Astrology offers precious guidelines for the years to come: it tells us we are seeds of meaning planted by the cosmos and that our vocation is to blossom

If astrology helps to lead a more harmonious existence in many ways, its main function in the coming years might be to connect us – or reconnect us – to the deepest meanings of life, through the cosmogony, the philosophy, the spiritual vision and the quest for truth its very existence implies. Not based on belief or faith, but on an observable and meaningful link that binds us to the cosmos, astrology allows a tangible apprehension of the mysteries of existence. Its approach returns to us an intimacy with the universe that has been almost entirely lost, because of fear, negative conditionings and wrong orientations, that loss being largely responsible for the current state of our civilization.

In contrast to materialism and self-destruction, astrology inspires wonder and adventure through the awakening to the finality of life. It gives birth to a quest, which is the key to the flowering of the individual’s destiny, as well as a way to change the world through a rejuvenated collective consciousness

Astrology and the collective consciousness

You don’t need to be a futurologist, a sociologist, an astrologer or a specialist of any kind to know that our action during the near future, the next decade, will prove crucial for humankind and for all living beings on Earth. The term Anthropocene refers to the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. The self-destruction trend which possesses us does not seem to relent bringing us to the verge of a real catastrophe, the sixth mass extinction of life on earth. I believe that most of us realize that a major part of our problem arises from our consciences, which we seem unable to free from fear, greed, violence and other unwelcome characteristics. It appears obvious that only a radical shift in both individual and collective consciousness might save us. As long as our minds are ruled by personal interest and ignorance, political or economic measures will not prove to be effective. As people who scrutinize the celestial geometry to try to extract meaning from it we question what can astrology offer in order to heal the world and help to create a better one? Does it possess the means to radically impact our philosophical outlook and thus modify our way of life? This is not a rhetorical question, but applies to the here and now as we are currently determining humanity’s future for many generations to come.

Astrology, philosophy and the meaning of life

The vast majority of our contemporaries appear to lead utilitarian lives dedicated solely to survival, money, and security, and mostly devoid of inspiration, direction, and meaning. This goes a long way towards explaining why we find ourselves in this situation. Our brains and hearts are made to question and seek answers, as history over many millennia has shown. Once we get food, clothes and shelter, we seek love and beauty and we wonder about the meaning to life. It is in our nature, and to forget it darkens the mind and brings discontent, gloom, and eventually self-destruction.

This might be the most vital role that astrology plays as it fully embodies that ‘quest for meaning’ state of mind. Various forms of astrology were discovered by many different cultures, as early as prehistory, because the heavenly splendor caught our attention. Above us, so far out of reach, everything looked majestic, untouched by death and certainly closer to the notion of the sacred. We felt awed by its sparkling order, so alien from our chaotic lives and confused thinking. Not only did it look like it had been designed for us to marvel at, but we discovered that its mathematical perfection was somehow related to us as Plato exclaimed in the Timaeus: ‘God invented and gave us the sight, so that in contemplating the revolutions of intelligence in heaven, we might apply them to the revolutions of our own thought, which, although disordered, are related to the imperturbable revolutions of heaven.’ To unveil the intimate relationship that our psyches and our destinies sustain with celestial geometry was a significant step; nature seemed to have left a door unlocked for us to glance at its hidden mechanisms. Of course, in the Greek philosopher’s world, the bond between nature and humanity was not yet severed; we were part of nature and naturally looking to it for guidance. Moreover, the universe, life, and consciousness had to signify something, and astrology was a key to their comprehension.

The Uranian age and the golden age of astrology

The idea that astrology can reposition the quest for meaning at the very heart of our consciences does not imply a return to ancient values buried in the past. On the contrary, our new revolutionary and fast-changing world, that is, the Uranian world, suits astrology perfectly. Uranus was discovered in 1781 when the American and French revolutions, and most notably the outbreak of the industrial era, altered the face of the world. Linked to revolution, creative thinking, psychology, as well as to all new technologies, Uranus quickly proved to be the key planet for astrologers, given its remarkable omnipresence in their birth charts. In keeping with Uranus, in recent decades astrology has thrown off the image of an old lady wrapped in her mantle of traditions and thousand-year-old superstitions. This has disintegrated to the point where we can consider that her golden age is perceived to be more in the future than in the past.

One of the purely technical influences on this is the significant role that Uranian ruled computers have played in advancing many of our studies and research practices. Called ‘mathematicians’ in Greece, the astrologers of ancient times had to be scientists and astronomers as constructing a chart was not an easy task. They would certainly have given anything to gain access to our fabulous Software, with its ability in a few clicks to compute and display with incredible precision planetary positions over thousands of years! Nowadays, with disconcerting ease, we attempt to establish the maps of the heaven of the Buddha, Lao Tzu, or Pythagoras, all born around the great conjunction of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto in 578-575 B.C., which seems very much related to the ‘Axial Age’[1]. Just as easily, we explore the celestial configurations that presided over crucial historical events, perhaps to thereby infer what tomorrow will be like. Anyone, be they a politician, movie star, historical figure, neighbor or family member is a potential subject of study, once their natal coordinates are known. This computational facility finally allows everyone to know his or her astral chart, which was rarely the case before, a fact that will prove essential when we examine the concept of identity that astrology offers.

