How are horoscopes written?

It is a little of both.

Horoscopes in the newspaper make a statement about a whole sign group, so the “predictions” are generalizations.

The writer checks the current alignment of stars and planets based on what houses they are in, and then uses the general “meanings” of different alignments to make a statement.

An example is “when Mercury is retrograde in Gemini : Because Gemini 
rules communications, be prepared for miscommunications
 when Mercury is in this sign. Expect lots of phone calls or none, and lost or misplaced mail. You may not articulate clearly, and gossip abounds. Old friends may reconnect.”

Some writers just make shit up with as much relevance as a fortune cookie.

The horoscopes you see in the paper and in countless websites online were invented in the 1930s for an English newspaper. They are not real astrology. They had to be short to fit in the space provided by the newspaper.

When we are born, the planets appear in a configuration in the sky. They fall in the 12 signs the ancients assigned to the zodiac. Astrologers can use the way these fall and the relationships they have with each other to determine the personality of the individual whose chart they are studying.

When we are born, there is one point in the zodiac that is on the horizon. This is called the Rising Sign or the Ascendant. This point will mark the cusp (beginning) of the First House. It’s placement is important in determining the cusps of the other 11 Houses in the chart.

This is important, because what newspaper astrologers or horoscope writers do to make their job easier is to set the First House as the same House that the Sun falls in. What they erroneously do is to tell all people born with their Sun in Cancer that Cancer is the Rising Sign. These are called Sun-Sign Astrologers. They then go on to make all sorts of assumptions about what is happening to people with their Sun in Cancer based on a completely erroneous reading of the Houses. Cancer will be their First House, Leo will be their Second House, etc.

The reality is much more complex. The Rising Sign/Ascendant changes throughout the day. So someone born at 8AM when the Sun may be in Cancer will have a different Ascendant and a vastly different chart than someone born at 8PM on the same day. But the Sun-Sign astrologers will treat those 2 people identically. A real astrologer will not make this mistake. A real astrologer will look at the chart made by knowing the exact time of birth and not just the date of birth.

Let’s take my chart for example. My Sun is in Cancer. I was born in the early morning hours placing my Ascendant in Gemini. The Moon happened to be in Sagittarius. The other planets all fall where they were at the time. If I read the horoscope for Cancer in today’s newspaper, they are going to make assumptions that say Cancer is my First House, and that Saturn in the sky is transiting my Sixth House. The reality is that Cancer is my Second House, and Saturn in today’s sky is transiting my Seventh House. The meaning for Saturn transiting the Sixth House is very different than when it transits the Seventh House.

If you are interested in reading a horoscope, read it for your Ascendant. You can only figure your Ascendant if you know your exact time of birth. If you know that, you can get your natal chart here. (I hope that link works for others. It’s to astro.com’s natal chart calculator. I’m questioning whether or not it will work, because I use the site, so it’s set to my chart. If it doesn’t work, you can go to astro.com, click on “free horoscopes” at the top, and under “drawings and calculations”, choose “natal chart, ascendant.”

Thank you! That was really interesting and informative. I will go to that website as I do know my time of birth.

Astro.com is the most popular site for obtaining a natal chart, but it doesn’t give any explanation. It only shows you the chart.

To get the chart with explanation, go here

I’m late and @Hawaii_Jake has said most of the information you need to know. I only want to add some more specific information.

What are you referring to? The “characteristic” of each sign or the prediction newspapers make about what will happen to each sign on a particular day? The “characteristic” is easy to make up as most people can know the basic traits of the sun signs and from that basic newspapers can think of any shit they want, like “Gemini is more likely to use their phone for 5 hours a day”. And the prediction can also be made up based on these basics too.

To be honest I hate those things, the newspapers and all the star sign Facebook page shit. They give astrology a very bad name.

