCarthy
King George III
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lily Tomlin
Linda Goodman
Linda Sexton
Lorraine Hansberry
Madonna
Marie Antoinette
Martin Frankel
Martin Heidegger
Mary Astor
Melissa Etheridge
Mia Farrow
Nancy Reagan
Pete Buttigieg
Princess Claire Coombs
Queen Elizabeth I
Rami Malek
Richard Pryor
Rowena Jackson
Salvador Dali
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sophia Loren
Speaker Paul Ryan
Stephen Paddock
Steve Allen
Tanya Tucker
Uma Thurman
Valerie Harper
Washington Irving
William Butler Yeats

If the novien were merely a type of aspectarian disclosing 10°-multiple aspects, this thread would be much simpler. However, as mentioned earlier, novien longitudes are objective – “real” in the same sense that ordinary zodiacal longitudes are functionally objective. Theoretical justification of this is possible, tedious, and ultimately not very important: At this stage, what is important is that evidence supports their objectivity.

One important consequence of this is that natal horoscope planets can effectively aspect novien planets, as shown in previous examples. By itself, this would have been an idea difficult to prove: Too many variables are involved to easily frame a testable theory. Single case evidence is weak by itself. However, the often-impressive examples of natal-to-novien aspects being seemingly valid are supported by other, stronger evidence.

Specifically, two methods proved suitable for testing whether novien planet longitudes exist equal to and in the same framework as ordinary zodiacal longitudes. One of these methods is synastry, the use of aspects between two people’s horoscopes to describe their relationship. The other is transits, an important predictive method in which current planet positions in the heavens form aspects to a person’s natal planets.

Indian astrologers regard the navamsa as especially important for picking a marriage partner. This suggested that either the navamsa or Fagan’s novien variant might be useful in synastry, a word that roughly translates as “their stars are together.” In synastry, aspects are identified between planets in two people’s natal charts.

This idea caught my attention in the 1970s when I first dived deeply into the novien because my novien Moon conjoins my then-wife’s Sun – as pro-marriage a combination as can be. Other single case examples seemed to support the idea.

Decades later in my very full life, I sought to study this idea more extensively. Using the chart collection of women who had been my most significant partners, I tabulated whether my novien Moon, Sun, Venus, or Mars – the most important planets in human attraction, especially in romantic-sexual relationships – made close conjunctions, oppositions, or squares with relevant planets in my partners’ charts. To my astonishment, I found relevant my novien to their natal aspects in nearly every case.

In contrast to the novien, my navamsa Moon, Sun, Venus, and Mars positions made so few connections to the same women’s charts that they were obviously random. The novien passed the test far better than I thought it would, and the navamsa not at all.

Another surprising fact is that such aspects do not repeat as novien-to-novien contacts. Relevant novien-to-natal aspects were bountiful; novien-to-novien aspects not at all. Although I have a theory on why this is so, the theory remains speculative and perhaps untestable. The important point is that aspects of one person’s novien chart to another person’s novien chart appear not to work. This supports the idea that the novien is something other than a simple aspectarian for easily identifying 10°-multiple aspects.

As examples, here are Class 1 novien-to-natal contacts involving Moon, Sun, Venus, or Mars between my chart and the four most important connubial relationships of my life. I use n. to mean novien position and r. to mean radix position.

First wife:
6Li36 my n. Moon
8Li01 her r. Sun
25Le51 her n. Moon
27Aq24 my r. Moon
16Sc55 my n. Venus
17Le47 her r. Midheaven
1Sc53 my r. Venus
4Le26 her n. Mars
20Aq30 her r. Mars
22Sc09 my n. Sun

21-year connubial relationship:
22Sc09 – my n. Sun
24Sc53 – her r. Moon
6Cp18 – her r. Venus
6Li36 – my n. Moon
26Ge45 – her n. Venus
28Sg55 – my r. Mars
22Vi28 – my r. Sun
24Ge49 – her n. Sun

Ten-year romance:
22Vi28 – my r. Sun
23Ge34 – her n. Sun
24Vi29 – her n. Moon
28Sg55 – my r. Mars
29Vi31 – her n. Mars
4Cn36 – her r. Ascendant
6Li36 – my n. Moon'

