Space Racism & Astrology With Margaret Gaida

Science is really critical. I mean, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye, the science guy, they hate astrology. I've listened. Yeah. They hate it. As a historian, I'm kind of like, look, you don't have to hate, right? You can try to understand because whether you like it or not, it's a very powerful phenomenon. It has meaning. Welcome to Popsyllabus. I'm your host, Christiana Imbakwe Medina. Rising signs, natal charts, Mercury's in retrograde. Again, it feels like all of a sudden everyone's into astrology. And there's a reason for that. We're in the middle of what's being described as the big zodiac era, with astrology-related products on pace to become a massive $22 billion industry. To help us make sense of all of this, I'm joined by Margaret Guider, a professor of astrology, astronomy, and magic. thank you for coming to pop syllabus thank you so much for having me it's a pleasure to be here even though you're an expert in astrology you're not necessarily you're not a practitioner right you're not here to do my reading so for people at home there's gonna be no birth chart i'm sorry about that um just to give people at home that know nothing about this right eastern versus is Western astrology. Can you explain to me, you know, what they are and how they've evolved? Kind of give us astrology for dummies. Okay, so Western astrology has a long history, starting with the Greeks and then going into the Islamic world and then the Latin West. And around the medieval period, they all agreed to accept a division of the zodiac along the signs. and the signs are just the 30 degree divisions of the sky and that became the sort of western tropical zodiac. However, in the east, they adopted a different set of not signs, but divisions of the sky, which is more based on the position of the constellations rather than the sort of 30 degree divisions of the sky in the western astrology. So, it's just a difference in division of signs, But a lot of the ideas about influences are sort of what planetary, if they're positive or negative or what the signs are, what the houses are. Those are actually all quite similar in East and West. So there is some area of overlap because my follow up was that, and we'll get into this more later, is that like the Eastern seems a bit more like community driven. and like the popular version of astrology that I'm seeing right now, especially in the West, let's say UK and America, broadly speaking, is more individual. It's like, who do I date? And what's going to happen to me? And what's the psychic reading saying? Is that a crude generalization? And can you tell me more about that? I mean, I don't think it's crude. I think it is just reflective of the cultures in which the science is practiced. And I say science, right, with loose, right loosely. Astrology was a science for a long time and was taught at universities. And so any sort of scientific practice is going to be informed by the culture in which it's practiced. And so I think that that's true to some extent. However, in the West, astrological practice was much broader than horoscopes. It was predictive for a long time and was related to weather patterns and natural disasters like earthquakes and plagues and that sort of thing. So was it able to predict them or would it say like a plague is coming and the plague may not or may not come? So this is a great question and really fun for historians of astrology because it's full of instances of successful predictions, which is why people have believed in it for such a long time. And then also false predictions. So one of the famous ones is 1524, a huge sort of biblical flood type event was predicted because of a watery sign triplicity happening. And there were pamphlets published about it. There is this sort of mass hysteria. And then, you know, there is no flood. Right. Yeah. And so that's a pretty famous instance of a false one. One of my other examples that I love to tell was of a character named Valentin Nibod. He was living in the 16th century and was an astrologer and was working on his own horoscope. And he calculated the date of his death, which was a common practice as well during this time period. I don't want to know. Yeah. I don't want to know. I just want to go out in a very chic way. I don't want to know the actual date, you know? A lot of modern people do. But at the time when life expectancy is shorter. Yeah. The idea is that knowing in advance, maybe you can have some sort of avoidance. So he did. Yeah. To know in advance, like pray against it, because that's why my mom would want to. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, you want to have a sense because astrologers would say astrology is not an exact science. And so there's room for error. And so in this case, Valentin Naibod predicted or found the date of his death. And so to avoid it, he went to his country home and he shut himself up. He closed all of the shutters and was like, I'll just sit here, hunker down for several days until the time passes. and so while he was there a band of passing robbers saw the house uh saw that it was all shut up um and thought no one was home and then they found him inside and they stabbed him so he's like really really good at manifesting the worst possible exactly exactly interesting okay like so i didn't so this is interesting about thing about astrology it does have this rich history of like the confirmation bias of like it has worked yes yes yes okay so that again yeah it has worked and that confirmation bias for many people is real and it's a lived experience even in contemporary practice and so so many people if you talk with the astrological community they'll give specific examples not just of something about their personality that resonates with them but sometimes even like I was sick because of this planet moving into my sixth house or something like that or I was really having trouble getting pregnant and then I got pregnant you know they have their own examples the story you kind of tell yourself yeah practice yes