Are Coincidences Just Coincidences? What If Astrology Actually Works?

Around 2012, astrology began to go mainstream in the U.S. and to spike globally. Since then, a raft of journalists has sought to make sense of this burgeoning cultural phenomenon that mainstream culture has largely dismissed as magical thinking – a cri de coeur to find meaning in the pathos of a random, meaningless universe (the current scientific paradigm and worldview).

From the New Yorker, the New York Times and the Atlantic to Buzzfeed and the Columbia Journalism Review, the trend trackers have extracted several core narratives.

Narrative 1: The astrology boom has been driven by the web and Millennials (the biggest and most diverse generation in history). Astrology is perfectly matched to the digital world, which has provided widespread access, which in turn has expanded a more sophisticated conversation beyond pop sun sign horoscopes. As Amanda Hess wrote in the New York Times, “Astrology checks several boxes for viral-happy content: It provides an easy framework for endlessly personalized material, targets women and accesses ’90s nostalgia. It’s the cosmic Buzzfeed quiz. All of this speaks to astrology’s return as a compelling content business as much as a traditional spiritual practice.” In other words, astrology is a source code for meme-landia for the younger folks enmeshed in the attention economy.

Narrative 2: People seek meaning in times of stress and crisis. As Ysana Perez wrote in Buzzfeed, “Astrology is, fundamentally, about making sense of that brave new world: wading into the wide, distant sky and using its motions to predict how things will move down here on Earth. And so even when the moment on Earth is dire, as it is now, with Nazis marching in the streets and a major US city recently submerged by record-setting rainfall, there is a framework we can look toward to make sense of it: one that is natural, and enormous, and that will work even if we’ll never understand exactly how.” As Julie Beck wrote in the Atlantic, “According to American Psychological Association survey data, since 2014 millennials have been the most stressed generation, and also the generation most likely to say their stress has increased. Millennials and Gen Xers have been significantly more stressed than older generations since 2012. Astrology offers those in crisis the comfort of imagining a better future, a tangible reminder of that clichéd truism that is nonetheless hard to remember when you’re in the thick of it: This too shall pass.” In 2016, astrologers saw another burst of new clients when the world turned upside down with Trump’s shocking election.

Narrative 3: Capitalism has discovered astrology. Venture capitalists are starting to stake out the space, investing in apps that are downloaded in the many millions. Amazon has used astrology to recommend products (the perfect gift for your Taurus self). Starbucks has pushed astrology-themed beverages. HBO Max has offered to guide you to movies keyed to your sun sign (just enter your birthday and find dreamy Pisces movies). Even the Army tried dangling astrology for its recruitment drive until an instantaneous backlash of friendly fire deep-sixed it. Not to mention Etsy and the infinite lines of starstruck merch you can acquire.

Narrative 4: People are meaning-making creatures and we have an innate need for spirituality, even if it may be illusory. As Julie Beck crystalized it in the Atlantic, “To understand astrology’s appeal is to get comfortable with paradoxes. It feels simultaneously cosmic and personal; spiritual and logical; ineffable and concrete; real and unreal. It can be a relief, in a time of division, not to have to choose. It can be freeing, in a time that values black and white, ones and zeros, to look for answers in the gray. It can be meaningful to draw lines in the space between moments of time, or the space between pinpricks of light in the night sky, even if you know deep down they’re really light-years apart, and have no connection at all.” J. Walter Thompson’s “Intelligence Group” released a 2016 trend report called “Unreality” that said this: “What emerges is an appreciation for magic and spirituality, the knowingly unreal, and the intangible aspects of our lives that defy big data and the ultra-transparency of the web.”

Although all these narratives are valid and true to some degree, overall the implicit assumption is that astrology is an unfounded belief system – aka B.S. The question almost no one ever asks: What if astrology actually works?

As New York Times columnist and podcaster Jenna Wortham, who uses astrology, observes, “I do find a lot of comfort in looking towards the natural order of the world, which has existed long before any political infrastructure existed, and it does give me comfort as much as possible to tune into that rhythm and understand how it’s changed and how it’s changing, and how my actions affect that. It does establish order where there is none. It offers a framework for chaos … and that does make me feel better about the shitstorm all around me.”

