My Phone Is Now My Psychic and Honestly? It's the Most Stable Relationship I Have
It started, as most catastrophic life decisions do, with a late-night Amazon spiral.
I was forty-five minutes deep into comparing cast iron skillets — reading reviews left by people named DutchOvenDave and SkilletQueen1987 — when I thought: there has to be a better way. There wasn't. But what there was, glowing softly in the App Store like a beacon of terrible judgment, was Aura Oracle Pro: an AI-powered tarot and astrology app promising "personalized cosmic guidance for every decision, big or small."
I downloaded it. I asked it about the skillet. It pulled the Seven of Pentacles and told me to "tend to what already exists before planting new seeds."
I did not buy the skillet. I also already owned two skillets. The app was right. The app is always right.
That was eleven months ago. I have since spent approximately $200 across four different divination apps, one "lunar alignment" subscription, and a premium astrocartography service that told me I should not sign leases in cities under Mercury's shadow. I live in one of those cities. I renewed my lease anyway. The app was devastated.
Welcome to the Digital Oracle Economy, Population: All of Us
Here's the thing nobody tells you about the hyper-specific divination app market: it is enormous, it is growing, and it is staffed by people who are genuinely very good at making you feel seen by an algorithm.
Apps like Co-Star, The Pattern, and Sanctuary have racked up millions of downloads by doing something deceptively simple — they make vague, emotionally resonant statements and deliver them with the confidence of a friend who just got back from a silent retreat and has thoughts about your attachment style. But those are just the gateway drugs. The real rabbit hole starts when you find the niche stuff.
There are apps built specifically for:
- Deciding whether to text your ex (the answer is always no, but you'll check three times)
- Determining the "energetic compatibility" of your apartment
- Asking whether today is a good day to send a cold email (it is never a good day, per the cosmos)
- Figuring out if your houseplant's death was your fault or Mercury's (it's Mercury's, obviously)
I have used all of these. I have zero regrets and also many regrets, depending on which app I ask.
The Part Where I Defend Myself (Weakly)
Okay, look. I have a graduate degree. I understand, on an intellectual level, that a randomized card draw processed through a language model does not have access to the metaphysical fabric of the universe. I know this.
And yet.
There is something deeply comforting about outsourcing a decision to something that cannot be argued with, guilted, or made to feel bad for its opinion. When my friend tells me not to buy a $300 vintage lamp, I can rationalize my way around her. When the Three of Swords appears reversed and the app informs me that "this is not a time for impulsive acquisitions tied to aesthetics over function," I close the Etsy tab immediately and feel spiritually cleansed rather than financially irresponsible.
The app removes guilt. That's the product. That's always been the product.
A Taxonomy of People Currently Doing This
Through extensive personal research (Reddit, group chats, and one very revealing Thanksgiving dinner), I've identified several distinct categories of digital divination users:
The Casual Checker: Opens Co-Star once a week, mostly when something weird happens. Posts their chart when someone asks "what's your sign" on a dating app. Totally fine. Normal. Moving on.
The Serious Practitioner: Has a dedicated moon journal. Pays for at least two premium subscriptions. Genuinely restructures their calendar around Mercury retrograde. Will not make major financial decisions during eclipse season. This is me, but I'm in denial about being this person.
The Ironic Enjoyer: Claims to use these apps "just for fun" and "doesn't actually believe in any of this" but has not made a single solo dining decision without consulting their birth chart since 2022. The irony is load-bearing.
The Full Send: Has integrated their astrology app with their Google Calendar, their budgeting app, and possibly their Roomba. Their home is cosmically optimized. They are unreachable during new moons.
I am not going to tell you which category I fall into. (I'm the Full Send. My Roomba runs on lunar cycles.)
Is This Harmless Fun or Something Weirder?
Psychologists have a term for why this stuff works: external locus of control. When decision fatigue sets in — and in 2024, it sets in before 9 a.m. — humans naturally seek external frameworks to reduce the cognitive load of choosing. Religion, tradition, advice columns, and yes, AI oracle apps all serve a similar psychological function: they give us permission to decide, wrapped in a structure that feels bigger than ourselves.
The weirder question is what it means that we've outsourced that function to an app with a freemium model and push notifications reminding us that Venus is doing something alarming in our seventh house.
Maybe it means we're more spiritually curious than our secular culture gives us credit for. Maybe it means decision fatigue has reached a genuinely alarming cultural peak. Maybe it means that in the absence of community rituals and shared meaning-making structures, we've collectively decided that a $12.99/month subscription to a moon goddess chatbot is a reasonable substitute.
Or maybe — and I say this with love — we just like being told what to do by something that won't judge us for asking.
The Skillet Update
I eventually bought a skillet. Not the cast iron one — a carbon steel pan that a different app (one focused specifically on "aligned purchasing decisions") told me was "consistent with my current energetic trajectory toward low-maintenance abundance."
It's a great pan. I use it every day. The app takes full credit.
Would I have bought a perfectly functional pan without spending $200 on digital mysticism to arrive at the decision? Almost certainly. Do I feel better about the pan because the cosmos (read: a large language model trained on tarot symbolism) co-signed the purchase? Inexplicably, yes.
If you need me, I'll be checking whether Jupiter's position makes this a good week to refinance my student loans. The app says maybe. I'm choosing to interpret that as yes.
Tap to reveal your financial destiny. Premium features starting at $8.99/month.
