Page:The message of the stars - an esoteric exposition of medical and natal astrology explaining the arts of prediction and diagnosis of disease (IA messageofstarses00heiniala).pdf/84

80 other ten sections of thirty degrees each, Therefore the twelve sections measured from the vernal equinox are used exclusively in Astrology and called signs of the Zodiac, to differentiate them from the constellation. (For a thorough elucidation of the subject see “Simplified Scientific Astrology,” under the caption “Intellectual Zodiac.”)

These twelve signs of the Zodiac are variously divided according to their effect on humanity into Cardinal, Fixed and Common signs, also into Fiery, Earthy, Airy and Watery signs. What that influence is we shall endeavor to elucidate in the following sections.

The Cardinal Signs are Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn, These signs are called Cardinal because when the Sun is in them he is in one of the four corners of the heavens; at a turning-point, where he is forced to take another direction, In Aries he is as far East as he can go, Cancer is the tropical point of the North where he gives the most perpendicular ray at the Summer Solstice, and consequently the greatest heat. Libra is the extreme Western point of his path, where he turns away from the Northern Hemisphere, and in midwinter, at Christmas, he is in Capricorn at the farthest point South, where his horizontal ray leaves the people of the North in winter’s icy grip. The effect of the