It must be a slow day over at The Wealthy Dentist, a blog devoted to business of dentistry. Actually, the blog is a bit of a sales troll for Jim Du Molin, who is not a dentist and is apparently borrowing his wife's credentials if I read his bio correctly. 

Be that as it may, he says that the way to grow your dentistry business is to "emphasize practical strategies and tactics that people can actually use to attract new patients."

And, given today's article, he must believe it's practical to consider astrology in one's practice. I expected the article to be about how to make people of certain "signs" more comfortable, but in fact, it's much stranger than even that. 

Du Molin doesn't actually add his own content. Instead, he relies on "experts." One of these claims that plaque is affected by the position of the planets, another says that each dental tool has a "sign," and there's an inane dentist sign chart, that says people born when I was make careless dentists. (Actually, I probably would make a careless dentist. It's a good thing I went straight into brain surgery.) 

So, is this harmless fun?

Not really.

When people believe that their health and their business rely on the position of the planets, I certainly hope they're either astronauts or astrophysicists. I'm fortunate enough to know people in both of these professions, and none of them consider astrology to be a reliable tool for decision making.

That is, unless they're choosing who to do business with themselves... I can assure you that a businessperson spouting off about astrology will cause them to take their custom elsewhere. And mine too. And that's about the only use I've seen for astrology.

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written by Gail, February 10, 2010

I don't mind of someone uses astrology in their business as long as they say so up front so I can avoid using their services.

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written by vino, February 10, 2010

This sounds rather foolish I admit. On the other hand, do we know for sure that Mr. Molin and his wife actually believe in astrology or are they simply using it to attract patients who take this sort of crap seriously. Believe it or not, there are quite a few folks who do...

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written by Willy K, February 10, 2010

Astrology?
How can someone believe that the positions of the planets in our Solar System affect their day-to-day lives when the vast majority of people don't even know the names of the planets?

Dum-Ass-trology I'd call it.

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written by Otara, February 10, 2010

I found the holistic article a lot scarier myself.

He did give a link to quackwatch at the bottom of it though, leaving me a bit confused.

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written by Gordon Horne, February 10, 2010

My answer to anyone who asks my sign is that i was born July 10th and i'm a Taurus. When they complain that that makes me a Cancer i reply that the year i was born the moon rose in Taurus on July 10th and it's not my fault they haven't updated their calendars in 2,000 years.

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astronauts?
written by advancedGIR, February 10, 2010

The only planet that astronauts have to care about is the earth itself, and that's very unlikely to change in our lifetime.

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Tooth Astrology Testimonial
written by houdin654jeff, February 10, 2010

How dare you people laugh at what is so obviously a helpful article? It's quite easy to understand and make sense of, for example; I'm an Aquarius, but my incisors are Scorpios, which means they are not compatible with eating on the third lunar cycle or when Mars is in view, but my right side molars are Pisces (perfect match!), so therefore I should only eat with my right side molars on days when Venus is waxing, since the left side ones are incompatible Cancers (which explains why I have a filled cavity on my far back molar on that side) and my front teeth are Gemini (Twin front teeth, COINCIDENCE?!) which is very helpful as well for deciding how to live my dietary life. IT ALL MAKES PERFECT SENSE!

Come the hell on people... Astrologers use such ridiculously vague language that to introduce it into a science as necessary and useful as DENTISTRY scares the living daylights out of me. Does this mean I'd have to read my teeth's horoscopes every day? I read mine everyonce in a while for a good laugh about my future "business decisions" and "luck with love." I'll trust my dentist rather than the positions of the planets. After all, he's been to college and everyone knows that Mars was a dropout and Venus spent all it's time getting baked (Get it? It's a pun! Because Venus is really hot... baked... hot... and I killed the joke). I agree with Gail, let them use this if they must, but just be up front so I can avoid that particular practice.

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By word of mouth
written by TDjazz, February 11, 2010

A really expert dentist doesn't need a lot of marketing savvy--if he's good, the word will get around. That's how I found my dentist, whom I've been going to for almost 20 ears. All he has is a website, a brochure (which I produced for his business), and hundreds of satisfied patients. A friend of mine recommended him when he worked as a junior dentist in another established dentist's office. He soon opened his own business and his patients followed. He brought on another dentist and the business boomed. Two years ago, he brought on a third dentist to handle more patients.

I have a problem with Molin's entire site. The astrology article is just to appeal to a certain demographic, however misguided it may be. While my dentist uses marketing to a degree, it is his expertise and high quality of work that brings in most of his new patients, by word of mouth (pun intended).

The sad truth is, just like sex, woo woo sells.

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The position of the stars and the planets has a HUGE demonstrable effect on business!
written by Griz, February 11, 2010

It's well known that people spend a LOT more money around the winter solstice.

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written by Alan3354, February 11, 2010

When someone asks your sign, give them one adjacent on either side. After they ramble on awhile as to how "they knew it" because you're "..." whatever, say you're unsure, you might be some other sign, and give your birthday.

Then watch them try to undo all they've just said about you.

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written by Walk, February 11, 2010

Hithchens: (approx.) "Students, that concludes your chemistry class for today - now for the Alchemy period."

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written by Walk, February 11, 2010

Oops! That should be spelled "Hitchens".

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written by occasional, February 11, 2010

@TDjazz

If you've been going to your dentist for 20 ears, you're probably missing the point. Dentists do teeth, they're not otorhinolaryngologists.

@houdin654jeff

You can't give parts of your mouth different star signs without acknowledging your birthday must have covered several months, which your Mum might remember without much affection.

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@occasional
written by Dooyoowoowoo, February 11, 2010

Most of my teeth were "born" well after I was. Shame my hair is dying well before me.

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Well, actually...
written by Wolfman, February 11, 2010

...nowhere does this guy claim to be a dentist. If you go to the main page of his website, you'll quickly see that the entire website is about how to market your dentistry business. And yes, a quick perusal of his articles makes it pretty obvious that he's talking about method so marketing your business to different demographic groups; the very first sentence in the article Jeff links to is, "Last week I talked about how "holistic dentistry” can be a good dental marketing choice".

So...no, he's not proposing astrology or holistic dentistry as actual, viable practices; he's proposing them as marketing tools that one can use to reach particular demographics. And he's right -- there are tons of people out there who, if given a choice between a 'normal' dentist (who only relies on that 'scientifically proven' nonsense), or a holistic/astrological dentist (who relies on mystic methodologies that are thousands of years old and steeped in ancient wisdom), would certainly choose the latter.

However, if one looks at his home page, there's on other item. The tag line for his entire site, the first thing you see when you go to his site, is this: "You can be a better marketer and attract all the patients you can handle - without sacrificing your integrity."

Apparently, "without sacrificing your integrity" means marketing your business as if you believe in something that you don't actually believe in, and that not only is useless, but may actually be harmful to such clients.

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@occasional
written by TDjazz, February 11, 2010

Actually, now I need to see a typographicalerrorologist.

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the JREF is FINISHED, Lowly rated comment [Show]

@atheistcurse2
written by AlmightyBob, February 13, 2010

atheistidiot, more like...

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It's called Electional astrology
written by AstrologyChick, August 21, 2010

Electional Astrolgy is the art of choosing the best date and time for starting any given venture (including starting a business or getting married). As far as I'm concerned this is the BEST use of Astrology, along with using it to see time ranges to move forward with plans or to avoid things when the transits are bad for you or the thing you want to start. This alone has saved many of my clients untold headache and hassle.

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