The widespread and increasing vogue of astrology in France offers the spectacle of scientific popularization and esoteric speculation in full swing, with the two frequently intermingling. Disconcerting at first sight, this process must be placed within the framework of the social contradictions that have given rise to the rationalistic trends of “modernity.” As early as the Age of Enlightenment, occultism, as it spread, associated itself with natural science. In the nineteenth century this association continued, taking on new forms; it was now in connection with the history of religions and with Oriental studies that many magazines gave considerable space to occultism. From the Revue de Paris, where Nerval published his Aurélia, all the way over to the dignified Revue des deux mondes, the current seeped in a little everywhere. In our own day, while Planète is in the forefront, one must not lose sight of the outpouring of books and periodicals among which this publication is merely a particularly prominent commercial success. In this regard, astrology takes first place among all similar forms of speculation and occult practice that are merchandised in such fashion, in terms of its mass diffusion.