Dr. Loretta Standley

She's a holistic health consultant who does expansive natal charts with explanations for $55. I think this seems like a good price for everything that she includes in the package, what do you guys think? I have my hands full with learning the tarot and have no interest in learning astrology myself, just want a personalized chart that let's me know when I should and shouldn't buy clothes, and when is not a good time to get plastic surgery (jk).

Here's the link to what she gives you for the $55:

http://www.drstandley.com/charts_expansive_natal.shtml

Hmmm

While she may have good information...I do not see how she could possibly do each chart within 24 hours unless she has already written a explanation for all possible combinations in advance and then just puts them together when she gets a person's birth info.
Which is fine, but lacks a certain intuitive perception of the individuals chart as a whole.
It's a good price, but you could get relatively the same information for free at astro.com.

Tiddles said:

I have my hands full with learning the tarot and have no interest in learning astrology myself, just want a personalized chart that let's me know when I should and shouldn't buy clothes, and when is not a good time to get plastic surgery (jk).
http://www.drstandley.com/charts_expansive_natal.shtml

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I find 95-110 pages for a personalized report a bit much. Also, trying to determine if someone is an old soul and how old from a natal chart seems ridiculous to me. Maybe a good psychic / medium can do this (is that how she determines it?) but I can't see how a natal chart would show this. Also, "information on how to increase your intuition" just seems to be space filler to me.
I've only had my natal chart done professionally once, which was by Hassan Jaffer back in 2000. I thought it was pretty good and you could tell that he wrote everything based on his own experience from studying natal charts, I was pretty happy with my report, particularly the natal chart interpretation. I found the 12-month predictions report less helpful, but then again it was not a good time in my life and nothing much changed.

I also purchased the Moon Magic booklet (or maybe it was free?, don't remember) and that's what I used to study the basics of astrology and my natal chart. That's what got me started in astrology!
http://hassanjaffer.com/
It looks like natal charts are $35 and 12-month reports are also $35 but these are electronic reports whereas mine back in 2000 came in booklet form. Hope this info is helpful.

Thanks for the input guys, I will look into astro.com I just printed out a 16 page free natal chart from astro.cafeastrology.com.( My understanding was that Dr. Standley gave explanations as to what all the different positions, etc. mean, plus some of the other stuff she includes interests me. NOT the old soul stuff- I don't care about that whatsoever. I still want to know when it's a "good time" to do certain things, and when it's a "bad time" to do certain things. Does that depend on when "such and such" is in retrograde, or is it more complex than that?

I would suggest that someone does it personally and do a face to face consultation if possible and your pressed for time so they can look at what you want to know.

also your really looking at transits, what you really need to know is better for you to find someone to tell you what to look for in transits. for instance when is a transit likely to affect you?

You have three excellent comments there!

lunalafey said:

While she may have good information...I do not see how she could possibly do each chart within 24 hours unless she has already written a explanation for all possible combinations in advance and then just puts them together when she gets a person's birth info.
Which is fine, but lacks a certain intuitive perception of the individuals chart as a whole.
It's a good price, but you could get relatively the same information for free at astro.com.

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Yes I had exactly the same feeling reading her website. Assuming she picks up two or three requests a day it's virtually impossible to write that amount of pages without having a computerised system. She might have written the individual paragraphs but it's almost certain to be computer assembled. Also that length of report is of dubious value as the reader will struggle to get the all round picture. It's length simply to justify the cost

Libra8ca said:

I find 95-110 pages for a personalized report a bit much. Also, trying to determine if someone is an old soul and how old from a natal chart seems ridiculous to me. Maybe a good psychic / medium can do this (is that how she determines it?) but I can't see how a natal chart would show this. Also, "information on how to increase your intuition" just seems to be space filler to me. chart. That's what got me started in astrology!

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Yes the length is excessive and raises all sorts of questions about it's real value. And you are spot on about the 'old soul' issue. It can't be done from a natal chart using sun sign and rising sign or even any method for the obvious reason that there's no way of checking. So whatever she says can't be proved to be wrong or right - what real use is it then? It's a great way of earning money for her but of no value to the subject (though if she says you're an old soul you will feel good about it).

Same thing with increasing your intuition. If you can do that at all through Astrology you do it by reading lots of charts till you intuitively recognise patterns. Someone else can't do that for you.

214red said:

I would suggest that someone does it personally and do a face to face consultation if possible and your pressed for time so they can look at what you want to know.

also your really looking at transits, what you really need to know is better for you to find someone to tell you what to look for in transits. for instance when is a transit likely to affect you?

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Yes a face to face sitting with a good professional is the best way forward if you're not willing to learn for yourself. The various professional bodies will have lists of professionals in your area and be able to do a good recommendation.

I have had the computer generated ones and they are a bit of a waste of money as they contain many repeats and conflicts.
finding a good astrologer is worth the money, its a very good investment, and often you go away with print outs.it would be great if Miderwiz and Dave could be convinced to sell their wares, as i am sure skype would work too.....

Thank you all for your advice, I am going to forgo gettting the chart from her. Yes, 110 pages does seem daunting and excessive, plus I'm not sure if I will "get it". I am going to make a new thread about a book I found, hopefully you guys can give me some opinions. A face to face with an astrologer sounds a little expensive for me right now with rent due, etc.

Average for me for a comprehensive natal chart delineation (without a year's worth of transits, secondary progressions, solar and lunar returns, etc.) has always run in the vicinity of 30 pages, with everything researched, synthesized and written out by me. A "quicky" with just brief discussions of preponderances if any (the "big picture" stuff), concise house and sign meanings for the planetary placements (with few frills or nuances), and a fairly thorough major aspect analysis comes in around 10-15 pages (I just did one of that type for my daughter, who has what I would call an "easy" chart). Of course, I don't do this for payment, so I have no incentive to put in padding. I suppose full natal chart plus a one-year forecast could weigh in at around 50 pages, but that still seems like it's on the high end.

The ideal situation from a productivity standpoint would be to develop and capture all of your own thoughts on everything regarding natal and predictive analysis in electronic text files, then grab and tweak them as necessary to "assemble" any given chart. Of course, that would amount to creating a complete, personal "canned" system of astrological insights and correspondences, and could very well take years just to save a few hours on each chart. Might be worth it if it's used correctly (and you live long enough! ), and then charging for the up-front effort (what's called "sunk costs") would be reasonable.