(XII) HISTORY - 21ST CENTURY ASTROLOGY

  Today, if one leaves aside the mercantile activism of charlatans and the pseudo-astrology of newspaper horoscopes and psychic hotlines, activity in astrology can be identified in three areas: the research of astrologers, [49]  the progress of which is reflexive, i.e. theoretical and praxis-based and capable of postulating a true conception of reality (and not simply lyric flights of fancy with pretensions to the poetical and the metaphysical); contractual and applied astrology performed by a practitioner or astrologian (exchange of astrological services, courses, consultations and therapy sessions, done for a charge); and the confidential astrology of the astrophile, either as an amateur or a follower of astrology.

      Consultation is only one application of astrological knowledge among many others. The astrologer-consultant maintains the same relationship to astrological research as does the physician or engineer to scientific research: a relationship of execution and, most often, of commercial exploitation. Certainly a familiarity with natal charts is necessary, [50]  but it is only a minimal requirement and involves only one of the possible forms of astrological knowledge, i.e. that of horoscopic astrology.

The essential thing is not to calculate charts, but rather to live astrology, that is to say, to acquire a true astrological vision of reality. It is not simply a matter of speculating on the tendencies of Saturn or Venus in an individual's chart, but rather of transfiguring the ensemble of his mental representations, of using in a global way the astrological operators, not in an isolated or arbitrary way, all the while continuing to think in a dualistic manner.

It is a question of acquiring a matrix-based comprehension of the real, be the subject politics or the theatre, gastronomy or philately, following the example of the semiotician Peirce, who interpreted every product of the mind as a sign.