In addition to technology, another reason for a possible future golden age of astrology is that knowledge is spreading like never before: schools, associations and international organizations are blooming, treaties number in the hundreds and excellent translations of ancient texts, considered as rare treasures until recently, have become easily accessible.

The new paradigm

Even more importantly, astrology feeds on the revolution of ideas germinating everywhere. Its Uranian nature marries perfectly with the often referenced new paradigm, which puts consciousness at the center of our grids of interpretation of the universe and life. Science, philosophy and psychology are concerned with synchronicities, which are defined as intrusions of meaning into our relationships and destinies: some of the answers provided by astrology are quite astounding[2]. Quantum physics leads to the perception of space, time, matter, and energy as vast networks of vibrations and information in which all the different elements are in contact and where the observer is no longer separated from the thing observed. It means that the physical distance between the stars and us is not a barrier to our psychic link with them anymore, and that we no longer have to build hypotheses about vibratory, magnetic or gravitational influences that were never formally discovered.

In a world where scientists think that 85 percent of the mass of the universe is composed of a mysterious and undetectable dark matter, and whose cosmogonic conceptions are sometimes strangely close to Brahmanism[3], the hypothesis of a human consciousness analogously structured by an inner solar system is perfectly viable. Also feasible is the idea that if the whole psyche is probably not physically influenced by the stars, it is possibly, at least in part, the product or the manifestation of a celestial geometry that structures it, orients it and impregnates it with meaning and finality. Such intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual effervescence, drawn from the most recent scientific trends, offers astrology its chance. We are in dire need of new thinking patterns able to shake our consciousness to its roots: ideas can start like a raging wildfire and engulf the world with a snap of a finger.

The tangible link: Astrology as a unique approach

Whatever the truth about its still largely unexplained mechanisms, both the way astrology approaches the nature of consciousness and its puzzling relationship with the universe appear unique. Why is it so? The foundation of astrology remains concrete and observable, even though it deals with the meaning of existence, psyche, and destiny. Astrology is based on a tangible and remarkable link that is essentially composed of meaning, and which connects us to the universe. This link that builds a bridge between the visible and the invisible is the subject of its study.

Its approach to the mysteries of life does not rely on myths, traditions, or revelations, but primarily rests on a real, perceptive and insightful observation of celestial geometry. Through observing the location of the planets as they orbit the Sun, their motion, speed, rise and fall, their encounters with the Moon, their mutual interactions and so many other facts, we finally discovered that this celestial ballet concerns us. Even more profoundly we could decipher and understand it and it could be read like a book written about us. One might assert that this is just another belief system, except that it can be noticed and researched through observation. This is how astrologers are made. They don’t start to practice astrology because they believe in it, but rather because they try it and in most cases are amazed that it works! What we could call celestial geometrical synchronicities are there for everyone to perceive, and astrologers can provide examples of these by the thousands.

The tangibility of this link enables astrology to be particularly qualified to impact the collective consciousness. Science has profoundly changed us, and like Thomas the Apostle we want to touch the mystery in the flesh. This is exactly what astrology proposes. Constituted through meaningful synchronicities happening between the celestial mechanics and our lives, the link can be touched, felt and explored.

The identity

By its very existence this link conveys the essential idea that this universe, which has become terrifyingly vast, acknowledges our presence, thereby offering us an identity. This concept goes hand in hand with recognition: through the birth chart the universe provides us with an identity more fundamental than our gender, blood, name, social status, nationality, faith or lack of faith. Perhaps it gives us back a part of what we ostensibly lost when Copernicus drove the Earth out of the center of the solar system or when Darwin told us that we were just like any other animals. While it was obviously important for us to comprehend these truths, values that were thousands of years old were destroyed in the process. As a species we felt, and in many cases still feel, lost, insignificant, disconnected, and devoid of meaning. These feelings amplified materialistic tendencies like never before.

In response, astrology offers a cosmic identity that recognises each of us as an individual—“what is indivisible”. An individual is an organized unity, someone unique and in one piece. To realize this provokes a Uranian behavior which involves taking oneself out of the undifferentiated flock of followers, of whatever is being followed. The Uranian age asks us to face life and death as individuals, while standing and thinking alone (wholly one). Paradoxically, this loneliness, which is not isolation, brings us closer to others than we have ever been. One individual does not stand above or below the others, but at their side, as a perfect equal. This certainly leads us to understand the harmfulness of comparison, itself a cause of aggressive competition. Building one’s destiny around a unique astral chart makes one incomparable, in the etymological sense of the term.

