Mystery

Astrology is a meme, and it’s spreading in that blooming way that memes do. On social media, astrologers and astrology-meme machines amass tens or hundreds of thousands of followers. People joke about Mercury retrograde, and categorize “the signs as ...” literally anything: cat breeds, Oscar Wilde quotes, and Stranger Things characters. In online publications daily, weekly, and monthly horoscopes and zodiac-themed listicles flourish.

This isn’t the first moment astrology has had and it won’t be the last. The practice has been around in various forms for thousands of years. In the decades between the New Age boom and now, while astrology certainly didn’t go away—you could still regularly find horoscopes in the back pages of magazines. Chani Nicholas, an astrologer based in Los Angeles said:

(For a time) it went back to being a little bit more in the background. Then something happened in the last five years that’s given it an edginess, a relevance for this time and place, that it hasn’t had for a good 35 years. Millennials have taken it and run with it.

The stigma has receded as the practice has grabbed a foothold in online culture, especially for young people. One researcher said, “Over the past two years, we’ve really seen a reframing of New Age practices, very much geared toward a Millennial and young Gen X quotient.”

Callie Beusman, a senior editor at Broadly, says traffic for the site’s horoscopes “has grown really exponentially.” SimilarWeb reported in December 2024 that the top 10 astrology sites received a total of 38 million visits in one month.

Editor’s Note: You can check the most up-to-date astrology stats on SimilarWeb here

Brian Grazer, Hollywood producer of such movies as Apollo 13, Splash, and A Beautiful Mind, writes:

More than intelligence, or persistence or connections, curiosity has allowed me to live the life I wanted. And yet for all the value that curiosity has brought to my life and work, when I look around, I don’t see people talking about it, writing about it, encouraging it, and using it nearly as widely as they could.

Curiosity seems so simple. Innocent even. Labrador retrievers are charmingly curious. Porpoises are playfully, mischievously curious. A two-year-old going through the kitchen cabinets is exuberantly curious—and delighted at the noisy entertainment value of her curiosity. Every person who types a query into Google’s search engine and presses ENTER is curious about something—and that happens 6 million times a minute, every minute of every day.

Possible Preaching Angle

Brian Grazer writes about curiosity in a way that might remind us of how Jesus habitually piqued curiosity in others, whether it was the woman at the well or the disciples imagining a camel squeezing through the eye of a needle. Curiosity can be what enables the searcher to find the life they are looking for in Jesus Christ.

Forty years ago, First Lady Nancy Reagan was ridiculed for bringing astrology to the White House. She consulted a San Francisco astrologer who advised the Reagans on which days public appearances would be more optimal for the President's success and safety.

Today astrology is about far more than figuring out if your crush is compatible or which soup to eat based on your sign. Personal star watchers are must-have advisors for scheduling art openings, Hollywood premieres, book launches, and board meetings.

Because of the pandemic, a lot of people who hadn't found astrology are looking for answers, both personally and professionally. The global astrology economy was valued at $12.8 billion in 2021 and could reach $22.8 billion by 2031, according to a new report.

Astrologer Heidi Rose Robbins says, “I used to read for artists and healers. Now it's CEOs and stockbrokers. Sometimes it's about choosing the right time for a big negotiation, and other times it's about seeking fulfillment and purpose.”

According to Jennifer Freed, who has a yearlong waiting list and reads for Gwyneth Paltrow, best-selling authors, and CEOs:

There is no more stigma that is keeping people away from astrology. It's just cumulative math. You can test anything in the marketplace, and if it's not effective it will go away. Astrology has survived for thousands of years.

Democritus suggested that all matter in the universe was made up of tiny, indivisible, solid objects. He called these particles "atomos” which is Greek for “uncuttable” or “indivisible.” Later scientists discovered that these atoms could be divided into smaller particles known as the electron, proton, and neutron. Now, more than a century after Ernest Rutherford discovered the proton at the heart of every atom, physicists are still struggling to fully understand it.

