I admit, I had come expecting a crowd flaunting amulets and sweeping cloaks. But apart from the occasional streak of purple hair and wispy wizard beard, what I encountered was an even weirder normcore of podiatry-sensible footwear and Oxford button-downs. At a glance, it could almost have been a trade convention of insurance adjusters: experts gathered to contemplate the future, assess risk, gauge the impact of events beyond our control.<\/p>\n
double quotation markThe single biggest problem astrologers have is that they believe in astrology too muchMark Jones<\/p>\n
In that sense, the room reflected astrology\u2019s broader transformation. Astrology is now a $15bn industry<\/a>. From the marginal, it has crept into the mainstream. A 2025 Pew Research report<\/a> found that 30% of American adults consult astrology, tarot or a fortune teller at least once a year, and 43% of women under 50 claim to \u201cbelieve in astrology\u201d.<\/p>\n But its influence on the zeitgeist has hardly made astrology more settled. As I sat down with my interlocutor, her companion Alan Clay, founder of Dwarf Planet University, tells me the mainstays of the solar system can only get you so far. Recent astral discoveries, he said, have enriched the picture, offering a view into the unconscious through bodies drifting in the Kuiper belt<\/a>, billions of miles beyond the sun.<\/p>\n On the wall behind his booth, the price of a reading has been slashed from $29 to $9.<\/p>\n He pulled my chart, a term that I learn carries tremendous weight, something between destiny and the template of my very being. There is the dwarf planet Makemake<\/a> in my fifth house (I too, had to look this up), which carries bold implications for creative expression and, less attractively, secret or potentially bruising sexual affairs.<\/p>\n Some of this resonated. And therein lies the problem. Part of astrology\u2019s current appeal is how quickly it can make itself feel personal \u2013 and persuasive.<\/p>\n Like any sufficiently established field, modern astrology has developed its own hierarchies, factions and grudges. There are fights over tradition and fears about AI; impatient zoomers butting heads with baffled boomers; older men with reputations for harassment; and quieter epistemic disputes. (Has no one noticed, for instance, that almost all the planets are male?)<\/p>\n Beneath all of it was a more fundamental question: who gets to interpret the stars?<\/p>\n \u201cAstrology is the oldest of the occult sciences,\u201d writes scholar Benson Bobrick in his 2005 history, The Fated Sky. \u201cIt is also the origin of science itself.\u201d<\/p>\n For millennia, people have looked to the heavens for guidance and meaning: when to hunt and harvest, how to navigate the seas. The night presents a tapestry of gods and heroes, myths and parables. The stars are indifferent to these projections, of course, but they reveal a great deal about the people making them.<\/p>\n The basic premise of astrology is that the configuration of the sky at the moment of your birth leaves its imprint on your constitution and life trajectory. As above, so below. If in the past, the stars reflected a collective social order, today they are more often treated as a vast personal mirror.<\/p>\n The principle is straightforward. What astrologers make of it is not.<\/p>\n I arrived at the conference, which sold out of its advance weekend passes, with what seemed like a simple question: what does astrology mean to the practitioner in 2026? Moving from room to windowless room, I quickly realized the question was less simple than naive.<\/p>\n \u201cAstrology is really an art form,\u201d said one seasoned practitioner. \u201cThere is the technical component, but it\u2019s mostly about understanding human behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n To another, it was a spiritual practice, a means of communing with the ancients. It was unscientific, and also \u201cnot not a science\u201d. It was a field of infinite study: \u201cWe\u2019ll never get to the bottom of it.\u201d It was moreover a language, composed of symbols and competing dialects, but nonetheless extant. \u201cNo one questions whether Spanish is real,\u201d the astrologer Samuel Reynolds told me.<\/p>\n And yet, in one lecture I attended, Mark Jones, an astrologer and psychotherapist, opened with the controversial claim: \u201cAstrology is not real.\u201d At his words, a murmur rolled through the room, before he elaborated: \u201cnot in the sense that you are\u201d. By his telling, the planets exert their influence on the psyche through a theory of object relations. He clicked through slides, and spoke with great authority on the spatial impact of Neptune and the role of the moon in the developmental self.<\/p>\n But that notwithstanding, he said: \u201cThe single biggest problem astrologers have is that they believe in astrology too much.\u201d<\/p>\n Just what to believe in and what methods to follow are open and contentious questions. \u201cThere are as many branches of astrology as there are astrologers,\u201d one attender told me, before rattling off a list. There\u2019s horary astrology, an oracle for a single moment \u2013 is the person I made eyes with on the subway someone special? \u2013 and electional astrology, dealing with the timing of events (one woman told me that, much to the chagrin of her friends and family, her chart dictated a 7.30am wedding.)