Yet what if this elusive cosmic framework actually has a sound scientific basis? Today there’s a modest yet steadily growing body of credible scientific studies and data that notably affirm various aspects of the astrological thesis of correlations between the movements of the planets and the state of human psyche. Yet “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is the higher standard for “frontier science,” sometimes known as the “Sagan standard” after the famous cosmologist Carl Sagan. As physicist William Keepin observes in his forthcoming Survey of Contemporary Scientific Research on Astrology (to be published in our next Changing of the Gods newsletter):

“The primary conclusion of this article—and shocking news for many—is that the demanded extraordinary evidence for astrology is now in. Rigorous, replicated, voluminous scientific evidence is now available in multiple forms, providing strong scientific evidence and statistical validation of traditional astrological principles and practices, with high degrees of statistical significance. Scientific tests of astrology have meanwhile become far more sophisticated in recent years, developing rigorous testable hypotheses, applying multi-factor statistical methods, big data analyses, and large sample sizes. Much of this research has been published in the past 10 years, and most of it is still widely unknown within the mainstream scientific community. Of course, correlation does not imply causality. So these findings remain unexplained theoretically, but the fact of the correlations themselves is demonstrated, and can no longer be credibly denied.”

As Keepin elaborates, “Few fields of research are more objectionable to mainstream materialist science than astrology, which is generally regarded as sheer delusion and fantasy, or at best, pseudoscientific nonsense.” Until now, the response of the scientific establishment has remained one of condemnation without investigation, in direct contradiction to science’s most basic first principle: the impartial evaluation of data.

The Nobel Prize–winning University of Cambridge physicist Brian Josephson has observed that the scientific establishment at large routinely exhibits “Pathological Disbelief,” a condition he describes as: “I wouldn’t believe it even if it were true.”

In general, the astrological community is largely uninterested in scientific validation, being perfectly content with its experience of practical empirical validation and satisfied clients. Additionally, it got burned in the 1980s when there was a brief burst of scientific study and validation that ended badly in a bout of Pathological Disbelief. Astrologers further criticize the design of many past studies as blunt instruments that usually ask the wrong questions.

What may be emerging today in popular culture is a view that astrology is a synthesis of both science and interpretative art. As the cultural historian and master astrologer Richard Tarnas observes, “It integrates astronomy (planetary data, carefully observed and recorded) with symbolic discernment. It requires both critical thinking and a rigorous imagination. Science is highly interpretive as well, at its essence. Yes, sometimes it’s new empirical evidence that changes the paradigm, but often it’s a new, more coherent or cogent interpretation of existing evidence that changes the paradigm. As every good philosopher of science will affirm, even the data are already ‘theory-soaked’ — the evidence is already reflecting an interpretive matrix.”

Clearly astrology’s many millions of users find value in it. As Mother Jones magazine reported in 2014, “According to data from the National Science Foundation’s 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators study, the NSF reports that the percentage of Americans who think astrology is ‘not at all scientific’ declined from 62% in 2010 to just 55% in 2012 (the last year for which data is available). NSF reports that Americans are apparently less skeptical of astrology than they have been at any time since 1983. Among younger Americans, aged 18 to 24, an actual majority considers astrology at least ‘sort of’ scientific. Among those aged 35 to 44, in 2010, 64% of this age group considered astrology totally bunk; in 2012, by contrast, only 51 percent did, a 13% change.”

In response to this startling NSF survey, which caused formidable distress in scientific and certain secular progressive communities, Mother Jones editor Kevin Drum shared a comment from a reader who offered a countervailing hypothesis for this cultural arc: “The National Science Foundation study shows something is clearly shifting within the culture in regards to astrology, particularly for those under 45. What has shifted? It’s that astrology is slowly winning hearts and minds, not through silly horoscopes, but through consistent, effective counseling that clients find useful, practical and relevant to their lives. Professional astrologers cater to working-class individuals all the way up to lawyers, doctors, politicians, businessmen, and professionals of all stripes, every day in this country. Since the field is not routinely covered in the media, many would be surprised to learn that the average professional astrologer is highly educated, socially and politically liberal, and extremely intellectual.”

Could it be that astrology is winning hearts and minds because it actually works?