How we screen astrologers, the gist

How we screen astrologers

The founder of an astrology company writes down the test every astrologer will have to pass before the company lists him, the three kinds of person it has already decided to refuse, and the things a test like this can never catch.

This is the short way in. The essay has the working, the sources and the sky.

An astrologer who sells remedies will not be listed, and that was decided before the application form existed. If the same person finds the fault and sells the cure, then finding faults is worth money to him, and nobody has to be dishonest for that to bend the work over ten years.

Three kinds of applicant are refused in advance. People who sell remedies, meaning paid fixes such as a stone or a ritual. People who promise a result: a marriage inside the year, a court case won, a visa cleared. And people whose first approach to a stranger is frightening, such as a message naming a serious problem without saying what it is, with a payment link underneath.

Deciding in advance is the point: turning somebody away for a printed reason is a different act from turning him away because something about him did not feel right.

Then six checks. First, the price list and public profile as they stand on the day. Second, a work sample of two readings, either past ones with details removed and the customer's permission, or fresh ones on birth data the company supplies. Every line should either name its source or carry the writer's initials, so a customer can tell fact from opinion. Third, the settings the chart was calculated with, since a number given without them cannot be checked by anyone. Fourth, three questions a chart cannot answer, to see whether the applicant will say so. Fifth, a signed agreement: fixed price, no charging by the minute, no remedies, no forecasts, no selling to customers away from the platform. Sixth, a real name and a way to reach him afterwards. No certificates are asked for.

There is no rejection rate, because nobody has applied and nothing has opened. The counts get published when they exist.

What a screen cannot catch: an application is a performance; writing shows sentences but not tone of voice; a sales message three days later, which the essay puts as a hypothetical, is invisible to any check made beforehand; and people drift over years. So delivered readings are sampled afterwards, listings carry a date and are re-read, and a failure is handled like any other published error, with a note saying which listing ended and why.

Words decoded

screening: checking an astrologer against written rules before letting him sell readings on a platform
remedy: a paid fix offered after a fault is found in a chart, such as a gemstone, a ritual, or an engraved metal diagram
dosha (दोष): a fault said to be visible in a birth chart
work sample: asking somebody to do the actual job in front of you, instead of asking him to describe how well he does it
transcript: the written record of a reading, given to the customer
ayanamsha (अयनांश): the setting that decides where the Indian zodiac starts; different choices move every planet slightly
house system: one of several methods of dividing a chart into twelve compartments
ephemeris: the table or data file of planetary positions a program calculates from
refund path: the written rule saying when your money comes back, as opposed to a refund granted by somebody's mood on the day
listing: an astrologer's place on the platform, which can be ended for a broken rule

Why anyone should careNobody outside can check whether an astrologer was ever vetted, and this trade has no register to look anyone up in. A test written down before the first application, with its own blind spots admitted, is something a reader can hold the company to later.

Read it properly, 6 min How we screen astrologers