MYTH MEETS MATH
The app culture has turned astrology into a modern obsession, Maura Judkis writes.
The first thing the astrology apps did was shred me to pieces. Co-Star told me I express love through work and routine, and I am preoccupied with death. The Pattern told me I have trouble with codependency, that others might see me as insensitive and I have dated emotionally unstable partners. Sanctuary told me I can be selfish, competitive and preoccupied with fears and doubts.
The apps are, regrettably, correct. Not only am I all of those things, I’m a Cancer sun, Sagittarius rising and an Aries moon. I found this out when I fulfilled a typical millennial trope: Texting my mom to ask her what time I was born.
It was Co-Star that told me to text my mom, because the app needed the information to produce my natal chart, which uses the positions of many more planets and stars at the exact time of one’s birth. It produces horoscopes that some say are far more sophisticated than the generic “good luck in finance and love” you generally see.
Amid the millennial self-care set, astrology is back. After the heady “What’s your sign?” spirituality of their parents’ youth, the practice receded to the edges of culture as a kooky column in the newspaper, albeit one that was read devotedly.
But now, the pseudo-science isn’t as much of a taboo as it used to be. Young people have embraced it, jokingly ascribing the inconveniences of life — a delayed train, a broken laptop — to Mercury’s retrograde.
No one actually thinks the stars and planets determine their personality. Except, what if the tumult of one’s late 20s is because of Saturn’s return, and right now, you’re probably feeling that Sagittarius season energy, and what if water and earth signs really do just get along better?
“I call it getting into the woo,” said Shanna Quinn, 37, a Chicagoan who checks four astrology apps daily. Woo, for that “woowoo” stuff.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been getting into the woo, too. A skeptic, I wanted to learn why seemingly everyone my age was looking to the stars. I downloaded all the apps. I got a few readings, and I am now the reluctant owner of four crystals. And I realized why it seems like everyone’s so into astrology again, even if no one claims to believe in it, and it isn’t real: It’s kind of like psychotherapy plus magic.
Astrology is an ancient art, but the modern horoscope came about in 1930, as a gimmick for the British newspaper The Sunday Express, which wanted something splashy in its pages after the birth of Princess Margaret. Astrologer R.H. Naylor wrote an article predicting that the princess would have “an eventful life” — bold prediction there — and that “events of tremendous importance to the royal family and the nation” would happen in her seventh year. That last one basically came true — in 1936, her uncle, King Edward VIII, abdicated the throne, and her father, George VI, became king. And Naylor became a star astrologer with a weekly column.
There used to be a lot of math involved, but modern astrologers can pull up a natal chart in seconds by plugging your birth details into a software program.
“Astrology is a combination of myth and math,” said astrologer Shelley Ackerman, publicity director for the International Society for Astrological Research.
There’s a good chance some of the descriptions of me resonated for you. Plenty of people are riddled with doubt, or have dated people who weren’t right for us.
That’s how horoscopes work, said James Alcock, a professor who researches parapsychology at York University in Toronto. It’s a phenomenon called the Barnum Effect, named after circus founder P.T. Barnum. Basically:
If an astrologer or palm reader makes a statement that could apply to many people in the course of a reading — something like, “You’re generally a very open person, but sometimes find it hard to share things even with your closest friends” — someone is more likely to ascribe it to the teller’s abilities.
Because the apps are social and often free, they’re like the gateway drug to the woo. At the suggestion of Dave Campbell, the president of the American Federation of Astrologers, I built a small altar at my work desk to help “manifest the positive” into my life. I covered a piece of gold tissue paper with talismans of good fortune, including a seashell to represent a vacation I hoped I could take, a cheque from a journalism award I’d recently won and the New York Times bestseller list, for the book I hoped I would write one day. I went online and bought my first crystal, which came with instructions to “activate” it by leaving it out in sunlight or a full moon, and then speaking my intentions to it.
I was instructed to “feed” my altar every day with some pennies to “create positive energy.” But by Day 4 I had forgotten them, so I fed it some paper clips.
That’s what happens if you analyze the woo too much: You realize you seem totally nuts.
But as long as people aren’t letting their lives revolve around astrology, they’re not doing much harm. They may even be doing some good.
“It gets people to talk about their personality and their emotions and life experiences in a way that they usually wouldn’t,” said Tayla Jones, 23, who runs the meme account Drunk Astrology with her friend Sam Gorman, 24.
The messages I got from the apps encouraged me to be introspective and gentle with myself. They required no leap of faith.
They didn’t seem like horoscopes to me. They seemed like therapy. Some were things I was already working on with a professional.
Astrology has seamlessly integrated with the wellness industry. Most people using these apps aren’t trying to predict the future — they see it as a tool for self-discovery and emotional exploration. It’s talked about in the same breath as vitamins, yoga or a spa treatment. And for a generation that has struggled financially and emotionally but lacks access to affordable mental health care, some may even be using it as a cheap substitute.