Walter Berg (astrologer)

Walter Berg (born 1947) is a British astrologer, known for his system of a 13-sign sidereal astrology (13), "a sidereal system that uses the actual star constellations of the true zodiac".

He has published several best selling books on horoscopy and divination in Japan and has appeared regularly on Fuji Television.

Biography

Berg was born Barry Parkinson in Chorley, Lancashire, England on 28 October 1947. Between 1988 and 1994 he wrote extensively for electronic repair manuals and produced course material for science education.

In 1980, while studying and practising astrology Berg became acquainted with astrologer Jeff Mayo and collaborated with him on several projects while developing 13-sign astrology.

In 1989 he began writing "The Evening Sky", a monthly New Age and cultural astronomy feature syndicated to local newspapers, schools, colleges, universities, and released onto the Packet Switched Radio Network. A monthly guest on BBC Eastern Counties and Three Counties Radio, independent Horizon and Chiltern Radio was the 'expert spokesperson' on numerous national radio and television networks. He received a COPUS award from the Royal Society in 1993 for work Promoting the Public Understanding of Science.

Berg published The 13 Signs of the Zodiac in 1995, which sold well in the UK. The 13 Signs of the Zodiac was published in Japan in 1996 in a translation by radio host Mizui Hisami (水井久美), and the first edition sold out within days. Throughout 1996 Berg appeared each Monday on Fuji Television's Big Today programme networked nationally to an audience of nine million.^[1] During 1996–97 Berg wrote for major Japanese magazines and produced a weekly column in the broadsheet newspaper Sankei that he continues to write. Berg has constructed 13-sign profiles for many 'A’ list Japanese celebrities and politicians.^[2]

The introduction of a 13 sign zodiac by Berg explains the appearance of Ophiuchus in Japanese pop culture, especially in the Final Fantasy series (Ophiuchus is the final Stellazzio coin collected by Queen Stella.) In 1995 Berg proposed a symbol for Ophiuchus which has come into comparatively widespread use in Japan. The symbol looks like a letter U with a superimposed tilde. In 2009, it was suggested for inclusion in the Unicode standard as part of an emoji extension. The symbol has been added to the Unicode Miscellaneous Symbols codepage (U+26CE ⛎) as of version 6.0 (October 2010).^[3]

In 2008, he published (under Barry Parkinson, his birth name) a book combining traditional 12-sign horoscopy with the concept of blood group based personality types popularised in Japan in the 1970s by Masahiko Nomi, resulting in a system of 48 personality types.

He currently practises from Mayfair, London, UK and Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan.^[4]

Western tropical astrology has long been detached from the constellations eponymous of the signs, due to the axial precession of the equinoxes over the centuries since the introduction of the zodiac by the Chaldeans. By contrast, in sidereal astrology the astrological signs remain attached to the constellations, while the vernal equinox has moved away from Aries over time. Sidereal astrology has traditionally only been practised in Indian Jyotisha, but it has been introduced in western astrology by Cyril Fagan in 1944. A small minority of western astrologers have since followed Fagan and used a sidereal system as in Indian tradition. The Indian tradition also uses 12 equal-sized signs; the distinction is in where the signs start.

^[5] This results in astrological signs that correspond directly to the time the Sun spends in their eponymous constellations. For example, the Sun spends forty-five days in Virgo and only six days in Scorpio.

Sign			Traditional (tropical) dates	Dates based on the IAU constellations (as of 2011)[6]
	Aries	The Ram	21 March to 20 April	18 April to 13 May
	Taurus	The Bull	21 April to 20 May	13 May to 21 June
	Gemini	The Twins	21 May to 21 June	21 June to 20 July
	Cancer	The Crab	22 June to 22 July	20 July to 10 August
	Leo	The Lion	23 July to 22 August	10 August to 16 September
	Virgo	The Virgin	23 August to 22 September	16 September to 30 October
	Libra	The Scales	23 September to 22 October	30 October to 23 November
	Scorpio	The Scorpion	23 October to 22 November	23 to 29 November
	Ophiuchus	The Serpent Bearer		29 November to 18 December
	Sagittarius	The Archer / Centaur	23 November to 21 December	18 December to 20 January
	Capricorn	The Sea-goat	22 December to 20 January	20 January to 16 February
	Aquarius	The Water Bearer	21 January to 18 February	16 February to 11 March
	Pisces	The Fish	19 February to 20 March	11 March to 17 April

Berg argues that the movement of stars, planets, comets and asteroids through space affects the solar magnetic field; this in turn affects the geomagnetic field influencing collective and individual electro/chemical/biological systems. Human bio-resonant systems are able to tune into particular astro-resonant cycles. When constructing charts he uses dimension z in addition to the x and y coordinates which form the geometric patterns. The z co-ordinate is allocated an energy value of varying strength. The 12 signs of the zodiac are Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn.

ZodiacHarperCollins (1995) ISBN 0-7225-3254-7

• Your Brilliant Guide to the 1999 Total Solar Eclipse, Sigma Press (1999) ISBN 1-85058-676-4
• Your Universe and You: Your Brilliant Guide to the Night Sky, Sigma Press (2000) ISBN 1-85058-731-0
• Under Starry Skies: Tracing Our Cosmic Heritage, uvshift (2001) ISBN 0-9540211-0-X

Shodensha Co. Ltd (1996) , Fusosha 扶桑社文庫 (1996) 
ISBN 4-594-02029-1

References