on the success stories I'm curious can you give an example of like a very contemporary modern example of like astrology predicting something. Of course, I have a good friend who is really interested in astrology. And even for myself in the summertime, I was like, oh, man, it's summer. It's going to be a little bit tight. And then they were like, well, don't worry. Looks like Jupiter is going into your eighth house. Has anybody died recently? Are you going to get some money? And then lo and behold, that very day, my mom called and was like, oh, we're going through your uncle's affairs. He passed away two years ago and there's some an account that we found my family would say that person is a witch now you're now you're pulling me the other way you know these things happen so that's again why people it's a part of why it's um so popular still uh is that there are enough of these things that happen uh that that uh drives the sort of belief the practice and the understanding and that sort of greater connection to cosmic forces. So I grew up in England. And, you know, the English have a very interesting relationship with astrology. I can imagine. And growing up, there was a astrologer, our biggest astrologer was a woman called Mystic Meg. And she used to do the lottery numbers. And well, she didn't predict the numbers, she just do a little kind of reading before the lottery. And she had a column in the sun, right? So this is everyone knew about Mystic Meg. But as I was kind of doing my reading for today and speaking to our producers, Justine and Audrey. And it was like the people that kept coming up were like men. It was like Alan Leo, who invented, I think it was the sun sign. He's often referred to as the father astrology. Your dissertation was in a guy called Al-Khabisi, am I saying? Al-Khabisi, yes, yeah. And he's considered one of the forefathers of Arab and Muslim mythology. and I'm because of this mystic Meg and because of like this very West African background of like the witches in the village I'm curious about like the mothers of astrology because it feels like historically it's been a male field but like in my imagination and in my personal life when I look at the faces of astrology is kind of like whether it's a columnist or its influences or it's the friend I call and I'm like what's going on it seems to be woman so like who are like the mothers of astrology who have like guided this one of the women that i've worked on um is most famous for actually being one of louis the 14th's mistresses i love a side chick i think they're critical for plot yeah and so she's writing in um late 17th century marie mancini is her name and she was actually doing astrological predictions with the full kind of not just horoscopic astrology but really sort of developed like weather predictions and a yearly prediction for a city and that sort of thing. And so I've also had this question. So she's the earliest person that I can think of in early modern Europe. But also, of course, there's Hypatia, who is writing much, much earlier, right? She's ancient Greek. But in terms of more recent times, there are lots of women who are practicing so i don't even i'm kind of like in contemporary names yeah there aren't a lot like i mean channey and yeah and susan miller like yeah so there are lots of contemporary women but i feel like in this sort of 20th century there are women earlier in the century there are sort of lots of women doing it but not as well known as the men absolutely that's yeah i think that's the thing i was coming back to because i was like it ever it'd be like then this man discovered this and this man said that said this and i was like but where are the women because I don't know not to get too woo woo but like the menstrual cycle guided by the moon it's like I feel like women always have like this relationship with nature and there's always like the wise woman in the family who is speaking about whether it's the planets but kind of woo spiritual stuff but when I looked at like a lot of the research and people who were basically like they were like the paternal figures in this field it was all men um and I just I was curious about that yeah so i mean part of it too is um who's publishing right and so even back then it was a problem yeah well i mean even in modern times i mean you know you are a parent right yeah um and even for myself it's sort of like part of the reason all my books aren't published yet is because i've been raising children by the way yeah she's in the trenches she's got three kids yes so um i mean part of it is just whatever the constraints that women are having um with being um raising children or being in families. And then also, it's sort of, yeah, just traditions of male domination in different fields. There's also just the marginalization of astrology within academia as a practice, because that's happening since the sort of end of the scientific revolution. And so, astrology was still being sort of widely practiced, but in different circles. And so, I think this sort of history of gender within those circles is really interesting. But again, that's all Western. And so I think one thing that's really interesting that you brought up earlier is this question of the Eastern astrology. And when I was thinking about gender in the East, men are still really involved as consumers of astrology in the East. And so you can go and find any YouTube video about the latest predictions for a cricket match. in india by men right so they're all there whereas uh in the west or in the u.s or especially uk um i was seeing that um there's this sort of real problem with especially straight men yeah um criticizing their girlfriends or women who are so interested in astrology yeah and you know it's that's something i wanted to get into because like i would say for like there's certain communities and the data does kind of bear that out that are like more inclined to practicing and believing in astrology I mean I would say like my lesbian friends they treat it like the bible they don play about charts you know um but then like