TAARP - Key Issues - TAARP Sidereal Zodiac

Block 7: The TAARP Sidereal Zodiac

In a meeting of the Dayton Astrology Group, DAG, some years ago, (see Letter to the Dayton Astrology Group in Appendix E of The First TAARP Technical Report.) I asked Nancy Koons, who is one of the best known astrologers in the Dayton, Ohio area, if she ever paid any attention to sidereal natal astrology in the DAG meetings. Her immediate and only answer was, "which sidereal zodiac?" implying, of course, that the primary problem with sidereal astrology is that there is no one standard and accepted sidereal zodiac. The sidereal zodiac per se is comprised of the constellations along the ecliptic as these constellations (i.e., sets of stars) are defined by astronomers. Astronomers, however, do not divide these constellations into 12 equal sections of 30 degrees each. So, it is a confusing issue. In this block I will present a very specific sidereal zodiac that TAARP claims is the one true sidereal zodiac vis-à-vis astrology if indeed there is anything to there being a relationship between the precession of the equinoxes, the 12 signs of traditional astrology and the cultural history of the Caucasoid peoples of North Africa, Asia Minor, and Europe. The subject discussed in this block has nothing to do per se with tropical natal astrology, and it would be beneficial for readers to first review Block 6: One Good Reason Why Science Condemns Natal Astrology. Also, good background readings for this section are:

"Aion" – Carl Jung
"The Book of Thoth" – Aleister Crowley, discussion of the XI^th Tarot Trump
"Magick in Theory and Practice" – Aleister Crowley
"Hamlet's Mill" – "An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth" – Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend
"Book of the Beginnings" – Gerald Massey
"Gerald Massey's Lectures" – Gerald Massey
"Natural Genesis" – Gerald Massey
"The Origins and History of Consciousness" – Eric Neumann
"Angels, Demons and Gods in the New Millennium, Musings on Modern Magick" – Lon Milo Du Quette
"The Footprints of the Gods, The Relationship of Astrology, C.G. Jung and the Gospels" – Luella Sibbald

There are ages of mankind and there are aeons of mankind according to mythographers. Aeons are longer than ages, so in general an aeon is comprised of more than one age. The ages are named according to the signs of astrology, the Age of Pisces, the Age of Aquarius, etc. There are thus far in mankind's evolution three aeons: The Aeon of Isis or the Great Mother Goddess, The Aeon of Osiris or the Dying God, and The Aeon of Horus or the Crowned and Conquering Child. (See Crowley's "The Book of The Law" and "The Law is for All".)

The first aeon, the Aeon of Isis the Great Mother Goddess, extends back into Paleolithic times of 30,000 B.C.. The anthropologists label us as Cro-Magnon in the 30,000 B.C. period. At that time we were true homo sapiens and had been for some time. One of the primary icons of this period is of large, obese women very pregnant with nascent life. One hypothesis is that we could not track time well enough to closely correlate sex and childbirth and so we observed what we thought was woman magically giving birth to new life. Whether this idea holds any truth or not, the idea that early in cultural evolution many or most peoples go through a matriarchal stage in which woman rules is fairly well accepted. Hence, in the first aeon we worship the female principle in the Universe as being most holy.

Next, and starting around 7,000 B.C., in some parts of the world, began the Age of the Dying God. The ancient Indo-European peoples "worshipped the concept" of a man dying on a tree and then being resurrected. Thousands of years before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Egyptians worshipped Osiris, who was killed and torn into pieces by his brother Set and then brought back to life by the Goddess Isis, who is both the wife and sister of Osiris. Attis and Adonis are also ancient dying gods who are resurrected after death. Crowley claims that he is the prophet of a new Aeon, the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering Child, which started in 1904. Since one complete cycle of the precession of the equinoxes only takes about 25,872 years, I am not exactly sure how to designate ages to aeons, but for sure several ages including the Age of Pisces, the Age of Aries, and probably the Age of Taurus correspond to the Aeon of the Dying God, and we have just entered both the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering Child and the Age of Aquarius.

