Zodiac sign
Aquarius
Aquarius is fixed air: a sustained idea, rule, or common cause, with the distance to see a social pattern and the stubbornness to keep testing it.
4 correspondences · 1 with an ancient or scriptural source · 0 with no source located · Aquarius in full
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The oldest attribution here is Counts of 12, first attested 100 CE.
Counts of
-
12
Traditional- Who says so
- Sefer Yetzirah's counting (2nd–6th century CE (contested))
- Earliest verified attestation
- 100 CE
- Ancient or scriptural source
- Attested
- Evidence
- The source states it
Sefer Yetzirah forms the Twelve Simple letters into the twelve constellations. WHICH letter goes with which sign is a separate question this row does not answer.
Evidence
-
Rabbi Akiva (traditional attribution); older versions attributed to Abraham, Sefer Yetzirah, 2nd–6th century CE (contested) — 5:2
These Twelve Simple Letters He designed, and combined, and formed with them the Twelve celestial constellations of the Zodiac
The book forms the twelve into the Zodiac; the letter-to-sign key is contested and is not asserted here.
Sign rulership
-
Saturn
Canonical- Who says so
- Not yet attributed to a school
- Earliest verified attestation
- 130 CE
- Ancient or scriptural source
- Not yet investigated
- Evidence
- The source states it
Ptolemy assigns the houses of the planets outward from the two luminaries: the Sun takes Leo and the Moon takes Cancer, and the five remaining planets take two signs each, one on either side, in order of distance. Saturn also rules Capricorn, which is what it means for seven planets to cover twelve signs. Some modern schemes give this sign to Uranus, a planet discovered long after Ptolemy. That later rulership is shown alongside the classical one, not as a correction to it.
Evidence
-
Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, second century CE — Book I, chapter 17: Of the Houses of the Several Planets
The chapter that sets out the whole scheme. Ptolemy argues it from the relation of each planet's orbit to the solstitial signs rather than presenting it as received tradition.
-
William Lilly, Christian Astrology, 1647 — Book I, chapters XI–XVII
Lilly, writing in 1647, still works with exactly seven planets and Ptolemy's houses. He is cited here to establish where the older system ends, not for a modern meaning.
Plant
-
Dragon-wort
Traditional- Who says so
- Agrippan occult philosophy (1509–1533)
- Earliest verified attestation
- 1509 CE
- Ancient or scriptural source
- Not yet investigated
- Evidence
- The source states it
Agrippa gives this as Apuleius's distribution, not as his own.
Evidence
-
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, 1509–1510, revised through 1533 — Book I, ch. XXXII
to Aquarius Dragon-wort
What things are under the Signes, the fixed Stars, and their Images.
Attribution of
-
The Star
Traditional- Who says so
- Not yet attributed to a school
- Earliest verified attestation
- 1888 CE
- Ancient or scriptural source
- Not yet investigated
Book T's attribution carried by the Hebrew letter and therefore by this path.
Evidence
-
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (primarily); Harriet Felkin (later material), Book T, c. 1888 — The Twenty-Two Keys of the Book, pp. 5–7
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Aleister Crowley, 777, 1907–1909 — Table I, astrological and Tarot columns, row 28