like straight white men and who skew sometimes conservative seem to be a lot more skeptical of it um why do you think that is in especially in a western framework it's just like if this is something that we say women and queer people do and everyone else is like ah we're not into that yeah so i think part of it is conditioning for sure because you can see in the east that men are just as interested in astrology as women but because they've been raised that way that astrology is sort of part of the culture whereas here astrology being part of the new age and sort of marginalized itself has been more, has been less mainstream until relatively recently. And so I think that there's also just this sort of gender bias generally in society. And I was trying to think back, it was only like 25 years ago, around when Larry Summers, the president of Harvard, made that comment about gender bias and education between men and women. And so I think there are certain sort of really deep biases in Western culture along masculine and feminine that lead to these sort of differences in consumption. In terms of the LGBTQ community, that's a question too, where a lot of mainstream religions don't necessarily have space for members of LGBTQ community. And so for them to find a space where they're welcome, where they can find meaning, where they can connect to some kind of deeper and more meaningful questions in their own lives and find answers to them and also find community. I think that's another part of it as well. Astrology offers that. And again, I mentioned this before, but it really is this connection to the greater cosmos that I feel like our whole Western society and its trend towards secularism has been missing. So there's already sort of this absence outside of most faith communities. And so people are sort of turning towards that. And I mean, I think women have found it and members of LGBTQ communities have found it. I think men actually are still really struggling, straight men, because they're they're missing a lot of deeper connection. And they don't necessarily have the outlet or the space. You get red pilled or you get super into working out or like, you know, it's all inward. Yeah. But not like a spiritual contemplative way of thinking about yourself in the rest of the world. Yeah. And so I think that's why you start to see a few more like men's groups showing up where they're kind of starting to explore some of those issues. But yeah, that's what I would say is kind of what's going on. I think that like a lot of women, especially when you kind of get into your like late 20s and to your 30s, you have some sort of health crisis. maybe it's like for me i had challenges with fertility um i've had women in my life have autoimmune issues i've had women sadly pass away from cancer like it's just you know your bodies start to fail you in the way that bodies fail and i think there's something to astrology when the medical establishment doesn't like hear you right and there's a strand of women who are just like okay i'm gonna get into wellness i'm gonna get you know like it's the maha rfk of it all which I think sometimes we can diminish people's real anxieties about like, what am I putting in my body? And I don't feel heard when I see my GP. And then I think for that churning, that worry about what's happening to your body, I think that astrology offers a certain type of release for a certain type of woman who perhaps maybe doesn't want to go to a church or a mosque or a temple or a synagogue, like institutionalized religion comes with its own kind of like heaviness that you're just like, I don't want to touch that. However, I think there's something out there. You know what I mean? So it's just like, okay, like I'm reading Vulture or reading The Cut and there's my astrology. You know, I think that there is an easy entryway to deal in with some of the vicissitudes of life and the troubles that you get into like your early 30s. Yeah, I think that's a great observation. And it really resonates with the sense that the Western sort of culture is so much more mind oriented than embodied and that's true for women too and so uh i mean i remember growing up learning about my own cycle i didn't read it until i didn't know really the details until i was trying to get pregnant oh yeah the luteal phase i was like i know i know and i was like how am i just learning about this in my late 20s when this has been happening in my body since i was 13 exactly yeah so i think that there's a real disconnect you feel angry yeah what why did my mother didn't tell me my grandmother didn't tell me i didn't learn this in biology like there there is like a rage yeah yeah and so there's this whole kind of sense that we're supposed to we should be really connected with our bodies and really embodied and yet we're not and completely disembodied yeah and then that's mirrored when we start to have issues or problems and we go to get it checked out in a traditional medical establishment and we're not heard or we're not or we're seen as a complaining or symptoms aren't taken seriously or any of those things and so i think that there's a real yeah there's a definitely a disconnect between this broader culture again which is very mind-oriented and the embodied experiences of women yeah um i'm actually you know we've kind of spoken about like the gender and sexuality differences in astrology. But I'm actually curious about the fact that it's US adults without college degrees who are more likely than college graduates to believe in it. I'm really curious about the socioeconomics of it all. And I say that because I grew up in a very churchy background. My dad's a pastor. And specifically, even in the black church, people pray about money a lot, right? I need this, I need that. But it also creates this big sense of faith. And I'm just curious about like astrology and socioeconomics in like an American sense but with about the degrees what is it about attaining a degree that means you're like I'm going to turn away from you know this more woo-woo thing so this is really