From astrology and meditation to shaman’s retreat: the trend of the new spirituality is growing ever more powerful. What exactly are we looking for – and can it really help us? Our author is on her way.
Once a month we meet at Claudia’s for the new moon. We are sitting around a kind of seasonal altar with shells, healing stones, candles and flowers. After a smoking ritual, Claudia explains the planetary constellations and what that means for us astrologically. For me she says: “Finances”. She asks if there are any unresolved financial issues in my life. It’s a shame – at our last meeting the planets were in the fifth house, that stands for lightness, creativity and flirting, I preferred that. But the cosmos does not stand still, everything is in flux, so are we.
The wink with the spiritual fence post makes perfect sense to me. I am only too happy to be distracted by everything that belongs to the hard currency of life: bills, insurance, old-age insurance? Dull, dreary. My airy Aquarian spirit likes to hide something like that. It is all the more astonishing that it is precisely the stars that remind me of the seriousness of life. And that your message reaches me more than any “financial test” article.
Rediscovery of ancient rituals
It seems to be the same for others. The trend of the new spirituality has been growing ever more powerfully for years. According to a survey by the polling institute YouGov, half of the respondents believe in guardian angels, a third in clairvoyants, and the same number would seek advice from a healer. The yoga and meditation boom belongs just as much as the rediscovery of old rituals, the fumigating of bad energies with bundles of herbs or the celebration of the nocturnal nights. We have horoscopes created, use Reiki and other alternative healing methods to rebalance the flow of energy in the body chakras, make a pilgrimage to nature’s sources of power or carry healing stones with us. But what exactly are we looking for?
To put it in a nutshell: more meaning and stability in a world that is getting more and more complicated and faster. The church religions no longer pick up many. Their view of things is too rigid and dogmatic, the abuse scandals too shocking. Ownership and achievement, which for the post-war generation was still a purpose in life, are also not permanently satisfactory – as can be seen from the growing number of burnouts and mental illnesses. If you add to this the many bad news, global crises such as pandemics and climate change, you can say: You have to come to terms with this without any religious consolation.
What kind of bad energy can you oppose to this mountain? I ended up in meditation with this question in mind. And realized: It is good for me. Because sometimes it is enough to just sit still and breathe to feel whole again. Energy flows that was previously blocked, body, mind and soul find harmony again. If you make this experience more often, it is suddenly there – this feeling that there is something else there, something that is bigger than you are. With a soulful look you leave the course, look into other shining eyes, feel for the moment completely and knows: I want this feeling more often.
“Let go, the cosmos will take care of you.”
Meditation, mindfulness seminars or yoga are the entry point to spirituality for many. And once the first hurdle has been overcome, the transition is fluid. Because the superstructure is often similar: Usually it is about the flow of energy that connects us with the universe. “Let go, the cosmos will take care of you.” Isn’t this idea much more reassuring and timely than that of the dear, but also punishing, God? So please more of it: Couldn’t you even take a course in aura vision? Or book a shamanic retreat right away?
Former niche industries are also benefiting from the trend. The “BeWitch” healing magic packs from the witch shop “Practical Magic” in the chic Hamburg-Eppendorf are sold out whenever I go to the online site. The product names reveal what you can do with it: “Find a partner”, “Remove blockages”, “Attract money” or “Change your job”. Hex, hex, just buy it, and you’ll be fine? Unfortunately it’s not that easy. “A ritual is an energetic course of action that supports the achievement of personal goals. Because where we direct our attention, the energy flows,” explains owner Meike Menzel.
“In principle, magical actions work like a lever. You start with a little energy and, with the help of cosmic laws, a lot of energy is set in motion. And precisely in the direction that is conducive to personal goals.” So rituals cannot work miracles, they can only give a boost to one’s own desires. Therefore, Menzel does not see herself as a sorceress, but as a supporter of people in difficult life situations. She herself was a multimedia designer in her previous life. After a bad breakup, she remembered what her grandma had set an example for her. During the Second World War she helped soldiers with mental health problems and her granddaughter Meike passed on her old knowledge, about herbs and fragrances, for example. Incidentally, 90 percent of the time women come to the shop of the Hamburg-based “full-time witch”, as she calls herself. And there is not a single man in our new moon group either.
