The horoscope advises against any work: “Although you really want to do your work well, you have been very distracted lately and therefore are not fulfilling your obligations with the highest quality.
The stars say the best solution to this problem is to have a day of active rest to go back to work with fresh ideas. "
Stefanie Diemand
Editor in business.
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Mankind has looked at the stars for many centuries.
And that although the Greek astronomer Hipparchus is said to have known 2000 years ago that stars are no good for predicting major events.
Despite all the scientific studies, horoscopes are still widely used today.
The horoscope quoted above was not found in a gossip magazine, but in the app "Nebula", Latin for cloud.
Nebula is not in the fog at all, but in the app store, along with a variety of other apps that are dedicated to star reading.
Esotericism as part of society
The structure is mostly similar: for 50 euros you can not only read the daily horoscope at Nebula, it also provides information about compatibility with other zodiac signs (love always sells) and tips for beautiful hair.
If you want to know it in great detail, you can have an astrologer predict the future personally.
But that costs extra, 2.99 euros per minute.
Astrology is more in demand than it has been since the 1970s.
While horoscopes have long been part of western cultures, witchcraft, healing crystals and tarot cards have also found new followers today.
The esoteric market in Germany is estimated between 15 and 20 billion, there is no really precise number.
Everything from the one-man energy coach to esoteric TV channels such as Astro TV is included here.
“Consumers are increasingly turning to the market in search of spiritual well-being,” write economists Katharina C. Husemann and Giana M. Eckhardt from the University of Royal Holloway in London in a scientific article.
People's search for meaning manifests itself in material consumer goods, but also in “body-modified offers”, such as therapeutic fasting or “detoxifying” the body.
Above all, however, esotericism seems to have arrived in the middle of society: Anyone who today wears a necklace with an Aquarius around their neck or explains to their friends that a relationship with their ascendant or the moon phase has failed is not wearing an aluminum hat.
Nor is he a conspiracy theorist per se.
Conventional beliefs on the decline
At least that's what figures from a joint survey by the polling institute YouGov and Statista suggest. According to this, more than 60 percent of 14 to 18 year old Germans believe in horoscopes, just as many as among 35 to 44 year olds. At least more than half of the 25 respondents aged between 34 years (56 percent). Today yoga is already popularly referred to as a popular sport, and meditation is also offered as a workshop for relaxation in large corporations such as Google or Facebook. Conventional belief, on the other hand, is on the decline: In a recently published survey, only around a third of Germans said that religion was important to them.
What has arrived in the middle of society ends up in the middle of a shop at some point: For example, the second largest fashion retailer in the world, Hennes and Mauritz (H&M), sells zodiac signs on T-shirts or necklaces, and the bookseller Hugendubel sells tarot cards , and Perfumery Douglas sells a facial massage roller made of rock crystal, the “stone of the spirit”, which is supposed to stand for “clarity and order”.
Everything your heart desires - or seeks meaning - can be found on Amazon, from healing crystals to guardian angels and self-healing guides.
There are also all sorts of clutter in the range of supermarkets: for example, ashwagandha powder, the so-called sleep berry, is marketed as a medicinal plant against stress, anxiety or depression, the effect has not been scientifically proven.
Supernatural experience as a goal
Not everyone who goes to the yoga studio once a week or takes ashwagandha powder to sleep is of course looking for something higher.
The boundaries are blurring.
The question of what exactly is understood as spiritual has also changed over time.
Spirituality is important in all major world religions - and the term is interpreted and discussed differently in all of them.