The Lot or Part of Fortune
Part 1
by Robert Hand
Most astrologers have encountered the Part (or Lot as the Greeks called it) of Fortune, but have little idea of what to do with it. The modern literature on the subject is of little help tending to make it an extremely abstract symbol, something "karmic." To complicate things further, it is now clear that for approximately 50% of all people the Part of Fortune is usually computed incorrectly, namely those persons born at night between sunset and sunrise. I'll come back to that in a moment. The Part of Fortune is computed in the following manner:
Day Births: Fortune = Ascendant +
Moon - Sun
Night Births: Fortune = Ascendant + Sun - Moon
These formulae should be interpreted as in this way: compute the
longitudes of the Ascendant, Moon and Sun as measured from 0 degrees of
Aries. This is done according to the table below.
|
Aries |
Add 0 |
. |
Libra |
Add 180 |
|
Taurus |
Add 30 |
. |
Scorpio |
Add 210 |
|
Gemini |
Add 60 |
. |
Sagittarius |
Add 240 |
|
Cancer |
Add 90 |
. |
Capricorn |
Add 270 |
|
Leo |
Add 120 |
. |
Aquarius |
Add 300 |
|
Virgo |
Add 150 |
. |
Pisces |
Add 330 |
Let's say someone has an Ascendant of 20 Virgo, a Moon of 4 Aries, and a
Sun at 17 Aquarius. An Ascendant of 20 Virgo means a Descendant of 20
Pisces. Since the Sun is between the Ascendant and the Descendant, this
is a night birth so we use the night birth formula.
Ascendant 20 Virgo + 150 = 170
Sun 17 Aquarius + 300 = 317
Moon 4 Aries + 0 = 4
Fortune = 170 + 317 - 4 = 483. This is more than 360 so we subtract 360
from the total. 483 - 360 = 123. The Part of Fortune is 3 Leo.
If the Sun were at 9 Cancer with this Ascendant and Moon, the chart
would be a day birth so we would use the Day formula.
Ascendant 20 Virgo + 150 = 170
Moon 4 Aries + 0 = 4
Sun 9 Cancer + 90 = 99
Fortune = 170 + 4 - 99 = 75. This is less than 360 so we don't need to
do anything more. This gives us a Part of Fortune of 15 Gemini.
The reason why most people who are
born at night have been given the wrong Part of Fortune is that most of
the modern authorities have used the day formula for night births! This
is because one ancient authority, Ptolemy, seemed to advocate doing all
charts with the day formula. We are now fairly certain from our new
translation of Ptolemy and his ancient commentators that he did not
intend this. Most other ancient sources advocated using the day formula
for day births and the night formulas for night and so did the medieval
astrologers. And these people knew what to do with the Part of Fortune.
Let me conclude this note by giving a very brief description of what the
Part of Fortune is. The Part of Fortune is used to describe the basic
way in which the individual is physically connected with the surrounding
world. It is one of the significators of the body and health, and it is
the primary significator of prosperity, and also career as it relates to
prosperity. But the method of using it will come as a bit of a surprise.
This is one of the most important discoveries that Project Hindsight has
made. In my next note I'll go into that.(R. Hand, 02/16/96)
Copyright 1996 © by Robert
Hand.
Our thanks to tees.reitsma@astronet.idn.nl (Tees Reitsma) for initiating
contact with Mr. Hand and securing his permission to post this material
to the Oracle-a list. And our thanks to Mr. Hand for giving us
permission to post his material here.
Mr. Hand also posts on Prodigy. He has said: "It seems that people are
wondering why I have been putting my notes on Prodigy. The answer is
simple. They asked me to. This does not stop me from putting stuff on
Alt.Astrology. The only reason that I haven't done so thus far is time.
I program three days a week at Astrolabe, and translate, edit and write
the other four. As some of you may know, I am editor and principle Latin
translator of Project Hindsight. We have been doing translations of
ancient and medieval astrology texts now for almost three years and have
published over 2000 pages of translations and commentary. If anyone is
interested in further information on Project Hindsight, we have a web
page at Project Hindsight. Small
warning: have your modem at maximum speed. The graphics take a long time
to load."