The “new zodiac” is as old as the stars and the best about the 16 ascendants is that 
everybody can see them rising at east. 

You can actually observe your natal ascendant rising at east: thus, a somewhat gifted but sinister person would “profit” form observing Venus eastern in Hydra. 

Astrologers? There never were any. "Astrologers" never knew anything about any 
planetary zodiac at all. They could never even guess their own Sun-sign given 7 
chances, not to speak of Moon-sign or ascendant. 

http://lulu.com/astrology 

Safely burn whatever nonsense may still hang from your bookshelves. 

The 12 zodiacal signs were pure popular fancy that never had anything to do with 
astrology proper. Also, the 12 ascendants existed only through popular fancy. 

As Tiamat rose with its three ministers in Sumer, so it did at Crowley's birth and in 
Cairo. Venus was ascending in Hydra for the Egyptian, Mayan and Chinese civilization 
alike.  

Even when Moon in Corvus is visible thus from Madrid, but accidentally not from 
Yucatan, both ancient civilizations reckoned within the selfsame 22-constellation 
zodiac.  

The number of zodiacal stations was always 22. The number of ascendants of course 
varied among 88. Today we have 16 ascendants. This is basic astrology for toddlers, 
of course. 

There never was a 12 sign system, also: the 12 ascendants were pure fancy. 

The number of zodiacal stations is clearly 22, with 16 eastern rising ascendants. 

The Academic Zodiac consists in 22 zodiacal stations. There are 16 ascendants for 
the current epoch. The stations of the Sun are 16 in all. (*) 

NASA JPL ephemeris strip for the winter Sun. 

 2010-Oct-31 00:00      Vir
 2010-Nov-03 00:00      Lib
...
 2010-Nov-21 00:00      Lib
 2010-Nov-24 00:00      Sco
 2010-Nov-27 00:00      Sco
 2010-Nov-30 00:00      Sco
 2010-Dec-03 00:00      Oph
 2010-Dec-06 00:00      Oph
 2010-Dec-09 00:00      Oph
 2010-Dec-12 00:00      Oph
 2010-Dec-15 00:00      Oph
 2010-Dec-18 00:00      Oph
 2010-Dec-21 00:00      Sgr

(*)  Sun in Orion, Cetus, experimentally in Sextans due to New Moon in Sextans. 

http://lulu.com/astrology 

We still live in the AEon of Cetus, the Sun rises with Uranus in Cetus for the spring 
equinox 2012. The peak of the Age of Pegasus is marked with Venus climbing into 
Pegasus. 

Surely, most of this was probably known to local Brahma as well. The only thing that 
was unknown to Brahma were the stations of the zodiac, 22 in all. Brahma offered a 
simplistic system for the primitive at an early stage. 

What the astronomers never knew was the zodiac. The local zodiac has nothing to do 
with the 16 stations of the Sun, in fact, it consists in 22 stations.