No, Your Zodiac Sign Hasn’t Changed

The Astrology Podcast

Chris Brennan

Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Spirituality, Religion

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode I debunk the recurring media claim that your zodiac sign has changed by explaining the 2,000-year history of why western astrologers have deliberately used the tropical zodiac. Every few years, headlines circulate claiming that your zodiac sign has changed due to the precession of the equinoxes. Following a recent New York Times article making this claim, I decided to set the record straight. In this episode of The Astrology Podcast, I explain the history behind this recurring narrative and demonstrate why these claims are misleading. We'll explore the difference between the three zodiacs (constellational, sidereal, and tropical) and show how Western astrologers, starting with Claudius Ptolemy nearly 2,000 years ago, made a deliberate and conscious choice to use the tropical zodiac, which is aligned with the seasons, not the constellations. This is not a recent mistake or discovery; it's a foundational principle of the Western astrological tradition that has been understood for centuries by history's most prominent astrologers and astronomers. We will also touch on the issue of the so-called 13th sign, Ophiuchus, and why it doesn't apply to the system most Western astrologers use. My goal is to clarify the history so that you can better understand why your zodiac sign has not changed and feel more equipped to respond to these arguments. This is episode 509 of The Astrology Podcast. Timestamps 00:00:00 - Introduction00:00:23 - Recent New York Times Article00:00:52 - A Common Narrative That Goes Viral Every Few Years00:02:22 - The Five Main Talking Points in Anti-Astrology Articles00:02:54 - The Fundamental Problem & Rhetorical Goal of These Articles00:05:20 - Explaining the Three Zodiacs00:05:52 - The Origin of the Zodiac00:07:12 - The First Zodiac: The Constellational Zodiac00:08:22 - The Second Zodiac: The Sidereal Zodiac00:10:50 - The Foundation of Western Astrology in Hellenistic Egypt00:13:47 - How Planetary Rulers Were Assigned to Signs Based on the Seasons00:16:48 - The Third Zodiac: The Tropical Zodiac00:22:41 - The Discovery of Precession by Hipparchus00:23:56 - Ptolemy's Deliberate Choice to Use the Tropical Zodiac00:28:43 - The Source of Confusion: Using Constellation Names for Tropical Signs00:30:18 - How Ptolemy's Influence Cemented the Tropical Zodiac in the West00:32:34 - Historical Aside: Why Indian Astrology Uses the Sidereal Zodiac00:36:51 - Famous Astronomers Deliberately Used the Tropical Zodiac00:40:06 - Why the "Astrologers Made a Mistake" Argument is Flawed00:42:31 - Rebuttal: Your Zodiac Sign Has Not Changed00:43:29 - Rebuttal: The Ophiuchus "13th Sign" Argument00:44:41 - The Underlying Goal of Skeptical Articles00:50:43 - The Legitimate Internal Debate Among Astrologers00:51:51 - Conclusion and Final Thoughts00:53:32 - End cards Watch the Video Version of This Episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KPfvsYPv9I - Listen to the Audio Version of This Episode Listen to the audio version of this episode or download it as an MP3:

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, my name is Chris Brennan and you're listening to the Astrology podcast. In this episode,
0:04.4	I'm going to address some recent headlines in the news that are claiming that your zodiac sign is
0:08.8	wrong or your zodiac sign has changed for some reason. And I'm going to explain why these headlines
0:15.2	are actually misleading and not necessarily true. All right. so let's jump right into it.
0:22.2	So a month ago, the New York Times published an article that was titled,
0:27.3	Your Zodiac Sign is 2,000 Years Out of Date.
0:30.4	And the basic premise of the article is just that procession exists.
0:35.9	And due to procession, the sidereal and tropical zodiacs have diverged,
0:40.4	and therefore Western astrologers are wrong for using the tropical zodiac because it aligns with the seasons
0:47.4	rather than the fixed stars and constellations.
0:51.3	So while this is presented as like a new piece of reporting and some other news outlets sort of picked it up and ran with it, this is actually a really common narrative that it repeated, just a few standard talking points that get repeated, especially in the media like every few years, this story kind of goes viral,
1:13.4	where somebody will write an article about it, and then somebody in the press will pick it up,
1:17.5	and then it'll go viral, and everybody will be talking for a few weeks about how your zodiac signs have changed
1:23.6	or how your zodiac sign is wrong and other things like that. So in my career as an astrologer, I have seen this happen multiple times.
1:33.6	So there was a big time this happened in 2011, where the media was talking about it for weeks,
1:39.3	and it was in like Time magazine and like all these other major media outlets.
1:43.6	It also happened again in 2016. It happened
1:47.4	again in 2020. And there's different variations of it at different points. Like for example,
1:53.4	I think the 2016 one, the claim, which was originally put on some like anonymous blog, was that
2:00.1	NASA has changed the zodiac signs.
2:03.6	So that was the little like unique spin on it at the time was that it was being claimed that NASA made this change
2:09.6	when NASA did nothing of the sort.
	...

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