Why There Are Twelve Signs

If I am to explain what astrology is, there is no way of getting around its core method - numerology. At first glance, that would seem to take away even more credibility away from astrology, but that is only because numerology is today equally misunderstood. It is necessary because it shows that astrology uses precisely defined operations and generally has logical reasons for why it does things the way it does them. It also offers the missing link to mathematics and therefore any hope of maybe using computers one day not only to generate pictures of star charts, but also for making genuine astrological interpretations as well as living astrologers. Or much better, at least in the reliability department. None of that necessarily makes astrology true, but it does make it systematic, methodical, logical and (hopefully) testable - things that its critics don't attribute to it at all.

I should begin with the titular question - why twelve? To that end, you need to know the very basics of numerology. The general "understanding" of numerology today is that it is a belief that numbers have vague magical properties, or that you can discern something about personal character of people from the numerals found in their date of birth or converted letters in their names. You should probably already realize that I don't consider that to be numerology at all, but you most likely have no clue as to what my reasoning could possibly be - that nonsense is exactly what self-proclaimed numerologists now do, isn't it? Sure. I could call myself a theoretical physicist, a medical doctor or a clown, but that is not what would make me one.

Numerology was invented by some very bright minds, such as Pythagoras, and was not originally separate from math. At that time (before the invention of algebra), both was calculated by geometry. Numerological aspect only differed from mathematical aspect in that it was used to define qualitative meaning by geometry or by various mathematical relations (mainly division), instead of simply representing the quantity of things. Because of that, twelve is the best number for a comprehensive system of meaning for the same reason, why hardcore mathematicians today argue for base twelve math becoming the norm - twelve has a big number of factors for a number that small (1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12).

In numerology, you start by drawing a circle, which represents in a qualitative sense everything, all possibilities, in its infinity of equally distributed points. You divide it by whichever whole number you want and place that number of points on the outline of the circle, so as to form an equilateral shape. Angular distance there represents the measure of qualitative difference between the points. In the next step, you select the context (what whole, or in more modern math terms, the sum of what, the circle is supposed to represent). Then you select the initial subjective value and you assign it to one of the points, the beginning, which is the only arbitrarily selected point in the whole chart.

The rest of the points then gets assigned values or meanings based on their distribution on the circle - opposite point represents opposite concept, half-way point represents half-way concept, etc. There are various other numerological operations of similar nature, some of which modern science reinvented in a way as the so called ideal typology, necessary to allow qualitative research. What I would like to argue is that there are some largely forgotten or misunderstood techniques in classical numerology (and its astrological application) that are superior to what social sciences use today, which is one of the ways how scientific study of the topic could provide tangible benefits for what is considered to be more relevant or more scientific fields.

And that is only the most basic level of how it works. Apart from such static holistic description of a system of values in a given context, it also has operations to iterate meaning in cycles in a sequence, which is essentially qualitative addition. Numerology does treat numbers as if they had inherent properties, but that is because in a very specific sense they naturally do - first step is automatically special precisely because it is first, just like a group of two people will inherently have different dynamics than a group of three. You of course need to have a good handle on context to make it produce useful meaning, but there you can use numerology to help yourself even further.

For example, people have two genders, male and female. You can assign a different whole number to each, always starting from one. Which should be one and which should be two? First step of a system has no predecessor, so it acts as it wills, reaches out, while the second step or the second person locked in the same sequence or a system is inherently reactive. Human biology arguably makes males more like one and females more like two, in a number of ways, and the least arbitrary interpretation is always the best numerological solution. Now you could differentiate numerically systems of two or three people also in regards to the combination of genders. Now you have an interesting setup for a typology of human interactions, which would attribute qualities to numbers.

Let's explore it - two guys equals two, two women equal four and male plus female equals three. One of the axioms of numerology is that even numbers are more stable or limited and odd numbers are more dynamic or chaotic. The solution is that different genders together are more dynamic than same genders in a group of two. Groups of three would add to equal three (three males), four (two males, one female), five (one male, two females) and six (three females). Based on many similar operations in many different contexts, numerological "lore" has been developed over thousands of years, attributing inherent organizational principles to natural numbers.

Three for instance is in general differently dynamic than five - three is simple flexibility, but five is a power struggle, while four is a rigid, solid structure in contrast to six, which is more relaxed, harmonious structure (divisibility by three adds flexibility to it). Larger numbers work like combinations of smaller numbers, which are incorporated in them like subsystems or dimensions. All of that in terms of qualitative description of contextual meaning. Theoretically, it could be used to describe in terms of quality systems organized according to any number, it's just the limits of human mind that keep the numbers used by numerologists typically down to less than twenty two.

Astrology has this kind of qualitative calculation worked into it, and so does tarot (the better examples of it, such as Thoth or Osho Zen). Astrological signs in particular are mathematical permutations of principles represented by the numbers that are factors of twelve. One of the reasons why many astrologers argue that Myers-Briggs psychological inventory should be preferred in scientific tests of astrology instead of EPI is because MBTI is constructed in a similar way - eight polar oppositions of essential subjective attributes (not objectively descriptive or merely nominal attributes), which is a distribution of elements that does not fundamentally deviate from what numerology allows.

Even if astrology had no mechanism to back itself up and was as apparently random as tarot seems to be, it could still work just because of the numerological heuristic that both practices use - as a tool which helps to analyze personal attributes, organize observations or formulate narratives. I must confess that the common uncritical rejection of numerology coupled with outright ignorance of the matter bothers me a great deal, because this is so much not dumb. My fellow social scientists keep talking about the need for inventing a method to do qualitative science better than what is currently available, and yet here it is, staring them right in the face, available since forever. And they just don't see it.