A Vendetta for Astrology
Not Quite 2,000 Years Out of Date (Nice Try, New York Times)
The New York Times recently published a piece with the headline: “Your Zodiac Sign Is 2,000 Years Out of Date.”
Catchy. Click-worthy. And precisely the kind of headline engineered not to educate, but to bait our curiosity—right on schedule with Pluto’s (the planet that deconstructs, exposes obsessions and power struggles, and reveals who holds control—often monetized—only to remind us that true power comes through adaptability, surrender, and the acceptance of death (or the ending of an era) as the gateway to rebirth and endurance, true wealth) transit through Aquarius. Pair it with Uranus in Gemini (the planet of disruption, innovation, and sudden breaks in patterns, moving through the sign of information, media, communication, and propaganda—historically linked with cultural upheaval and wartime messaging), and it echoes a historic theme: the dangers of media sensationalism, reminiscent of propaganda cycles that spiked in past Uranus-in-Gemini eras, including World War II.
And yet, here we are again, locked in a 200-year cycle of obsession with astrology—whether declaring that “your sign is wrong” or reviving the mythical “13th sign.” These arguments continually resurface because they misunderstand the fundamentals: the tropical zodiac is not the constellations, but a symbolic division of the ecliptic into 12 equal parts—anchored to the solstices and equinoxes, and the only astrological framework that consistently reflects Earth’s seasonal movement around the Sun. Astrology has never claimed to be science; and that, perhaps, is what makes materialists so uncomfortable.
Despite every debunking attempt, astrology is a $14.3B industry today, projected to surpass $25B by 2034 (Market Research Future, 2024). Not because it’s “out of date,” but because it is more relevant than ever.
The Clickbait Economy: Astrology as Commodity
Over the past 14 years of Neptune in Pisces (2011–2025), astrology has surged from niche subculture into mainstream commodity. Today it floods your feed, inbox (thank you for being here and allowing me to flood your inbox ;), apps, memes, and hashtags. This is why my astrofutures research partner, Sarah Owen, and I wrote and article for Real Review issue #17 Extinction Burst—alongside contributions from Noam Chomsky, Rage Against the Machine, and Francis Fukuyama. (You can still get a copy here if you’re interested.)
The public often consumes astrology as a product rather than a practice. One of my deepest ambitions is to showcase astrology as the profound language it truly is—offering depth and lived experience rather than exploiting its sacred knowledge or using the title ‘astrologer’ as a poster or poser to profit from constant demand. I’m not built to churn out content like a machine (I can’t tell you how many people have offered unsolicited advice: ‘Why don’t you post more? Write less, say less—make catchy bites, don’t be so deep. Make memes…’). I want more—and you deserve more.
And now, the very institutions that profit from trend cycles—The New York Times among them—seek to capitalize again, this time by declaring astrology “wrong,” and you wrong for believing in it. By framing it as outdated, they bait us with fear: what if my identity isn’t what I thought? What if I’m the only fool still believing in something not outwardly approved by the gatekeepers of taste and reason (men in suits)? Like a school of fish drawn to tiny particles of food glistening in the light, we swim toward the shimmer—only to find ourselves hooked.
The False Premise: Signs ≠ Constellations
The article conflates signs with constellations. They are not the same.
Constellations are uneven star clusters. Virgo spans 44°, Scorpio only 7° (IAU, 1928).
Signs, in tropical astrology, are 12 equal 30° divisions of the ecliptic, anchored to solstices and equinoxes (Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, 2nd c. CE).
To say “your sign is wrong because the constellations shifted” is to critique tropical astrology for not being sidereal. That’s a category error, like faulting music theory for not being jazz.
Precession: Already Accounted For
Axial precession (1° every 72 years) is real (NASA). Hipparchus observed it around 130 BCE. But tropical astrology already accounts for it—by anchoring 0° Aries to the spring equinox every year.
