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Astral Atlas

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53 entries

Western

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Tropical natal / modern Western

Tropical natal astrology belongs to a long textual tradition that was repeatedly revised. Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos explicitly anchors signs to equinoxes and solstices. Contemporary Western practice combines that zodiac with later planets, competing house systems and several approaches to interpretation; it is not a single unchanged ancient system.

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Western sidereal

Western sidereal astrology is a modern Western tradition associated with zodiac calibrations such as Fagan–Bradley. Its defining computational decision is where the twelve equal signs begin relative to a stellar reference. It should not be collapsed into Indian astrology simply because both can use sidereal coordinates.

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Hellenistic / traditional

Hellenistic astrology is represented by surviving Greek-language authors including Ptolemy and Vettius Valens. Their disagreements matter: a modern reconstruction should identify its textual basis. Current traditional revival practice often emphasizes seven visible planets, sect, sign rulers, lots and time-lord techniques.

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Persian / Arabic / medieval Latin / Renaissance

Persian, Arabic-language, medieval Latin and Renaissance astrology form connected but distinct histories. Iranica documents Sasanian engagement with Greek and Indian works and later Arabic and Latin transmission. Scholars translated, combined and revised material; the label 'Arabic astrology' identifies neither one ethnicity nor one complete doctrine.

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Modern psychological / evolutionary

Psychological and evolutionary astrology are related modern approaches, not synonyms. Liz Greene's work joins astrology with depth psychology and Jungian interpretation. Jeffrey Wolf Green's school presents a distinct evolutionary paradigm centered on Pluto, the lunar nodes and their rulers, framed as a soul's development.

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Esoteric / Alice Bailey / seven rays

Alice Bailey's esoteric astrology belongs to a modern spiritual teaching corpus maintained by Lucis Trust. The seven rays are central to that corpus. This is a particular lineage of esoteric thought, rather than a collective name for all spiritual astrology or a reconstruction of ancient astronomy.

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Harmonic / vibrational approaches

Modern harmonic astrology is closely associated with John Addey and later authors such as David Hamblin. Hamblin's own account describes both this development and David Cochrane's related vibrational approach. These schools give numbers and aspect families interpretive importance, but do not share a universally standardized meaning for every harmonic.

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Uranian / Hamburg School

The Hamburg School grew around Alfred Witte's methods, with Friedrich Sieggrün and Ludwig Rudolph involved in its organization and publishing. Witte-Verlag traces a connected publication to 1925 and the English name 'Uranian' to the following decade. The term names a methodological tradition, not just one organization.

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Cosmobiology / midpoint schools

Cosmobiology is particularly associated with Reinhold Ebertin's publishing and teaching. The Kosmobiologische Akademie's institutional history records earlier uses of the name and Ebertin's subsequent conferences and publications. Its claimed research orientation is part of the movement's identity, not itself evidence that its interpretations have been scientifically established.

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Fixed-star / Behenian / parans

Fixed-star astrology contains multiple methods rather than one extra layer of zodiac degrees. Contemporary work by Bernadette Brady uses parans and stellar phases, while other practitioners compare projected ecliptic longitudes. Historical Behenian star selections belong to a particular transmitted corpus and should not be assumed to equal any modern bright-star list.

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Electional / Muhurta

Electional astrology selects a proposed starting time for an activity. John Frawley's account describes a traditional Western practice spanning major public beginnings and ordinary activities. Indian muhurta has its own combinations of calendrical and astrological rules. Similar purposes do not make the two rule sets identical.

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Mundane / ingress / financial / medical astrology

Mundane astrology applies celestial symbolism to collective affairs. Ptolemy's second book discusses regional and seasonal questions, including equinoctial and solstitial beginnings. Later traditions developed further event and cycle readings. Financial and medical astrology are specialized applications rather than new planetary calculation systems.

Cross-tradition

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Horary / interrogations / Prashna

Horary or interrogational astrology judges a question from a question-related chart. William Lilly’s Christian Astrology (1647) contains English instruction and worked question judgements. Prashna belongs to Indian question astrology; for one named approach, P. V. R. Narasimha Rao’s chapter 29 applies Tajaka combinations to Prashna charts. That author’s account is not a universal protocol for every Prashna lineage. The comparison here does not assume identical chart or judgement rules.

East Asia

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Nine Star Ki / Kyūsei

Nine Star Ki is a Japanese-associated cycle practice encountered today through several teaching lineages. The cited original practitioner lessons document a descending annual nine-cycle and related directional work. They are evidence for a particular teaching, not a comprehensive history of every Kyusei school.

Timing

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Secondary progressions / solar arcs / primary directions

Secondary progressions, solar arcs and primary directions are different timing constructions. Secondary progression uses a symbolic day-for-year correspondence. Solar-arc methods shift factors by a selected solar motion. Primary directions concern diurnal geometry. Software documentation shows that even a 'progressed' chart can combine secondary planets with differently advanced angles.