Spirituality as a way of self-discovery
Why it is like that? “That has a lot to do with the individualization that has taken place in the western world. We no longer celebrate the common good, but our own needs. Men could do this through status symbols, through the realization in their careers, while women closed this path for a long time The spiritual realm also opened up opportunities for them to find out who they actually are and what they want in this world, “says Victoria Hegner, professor at the Institute for Cultural Anthropology at the University of Göttingen. For Kai Funkschmidt, esoteric expert at the Protestant Central Office for Weltanschauung questions, the fact that it is especially women in the middle of life who turn there is that they have already had quite a few “experiences of powerlessness” in the purely rational world. Whether it is painful headbuttons on the glass job ceiling or being abandoned for a younger person, such experiences often give a new direction to the “classic” path, which is perceived as frustrating. One turns to more auspicious areas of world interpretation than conventional ones.
Claudia Hohlweg, the founder of our spiritual salon, also experienced this change. In her first job as a manager at a magazine publisher, it was a lot about creativity, but increasingly about balance sheets. At some point she saw her values in danger, and she did not want to support waves of layoffs. In addition, there was the feeling that it “only worked”. The turning point was not brought about until a sabbatical in Asia: “The world tasted, smelled and colored again – suddenly I was completely with myself again.” She quit and only then realized that there was something else. A door that was half open once, but had almost closed due to everyday constraints: her fascination for the stars. “Suddenly there was the thought: Now I can finally! Now I also have the maturity as an astrologer to understand people, to pick them up where they need it. That was a real moment of enlightenment for me.”
Claudia Hohlweg completed a degree in astrology and became a freelance consultant. In 2017 her website “Blumoon Astrologie” went online. With huge success – especially in the Corona crisis, the inquiries exploded. Perhaps it is the package of everything she has come across on her way, from Buddhism to psychodrama, that makes her clients feel so good. And certainly also the “hunger for the unreal world, the ancient spiritual knowledge, magic, the occult” that she felt as a child. “My mother always said: You are already such a joke.”
Afraid of “nuts”?
That was certainly meant lovingly, but people who open themselves to spirituality are not always met with understanding. “Crazy” is one of the nicer words when someone turns to areas that are not scientifically substantiated. There is often an age-old fear behind this. Popular belief generally has nothing positive in common with witches or wizards. Even in fairy tales, they usually took on the role of evil. Who else is so cruel to put small children in an oven like the hunchbacked old woman in “Hansel and Gretel”? Meike Menzel also knows the mixed feelings with which some customers come into her shop. That is why on the one hand there are only scented oils or candles for beginners: inside, on the other hand there is material for advanced users. Interested parties can feel their way around and remember: This is not about dark magic, but about countering unfulfilled wishes or negative beliefs with a little tutoring.
Of course there are also black sheep who are using the trend to make money. It is not always easy to find out whether a healer really has special abilities and wants to use them to help others. Before investing a lot of money in questionable events, it is always worth researching the Internet or making a personal recommendation. “But that is a general problem with any form of group structure with a certain worldview,” says Victoria Hegner. “If you want to leave the Catholic Church in some countries, then that’s social death. It’s no different from sects like Scientology. So you should only go into spiritual communities well informed.” I myself have subscribed to the spiritual streaming service “Gaia”. Everyone can put together their own package from the hodgepodge of documentation and instructions. Over time you notice where your own limits are. With UFOs and alien sightings, for example, I have reached them.
And even if astrology is not my “favorite discipline”, I love the new moon evenings with Claudia. With their rituals they bring something solemn and unifying to the gray everyday life, and I suspect that it is similar to the others here. A tax advisor is there, a banker, a yoga teacher, all pretty normal women between mid-20s and mid-50s. Victoria Hegner, who did her habilitation on modern witches, knows about the fascination of movement with young women in particular: “The young witch religion, the Goes back to the hippie movement in the USA in the 1960s, is spiritual and at the same time highly politicized. It’s about ecology, feminism, freedom of sexuality. That also appeals to younger people. ” Would I have gone into a new moon circle when I was 20? I do not think so. At that time, all of this still belonged in the “crazy” drawer. It was only stress, chronic symptoms of illness and the feeling of wanting to give my life a better foundation that led me to yoga, the Asian healing art Jin Shin Jyutsu and finally meditation. All of this gives me a rootedness, a feeling of meaningfulness and belonging that no one can take away from me. Because that’s the nice thing about the spiritual path: once you’ve walked it, no everyday crisis, no job loss, no separation, can push you down again.
Our new moon circle also usually ends with a common meditation. Then people laugh, talk and drink wine. No, we are not witches, nor Norse goddesses, nor are we angelic beings. We are just a little bit more connected to the world and to ourselves.
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