Astrologers: an advisory profession with no protected title

Astrologer – it sounds like an exotic profession, but at heart it is an advisory profession like many others. It is about a conversation between two people, about a question that is weighing on someone, and about a tool for putting that question in order. Anyone who wants a consultation should know how this field is organised – and above all how it is not.

What astrologers do day to day

Most of the work consists of conversations about the questions of life: turning points at work, relationships, bringing up children, coping with a crisis, the search for one's own place. Alongside that there are areas tied more closely to organisations, such as advising companies or looking at the moment a firm was founded.

Not everyone works solely in consultations. Some teach, others write books or articles, give talks, or study the history and the sources of their subject. As a rule the basis remains the birth chart: a snapshot of the sky that serves as a starting point for the conversation and not as a verdict on a person.

A profession with no protected title

In Germany no state-recognised training leads into this work, and the term itself has no legal protection. In practice that means anyone may call themselves an astrologer, whatever their knowledge, experience or attitude. There is no state examination to take the choosing off your hands.

Associations have responded with examinations of their own. The German astrologers' association, for instance, awards the designation of certified astrologer DAV to people who have passed such an examination. It is not a seal of quality for every single conversation, but it does at least show that someone has submitted to a procedure and works by agreed rules.

How to recognise a good consultation

Because the state examination is missing, you have to look for yourself. A few pointers are fairly reliable:

• The price and the length are stated beforehand, clearly and with no renegotiation later.
• You are asked what your question is, instead of having a ready-made reading put in front of you.
• Statements are framed as a possibility, not as an inescapable fate.
• Questions of health, law and money are passed on to the professionals who deal with them.
• After the conversation you feel more able to act, not smaller.
• No pressure is built up to book a follow-up appointment in order to avert some supposed danger.

Conversely there are signals at which you are better off leaving: fear used as a lever, hints about illness or death, the promise to lift a curse, pushing for expensive extras, or the claim that without further sessions nothing can be saved. A serious consultation makes you more independent, not more dependent.

What a consultation can do and what it cannot

Quality depends less on the method than on the person applying it. Command of the craft is part of it, but so are listening, restraint and a realistic sense of one's own responsibility. The same tool can bring real clarity in one conversation and pure nonsense in the next – the difference lies in the handling of it, not in the tool.

That is why the question of scientific recognition counts for less in practice than it sounds at first. A chart proves nothing. But it can give a conversation structure, name blind spots and find words for something that until then had no shape. How astrology is built as a system can be looked up and judged for yourself, quite apart from that question.

If you are thinking about it yourself

The way into this field is open, and that is exactly what makes it demanding: you have to put your training together yourself and keep a check on yourself. Solid foundations, patient practice on real charts and an honest reckoning with your own limits weigh more than any certificate. You can read what a way in might look like under becoming an astrologer; and you will find further titles for studying on your own with the astrology books.