Lot of Friends
greek: κλῆρος φίλων (Klēros philōn)
Definition
The Lot of Friends is a lot — a calculated chart point — from the Hellenistic and Arabic traditions that signifies friends and friendship. By day and by night you measure from the Moon to Mercury and project that same span out from the Ascendant; the Persian authority al-Andarzaghar passes on an alternative that flips the formula at night. In the Arabic group of eleventh-house lots it is the calculated point that anchors an all-things-together judgment about the prospects, character, and steadiness of a person's friends.
In Tradition
Astrologers read the Lot of Friends as the anchor for the eleventh-house concerns of friendship. Demetra George, reconstructing Bonatti's procedure, treats it as one factor weighed with the eleventh house and its ruler, planets there, Venus and her ruler, and the sect light — Sun by day, Moon by night — to judge how likely, steadfast, and what kind a person's friends prove. The lot marks the Arabic-medieval shift of the eleventh house from wealth to friendship.
In Practice
You work out the Lot of Friends by measuring the span across the zodiac from the Moon to Mercury, then projecting that span forward from the Ascendant; the degree you reach is the lot. You read its sign and house as showing where friendship sits in a person's life, and weigh the lot's ruler — dignity, sect, angularity, aspects — to judge whether friends prove useful and faithful or a source of trouble. Charles Obert's worked example reads a Lot of Friends near the Midheaven, sharing a house with the North Node and ruled by an exalted Sun, as someone who values friends highly. Bonatti's all-things-together procedure, reconstructed by George, surveys the lot with the eleventh house and its ruler, the planets there, Venus and her ruler, and the sect light, drawing them into one judgment — how many friends, of what kind, how constant. The lot is one strand, not a verdict on its own.
Historical Origin
The Lot of Friends belongs to the eleventh-house group of lots in the Hellenistic and Arabic traditions. Its Moon-to-Mercury formula is transmitted in al-Qabisi's Introduction and in Abu Ma'shar's lot-material, with the Persian authority al-Andarzaghar supplying the night-reversal variant. The lot is reconstructed by Demetra George from Bonatti's Book of Astronomy and treated as a working lot in Charles Obert's Introduction to Traditional Natal Astrology.
Etymology
Origin: Greek. Meaning: Lot of friends.
Further Reading
- Demetra George, Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice
- Charles Obert, Introduction to Traditional Natal Astrology
- Benjamin N. Dykes, Introductions to Traditional Astrology