Everyone knows their own "Star sign" and the quirky personality that is said to go along with it.
But have you ever wondered where these ideas came from?
Contents
1. Sun Signs
2. Modern astrology
3. The Traditional Zodiac
4. Notice something missing?
5. Alan Leo
6. Newspaper Astrology
7. Old Vs New
8. Conclusion
1. Sun Signs
If you ask the average person what astrology is, they'll probably say something about “star signs” or “Zodiac signs.”
It's easy to figure out what your star sign is; you just need to know your own birthday, because your star sign depends on where your birthday falls in the year. For example, if you are born between the 21st of March and the 19th of April, your star sign is Aries.
The reason why your star sign depends on your birthday is because what you call your star sign is actually your “Sun sign.” Let me explain.
At school, we are all taught that the Earth takes a year to orbit around the Sun. But astrologers use an ancient model of the cosmos in which the Sun takes a year to orbit the Earth. As the Zodiac is constructed around the path of the Sun (see below), it takes a year for the Sun to travel through all 12 signs. The Sun will spend around 30 days in each sign before moving on to the next.
Your star sign is just the Zodiac sign that the Sun was in when you were born. For that reason, the correct term for your star sign is your “Sun sign.”
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2. Modern Astrology
In the modern world, Sun sign astrology is everywhere we look, but very few of us know where it came from.
Every newspaper and magazine runs its own “Horoscopes” column, and many people now get their daily horoscope update on Facebook, or in some other on-line format. Jewelery stores carry Sun sign pendants and birthstones, while every bookstore has a New Age section full of colorful books about the Sun signs. Tattoos, t-shirts and coffee mugs based on Sun signs are all commonplace.
The Sun signs are so pervasive that they even form a part of our daily conversations. Scarcely a birthday goes by without the topic of Sun signs coming up at some point, and know-it-alls like to memorize the date-ranges of each Sun sign so that they can rattle off their knowledge on demand. It would seem that we live in a golden age of astrological wisdom!
But have you ever felt that some of the things you've read about your Sun sign don't suit you? Have you ever felt that another sign would suit you better? Have you ever read something about your Sun sign that made you laugh at how wrong it is?
Well, there's a reason. The 12 cute, lovable personalities attached to the Zodiac signs are made up. To be more specific, they're not part of the traditional system of astrology.
Astrology is an ancient science, but the "personalities" of the Zodiac signs were never used by Babylonians or Egyptians, and you won't find them in any medieval astrology books either. Our familiar ideas about “proud Leos” and “meticulous Virgos” are the inventions of people who lived within the last 100 years.
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3. The Traditional Zodiac
We're all quite familiar with the modern descriptions of the "personalities" of the star signs, but most people aren't aware that in the past, astrologers described the signs in a very different way. To show you the difference, I'm going to describe the Zodiac as it appears in William Lilly's Christian Astrology, first published in England in 1647 AD.
Traditionally the Earth is said to be at the center of a spherical universe, with the Sun, Moon and the 5 planets orbiting around her. The circular path that the Sun takes as it orbits the Earth is called “the ecliptic,” and the plane of the ecliptic lies inclined to that of the equator at an angle of about 23 ½°.
The Zodiac (from the Greek zōdiakos kuklos, “circle of animals”) is simply a symbolic division of the 360° circle of the ecliptic plane into twelve "signs" or "houses" each consisting of 30°. 
To divide the Zodiac into twelve pieces, we first create four “quadrants” of 90° by using four points on the ecliptic; the two solstices, the highest and lowest points of the ecliptic circle relative to the equator, and the two equinoxes, the points where the ecliptic crosses the equator.
Each of these four points marks the beginning of a cardinal or movable Zodiac sign: in the northern hemisphere, the spring equinox is 0° Aries, the autumn equinox is 0° Libra, the summer solstice is 0° Cancer and the winter solstice is 0° Capricorn. In the southern hemisphere the seasons associated with these points reverse, so that 0° Aries markes the autumn equinox, etc.
Each quadrant is divided into 3 signs of 30°, to make up the 12 signs of the Zodiac. The Zodiac is said to begin at 0° Aries, and runs in this order:
1. Aries, 2. Taurus, 3. Gemini, 4. Cancer, 5. Leo, 6. Virgo, 7. Libra, 8. Scorpio, 9. Sagittarius, 10. Capricorn, 11. Aquarius, 12. Pisces.
