A Brief Comment on the Sabian Symbols
Johnny Mirehiel

Many of you are familiar with the Sabian Symbols.  Certainly most astrologers are, but in brief review, this is their story, the introductory paragraphs of which I have lifted from an earlier article on mine that was first published on the original Harmonic Concordance site. 

Some History

The Sabian Symbols were largely the work of the late Marc Edmund Jones.  Jones took his cue from the work on the symbolic meaning of the degrees of the Welsh seer, John Thomas (AKA Charubel).  While Jones appreciated Thomas’ work and felt that it was remarkably suggestive, he also thought it to be too moralistic in tone.  Seeking to "soften" Thomas’ symbolism, he proceeded to create his own set of symbols, which might be more relevant to contemporary students of astrology.   To this end he enlisted Elsise Wheeler, one of his students who, because of her innate talent, he had encouraged to become a professional medium.  Jones had Elsie describe the "picture" that came to her as he held a randomly selected index card, upon which he had penciled one of the 360 degrees of the Zodiac.  In this way, the original impressionistic images, each symbolically suggesting a characteristic of one specific degree, were compiled in a day’s effort.  Jones' Symbolic Astrology was first published in 1931 and it is upon that seminal work that all subsequent commentary on the Sabians has been based.

During the course of the years, others have added to the depth of meaning found in the original images.  Chief among these annotators was Dane Rudhyar who had found that the Sabians were "…in the main, amazingly significant and accurate."  In agreement with Jones, Rudhyar carefully analyzed each of the original images, adding a "keynote" phrase and an explanatory comment, which fleshed out Jones’ original terse, symbolic aphorisms. Rudhyar’s explication of the Sabians first appeared in his monumental classic, The Astrology of Personality.   Some 17 years later his updated work on the symbols was published in An Astrological Mandala.  By then, he had come to consider them to be a contemporary American embodiment of the I Ching, and suggested that they had oracular properties.  It is from that latter work that the Rudhyar excerpts below are drawn.

Perhaps the best-known contemporary interpreter of the Sabians is Lynda Hill.  Her work draws on Jones’ text as well as on his original mimeographed lessons and Rudhyar’s two volumes.  Her own text,  The Sabian Symbols As An Oracle is widely known and respected among contemporary astrologers.      Lynda's astrological and intuitive reading of the Sabians can be found on her website, which provides a quick scan of background information, degree interpretations, a random Sabian “Oracle” and a host of other features. It is her interpretations that we employ as part of our own daily “conversation with Spirit."

Another web site dedicated to the Sabians, which might also be of interest, can be found at the The Sabian Assembly web site.  It also has a wealth of information on the history of the Sabians, an excellent short bio of Jones, and its own oracular link to the symbols, among other features. 

Why the symbols seem to work and fit appropriately into the scheme of an astrological chart is, perhaps, a mystery.   The fact is, though, that they do work in practice, and I regularly apply them in the interpretations that I do as a professional astrologer.   The insights that they provide often give me a quick read on the general proclivity of a client’s life, and in so doing  allow me to arrive at an overall "feeling tone" for a client.  More importantly, they can be very helpful in guiding folks to the expression of the best qualities of their planets through their Sabian degree associations.