Tropical signs don’t drift. They are seasonal, symbolic, and experiential—not stellar. To call them “2,000 years out of date” is to misunderstand their very purpose. And shame on editors who claim the mantle of scientific rigor while overlooking this distinction.
Science as King: The Materialist Obsession
The Enlightenment enthroned science as King, the arbiter of truth. But kings fall.
Newton’s mechanics, once considered universal, collapsed under Einstein’s relativity (Einstein, 1915).
Geocentrism, defended by Church and science, yielded to Copernicus (1543) and Galileo (1610) (Kuhn, 1962).
The steady-state theory of the universe was abandoned after the Big Bang gained evidence (Kragh, 1996).
Science is not eternal fact. It is scaffolding until it is not. Astrology hasn’t ever been proven, nor has it been disproved. Where is the “proof” that love exists? Or beauty? Or justice? These phenomena are lived, not measured. As philosopher Paul Feyerabend argued in Against Method (1975), science itself is provisional: “Science is only proven until it is not.” My grandfather, a recognized scientist and astrophysicist who worked for Nasa, echoed this: certainty is temporary, change is the only constant.
Materialism—the obsession with what can be measured—erases what can be felt, intuited, or lived. It erases feminine and indigenous epistemologies that privilege relationship over reduction.
Astrology as Ancestral and Feminine Knowledge
To dismiss astrology as “out of date” is not neutral—it’s cultural erasure.
Indigenous peoples worldwide—Lakota, Yoruba, Māori, Inca—have always read the sky as living text, guiding planting, ceremony, and law (Cajete, Native Science, 2000).
Astrology, like these traditions, encodes cyclical, embodied, often feminine knowledge—rooted in myth, ritual, ecological alignment. The very qualities industrial modernity sought to suppress.
When astrology was exiled from universities during the Enlightenment era—the last Pluto in Aquarius transit (1778 to 1798)—it wasn’t just an epistemic choice, or because astrology failed. It was because astrology threatened the rising ideology of linear progress and industrial materialism. It was part of a broader patriarchal-colonial project that sought to discredit the authority of our ancestors, feminine, indigenous cosmologies in favor of linear progress and industrial control.
The Enduring Power of Astrology
Astrology is not a belief system to be disproved. It is a symbolic framework for making sense of cycles, time, and human experience.
Love is not scientifically proven, yet we feel it. Beauty is not measurable, yet it transforms our perception of reality—gives rise to art, myth, and enriches culture.
Why demand that astrology conform to scientific positivism, while exempting religion, economics, or even psychology—systems also built on interpretation, not certainties?
Astrology endures because it is functional. It provides orientation, continuity, and context. It grounds us in cycles larger than ourselves, offers a vocabulary for pattern and meaning, and helps individuals and cultures situate themselves within time. That utility—not proof—explains why it adapts, survives, and remains relevant.
Final Thoughts
So, has your zodiac sign changed?
Only if you confuse tropical with sidereal.
Only if you mistake constellations for signs.
Only if you let media algorithms dictate your sense of self.
What is truly outdated is the obsession with materialist certainty and patriarchal gatekeeping—the reduction of symbolic traditions into clickbait fodder to profit from our clicks.
Big media may knock astrology and spend money trying to delegitimize it, yet they are also the ones who call on us—wisdom keepers—to decode trends, interpret culture, and even write their horoscopes (though not The New York Times; they pride themselves on being materialist, scientifically sound, and apparently a Virgo—though if their own theory (article) were right, they’d actually be a Leo—desperately seeking attention) so that their businesses can thrive. That contradiction speaks louder than any clickbait headline.
Astrology’s power isn’t in proving or disproving. It’s in teaching us to think for ourselves, to honor cycles, and to live symbolically in a world addicted to reductionism.
And that may be why, despite every debunking attempt, astrology is more relevant than ever.
©Rose Theodora [all texts by Rose Theodora unless otherwise noted]
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I tried commenting on the New York Times post, but—conveniently—their comments are closed. Guess astrology is too hot to handle 😉