A remarkable 30% of Americans consult astrology, tarot cards, or fortune tellers, a new US poll has revealed. Particularly striking is the finding that, among women between the ages of 18 and 59, 43% say they believe in astrology. Star signs have become culturally ubiquitous in recent years, partly thanks to technology: the app Co-Star, which uses AI to combine NASA data with the predictions of “professional astrologers”, now has over 30 million global users.

We should not be too quick to weave these findings into the increasingly popular narrative of “re-enchantment” among younger generations. For one, the majority of those surveyed admit that they engage with astrology and other forms of fortune telling “just for fun”. Only 1% report actually relying on the insights of astrology when it comes to making major life decisions. Nor is this really new information; rates of belief in astrology have risen only slightly in recent decades.

Rather than a spiritual revolution, the statistics are more likely to reflect a very modern secularisation of superstition. Like psychoanalysis, which replaced belief in a transcendent reality outside the self with a fixation on the subconscious within, popular astrology — with Co-Star boasting “hyper-personalised” horoscopes — further draws users into their own selves. In this sense, it is a prime example of the sociologist Thomas Luckmann’s remark that “the span of transcendence is shrinking”, tending to prioritise self-realisation and autonomy above all else (astrology provides a “sense of agency” in a chaotic world, says one Gen Z user).

But could there be a deeper, and more orthodox spiritual hunger behind this commodified cosmology? From Ancient Babylon to Renaissance Italy, astrology was once the domain of serious scholars in search of universal truths, and not clearly distinguished from the science of astronomy. While astrology can veer into superstition, it is rooted in the belief, both traditionally religious and classically rational, that there must be a correspondence between our lives on earth and the harmony of the observable universe.

Astrology is tied to a view of nature as rationally and providentially ordered. It reflects the principles of an age where faith and reason were aligned, as they were throughout the history of Christianity. Astrology, arguably more so than other New Age beliefs, can lend itself to theism in its implication of a divine order and the metaphysical ideal of “as above, so below.” Its enduring popularity may point to a lost realm in which nature and culture, religion and science, were reconciled within a coherent narrative.

In this sense, the appeal of astrology may not be so far removed from the desire to recover a pre-modern vision of the universe, despite its contemporary manifestations. One of the most curious findings of the survey is that there is no longer such a sharp divide between those who believe in astrology and those who are conventionally religious: those belonging to a religion are now almost as likely to believe in astrology as those who are not.

The situation is ambiguous, made more so by recent evidence that the same generation is also, seemingly, undergoing a “quiet revival” of Christianity. Gen Z is, compared to their parents and grandparents, more likely to believe in traditional religious doctrines like the existence of heaven and hell. Churchgoing is increasing, with 16% of young adults in the UK now attending church, up considerably from a mere 4%. In America as well, Gen Z is more religious than expected, with 46% identifying as Christian — above the 41% that was predicted by prior models.

Taken together, both trends point to a complex picture where both traditional religion and spirituality may be on the ascent. Whereas in previous generations, alternative spirituality tended to be polemically charged against organised religion, this may no longer be the case: Gen Z do not, at least to the same extent, feel a need to assert a dichotomy between the “spiritual” and the “religious”. A new era of belief may be on the cards.