Fixed Stars and their Interpretation by Ebertin-Hoffman. New edition published by the American Federation of Astrologers, Tempe, AZ, 1971.
The Ebertins are a German family dedicated to astrology, whose work is ground-breaking and excellent. I know they are famous for developing Cosmobiology, which I never did study. However, their two books which I have are my two most-used reference books. After years of use, they are tattered and torn.
The basis for this fixed star book was a small book of case notes published by Elsbeth Ebertin in 1928. Her co-worker, Georg Hoffmann, and her son, Reinhold Ebertin, edited her book, and added to it. It has been translated from German to English.
"Fixed" stars are simply stars. They are called "fixed," because in our short lifetimes, they do not appear to move. They do move, however, and Ebertin includes their rates of movement in this book.
The fixed stars magnetize me, and there are times when I find them very significant in a chart. I think they represent, in this incarnation, a connection to much larger universal forces, which perhaps manifest as a kind of fatedness.
I have perhaps a dozen books on fixed stars, but Ebertin’s is the book I always turn to for real, practical information which seems applicable.
Those stars which are most visible generally appear to have the most obvious effects. Rising or setting, in actual time, is a strong placement. Bernadette Brady has an excellent book on this effect. I do find that longitude works, even when declination is way off. Mostly I use no more than a one-degree conjunction, with the exception of some of the more active and well-documented stars, such as Algol, the Terrible, which obviously have a larger effective orb. (Algol does, in fact, show up as closely connected to a couple of November’s mundane charts.)
The observation of fixed stars has been happening for many thousands of years. There is a well-documented body of information, acquired through observation, as well as an abundant collection of star lore. If fixed stars were something we astrologers routinely used now—we don’t—we could combine old and new observations, and weed out the garbage, to make a rich compendium of fixed star associations. Until that time, I find this little Ebertin book my best bridge to the stars.
