Part of Fortune

pahrt uhv FOR-chun

greek: Τύχη (Tyche) · latin: Fortuna · arabic: Sahm al-Sa'ada

Definition

The Part of Fortune is a point worked out by formula rather than seen in the sky — the Hellenistic Lot of Fortune (Greek klēros tyches; Arabic Sahm al-Saʿāda). It is built from the positions of the Sun, Moon, and Ascendant. By day the formula is Ascendant + Moon − Sun; by night it flips to Ascendant + Sun − Moon. In effect, you take the arc from the Sun to the Moon and measure it out from the Ascendant to find the lot's zodiac degree.

In Tradition

In Hellenistic, Arabic, and traditional Western practice the Lot of Fortune is the chief calculated lot, tied to the body, livelihood, material circumstances, and worldly fortune. Dorian Greenbaum classes it as the Lot of the Moon — the point of your embodied, lived existence. In some Hellenistic frameworks Fortune even acts as a second Ascendant, generating its own twelve-house layout known as the houses of Fortune.

In Practice

Astrologers work out the Lot of Fortune as one of the first steps after casting a birth chart, using the formula that reverses by sect — the rule that tells day births apart from night births. Its sign and house are read for where bodily fortune concentrates, and the planet that rules the sign Fortune sits in (its disposing planet) is examined for more detail. Fortune is also the starting point of zodiacal releasing from Fortune (Chris Brennan, Demetra George), and it supplies the houses-of-Fortune scheme used for follow-up topical questions.

Historical Origin

Fortune appears in the earliest Hellenistic technical writing — Dorotheus of Sidon's Carmen Astrologicum (1st century CE), Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos (the only lot Ptolemy keeps), and Valens' Anthologiae (where it is built into time-lord procedure). The Arabic transmission preserves it as Sahm al-Saʿāda, and the medieval Latin name Pars Fortunae enters the Western vocabulary through Sahl, Bonatti, and Lilly.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading