What is the old tradition of the zodiac signs laid on the human body in astrotheology?
What it is
The oldest part of the picture is the zodiac laid on the human frame. Aries is given the head, Taurus the neck, Gemini the arms, Cancer the chest, Leo the heart, Virgo the belly, Libra the loins, Scorpio the sexual parts, Sagittarius the thighs, Capricorn the knees, Aquarius the shins and Pisces the feet. Astrologers call the scheme melothesia. Astrotheology takes it a step further and reads the body as the temple the scriptures speak of, with the story of the sky played out inside it.
The teaching
As the tradition of the Zodiac Man teaches it.
The small world
The teaching rests on an old likeness: the human being is a small world, a microcosm, made on the pattern of the great one, so that every part of the sky has its part in the body. The Roman poet Manilius sets the signs on the body from the top down, and the physicians of the Middle Ages drew the scheme as the Zodiac Man, a standing figure with a sign on each part, from the Ram at his head to the Fishes at his feet. Astrologers call the scheme melothesia. It follows the order of the signs, so that the year runs down the body as the Sun runs round the sky.
The head, the neck and the arms
Aries, the Ram, rules the head and the face: the first sign of the spring takes the first and highest part of the body.
Taurus, the Bull, rules the neck and the throat, where the bull carries its strength and from which the voice comes.
Gemini, the Twins, rules the shoulders, the arms and the hands, the paired limbs of the body, as the twins are a pair.
The chest, the heart and the belly
Cancer, the Crab, rules the chest and the breasts, and in later astrology the stomach as well: the shell that guards what is soft.
Leo, the Lion, rules the heart and the back, the seat of courage and the upright spine; the lion has always stood for the brave heart.
Virgo, the Virgin, rules the belly and the bowels, where food is sorted into what nourishes and what is let go.
The loins, the sex and the thighs
Libra, the Scales, rules the loins, the kidneys and the small of the back, the balance of the body at its middle, as the Scales stand where day and night are equal in autumn.
Scorpio, the Scorpion, rules the sexual parts, and the old figures set the creature's sting there.
Sagittarius, the Archer, half man and half horse, rules the hips and the thighs, the horse's strength that carries the rider.
The knees, the shins and the feet
Capricorn, the Goat, rules the knees, which bend in every climb; the Sun enters this sign at midwinter and begins its own climb there.
Aquarius, the Water Bearer, rules the shins, the calves and the ankles, the long bones the body stands and walks on.
Pisces, the Fishes, rules the feet, the last part of the body and the last sign of the year, and with the feet the circle closes.
The physicians' rule of the Moon
The physicians used the Zodiac Man for timing. Their rule was not to cut or bleed a part of the body while the Moon stood in the sign that rules it, and almanacs printed the figure, with the Moon's sign for every day, so that the rule could be kept. It belongs to the history of medicine, and no one should take it as a guide to any treatment today.
The temple within
Astrotheology takes the old scheme a step further: if the body is a small sky, then the stories told of the sky are told of the body too. Its authors cite Paul, “know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you,” and the saying in Luke, “behold, the kingdom of God is within you,” and read the temple, the kingdom, the journey and the cross as places and events within the human frame. The twelve signs become twelve parts and powers of a person, and the Sun's year a life lived inwardly.
The seed and the spine
George W. Carey's teaching, which later lecturers repeat, gives the inward reading a calendar. Each month, it says, when the Moon passes through the sign the Sun held at a person's birth, a seed or oil is born in the region of the solar plexus, which it calls Bethlehem, the house of bread. If it is kept, it rises along the spine, which these teachers count as thirty-three vertebrae, as Jesus is held to have lived thirty-three years, to the head, which they call Golgotha, the place of the skull.
Its teachers advise keeping those days quiet, with continence, light and plain food and no alcohol, and say the seed is lost in excess. A few days of moderation do no harm; but no one who is unwell, pregnant or prone to disordered eating should fast on its account, and nothing in it is a medicine. Anatomy knows no such oil, and the teaching is given here as its authors' own.
Word-play on the body
Some of these teachers read meanings out of the names of the body's parts. The pineal gland is set beside Peniel, the place where Jacob says he saw God face to face. Such likenesses are of sound, not of root: Peniel is Hebrew for the face of God, and pineal comes from the Latin for a pine cone. The house teaches them as the authors' word-play and not as the history of words.
A map of attention
Used plainly, the old scheme is a map of attention. A reader takes the sign of the present month, finds the part of the body tradition gives it, and gives that part a day's notice: how it carries them, what it does for them, how they treat it, what it would ask for if it could. It is a practice of gratitude and care, not of diagnosis, and anything that troubles the body belongs with a doctor.
How it is practised
The old scheme can be held as a map of attention and nothing more. A reader finds their Sun sign or rising sign, notes the part of the body that tradition gives it, and asks a plain question: how do I carry myself there, and what does that part do for me each day? It is a way of noticing, done seated and with a pen. It is no guide to health, and nothing in it stands in for a doctor's eye.
Where it comes from
The scheme is ancient and well documented. The Roman poet Manilius sets it out in the first century, and Ptolemy and Firmicus Maternus know it. Medieval physicians carried it as the Zodiac Man, a figure with the signs drawn on his limbs, to choose days for letting blood, and a famous one is painted in the Très Riches Heures of about 1415. Almanacs printed it for centuries. The inward reading is modern: Kuhn and Hall wrote of the body as a temple, and early in the twentieth century George W. Carey added a teaching about a sacred fluid in the spine that later lecturers repeat.
What is known, and what is not
That astrologers and physicians laid the zodiac on the body for some two thousand years is attested in texts and pictures. That the signs act on those parts has never been shown, and medicine dropped the scheme long ago. The modern additions, a fluid rising in the spine or meanings read out of the names of bones, rest on word-play and have no support in anatomy. They are teachings of their authors and are given here as such.
Its words
- Melothesia
- The placing of the twelve signs on the parts of the body, from Aries at the head to Pisces at the feet, pictured as the Zodiac Man.
- Astrotheology
- The reading of scripture and myth as a story of the Sun, the stars and the body. The word first had another sense: arguing from the heavens to a Creator.
Ask the Oracle further
Which part of the body does the zodiac man of astrotheology give to my Sun sign?How old is the zodiac man, and what did astrotheology add to the old tradition?
Before you practise
Astrotheology is one way of reading scripture, held by some authors and rejected by most historians and by the churches. The correspondences of sign, planet and body are old tradition; the word-plays are not etymology. What you hold sacred is yours.
Its other branches
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