The names of the Zodiac signs are taken from 12 constellations of stars that the ecliptic circle passes through. People often confuse the Zodiac signs with the constellations they are named after, probably because the constellations are visible to the eye, while the Zodiac can only be perceived by the mind. Remember that the Zodiac signs are all 30° long, while the constellations are groups of stars which differ greatly in size - for example, the constellation Leo is over 40° long but the constellation Libra is only 21° long.
In the tradition of astrology, the signs don't have unique characters in and of themselves. Instead, the signs are divided up into groups based on the qualities that they share with other signs.
The most important division of the signs is into the three groups Movable, Fixed and Common. The first sign in each quadrant is labeled movable (or cardinal), the second fixed, and the third common (or mutable). Hence Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn are movable; Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius are fixed; and Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces are common.
This division is based upon the weather in each season of the year, which invariably starts out changeable (movable), then later the nature of the particular season manifests strongly (fixed), and then finally the season begins to share characteristics with the following season (common).
The next most important division of the Zodiac signs is into the four traditional elements. Aries, Leo and Sagittarius are Fiery signs. Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn are Earthy. Gemini, Libra and Aquarius are Airy, while Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces are Watery.
Through the elements the signs are related to the four classical "humors" or bodily fluids of ancient medicine: the Fiery signs are Choleric, the Earthy signs Melancholic, the Airy signs Sanguine and the Watery signs Phlegmatic. The elements also link the signs to the four cardinal directions, so that the Fiery signs are Eastern, the Earthy signs are Southern, the Airy signs are Western and the Watery signs are Northern.
Signs are also divided by gender; the odd-numbered signs (Aries, Gemini, Leo, etc.) are all considered masculine while the even-numbered signs (Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, etc.) are feminine. The masculine signs are also considered to be diurnal, the feminine signs therefore being nocturnal.
There are also a number of less important divisions of the signs:
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Aries, Taurus, Leo, Sagittarius and Capricorn are said to be bestial or quadrupedal signs;
- all of the Common (or mutable) signs are said to be double-bodied and indicative of duality;
- all of the watery signs are said to be fruitful or prolific, but also mute or without voice;
- Gemini, Virgo and Libra are loud-voiced, while Gemini is also capable of speech;
- Leo, Gemini and Virgo are said to be fruitless or barren;
- all of the airy signs, along with Virgo, are said to be humane or courteous;
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Leo and the tail-end of Sagittarius are said to be feral or wild;
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Leo, Scorpio and Capricorn are said to be dark and anxious.
When describing the Zodiac signs, our traditional texts simply compile these various characteristics. So, for example, the sign Aries is described in William Lilly's Christian Astrology as follows:
"Aries is a Masculine, Diurnal Sign, moveable, Cardinal, Equinoctial; in nature fiery, hot and dry, choleric, bestial, luxurious, intemperate and violent: the diurnal house of Mars, of the fiery Triplicity, and of the East." (p. 93)
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4. Notice Something Missing?
Zodiac mosaic from a 7th century synagogueBut wait a minute Robert, I hear you say. You didn't mention anything about Aries showing boldness or bravery! And what about Leo showing pride? Doesn't Sagittarius show a person who shoots from the hip? And what about the famous “sting” in Scorpio's tail? In short, where are the familiar personalities of the 12 Sun signs?!
I hate to disappoint you, but none of our traditional texts describe the Zodiac signs as having “personalities.” The signs are simply grouped according to the symbolic characteristics I listed above (bestial, fruitful, etc). Furthermore, these characteristics are usually only relevant in specific contexts; for example a barren sign would be a bad indication in a question about children, but in other contexts its barren nature would be unimportant. This means that to a traditional astrologer, your Sun sign alone gives absolutely no indication of your personality.
In traditional astrology it is the planets that describe personality, not the Zodiac signs. We can still see traces of this in our language; we call a jolly or good-natured person “Jovial”, which is an astrological term meaning “Jupiter-like.” Similarly we call a person with a very changeable and confusing personality “Mercurial,” meaning “Mercury-like.” Similar terms that have now fallen out of use include “Saturnine,” “Martial,” etc.
In a traditional judgment of personality, the astrologer examines the positions of the planets at the exact time of birth. The planets of the greatest importance are “the Lord of the Ascendant” and “the Lord of the Geniture”; the first is the planet which rules the sign rising over the Eastern horizon, the second is the planet which is best-placed in the heavens. Any planets placed in the rising sign would also need to be considered, as will any planets joined to Mercury or the Moon; Mercury signifies the mind and the Moon signifies the heart. We'd also want to examine where all of these planets are placed in the sky, and where they're placed in the Zodiac.
To figure all of this out, you need more than just a knowledge of your birthday - you need to know where you were born, and the exact time of day (preferably to the minute). You will also need to visit an astrologer who can calculate the precise positions of the stars and planets for that time.
All of this begs the question, if the 12 Sun sign personalities are not part of the real astrological tradition, then where did they come from?
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5. Alan Leo
Although astrology itself is incredibly ancient, the Western tradition of astrology began in the Egypt of the Ptolemies, around about 300 BC. As time passed and empires rose and fell, the fundamental principles and techniques of astrology were handed down from generation to generation more or less intact, until the discovery of the planet Uranus in 1781 AD.
Alan Leo (1860 - 1917)Ever since then, people have felt the need to “invent” new techniques, as though the traditional system had anything lacking, or was in any way incomplete. Over time more and more parts of the traditional system were changed or just plain abandoned, until modern astrology came to bare only a superficial resemblance to the real astrology of our ancestors.
The greatest “astrological innovator” (or vandal, depending on your opinion) was a chap named William Allen, born in London in 1860. He later took the name “Alan Leo” because he felt that all the best astrologers had pen-names. He chose “Leo” to match his Sun sign, and indeed Alan Leo is the man who invented the doctrine of Sun signs, more or less single-handedly.
Leo was really more of an occultist and spiritualist than an astrologer, one of many people caught up in the late 19th- and early 20th-century occult fad. He grew up in a strict Christian family, but in adulthood he became a member of such dubious pseudo-religions as “The Celestial Brotherhood” and Madame Blavatsky's notorious “Theosophical Society.” It was through his membership of these bizarre occultist groups that he first became interested in astrology.
The notorious Madam BlavatskyLeo's most important “innovation” was to place a lot of emphasis on the Sun above all the other planets. His reasons for this were bound up with his religious beliefs, which came from the teachings of the Theosophical Society. The Theosophists exalted the Sun as a kind of divine manifestation. For example, the founder of the society, Madam Blavatsky, wrote in her book Isis Unveiled:
“... our spirits, incorruptible and eternal, both emanate from the eternal central sun and will be reabsorbed by it at the end of time.” (p. 502)
To Leo, the Sun was "the primal fount of existance" and "the universal principle," and he elevated the Sun's staus in his new version of astrology. By emphasizing the Sun in this way, Leo was conforming to the beliefs of a bizarre cult, but these ideas are quite alien to the 2000-year-old tradition of astrology, in which the Sun is just one planetary power among seven. Further, the Sun traditionally can have a harmful effect if it is conjunct or opposed to another planet.
The first book that specifically mentions the Sun signs in their modern form is the first edition of Leo's Astrological Manuals, published in 1909. In Volume 1 of the Manuals (entitled Everybody's Astrology) Leo gives a description of the meaning of the Sun inside each of the 12 Zodiac signs, with no reference to any other astrological factors.
In time, Leo gradually discarded most of the traditional descriptions of the Zodiac signs that I mentioned above (fruitful, quadrupedal, etc) in favor of his own new descriptions of the signs. For example, here is Leo's description of Aries:
“Represents undifferentiated consciousness. It is a chaotic and unorganised sign, in which impulse, spontaneity, and instinctiveness are marked features. Its vibrations are the keenest and most rapid, but without what may be called definite purpose, except towards impulsiveness and disruption. It signifies explosiveness, extravagance and all kinds of excess. Its influence is more directly connected with the animal kingdom, in which life is full and without the directive power of fully awakened self-consciousness.” (Nativity, p. 17)
Notice how this vague, touchy-feely description of Aries, replete with buzzwords like "vibrations", differs greatly from the short and simple collection of characteristics used by Lilly (above). Sadly, due to Alan Leo's immense popularity, this type of drivel has become the norm for modern astrologers.
Leo's readership was at first confined to the growing occultist movement, but in time it expanded to encompass the wider community of astrologers. His techniques were incredibly simple and accessible, and he had a knack for self-promotion which ensured that his work was attractive to newcomers. Today, the majority of astrologers follow in Leo's footsteps; they write in his style, they borrow his techniques and many refer directly to his works. But while Leo's work was popular amongst the astrologers and occultists, it would take the power of the mass media for Sun sign astrology to become truly widespread.