High school physics teachers describe protons as featureless balls each with one unit of positive electric charge. College students learn that the ball is actually a bundle of three elementary particles called quarks. But decades of research have revealed a deeper truth, one that’s too bizarre to fully capture with words or images. Most recently, a monumental analysis found that the proton contains traces of particles called charm quarks that are heavier than the proton itself.

Mike Williams, a physicist at MIT, said, “This is the most complicated thing that you could possibly imagine. In fact, you can’t even imagine how complicated it is. (The proton) has been humbling to humans. Every time you think you kind of have a handle on it, it throws you some curveballs.”

Our understanding of the atom has come a long way. While it has taken several thousand years, our knowledge of the fundamental structure of all matter has advanced considerably. And yet, there remain many mysteries that are yet to be resolved. With time and continued efforts, we may finally unlock the last remaining secrets of the atom. Then again, it could very well be that any new discoveries we make will only give rise to more questions and they could be even more confounding than the ones that came before!

Possible Preaching Angle:

Scientists continue to expand our knowledge of the universe and how it operates. Just as the universe is massively complex with uncounted galaxies, so the subatomic world is massively complex. Together they are silent witnesses of the mind of our omniscient and omnipotent Creator who designed it and “in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17).

More Americans believe their home is inhabited by someone or something that isn’t a living being. A study from the company Vivint found that nearly half of the thousand surveyed homeowners believed that their house was haunted. Another survey of 1,000 people found similar results, with 44 percent of respondents saying that they’ve lived in a haunted house.

One researcher offers the following explanations for this phenomenon. Haunted houses can be “a way to connect to the past or a sense of enchantment in the everyday world. [Younger generations in particular] might be searching for meaning in new places. If the modern world they live in isn’t providing food for the soul … it’s not hard to figure out that younger people will search elsewhere for that and find the idea of an alternate world — of ghosts, aliens, et cetera — to be enticing to explore.”

Another researcher claims that the pandemic also played a role in society’s relationship with houses and ghosts. The presence of death in our culture increased, igniting a desire for evidence of an afterlife for some people. “Think of all the sudden, and often not-sufficiently-ritually-mourned deaths during COVID. Many times, people lost loved ones with no last contact, no funeral.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

When people stop attending church or believing in Christianity they don’t stop seeking “spiritual experiences.” The spiritual hunger is still there.

This small, rural community in upstate New York looks like many others in the state. Victorian cottages cozy up to one another and large oaks dot sidewalks. But look closer and you’ll start to see the “Medium Open” signs or stumble upon the Healing Temple. Welcome to Lily Dale, America’s oldest Spiritualist community.

Lily Dale was founded in 1879 as an adult Spiritualism summer camp. People would come, set up tents, and then wait for the dead to arrive. Seances and message services followed. Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, even Thomas Edison (maybe), joined in. Spiritualism is committed to proving the continuity of life by communicating with spirits who have passed on,

What began as that tented summer commune now is a small hamlet, with about 250 residents, many of whom are registered mediums. Every summer, Lily Dale welcomes an estimated 30,000 visitors. Some are searching for healing or spiritual guidance. Others come out of curiosity or skepticism.

At 4pm a service is held at the Forest Temple, an outdoor structure that dates back to 1894. At these services, a medium gets up in front of an audience and starts listening for dead people. “I’m getting a Mary. Can anyone claim a Mary?” There’s a beat or two of silence, and then (most of the time) someone raises their hand in the audience. Then the medium is thoughtful, as if listening to a phone call on a bad line. “Mary wants you to know that she’s always watching over you and that she’s walking beside you in this life.” And then Mary leaves and the medium continues her work as moderator for the afterlife.

Medium Elaine Thomas doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that Spiritualism reached its zenith against the backdrop of the American Civil War and World War I. She says, “Spiritualism grew out of people’s pain and their subsequent need to find healing. Spiritualism and mediums demonstrate that life continues beyond the grave.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Many people are also grieving in these turbulent times of pandemic, wars, and violence, and are searching for comfort. “When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?” (Isa. 8:19). Only in Christ can they find the truth and comfort they need (John 14:1-6; 1 Thess. 4:18).

