Recently someone I know who is a beginning student of astrology pointed me to this article and asked if I was aware of the “new scoop” that Ophiuchus (the snake bearer) is the 13th sign of the Zodiac. It’s true that it lies in the same ascension and declination as the other Zodiac signs, but what they’re actually repeating is not something new: it’s sidereal astrology and this type takes axial precession in account. Is it better astrology? Highly doubtful. Is it just as valuable? Highly Likely.

Ophiuchus

There’s a thousand forms of astrology, astrologers following a particular school of astrology even debate about what and how to use certain elements within the same school. Do I use the Placides or Regiomontanus house system? Do I include Juno, Pallas and Vesta in readings or do I not? Should I only include classical planets in horary? (…)

At the end of the day they revolve around one thing: creating an endless framework for problem solving and understanding. It’s a tool for thinking, for philosophy. If you work in the IT sector like I do, you notice you’re not anything different. Information analysis: define classes, subclasses, hierarchies, create sequences of events: a new IT system is created. For both you do the same: play God with your own mind.

And guess what? There’s endless models and differences in approach in IT too. All of a sudden, reading a chart and plotting a new system aren’t so different.

Unified Modeling Language

So what is the difference between astrology and IT? One is ridiculed, the other is heralded but abused. Both never manage to satisfy, because it’s still a human that does the thinking. They are quite similar on opposite ends of each other. If you think about astrology like this, it doesn’t matter whether something is astronomically correct or not. You’re still ‘creating theories’ for ‘objects’ in the sky. Astrologers that boast “sidereal” is the way to go and the rest is “nonsense” have never gotten that either. Both create something out of nothing, both are full of symbols / abbreviations and are at the base of human advancement.