← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 217/235
Lots (Arabic parts)
What a lot is
A lot (Greek klēros, Arabic sahm, Latin pars) is not a body in the sky but a calculated point. Take the distance, in the order of the signs, from one chart factor to another; then count the same distance on from a third point, usually the Ascendant. Where you land is the lot.
The most famous is the Part of Fortune: by day, the distance from the Sun to the Moon, counted on from the Ascendant (Ascendant + Moon − Sun). In a night chart the formula is usually reversed (Ascendant + Sun − Moon), because by night the Moon leads — one of many places where sect changes the reading.
The family
The Hellenistic astrologers already used a small set. Paulus Alexandrinus gives seven "Hermetic" lots, one for each planet, among them:
- Fortune — the body, circumstances, what comes to us.
- Spirit (Daimōn) — the reverse of Fortune by day (Ascendant + Sun − Moon): intention, action, the mind's direction.
- Eros — desire and what we long for (by day, Ascendant + Venus − Spirit).
- Necessity — constraint and struggle (by day, Ascendant + Fortune − Mercury).
The Arabic authors turned the handful into a catalogue. Abū Maʿshar and al-Bīrūnī list lots for each of the twelve houses — of the father and the mother, of siblings, children, marriage, illness, travel, friends — and further lots for mundane work, including lots of commodities such as wheat or rain, cast in the chart of the year to judge harvests and prices. That is why in Europe they came to be called "Arabic parts", although the idea is older.
How they are read
A lot is read like a sensitive point: its sign and house, the planet that rules its sign (its "lord"), and the planets that aspect it. In horary a lot could be used to settle a question the planets left unclear. Traditional practice is careful in two ways: the day and night formulas matter, and a lot whose lord is weak or unrelated to the matter is given little weight.
Modern astrology mostly keeps Fortune and sets the rest aside. The traditional revival has brought back Spirit and the Hermetic lots, especially for timing techniques that "release" periods from a lot. Like any point, a lot inclines a reading rather than settling it — it marks where a theme is concentrated, not what must happen there.