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6. Newspaper Astrology
Princess Margaret, renowned for her beauty.Princess Margaret, the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II, was born on Thursday 21 August 1930 at 9:22am. This was big news, and John Gordon, the editor of the English newspaper The Sunday Express, commissioned popular occultist and astrologer William John Warner (alias “Cheiro”) to write an article about what the stars foretold for the Princess. Warner was unavailable at the time and so the task fell to his apprentice, Richard Harold Naylor, to write an article about the Princess's birth.
On Sunday 24 August 1930 The Sunday Express ran a brief article by Naylor entitled “What the stars foretell for the new princess.” The article proved popular, and people wrote in requesting that the paper run more articles on astrology.
On the following Sunday the paper ran another article by Naylor entitled “Were you born in September?” which described the significance of each day of that month. Evidently Naylor's articles were a hit, both with the public and the paper's editor, because Naylor was soon given a weekly column in the paper called “What the stars foretell,” the first regularly-published astrology column in history.
Naylor's astrology, like that of his mentor Cheiro, was a blend of the kooky astrology of Alan Leo and modern ideas about numerology. He decided to use the Sun signs as a key feature in his articles for the obvious reason that they are simple for the public to understand. After all, everyone knows their own birthday. He realized, like Leo before him, that the Sun signs were easy to mass-market compared with the complexity of real astrology.
The R101 crash was a disaster in more ways than one...His predictions tended to be very vague and generalized (the beginning of a hallowed tradition) but he had at least one notable success: on Sunday 5 October 1930 the Express ran an article by Naylor which warned that British aircraft would be at some sort of risk. On the same day, reports came in of the disastrous crash of the giant R-101 airship, which cost the lives of 47 passengers.
This event skyrocketed Naylor to the heights of fame and no doubt also sold a lot of papers. It was not long before rival newspapers began running their own regular astrology columns in an attempt to compete. We can only assume that John Gordon was overjoyed that his decision to run an astrology column had paid off in such an unexpectedly large way.
It was not long before the astrology column became a regular feature of newspapers around the world. Nobody wanted to be left out - if a quarter-page dedicated to mumbojumbo would help sell a paper, editors were not above making room for it. It was not long before the familiar “horoscopes” page began to appear in our papers on a daily basis, and the bizarre ideas invented by Alan Leo became a commonplace in households all over the Western world.
While the early columns such as Naylor's made use of the Sun signs together with other techniques, later columns focused solely on the Sun signs because of their simplicity - all you need to know is your birthday! Of course, seeing as there are half a billion people for each Sun sign, the predictions in these astrology columns are always extraordinarily vague and ambiguous. These days, no rational person expects any accuracy from newspaper astrologers - the purpose is purely to provide some light-hearted entertainment, and perhaps a little hope that today might be "the day."
The Sun sign astrology moved swiftly from newspapers into magazine stands and book stores. An entire new genre of Self-Help writing was born - the Do-It-Yourself astrology books. The popularity of these books is massive, and is due entirely to the simplicity and accessibility of Sun signs; with the mere knowledge of your own birthday the average person is suddenly able to access the wisdom of the ancients! In time, the DIY Sun sign astrology authors (such as Linda Goodman, Liz Greene, etc) came to dominate the shelves of the New Age sections of bookstores worldwide.
The popularity of Sun sign astrology steadily grew over the years, particularly during the period from the 1960s to the 1980s when the so-called "baby boomer" generation embraced all things that had even a gloss of the spiritual. Nowadays, Sun sign astrology truly is everywhere, like some sort of pandemic, infecting every aspect of our lives. Our fashion, our conversation, our very way of viewing ourselves is influenced in a very real and tangible way by our obsession with Sun sign astrology. Nowadays, most of us are so familiar with the Sun signs that we literally have no idea that astrology could consist of anything more than this.
But, as we have seen, the Sun signs were invented by a quack and are not real astrology. This means that, despite the modern world's remarkable familiarity with Sun sign astrology, we are in many ways more ignorant of the real principles of astrology than we have ever been in the entire 2000-year history of the art!
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8. Old Vs New
Johannes KeplerHaving read this far, you now know the difference between the traditional Zodiac, and the Sun signs that Leo invented.
