26 SIMPLIFIED SCIENTIFIC ASTROLOGY
These twelve constellations are the natural zodiac, and ever in the same relative positions, but on account of a motion of the pole of the earth the Sun crosses the equator at a slightly different point each spring at the vernal equinox, and this shifting point is considered in Astrology as being the first degree of Aries, the beginning of what is called the intellectual zodiac, which thus changes from year to year at the rate of about 50.1 seconds per annum, 1 degree in 72 years, 1 sign in 2156 years, completing the circle of 12 signs in about 25,868 years. This backward movement is called “precession of the equinox.”
From the materialistic viewpoint there seems to be no reason for this shifting of the zodiac, but from the position of the mystic it is not at all arbitrary, but necessary and in harmony with the spiral path of evolution adhered to in both star and starfish, observable everywhere in nature. After completion of each cycle, the intellectual and the natural zodiacs agree (the last time A. D. 498), then a new world period commences, a new phase of evolution, a higher loop of the spiral whereon we are ever traveling towards God. Even from the material standpoint it is evident that the spiral path of the solar system observed by astronomers must change the angle of incidence of the light rays from the fixed stars, and as the angle of incidence of the Sun’s rays upon our earth has the effect of producing the climatic changes of summer and winter, it is reasonable that a similar change
