Why a manifesto, and not a terms-of-service.
A terms-of-service document is a legal artefact — it says what you cannot sue the practice for. A manifesto is a different kind of document. It says what the practice will and will not do, in plain language, before either party has reached for a contract. The Trikaala ethics manifesto is the latter. We publish it openly because the refusals are part of the service, and the seeker has the right to know what they are paying for and what they are not, before the booking link is clicked.
The structure of the manifesto — refusals first, commitments second — is not accidental. In any honest practice, the refusals carry more weight than the commitments. The commitments tell you what you might receive; the refusals tell you what cannot be delivered. A practitioner who lists only what she will do, and never what she will not, is asking for a kind of trust she has not yet earned. The manifesto inverts that: the seeker reads the refusals first and can decide, with full information, whether this is a practice that matches the question she is bringing.
The Indian regulatory context.
We work in India. Several pieces of Indian legislation are directly relevant to a contemplative practice and we comply with all of them. The Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954, prohibits the advertising of practices that claim to cure specific diseases or conditions — we do not advertise tarot as curative. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019, governs the relationship between a service provider and a consumer; our refund policy, complaints process, and delivery-of-service terms are written to comply. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, governs how we handle the data a client gives us; the privacy policy summarises the relevant points and we welcome questions about it.
We are aware that the practice operates in a category — “astrology and related services” — that the Indian regulator has historically not treated with much interest. That is not a license to operate without care. We hold ourselves to the stricter of (a) the applicable Indian law and (b) the ethical standards of other professions — psychotherapy, counselling, medicine — whose conversational structure most resembles ours.
On confidentiality, in detail.
What is said in a reading does not leave the reading. The standard is the same one a counsellor or solicitor operates under: nothing the client says becomes anecdote, example, or marketing material without explicit written consent. We are aware that tarot has historically been a chatty community — readers swapping stories about memorable sessions over coffee. We do not do that. The case studies on this site are composites or fully-consented; the journal essays use no specific session as source material.
Reflection briefs (the post-session document) are sent only to the client. They are never published, archived for marketing, or shared with third parties. The brief is stored briefly on our email server until delivery is confirmed, then deleted from the server (a copy remains in the client’s inbox). We do not keep a long-term archive of briefs at Trikaala.
For the academy: student work — practice readings conducted as part of the curriculum — is reviewed by the acharya for pedagogic purposes only, and is not used beyond that review. Student-conducted readings with real clients, in the supervised stages of the Practitioner and Advanced certifications, follow the same confidentiality standard as the main practice.
On marketing, in detail.
We do not run paid social ads. We do not buy keyword search. We do not work with affiliate programmes. We do not pay influencers. The visibility of the practice is a function of the writing on this site, the slow accumulation of recommendations from past clients and students, and — eventually — the publication of the Antardarshan Method as a book. We grew slowly on purpose: a practice that fills its calendar in days is a practice that has not yet earned its calendar.
We do not run urgency-manufactured copy. There are no countdown timers, no “only two spots left” widgets, no “48-hour promotional pricing” banners. Prices are listed openly and do not change with how many people are looking at the page. The booking link goes to a real calendar with real openings. If the next opening is six weeks away, the page says so.
On referral.
When a question genuinely belongs to a different professional — a clinician, a lawyer, a financial advisor, sometimes a religious teacher — we refer. We do not attempt to retain the client by adjusting the boundaries of the practice. If the referral is to a specific colleague, we name them; if we do not have a specific colleague in mind, we explain what kind of professional would be most useful and leave the search to the client. The referral is unbilled.
Complaints process.
If you have a complaint about a session, a reading, an academy interaction, or a piece of writing on this site, write to ethics@trikaala.com. Complaints are read within five working days and replied to in writing. Substantive complaints — anything alleging a breach of the manifesto — are investigated and the findings are reported back. Where the complaint relates to a Trikaala-certified reader (not the acharya), the reader’s certification may be reviewed; in rare instances it has been revoked.
Where the complaint relates to a payment dispute, the matter is handled per the refund policy and Indian consumer protection law. The Razorpay gateway provides an additional layer of consumer protection independent of our policies.
If any Trikaala-certified reader operates outside this manifesto, write to ethics@trikaala.com. Allegations are investigated. Certifications can be revoked.