Astrological age: Encyclopedia - Astrological age

Astrological age

An astrological age is the time taken for the vernal equinox to move through one constellation of the zodiac. Astrological ages occur because of a phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes. One complete period of this precession is called a Great Year and is about 26,000 years.

Astrological age - Overview

The Earth, in addition to its diurnal rotation upon its axis, incurs a precessional motion involving a slow periodic shift of the axis itself: approximately one degree every 70 years. This motion, which is caused mostly by the Moon's gravity, gives rise to the precession of the equinoxes in which the Sun's position on the ecliptic at the time of the vernal equinox, measured against the background of fixed stars, gradually changes with time.

In astrology, an astrological age is defined by the constellation in which the Sun appears at the vernal equinox. Since each sign of the zodiac subtends (on average) 30 degrees, each astrological age might be thought to last 70 × 30 = 2,100 years. This means the Sun crosses the equator at the vernal equinox moving backwards against the fixed stars from one year to the next at the rate of one degree in seventy-two years, one constellation in about 2156 years, and the whole twelve signs in about 25,868 years (called a Great Sidereal Year).

The last time the starting-point of the sidereal zodiac agreed with the tropical zodiac occurred in AD 498. A year after these points were in exact agreement, the Sun crossed the equator about fifty seconds of space into the constellation Pisces. The year following it was one minute and forty seconds into Pisces, and so it has been creeping backwards ever since, until at the present time the Sun crosses the equator in about nine degrees in the constellation Pisces. It will thus be about 600 years before it actually crosses the celestial equator in the constellation Aquarius.

In other words, this means that the current astrological Age of Pisces began around the 5th century, since that was the last time that, astronomically, the vernal equinox occurred in the first point of the constellation Aries. Nowadays, the vernal equinox occurs astronomically in about nine degrees of the constellation Pisces and it will be about 2600 when it actually finishes moving backwards through all the 30 degrees of Pisces and enters the constellation Aquarius.

Vedic Cosmologist Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet writes in "The Gnostic Circle (1972)" that the Age of Pisces began in 234 BCE and ended in 1926 AD, beginning the Age of Aquarius.

Astrological age - see also

Gnostic circle

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Astrological age", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki