The twenty-nine-year-old astrologer Aliza Kelly was getting ready to conduct an Astrology 101 live stream from her Upper East Side, Manhattan, apartment on a Sunday night in June. A sparkling SpectroLED light panel transformed the living area into a miniature set for a movie. She added, “My manager took me to acquire these lights at B&H.”
Some of the fifty-two participants, who had paid between $19.99 and $39.99 each, were typing greetings as of a little before eight-thirty. One woman in Europe had set her alarm at 2:30 a.m. to log in. When the class began, Kelly flipped through a slide presentation that covered topics like ancient Babylonia, the zodiac, and William Lilly, the “English Merlin” who was consulted by both sides during the English Civil War. She displayed a photo of Mariah Carey with the caption, “She likes getting things,” to illustrate the characteristics of an Aries.
She had Steve Jobs and Rihanna for Pisces. She stated, “Talking about the signs as celebrities is my major favorite thing to do. Because they are contemporary mythological characters. Everyone in ancient Greece understood the meaning of the word “Athena” when they heard it.
A millennial astrologer’s schedule is typical of Kelly’s. She manages a “virtual coven” called the Constellation Club, with membership levels that range in price from five dollars to two hundred, writes books (on zodiac-themed cocktails), hosts events (at the exclusive club Soho House), provides individual chart readings (for one hundred and seventy-five dollars an hour), hosts a podcast called Stars Like Us, makes memes (for lolz), and consults for the astrology app Sanctuary.
She also contributes a piece of advice to Cosmopolitan and hosts an infrequent Cosmo video series in which she predicts the signs of famous people based on their responses to a series of 12 questions. Seventy-four percent of Cosmo readers claim to be “obsessed” with astrology, and seventy-two percent check their horoscope daily, according to editor-in-chief Jessica Pels, who has increased the magazine’s print coverage of astrology to nine pages in every issue.
Since the 1970s, astrology has not experienced such widespread popular acceptance as it is experiencing today. The transition got going with the invention of the personal computer, picked up speed with the Internet, and is now moving at even faster rates thanks to social media. A 2017 Pew Research Center survey found that roughly 30% of Americans had faith in astrology. However, a considerably higher percentage of people, according to academic Nicholas Campion, author of “Astrology and Popular Religion in the Modern West,” are aware of their sun sign, read their horoscope, or research the sign of their significant other.
The trend-forecasting firm WGSN declared two years ago that “new spirituality is the new norm” when it released a report on millennials and spirituality that monitored such trends as full-moon celebrations and alternative medicines. The Times announced, “astrology’s resurrection as a captivating content company as much as a traditional spiritual practice” in an article titled “How Astrology Took Over the Internet” last year.