At this stage, you must ask yourself honestly, can the ideas of a 19th-century occultist really replace an unbroken 2000-year-old tradition? Was Leo so enlightened that he knew better than every astrologer before him? Even if we are willing to believe that astrology works, can the ideas that someone just dreams up on the spot possibly predict anything useful? These are serious questions that every contemporary student of astrology needs to consider.
To state my position on these questions, I will begin by saying that astrology's legitimacy (if it still has any left in the modern world) is in part dependant upon its sheer antiquity. The mere fact that it has been in use for over 2000 years is sufficient reason for many to treat the subject with reverence and respect. And with many of the greatest minds in history, men like Johannes Kepler and Albertus Magnus, lending their considerable weight in support of astrology, the modern student is given considerable encouragement in his studies by their example.
By inventing new techniques and abandoning the tradition of real astrology, this connection with the art's long and rich history is effectively severed.
But beyond a loss of connection with the past, we must also remember that astrology was traditionally considered to be a science that was given to mankind by some manner of Divine revelation. For example, the Koran relates that astrology was taught to mankind by fallen angels:
"Solomon did not disbelieve; but the devils disbelieved, teaching mankind magic and that which was revealed to the two angels in Babylon, Harut and Marut. Nor did they (the two angels) teach it to anyone till they had said: 'We are sent only as a temptation, therefore do not disbelieve." (Sura 2:102)
According to Islamic tradition, God punished Harut and Marut for revealing these secrets to mankind by hanging them upside down in a deep well beneath the city of Babylon for all of eternity.
Enoch - "Then he was no more, because God took him."Likewise, in the apocalyptic Judaic text, The Book of Enoch (c. 100 BC), we read that the Fallen Angels, led by the Satanic Semjaza, taught mankind magic and the study of the stars:
"Semjaza taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armaros the resolving of enchantments, Baraqijal (taught) astrology, Kokabel the constellations, Ezeqeel the knowledge of the clouds.... and Sariel the course of the moon." (8:2)
The Book of Enoch concerns the mysterious Biblical figure Enoch. He appears briefly in the Book of Genesis, in a passage the wording of which has intrigued scholar for thousands of years:
"Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah for three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him." (Gen. 5:22-24)
The phrase "God took him" does not appear anywhere else in this section of the Bible, which led the ancient Jews and Christians to interpret this phrase as signifying that Enoch did not simply die at the ripe old age of 365, but rather ascended into Heaven by the will of God. There, seated above the seven heavens, he was said to have been taught the mysteries of the Universe by angels.
In the Hermetic tradition of Ptolemaic Egypt, astrology's founder is believed to be the semi-divine Hermes Trismegistus (or Thoth), who is somewhat analogous with Enoch, in that he is said to have ascended "to the 8th and 9th spheres" where he received enlightenment.
The story of Enoch, or Hermes, ascending into heaven is also present in the Islamic tradition, where he is referred to as "the Prophet Idris". He appears briefly in the Koran:
"And of Idris, he too was a saint and a prophet, whom We honoured and exalted on high." (Sura 19:56)
Furthermore, a sect of Hermeticists in the city of Harran known as the "Harranian Sabians" were allowed to flourish under Islamic rule from the period between 651 and 1032 AD. Despite the Harranian's interest in astrology and pagan rituals, their Muslim rulers evidently viewed the Hermetic texts as the work of a legitimate prophet, because they allowed the Harranians to practice their religion in peace as another "People of the Book."
Again, it is worth mentioning that, according to some Rabbinic sources, the Biblical patriarch Abraham was an astrologer of some sort. We should remember that he is said to have come from "Ur of the Chaldeans" (Gen. 11:31), an area where we know from the archeological record that astrology was practised extensively. Indeed the early Kabbalistic work Sefer Yetzirah, which contains much astrological material, is traditionally held to have been written by Abraham. Further, we read in the Talmud:
"Abraham had a great astrology in his heart and all the kings of the east and west rose early at his door." (Quoted from The Kabbalah Handbook, pg 395)
I am not suggesting that my readers should necessarily believe any or all of these sources as being true. I mention them merely to demonstrate the existence of a very old traditional view that astrology was gifted to man through some manner of divine revelation.
