Astrology, ethics and point of view

Are there any underlying ethics to astrology?  What kind of response can we expect? There would be an investigation to be done. For astropsychologists, we will be told about respecting the personality of others. For forecasters,  a certain philosophy of life but still? And do astrologers respect any morality instilled by astrology? We can doubt it! We will talk here about a certain sense of recognition which means that there is a “return”, a “feed back” for our actions, not those of a previous life but those of today or yesterday. Does the astrologer have a higher than average sense of ethics? But above all, is there a properly astrological morality? We will answer: yes, astrology, properly understood, leads to a certain way of behaving in life and this relates to a certain cyclicality. It is phase 2 which is at the heart of moral issues, that is to say the one which comes in a second phase, “in return”. All words which begin with the prefix “re” belong to the spirit of phase 2: reward, recognition, income, royalty etc. We will translate by saying that phase 2 of a cycle is the one where we pay our debts, those which have been contracted in one way or another and we also speak of recognition of debt… In the astrology that we recommend and which is above all cyclical, as we know, there are two times and as Ecclesiastes says, there is a time for everything.  There is a time when we receive and a time when we “give back”, in return. In phase 1, the problem is not posed in these terms: we are in a certain form of gratuity like water that we drink from the fountain, like milk that we milk from the udder of a cow. And then comes phase 2 which is a bit that of “lean cows” as opposed to “fat cows” (cf. Pharaoh’s Dream in the Bible). This phase presents itself sooner or later, when a certain energy dries up, a cornucopia runs out. So what happens? If we want to protect the future, we must ensure the present and not saw off the branch on which we are perched. This involves a certain expression of gratitude towards those who have given a lot of themselves. People will object to us “but it wasn’t planned like that”,  we hadn’t talked about compensation. In fact, there was a delay between the two times, which could not be simultaneous. And this is where the question of the ethics of astrology arises, which involves respecting certain laws that we cannot ignore or flout.  The one who received will have to “give back” if they want change. Otherwise, there will be a “return shock”, a karmic debt. This time of “return”, of involution of the cycle, allows us to rebalance the relationships between people, between those who give and those who receive but who, in turn, will have to “give”, due to a link, an obligation which has been formed between one and the other… Such a date can be determined. It is roughly located at the halfway point of a 7-year cycle, halfway through, but it depends on various factors which can bring forward or delay the deadlines. It’s not “mathematical.” We must feel that the time has come which is that of the Saturnalia - since our astrology is based on Saturn - which implies a certain reversal of situations, where the master and the slave somewhere reverse their status. This phase 2 of relational rebalancing well illustrates this moral of La Fontaine: we havealways needing someone smaller than yourself (“The lion and the rat” and also in “The dove”). The world would turn out better if phase 2 was better handled, but it is not always easy to acknowledge and demonstrate recognition and this would have effects on the economy and employment. Indeed, as has been said, there is a gap between the “lent” and the “return”. When loaned, the return is not necessarily stipulated but it is nonetheless – morally – implied, implicit, even if it is postponed to an indeterminate date – “one day will come”. where we will have to pay off the debt thus contracted by the simple fact that we have received something, even if we have not asked for it. A gift is always a gift and it binds and connects cyclically, that is to say  with a certain delay, a certain shift. In practice, everything can go very well.  People can thus get closer, come together, find each other. But sometimes there is ingratitude in the air and frustration on both sides: on the part of the one who believed that the gift received did not commit him to anything, as well as on the part of the one who suffers from an ungrateful society that is not willing to provide “income” for what it received, under the pretext that it was not planned. However, this is precisely where astrology intervenes at the level of “predicting”, of the new threshold to cross, after a certain time has passed. The ethics of astrology is the awareness of this second time which is a time of “return” on investment. It has to “pay off.” Phase 2 has a different style than phase 1. It is less graceful, more “interested” and in this sense somewhat disappointing: we did not expect it, we will say. The Anglo-Saxons readily use the form “back”, as in feed back, pay back (for revenge), back meaning the back, therefore the hidden face, which comes in a second step. It can be a retribution, a reward, or a punishment, a more or less deserved sanction. We only get what we deserve, they say. It was bound to happen, sooner or later. It is the end of a certain impunity as can be the “salary”, the compensation for work since all work deserves salary…In phase 1, we sow. In phase 2 we harvest. But whoever sows the wind reaps the storm. Phase 2 cannot be conceived without phase 1, whereas phase 1 is the start of something. At the end of phase 2, we feel “clear”, that is to say that we have repaid what we owe. We can turn the page, make a new start. In conclusion, it is appropriate to remember that if astrology can help us, in principle, to make good decisions, it can most often distort our judgment if the system used is faulty. On average, the astrologer can make more mistakes than the non-astrologer to the extent that their “system” can distort their judgment. It’s double or nothing. In this sense bad astrology harms good astrology. To return to our initial questioning, it would be good for astrologers to understand the problem of phase 1 and phase 2, as we have, once again, explained here. The ethics of astrologers is therefore to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s (Gospel) when the moment is right, the main thing being not to act at the wrong time. No attitude is valid indefinitely, we must give time to both sanction the good and the bad. But everything has an end…

Jacques Halbronn Sociologist of Astrology