Antiscia

The old idea

How far north or south of the equator the Sun stands depends only on how far it is from the solstices. At 10° Taurus, near the end of April, and at 20° Leo, in mid-August, it is about 14.8° north both times, so the day is as long and the Sun rises at the same point on the horizon. Degrees paired like that are antiscia of each other: Gemini mirrors Cancer, Taurus mirrors Leo, Aries Virgo, Pisces Libra, Aquarius Scorpio and Capricorn Sagittarius. Hellenistic authors such as Firmicus Maternus used them, and William Lilly was still using them in the seventeenth century. The contra-antiscion mirrors a degree across the equinoxes instead, where the day at one degree is as long as the night at the other.

How it is worked out here

The antiscion of a longitude is 180° minus it, and the contra-antiscion 360° minus it, so 15° Gemini has its antiscion at 15° Cancer and its contra-antiscion at 15° Capricorn. A link is counted when another point stands within 1.5° of either mirror. It always works both ways: if one planet sits on the other’s antiscion, the second sits on the first’s. The points are the ten bodies, with the ascendant and midheaven when the birth time is known, placed by the same astronomy as the charts on this site. Without a birth time the Moon is worked out for midday and may be several degrees out.

Working one out by hand

Every sign has a partner across the solstice axis, and the degree in the partner is thirty minus the degree you started with. Gemini pairs with Cancer, Taurus with Leo, Aries with Virgo, Pisces with Libra, Aquarius with Scorpio and Capricorn with Sagittarius. So 10° Taurus mirrors to 20° Leo, and 10°20′ Taurus to 19°40′ Leo. The contra-antiscion is the point opposite the antiscion, here 19°40′ Aquarius, and its pairs run Aries with Pisces, Taurus with Aquarius, Gemini with Capricorn, Cancer with Sagittarius, Leo with Scorpio and Virgo with Libra. A planet at exactly 0° Cancer or 0° Capricorn is its own antiscion.

Reading the wheel and the list

With a birth chart saved on this device the wheel opens on it; without one it shows the sky for this minute, and the Your birth button is not available. Point at a planet, or tab to it, and the plate in the middle names its antiscion, while the line under the wheel says which points are within 1.5° of it. Links found lists each pair with its orb, closest first, and the table below gives every point with both mirror degrees, so a mirror that only just misses is still there to see. Switching on contra-antiscia draws the equinox axis, adds a square mark for each second mirror and adds any contra links to the list.

Take a chart with Mercury at 5°00′ Gemini and Venus at 24°30′ Cancer. Mercury’s antiscion is 25°00′ Cancer, half a degree from Venus, so the page lists Mercury and Venus as an antiscion link with an orb of 0°30′ and draws the chord between them strongly. The two planets are 49°30′ apart, which is no major aspect, so this is the kind of link the tradition says an ordinary list of aspects misses. With Venus at 26°45′ Cancer instead it would be 1°45′ from the mirror, outside the orb: the link leaves the list, and both degrees stay in the table for anyone who works to a wider orb.

Common confusions

Antiscia are not parallels of declination, though they come from the same idea. A parallel compares where two planets actually stand north or south of the equator, which for the Moon and Pluto includes their distance above or below the ecliptic; an antiscion uses the zodiac degree alone, as if every planet sat on the Sun’s path. The two agree for the Sun and can differ by several degrees for the Moon. The axis is also a tropical one, fixed to the solstices: in the sidereal zodiac of the Vedic chart the solstices fall near 6° Gemini and 6° Sagittarius, not at the start of Cancer and Capricorn. And the ten bodies here include Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, which Firmicus and Lilly never knew; their own examples use the seven visible planets.

What it claims

The tradition treats a planet on another’s antiscion as joined to it almost as if the two were conjunct, a hidden link that an ordinary list of aspects misses, and reads the contra-antiscion as a weaker or more awkward version, nearer to an opposition. Not every astrologer uses them, and those who do differ on the orb. The page sets out the geometry and the old reasoning behind it, and predicts nothing.

Where it fits

The positions are the same ones as in your birth chart, and antiscia are read alongside the ordinary aspects, not in place of them. Midpoints are another way of finding contact between planets that are not in aspect, and the fixed stars page applies the same kind of close test to thirty bright stars. The solstices that fix the axis are set out on the year.