Published by Real Review
Words by Sarah Owen and Rose Theodora
Illustration by Lauri Simonin
Real Review trades in big ideas. Each issue it takes the cultural temperature and presents a series of long essays and reviews that define the “current mood”. It’s a deliberately open structure that allows for brilliantly distinctive writing, like this partisan review of astrology. If you look to your stars for guidance, you’ll love this one. And if you think tracking star signs is a load of old nonsense, read on to see why you’re missing out on an alternative way of understanding the world.
Check your phone. Somewhere in your Instagram feed, someone is citing their rising sign as a reason for their emotional fragility, their ambition, their unread messages. On TikTok, a tarot spread explains why Mercury in Pisces is making you text your ex. In a VC-funded strategy meeting, an investor is talking about the correlation of Bitcoin spikes and the lunar cycle. Everyone is talking about astrology.
What was once the preserve of niche publications and woo-adjacent corners of Tumblr has become cultural infrastructure, a mainstream framework for making sense of time, relationships, identity and the self. Astrology is having a moment. But the question isn’t whether it’s ”real.” The more revealing question is: why now? What is astrology answering that other systems of knowledge (science, psychology, politics, or even organised religion) no longer seem equipped to?