A chart reading about someone else

Such readings carry the word “Your” at the top, and most of the time that fits: calculated for one person, read by that same person. A good share of these texts still ends up elsewhere. It is given as a present, ordered for a child, or read about someone with whom nothing is moving forward just now. That is a different situation from the first, and it brings questions of its own.

Doing it in secret is not an option anyway

The ascendant and the twelve houses need the time of birth and the place; without them a reading amounts to hardly more than a profile of the signs. The day is usually known, the time almost never. It appears on no identity document, and anyone who asks for it has to say what it is for. That disposes of the quiet version by itself. This is no loss: with that one question you have already said what you intend, and the other person can say no.

Sentences about someone who has never read them

Suppose the text is lying in front of you. Then you are holding statements about a person who has no idea they exist. That has an effect, even when there is nothing unkind in them. At the next silent dinner you will have a paragraph ready that explains it, and interpretations are elastic enough for the confirmation you are looking for to turn up. What you have gained is not knowledge of him but a pair of spectacles.

That gives the simplest rule: tell him about it. Not as a confession, but because a text the two of you know can be talked about, and because he can then object. The objection, by the way, is the most useful thing in the whole exercise.

When a child is involved

A child’s chart is read by the parents, and read for years. The child has no say in it. Two guard rails help. First: read the text for conditions, not for outcomes. A paragraph on how much commotion this child can take and how long it needs to switch from one thing to the next can be checked against daily life; a paragraph on which profession will suit the child later is guesswork. Second: do not tell the child what it “is”. Sentences about a child’s character have the unpleasant property of coming true as soon as a family repeats them often enough.

There is also a limit that is not open to negotiation. Everything that sounds like a diagnosis, that is sleep, eating, development, health, belongs in a paediatrician’s surgery and not in a booklet of interpretations.

Giving one as a present

As a present, a reading of this kind suits people who have an interest in the matter anyway. For everyone else it is a text about themselves that they never asked for. And if you give one away: hand it over unread, and do not ask afterwards what was in it. The envelope belongs to the person who receives it, even though it comes from you.

What such a text achieves between two people

It can take the blame out of a friction. “He needs a run-up” and “He holds me back” describe the same behaviour; the first sentence can be discussed, the second only denied. That is no small thing: two people who have chafed at the same point for years then argue about the matter and not about character.

Other things it cannot do. It settles no argument, it knows about the other person only what can be calculated from a date, a time and a place, and it spares you not one question you could just as well put directly. “Do you need longer before you commit yourself?” is settled on an evening with no booklet on the table. Anyone who, after reading, has a conversation that would not otherwise have come about takes the larger part of the benefit; anyone who reads and stays silent has merely proved himself right. What the individual readings describe is set out in the overview of horoscopes; the craft behind the sentences is covered under astrology.