<\/p>\n There\u2019s also evolutionary astrology, which maps the soul over lifetimes; mundane astrology, concerning politics and society; and medical astrology. It goes on: relational, predictive, Jungian (the Jungian vibes are strong).<\/p>\n Above all, it was presented to me as a kind of security blanket: a system for understanding the inexplicable, a way to make sense of a shitty day, a means to grasp the contours of current upheavals and find solace in their eventual end. During Covid, one astrologer explained: \u201cPeople were really looking for answers. They were like, \u2018Sky, tell me what\u2019s going on.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The 185 experts who presented were doing what people at conferences do: establishing hierarchies and professionalizing a crowded, competitive field. A conference, after all, is an occasion for conferring legitimacy and codifying the rules of the trade.<\/p>\n In astrology, this raises some obvious complications. If you are claiming to see something about a person\u2019s future, what are you responsible for telling them?<\/p>\n Some clients, I was told, \u201cjust want the good stuff\u201d. Other practitioners prefer to rip off the Band-Aid \u2013 if dark days lie ahead, it\u2019s better to make an ominous prognostication so the afflicted can prepare or hunker down as necessary.<\/p>\n But what happens when you get it wrong?<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no wrong,\u201d Clay told me. \u201cThere are different interpretations. Right or wrong is a Saturnian construct, it\u2019s useful but doesn\u2019t help us understand these new energies.\u201d<\/p>\n That is not, however, the abiding consensus. One of the conference seminars was devoted to learning from readings that went awry.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen people are giving predictions, there is at least a five or 10% chance that it\u2019s not right, and the stakes are huge,\u201d said Kay Taylor, president of the UAC and the Organization for Professional Astrology.<\/p>\n Another astrologer illustrated the stakes with a story from her own practice. Based on her reading of a client\u2019s chart, she concluded that both of the client\u2019s parents would die within the year. She felt obliged to convey this information, whereupon the client quit their job and moved across the country to be with their parents for the end.<\/p>\n \u201cBut they didn\u2019t die!\u201d She exclaimed with surprising pride.<\/p>\n That was years ago. Mom and dad are still alive and well. Yet the astrologer assured me that even though the prediction was off, the message remained sound. Her client got to enjoy some bonus time with her parents.<\/p>\n double quotation markEvery person is a complicated mathematical formulaCeleste Nash-Weninger<\/p>\n Gaffes like this are what make training critical, I was told. No fewer than six professional organizations were sponsoring this year\u2019s gathering \u2013 the National Council for Geocosmic Research is the only one without \u201castrology\u201d in its name \u2013 and they offered various routes to affiliated credentialing and curricula, ranging from astrological markers of ADHD to advanced training in asteroids.<\/p>\n Celeste Nash-Weninger, from the American Federation of Astrologers, told me: \u201cEvery person is a complicated mathematical formula.\u201d She used to be intimidated by the graphs and numbers, but after taking recommended courses \u2013 \u201cand they\u2019re tough: eight hours of math and delineation\u201d \u2013 she has confidence in \u201chow the heavens move\u201d.<\/p>\n Whether advanced math is required for mastery is open to debate. But there is one thing nearly everyone here agrees on: technology has made astrology more accessible \u2013 but also, some practitioners worry, diluted its expertise.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore, people had to do it all by hand,\u201d said Leslie Benson, an astrologer who works for AstroGraph, maker of the popular TimePassages app. \u201cYou had to have an ephemeris, where you looked up every placement. You had to draw it all. Now it\u2019s instant.\u201d<\/p>\n Most have eagerly embraced the new tools; after all, if software can do the calculations, practitioners have more time for the interpretive work. But they also remove one of the barriers by which skill was once recognized.<\/p>\n Artificial intelligence is where most everyone here draws the line. Of course, AI was inevitable: Pluto is in Aquarius and Uranus is in Gemini \u2013 yikes \u2013 but the contemporary astrologer, at least according to one seminar, must safeguard the personal and spiritual component of the work. \u201cEmbracing Uranus,\u201d it advised, referring to the dark trickster of the cosmos, \u201cwithout losing your soul.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"We](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/We_asked_astrologers_about_major_life_decisions_they_ve_made_because_of_astrology___video--7865c044-.jpeg\")
We asked astrologers about major life decisions they\u2019ve made because of astrology \u2013 video<\/p>\n