hecaatia:

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One of the whole reasons that people go to spirit shops instead of finding spirits on their own is because the spirits that they meet through shops are supposed to be pre-vetted, that is the shop owner takes the steps to assure that the spirit is safe to work with so that the customer doesn’t have to worry about the danger. It’s probably the most important responsibility that a shop owner has yet I’ve seen so many shops take short-cuts or have really low standards for the spirits that they vet. This is troubling because a shop owner is making the guarantee that the spirit is safe for the person that they are matching them with and when a shop has a lackluster vetting process, they are putting that person in danger.   

This post was written by reading about and observing the vetting processes that the shops say they do and finding common faults in them. It was also made from people’s experiences where the vetting process of a shop failed them and put them in a dangerous situation. I collaborated with people who are even more experienced than me to write this ( @chaosjelly​, @acakaos​, @swimminginscales​). 

Understand that everything I list here is an explanation of the VERY BASICS of what a shop owner SHOULD BE DOING. Shop owners, don’t look at this and think “Well I’m doing most of it so I’m okay”. No. You SHOULD BE DOING ALL OF THIS.

Non-shopkeepers, read this and think about how many shops that you know fit these standards, think about the dangers that can come about if shops don’t consider the points that I mention in their vetting processes. Don’t just assume that shops are meeting these standards or are even coming close to them, even if you haven’t heard anything bad about them yet. Like I mentioned, I did info gathering on shops’ vetting processes for this post and believe me when I say that the majority shops don’t meet these standards.  

The Longer the Better

Three months minimum. Yeah you heard me, three months minimum. That’s the amount of time needed to truly and effectively vet a spirit. The majority of the shops don’t even have them around longer than three weeks. Why so long? Because you can’t intimately know someone in any time less than that. I’ve had spirits turn on me after knowing them for half a year and longer than that and then there’s people posting up spirits that they met three days ago as if that’s safe. Even three months is a little too short and you really should be aiming for much longer.

And the thing is, you shouldn’t be rushing spirits out. If you’re so impatient to throw up the listing of a spirit that you can’t fathom taking the time to get to know them for three months then I have to question how much you actually care. It might seem mean, but a shopkeeper should be willing to wait months and even years to match the spirit with the perfect person. By the time you post the listing of the spirit, you should be close friends with the spirit yourself. How else are you going to know what would truly be best for the spirit if you barely even know them past superficial friendships? And how else are you going to ensure that the spirit is safe if you barely took the time to get to know them? You’ll soon see that there’s a lot that you should be doing in your vetting process and it’s hard to complete all of these steps effectively under three months, much less under three weeks. 

More Than Just Bad or Good

Most shops only vet for whether or not the spirit is likely to harm their human companion, but there’s many other things that you need to look out for. However, before I delve into those I do want to take a moment to discuss the whole “bad vs good”. That is, there are shops that only look for whether spirits give them “bad vibes” as an indicator that the spirit is dangerous. Spirits with “good vibes”, spirits with “light” energy can be just as dangerous as those without.  A benevolent “white arts” spirit isn’t always going to automatically be safe for a person,  just look at the people who recommend others not take their medication or similar and believing that what they say is benevolent and not harmful. A “good vibes” spirit should be vetted just as much as a “bad vibes” spirit.

And while we’re on the topic, energy sensing must, must, must be more detailed than “light vs dark”. If you can’t see through thick glamours or be able to differentiate spirits species apart by their energy for example then you risk letting imposter or dangerous spirits through. Like you need to have some super in-depth energy sensing and energy work skills in order to have an effective vetting process. You cannot rely on appearance to determine a spirit’s identity. It’s very ineffective and biased to what you think a particular species should look like. Think about how police need DNA evidence in order to properly identify a suspect. Yes appearance helps, but DNA cannot be disputed so easily. Likewise, forms of energy aren’t subjective and a spirit’s core energy signature is very hard to change unlike their appearance. Light, dark, watery, fiery, earthy, airy, etc. are extreme oversimplifications of energy. They’re only one component in the makeup of a spirit’s energy and if you can’t go any further than that in your energy sensing then you’re nowhere near having advanced skills. For example, all insect spirits tend to have an earthy component to their energy but grasshopper energy is thick and dense, moth and butterfly energy are both soft but moth energy is just a smidgen heavier, dragonflies and damselflies both have lightweight energy but the energy of damselflies is slightly thinner, roach energy tends to be more fluid than the concentrated energy of beetles and beetle energy is heavier than grasshopper energy. I’m just barely scratching the of each of these animals’ energy signatures and I can go further to do things like differentiate the energy of a monarch butterfly from a swallowtail and differentiate two monarch butterflies from each other using their energy. This is the base level of energy sensing that you should be at to have sufficient ability for running a spirit shop. If you can’t even differentiate between the energy of a harpy and a siren, a sun elf and a woodland elf, a fire dragon and a volcano dragon, etc. then you’re not advanced, not even close.        

