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What are astrology TikTok and spiritual TikTok?
Astrology TikTok and Spiritual TikTok are online communities on the video app where creators share astrology, tarot, crystals, and ritual content. CNN reported that they sit alongside WitchTok under one shared umbrella of fascination with the unknown, a shared interest in the mystical that draws creators and viewers together.
Facts checked on against 13 sources, 3 of them museum, university, archive, library, government or primary texts.
Key facts
Every line comes from a source listed at the bottom of the page. The small numbers point to it.
| Late 1940s to 1950s | Gerald Gardner is credited with founding what is now known as Wicca, and Wicca is often described as an invented tradition.12 |
|---|---|
| 1963 to 1960s | Wicca spread to the United States and met 1960s counterculture, and Helen Berger says American feminists began practising it while it remained underground.21 |
| 2017 | TikTok was launched in the US for sharing short 15-second clips, and Witches and Pagans were present on the app from its launch.3 |
| Late 2019 | The earliest references to WitchTok as a collective appear on Twitter in late November and early December 2019, roughly matching early hashtag use on TikTok.3 |
| Spring 2020 | During the COVID-19 pandemic, WitchTok growth accelerated as newcomers flooded the #witchtok hashtag.34 |
| 2021 | CNN reported that the community goes by names including WitchTok, SpiritualTikTok and AstrologyTikTok, and that videos of rituals, tarot readings and astrology predictions gained millions of likes.5 |
| March 2021 | Florence O'Connor wrote in The Cut that TikTok astrology had moved from an alt niche to a growing one over the preceding months.6 |
| 2022 | The Internet Archive holds a 2022 collection of videos from the astrology-tagged uploader dainichi_lazuli, with captions advertising daily readings.78 |
| December 2022 | Lauren Parker wrote in The Wild Hunt that WitchTok is the subsection of TikTok populated by Witches, and described the starseed wing of astrology content.9 |
What the names refer to
Astrology creators on TikTok are described by The Cut as offering horoscopes, birth-chart breakdowns, comedy and tarot readings, aimed at viewers with different levels of commitment to astrology.6
Jade Sykes, an astrological reader for R&B singers SZA and Kehlani, told CNN that astrology studies the movement of planets and stars in relation to the Earth and is more complex than its association with personality traits and compatibility.5
Diana Rose, a Black astrologist, Tarot reader and business owner, said people often see astrology, Tarot and spirituality as one rather than as discrete approaches.5
Online religious communities
A Boston University researcher described online communities dedicated to Africana religious practices on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.10
What the tradition holds
How practitioners describe it, in their terms. Described, not endorsed.
Astrology creators on the app describe the practice through its own technical terms, such as mercury retrograde, a roughly three-week period when Mercury appears to move backwards, and Saturn return, when Saturn returns to its position at birth around every 29.5 years.11
Astrology creators describe the practice as a weather forecast rather than fixed destiny, where transits describe themes and timing rather than scripted events.11
Astrology is listed among long-established crafts, practices and esoteric studies that contemporary occultism includes, and Western notions of occultism are rooted partly in astrology.12
What the evidence shows
What historians, scientists and controlled tests have found.
EBSCO's reference entry states that the rise of social media in the twenty-first century has increased the visibility of occult subjects, particularly on TikTok, and warns that viewing figures do not show how many viewers practise witchcraft or an occult tradition.12
National surveys have found beliefs involving spirits and unseen realities across religious and nonreligious groups, but such beliefs cannot be used to determine how many people practise occultism.12
Worked out from the evidence
Not stated outright by any one source. It is worked out from the sources cited.
- The online spiritual community on TikTok is best understood as one connected field in which astrology, tarot, crystals and witchcraft share creators, audiences and vocabulary, rather than as separate closed groups.513
- Historians and commentators disagree about how far the community is a continuation of older occult traditions and how far it is a new product of the platform.31
Not yet confirmed
- How have astrology creators on TikTok and the wider spiritual community shaped each other's content since 2020?
- How much of the astrology content on TikTok draws on older Western occult sources, and how much is new?
Sources
Museums, universities, archives and primary texts first. Every fact is paraphrased and nothing is copied; Wikipedia is never cited.
- dyingwords.net: EXPLORING #WITCHTOK — THE EXPLOSIVE GROWTH OF WICCA ONLINE - Dying Words. Read on · Reference
- spectator.com: The rise of WitchTok | The Spectator. Read on · Reference
- mdpi.com: The Algorithm Holy: TikTok, Technomancy, and the Rise of Algorithmic Divination. Read on · Reference
- holyblasphemy.net: #WitchTok and the Resurgence of Digital Witchcraft: New Age Practice or Meme Culture? - Holy Blasphemy. Read on · Reference
- Cable News Network: ‘WitchTok’: Amid uncertainty, a new fascination with astrology and the occult bubbles up | CNN. Read on · Reference
- thecut.com: The Best TikTok Astrology Accounts. Read on · Reference
- archive.org: TikTok - dainichi_lazuli (2022). Read on · Primary text
- archive.org: TikTok - dustindeanmentalist (2022). Read on · Primary text
- wildhunt.org: My Week on WitchTok - Culture, Living, Paganism, Perspectives, Religion, The Wild Hunt, Witchcraft. Read on · Reference
- Boston University: From Secrecy to #WitchTok: How the Internet Is Demystifying Africana Religions. Read on · University
- euphia.app: Things Astrology TikTok Gets Wrong (From a Real Astrologer). Read on · Reference
- ebsco.com: Occultism | Religion and Philosophy | Research Starters | EBSCOhost. Read on · Reference
- modash.io: Top 20 American Astrology TikTokers on TikTok (Sep 2026). Read on · Reference