Lots beyond Fortune

You may already know the Part of Fortune — the calculated point that marks where things tend to come more easily (The Part of Fortune). That lesson called it "the most famous of the Arabic Parts" and left the rest for later. This is later.

The old name for these points is lots: klēros in Greek, sahm in Arabic, pars in Latin. The Greek and Arabic words both carry the sense of a share — what falls to you when things are divided out. The Hellenistic astrologers used a few; the astrologers of Baghdad turned them into catalogues of more than a hundred, which is why Europe came to call them "Arabic parts".

How a lot is made

Every lot works the same way. You take the distance between two things in the chart, counted in the order of the signs, and lay that same distance off from a third point, usually the Ascendant. Written as a sum, it is always:

Ascendant + B − A

— where you count from A to B, then measure the result from the Ascendant.

Here is a worked example (it is the one given in James R. Lewis's The Astrology Book). Someone is born by day with 12°30′ Pisces rising, the Sun at 4°46′ Aquarius and the Moon at 0°15′ Taurus. Convert each to degrees from 0° Aries: the Ascendant is 342.5°, the Sun 304.77°, the Moon 30.25°.

• Fortune by day counts from the Sun to the Moon: 342.5 + 30.25 − 304.77 = 67.98°, which is 7°59′ Gemini.

If a sum comes out above 360, take 360 away; if below zero, add 360. That is all the arithmetic there is.

Day and night

The ancient authors did not use the same formula for every chart. In a day chart, with the Sun above the horizon, the Sun leads, and Fortune counts from the Sun to the Moon. In a night chart the Moon leads, and the count is usually reversed, from the Moon to the Sun. With the same three positions, a night chart would put Fortune at 17°01′ Sagittarius — a whole different part of the chart.

Many modern programs use the day formula for everyone. Traditional astrologers reverse it at night, and this reversal is one of the clearest examples of sect, the idea that day and night charts are read differently (Sect: day and night charts).

The Lot of Spirit

Reverse Fortune's day formula and you get its twin, the Lot of Spirit (the Daimōn): Ascendant + Sun − Moon by day. In our example that is 342.5 + 304.77 − 30.25 = 617.02, less 360, which is 17°01′ Sagittarius.

The two belong together. Fortune is tied to the Moon: the body, circumstances, what comes to us. Spirit is tied to the Sun: what we intend, choose and do, the direction of the mind. A chart where both lots fall in strong places, well connected to their lords, was read as one where circumstance and intention tend to pull in the same direction.

The seven Hermetic lots

A late Greek author, Paulus Alexandrinus, gives a set of seven lots attributed to Hermes, one for each planet. Beside Fortune (the Moon) and Spirit (the Sun) there are:

• Eros (Venus) — desire, what we long for and are drawn to. By day, Ascendant + Venus − Spirit.
• Necessity (Mercury) — constraint, struggle, the arguments we cannot avoid. By day, Ascendant + Fortune − Mercury.
• Courage (Mars), Victory (Jupiter) and Nemesis (Saturn), built in the same way from Fortune or Spirit and their planet.

Notice that some lots are built from other lots: Eros needs Spirit, Necessity needs Fortune. In our example, with Venus at 20° Capricorn (290°), Eros falls at 342.5 + 290 − 257.02 = 375.48, less 360, which is 15°29′ Aries. Sources differ in the details of the less common Hermetic lots, so treat any single formula you meet with a little caution and check which author it comes from.

The Arabic catalogues

The astrologers writing in Arabic took the idea and ran with it. Abū Maʿshar and, in the eleventh century, al-Bīrūnī list lots house by house: a lot of the father and one of the mother, of siblings, of children, of marriage, of illness, of journeys, of friends and of enemies. Each is built from the planets that naturally signify the matter — the lot of the father from the Sun and Saturn, for instance.

They also made lots for world astrology. In the chart of the Sun's entry into Aries each year, lots of commodities — wheat, barley, oil, rain and others — were used to judge harvests and prices. Al-Bīrūnī reports these carefully, and also with some impatience: he notes that the numbers of lots kept growing, and that not all of them deserved the trust put in them.

How a lot is read

A lot is not a planet; it does nothing by itself. It is read as a sensitive place where a theme gathers:

1. Its sign and house say where in life the theme lives.
2. Its lord — the planet that rules the sign the lot is in — says how well the theme is supported. A strong, well-placed lord helps; a weak one, or one that cannot see the lot, leaves the theme without much help.
3. Planets on or aspecting the lot colour it.

In horary astrology a lot could break a tie: when the planets left a question unclear, the astrologer might cast a lot for the matter and judge from it (Horary astrology). Later traditional astrologers also "released" periods of life from Fortune and Spirit, so that the lord of the sign they had reached took a turn at governing.

A sense of proportion

With more than a hundred lots available, it is easy to find one that says whatever you want. The careful authors were alert to this, and so should you be. Start with Fortune and Spirit; use the others when you have a particular question and a reason to ask it; and give a lot weight only when its lord is in good condition and the rest of the chart agrees. Like any point, a lot shows where a theme is concentrated. It inclines a reading; it does not decide what happens there.

Next, the firdaria: the Persian way of handing the years of a life to the planets in turn.