Second wife:
22Vi28 – my r. Sun
23Sg51 – her n. Moon
14Ta01 – her r. Sun
15Le59 – her r Moon
16Sc55 – my n. Venus
19Ar28 – her r. Venus
20Ar18 – my n. Mars
2Vi20 – my r. Ascendant
4Vi39 – her n. Mars

This aspect collection is remarkable. Astrologers experienced in synastry will vouch that these are among the most common aspects seen between two charts with strong interpersonal (especially romantic-sexual) attraction, though they likely are not accustomed to seeing so many of them together. The occurrence of four Moon-Sun aspects and three Venus-Mars aspects in these four relationships is especially remarkable.

Since this study was circulated, triggering discussion of other relationships as well, astrologers on Solunars.com have come to accept that aspects between one person’s novien and the other’s radix are important in synastry. What is important to the present discussion, though, is that this finding requires that novien positions be regarded as objective in the same sense that conventional zodiac positions are astrologically objective.

With the specific goals of testing whether these sub-zodiac positions are objective points and, if so, whether the navamsa or novien performed better, years ago I began watching day-by-day transits to my navamsa and novien Moon. Eventually, I also added novien Sun.

The first clear conclusion was that navamsa positions were unresponsive. After a couple of years, I stopped watching them. There were no clear instances of transits to my navamsa Moon being descriptive of the day they occurred, and, in fact, there were many instances where such a transit was quite wrong compared to my day.

However, transits to the novien Moon, at worst, were duds. There were no stark contradictions. Many actively described obvious conditions that no other major predictive method reflected.

My finding is that transits to novien luminaries (and, therefore, probably novien positions in general) are not useful in predictive astrology because they are too weak to be reliable. Often no result is evident from these transits. On the other hand, when something is evident in passing life conditions, it matches the transit.

This experiment satisfied my wish to compare the navamsa to the novien: The navamsa decisively failed; the novien did not.

It also adds further weight to the view that novien positions are objective points. A few examples of their effects seem warranted.

In a recent month when I had Mars factors generally dominant for several weeks, I suddenly developed an acute eyelid infection. Though my broader astrological environment was primed for some inflammatory event or condition, nothing obviously pointed to that exact day for the eruption. However, transiting Mars (Mars in space at the time) was exactly square my novien Moon and exactly descriptive of the inflammation, which lasted for the three days during which Mars moved into and out of a 1° orb of the transit.

For another Mars event, about two years ago I had a three-day run of working nearly round the clock on overlapping projects at my office. This is unusual. For example, I woke at 4:30 AM one morning to be at the office at 6:00, worked through the day, then oversaw electrical modifications of our data center overnight – staying at the office until about 8 AM the next day. Conventional transits to my natal chart put a spotlight on me but otherwise looked lazy and relaxing. However, for those three days, transiting Mars opposed my novien Sun. Mars transits to Sun typically show in my life as “burning the candle at both ends” with a risk of overdoing it and burning out.

In April 2020, a few weeks after the world entered lockdown for Covid-19 defense, transiting Saturn squared my novien Moon. As my wife and I were abundantly careful (and almost never left our apartment), neither of us became sick. The saturnian restrictions I was experiencing were no worse than what the rest of the world was undergoing. Then, a few days after Saturn’s transit peaked, I learned that my oldest living female friend had died two days before the exact aspect. We had been close for over 40 years. Saturn’s transit to my Moon described the event perfectly.

Due to retrogradation, Saturn’s transit was due to return a few weeks later, at the end of May. This time, the outcome was less clearly fitting. My wife, our cat, and I took a road trip to Big Sur. We stayed isolated, locked together mostly in our car and motel room for a few days, and managed to have a lovely time on the road for her birthday and our wedding anniversary. Most saturnian were the austere, rugged conditions (imagine Big Sur without another person around). Then, on our last day out, we heard that violent riots had broken out across the country, including near our home in Los Angeles. Our city was under dusk-to-dawn curfew. We reached out to friends who advised us not to drive into town that night. Instead, we slept in a parking lot in Ventura County (about an hour out of town) until dawn, then drove home – on the exact day of the transit – to the thoroughly saturnian experience of empty, desolate streets, storefronts boarded up with large sheets of plywood to prevent looting, and armed National Guard (including tanks) deployed on our neighborhood streets.