Where the real characteristic of the signs comes from has been pretty much explained by @Hawaii_Jake. And the real, much more accurate prediction can be made using a method called “transit”. What is transit? It’s basically making comparision between your natal chart and the chart of a particular time period. Think of it this way: when you were born you were assigned certain planets in certain position, and everyday they interact with the movement of the planets in space in certain ways. Your natal chart never changes, but the space is always changing. So “transit” is just find out on a particular day how your planets interact with the universe. Actually you can just take the sun for analysis. And a daily horoscope written by a real astrologer can actually be accurate to some degree.

I know you only know about natal chart recently so you can just go and read ready-made explanation. But I prefer to do research and make interpretation myself. It’s feel cooler and more personal. In fact, interpreting a natal chart is quite a complex task because everyone is different, sometimes we even need a specific context for an interpretation. Sometimes it takes several planets and aspects (how a planet interact with other planets) just to understand why one planet works this way.

Remind me that I have dived too deep into astrology.

Back to the OP: Astrology is the belief that there are unseen forces that influence events and people, and that these influences can be determined by the apparent location and movement of stars, planets, and other celestial objects, and their apparent relationship to each other.

Although it is considered to be a pseudo-science, practitioners use extremely accurate and intricate mathematical calculations to determine the exact location of celestial objects at a given time and date, and further calculations to determine transits, as @Mimishu1995 pointed out above.

I’ll try again. To the original post:
“What I mean is, does some random person write them off the top of their head, or is it really people who study the stars, their alignment, etc? ”

The answer to the direct question that was asked in the details is it’s a person who writes them off the top of their head. A person who studies the stars and their alignment is called an astronomer, not an astrologer.

@Rarebear A person who studies the stars and their alignment is called an astronomer, not an astrologer.

You clearly have no idea what astrology entails. Mind you, I am neither disputing the validity of astronomy, nor am I attemptIng to validate astrology as a true science.

Both astronomers and astrologers study the stars and their alignments for different reasons. The astronomer, by studying the movement of celestial bodies, can predict or forecast the position of certain stars, planets, comet, etc., based upon historical scientific observations.

The astrologer, using the same historical data, can make the same predictions and forecasts, and then, based on maybe-not-so-scientific observations over the past few millennia, forecast traits and characteristics.

As an astronomer, I know exactly what astronomers do, much more than you do, thank you.

And when I was younger I studied astrology and read several books on it. So yes, I know what I’m talking about. Again, thank you.

@Rarebear does have a point here regarding to the people making things up. True, the more accessible horoscope is written by people who has no idea what they are talking about. But that’s only 50% of the story.

I don’t think if you had studied that deeply about astrology, you would think of it simply as “someone writing on top of their head”. Based on a not widely proven belief, yeah, but definitely not fiction writing.

As for the “cold reading” thing, there are online readings for natal charts too, on forum. And I can see that there are some not-so-positive prediction too. Not everyone tries to sugar coat just to make you feel good and believe in astrology. With nothing more than some description and a chart, it’s harder to do cold reading.

@Mimishu1995 You may think what you like about me. But they’re fiction.
To wit: http://www.glossynews.com/funnyhitman/horoscopes.php

That site is obviously parody. But any of those things could have been written in the daily horoscope and NOBODY would know the difference.

@Rarebear you are talking about those “surface” horoscopes that appear on newspapers and the internet, which is exactly what has been stated in responses above and the 50% that I said you are right about.

Of course few people would know the difference if not the newspapers and Facebook fanpages would have died off long ago. Astrology is in fact hard to learn. It requires patience and lots of reading. And an average person just doesn’t have time, resources and willpower for such kind of work just to validate some random newspaper article.

Real astrology doesn’t use such general statement for their prediction. It requires different charts for every readings, and each prediction applies for a different individual.

“Real” astrology is just as much fiction as the newspaper ones. Just because people put a lot more time and effort into the the con, it doesn’t make it any more true.

@Rarebear, I would like to thank you for successfully illustrating how closed minded a scientist can be when discussing anything that falls outside the dogma realm of scientific method.