Biochemist Sy Garte shares how he came out of a radical background to faith in Christ:

I had an unusual childhood for an American. Members of my extended family were left-wing radicals, and my parents had even been members of the American Communist Party. My indoctrination in the dogmas of communism and atheism was deep. At the same time, my father gave me a love of science and reason, and the importance of asking questions. These gifts, along with my training in scientific thought and research, eventually cracked open the prison cell that held my soul captive during those early years.

Breaking free was a slow process, akin to chipping away at a dungeon door with a dull spoon. I saw contradictions in some of what I had been taught. If humans were a blind product of evolutionary chance, with no special purpose or significance, then how could the stated goals of socialism—to advance human dignity and value—make sense?

I also began to contemplate other questions. Where did the universe come from? How did life begin? What does it mean to be a human being? What is the source of our creativity—of art, poetry, music, and humor? Perhaps, I thought, science cannot tell us everything.

Then I read the Gospels and had another shock: I found them beautiful and inspiring. So far as I could tell, they carried the ring of truth. ... The door to my prison cell was swinging open, and I stood there gazing out onto a new world, the world of faith. Yet I was afraid to fully leave. And then the Holy Spirit pulled me over the threshold.

It happened one day while I was traveling alone with a long way to go. Turning the radio on, I heard an evangelical Christian preacher, the kind I used to mock and avoid. But this preacher was really good. I listened for a few minutes before turning the radio off. Driving in silence for a while, I began wondering how I would sound if I ever tried preaching. The first thing that came to my mind was something about science—how, if there were a God, he might have used science to create the world.

And then something happened. I felt a chill up and down my spine and could hear myself preaching. I could see an audience in front of me. It was not a vision exactly, but it was intense. I talked about knowing that Jesus loves me. With a voice full of passionate emotion, I assured the crowd that whatever their sins might be, they were no worse than my own, and that because of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross we could all be saved.

At some point during this experience, I had pulled over onto the shoulder of the road, where I sat behind the wheel crying for some time. The only explanation I could fathom was that the Holy Spirit had entered into my life in dramatic fashion. “Thank you, Lord,” I said out loud in between sobs. “I believe, and I am saved. Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ.”

When I recovered my composure, I was aware of a great feeling of joy and release. I had no more doubts, no trace of hesitation—I had crossed over, stepping over the ruins of my prison cell into my new life of faith. From that day onward, my life has been devoted to the joyful service of our Lord.

Along the way, I made many discoveries. I learned about the power of the Bible as a guide from God to the central questions of our existence. I learned that the true purpose of science is to describe how things are, not to engage in misplaced speculation about why the world is the way it is. Most importantly, I learned that nothing (has come) through my own merit, but only from the grace of our Lord, whose love and mercy are beyond understanding.

Editor’s Note: Sy Garte is a biochemist who has taught at New York University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Rutgers University. He is a fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation, the largest organization of Christians in the sciences, and the vice president of its metropolitan Washington, DC, chapter.

In the early Twentieth Century, Spiritualism was very popular. Mediums and fortune tellers claimed to be able to make contact with the dead and their claims were given legitimacy by such well-known supporters as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series. However, there were also individuals who worked diligently to debunk the claims of these spiritists, among them the famous magician Harry Houdini.

Houdini was one of the most popular performers at the time and he would travel and give live performances across the United States. Part of his magic act involved recreating some of the illusions used by so-called mediums. He would reveal to how slight-of-hand and simple tricks could be effectively used to make people believe they were being contacted by their dead loved ones.

Houdini himself had previously investigated the legitimacy of these practices in part because of his own desire to reconnect with his deceased mother. After a failed attempt to contact her spiritually, he realized the vulnerable position of grieving people. Houdini became disgusted with the way spiritists took advantage of those in mourning.

A handful of individuals were employed by Houdini to go into cities prior to his performance there. Included in these “ghost-busters” was Rose Mackenberg. She would attend seances and meet psychics wearing various disguises and pretend to want to contact the dead. She would then report back to Houdini. On the night of the performance Houdini would call out specifically the local spiritists and disprove their supernatural claims.

