We will say, paraphrasing what is said about the tragedies of Racine and Corneille, that the seer announces what is really going to happen and the astrologer what should happen, if everything happened normally.
The astrologer would thus be the guardian of a standard of life while knowing that this standard will not necessarily be respected. The “clearly mapped out” destiny that the astrologer proposes will not necessarily come true. In fact, and we can regret it, the astrologer does not always stick to such specifications and, very often, somewhat forces his science by claiming to “stick” as closely as possible to reality, and refusing to stick to virtuality. For our part, it would be appropriate for astrology, once it exceeds its natural limits, to turn back.
Not, of course, that astrology is not intended to predict, but the whole question is to delimit what is meant by astrological prediction.
For most people, we plan or we don’t plan: there would be no middle term. We will say that nothing is final, except death. Therefore a forecast can only be provisional. It is the client who will give a final character to a situation through his will. The role of the astrologer, basically, would consist of managing what happens after the forecast, to show how and especially when things can bounce back, for good or for bad and always in a temporary, since cyclical, way. Deontologically, it is not that the astrologer must not predict but that none of his predictions can have a definitive character because it is in contradiction with the spirit of astrology. In other words, the astrologer can only make predictions relating to a given moment but he cannot simply recognize it, he must present things in a perspective of several years. But the astrologer cannot give more than he can give: let’s take an example: an astrologer will announce trips but he will not be able to say if they will go well, a task that falls to the clairvoyant who is going to “see” an accident. The astrologer does not “see”, he “says” and this is why it is quite ridiculous to see astrologers prefer the term “forecast” to that of “prediction” even though forecast is etymologically related to clairvoyance, clairvoyance, “visions”. In the case of the weather, this is better understood because we work on photos, on diagrams, but we do not advise astrologers to follow in the footsteps of meteorologists when it comes to forecasts. Moreover, in conversation, “I say” goes better than “I see” because I say is subjective and I see is intended to be objective.
The trap that many astrologers fall into is that instead of looking at whether the astral configurations they consider correspond to certain situations, they start from striking situations to go back to the sky. This is a very unfortunate methodology if it is not supported by a statistical, i.e. quantitative, approach. Indeed, the astrologer does not have to account for everything important that happens to someone and everyone! The astrologer must have the humility to recognize that certain significant events in a person’s life cannot be explained by astrology and in particular by the astral chart! Moreover, the statistical approach is inseparable in our opinion from the work of the astrologer because the same configuration must have minimal effects on all the people concerned which does not mean forboth exactly the same effects. The astrologer, moreover, must show more what unites than what separates, which should, in principle, lead him to work of collective value, concerning a large number of individual cases which, from then on, cease to be strictly individual.
Astrology would thus be situated in the highlighting of “common denominators” specific to a large number of cases, simultaneously. This means that the astrologer needs sufficiently broad perspectives, both in time and in space.
The clairvoyant, on the other hand, would be more able to focus on a given individual, a very specific destiny, his perspectives being significantly more limited, which suits a clientele who does not want to be dizzy from too wide panoramas.
The astrologer thus guarantees a certain margin, a certain freedom of maneuver to his clients: a date is never just a stage and another stage will follow. A celestial configuration will have effects on a large number of cases but not necessarily on the person considered, who comes to consult, since it is only an average.
In practice, it is clear that astrology is quite close to clairvoyance, that it often uses Manichean terminology - good and bad - even though these notions are relative, depending on the angle adopted. It would be good for astrology to be satisfied with the niche that is its own without encroaching on the territory of other disciplines unless obviously it is possible to demonstrate that it is this or that discipline which is walking on the borders of Astrology, provided, however, to have previously defined what astrology was, in its philosophy and to have purged it of factors which parasitize and overload it.
Talking about Astrology, in the singular, is a challenge since under this title, we will have ended up accumulating data that are sometimes incompatible with each other. Here again, there is a “normal” astrology to be restored and an astrology which goes beyond the limits of “natural” astrology. It is not simply a problem of application but of branches improperly added to its trunk and which hide it, hence the urgency of pruning.
Jacques Halbronn (Higher Council of French Astrology, CSAF)
Share your point of view in a respectful and constructive spirit.