But there’s more to take into account than just imposters and harmful spirits. Just like the human, a spirit needs to be sure that they’re ready for companionship. They can be in it just for the fun or because it seemed cool without considering the consequences too much just as a human can and the shopkeeper needs to make sure that the spirit is actually informed about what being a companion entails and is dedicated to it. Hence why waiting longer to get to know the spirit is vital to making sure that the spirit is ready for companionship. If they’re not willing to spend the time to be vetted and prepare with you, then they may not be very committed to it.  

You also need to look at the spirit’s culture. I’ll elaborate more on that in the next section but for now, know that it’s good to vet the spirit based on their culture. While it’s good to be open-minded, you don’t want to unknowingly send a homophobic or racist spirit to someone because you didn’t pay enough attention to their way of life. Yes, spirits can be bigoted against humans and they can also be bigoted against other spirits. That’s something that is extremely important for a shopkeeper to find out before sending the spirit to someone that might already have spirits in their family. Sometimes it may not even be bigotry but just a dislike for them because of other reasons. For example, I’ve worked intensively with bug spirits for years and most of them would not like to be around bird/bird-related spirits because those are usually their predators. Yes most people circumvent that just by having potential human companions list the members of their family but it gives you an opportunity to learn more about the spirit and you could just put that in their listing to dissuade people with conflicting situations from applying. Although it is very important that I point out how a lot of these instances are not immediately apparent and that’s why you need to spend a lot of time with the spirit before you may start to notice anything questionable. They may have certain quirks or habits, while not #problematic, could cause problems for companionship and make them unfit to be a companion. It’s hard to learn about these quirks if you don’t live with the spirit for a few months. (Think about the mannerisms that you learn about your significant other once you’ve lived with them for a while compared to when you would just meet on dates).  

Furthermore, you need to be assured that there are no extenuating circumstances that may affect them even after they’re matched and out of your fold. That is situations like a potentially harmful ex, illnesses, parasites, any past abusers, etc. that affect the spirits need to be taken care of by the shopkeeper. Once again, the shopkeeper’s greatest responsibility is to ensure that the spirit they are giving out is safe for companionship and that includes making sure that even months or years down the line there’s nothing that can cause the spirit or human harm that the shopkeeper could have prevented. Like if a companion picks up parasites after leaving the shop then that’s not something the shopkeeper could have stopped however, if the human companion starts being attacked by the companion’s abusive ex from before entering the shop then that’s something that the shopkeeper should have been aware of and taken the measures to prevent.

Along the same lines, the spirit’s motive for companionship should also be heavily vetted. For example, a spirit shouldn’t be allowed to use companionship as a way to escape a bad situation, like an abusive ex or politics. I know it’s hard not to help someone but unless the situation is completely resolved, the spirit will always attract danger to them and the human. Like a spirit that’s trying to escape slavery may continuously be hunted by slavers for the rest of their life or a spirit may be a political enemy that is wanted by their government or society. Not even looking at the danger that situations like that bring, it’s more likely that the spirit is using companionship for escape rather than genuinely wanting to be a companion. Best to provide refuge for spirits in those positions yourself rather than passing them off to people you’ve never met if you can’t ascertain that the situation won’t be handled and not affect the companionship in the future.  

It is Imperative to Know the Species

It’s extremely questionable when shopkeepers don’t know much about the spirit species that they are giving out. People are giving out species that they are interacting with for the first time, species that they don’t have any intimate knowledge about besides appearance and likes and dislikes. What about their culture? How are their children raised? What is the range of their political beliefs? How are they educated? Even if the species doesn’t have complex societies, there’s a lot more to them than just a paragraph of information. I mean tigers aren’t that advanced compared to us yet whole books could be written on their species.

Mythology isn’t all there is to a species. A wikipedia article won’t give you all of the details that you need to know about a species and when it’s a species that you discovered or one that deviates from normal understandings (ex- different kinds of dragons), you better be the expert on them. Furthermore, many of the myths only talk about a select few individuals and not the species as a whole. You need to do research on your own to learn more about them and stop relying on myths and other people to do the work for you.