The OP clearly stated that the question was not about the validity or lack thereof concerning astrology. When I brought astronomy into the discussion, it was to point out that both areas of study use similar observations to determine the location and time of celestial events. The astronomer and the astrologer might use the same ephemirides to calculate such things as eclipses, apparent retrograde motion/planetary stations, planetary ingresses, sidereal time, positions for the mean and true nodes of the moon, the phases of the Moon, and the positions of minor celestial bodies such as Chiron. Once these are calculated, the similarities end.

Exactly. After they do their calculations the astronomer writes a paper and advances human understanding of the universe while the astologer cons some poor unsuspecting person out of some hard earned money with some well written fiction.

@@Rarebear astologer cons some poor unsuspecting person out of some hard earned money with some well written fiction

If astrology is part of a person’s belief system, and the astrologer concurs in that belief system, that is hardly running a con. It’s more likely that the astrologer has developed a skill set consistent with their beliefs and the belief system of their clients.

The key word is “belief”. Philip K. Dick said it best: ”“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.””

Astrology is exactly that—it’s a belief system. Belief is based upon faith. Science is based upon a rigorous set of experimentation and testing of hypotheses. If you don’t “believe” in science it’s still there. Unlike astrology.

Just how much do you know about astrology to be so sure that it’s purely fiction? Do you know what a natal chart looks like? Or is your knowledge of astrology only limited to random horoscope articles on newspapers and images of fancy dressed people looking at crystal balls?

Sure, the interpretation of a natal chart can be subjective, but what’s on the chart isn’t. An astrologer looks at the chart, use their knowledge of planet combinations then make their prediction. Their experience may affect the interpretation, but what’s on the chart, the combination rules, the planet system… they are there.

Think of it this way: two astrologers see two planets indicating a conflict between a person’s communication skill and the urge to restrain. One will think it’s a bad combination because it hampers the person’s communication skill. The other will think it’s good because it will encourage the person to communicate with high level of decency. Both astrologers can see the same thing, they just have different opinion about it. But if the client asks further for clarification, they will both point out the same combination they see.

That’s what makes astrology far from being fiction. You can make up anything you want and there will be inconsistency. This is why newspapers’ horoscopes often contradict one another. But astrology is consistent in its very core.

And if you think astrologers only make up lies to con people out of their money, think again. Go back to my forum example. People do reading for free, and there are even amateur astrologers who limit their reading on forums for kicks. What can they gain from exhausting their brain power for an elaborated lie? It’s not like they are recruiting more members because astrology isn’t some kind of religion where anyone needs to convert anyone. And even if they really feel the need to lie, why not just tell their “clients” everything about them is good so that they can feel satisfied and believe in them more, instead of trying to say things in the most objective way possible? I’m not making any of this up. Just browse the forum section of Astro.com for a few minutes.

It’s still open to question whether astrology is really reliable, but calling it fiction is just too dismissive. You can’t conclude that something doesn’t exist if there is no concrete evidence of it not existing.

“Just how much do you know about astrology to be so sure that it’s purely fiction?’
Quite a bit

” Do you know what a natal chart looks like?’
Of course I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t be answering the question.

“Or is your knowledge of astrology only limited to random horoscope articles on newspapers and images of fancy dressed people looking at crystal balls?”
No. But the analogy of the fancy dressed person looking at crystal balls goes back to my point of the theater of the whole thing. It’s the theater (natal charts) that lends the whole practice credence for the gullible.

“Sure, the interpretation of a natal chart can be subjective,”
We agree on something.

“An astrologer looks at the chart, use their knowledge of planet combinations then make their prediction.
Which they make up

” Both astrologers can see the same thing, they just have different opinion about it. But if the client asks further for clarification, they will both point out the same combination they see.”
Nope. That’s where the cold reading comes in and the confirmation bias of the person who paid the big bucks to get their fortune told.

”. You can make up anything you want and there will be inconsistency. ”
Exactly

“But astrology is consistent in its very core.”
Exactly. Consistent in its fiction.

“You can’t conclude that something doesn’t exist if there is no concrete evidence of it not existing.”
So you believe in the tooth fairy, unicorns, and Santa Claus also?

https://youtu.be/flNCK9qE7XQ