Heliocentric charts

In Clairvision Virtual Astrologer you can draw a heliocentric chart by using the Configure Chart Drawing menu ('View', 'Drawing', 'PNG'/'PDF'/'AVG', 'Configure'). Heliocentric positions can also be obtained by producing a 'Detailed Listing'. ('View', 'Listing', 'Detailed').

What is a heliocentric chart?

A 'normal' astrological chart is a map of planetary positions as seen from the Earth. A heliocentric chart maps planetary positions as seen from the Sun. Hence the name helio-centric: in Greek, helios means Sun; in a heliocentric chart, the Sun is at the centre. This is why you will not see the Sun among the planets on the zodiac circle, but the Earth (made of a cross within a circle).

Why is there no Moon on a heliocentric chart?

The Moon rotates around the Earth, and not far from her. (The distance between the Earth and the Moon is hardly one third of the Sun's diameter!) Therefore, seen from the Sun, the Moon and the Earth are always more or less at the same place – just as, seen from the Earth, Jupiter's satellites are always very close to Jupiter and visible only with binoculars. If the Moon was represented on a heliocentric chart, it would always be conjunct to the Earth, and so there is no real point in drawing her.

How different are heliocentric charts from normal charts?

If you compare them, you will notice that the more distant planets are from the Sun, the less their position in the heliocentric chart is different from a normal (geo-centric) one. So the main differences are seen with Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Earth of course, and their aspects to other planets.

Quiz:
In a heliocentric chart, the position of the Earth is always exactly 180 away from the position of the Sun in a normal (geocentric) chart. Visualizing a zodiac, can you figure out why?

Heliocentric longitude

Heliocentric longitudes are listed in Clairvision Virtual Astrologer's Detailed Listings (under 'View', 'Listings')

They describe the longitudinal position of the planets in a heliocentric chart (i.e. as seen from the Sun), expressed in degrees of the constellations of the zodiac.

Heliocentric charts – astrological significance

Because it is centered on the Sun, which stands for the Self, the heliocentric chart is said to reveal deeper spiritual aspects of a person. We saw that the right ascension chart corresponds to more earthy and manifested sides of the psyche. In a way, the heliocentric chart can be regarded as the opposite: it represents the more cosmic and universal aspects of a person, regardless of what they look like now that they are incarnated on Earth. Since it is based on the time of birth, the heliocentric chart cannot be said to be a picture of the eternal side of a human being. But still, it gives more direct indications as to how the psyche and the Self are connected.

From this point of view, it is interesting to notice that the trans-Saturnian planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto), which are precisely related to transpersonal features, are not fundamentally differently placed in a heliocentric chart, compared to the normal chart. The positions of personal planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) usually differ more.

The chart of someone's death is said to reveal elements of their journey to come and their next reincarnation. You may in particular want to draw the heliocentric chart in such cases, because you are precisely looking for indications beyond the practicalities of life on Earth, trying to fathom the deepest of the person's nature.

Samuel Sagan has predicted that when journeys in spacecraft become common, heliocentric charts will suddenly become infinitely more important. While far away from the Earth, it will not be rare for people to display features which are much more like their heliocentric chart than their normal (geocentric) one. By then, however, who knows which chart will be considered to be the 'normal' one. (The astrological situation of people born in space will be particularly interesting.)

The Sun's movement in the galaxy

The Earth moves around the Sun, but the Sun is in no way fixed! Why isn't this movement taken into account by astrology? First, let us take a closer look at the Sun's movement.

Taking nearby stars as a reference, the speed of the Sun's movement is 20 km/second, in the direction of the star Vega. If, however, one considers the broader movement by which all the stars of our galaxy revolve around the galactic centre, the Sun's speed is about 250 km/second. The galaxy's radius is about 45,000 light years. Being a relatively peripheral star, our Sun is located 30,000 years from the galactic centre. Knowing the speed and the distance from the centre, one can calculate that the Sun takes 250 million years to complete a full revolution.

These kind of figures hold the answer to the question – within a human life, the movement of the Sun does not create any significant visual change in our star panorama. It is therefore perfectly legitimate to ignore it when erecting a map of astral influences.

Note: most stars in our galaxy revolve according to approximately circular orbits.

Sunspots: a factor in future astrology?

Sunspots are not yet used in astrology, but it is our intuition that they may one day be regarded as a very significant factor, especially (but not only) as far as world astrology and occult history are concerned.

The ancient Chinese, more than 2,000 years ago, already reported seeing spots on the Sun. When the Sun is low on the horizon and covered by a layer of mist, sunspots can be seen with the naked eye. (Watching the Sun with the naked eye is, however a no-no; in an instant, it can damage your eyesight irreversibly.)

In the western world, the study of sunspots began with Galileo in the early 17th century. Focusing the image of the Sun received through his telescope on a piece of paper, Galileo followed the spots and discovered that each of them moved from one edge of the Sun to the other in about 13 days. (This is because the Sun spins on its axis in about 27 days.)

What are sunspots? They are areas of the Sun's surface with an extremely powerful magnetic field. This magnetic field blocks the normal outward flow of energy. This results in a cooler, and therefore darker, patch on the surface of the Sun. Some of these patches, however, can be 5 times as large as the Earth!

From the 17th century onwards, astronomers started keeping records of the sunspots. Sunspots keep on appearing and disappearing, and their number can significantly vary from one year to another. Their global number and size, however, follow a repetitive 11.1 year cycle.

Scientists have established a correlation between periods of low sunspot activity and cold climate on Earth. Thus, from 1645 to 1715, few sunspots were observed, and the climate was unusually cold (the term 'Little Ice Age is sometimes given to the period from the 15th to the middle of the 19th century). John Eddy, an astronomer, showed a link between solar activity and the evolution of glaciers on Earth for 7,000 years.

There is also ample scientific evidence showing parallels between climaxes of sunspot activity and perturbation of the magnetic field on Earth. (In particular, they create magnetic storms which make telephone systems crash.) A number of studies have been performed, linking high sunspot activity, disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field, and heart attacks, suicides or admissions into psychiatric hospitals.

Many studies have also been conducted linking high sunspot activity and years of revolution or conflicts in Europe. Thus sunspots peaked in 1789 (French revolution), 1830 and 1848 (more revolutions in Europe), 1870 (War between Germany and France), 1905, and 1917 (World War 1).