You are of course quite right; most astrologers I come across don't use
fixed stars much, as before computers came into common use, they didn't tend
to be plotted onto birth charts. This, together with astrologers not looking
at the sky and seeing what is going on has led IMO to fixed stars loosing
their popularity. It was presumably easier for ptolemeic astrologers to look
at the sky than interpolate from tables the position of the planets and
hence their significance; to be honest, ancient birth chart calculation is
not an area of my exertise, but it is an interesting area for study.
Although the use of fixed stars is creeping back due to their availability
in software packages, the full list of Ptolemy isnt used by many these days;
some of the brightest stars, Aldebaran, Regulus, Spica etc. may be .
The two stars quoted as in the head of Gemini are Castor and Pollux, 2o
degrees Cancer and 23 Cancer in 2000AD respecively; the fact that they are
still in a pattern in the sky described as Gemini doesn't really matter; on
a birth chart they would be plotted in the Cancer positions, though
presumably their influence would still be as Ptolomy suggested. Any other
practising astologers care to comment?
> Of the stars in Gemini, those in the feet share the same
> quality as Mercury and, to a less degree, as Venus; the
> bright stars in the thighs, the same as Saturn; of the two
> bright stars in the heads, the one in the head in advance the
> same as Mercury; it is also called the star of Apollo; the
> one in the head that follows, the same as Mars; it is also
> called the star of Hercules.
>
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