interesting to me because um uh it's a little bit against my own experience um and yeah so uh I came from um currently I'm at Occidental but I did a postdoc at Caltech, which is supposed to be this sort of bastion for STEM, education. And the course I taught was The Occult Origins of Modern Science, Alchemy, Astrology, and Magic. We talked about astrology quite a bit, and students were really interested in not just talking about it, but in actually having a space where they felt safe talking about it. When you have a degree, there's an expectation that you're going to sort of conform to intellectual commitment secular it's not just secular it's that science is is really critical i mean neil degrasse tyson and bill nye the science guy they hate astrology i've listened yeah they hate it and so it's something too where uh as a historian i'm kind of like look you don't have to hate right you can try to understand because whether you like it or not, it's a very powerful phenomenon. It's been around for thousands of years. And so even just that as a phenomenon, I think makes it worth it. And I think the more people sort of resist and close doors or just sort of are judgmental and even sort of carrying shame with it, just saying like, how could you believe that? That's nonsense, you know for something which for a lot of people provides a lot of meaning comfort um and yeah making sense in a very difficult time i think that's problematic for our culture it's interesting so like there it there are maybe people who are like astrologically curious yeah for sure um but maybe they're not willing to express that because the the climate we're in now we said well that's a thing associated with women and queer people and we know because of like homophobia and misogyny like even the conceit of this show like yeah we talk about pop culture a lot oh yeah and that's because the thing that there's like women and queer people are into and people don't take it seriously they're like oh that's not worthy of our rigor but maybe there is a more of a yearning in people that we wouldn't expect but because of who it's associated with and because of what it is people are like oh i'm not into that yeah and i think um what's especially problematic about that resistance is that there's an assumption that just like, oh, astrology is false and science has proved it wrong. And there actually has never been like a critical and rigorous test. There have been different studies where certain horoscope practices have been shown to be problematic. So, for example, they'll give a whole group of people their horoscope and they'll say, does this resonate with you? And, you know, an overwhelming percentage will say yes. And then they'll say, actually, that's the horoscope of the person sitting next to you. So there's that sort of thing. Yeah, there's that. But then even around the time sort of post-scientific revolution, when astrology was starting to be marginalized, it wasn't because people were making false predictions or because they were doing tests and saying, actually, this isn't true. It was a much more complicated sort of social and intellectual phenomenon that historians are still trying to understand. In the meantime, you also have this astrological history, which is a discipline practice for many centuries, where astrologers would look at historical events and then find planetary configurations that sort of align with whatever historical events that they are. And that's where some contemporary astrologers are sort of trying to kind of find a voice to say, look, these are legitimate correlations that members of the scientific community are not taking seriously. So in terms of testing it, right, a lot of times for me personally, I'll just say I don't that some kind of crucial test is not interesting for me because it's already such an incredible phenomenon. in terms of yeah it's real it's real exactly believe it's real yeah exactly um and so i'm not really you know advocating for any sort of test but at the same time i feel like we need to acknowledge that there haven't actually been that many tests that is i didn't know that yeah um i'm curious about the big zodiac piece of it all right um because whether you believe in astrology or not that both sides kind of agree that they don't like these, this huge volume of venture capital going into making these apps and these websites and with the AI of it all. On the one hand, you kind of have your purists who believe like these apps are corrupting a sacred spiritual practice, right? You should never pay for access to spiritual gifts. To me, it's the equivalent of like a mega church pastor who's like, give me your money. There's something gross about that right and so that there's a purist on one side and then on the other hand you've got skeptics who are like well i think that's exploitative like because i don't believe this is real in the first place so why uh why are vcs suddenly getting lots of money to make these astrology um apps and i'm so i'm curious about like this wave of venture capital that's coming into astrology and creating like that we're entering this we're in this age of like big zodiac basically yeah well i mean first of all this is all just created by this incredible way that we can now handle data i mean and that was astrology is one of its biggest sort of problems in the past was that it was just usually one human dealing with sets and sets of tables and calculations and just doing all of that and so there's a lot of room for error and so now that we can handle big data. There's a lot more possibility. And so I think for that, then people can see that possibility. I think the problem comes in when you can also see the possibility for exploitation. And it's not just with astrology apps, it's also just with AI more generally. And so with any technology, there are going to be people who will be trying to make money off of it and then trying to make money off of people using the technology. And so for people who are going to be using whatever the technology is to be aware of what they consuming