Fixed Stars

Beyond the planets, astrology has long read a further set of signals from the fixed stars, the bright named stars whose positions, unlike the planets, do not move against the zodiac within a human lifetime. Each carries a nature said to behave like one of the planets, and a reading checks which stars fall within a close degree of orb of a chart's own placements, a sharper and rarer signal than sign position alone.

History

Reading fixed stars alongside the planets is old: Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, the second century CE text that shaped the whole later Hellenistic and medieval astrological tradition, already assigns planetary natures to the brightest fixed stars and treats their positions as worth checking in a chart. The medieval Arabic tradition developed this further with the Behenian fixed stars, a set of fifteen stars each paired with a planet, a plant, a stone and a magical sigil in works of astrological magic, most influentially the Picatrix, compiled in Arabic around the tenth or eleventh century and translated into Latin in the thirteenth, after which it circulated widely in Renaissance European occult and astrological circles.

The reference most Western astrologers still turn to today for a fixed star's traditional character is a comparatively recent book, Vivian Robson's "The Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology", published in 1923, which compiled and systematized centuries of scattered older material into the star by star readings still cited now. Separately from its astrological reputation, the star Algol was shown to vary periodically in brightness by the English astronomer John Goodricke in 1782 and 1783, an early landmark in the study of variable stars entirely independent of, though often noted alongside, its much older reputation in astrology as the most ill-omened star in the sky.

A Sample Of Named Stars

• Algol, in Perseus, astrology's most ill-omened star, and separately the first variable star confirmed to change in brightness on a regular cycle.
• Regulus, in Leo, one of the four ancient Persian royal stars, read as a star of honor and ambition.
• Spica, in Virgo, generally read as benefic, associated with abundance and the harvest.
• Aldebaran, in Taurus, another of the four royal stars, read as bringing honor with a risk of later reversal.
• Antares, in Scorpio, the fourth royal star, Aldebaran's traditional opposite point.

How A Reading Is Constructed

A reading checks each of a chart's planetary and angular positions by degree against the catalogued fixed stars, and names any star falling within a close orb, traditionally around one degree, of that placement. Because so tight an orb is rare, a fixed star conjunction is read as a sharper and less common signal than an ordinary sign or house placement, worth naming specifically rather than folding into the planet's general reading.

Where To Read More

• AlgolAlgol, in Perseus, astrology's most ill-omened star; separately the first confirmed periodic variable star (Goodricke, 1782-1783).
• RegulusRegulus, in Leo, one of the four ancient Persian royal stars: honor and ambition.
• SpicaSpica, in Virgo, generally read as benefic: abundance and the harvest.
• AldebaranAldebaran, in Taurus, a royal star: honor with a risk of later reversal.
• AntaresAntares, in Scorpio, the fourth royal star, traditionally Aldebaran's opposite point.