Similarly, this acknowledgment rejuvenates our relationship with the environment, healing the wound which arises from the sensation of being separated from nature, that is, from our mother, This in turns addresses one of the reasons why we destroy nature, as we only destroy what we do not like, or what has become indifferent to us, Things feel entirely different when one realizes that in some mysterious ways, which again are not belief-based, the universe gives us its attention. Microorganisms we might be, but we are also endowed with a significant life.

The solar hero and the quest

Yet this recognition, this identity, has a price: our birth chart implies a destiny to be fulfilled. Related to the word destination, the concept of destiny evokes both a function and a place to which one goes. And so, here we are back to the need for the meaning of life, in the absence of which it all turns out badly. It is probably here, as we talk about a function and a quest to be pursued, that astrology shows the greatest capacity to influence the consciousness. The quest orders the mind by providing a concrete expression to the meaning of life. The confusion that comes from the lack of a direction disappears. In this particular framework, anyone famous or anonymous, educated or illiterate, needy or wealthy becomes a solar hero fighting darkness and fear in the pursuit of the truth of his or her nature; an action that is not born from fear or a desire for reward. To be a solar hero is to follow the inner sun that shines in the sanctuary of one’s own heart.

Both philosophically and spiritually, the quest is the movement of universal intelligence. It is the inevitable consequence of everything we have already observed. It is born from the recognition of the universe and the identity it offers us, from the necessity to have meaning in one’s life. It visibly emanates from our birth chart, without which the latter cannot fully thrive. A destiny that is not touched by the quest misses its purpose, while its unfolding generates a know-thyself based spirituality. One becomes a light unto oneself by exploring wisely one’s own nature. And as one gets rid of fears along the way, dispelling darkness and advancing more and more freely on the path outlined by the chart’s geometry, one does fulfil one’s destiny, eventually finding the inner place that awaits us.

The path to the flowering of destiny

We now understand that the quest, which leads to truth, realization, or whatever you call it, is the most vital element of the flowering of destiny. Although the goal is the same, the journey follows a different path in each chart because of its uniqueness. Unless one decides to study its language, one needs to consult an astrologer, whose main function is to reveal the geography of the inner territory in order to decipher the celestial scripture. The crowning aim of the interpretation is to expose the path that crosses the chart and leads to its heart. But even the best astrologer in the world won’t take you there. The journey through the ninth house (long travels, spirituality), or through the twelfth (exploration of the inner depths), must be undertaken alone. While not being a crutch, the birth chart, and everything it represents, illuminates the journey. This chart helps to overcome fears and obstacles by making sure one treads the right path. One can get lost, wander, hesitate, lose confidence, but the personal star we follow always comes back shining in front of us until we get back on our way.

To travel alone does not mean in isolation. It does not hinder exchanges of information, thoughts and ideas, as long as we do not become second-hand people. True, the uniqueness of the chart does not marry well with organized faiths or ideologies: astrology strives for individual freedom of thought, teaching as we have seen to be a light unto oneself, which in turn fits the new paradigm.

Back to the collective consciousness

Astrology offers precious guidelines for the years to come: it tells us we are seeds of meaning planted by the cosmos and that our vocation is to blossom. This has little to do with becoming rich, powerful or famous, or whatever society would have us believe. If one succeeds, it is likely that no one will ever know about it. But thriving as a free individual will dramatically impact the collective consciousness, which remains our main objective if we want the world to change.

The main purpose of astrology is not to describe a psychological landscape—which it truly does with an amazing precision—or to predict good or bad weather attending our future, but to lead us on the path to the inner revolution. We are talking about a Uranian revolution, which is not a slow modification taking generations to show its effects. We have no time for that. Saturn, the planet of time, implies slow transformation through patience, determination and perseverance. And we obviously need Saturn to think deeply, build, structure, and consolidate. But at this time we desperately need a Uranian blaze of intelligence, an almost instantaneous understanding, which astrology does provide in many ways.

Considering our vital needs in these troubled times, astrology appears as a coherent philosophical system that incites us to independence of thought, the pursuit of self-development and the flowering of destiny. Finally, astrology is inseparable from an inner quest rather than from a religion, and could well prove to be one of the keys to the emerging spirituality of the third millennium.

[1] According to the Philosopher Karl Jaspers, the Axial Age was characterized, by the emergence of new ways of thinking in religion and philosophy in China, Persia, India, and the GrecoRoman world.

[2] In L’astrologie et la mécanique de la pensée, Bernard Duchatelle, Amazon, 2015, examples showing clear correlations between synchronicities and the positioning of the stars are provided and analyzed.

[3] David Bohm Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Routlege, Great Britain, 1980.