Scroll via TikTok, browse courting profiles or take a seat at a restaurant, and also you’ll regularly pay attention folks reference their astrological signal. Any person may proudly declare their Leo power; others shaggy dog story that they might by no means date a Scorpio.
Even in trendy societies formed via science, generation and universities — what sociologists now and again name “disenchantment” — many of us are nonetheless having a look to astrology for which means.
Its standard recognition sits along skepticism, with surveys suggesting that astrology may also be fashionable even amongst those that don’t absolutely “believe” in it and use it “for fun.”
In a brand new find out about revealed within the sociology magazine Social Currents, we tested who consults astrology, how they use it and why they’re interested in it.
Drawing on nationally consultant surveys, interviews with American citizens and conversations with skilled astrologers, we discovered that astrology is much less about predicting the long run and extra about making sense of the self in an unsure international.
Astrology’s deep roots
Astrology – the concept that the positions and actions of the Solar, Moon, planets and stars affect occasions on Earth – has an extended historical past.
For hundreds of years, it used to be carefully related with astronomy. Early astronomers have been additionally astrologers, charting the celebs to measure time and interpret their affect on human lifestyles. The acquainted 12-sign zodiac dates again to the 5th century B.C.E., and astrology used to be taught in medieval universities.
In 1660, Dutch-German cartographer Andreas Cellarius created a celeb atlas that includes the 12 indicators of the zodiac.
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Astronomy and astrology started to diverge within the seventeenth century. As astronomy embraced arithmetic and remark throughout the Medical Revolution, astrology more and more misplaced its scholarly legitimacy and used to be driven to the margins.
By way of the nineteenth century, science itself changed into professionalized. Universities and academies formalized disciplines, analysis careers and requirements of proof. With astronomy firmly established as a science, astrology used to be relegated to the area of the occult or pseudoscience.
Astrology’s present virtual resurgence echoes those previous waves, appearing the way it has many times tailored to cultural shifts. Amongst Gen Zers, downloads of astrology apps have spiked lately, and business studies undertaking the worldwide astrology marketplace will best US$22 billion via 2031.
Who’s turning to astrology
Astrology these days is a ways from fringe.
More or less one-quarter of American citizens say they imagine in astrology, in step with a June 2025 Gallup survey. A Might 2025 Pew Analysis ballot discovered that on the subject of one-third of American citizens say they’ve consulted horoscopes or equivalent gear.
In our research, slightly below part of American citizens reported ever having consulted a horoscope. We additionally discovered that ladies, more youthful adults and LGBTQ+ folks have been particularly prone to glance to the celebs for steerage.
Greater than part of girls mentioned that they had learn a horoscope, when compared with reasonably greater than one-third of guys. About 60% of sexual minorities reported doing so, when compared with slightly below part of heterosexuals. More youthful adults have been constantly much more likely than older adults to learn or seek the advice of astrology.
Its recognition displays broader cultural shifts: More youthful generations are much less tied to arranged faith however proceed to hunt out spirituality or to find which means somewhere else.
In our find out about, we draw on information from interviews with 31 American citizens, who shared that they noticed astrology as a type of leisure or as a window into any individual’s character.
Many respondents may just identify their zodiac signal or solar signal, and a few described the way it perceived to “fit” their character. Few noticed astrology as actually predictive. As a substitute, they used it as another approach to perceive the self, similar to gear such because the Myers-Briggs character take a look at or the enneagram.
Our co-author, unbiased researcher Avantaea Siefke, interviewed skilled astrologers and their purchasers, who framed astrology another way. For them, it used to be much less about labels and extra about spirituality and decision-making. They described astrology so as to time primary possible choices, achieve self belief or mirror on relationships. One astrologer likened it to remedy: now not deterministic, however a supply of steerage and assurance.
Astrology in unsure instances
Why does astrology resonate now?
Some analysts have described the present second as an “age of polycrisis,” with overlapping financial, political and environmental demanding situations. On the identical time, identification classes have turn out to be extra fluid, and conventional assets of authority — faith, schooling, executive — are much more likely to be contested or distrusted.
Astrology might be offering folks gear for navigating those uncertainties.
It supplies a language for identification, giving folks shorthand to explain themselves and others. It gives a measure of keep watch over via giving folks frameworks for fascinated with possible choices and timing. And it creates neighborhood, in particular for LGBTQ+ folks. Students have famous that astrology is some way for queer communities to deal with on a regular basis struggles and consider possible choices to mainstream types of care and therapeutic.
Critics regularly push aside astrology as irrational or pseudoscientific, and it’s true that astrology isn’t a science. However slightly than asking whether or not astrology is “real,” it can be extra helpful to invite what its recognition says about fresh lifestyles.
From a sociological viewpoint, astrology is interesting exactly as it straddles classes. Fairly than a collection of cosmic ideals, many of us deal with astrology as a device — phase spirituality, phase cultural follow, phase leisure and phase language for figuring out themselves and others.
It’s most probably no twist of fate that astrology regularly surges throughout unsettled instances.
Simply as previous generations may have grew to become to prayer or ritual, many of us these days flip to the celebs. And whilst astrology won’t expect the long run, its recognition says an excellent deal about how American citizens are navigating the existing.
Impartial researcher Avantaea Siefke is a contributing writer of this newsletter.
