Today: some personal musings on the nature of my line of work, and specifically the emotional issues one encounters. If you want hard-and-fast astrological data, feel free to drop by next time.
Chiron, the body in the solar system which astrology considered to be most associated with “woundedness,” is receiving some nice aspects in the next week. Now might be a good time to address some long-standing emotional issues, and part of that might involve reaching out to someone else. But there is a caution here: just as some people with chronic illnesses can be sold snake oil in the promise of a cure — beware fake gurus.
Being an astrologer, or doing readings of any kind for a living, can be a strange hybrid of counselor and psychologist and priest. In this line of work we frequently come across people who are experiencing difficulties in one or more departments of their lives, and quite often those difficulties are of a deep psychological or emotional nature. This is why I believe astrologers should cling to the ethical standards we expect (but admittedly don’t always get) from counselors, psychologists, and priests.
Although we deal with wounds and healing all the time in this line of work, there is a noteworthy minority in the New Age Community —
(Personally I can’t stand that term, but I think we’re stuck with it. When I hear it or see it, it makes me think of something like “Oh, you want the New Age Community? Go south on Maple Street and turn left between Chinatown and Little Italy. When the traffic lights are encrusted with quartz crystals, you’ll know you’re there.”)
— There is a noteworthy minority in the New Age community that appear to thrive on seeking out people’s wounds and then keep them open (or reopening them) as often as possible.
For example, I know of a couple who run a training course that claims to be able to help you find your Twin Flame. This, in and of itself, seems like a good and noble thing. In practice, it seems there is an entirely different result being achieved.
This couple (let’s call them Jack and Shelly ) teach courses on how to attract and keep your Twin Flame. That’s all fine and well, but a look at their Facebook page (at least the one they have open to the public) has a troubling tendency to have more members complaining about how their twin flame ran off, won’t answer their calls, will have nothing to do with them, have taken out a restraining order against them, and so on.
A bit of this is to be expected I suppose. Humans are complicated creatures and as Shakespeare observed, “the course of true love never did run smooth.” It’s also natural that people are more prone to complain about things publicly than they are to constantly announce that everything is awesome over and over again (check out Yelp some time if you don’t believe me). So I decided to dig into Jack and Shelly’s operation just to see what they were teaching.
Much of it appears to be a simple combination of self-esteem boosting exercises, self-hypnosis, and general cheer-leading. No problem with that sort of thing, right? In fact, I think that sort of thing could be pretty useful.
But I keep coming back to how many of the people on their Facebook group are seeking guidance as to why their Twin Flame ran off and left the country, or married someone else, or blocked their phone number, or whatever. These particularly badly behaved Twin Flames are referred to as “runners,” and if you are facing such a situation, Jack and Shelly (or one of their assistants) will gladly message you to provide help. For a price.
I have yet to establish whether or not this particular assistance is included in the cost of their Twin Flame courses… which will set you back well over $2,000 US if you sign up for all of them.
Somehow, I suspect it’s not.
I don’t really like picking on anyone else’s business model in the New Age Community, but this particular situation smells uncomfortably like a con job to me. So I did a little digging, and sure enough: Jack and Shelly’s names appear alongside terms like “pyramid scheme” and “multi-level marketing” more than once on the Internet.
Hopefully this is not just my cynicism speaking, but I think that if your family doctor is much better at ripping open stitches over and over again so you keep coming back than he is at sealing wounds — and he keeps billing you for it — you might want to find yourself a different doctor. The same should apply to any astrologer or tarot card reader or life coach or whatever who wants to dwell too long on your “woundedness” but never quite manages to help you find your own correct path to finding healing.
There’s good money in snake oil, it seems — but little or no benefit to the customer. Beware fake gurus.
Want to know how to work with the current and future energies to get maximum benefit? Feel free to write me about it!
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