Quick answer: The Sabian Symbols are a set of 360 short symbolic images, one for each degree of the zodiac. They were created in 1925 in San Diego by the astrologer Marc Edmund Jones with the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler. For any planet or angle in a chart, the symbol for its exact degree is read as a meditative image that adds a layer of nuance.
Most people read a chart down to the sign, and the more careful read it down to the decan or the bound. The Sabian Symbols go one step finer still, all the way to the single degree, and they do it with a picture rather than a rule. They are one of the most evocative tools in modern astrology, and they sit comfortably alongside the older degree doctrines AstroAk already works with.
What the Sabian Symbols Are
The Sabian Symbols are a collection of 360 short symbolic images, one for each of the 360 degrees of the zodiac. Because every sign is thirty degrees wide, that gives degrees one to thirty in each of the twelve signs, and a distinct image for each one.
Each symbol is a small, vivid scene rather than a definition. The phrasing is deliberately concrete and a little dreamlike, the kind of image you can sit with and turn over rather than simply look up. That is the point: they are meant to be contemplated, not decoded like a dictionary entry.
How They Were Created in 1925
The symbols were produced in 1925 in San Diego by the astrologer Marc Edmund Jones working together with a clairvoyant named Elsie Wheeler. The method was unusual. Jones had prepared 360 cards, each marked with a single zodiacal degree. He shuffled them and set them before Wheeler one at a time, with neither of them looking at the degree on the card, and for each one she described the image that came to her while Jones noted it down. In this way the whole set of 360 was drawn in apparently random order rather than in zodiacal sequence, and the work was completed over the course of a single day.
A few things are worth keeping clear about this origin:
- They are modern, not ancient. They date to 1925, not to the classical or medieval tradition.
- They came from intuition, not calculation or older texts, which is part of both their charm and their controversy.
- The two roles were distinct: Wheeler supplied the images, Jones structured and later published the set.
None of this makes them less useful, but it does set the right expectation. The Sabian Symbols are a twentieth-century creation with a clear and rather human story behind them.
Rudhyar's Reinterpretation in 1973
The symbols found their most influential second life through Dane Rudhyar, who reinterpreted and deepened them in his book An Astrological Mandala in 1973. Rudhyar did not simply repeat the original phrasings. He arranged the full sequence of 360 as a single unfolding cycle, a kind of psychological and spiritual journey that moves degree by degree from the start of Aries around to the end of Pisces.
In Rudhyar's hands the symbols became less a list of omens and more a map of a process of growth. This reading is the one many astrologers still reach for today, and it is largely why the Sabian Symbols are associated with depth psychology and inner development rather than fortune-telling.
How to Read a Symbol in Your Chart
In practice, you find the relevant symbol by looking at the exact degree of a planet or an angle. A Sun at a given degree, or an Ascendant at another, points to one specific image out of the 360. One small convention matters: a planet at, say, 14 degrees and 20 minutes of a sign is usually read using the symbol for the fifteenth degree, since any minutes past a whole degree round the count up to the next one.
Read the resulting image as a meditation, not a verdict. It is meant to colour and nuance a placement you already understand, adding texture to a Sun sign or a rising degree rather than overriding the rest of the chart. If you want the precise degrees to work from, you can generate a free birth chart and note where your Sun, Moon, Ascendant, and Midheaven fall.
Where They Fit at AstroAk
The Sabian Symbols give you a symbolic layer at the level of the single degree. That makes them a natural companion to the classical degree doctrines AstroAk already reads from, such as the decans and the bounds, which also divide each sign into meaningful slices. The older systems work by rule and rulership; the Sabian Symbols work by image and intuition. Used together, they let you read a degree from more than one angle.
A reminder on what they are and are not: the Sabian Symbols are symbolic and intuitive, not deterministic predictions. They describe a quality or a theme to reflect on, never a fixed outcome.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the Sabian Symbols?
They are a set of 360 short symbolic images, one for each degree of the zodiac, used as meditative interpretive pictures for the degree of a planet or an angle in a chart.
Who created the Sabian Symbols and when?
They were created in 1925 in San Diego by the astrologer Marc Edmund Jones together with the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler, who described all 360 images over the course of a single day, and were later reinterpreted by Dane Rudhyar in An Astrological Mandala in 1973.
Are the Sabian Symbols predictions of the future?
No. They are symbolic and intuitive images for reflection, modern rather than ancient, and are not deterministic predictions of what will happen.
