The Return of the Stars: Why Political Astrology Is Gaining Ground in a Chaotic World
Guest post by Palmist Ankur
Hello dear reader,
It has been a while. Hope you are well.
I have been taking things slow and as usual, being very picky about what I bring to you.
Of late, something that has been popping on my timelines is this concept of ‘political astrology’ and I was intrigued. Astrologers talking about how they predicted the recent air crash, the wars and many natural disasters too. My practical mind has always been on guard, but this is a science I think, we cannot ignore (especially in the world we now live in.)
Luckily, I knew Palmist Ankur and he was kind enough to contribute to Zoom-out and tell us more about what he does.
I hope you enjoy this read and learn something new (I did!)
Finally, this is the first guest post on Zoom-Out and I am really excited!
As was recently reported by a Pew survey (see here: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/05/21/3-in-10-americans-consult-astrology-tarot-cards-or-fortune-tellers/), astrology is becoming more and more popular in the United States, with the young especially moving towards it. From my experience as an astrologer, this is not true just for the U.S. but also for several other countries in the technologically advanced countries: China is another example of a country where astrology is immensely popular, especially among the youth.
Astrology is not a deterministic science. It is a probabilistic science. An astrological prediction of something happening means a high probability of that event happening. For many people, this probability is very important to know. Think of the insurance industry. It is important for them to understand all the potential accidents or problems that something could face. In order to survive in their business, they need to model risk probability. Simiarly, a country at war, or a credit team in a bank or a company sending a space shuttle into the outer universe. Astrology is one more parameter that models the probability of something: it is not crystal ball-gazing, that whatever has been foretold has to happen. But if the astrologer is a competent one, mostly, it would happen the way the astrologer predicted it. The more probable will probably happen more than the less probable. If you are 3-0 down in the football match, and only ten minutes remain of the match, the more probable thing is that you would lose. In a minuscule number of cases, you may end up doing what would be called a miracle and win, but that won’t be where probability would put up its finger.
In the old days, kings would hire astrologers when they would make wars or defend themselves, launch any important project or currency, etc. Such a practice became less and less common, given the overall disrepute that astrology fell into in the post-Renaissance world, as man was enamoured by the imagination of controlling his own fate, which started to look even more possible once the Industrial Revolution started, diseases and wars reduced and man’s average life expectancy increased. However, it is not that fate became absent: there was still the course of destiny which modern man tried to explain away as random chance or coincidence. The final blow to astrology came in the early twentieth century, when with the growing craze for self-discovery, driven by increasing popularity and acceptance of psychiatry and psychology, a quack method like sun sign horoscopes were invented, which became wildly popular in the world, appearing as weekly and monthly columns in tabloids, supplanting real astrology with its thousands of years of history. This pop and fake astrology supplanted the serious stuff and caused great harm to real astrology.
Until the revival came in the postmodern world. As advances in digital technology came, many ancient texts were able to be translated, new methods found and findings could be propagated, resulting in a resurgence of serious interest in astrology today, particularly in the Western world. The ability of software programs to create charts on the fly helped newbies break into the field and make astrology a much less cumbersome task than it must have been in the hand calculation days. Some bold scientists started to once again deal with astrology and study it. The rich astrological-astronomical tradition that had stopped with Galileo and Kepler revived and continues to flourish today. British astrophysicist and astronomer Dr. Percy Seymour is a great example of this, who started out to prove that astrology cannot work, but ended up proposing a scientific theory of why astrology works!
We are now living in times of great geopolitical uncertainty, arguably greater than at any point of time since the Cold War ended and probably even since the end of World War II. Given that I am mainly a mundane astrologer, that is, someone who predicts world events, particularly political events, I work with people and institutions for whom having an idea of the future is important. Investments, key decisions related to business, safety and lifestyle, all these and more depend heavily on how things would go somewhere. As an example, in March 2025, I had predicted that Iran would face serious military strikes on it, and I had given the dates of June 13-16 as the probable dates of the strike. Israel struck Iran on June 13. Thus, the advance information that I was able to give to my readers and clients was very useful for them to be able to be ready for the world that awaits them now.
Context is very important for an astrologer to operate in. Thus, once the strikes on Iran happened, the charts also showed me that the U.S. would enter the war after June 21, that there would be an attempt of regime change in Iran (and it could be successful) and that Iran also would retaliate, against Israel, after June 21 in some effective manner that would become a talking point for the world. All of which I published in my predictions and posted to my readers and clients. As I write, just a few hours back, the U.S. has indeed entered the war directly and bombed Iran. Now why do I say context is important? Imagine if the same kind of chart had been presented to me for a democratic country not at war. Then, the interpretation would still be the same but reflect in another way: it would be either the government of that country falling (if it’s a coalition government), or losing in elections (if elections were scheduled), etc. Thus, a political astrologer synthesises what they see in the chart with the context and issues a prediction. The astrologer needs to understand the context. To give an analogy with an individual, you are not going to predict childbirth to a 70-year-old woman even if the chart has all the elements that are normally associated with childbirth: no, maybe it is that she is going to come into contact with someone she would care for, rather. The charts and common sense (context) go hand in hand.
The role of political astrology will become more and more important in the future for various reasons. (Astrological charts themselves show in what eras people’s faith in astrology will rise and decline, and then again rise, and the future shows it to rise again, especially as with AI’s help, the astrologer would be able to capture more patterns that were hidden hitherto.) We are now entering a very chaotic and violent world for the next few years. Astrology indicates a tough 2028 to 2032 period for the world in general, riddled with conflicts, wars and even natural disasters. There would be a huge churn in existing status quo of the world powers. In times of such extreme incertitude, the political astrologer’s role will be very important: guide well not just individual clients but also companies, institutions and nations in navigating a very tricky and potentially destructive phase of human history.
Palmist Ankur is a leading political astrologer based in Norway. Successful predictions by him in the recent past include U.S. bombing of Iran, Israel's attack on Iran (with the precise date of attack), the timing of India's missile strikes on Pakistan, the death of Pope Francis, Trump win, South Korea martial law events, the fall of several leaders and governments, several elections correctly called, and numerous earthquakes and other natural disasters.