HOLLYWOOD AND

ASTROLOGY
If you’re not one of the 17 million readers of
[Link] or one of the users of the app of the
same name, you may not have heard of Susan Miller –
yet. But for any astrology-obsessed millennial, she is
the queen of fortune telling, single-handedly
responsible for fuelling their obsession with all things
celestial. Somehow she has managed to turn the
mystical, ancient pseudo-science of astrology into a
world-wide phenomenon – her website enjoyed more
than 310m page views in 2018 and this year traffic
looks set to double.
Miller’s readers come from every country in the world,
she’s written 11 bestselling books, and currently writes
for magazines in eight countries. She also has a
monthly TV show and regularly gives personal readings.
She has a devoted celebrity following, including
Cameron Diaz, who allegedly consulted her for advice
before buying a house, Justin Theroux, Pharrell Williams
and Alexa Chung.
Miller clearly enjoys the reach and power of her online
predictions. “It makes me feel accomplished and I am
grateful that people hand their hearts to me,” she says.
But ask Miller the real reason she believes she appeals
to a younger generation and she insists it’s not
completely down to her. “The internet. That’s what has
made astrology so popular,” she says. “In the old days
you had to go to the library or buy a magazine.”
Back then, astrology had a more traditional, fusty
image and was viewed more sceptically. Now perhaps
it’s the need to find direction and spiritual meaning that
has made a younger generation less cynical. So there
are social networking apps, like Co-Star, which not only
offer daily advice based on your birth chart, but also
tell you how compatible your friendships are.
Millennials are looking for answers from a higher
authority
Astrology predictions are perfect for posting online,
particularly if you are willing to connect with your
readers in a way that astrologists in the past never
would. “I love Twitter and Instagram,” enthuses Miller.
“It’s there that I can really respond to people. They say
people lie on the internet, but not to me.”
Miller is shrewd about exactly how she engages with
her readers, never keen to give too much away. She
refuses to reveal her age (she was born in the late 50s),
because she wants everyone that reads her to feel she
could be the same age as them. Cleverly, she decided
early on that rather than dumb down, she needed to
distance herself from cartoon-esque astrologers like
Mystic Meg.
So when Miller started her horoscope pages for Time
Warner in the mid-90s, she decided to write at least
1,000 words on each sign – she knew a detailed reading
would mean people would want to return to the site
every month. On her website, she offers a 12,000-word
horoscope each month, but there’s also the app with
shorter highlights, a daily celestial titbit. Her website is
free to browse, but for a longer reading you need to
subscribe – £44.99 a year or £4.49 a month. “I write a
horoscope and a roundup for each sign, every month. It
comes to about 12,000 words, more if there is an
eclipse.”
From the off she wanted to write for men and women,
rather than focus on a traditionally female market.
Miller’s appeal is global yet her largest fanbase is in the
UK – perhaps as a nation we are more attuned to our
cosmic selves. On her website, the reading for my sign
(Gemini) tells me that this month I will have a good day
for love, a call about TV, but I will need to follow my
intuition about work. I should also take my inspirations
seriously because the universe is listening. The whole
reading runs to seven pages. It is easy to understand
why millennials – a stressed-out generation who have
been told that everything has been ruined, from the
housing industry to handshakes – are looking for
answers from a higher authority on love, relationships
and jobs, while still feeling unique. Handy then, that no
two birth charts are the same.
While she may have nailed the astrology market, her
working life is still modest. Like many freelancers she
works from home (even if home happens to be the
Upper East Side in Manhattan), from the comfort of her
sofa with the TV quietly burbling away in the
background. “I have the rolling news on. Sometimes I’ll
hear a great word and try and use it later,” she laughs.
Miller is actually a second-generation astrologer – her
mother studied the craft back in the 1940s. At the time,
it wasn’t part of popular culture, so she only did
readings for friends and family. And, of course, her
daughter, who was born with a birth defect. Other than
predicting the internet, and her daughter’s future
career, she also predicted that Miller’s leg, which had
paper thin arteries that led to internal bleeding
throughout her childhood, would heal by the time she
was 14.
If I have bad news in the stars, I look for good parts in
the chart
“I would have these terrible attacks, that would lead to
me being bed bound for about eight weeks each time.
Eventually, when I was 13 and 11 months, it was
discovered I had been bleeding internally and I was
hospitalised for 11 months; the tourniquet they put on
was so tight it left the leg deformed.” It is destiny not
fate that this event led her to learn astrology. “I asked
my mother to do my chart to see if I would walk again,
but she wouldn’t, so I wrote to Horoscopes Magazine,”
she says. “They printed my letter and said that I had
good aspects for health, but I didn’t understand all the
terms they were using, so I asked my mother to help
me understand them.”
Learning astrology is complex – you have to think in
calculus – and Miller, who was home-schooled, with a
maths tutor, studied with her mother for 12 years. Now
she is accredited by the International Society for
Astrological Research. After graduating from NYU with
an MA in business, she worked as a commercial
photography agent, but gave readings to those around
her as a means of thanks.
“There was one client who introduced me to his wife,
she was the creative director of Warner books. We
became friends and one day I said to her she should
buy a lottery ticket. I said: ‘You will win in the last two
weeks of December.’ She bought a raffle ticket from a
friend’s son. And on New Year’s Eve, her phone rang;
she had won a Porsche.” Four years later, the same
women helped Miller negotiate her first book deal.
Such is the cult and power of Astrology Zone that the
New York Times once wrote a piece about her being
two hours late with the content. It is obvious she really
cares about her readers, replying to them on social
media, and spending an hour or so each day going
through emails with her assistant. “Although, I prefer
the phone.”
Each star sign takes about seven hours to write and she
works a few months in advance. She writes a round-up
for each and a reading. Once written, they are sent to
an editor and factchecker. “You feel a great
responsibility to people and you can feel the tension –
you have to be accurate with what you say. I don’t
have trouble deciphering the stars, but if I have difficult
news, I look for the good parts of the chart and try and
help emphasise them, and show the reader how to
negotiate the difficult parts.”
We are the first few generations in human history to
see detailed images of what stars look like. The ancient
Babylonians, who charted lunar cycles on the walls of
caves 25,000 years ago, would have only seen them
twinkling in the skies. Even then, they understood that
constellations would appear during different times of
the year and that the moon had an influence on bodies
of water.
There are, of course, sceptics. “People find it irresistible
to make fun of things they don’t understand,” Miller
says. “I would just like a scientist to study astrology or
to have their chart read, or at least read one of my
summaries.”
In between all of her work, she also enjoys doing
readings for her family. “Everyone was asking when my
daughter would get married, but she couldn’t decide on
a day. I said: ‘Uh-oh I need to get involved here,’ so I
picked the day… If there’s a bad aspect involving the
planets you have to wait for them to move. I made
them wait for two years.” Was it worth postponing? Of
course. “They had a beautiful wedding and it all worked
out.”
Susan Miller will host a residency at Daios Cove, Crete,
2-9 June. For information, go to [Link]