When astrology is seen from this perspective, the inventing of any new techniques is unnecessary - as a divinely revealed science, it would of course come intact and complete, lacking nothing. And indeed, on inspection we find that there were never any "gaps" in the traditional system, waiting 2000 years for Alan Leo to fill them. Astrology has always been a complete and self-contained system, as is amply demonstrated by the similarities in the writing of astrologers so distant from each other in time as Ptolemy, Bonatti and Lilly.
New techniques that fall outside the framework of the real tradition cannot possibly produce any accurate or useful information, because they are completely superfluous to the real system of astrology. 
Adding new techniques to astrology is like adding useless extra parts to a car's engine - it already worked fine, and the new additions are doing nothing but adding confusion to the issue.
By the very act of inventing new astrology techniques, Leo was proclaiming a belief that astrology was an invention of human beings, and not divinely revealed at all. The danger in this kind of thinking is not that it is "blasphemous" or some other equally ridiculous notion, but rather that it strips away our reverence for the traditional system, and opens the floodgates to any and every half-baked quack to invent their own bizarre version of astrology.
Since Leo's day, astrologers have become more and more "creative"; today there are entire new fields of astrology which never existed in the past, like "Uranian Astrology," "Psychological Astrology," "Shamanic Astrology" and other, even more bizarre, concoctions. And beyond adding in the outer planets like Uranus and Neptune, there are even books about planets that don't actually exist, like "Black Moon Lilith."
If we are inventing our own astrology, what can it possibly reveal to us beyond our own vanity? Sun sign astrology is our own invention, and therefore it cannot tell us anything we do not already know.
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7. Conclusion
It is a nice fantasy to think that any literate person can buy a book from the New Age section and gain immediate access to the wisdom of the ancients – a fantasy that has helped to sell millions of modern astrology books. However the sad truth is that what is contained in those books is not real astrology at all.
The world has been sold a lie. Our ideas about Sun signs and their personalities were invented by Alan Leo, a kooky 19th century occultist, and have no connection with the astrology of our ancestors. The vast majority of modern writing on astrology has followed Leo's example, leading to the practical disappearance of real, traditional astrology from the face of the earth.
Modern astrologers often justify the Sun signs by admitting that they are nonsense, but suggesting they are harmless nonsense which works to get people interested in astrology. I would argue that the Sun signs are in fact very harmful, because they give people a false impression of what astrology actually is.
I hope this guy doesn't read this article...People who find astrology interesting gravitate towards authors and columnists who write about Sun signs, unaware that the Sun signs are not real astrology. It is sad to think that so many people with an honest interest in this art are wasting their money on books and magazines that don't contain any real astrology at all. In what other industry would this be acceptable? If I bought a can clearly labelled "Beer" and upon opening it discovered that it contained lemonade, I'd be understandably upset. And yet every day people unwittingly buy books labelled "Astrology" that contain no real astrology.
To the skeptics, people who spend their money on astrology books are being ripped off. When it comes to modern astrology, I have to say I agree with the skeptics. The Sun signs are nonsense, they were invented by a nut and they cannot provide us with any useful information.
So it turns out you're not a Virgo or a Gemini or a Capricorn or whatever star sign you might think you are. It's all made up rubbish that really doesn't merit the name of astrology. Hope the news didn't upset you too much. Mainly I hope you haven't spent too much money on books about Sun signs - but if you have, you can at least be happy that you haven't got a star sign tattoo!
Bibliography
- Benson Bobrick, The Fated Sky: Astrology in History. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.
- G. Samuel, The Kabbalah Handbook. New York: Penguin, 2007.
- Jim Tester, A History of Western Astrology. New York: Ballantine Books, 1987.
- John Frawley, The Real Astrology. London: Apprentice Books, 2001.
- Guido Bonatti, Book of Astronomy. [c.1300 AD] Trans. by B.N Dykes, PhD. Golden Valley: Cazimi Press, 2007.
- William Lilly, Christian Astrology [1647]. Bel Air: Astrology Classics, 2004.
- Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos. [c.100 AD] Trans. by J.M. Ashmand. Bel Air: Astrology Classics, 2002.
- Kim Farnell, A Biography of Alan Leo. http://www.skyscript.co.uk/Alan_Leo.html
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 3:43PM 
Hierarchy is an essential part of the astrological perspective
Robert explains to another imploring female client why he cannot answer her questionThroughout this time I was becoming increasingly convinced I needed an online presence, to ensure a steady flow of new horary questions to keep my skills honed. Finally, in 2010 I launched the Archaic Astrology website.