If that is your first time encountering a species then you should not give them out as a companion. Not even after meeting the second nor the third member that you come across. A single spirit cannot teach you everything there is to know about their species. You need to meet and learn from many different members. For example, you couldn’t tell a spirit everything there is to know about humans (the biology, the history, the anthropology, etc.) for you don’t know everything despite being a human. It’s like that bad sci-fi trope where an alien seems to every single ins and outs of their civilization. Most Americans couldn’t even tell you how many votes are needed in congress to override a veto (It’s ⅔ supermajority vote in both bodies fyi). So don’t assume that a single spirit is the master of knowledge when it comes to their species and recognize that you need to meet many more in order to fully be informed about the species.

If you don’t know the species of a spirit in intimate detail then you aren’t qualified to be giving them out as companions. Without knowing much about the species, how can you reasonably vet a spirit without anything to compare them to? You can’t ascribe any mannerisms that they have to simply the nature of their species if you don’t know anything about it, for example. Another example would be that you won’t know of any certain needs that they may need met or any conflicts with other species. Don’t assume that they would tell you all of that for they might not realize it themselves. And if this is a species that you discovered then you better become the best resource on that species before handing them out. Enough of these paragraph-long species descriptions and start doing research for the benefit of your customers who just want to know more about their companion.

It’s like if someone who doesn’t know much about dogs and different dog breeds besides one or two articles that they read online opened up a dog shelter and started to give dogs away as well as teaching people how to care for the dogs. No matter the personality of the dog, all breeds have specific needs that have to be met such as exercise level or medical issues. Someone without the proper knowledge of the breeds would not be able to assess the dogs correctly (ex- Hyperactive personality or just the nature of the breed?) nor pass on information that its new family may need nor be able to properly assess if its new family would be the right fit for it. Obviously that person is not qualified to be the owner of a dog shelter just as someone who doesn’t know anything beyond the basics of the species that they’re giving out isn’t qualified to be an owner of a spirit shop.

The Spirit Must be Self-Sufficient

If a spirit cannot function on its own without help from the human then they are not suited for companionship. First let us discuss baby spirits and why they’re should never be any baby spirits offered in a shop. Baby spirits are not much different from human babies in that they need constant care. It’s not the same as taking care of a puppy or kitten as many of the shops would lead you to believe; the human companion is responsible for the spirit’s childhood. If the baby is a predator, then they’ll need to be taught by the human how to hunt in order to survive for example. The human would also have to nurture the baby’s emotional development among many other things. Most people in the community are not old enough nor ready for the trials of childcare when it comes to human babies, spirit babies that they can’t even sense should be completely out of the question. Furthermore, very little shops vet the human that the baby spirit goes to. A beginner is not suited for a baby spirit no matter what and even many experienced people aren’t in the position to take care of a baby spirit either. Another thing that needs to be mentioned is that there’s many sexual predators and pedophiles in the metaphysical community. You don’t even need to get off of tumblr to find them. Just, stop giving out baby spirits y’all.    

Another instance is if a spirit is dependent on their companion for anything then that’ll lead to an unhealthy relationship and bad situations. Illness is a big one, where the spirit can’t function unless the human takes care of them. It can even be as simple as “the humans has to do this one thing for the spirit or else they’ll die/become unhealthy”. This can lead to very questionable situations where the human feels constantly guilty if they’re unable to take care of the spirit as directed or where the spirit feels bad about themselves for having to rely on the human so much. Then what happens if the human goes through a fallow period where they can’t interact with the spirit to take care of them? Or if the human is just stressed and busy so they can’t help the spirit? What’ll happen to the spirit then? Not to mention how questionable this all is because the spirit surely survived fine before meeting the shopkeeper or else they would have been dead so they don’t need a human to take care of them. If someone suggests that a spirit won’t be able to survive without the human then that’s a strong indication that the spirit is not suited for companionship.   

Past Life Spirits Need Extra Vetting

Many shops have services where they match people with spirits from their own past lives. While this is a popular choice for a lot of reasons, it is a dangerous one as many shops do not vet correctly for past life spirits. Spirits claiming to be from past lives should have EXTRA vetting, not less. This is because spirits masquerading as past life spirits to get access to someone happens extremely often and going through a shop just makes everything so much easier for them. The shopkeeper would have to take many extra steps to ensure that the spirit is not lying and sometimes, without knowing anything about the human’s past lives, it can be hard to tell what is a lie and what is truth. Even if they are a past life spirit, it will require a lot of diligent effort and time to properly verify that especially without the aid of the human companion as, to the best of my knowledge, most shops don’t consult with the human during the vetting process to make sure that the information they are receiving from the spirit is accurate to the person’s knowledge of their past lives.

