My boyfriend’s first impression of AstroSwami Pro was, “trippy.”

I can’t think of a better word to describe this app. Horoscopes and Zodiacs, Astrology studies and websites vary far and wide, ranging in quality from pure silliness to the exceptionally serious. You’ll often find the silly, frivolous horoscopes on the back pages of Cosmopolitan and in the lower, easily-overlooked corner of a newspaper demarcated in its short blurb of a box. Sites like www.astrology.com focus on the love angles, how you can figure out if Mr. Dreamy in his hot, blue button-down and slick, black pennyloafers  is “the one” or if he’s just playing you for a fool. Pictures of hearts and glam women tend to accompany these sites, adding to the non-serious patina. However, Astrology as a subject matter was founded in seriousness. Much like mythological stories, dramatic and theatrical they may be, Astrology is steeped in historical and religious belief, dating back to the 3rd millenium BC. Ever since secularization in its various stages, Astrology has been watered down in the modern era into something of a pseudoscience, a trite novelty of inconsequence. However, in many Eastern studies, particularly of the Vedic sciences, astrology still holds a pillar of credibility.

AstroSwami Pro by Vital Acts Inc. definitely takes a more serious and believable course in its zodiac principles, as it follows Indian Vedic Astrology along with Western Astrology. The app provides life predictions at a personalized level based on your birth date, birth time, birth place, and birth country, and includes a personality breakdown based on Numerological analysis. It also prescribes remedies like Red Book remedy, Gems Remedy, and Saturn Transit Remedy, all of which when viewed critically, provide ways for you to better yourself or avoid certain predicted obstacles. The Numerology section is exceptionally thorough, and even includes a list of ideal professions and personality faults that eerily resemble truth. A general day-to-day horoscope is given for all the different zodiac signs, along with a love section that doesn’t resemble the frivolity of less serious sites you may find online.

Natal Chart done for me by friend

I’ll admit I was surprised – maybe a bit spooked – at the accuracy of AstroSwami. Like any good girl, I made a beeline for the love prediction tab, and was pleasantly greeted with a very descriptive summary and analysis of my attractions and relationships, with several poignant insights. I, thankfully, have witnessed the more powerful side of Astrology since the mother of a good friend of mine has studied astrology in depth over the years. By slowly introducing it to me over the years, she allowed me to consider it as a more credible source of information and self-reflection. A few years ago she performed a Natal Chart for me, breaking down the various facets of my personality – things like what motivates me, what nourishes me, how I identify and relate, my achilles heel -  alongside diagrams of the different houses, planets, moons, and everything that to this day remain completely incomprehensible to me. The poignancy of this natal chart was astounding at the time, and to this day, still resonates with a bold, sharply cut truth. Today, she is working toward her MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology through an online program offered at the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture at the University of Wales, Lampeter.  More such programs have been springing up lately, as more institutions (mostly in the east) recognize the merits of this line of study.

Granted most quasi-credible astrological results are given in tandem with an institution or someone who studies professionally, I was taken aback with the quality of AstroSwami Pro. It’s too bad the interface is a bit glitchy: the top navigation bar that runs through all the remedies and analysis catches every now and then, or just doesn’t work at all, and the app crashed on me four times in the half an hour. However, the content is quite good, and eye-opening in a way. Even if you’re someone who doesn’t seriously abide by astrological guides (and most of us don’t), AstroSwami still proves to be entertaining – I promise it will encourage a few good, “oh wow’s” from you, and perhaps even prompt some insight into yourself. Skeptics and followers alike can reap some value from AstroSwami, even if it’s just a surprised laugh at how it accurately predicted food poisoning in the month of September (I suffered from food poisoning a few days before a friend’s wedding. Imagine my surprise at reading that, along with other, personal predictions).

With Astrology programs popping up in veritable institutions, the day could come when Astrology breaches from the ragged trenches of pseudosciences, leaving behind its peers of Cryptozoology and Phrenology. Besides, throughout history there have been progressive thinkers, misaligned as blasphemous or mad, for their theories that later proved to be accurate. Homer originally postulated the world to be flat, but Pythagorus believed it to be round. It wasn’t until much later that Aristotle agreed with the notion, and much later when another Greek philosopher by the name of Eratosthenes formulated a remarkably accurate calculation about the diameter of the earth, and also the inclination of its axis of rotation to its orbital plane about the sun. And then, suddenly, in medieval Europe the consensus again was that the world was flat.

The one truth we have is that knowledge is malleable and truths finite. Maybe Astrology will prove us wrong. Then again, it may not.