So why, in an age of information overload and in a news-saturated city like New York, are written horoscopes still so popular?

One appeal is that they offer some order in an otherwise chaotic city and volatile world, said Galit Atlas, a clinical assistant professor in New York University’s postdoctoral program in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

“What makes us feel safe in the world is order, boundaries and sequence, and those three things are things that astrology can give us,” Ms. Atlas said. “Especially in a time when the world doesn’t feel safe, we tend to search for an order that makes sense.”

“That’s not a negative thing,” she added. “The more secure we feel in the world, the more we’re able to be productive — to live fully, to love and to work.”

Astrology is believed to have first appeared in ancient Babylon some 4,000 years ago. But as a written art in newspapers and magazines, the practice is comparatively new — about a century old. (The first horoscope column in a major newspaper graced the pages of The Sunday Express in London in 1930.)