But even if the spirit is a legit past life spirit, you need to make sure that they’re there not for malicious purposes. Many past life spirits end up trying to get back at the human for wronging them in another life or their former abusers that are trying to “reclaim” the human. Things like that need to be vetted for, just knowing a human in their past lives isn’t enough to conclude that they’re safe. If a spirit claims to be a past lover of the human then you need to vet that so hard. It’s very easy for them to manipulate the human if they’re given that role and you also have to make sure that they won’t try to force the human into a relationship just because they were lovers in the past.

(Everyone just do yourself a favor and search for past life spirits on your own, it’s so, so much safer than going through a shop). 

Thoughtforms vs. Real Spirits

One of the biggest problem that is starting to arise is shops giving away unintentional thoughtforms that they don’t know that they created and believe to be actual spirits. This is usually caused by shopkeepers either not having enough experience to discern for the presence of an actual spirit or when they have the hero-complex that I’ve mentioned before in another post. While this has mostly been occurring with free shops, all shops should take the measures to prevent unintentional thoughtforms from getting through.  

To vet for a thoughtform, one needs to have a good handle on reading energy. That is, they need to be able to really discern the details of the energy. I’ve seen people describe their way of differentiating thoughtforms along the lines of “their energy feels fake or artificial” but that’s not good enough because a glamour or something similar could easily be read as “artificial”,  and because what even defines “fake/artificial” energy? Also, while a thoughtform’s energy usually lacks the depth of a non-thoughtform’s energy that doesn’t mean that it will feel artificial. In fact, thoughtforms made from you may take on characteristics of your own energy and their energy source. In this specific situation, there is no separate energy source because you are the energy source as well as the origin point of the spirit, but any advanced energy worker should be able to easily tell when a spirit’s energy characteristics are oddly similar to theirs. Furthermore, we already discussed the importance of knowing a species intimately and this is one of the reasons why. Once you have a detailed understanding of how to identify that species by their energy, it’s easy to tell when something is not that species. A thoughtform of a mermaid may have elements of water in their energy but it’ll lack the smoothness and the weight of a real mermaid’s energy for example.

Having Wards Doesn’t Mean That You Have Effective Wards

From what I’ve seen, some vetting processes are like 80% reliant on wards and very little of any of this other stuff. Wards are integral to the vetting process but just because you have wards, that doesn’t mean that they’re good. Wards that are made for conjuring and vetting spirits are of a completely different nature than wards made for keeping spirits out. They’re more delicate and there’s more thought and care that needs to go into curating them. You need to have advanced knowledge of how wards work in order to create proper ones for vetting.  

First, they need to have many, many layers. I mean even basic protection wards shouldn’t only have one layer. Many people just visualize a wall of light or something along those lines to create their wards. That’s the extremely basics of warding and if that’s all you know how to do for warding then you need to buff up your abilities if you want to make proper wards for vetting spirits. I mentioned my beginner warding post how wards created around “only spirits with the highest good in mind may enter” and things like that are very easily loopholed and that also comes into play here. Your wards need to be tested and perfected before implementing them for your shop, you wouldn’t want an avoidable breach to happen especially when you’re responsible for someone else’s safety, not just yours. Furthermore, energy work is a lot more than just visualization. These wards should be able to take into account the entire range of energies. You should also be aware that whatever energy you use to create the wards can affect what can go through them. A spirit can use the light energy of your wards to break in for example.

The Vetting Must be Done by You

Many people rely on other spirits or deities to vet the spirits that they’re bringing in. While having an extra “layer” of safety by having others vet helps, there’s a lot of problems that can come through with this. Someone who chooses this method of vetting will have to ascertain that they avoid the situations that I will discuss and are not completely reliant on the spirits to do the work for them.

First of all, having a deity vet the spirit for you isn’t the greatest method. A lot of people have trouble or problems with certain deities that may have caused said deity to not like them. Said deity may be more willing to allow a questionable spirit through if they are at odds with the person that is being matched with them. If you think that deities would never harm someone like that and are all pure and good… well that’s a post for another day. Also, the person themselves may not be comfortable with that deity or religion and knowing that the deity had a hand in the vetting might make them uncomfortable with you and the spirit.