Though this experience was not unique to us in contrast to other people around us, it was nonetheless consistent with a Saturn-Moon transit.

It does appear that transits to novien luminaries are valid, though too weak and inconsistently reliable to be useful. That they are valid at all, though, means novien longitudes are objective.

In the second chapter in Astrological Origins devoted to the novien, Cyril Fagan called the novienic equivalent a Sexascope. He outlined his primary recommended method of using it thus:

In the Sexascope, the Moon is the sole significator of the native’s sexual appetite, which is conditioned by its configurations to the other planets in both the Sexascope and in the geniture. It also should be noted that the natal Moon is likewise a sex significator which is conditioned by configurations from the Sexascope.

That is, he saw the relevant astrological factors describing personal sexual variations as any aspects (he meant conjunctions, oppositions, and squares) between either natal or novien Moon and any natal or novien planets. He later clarified that Moon’s novienic (and, of course, natal) sign placement also should be considered.

In matters of sex, particular attention must be paid to the disposition of the Moon and her noviens... Every constellation has its own particular mode of erotic behavior which need not be detailed here but which the astute reader will quickly determine for himself. Here again such behavior is conditioned by the natal Venus and her configurations.

This is consistent with the main points in my earlier report on astrology and sexuality. Applying the principles of that report to the novien chart (especially regarding aspects) is close to the method Fagan described.

Indian astrologers treat the navamsa primarily as a marriage chart (though most also will read it more broadly, much like a second nativity). I do think Fagan nailed down a deeper truth: The navamsa (more correctly, the novien) is not a marriage chart with respect to contracts or practical-legal details but, rather, is all about sex, which he rightly called the foundation of most marriages. The lunar layer of the psyche shown in the novien chart is substantially the instinctual layer, connected foremost to sex and reproduction, which also provides the foundation on which we each build a more sophisticated, mature adult psyche.

New readers of Fagan’s 1969 remarks on human sexuality might be taken back by his language and some of the underlying attitudes it implies. I think it important to remember that social attitudes and language about sex and personal sexual expression have changed dramatically in the intervening half century. Medical (psychiatric) views were that what we might today call personal sexual wiring were perversities – signs of mental illness – unless they fell in a narrow, conventional band. However, Fagan correctly took issue with that mainstream view, arguing – based on solid astrological principle – that personal inclinations are not signs of a damaged psyche, but, rather, are innate from birth and part of who we inherently are.

I will attempt to show here that in this respect psychiatrists are on the wrong path. The natures of one’s sexual idiosyncrasies are determined by the heavens at the moment of birth. Environment merely processes or retards the appearance of the latent photographic image.

Perhaps the most important questions about use of the novienic chart are: Do we need it? If so, when do we need it? How do we integrate it into our assessment of the ordinary natal horoscope?

I believe that the novien is not essential to the effective practice of astrology. I do not consult the novien for most charts I examine.

This may be a mistake, of course.

My reason for rarely calculating a novien chart is that the base natal chart is usually so complete by itself that I rarely need anything further. Usually, less is more, which discourages me from adding a second chart to every horoscope I view.

Nonetheless, when I do want to dig deeper, often the novien is the first place I turn. Even if not entirely necessary, indications in the novien are always as likely to be as true as those of the radix, so there is no harm in always checking it – provided the additional data does not overwhelm. Ultimately, the only way to know whether we need this “second horoscope” is to look at it and see if it suggests anything we missed without it.

Technology, therefore, provides much of the answer. One argument for not routinely consulting the novien resembles arguments for not using minor aspects, not checking midpoints, or not calculating a needs hierarchy list: These steps, which may be unnecessary, take more time and work.

Computer software can overcome this by doing the work for us so quickly and accurately that we think it took nothing extra at all. However, to date, computer software has not addressed the novien very well.