Houdini’s actions were motivated by a desire to expose fraud. He knew that many people were comforted by their interactions with these mediums, but he also knew that those mediums were hucksters looking to take advantage of them. He believed it was more important to take away the comfort provided by the deception in order to reveal the truth.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Error; Truth - It is important to know the truth even when it hurts. Many unbelievers may be comfortable in their ignorance of the truth, but ultimately their worldview is a deception. As Christians we have the truth and it is our responsibility to share it with others even when it is uncomfortable. 2) Afterlife; Occult – This illustration could also be used when preaching a text that involves spiritism, such as the medium of Endor.

Launched in 2016, the $100 million search for intelligent extraterrestrial life, “Breakthrough Listen,” continues to come up empty, as do numerous other high-tech endeavors. Author Bryan Appleyard describes the daunting task. The universe contains “perhaps 2 trillion galaxies each containing hundreds of billions of stars and hundreds of billions of planets. And yet still we see and hear nothing. There seems to be only what the French mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal called ‘the eternal silence of these infinite spaces.’”

The big question is, does it really matter if we make contact? True believers have been observed as needing it to be true. “An alien revelation would explain or heal the undefined unease they felt about the human condition. This unease could be expressed as suspicion of governments, apocalyptic anxieties, religious longing or simply a need for their lives to become less banal, less limited.”

In his distinguished book on the subject, Are We Alone? physicist Paul Davies writes that,

The most important upshot of the discovery of extraterrestrial life would be to restore to human beings something of the dignity of which science has robbed them. Far from exposing Homo sapiens as an inferior creature in the vast cosmos, the certain existence of alien beings would give us cause to believe that we, in our humble way, were a part of a larger, majestic process of cosmic self-knowledge.

University of Oxford professor of astrophysics Pedro Ferreira is puzzled, as most physicists are, about the origins and basic elements of the universe.

In fact, we’re at a complete loss at how to explain some of the most fundamental but baffling observations of how our Universe behaves. There is a tremendous, even cosmic, chasm between the physics we know and love, and some of the phenomena that we observe, but simply can’t make head nor tail of. We have no idea how to bridge this chasm – yet we are proceeding, to construct ever more expensive experiments and observatories in the hope that we will.

I’ve spent most of my adult life staring at the cosmic chasm – the abyss between what we know and what we don’t. And while our knowledge of the Universe has improved dramatically in that time, our ignorance has become only more focused. We’re no closer to answering the big questions about dark matter, dark energy and the origins of the Universe than when I started out. This isn’t for lack of trying, and a titanic effort is now underway to try and figure out all these mysterious aspects of the Universe. But there’s no guarantee we’ll succeed, and we might end up never really grasping how the Universe works.

When Ian and Michelle Horne got married, he wore a purple tie on their wedding day because it was her favorite color. Then came the pandemic.

In fall of 2020, after a long battle, Michelle died from complications caused by COVID-19. But not long after his wife's death, Ian wondered if Michelle was still speaking to him.

He was driving to his job as a local radio DJ in the predawn darkness when he spotted something odd. About two dozen streetlights flanking the highway had turned purple. They looked like a lavender string of pearls glowing in the night sky.

Ian took it as a sign. He said, "Michelle knew that was my route to work that I take every morning and was the route she took on her final drive to the hospital. I remember simply smiling and feeling overwhelmed with the idea that Michelle was close."

The coronavirus pandemic has now killed more than 600,000 Americans. Many never had a chance to hug or say farewell to loved ones who died alone and isolated in hospital wards. But there is another group of pandemic survivors who say they have been granted a second chance to say goodbye. They are people like Horne who believe they've been contacted by a loved one who died from coronavirus.

These experiences can be subtle: relatives appearing in hyper-real dreams, or a sudden whiff of fragrance worn by a departed loved one. Other encounters are more dramatic: feeling a touch on your shoulder at night, or seeing the full-bodied form of a recently departed relative appear at the foot of your bed.

These stories may sound implausible, but they are in fact part of a historical pattern. Whenever there is a massive tragedy such as a pandemic, a war, or a natural disaster, there is a corresponding surge in reports of people seeing the dead or trying to contact them.

