There are countless things in this world designed not to help people, but to exploit their insecurities for someone else’s benefit. The more I observe the market, the more convinced I become that much of what’s sold today offers no real value.
Many products are either low in quality, ineffective, or cleverly marketed illusions, aggressively promoted through advertising that exploits people’s fears, emotions, and vulnerabilities.
Two types of products stand out to me as especially misleading: life insurance and astrology-based items. In this blog, we’ll focus on the latter. These products are often presented as solutions for peace, success, health, or love. But in truth, neither the seller nor the buyer fully understands what’s actually being sold.
Both remain caught in a system built on belief, not evidence. In most cases, though, the seller knows exactly what they’re doing, peddling meaningless trinkets to unsuspecting buyers. Whether worn, displayed at home, or kept in a wallet, these objects are usually nothing more than overpriced junk that never deserved any trust to begin with.
Astrology products are where belief gets monetized and psychology gets manipulated, and we’ll break down exactly how that works as we go further.
What Makes These Products Feel Like They Work?
It’s not the product, it’s the mind.
A mix of faith, magical thinking, and a few classic psychological tricks can make worthless objects seem powerful. These include:
- Placebo
- Superstition
- Confirmation Bias
These factors, alone or combined, create just enough illusion to keep people hooked, and sellers paid. We’ll explore these in more detail later in the blog.
How Faith Becomes a Sales Strategy
Faith, especially in the context of religion and spirituality, is a powerful force, and one that many people and businesses try to exploit. It’s a bit ironic for me to point this out, considering I personally respect Indian culture and civilization deeply. But my belief is rooted in appreciation for our heritage, not blind acceptance of every ritual or object promoted in the name of faith.
Take, for example, the claims that wearing a Rudraksha mala improves health and supports spiritual growth, or that lighting a candle in a church makes God hear your prayers. In Sufi tradition, offering a chadar at a dargah (which is shirk) is believed to bring divine blessings to one’s family. These practices are symbolic expressions of faith, but they often lack any scientific or logical explanation.
Interestingly, there’s something about Rudraksha, which I realized while writing this, and I’ll explore it later on.
The Psychology Behind Believing in “Magical” Products
There’s a psychological concept called magical thinking. It’s the belief that your thoughts, words, symbols or actions can influence the world in a way that defies logic or science. It’s common in children, and in adults under emotional stress.
For example, when someone in the family doesn’t return home at their usual time, a worried mother might instantly imagine something bad has happened, like an accident. These thoughts spiral until reality (a phone call or update) breaks the illusion. This is magical thinking, the mind creating outcomes from fear or emotion, not facts.
This same mechanism is used, intentionally or unintentionally, in astrology products. People believe that wearing a certain ring, placing a stone pyramid in their home, or lighting a particular incense will somehow change their life situation.
Magical thinking isn’t logical; it’s rooted in emotion and hope, which often override reason and lead people to act irrationally.
The Mind Games Behind Belief
Beyond faith and magical thinking, there are a few more mental traps that quietly make astrology products feel more effective than they are. These aren’t spiritual, they’re psychological. But they’re just as powerful.
- Placebo Effect: Even if the product does nothing, believing it helps can make you feel better, calmer, or more confident. It’s not the object doing the work, it’s your mind.
- Superstitious Thinking: This is where people connect unrelated events. Wear a ring, land a job, and suddenly the ring becomes the “reason.” But in reality? It was probably effort, timing, or sheer luck.
- Confirmation Bias: You remember the one time it seemed to work, and forget all the times it didn’t. The mind filters facts to protect the belief.
These effects don’t prove astrology products work, they just explain why they appear to. The object stays the same: symbolic at best, meaningless at worst. But these mental shortcuts give it borrowed power, and that’s what keeps the belief alive.
Causation vs. Correlation, And How They Twist It
In my statistics class, I learned two powerful concepts: causation and correlation.
- Causation means one thing directly causes another.
Example: A little sister jumps out from behind the couch and scares her brother. Startled, he drops the glass he’s holding, and it shatters on the floor. Her scare caused him to drop the glass, that’s causation. - Correlation means two things happen together, but one doesn’t necessarily cause the other.
Example: A guy notices that every time he wears his black-and-white striped t-shirt, his boss scolds him. But the t-shirt isn’t the reason he gets scolded, it’s just a coincidence. Maybe he tends to wear that shirt on Mondays, and his boss is always grumpy on Mondays. That’s correlation, not causation.
Astrologers often intentionally twist correlation into causation. For instance, they may observe that many wealthy people wear gold rings and then claim that wearing a gold ring will attract wealth and prosperity. But in reality, the ring didn’t cause the wealth, it’s just a coincidence. Wealthy people can afford gold, so they wear it. That’s correlation, not causation.
