Italians spend £5 billion a year on fortune tellers and astrology


Italy's worst recession since the Second World War has prompted Italians to spend a staggering £5 billion a year seeking financial advice not from banks and brokers but fortune tellers and astrologers.

Superstition is widespread in Italy. Many people use centuries-old hand gestures to ward off evil and believe that plaster statues of Jesus and Mary can weep blood. Amid rising unemployment and general gloom over the state of the economy, Italians are spending billions of euros a year on astrology and fortune telling, according to a report by the European Consumers Association. Tarot card readers and pavement fortune tellers are doing a roaring trade, with about 30,000 Italians paying between 20 and 600 euros a day looking for advice to help them out of their financial woes... Telegraph