Notes on Forecasting: Daily Horoscopes, Prediction Markets & World Astrology
From daily horoscopes to breaking news, a critical look at what it means to be an astrologer
“Omen is a latin word meaning warning, and so the idea behind omen divination is that one is talking to the gods and goddesses, not to find out what will happen, but to find out what might happen. If you are looking at what might happen, it presupposes that you can change it, a point that is worth emphasizing.”
- Nicholas Campion
from Astrology, History and Apocalypse
When I first discovered these words by Nicolas Campion, I was elated! He was giving voice to something I struggled to articulate: We tell the future, so we can prepare for it.
After a week of riding high on this inspiration, the gloom of current times settled right back in. How does one prepare for the future when everything feels so fated?
I love astrology, and I have been blessed with access to some exceptionally talented astrologers. Yet, when I look out over the vast terrain of Astro Land, there are two types who dominate the landscape.
Let’s call them the daily news guy and the breaking news guy.
Here I’m using the term “guy” in a non-gendered way, as in: My guy, your future takes are bringing me down. To be clear, I have been both of these guys at different times in my astrological career. And that does not make me—nor them—any less annoying.
Daily News Guy
As the name implies, the daily news guy is obsessed with giving a daily breakdown of the astro weather—what one should and shouldn’t do, what many dangers lie ahead. At some point in history, this type of obsessive skytalk wasn’t possible. Now, thanks to myriad technological innovations—astro software, social media—it’s possible, and, I will argue, useless.
As the astrologer Collin Bedell has pointed out across platforms, we are living in an age of prediction. Unless you’re that one guy with a flip phone and a cabin in the woods, most of us are inundated with algorithms telling us what to do, where to shop, what to eat, when to see the doctor, etc. It’s a lot.
The last thing I want is an astrologer bossing me around, threatening me to seize the moment because if I don’t take advantage of this very auspicious window of time I won’t get the chance again for another 287 years. And, at that point, I’ll be dead.
Breaking News Guy
Then there’s the breaking news guy. This guy loves nothing more than to take the mic to brag about his predictive skills. In case you weren’t paying attention, he predicted the war in Iran down to the minute — as well as the following oil crisis, food shortage, the hantavirus, and every other world event that’s responsible for mass death and suffering.
No matter that what he’s discussing is actual breaking news and people’s actual lives are being destroyed, this is what we call astrology good. By the end of the podcast, one is so thoroughly wound up in a weighted blanket of fear that it’s impossible to focus on what to have for lunch — let alone how to change the world.
This guy poses a whole new set of questions, but I’ll start here:
In an age of prediction markets, where anyone can gamble, at any time of day, from anywhere in the world, on anything from oil prices to war to whether or not Trevor Noah will say the word “potato” on live television, is it any different when an astrologer takes the public stage to cast predictions?
The slogan of Kalshi, one of the most popular of these platforms, is: “Predict the future with Kalshi.”
Which brings up new questions: What is the responsibility of fortune tellers? How has it evolved over astrologers’ multi-thousand-year history?
Saved at the Last Minute
The totality of these musings had started to erode my confidence in astrology and my grappling with my role as an astrologer. As I was mining my expansive sources of knowledge for information or clues on this journey, I re-listened to my interview with Dr. Ali A. Olomi at the Philosophical Research Society and found myself transfixed by his words:
“World astrology is the most effective lens for explaining the present, far more than economics, far more than political science. No shade to the political scientists in the room. It’s a crap major, sorry.
Besides history, and I’m obviously biased, astrology is really the only genuine way of explaining why the world looks the way that it does in a genuinely robust way. It allows and accounts for not only political change, but it allows you to center the ordinary person in a way that doesn’t erase them.
Whereas in political science, you enumerate. So you create a study and everyone becomes a number within that study. But when an astrologer looks at Mars in Taurus, and he sees harm to laborers. That’s not a number. He’s able to move in, or he or she or they, are able to move in to the ground level in a way that a lot of lenses of analysis don’t allow you to do.”
My takeaway: There are many ways to tell the future. What astrology offers is the opportunity to see ourselves in that future.
I’m going to sit with this one for a while…
LA Astro Fest Pre-Fest ft Dr Ali A Olomi
Dr. Ali A. Olomi is returning to the Philosophical Research Society on Tuesday, June 23rd, for LA Astro Fest Pre-Fest, where he will be presenting “Once and Future Stars: The Astrology of Today and Tomorrow.”
Tickets for our in-person event are available now. Keep an eye out for the announcement of online tickets!
If you’re looking for a group of likeminded astro seekers, Club Astro is your place!
We meet weekly to explore the sky in real time and make sense of what is unfolding in our lives and in the collective. This is your chance to ask me questions about your chart, share stories, and connect with a cohort of fellow astrologers.
Club Astro members also get exclusive perks:
Discounted astrological readings & mentorship
Secret invites
Discounted tickets to the Los Angeles Astro Salon and the LA Astro Fest.
Our next gathering is Thursday, June 4th, at 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT.
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