I make the following claim. If there is anything to divinity, prophets, Beings of higher intellect communicating with mankind to help mankind evolve to ever and ever higher levels of complexity, and after 25 years of hard study and many numinous experiential encounters with powerful forces I certainly think there is, then Aleister Crowley is a true prophet in the same sense that Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha are. Furthermore, I think he is the prophet of the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering Child ,and I think this new aeon and the Age of Aquarius both had their birth either at the spring equinox in 1904 or sometime during the three day period of April 7,8, and 9, 1904 when Crowley received "The Book of the Law" from the Being Aiwass. After Crowley performed a detailed and magnificent ritual of high Magick the Being Aiwass came forth and dictated to Crowley between noon and 1 p.m. for three days in a row "The Book of the Law", which supposedly delineates the spiritual laws that will govern the earth for the next two thousand or so years. Aiwass said he is the minister of Hoor Paar Kraat and that Crowley is the prophet of the New Aeon. One of the most fascinating things about "The Book of The Law" is that it informs as that in another approximately two thousand years a new prophet will come forth and receive a new set of "spiritual laws" by which mankind will live for the subsequent 2,156 years. Listen to Aiwass in Verse 34 of Chapter III of "The Book of the Law":

"But your holy place shall be untouched throughout the centuries; though with fire and sword it be burnt down and shattered, yet an invisible house there standeth, and shall stand until the fall of the Great Equinox; when Hrumachis shall arise and the double-wanded one assume my throne and place. Another prophet shall arise, and bring fresh fever from the skies; another woman shall awake the lust & worship of the Snake; another soul of God and beast shall mingle in the globed priest; another sacrifice shall stain the tomb; another king shall reign; and blessing no longer be poured To the Hawk-headed mystical Lord!"

The story of the ritual Crowley did, how he came to the point of starting to design the ritual, "The Book of the Law" itself and a commentary on it by Crowley are all provided in the following volumes of his works:

"The Confessions of Aleister Crowley – This is Crowley's autobiography. It presents a lot of good personal information about Crowley that lets the student more fully appreciate what the reception of "The Book of the Law" and its meaning and purpose are all about.
"The Equinox of the Gods" –In particular it gives the reasons for initially creating the ritual, the ritual itself, and the "The Book of the Law".
"The Law Is For All" – Contains "The Book of the Law" and some of Crowley's comments to it.

Pursuant to the above considerations, I hereby proclaim that we have great, good news to celebrate. We have a very precise data point by which we can nail down once and for all the exactly correct form of the sidereal zodiac. It is as follows. The exact Aquarius/Pisces boundary is that point on the circle of the ecliptic in the line of site between Cairo, Egypt and the sun on the spring equinox in the year 1904 A.D. The remainder of the sidereal zodiac is defined by taking this point as the starting position, proceeding in the direction along the ecliptic opposite to that of diurnal motion, dividing the wheel from the starting position into 12 equal pieces of 30 degrees each, designating the 30 degrees above the horizon at sunrise "on" the spring equinox in 1904 A.D. as it manifested in Cairo, Egypt as Aquarius, and designating the other 30 degree sectors of the zodiac according to their standard astrological positions, which would place Pisces in the first 30 degrees below the eastern horizon, Aries in the next 30 degree below that, etc. Now when I say the starting point or the starting position on the ecliptic I mean the actual physical point in space on the circle of the ecliptic relative to the positions of actual physical stars. So, TAARP's sidereal zodiac has signs that correspond to specific fixed sets of stars.

If all of the assumptive caveats presented above (i.e., the existence of actual "spiritual" beings that communicate with and advise mankind, the actual manifestation of the phenomenon of their being a correspondence between the cultural history of mankind and the precession of the equinoxes, etc.) are correct, then there are only two things that currently concern me about the TAARP sidereal zodiac.

Are we correct in selecting the 1904 spring equinox as the exact time of the transition from the Aeon of the Dying God to that of the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering child and of the transition from the Age of Pisces to that of the Age of Aquarius? Maybe the exact time should be the moment of the first appearance of Aiwass at noon on 7 April 1904. My intuition tells me we have got it right using the 1904 spring equinox.

Another thing that concerns me deals with verse 57 of chapter I of "The Book of the Law" wherein Aiwass tells Crowley:

"All these old letters of my Book are aright; but Tzaddi is not the star. This also is secret: my prophet shall reveal it to the wise."