where it comes from and just to be informed about those things Because for the purists sadly right I mean, are the purists using a computer program to compute the chart? Or are they actually going back and like observing with an astrolabe the planetary position and like writing down? So as... Who is a purist? Yeah. Right. Yeah, I get it. So we all are going to use tools from time to time. But thinking deeply about how we're using those tools, what purposes they're serving. And then again, yes, there will be apps where you have to pay in. But for all of the apps that are coming out that are asking for a subscription, there's so much knowledge available online for free for how to do things, how to make interpretations that anyone who's really interested, who doesn't want to use a paid subscription should be able to find out for themselves. it's going to take a little bit of work, but they should be able to find it. I want to pick you up on that a bit later, especially like the online social media of it all. But I know I think it was CoStar was accused of kind of tracking users app usage outside of the actual app and using that to perhaps manipulate their readings. So there's like kind of like a tech ethic component to the investment in these apps and their explosion. an ATC. Yeah, that's absolutely going to be the case. And that's going to be, again, for anything, whether it's any app. And then I think there's astrology apps, but before long, we're starting to see sort of even more health related apps and medical apps and then telehealth and all of that sort of thing. And so there's a lot of warnings against, you know, sharing your data and being aware of where your data is going and all of that sort of thing. And so, again, I think it's on the users to be aware of that. But then, of course, also tech companies, we've been trying to regulate them now for years. And it's kind of like they still, there's still transgressions. And so I just think that's going to be more and more difficult, even the sort of more automated things become, because, you know, eventually AI is going to be running a lot of the processes that humans are now running. And we're already kind of seeing that, like the influence. Can you tell me tell me a bit about like the ai influence on these astrology apps that are i mean ai in a lot of cases um is is maybe even going to take the place of some of the astrology apps some ai's um or the apps are going to be using an integrated ai function so some of the ais currently are not very good at astrology right i don't think ai is very good at anything um sorry yeah like it's always a bit hackneyed and hallucinate so i'm not shocked that it's like yeah so but that's very very rapidly changing okay and so i think that um yeah i think astrology apps will begin to you know they'll start using uh integrated ai machine learning oh my god yeah so again um for for the purists right that's going to be problematic and so i think that That's another case where people now who are really drawn to Chad GPT for things like therapy. Right. That's, again, the concern where those apps are with an integrated astrology program. That is really, I think, just we want to use it, but use it responsibly. Right. Or just kind of be really conscious of the use because people will use it and people and they're using. I mean, they're already doing it. And so I would say just as a user, just be aware of what it is you're doing. Yeah. That kind of brings me to two sides of this. So we've got like this mass kind of proliferation of these apps and this investment. And the investor of this app looks a certain way. And the person who profits from the explosion of these apps looks a certain way. and then we also have the piece of thing about um a group chat i'm in with three of my closest friends from high school um one of the um ladies in the group one of my close friends her name is and she's of indian descent and um because of her cultural heritage you know she's our go-to person all things astrology and she will always she's the one that tells us when mercury's in retrograde and what stones she's the person um and she's actually the person that came up it tells me my favorite quote that she says uh the stars are intertwined with your prayers so she's just like you know the stars are not destiny they're just there as a map and you should pray so she's very very not she hates people calling it we we she's like this is my culture yeah this is what i know however when you look at kind of like astrology influences online people with big followings the big columnists at some of the big magazines you look at the venture capitalist investors you look who's making the money. The face isn't necessarily brown like Sreena's. The face is the person investing tends to be white male. And the face of it on YouTube or TikTok tends to be a very young, attractive white woman. How did we kind of get to this space, even specifically in the West? And when we say the West, these are global stars, right? Some of these influences are known all about across the world. How do we get to this space where it's like the tradition isn't even associated with this broad part of the East and people who still practice it till today and take it very seriously. I mean, the West continues to marginalize in all sorts of ways. Even with this sort of popular movement of astrology, it's going to be driven by wealth eventually, right? And who are the main wealthy people in this country? It's mostly white people. Um, and, um, I mean, that's part of it for young white women, again, who have not had, uh, who are not necessarily tied to a faith tradition, um, and who are presented with astrology as a alternative and then quickly sort of found meaning in that there's a real kind of attachment and then drive, um, that's behind that. And so I think that's where you get the sort of younger influencer base is that it's not it's not necessarily coming from a place of of greed. No, it doesn't seem malicious. It's like an actual real innocent zeal. Like I've watched some of these videos and I'm