Sabian Symbols

The book "The Sabian Symbols: A Screen of Prophecy" by Diana E Roche, with images of the original cards.
The original symbols!
Dane Rudhyar adapted them to 'common sense', which is something you should not do with symbols. It narrows them down into descriptions and their metaphorical quality will be lost. It is like changing a dream to make it understandable.

I always saw around me that there was truth in astrology. Summer people are definitely different from winter people, just to name the most obvious one. Then I met an Aquarian and read a description of Aquarians - it was spot on. It aroused my interest in astrology, especially in its structure.

When I got to know the Yi better, I recognized a similarity between the astrological signs and the lines of the hexagrams. The yang signs (#2-#32) and waxing moon: the bottom line is 'beginning' and 'action', just like Aries. The second line is the relation to others, like Gemini. Yin signs and waning moon (#33-#63): line 1 is like Taurus 1, line 2 is like Cancer.

But the Yi had 384 lines, and the 12 signs had only 360 degrees. Or 365 days of the year. It looked very much alike - but not quite right. Then I realized that one could not combine a degree of the zodiac or a day of the year with a line of hex.1 or 2. No day (or baby!) could ever be pure yang or pure yin.
The same goes for hex. 63 and 64. They are also pure yang and pure yin, but in this case young yang and young yin. They are like new moon: a total switch from yin to yang, waning to waxing, or of midwinter's yin to the yang of the returning sun. Now I had 60 hexagrams left over - and 360 lines.

And then - which degree with every single line? I thought that the sequence of the Yi might not be random. Maybe it had begun its existence based on the moon-months. Each one around 30 days, and always alternating yang and yin of the same element (or 'movement'). In China they are joined in pairs as a yang-yin pair.
I decided to simply put the degrees and the lines together, both in their own sequence.

There are several series of 360 images for the degrees of the zodiac. I had three of them, but only of two the sequence was certain. The other one had been shuffled around to match the ideas of the astrologer who found and revised it. So I tried those two. One, by Charubel (or John Thomas) did match poorly. But the other one, the Sabian Symbols, by Elsie Wheeler and writer Marc Edmund Jones, seemed to fit more or less. Some lines and images did indeed go together wonderfully. But many other combinations did not make any sense.

These zodiacal images are devised by clear-sightedness. I am always a bit wary of that. For every serious and authentic expression of it, there are many worthless ones. But I don't reject it either. Maybe it has never been proven as true, but the opposite has never been proven either. (Correction: two friends proved it true, one with a pendulum, the other with her intuition)

The Sabian Society has a beautiful website with material on Elsie Wheeler, Marc Edmund Jones, the Sabian Symbols, and a database with 30.000 nativities. And more.

Aries 1 goes together with hex.3 bottom line, Aries 2 with hex.4 bottom line, Aries 3 with hex.5 bottom line, and so on. Taurus 1 with hex.33 bottom line. And then Gemini 1 with hex.3 line 2, Gemini 2 with hex.4 line 2. The yang signs with the yang (odd) lines, the yin signs with the yin (even) lines.

  To give some examples of good matches:
  Hex.62 talks about a bird that says to stay down. The Sabian image for the bottom line is a peacock parading on a lawn.
  Hex.58 line 2 'sincere joyousness..'. The image: 'Contentment and happiness..'
  Hex.5.5: Waiting at meat and drink. Sabian: two men playing chess. (Both about spending time in a pleasant way)
  6.1: Not perpetuate an affair - Two lovers strolling.
  6.4: Not engage in conflict - A group around a campfire.
  7.1: The army should set forth in proper order - A triangle with wings.

  7.6: The great prince issues commands, founds states - A council of ancestors.
  8.3: Hold together with the wrong people - An old-fashioned woman and a flapper (something like a hippie)
  8.6: He finds no head for holding together - A performer of a mystery play.
  Just going through the first hexagrams. I used Wilhelm's translation, because almost everybody has it.
  Another beauty: 48.1: One does not drink the mud of the well - An old man attempting vainly to reveal the mysteries.
  And 48.6: One draws from the well without hindrance - The flow of inspiration.

BUT - no two different systems will match perfectly. Usually far from it. It doesn't mean they don't both come forth from the same universal patterns. They are too big for us to overview it, and besides, nature herself uses the same patterns and her children are all related and yet individuals. No two are identical, even if some come close.

Sabian Symbols

The hexagrams combined with the Sabian Symbols and the Stems and Branches

The Sabian Symbols combined with the hexagrams

Sabian symbols and astrological signs

All Sabian (print)