	Crowley pondered over this for many years as he did all of the verses in "The Book of the Law." He finally concluded that in some sense the Hebrew letters Tzaddi and Hé should be interchanged on the Qabalistic Tree of Life. (Note that by tradition Tzaddi corresponds to the XVII^th Tarot trump, "The Star", which itself corresponds to Aquarius in the zodiac. Also by tradition Hé corresponds to the IV^th Tarot Trump, "The Emperor", which itself corresponds to Aries in the zodiac.).
Crowley/Harris XVII^th Trump		Crowley/Harris IV^th Trump

A consequence of this swapping is that in some sense Aquarius and Aries are to be interchanged. Furthermore, Crowley had earlier discovered that Leo and Libra should in some sense be interchanged because he determined that the positions of the Hebrew letters Teth and Lamed should be swapped on the Tree of Life. All of this is very technical and some of it is explained in Crowley's "The Book of Thoth." (For a more detailed discussion of these issues, see the last five or so pages of Block 10: Why TAARP is Unique) The question is, should the positions of Aries and Aquarius on the circle of the zodiac be swapped, and should the positions of Leo and Libra be swapped? Furthermore, should this be done for both the sidereal and tropical zodiacs, or just one of them and if so, which one?

I will say a few words about this that will only make sense to Crowley scholars who have thought a bit about the meaning of "Tzaddi is not the star." What if Crowley simply missed a comma when he took down Aiwass' dictation, and that if instead of "Tzaddi is not the star" the verse should read "Tzaddi is not, the star"? If the latter is true then Aiwass simply meant "the star" (i.e., the XVII^th Tarot trump) is "not" and Crowley scholars understand the importance of the word "not" and the number 31. Also, if you take the absence of the comma to be as Aiwass intended it to be then "Tzaddi is not the star" could simply mean that Tzaddi is no longer the essence of the sacred septenary represented by the seven fold star, but rather the sacred septenary has a new essence. My interpretation of various pieces of Gerald Massey's books "The Book of the Beginnings", and "Natural Genesis" and "Gerald Massey's Lectures" support this hypothesis. (Again, see Block 10: Why TAARP is Unique for a more detailed discussion of "Tzaddi is not the star".)

As it stands TAARP declares as of November, 2000 that the true sidereal zodiac is as given in the accompanying figure (The TAARP Sidereal Zodiac) which is based on the positions of real physical stars and the Aquarius/Pisces boundary defined as specified above by the sun at sunrise in Cairo, Egypt "on" the 1904 spring equinox. However, we do reserve the right to revise and extend our remarks.

There is one final note. The reader will have observed that if the Age of Aquarius began in 1904 and if an age lasts 2,156 years, (25,872 divided by 12 equals 2,156), then the Age of Pisces must have begun in about 252 B.C., or approximately 250 years before the birth of Christ. So, how could Jesus of Nazareth be the primary prophet of the Age of Pisces? Maybe he was not, or maybe I am wrong and Crowley is wrong and "The Book of the Law" is wrong about Crowley being the prophet of the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering Child. Or, maybe the exact birth of the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering Child does correspond to the 1904 spring equinox, but the exact birth of the Age of Aquarius will not occur until 2,156 A.D. I most definitely go with Crowley and 1904 as both the birth of the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering Child and the birth of the Age of Aquarius. Note that Crowley thought Mohammed was a necessary precursor to himself. He thought that Islam was required to straightened out some of the egregious errors of Christianity in order to prepare mankind for the new message Crowley was bringing.

It is interesting to note that Gerald Massey in "Gerald Massey's Lectures", which was written before 1900 (I think) and makes no mention of Crowley whatsoever, says that the new age will occur around the turn of the century (i.e., the transition from the 19^th to the 20^th century). Also note that certainly Carl Jung and Albert Einstein were, next to Crowley, the greatest contributors to the evolution of thought in the western world in the 20^th century. Jung was 29 in 1904 and the ideas representing his greatest contribution, that of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, were hot in his head. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity was published in 1905 and his General Theory of Relativity was published in 1917. One other item is that in "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross" John M. Allegro, based on his careful and long term study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, says that the real initiator of the Christian phenomenon was a Teacher of Righteousness that lived much earlier than Jesus of Nazareth.