like, oh, there's true believers. Yeah. And they want to help people and they're attractive. So people click follow. Exactly. So, I mean, that's what it is. It's like they found. So as an influencer, they found something that works for them. And I think what feels good is that it does feel really meaningful and connected and connected. And so that's a space where, yeah, I think that they should certainly be cognizant of their role of sort of, you know, how they're participating and what the participation looks like. And that's a case, too, where would we like to see more acknowledgement of Eastern influence? Absolutely. of just saying, yeah, or more diversity, or just saying like, okay, you're an influencer, where are your ideas coming from? Like engage with the history, engage with the sort of contemporary cultural practices and other societies, right? So I think, again, with any science or practice, there is a history. And so bringing that into what you're doing is really important. I think some of that happens because they found this practice as an individual, as a silo. It wasn't like passed on to them by a grandmother or a great grandmother. They came across it maybe on the internet. When something doesn't have necessarily a lineage for you, you don't think about like, oh, I have to honor my ancestors or think about other people that are myself. You're just like, oh, I've become an authority on this thing and I have an audience. whereas people maybe from eastern cultures are like well i had to get a reading to get married i had to get reading before we tried to conceive like my friends tell me like such interesting thing it's like this real communal thing right um whereas i think that western individualism means you kind of just get these influences in silos who are building mini empires it's not malicious they're true believers but they're not thinking about like the cultural lineage and the heritage of this practice they're engaged in. Yeah, that's beautifully said. And I think, too, this idea of, yeah, the lineage is so important. And then also with astrology, in most other fields, there's like a disciplinary kind of expectation or practice, or you have to get a degree or an exam. That's the book. Yeah, or there's a book or you have to, yeah, exactly. And this is a field where, yes, there actually was a university in the United States, I think Kepler University, that had a program in astrology. And there's some kind of disciplinary, like there are conferences for practicing astrologers. But these women are not part of that community either. Right. That's what I think is so fascinating. Yeah. And so you get like the astrology podcast that Chris Brennan does is just excellent. Just deals really deeply with the whole history of astrology, but then also kind of, you know, does yearly forecast or monthly forecast and that sort of thing. But, you know, he's deeply tied in with the people going to the conferences and presenting papers and, you know, talking to each other and publishing in the journal. Right. So a lot of kind of academic disciplinary practices that keep each other accountable. Accountable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's accountability there. Whereas with the young influencers who are just sort of individuals, the accountability is their number of likes and subscribers and is the audience. And so I think, too, with with sort of listeners for the show, as we're consuming information, being aware of where our information is coming from, how it's being compiled, all of that stuff, too, is important. And for somebody who doesn't know anything about astrology at all, someone saying complete nonsense can say it and sound very intelligent because you don't know. You just don't know. And also you're vulnerable because I think to seek anything, like whether it's astrology, whether it's like a new type of Pilates, like to grasp at something for meaning and to make you feel good. It's often because stuff isn't going that well. Yeah. You know, you know, it's just you that's kind of like this flux. Right. And I think then you are even more vulnerable to just I don't want to say misinformation for not being able to discern whether is this good information? Is this bad information? And trust me, my husband always says I'm very susceptible to cults. I've been so down so many different weird parts of the Internet and the world, like in that search for meaning. or just I just get really hyper fixated and into things um and I just think it's just like you know how that you know on social media now we see a lot of people doing like what I eat in the day and you're like oh I want to follow this person I like their body um yeah this is what they're eating in the day and then you're like oh but this is the eating disorder pipeline right I think there is an element of astrology where it's just like my life is crazy I graduated during the during COVID you know I didn't get to go to my high school graduation my college graduation like I can't make sense of life. And then you follow this influencer, but maybe they're not even that good at what they do. Yeah. Or whatever it is, is designed to then get you listening regularly. Right. And yeah. And again, it's with good intentions, but it is something where instead of kind of looking or dealing with the deeper issues or sort of a root cause, these women might be kind of like placating their symptoms or just sort of like managing them through that sort of surface level understanding or just like, oh, it's OK that this happened. Mercury's in retrograde or like whatever or OK, this, you know, any example. And so I think that I think the first step is to just acknowledge that you as an individual are like searching for something more and just say, Oh, I'm there's something missing here. I'm not okay. Before then, like, just turning to the next thing and just like really sitting with with yourself and thinking Okay I not okay What is that What is this about exactly And just kind of sitting with the self before like jumping in I feel like you're giving me therapy