The Lot or Part of Fortune Part 1

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 " 30 Scorpio " 210 Gemini " 60 Sagittarius " 240 Cancer " 90 Capricorn " 270 Leo " 120 Aquarius " 300 Virgo " 150 Pisces " 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.