In accord with the considerations given above, Glenn Johnson has modified his astrological software so that he can run the sidereal option in the Time Cycles, Inc. IO software, manipulate the output, and produce a sidereal natal horoscope that reflects the TAARP sidereal zodiac, which utilizes the Cairo, Egypt 1904 spring equinox sunrise to fix the Aquarius/Pisces boundary relative to true, physical fixed stars. IO's sidereal capability is based on a different sidereal zodiac. (See Block 4: A TAARP Natal Horoscope Chart Pack for a general discussion of how TAARP uses the Time Cycles, Inc. IO software in conjunction with Glenn's software to generate the natal horoscope and other tables and figures that conspire TAARP's natal horoscope chart pack.)

So far, we have done almost nothing to investigate the meanings of TAARP's sidereal natal horoscopes. I have looked at my own, but have not seriously studied it. My initial impression is that it does not fit me very well, whereas I think that my tropical natal horoscope fits me very well. Maybe the tropical natal horoscope correlates with the current incarnation of the native's soul and the sidereal natal horoscope correlates with the general nature of the native's soul for the entire 2,156 year period of the Age of Aquarius. If this is correct, then surely the sidereal natal horoscope must in some sense correlate with what Crowley calls the native's Holy Guardian Angel (i.e., the native's true/Magickal will), who is, according to Crowley (if I have interpreted him correctly), the Entity that maintains continuity of existence over many physical incarnations. However, if this is correct, then how does it fit in with Crowley's idea that the planet Uranus in the native's tropical natal horoscope correlates with the native's true/Magickal will?

When I said above that I think my tropical natal horoscope fits me very well, I could hear the classical, dogmatic scientist in the reading audience raise his standard shallow objections: "Oh, but you have invested so much time and energy in natal astrology that you want there to be something to it, and you have studied your own tropical natal horoscope for so long that you of course see yourself in it." My response to this is, "You may be right, but I certainly don't think so." Remember that I started out 7 years or so ago as a complete skeptic about natal astrology. (See Section E1.0: Introduction of Appendix E of The Technical Report for the reasons why I took up a serious study of natal astrology.) Furthermore, note that all I have to report at this time (November 2000) is that I am just amazed that I think there may in fact be some real truth in tropical natal astrology. I claim that I am of the true, scientific spirit in that I want to know the reality of the Universe, no matter what that reality is. I am not dogmatically closed minded with only a myopic vision that operates within the confines of a narrow paradigm as is the case for so many scientists, so called. Also, I do not belong to the other fringe of pseudo-scientific individuals who do not demand hard, factual data to support their hypotheses.

I spent four years struggling with my little sister's natal horoscope. I just could not see her in it, but now I can. Am I deluding myself? Possibly! A natal horoscope is intrinsically so complex that to one degree or another it is possible to see anyone in any natal horoscope. Here is an example of the kinds of tests that need to be conducted to test the fundamental hypothesis of natal astrology, which is that an individual's nature correlates closely with the totality of the natal horoscope including planets in signs, planets in houses, signs occupying houses, and planetary aspects.

You give TAARP the birth data of 10 people that you know very well, who we know nothing about, and who are of approximately the same age.
TAARP will study the 10 natal horoscopes for awhile.
TAARP will then conduct extensive interviews with the 10 individuals. TAARP is given no indication of which individual corresponds to which natal horoscope. We have natal horoscopes labeled A, B, C, D, etc., and we are introduced to the individuals only by their first names. Only you know the correct match up between the natal horoscopes and the individuals.
The interviews are carefully monitored so that no literal information is divulged to TAARP concerning the times, dates, and places of birth of the individuals.

How to eliminate give away clues must be carefully considered. For example, in order to eliminate conscious and/or unconscious perception on our part concerning the place of birth based on idiom, accent, and dialect may necessitate the use of only written responses from the individuals to TAARP's personal questions.

This should be avoided if possible because a great deal about a person's nature that comes out naturally in a face-to-face encounter can remain hidden in a written interview.

TAARP will next try to match the natal horoscopes to the individuals in question.
Conduct the above experiment 10 times, each time a different person contributes 10 people that he/she knows well.
An outside, independent statistician analyzes the results of the 10 experiments and renders a judgement on how accurate TAARP is.

If TAARP does good, then it would be a strong indication that there is some truth to tropical natal astrology and that TAARP is fairly knowledgeable about that truth. If TAARP does poorly then it would be a strong indication that there is little truth in tropical natal astrology or that there may be some truth in tropical natal astrology but TAARP is not privy to that truth.