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Annual profections / zodiacal releasing / firdaria

Annual profections and zodiacal releasing are associated with surviving Hellenistic material and its modern reconstruction. Chris Brennan identifies Valens's Anthology as a source for releasing. Firdaria belongs to the broader historical family of period-rulership techniques, but requires a different table and should not be treated as another name for releasing. Decennials, the 129-month periods of Valens's Book VI, are another method, with their own rules for months and days.

Indian

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Jyotish / Parashari family

Jyotish is a broad Indian astral discipline; the Parashari label identifies a family of horoscope techniques associated with the authority of Parashara. It should not be treated as a single unchanged ancient software specification. Modern teaching combines inherited texts, commentaries and calculation choices.

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Divisional charts / vargas

Vargas are divisional classifications within Indian horoscope practice. The received Parashari corpus describes a sixteen-division scheme, while commentators and practitioners differ over some constructions. A declared method identifies the implemented reading of those rules; it does not establish one unchanged ancient software standard.

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Vimshottari dasha

Vimshottari is a planetary-period framework transmitted within Indian natal astrology. Its name refers to a 120-year cycle. Modern practitioners use it alongside a birth chart; it is a symbolic allocation of time, not an astronomical orbit lasting 120 years. Rao writes that the periods go on dividing: each mahadasha into antardasas, those into pratyantardasas, those into sookshma dasas and so on to the prana and deha dasas. Sade Sati, the seven and a half years of Saturn over the natal Moon's sign and its neighbours, is a popular practice that the classical text read does not name.

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Tajika / Varshaphala

Tajika is a Sanskrit adaptation of Perso-Arabic astrology, particularly associated with anniversary horoscopes. Martin Gansten’s critical edition of Balabhadra’s Hayanaratna documents this transmission and the work’s extensive engagement with earlier authorities. The dated treatise was written in 1649.

Chinese

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BaZi / Four Pillars / Saju

Four Pillars arranges the year, month, day and double-hour into stem–branch pairs. The older calendrical cycles precede their combination as Eight Characters. The Hong Kong Observatory documents the cycle and the relations used to derive month and hour stems. Saju is the Korean name commonly applied to the Four Pillars tradition. Luck pillars, the ten-year cycles counted after birth, are described in the San Ming Tong Hui of about 1550. Its rule sends them forward for a man born in a yang year and a woman born in a yin year and backward for the others, and counts the time to a month-opening solar term at three days for one year of life; its own example gives one year and nine months for a count of 63 double-hours.

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Chinese lunisolar zodiac

The Chinese calendar coordinates lunar months with the solar year through intercalation. Its year animal is widely known, but the calendar also specifies a month, day and leap-month status. Modern observatory conversion tables make these date labels independently checkable.

Tibetan

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Element / animal / mewa / parkha overlays

Tibetan elemental astrology adds animal cycles, mewa numbers and parkha trigrams to calendrical reckoning. It reflects Chinese-derived materials adapted within Tibetan religious life, alongside Indian-derived astronomical learning. These layers have their own conventions rather than being automatic consequences of planetary longitude.

Mesoamerican

Modern

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Quantum Human Design

Quantum Human Design is Karen Curry Parker’s contemporary reinterpretation of Human Design. In her account, she encountered Human Design in 1999, studied within its teaching network and later developed a different vocabulary influenced by coaching. These details are attributed to her account rather than a verified institutional chronology.

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BG5 / Penta / DreamRave / animal-plant design

BG5, Penta, DreamRave and the Design of Forms are extensions within Ra Uru Hu’s teaching corpus. They should not be represented as one additional natal-chart preset. The official BG5 curriculum describes small-group work with three to five people; Jovian materials distinguish waking charts, dreaming matrices and nonhuman forms.

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Constellational /13-sign / Ophiuchus

Constellational astrology uses actual sky regions or selected star patterns instead of twelve equal thirty-degree signs. The IAU standardized eighty-eight constellations and approved Eugène Delporte’s boundaries in 1928, publishing them in 1930. These boundaries serve astronomy; their adoption did not create a new astrological doctrine.

Historical

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Babylonian omen and zodiac traditions

Babylonian celestial practice includes multiple genres across time. Scholarly editions distinguish omen collections concerned with king and kingdom from later birth records listing planetary positions. The Enuma Anu Enlil tradition and surviving horoscope tablets therefore should not be merged into a single modern natal preset.

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Egyptian decans / stellar calendars

Egyptian stellar timekeeping and decanal imagery precede the later Greco-Roman zodiacal syntheses. The Met’s copy of Senenmut’s astronomical ceiling records an original of approximately 1473–1458 BCE, with planets, decans, constellations and protective deities. Later monuments such as the Dendera zodiac belong to a different historical setting.

Adjacent

Regional