Author's Introduction
What I am going to do here is something similar to what I have been doing on
Prodigy. I am going to be talking about the discoveries and lore of ancient
and medieval astrology. The main difference between these postings and those
on Prodigy is that these will be a bit more technical. I know that not
everyone on Alt.Astrology is an expert but actually you don't need to be much
of an expert to understand the old astrology. Those who could justifiably be
called "experts" in modern astrology actually have to learn as much as the
beginners. The concepts are quite simple, but become complicated in the
putting together. But this should not be a surprise. This is just as true of
modern astrology. Anyhow here is my first note.
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."
Click your BACK BUTTON to return to the Astrology Deepartment
AccessNewAge Home Page
Looking Deeper Magazine