was not his book on astrology, Tetrabiblos,but his great astronomical work, the
Almagest.However, later astrologers, persuaded by the eminence of his name, chose to
use Ptolemy’s star list of ecliptical projected degrees as the preferred methodology for
working with fixed stars astrologically.
This was a slow transition, for in 379 C.E. the unknown author of The Treatise on
Bright Fixed Starsdid talk of using stars that were close to the ecliptic in this fashion.
The author suggested, however, that stars further away from the ecliptic should be used
when working with the older system of the “pivot points ” of the chart—that is, the ris-
ing, culminating, setting, and nadir axes. This is known today as working in parans.
The voice of this unknown author (known as Anonymous of 379 C.E.), howev-
er, went unheard, and astrologers from the end of the ancient era through to modern
times have used Ptolemy’s convenient listing of ecliptical degrees for all their fixed
star work. This list is used in the attempt to gain greater understanding of the mean-
ings of individual stars, which have been allocated individual degrees of the ecliptic.
In recent times, the New York astrologer Dianna Rosenberg has produced fine and
impressive work demonstrating how individual degrees of the zodiac (and, therefore,
by this logic, fixed stars) are stressed at key times.
Nevertheless, such an approach does leave unanswered another question in astrol-
ogy. Michael Harding in Hymn to the Ancient Gods (1992) suggested that a layer of human
projection, via historical events, could be linked to the individual degrees of the tropical
zodiac. For example, it would be logical for astrologers to accept that the events of Septem-
ber 11, 2001, had projected symbolism on some particular degrees of the ecliptic that were
being occupied by key planets at the time of the terrorist attacks. Such a study of the
meaning of an individual degree could only be undertaken if the ecliptic of Ptolemy’s pro-
jection of 1,022 stars were uncluttered. Indeed, while the ecliptic is occupied by the pro-
jection of 1,022 stars, astrologers cannot even begin to consider Harding’s hypotheses.
If the individual degrees of the tropical zodiac have been influenced by the pro-
jected position of several fixed stars, then these positions would be subject to precession.
For example, in the year 1 C.E., the star Algol in Perseus by projection was at 28°27’
Aries. By precession this moved to 26°12’ Taurus for the year 2002 C.E. Such a shift over
2,000 years gives ample opportunity for historical research into Algol, or any other star.
Such an undertaking would help to resolve the question of whether the individual
degrees of the tropical zodiac have meaning in their own right, or have no meaning
except that derived from the projection of the fixed stars onto the ecliptic.
Yet there is the far older method of working with fixed stars, which does not
require this projection. This older method allows the stars to maintain their relational
positions in the celestial sphere, thereby maintaining the integrity of the dome of the
night sky. The system is based in observation and, although referred to by Anonymous
of 379 C.E., as previously mentioned, it is very difficult to reconstruct unless one was
taking observations at the time of the event. This older system is called parans, and
was absent from the astrologer’s tool kit from roughly the time of Anonymous of 379
C.E. until the advent of Robert Hand’s software program “Nova,” published by Astro-
labe in the mid-1980s. In this program, Hand produced a listing of more than 250 stars
and provided astrologers with the ability to use these stars not only as projected eclip-Fixed Stars
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