Do daily horoscopes really work? | Why daily horoscope is a time waste
Do daily horoscopes really work?, Check out my opinion about daily horoscopes. Surveys report that about 30% of the population is checking their daily horoscope, some even state up to 60%. I can see a third of the population being drawn to this subject, two-thirds seem exaggerated, but who really knows.
For myself, I’ve never felt attracted by the daily short phrased offerings of fortune-telling. I give them credit for filling a highly entertaining niche on different media platforms and, to some degree, even acknowledge their shallow value of helping to reflect on themselves.
I guess most of the readers are aware of the odds of these daily or weekly zodiac garnished listicles, but still feel drawn to them. The attraction to those tidbits of a perceived connection to the universe seems to be unwavering, the astro-market place is thriving and overflowing with that kind of information. The internet offers easy access, meanwhile even big venture capital has expressed interest to go full in (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/style/astrology-apps-venture-capital.html) to satisfy the thirst for a daily or monthly astrological fix.
You can really find everything you desire to read or want to get comforted by. There seem to be “solutions” and “info fountains” for every kind of astrological ailment or perceived need. Herein lies the issue – and I know, you most likely never thought you’d find this kind of critical reflection in an astrological-themed website – but, I will try to make the point on why people can save their time reading that kind of infotainment.
To let the cat out of the bag right away, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. With a global population of around 7.8 billion divided by 12-star signs, around 650 million people share one-star signs. I guess even the very much astrological inclined would agree, this would create a very unison and pale world with more than half a billion people moving and experiencing the same forecasted content in sync.
Here are some numbers, depending on the kind of astrological school you prefer and tend to follow: the Zodiac rotates 360 degrees in 24 hours, and 10 planets are constantly on the move around it. The formed aspects between planets, their specific position on the 360 degrees, and the house they reside in – all together add up to more than half a million (500,000) different constellations every 24 hours. Granted, some of those might be very close to each other or similar, but for sure never alike. That is just in one day (!!!). And that’s not all. Adding to that, another roughly 30 days for every star sign multiplies this even further. And there are even more nuances to the plot: every place on the earth creates its own characteristic, every year has its own generational aspects, and the list goes on. All in all, boiling it down to a roster of only twelve signs just doesn’t cut it.
There are ways to calculate and get some kind of group aspected properties, which can be analyzed; however, in order to obtain anything valuable and clarifying, a single star sign will not be sufficient in learning how a person relates to a specific day, as there are too many variables influencing the outcome. An exact birth-time, with its corresponding day and place is needed. In the end, only the individual chart can give a more conclusive picture.
Another aspect I’d like to throw into consideration, is something that has been known by the medical industry for many decades as the placebo effect. For the astrological spectrum the same phenomena exists, you could call it the “self-fulfilling prophecy effect”. The underlying challenge is that some people strongly believe in what they have read, and trust it. Once they experience parts of the planetary talk fitting, they feel somehow affirmed and turn to the “daily or weekly” for a repeat of the process. The content of the “daily or weekly” just needs to be as open and vague as possible to catch and match with as many souls as possible. In all fairness, the language has to be vague, since another half billion people would like to identify with the identical content – so clearly something does not work out here.
Getting your daily dose of information (daily/ weekly horoscope) is for some more favorable than listening to your own voice for guidance. A horoscope is not a program to follow, it should rather empower you to understand who you are and how you are positioned in the world. It should help you to comprehend your personal strengths and accept your weaknesses. It should not be a program that cages your daily life and takes away your personal freedom to think and develop.
A last thought that comes to my mind: the process is similar to a person, that regularly plays Lotto. They are aware of the odds, might even question their action, but once they win a dollar or a free play, they receive positive feedback. Now, aware of the almost zero chance of winning, and against all internal doubts, they keep on playing.
Copyright 2021 Dirk Heinicke all rights reserved