Here’s another example often used to sell astrology-related products. Sellers often claim that wearing a specific gemstone, like a yellow sapphire, will bring success in career and finances because it’s linked to the planet Jupiter, which represents growth and fortune in astrology. Now, it’s possible that some successful people happened to wear yellow sapphires, but that doesn’t mean the stone caused their success. It’s just a coincidence, a correlation at best.
Now let’s look at the example of Rudraksha. According to ancient texts and traditional depictions, sages and rishis were often shown wearing or using Rudraksha malas during meditation and prayer. These were wise, peaceful, and disciplined individuals, but their qualities didn’t come from the beads themselves. Their calmness, knowledge, and spiritual growth came from their efforts and practices not from any object they wore or use.
However, modern sellers flip this subtle connection into a direct cause-and-effect story. They see that rishis wore Rudraksha and were wise and peaceful, and then claim, “Wearing Rudraksha will make you peaceful and wise.” This is a textbook example of twisting correlation into causation.
To make it worse, they’ve gone a step further by creating different “types” of Rudraksha, marketing them as rare and powerful, and selling them for tens of thousands or even lakhs of rupees. All of this is done under the illusion of spiritual benefit, when in reality, it’s just clever marketing that preys on people’s faith and emotional needs.
At best, these products may have some symbolic or emotional value. But sellers take that weak connection and turn it into a bold promise of guaranteed results. They take advantage of the same psychological tendencies we discussed earlier: magical thinking, the placebo effect, confirmation bias, and superstition, all carefully packaged in the reassuring language of faith.
These Products Sell Hope, But Deliver a Trap
The real danger of astrology products isn’t just that they’re ineffective, it’s that they offer comfort that isn’t real. When people are struggling with money, relationships, or emotional stress, they’re naturally drawn to anything that promises relief. These products step in, offering a sense of control or hope. And sometimes, people do feel better or see progress, but it’s usually because of their own effort, timing, or persistence, not because of a stone, ring, or pyramid.
They overlook their own role in the outcome and hand all the credit to the product instead. They believe the object ‘worked’ and in doing so, overlook the real drivers of their success: discipline, action, or maybe even luck. This misbelief keeps them trapped, chasing more magical solutions instead of building real ones. When the illusion eventually breaks, it leaves them not just disappointed, but emotionally drained, and sometimes even more lost than before.
Not All Beliefs Are Baseless
While writing this blog, my intent wasn’t to blindly criticize, but to look at things from a different, more balanced perspective. I’m not against beliefs themselves, but I am against blind belief without logic or awareness.
I remember an incident from my childhood, one day, my dadi (grandmother) saw me wearing a pair of trendy jeans with cuts and tears, like many youngsters do. She immediately told me, “Never wear torn clothes.” Curious, I asked her why. She replied, “You look like someone who doesn’t have proper clothes to wear.”
Years later, I heard a similar statement, but in a more spiritual form: “Wearing torn clothes brings negativity and blocks prosperity.” At first, it felt like a typical superstition. But when I reflected deeper, I realized there might be a subtle logic behind it.
I was listening to an audiobook of Arthur Schopenhauer’s The Art of Literature, where he mentioned something interesting: He would prefer to talk to someone who is well-dressed. It made sense, how we dress plays a major role in how others perceive and respond to us.
In fact, there was a social experiment conducted in a Western country where a little girl was left alone on a busy street.When she was neatly dressed, clean, and looked presentable, many people stopped to check on her, asking questions like, ‘Are you okay?’ ‘Where are your parents?’ and ‘Do you need food? But when the same girl was made to look poor, wearing dirty and worn-out clothes, almost no one stopped to help.
This experiment showed how much appearance, and specifically clothing, affects human behavior and perception. So maybe when elders told us to wear good, clean clothes and avoid torn or shabby ones, it wasn’t just superstition. It had a social and psychological reason behind it.
That said, this doesn’t justify the business of astrology-based products. Converting symbolic traditions into commercial scams by twisting correlation into causation is not wisdom, it’s manipulation. And no logic or reasoning can make such exploitation right.
Conclusion: The Business of Fear, Not Help
Modern astrology businesses don’t operate with the ancient wisdom of the Vedas or a genuine intent to help people. Instead, they target the insecure, the anxious, and the desperate, offering fake hope in the form of expensive objects and rituals. These practices misuse psychology, twist logic, and exploit belief systems, all for profit.
So before you buy that “lucky crystal,” or believe a stone pyramid will bring you success, ask yourself:
“Is this truly helping me, or am I just hoping it will?”
The most powerful solution was never in a stone or a ring, it’s in your own clarity, effort, and ability to think for yourself.