right now. Because, you know, I was thinking when I was like reading the stuff our producers pulled together for this episode, I was like, oh, my God, this is so deep. like astrology is some complex heavy layered multi-faceted I'm like I couldn't and it was not I couldn't get my head around it I was just like it was like an onion within an onion within an onion and I'm like even if I somebody is to earnestly try and um study this or be an earnest practitioner of it it is very complicated it is really complicated and historically it was really complicated. And historically, there were always charlatans, right, who were called out by their peers as not being good astrologers. And what's interesting is that for hundreds of years, a good astrologer actually had to be able to do all of the technical calculations themselves. So be good at physics. Yes, to be good at math, really. Yeah. And to be good at math and to be able to really understand the astronomical part of the science. And then they would overlay the sort of interpretation and the judgments. And so, again, there's no sort of way to discern, right, who the experts are and who are not, just from a person's standpoint who doesn't know anything about the subject. Astrologers also will disagree, right? And so, that's something too, where you think, oh, there's Western and there's Vedic. And then even within Western, there's traditional and there's the psychological, the 20th century. And, you know, which house system are you using? And, you know, they're all all of these different sort of ways that humans have gone about constructing meaning using these systems in different ways. And so if you read like the astrology subreddit, it's like, really? Yeah, I've been on that. It's a very rich, it's a very rich discourse, place of discourse. They be going at it. Yeah. And they also will argue, you know, I love a bit of meth. I was like, they don't get on. Yeah. But that's the thing too, where people, some people really have a conviction about, about their, their own system and why their system works or is superior. I love that. Can I, can I pick up from there? Go ahead. Astrology has become a big part of dating culture. Oh yeah. Shapes who people are willing to date. I think how people hire a 2020 MIT study showed that there was extensive discrimination in China against Virgos. which is crazy to me because Beyonce is a Virgo and you want more Beyonce. Okay. So I don't like that. And I recently saw a phrase where people talked about, you know, there's people that don't like date Gemini's and they called astrology, space racism. How did we get here guys? But I think what the space racism phase phrase was getting at is like this kind of dogmatic and prejudicial ways that we can wield this knowledge. And I don't think that's unique to astrology. I think that anyone that's coming to some sort of learning, whether it's like political ideology, whether it's spiritual, whether it's diet. I mean, I have friends that won't touch gluten and like, you know, like when you become a believer in a thing, it can shape how you treat others. But I'd love to get your perspective on like the very dogmatic ways that we're seeing millennials and Gen Z use astrology to shape who they are evening, who they date, who they're in community with, and even their own choices and behavior. To me, I think is really problematic because a lot of this like I don't date Gemini's that puts somebody into a box just based on their sun sign. And that's like from an astrological perspective for, again, hundreds of years, someone's sun sign doesn't dictate their entire being. Astrology is so much more complex than that. And so I think in some ways that's actually being a little dismissive of astrology. It's like using it, but yeah, it's reducing it. And humans are such complex and wonderful beings. And so I think, you know, using it as a tool for sort of mutual understanding, right, is helpful. But then using it as a filter for who you're comfortable interacting with is just like using other qualities of a person, right? Why, if you're a space racism, why discriminate against someone's sun sign? And instead of, you know, something else about them, some other feature about them. That they actually can't help. Because I can't help when I was born. Yeah, exactly. So it is it is a way of, yeah, it's filtering. It's and I think that just comes from a place of fear and wanting to protect. And so, again, if people have turned to astrology from a vulnerable space of wanting to understand, it can also be a tool for control. Right. Because it is giving that deeper sense of meaning. And so that kind of, you know, following or sort of, oh, I'm doing what's astrologically right for myself is giving this kind of sense of control or sense of safety. But it's just that's illusory, right? As much as you're coming out of a place of conviction and this strong belief, any astrologer ever will tell you what the stars are intertwined with your prayers. Or the medieval saying was the stars inclined. They do not compel. So there is a lot of wiggle room there. And so I think, again, acknowledging that and still it's that doesn't mean don't work with it. It just means work with it. But be aware that, you know, the rules are guidelines. You know, it's interesting you put it that way, I think, because evangelicals are like the evangelical impulse is so baked into American culture. And in the UK, like it was a Church of England. And there's a level of like orthodoxy and dogma there. especially when you're thinking of a spiritual practice that attracts people that sometimes came out of those traditions whether you know like you're a queer kid that grew up in church and you're like well i can't relate to the church but you still have the residue of like i i would say like whatever i do i'm still i'm a church kid at heart right so you have the residue of those systems that birth you we all we're all swimming in that water and i think naturally all of the the dogma the prejudice the bigotry that lives in all of us that we can't help that we're supposed