Is Astrology Real Or Fake?

This is literally a billion dollar question because the astrology industry makes billions every year. How did astrology grow into this huge industry and where did it start? Why do people turn to astrology everyday?

A lot of confusion surrounds astrology and what is considered part of astrology. Personal astrology is basically fortune telling, love compatibility, life readings, and things along those lines. The key component to astrology is that it is based on the day you were born, your birth month, your birth time, or anything like that. Another part of astrology is the position of the planets, moon, and sun on the day that you get your reading or the day that you are asking about. But astrology isn't all about personal readings.

Throughout history astrology has been used to determine if a king should go into war or if a country will have a financially successful year. Historically if the astrologer was wrong, they would be killed or suffer some horrible punishment either way their astrology career would be over. Nowadays people don't have to worry about losing their lives when their reading is wrong.

It is the lack of punishment that has drawn so many fake astrologers into the field. Anyone who has any skill in reading people can sit down and give out readings. The problem is that these readings are not based so much on astrology and the position of the planets but on reading the person. Instead of being astrology, it is more like psychology. This is fake astrology.

Some people may challenge the notion that any astrology is real and they may have a lot of good points. In reality astrology has been around almost longer than any religion. For people who truly study the planets in relationship to people, they are working with thousands of years of knowledge that has been passed down. Very few jobs can make that claim. It is obvious that this kind of information is invaluable to predicting the future for anyone or anything.

The line is often blurred between astrology and psychics. This is due to the fact that psychics often fortune telling readings and they may sometimes dip into astrology for these readings. Psychics also do many other things that astrologers don't do. They will pull out a magic ball and 'see' the future in it or connect to someone from the spirit world through it. They have tarot decks that will 'reveal' some aspect of your life. Some of them can even 'read' the lines in your hands and tell you your future. These people are often just reading people and saying things based on what you say or how you react to something. When these people are right it is often simply because you believe that they are right. The mind is a powerful thing and if you believe that you can do something, you will work towards that goal and chances are that it will happen. It didn't happen because a psychic said it would, it happened because you believed that it would.

A nonbeliever of astrology could probably argue the same point, life events happen because you believed they would. Here is where fate or destiny comes into play and not everyone believes in fate or destiny. If everyone has a predetermined destiny then the planets and stars are possibly the only things that could hold that information. Even the surface of the Earth is constantly changing but the location of the stars and planets is set in the galaxy. They have seen everything that has happened on Earth and will continue to watch for eternity. If you need to turn to something, they are the most stable physical objects you can find.

Astrology being real or fake depends on if you find a real astrologer or a fake one. Unfortunately successful fake ones are very good at reading people and, frankly, good at being a con artist. It also depends on if you believe that you have a predetermined destiny or not. If you believe that you make your own fate, then you probably have no use for an astrologer. The bottom line is that only you can answer the question 'Is astrology real or fake?' for yourself.

My name is Jennifer Schroeder. I am the owner/director of a GLBT caregivers website, http://partnercaregivers.com. My passion is writing but I also enjoy reading and video games. I like to write articles about different things that I have encountered or studied within my life so I am many topics inside of me waiting to be written. If you have any questions or comments about any of my articles, please send them to EzineArticles or one of my sites listed above.