The Zodiac Signs Debate

Woh… Suddenly, my sleepy blog was awaken by a stampede of anxious people today. Poor souls, they had just discovered “rudely” that they may have been following the wrong zodiac sign readings all these years.

Yes, I am referring to the 13th Zodiac Sign – Ophichus.

It is nothing new for I have blogged about it in 2009 last year. I have learnt about Ophichus or Serpentarius from the History channel. They mentioned that there are actually 13 Zodiac signs instead of 12 in their documentary show - Nostradamus’ Lost Book.

One official explanation on why Ophichus was excluded from the current zodiac signs chart because it was not in the natural southerly path of the 12 major constellations hence it is awkward to promote it as part of natural universal precession.

I was still oblivious to the global outcry until I read many of my friends twitting on Facebook that their zodiac sign had changed. Then, my blog’s feedjit recorded a visitor clocking in every 30 seconds. This kind of attention on my humble blog was unprecedented.

Apparently, this current interest on zodiac signs was brought up by Minneapolis astronomy instructor Parke Kunkle, who wrote in an US paper - the Star Tribune - that our understanding on the current zodiac signs system was wrong. It was off by a month. (For details, read here)

Immediately, his claim sparkled off a debate. Some opposing astronomers rebutted that his calculation was wrong.

CNN’s Jason Hanna explained that the news was nothing new. There had always been two zodiacs, namely tropical zodiac and sidereal zodiac.

Western astrology adheres to tropical zodiac which is fixed to seasons. Ophichus is part of the sidereal zodiac, which is fixed to constellations and is followed more in the East. (For more details, read here)

He wrote “If you considered yourself a Cancer under the tropical zodiac last week, you're still a Cancer under the same zodiac this week.”

Looking at things, this debate might still be around for quite a while.

Both news article brought up a rather funny trend which caught my attention– many people were upset over the news. I can understand why they reacted. It is almost like raising a child till they are of age and only to discover that he/she was not really yours but somebody else’s - people felt cheated.

Specifically highlighted were people who had tattooed their zodiac signs on themselves. Upon learning that the zodiac signs are not accurate, they freaked out.

Hmm, I reckoned there is one immediate lesson that we can all draw from this debate – zodiac signs should be treated like lover’s name, they should never be tattooed onto your body. 

:P

What were your thoughts? Share with me under comments.

Ps: After all these debates, no one explained what were the characteristic or personalities of Ophichus or Serpentarius… Can someone enlighten us??

Read also:

Ophichus – The 13th Zodiac Sign