An astrological age is the time taken for the vernal equinox to move through one constellation of the zodiac. Astrological ages occur because of a phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes. One complete period of this precession is called a Great Year and is about 26,000 years.

Overview

The Earth, in addition to its diurnal rotation upon its axis, incurs a precessional motion involving a slow periodic shift of the axis itself: approximately one degree every 70 years. This motion, which is caused mostly by the Moon's gravity, gives rise to the precession of the equinoxes in which the Sun's position on the ecliptic at the time of the vernal equinox, measured against the background of fixed stars, gradually changes with time.

In astrology, an astrological age is defined by the constellation in which

The last time the starting-point of the sidereal zodiac agreed with the tropical zodiac occurred in AD 498. A year after these points were in exact agreement, the Sun crossed the equator about fifty seconds of space into the constellation Pisces. The year following it was one minute and forty seconds into Pisces, and so it has been creeping backwards ever since, until at the present time the Sun crosses the equator in about nine degrees in the constellation

In other words, this means that the current astrological Age of Pisces began around the 5th century, since that was the last time that, astronomically, the vernal equinox occurred in the first point of the constellation Aries. Nowadays, the vernal equinox occurs astronomically in about nine degrees of the constellation Pisces and it will be about 2600 when it actually finishes moving backwards through all the 30 degrees of Pisces and enters the constellation Aquarius.

This conception is accepted by western esoteric astrologers and by eastern ones, although some eastern astrology conceive that each astrological age may be leaded by the constellation sign in which the autumn equinox occurs (the autumn equinox occurs in the sourthern hemisphere at the same time that the vernal equinox, as used in the western astrology, is occuring in the northern hemisphere). In order to understand how the astrological ages division work, according to esoteric knowledge, it is required the study of the major five "Epochs" in the evolution of mankind and the earth (i.e. the "Fourth Epoch", Atlantean, and the present "Fifth Epoch", Aryan). However, this knowledge, as Astrology itsef, is not recognized as valid by current-day mainstream science.

In current-day astrology other dates are advanced based in the astronomical division of the constellations; however, as esoteric astrologers refer, basing astrology in direct connection to constellation configuration in the sky (i.e. its borders) is not astrology but only astronomy assumptions.

Vedic Cosmologist Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet writes in "The Gnostic Circle (1972)" that the Age of Pisces began in 234 BCE and ended in 1926 AD, beginning the Age of Aquarius.

References

1.   , a western esoteric astrology library

See also

• Age of Aquarius
• Age of Pisces
• Astrology