The 1918 influenza epidemic sparked a "spiritualism craze" as Americans turned to seances and Ouija boards to contact departed loved ones. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks came a wave of people reporting sightings of and even conversations with those who had been snatched from their lives.

These experiences are so common in the psychological field that there is a name for them: ADCs, or "after death communications." Research suggests at least 60 million Americans have these experiences, and that they occur across cultures, religious beliefs, ethnicities, and income levels.

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is natural to mourn the tragic loss of a loved one and to need time to adjust to their absence. Our emotions can powerfully affect us in such cases. However, we need to put our faith and trust in Christ who holds the keys to life and death. Only he can comfort us and we should depend only on his promises of life after death and reunification with loved ones (John 11:25-26; 1 Thess. 4:13-18).

On December 6, 2020, astronomers awaited the return of Hayabusa2 (a toaster-sized capsule launch by the Japanese space agency). Onboard was a payload of 5 grams of material from asteroid Ryugu. While they were anxious for whatever made the 60,000-mile journey back to earth, what they were really hoping to see was chondrules.

Chondrules are small, seedlike rocks measuring up to just a few millimeters across, embedded inside larger rocks (called chondrites). They are essentially rocks within rocks and are thought to have formed shortly after the birth of our solar system. The majority of the roughly 60,000 meteorites that humans have discovered are chondrites.

Scientist believe that understanding how chondrites formed is key to unlocking how the solar system was formed. Science writer Jonathan O’Callaghan says, "In our understanding of how (planets) came to be, there may be nothing as important as the mystery of the chondrule."

But the secret has eluded astronomers. In fact, there is no consensus on how these objects formed. The joke goes that there are as many theories about chondrule formation as there are chondrule scientists themselves.

A few years ago, at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, a stunned audience watched as revered scientist John Wood appeared to admit frustrated defeat in understanding their origin. He said, “We still don’t understand what the meteorites are telling us, and sometimes I wonder if we ever will.” A few years later, he quit science cold turkey and turned his attentions to oil painting and spending time with his wife. And to anyone following in his footsteps Wood say, “I wish them good luck.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Dr. Fred Ciesla, a planetary scientist from the University of Chicago, says: “We can build a story about how planets form … but it’s obvious that there’s a piece of the story that we’re missing." With all due respect to Dr. Ciesla and his fellow scientists, it's actually not missing. We read it in Genesis 1.

Before there was the Internet and Google, the only way to find answers to a pressing question was to visit the local library and ask the all-knowing librarian. A few years ago, the staff at the New York Public Library discovered a box of cards containing questions posed to the librarian by members of the public. The telephone “Ask A Librarian” service was set up in 1967 and operates to this day. And surprisingly, despite people having information at their fingertips these days, the New York Public Library receives roughly 30,000 calls per year.

Help line manager Rosa Caballero-Li said, “People have been reaching out to librarians for as long as there have been libraries. Often time people do not have access to the technology at home, and I think some just want somebody to talk to.”

Among the questions that were discovered:

What does it mean when you dream you’re being chased by an elephant?

Why do 18th Century English paintings have so many squirrels in them?

If a poisonous snake bites itself, will it die?

Somebody in 1962 was looking for “Charles Darwin's book. Oranges & peaches." The librarian politely directed the person to On the Origin of Species.

One person just wanted to know how to put up wallpaper. “I have the paper; I have the paste. What do I do next? Does the paste go on the wall or the paper? I've tried both and it doesn't seem to work.”

"There are no stupid questions," Caballero-Li told NPR. "Everything is a teachable moment. We don't embarrass people; we try to answer any questions they have with honesty and we try to refer them to appropriate resources that they might find useful."

Possible Preaching Angles:

The Bible is a resource of God’s answers to our deep questions. God never forbids a sincere question but invites them (Jer. 33:3, Jam. 1:5) because they are teachable moments and lead us closer to him. Important Bible questions include those about: God’s presence (Ps. 10:1, Ps. 13:1), forgiveness (Matt 18:21), purity (Ps. 119:9), Christ’s return (Matt 24:3), guidance (Acts 1:24), and his attention to our needs (Matt. 8:25).

