Our method and its limits

Three systems, one analysis

ELANUM combines astrology, Human Design and numerology as three perspectives. Your answers from the questionnaires add what you say about yourself. Which information is combined and how it is weighted depends on the analysis and the available data. A weighting is an editorial decision rather than a law of nature.

How we calculate

We compute all planetary positions ourselves, based on the astronomical models VSOP87 and JPL DE405. Your birth chart is derived from date, time and place, not from a sun-sign table.

Every change to the calculation engine runs against more than 1500 automated verification checks and 150 reference profiles. The same input always produces the same result: reproducible, consistent, verifiable.

We checked the times when a planet turns retrograde against NASA ephemerides (JPL Horizons). Across the six Mercury stations in 2026, the largest timing difference was just over five minutes. An automated test guards a ten-minute bound. This measures the timing of an event. It does not describe a general positional error of planets in the birth chart.

Where the texts come from

All interpretation texts come from a curated library of more than 10000 entries across more than 300 categories. They are editorially maintained and continuously extended. No interpretation is invented by an AI at the moment of your request.

The algorithm selects which text matches your constellation. The library is created with AI assistance, curated, checked and owned by humans. At runtime it is fixed: no interpretation is invented anew at the moment of your request.

What you answer yourself

Alongside the birth moment there are eight self-reports. We wrote five of them ourselves, in the spirit of well-known models. The reason is simple: other people's questionnaires are protected by copyright. A copied test would be neither permitted nor better. Three are the exception, and all three come from the International Personality Item Pool, which is in the public domain: the personality questionnaire uses the twenty statements of the Mini-IPIP, the integrity questionnaire the twenty statements on honesty and humility, the character strengths questionnaire the eighteen statements on positivity, dependability and mastery. The German and English wording has been adapted for clear statements without negations. Our versions are not validated, they are oriented on the model.

• Attachment style, twenty questions. Following the model of Bowlby and Ainsworth, with the four-category classification of Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991). Our own questions, nothing taken from the ECR-R.
• Closeness and Affection, twenty questions. Following the model of the love languages by Gary Chapman (1992). Our own wording; Chapman's original is protected by copyright.
• Conflict style, fifteen questions. Following the model of Thomas and Kilmann (1974). Our own questions; we do not use the TKI instrument itself.
• Personality, twenty questions. The five dimensions of the Big Five model, measured with the Mini-IPIP (Donnellan, Oswald, Baird and Lucas 2006). The twenty statements are based on the public-domain International Personality Item Pool and have been reworded. Our version is not validated. No comparison against a norm group, because we do not have one.
• Integrity, twenty questions. Four facets of honesty and humility following the HEXACO model of Ashton and Lee. The twenty statements come from the International Personality Item Pool, which is in the public domain; in German they appear in our own translation. Oriented on the model and not meant as a measuring instrument: no comparison against a norm group, because we do not have one.
• Character strengths, eighteen questions. Three scales after Partsch, Olaru and Lechner: positivity, dependability and mastery. The eighteen statements come from the International Personality Item Pool, which is in the public domain; in German they appear in our own translation. Oriented on the model and not meant as a measuring instrument: there is no overall score, because the three scales speak of different things.
• Values compass, not a questionnaire. You rank four to seven out of twenty-four values. That selection is our own curation, not a model from the literature.
• Life direction, six statements and two short fields. Following the self-concordance model of Sheldon and Elliot: goals carry different distances depending on whether they come from within or from outside. Our own wording, no external instrument. You also pick all relevant areas from ten life priorities and set three lifestyle sliders. The result is words, not a number.
• Human Design, following the system of Ra Uru Hu. Our own texts and our own chart rendering, no affiliation with Jovian Archive.

Every questionnaire requires at least 75 percent of the questions to be answered. Below that we store no result, because there would be none.

How well founded this is

Not everything we use stands on the same ground. Four classes, named openly:

• Empirically well supported: attachment theory (Bowlby, Ainsworth, four categories after Bartholomew and Horowitz 1991), the conflict model of Thomas and Kilmann (1974, from organisational psychology) plus the Big Five model of personality, whose short form Mini-IPIP (Donnellan et al. 2006) was validated in its own right.
• Widespread and useful, but not validated: the love languages (Chapman 1992). They are established in couples counselling; their factor structure does not hold up to academic scrutiny.
• Our own curation with no validated instrument: the values compass (twenty-four values, our selection) and life direction. Its statements follow the self-concordance model of Sheldon and Elliot, yet they are our own wording and have never been tested against a sample. Both of these sort things out; they do not measure.
• Interpretive systems with no scientific claim: astrology, Human Design and numerology. What that means is stated further down.

When a sentence in your signature begins with “Two poles” or “One direction”, it describes how your first values sit on the circle of values by Schwartz, not you. The words remain our selection. Their place on the circle is our mapping, a reasoned interpretation and not a measurement. For more than half of the words (spirituality or passion, say) another position would be defensible.

What goes into the score

The compatibility score rests on seven pillars. How much each one weighs depends on whether you said you were interested in the birth systems during onboarding.

Since August 2026, the Enneagram and conflict style feed into the score as their own, deliberately small pillars. Both are only shown if you allow it , by default they stay private.

The strongest caveat first: the score is not a prediction. In 2020 Joel and colleagues showed across 43 longitudinal studies that the success of a relationship cannot be predicted from the traits of the two people involved. In 2024 Impett, Park and Muise tested the three core assumptions of the love languages and none of them held, which is why this pillar carries the least weight here. Both findings sit in the source code that sets the weights. The score answers a more modest question: how closely does this person match what matters to you.

What ELANUM is, and what it is not

Important: ELANUM is a tool for self-reflection. It does not replace therapy, medicine or professional counselling. In a serious crisis, please turn to professionals.

ELANUM is:

• A tool for self-reflection: prompts that help you look at yourself and your relationships more consciously.
• A reference library: all core concepts openly explained in Knowledge and the glossary.
• Reproducible: the same birth data always produces the same analysis.

ELANUM is not:

• Not a diagnostic tool: the analysis describes tendencies, not findings.
• Not a decision machine. Never base major life decisions on an analysis alone, ours or anyone else's.
• Not science: astrology, Human Design and numerology are interpretive systems with long traditions, but without scientific proof of effect. We do not claim otherwise.

Your data

ELANUM runs on Swiss infrastructure and follows the Swiss data protection act (nFADP). The free calculators work without an account. Statistics are collected cookieless and anonymously, and only with your consent. Details in the privacy policy.