to be trying to deconstruct has followed us to astrology and we haven't you know realized it i mean i have my own thing my thing is like leo men and aquarius men before my son was born i was like please god just not an aquarius came with pisces but which i don't know if it's much better but you know i mean i was just like and i don't even really believe in this stuff like that but it's like there was the thing and then one of my kids is a gemini yeah one of my friends called me she was just like i'm just gonna tell you now i'm a gemini and i can't stand my mother your daughter is never gonna like you she's gonna love her dad why would you call do you know what i mean and it's like you know so it's just even in our popular imagination people were like well kanye and trump are gemini's and so like you know we have we we associate bad traits or bad people with with certain signs and i think that's just because that's the impulse that we have not just in the west but in the world we kind of just like can be very dogmatic and close-minded yeah maybe but you don't see people you don't see indians doing that as much really i mean they don't and they're not going to talk about just the sun sign because they acknowledge that it's so much more complex and so i think that's just become a habit of the absence of community because i say my indian friends i'm going to reference sreena again how much like these readings are even done with groups She said that there was a man in her village and it was just like her and her siblings and her cousins. You're all waiting to do this thing together. It's not like I'm going to some hole in the wall in West Hollywood and I'm going to pay someone $200. There's me and this woman with her beads, which is a completely different thing. Right. Oh, yeah. We were all there and we all heard each other's readings. I was like, that's weird. Why wouldn't you do it privately? She was like, no, we're all supposed to hear it. So we're all guided by it. So I think there's something to like the ways individually consumed, again, reentrenches that that Western notion and our own biases and bigotry that just exists in this. Yeah, you said it really beautifully and it is itself and other. And so that's the WASP ethic, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. And so putting that individualism and sort of I am this and you are that and that is problematic in whatever way. Yes, discriminating based on sun sign just feels like another example of that. Just before you go, you've been so great. I really appreciate you coming here today. I grew up in the church I mentioned, which is very anti-astrology, even though we know the church does have an interesting relationship with astrology historically. um and i was always like well it can't be that bad the wise men use it to find jesus so there's something to it so i know you're not a practitioner so you don't read the stars but you do understand them i'm really curious to hear from your perspective where does astrology go next especially in a pop culture context because it feels like among gen z and millennials especially there's this deep search for meaning it's kind of like the billy eilish question what was i made for with that longing and yearning where do you think astrology goes next i think that there's a lot of traction um for astrology going forward i think that the people are going to continue to be drawn to it and again it's um it's something that people have been drawn to for thousands of years i noticed the soul boom behind you on the shelf and the spiritual revolution, I think that astrology will be part of that. I think that as people who have sort of been in secular environment for most of their lifetime start to turn inwards, start to deepen their spirituality, that they'll turn to astrology possibly or other forms of spirituality that are associated with the new age, crystals, or other wellness practices. Tarot. Tarot, yeah, of course, as well. And I think it'll continue to gain momentum. And I think really the big zodiac is going to fuel that for better or for worse. Oh, so you think that people are actually going to come into astrology via the apps rather than searching for the apps itself? Maybe, yeah. And so I think, you know, through that sort of use, right, of kind of everyone else has it, everyone's using it, then it'll become more popular. But then again, because it aligns with those deeper questions and search for meaning, that's why it'll kind of continue in this feedback loop. I don't know what that's going to mean for the culture more broadly. Of course, in the academy, we're worried about this sort of anti-science administration and that sort of thing. And that's why things like astrology, which is supposedly not a science, right? They spook people like in this age of misinformation. Like, are we comfortable with like people being guided by the planets when they should maybe read a newspaper? Yes. Yes. And so that's there, too. And so, again, that makes sort of the work of the public intellectual such as ourselves. Right. You said you're not an academic, but you're definitely an intellectual. So, yeah. But that makes the sort of guidance of asking people to be discerning, to think about the information that they're consuming, to ask questions when they don't know. Right. I mean, that's something else. No one likes to say they don't know. Yeah. But at the same time, that's important to look things up, to find reliable sources. All of that's still very important. And I think will is also part of a search for meaning. right you said yourself like you'll go to one thing and then maybe go down another rabbit hole and that's like go back to jesus yeah jesus does have some good things to say great yeah some great bars in the bible yeah some great bars in the bible yeah i will say that yeah margaret thank you so much thank you so much christiana i appreciate you yeah it's been a pleasure and where can the audience find you my instagram is margaret gaida nice yeah okay thank you margaret thank you C-Ch 다음에 checks conv�ji.幫 Hcal dermab