Second are the people who have their companions or other spirits vet the spirits. This is questionable as there’s nothing that qualifies a spirit to vet others. It seems like just the fact that they’re a spirit means that they have the skills and qualifications for this when in reality, that’s not true. Many spirits actually lack the abilities that an experienced shopkeeper should have. There’s also less transparency in the vetting process. Rarely will someone who uses this method describe what the spirit actually does to vet besides something like “they look at the potential companion”. Do they learn about the companion’s species? Do they take care of any dangerous situations? Etc. We just don’t know and if the shopkeeper never mentions doing any of those things then we really don’t know how the vetting is done which can be a cause for concern.  

Of course you can have spirits help you but when it gets to the point where they’re doing most of the work it becomes questionable. You run the shop, not the spirits. You’re the one giving the guarantee that the companions are safe and you’re the one who will get into trouble if a dangerous spirit slips through. You chose to run a shop so put in the effort to do so yourself.

Experience Required

We all know that you need experience before opening a shop but not just any experience will do. You could be a spirit companion or spirit worker for 10 years and still not have the experience needed to run a shop. One thing that I’ve seen happen is that people buy a spirit from a shop, then somehow believe they are capable of running a shop themselves. The problem with this way of thinking is that nobody seems to realize that owning a shop demands much greater skill than simply being a companion. Think about it, the shopkeeper is the one who put in all of the work for conjuring and vetting and if you’ve never really interacted with spirits that didn’t come from shops then you wouldn’t have any experience in vetting spirits before you began the shop. At most, companionship will help you learn communication skills. But can you differentiate the energy of species that aren’t in your family? Can you make advanced and intensive wards for vetting? You need to have analytical, intimate, and diverse knowledge of spirit work and energy work to be able to properly vet spirits. Working with only your spirit family for X many of years doesn’t give you that kind of knowledge. You’ll need to know how to read energy signatures (this goes far, far beyond “light” and “dark”), have intimate knowledge on the different species that you’ll be giving out, have a lot of experience with dealing malignant spirits, among many other things.

This applies to people who say that they’ve been practicing “all their lives”. To be honest, most people say that just to make it seem like they have more experience than they actually do. Only someone who is insecure about their actual experience level would hide behind it. Once again, you need to be practicing analytically for your experience to really help you and I doubt many people were doing intense investigations into spirits at ages 0-10 and into their teen years or if they were even doing anything at all besides “I believe in magic and spirits!”. Pro tip: Don’t falsely advertise your experience, it just makes you look extremely foolish to the people who know what they’re talking about.

Furthermore, unrelated experience doesn’t mean shit. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been a witch for 5 years or are a Wiccan High Priestess, you need to have experience in spirit and energy work. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that because it all deals with the metaphysical that it’s all related, because it’s not. Astronomy and marine biology are both science fields however, someone who only has experience in astronomy would have a hard time using that to get a job as a marine biological researcher. They don’t teach the same skills, they don’t teach the same knowledge. You may know how to cast a spell for good luck but that has nothing to do with being able to read a spirit’s energy signature.

The only way to gain the experience is to practice and actively try to improve your skills. Emphasis on the word “actively” because, as I mentioned early, just interacting with spirits won’t get you the skills that you need for running a shop. This brings in the concept of deliberate practice, @chaosjelly​ wrote a good post on that here. Insecurity in your skills won’t go away until you take the time to focus on learning and improving more to the point of confidence. No amount of coddling and reassurance from others can make you skilled, you need to actually put in the time and effort improve.         

While we’re talking about experience, I may as well point out that spiritual experience is not the only kind of experience that you need. You are running a business, even the free shops are, and you need to know how to do that. You must keep track of the spirits and who they go to, you must be willing to work with your customers without being rude or snippy (this is essentially a customer service job after all), you must know how to handle any bad situation that comes your way, and you must have emotional and professional maturity. You also need to think like a business owner, for example: excel spreadsheets with the transaction number, vessel, spirit name, spirit species, current companion name and how to contact them are a must. You should also know the community and have experience working with other shops. How else are you going to know the ins and outs of the community and how to run a shop if you haven’t been involved in everything for at least a year? Also, this will give you the opportunity to see the mistakes that others have made and learn from them when you open your shop. Furthermore, you must be aware of taxes and your state tax laws. This applies to both paid shops and the shops who only get money through donations. Ignorance of the law is not a suitable defense when you get in trouble for not paying your dues.  

