Vasilis Kanatas and his views on astrology - Discussions, questions

Catch-22 I found his blog:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/…

It´s not active but some citations:

"The Zodiac signs are not imaginary entities as they wish, but existent aggregates of stars and sky regions fully defined and categorized .. But even if they were virtual entities attached to the vernal equinox, then all their predictions, in turn, would be virtual and therefore null and false ."

"There are four fundamental interactions in nature: the gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear. They replace the four ancient elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air. "

He reminds me so much of Jack Parsons, who mixed Magick with Science to get rockets into space.

Catch-22 OK, this is my private topic from now on

I read his book and although some concepts are interesting like Ophiuchus and the Sunspot number, I think his theories are a bit thin.

He talks about the obsolete elements FEAW and to replace them with the forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force. Nice concept, but in the rest of his book, this is suddenly left out. No link to the signs, no mention of it in the example chart reading. It´s like Chekhov´s Gun.

The use of Ophiuchus is actually a good point. The Snake Bearer is not a new constitution and why it isn´t used by the Babylonians and Greeks is a mystery. Of course, in ancient times, numerology was very important and the "ideal" number 12 which was divisible with 2, 3, 4 and 6 which made a "perfect" division in polarity, element, cross, quadrant and hemisphere possible. 12 is also a very masculin number, while 13 is more feminine number, like the 13 moon cycles in a year. Especially in a civilization like the Ancient Greeks where women were not important, and the men had an obsession with concepts like the Platonic Theory of Forms, that a number like 12 could be the standard. My personal opinion: with the discussion to make Chiron a ruler of a sign, in stead of assigning it to Virgo like Barbara Hand Clow suggests, let´s assign it to Ophiuchus, which is in fact referring to Asklepios.

Also the use of sunspots and especially the number of them is something that blew my mind, because it made sense, at least in my family. I opened a topic about it: https://forum.astro-seek.com/topic/…

And then came a statement that made me frown: he rejects the ascendant as rising star sign, since "those little stars are so far away". A few pages earlier, tropical fans were diabolic because they say a planet is in Gemini while it´s actually in Taurus and he made the constellations and thus the stars the cornerstone of his theory, and then they are insignificant to determine the ascendant. So the new Ascendant is just the Moon. No more emotions, it´s the ascendant, mister.

The final blow for his total message was the meaning of the signs. He almost gives a perfect description of Aries: starting point, taking initiative, strength, willpower, holding on,... and then... He says these are the traits of Pisces. Same for Aries: practical, looking for security, resilient, endurance, materialistic,... Which are in fact Aries characteristics. So this is what went on: tropical is baaaad, look at the stars which are almost shifted one sign and then redefine the signs with exactly the characteristics of the old sign next to it. Qué? Kanatas de facto uses the Tropical zodiac which is not offset with -24° but +6% and just renames the signs.

This was certainly a book worth reading because it was someway heretic and different from the mainstream astrology books of which there are (no pun intended) 13 in a dozen. Kanatas fails to make a consistent story and his book doesn´t stand a test of consistency, but he has some nice ideas which I will look at.

Aren Levi interesting, i will do some reading when time is right thanks