The Reassurance Reading
As horary astrologers doing readings for others and as horary clients, it's useful to recognize what I call the reassurance reading.
Probably the most common examples of these are querents asking "When will I get a job?" and what could also be called a rebound reading, asked when a relationship ends and the querent asks, "When will I have a relationship?" or "Will I ever had a relationship"?
"When" is a red flag, because it assumes a yes answer and just wants to know when it will take place. "When will I be elected president of the US?" in 2016 or 2020? Generally I deal with "when" questions by rephrasing them as "Will I get X and if yes, when?" which works fine as far as me judging the question.
The problem is from the client's perspective. With certain types of questions the querent gets upset with a "no" answer. The whole point of the reading from their standpoint was to get a "yes", that's what they are paying for! Unconsciously they are seeking reassurance, in the job context, that despite their current problems they will get a job eventually, in a romance context, again despite their current problems that they will eventually have a relationship.
Now my impression is that for a lot of readings, like psychics or modern astrologers reading natal charts, that clients and fortunetellers are on the same page: the client will get a vaguely positive reading, no matter what. With traditional horary, however, negative readings are not only always possible, they are more frequent than positive readings. This is logical isn't it? How often would you pay $60 to ask about a relationship that was going great or when you have a great job. You do a horary when you get worried and when you get worried there are clearly going to be times when that's justified. I had someone complain about my Horary CaseBook that there weren't more positive readings! Well, yes if I could just get clients to ask questions when the situation was positive and the answer was yes. Similarly I have clients complain, "Both the readings I got were negative!" I understand that it is perfectly natural to blame the messenger.
There is a place for reassurance readings and it is fine for clients to seek them, but traditional horary practitioners, to be fair to the client, should alert them. With a traditional horary reading both a yes and a no answer are always possible. Just today I had a potential client that wanted an emergency double price reading, but wanted to ask "When will I get a job?" I asked them, as I routinely do with querents who want to ask this question, "Will it be worthwhile to pay and get a 'no' answer?" If so I am happy to do the reading. If a "no" is not helpful or you hadn't even considered the possibility of a "no" don't get the reading!
I have a similar rap for the rebound relationship readings. It is not unusual for querents to ask about a particular relationship get a "no" and then want to ask a general "When will I have a relationship?" reading. I try to discourage this since I find that the previous relationship often pops up. Until a particular person or relationship is off the emotional radar, so to speak, it doesn't make sense to ask a general relationship question with no one in mind.
Obviously all horary astrologers have to decide how to deal with these issues for themselves. I suppose I could just take the question and then zap 'em with the no, but as noted I'm moving towards making sure they know the options, that seems fairer. Of course if one's readings generally come up positive this issue won't arise, but then a rather high level of customers dissatisfaction with accuracy arises. Ultimately, there's no way around the fact that clients often don't or won't get what they want. Traditional horary doesn't do reassurance readings, not if it is done properly. Fitting client expectations to one's methodology is key because then we get the repeat customers who are very happy with the ability to get accurate, precise predictions because they want the truth, be it negative or positive.
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