A book by D.W. Pasulka, department chair of philosophy and religion at the University of North Carolina, is titled American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, and Technology. In it she explores how belief and fascination with UFOs and aliens could be evolving into a sizable world religion. At least 35% of Americans believe extraterrestrial beings have visited us in the past, and 26% believe it is continuing today.

Pasulka has observed that:

UFO beliefs display other classic indicators of religion: sacred sites, sacred revelations, and testimony by credible witnesses to miraculous events. Alien belief allows for a crowded, living cosmos filled with the wild supernatural. It provides a language of longing for something—an angelic visitor, the complete fulfillment of our own technological potential, revelation about the nature of the universe.

… there are signs that alien belief is poised to become one of the world’s ethical religions. Alien beliefs often implicate the world in wickedness and call for repentance. Many accounts of alien contacts include calls for an end to war and an increase in peaceful human cooperation. A recent New York Times op-ed used an alien invasion as a model for thinking about climate change.

Anna Merlan is an American journalist who specializes in politics and religion. In her book, Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists, she devotes a chapter to the psychology behind UFO conspiracies. Not just in the US, but globally:

… the intensity, depth, and breadth of the conversation about aliens throughout the world says something profound about human hopes. About our desire to not be alone in the universe. (About) our wish for some wise and mysterious force out there in the farthest reaches of space that is ready to show us the way. UFO enthusiasm coexists with a certain degree of New Age spirituality. There’s a sense that extraterrestrials don’t just exist. But that they will someday reveal to us … a better way to live, a higher state of being.

Merlan quotes astronomer and leading ufologist Jacques Vallée, who wrote: “The UFO mystery holds a mirror to our own fantasies. It expresses our secret longings for a wisdom that might come down from the stars in new, improved, easy-to-use packaging, to reveal the secrets of life and tell us, at long last, who we are.”

At the 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate at the American Museum of Natural History, the question of whether or not the universe is a simulation was addressed.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was hosting the debate, said that he thinks the likelihood of the universe being a simulation “may be very high.” But says he wouldn’t be surprised if we were to find out somehow that someone else is responsible for our universe.

Tyson uses a thought experiment to imagine a life form that’s as much smarter than us as we are than dogs, chimps, or other terrestrial mammals. “What would we look like to them? We would be drooling, blithering idiots in their presence,” he says. Whatever that being is, it very well might be able to create a simulation of a universe.

Tyson goes on to say, “And if that’s the case, it is easy for me to imagine that everything in our lives is just the creation of some other entity for their entertainment,” Tyson says. “I’m saying, the day we learn that it is true, I will be the only one in the room saying, I’m not surprised.”

Albert Mohler, commenting on this article states, “So a man who denies the very possibility of the divine creation of the cosmos is here willing to entertain in public the idea that some higher species has merely created the entire cosmos as a simulation for that being’s own entertainment.”

In an interview with NPR, musician/singer Paul Simon was asked about the great mysteries of life:

We don't have the capacity to understand the great mysteries of life and God or no God or infinity, we just can't get it. It's beyond us, but that's fine. We're not meant to get that. But the pursuit is so interesting. That, I think, is life sustaining and I think when you lose the interest in that pursuit you're finished.

Like many Europeans, Marianne Haaland Bogdanoff, a travel agency manager in this southern Norwegian town, does not go to church, except maybe at Christmas, and is doubtful about the existence of God. But when "weird things"—inexplicable computer breakdowns, strange smells and noises and complaints from staff members of constant headaches—started happening at the ground-floor travel office, she slowly began to put aside her deep skepticism about life beyond the here and now. After computer experts, electricians and a plumber all failed to find the cause of her office's troubles, she finally got help from a clairvoyant who claimed powers to communicate with the dead.

She's not alone. While Norwegian churches may be empty and belief in God in sharp decline, "belief in, or at least fascination with, ghosts and spirits is surging. Even Norway's royal family has flirted with ghosts, with a princess coaching people on how to reach out to spirits." As one Norwegian pastor said, "God is out but spirits and ghosts are filling the vacuum. Belief in God, or at least a Christian God, is decreasing but belief in spirits is increasing,"