A skeptic would say - Yeah sure, I don't need astrology. Can you sail in the real ocean without a sextant and Nautical Almanac? Yes, these days - you could use a highly accurate satellite navigation receivers (GPS) and not pay attention to what's happening on the sky. But if you know how to use a sextant and aware of the current positions of celestial bodies, you feel more secure about your trip, then if you would only rely on electronic devices. If a sailor could actually learn how to use planets beyond simple navigational reference points, he could understand and even predict the Ups and Downs as well as Twists and Turns of the trip itself. For example, the knowledge about the ocean tides caused by the Moon's gravity and the ability to predict them is very handy for sailors. 

I assure you that this is only a tip of a beautiful iceberg or a door into an amazing world of powerful predictive tools. Physics of astrology or science of a mechanism by which celestial bodies affect us on a physical level gives you even deeper understanding of reality. Knowing how planetary gravity and electromagnetism come into play leads to an unbelievable revelation of the meaning of your life experiences.

What is Celestial navigation? Or astronavigation? It is a position fixing technique that helps sailors to know their position when they are deep in the sea. According to Wikipedia Celestial navigation uses "sights" or angular measurements taken between a celestial body (the sun, the moon, a planet or a star, whose coordinates are tabulated in the Nautical Almanac) and the visible horizon. 

In other words, celestial bodies are reference points for sailors helping them to get to their destination.

The similarities between astronavigation and astrology are quite remarkable: 

1. They are both based on geometry and astronomy working with Sun, Moon, planets, Fixed stars, first point of Aries, declination, Greenwich hour, angles, etc. 
2. The Nautical Almanac is very similar to astrological Ephemeris, which is also 'a table of values that gives the positions of astronomical objects in the sky at a given time' (Wikipedia) 
3. They both guide us on our path

The difference is even more interesting then similarities. 

1. Deeper understanding of reality. Where a sailor is looking at the stars just as a reference points, an astrologer goes deeper and explores a correlation between movements of celestial bodies and our lives.
2. Predictive ability. Both astrologer and sailor measure planetary positions and angles relative to the horizon and then interpret them for their purposes. A sailor's interpretation reveals his own position on the globe. The astrologer's interpretation revealed a person's life situation, personality traits, and much more. Understanding of mutual planetary alignments and cycles gives an astrologer an incredible predictive ability.
3. Broad Navigation. Astrology allows you not only know what’s happening to you, but also to your loved ones, as well as check into political and economical predictions. The astrology interpretations have to do with people, business entities, countries. Their birth, events, experiences, traits, development, etc.

Mostly I find astrology helpful in navigating the process of understanding how life works, how reality forms around us. Why we feel a certain way today, why certain events take place, why we do well with certain types of people and can't get along with some other types and so on.

There were days in the past when I felt like a lost sailor in the wild sea of my life events and drama. Discovering astrology was like learning how to use sextant. Amazing revelation!

These days astrology is broadly used in a lot more fields then you might be aware of. There are many brilliant minds, fascinated by accuracy of astrological predictions, who are trying to understand how astrology works by means of science.

Astrologers study major historical events in terms of correlating planetary alignments. They analyze mutual positions of celestial bodies at the time of the event as well as dynamics leading up to the event. For example, the famous Titanic disaster Chart has a place on astro.com website. Also read another great article here ASTROLOGY and The TITANIC. It’s been 100 years since Titanic sank (April 14, 1912). Could the disaster be avoided if the White Star Line company took astrological considerations seriously? The charts made for the time when the Titanic keel was laid on March 31 1909, the launch on May 31, 1911, as well as the night of sinking April 14, 1912, all point to 'bad luck or no luck'. There is a lot of conspiracies surrounds the story of Titanic. One of them has to do with similarities between the fictional sinking of the Titan (Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan is an 1898 novel written by Morgan Robertson) and the real-life sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912. Check out details here. Another has to with Federal Reserve System (If you interested in following up this story, I suggest you use internet to research it on your own). The bottom line is any astrological analysis prior to Titanic's departure would give a warning to the negative events, if anyone would care to pay attention to them.

Respectable famous people used astrology.

1. The founding fathers used astrology. Not many people are aware about the fact that Benjamin Franklin was an astrologer published Poor Richard’s Almanac filled with astrological information and used astrology to select the date to sign the Declaration of Independence (read more here)
2. It's a common knowledge that presidents use astrology. Here is an article about Reagan's astrologer.
3. Famous founders of modern astronomy, mathematics, physics and psychology were into astrology, like Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Sir Isaac Newton, Carl Gustave Jung (Big League Scientists and Astrology)

Why a lot of people find astrology very useful and beneficial in navigating their lives, careers, political and business affairs? 

If we look closely at the physics of the solar system on one hand and all living being on Earth on another - we are going to find an answer hidden out on the open.

A scientific knowledge allows you to predict a development and an outcome in a certain process. If you have a given situation and you know the rules of the development of this particular situation then you can predict (pre-calculate) the outcome to yout best ability based on current techniques. 

For example:

• in medicine, if a doctor knows initial symptoms of a certain disease, he can describe the stages of the development of this disease. 
• in physics, if you know the initial mass, velocity and direction of a ball, rolling on a table, you can calculate a trajectory of that ball
• in biology, if you have a seed of a certain plant and you put it into the soil and water it regularly, you'll know that the seed will grow into that particular plant and no other.
• in chemistry, if you mix certain chemicals, you know what you going to have as a result of the chemical reaction.