As I write this, we are developing a novien module for Time Matters that provides all the details currently believed valid or possibly valid (including a few of Fagan’s early ideas that I suspect are dead ends). A sample is given below. Novien longitudes (with Moon first) are listed beside natal horoscope longitudes for comparison. Between them is the speed (daily motion) of each planet in the novien framework, which is simply nine times its immediate daily motion. (This extremely useful value has not been easily available before.) Next, following Fagan’s theory, we give the first three noviens (novien, novien-of-novien, etc.) of Moon and Sun, which are demanding to calculate by hand).
In the bottom half is the real meat of the report: The first two columns show aspects within the novien, allowing columns for Class 1 and Class 2 aspects if the user selects both. The last column shows natal-to-novien aspects. Everything relevant is available.

Further research into the novien is necessary before we have a settled view of its value and how to use it. Fagan’s thoughts (and, for that matter, mine) must confront the test of time and serious research. First, though, we need to put this information in everyone’s hands so that those who are interested can experiment.

When I examine a novien chart as an adjunct to the root natal, I check the following:

1. Novien Moon’s sign (which I give only limited importance) and aspects. – Moon’s conjunctions, oppositions, and squares are effectively the “angles” of the novien.
2. All other Class 1 conjunctions, oppositions, and squares in the novien (and perhaps Class 2, especially when these interweave other aspect groups).
3. Aspects between novien planets and the planets and angles of the natal horoscope (only Class 1 conjunctions, oppositions and squares).

Note: In practice, it feels like natal planets are modifying (acting on) novien planets more than the other way around. This matches the idea that the Novien is a lunar chart, showing a deeper foundation layer of the psyche atop which we build our more sophisticated character.

[To be added later.]

Various methods exist for calculating the novien chart. Ultimately, the astrologer should not need to be too concerned with the technicalities: software should handle it for us.

The manual approach demonstrates what is required: Express a planet’s longitude as the number of degrees, minutes, and seconds it is past 0° Taurus; multiply by nine; and delete all full multiples of 360° (all full circles). The remainder is the absolute longitude of the novien position.

For example, my Moon is 27°24' Aquarius, or 297°24' past 0° Taurus. Multiply 297°24' by nine to get 2,676°36'. Remove seven full 360° circles (2,520°) and you have 156°36' or (measured from 0° Taurus) 6°36' Libra.

You get the same result using the table posted below, which is modelled on one Cyril Fagan published in American Astrology and Astrological Origins. In the second column, see that 27° Aquarius converts to 3° Libra. In the bottom panel, see that 0°24' converts to 3°36'. Adding these confirms that the novienic equivalent of 27°24' Aquarius is 6°36' Libra.

You can use the minutes panel at the bottom for seconds of arc also, simply noting that instead of the answer being in degrees and minutes, it is in minutes and second. For example, Ian Brady’s Moon was 25°39'32" Sagittarius. From the table (in the fourth column), 25° Sagittarius converts to 15° Pisces. At the bottom, we see 39' is 5°51', which by addition gives 20°51' Pisces. We can go further and use the bottom table to convert 32" to 0°04'48": Adding this gives us a final answer of 20°55'48" Pisces or (as seen on the chart above) 20°56' Pisces.

Janus software calculates the novien directly. At present, it is the only software that does this. Time Matters will have the above report soon.

Solar Fire will calculate the navamsa directly, either as a 9th harmonic chart or from its list of Vedic (Indian) charts. To get the novien, though, you need a trick: In Preferences, on the Zodiac tab, create a custom zodiac that defines the SVP on January 1, 1900 as 19°59'23" Pisces. Remember that this is a trick. It is not a real zodiac. Recalculate a birth chart in this custom pseudo-zodiac (selecting Moon on 1st as the house system), then calculate the ninth harmonic or navamsa of that pseudo-chart: It will force the program to give a correct novien chart.

Over time, other software surely will include these capabilities.

Jim wrote:

This aspect collection is remarkable.

Indeed Jim! I will take a look at Gayle’s and my synastry with n to r planets when my out of town friend goes back home.