It NEEDS to be Intensive

You need to be extremely detailed and particular about your vetting process. The more attention, effort and time that you put in, the less likely a spirit that’s not suited for companionship slips by. However, a lot of shopkeepers don’t seem to be willing to put in this effort and instead cut corners so they can get spirits out faster and things like that. In fact, people who try to rush their RAs, listings, customs, etc. are usually the ones with problems compared to those who take the time to really vet the spirit. It’s cause they rush so much that they often miss a lot of the important things that they should know before matching the spirit.

But we also need to talk about an excuse that’s cropped up before in opposition to intensive vetting methods and that is how intensive vetting “hurts the spirit’s feelings”. If a spirit objects to undergoing a long vetting process then that should be taken as a red flag, not as you hurting their feelings. The intensive vetting is a necessity in assuring that the spirit is safe and when a spirit won’t agree to that then it’s easy to assume that the spirit wouldn’t be safe. Also, as mean as it sounds, the spirit’s feelings on whether or not they’re vetted shouldn’t matter. You have a responsibility to your customers to make sure that the spirit is fit for companionship, shirk that responsibility for any reason and you could very well be putting someone’s life in danger.   

I once had a class where someone who worked for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency spoke to us and in their discussion they talked a bit about the background checks that they had to go through to get that job. The amount of work that the government put in to vet them was absolutely insane and some of the things that they were able to find freaked the person out a bit. However, they were fine with going through this process for they wanted the job and that’s the same with people who join the army and have to go through those background checks. These people understood why the vetting was necessary and were okay with subjecting themselves to it for they truly wanted the job. That’s how it should be with spirit companions, if they truly want to be a companion then they should be okay with an intense vetting even if it might make them a bit uncomfortable. I’ll repeat: you could very well be putting someone’s life in danger if you make your vetting process too weak.

You are putting a spirit in someone’s inner wards, usually a beginner’s inner wards, and they’re someone who trusts you when you say that the spirit is safe. Don’t take advantage of someone’s trust in you just because you don’t want to put in the effort for an intensive vetting process when you chose to be a spirit shopkeeper.  

It NEEDS to Adapt and Change

The final section is a very important one for it is something that I rarely see. That is the fact that a vetting process should never be set in stone. By changing how you do your vetting whether it be by switching up your wards, testing the spirits with certain questions or something else, you make it less likely for an unsafe spirit to slip by. It’s easy for one to hide out and watch you as you vet the spirits in your shop, learning your wards and how you do things so that they can “beat” them and get matched with someone for malignant purposes. However, by changing up what you do, you can take measures to prevent this.

Furthermore, if you are ever in a situation where an unsafe spirit got past your vetting then that means that there’s most likely a flaw in your process. Many shops will just stick their tongue out and beg for forgiveness but go back to the same way of doing things when this happens.Then it occurs another time but they still are adamant about not changing what they do. It’s important to go back and reformat your vetting process if something went wrong. From the specific situation, you should know where you messed up and make sure not to make the same mistake again but you should also take the time to ponder any other “holes” in your system. Even if you personally haven’t let an unsafe spirit through yet, look at the situations where it happened with others and learn from their mistakes. Don’t stagnate your vetting process and then wonder why you keep having problems.

For clarification, by “change” I don’t mean something like “use wards one day, question them the next”. You should be doing everything no matter what every single day. These many layers are vital to the process and should be constantly present as long as you are working with spirits that you intend to match with others. When you change your process as I am strongly advising that you do, you are changing the integral parts of it.

The reason why I am closing with this section is because very little shops have vetting processes that meet these standards. In fact, I can only think of two or maybe three shops that I would actually trust (none of them are free shops/adoption centers in case you’re curious, not even close). But what I hope for with this post is that they’ll read it over and adapt the guidelines that I laid out for them into their vetting methods. Many of the problems that I discussed were taken right from their descriptions of their methods so hopefully they’ll also realize their mistakes and put in effort to do better. I also want non-shopkeepers to have higher standards for the shops they work with. Nothing will change, nothing will improve, unless we call for the improvement. Be critical of shopkeepers, don’t let them get free passes just because they own a shop and seem nice. In fact, I can say with great conviction that many shopkeepers aren’t as knowledgeable and experienced as they want you to think.

There’s a lot of work that needs to be done in the community, especially with all of these dubious shops, but here’s to hoping that this post will help people realize the importance of having an intensive vetting process and change theirs so that the community will become safer for beginners to adopt spirits!   

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*I’m using “spirit” to refer to all metaphysical entities, living and dead.