Worried about the future? We predict you’ll read this story about a high-profile St. Paul astrologer

If you don’t take it too personally, Madame Clairevoyant will guess your sign.

As a professional astrologer and author of daily horoscopes at New York Magazine, Claire Comstock-Gay, as she is known in real life, has seen the industry explode in popularity over the last decade.

Horoscopes that often centered romantic pursuits have spread to broader subsets of people’s lives like their career, where they choose to live and their family life, said Comstock-Gay, 37, who has lived in St. Paul since 2016.

“I was talking the other day to a childhood friend of mine, and he and his wife just had a baby who’s a Capricorn. And he was like, ‘We’re panicking. You need to talk us down. Co-star said that Capricorns are boring,’” Comstock-Gay said, referring to a popular astrology app. “‘Is our baby boring?’”

Astrology has thrived in recent years, as social media content creators breathlessly post which signs to avoid on dating apps and ponder what Gemini season, which began May 21, means for you.

These personalized, spiritual approaches to challenging and uncertain times are trending, according to a report from market research firm IBIS World. The psychic services industry generated an estimated $2.3 billion in revenue in 2024 and employed about 105,000 people.

“A long-term shift in consumer perceptions has underpinned growth as mainstream consumers increasingly accept psychic services,” reads the report, which goes on to say that skepticism about psychic services “has waned ... especially in times of uncertainty.”

Three in 10 U.S. adults say they consult astrology, tarot cards or a fortune teller at least once a year, with about 1 in 10 adults consulting the stars on a weekly basis, according to a fall 2024 Pew Research Center survey. Astrology services are most utilized by younger adults, women and LGBTQ people.

Last fall, New York Magazine’s The Cut boosted the weekly column to daily missives from the stars. Comstock-Gay now devotes five days a week to writing and crafting an individualized report for each of the 12 signs.

Comstock-Gay is known for horoscopes that are personal but still grounded in reality, without the over-specificity of classic columns that advise readers to ask for a raise or say yes to a first date. With wider public interest in the work, Comstock-Gay has seen the baseline knowledge of astrology grow among readers, too.

“When I started, their questions would be, ‘I’m an Aquarius. What sign should I date?’ Now, people’s questions for me are, like, ‘So my north node is at Aries, 25 degrees,’” she said. “The general baseline of knowledge that people have is a lot higher.”

Burned out on the high cost of living in New York, Comstock-Gay relocated to Minnesota after falling for the art and writing scene while visiting her sister who lived in the Twin Cities at the time. Life as a writer in the Cities has been good to her, she said.

Since publishing the column to a wider audience a decade ago, she’s heard from people who read deeply and have made major decisions because of it. Some have decided to come out, propose to a partner or tackle their mental health challenges, Comstock-Gay said.

Lis Perrin, a Gemini Sun, Aries moon of Edina, said learning about her birth chart has helped her connect to herself in a way she’s never felt before.

“I like the answers it gives and the sense of community I feel while discussing it,” Perrin, 33, said. “I’m not a religious person, but I do feel like the universe does guide me, and I think astrology plays a lot into it.”

Comstock-Gay often starts her days in her home office in St. Paul’s Highland Park by taking a look at a big book of all the various astrological happenings of that day — because there’s always something going on, even if it’s very minor, like the moon making a random angle to the planet Mercury.

“I look up whatever that is and then think a little bit and make quick notes about what, vibes-wise, that might mean for each of the signs,” she said. “I pick a thing to focus on and then think about what that might look like in the world for real people.”

The horoscope for each sign is 80 to 100 words, giving readers a little bit to take with them to use or not, she said. The most popular involve retrogrades, eclipses, or anything to do with Gemini or Scorpio.

Long before her hit column, Comstock-Gay grew up hating astrology. All Comstock-Gay knew was that she was a Sagittarius, and those personality traits never resonated with her: overly optimistic, like an enthusiastic golden retriever. She was moody and loved poetry.

“I was so insulted by the whole thing. No, thank you. Not for me. Later, people were like, ‘Then what’s your rising sign?’ And I’m like, ‘What’s a rising sign?’” she said.

When she moved to Brooklyn after college, new friends and acquaintances were obsessed, wanting to know her sign as they connected. So, Comstock-Gay started learning more. A turning point was learning about her Cancer rising sign as she saw just how expansive astrology really was.

“Your chart is so complicated and different,” she said. “Learning even just that one little shade of nuance to my Sagittarius sun made it click into place.”

A couple of years later, her casual interest solidified, Comstock-Gay started writing horoscopes for free in 2012 for a friend’s website. She balanced horoscopes with her busy day job working with homeless LGBT teenagers in Harlem and kept it up once the now-defunct publication the Toast offered to pay her $50 a week. Once it shut down, she began writing for the Cut.

Sometimes people think of astrology as much more prescriptive than it actually is, feeling as if Comstock-Gay is some cosmic entity trying to tell people what to do. Either way, she cautions: Don’t let astrology rule life.

“Astrology is not the boss of you.”