Horoscopes and Superstitions
Many people believe in horoscopes, superstitions are quite important for a lot of people. Horoscopes and superstitions have a big influence on many people's life. Why? I think that the answer would be different for horoscopes and superstitions - because it's not exactly the same.
First. Why people believe in horoscopes? In my opinion it's connected with characteristic of a world. World is changing constantly, everything is changing constantly - each day is different. People would like to know what will happen to them next day, next month or next week. Second reason, for which people go read horoscopes, is that life is quite difficult, people dream about winning a lot in lottery, others want to find ideal relationship (You shouldn't stay at home this weekend, cos the stars has told me that you' ll find a great person, who will be your husband …) and that's why they read horoscopes or go to the fortune-tellers. They think that it could give them some directions, good advices.
There's big demand for fortune - tellers. That's why there are quite a lot of people who claim that they can predict future. In the most cases they are fake fortune-tellers who cheat a lot of blind people who can not see that it's one big bull shit. I don't believe in fortune-tellers but I can agree there are some people who have special gift and they can see some views of future. I don't have knowledge about that but in the most cases, in my opinion, that views are quite strange - ambiguous and they can interpret it in wrong way. And what is very important I think that such views are very rare and personal so in my opinion there is nobody who can write horoscopes for many people and sell it.
There are a lot of types of horoscopes, but I don't read horoscopes so it's quite difficult for me to say how horoscopes look like. In the most cases horoscope is divided for 12 parts. Each part is connected with one sign of Zodiac. People who create the horoscopes claim that the date of birth has a big influence on our life. Each date in a year is connected with specific set of the stars and that stars, according to astrologists, have a big influence on your features of character and our personality. I don't agree with them. In my opinion each person is different (I wouldn't say that I'm more similar to someone who is Libra too) , and stars - stars have no influence on our life, of course if the sky is not cloudy the stars have influence on our life - it's more brightly.
And superstitions. There are a lot of superstitions and that's the best proof that superstitions are or was quite important. Very often superstitions are connected with luck. For example walking under the ladder is very unlucky, if someone find a 1GR it is almost certain that he will have a luck; some people believe that breaking the mirror brings 7 unlucky years on person who did it; if you saw a star and thought of wish, that wish will came true; if you saw a black cat which crossed your way, it will be unlucky for you (in UK it's exactly conversely) … Keeping some items which provide happiness (theoretically of course) is also some kind of superstition. For example: elephants, some rings, charms, talismans …. In my opinion there is no power of luck in these items but if someone believes that it can help or encourage him to do something then it would work (they will be more confident and that will help them to achieve a goal). I've one item which should provide me luck and happiness - it's tape recorder - I got it from Santa Clause - but I keep it only for fun and I don't get rid of presents so keep it in my room. I don't belie in such items, but some of my friends got special thing from which provide happiness. I hate stereotypes, so it not typical item - it's chain - bicycle chain.
So as you can see there is many superstitions in each culture in each society. But it don't mean that people are superstitious. I think that superstition is some kind of tradition, we've heard about it from our grandparents (who may have believed in it), we know about them, but in the most cases we don't believe in it. Of course if someone saw a falling star, he will think about the wish, but I wouldn't say that he would believe that that wish will came true. So in my opinion we think treat superstitions as a tradition and some kind of fun.